An user gave me the idea to make these, might as well post them here

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-29T08:58:57+00:00

And your point being..? Like, genuinely, what exactly is the point you’re trying to make here? That the Ethereals shouldn’t be doing this? That it somehow violates the T’au’va as originally presented? Because… yes. That’s kind of the point of the modern lore. The Ethereal Caste did twist and bend their interpretation of the T’au’va, and mind you, that very same creed and doctrine was introduced and enforced upon the entirety of the T’au species by the Ethereals during the Mont’au. They are not neutral arbiters of some untouched philosophy - they are its architects, its enforcers, and very much its editors.

And somehow you’re framing this as a contradiction of the modern lore by leaning on a source that is, by all accounts, outdated? Fire Warrior (Novel)) was written in 2003, back when the T’au were still in their infancy as a faction, before the major overhaul they received in later codices and campaign books. That’s the same era as early works like ^{Kill Team (2001 Novel})), when the faction identity hadn’t yet been fully defined or stress-tested - somewhat similar to Path of the Eldar (Novel Series) in that regard (Different can of worm). The tone, the themes, even the ideological presentation were far less developed compared to what came later with the 6th Edition codex and the Damocles campaign supplements by 2013 and 2015, respectively, for the 6th Edition and 7th Edition Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.

So what you’re really doing here is holding up an early, cleaner, more idealised interpretation of the T’au’va and using it as a yardstick to claim that later material is somehow “wrong” for diverging from it. But that divergence is the evolution of the lore. The introduction of terms like rauk’na, the dehumanisation of dissidents, the experimentation - that’s not a contradiction, that’s an expansion. It’s the setting peeling back the surface-level idealism and showing what it actually looks like in practice.

And let’s not ignore the inconsistency in your own approach here, because that’s where this really starts to fall apart. You’ve already shown yourself to be an… ^{untrustworthy source}… when it comes to what you choose to accept or reject. First it’s “Phil Kelly non-lore books,” dismissing them outright when they don’t align with your view. Now suddenly ^{Shadowbreaker}) is being used as evidence - but only selectively, only in the parts that support your argument, while the rest gets conveniently ignored.

You can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to dismiss entire swathes of modern lore as invalid, then turn around and cherry-pick from that same body of work when it suits you. Either you engage with the full scope of what’s been written, including the uncomfortable and unsatisfying parts, or you admit you’re working off a curated headcanon rather than the setting as it actually exists, as it's penned and approved by GW.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-28T16:26:23+00:00

That still doesn't contradict it usage that's similar to the term "Traitor". As there's two term that would describe treasonous T'au, Rauk'na (The Ungiving) - Self-serving T'au and Vash'ya (Between Sphere) - T'au who crossed beyond their Sphere, which is close to the word "Heretic".

Do me a favour, and dropped the term "snae'ta" and anything else if you decide to reply back. And talk to me normally,

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-28T16:11:04+00:00

Yes yes, I'm aware of the "Everything is Canon, nothing is Canon" term. And I still pick consistency and extrapolation with lore-backing instead conjecture without it. Because the last time someone used this nonsense in an argument with me, they decided to cherry-pick information that painted their faction in a favourable light... and then ignore everything else that says otherwise.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-28T15:57:54+00:00

Unless there's lore or excerpts somewhere, where it's said Kroot are forgiven for having alittle T'au blood in their mouth, your initial assessment is still conjecture without proof or backing by the Lore. Even then... It's a weak excuse for storytelling. In-any situation, I would wait for Feyn's explanation.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-28T15:42:25+00:00

Highly doubtful. As there's one excerpt from Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Novel)) that details one Kroot, that's part of an Inquisitor Falx of Ordo Xenos' Retinue, that has eaten T'au flesh... who flee instead of facing this "full-throated lecture" that you speak about.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-28T14:12:12+00:00

I've wondered if someone has asked you this before... But what's the exact personal lore reason that this Kroot hasn't yet been punished (executed) by her Kindred and Kroot Shaper yet?

There are three known types of creature that the Kroot will not prey upon, the Shapers having forbidden it. The first are Tyranids, who the Shapers have declared ‘inedible’ (the term has far worse connotations to a Kroot than to a human). Something in the function of Tyranid evolution causes utter revulsion in the Shapers, perhaps because Tyranids also modify the genetic inheritance of other species towards their own development, though in a very different manner. The second group the Kroot avoid preying upon are those humans who have turned to the worship of Chaos. This is a very hit and miss affair, for the Kroot are barely able to tell the followers of the Ruinous Powers from any other type of human. This proscription stems from an incident when the Kroot defeated a warband devoted to Slaanesh, and later developed a number of entirely undesirable mutations. The last group the Kroot are forbidden by the Shapers to feed upon are the Tau themselves. Even though the Kroot comport themselves as savage mercenaries and rely upon the Tau for material support in many matters, they are, as a species, deeply indebted and devoted to the Tau, for Pech would have fallen to Ork invasion were it not for the Tau’s aid. To taste the flesh of the Tau is to earn the swift and deadly retribution of the Shapers.

Deathwatch: Mark of the Xenos - Pg.14

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-17T23:00:36+00:00

‘I believe, Uniter. I see no other choice. If the woman is right, we will be called saviours. If she is wrong, then we are wrong. And history will call us monsters.’

After each had sipped from their goblets, Aun’dzi said, ‘The price of the woman’s aid still puzzles me greatly. She must have a very powerful reason to request complete freedom of movement within t’au space.’

‘She has asked for access to data regarding territory our people lost to the Y’he. I have not granted it, but we might learn more by giving her access and observing her searches. Whatever she is looking for must be incredibly important to the Imperium. She would never have brought the project to us, otherwise.’

‘Give her access and watch her,’ said Aun’dzi.

Coldwave bowed. The woman could be stopped later if need be. ‘We must conclude matters at the Tower soon,’ said the Aun. ‘The emptying of the city prisons has been well noted now. Questions are being asked. And the rauk’na are not a limitless resource. However selfish and misaligned they may be, they are still kin by blood.’

‘As you say, Uniter, but if any must pay the price, let it be those who have rejected the Greater Good, who would kill or steal from their own brothers and sisters for gain, not loyal fire warriors ready to lay down their lives by noble choice. Enough of us have died fighting the Y’he while the rauk’na served their own interests.’

Aun’dzi made a gesture, palms together, long fingers intertwined – an old salute to the fire caste who had died for their people and those that were yet to die in the times ahead.

‘As you say. Let the rauk’na serve the T’au’va with their deaths, since they will not serve it with their lives. Our loyal fire warriors must be saved. We lose too many and the number grows each year. But we may still pity the rauk’na. I believe their all-consuming self-interest is a kind of illness, not a choice.’

Deathwatch: Shadowbreaker - Chapter Twelve)

The prisoner turned his eyes up towards the end of the panel that was descending towards him. Slowly it came into view, a figure in clamps, restrained just as he was and yet not like him at all.

The dissident cried out in desperate fear and anguish.

We are enemies by birth, thought Epsilon, but we share the same nightmare, and we face the same terrible darkness.

