I realized what I hate about the Tau in 40K, Veeky Forums

I realized what I hate about the Tau in 40K, Veeky Forums.

The Imperium of Man are depicted as fascist imperialist religious fundamentalists. Their technology is retarded and innovation bogged down by dogma, their civil rights are next to nill on almost every hive world, their societies are rife with crime and power disparities and ultraviolence, where the life, worth and dreams of individuals are but meat for the grinder.

They are an extreme caricature of every imperialist, authoritarian, theocratic, autocrative regime with personality cults and culture wars and colonialism, manifest. Every single possible negative trait that Europe has ever manifested on itself and its neighbors.

.. But then you look at the closest allegory to communism.. the Tau.

A mere 6,000 year old race that has technologically progressed up to and beyond The Imperium of Man in the span of the blink of an eye by comparison, with a casted system and adopted civilizations under their rule. A classless structure where everyone works for the betterment of everybody else for the "greater good."

Their technology is in many ways superior to the Empires, their tactics of war are not steeped in bravado and tradition, their doctrine treats the ethereals as leaders but not gods, and while their Greater Good as seen as totalitarian, it's also seen as benevolent in many ways.

They are not the Mirror Darkly look at communism they should be. They are not a gritty grimdark look at the horrors and failures of bureaucracy and economy. The Tau are like some shiny juche propaganda by comparison to the Imperium of Man and its blemishes and failings.

So. Any historians or socialist/communist state afficianados here? How could we remedy the way the Tau are written and depicted to be to communism what The Empire is to fascist theocracy? How would it look like if we mashed Maoism, Stalinism, Leninism, Trotskyism and Latin American socialism in a big fucking pot and hit frappe?

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>So. Any historians or socialist/communist state afficianados here? How could we remedy the way the Tau are written and depicted to be to communism what The Empire is to fascist theocracy?
Make it like it currently is, but everybody's starving.

I believe they're largely intended as an Orwell reference. The Etherials are manipulative tyrants who force the other Tau into defined castes from birth, unable to breed outside or change their position. Everything is for the Greater Good. They're set up to be pretty dystopian.

I don't think everything has to be a direct analog to our world. The imperium exists as it does because it HAS to in the lore. They state ad nauseum that anything anywhere near "the greater good" for humans would be begging chaos to come in and take over.

Tau get away with their happy-go-lucky, idyllic society because of ethereal fuckery and the fact that their souls register so shittily in the warp that chaos doesn't even bother.

I am sorry that 40k has hurt your alt right, AnCap fee fees though.

>has a caste System
>classless

Wat

Wrongo. The orwellian stuff came later, when everybody bitched about MUH GRIMDARK.

Tau were initially meant to be a noblebright race, to provide contrast for the bleakness of 40k.

Actually the Tau were initially meant to sell mecha to 40k players, and their lore was written around explaining why they get anime technology and shiny suits

It's like dissecting the lore for why pauldrons in 40k are so massive, when the reality is that they were designed so spess merehns could have stickers on them.

I'm aware that those elements were a more recent condition. That doesn't change the fact that those elements have already been added. Or do you just think they don't go far enough?

>casted system
>classless structure

que?

You hate them because they are free and prosperous.

The best I've seen is someone arguing a civilization where everyone is lawful good would be awful to live in because everyone would share and that's communism which would mean everyone starving.

They're also tiny and in way over their heads and slowly starting to realize it. The only reason they look so good in comparison is because of their more compact size and shorter history. Even then they still have deep, numerous flaws as Charsight points out and openly rebels against.

The Tau are the newcomers on the galactic playing field that have only recently tasted the depravities of the Dark Eldar.

The Tau are the wide-eyed idealists only because they haven't suffered through literal thousands of years of decline the Imperium (much less the Eldar) has suffered through.

The Tau are the new kids with all the shiny toys that haven't really seen what the worst of the Ork WAAAAAGH!s are capable of.

The Tau are the fresh souls that don't yet comprehend the perils of the Warp, treacheries of the Chaos Gods, the worst, most corruptive influences possible in the galaxy.

The Tau would barely be a speed bump to the Tyranid tendrils creeping across the galaxy seeking to consume all.

The Tau are set up as insignificant on the grand galactic stage. For as comparatively good and pure as they seem, they are just too fresh and too small to really know what hell they're in for.

