Upcoming book Fire CasteOriginally Posted by Scalebug
"On a world touched by the warp, Imperial and tau forces clash in a war without end. Can they work together to defeat the evil at the heart of the world, or will it consume them all?"
Upcoming book Fire Caste
"On a world touched by the warp, Imperial and tau forces clash in a war without end. Can they work together to defeat the evil at the heart of the world, or will it consume them all?"
"As I've always said, Wes is wise." - Scryer in the Darkness
"Wes, if you keep this up you'll need to change your name to MajorWiseJanson." - Azzy
"Many boffins died to bring us this information." - Forgeworld Announcement E-mail
"Rest assured, Servitor 13 has your best interests at heart. Now let's fire up the lascannons." - GW changes their web privacy policy.
Well it ain´t hard to sterilise humans and to compare that to mutate genes affecting psykers is another ballfield.
We can with ease sterilise humans now, the other thing I think not.
Is it plausible to compare "The Greater Good" to "The Imperial Truth" as far as similar methods of keeping chaos at bay?
Well, yes... as in it has no actual active effect, but in the long run it would possibly keep people from feeding the Chaos Gods.
Really? Because there is also Taros in Imperial Armour 3 and the description of the propaganda video done by the water caste. Depending on how "in control" you mean, there is also at least one ultramarine book that has the Tau in partial control of a planet for a while. All of which I would take as considerably more reliable sources than an alternate ending for a video game that wasn't produced by GW.
But the standard operating procedure for daemonic incursions require disaffected people to turn to chaos worship and begin performing various dark rites in order to open such a rift and to get the attention of a big, powerful daemon who can keep things going and cause maximum havoc. Without that you maybe get a lone psyker who flips out and let's a bloodletter or daemonette through before a couple of fire caste melt him with pulse fire.
Once upon a midnight dreary...
I'm not sure any Tau fanboy thinks they are noble? I collect Tau and I love the fact that they will casually sterelise the native population of a planet just 'cause. haha.
Then you're in the minority, I remember the copious amounts of rage and grief that could be generated just a few years back if you suggested to fans that the Tau were anything but the one NobleBright spot in the GrimDark that was 40k.
Shame, I find it far more grim-dark the way they sneakily go about thing behind closed doors than the out in the open exterminatus style the other races use. I also think its pretty sad to get so upset over the story behind some toy soldiers lol.
Last edited by aim; 16-08-2012 at 23:48.
I just get upset when people insist that the Tau are every bit the bastards that the Imperium are and refuse to acknowledge that there is evidence on both sides.
It has not been conclusively stated, which leaves it open for the individuals to make their own interpretation.
Once upon a midnight dreary...
well how hard it is to block psychic power we dont know since there are no psychic powers in reality. Could be its based on emotions so a simple prozac treatment will do the job. Could be you lobotomize them. Could be they just happen to die.
Well, as was said earlier, we have no real answer. But we can certainly make stuff up.
I'd say maybe one in a billion or one in a trillion actually have a chance at being a psyker powerful enough to cause real problems (i.e., opening warp rifts on their own, etc). Most humans are pretty much just humans. The Tau may not have a human population big enough where anything like that has even happened yet. The Imperium rounds up psykers as a matter of course, shipping most off to the Astronomi-furnace, and the rest they train. The Tau by this point should recognize psychic powers, so when that one random human starts blowing stuff up or melting people with his mind, they can respond. Humans might even be self-policing on that. "Oh, Roger's kid's eyes are glowing. Get the diesel fuel."
Maybe one in a hundred human planets has a chaos cult on it of any real worth. You don't know which ones, of course. But it's enough to keep people busy because there are so many planets. With the Tau again, you'd have maybe one cult. They're just too small for the odds to have caught up with them yet.