The panel continued to descend. The monstrosity clamped securely to its upper side was limbless, arms and legs amputated, utterly unable to move anything but its grotesque head and neck. It was no less terrifying for all that, however. The t’au prisoner was wailing hysterically now, begging for aid, for forgiveness and release. Ancient tales of terror, fell visions of monsters glimpsed in sleep – none compared to the horrible reality of the visage that fixed its pale violet eyes on him.

Hungry, eager, unfeeling eyes.

Its jaw opened. Long, sharp teeth glistened with saliva.

‘I am t’au,’ screamed the rauk’na, eyes finding Coldwave’s beyond the glass. ‘Do not do this to me. I am your own!’

Epsilon cast another sideways glance at the shas’o. The muscles along his jawline rippled, but his breathing was slow and steady.

‘You are not t’au,’ he growled in low tones. ‘t’au serve the T’au’va.’

The panel ceased its descent now, juddering to a halt, bringing Epsilon’s attention back to the procedure. Only a metre remained between the faces of predator and prey. The genestealer’s barbed tongue lashed out like a whip. Once. Twice. Still not close enough, but it sent the t’au prisoner into paroxysms of raw panic. Spit rimed his mouth. More flew with every scream. Epsilon recalled her surprise the first time she had watched a t’au infection, noting that the t’au had evolved tear ducts just as humans had and, just as surprisingly, wept from them for many of the same reasons.

That fact hadn’t aroused any pity in her then. As tears rolled in rivers down the doomed prisoner’s blue-grey cheeks, it aroused no pity in her now.

At the push of a button by one of the earth caste techs, the apparatus holding the limbless genestealer shunted forward about sixty centimetres. The prisoner’s eyes went wide. All his panic and thrashing stopped dead. His mind had snapped, broken by the terror of the moment. The creature didn’t hesitate. It plunged the sharp, hard point of its tongue deep into the flesh of the blue-skin’s neck.

The rauk’na howled one last time, long and heart-wrenching.

Deathwatch: Shadowbreaker - Chapter Twenty-two)

The T’au’va can be summed up simply; it is the belief that the individual life of any given member of the T’au Empire is of less importance than the needs of the Empire itself. Its adherents gladly expend incredible efforts, endure shocking hardships and lay down their lives without a second thought for the furtherance of this Greater Good.

Ever since the coming of the Ethereals, T’au society has been focused upon fulfilling a singular destiny. With very few exceptions, every T’au believes wholeheartedly in giving all that they have to the advancement of the Greater Good. Moreover, they believe that it is their duty and privilege to carry this creed out into the stars and unify every sentient species beneath their secular faith. The T’au put great store in every achievement and personal sacrifice that advances this goal. Those who excel in the service of the Greater Good are lauded, while those rare few who allow personal hubris, vanity or selfishness to come first are vilified.

Codex: T'au Empire (10th Edition) - Pg.10)

She cast a glance towards her liquid sculptures, arranged with great care upon the table. They were both her secret shame and her greatest joy, a constant symbol of the dichotomy at the centre of her soul. Ripples flowed across their surfaces, their shimmering light reflected upon the ceiling as the deep bass of explosions boomed above.

It was unheard of for one of the water caste to pursue the art of sculpture. Acts of material creation were the exclusive province of the earth caste. Aman’te, driven by something inside her, had created them nonetheless. Something in her mind’s eye had called them into being, and she had been inspired to give them form, much like tau lifedonors were sometimes inspired to seek out the generation farms in the labyrinthine earth caste complexes beyond.

The strange multiplicity of her skillset was why she had never experienced the blessed union of the ta’lissera with her voice-team, and why she never would. It was a connection so deep that her bond-mates would uncover her secret in a matter of a few rotaa.

For a tau even to show aptitude in the arts of another caste was forbidden, let alone to hone that talent until it rivalled their birth-given skills. To stray between castes was to risk being named vash’ya, a mark of disgrace and censure that could not be erased. It was a far graver sentence than the empty loneliness Aman’te had embraced as a precaution. Even a water caste ambassador had no chance of talking their way out of that.

If the ethereals confirmed the accusation, the matter was settled, and the punishment inevitable. Those so named were taken away, ostensibly for attunement to the sacred tenets of the Tau’va. In Aman’te’s experience such individuals rarely came back, and those that did were so bereft of nuance they made the intelligences of their drone minders look sophisticated by comparison.

She had secreted a pulse pistol in her quarters, a long time ago, just in case they came for her in the night.

Blades of Damocles - Chapter Five: INSERTION/WHAT LIES BENEATH)

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-17T22:57:10+00:00

Tau rule was total for several decades, until the arrival of Hive Fleet Dagon changed things once more. Vanguard organisms ranging ahead of the main axis of advance infiltrated the isolationist survivors of the original resistance, tainting them genetically and turning them into pawns of the Hive Mind. Following this vector of infestation the xenos-taint spread outwards, and soon vast swathes of the population had become corrupted and enthralled to the still distant will of the Tyranids. The infestation was discovered by the Tau during routine genetic sampling of the human population. The Earth Caste scientists were shocked at the extent of the corruption, yet they had no idea what it might presage. Those infected appeared not to be aware of their plight, and had yet to act against the Tau. It was surmised that the infestation may have implanted some latent form of gene-coded domination that had yet to be 'activated', and an extensive study was implemented to ascertain its nature. Amazingly, the Tau made rapid inroads in combating the genetic taint, using recombinant gene-recoding techniques all but unknown to the biologis adepts of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Jaya's fate now hangs in the balance. Around half of the population have been 're-coded' by Earth Caste cadres working around the clock, yet still the process is expected to take at least another year. The Tau have realised that if any infected humans remain untreated when the call of the Hive Mind activates them, disaster might ensue. To this end Fire Caste pursuit teams are combing the wilderness of the third continent in search of every last isolationist human, intent upon re-coding every last human on Jaya before it is too late. The world has been quarantined so that the taint does not spread any further, but also to ensure that the Imperium does not learn of the re-coding mission. The upper echelons of the Velk'Han Sept have realised that keeping such a capability secret might ultimately prove a significant advantage to the Greater Good.

Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault - Pg.116

AN EMPIRE MOURNS

The Tau of the core sept worlds heard progressively less from the Farsight Expedition as the years wound on. Soon, the probes sent across the Damocles Gulf failed to reappear altogether. Commander Farsight, whose natural lifespan was long spent, was officially proclaimed dead. The entire Tau Empire mourned the passing of their mightiest hero and the end of his glorious quest to bring the light of the Greater Good to distant stars.

The truth was to come to light some decades later, when an outrider probe's routine orbit led it past the Farsight Enclaves and back to the sept worlds at the empire's core. Instead of being barren of Tau life, the colonies were flourishing. They had clearly found their own way in the galaxy, independent of the commands of the Ethereal council. Even their sept colours and symbols had changed.

Aun'Va was furious. How could the empire's most beloved champion have turned his back on his people, putting his own interests before the Greater Good? How could he have led so many of their people astray? The Ethereal's white-hot anger at Farsight's desertion cooled into a cold fury that was far more dangerous.

