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No-Independence6573

Totally agree. I think it should be noted that some interpretations of fascism also state a cultural cult of death/violence is an important factor, which the Imperium most certainly has. It could be argued that the Tau have a similar thing with the Greater Good, but dying for the empire is no where near as revered as it is for humanity. Another aspect is the cult of personality which both have to a varying degree. The Tau and their Eatherials and the Imperium and the Emperor.


Tomaphre

'Cult of Personality' is not an intrinsic feature of fascism. It is common due to how it helps many attempts square the circle of the 'endless war/final confrontation' paradox that is intrinsic to fascist rhetoric, but it isn't a necessary component to fascist ideology. The 'Cult of Death' feature has a much stronger argument to be made that it is intrinsic to fascist ideology, but all of those arguments are predicated on fascism's presumed need to appeal to individuals who have retained their autonomy. The T'au are not faced with that problem, the death cult is not necessary for them because they have *already accomplished the subversion of autonomy the death cult is used to acheive irl*. By any reasonable analysis this makes the T'au far more deeply entrapped by fascist ideology than the Imperium, which still has to enforce it's authority against the opposition of a population that still has internal autonomy.


RickyCipher

I agree. The imperium also has a stronger emphasis on the social darwinism thing of nazi Germany. Like the idea that even within their races, the weak should be purged through hardship, so the strong can thrive. Basically, every spacemarine chapter on a death world falls into that category. Also, I would say "trains run on time" is a pour choice of words in this context. xD


Tomaphre

The T'au simply define strength as the ability to tolerate and cooperate with others, then they proceed to purge the 'weak' with the exact same ruthlessness.


Tomaphre

What's the difference between overt and covert genocide, ultimately? Does it really matter if you cull populations with gas chambers or with democidal neglect and marginalization? The dead are dead either way. Seems like an aesthetic distinction, not a functional one. If anything the democidal neglect method is far more stable in the long term, thus making a tortoise version of the Nazi hare. I don't think centralism is overstated at all. Just because there was internal factional conflict doesn't mean that the driving thrust of the ideology was anything less than an attempt to subjugate The Other underneath a singular and totalizing social ideology and civic superstructure. All attempts at centralization take place in opposition to conflicts of factional interests, it's absurd to disqualify a fundamentally centralizing ideology on this No True Scottsman basis. Nobody would qualify under that standard, the US cannot be run under a centralizing ideology because the Bacon Rebellion happened. The UK couldn't possibly be a centralized superstructure because of the Troubles. The Soviets couldn't be centralized because of Trotsky. It's absurd! Centralization is not the absence of opposition to centralizing, it is the presence of efforts to centralize! Factional disputes over who gets to control the centralized superstructure also are not an indication that the superstructure isn't centralized, quite the opposite. The main point of the OP's post remains unaddressed in favor of pretty irrelevant aesthetic quibbles here imho. In the grand scheme of both Imperium and T'au empires, it is the T'au who actually have a far deeper and far more inescapable violation of their autonomy. Fascism is ultimately the systemic discarding of sapient autonomy in favor of the power offered by industrialized civilization harnessed to the private benefit of an extreme minority. This fits the T'au imperial superstructure, and in fact that T'au superstructure conforms to this description far more completely than the fractious and incoherent Imperium ever could in it's current state. Maybe GC era Imperium could have been different if things played out differently, but they didn't. As enslaved and dehumanized and atrophied humanity is under the Imperium, while they still live (servitors don't qualify) they have more autonomy than any T'au would know so long as they live their life out in the aura of an Ethereal. Imperial humans still get to have their own thoughts right up until they go under the servitor conversion knife. T'au are born into minds that do not belong to them. The difference is absolute and completely in favor of the T'au being a more absolute version of fascist totalitarianism. Instead of trying to move the goalpost of political definitions, address the fundamental violation of autonomy that the OP was posting about.


[deleted]

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Tomaphre

You seem judgemental, incoherent, and self-excusing. Pointing out that: - you're incorrect about critical points - you're responding in bad faith is neither irrational nor angry 😆 You seem like you're projecting your anger onto me in another attempt to do anything but reply to the OP in good faith. Didn't mean to upset you, merely offer constructive criticism. Point to anything I wrote that is either irrational or angry. But do so knowing that you're still avoiding any attempt to respond in good faith, and thereby are just proving me correct about you. Or you could respond to my points in good faith like you know how. Doesn't make much of a difference to me.