The Tau have run into a lot of weird things. They've fought Tyranids, Necrons, and Dark Eldar. Are demons really any weirder? They'll just think it's some other advanced race of space monsters. Maybe genetically engineered or something. Of course, they'll say, they aren't literally space demons like the humans think. Those superstitious humans.
they don't sterilise "just 'cause" they do it to control population.
they don't do stuff just to be evil it's done because it's judged to be the best/most efficient way
population chance to rebel in future? sterilise as to prevent them from gathering man power
people spreading ideas counter-intuitive against the greater good? make the leaders disappear in the night.
population has weak faith in greater good? increase propaganda
or other stuff like that
I remember reading that more or less all human worlds have chaos cults, but yeah, only on very few do these groups of heretics actually gain the attention of beings from the warp and thereby pose any real threat to the rule of the Imperium (or the Tau for that matter). I also remember reading that about 10% of the population of Necromunda possess psychic ability, though mostly it's things like a 'sixth sense' or being good at gambling and such.
Maybe the materialistic philosophy of the Tau make people less inclined to actually believe in supernatural beings? Maybe the Tau themselves have a sort of dampening effect on the warp, meaning the prayers of the humans in their realm become sort of muffled in the warp? Who knows? My Traitor Guards are thematically based around a Word Bearer-inspired human uprising against their Tau oppressors, so for me that Tau are fair game for chaos cults.
My scratch-built Stompa, Traitor Guards, Cthulhu daemons and Word Bearers and my my terrain log.
"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
Its also possible that its like with the channellers in wheel of time, while some extremely few may be born with the ability a much greater number have the ability to learn to be psykers. The imperium needs psykers so they find theese and train them. the tau dont so they only ever meet the naturally occurring psykers.
not knowing that you're a psyker seems to be a good defence mechanic aswell.
Thats because they ARE the one NobleBright spot. The sterilization is only to ensure that they remain the NobleBright spot where people can be who they want to be, and live their lives to the fullest (as long as they also comply with the greater good, a relatively minor set of rules that are easy to follow)
Iron Sharks Marines-2500/Dark Angels-7000/Sisters of Battle-2000/Tau-2500/Grey Knights-2000
Brettonians-2000/VC-2000/Skaven-6000/Ogres-2500/Beastmen-2500
As far as I know, Psykers have to be born as Psykers. They may manifest their powers later on in life, but they're still Psykers. You also can't learn to become a Psyker. At best you can make pacts with creatures in the Warp (basically, become a Sorceror).
Actually, it's not. Untrained Psykers are a threat regardless of whether or not they know that they're Psykers, and daemons and Enslavers canm potentially use an untrained Psykers inability to control their powers to gain access to them.not knowing that you're a psyker seems to be a good defence mechanic aswell.
What is it supposed to be, one in a million Humans is a Psyker (with the number increasing?) They'll be a fair few in Tau territory unless the Tau are massive reducing Human populations. Still, the main reason is probably the whole "not many Psykers powerful enough to make a considerable difference style thing". I want see what they'd try to do with an Alpha-plus level Psyker.
It's debatable. Also, the Tau themselves can't be who they want to be, they're forced into their path as far as we know. As for the Human-majority worlds controlled by the Tau, we don't know. The Imperium only has a few simple rules to follow, too. And they aren't as different as you seem to think from the Tau rules.
Last edited by SomeRandomEvilGuy; 17-08-2012 at 18:05.
Thats kind of the point though isn't it. They try to justify the means by saying they have noble goals. Whats that saying about the path to hell and what its paved with....
Sterelising the human population so that you can colonise the planet is "just 'cause". Its the same as the imperium executing an exterminatus order, just slower and a bit more underhanded. Smile nicely and send them off to be cannon fodder for your army while you chemically make their wives barron.
@aim
My apologies for being off topic; but I love your avatar lol
Yeah, Tauros hadn't been fully taken over at the time of the book. It wasn't until after the campaign that the Tau started to really settle it. There is no telling what the human situation was like for the civilian population. Prisoners were sent to work the mines as slave labor, but it didn't really say what happened to those who went over willingly. For all we know, little distinction may have been made between them.
Project Tomb World: Here
Haha, thanks :P
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