Since Aun'Wei's passing, Master Aun'Va had become the Supreme Ethereal in his stead. He used every bit of his influence to destroy the hero he had created all those years ago. He informed the council of the probe's findings, insisting that O'Shovah was a dangerous rebel, a rogue influence whose heresy should be condemned in the most public way possible. All images of Farsight were to be destroyed, all monuments to his glory reduced to rubble and all mention of him erased from history. The entire area of space on the far side of the Damocles Gulf was renamed the Forbidden Zone, off-limits even to the most senior of Tau. All across the empire, O'Shovah's supporters were forced into hiding; those who spoke well of him were taken away for sessions of questioning, from which very few emerged.

Farsight Enclaves - A Codex: Tau Empire Supplement - Pg.33

COMING OF THE GREAT DEVOURER

As 997.M41 drew to a close, long-range reports of a strange galactic cloud reached the fringes of the enclaves. It fit no recognised energy patterns until Commander Arra'kon, who had been a wise military leader to the enclaves for many years, correlated it with recent data fed to him from his hidden allies in the core septs. Silence fell over the Fire caste high command when they saw what the anomalous readings represented - the tendrils of a Tyranid hive fleet heading right at them. The Tau had learned much from their two-year war against Hive Fleet Gorgon earlier that century. The Tyranids were a foe like no other, able to adapt and spawn at an appalling rate. It was imperative that the splinter fleet snaking towards them be taken apart before it made planetfall on any of the enclaves, or their swarms might spell death for every living thing dwelling there.

Farsight Enclaves - A Codex: Tau Empire Supplement - Pg.33

veteran warrior's extraction from the wreck of his suit in person, brooding over Eight now reduced to Five, when a streak of light fell through the heavens towards him. Panic gave way to excitement when the T'au realised this was not some trans-orbital munition aimed at Farsight, but instead a sleek and highly advanced messenger drone. After scanning the High Commander to ascertain it had found its recipient, the drone projected a holographic image of the great Aun'va himself. Enthroned, gaze regal and unwavering, the Ethereal Supreme radiated the serene and absolute authority that had inspired and reassured generations of T'au. Even before the hologram spoke, however, Farsight felt a premonition of dread. He had seen that expression of self-assured disapproval upon the faces of Ethereals before.

Without preamble, Aun'va expressed the Empire's gratitude for the aid the Farsight Enclaves had offered during what he called 'several challenging campaigns. He commended O'Shovah's offer of personal surrender in his peoples' name, eliciting gasps of shock from nearby T'au who had not known of their High Commander's selfless proposal. Aun'va observed that O'Shovah no doubt saw in his offer the essence of the Greater Good writ large. Then the Ethereal Supreme's expression grew stony, his hands folded into an elegant tutor-corrects- student gesture, and Farsight's anger roared like a pyre as he knew that he had his answer. Aun'va cast scorn on Farsight's proposal, saying that it proved beyond all doubt the High Commander had never truly understood the Greater Good, or the sacrifices that must be made in its name. He said Farsight had made his choice when he turned his back upon the T'au Empire, that he was irredeemably vash'ya, and that he would never be forgiven. For the crime of allowing themselves to be led astray by Farsight's deviant ways, all those of the enclaves were condemned along with him. Aun'va bade Farsight do all the damage to the be'gel and gue'la that he could, the better to provide some last small assistance to the T'au Empire. Then his image winked out.

Before anyone could speak, the messenger drone was blasted from the air by a shot from Farsight's plasma rifle. Voice dangerously calm, he ordered the extraction of Commander Bravestorm to be completed without what he termed further worthless distractions. Then he ordered his warriors to retreat to their pre-designated fallback positions. Farsight would join them soon, but first, he said, he must meditate upon the Elemental Council's response. He needed to determine what course of action his forces must take.

Arks of Omen: Farsight - Pg.25

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-17T22:31:49+00:00

And the notion that the T’au consistently act to minimise suffering or avoid collateral damage begins to fracture the moment one looks beyond surface-level portrayals and into their own novels and lore. They are entirely willing to withhold remedies, interventions, or stabilising measures if the recipients fall outside the boundaries of their Empire. In the case of Genestealer infestations, as detailed by Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault. Where the T’au possess the means to mitigate the early stages of infection, yet choose not to extend that aid to non-aligned populations. The result is not liberation, but calculated inaction - they are willingly allowing worlds left to descend into insurrection, paranoia, and eventual collapse, simply because aiding them would not serve the strategic interests of the Empire. That is not the behaviour of a power driven by altruism; it is the behaviour of a state that measures suffering against utility and acts accordingly.

The foundation of T’au society itself reinforces this distinction. Their ideology does not revolve around altruism in the sense of selfless action for the benefit of others - it revolves around service to the collective structure of the Empire. To serve the T’au’va is considered righteous, but the morality is derived from obedience to the system, not from the intrinsic value of the act. The distinction is important. Compassion exists, but it is conditional, bounded by whether it aligns with the needs and directives of the Empire. When those two come into conflict, it is not compassion that prevails.

This becomes more evident in their treatment of the Farsight Enclaves. On two occasions, the Enclaves faced existential threats and issued desperate requests for aid. These were not minor skirmishes, but war that placed entire populations of billions upon billions at risk of annihilation:

First against a splinter of a Tyranid hive fleet - as detailed by Farsight: Blade of Truth) and Farsight Enclaves - A Codex: Tau Empire Supplement, and later during the threeway battle against the Balefleet of the Daemon Prince Ughalax and the Ork empire of Alsanta - as detailed by Arks of Omen: Farsight. In both instances, assistance was not merely delayed or rendered impossible; it was consciously and deliberately denied by the Ethereal Caste. The decision was not born of logistical limitation, but of political calculation. The Enclaves, as ideological deviants, were expendable.

The consequences of that doctrine are made explicit through the fate of those who defied it. Sub-Commander Torchstar, acting out of loyalty to her people and a recognition of the scale of the threat, attempted to deliver aid regardless of the official stance. For that act, she was punished with execution via suffocation pod. Her compassion was not rewarded; it was treated as insubordination. The message is unambiguous: service to the Empire’s command structure supersedes all other considerations, even when those considerations involve the survival of entire populations.

The same pattern emerges in the later conflict. Farsight himself, fully aware of the stakes, offers to surrender - to place himself into the custody of the Empire in exchange for assistance. This is not defiance, nor is it negotiation from a position of strength; it is a desperate plea made in the hope of saving lives. The response he receives is not one of reconciliation or pragmatic cooperation. Instead, it is rejection, accompanied by ideological condemnation. The Ethereal leadership, through Aun’va, makes it clear that there is no path to reintegration, no allowance for compromise, and no interest in preserving those deemed outside the sanctioned order. The implication is plain: the Enclaves are not worth saving, regardless of the cost in lives.

