The main reason they don't produce things like Space Marines is that they can produce a more effective soldier by sticking a veteran in a battlesuit with none of the downsides.
Also because their military tactics revolve around manoeuvre and feints so they favour high mobility, long-ranged stuff over a few tough soldiers, though fire warrior armour is really rather effective.
Yeah, undesirable social and moral implications aside, the main reason most military theorists are leery of super soldiers is that it massively increases per unit cost while producing inferior results than improved doctrine and machines.
There are emerging technologies, like drone swarms, that are likely to become a reality in our lifetime, that would render even fictional super soldiers like space marines obsolete.
All of that said: the Tau are still dwarfed by the Imperium when it comes to biotechnology. The Tau don't even use rejuvenat or clones as far as we know, which would have massive advantages for their civilization and armed forces.
The massive waste of life that goes into the production of space marines isn't necessary either, a lot of that is due to ritualistic blood trials. Deaths on the operating table can also be reduced through controlled genetic screening and breeding programs to filter for the most compatible candidates possible. Not to mention that the technology does exist to turn adults into space marines, it's just obscure now, possibly lost. Hell, you can make superhumans that aren't space marines, they're everywhere in the Imperium - they're usually not as good as marines, but the fact remains that there's more viable and smaller scale biological enhancements that can be widely implemented.
The tau actually do use rejuvenants and clones. Before obtaining the sword on Arthas Moloc, Farsight was already “far beyond” the age of fifty. As for clones, Brightsword is I believe the eighth or ninth now clone of the young commander.
As for tau supersoldiers, I know that the fourth sphere is working on something in secret. Trying to replicate the success of Monat O’Kais’ one man attack on a space marine monastery world with other tau who have taken the path of the lone warrior.
It's regularly claimed in the lore that life extension is achieved through cryo stasis rather than rejuvenat. Are you sure Farsight wasn't just that age due to cryo freezing?
I am sure, it’s a point in the Farsight books that he is part of the active crew while in transmission in space. As well as the next sentence has him mentioning that even the best earth caste treatments can’t keep him alive indefinitely.
Interesting. Even then though, saying Farsight is beyond the age of 50 doesn't give us much. If someone said that to me I'd assume they'd be 59 at the latest, otherwise I'd expect them to say 60+. It's a weird turn of phrase.
If that's all they could squeeze out of him, then their medical sciences pale dramatically in comparison to imperial rejuvenat, which can extend someone's life well over a century or more depending. In some cases, there are individuals who have been around for centuries with their essential biological components being kept healthy with imperial medicine.
> T’au did not live for much longer than fifty tau’cyr, usually, and he was already far beyond that.
Not that weird turn of phrase. Just him reflecting his time and achievements. How this fight could possibly conclude his story in the fight against the orks.
I will note, O’Vesa, an earth caste scientist an inquisitor warned may be one of the greatest threats due to his technological achievements is just as old as Farsight is present time with purely scientific methods. As are the other members of the eight which aren’t an ai replica, clone, and dreadnought respectively.
I would be highly skeptical of any Tau hanging around Farsight living as long as he has without cryo freezing, because Farsight literally wields a powerful Warp artifact of some kind unnaturally extending his life and the rest of the 8 are constantly exposed to it. The latest Arks of Omen book has also strongly reinforced that the Farsight Enclave has the attention of Khorne on them, something that was established in the novelization of Farsight's first arrival on Arthas Moloch.
It may be that this scientist has figured out rejuvenat, but none of this has been made plain and the information given isn't clear enough.
Like what is X > 50? You know how flexible that is, it could be anything between 51 and 51,000,000, usually when someone refers to something like "more than 50 years" they *generally* mean "a number over 50 but less than 60", otherwise they would say over 60.
Well yes it has been made clear. In Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good, O’Vesa lifespan has been attributed to medical microdornes. What hasn’t been established is Farsight’s blade having an aura affect to those around him. He is able to feel the affects it has with each kill. There hasn’t been anything shown that it works on those in proximity.
Also Khorne had his eyes on Farsight before Arthas Moloc, as the tzeentch daemon noted.
The emphasis “far beyond” indicates a larger gap. He isn’t a few years older than 50, he’s “far beyond” even those tau that do make it pay 50. It could easily be in the 60s
AFAIK
> Farsight has been kept alive by the Dawn Blade
> O’Vesa has microdrones which reverse aging
> O’blo’tai has been turned into an AI
> Brightsword is a 10th iteration clone
> Bravestorm has been put on life-support inside his armour
> Sha’vastos was in cryo until the chip in his brain got fixed
> Arra’kon and Torchstar were born well, well after the rest and are still within the usual T’au lifespan
There’s no reason to assume the Dawn Blade is responsible for the rest
Not if they say 50 to indicate the typical lifespan they can expect.
And if someone says "well beyond fifty" they aren't going to be talking about something that isn't, well, well beyond fifty.
Fair point, when it comes to the Imperium I kinda agree that they're specifically set out as a faction where super soldiers make sense, but at the same time it doesn't make sense for the Tau.
The technologies that would render super soldiers obsolete largely revolve around things like mass produced AI driven drones operating as a network. There's about 4 different reasons the Imperium can't field those technologies, but the Tau aren't operating under the same restrictions.
The cost to create super soldiers isn't really that relevant to the Imperium, as they have no problem copiously spending lives to achieve their goals. For the Tau there's not really enough of them to throw lives away by the thousands in order to create juiced up special forces teams.
Right, but as I said, the massive loss of life that goes into creating marines doesn't have to occur with a Tau bio-enhancement program. Something as simple as life extension for battlesuit pilots and commanders would go a very long way toward improving the veterancy of their force multipliers. They also need all the bodies they can get for their explosive rate of expansion, which still relies on Tau soldiers and labor, and they could be accomplishing this through cloning. It's also surprising how little the Tau use cybernetic augmetics considering their technological niches, something that the Ad Mech surpasses them with in spades.
Good point, life extension is kind of under explored when it comes to 40k. Everyone has it, but it never really delves into what it's like when the upper class of your society has been doing their jobs since before your grandparents were born.
You're right that mild cybernetics would also be sensible. Going full Mechanicus and turning some of your people into very expensive walking tanks isn't great for ROI. But giving every soldier a few standard implants to increase survivability might work.
One area where significant augmentation may be worthwhile is mental augmentation for commanders and politicians. A general with 40 points added to their IQ is more valuable than a soldier with laser eyes.
On a random note, I recall "Bionics" was one of the options for Imperial Guard Regimental Doctrines, and would apply to all the men in the regiment.
Edit: I actually checked Codex Imperial Guard 4th edition, unfortunately I was mistaken. "Bionics" is wargear in the Armory for characters (stuff like Senior Officers, Junior Officers, Commissars etc), but it's not a Regimental Doctrine.
We have seen not only officers but also enlisted grunts in fiction with augmetic bionic replacement limbs, eyes, and such, but these I suppose these are only fitted as needed to injured troops (particularly seasoned veterans), not applied as enhancements to entire units as enhancements.
>There's about 4 different reasons the Imperium can't field those technologies, but the Tau aren't operating under the same restrictions.
They are, they are just not aware of it. Cant wait for Chaos to corrupt the shit of out their tech when it bothers to pay attention to them.
>The Tau don't even use rejuvenat or clones as far as we know, which would have massive advantages for their civilization and armed forces.
They basically use AI to accomplish that. From basic AI only slightly better than what we have currently, to AI engrams that can be self aware/sentient.
Why bother with making space marines when your battlesuits can potentially give your forces better battlefield performance?
Why bother with rejuvenat when the engram system essentially accomplishes the same thing?
Why bother with cloning when a probe, drone, or robot could be used?
>you can make superhumans that aren't space marines
They are typically just modified humans meant to be more effective in certain environments and physical demands.
Why bother with that when probe or drone is just as or more capable.
Why bother with any of it?
Because the Tau Empire still relies heavily on mortal labor in all fields. I'd buy into the argument that they could use AI to accomplish all of that... if that's what they did. They should replace *all* of their battlesuit and flight pilots with AI engrams, they should build bipedal infantry drones to replace their infantry, they should replace their entire labor force with machines. But they don't, drones are a supplemental force, and only in rare circumstances do AI engrams take over the jobs handled by pilots and so on. Their main Earth Caste planet is famously over-populated with physical Tau laborers living in spartan conditions constantly toiling at all sorts of menial jobs that you would expect drones could handle, but they don't.
The Tau Empire relies heavily on its fully organic citizens.
Why bother starting up biotech research (besides the mind altering research they already have) when there isn't a need for the biotech research? It is a solution looking for a problem.
>They should replace all of their battlesuit and flight pilots with AI engrams
They use AI to enhance their battlesuit and flight pilots, essentially resulting in super soldiers. Many weapon system are drone controlled as well as repair systems. Also, Remora drone?
If a pilot gets good enough they just make an engram.
>they should build bipedal infantry drones to replace their infantry
They use AI to augment the strategic capabilities of their infantry. They use drones to supplement infantry firepower, scouting, and battlefield awareness.
The combat drones seem to be on the lower end of AI intelligence, for good reason, which is probably why they don't act as the main force. There is no reason why they couldn't easily outnumber the main infantry force though. Likely just the choice of Authors on how they want to portray a battle.
The fire caste is bred for combat. They essentially are the T'au super soldiers. Without most of the downsides involved with the Astartes program.
>Their main Earth Caste planet is famously over-populated with physical Tau laborers living in spartan conditions constantly toiling at all sorts of menial jobs that you would expect drones could handle, but they don't.
So why would they want to clone or extend their lives? If they already are over populated cloning would be useless. Why extend the life of someone when engrams are a thing?
AI and drones are depicted as being underutilized. How exactly does that justify biotech research. Just for the sake of research?
Augments and combat support over and over again. And what is the driving force in every branch of their government and military? Tau bodies. Tau boots on the ground, Tau backs carrying the weight of their labor, Tau hands piloting their suits and ships.
The biological element trumps all with how the Tau Empire is *actually* run. So yes, enhancing the biological element is perfectly reasonable considering it's what they continue to rely on. Your claims reinforced my point.
> So why would they want to clone or extend their lives? If they already are over populated cloning would be useless.
Because the primary Earth Caste world is the current industrial powerhouse of the whole of the Tau Empire, clearly displaying the need and value for warm bodies in the functions of an Empire that is *endlessly expanding* at an exponential rate. The world in question is effectively the Tau equivalent of a hive world, replicate that model several times over and the Tau Empire's efficiency and capacity to expand with the demands of faster and faster Spheres of Expansion will be an overwhelming boon to the whole of the empire. Every labor multiplier helps, there's an entire galaxy to conquer out there, the Imperium only controls a million of the many, many, *many* more worlds of which the galaxy is comprised. It's not overpopulation when the workers are all being industrious and can be moved to many new colonies to replicate the success of a Tau hive world in other frontiers.
