this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
100 points (100.0% liked)
chat
8637 readers
282 users here now
Chat is a text only community for casual conversation, please keep shitposting to the absolute minimum. This is intended to be a separate space from c/chapotraphouse or the daily megathread. Chat does this by being a long-form community where topics will remain from day to day unlike the megathread, and it is distinct from c/chapotraphouse in that we ask you to engage in this community in a genuine way. Please keep shitposting, bits, and irony to a minimum.
As with all communities posts need to abide by the code of conduct, additionally moderators will remove any posts or comments deemed to be inappropriate.
Thank you and happy chatting!
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Though the T'au have their own methods of control(and aren't communist they have literal caste system ffs) the IoM is much more oppressive, a human auxiliary in the T'au empire has a much greater quality of life and intellectual freedom(they are free to still worship the emperor or other religions if they wish) than the average human in the imperium which is a worker in a Hive City eating corpse-starch, breathing pollutants living in a higher population density than Kowloon walled city, working 18+ hours a day and if they slip up in the slightest(I recently posted a quote where on some imperium worlds its illegal to read without a license) the get lobotomised into a servitor(T'au have mental condition 're-education' but it pales in comparison to literal lobotomising and having most of your brain replaced with circuitry)
Guy who said that to you only knows meme-lore
Ehh, that is retcon stuff. The tau were originally supposed to be chill as contrast to everything else sucking.
When they realized people liked them for being good then they hit them with the cold war propaganda ray.
At least that is how I felt like it went
Yeah, the OG grim darkness of the Tau was that they were a young and much smaller space empire that only existed because everyone else was too busy fighting each other to wipe them out. It's actually grim and dark storytelling, that the best hope for the galaxy are also the faction least capable of ever actually winning this perpetual war, just due to a massive resource imbalance.
Even in their introduction in the 3rd edition the OG T'au had the Ethereals having some-sort of para-normal control(implied to be pheromonal) over other T'au, but yeah the mental indoctrination/re-education etc stuff came later
Genuinely speaking, I really feel all the dark stuff introduced regarding the Tau should be treated about as canonical as how chuds treat female space marines
The dark stuff was only introduced because crybabies got upset there was an actual good faction in warhammer
I treat the bad stuff about T'au the same way I treat propaganda about China. FAKE NEWS!
This is basically how 90% of 40k lore gets made.
That is the obviously correct interpretation
afaik the caste system is due to actual biological differences, right. aliens arent forced into it either, you could argue the auxiliaries have it better. i would imagine the tau would promote communism among the auxiliaries but not necessarily in the caste system
Kinda, before the Ethereals united the race the different tribes of T'au that became the castes had some minor regional genetic adaptations, post-unification over time and due to implied selective breeding/eugenics these traits became more pronounced and they separated further genetically e.g. Fire caste became bigger and stronger than the rest, Air caste developed hollow bones etc
Yes non T'au races aren't subject to the caste system, and follow their own social hierarchies: Kroot follow their Shapers, Vespid rely on Strain Leaders to speak for and communicate with the T'au and other races, There's not a huge amount written about non-military humans(Gue'vesa: humans in the T'au military have their own sergeants etc who are in turn take orders from T'au commanders) in the T'au empire but they could well practice communism among themselves in some instances(the T'au empire being a post scarcity society in most places helps with that) but they are ultimately subject to T'au officials and officers
The caste system is fine given how good they are in every single other way. What matters is quality of life and treatment. They're doing fine compared to anyone else is this hellverse.
I'd criticise the caste system a lot more if it actually manifested in anything visibly horrible for anyone living under it but it doesn't as far as I've seen. Any critique of it is a criticism from the perspective of what human caste systems have been for people living in them rather than what the Tau one is actually producing.
True, they only real criticism of them is their attitude to Chaos(as until 'recently' they haven't had to deal with it much as the T'au race's souls are not 'bright' in the warp so not good Daemon chow, unlike some of their auxiliary races),
The 5th sphere expansion encountering T'Au'Va a Warp entity/god formed from the belief of the psychic auxiliary races in the greater good with many T'au considering it an abomination(as T'au consider the Greater Good purely a philosophy not a religion) leading to a new faction of T'au who are intent on ethnically cleansing the empire of all non-T'au species may take that in an interesting direction
They're better guys, but as its 40k there's no good guys
i tend to see them as a deeply flawed federation due to space wizard fuckery (Imagine if Q wanted to collect blood for the blood god) that still tries their best.
i have a proxy where a tau fire squad is being lead by an auxiliary with a picard head
he also has worf with a batleth cause one of the heroes has a knife or something. i imagine the enterprise would immediately join the tau or maybe aeldari to try to find a way back home and tbh if theyre gonna throw trek into the dumps with nutrek they may as well do a silly crossover like this
That's awesome.
Personaly having T'au Etheral only high-leadership precludes them from being a federation analogue, imo the Interex and Disporex were much closer to the federation, shame they where just fodder to show the downsides of Emp's xenophobic vision during the Great Crusade