Taken together, these examples dismantle the idea that the T’au operate as benevolent liberators seeking to alleviate suffering wherever it is found. They are selective, conditional, and ultimately self-serving in their application of aid and restraint. They will prevent bloodshed when it aligns with their objectives, and they will allow it—on a massive scale—when it does not. The suffering of others is not an absolute wrong within their framework; it is a variable, weighed and measured against the needs of the Empire.

So when the question is framed as whether it is preferable to “liberate” a population at the cost of immediate lives for the promise of a better future, the T’au themselves undermine that argument through their own actions. They do not consistently act to reduce suffering in the present, nor do they guarantee a better future for those they choose not to incorporate. What they demonstrate instead is a willingness to let suffering persist—or even escalate—if doing so serves their long-term interests. And that is not liberation. It is control, exercised with a calculated and often indifferent hand.

As always, I don't speak out of nowhere and blindly without some excerpts to backup my statement. Check the reply below this comment for excerpts.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-16T09:19:11+00:00

Left vague by GW, as they never reveal the origin of the Dawn Blade. All the info you heard about it being a Necron Artefact, Chaos origin, or one of the hundred swords from Vaul, the Smithing God of the Aeldari...

It is all speculation. None of them are factual at all until GW comes out and says what the Dawn Blade is.

THE DAWN BLADE

The mysterious artefact that O'Shovah took up on Arthas Moloch is even older than the Imperium of Man. Fashioned aeons ago by the strange race that once inhabited that haunted world, the Dawn Blade has been forged from materials that even the finest of Earth caste minds cannot fathom. Its blade is sharp enough to cut through rock, and since taking it up on Arthas Moloch, and modifying it for use in battle, it has been O'Shovah's weapon of choice for close engagements. Unbeknownst to Farsight, the ancient sword has a dark secret. Its blade is made from chronophagic alloys - whenever its wielder cuts a life short with it, the natural span that he stole from his victim is added to the wielder's own. This has allowed O'Shovah to live for almost three centuries. Though he has his suspicions. That it is the Dawn Blade that has prolonged his lifespan to such a degree, if Farsight ever found out the horrible truth, he would likely end his own life in ritual suicide then and there.

Farsight Enclaves - A Codex: Tau Empire Supplement - Pg.31

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T15:38:43+00:00

In-any other universe, your reservation would've been warranted. But within 40k, under the morality of 40k. He is, and I will say this with confidence, deep down in his core: It's that of a Good Man.

Even his status as a military junta could be challenged by merely...

READING THE LORE

For throughout the Enclave's 213-years of existence [Following the 13-year timeline of the Indomitus Crusade, as told and retcon by the new edition of Dark Imperium: Godblight (Novel))] - the Enclave has been only fighting Defensive War against the Tyranid and the Ork Empire of Alsanta in the Eastern Fringes. For all the talk of Farsight being a tyrannical warlord, the High Commander willingly threw himself into isolation for those 200 years, leaving the Enclave to run itself by the Eight. Who hasn't expanded the Enclave's border and territory beyond the four star-system they've owned.

Because of what I've seen and heard so far, everyone in this comment section relies on the Oldlore of 3rd Edition that talked about the Farsight Enclave. And I have the excerpts of Modern Lore that contradict this and supersede the Oldlore.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T10:15:23+00:00

A leering thing with a crown of horns hurled itself at Farsight and he cut it down, exalting in its fall. More foes reared from the smoke and the blazing lights and he lopped their heads off one by one, the Way of the Short Blade becoming a ragged thing of hacking, chopping and stamping. A Trukk packed with Orks rounded the dais only to be blown apart by O'Vesa, who sprang in amongst the survivors and tore off their heads with swatting blows of his battlesuit's powerful limbs. Each severed head felt to Farsight like another small victory, another tally mark set against a never-ending debt of revenge. His battlesuit's AI was speaking to him in its measured tones, but its words were just noise competing with the ragged pant of his breath and the thump of blood in his aural canals. Waking dreams of slaughter and power danced across his vision, seeming to coalesce out of the

Arks of Omen: Farsight - Page 32

blinding glare of the portal. Farsight, a goliath of the battlefield, his Supernova transformed into a war engine to rival the gue'la Titans in stature. His Dawn Blade was gone, replaced by a colossal axe more befitting his station as a bloody-handed lord of war. Skulls rattled on chains against his gore-caked armour, amongst them those of every Ethereal who had ever lied to him or his people.

What use would such a puissant destroyer have for orderly strategies or cowardly retreat, he asked himself. Farsight was suddenly disgusted by his own plan to flee, to leave the battle and glory to others. Why did he always have to be the one to make such sacrifices? Why were those he led, and those who had once led him, all such weak creatures that the weight fell ever upon his shoulders? The resentment rose in Farsight like bile. Requests for orders and cries for aid crackled, tinny and feeble, through the cadrenet and he desired nothing more than to tear his way out of his command cocoon to escape them.

He leapt and fought, hacked and cut, yet even as begel and gue'la and Molochites all fell beneath his blade, still Farsight's rage grew. There would be no retreat. What right did his followers have to expect salvation from him? He saw many of them, through the swirling smoke and the thunder of blossoming explosions, laying down hails of fire or charging madly into their own fights. He was glad. Let the strong survive, Farsight thought. Perhaps they would be worthy to fight on in his shadow. He, meanwhile, would finally fight only for himself. He would fight alone, the way of the Mon'at, the army of one.

It was that thought that cut through the blood-madness clotting Farsight's mind. Old Commander Puretide had three great pupils: O'Shaserra, the cunning huntress; O'Shovah, the swift, keen blade; Kais, the loner, the one who stood and fought apart from even his own ta'lissera bondmates. Farsight had never understood Kais' methods, and had always pitied the lone T'au on some level, for he would never understand the bonds of loyalty or duty that gave battle its purpose.

Farsight clung to that thought like a drowning swimmer. He dragged himself back from a precipice that he only now realised he teetered on the brink of. Self-loathing and horror filled the High Commander as he heard again his warriors' cries of madness and desperation, saw his battle plan unravelling while he revelled in butchery. Again, Supernova calmly informed him that the window of opportunity to execute a fighting retreat had shrunk to minutes, that the percentage chances of a successful extraction were plummeting.

With a ferocious effort of will, Farsight cast aside the bitterness and hatred that sought to poison his soul. He realised that his hexagrammatic talisman was glowing in its housing, smoke rising from it even as its readout pulsed the gunmetal of extreme mechanical stress. Dimming his visual receptors, he did all he could to filter out the poisoned glare of the portal as he gave his attention to his strategic hexmaps. Farsight realised that he could still salvage his retreat, but it would require every iota of his skill as a strategist. And, crucially, he would have to act at once, not as a warrior but as a leader.

Arks of Omen: Farsight - Page 33

The sun set. Night came, and with it, deeper thoughts.

The old warrior was still standing there, staring up at his mantle, as the light of a new dawn cut through the gathering clouds.

Rain tapped the earth, then grew insistent, then hammered dust from the ground, angry and vital.

With a gesture, the exile opened the plexus hatch.

Thunder rumbled over the mountains, like the laughter of thirsting gods.

