One Dangerously Newbish question: Tau in a Chaos army?

[Ides]

I know I'm probably either inviting trouble or asking a question that is answered by the most fundamental rules of 40k, and if it has already been asked, then please direct me to said thread, but could I include, say, a unit of firewarriors in my chaos army as an Elites choice?

[Stubber]

No...Only certain Imperial armies can take allies from other Imperial codex. Same with chaos armies.
Kroot mercenaries can be taken by many armies but not in a tournament setting

[Ides]

Okey doke. I'm just wondering why there can't be any...for lack of a better term...evil Tau.

[Stubber]

Tau have almost no psychic presence in the warp so they don't succumb to Chaos as easily.

[Perturabo]

Originally Posted by Stubber

Tau have almost no psychic presence in the warp.

Or as I like to put it - No Sense, No Feeling! lol

Fighting for Chaos is not for the "Greater Good" it does not furtheror advance anything it simply destroys and consumes

[Ides]

But from what I understand of it, the Tao didn't give a fig about the Greater good until the Ethereals came along, and even then, they still have the same desires as other mortal races, don't they? Being corrupted by Chaos has nothing to do with why someone would want to go and align themselves with the Chaos Powers.

But isn't the Greater Good subjective? By investigating the secrets of the Warp 1st hand, and finding out what it is that makes Chaos and Psychic power so potent, especially against the likes of the C'tan, they learn how to better utilise that power, and how better to defend themselves against it. Would that not benefit the greater good?

[Cagarner]

The Tau are controlled by the Ethereals, and the Ethereals probably don't want their minions messing with the Ruinous powers.

If the eldar made the tau (we all know its true really!!!), then they would have wanted to create a race of blunts (non Psychic) to prevent the same fate as the eldar.

[Ides]

So the question here, is whether or not the Ethereals would consider using the Warp, or whether the Tau can think for themselves...interesting.

And if an Ethereal did consider trying to use the power of the Warp...well, chances are that you might see some truly spectacular machines.

[Perturabo]

Well when the Tau were left to their own devices (before the Etheral turned up) they nearly wiped themselves out, so letting them think for themselves is not a good idea!

[Spartan2154]

Originally Posted by Cagarner

The Tau are controlled by the Ethereals, and the Ethereals probably don't want their minions messing with the Ruinous powers.

If the eldar made the tau (we all know its true really!!!), then they would have wanted to create a race of blunts (non Psychic) to prevent the same fate as the eldar.

The Eldar Made the Tau?!?!?? please inform me of what has transpired.

[Cagarner]

It is only a rumour. It has been presented in a number of popular stories, including the great; Rise of the Tau. This is not official GW stuff. The eldar noticed the barbaric state the early Tau were in, and then created the Ethereals to bring order.

The Eldar are a dying race, and part of their great quest to rid the galaxy of Chaos is to create a totally non psychic race to eventually fight chaos.

This is similar to what the old ones did to get rid of the C'tan, but they created the eldar, humans and orks.

[Stubber]

Originally Posted by Spartan2154

The Eldar Made the Tau?!?!?? please inform me of what has transpired.

A guy called Revenant is writing an excellent fan-fiction called Rise of the Tau on the Black Library forums. It will explain all, but you'll need a few hours to read it.

Originally Posted by Ides

So the question here, is whether or not the Ethereals would consider using the Warp, or whether the Tau can think for themselves...interesting.

The Tau can think for themselves but look to the Ethereals for guidence on what course of action to take in highly important events.
They don't need an Ethereal to tell them to go to the jacks before they crap themselves.

Tau have limited knowledge of the warp but they are researching it and have already developed limited ward drive capabilities

[Cagarner]

Yea, the common tau instinctivley look to the Ethereals for leadership. This is because the Ethereals give out a pheromone which causes the common Tau to become easy to manipulate by the ethereals.

It is not just the mighty Revenant (Not reverant) that has mentioned it. He has mearly added the theory into his stories. The idea has been going around for ages.

[Ides]

But the idea is not entirely implausible.

The Tau look to the Ethereals for guidance instinctively because of this pheromone, and I assume some of them are aware of this? So one possibility, (ok now I'm argumentive for the sake of being argumentive but hear me out) what if some of average Tau developed a resistance to said pheromone? It's bound to happen some time, because no system is perfect, look at every movie of AI gone wrong. Or, and here's the other plausible possibility, someone else introduces that resistance into the Tau geonome.

That could be done with a virus or other biological agent, but the only problem is that there are only four races that could do this; Necrons (pariah gene is a prime example), Eldar (why would they want to sabotage their own weapon), Tyranids (possible, but doesn't seem to be their style), and Dark Eldar (most likely cause, as the infighting amongst the rebel Tau branches and subsequent increases in chaos leave the stage clear for more raiding and slaving.). Humanity and Chaos seem to be out of the question as they don't have the wherewithall to engineer something on that scale.