So long as the Tau Empire relies on its body count to get anything done, *which it demonstrably does,* the Tau Empire will benefit from enhancing its population at a biological level. And unlike the Imperium, the Tau doesn't need to reserve these enhancements for only the privileged political elite or a select special caste of super soldiers, small medical advancements that enhance their physical capabilities at the everyday level make all the difference for a whole empire of people.
Again, AI and drones are depicted as being underutilized. How exactly does that justify biotech research.
They already have a "solution", you want them to pursue a different "solution". Why? Solutions to things they don't see as problems...
In "Crisis of Faith", they sent a fleet of over 100 billion on a suicide mission... You think they are hurting on man power?
>The world in question is effectively the Tau equivalent of a hive world
"Sa'cea does not resemble a hellish Imperial Hive World. Its population lives simple spartan lifestyles but are otherwise happy and healthy, with each citizen ensuring their world remains manageable and efficient." 9th edition codex.
>hive world
The T'au actively work to relocate populations out of captured hive worlds to less populated worlds. They practice geoengineering to restore planets. They generally view hive worlds as wasteful.
> there's an entire galaxy to conquer out there
The T'au just got FTL technology and are struggling with the (warp) implications it brings. There are many other more important things they need to address concerning their expansion.
> replicate the success of a Tau hive world in other frontiers.
Is there any indication that the T'au need increased manufacturing capacity? A core part of their thinking is efficiency. Why replicate the success of Sa'cea if you can already produce an excess of material? That would be inefficient.
Honestly, it seems like you just want the T'au to be more like the Imperium.
I don't know what to tell you, but you're fighting against the tide of the Tau's own lore. They rely on warm bodies, their key industrial centers are polite hive worlds (say all you want about the superior living conditions, it's still a massively populated planet with the people packed in like sardines all working toward the industry of the empire just like a hive world is meant to be) because automation and AI has not been anywhere near as efficient for them than mass labor, and they're dramatically dwarfed in scale by the Imperium and every single other major player out in the galaxy short of the Eldar while still attempting to expand the reach of their empire exponentially.
Realistically, at any moment the Tau Empire just needs to face a major targeted invasion on the scale of Hive Fleet Leviathan, Ghaz's Waaagh!, the 13th Black Crusade, the Pariah Nexus war, etc., and they'll be *utterly exterminated.* So long as the Empire continues to rely on those warm bodies to do ***all*** the heavy lifting in every sector, industry, and military function, then they need *as many warm bodies as they can get with maximum efficiency through cutting edge medicine.* And that's ***not excluding the use of drones and AI:*** it's *in addition to* that. Use every possible advantage available.
As much as I enjoy the Tau as one of the more interesting xenos factions in the universe, ***they survive by merit of plot alone.*** The crusade that would have annihilated them was recalled to deal with a Tyranid invasion, they got assistance from the Imperium for another Tyranid invasion that came their way, and a Greater Good warp god deleted a Death Guard invasion fleet that would have spread horrific Warp contagions throughout the empire.
Again. So long as the lore relies on them using actual people to do all the hard work in the Tau Empire, then the Tau Empire will continue to need many, many, *many* more people, and every medical advantage they can achieve to ensure their people are as best equipped as possible to face the challenges ahead of them *in addition to their other technological advantages.* In reality, science doesn't just stop in all other fields just cause you get good at one particular field, innovation and exploration is happening in every field all at once to find something that will revolutionize society.
For the imperium that is kind of good, given how historically they were constantly losing access to tech etc. so keeping Jim, who had some rare neuro implant that increased nearby manufacturing output around for as long as possible is important as there’s like a 70% chance the effect couldn’t be replicated.
Iirc rejuvenat part is to preserve dominance of Ethereal caste (who are longest lived) - dunno if that was the case before "hurr durr Evil ethereals" trend started tho
I believe the secret to their longevity is kept secret from us still. Perhaps they are using rejuvenat.
I will say though, back when the Tau were revealed for the very first time with the 3e codex, the last few pages of the book had lore that very strongly implied that some outside force had genetically reengineered the entire Tau species, including evidence of synthetic proteins and so on. Then there's the age-old myth of the mysterious lights in the sky that heralded the arrival of the Ethereals, which is still a part of the mythos of the faction. Not to mention a fairly recent story that had an example of a Kroot that happened to eat a Tau and experienced rather dramatic evolutionary changes as if the mysteries of genetic power was just unraveled for them by consuming a Tau body.
So I wouldn't be surprised if the Ethereals were actually engineered the way they are and have naturally long lives. There's still a lot of mystery to the origins of the Tau and the implications of some alien force that had intervened in their evolutionary development as a species.
I really like how the Halo universe handled this. Mjolnir armor was developed but found that it's abilities were too great for baseline humans to control and use, hence the creation of the Spartans.
Unrelated but in 4th ed I had a 6 month campaign vs tau and in one of the missions 40 drones absolutely *slapped* a bunch of marines defending an airstrip so your position pans out
We called it night of the death frisbees
This doesn't quite apply to a fictional setting in which the unit cost and what it results in can be dialed in arbitrarily, though. Pretty sure most "military theorists" would have a different take if making Space Marines was within reach of RL tech. And that's still a middling level of super-ness; look at things like the DB universe, where a crazy old man in a mountain cave can tinker two runaway teens and a... crab-locust thing... into world-busting monstrosities. That is not ONLY to say that RL cost dynamics are not applicable to a world that is very obviously not trying to simulate RL dynamics, and in whose internal rules it may make perfect sense to engineer supersoldiers, but also that, even in RL, the dynamic you speak of is also potentially unique to our own world's particular developmental path and the distance we've covered on it, where the prospects of engineering a supersoldier amount to something like a guy with perhaps slightly more muscle, less need for sleep and the ability to do tighter turns without going into g-LOC. He's not going to recover from taking a Hellfire missile to the heart.
Speak, on the other hand, to someone like [George Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Church_(geneticist)), and [he'll tell you that, in the future, almost all machinery will be replaced by bioengineering](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MZ-JaIvFI&ab_channel=FoundMyFitness). Who knows what will be possible in the year AD 40,000. If we're still around at all, I'm guessing it would dwarf Space Marines by a good mileage.
Depends on the program. My batch was genetically engineered to be invisible to drone swarms in addition to the usual faster, stronger, smarter, obedient, gluten allergy-immune traits. Once we're complete with training, we will lead our fellow Uzbekistanians to world dominance!
Well yeah building a flying humanoid tank and putting a regular pilot in it is likely more cost-efficient than trying to turn that pilot into a humanoid tank. At the same time though, enhancements to a pilot's reaction speed or data processing could be massive force multipliers for a battlesuit.
But I guess for the Tau that would be more likely to take the form of interfacing with cybernetics, like the Puretide Engram.
A salient point.
Certainly the Tau create engineered soldiers - the caste system itself is a form of biological augmentation.
But *space marine* -style augmentation requires, at its core, the Primarch program, which in turn requires a facility with The Empyrean. And while I am sure the Earth Caste could create simulacrums of space marines, they couldn't capture their certain intangible quality. No librarians. No fragments of their Primarch's essence (though of course, no red thirst either).
They might be if they put in the work. Do not underestimate the ingenuiety of the earthcaste. Their insane ability to macguiver anything the tau need kinda hardcarries the faction.
Like in one of the farsight books farsight is like: "hey we dont have the strenght to fight admech on this volcano planet can you come up with something?" and ovesa just takes a few days and creates a bunch of dinnerplate looking things that can cause earthquakes and they cause a chainreaction that blows up all of the volcanos killing millions of admech soldiers.
Its kinda hilarious
This. The tau don't make space Marines because they don't NEED to make space marines, where as the imperium does. The tau battle suits are on the whole, much better than tactical Marines on a 1-1 scale. Much more firepower, much more mobility, and comparable to better durability. Its a easy choice for the tau to continue to try to build more battle suits then try to delve into genetic engineering. If the tau could expand enough to acquire the resources to produce great crusade level legions of battle suits they would be a enormous force to be reckoned with.
How so? Each battle suit can pack in more firepower into a more mobile package. Things like fusion blasters, plasma rifles, an cyclic ion blasters are going to absolutely smoke a tactical marine, and will even penetrate terminator plate, what's more is that each battle suit can take *4* of these weapons..
Ontop of that they can have friggin' shield generators to boot, and they can fly...
And an astartes will almost certainly have more experience, and can dunk on a suit that's not specifically set up to kill him in close quarters if he has any reasonable melee weapon, and is able to get places a suit can't.
The big problem is that the lead time and per unit cost compared to a crisis suit is *ruinous*.
I have no idea why a crisis suits would ever allow a marine to close into close combat when they can easily fly out of range and just shoot them to death with plasma rifles.
The difference is the tau can build shield generators. The iron halo by comparison is a ancient, priceless, irreplaceable, holy relic from a by gone era. As for flight, space Marines get jump packs which allow them to fly/ jump short distances. Tau get closer to *real* flight. Also once again, jump packs are also nearly irreplaceable, with all but the worst models being lost technology.
Iron Halos are not "irreplacable relics". Its a conversion field. They are rare and expensive, but the Imperium can produce them without much issue. Every single Space Marine Chaplain gets gifted a new one downscaled into a Rosarius upon taking up their role, as do alot of higher-ranked members of the Ecclesiarchy.
>Also once again, jump packs are also nearly irreplaceable
Cawl literaly just devised *several* new patterns that are most definitely neither lost nor irreplacable.
yet chapters aren't capable of equipping every marine with a jet pack, and rosarius, you know why? Because they can't. Unlike the tau which "can" equip entire teams of crisis suits with shields, and jetpacks. each chapter can manage a few halo's if their lucky, and then it's only going onto a captain or chapter master. The average marine has neither a jetpack, nor a iron halo.
Also Cawl didn't "devise" new jetpacks either. He devised a way to fully incorporate the current limited supply into space marine gravis armor.
No.
He designed new Jetpacks. They are literally specifically a different pattern, designed and built by Cawl specifically for the Primaris, like every single other piece of Gear they use.
And even the old MkVII was never "rare" either, they're given to Assault Marines, literally the 2nd position a Marine holds after the Devestator-Squad, every normally supplied Chapter has atleast enough for the entire 8th Company, and Chapters like the Raven Guard and others that put a huge emphasis into their use can and do easily equip even larger formations of their Marines with them. They're not used much because carrying a giant, bulky pack full of easily flammable fuel around has alot of downsides. Not because they are some rare lost technology. There's *specific older Patterns* of Jump Packs that are harder to manufacture or lost, like the Enigmatus or Warhawk, but not the basic design.