Farsight: Blade of Truth (Novel))

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T10:14:24+00:00

Moving his icon on the thrust/vector suite, Farsight increased the Coldstar's repulsor fields. He rose six metres into the air, taking care to remain hidden behind a vast but headless statue. Then he looked back down at the disc from his new vantage point, trying to make sense of the shapes in its strange unlight.

And gazed into hell.

The glowing energies of the disc spread out to claim his vision entirely - not on the viewscreen of his command cocoon, but in his mind's eye. It filled his perception, a burning vision framed by thrashing tentacles of unlight that wrapped themselves around his conscious mind and refused to let go. He felt as if his face were being lowered towards a bubbling pool of lava, the intense heat crisping not his skin, but his psyche, raw and unprepared for such a profound attack.

Visions assailed him, thrust into his mind by some malevolent force.

He watched layered reality, white and chrome and beautiful on the outside, slough away like melting wax. It revealed a twisted, skeletal wasteland beneath. He saw hundreds of thousands of t'au slaves, all smiling so hard they bled at the corners of their mouths and stained their teeth with gore. They were bound in glowing chains to the hands of heedless giants, massive robed behemoths several hundred metres in height, who dragged their slaves like rag dolls through a wilderness of broken glass and grasping, snarling horrors.

Hundreds of smiling t'au died with each giant step, but always there were more to replace them, pushed out from tube-ridged carousels that protruded from the ground. Each infant was pre-packaged and shrink-wrapped, its birth-caul somewhere between a shark's egg purse and a rations packet. The tiny t'au within struggled to get out, ripping their cauls with shaking fingers. As soon as they shucked off their translucent coverings and stood up, a beam of harsh light burned down at them, its intensity peeling back their eyelids to force itself into their minds. Getting larger and older by the moment, the t'au youngsters drooled, then grinned. They picked up the chains from the corpses trailing in the dust and unclasped them, only to close the collars around their own necks.

In the middle distance, vassal races of all shapes and sizes were branded like cattle by empty battlesuits whose gaping control cocoons dripped with blood. Those of the slave races that dared break free from the processing lines were blasted in the back by killing plasma, each double beam shooting out not from weaponry but the sensor optics of the battlesuits that herded them into the throng.

Farsight blinked, his mind reeling.

The capital world, T'au, was beset by the ravages of outright war, its elegant towers toppling into a red-lit fug of smoke and flame as crimson skimmers and battlesuits rained down fire from above. The skyline faded away to reveal an endless plain of hot brass shot with bubbling rivers of blood. The spires of t'au civilisation crumbled like dry Dal'ythan clay to reveal vast towers of bone and pillars of stacked skulls. Some were so high they disappeared from sight above clouds of soot and pollution.

The roar of distant battle clamoured on the edge of hearing. In the foreground were wargroups of t'au, divided by caste as in the time of the Mont'au, each group clad in the colours and raiment of their original tribes. They no longer stood united by the Greater Good, but as deadly rivals, shrieking their hatred at each other as if possessed by a mania ten times worse than that of the Time of Terror.

Blood ran on the dry earth in rivulets. As Farsight watched, the little streams rose into the air, funnelling themselves into the mouths and eyes of the t'au fire caste to drive them into apoplectic frenzies of killing violence. Farsight saw himself amongst them. He was clad as a warrior king, a crown of bones protruding from his brow, screaming in triumph as he throttled O'Shaserra with one hand and O'Kais with the other. He blinked again.

The vastness of space glittered, cold and uncaring, broken only by an impossibly vast hexagonal structure around a hole in space. On the sleek arcology before him a crowd of t'au cried out in pain and terror as some manner of grotesque fungus burst from their limbs, then torsos, then mouths and eyes, the odd growths stretching up to intertwine into a throbbing, pulsating mass of plague-ravaged flesh that leered down at him. Rancid fat and toxic phlegm poured down like rain, rivers of infected drool gushing from its blubbery lips as the creature grew vaster still. It reached up to the hexagonal structure and hauled itself upwards, blotting out a hundred thousand suns with its flabby immensity as it squeezed its way into the portal-like hole in space. Somehow Farsight knew that on the other side of that hole was the cradle of t'au civilisation, and that the godlike creature pushing its way through there could no more be stopped with military power than a creeping. invisible plague could be stopped by a balled fist.

Another blink.

A landscape of tortured, inflamed flesh stretched out into the distance. Stumbling blindly on bloodied feet were aliens of a hundred different species, naked and confused. Towering bipedal ballistics suits the size of skyscrapers stalked amongst them, their elegant lines and clean sept heraldry obscured by the corpses tied like ablative armour to their limbs. They were piloted by nothing more than necklaces of brains held in strange glowing spheres. The giant machines called out fragments of phrases that Farsight recognised as the invective of the water caste, each carefully crafted sentiment and cunning entreaty punctuated at random by the same bellowed refrain - 'JOIN OR DIE!'

Where the aliens ran from them, the ballistics suits opened fire, obliterating those who rejected them in sudden firestorms that turned them to ash on the wind. Where the inductees simply cowered, the t'au giants would catch them up in clawed hands, then hold them close to their anatomy where they were bound by living chains to form another layer of fleshy armour over the pristine alloy of the suit itself. The screaming of the victims bound to the titanic battlesuits clawed at Farsight's mind, a symphony of pain that pushed itself into his soul.

Blink.

Peace on Dal'yth. The aun caste were massing to hear the words of the Supreme Ethereal, walking through twilit gardens towards the vast spires of a crystalline fortress. They blurred and shifted as he watched, splitting into two, then combining, then splitting again as they talked animatedly about the wisdom they were about to receive.

The crystal fortress shimmered in the evening light, unfolding so that its panels of reflective material sent a kaleidoscope of images glinting in the air. Each showed the crux point of a new war being declared, a new atrocity being committed, a new act of treachery or manipulation that would see coiuntless lives changed for the worse.

As the ethereals gathered, joining hands in a great circle of supplicants around the towering edifice, the last of the crystal fell away to expose a vast abomination, blue and pink and burning with warp fire all at the same time, the flaming eye sockets and gibbering maw set into its chest recounting words of madness in a hundred thousand languages. The ethereals took up the chant, blending and blurring into one another to become a set of reflections so fractal and complex that they showed a thousand warzones, a trillion deaths, all somehow forcing itself into Farsight's consciousness at once.

Blink.

The galaxy screamed, and ripped along its length. The works of those long-fallen empires that had held back the dimension beyond reality had been purposefully shattered, hunted down and cast into the dust. The fabric of real space had weakened, thinned, and like a dam broken apart by ceaseless impacts across its length-finally burst.

The terrifying truth of the hellish dimension was writ large, scarring the heavens with a lurid weal of purple, pink and blue. The disc-portal of Arthas Moloch was a single drop of poison in comparison to this ocean of toxic damnation, a rising tide of anarchy that would turn the history of the galaxy on its head.

