This is precisely why I believe GW should add a healthy dose of grey to them, or just squat them with extreme prejudice. If the Tau had their way, 40k would turn into this:Originally Posted by Surgency
This is precisely why I believe GW should add a healthy dose of grey to them, or just squat them with extreme prejudice. If the Tau had their way, 40k would turn into this:
Assuming that they do so at all, since the only real evidence of it is just short of fan fiction. (an alternate ending to a 3rd party produced video game).
Once upon a midnight dreary...
Seeing that made me think of this.This is precisely why I believe GW should add a healthy dose of grey to them, or just squat them with extreme prejudice. If the Tau had their way, 40k would turn into this:
Incidentally, I'm one of the seemingly few people who LIKE the Tau being 'noblebright', since that's something that makes them different. If I want a faction of oppressive shady individuals leading unwitting pawns and suppressing the truth, I will start an Inquisition force. Leave the Tau to the people who want to be the genuine 'good guys' in a setting I say.
And even then, it's never explicitly stated they actually did it, it's only suggested as a theory as to why the human population shrank so quickly (it's also stated as equally likely that it was just an unintended side effect from not having many co-ed re-education centres).Assuming that they do so at all, since the only real evidence of it is just short of fan fiction. (an alternate ending to a 3rd party produced video game).
Last edited by Kakapo42; 18-08-2012 at 01:06.
As stated, you can't "learn" to be a psyker, you're either born one, or you're not.
Secondly, not knowing you're a psyker is actually incredibly dangerous, because it essentially turns you into a ticking time bomb, waiting for the time when your powers finally manifest, usually in a moment of extreme stress, and usually results in massive problems (pyrokines/telekines creating a massive explosion, telepaths shredding the minds of everyone close-by, etc, let alone the damage caused if they opened a warp breach/got possessed). There's a reason the Imperium is so strict in the detection of psykers, and it's not just because they want to send them to the Emperor.
Unless the Ethereals are incredibly foolish and short-sighted, it would not have been unintended.
well maybe you are a psyker but if you never use your ability it doesn't develop and the less powerful you are the less demonic essence you can contain and thus become a less interesting meal. In training psykers to be as powerful as they have potential to be the imperium increases the risk of demonic possession (but also increases the psykers ability to resist)
also have we ever been told how biologically psychic powers work, if its a genetic trait or so on. Considering that we probably haven't then its really open to interpretation.
No, again, it's not something you learn. You don't start off as a weak psyker, and then improve your way to Alpha Level through training. If you're an Alpha-psyker, you're born as an Alpha-psyker, you just haven't manifested your powers yet. Psykers can learn to control their powers more thoroughly, or how to safely draw deeper from the Warp, but not how to move from Delta up to Alpha. A psyker first learning they're psychic unintentionally is an incredibly dangerous thing for that reason. A pyrokine doesn't learn he's that by forming a candle-size flame on the tip of his finger, he does it by immolating the supervisor who was berating him for taking time off work to care for his sick wife, or by burning down the hab block when he has a nightmare. If he's very, very unlucky, he does it by having the nightmares in his head tearing a hole open inside his brain, and using the portal to wreak havoc in the material world. "The records of the Witch Hunters detail many instances which serve to caution any who underestimate the danger posed by a nascent psyker: storms of energy kilometres across, psychic shock waves strong enough to shatter plasteel and towering infernos of power are but a few of the details recorded by servants of the Ordo Hereticus".
We're also told that untrained psykers are beacons for daemons, because they have no idea how to protect themselves. They don't know what daemons are, they don't know what they are themselves. To them, they're just particularly vivid nightmares, or a whispering at the edge of hearing. There are a great many instances of a daemonic incursion starting from a daemon possessing an untrained psyker. This is why the location of psykers is so important for the Imperium. If it were as laid-back as you describe, they wouldn't have to bother hunting for them, as when they manifest their powers, they'll do crud-all, and then word will spread. The truth is far more risky. Most develop their powers "safely" at adolescence, but there's the chance of them staying latent until later, when a moment of stress causes them to unleash their potential, or the risk of it happening earlier. Being a psyker is not a good thing in 40k. It's a curse, not a blessing.
except for wyrds, who use their power by instinct without risk (atleast according to the inquisitor book) how do you explain that? Also we have a fact that there seems to be fewer psykers in tau space per capita then in imperial space. sicn we have no recorded cases of untrained psykers going mad and doing any of that stuff.
Two things. Firstly, game rules do not equal fluff. Inquisitor also had Marines doing more damage if they threw their bolt pistol rather than firing it. Secondly, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. We've been given absolutely no information about the rate of psykers appearing in Tau-held areas, so to assume that it's less than Imperials is wrong. We have no GW sources telling us that humans have raised psykers in Tau-held space, therefore we have no GW sources telling us that humans have raised psykers in Tau-held space.
We've also been given very limited Info on how the biological basis for psychic powers work.
I don't see how that's relevant in any way whatsoever. The fact remains that we've been told absolutely nothing about the Tau and their dealings with human psykers, so to assume that it's any different from anywhere else is just an assumption. There's no evidence for it, and no reason for why it should be true.
Perhaps the Tau's pheromone control dulls emotions to the point where using psychic powers becomes very difficult for low power psykers, and given the small size of the empire they haven't had any truly powerful psykers.
I understood it this way: That the Tau do not have a warp presence and as such don't really have psykers. It could have something to do with the fact that the Tau, as a race are only about ten thousand years old. They are only at such an advanced societal and technological level because of the warp storms surrounding their planet for 6,000 years. While I don't think there's any canon that says warp storms ever do that, it is implied in the fluff. I think it has also said somewhere that no Tau has ever fallen to Chaos. This makes sense, because they must understand Chaos on a basic level, and the Greater Good demands they seek prosperity and success.