Your complaints lack the relative histories behind them in their comparison. The Tau are no shining example of juche propaganda, they're the setup for a joke about how fragile and rare any form of idealism in the galaxy at large is. It's commentary on the fucked up nature of 40k's galaxy.

Doesn't the Tau empire castrate/geld/neuter any races that join them in the greater good and then force them into shitty subservient roles and/or use them as meat shields in combat? I remember reading somewhere that the equality for everyone shtick was a big load of propaganda garbage from the Tau and that only the Kroot are anywhere near not oppressively governed.

> So. Any historians or socialist/communist state afficianados here? How could we remedy the way the Tau are written and depicted to be to communism what The Empire is to fascist theocracy? How would it look like if we mashed Maoism, Stalinism, Leninism, Trotskyism and Latin American socialism in a big fucking pot and hit frappe?

Seeing as many of their blunders (namely, the Leninist variants and the non-reformist types of socialism) stem from US interventionism (we had boots in Russia in the 20s before any legitimately "bad" stuff happened in the USSR because the west was spooked about workers being in control, US destabilizing democratic nations with coups throughout the 20th century for daring to make the lives of their workers livable, etc) and their reactions to said interventions, so seeing as the Tau have crazy plot armor when it comes to everything, we would just have fully automated gay luxury communism in space. Working as intended.

The Tau aren't communist tho' btw. Where are the workers councils? The lack of hierarchy, or hierarchy that is kept in check by democratic oversight by workers in the economy? Where are the syndicates? The Soviets? Any other forms of economic congresses? The market-socialist cooperatives and firms? The techie planner class constituting of workers representatives of every job available in Tau society? Even star trek-esque shit m8.

Oh wait that's right, workers aren't in control and Tau society doesn't describe any facet of socialism or communism at all, even Juche (which can even be debated about seeing as the DPRK hasn't officially called themselves a socialist nation since what, the 90s?)They're literally controlled by freaks with hormone powers who can't even give us a good reason as to why they have their powers over the Tau.

personally, the tau player who REEs when

> OH BLUE FISH COMMUNISTS AMIRITE HAHAHAHA

inb4 MUH SPACE VENEZUELA, IGNORE THAT MOST INDUSTRY IS PRIVITIZED AND US ECON DICKING DXXX

found the marxie apologist.

In the lore, I'm almost positive that all of those accusations come from imperial propaganda.

Not entirely sure though. Knowing what's canon and not canon is such a chore.

i say leave it, the Tau work well to be a shiny mirror to all the grim dark. there's also eldar who have a different effect on the universe

picture this. you're a spry 413 elf who has gotten tired of being on the path of teddy bear maker. what's a bored elf to do? go home take a nap, join up with a new path. society doesn't have a need for money or work really since you're at war. time to join up with the striking scorpions and bully some orks. stealth, silent chainswords and murdering those clumsy orks is fun! spend a few years on this. oh shit, time to gather up soulstones in the eye. good thing we got wraithknights and those footholds in the eye. though cousin bob elf mysteriously died and cousin john elf won't stop crying but he's in the wraithknight so you don't hear that shit.

so you're on a jaunt and everything is going well, you don't sleep much but hey you're an elf an- oh shit you just died to a daemonette. good thing you got a soulstone so slaanesh doesn't rape your soul for eve- oh double dammit your soulstone cracked and now daemonettes are tonguing your lungs while telling you the secret sauce to big macs

I really find it fascinating how people may interpret anything out of a particular faction/race/individual/nation when they have a certain amount of fluff.

Can't say if this is one, but in some cases you end up knowing more about the person mindset than anything he or she wished to convey.

This.

They're only in a good place by virtue of not having been around long enough to get fucking devastated like the Imperium has.

The Imperium ironically acts as the bulwark defending the galaxy as all of its detractors are allowed to live in peace beneath their shadow, so long as they can escape notice.

The Imperium was just as enlightened as the Tau were, once. ONCE. But they've had to shoulder the burden of thousands of years of absolute devastation. They're doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

>The Etherials are manipulative tyrants who force the other Tau into defined castes from birth, unable to breed outside or change their position.
That sounds much more like Brave New World then 1984, have you read either of those books?