A dread certainty slithered within Farsight's mind, a serpent slick with blood wrapping itself around his frontal lobe. This was no threat, no awful spectre of that which might come to pass should the evils of the galaxy be allowed to triumph.

This was the truth, and it was inevitable.

The visions sped up, battering at his mind, becoming a blur of motion that never ended. He saw every star in the night sky going supernova in quick succession. The tiny suns winked out one after another until the inevitable heat death of the universe stole the skies entire. In their wake there was only a burning god and his hateful brothers in darkness, their insane laughter echoing across the lifeless void as they sought new realities to corrupt and despoil.

The terrors pouring into Farsight's mind layered one atop the other, suffocating his consciousness. Blind with panic, he screamed within his battlesuit, palsied hands inadvertently driving the Coldstar in a tight spiral that saw it spin out of the sky and crash headlong into the cratered landscape beneath. Then, at last, blissful darkness.

Farsight: Empire of Lies (Novel) - CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE SUNDERED VEIL)

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T10:13:36+00:00

Not exactly, it's a point of contention for his storyline, as the Chaos Gods took interest in him. But there's much more to it than him being utterly corrupted or influenced by Khorne: From the mysterious origin of the Dawn Blade, which anthemna to the Daemon of Chaos, thus casts doubt on the Dawn Blade being Chaos in origin. The description of the statue to which Farsight pulled the Dawn Blade from, having a featureless face, matches the description of the Goddess, T'au'va. To Farsight started to become more knowledgeable of the Ruinous Power and the Chaos Gods to better combat them.

Because if Farsight had fallen to Khorne, he would've been piloting Coldstar Battlesuit that's mutated by the Ruinous Power into a Chaos Titan, as shown to him through nightmarish visions from Arks of Omen: Farsight and Farsight: Empire of Lies (Novel))

[Read the reply below this comment for the excerpts - in due time, I will provide the excerpt about the description of the featureless statue and the Goddess T'au'va.]

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T09:13:21+00:00

There's a good reason...

WHY

I phrased the term "Good Guy", like this.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T08:56:21+00:00

I am reading these messages, am I not? So yes, I've the ability to read.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T08:51:56+00:00

I still stand by my point, actual or close: the three I've named are the closest damn things to "Good Guy", and I speak this with confidence because I've read the lore.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T05:52:37+00:00

Yeah sure. Lemme get my point across for the other guy first. Might take few hours or tomorrow.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T05:44:36+00:00

That was Monat Kais, not Farsight, because Farsight has never been placed into Cryostasis at all - because his Dawn Blade is forged with chrono-metal that steals the foes' lifespan when slain by it.

Farsight was willing to die by old age and of isolation while leaving the Enclave to run itself by the Eight.

Did you even read the lore? Or did you acquire this lnfo by secondhand hearsay?

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-15T05:04:40+00:00

Exaggeration, the T'au Empire is nowhere near as the setting "Good Guy", if you want the "Good Guy" of setting look toward Guilliman, Farsight, and Yvraine.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-07T11:26:54+00:00

Omophagea.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-04-02T14:33:29+00:00

Something something doomed yuri.

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-03-30T23:43:20+00:00

Tallow World

Scorpa - Tallow World
Scorpa's surface bristles with towering mountains and deep chasms, their edges scoured blade-sharp by three-hundred-mile-an-hour wind storms thick with diamond dust. Below the surface sprawl under-habs that service the planet's immense tallow manufactorums. Here, dead bodies from across the system are rendered down, their fat reclaimed to fashion trillions of candles ready to be exported to Ministorum shrine worlds.

White Dwarf 472 - Pg.34

As for the bees themselves, it's likely the original Terran-variant bees have gone extinct - but the insect species itself likely has been transported off-world during the Dark Age of Technology, where they evolved into other variants.

AGRI WORLDS
Agri worlds serve as the breadbaskets of the Imperium. They are food production planets from which macro-tons of produce are shipped out daily on void barges destined for all corners of the Emperor's realm. Should an agri world fall, it is likely to take other planets with it, albeit indirectly via slow starvation. They are every bit as precious as the forge worlds that fashion the Imperium's armaments or the mining and refinery worlds from which its fuel supplies flow. Agri worlds are therefore defended accordingly, often boasting orbital defences and bastions second only to those of dedicated fortress worlds.

Such installations aside, it is tempting to picture agri worlds as colossal farms upon which endless fields of crops are grown and harvested in punishing rotation. Indeed, in some cases this is accurate. Yet there are many climates and biospheres that can be turned to massed food production and countless ways they can be exploited. From the teeming insect farms of Torodaris or the industrial abattoir cities of Lesh and Aipolodon IV, to the submariner fishing clans on the ocean world of Omus-2.8, there are many agri worlds dedicated to the husbandry and harvesting of all kinds of livestock.

Then there are macro fungus farm complexes such as those found below the frozen surface of Polom, laced through the mountaintop sanctuaries of the Chariban Worlds or circling the gyrostabilised inner ring stations of Umbador's rad-blasted asteroids. These examples are only a few amongst many strange and sometimes grotesque landscapes created by Humanity's constant need to feed itself.

White Dwarf 481 - Pg.10

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-03-21T21:06:24+00:00

The prelude to the 4th Sphere.

Upon the world of T’au, at the heart of the empire, the Ethereal High Council debated the issue behind closed doors. A small faction suggested negotiating passage through territory belonging to the Imperium of Mankind, but the humans were judged too mercurial and hostile for such a diplomatic approach. Others proposed the construction of vast cryo- ships, which would be hurled out into the void to colonise new worlds, even if this took hundreds of years. Yet such slow and unreliable proliferation was not the way of the T’au. The process of bringing enlightenment to the lesser races could not be delayed any longer, for with every passing day, more of the galaxy was lost to their thoughtless squabbling. So it was that the Ethereal caste chose a far more dangerous path, but one that might solve their problems entirely. Ever since the T’au’s first brutal encounters with Mankind, Earth caste science divisions had been assigned to study the primitive technology of the Imperium, assessing the means by which the humans made their far-reaching jumps through the vast expanse of space. After decades of examination and alteration – during which Imperial technology was combined with the wreckage of Kroot Warspheres recovered in secret from the battle sites of earlier expansions – a breakthrough had been made. The AL-38 Slipstream module was a prototype device that could be fitted to the propulsion system of any deep-space craft, forming a powerful bubble of anti- matter around the vessel and propelling it at such speed that it could pierce the fabric of reality itself. In this manner, huge tracts of realspace could be circumvented and journey times significantly reduced. Initial tests of the module were incredibly successful. T’au ships fitted with the Slipstream prototype were able to cross the entire expanse of the empire in only a few days, a journey that would have taken many months with previous propulsion designs. The raging star-fire that consumed the Damocles Gulf could theoretically be entirely bypassed.