It wouldn't need to be a big thing either, just a small concern here, a questionable decision there. Commanders questioning the necessity of some of the Ethereals' decisions, like the decision to hunt down every remaining ork after the victory in the Dark Crusade campaign when a complete purge obviously wasn't necessary to the war effort.

It's an idea, but not likely to happen unless GW is desperate for a new army I suppose.

True, the tau almost destroyed themselves, but then again, so did humanity countless times. That was part of their growth, their evolution. It was the process that would help them define themselves. By interfering with that, the ethereals (if they were created by the eldar), may have pushed the Tau race into the limelight before they were ready. And with the onset of the Necrons, the possibility of a full-scale Tyranid invasion, and the usual battles with humanity, Chaos, orks and Eldar, the Tau will need more than an idealistic outlook to survive.

[infiniti]

the tau will survive they can shoot anything out of the water even a titan so dont put them down yet also farsight could be considered chaos if the artifact he found was a chaos maybe it affected him and his warriors and that is why he created the farsight enclave ( only a theorie)

[Killermoose]

The reason I think farsight rebelled is on Arthos Moloch. There must be something there which is to do with the Tau's history, and awakened Farsight to the fact that he was being manipulated by the Etherals. I think the same as Revenant (seriously, read that story!), as it seems to make sense.

[Ides]

Well the way I see it, the Ethereals are pushing for this idealistic and thoroughly useless vision of how things should be, rather than listening to their commanders. And Farsight could be the beginning of something. I mean, if the rest of the Tau realise that the Ethereals are only using them for their own ends, then how they handle things after that could determine which way the 40k Universe will go next.

Then again the Tau seem to be the only race that isn't inherently xenophobic so perhaps they'll survive the tyranid onslaught.

[Perturabo]

Originally Posted by Ides

Then again the Tau seem to be the only race that isn't inherently xenophobic so perhaps they'll survive the tyranid onslaught.

Part of them being everything that the Imperium is not - They welcome new ideas and technology and inovate and develop new ideas quickly and effectively, they are an open minded outward looking civilisation and welcome almost all races/species they come across a chance to join the quest for the greater good. The Ying to the Imperiums Yang

[Cagarner]

Yea, an nice new hive fleet coming through the Tau empire would sort a lot of problems out. The Ethereals make the Tau stronger than if the tau were left on their own. Since the Ethereals came, the tau have risen from tribes and spears, to a sector spanning empire with amazing technology. Technology that took the imperium 10,000 years to produce has been surpassed bay the Tau in under 1,500 years.

I believe that some tau would still welcome the leadership of the Ethereals, as the need to add to the cause of the greater good is all that they know. It is the basis of their very culture, and only a ambitious, hot headed fire warrior commander has the initiative to do anything about it.

[Stubber]

Originally Posted by Ides

Well the way I see it, the Ethereals are pushing for this idealistic and thoroughly useless vision of how things should be, rather than listening to their commanders.

Senior members of each of the four Castes (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) make up councils to advise the Ethereals and they listen too...some of the High Lords of Terra wouldn't even know their second-in-command's name.

*shrugs* Chaos don't need no stinking space anime-commies. The breakdown or introduction of the gene would never happen. It is, as I have read, a sereis of pheremones, and it would be exceedingly impossible for people to A. Isolate the pheremones. B. reproduce them and C. alter them or build counter active contanigens. The development of this requires both a strong access to both T'au and other Empire members, as well as an Ethereal to work off of.

The forces you mentioned who would actually be able to do this wouldn't go through this process. Necrons could just harvst their souls and be done iwht it (why give more power to their weakness: the Warp?). The Eldar wouldn't destroy anything vaugely anti-chaos, unless they had serious beef, and they don't. Honestly, DE is the only race I could see doing this, and they are the same as the 'Crons. Why go through the elaborate scheme when they get plenty enough slaves as is, in reality?

[Ides]

Its a point. But it would still be interesting to see.

I'm just curious as to what would happen if Tau technology mutated in the same way that human tech did.

I also think that the Tau are more like humanity than it would seem.

I actually see Tau as more like the Eldar, but that is a long and convoluted theory.

[Killermoose]

Please, go on...

I see Tau as much like Mankind in it's early expanision to the stars. But with some other qualities (and flaws) mixed in.

[Ides]

Well, the only problem is, we don't know what mankind was like during its first expansion to the stars. For all we know we could have been exactly like the tau, but years of being battered, killed, enslaved, etc by various alien races cured us of our open, sunny dispositions.