I feel like for that to work they have to fail. In 40k if you're the plucky underdog who goes up against the odds you die, if you're lucky. If not then have fun being a servitor/gribbly. All their enthusiasm and positive vibes should go up in smoke as their armies are broken by unending waves of disposable humans.Their soldiers, once brave and hopeful, should be crippled by PTSD and war wariness. Their greatest commanders coming to realize that tactics and strategy will only get you so far in a galaxy were the winner is the side with better logistics and a deeper pool of expendable soon-to-be corpses.

Their people starve as huge holo-picts of the ruling Etherals repeat the values of self sacrifice in the name of the Greater Good. Their planets fall into desperation as every last one of their limited resources is thrown into a meat grinder that makes Rzhev look like a game of tag. Education systems and medical facilities fall into disrepair as the best and brightest are sent to war against a faceless and impossibly massive enemy. They look around to the other races for aid only to be greeted by cold stares of indifference or worse.

The only victory they can reap is the same all sapient races reap in 40k, a hollow one. They rise to the stars with hope in their eyes and return to their worlds with only ash in their hands.

What's even worse is that they tried to use the Tau Codex to grow a 40k following in Japan.

No joke. They translated the codex and were giving away the PDF for free.

The sad thing is, if they knew their audience, they would have given away the Imperial Guard codex, because if there's one thing OG Japanese NEETs love, it's Nazi symbolism.

If they had done things right, we could have Trigger-animated movies, and all kinds of Bandai shit to put on our shelves.

seriously? this is the bait you went with here?
not the guy you're responding to btw.

>Commie aplogist

You know how I know there isn't anything waiting for us after death?
Because if there was, the ghosts of the 150 million people murdered by their own Communist governments in the 20th century alone would rise up and drag you to hell with them.

Comminusm is always successful IRL
The goal is to make everyone equal, and it always makes everyone equally miserable

So you haven't read either of those books.

How shitty but beautiful the world could have been

I prefer the Tau to be quixotic idealists. Their plans don't work and things never go right for them, and even within their own there is some division about "The Greater Good." They are winning battles but losing the war - unlike the Imperium. But just like that one japanese tennis player said for them to do, they Never Give Up!

>Actually the Tau were initially meant to sell mecha to 40k players, and their lore was written around explaining why they get anime technology and shiny suits
The original Tau codex had only crisis suits and broadsides in it, and broadsides at the time were just a crisis suit with a few extra metal bits. Location varies, but Tau didn't originally sell well until they added the mechs and anime later.

The Fire Warrior video game had to straight up invent new weapons for Tau because the model range was so limited. GW eventually did produce models for the rail rifle. Bolters in that game were far superior to pulse rifles

>pointing out how people mis-describe a fictional setting makes you a commie
>knowing what you're talking about is communist

You're American I assume?

I'm sorry but to anyone who isn't a completely brainwashed ideologue communism is marxist-leninism and it's many bastard offspring, nothing more, nothing less. Because that's all your ideology has every actually amounted to in the real world: a pretext for mass slaughter by power-crazed tyrants. You ever think maybe there's a reason for that, and it's not just all the Americans fault? No, that's crazy, the fact that you and your dickhead college student mates have a circle jerk about how much better you'd run things if you were in charge completely balances out the tens of millions of deaths, you're the REAL communists.

Moron.

> probably thinks something "publicly" held = socialism
> the claim is (if you're talking about the Black Book of Communism) actually 100 million, a still over inflated estimate when you go over the actual math and what it considers as a death to tally and what not to tally
> but, the book includes nazis killed by soviets lol
> dumb math in the black book like "well, THERE WAS 10 PEOPLE in 1931... AND WE EXPECTED 15 BY 1940... BUT THERE IS ONLY 12 NOW -- WHY? COMMIES KILLED EM." is seen as good way to document deaths

> UNICEF, RESULTS, and Bread for the World estimate that 15 million people die each year from preventable poverty problems, of which 11 million are children giving it 10-15 years, capitalism literally kills more children under 5, than the entirety of people killed under socialism, even counting your over inflated (by 50 million lol) numbers. And that's within what, 1/5th of the timespan that those deaths occurred under or socialism?

> even in the US, thousands die each year due to poverty related issues and other money related issues (unable to afford health insurance / coverage or access to care, unable to afford medication or access to a good diet if you want to stretch it a tiny bit, but diabetes, obesity and heart problems are big killers of poor Americans)

>hey guys communism isn't that bad they didn't kill that many people
Amazing argument, truly amazing.