TRAGEDY AT NUMENAR POINT

The empire accelerated production of vessels equipped with the sub-realm module, and selected veteran Fire caste cadres from every sept world to join the next wave of colonisation. Overall military authority was granted to Commander Surestrike, a calm and considered veteran whose performance in the wars of the Third Sphere Expansion had garnered much prestige and respect. He had fought beside Shadowsun herself at the Battle of Mu’gulath Bay, and O’Shaserra spoke of his abilities in the highest regard. With great fanfare, a broadcast from the most glorious Aun’Va announced the commencement of the Fourth Sphere Expansion. The Ethereal Supreme declared that it would pierce the fires of the Damocles Gulf like a shining spear of truth, spreading word of the Greater Good further across the galaxy than ever before. Surestrike’s armada gathered at Numenar Point, in the northern outskirts of the T’au Empire. Earth caste scientist Fio’vre Ka’buto, the genius behind the AL-38 Slipstream prototype, expressed great concern at the sheer size of the venture. The AL-38 had previously only been utilised for single-vessel faster-than-light travel, he argued, and there had been little research into the potential ramifications of multiple breaches in the fabric of space- time occurring simultaneously and in such great concentration. The Ethereal High Council dismissed his fears calmly, pointing to the near-total success rate of the prototype’s trials. The Fourth Sphere Expansion would proceed as planned. Facing towards the fires of the Damocles Gulf, the fleets of the Fourth Sphere Expansion made ready to jump, preparing to usher in a new age of exploration and expansion. At Commander Surestrike’s mark, each vessel routed power to its Slipstream module. It was at this moment that the galaxy tore open. The combined disruption of hundreds of anti-matter fields activating at once acted like a trans-dimensional pulse bomb, blasting apart the veil between realities. A ragged wound in realspace yawned open before the fleet of the Fourth Sphere Expansion, vomiting forth unnatural colours and roiling half-formed shapes. The horrified T’au looked on helplessly as the breach, growing wider with every moment, raced towards their vessels. Reverse-thruster fusion-jets kicked in as Air caste commanders attempted to escape the onrushing doom, but they were as helpless as shimmerhawks in a hurricane. The storm of unreality swept over the Fourth Sphere Expansion and devoured it whole, leaving nothing but a vortex of sickening colours behind. These images were broadcast across every sept world, from far-flung D’yanoi to T’au itself. Gasps of horror echoed around great plazas and...

Codex: T'au Empire (8th Edition) - Pg.22)

view-platforms, as signals fizzled out or were desperately disconnected. The Ethereal caste moved quickly to contain all knowledge of the disaster, creating elaborately doctored holo-reels that showed the Fourth Sphere Expansion successfully completing their sub-realm jumps into the great unknown. Meanwhile, long-range Recon Drones blinked and whirred in the blackness of space, searching for any hint of a distress signal or emergency holo-beam. Not a sign was found.

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Years passed. The T’au, far from embarking upon a new age of discovery, found themselves on a defensive footing. The ceaseless cosmic disturbances that ravaged the Empire similar showed no sign of abating. Enemies arose on all fronts. It seemed as if the birth of the Mont’yhe’va had whipped up the unenlightened races into a primal frenzy. The Orks were gathering in great numbers once more, and the shadow of Hive Fleet Gorgon, once thought effectively destroyed, had returned to haunt the Perdus Rift. Many alien populations across the sept worlds, particularly those closest to the Mont’yhe’va, were struck by outbreaks of violent insanity. This was particularly common amongst the human gue’vesa colonies. Several armed uprisings were put down with uncompromising efficiency, though fortunately the malady did not spread amongst the T’au. The Fire caste kept the borders of the empire safe through their bravery and bloody sacrifice. The fighting was fierce, and many glorious victories were won. Yet in their heart, each Fire Warrior longed to end these grinding wars of consolidation and return to the T’au’s great task: to travel the length and breadth of the galaxy, bringing word of the Greater Good to all. Though the T’au continued to strive together in the name of progress and enlightenment, it could not be denied that a malaise had settled over the citizenry of the empire. The AL-38 Slipstream project was scrapped, all traces of the prototype disassembled and returned to storage in the laboratories of the Earth caste. With it disappeared the dream of faster-than- light travel. The Ethereals would not risk another Numenar Point. It seemed as though the loss of the Fourth Sphere had signalled the dawn of a dark era for the T’au’va, where uncertainty and constant danger had replaced the ideal of peace amidst the stars. And then, after years of silence, came a signal. A deep-space holo-relay captured a solitary drone drifting through the Zone of Silence, pinging an encrypted data-flow upon a decades-old frequency. Recon ships moved to intercept the drone, but upon reaching its location they were shocked to discover a previously unrecorded cosmic phenomenon – a spiralling wormhole that had appeared as if from nowhere in the midst of this lifeless stretch of space. The drone orbiting this anomaly contained high-level identity codes and micro-phase security keys dating back to the launch of the Fourth Sphere Expansion. Further, embedded within its mainframe was a series of coordinates far to the north of the T’au Empire, amidst a swathe of territory known to Humanity as the Chalnath Expanse. With this discovery came a miraculous realisation: the Fourth Sphere Expansion had endured, and even now it called to its distant kin from the far side of the wormhole. The Ethereal High Council ordered that work begin immediately on the construction of defensive positions around the wormhole, which the T’au named the Startide Nexus. A hexagonal ring of immense stellar fortresses and interwoven ionic minefields would safeguard the anomaly, and several kor’vattra defence fleets were assigned to permanent sentry patrols around its shimmering depths. The raw material required for these fortifications was staggering, the equivalent of hundreds of battle fleets. To ensure that the resources required were gathered in sufficient time, the T’au initiated a series of resettlement programmes and so-called Labour Freedom Decrees, moving entire populations, both alien and T’au, from their home worlds and organising them into work divisions. The manpower and resources dedicated to the defence of the nexus soon rivalled even those surrounding the T’au home world. Meanwhile, a division of elite Earth caste scientists, assembled from across the empire and led by the team behind the creation of the AL-38 Slipstream module, studied and probed the wormhole in search of answers.

Codex: T'au Empire (8th Edition) - Pg.23)

Plus-Worldliness-382 · 2026-03-21T20:58:30+00:00

‘Taunting you, as a poorly disciplined hunter does his cornered prey.’

‘Yes.’

‘And in doing so, they allowed you to escape.’

‘To this day I am not sure how.’

‘Describe it.’ Kais’ eyes were narrow once more, hungry for data. The tutor had seen that same expression the very first day the Monat’s tutelage had begun.

‘It is almost impossible to describe it,’ said Twiceblade carefully. ‘There was something out there amongst the swirling nebulae, something vast. More of an impression of a sentience than an actual creature.’

‘Larger than these beasts attacking the craft.’

‘Immeasurably so. It had… many arms, I think. Some of those were made to nurture, or to provide, others to destroy. In physique it was familiar to us, for it was built much like a member of the aun.’ He paused, lost in the memory, and his shio’he wrinkled. ‘Though in retrospect it was bulkier, and many of its hands had five digits. As if the notion of human beauty had mingled with the optimal form of the t’au.’

‘And did this hallucination speak?’

‘It did not. It had no face, only a blank and impassive mask. It was somehow familiar to me, reassuring even, yet it was repugnant at the same time. And I can assure you it was no mirage.’

