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[TempAcc]

Ynnead is a very "supah seekrit" conspiracy thing among eldars, kinda like how the illuminati tried to help humanity before they got retconned into some boring tzeentch cult thing because GW won't allow anyone to have fun or mess with the status quo, or so I heard. Anyway, its kept secret because a lot of eldar would not exactly be ok with joining up in an NGE type plot to become a new god, since many Eldar are still super individualistic egotistical bastards, while still not being deranged enough to join the dark eldar cabals. Many eldar souls are prob unwittingly contributing to it once their souls get locked inside a soulstone thingy and linked to the infinity circuit.

Eldar plans do make sense if you consider their goals, which is almost always "save eldar lives" or "prevent the destruction of eldar stuff". They usualy seem outlandish because they're willing to go to extreme lenghts just to save some eldar. Contributing to the entire destruction of a planet just to keep some eldar out of harm's way is completely reasonable to them.

[Rolepgeek]

Well there was that one time a hive tendril was about to converge with another, so the council of Uthwe teleported the whole damn thing to macragge.
That was pretty baller IMO.

XD

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

My god that is amazing

Sometimes, just sometimes, 40k

You get it right.

Haha, wut.
You're as noble as the Tau themselves. All I can think of now is that one time when Tau did diplomacy with strange pale aliens identical in all ways to those other aliens.

Don't worry, friend. I rectified your thoughtcrime. You can trust in me.

Though consider that Eldar and Tau are Battle Brothers in TT. So it's not that wrong. Eldar and Tau probably ally when they can, Eldar probably find them a welcome break, since they can be persuaded, rather than manipulated (which means the manipulation you do perform goes that much farther, when it's needed). Tau probably appreciate their help and knowledge, and think they're the ones being sneaky about it. Cute little things.

Do find it funny that everyone thinks the Ethereals are an outside source. They're the Emperor equivalent. Emperor wasn't an outside force.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sidenote; Aun'nel is literally a made-up rank I thought of for a fan-work I was supposed to help collaborate on for when I wanted to basically write about tension between the castes, where it's an Aun who specializes and stays at the level of leading from the ground/front, essentially. Never gets inducted into the higher circle of conspiracy, very special snowflake, would eventually get his own special suit and plasma/power honor blade, get elite melee guard suits with him, etc.etc. Was supposed to be Ethereal equivalent of Shas'nel

How can you call tau expansion great crusade 2.0?
It is like calling every ork waaaaaagh great crusade 2.0 ORKY edition.

Orks don't have a magical otherworldy being/race come out of nowhere to lead them out of the dark times to a period of rapid expansion and development. They get a Warboss, and turmoil is their natural state, so it's not dark times. They also aren't doing so out of Light and Reason and American-Style Freedom-Bringing or Greater Good.

[Tack]

I thought Tau and Eldar were allies of convenience?
Battle Brothers is a lil' too close. Aun'var leading a seer council doesn't seem right to me.

How can you call tau expansion great crusade 2.0?
It is like calling every ork waaaaaagh great crusade 2.0 ORKY edition.

They've only tried once before, and that brought the hammer down on them. Then they survived the hammer and negotiated a stalemate, which had everyone shocked.
The third sphere expansion has been gearing up for a long while. If they manage to push through the imperial lines, they could see their empire expanding pretty damn quickly.
I mean, it's all relative, and will last until another damocles crusade happens, but who cares about that.

It's the one thing I don't really get about Tau- they spread through insurrection and sedition- more Gue'vesa means a better foothold fighting against the imperium - but without chaos at work, that's a pretty slow game.
How do they plan on annexing imperial worlds so quickly?

[Rolan7]

Using existing hierarchies, focusing on bribing the planetary governors with technology and water caste diplomats!
With the alternative being siege and bombardment until a ruler willing to be bribed emerges.

[Rolepgeek]

I thought Tau and Eldar were allies of convenience?
Battle Brothers is a lil' too close. Aun'var leading a seer council doesn't seem right to me.

I might be thinking of the previous edition.

It's the one thing I don't really get about Tau- they spread through insurrection and sedition- more Gue'vesa means a better foothold fighting against the imperium - but without chaos at work, that's a pretty slow game.
How do they plan on annexing imperial worlds so quickly?

It's the outer edges of the Imperium, remember. Propaganda doesn't have so much indoctrination to break through until people see the better life the Tau offer. Kot, of course, thinks this is a lie, but that's not the point. The Tau don't have commissars. All their Orwellian shit is precisely that. Orwellian. Hidden. It looks better, it's ideology is not built around hate, and people are not inherently hateful. Fearful, yes. But when the aliens come saying 'lay down your weapons and you will not be harmed', rather than 'WAAAAAAAAAGH', it's a little different. The Imperial citizen has not been exposed to this before. And when they find out the propaganda the Imperium has been giving them isn't as true as they thought? (disheveled Tau supporter =/= Gue'vesa with longer average lifespan than Guardsmen) Well disillusionment works for Tau as well as it does Chaos.

