Tau Civil War

With 8th edition focusing almost exclusively with Imperium & xenos "allies" vs Chaos, I've been thinking of the potential for a Tau vs Tau campaign. With their empire growing in number but still knowing fuck all about the general horrors of the galaxy, I'm expecting the Tau Empire to crumble under its own weight once the veil of ignorance is pulled off. How would GW make a Tau Civil War campaign that fits into the lore and it's not just Ethereals vs Farsight, but something with more meat?

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Problem is (or not, depending on your view) is that Farsight doesn't want to fight the T'au Empire, and the Ethereals (or at least Aun'va) don't want that either. Aun'shi even travels to the Enclaves and bros it up with his old Sept buddy. An outright civil war would look bad for the Empire and Farsight still cares about the Empire as a whole, enough to come to their rescue in the second Damocles Crusade. I also can't see a reason for this to change, unless a new Aun'o really hates the Enclaves. But again, a war would look bad.

That's the thing. The status quo right now needs to change for a civil war to be possible. The most possible scenarios for a civil war would be chaos corruption and some sort of rebellion from their servient races, but I don't know if that could ever happen.

You mean we get to see the chinks in the plot armor?

But that would make the Tau interesting and fit the themes of the setting... can't have that.

There is absolutely a divide in classes between Tau and servient races in the beginning or middle of the indoctrination procedure, which takes generations to complete properly

I think they should take the opportunity of the timeskip to massively increase the size and reach of the Tau Empire. Anything else limits them too much for stuff like this, because they're so comparatively small that any real schism or defeat risks complete annihilation.

What they should do is to give more hints about their mysterious benefactors that have guided them through the hand of the Ethereals.

The T’au don’t want to have a civil war, the Mont’au is something they do not wish to return to. It was one of the main reasons for the T’au for wanting to work together since they almost genocided themselves back then

The new map implies they are about the size of a snall Necron Dynasty. This is already huge. If this was at scale, they would have several millions of potential planets to terraform.

It’s like it says in the new updated lore about the size of the T’au, in that they are too big to eradicate in a single swift strike at the moment. The Imperium had a chance during the Democleas Crusade, but that window of opportunity is gone.

Actually, in the end of the Mont'ka book, Shadowsun has a talk with Farsight. She says that that the council ordered her to go after him and arrested and/or kill him. She decided to get him a head start out of thanks for his aid.

This implies that Farsight and Shadowsun will have a bitter conflict in the future.

How big can they get before they become a legitimate threat for the Imperium? Can they just expand indefinitely as long as they don't cross the borders of the eastern fringe? How many planets can they terraform to compènsate for their lack of space? Because if they keep this rate of growth, by the time the 10th edition comes out, we're going to be looking at a very strong Tau empire, unless Necrons or Tyranids actually slow down their advance.

I want O'Shavah and the Ethereals to come to an understanding that they're more powerful fighting side by side. Further show the other races the power of The Greater Good and the Tau's honor and loyalty.

TTHHIISS

The Ethereals keep too many secrets from their own species (Chaos, the rebellion of the Men of Metal...), and use underhanded tactics to keep other races subservient (reconditioning camps, brain controlling Mal'kor...). They are a ticking bomb ready to explode.

They carry the burden of that knowledge so the rest of the species can persevere. Every Tau has a sacrifice they're ready to make, that is the Ethereals.

Why do the humans turn to chaos? Because they are afraid, greedy, and selfish. When the Ethereals are the ones to carry the knowledge of the outside world, all the other Tau can live knowing nothing but prosperity and victory, and, in doing so, achieve the paradise the Tau'va promises them.

Yes, because that didn't bite other species in the ass before.

I wonder if they will have a separate list for the Empire and another one for lost fourth sphere of expansion.

regimental-standard.com/2018/01/31/damocles-gulf-no-longer-on-fire/

I wonder if GW is going to do something with that lost sphere of expansion. They have the chance to do so much with it (the fleet appearing on the other side of the galaxy, the crew becoming corrupted by Chaos, mutated by genestealers and having a massive genestealer-tau war, some other species findsing the remainings of the fleet and combining it with their own, a flat out rebellion after discovering some big secret...).

>something with more meat
Have the various client races taking sides.

But as the tau dexes have put other races under the rug to give more space to giant robots, fat chance of that.

Most tau consider taking the life of another tau abhorrent according to codex.

Maybe a xenocidal campaign against a minor xenos race becomes public after they politely declined the Greater Good? Maybe the Tau army goes absolutely bonkers and massacres the population, and it gets recorded for everyone in the Empire to see. Maybe that makes the servient races uneasy and try to get away from the Ethereals, and when they try to do something against it, they declare their independence from the Empire. Which species stay with the Ethereals and which ones go rogue? Would Farsight try to help the rebels to avoid a slaughter? Would another power try to help the rebels in this to tip the scales of war (maybe the Alpha Legion trying to destabilize the region, maybe the Necrons trying to expand there, maybe genestealer cults try to end the Tau Empire to let the Hive Fleets an easier travel through that region...).