Tau Empire

The Tau Empire is an intersteller nation state in the Warhammer 40,000 located in the Damocles Gulf, including several species, the most notable and dominant of which is the Tau.

Attributes

Tau are blue skinned humaniods with hooved feet, no noses and four digeted hands. The species is divied into five distinct castes, with interbreeding betweens said castes being forbiddon, each with a praticular role in Tau society. As well, there are various vassal species in the Tau Empire, including the Kroot and populations of conquered humans, as well as making largescale use of Robots.

History

The Tau Empire is notable for an unusually fast technological growth, The Imperium of Man first discovered the Tau at a neolithic level of development six thousand years ago and had planned on Colonizing the Tau Homeworld and Eradicating the natives, but a series of freak warpstorms destroyed the Imperial Fleet En-route and isolated the Damocles Gulf from traffic. Four thosand years latter, after considerable technological evolution, the various Tau Clans were united under the rule of the Etherals and shortly afte that, the Tau developed space travel and FTL Travel and established themselves as a powerful small scale empire. When the Tau were re-discovered by the Imperium

Organization

As stated above, the Tau Empire is orginized into serveral castes.

• The Earth (Fio) Caste, serving as Engineers, Scientists, Technitions and Farmers.
• The Air (Kor) Caste, serving as Spacers
• The Water (Por) Caste, Serving as administrators, merchents, Ambassadors and Bureaucrats
• The Fire (Shas) Caste, Serving as soldiers
• The Ethereal (Aun) Caste, serving as the leaders of government in the Tau Empire

On the whole, Tau Society is highly collectivist in it's operation. The Tau beleive that they should work for for the Greater Good of the Tau Empire as a whole in their own way, be it as an infantryman or an engineer, and that all shall benifit from this collectively. The Tau Empire generally beleives that this applies to other species as well and that they can and should be brought into the Tau Empire to help strive for the Greater Good.

As the Tau Empire is in general terms less xenophobic towards other races, they generally come off as the "Good Guys" in Warhammer 40,000. Never the less, the Tau Empire is quite intollerent of deviant beleifs and is more than willing to eradicate entire populations who do not submit before the Greater Good.

Threat Assessment

The Tau Empire on the whole is a minor power in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, only controlling a reletively small part of the galaxy. This is somewhat made up for with a level of technology that is quite ahead of the Imperium of Man at it's current state.