LincLoud
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Still looking for more? Follow the links to a list of other posts so far:
(A-E): https://imgur.com/a/looking-more-just-scroll-down-f-Ax6a1jG
(F-K): https://imgur.com/a/looking-more-just-scroll-down-g-l-bkN1PH4
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And now I even started posting Age of Sigmar comics & memes:
https://imgur.com/a/looking-more-aos-scroll-down-2pwprn2
As well as The Old World comics & memes:
https://imgur.com/a/looking-more-tow-scroll-down-arHONFN
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New to 40k? Beginner's Guide: https://imgur.com/gallery/beginners-guide-to-warhammer-40k-f9lW49T
Explanation: The Gue'vesa (which literally means "Human Helper" in the T'au Lexicon) is the name the T'au have given to those Humans who have willingly joined the T'au Empire.
Many Gue'vesa now fight alongside the warriors of the T'au Fire Caste on behalf of the Greater Good as what are known as "Gue'vesa Auxiliaries". They even take up arms when required against their fellow Humans of the Imperium of Man.
Fun Fact: The T'au promise that all Humans will be allowed to enjoy the freedom of religion, so long as the practice of that faith does not conflict with the Greater Good. This is a freedom that is unimaginable on Imperial worlds, where rigid adherence to the Imperial Cult is always enforced.
Additional Note: Despite popular myth shared online, there is less lore to support the claim that the T'au castrate humans who join them.
MajMalfunction2
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1aGZwMWMxMHZyZWx2OGE5ZmZ0dTM0MnY4bTg0cXlrdXoxY3Jmd3hmcCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/aKZij6fdoGtOw/200w.webp
JestersWing
Wraid
#3
jacky2734
Then he ends up in the same situation by the end of the book. In a state of crippling existence, kept alive only by the emergency life support systems of his mech suit.
LincLoud
qtRaven
HighSorcerer
qtRaven
OtisTDrunk
L0rdinquisit0r
The greater goods
NapoleonTrousersnakeBonaparte
sircowdog
Nooooooo!!!! The goat girl got recruited!??!
TheFastpaws
It always seems good but what is the catch?
LincLoud
The quality of life might be higher, but you also run the risk of being viewed as disposable to the Ethereals, which isn't different from the Imperium, but depending upon the Ethereal, it could mean you get wiped out just for being human. (Spoilers) In the event of the Shadowsun book, one of the Fire Caste commanders basically got the go ahead to purge a bunch of humans as he viewed any potentially psychic race as dangerous.
TheFastpaws
Dang... Genocide all around then!
LincLoud
The T'au are just better at not being as xenophobic as everyone else
Tahroo
https://imgur.com/wJvbTlu
DeviousWay
My head cannon is that the Tau intentionally keep the human pops low on their world after some Chaos Cult convinced the Tau that what they were doing was just some harmless old religious traditions and summoned some demon spawn.
icantbelieveistillhavetoprotestthiscrap
The Tau are at their best when they're used as a deconstruction of the setting. They don't believe other races should have the right to govern themselves. That's actually pretty evil. The Dominion in Star Trek have the same motivation. In another setting they'd be the villains but in 40k they're arguably the nicest faction and the only one trying to be reasonable in a highly unreasonable galaxy.
sherlockhooves
Only reason they're like that is cause they started out chill and wanting to help out, but all the 40k fanboys cried that they made all their favorite races look bad. So they had to make the Tau evil in some fashion. So they created a cast system for their race, and put in the no other races should govern themselves BS
icantbelieveistillhavetoprotestthiscrap
I remember when they came out. The caste system was always a part of their lore, as is the belief that they're destined to rule the galaxy. That's one of the reasons I never understood why people thought they were "too good". They've always been very "white man's burden".
AgamemnonsMemes
"the lesser of evils" is the sort of vibe. Like the Tau are NOT good, but they aren't as BAD as some other options out there.
Nilihum
Question that's been on my mind as of late; are Gue'vesa allowed to pilot the mechs? If so, what rank can they climb to?
LincLoud
I've read the Shadowsun and Farsight books and they never mention any humans using the suits, however, Shadowsun mentions to a Kroot that she can request one for him, so, it is theoretically possible. Farsight was also aided greatly by a human psyker and has a great appreciation for humans, so, it wouldn't be impossible for one within the Farsight Enclaves to get one.