Plus, quickly is perhaps the wrong word, but to be plain about it, they've got some experience at it, by this point. Great Crusade annexed worlds pretty fast. The Tau spread in mostly the same fashion, save replace 'Titan legions' with 'Gunboat Diplomacy' and 'Space Marine Legions' with 'Tactics made for actually fighting modern wars', and you've got a good approximation. They aren't as strong as Imperium was back then, but neither is the foe they're fighting.

But Rolan's right, best way to take over a people is to switch who they're paying taxes to. If you lower them a tad and reduce the brutality of law enforcement, they'll welcome you with open arms often as not. That's why you need propaganda to keep them in line.

[misko27]

But Rolan's right, best way to take over a people is to switch who they're paying taxes to. If you lower them a tad and reduce the brutality of law enforcement, they'll welcome you with open arms often as not. That's why you need propaganda to keep them in line.

Take them over until the man paying you taxes turns into a horrific monster that eats off your face. That's the problem, though. Let's play a thought experiment.

Tau get stronger. They do this at the expense of the Imperium. They become dramatically stronger, and smash Imperial lines. The Imperium is weakened. Tau gains sway over a large number of Imperial worlds. Imperial lines on other fronts are stretched thin to combat Tau threat. Maybe they get within striking distance of Terra, why not. The point is there is a Hypersphere expansion or whatever you want to call it, and they push and push and don't stop. But, eventually, the Tau push too far, and the Imperium enters extended collapse. That means Orks, Eldar, all sorts of fun stuff starts getting !!FUN!!, but you want to know who takes advantage the most? Chaos. Boom, 14th Black Crusade, and with the Imperium outstretched EVEN MORE THEN BEFORE, Cadia falls for good. Now, what? Now the Eye of Terror starts expanding like crazy. The Imperium's collapse becomes a freefalll. The Tau don't see the trap yet, and do quite well in this period.

But here is where it gets bad. Maybe it's because the Emperor gets fewer Tithes, maybe the inevitable effect of the Golden Throne does it, maybe the strengthening of Chaos weakens it, maybe Chaos just straight up takes Terra, maybe all of these things; but either way the Warp becomes dramatically stronger (which it would even just because of Cadia falling), and the Emperor+Astronomican become weaker until they cease to exist. Now suddenly, the Tau's billions of human subjects start the clock on the end of the Tau. Because you see, the fate of humanity, a warp-sensitive, soon-to-be-fully-psychic species, is inextricably tied up with the fate of the Emperor and the rest of Humanity. If the Imperium is weakened to the point of free-fall, the support system that stops Chaos is weakened for ALL of humanity. If Tau pushes far enough, the Imperium can't defend itself. If the Imperium can't defend itself, EVERYONE gets stronger. If EVERYONE gets stronger, Chaos almost by definition benefits the most, since their plan to win is basically "conquer Terra, the entire Imperium is cut off from itself and helpless, new Eye of Terror consumes the galaxy, gg no re". All humans the galaxy over are dragged, often literally, into hell. This includes the humans on Tau worlds, which are full of ripe, undefended human souls.

Entire worlds scoured of life by demonic hordes. Demonic possessions doom billions. The scale of the chaos (and Chaos) in Tau space is beyond their comprehension. The Tau completely, utterly powerless to respond, or even understand, the nature of the threat. Billions die in weeks, maybe days. Above all, Tau don't understand what is going wrong. They don't get how things get so horrifically turned around; worlds that long ago embraced the Greater Good suddenly dropping everything in worship of strange gods. Sure, they can stop some threats, but ultimately they don't even have the tools to identify the risk factors. Humans do, so if the Tau are lucky they let their human pets revert to tried-and-true methods and begin witch-hunting of psykers, but every time one slips through billions suffer the consequenes. Tau are forced to call off any offensives to deal with the fact that worlds they thought they had pacified were suddenly literally vomiting up hell. It doesn't matter that they stop. Even if they pull back all the way to their homeworld, the Imperium is too fucked to save itself, and the Tau don't have the tools to handle it. If the Tau are smart, they start wiping out Humans en masse. If they do (which is a fairly tall order), they save the worlds that remain, but its a temporary victory.