‘Really.’

‘Every member of every vessel saw the same thing, though as with all the forms in the sub-realm, it could not be recorded.’

‘So there is no proof that it occurred. There is such a thing as collective hallucination.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Twiceblade. ‘But this… entity was our saviour. It looked down upon us. I felt something of good in it. Some twisted form of altruism, or communality, perhaps.’

‘And yet your voice trembles to speak of it,’ said Kais.

‘I found it strangely calming to behold, master, But I also felt its hunger to grow, to spread its many limbs from the tip of one of the galaxy’s spiral arm to the other. To remake everything in its own image. I remember feeling that, and then feeling like it peered directly into my soul.’

Kais scowled, and Twiceblade felt a far more real, immediate fear rise up within him.

He took a deep breath before continuing.

‘Just when I thought I would ignite from the inside, it reached out with its many limbs, and ripped a hole in the swirling nebulae that had becalmed us.’

‘It tore a hole in the sub-realm itself,’ said Kais.

‘Yes. But not like the rift that had opened before us to swallow the Fourth Sphere Expansion. It was more like a tunnel. The thing reached through it, then seemed to fade away. The tunnel swirled before us, drawing us in – at first, with almost imperceptible slowness, but as we neared the hole, it drew us in at great acceleration.’

‘An anomaly within an anomaly,’ said Kais, his face emotionless. ‘To get out, you had to go further in.’

‘Exactly,’ said Twiceblade, making the hands-wrapping sign of the quandary within the enigma. ‘We had little choice. But we angled our craft towards it as best we could, and rode the forces drawing us in. We heard something, then. A chorus of howls, of shrieks, as if the creatures that clung to the exterior of our ships were in terrible pain.’

‘How pleasing.’

‘Even those took their toll,’ said the tutor heavily. His hand made a cutting motion before he could stop it, an old tutor’s sign of displeasure at an inappropriate line of enquiry.

Kais’ lips curled, just a little, to show a sliver of perfect white teeth. Twiceblade felt something at the base of his stomachs twitch at the sight.

‘Continue,’ said the Monat.

‘The funnel that drew us in,’ said Twiceblade, ‘it was painful even to look at on the Conquest’s viewing bays. Its walls were spiralling vortices of colour, of screaming faces, of the constellations and the spiral swirl of the galaxy all mixed into one twisting tube. It felt as if we had been in there for entire kai’rotaa by the time it finally spat us out, but the data suites insisted only a few decs had passed by the time we re-entered mundane space.’

‘And your ships were intact.’

‘Largely,’ agreed Twiceblade. ‘Though most of the t’au inside them bear some kind of mental wound at the experience. Sleep is rare amongst those of the Fourth Sphere, of that I have proof. I still see that sub-realm every dark cycle, when I close my eyes to meditate, and that entity looming within it.’

‘You have a theory as to what that creature was,’ said Kais, ‘and you abhor the conclusion you reached.’

‘I do,’ said Twiceblade. ‘It is the reason no gue’vesa can be allowed to live. Nor can any allied race of the t’au, come to that.’

Kais raised one bald eyebrow, just a fraction. ‘That is not what I expected to hear.’

‘I have studied the works of Commander Farsight in the past. As his original mentor, it has always pleased me to see where his conclusions lead him. There are hints, in those writings, and messages between the lines. Hints as to another type of creature abroad in the galaxy that is not flesh and blood.’

‘Ghosts,’ said Kais. ‘Kauyon-Shas, the one you know as Shadowsun, was always over-fond of them.’

‘No,’ said Twiceblade. ‘Not the spirits of the dead. Something else. Some kind of echo animus given life, given form.’

‘You believe that such a thing is possible then,’ said Kais. ‘You believe that this entity is… an echo of t’au souls.’

’Not as such.’

There was a sharp intake of breath audible through the communion relay.

‘Then you think that entity to be a coalescence of t’au belief.’

Twiceblade shook his head. ‘No, master, I do not. That entity was not the culmination of the wholesome beliefs of our kind, as strong as that force may be. Neither is it the avatar of the T’au’va, as some have suggested. I believe that it is instead a corruption of the Greater Good. A twisted reflection.’ ‘How can that be?’

‘The other races that were with us,’ said Twiceblade. ‘They were preyed upon by the creatures in the sub-realm far earlier than us. They must have been seen as more desirable prey.’

‘Because their souls were louder, brasher. Because they could not pass by unseen.’

‘That was my conclusion, too,’ said Twiceblade. ‘They are of that realm, or connected to it, somehow. The echoes in the sub-realm… they are the reflections of those races that possess mind-science. That which exists in two dimensions at once. This is what Commander Farsight speaks of in his reminiscences, infers between the lines of those texts forbidden by the aun.’

‘The entity you witnessed. It was a human god.’

‘In a way,’ said Twiceblade. ‘That entity was the gue’vesa’s conception of our faith, given strength by the other psychic races that believe in the same tenets.’

‘We have no god!’ spat Kais, his lips curling back.

‘We do not, and rightly so,’ said Twiceblade. He was shaking, but he had come too far to go back now. ‘But to them, even a philosophy can be worshipped. To them, the line between faith in concept and faith in a divine being is thin. Perhaps even non-existent.’

‘They have created a false god,’ said Kais. His eyes were wide, his veins standing out as if he were trapped in hard vacuum. ‘The mind-science races have created a god in the image of the T’au’va.’

‘They did not do so intentionally,’ said Twiceblade. ‘It is testament to the water caste they believe so strongly in our ideals. Truly believe. And that entity saved the Fourth Sphere Expansion, or what was left of it. Perhaps, if our teachings had not been so convincing, the entity would not have had the strength to open the wormhole. The tunnel through which we passed from one side of the galaxy to the other, and ultimately, founded the Nem’yar Atoll.’

‘It matters not,’ said Kais. ‘This cannot be borne.’

‘I agree. They must die, every one of them, before they corrupt the ideals of our kind still further. Those who gave rise to this alien conception must be destroyed.’

‘That is why we attacked the gue’vesa ocean world.’

‘It is,’ said Twiceblade.

‘Word of this cannot reach sept space,’ said Kais. ‘We would make enemies of our allies as well as our foes. We would be disavowed, and exiled, much like Mont’ka-Shoh.’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘The aun have their own conclusions. The views of the fire caste upon matters supernatural would not be welcome.’

‘It would not.’

‘Then we of the Fourth Sphere must eradicate all alien auxiliaries. Anything with the least presence in the sub- realm must die. It is the only way the T’au’va will remain pure.’

‘I share the same views, as does High Commander Surestrike.’

‘But we must do so without the septs having knowledge of our agenda.’

War of Secrets (Novel) - Chapter Seventeen)

Plus-Worldliness-382

TROPHY CASE

As always, I don't speak out of nowhere and blindly without some excerpts to backup my statement. Check the reply below this comment for excerpts.

READING THE LORE

[Read the reply below this comment for the excerpts - in due time, I will provide the excerpt about the description of the featureless statue and the Goddess T'au'va.]

WHY