This is a very well thought out post, I have been wrestling with this exact thought for years and I've never been able to articulate it. The most I've ever been able to say is that the Tau don't "fit" the theme of 40k, but that was nonspecific and vacuous, this nails it dead on. The Tau turn the setting from 2000AD humor into, essentially, Communist propaganda simply by being functional instead of a dystopian shithole like everyone else.

Then again, that might be a joke on the part of the writers. Topsy-turvy nightmare universe 40k includes the Warp, the Dark Eldar, chainsaw-wielding werewolf supersoldiers, and a functional Communist country.

I think you give the writers too much credit.

I'd love to see the Tau face some real challenge, like a civil war between the Farsight Enclave and the main Tau Empire, a kroot rebellion, or a robot uprising

or for their empire to grow enough that the logistics of running an empire wears away at their ideals until they start bickering amongst themselves over dumb stuff.

>Capitalism kills
>People starving to death

Notice how, to the Communist, everything that happens anywhere on the planet, even in countries that have no functioning governments, is Capitalism's fault, whereas the mass starvation that occurred IN Communist countries isn't Communism's fault. But at the same time they will claim that Capitalism is unnatural and an artificial structure of oppression, so anarchic countries like Somolia would have to be Socialist by default, no? No of course not, Somolia is Capitalist because it's a shithole.

Tribal blacks murdering each other in the tens of thousands and destroying all their infrastructure? Warlords seizing all the food? Negroes screeching "KILL DA BOER" and pushing white farmers off their land? These are Capitalism's fault, of course. It is because we respect property rights that Africa is a shithole. We all know that Robert Mugabe is a diehard Capitalist.

We should've listened to Marx. God knows when I'm looking for advice on economic equity, I look to German parasites who never held a job once in their entire lives, and spent all of their time beating their wives, raping their maids, and leeching off of their rich friends.

Hey how much bread does Venezuela send to those starving African children? Remind me. Oh right, they don't have any bread to send! I wonder why that is.

Jesus. I'm a Marxist apologist but this is plain delusional.

That would require GW moving the storyline forward. Maybe you'll get something after they're done sucking Girlyman's borrowed great flaming sword long enough for it to mean anything.

The problem is that the Imperium already has a lot of the bad look at communism stuff already if you squint a little. They've also got a shitton of Russians.

I'd honestly be pretty mad if fictional races were 1:1 parallels of real world shit, even as part of some sort of social commentary.

The big reason I think that I hate Tau is that they're so fucking tiny and can't have any sort of impact on the setting. They should stretch across part of the galaxy, have settlements around the fringes, something. Instead they're a literal blip that only gets to join in on campaigns outside their safe suburban neighborhood if someone pays for their warp fare.

>Guy explains how Tau AREN'T communist
>Just close your eyes, cover your ears and shout "COMMIE COMMIE COMMIE COMMIE" at top of your lungs
I swear, you amerifats get triggered by mere mention of communism worse than tumblrina when you tell her there are only two genders.
Papa McCarthy brainwashed you well. I'm not even a commie, it's just hilarious to watch.

>The orwellian stuff came later, when everybody bitched about MUH GRIMDARK
It was actually an expansion of what they'd done from the initial codex and all the supplementary fluff in the period between it and the fourth edition book. The weird, unquestioning obedience to the ethereals (to the point of willingly killing themselves if asked) is old, farsight breaking out of their control and being seen as a dangerous element for it is also old.

They just went from a tiny effeminate book to a big thick book, and were thus free to explore concepts that were before one-off lines of text or shoved in white dwarf.

I wish Tau were more /m/

>classless structure
>the tau
Excuse me?

>before any legitimately "bad" stuff happened in the USSR
The famines are always somebody else's fault, aren't they?

>Tau
>Communist
Are you a fucking retard? Do you even know what communism is? I mean seriously have you ever read a fucking book? If you think the Tau in any way reflect the aims of communism you should probably kys right now.

youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c

In canon there's only one planet where that happened and it's because the Tau thought it'd be a good idea to just let humans into their society. One emergency later where the military was called off to fight a battle, the armed forces of that planet returned to find that the humans had killed and ATE their families. They were upset and that's where the neutering happened. There's no other reference to that actually happening.