ImmaCatImmaSexyCat
#1 The greater good.
Eiladar
It also bears mentioning the context behind the 'older than their civilization'. That's from the novel 'Blades of Damoclese' (possibly others, but that's where I remember it from). Basically, up until that point, the Tau considered humans as uncultured, loosely aligned tribes of barbarians that The Greater Good was meant to civilize, and that dreads were just robots. Finding a (mostly) living, butchered being was shocking in and of itself; but the bigger impact was that the Tau were either lied
Eiladar
to by the Etherials, or thet were misinformed to a colossal scale. They thought that they were bringing the light of civilization to the galaxy, but this event forced them to realize that they were the proverbial small fish in a big pond.
lemmerustlethosejimmies
Wasn't there also one book where the Tau conquered/fought on a Hive world and the Tau commander realized there were more humans just in one of the Hives on the planet than every Tau in the galaxy?
Which again begs the question of how the Imperium can't easily crush them, even after the "the focus would cause them to lose ground elsewhere" argument but I digress
RexFury
space is very very big and theres lots and lots of problems
filurilurl
At least in the novel The Greater Good (taking place in the last years of M41) it does say the Imperium being stretched thin is the main explanation why they can't turn around and focus on the Tau Empire in *general*, but also the area the Tau are expanding into is the target of one of the main Tyranid fleets of the time.
The Tyranids were such a major threat to both powers they established at least a local truce and limited co-operation to counter them. Can't remember which hive fleet.
Eiladar
That would fit, yeah. The biggest issue that usually pops up is, because 40k is and always has been a tabletop war game, game balance dictates that the power level in the lore and the power level on the table tend to be _vastly_ different. EG, lore says that Space Marines are these near-invulnerable angles of war. Game-wise, they're pretty much a basic unit. That said, though; the Tau have a few lore points that work against them. They (officially) have no psychic presence or access to the warp.
Eiladar
As such, they don't actually have faster than light travel; hence their 'spheres of expansion', they go out to a specified distance and stop, and will not move on until they've established a strong enough presence in the newly acquired space. This would also mean, though, that their forces are not nearly as scattered as the rest of they 40k factions: They only need to defend the outermost edge and are never out of contact with friendly systems.
DocBenny
they do have faster than light travel, basically just "skimming" the warp's surface. it's just kinda shit
Eiladar
Effectively, their 'core worlds' are every planet in every sphere save the most recent. There were some mumblings that the other reason for operating in spheres was due to some hidden psychic or pheremonal influence the Ethereal caste has over the rest of their civilization; not mind control, per se, but something that makes the others more pliable. At least one of the Tau commanders discovered, after he ended up too far afield, that the Ethereal commands seemed to make less and less sense.
gwiz665
Tau are the closest thing to "good guys" there are in 40k.
LincLoud
The Farsight Enclaves are a sub-faction, but definitely more like real "good guys", while the T'au Empire is kind of mixed as many Ethereals treat all life (save their own) as expendable and have withheld information about daemons/the warp from other T'au.
Vebrandsson
On that additional note the myth of castration comes from the dawn of war video games and while it is possible certain select tau septs do that in select situations even the dawn of war games make it look more like imperium propaganda than truth.
L0rdinquisit0r
they can be chemically neutered, no reason to get physical fetish time.
a dose in their food rations and the slave humans can be exterminated without them even understanding.
soulessdrake
Not just that but I remember somewhere that said that every story told for wh40k can always be set up as false reports, propaganda, and screwed up due to warp shenanigans.
AgamemnonsMemes
Its why everything is canon because everything is true and a lie at the same time.
AgamemnonsMemes
Everything is both true and a lie at the same time.
whyforetho
Dark Crusade was my introduction to 40k, and I thought Tau were the coolest. I replayed it recently, and even in the context of that one planet, it leaves a lot up in the air and doesn't really make a whole lotta sense. IIRC it's presented as a rumor as to why the human population dropped, immediately after the game states, as fact, that humans were segregated by gender, which seems super redundant, and neither one would really explain the population shrinking 95% in 10 years anyway.