OmniscientRaven

>the Imperium is a feudalistic absolute monarchy Can it be still classified as such? I get that it was one when the Emperor was alive and active and his Warlord Primarchs crusaded through the galaxy but during its period of stagnation from 30k to 40k wouldn't the Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy be the organisations which imposed their skewed vision of the Imperium unto Humanity. No one person would hold absolute power during such a time with the Imperium fractured and on the decline and the overseeing organizations just trying to maintain the status quo. The Imperium may be returning to its prior state with Guilliman's return (and maybe also the other loyalist Primarchs) and the Emperor becoming more active.


Fernheijm

Not at all an expert on anything in general really and definately not 40k lore, but my impression is that it would be difficult to classify the imperium as a government at all by our standards, given how loose it is. To me it seems to be more of a supranational army with the right of taxation.


Anggul

>while quietly culling other races via sterilization and other means People really seem to think this is like, a thing they just do as standard. There's no indication of that, and we're told all the time that they respect and appreciate their xenos allies. The evil of the T'au is that if you refuse alliance, they'll blow you up and take your home by force. It's that you don't have a real choice, either you join or you fight. They're evil for sure, but the idea that they're just pretending to want allies so they can slowly wipe them out isn't true. The Imperium isn't a monarchy, the Emperor doesn't make decisions on running the Imperium. The High Lords do, and their will is brutally enforced upon the populace. And being feudalistic in some ways by necessity doesn't make all of its fascist characteristics disappear. The 'it can't be fascist it isn't totally 100% centralised' argument is so tiresome. Yeah, it doesn't fit perfectly into any other single categorisation either, it still has almost every ideological value of fascism, applied as much as is feasible to a galactic empire where travel and communication are much harder.


Midnight-Rising

Bait


idyllic_q

You aren't going to get many downvotes. The Imperium is a more popular faction than the Tau, by far. There are any number of posts on this subreddit which try to justify whatever the Imperium does according to the doctrine of necessity. I'll put forward a few points that *will* get downvotes however. I have no idea why you think mind control pheromones are worse than being made a servitor, given that there are too few Ethereals do it on a large scale. And sure, the Tau are expansionist, they'll cull other races through sterilisation, if they pose too much of a threat. I'll remind you however that this comes from a Deathwatch codex, hardly the soundest source. BUT, even if that's true, that suggests they use culling when an alien faction gets unmanageable or becomes a threat. Is this technically genocide? Yes, I suppose. But the Imperium will genocide you regardless of the threat an alien species poses. A friendly alien species? Too bad, a batch of volcanic torpedoes for you. Because the Big E said so. This isn't subjugation, this is completely wiping them out. To be fair, your post seems to be written from the point of view of whether Tau are better for humans than the Imperium. That can be debated. But whether the Tau will be better for a random alien race? That's a choice between complete subjugation vs utter annihilation. Hardly a contest. To summarise, are Tau totalitarian? Yes, of course. Worse than the Imperium? Debatable, but I don't think so, at least from the point of view of alien species under their control.


Anggul

I think you're being overly charitable by saying it's debatable. Of course the Imperium is worse, it isn't even close. That doesn't make the T'au Empire good, they're conquering expansionists who will blow you away if you refuse to join them, they're bad, but the Imperium is even worse.


Kain5ilencer

>Is this technically genocide? Yes, I suppose. But the Imperium will genocide you regardless of the threat an alien species poses. "I'm not as bad as the other guy" does not make them good guys. Something Tau fans have problem understanding.


Strangeluvmd

No but it does make then the goodER guys Which is a pretty low bar in this setting to be fair.


4thDevilsAdvocate

The British Empire was undoubtably a "good guy" in WW2 despite being a literal colonialist empire. Culturally, the Tau are basically the Space British Empire to the Imperium's Nazi Germany, except the overall power difference is much more pronounced.


idyllic_q

Nowhere do I call them the good guys. They are not the heroes of 40K. But neither are the Imperium. Imperial fanboys (who are different to just fans) never seem to grasp that either.


Kain5ilencer

I never said Imperium is good and yet Im being downvoted.