His argument being that Capitalism sees just as many deaths, via exploitation and abject poverty of wealth inequality, as any Communist government does.

Except that's simply not true

>Future alien civilisations will follow ideologies and economic systems of 20th century Earth.

Just make them closer to humans during the early days of Dark Age of Technology.

So now they've gone mecha, Tau sells much better?
Is GW making a lot of money off weebs?

>A classless structure where everyone works for the betterment of everybody else for the "greater good."

Aren't the Tau a literal caste system? Where your future is dependent on your birth?

You make a really good point, OP. But like said, the Imperium already covers the comically terrible authoritarian communist angle. Pretty much every form of oppression and repression are business as usual there: theocracy, fascism, plutocracy, totalitarianism, and yes, communism too. 1984 is a huge and obvious influence.

Yep. 40K is absolutely not about freedom and prosperity. They're really nowhere to be seen, certainly not together, except maybe in small bands of smugglers, pirates, and rogue traders on the fringes of society.

THIS is how it should be. Obviously let them keep their shiny high-tech antiseptic military gear, but I want some fluff about how their pleasant prosperous society is starting to fall apart due to contact with the grimdark. Enough of this, "well, once they realize what they're in for, once they feel the true power and scale of their enemies, their confidence and success will fade." Let's see that process start.

There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

The Tau are fascist racialists, not communists.

I think it comes from the idea that there's no shame or too much pride in being higher or lower in the hierarchy. Sure, you are permanently prevented, genetically and socially, from ever leaving your caste, but nobody will ever say that you are a loser for remaining a firewarrior for 40 years. No Tau will ever talk about the "rabble" or the bloody ignorant "peasants" unlike in the Imperium feudal structure. Perhaps collectivism vs individualism would be a better term.

You're right about them not being communists: they're more like utilitarians with an eastern caste system, materialist and secularist sentiments that echo the kind of "We don't care what you believe as long as you pay tribute to our cause" to the conquered, and a bit of Japanese and Chinese culture splashed in. Not every type of collectivist ideology was communism. Even the grim dark elements like subtle manipulation by the ethereals, and the sterilization of humans don't strike one as uniquely communist. Only the propaganda about farsight, a former hero of their cause now made a villain echos the tale of the purges in Russia, but it's a tale which itself echoes the view of an authority towards anyone who rebels (or is expected to rebel) against authority after serving it, even when the authorities are just and good, and isn't unique to any particular system.

They are commies because robots do all the work and you are not allowed to own a kilometer-wide palace for yourself even when you are Shas'O.

3th ED was not join us or die. The Tau offered races that didn't want to join the chance to sign non-aggression treaties. Then the Tau would just leave them alone. Heck, the fluff also says that the Tau adopted primitive races into their empire that does not benefit the empire. Why did they do it? It was out of charity and friendship (source is the Tau BFG rulebook).

Then came the 4th ED codex and made the Tau a whole lot more grimderp. Explain yourself. Why do you have good guys?

Bring their mysterious benefactors out of the shadows already. The same guys who have protected them by invoking warp storms, cockblocking the Imperium from exterminating them, engineered the Ethereals, and are probably behind the many strokes of luck behind their rise. Say things like, fortune favours them like no other, to the point that even the braindead Imperium begins to wonder...

No.

That would ruin the mystique behind the Tau. GW has a policy of persevering the mysteries of the setting and letting the players play around with them.

But 1984 is dystopian, wheras Brave New World is genuinely utopian, and the pathetic rip-van-winkle tried to ruin everything because he's a primative cave-man compared to the genuinely contented society..

>3th ED was not join us or die.
3rd edition literally has them committing to the invasion and settlement of imperial worlds, with an ethereal straight up telling the imperial ambassador that if they continue to stand in his way they'll kill everyone. And they fucking do.

Then the ethereals covertly work with the imperium to kill off their own general because he was being a problem. This book came out in THE SAME YEAR as the 3e codex. It was the first novel with Tau in it, written by one of the guys working in the studio. You are fucking blind if you did not notice any darker undertones within the tau fluff before 4th edition rolled around.

Codicii are more canon than BL crap
Tau dindu literally nuffin in 3rd Ed.

Half of my post was about the third edition codex, you colossal retard.