Eventually the Last Black Crusade, taking its victory lap through Imperium space to convert ever more into demonic playgrounds, reaches the edge of Tau Space. Maybe the Tau are ready to negotiate. Maybe they don't. Maybe they simply doubt what they see. It literally doesn't matter. Chaos has already won, its just mopping up. Tau fight hard, but the sheer weight of it combined with their losses from rebellions and heresies means they are ultimately doomed. The Galaxy belongs to Chaos, and the gods make sure to erect a horrific, perverted monument to Chaos United, celebrating their triumph, on T'au to memorialize those who did so much to aid their victory.

TL;DR. Tau cannot win. They actually cannot ever win, because to win, even gloriously, demands that the Imperium lose. Most races, when they win, do something that ensures their victory, but even the most OP-plz-nerf tech the Tau come up with cannot match the Storm of Chaos empowered by the rotting husk of the Imperium because the T'au don't even recognize the Warp. Other races destroy the Imperium and (or just) empower themselves in a way that can beat Chaos, but Tau cannot ever beat Chaos on their own, and they can't understand how Humans do it (and regard it as insane religious dogma). Tau would be doomed by their success; in fact, the best possible outcome for them is that they DON'T expand into the Imperium, and just quietly tech-up until they either surpass the Imperium at its height or actually get souls like a real sentient race. But the Tau can't afford for the Imperium to collapse since its collapse will inevitably destroy the Tau, and since the Imperium is sure as hell not going to go down peacefully, collapse is the only option.

Tau expansion, at the VERY POSSIBLE BEST outcome, lead to the Tau finding themselves in their own Age of Strife, with the Imperium acting as the Fall of the Eldar analogue. It would even share a lot of the same characteristics, with various far-flung worlds falling to Chaos from Psykers they can't handle, only with aliens (humans) being the main driving force. That is the best possible outcome. They would inherit a Universe that hates them and everything they stand for, and they would have to adopt a strict "murder all shit that smells like Chaos" policy to survive for long. Of course, then, they are no better then the Imperium was for humanity. In fact, to even have a chance to survive at all the Tau pretty much HAVE to adopt a policy of vigorous apartheid at best and genocide at worst, because they will get fucked over heresy, chaos, and mutation. Hey, that sounds like what the Imperium does...

TL;DR: To beat the Imperium the Tau will become the Imperium, one way or another; whether they copy how the Imperium rules, or the part where they are dragged screaming into hell along with their human slaves because the Imperium wasn't just full of superstition to be closed-minded bigots, they were doing that because every other path leads to death. Even Eldar understand this, that's why they are so fucking rude all the damn time. The only options are to be the super open-minded psychically attuned race that can appreciate Chaos for what it is and reject it, or be ignorant and reject outright as unthinkable and heresy. The Tau though are so ignorant the close-minded path doesn't work, because close-minded only works if some people in the leadership can make it go away. Tau can't make the Chaos go away.

[Xantalos]

Tired thought: if the Tau tried to implement Emperor's plan of 'starve chaos via no religion pls' it'd actually work since tau souls are small and don't provide much adequate nutrition for warp entities

[NullForceOmega]

Has it occurred to anyone that a good chunk of the reason the chaos gods are so fucked up and powerful is because the majority of humans live in a horrifying hellscape that they cannot escape excepting through death?  They're just a reflection of the collective unconscious of thinking beings.  Maybe the reason Tau barely register in the warp is because they feel comfortable and secure?  It isn't like GW is even attempting to establish what the hell is actually happening in the 40Kverse, they just throw some mumbo-jumbo at the wall and see what sticks.

[Xantalos]

Has it occurred to anyone that a good chunk of the reason the chaos gods are so fucked up and powerful is because the majority of humans live in a horrifying hellscape that they cannot escape excepting through death?  They're just a reflection of the collective unconscious of thinking beings.  Maybe the reason Tau barely register in the warp is because they feel comfortable and secure?  It isn't like GW is even attempting to establish what the hell is actually happening in the 40Kverse, they just throw some mumbo-jumbo at the wall and see what sticks.

well yeah the entire point of GW's 'everything is canon but not everything is necessarily true' policy is that you can interpret the setting in literally any way you want, so kot's 'humans best xenos inferior trash' and rolep's 'guys tau aren't all that bad and imperium is super space catholic nazi dictatorship remember' are both equally valid

[Rolepgeek]

Nope.

Your whole scenario depends on several variables. The first, of course, being that Tyranids don't end up fighting Chaos, which would bog them both down immeasurably, since neither like the other, but with the tendril closing on Holy Terra, and Chaos' love of trying to get there, it's nigh-inevitable in such a scenario. Cadia probably falls, but that's basically unrelated to the Tau. The Imperium will focus their resources there first, and the Ultramarines will bog down the Tau plenty.