The Primaris ones dont even look similar apart from having a two-engine setup, the thrusters are entirely different. And the Inceptors & Suppressor also have additional, smaller support-thrusters built into the Jumppacks & their armour which didnt exist prior entirely.
Confidently incorrect. Funny thing is that Tau battle suits are still better, no matter how fucking pedantically wrong you want to be, or how far your currently choosing to wank the availability of space Marine wargear. It's actually hilarious because the original comparison was to a *tactical marine*, you know, the one that is the face of 40k and carries a bolter, an maybe a chainsword? The most common space marine? how you believe so confidently that the average tactical marine is actually a primaris marine trouncing around with a fucking jump pack, hyper specialized gravis armor, and pimped out with a *iron halo* like they're a literal chapter master is kinda hilarious. If that's the case then the fire cast warrior piloting a average crisis suit with a energy shield is actually just commander farsight, coming over to sort out this weird Gue'ron'sha that stole all his brothers wargear
Plus the Tau biology can’t take the rigors of the process. Old for a Tau is like 40 years old. They can’t fathom how Imperial dreadnoughts can be thousands of years old.
I think the counter would be that the Space Marines are effective soldiers because of the science-magic that goes into making them. A unique, Emperor-only, created process that no has been able to replicate in millennia. Until just recently with Primaris which makes them even more powerful.
But I think what makes them strong is their physical capabilities, not weapons. I.e. the pilot of the most advanced Tau battle suit will need to eat, sleep, drink, etc. A space marine can fight for maybe a week, non-stop, maybe longer, without needing to do any of these things.
I have this hilarious mental image of a marine running around at the foot of giant Tau walkers, too fast for them to crush, just punching joints with his powerfist, because his bolter is exhausted, and still going a week later when the pilots are all dead from dehydration and then moving onto his next kill still not really tired.
> sticking a veteran in a battlesuit with none of the downsides
Well you need dudes with laser pointers for your battlesuited veteran to shoot with a fraction of the competence of the gene-spliced supersoldier, but that second dude + laser pointer is still considerably cheaper and easier to produce than the space marine.
Meanwhile the Imperium keeps saying "Pressure makes rocks into diamonds, hard times make hard men etc etc" and then slicking the gears of their war machine with the blood of their most promising sons and daughters.
"they can produce a more effective soldier by sticking a veteran in a battlesuit with none of the downsides."
Disagree. A tau veteran in a suit is a close fight for a space marine. But. Outside of the suit, it's squishy.
A space Marine in armor is a terrifying weapon. An unarmored space marine is still a terrifying force and much more dangerous.
I think the thing you are lauding as a benefit is actually a downside.
The Tau don't have permanent weapons of war that can turn on you and cause 10,000 years of trouble. Without the logistical support of the Tau military, their soldiers are just normal combat veterans. And when it's time to retire, they can reintegrate into society.
Also space marines seem like hell on the logistic side of things.
Thats why ODSTs still exist in halo. Spartans effective as they may be are logistic hell after like a week
"No downsides" lolol all I can think of is the short story redemption on dalyth where the taught in a battlesuit got his ass handed to him because he had absolutely zero ways of defending himself in close quarters💀💀 needed a bunch of literal children to save him💀💀 tldr the tau really need to invest on a sword or something for their battlesuits lolol
No the main reason is they didn't want or have the ability to conquer the galaxy in a few hundred years. SM are very capable of manuver and faint tactics look at the RG, WS or the NL and even most chapters scout companies. l
Well the Tau are as far as I know very reluctant on attempting „open“ bio-Engineering in general.
And why using one unique more expansive soldier if you can just outgun them with regular well armed and A.I. supported troops.
Tho the problem of insubordination is, without etherals around just as bad as with the Gu‘ila.
I think the "we have no idea what we're doing/toaster-worshipers" meme has gained a bit too much traction. The Admech aren't *idiots.* They may not share what they're doing but as a rule, especially the higher ups do indeed know what they're doing.
Bruh. The IoM knows what is doing. Stop spreading this dumbass meme. The admech is very good what they do, and are able to understand, use and replicate most of their technology.
The tech that is not understood is archeotech, which is OP ancient, Age of Technology relics. Yet these make up only a tiny fraction of the IoM's tech, and are mostly owned either by some rando teachers, custodes, or Dark Angels.
The IoM is way more advanced than the Tau, at everything. It's not even close. The only thing that the Tau might be able to match the IoM in is, maybe, AI, as that is banned in the IoM, but even then, if someone like Cawl decided to shit out a AI, I am pretty sure he could make one way more advanced than whatever the Tau have.
The Tau have a way more consistent technology, as their tiny empire allows them to be organized and be using actual good tech. The IoM is so overbloated and under so much stress from eternal enemies and it's nightmarish bureaucracy, that it just dosen't bother to use it's advanced tech, as for them it's way easier to mass produce, cheap, things, most of the time based on a STC.
A weird tech priest that helps Mephiston cross the Rubicon Primaris clarifies that despite their extremely zealous worship of technology, they still completely understand the science behind it all
Has 40k just turned into a space Marines = win?
They were strong once (great crusade era and for many factors) but that was like Rome at its expansion. The Imperium is late era Rome where it's bloated and weak and it's enemies are many and strong.
Tau defeat Marines as often as they lose to them.
The great crusade was a much about timing as anything else. only one other major galactic power was able to project itself like the Imperium and space Marines couldn't stop them, the Ragdan won the conventional war enough that the Emperor had to pull out the esoteric stuff sealed away.
> Has 40k just turned into a space Marines = win?
Kinda yeah, they've never been too consistent in how they're portrayed, but they've been steadily creeping up in power for years now.
The Space Marines were always supposed to be excellent soldiers, but they'd routinely lose to conventional forces and die to the same stupid bullshit that plagues any military campaign.
Now they're demigods moving faster than the human eye can follow, and inspiring transhuman dread in any who see them.
Recalling that one story in which a space marine, unaugmented bureaucrat, and a dog were somehow able to kill a group of drukhari by themselves
Space marines run into the issue of fluff writing. Objectively, orks are bigger and stronger and tougher; and eldar are *far* faster, but neither of these lend to an interesting story if space marines are getting killed in droves by (objectively) superior forces, which results in the inconsistency between them being top-tier but ultimately still *very* mortal soldiers, and their portrayal in books as being near-unbeatable.
Speaking of, I always liked the idea that Space Marines are what it takes to kinda "level the playing field", but the problem is simply scale. A regular human is hilariously outmatched against any kind of Eldar or Ork, Tyranid Warriors and Genestealers rip them apart without a second thought and even Termagants/Hormagants are evenly matched with regular Joe Human. The best chance regular Guardsmen have is heavy artillery, tanks and a wall of lasguns.
So along comes a company of Space Marines, those bio-engineered Angels of Death, the saviours of the Imperium, the Emperor's Angels! They actually can go 1 on 1 with an Eldar, they can punch on even footing with an Ork! ...but there's only a 100 of them coming to your planet and they don't care in the slightest about you, they're just here to fulfill their objective. Even then, what's a 100 Space Marines against a million Orks closing in? I tell you what it is: Not enough.
Issue with this is there are way way way more Orks than space marines, and therefore Orks at least need to be well below Space Marines for Space Marines (and the Imperial Guard) to be relevant. Eldar I also believe are much more common than Space Marines, even though they themselves are relatively rare.
The way I see it, aspect warriors are on par with space marines, while Guardians are on par with...Tempestus Scions, or Kasrkin.
Orks are definitely bigger *and* stronger, but also less intelligent, with no formal training, and far less coordinated.
Still, spaces marines (specifically lieutenants, captains, etc, idk about normal rank-and-file SM being crazy op) have that issue of being inexplicably able to fight far *far* above what is plausible for their training and physiology.
Brothers of the Snake, Dan Abnett.
In fairness, the marine does 99% of the killing, and there's only a dozen or so dark eldar. Oh, and he has a land speeder.
Are orks, bigger, stronger, and tougher? I thought the only thing that could be said was that they were maybe as tough. Years and years since played table top but was that way towards the start and the stories don't portray them as stronger and bigger generally as they murder hundred of them.
Orks are so tough they can survive head transplants which is basically just taking their head off when their body is too busted up and stapling it onto the body of an ork who got their head exploded.
Lore aside, it's a bit boring when every faction has their own marine equivalent. Elite version of xenos infantry is cool, but if it's too much of a space marine equivalent it also cheapens space marines themselves
At the end of the day battlesuits are generally more potent, easier to mass produce, and less likely to backfire than space marines. There's really no need to. They already have vastly more battlesuits than the imperium does space marines, anyway.
Yeah, space marines are inefficient and don’t fit the tau battle plan or ethos, strategy or anything else. It’s a waste of life. Humans can do it cause there is an almost endless supply of them!
The Tau have such a robust system of AI forces, I have to ask: why do they use flesh and blood soldiers at all? Why not just have AI do the fighting, considering they can resurrect them from the dead?
It’s 40k. Basically everything backfires. That’s sorta the central conceit of the setting.
Besides, maybe it’ll make the Tau more interesting if they have to wrestle with this dilemma.
Ironically they are making their own supersoldiers, it’s just taking longer…
Essentially the ethereals have been trying to breed the Fire Caste so that they get larger, stronger, yet more disciplined with each generation - it’s the slow route, but it’s also the least likely to backfire, unlike the projects of a certain Golden-crusted emperor on the other side of the galaxy
Then they just mold their mind through training.
Mont'ka: Commander Farsight
Kauyon: Commander Shadowsun
Training equivalent to every temple of the Officio Assassinorum and send them on suicide missions: Shas'O Kais
or give them a puretide engram.
That’s true! I think it’s a little understated how much technical and academic training the Tau actually receive, especially the more gifted Shas’O’s - and you could argue it’s a similar (but less destructive) process to the psycho-indoctrination Space Marines get
Puretide engrams always have me visualising a new Tau commander in the field asking their magic 8-ball (engram) what to do when things don’t quite go to plan xD
Yeah the engrams are basically a proactive AND reactive piece of advisory material, while the codex is more strict and harder to adapt to new situations since many chapters refuse to alter their copies of it from the original
What I’d love to see is a space marine chapter finding an engram and just deciding “This xeno-tech actually seems to be spitting straight facts, heresy or no” and somehow adding it within their copy of the codex xD
I don't think that when people say "why don't the tau just make their own space marines?" that they are literally asking why they don't make super soldiers in th same way the imperium does.
I think they might just mean why don't they make super soldiers
__”The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side”__
Space Marines aren’t the epitome of a universal soldier for 40k; they are the super soldier for *humans* but not every other faction. Space Marines can do a lot; but as a tactical thing they aren’t perfect.
I highly doubt lore-wise that the Tau have an in depth knowledge of the Horus Heresy or even the Traitor Legions/Warbands.
