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[Neonivek]

ten thousand years of tens of thousands of sacrifices offered to him

Hmmm... One second as I get the exact numbers of baby eating sacrifices he received.

35 billion... He has eaten the equivalent of the earth's population almost 5 times over.

[Kot]

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.

You forget that Eldar are not simply Tolkien Elves in Space, if anything they are TES Thalmor but ten times worse. They don't persuade, they demand. They think humans are primitive because they are young race to them, and Tau are even younger and just... weak. No psychic powers, they are literally weak (compared to humans), their technology is not even that impressive, they have short, short lifespans and the only Tau that aren't brainwashed retards are Ethereals and that's pushing it.

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

Emperor got born from combined sacrifice of thousands of psychic shamans and spent thousands of years gathering knowledge and mastering His abilities, Ethereals showed up one day in fancy robes and mind-controlled their primitive tribal cow dudes. Even if they actually appeared from combined psychic might of Tau, they're tiny fucking fries compared to Him, and if you think they can equal Him in any way on His worst day, Tau are shrekt already.

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.

Beast. He was bigger than a city block, incredibly intelligent and his presence caused Waaaaagh effect so powerful that it basically equaled very powerful psyker abilities.

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.

Great Crusade did diplomacy, possibly the last time Imperium tried it, considering it was one of main reasons it failed. Anyway, as long as you weren't a fukkin Xeno, accepted Imperial Truth and paid taxes, Space Marines were happy to give just a small show of force and proceed to next planet.
Also, they aren't as strong as Imperium but the foe is way stronger, since it's a mostly unified... well, Imperium, and Great Crusade had to deal with foes as big as Tau Empire at best.

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.

They were evul before Humanity was relevant.

[Neonivek]

Personally I don't think the Emperor is too too special.

He is powerful and potent but no more then the resources being shoved into his baby furnace.

To me his importance is more political... and since political power directly co-relates to actual power... yeah

[Rolan7]

Sorry Kot I'm too sleep to read your post just now, so I'm just going to post my reply to Rolepgeek's nice wall.  Sorry if I say something you countered, I'll read it tomorrow X_X nevermind I read it, pretty cool.  I think maybe the chaos gods always existed, paradoxically before they were created by humanity and Slaanesh by the Eldar?  meh
I'm just posting for funsies, I really like reading theories and coming up with them (:  I'm still not even especially well versed in the lore.

Huh, glad I didn't write up a big reply because Rolepgeek said what I was going to, but a lot better O_o  And then I wrote a bunch anyway

Though allying with the orks seems like a stretch maybe...  But eh, the Tau do work well with the kroot, and it would be more "Fight *those* guys, they're TOO STRONG!" than "Let us hug and be allies~".

Yeah though...  Tau see the effects of chaos.  They can't be psychers, but they interact with plenty of human psychers.  Probably even gue'vesa.  There's nothing stopping them from taking the human psycher equipment which protects against the warp, and making it better.  Humanity can't do that because, idk, scientists fall prey to Tzeentch I guess.  Not a problem for Tau.

Science is their greatest strength.  They've advanced an incredible amount in such a relatively short time, too - they may literally be experiencing a technological singularity.  They're certainly advancing orders of magnitude faster than humanity did, even with the Emperor.  The Eldar could be helping them yeah, but...  I don't think that fully explains their tech.

I'd bet a lot of their occupied human colonies have formed chaos cults, too.  Especially with the Tau promoting science and open mindedness.  So the Tau have opportunities to study those cults, learn how dangerous they are, and how to stop them.  They're experts at social engineering and "harmony", whatever their methods.

I don't know much about the Eye of Terror, but it does seem like the Imperium is sitting on a dead-man's bomb there.  But it's not like the Eldar, Tau, or even Orks want chaos to break free.  *Especially* the Eldar- Slaanesh is one of the chaos gods, after all.  So even if the Imperium is too stubborn to explain the Eye of Terror to the Tau, the Eldar would out of simple self-preservation.  And the Tau reaction would be "Oh, guess we'll stop absorbing the Imperium then for now" because they're actually willing to *think* and cooperate, things the Imperium is nearly incapable of.

Then it's just a race between the main hive fleet, the necrons reawakening (and rounding up the c'tan shards I guess), and the Tau. 

The Tau don't have any disadvantage against tyranids, in fact their naval technology has the potential to far outstrip the stagnated Imperium.  So if any faction has a chance, it's the Tau (or chaos, but chaos is bad).

Pretty much ditto for the Necrons, except they'd have help from the Eldar- who literally exist to fight Necrons, and have all the necessary intel to make it possible.

And I could really see the Orks helping out against any end-times threat, just because they want to keep fightin.  Especially against the biggest, baddest enemy.  They'll never be unified enough to wipe out the Tau, even if they wanted to, they're just a spoiler.

(Emperor turning into a full god is also possible, but I think it's hard to speculate about how that would even happen.  I'm not sure what he would even do- crusade against chaos and then all xenos, like before?  I guess probably.  Seems like something the Eldar would know how to prevent, since they're practically experienced at god-creation now.)

[Tack]

I don't think the chaos gods really kicked around much during the DAoT, and during the Great Crusade they were too busy drawing up new borders with Slaanesh.

So they could actually have been quite weak up until someone managed to stick an athame in Horus.