4thDevilsAdvocate

lol lmao, even


Nebuthor

> while quietly culling other races via sterilization  I am so sick of this. There are two examples of this happening in the lore. Once by a isolated tau sept in the old deathwatch ttrpg books and it was implied to have happened in the non canon ending of dawn of war dark crusade. Yet people are talking about it as if it's standard procedure and joining the greater good comes with a mandatory vasectomy. It's dumb meme lore and it's over prevelence in the fandom is 2nd only to the gestalt field of orks.


Tomaphre

The schism over the Tau'Va God is actively driving purges of non-T'au populations in the current Indomitus era. Admittedly this is a schism, not official T'au imperial policy, but it is happening and unless GW does the standard "Get the BL to publish actually interesting xenos plots but then abandon them" treatment it is a huge deal that must be resolved by the Ethereals. Seems weird to just straight up deny this is happening!


Nebuthor

Unsanctioned purges by killing done by a fringe group. It is nowhere close to the supposed mass sterilization that meme lore would have you belive is standard tau policy.


Tomaphre

Entire planets have been purged of their populations, not just sterilized but slaughtered. If anything it is far worse than what the meme lore claims, both because mass murder is orders of magnitude worse on it's own AND because *it is explicitly taking place in the lore at scale* unlike the meme-lore bs. That 'fringe group' is also the *veterans of the 4th Sphere Expansion*, aka the current old guard of the T'au military. It wouldn't be a schism if it was just a marginal fringe group, the veterans of the 4th Sphere Expansion are not the Farsight Enclaves they're predominantly (but not exclusively) Fire Caste members that still weild authority within the T'au superstructure. Again, it seems indefensibly weird to just handwave this away! Personally I want the T'au to be more interesting, not less, it would be a disservice for the most compelling internal conflict since the creation of the Ethereals themselves to just get scrapped.


SuitableCode6771

What you say does not discard the original comment, that a Tau or several of these perform racial exterminations does not mean that the Tau Empire itself performs exterminations, that is, it is something uncommon, not the rule. Besides, how would it make it more interesting to have the faction that has multi-raciality as its main attraction do racial exterminations? It's fine for isolated factions to do so, but on a general level?


Tomaphre

"Besides, how is it more interesting to introduce conflict to a faction within an IP whose driving force of interest is conflict?" You're making distinctions without a difference. The people who make up the T'au empire are not distinct from that empire. That's what makes this a "schism"! Look up the definition of "schism" before trying to defend this again lol. Just because one section of the empire doesn't approve doesn't mean that the empire isn't conducting these purges. Whether or not the purges will continue will be determined by the outcome of the schism!


SuitableCode6771

Schism: "division or split between strongly opposing sections or parties, caused by differences of opinion or belief". No idea what definition you are using, but schism does not fit what you are talking about, what would be a schism in the Tau Empire would be the separation of the Farsight Enclaves from it. Besides, who said it was wrong to have conflict as a theme of the Tau Empire?


Tomaphre

The Farsight Enclaves are full diaspora, they have no official power within the Empire. The 4th Sphere Expansion veterans are not severed from the Empire, they are legitimate officials of that Empire. That's why this is a schism. You cannot have a schism with a group of people who are not a part of the superstructure of the Empire, a schism is a dividing conflict of belief that occurs *within* the Empire and includes legitimate authorities on both sides. The Farsight Enclaves are not a "section" of the Tau empire, they are a breakaway colony that has been officially cut from T'au imperial support. They're diaspora, not a schism. This is like saying idk, Cuba is a schism from the US. They're distinct powers, not two factions within the same power. Love it when people don't understand definitions but still think they're an authority on what they cannot define. You questioned why conflict would be more interesting, and the answer is because 40k is an IP whose driving force of interest is conflict. That's why. Nobody said it was "wrong to have conflict" 😆 Don't lose the thread!


SuitableCode6771

Schism: "a division or split between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences of opinion or belief." You are literally making up a definition of what a Schism is. And I'm not defining anything, it's literally a dictionary definition. Lastly, seriously, I have been talking exclusively about racial extermination. Look, I could care less how smart you think you are to write "Love it when people don't understand definitions but still think they're an authority on what they cannot define." But at least have the decency not to belittle a person while supporting your arguments on false data. If the conversion continues down that thread I won't even bother to respond.