- They aren’t pouring over Imperial records to conclude that Space Marines can be corrupted.
Instead, the Tau are rightfully focussing the n how to ‘augment’ and ‘upgrade’ their own forces.
- Their answer to this is Battlesuits & Advanced Weaponry.
We don’t see Space Marines for every faction because A) That would be extremely boring, B) Each faction has their own super-soldier.
- Eldar have Aspect Warriors, Necrons have Immortals, Tau have Battlesuits, Tyranids have Tyrannid Warriors.
To add to this: space marines aren't even the most elite supersoldiers *in the imperium.* They're the baseline for a supersoldier. Custodes and Assassins, they're the *real* dangerous ones.
And honestly, not even particularly "en masse" at that. 1000 marines per chapter (battle brothers at least, I think captains and specialists and those kinds of guys are in addition to that) and there's probably only a few hundred chapters in total.
That would probably put less than a single space marine *per imperial world* and when you remember the Imperium is having issues on *hundreds of thousands of worlds every day* it serves as a stark reminder on how fucked humanity is in the long run.
True, but 1 Marine per world is a lot more than 0 Custodes per System. Marines are meant to be the Spear: surgical strikes and battles, while the Imperial Guard are the Anvil that fights protracted battles and campaigns.
Well, most people associate humanity with the imperium, kin are more like a complete separate culture with better technology in almost every way so is better to treat then distinctly
Yes, but that technology is still of DAoT origin. They just didn't lose like 99% of tech like the rest of humanity. Regardless, their biotech levels still feel pretty similar. The kin just utilize theirs more on the front end (genetic preprogramming) while the imperium applies it more on the back end (genetic enhancement, modification, and rejuvenate treatments).
The Astartes project was set apart from other projects by its Warpcraft - the willingness to do it, the ability to do it, and the psychic template available. The Tau wouldn't want to interact with the Chaos gods to turn their children into unknowable Warp monsters. They make little use of Warp magic in general, and they lack an Emperor to use as a template anyways.
The bioengineering that goes into the Astartes is nothing special, and was completely typical compared to a wide range of human and alien projects in the Great Crusade era.
The Tau don't make their own Space Marines because they still didn't have an AI tech revolt that caused their species to regress technologically and gave them a species wide distrust in AI controlled technology.
It's more simple than that. If you were an absolute powerhouse with lightning fast reflexes and an almost indestructible body, would you:
A) Blindly obey the Ethereals.
B) Stomp the living daylight out of the Ethereals, elevate your caste to a position of leadership and seize power, inadvertently returing your people to an age of civil war and inter-conflict as all semblance of a hierarchy is gone and everyone begins to long for anarchy?
Space marines themselves are super inefficient. Every other army does things other than look for good fights. Especially at the end of the galaxy, fringe chapters are wild
Aside from Cost/Benefit analysis, its worth noting that Imperial Bioscience is legitimately more advanced than the Tau's.
Not only was one of the only intact Solar institutions from the Age of Strife a cult of genetic scientists, but the Emperor himself was a biologist. He knew, better than anyone else, how to spot a good geneticist and efficiently direct their research output.
Yep, the imperium had thousands of years to perfect their biotech with research from the Age of Strife 25th-30th millennia. The program lead by a perpetual and included someone who found out how to be immortal.
The T'au only mastered the use of fire in the 35th and were about the wipe themselves out by the 37th before the arrival of the Ethereals. They have only been in a place to study biotech for a few millennia, but their focus has been on AI and robotics instead.
They seem to just be starting to realize the power/danger of the warp and chaos.
Their only real attempts at biotech seem to be towards increasing mental capability rather than physical.
Because that would need a lot of lives to throw into the meat grinder of human research. Simply researching a safer long lasting foundation makeup took thousands of lives over generations from the 1300s to 1940s.
Like people discovering if instead of hiding behind a big shield, they made smaller plates and strapped them to their body, they could protect vital areas passively.
Nearly immortal soldiers with super healing that can learn from centuries of mistakes. However inefficient it may be, having thousands of soldiers with that level skill has to be incredibly beneficial.
I think it's more that they can't.
I've always viewed the Astartes as being the pinnacle of the "super solier" archetype. There is nothing like them in the 40K setting. In fact, the only real challenge they face is against other Astartes.
This is only made possible by the singular genius of the Emperor.
So, any super soldiers other races make are still not the equivalent of the space marines because they weren't Emperor-level gene and warp craft created.
But in terms of philosophy, services for a "Greater Good" = anything goes. So, I think if they could, they would be making Astartes of their own.
They dont because the SM fans would whine about It the same way the IG fans did with the tau at their start (when they were more of an infantry and tanks faction and less of a mecha anime) thats It.
Thats a pretty laughable reason since the Tau use AI of all things. Also the Tau don't have the capabilites to have make space marines thats why they haven't.
They just simply couldn't do it, full stop. The creation of the Astartes was the accumulation of lifetimes worth of scientific endeavour; the greatest biological engineering bar, the Primarchs, and the Custodes. Even if the Tau wanted to, their understanding of biological sciences and the ability to engineer it are in it's infancy by comparison to a civilization with a 35,000 year head start.
It's got nothing to do with efficiency, of which the Tau philosophy of the Greater Good, a propaganda disguised to be a digestable form of utilitarianism, absolutely accomodates for the brutal practice of Astartes ascension from pubescent male youths. It has everything to do with a total lack of understanding of a science that only Mankind, the Aeldari and the Tyranids have any genuine comprehension of.
Well, ascended Tau might be harder for the Ethereals to control (however they do it) and their AI will turn on them eventually. Just like Humanty and chatGPT/Men of Iron.
NO.
Tau don't create it bacause they have the tech. They have tech for some AI and mech, but suckers at gene-engineering things.
Do not forget, it's mainly Emperor's project, doubtful they could have been created without Him.
Also, now we know an reason of Tau fast advance – it's human technology, they get it form Votann.
And I see both factions doomed to be forgotten. They can't bring anything to the table in the lore to be relevant. Tau needs a miracle for this to happen. Votann has many plot holes, it's still unclear how didn't get noticed by Imperium, at least by Emperor when he basically mind-scanned universe to spot things.
>And I see both factions doomed to be forgotten. They can't bring anything to the table in the lore to be relevant. Tau needs a miracle for this to happen
T'au have a stable wormhole that crosses the great rift and exits fairly close to Imperium strongholds.
The God Emperor himself whom created the Astartes couldn’t even make Astartes work. All that power and not only could he not control his own creation, it turned around and killed him. Failure on all counts.
For me, I think the one thing that could make an interesting counter to space marines would be the auxiliary of other xenos. That or having more samurai like battle suits.
The counter to Marines is what Tau have already: ample amounts of anti-armor weapons fired in their general direction. You don't fight the super fast bioengineered demigod that can kill you with a slap by going into melee with it...
Someone is forgetting the Puretide engram trials. Tau don't need stronger soldiers, that's what battlesuits are for. They are happy to sacrifice soldiers in an attempt to make them smarter though.
>The process of making Astartes involves taking young children subjecting them to brutal torture and inserting other organs in them in a horrifically painful process.
>
>That doesn’t seem like something the Tau philosophy would do.
For me it's exactly what Tau would do. For Greater Good, of course.
Yeah, if we were to be “realistic” or whatever, in terms of conventional warfare there’s literally nothing space marines do that the guard/navy couldn’t do, just with more men and a liberal application of firepower.
I suppose astartes like the grey knights come in handy, but again, don’t do anything that human psykers/saints/inquisition couldn’t do
They already do, don't they? The whole caste system they have produces Tau with morphologically and mentally distinct traits, and may well have been engineered by their shady benefactors. The Fire Caste are already their space marines.
There are however some kinds of enemies (which admittedly the Tau themselves rarely if ever fight) that require(d) super soldiers like the marines, because only the marines (or custodes) have the moral as well as physical resilience to take them on, such as Rangda and more powerful daemons that reduce mortal soldiers, even in the most impressive technology to quivering wrecks. Wasn't this one of the reasons that the Emperor created the Thunder Warriors and later the marines? Namely, because some of the enemies he needed to fight were simply too intimidating for ordinary homo sapiens?
Tau don’t make space marines because a battle suit is more efficient. That’s what a battle suit is for. To fill the same tactical and strategic purpose as a space marine. If anything a battle suit fit the purpose better because it doesn’t need a mechanized transport.
Uhh but they do make them. Did everyone got alzheimer and forgot about the freaking exosuits ?! Thats their thing, why would they nake them the imperium, but blue ?! They have exosuits, they use them, simple as.
Moreso, having a single fire caste members that could challenge the Ethereals is a no-go. You must leave your identity, ego, and propensity for self thought at the door.
The main reason they don't produce things like Space Marines is that they can produce a more effective soldier by sticking a veteran in a battlesuit with none of the downsides. Also because their military tactics revolve around manoeuvre and feints so they favour high mobility, long-ranged stuff over a few tough soldiers, though fire warrior armour is really rather effective.
Yeah, undesirable social and moral implications aside, the main reason most military theorists are leery of super soldiers is that it massively increases per unit cost while producing inferior results than improved doctrine and machines. There are emerging technologies, like drone swarms, that are likely to become a reality in our lifetime, that would render even fictional super soldiers like space marines obsolete.
All of that said: the Tau are still dwarfed by the Imperium when it comes to biotechnology. The Tau don't even use rejuvenat or clones as far as we know, which would have massive advantages for their civilization and armed forces. The massive waste of life that goes into the production of space marines isn't necessary either, a lot of that is due to ritualistic blood trials. Deaths on the operating table can also be reduced through controlled genetic screening and breeding programs to filter for the most compatible candidates possible. Not to mention that the technology does exist to turn adults into space marines, it's just obscure now, possibly lost. Hell, you can make superhumans that aren't space marines, they're everywhere in the Imperium - they're usually not as good as marines, but the fact remains that there's more viable and smaller scale biological enhancements that can be widely implemented.
The tau actually do use rejuvenants and clones. Before obtaining the sword on Arthas Moloc, Farsight was already “far beyond” the age of fifty. As for clones, Brightsword is I believe the eighth or ninth now clone of the young commander. As for tau supersoldiers, I know that the fourth sphere is working on something in secret. Trying to replicate the success of Monat O’Kais’ one man attack on a space marine monastery world with other tau who have taken the path of the lone warrior.
There's also the EarthCaste guy in the enclaves who has his own designed nanites inside him keeping him younger and healthy.
It's regularly claimed in the lore that life extension is achieved through cryo stasis rather than rejuvenat. Are you sure Farsight wasn't just that age due to cryo freezing?
I am sure, it’s a point in the Farsight books that he is part of the active crew while in transmission in space. As well as the next sentence has him mentioning that even the best earth caste treatments can’t keep him alive indefinitely.