[Orange Wizard]

Rolan please spell psyker right, it's bothering me D:

syca

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Rolan please spell psyker right, it's bothering me D:

syca

succa

[Neonivek]

Rolan please spell psyker right, it's bothering me D:

syca

succa

Psychepsyche boom boom.

Sorry if my accent is a bit thick.

[Dorsidwarf]

Psyker = cyka = russians will save us from chaos CONFIRMED

But yeah, Tau are basically the only faction who don't have a defined "I win" state (except for Orks, who are already in their victory state, since Orks live for eternal fighting and that's the hottest commodity on offer in 40k). Their closest to a win state is "Don't get nommed by tyranids, don't piss off the Imperials too much and hope they kill themselves, don't develop psychic abilities and explode into chaos, don't get in the Eldar's way, don't get hit by too many WAAAGHs". They "win" by not losing, and have no other victory state. They are tiny compared to every other faction. They have what, a few score planets in a war-torn sector of the galaxy where the Imperium are too busy fighting other things to get their exterminate on.

Saying "But what if they beat the Imperium" is genuinely like asking "But what if Fiji takes over mainland China". And that analogy is being very generous to fiji. The Tau may/may not be Good Guys with Lots Of Potential, but the horrifying, eternal grind that is warfare on a galactic scale, rather than small strikes against isolated colonies, would either crush them under the treads of a billion tanks, drown them in a trillion howling zombies, or strip away all the happiness and reason and optimism that differs them from the Imperium just to not fall under the march of boots or untold horrors.


TL:DR It doesn't matter if the Tau are "better", technologically or morally, only wishful thinking says they have any way to "win" other than by existing. Actually, the closest thing to an achievable Win state for them is probbably Big E jumping up, reminding everyone in the Imperium that aliens can be okay, then exploding all the ethereals with his "omgwtfbbqiwin" power and absorbing the Tau into the Imperium.

[Tack]

:/ I think it needs reminding that the Damocles crusade which slammed into Tau space was a Crusade - EG- The greatest logistically feasible fighting force the Imperium can put together.

The fact that the Tau ground it to a stalemate means that the Imperium cannot 'bitch slap' the Tau away. I'd personally say they make for a better defensive force than the Eldar- but we cannot really know because any crusade against a craftworld would find themselves fighting empty space (Then again, Gav Thrope seems to believe that Spess Mahrines would win it.)

The sad truth is that if the Tau WERE to have the resources that the Imperium does, but with their docile population and unshakeably loyal ruling class, they'd do a much better job of it.

Of course, this denies all of the Emperor trump-card bullcrap so that's out, plus I daresay that any serious Tau foray into imperial space would be met with just as stalwart a defense, so I doubt they'll end up doing anything important in the 42nd millenium.
(Also Big E was a stalwart humanophile and did not see xenos as ever being useful.)

Also Orkish Endgame is Ghazkhull starting a 'The beast' sized waagh, but this time with religion, and spawning Gorkamorka as major chaos gods.
Then all orks become daemons and inviolable, and loot the warp for evva, and krump all the umies.

[TempAcc]

The Tau need to isolate themselves and develop their tech and themselves as a species to be able to have a win condition, but the ethereals are leading them into a trap bigger than they can imagine. The actual in universe reason as to why humans are special is because humans are chaos' ultimate tool, and the only reason it doesnt have full grasp of it is the emperor constantly cockblocking them. If the Tau were to absorb the imperium chaos would see all those undefended, helpess humans without big E's mighty golden fist to punt them away, and the galaxy would literally go to hell. Every human with some measure of psychic ability (eventualy everyone) would become a gate to the warp, and chaos is something the Tau simply can't fight.

The only Tau that can possibly defend himself against chaos is commander farsight, who's owned a warp enchanted sword for so long that its literally making him immortal and probably significantly empowering his soul. Wether this means he's on his way to becoming the Tau's first real psyker or a daemon is pretty much up to anyone's guesses. Farsight is the Tau's hope, but he hasn't shown much interest in actualy fighting the ethereals as a whole yet, soooo..

Anyway, Ork endgame is real. If ghazkul pulls out the biggest waaaaagh and invades the warp, then the only chaos gods with a chance of surviving will be khorne and slaanesh, though they'd still be significantly weaker than the newly created Gork and Mork, since orks would prob kill off everyone else. Nurgle wouldn't have any decay to lord over, since orks technically don't experience death as we understand it, and tzeentch would be starved into non-existence since orks don't care about schemes. Khorne would be eternally suplexed into a 4th dimensional brick wall by gork, while slaanesh would eternally delight itself on the pleasure of being penetrated by an infinite amount of dakka shot by mork.
For the first time ever, there would be enuf dakka.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

tzeentch would be starved into non-existence since orks don't care about schemes.

This is a filthy lie, everybody knows that Orks are brutally cunning.

[Blargityblarg]

tzeentch would be starved into non-existence since orks don't care about schemes.

This is a filthy lie, everybody knows that Orks are brutally cunning.

nah, they're cunningly brutal, zog ya

[sprinkled chariot]

Tau technology is nowhere as advanced as even great crusade era tech, calling them nearly dark age of technology level advanced is kinda strange.

[Teneb]

tzeentch would be starved into non-existence since orks don't care about schemes.

This is a filthy lie, everybody knows that Orks are brutally cunning.

nah, they're cunningly brutal, zog ya

Fite me, ya git. Mork iz best!