Well, one reason could be that despite the Controll of the Tau over the local populance they allow them a broad margin of self-government. You have to work (and die) for the greater good and accept that the tau are the noble overlords of yours but how you achive it is up to the local bodies of government. And so you still have witch-trials/burnings which have been ingrained into the local customs over millenia and the tau don't swat an eye. Because they know, as long as we allow them to burn and kill a few weirdos every year they keep quiet and do what they are told.
tau: "Why do you want to kill that man?"
formerly imperial citizen. "He's a witch! He shows the three known signs! If we don't kill him, the world will end! It is known!"
tau - looking at the agitated mob armed with electro-pitchforks and torches - "Well then. Carry on!" Walks away muttering to himself "Those poor backward souls, but what are you gonna do about it? Keeps 'em happy."
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I don't think it's impossible that Chaos could corrupt a Tau. But due their position, weak warp presence, culture, lack of psykers - and the overwhelming fact that there's easier pickings elsewhere - it's probably that, for now, Chaos can't be bothered with them.
Indeed. Chaos can corrupt inanimate objects, so they can certainly corrupt Tau. However why would a daemon go for the dry Tau crackers when he can also have a nice Human Big Mac (or, for that matter, a delectable Eldar steak)? Not to mention that the galaxy is absolutely filled to the brim with Big Macs, while the dry crackers are in rather short supply. Daemon do not need to watch their weight, after all.
I like Corvussanctus's idea, I could see that work (they haven't completely stopped the Kroot from eating their enemies, after all, so even if the Tau find something rather gruesome they're not going to stop you if you join in for the Greater Good). I could also imagine that it in fact has gone wrong a few times, but that the Tau interpreted the whole thing as a simple human uprising and just killed the offenders when they couldn't be reasoned with. Apart from that, in-universe, the Tau as a race have simply been absurdly lucky so far.
Last edited by Crazy Ivan; 19-08-2012 at 22:16. Reason: spelling
When in deadly danger
When beset by doubt
Run in little circles
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There is probable no 1 major reason why the tau haven't had to deal so much with chaos it more a combination of things, 1) tau have little or no warp signature, 2) they only have a small empire on the scale of things. 3) the Tau-va mentality generally is an infertile ground for chaos. 4) we also for get one thing the tau have is the Technology. i wouldn't be surprised if they made implants so human psykers could suppress there powers. remember this is the race that out adapted the Nids
I think people are forgetting that Imperial worlds have the Black Ships that weed out most psychers, and they also have the Imperial Creed that encourage humans to turn on anyone they fear is a psycher.
Human communities in Tau space (some which seem to be quite large in the Third Sphere of the Tau Empire, more like human worlds in the Tau Empire), would have to deal with the threat of untrained psychers without the aid of the Black Ships. Seeing from how the Tau allow other races to keep their culture, The Imperial Truth could remain more or less as it is (with less focus on 'Kill the alien!' maybe), but the Tau seem to try and have a civilising influence on the natives (meaning they would most likely try to encourage humans not to kill each other. Unity and the Greater Good and all that), meaning human communities would be even less able to protect themselves from daemonic and warp-based catastrophes because of the Tau mentality.
It doesn't matter if the Tau are wholly immune to possession, they have a lot of humans living under their roof now, and those humans are certainly not immune. The Tau presence also takes away most of the defences the humans have from chaos, meaning the problem of possession and daemonic attacks should be much greater on Tau-held human worlds than on Imperial worlds.
Last edited by totgeboren; 20-08-2012 at 10:47.
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"It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies."
- Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
The Black Ships can pick up maybe a dozen individuals from an entire world during a single trip. The number of psykers in Tau space would be somewhere in the tens of thousands, and most of them fairly weak, assuming the rate at which Alpha level psykers are the same as the rest of the species. This is a very easily contained number on the greater scale.
Furthermore, the Tau have been fighting the Imperium for quite a while now. It's quite likely that they've encountered things like Sanctioned Psykers and Librarians hurtling lighting and fireballs at them. Now, what does an intelligent, inquisitive species who has evolved at such a stunning rate do do when it encounters new enemy assets? That's right, it researches into them. I'm fairly certain that they have performed autopsies, genetic sampling, and all manner of tests in order to get a scientific explanation as to how some humans can manifest these powers. So, what I'm saying is their knowledge of how psychic abilities work might actually be better than the Imperium's. Just because they have no innate psychic powers and no interest in developing them doesn't mean they would automatically want to be oblivious to the phenomenon. I'm fairly certain the Tau Empire can spot a psyker when it emerges, and could probably even screen for them at birth. After all, even though the humans would govern and police themselves, it's still the Tau administration that keeps the census, while health facilities, schools and generally the whole infrastructure uses Tau know-how and technology to some degree,.
the thing is thay my theory that everyone (humans) is a psyker to some extant, actually explains why "non psychic" humans emotions have a warp echo (they basically broadcast their emotion uncontrolled through the warp at all times). Since in my theory they're not non psychic but just unable to control their psychic power. and while i a can agree that a beta psyker will never be an alpha psyker an untrained beta may become a beta+ as he becomes better at his thing, we've seen in all the role playing versions or warhammer and warhammer 40k psykers and wizards increasing in power as they get more experienced.
no the lack of evidence isnt proof but it fits well with the evolving into a psychic spicies and evolving away the chaos gods stuff.
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