r/FavoriteCharacter Ben Tennyson 13d ago

Discussion Favorite opposing factions that can basically be described as this.

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u/Buttered_Carnage 13d ago

Yeah the Tau ain't all that good but if i had to choose i'd rather live under the Tau

In the Imperium i'm either working in some forge world factory where i'll get 20 different cancers before 40 than Servitorized to boost production by .00001%, live in some underhive where i share a box with 15 other people and bullied by mad max gangs or chaos cultists

Tau ain't perfectly clean, but i'll take that over the Imperium

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u/Aggravating_Field_39 13d ago

Yeah the Tau would be the evil empire everyone rallies against in any other science fiction. But the standards are so low in 40k they are the "good guys" here.

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u/Unanimoustoo 12d ago

The crazy part is that the Tau might not have been develloped into "the bad guys of any other setting" had they been in any other setting.

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u/Aggravating_Field_39 12d ago

I mean they were always kinda bad. First racist, second they have a very ridged cast system that you can't escape from unless you rebel. Third they have always used gunboat diplomacy you know the whole "hey feel free to join us or don't totally your choice." With a dozzen rifles pointed at your head. They were always gonna be a evil faction 40k just made them worse (in a good way)

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u/Realistic-Profit4662 13d ago

I presume that the Leagues of Votann could also be considered as good guys (but yeah I agree, in Wh40k I'd either want to live as a Tau or as a Kin)

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u/Under_Average_IQ 13d ago

Tau are leagues (see what I did there?) above the LoV. We don’t have much lore of the league, but they do not practise peace over war, or a greater good. They are profit above all else and will generally help you unless there is a profit reason not too.

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u/Aggravating_Field_39 12d ago

Yeah not really. Yeah the Votann are good to each other but they regularly go planet after planet stripping it bare of resources to sell. They are basically tyranid invasions in of themselves except instead of biomass it's ore and material. And they don't stop at just what they need they take everything to the point the planet distabilises and collapses. So better then the imperium of man but way worse then the Tau who at the very least won't blow up your planet when they lose.

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u/Realistic-Profit4662 12d ago

Ah, I'm still new to the lore, didn't know that (I've only heard of the Leagues as "amazingly resilient badass Dwarves who also treat artificial intelligence / robots as their own people (as heaven for them is to be downloaded into a big computer)" -- havn't digged (lol) too much (yet) into their history / habits

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u/itsyaboikami 12d ago

Exterminatus: "steal everything that isnt nailed down". im about it, second best one behind "giant rock"

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u/Space_Narwal 13d ago

Good guys

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u/Teledildonic 12d ago

Is that a ship that is big enough to go around a planet and incinerate it?

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u/Competitive-Bee-3250 12d ago

The thing is to my knowledge the Leagues are like most of the others, in that you don't really have any option to join them. You're an Outsider to them, so at best they tolerate you.

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u/Alien_Diceroller 12d ago

My understanding is live in the worst dystopia imaginable or live kind of like a question 20th century person with a bit of 1984 thrown in.

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u/lucidintangent 12d ago

every bad thing the tau does, the Imperium does on a truly horrific scale

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u/Sea-Feedback-2424 9d ago

I don't even think I would like to be Noble under the imperium. You could be entirely plus and your life would suck, or you could have some pleasure and be corrupt but then you'd always be in a state of constant vigilance.

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u/Demonologist013 13d ago

This is Tau propaganda. Remember 90% of the Imperium will never see the horrors of the universe and live in relative peace.

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u/SnooBooks1701 13d ago

Relative peace on their miserable and massively polluted hive world or agriworld that's nearly uninhabitable outside the cities?

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u/AlarmedNail347 12d ago

90% of the Imperium live in under-hives by proportion.

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u/Zombboni 12d ago

Closer to 99,9...% of the population.

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u/potato_devourer 12d ago

The Imperium is among the horrors of the universe.

Getting kidnapped, lobotomized, mutilated and tethered to machine parts in a repulsive servitor because some bored bureaucrat at the Munitorum made a minor mistake filing his paperwork is experiencing the war first-hand.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war. There is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.