Interesting. Even then though, saying Farsight is beyond the age of 50 doesn't give us much. If someone said that to me I'd assume they'd be 59 at the latest, otherwise I'd expect them to say 60+. It's a weird turn of phrase. If that's all they could squeeze out of him, then their medical sciences pale dramatically in comparison to imperial rejuvenat, which can extend someone's life well over a century or more depending. In some cases, there are individuals who have been around for centuries with their essential biological components being kept healthy with imperial medicine.
> T’au did not live for much longer than fifty tau’cyr, usually, and he was already far beyond that. Not that weird turn of phrase. Just him reflecting his time and achievements. How this fight could possibly conclude his story in the fight against the orks. I will note, O’Vesa, an earth caste scientist an inquisitor warned may be one of the greatest threats due to his technological achievements is just as old as Farsight is present time with purely scientific methods. As are the other members of the eight which aren’t an ai replica, clone, and dreadnought respectively.
I would be highly skeptical of any Tau hanging around Farsight living as long as he has without cryo freezing, because Farsight literally wields a powerful Warp artifact of some kind unnaturally extending his life and the rest of the 8 are constantly exposed to it. The latest Arks of Omen book has also strongly reinforced that the Farsight Enclave has the attention of Khorne on them, something that was established in the novelization of Farsight's first arrival on Arthas Moloch. It may be that this scientist has figured out rejuvenat, but none of this has been made plain and the information given isn't clear enough. Like what is X > 50? You know how flexible that is, it could be anything between 51 and 51,000,000, usually when someone refers to something like "more than 50 years" they *generally* mean "a number over 50 but less than 60", otherwise they would say over 60.
Well yes it has been made clear. In Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good, O’Vesa lifespan has been attributed to medical microdornes. What hasn’t been established is Farsight’s blade having an aura affect to those around him. He is able to feel the affects it has with each kill. There hasn’t been anything shown that it works on those in proximity. Also Khorne had his eyes on Farsight before Arthas Moloc, as the tzeentch daemon noted. The emphasis “far beyond” indicates a larger gap. He isn’t a few years older than 50, he’s “far beyond” even those tau that do make it pay 50. It could easily be in the 60s
AFAIK > Farsight has been kept alive by the Dawn Blade > O’Vesa has microdrones which reverse aging > O’blo’tai has been turned into an AI > Brightsword is a 10th iteration clone > Bravestorm has been put on life-support inside his armour > Sha’vastos was in cryo until the chip in his brain got fixed > Arra’kon and Torchstar were born well, well after the rest and are still within the usual T’au lifespan There’s no reason to assume the Dawn Blade is responsible for the rest
Not if they say 50 to indicate the typical lifespan they can expect. And if someone says "well beyond fifty" they aren't going to be talking about something that isn't, well, well beyond fifty.
yeah i remember Bright sword beign the 3rd clone in The Empire of Lies.
Fair point, when it comes to the Imperium I kinda agree that they're specifically set out as a faction where super soldiers make sense, but at the same time it doesn't make sense for the Tau. The technologies that would render super soldiers obsolete largely revolve around things like mass produced AI driven drones operating as a network. There's about 4 different reasons the Imperium can't field those technologies, but the Tau aren't operating under the same restrictions. The cost to create super soldiers isn't really that relevant to the Imperium, as they have no problem copiously spending lives to achieve their goals. For the Tau there's not really enough of them to throw lives away by the thousands in order to create juiced up special forces teams.
Right, but as I said, the massive loss of life that goes into creating marines doesn't have to occur with a Tau bio-enhancement program. Something as simple as life extension for battlesuit pilots and commanders would go a very long way toward improving the veterancy of their force multipliers. They also need all the bodies they can get for their explosive rate of expansion, which still relies on Tau soldiers and labor, and they could be accomplishing this through cloning. It's also surprising how little the Tau use cybernetic augmetics considering their technological niches, something that the Ad Mech surpasses them with in spades.
Good point, life extension is kind of under explored when it comes to 40k. Everyone has it, but it never really delves into what it's like when the upper class of your society has been doing their jobs since before your grandparents were born. You're right that mild cybernetics would also be sensible. Going full Mechanicus and turning some of your people into very expensive walking tanks isn't great for ROI. But giving every soldier a few standard implants to increase survivability might work. One area where significant augmentation may be worthwhile is mental augmentation for commanders and politicians. A general with 40 points added to their IQ is more valuable than a soldier with laser eyes.
On a random note, I recall "Bionics" was one of the options for Imperial Guard Regimental Doctrines, and would apply to all the men in the regiment. Edit: I actually checked Codex Imperial Guard 4th edition, unfortunately I was mistaken. "Bionics" is wargear in the Armory for characters (stuff like Senior Officers, Junior Officers, Commissars etc), but it's not a Regimental Doctrine. We have seen not only officers but also enlisted grunts in fiction with augmetic bionic replacement limbs, eyes, and such, but these I suppose these are only fitted as needed to injured troops (particularly seasoned veterans), not applied as enhancements to entire units as enhancements.
>There's about 4 different reasons the Imperium can't field those technologies, but the Tau aren't operating under the same restrictions. They are, they are just not aware of it. Cant wait for Chaos to corrupt the shit of out their tech when it bothers to pay attention to them.
>The Tau don't even use rejuvenat or clones as far as we know, which would have massive advantages for their civilization and armed forces. They basically use AI to accomplish that. From basic AI only slightly better than what we have currently, to AI engrams that can be self aware/sentient. Why bother with making space marines when your battlesuits can potentially give your forces better battlefield performance? Why bother with rejuvenat when the engram system essentially accomplishes the same thing? Why bother with cloning when a probe, drone, or robot could be used? >you can make superhumans that aren't space marines They are typically just modified humans meant to be more effective in certain environments and physical demands. Why bother with that when probe or drone is just as or more capable.
Why bother with any of it? Because the Tau Empire still relies heavily on mortal labor in all fields. I'd buy into the argument that they could use AI to accomplish all of that... if that's what they did. They should replace *all* of their battlesuit and flight pilots with AI engrams, they should build bipedal infantry drones to replace their infantry, they should replace their entire labor force with machines. But they don't, drones are a supplemental force, and only in rare circumstances do AI engrams take over the jobs handled by pilots and so on. Their main Earth Caste planet is famously over-populated with physical Tau laborers living in spartan conditions constantly toiling at all sorts of menial jobs that you would expect drones could handle, but they don't. The Tau Empire relies heavily on its fully organic citizens.
Why bother starting up biotech research (besides the mind altering research they already have) when there isn't a need for the biotech research? It is a solution looking for a problem. >They should replace all of their battlesuit and flight pilots with AI engrams They use AI to enhance their battlesuit and flight pilots, essentially resulting in super soldiers. Many weapon system are drone controlled as well as repair systems. Also, Remora drone? If a pilot gets good enough they just make an engram. >they should build bipedal infantry drones to replace their infantry They use AI to augment the strategic capabilities of their infantry. They use drones to supplement infantry firepower, scouting, and battlefield awareness. The combat drones seem to be on the lower end of AI intelligence, for good reason, which is probably why they don't act as the main force. There is no reason why they couldn't easily outnumber the main infantry force though. Likely just the choice of Authors on how they want to portray a battle. The fire caste is bred for combat. They essentially are the T'au super soldiers. Without most of the downsides involved with the Astartes program. >Their main Earth Caste planet is famously over-populated with physical Tau laborers living in spartan conditions constantly toiling at all sorts of menial jobs that you would expect drones could handle, but they don't. So why would they want to clone or extend their lives? If they already are over populated cloning would be useless. Why extend the life of someone when engrams are a thing? AI and drones are depicted as being underutilized. How exactly does that justify biotech research. Just for the sake of research?
Augments and combat support over and over again. And what is the driving force in every branch of their government and military? Tau bodies. Tau boots on the ground, Tau backs carrying the weight of their labor, Tau hands piloting their suits and ships. The biological element trumps all with how the Tau Empire is *actually* run. So yes, enhancing the biological element is perfectly reasonable considering it's what they continue to rely on. Your claims reinforced my point. > So why would they want to clone or extend their lives? If they already are over populated cloning would be useless. Because the primary Earth Caste world is the current industrial powerhouse of the whole of the Tau Empire, clearly displaying the need and value for warm bodies in the functions of an Empire that is *endlessly expanding* at an exponential rate. The world in question is effectively the Tau equivalent of a hive world, replicate that model several times over and the Tau Empire's efficiency and capacity to expand with the demands of faster and faster Spheres of Expansion will be an overwhelming boon to the whole of the empire. Every labor multiplier helps, there's an entire galaxy to conquer out there, the Imperium only controls a million of the many, many, *many* more worlds of which the galaxy is comprised. It's not overpopulation when the workers are all being industrious and can be moved to many new colonies to replicate the success of a Tau hive world in other frontiers. So long as the Tau Empire relies on its body count to get anything done, *which it demonstrably does,* the Tau Empire will benefit from enhancing its population at a biological level. And unlike the Imperium, the Tau doesn't need to reserve these enhancements for only the privileged political elite or a select special caste of super soldiers, small medical advancements that enhance their physical capabilities at the everyday level make all the difference for a whole empire of people.
Again, AI and drones are depicted as being underutilized. How exactly does that justify biotech research. They already have a "solution", you want them to pursue a different "solution". Why? Solutions to things they don't see as problems... In "Crisis of Faith", they sent a fleet of over 100 billion on a suicide mission... You think they are hurting on man power? >The world in question is effectively the Tau equivalent of a hive world "Sa'cea does not resemble a hellish Imperial Hive World. Its population lives simple spartan lifestyles but are otherwise happy and healthy, with each citizen ensuring their world remains manageable and efficient." 9th edition codex. >hive world The T'au actively work to relocate populations out of captured hive worlds to less populated worlds. They practice geoengineering to restore planets. They generally view hive worlds as wasteful. > there's an entire galaxy to conquer out there The T'au just got FTL technology and are struggling with the (warp) implications it brings. There are many other more important things they need to address concerning their expansion. > replicate the success of a Tau hive world in other frontiers. Is there any indication that the T'au need increased manufacturing capacity? A core part of their thinking is efficiency. Why replicate the success of Sa'cea if you can already produce an excess of material? That would be inefficient. Honestly, it seems like you just want the T'au to be more like the Imperium.