But you also basically assume that with all this conquering, the Tau have no idea what this weird magical stuff they've been fighting for decades, or, more likely, centuries now is, despite several incorporated psychic races and the, as you said, warp-sensitive human species (I disagree about soon-to-be-full-psychic, but that's another matter). Tau don't have to grasp Chaos on an emotional level to fight it. That's what makes them so good at resisting it, after all. But it will take decades or more for worlds to fall in the wake of Cadia's death. I mean, unless we're going full-blown GW in which case this will all go End Times anyway. Psyker population has to get out of hand, trade has to fall into such decline without the Emperor's Light that societies collapse. In the wake of such, the Tau expand that much faster, a new support structure for an ailing economy that was reliant on a single point of failure. This, of course, neglects the Emperor coming back as a God, but he'd probably just sort of tell the Tau to stop it and they would go home at that point if he did.

Demonic possessions and entire worlds scoured? Yeah, but mostly around the Eye. The heresies take time to root, to ripple through space. The Tau are a lot less powerless to respond than you might believe. They've obviously dealt with or reintegrated Farsight somehow at this point. They know how to deal with sedition. They have surveillance systems far more complete than the Imperium's. Technology reaching towards Golden Age humanity. In all likelihood, multiple STCs, as well as Malleus Inquisitors who've decided to go with the lesser evil in the face of the collapse of the system they strove to uphold, hoping to, if nothing else, ensure humanity's place in the galaxy in the new world order, and prevent Chaos' total domination. The Eldar also probably get their shit together and dump Black Library knowledge. Well, probably in the sense that they're less likely to intentionally fuck over the Tau, since they no longer have the sense of security granted by the Imperium's seemingly-undefeatable bloat. When Chaos comes, it is strong. But it is fighting a full Ork WAAAGH, in the likes of old. Strengthening the Warp means strengthening the gestalt field; it could well be that Gork and Mork are alive and krumpin' by this point. It's dealing with Space Marines set to hold their ground to the very end. It is probably fighting itself every step of the way. Success begets envy.

The Tau struggle through the first few heresies. And then they deal with it scientifically. They find what works and what doesn't. The Nicassar don't get possessed spontaneously, and if humans are just itching to get back to witch trials, they can use that to shape their more accurate methods of identification, via Nagi or other psychic races they've incorporated, or the Imperium's own means. The Tau are unafraid to assimilate success.
So here's an alternate scenario:
Chaos reaches Tau space. And Tau has been watching it's advance, with mounting concern and eventually horror, and the Ethereals realize what must be done. You know, after about five years of constant debating and maneuvering about the best way. They inform the populace of the threat. They create an Orwellian society, but one backed up by reliable information methods. Weird religious rituals get spied on, checked for signs, carefully cataloged and kept by wards they've grudgingly allowed the Malleus refugees to inscribe (the Ecclesiarchy would never submit to aliens, though the Tech-Priests of Mars are probably practical enough to realize that their old alliance is done for) They gear up for a war of defense and anti-sedition, as the Imperium did. They ally with the Orks, because Chaos is literally the antithesis of their philosophy; the greenskins are merely incompatible with it. They reverse-engineer holy war.

You think the Tau don't recognize Chaos? Hah. They know what it is. They may not comprehend the scale of it yet, but they would. They would learn it's intricacies, and write them down, and do extensively field testing on the best way to obliterate a Daemon of each and every type. They would categorize and catalog and purpose-build. And the battle would be hard-won.

But it would be won.

@Xantalos: Well really it's like the Holy Russian Empire In Space Plus We Took Japan With Us For Giant Robots, Magical Girls And Bishounen

[Xantalos]

see? completely as valid as 'tau stupid buttfaces who die when anything notices them'

[Rolepgeek]

see? completely as valid as 'tau stupid buttfaces who die when anything notices them'

I feel like there's a fallacy at play here, but I'm not sure exactly how...something about the opposite of the Golden Mean Fallacy...

[Neonivek]

This, of course, neglects the Emperor coming back as a God, but he'd probably just sort of tell the Tau to stop it and they would go home at that point if he did.

It can be argued that the "God Emperor" isn't a god or that if he is that he is an artificial one that is sustained by a god-full of sacrifices.

[Rolepgeek]

Yeah but there's also the idea that the Golden Throne has become a prison, not something that sustains life, and with the might of the Imperium behind him, I can believe it. He needs that moment of rebirth, to gorge fully on the leftovers of the ten thousand years of tens of thousands of sacrifices offered to him, and really take in what it means to be the God of Mankind, and all that entails. Slight step up in power, after all.

[Xantalos]

see? completely as valid as 'tau stupid buttfaces who die when anything notices them'

I feel like there's a fallacy at play here, but I'm not sure exactly how...something about the opposite of the Golden Mean Fallacy...

probably but who really cares