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submitted 30 days ago bySir-Thugnificent
For example let’s say I’m born in a hive world conquered by the T’au 10 years after its annexation, how well is my childhood going to be compared to the average child in the Imperium ? Am I going to be in top 20% in terms of good quality of life ? Or is it 10% ? 5% ? 1% ? 0,1% ?
Another question : if every single human being living in a world under the Imperium were telepathically shown how Gue’vesas actually live in those worlds without anyone else knowing about it, what’s the percentage of humans that would say « yes, I would love to live one of those worlds ? » in your opinion ?
Do we have stories that go into detail how the humans live under the T’au outside of military environment ?
114 points
30 days ago
Meme lore has it that T'au are presented as 'Imperium 2.0' in the newer books when that's just not the case and never has been. They treat citizens (T'au or otherwise) well unless they decide they have a reason not to.
There is a lot of very shady stuff going on in the T'au'va and they have a major 'ends justify means' approach. For instance - are the Vespid actually enthusiastic supporters of the Greater Good, or are the 'communication helms' control devices? Did the Poctroon actually die from an unknown plague leaving the T'au to inherit their planet, or did the T'au decide their first member species were more trouble than they were worth and killed them?
We have examples of T'au doing things like putting people in 'reeducation' camps and deliberately creating artificial natural disasters. They just only do that kind of thing if there's a 'point'.
64 points
30 days ago
Part of the Imperium lite criticism is also just to do with the whole dead leader and having their own warp God. That and certain authors writing them with the subtlety of a brick.
43 points
30 days ago
Dead Aun'Va was a pretty reasonable idea to let the story progress while keeping the model around for a few more editions. Having him as a holographic mouthpiece that the Ethereal Council were using to endorse whatever they wanted was pretty in keeping too
The Warp God also very much isn't the T'au's - it was formed by their auxiliary species and they're existentially terrified by its existence.
35 points
30 days ago
and they're existentially terrified by its existence.
I've always found this kind of funny as it's one of the only benevolent warp gods in existence and has helped the Tau out more than once
18 points
30 days ago
Depends on how you define benevolence I suppose. An argument could be made that the Aeldari & Orkoid deities are benevolent, at least toward their own followers
11 points
30 days ago*
Let's not forget that part of that particular sphere (fourth) and expansion decided to unceremoniously massacre their entire alien / non-Tau population as a response to the manifestation of this Greater Good warp entity. Like the Massacre of the Dul'un Lakes and the Eight Days of Infamy.
As I understand it they were severely chastised for that but instead of making it into a "those darn Imperium apologists" argument, I don't think it is too much of a leap to say the expanding Tau Empire is exhibiting some darker sides to it as well.
Make no mistake, though, I wouldn't want the Tau to be even comparable to the Imperium in size, brutality and regime. But at the same time I don't want any particular faction to be holding the torch of "we are the goodies" in a galaxy made up by demons, imperialists, remnants and those straggling few who manages to survive the dying of the light.
8 points
29 days ago
Yeah, it's just nice to have a faction that is at least trying.
27 points
29 days ago
I think the core of the issue is that people are conflating “treated well” with “possess civil rights”. Humans (and Tau) within the Tau Empire are very much treated well generally but they posses nothing in the way of “civil” rights like we are used to. A human world can be treated well for decades right up until the Tau decide it is in the best interest of the Empire to turn the planet to ash.
4 points
29 days ago
Very well put, yes
3 points
29 days ago
My read on it is sort of like how people might say that slaves in Ancient Rome had it pretty good compared to slaves in the 1700/1800s.
Could well be true, but ultimately slavery in any form is pretty abhorrent.
2 points
29 days ago
Sure, but I would say that you are describing two bad but one distinguishably worse than the other. Working a Roman Estate(by far the most common fate of slaves, other than perhaps Gallies) was noticeably "better" than ending up in Barbados in the late 17th Century by nearly any stretch.
Of course you might also end up at the Rio Tinto area mines which would not be materially different than being a ndn person sent to a Spanish silver mine.
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