3th ED BL? The time where CS Goto was writing books for them? Discarded. Try finding GW canon.

"the greater good" as a concept is inherently distopian though. There have been many rebuttals of the concept of utilitarianism. lets say you have a homeless man and 5 people that need different organs. Is it okay to kidnap and murder the homeless man to give his organs to these people? The greater good is just a tyranny of the majority.

No, it's not. It was about some BL novel. Open the 3rd ED codex and find me some dark tones.

>No, it's not.
Read your codex.

tau are inexperienced and don't yet know what you have to sacrifice socially to survive in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium

I did. I saw no dark tones. In fact in your picture related the ethreal comes off as the decent guy.

You're an idiot and you're hilarious to watch. The posts call you out for being a communist apologist (the US was to blame for soviet stavation because the US hates the idea of worker's rights in other countries? Fuck out of here), and you are trying and failing to move the goalposts to make it about something else. Also McCarthy was right.

They're making a lot of money off Riptides

its obviously the kabal, growing up the tau as a warp neutral successor to the imperium in their war against chaos

"the Greater Good" to the Tau is not what you just described. That's for humans today in the 21st century. For the Tau it's just te name of their philosophy of collectivism + Manifest destiny to make an empire.

I'm tired of liberals, commines, socialists, nazis, ecologist and conservatives. Can we get some new ideology in this century?

>1d4chan the thread

>I did.
Obviously not. Usually it's the other way around in 40k, but nimbosa has always been about an alien empire trying to expand through violence.

>"You should both go back to your Emperor and tell him what you have seen here. Tell him of all the people that will die in his name, and ask him if it is worth such a price to stand in our way."

It's a fucking border dispute with a xenophobic Imperium. And clearly from the text that it wasn't intended to be a human world during the writing of this since it mentions Tau colonists being already there.

And may I remind you that the Tau and Empire have been in a state of war since Damocles?

They're already too /m/

They've completely lost the alien coalition angle in favor of MORE HARDSUITS MORRREEEE

>How could we remedy the way the Tau are written and depicted to be to communism what The Empire is to fascist theocracy?

Why would you bother?

The Tau are fine as they are. The point of them is that they're totalitarian alien invaders that would be the bad guys in any other setting, but here they're a preferable alternative to the humans, because humans have let themselves become so monstrous.

Not everyone has to be as shitty as the Imperium. No-one complains about Eldar being pretty great in terms of how they treat their own people.

On the other hand, 2000AD has a long history of having horrible, horrible things happen to "nice" people to show how awful a situation is and because its funny. Tau naivety (or even just responding to the horrors of the 41st millennium in a rational 21st century manner) can work very well, particularly if you play up the information control angle - the Ethereals know full well how bad things can get, but the masses of Tau do not and they like to keep it that way.

>communism
>caste system
Do you know what communism is?

You just want an excuse to talk shit about Communism.
This. Their society can only be controlled by the actual psychic groupthink of the Ethereal caste.

>or even just responding to the horrors of the 41st millennium in a rational 21st century manner

Which in the case of the Tau it worked spectacularly as they are prosperous and thriving. The Tau outlook in alien relations have netted them friendship and allegiances of hundreds of species/races. Sure there has been a few hiccups like with the Dark Eldar, Orks, and Nids but the vast majority of the races that the Tau met are not inherently evil or hostile. So they are justified in pursuing their way.

It's only when the Tau had Imperium ways rub off on them, becoming belligerent and militant in response to the Imperium brutality, did they start to suffer.

So all I am seeing is vindication that 21st approach is the best in the gromdark.

Clearly not. It's some /pol/ faggot (fascists are the only bundles of sticks I know) that lives his power fantasies through plastic space mans.

It's fine. The problem with Communism isn't Communism, it's humans. Human nature doesn't match communism, it wont allow for it. IF you have a race of aliens who can easily do it, then it will go very well for them.

>Doesn't the Tau empire castrate/geld/neuter any races that join them
No, they only sterilised a few human hive worlds because the populations are just ridiculous.

>Some hive worlds have 500 Billion people living on them.
How can they even all be fed?

More humans live under Communist governments than Capitalist governments.

No, the lore says that Tau are in desperate need for manpower. So they target worlds with large populations and funnel the populations to their core worlds to fuel their empire as works and soldiers. The Ta would not endanger a resource that they direly need.