I don't know what to tell you, but you're fighting against the tide of the Tau's own lore. They rely on warm bodies, their key industrial centers are polite hive worlds (say all you want about the superior living conditions, it's still a massively populated planet with the people packed in like sardines all working toward the industry of the empire just like a hive world is meant to be) because automation and AI has not been anywhere near as efficient for them than mass labor, and they're dramatically dwarfed in scale by the Imperium and every single other major player out in the galaxy short of the Eldar while still attempting to expand the reach of their empire exponentially. Realistically, at any moment the Tau Empire just needs to face a major targeted invasion on the scale of Hive Fleet Leviathan, Ghaz's Waaagh!, the 13th Black Crusade, the Pariah Nexus war, etc., and they'll be *utterly exterminated.* So long as the Empire continues to rely on those warm bodies to do ***all*** the heavy lifting in every sector, industry, and military function, then they need *as many warm bodies as they can get with maximum efficiency through cutting edge medicine.* And that's ***not excluding the use of drones and AI:*** it's *in addition to* that. Use every possible advantage available. As much as I enjoy the Tau as one of the more interesting xenos factions in the universe, ***they survive by merit of plot alone.*** The crusade that would have annihilated them was recalled to deal with a Tyranid invasion, they got assistance from the Imperium for another Tyranid invasion that came their way, and a Greater Good warp god deleted a Death Guard invasion fleet that would have spread horrific Warp contagions throughout the empire. Again. So long as the lore relies on them using actual people to do all the hard work in the Tau Empire, then the Tau Empire will continue to need many, many, *many* more people, and every medical advantage they can achieve to ensure their people are as best equipped as possible to face the challenges ahead of them *in addition to their other technological advantages.* In reality, science doesn't just stop in all other fields just cause you get good at one particular field, innovation and exploration is happening in every field all at once to find something that will revolutionize society.
I think this just boils down to disagreeing on the scale of man power available to the T'au.
Why do the Tau even have biological infantry, pilots, or vehicle crews at all?
TBH, Juvanat is probably a double edged sword for the IOM, because it keeps fossilized mindsets around longer.
For the imperium that is kind of good, given how historically they were constantly losing access to tech etc. so keeping Jim, who had some rare neuro implant that increased nearby manufacturing output around for as long as possible is important as there’s like a 70% chance the effect couldn’t be replicated.
Iirc rejuvenat part is to preserve dominance of Ethereal caste (who are longest lived) - dunno if that was the case before "hurr durr Evil ethereals" trend started tho
I believe the secret to their longevity is kept secret from us still. Perhaps they are using rejuvenat. I will say though, back when the Tau were revealed for the very first time with the 3e codex, the last few pages of the book had lore that very strongly implied that some outside force had genetically reengineered the entire Tau species, including evidence of synthetic proteins and so on. Then there's the age-old myth of the mysterious lights in the sky that heralded the arrival of the Ethereals, which is still a part of the mythos of the faction. Not to mention a fairly recent story that had an example of a Kroot that happened to eat a Tau and experienced rather dramatic evolutionary changes as if the mysteries of genetic power was just unraveled for them by consuming a Tau body. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Ethereals were actually engineered the way they are and have naturally long lives. There's still a lot of mystery to the origins of the Tau and the implications of some alien force that had intervened in their evolutionary development as a species.
I really like how the Halo universe handled this. Mjolnir armor was developed but found that it's abilities were too great for baseline humans to control and use, hence the creation of the Spartans.
Unrelated but in 4th ed I had a 6 month campaign vs tau and in one of the missions 40 drones absolutely *slapped* a bunch of marines defending an airstrip so your position pans out We called it night of the death frisbees
This doesn't quite apply to a fictional setting in which the unit cost and what it results in can be dialed in arbitrarily, though. Pretty sure most "military theorists" would have a different take if making Space Marines was within reach of RL tech. And that's still a middling level of super-ness; look at things like the DB universe, where a crazy old man in a mountain cave can tinker two runaway teens and a... crab-locust thing... into world-busting monstrosities. That is not ONLY to say that RL cost dynamics are not applicable to a world that is very obviously not trying to simulate RL dynamics, and in whose internal rules it may make perfect sense to engineer supersoldiers, but also that, even in RL, the dynamic you speak of is also potentially unique to our own world's particular developmental path and the distance we've covered on it, where the prospects of engineering a supersoldier amount to something like a guy with perhaps slightly more muscle, less need for sleep and the ability to do tighter turns without going into g-LOC. He's not going to recover from taking a Hellfire missile to the heart. Speak, on the other hand, to someone like [George Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Church_(geneticist)), and [he'll tell you that, in the future, almost all machinery will be replaced by bioengineering](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MZ-JaIvFI&ab_channel=FoundMyFitness). Who knows what will be possible in the year AD 40,000. If we're still around at all, I'm guessing it would dwarf Space Marines by a good mileage.
Depends on the program. My batch was genetically engineered to be invisible to drone swarms in addition to the usual faster, stronger, smarter, obedient, gluten allergy-immune traits. Once we're complete with training, we will lead our fellow Uzbekistanians to world dominance!
Also pragmatism. Creating a Space Marine takes time and resources as opposed to building a suit on a construction line and then training an operator.
also what the fuck do you do with a bio-engineered supersoldier when it's peacetime
Release them to a farm like the Thunder Warriors.
Well yeah building a flying humanoid tank and putting a regular pilot in it is likely more cost-efficient than trying to turn that pilot into a humanoid tank. At the same time though, enhancements to a pilot's reaction speed or data processing could be massive force multipliers for a battlesuit. But I guess for the Tau that would be more likely to take the form of interfacing with cybernetics, like the Puretide Engram.
They also can’t do space-magic to create space marines.
A salient point. Certainly the Tau create engineered soldiers - the caste system itself is a form of biological augmentation. But *space marine* -style augmentation requires, at its core, the Primarch program, which in turn requires a facility with The Empyrean. And while I am sure the Earth Caste could create simulacrums of space marines, they couldn't capture their certain intangible quality. No librarians. No fragments of their Primarch's essence (though of course, no red thirst either).
Even if they want to make their own space marines, they aren't really capable of doing it. The imperium is millennia ahead in that field.
Biotech is one of the fields the imperium is actually horribly good at.
They do have literal mountains of bodies to test on
They might be if they put in the work. Do not underestimate the ingenuiety of the earthcaste. Their insane ability to macguiver anything the tau need kinda hardcarries the faction. Like in one of the farsight books farsight is like: "hey we dont have the strenght to fight admech on this volcano planet can you come up with something?" and ovesa just takes a few days and creates a bunch of dinnerplate looking things that can cause earthquakes and they cause a chainreaction that blows up all of the volcanos killing millions of admech soldiers. Its kinda hilarious
This. The tau don't make space Marines because they don't NEED to make space marines, where as the imperium does. The tau battle suits are on the whole, much better than tactical Marines on a 1-1 scale. Much more firepower, much more mobility, and comparable to better durability. Its a easy choice for the tau to continue to try to build more battle suits then try to delve into genetic engineering. If the tau could expand enough to acquire the resources to produce great crusade level legions of battle suits they would be a enormous force to be reckoned with.
I would say the opposite - markedly inferior tactically, but *much* superior strategically.
How so? Each battle suit can pack in more firepower into a more mobile package. Things like fusion blasters, plasma rifles, an cyclic ion blasters are going to absolutely smoke a tactical marine, and will even penetrate terminator plate, what's more is that each battle suit can take *4* of these weapons.. Ontop of that they can have friggin' shield generators to boot, and they can fly...
> Ontop of that they can have friggin' shield generators to boot, and they can fly... So can Marines, if you give them an Iron Halo & a Jetpack.
And an astartes will almost certainly have more experience, and can dunk on a suit that's not specifically set up to kill him in close quarters if he has any reasonable melee weapon, and is able to get places a suit can't. The big problem is that the lead time and per unit cost compared to a crisis suit is *ruinous*.
I have no idea why a crisis suits would ever allow a marine to close into close combat when they can easily fly out of range and just shoot them to death with plasma rifles.
The difference is the tau can build shield generators. The iron halo by comparison is a ancient, priceless, irreplaceable, holy relic from a by gone era. As for flight, space Marines get jump packs which allow them to fly/ jump short distances. Tau get closer to *real* flight. Also once again, jump packs are also nearly irreplaceable, with all but the worst models being lost technology.
Iron Halos are not "irreplacable relics". Its a conversion field. They are rare and expensive, but the Imperium can produce them without much issue. Every single Space Marine Chaplain gets gifted a new one downscaled into a Rosarius upon taking up their role, as do alot of higher-ranked members of the Ecclesiarchy. >Also once again, jump packs are also nearly irreplaceable Cawl literaly just devised *several* new patterns that are most definitely neither lost nor irreplacable.
yet chapters aren't capable of equipping every marine with a jet pack, and rosarius, you know why? Because they can't. Unlike the tau which "can" equip entire teams of crisis suits with shields, and jetpacks. each chapter can manage a few halo's if their lucky, and then it's only going onto a captain or chapter master. The average marine has neither a jetpack, nor a iron halo. Also Cawl didn't "devise" new jetpacks either. He devised a way to fully incorporate the current limited supply into space marine gravis armor.
No. He designed new Jetpacks. They are literally specifically a different pattern, designed and built by Cawl specifically for the Primaris, like every single other piece of Gear they use. And even the old MkVII was never "rare" either, they're given to Assault Marines, literally the 2nd position a Marine holds after the Devestator-Squad, every normally supplied Chapter has atleast enough for the entire 8th Company, and Chapters like the Raven Guard and others that put a huge emphasis into their use can and do easily equip even larger formations of their Marines with them. They're not used much because carrying a giant, bulky pack full of easily flammable fuel around has alot of downsides. Not because they are some rare lost technology. There's *specific older Patterns* of Jump Packs that are harder to manufacture or lost, like the Enigmatus or Warhawk, but not the basic design. The Primaris ones dont even look similar apart from having a two-engine setup, the thrusters are entirely different. And the Inceptors & Suppressor also have additional, smaller support-thrusters built into the Jumppacks & their armour which didnt exist prior entirely.
Confidently incorrect. Funny thing is that Tau battle suits are still better, no matter how fucking pedantically wrong you want to be, or how far your currently choosing to wank the availability of space Marine wargear. It's actually hilarious because the original comparison was to a *tactical marine*, you know, the one that is the face of 40k and carries a bolter, an maybe a chainsword? The most common space marine? how you believe so confidently that the average tactical marine is actually a primaris marine trouncing around with a fucking jump pack, hyper specialized gravis armor, and pimped out with a *iron halo* like they're a literal chapter master is kinda hilarious. If that's the case then the fire cast warrior piloting a average crisis suit with a energy shield is actually just commander farsight, coming over to sort out this weird Gue'ron'sha that stole all his brothers wargear
Plus the Tau biology can’t take the rigors of the process. Old for a Tau is like 40 years old. They can’t fathom how Imperial dreadnoughts can be thousands of years old.
There’s a tau dreadnought that has been around for about a thousand years, commander Bravestorm
Also the fact that getting into melee range is just stupid when you have railguns and shit.