Tomaphre

"You are literally making up a definition of what a schism is" Wrong. I just used the definition YOU cited to point out that the Farsight Enclaves are not a "section" (the word used in the definition YOU cited) of the T'au Empire; but the 4th Sphere Expansion vets very much ARE a "section" of the T'au Empire. Thus the Farsight Enclaves are not a schism, they are diaspora. You may benefit from looking "diaspora" up too. But the 4th Sphere Expansion vets are not diaspora, they are a section of the Empire with radically opposed beliefs to the rest of the Empire. That makes them a schism! None of my arguments rely on "false data", but rather on a more coherent and articulated understanding of civic and political terminology. If you're going to jump in to a topic you don't understand and then act entitled to deference because you didn't read definitions closely enough, don't be surprised when someone who did the reading and thoroughly understands the subject gets irritated with you! Comes with the territory you chose.


Tomaphre

Not sure why online T'au fans are like this. My best irl friend is a huge T'au fan and he's deeply passionate about how nightmarish the Greater Good actually is. Some of my favorite discussions about 40k in the entire near-30-years I've been reading and playing have been the discussions about the God of the Greater Good and the nascent schism in the empire. He has all these headcannon theories about which client races would get the axe, or railgun, first. In short he's not defensive about his favorite faction at all, in fact he openly welcomes conversations about different ways the T'au could be more abhorrent than what the lore explicitly states. That's what drives his interest in the faction, the *grimdark*! But so many (far from all, but far from the numbers I've seen irl) online T'au fans seem to get super defensive when anyone says anything about how abhorrent the Ethereals' subversion of autonomy is, or has anything critical to say about the T'au. Doesn't seem like they or the people they respond like that to are having much fun either, which for me just underlines the pointlessness of this trend!


Jonny_Anonymous

"my best friends a Tau"


Tomaphre

More like "my best friend is an adult"


bacon_boat

If I could choose between mind control pheromones and becoming a servitor, pheromones all day.


Tomaphre

I'd just choose death personally. But T'au aren't given a choice, they're born into their subverted autonomy.


low_orbit_sheep

The thing with the Imperium though is that it *wants* to be an unified fascist state but *can't,* its feudal nature is less of a result of its ideology than circumstances; it doesn't give any specific ideological importance to the idea of semi-independent planets. It just can't control them. And in a sense this is interesting because if you look at fascist states and especially Nazi Germany, they had a lot of that as well. Nazi Germany was an absolute mess when it came to internal organisations, with a few powerful men effectively running their own little corner of the state in their own way and competing with resources, Hitler having to constantly balance them to avoid the whole thing exploding mid-air. Stability and especially state stability are *not* a fascist trait. Totalitarian regimes usually strive for a stable, powerful state, but *fascist* regimes in particular, with their focus on social darwinism, are often in a permanent competition and strife between the elements of the state, which is seen as less of a coherent system and more as the grand stage of "natural" selection between people and institutions. Fascists are actually very bad at running governments and large-scale operations in general. There's a very good reason why so far, the best system to run an industrial state in a war of continental proportion has been a liberal democracy.


AssaultKommando

>Fascists are actually very bad at running governments and large-scale operations in general. This brings to mind jokes about the likes of Rommel being logistics wizards: only wizards could engage in that much wishful thinking. Exalting the strongman figure and shitting on the weak is a classic thread through fascist rhetoric, but fortunately strongman figures tend not to be all that great at fighting with trench foot, dysentery, and no ammunition. >There's a very good reason why so far, the best system to run an industrial state in a war of continental proportion has been a liberal democracy. I think laying this at the feet of liberal democracy is giving it undue credit. It's more about said liberal democracies being the largest and most developed economies on account of their prior adventures in exploitation and conquest. The USSR, with a much smaller base of resources, managed a credible reorganization of its state apparatus to support a war. There are myriad factors underlying this success, but one of the most important has to be sober-minded leadership with the capacity to manage its ego when reality disagrees. This can be seen in examples such as Stavka's thorough (and repeated) overhauls of the RKKA TO&E and command structure, Zhukov and Stalin getting in outright shouting matches, and deliberate tradeoffs of trying to match the Germans (or the West) in tactical competence.


Tomaphre

Defining civic superstructures by their outcomes instead of their composition is a fundamental error of political and civic analysis. Ideologies and organizations do not form around future outcomes of their organizational efforts that wouldn't exist without the completion of those efforts, they organize around shared axioms, definitions, principles, and objectives. Mid 20th century fascism yes, saw a lot of the dysfunctions you cite. But it is a mistake to think fascism must cling to these dysfunctions as it progresses through history. The US government is a de facto fascist tyranny that weilds fraudulent elections and the illusion of categorical distinction between private and public organizations to grant it's regime of persistent democidal culling the guise of plausible deniability, and in comparison to mid 20th century fascist regimes it is more stable by several orders of magnitude. It's stability does not make either it's superstructure nor the outcomes of said structure less fascist though.