ChazzK
Given that "loyalistic religious fanaticism" is one of the core aspects of the Imperium, it would make some sense for the Tau to take SOME measures to isolate and break up populations of conquered territories / worlds, because it's easier to deal with hundreds or thousands martyr-wannabees than millions or billions. But let's assume the 95% rate was right; they probably shipped most off-world, especially those that wouldn't accept the Greater Good.
JokenPo0079
It's also actually in the Deathwatch core rules as well! Page 352:
"Populations are regularly sterilized to prevent population growth outstretching Tau methods of control."
That line was then later omitted in a later expansion of Deathwatch that relates directly to the Tau sept Velk'han. The Expansion also makes it clear that the Imperial lord commander is completely paranoid and intending to stoke fears of the Tau. It's largely presumed to be in universe propaganda.
Grimmrog
Don't need to control population if you regulary lose entire planets to the chaos or wipe them yourself xD
Daliena06
The Inquisition: "Yeah but what if, and hear me out, WHAT IF, we defended a planet from Chaos.. And then sterilized the survivors and sent them to camps to be worked to death anyway?"
Welcome to the First War for Armageddon!
Grimmrog
Ywha i love emporer had text to speech its funny how onenof the emporers firsts command is to disband the inquisition xD
OtisTDrunk
CrisprCAS
It's also just absurd. It's easier to indoctrinate people from birth than as adults, so if you've already got some adults convinced their kids will be easy to keep on side. More soldiers to throw against enemies without risking Tau lives.
Geokhan
To devil advocate a bit, I do think the Tau occasionally reduce their human populations, because humans are very Warp sensitive comparatively. You let humans sit unattended too long and you will get chaos cultists. The imperium is very aggressive about stopping that and still has issues. The Ethereals would totally try to find a subtle way to manage that issue.
AsheLake
2] Imagine how evil Imperium fanboys would call the Tau if they had anything even remotely comparable to Penitent Engines.
AsheLake
1] Right? And if you have an actual problem with someone, why bother to castrate them when you would rather just shoot them anyway?
It's the exact kind of claim that is meant to spark an emotional reaction without any critical thought behind it. Same for claims about the Tau (shock, horror!) brainwashing and dominating people that don't agree with them, as though the Imperium don't already constantly do that even to their own loyalists as a matter of course.
CrisprCAS
It's funny because it sounds exactly what the Imperium would do if they allowed some xenos species to live with them. Don't kill them, but brainwash and castrate.
AsheLake
Those despicable heathens! They're doing what we would do if our policy weren't "Murder first and ask questions never!"
GhostBear3067
From my understanding the whole castration thing was only one T'au commander who developed a hatred of humans after fighting Space Marines and going through the Warp with human auxiliaries and freaking out over the creation of the T'au'va Warp Entity.
ChosenChaos
Yeah, the Fourth Sphere Expansion survivors got a little... tetchy around the auxiliaries
BigSwede7403
"God? We dont have a god."
*Brings in humans*
"You do now!"
LincLoud
Yeah, but Reddit and a bunch of other threads have run wild with it. It seems largely fueled by those who dislike the T'au as a faction.
secretdpp
I'm not a fan of them, but never heard that rumor. I just don't like the goat legs.
RavenousMaw
As both a Deathwatch and Black Templars player, I love T'au, and I want to fight then more. They're a super cool faction.
AVerySillyPuppy
The T'au get too much hope all over their precious grimdark. :3
idiotsonfire
Meanwhile the Tau control something like 1% of 1% of the Imperium and most factions could end them by sneezing.
idiotsonfire
That's pretty damn grimdark to me.
ManicModron
Sometimes memes are stronger than lore.
Vebrandsson
Tau will always be disliked by those not fans of being reminded that the evils of the imperium are not as necessary as the imperium claims, of course if those people could understand subtext better they wouldn't be fans of most imperium pov novels outside of the "marine bolter porn" genre either.
SlightlyRelatedToThePost
Or, maybe they are as necessary as the Imperium claims, considering the T'au- despite their claimed good intentions- brainwash and dominate any that don't follow *their* doctrine. No one is blameless.
LincLoud
Also, the Farsight books show that the T'au aren't exactly innocent, at least not the Ethereal caste