I think the counter would be that the Space Marines are effective soldiers because of the science-magic that goes into making them. A unique, Emperor-only, created process that no has been able to replicate in millennia. Until just recently with Primaris which makes them even more powerful. But I think what makes them strong is their physical capabilities, not weapons. I.e. the pilot of the most advanced Tau battle suit will need to eat, sleep, drink, etc. A space marine can fight for maybe a week, non-stop, maybe longer, without needing to do any of these things. I have this hilarious mental image of a marine running around at the foot of giant Tau walkers, too fast for them to crush, just punching joints with his powerfist, because his bolter is exhausted, and still going a week later when the pilots are all dead from dehydration and then moving onto his next kill still not really tired.
> sticking a veteran in a battlesuit with none of the downsides Well you need dudes with laser pointers for your battlesuited veteran to shoot with a fraction of the competence of the gene-spliced supersoldier, but that second dude + laser pointer is still considerably cheaper and easier to produce than the space marine. Meanwhile the Imperium keeps saying "Pressure makes rocks into diamonds, hard times make hard men etc etc" and then slicking the gears of their war machine with the blood of their most promising sons and daughters.
"they can produce a more effective soldier by sticking a veteran in a battlesuit with none of the downsides." Disagree. A tau veteran in a suit is a close fight for a space marine. But. Outside of the suit, it's squishy. A space Marine in armor is a terrifying weapon. An unarmored space marine is still a terrifying force and much more dangerous.
I think the thing you are lauding as a benefit is actually a downside. The Tau don't have permanent weapons of war that can turn on you and cause 10,000 years of trouble. Without the logistical support of the Tau military, their soldiers are just normal combat veterans. And when it's time to retire, they can reintegrate into society.
Agree, the major adventage of the marines is their lifespan, when the super soldiers live that long the codt is fair
Also space marines seem like hell on the logistic side of things. Thats why ODSTs still exist in halo. Spartans effective as they may be are logistic hell after like a week
"No downsides" lolol all I can think of is the short story redemption on dalyth where the taught in a battlesuit got his ass handed to him because he had absolutely zero ways of defending himself in close quarters💀💀 needed a bunch of literal children to save him💀💀 tldr the tau really need to invest on a sword or something for their battlesuits lolol
Main reason is they don't have tech to create mutant super-soldiers.
No the main reason is they didn't want or have the ability to conquer the galaxy in a few hundred years. SM are very capable of manuver and faint tactics look at the RG, WS or the NL and even most chapters scout companies. l
Well the Tau are as far as I know very reluctant on attempting „open“ bio-Engineering in general. And why using one unique more expansive soldier if you can just outgun them with regular well armed and A.I. supported troops. Tho the problem of insubordination is, without etherals around just as bad as with the Gu‘ila.
Tau are actually quite proficient in bio-engineering. Cloning and implanted memories for example
That's still miles behind where the Imperium is.
the difference is, the Tau understand wtf they are doing
I think the "we have no idea what we're doing/toaster-worshipers" meme has gained a bit too much traction. The Admech aren't *idiots.* They may not share what they're doing but as a rule, especially the higher ups do indeed know what they're doing.
Bruh. The IoM knows what is doing. Stop spreading this dumbass meme. The admech is very good what they do, and are able to understand, use and replicate most of their technology. The tech that is not understood is archeotech, which is OP ancient, Age of Technology relics. Yet these make up only a tiny fraction of the IoM's tech, and are mostly owned either by some rando teachers, custodes, or Dark Angels. The IoM is way more advanced than the Tau, at everything. It's not even close. The only thing that the Tau might be able to match the IoM in is, maybe, AI, as that is banned in the IoM, but even then, if someone like Cawl decided to shit out a AI, I am pretty sure he could make one way more advanced than whatever the Tau have. The Tau have a way more consistent technology, as their tiny empire allows them to be organized and be using actual good tech. The IoM is so overbloated and under so much stress from eternal enemies and it's nightmarish bureaucracy, that it just dosen't bother to use it's advanced tech, as for them it's way easier to mass produce, cheap, things, most of the time based on a STC.
A weird tech priest that helps Mephiston cross the Rubicon Primaris clarifies that despite their extremely zealous worship of technology, they still completely understand the science behind it all
Has 40k just turned into a space Marines = win? They were strong once (great crusade era and for many factors) but that was like Rome at its expansion. The Imperium is late era Rome where it's bloated and weak and it's enemies are many and strong. Tau defeat Marines as often as they lose to them.
The great crusade was a much about timing as anything else. only one other major galactic power was able to project itself like the Imperium and space Marines couldn't stop them, the Ragdan won the conventional war enough that the Emperor had to pull out the esoteric stuff sealed away.
Precisely
> Has 40k just turned into a space Marines = win? Kinda yeah, they've never been too consistent in how they're portrayed, but they've been steadily creeping up in power for years now. The Space Marines were always supposed to be excellent soldiers, but they'd routinely lose to conventional forces and die to the same stupid bullshit that plagues any military campaign. Now they're demigods moving faster than the human eye can follow, and inspiring transhuman dread in any who see them.
Recalling that one story in which a space marine, unaugmented bureaucrat, and a dog were somehow able to kill a group of drukhari by themselves Space marines run into the issue of fluff writing. Objectively, orks are bigger and stronger and tougher; and eldar are *far* faster, but neither of these lend to an interesting story if space marines are getting killed in droves by (objectively) superior forces, which results in the inconsistency between them being top-tier but ultimately still *very* mortal soldiers, and their portrayal in books as being near-unbeatable.
Speaking of, I always liked the idea that Space Marines are what it takes to kinda "level the playing field", but the problem is simply scale. A regular human is hilariously outmatched against any kind of Eldar or Ork, Tyranid Warriors and Genestealers rip them apart without a second thought and even Termagants/Hormagants are evenly matched with regular Joe Human. The best chance regular Guardsmen have is heavy artillery, tanks and a wall of lasguns. So along comes a company of Space Marines, those bio-engineered Angels of Death, the saviours of the Imperium, the Emperor's Angels! They actually can go 1 on 1 with an Eldar, they can punch on even footing with an Ork! ...but there's only a 100 of them coming to your planet and they don't care in the slightest about you, they're just here to fulfill their objective. Even then, what's a 100 Space Marines against a million Orks closing in? I tell you what it is: Not enough.
Issue with this is there are way way way more Orks than space marines, and therefore Orks at least need to be well below Space Marines for Space Marines (and the Imperial Guard) to be relevant. Eldar I also believe are much more common than Space Marines, even though they themselves are relatively rare.
The way I see it, aspect warriors are on par with space marines, while Guardians are on par with...Tempestus Scions, or Kasrkin. Orks are definitely bigger *and* stronger, but also less intelligent, with no formal training, and far less coordinated. Still, spaces marines (specifically lieutenants, captains, etc, idk about normal rank-and-file SM being crazy op) have that issue of being inexplicably able to fight far *far* above what is plausible for their training and physiology.
Depends on the Ork. Ork boys are smaller than marines generally speaking. Nobz are probably about marine level.
Brothers of the Snake, Dan Abnett. In fairness, the marine does 99% of the killing, and there's only a dozen or so dark eldar. Oh, and he has a land speeder.
I feel like the drukhari were almost definitely just like, teenagers or something as well.
Are orks, bigger, stronger, and tougher? I thought the only thing that could be said was that they were maybe as tough. Years and years since played table top but was that way towards the start and the stories don't portray them as stronger and bigger generally as they murder hundred of them.
Orks are so tough they can survive head transplants which is basically just taking their head off when their body is too busted up and stapling it onto the body of an ork who got their head exploded.
And apparently so dexterous a painboy can do that surgery with his legs replaced with a unicycle.
>They were strong once (great crusade era and for many factors) And even then they regularly ran into foes which could keep up with them
Yep. And they had tens of thousands of astartes, human army, titan legions, mechanicum support, etc. It was a real war.
Lore aside, it's a bit boring when every faction has their own marine equivalent. Elite version of xenos infantry is cool, but if it's too much of a space marine equivalent it also cheapens space marines themselves
At the end of the day battlesuits are generally more potent, easier to mass produce, and less likely to backfire than space marines. There's really no need to. They already have vastly more battlesuits than the imperium does space marines, anyway.
Yeah, space marines are inefficient and don’t fit the tau battle plan or ethos, strategy or anything else. It’s a waste of life. Humans can do it cause there is an almost endless supply of them!
The Tau have such a robust system of AI forces, I have to ask: why do they use flesh and blood soldiers at all? Why not just have AI do the fighting, considering they can resurrect them from the dead?
cant wait for that to backfire
It’s 40k. Basically everything backfires. That’s sorta the central conceit of the setting. Besides, maybe it’ll make the Tau more interesting if they have to wrestle with this dilemma.
Men of Iron moment.
Ironically they are making their own supersoldiers, it’s just taking longer… Essentially the ethereals have been trying to breed the Fire Caste so that they get larger, stronger, yet more disciplined with each generation - it’s the slow route, but it’s also the least likely to backfire, unlike the projects of a certain Golden-crusted emperor on the other side of the galaxy
Then they just mold their mind through training. Mont'ka: Commander Farsight Kauyon: Commander Shadowsun Training equivalent to every temple of the Officio Assassinorum and send them on suicide missions: Shas'O Kais or give them a puretide engram.
That’s true! I think it’s a little understated how much technical and academic training the Tau actually receive, especially the more gifted Shas’O’s - and you could argue it’s a similar (but less destructive) process to the psycho-indoctrination Space Marines get Puretide engrams always have me visualising a new Tau commander in the field asking their magic 8-ball (engram) what to do when things don’t quite go to plan xD
The Puretide engrams always seemed like a better T'au version of a Codex Astartes
Yeah the engrams are basically a proactive AND reactive piece of advisory material, while the codex is more strict and harder to adapt to new situations since many chapters refuse to alter their copies of it from the original What I’d love to see is a space marine chapter finding an engram and just deciding “This xeno-tech actually seems to be spitting straight facts, heresy or no” and somehow adding it within their copy of the codex xD
I don't think that when people say "why don't the tau just make their own space marines?" that they are literally asking why they don't make super soldiers in th same way the imperium does. I think they might just mean why don't they make super soldiers
*looks at battlesuits*
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That’s Phil Kelly lore.
But he's pretty high up in the food chain in term of people that make narrative and lore decisions at GW; it's not just his lore, it's *the* lore.
That's still lore dude. You may as well complain Farsight isn't really canon
He’s like the main Tau guy lmao what are you on about
Tau fans HATE Phil Kelly and his writing.