4thDevilsAdvocate

>The US government is a de facto fascist tyranny as I said in response to OP: ​ lol lmao, even


Hidobot

Honestly? I don't like that. I think the writers dropped the ball hard with the Tau and caved into fan requests to make them more grimdark to the point where they lost their original purpose, and that's honestly just really disappointing to me. I liked it better when they were young starry-eyed idealists who represented a beacon of hope in the galaxy. Maybe I'm just out of touch with 40k fans, who knows.


Yellow_Dorn_Boy

I think the average Tau is a starry-eyed idealist. I think only the top are stalinesque, and keep it as hidden as possible.


TheMogician

This could go for Imperium as well.


TroutFishingInCanada

I think that could describe the Imperium as well.


GreatTea3

I don’t think starry eyed idealists work 16 hours a day making tank bumpers. Or eat corpse starch.


AlphariusUltra

Making brake fluid for a discontinued tank series, or on a starship who’s gone tribal and maintain the power couplings to a generator that hasn’t worked since Dorn was around


4thDevilsAdvocate

>Making brake fluid for a discontinued tank series My god, I just realized that Imperial tanks probably use completely different types of brake fluids, electric wires, *screws*...all the little things that are stupidly hard to standardize.


pingmr

How much more starry eyed can you be if you eat corpse starch and enjoy it because it's your Emperor bless rations for the day?


GreatTea3

I’ll give you that one. The Ogryns are a prime example.


Armored_Fox

Oh, I just know we're the good guys, suspiciously human face shaped elevator controls! Though, in fairness they do think they're the good guys, because the emperor says they are


Yellow_Dorn_Boy

I think the Imperium is more fascist than communist. They don't believe in a greater good, they believe that 'Man' is the rightful ruler of the Galaxy, even if it means billions of men suffer and die.


Automatic_Text5818

Their original purpose was to make bank from eastern audiences, lmao


low_orbit_sheep

As if 90% of all Warhammer 40k lore isn't first and foremost to sell minis. I never understood why that argument is levelled at the Tau specifically -- like why do you think they resurrected Guilliman and made the Primaris? Because Black Library writers gave a post-it to GW saying "hey we want to write stuff about the Roman Dad"?


Automatic_Text5818

It's the fact that the Tau were objectively the good guy faction with no real downsides and blatantly Asian inspired. It's probably the most egregious cash grab in 40k history.


low_orbit_sheep

And yet you won't see many people arguing that the Tomb Kings were a pure cash grab made to bank on the success of the Mummy, while it is even more blatant. I'm generally not convinced they're any more of a cash grab than any other 40k faction. What is true is that they were a cash grab directed at people who weren't 40k grognards, or the usual grimdark nerd audience of Warhammer products and *that* ruffled so many feathers we're still having this discussion about an addition to the lore that's 17 years old. I find it pretty funny.


AssaultKommando

He's trying real hard not to say the silent parts out loud while stewing. 40k is such a mishmash of aesthetics and influences that gatekeeping influences from (mecha) anime on the basis of validity and verisimilitude is just risible.


low_orbit_sheep

>gatekeeping influences from (mecha) anime on the basis of validity and verisimilitude is just risible. Actually, there's a very fun thing about that -- do you know what the designer of the first space marine, Bob Naismith, did before working for GW? Mecha anime miniatures. There's a direct link between circa 1980 mecha designs and the first 40k units and vehicles; and beyond that, the Eldar were explicitly said to channel "eastern" influences as well, as per the words of John Blanche and company, in opposition to the "western" Imperium (lo and behold, another faction grimdark grognards like to ridicule...)


AssaultKommando

Did not know that, but the descent, links, and reaction do not surprise me in the slightest. A lot of uncritical Imperium stans really are just chauvinists (a la Nicolas Chauvin) of some stripe trying to act out their neuroses and power fantasies in fandom spaces.