And for fuck sake, you moron, EVERY SINGLE MENTION OF THE GUE'VESA'LA, LIKE EVERY.SINGLE.ONE, says that the Tau do NOT USE THEM AS A CANNON FODDER. Not meat shields or whatever. The Tau do not even believe in that concept. It's an alien concept to them.

China's about as communist as Donald Trump

Food from other worlds.

The Tau are still in their Lenin Era. The imperium, the Eldar, the necrons all decayed over thousands of years of brutal war into the monsters they are today. The Tau will follow if they can survive. The cracks are allready beggining to show.

Aun'va is dead (who was a big dick). Aun'shi is gonna take charge hopefully (dude is a bro). So refirms to the better might be on their way.

>since it mentions Tau colonists being already there
Tau colonized an imperial border world, in an attempt to assert dominion over it. Brings military forces to bear before the opposing power can reinforce their position.

Literally imperialism 101, and unsurprisingly written by the british. The imperium being xenophobic (despite being the ones to send a diplomatic envoy) doesn't change who the aggressor is in the story.

>may I remind you that the Tau and Empire have been in a state of war?
Yeah, and funnily enough nimbosa was the first instance of either side in the conflict going traditionally warhammer overkill and genociding the population of a planet.

Which leads right into brightsword's fate, which has since been printed in the main codexes in addition to the whole "nuh uh that doesn't count because gav thorpe proved me wrong" novel. Tau have ALWAYS had more going on under the surface.

Put your name back on so my filters can catch you, TIDF.

Personally I like that the Tau aren't as grimderp as everything else. I'm glad they added a bit of dystopia to them, when they first released they had very few downsides, but them being this dynamic, optimistic race offsets the rest of the factions for me.

The only reason they're niave and relatively utopian is because they've essentially been protected from the rest of the galaxy by a warp storm and then the sheltered by the bulk of the Imperium from most of the truely nasty shit.

I don't think they need to become a pastiche of islamic gommunism just because the Imperium is a pastiche of other kinds of despotism.

Explain Chinese great leap forward and the subsequent famine due to the lack of sparrows to eat locusts.

>unable to breed outside

So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying recreational sex with gue'vesa, to promote integration, would be encouraged due to the zero risk of offspring?

Anons ITT already gave excellent answers.

I only add one little thing: 40k is a grimdark setting, right?
If there is a faction, this Tau, that is too good to be true... now that is the secret: you don't know what's really going on with them.

It's creepy because we don't know how the Ethereals really rule them.
Psychic stuff? Nope.
Hormones? Nope.

We just know that something is not ok.
Knowing how every other races are fucked up in 40k, there MUST be something with the Tau, too.
And that's it.
It's a mystery. Maybe one day we'll have the answer, maybe not.

Will the Emperor ever recover?
Were have the Tyranids actually come from?
Who / what were the Old Ones?
And finally: why are the Tau so not-grimdark?

The answer for all of that is: we just don't know.

>Tau colonized an imperial border world

Prove it from the 3rd dex.

>The imperium being xenophobic (despite being the ones to send a diplomatic envoy) doesn't change who the aggressor is in the story.

And the diplomatic envoy was a sham. The Imperium were just stalling for time. And again, state of war so it doesn't matter who is the aggressor anyways (Iy was the Imperium because they started the whole war in the first place).

>Yeah, and funnily enough nimbosa was the first instance of either side in the conflict going traditionally warhammer overkill and genociding the population of a planet.

What does that have to do with anyway? And Brightsword (It's a clone, not the real guy) went rogue and genocided the populace on his own. He was going get punished for that but the Ethereals decided to politically assassinate him according to the novel.

>Which leads right into brightsword's fate, which has since been printed in the main codexes

Look man. This is like the second lie I catch you in. Not a single one of the codexes mention what happened in the Kill Team novel. They all say that Brightsword (clone) was recalled for censure. That's it.

I loved the story that accompanied that pic. My favourite thing about the Tau is finally having a chance to see the Imperium engaging in diplomacy, something they just can't do with other races, aside from very occassionally with the Eldar.

That diplomat was trying to pretend that the Imperial Fist's captain next to him was just a regular imperial guard soldier and that all of humanity's 'warrior caste' were that fuckheug.