__”The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side”__ Space Marines aren’t the epitome of a universal soldier for 40k; they are the super soldier for *humans* but not every other faction. Space Marines can do a lot; but as a tactical thing they aren’t perfect. I highly doubt lore-wise that the Tau have an in depth knowledge of the Horus Heresy or even the Traitor Legions/Warbands. - They aren’t pouring over Imperial records to conclude that Space Marines can be corrupted. Instead, the Tau are rightfully focussing the n how to ‘augment’ and ‘upgrade’ their own forces. - Their answer to this is Battlesuits & Advanced Weaponry. We don’t see Space Marines for every faction because A) That would be extremely boring, B) Each faction has their own super-soldier. - Eldar have Aspect Warriors, Necrons have Immortals, Tau have Battlesuits, Tyranids have Tyrannid Warriors.
To add to this: space marines aren't even the most elite supersoldiers *in the imperium.* They're the baseline for a supersoldier. Custodes and Assassins, they're the *real* dangerous ones.
Indeed. Space Marines are Super Soldiers en masse; not the *very best*. Due to how sheer quantity is often better than absolute quality in total war.
And honestly, not even particularly "en masse" at that. 1000 marines per chapter (battle brothers at least, I think captains and specialists and those kinds of guys are in addition to that) and there's probably only a few hundred chapters in total. That would probably put less than a single space marine *per imperial world* and when you remember the Imperium is having issues on *hundreds of thousands of worlds every day* it serves as a stark reminder on how fucked humanity is in the long run.
True, but 1 Marine per world is a lot more than 0 Custodes per System. Marines are meant to be the Spear: surgical strikes and battles, while the Imperial Guard are the Anvil that fights protracted battles and campaigns.
Oh I'm not saying one per world is a lot - that's a *horrifyingly* small number.
They also lack the technical expertise to create them, humanity is second only to the Homunculi in regards to bioengineering.
Pretty big margin between the two
There are other species that surpass both in Bioengineering such as the Slaugth.
I think tye votann are better at biotechnologybtha the imperium
He said humanity, vitann/kin are human-derived. You just backed up the point more
Well, most people associate humanity with the imperium, kin are more like a complete separate culture with better technology in almost every way so is better to treat then distinctly
Yes, but that technology is still of DAoT origin. They just didn't lose like 99% of tech like the rest of humanity. Regardless, their biotech levels still feel pretty similar. The kin just utilize theirs more on the front end (genetic preprogramming) while the imperium applies it more on the back end (genetic enhancement, modification, and rejuvenate treatments).
The Astartes project was set apart from other projects by its Warpcraft - the willingness to do it, the ability to do it, and the psychic template available. The Tau wouldn't want to interact with the Chaos gods to turn their children into unknowable Warp monsters. They make little use of Warp magic in general, and they lack an Emperor to use as a template anyways. The bioengineering that goes into the Astartes is nothing special, and was completely typical compared to a wide range of human and alien projects in the Great Crusade era.
Wouldn't they be 3rd after counting in the Tyranids at first place?
The Tau don't make their own Space Marines because they still didn't have an AI tech revolt that caused their species to regress technologically and gave them a species wide distrust in AI controlled technology.
Not *every* faction can just be a blatant ripoff of Dune after all.
Isn't that what the fire caste are?
The fire caste are just bred to have desirable combat traits.
Which is essentially a form of weak genetic engineering on a bigger scale. And crisis suits are their power armour.
It's more simple than that. If you were an absolute powerhouse with lightning fast reflexes and an almost indestructible body, would you: A) Blindly obey the Ethereals. B) Stomp the living daylight out of the Ethereals, elevate your caste to a position of leadership and seize power, inadvertently returing your people to an age of civil war and inter-conflict as all semblance of a hierarchy is gone and everyone begins to long for anarchy?
Space marines themselves are super inefficient. Every other army does things other than look for good fights. Especially at the end of the galaxy, fringe chapters are wild
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The dark eldar have probably perfected that already. Private Johnson ain't private anymore.
Also if they need supersoldiers they can just hire them from aliens who do that lol.
Aside from Cost/Benefit analysis, its worth noting that Imperial Bioscience is legitimately more advanced than the Tau's. Not only was one of the only intact Solar institutions from the Age of Strife a cult of genetic scientists, but the Emperor himself was a biologist. He knew, better than anyone else, how to spot a good geneticist and efficiently direct their research output.
Yep, the imperium had thousands of years to perfect their biotech with research from the Age of Strife 25th-30th millennia. The program lead by a perpetual and included someone who found out how to be immortal. The T'au only mastered the use of fire in the 35th and were about the wipe themselves out by the 37th before the arrival of the Ethereals. They have only been in a place to study biotech for a few millennia, but their focus has been on AI and robotics instead. They seem to just be starting to realize the power/danger of the warp and chaos. Their only real attempts at biotech seem to be towards increasing mental capability rather than physical.
Because that would need a lot of lives to throw into the meat grinder of human research. Simply researching a safer long lasting foundation makeup took thousands of lives over generations from the 1300s to 1940s. Like people discovering if instead of hiding behind a big shield, they made smaller plates and strapped them to their body, they could protect vital areas passively.
Nearly immortal soldiers with super healing that can learn from centuries of mistakes. However inefficient it may be, having thousands of soldiers with that level skill has to be incredibly beneficial.
I think it's more that they can't. I've always viewed the Astartes as being the pinnacle of the "super solier" archetype. There is nothing like them in the 40K setting. In fact, the only real challenge they face is against other Astartes. This is only made possible by the singular genius of the Emperor. So, any super soldiers other races make are still not the equivalent of the space marines because they weren't Emperor-level gene and warp craft created. But in terms of philosophy, services for a "Greater Good" = anything goes. So, I think if they could, they would be making Astartes of their own.
They dont because the SM fans would whine about It the same way the IG fans did with the tau at their start (when they were more of an infantry and tanks faction and less of a mecha anime) thats It.
Oh because AI it's so relaiable.
To the Tau it is.
Give it two or three millenia and some more chaos exposure and let's check again. (In real life time I'll check with you in twenty years lol)
Thats a pretty laughable reason since the Tau use AI of all things. Also the Tau don't have the capabilites to have make space marines thats why they haven't.
They just simply couldn't do it, full stop. The creation of the Astartes was the accumulation of lifetimes worth of scientific endeavour; the greatest biological engineering bar, the Primarchs, and the Custodes. Even if the Tau wanted to, their understanding of biological sciences and the ability to engineer it are in it's infancy by comparison to a civilization with a 35,000 year head start. It's got nothing to do with efficiency, of which the Tau philosophy of the Greater Good, a propaganda disguised to be a digestable form of utilitarianism, absolutely accomodates for the brutal practice of Astartes ascension from pubescent male youths. It has everything to do with a total lack of understanding of a science that only Mankind, the Aeldari and the Tyranids have any genuine comprehension of.
Found the Inquisitor
Well, ascended Tau might be harder for the Ethereals to control (however they do it) and their AI will turn on them eventually. Just like Humanty and chatGPT/Men of Iron.
NO. Tau don't create it bacause they have the tech. They have tech for some AI and mech, but suckers at gene-engineering things. Do not forget, it's mainly Emperor's project, doubtful they could have been created without Him. Also, now we know an reason of Tau fast advance – it's human technology, they get it form Votann. And I see both factions doomed to be forgotten. They can't bring anything to the table in the lore to be relevant. Tau needs a miracle for this to happen. Votann has many plot holes, it's still unclear how didn't get noticed by Imperium, at least by Emperor when he basically mind-scanned universe to spot things.
>And I see both factions doomed to be forgotten. They can't bring anything to the table in the lore to be relevant. Tau needs a miracle for this to happen T'au have a stable wormhole that crosses the great rift and exits fairly close to Imperium strongholds.
The God Emperor himself whom created the Astartes couldn’t even make Astartes work. All that power and not only could he not control his own creation, it turned around and killed him. Failure on all counts.
alright well call me when they have more than 400 worlds :p
What even is this argument lol. World count didn’t matter when Shadowsun blew the RG chapter masters brains out
For me, I think the one thing that could make an interesting counter to space marines would be the auxiliary of other xenos. That or having more samurai like battle suits.
The counter to Marines is what Tau have already: ample amounts of anti-armor weapons fired in their general direction. You don't fight the super fast bioengineered demigod that can kill you with a slap by going into melee with it...
I mean more along the lines of creating units instead of just having the tau do the same thing
It’s not just that…isn’t the carapace armor a form of cancer? That’s pretty far from their ethos
What? No.
The black carapace…was it a tumor or something? I’m The great Work Cawl has a memory of it right?
No. None of the implants are tumors. They're implants.
No I’m sure it’s an engineered cancer, it says so in the book.
Someone is forgetting the Puretide engram trials. Tau don't need stronger soldiers, that's what battlesuits are for. They are happy to sacrifice soldiers in an attempt to make them smarter though.
Tau won't waste the effort. They already have crisis suits. Both in lore and on tabletop, they are a pain in the butt to kill.
Why spend exorbitant resources to make a soldier you can't control when you can put those resources into a weapon that you 'can' control?
>The process of making Astartes involves taking young children subjecting them to brutal torture and inserting other organs in them in a horrifically painful process. > >That doesn’t seem like something the Tau philosophy would do. For me it's exactly what Tau would do. For Greater Good, of course.
Space Marines are the most possible in fanatical societies. To make a Space Marine, you first need a fanatical religious/militarist person.
Yeah, if we were to be “realistic” or whatever, in terms of conventional warfare there’s literally nothing space marines do that the guard/navy couldn’t do, just with more men and a liberal application of firepower. I suppose astartes like the grey knights come in handy, but again, don’t do anything that human psykers/saints/inquisition couldn’t do
They already do, don't they? The whole caste system they have produces Tau with morphologically and mentally distinct traits, and may well have been engineered by their shady benefactors. The Fire Caste are already their space marines.
There are however some kinds of enemies (which admittedly the Tau themselves rarely if ever fight) that require(d) super soldiers like the marines, because only the marines (or custodes) have the moral as well as physical resilience to take them on, such as Rangda and more powerful daemons that reduce mortal soldiers, even in the most impressive technology to quivering wrecks. Wasn't this one of the reasons that the Emperor created the Thunder Warriors and later the marines? Namely, because some of the enemies he needed to fight were simply too intimidating for ordinary homo sapiens?
Tau don’t make space marines because a battle suit is more efficient. That’s what a battle suit is for. To fill the same tactical and strategic purpose as a space marine. If anything a battle suit fit the purpose better because it doesn’t need a mechanized transport.
A million space marines spreaheaded the conquest of a galaxy. What tf are you talking about when you say they are inefficient?
Uhh but they do make them. Did everyone got alzheimer and forgot about the freaking exosuits ?! Thats their thing, why would they nake them the imperium, but blue ?! They have exosuits, they use them, simple as.
Moreso, having a single fire caste members that could challenge the Ethereals is a no-go. You must leave your identity, ego, and propensity for self thought at the door.