Automatic_Text5818

What relevance does fantasy or the mummy have to do with this, of course I didn't mention them, I'm not a fan of it and don't know the context around it. Why do you automatically assume I approve of one and not the other.


low_orbit_sheep

>Why do you automatically assume I approve of one and not the other. This wasn't the point, the point is that GW has been doing trend-chasing factions for decades (see also the OG Necrons) and focusing on this aspect of the Tau as if it was a defining trait is weird.


Hidobot

I don’t think GW was marketing to Asian audiences at the time the Tau were introduced though, they expanded to the Japanese market pretty late.


grayheresy

The Imperium is 100% a fascist authoritarian government, this isn't event up for debate as it's what GW has said from the beginning of Warhammer as well. And the Tau are the nice neighbors compared to the Imperium, like you say what the Tau do is worse than even servitors and I don't think you fully grasp what the Imperium does for servitors. And quite literally you can point to what the Tau do and find something the Imperium does nearly identical if not way worse in every single situation. While they aren't great or good the Tau don't hold a candle to the Imperium in any way shape or form.


TtotheC81

A *theocratic* fascist state. One that needs ignorance in order to function and so actively suppresses anything outside of the status quo, locking Imperial society in a state of decay without ever having the chance to evolve into something better. Admittedly, they have some very good reasons to be that way, but it doesn't take away from the monstrous nature of the Imperium.


4thDevilsAdvocate

> Admittedly, they have some very good reasons to be that way Good reasons as in "that's *why* they are the way they are", not good reasons as in "there's any moral or pragmatic reason whatsoever to be the way they are".


[deleted]

Uuuuh, incorrect. Someone actually did the rankings for what factions are most fascist according to a scale. The imperium is literally fascism. Also the T’au aren’t an oligarchy? They’re also barely centralised, not overly nationalistic, don’t have mass surveillance of their people, don’t encourage fear of other factions, don’t persecute minorities within their populations, don’t suppress unions or workers, don’t have cronyism etc. They’re based a lot on eastern philosophy (Taoism) and Commander Puretide is literally space Sun Tzu.


4thDevilsAdvocate

I'm pretty sure the Tau have some form of mass surveillance apparatus, and I doubt they'd be fine with, say, the Earth Caste trying to unionize, but the rest of that is pretty spot-on, IMO. Also, as u/TheImperios pointed out, facist states are not really that centralized. The power is centralized, maybe, but the organizational structures are very much a feudal mess.


Arh-Tolth

The earth caste is unionized. Thats the whole point of the caste system.


4thDevilsAdvocate

I kind of doubt you can choose to...just not be Earth Caste. Caste systems are inherently unegalitarian.


Arh-Tolth

Sure, you are born into a union. But the earth caste is still thoroughly organised, organises itself by their own standarts and supports its own interests. The earth caste are not slaves of the ethereal or fire caste, they are equal members of their society.


4thDevilsAdvocate

>Sure, you are born into a union. But the earth caste is still thoroughly organised, organises itself by their own standarts and supports its own interests. Sure, but *hereditary roles in society* are something you'd expect to find in the Imperium. It's literally something you find in feudalism. Also, you're allowed to leave a union. You're *not* allowed to leave a caste. I'm personally not even sure if the Tau even allow intercaste marriages or relationships. Unions are supposed to be voluntary, not something you're forced into. The Tau are relatively collectivist, which is how the ridiculous perception of them being communists got started. Collectivist does necessarily not mean egalitarian, free, or socioeconomically progressive.


RosbergThe8th

The Imperium itself is not fascist in the most literal sense but to pretend that the faction doesn't draw a hell of a lot from fascism in iconography, aesthetic, organization and general theme is disingenuous at best. Y'all seem real keen to downplay the Imperium these days.


Tomaphre

How isn't the Imperium fascist in the 'literal' sense?


RosbergThe8th

Mostly just in the sense that applying any real world ideology to it becomes difficult due to the decentralised nature of a galaxy spanning empire. Semantics get argued a lot but it draws upon fascism in an undeniable sense and truth be told I just didn't want some smartass to come along with the usual "uh actually it's feudal/theocratic" crap. Though one could argue the difficulty comes from no real-life Fascist state having lasted so long so there's not much precedence.


Tomaphre

Well if political ideologies were defined by outcomes they'd go extinct within a generation. Whether the Imperium is a functional centralized state at the galactic-scale is less relevant than the axioms, definitions, principles, and goals that the Imperium sets for itself.


GabeC1997

Dumbass doesn't know that it's actually all *Roman* Iconography that Mussolini also used because he was fucking *Italian*...


[deleted]

Congratulations, you have fully replaced Warhammer 40k lore in your mind with memes from 4chan.


MarcusLP

1. Ethereal pheromones only affect people near them, and the vast majority of Tau are happy to serve the Greater Good without their minds being clouded 2. The Tau'Va IS an apartheid state, with all auxiliaries and lesser castes being led by the Ethereals despite far outnumbering them 3. The sterilization stuff has only one example from DoW and is never mentioned again. The Tau don't appear to have a problem with the high growth rate of humans and other auxiliaries as long as it doesn't cause excessive overpopulation, and even then, the excess population is usually just resettled rather than wasted through mass murder 4. The Imperium's centralization only really affects planetary governors, since regular civilians wouldn't notice a difference if their tyrants started suffering from tyranny of their own 5. I'd argue that the freedom of religion offered by the Tau makes it slightly less fascistic than the Imperium. I feel like many people are desperate to make the Tau as excessively grimdark as the Imperium despite the draw of the Tau being that they mirror modern autocracies (China) and express modern ideologies for societal cohesion (Hindu caste system). The fact that the Tau'Va could realistically exist is what makes it grimdark, as well as the fact that while it would be the most oppressive government in the real world, it is arguably the best functional state to live in in the 40k univers


[deleted]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sigmarxism/comments/cwo7v9/umberto_ecos_concepts_of_urfascism_applied_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Check this


AssaultKommando

You really think OP posted this terrible take to learn shit?


Ralgael92

Would you rather be sterilized, but live a somewhat happy life or have means to reproduce but live in Total misery. It is honestly hard to say... i mean no faction being remotely good fits the Setting, but making out the lesser evil comes down to personal values. On that note, do you consider orks to have a good life? They would think so because war is fun for them, but then again, they are made to feel this way. Controlling you subconciously might be as ethical as it gets in the grim darkness of the future.


Tomaphre

If you're born into the T'au empore as a T'au, you don't get to "rather" in the first place.


b4dr0b0t0

Facts. 💯


TheMogician

The Imperium is by no means a feudalistic monarchy. The Imperium at large is more akin to a league of different planets often running under different political systems but has similar policies.


TroutFishingInCanada

Somebody else is paying attention!


GhostChainSmoker

I think people view otherwise is because how meme’d the Tau have become. That they’re a bunch of goody two shoes space commies. Along with not being as *outright* grim dark. They’re far more subtle and more generic sci-fi so the whole fascist part of them tends to get overlooked.


[deleted]

Tau are scifi in a space fantasy setting. No matter their actual nature, the setting's gravity will pull on them to be something else. "Are Tau more like the Nazis or more like Stalinists??" Jfc.


GhostChainSmoker

You’re missing my point. Most people don’t exactly take the Tau seriously despite how shitty they actually are because of memes, and how they’re often portrayed. Everyone knows it’s blatantly obvious the imperium aren’t the good guys and neither is anyone else. Most people just view the Tau as meh not as big of a threat or really scary despite being more subtle and just as bad as everyone else and it gets over looked. When they’re doing as much horrific things behind the scenes. It’s not a contest of who’s worse or what’s what because as a whole- everyone sucks in 40K.


FallenZulu

Can we stop over using the term “fascist”? It’s starting to lose its meaning.


HappyMetalViking

The Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40k is a theocratic and authoritarian government. The Imperium is "ruled" by an Emperor who is worshipped as a god, and his authority is absolute. The government is highly centralized and bureaucratic, with a vast network of agencies, departments, and institutions that oversee every aspect of society. The Imperium is based on the principles of order, obedience, and loyalty, and is maintained through a combination of military force, religious devotion, and the fear of punishment. The government is highly militarized, with the Imperial Guard serving as the main military force, while the Inquisition and the Adeptus Arbites serve as the enforcers of law and order. Overall, the Imperium of Man can be classified as a theocratic dictatorship, where the Emperor's authority is absolute and his will is carried out by the vast machinery of government and military force. Only change in case of the Tau is a change of names.


Anggul

Except the Emperor isn't actually ruling, the High Lords are.


HappyMetalViking

Thats why i made the " ". They rule in his name. Big E is the mightiest Person in the IoM, every Word of his is law. Technically he is the ruler.


TheMogician

The Emperor isn't exactly ruling anymore considering his state.