Anyway. I was planning for my players in Dark Heresy to encounter the Tau in a deserted mountainous territory. The first element they would encounter would be Marker Drones (cute little dish-shaped thing), and then, it struct me:

Do Tau drones have independant AI, or are they merely piloted from the Battlesuits? The Sniper Drones have a "Spotter", while Gun Drone Squadrons seems to be independant..

I was planning on having a somewhat Alien Vs Predator feel (or Zerg Vs Protoss, take ur pick) with having the humans in a very rich systems being invaded by the Tyrannids, and having the Tau on their trails to prevent them from harversting the biomatter, so they would nuke everybody from orbit wait, the system is rich and has a nice strategical position. The Greater Good demand to annex that system!

(throw in chaos infestation of the System's leadership, and you'll have something great).

Anyway. Their first encounter would probably have happened after fleeing an orbital military station that they blew up after it had began to be infested with Tyranids (one of my player is a huge fan of the Alien serie, and wanted a game session like that). they crashed in the mountains, and they initially encounter a damaged Marker drone that is about to be destroyed by Nids. they may try to rescue it and..

... well, that's where I blocked. if the Drone is simply remotely-controlled (we are talking about Fluff-game, not with the rules of the Wargame), then nothing special happens. But if the Drone has an independant AI, and the players save it's shell, maybe it will grow to like the players. Maybe when the squadron of Gun Drones comes toting around, it will interpose itself between its saviors and it's fellow drones?

Or maybe the Gun Drones will recognise the humans as a non-threat because they helped a damage drone, and THEY will prevent the Shas'ui team present in the mountain to execute them sommarily? The Shas'ui team will maybe have to give the weapons back to the players when the Nids are arriving in force, but then will disapear in the mountains, and use the players are bait for the Nids and lay an ambush?

Maybe even the players won't act in a fanatical way (I doubt it) and maybe postpone attacking the Shas'ui until they are safe from the mass of Nids?

Hello there. There's a couple things you need to bare in mind when rping the Tau npcs. Firstly is that unlike every other army in the Galaxy (yes even the Imperials) the Tau aren't cold blooded murderers. With exception to the Orks and Tyranids, the Tau ALWAYS give the enemy the chance to join them before they are forced into combat. This is illustrated in the second thing I want to draw your attention to and that's that the Imperium of Man and the Tau Empire have a wary alliance, or perhaps it'd be more appropriate to say armastice. They won't go to war with each other unless the other takes the initiative. This would still work for your setting, a commander by all means could see to bring the light of the Greater Good to this system and its inhabitants.

What this means on a micro scale, is that when the Shas'ui encounter your acolytes they would not simply mow them down for being another species. Assuming that their orders are not to eliminate all non-Tau in the mountains, they would either ignore the humans for the sake of their mission, or offer a temporary alliance with them in order to eliminate the 'nids. If you still want an alien vs predator feel with two hostile aliens willing to kill each other and more importantly humans, still use the Tau but you may wish to consider using a Kroot Carnivore Squad instead. Granted, the Kroot buy into the teachers of the Greater Good just like the Tau, but they're just meaner, and are more likely to 'misinterpret' their orders. Not to mention they kind of look more like a predator.

As for the drones. They do have artificial intelligence, just on a small level. It says in the Tau codex that a drone's mental capacity is equivelant to that of a ptera squirl. As such they more often than not need orders from Fire Warriors to operate properly. The only exception to this is when there's a small group of the drones in which they can use each other's processing to keep on track. (The codex doesn't really explaint that second part too well actually.) So if your team comes across a drone, saves it, and even fixes it, I suppose it's possible that it would befriend them. Afterall there are human auxillaries in the Tau Empire. Though, personally, I think that the Earth caste programers would have placed something in its code to keep it taking orders from the Shas'ui, some type of override. So maybe it just got seperated, attacked, and gets picked up by your group. If they save it, it can befriend them, and perhaps may even lead they straight to the Shas'ui so that it can show its masters its new friends.

Also, if you decided to do Kroot instead of Shas'ui, you could just have couple of Shas'ui accompanying the squad, as the two do mix their ranks for missions. At least according to the Ciaphus Cain novels.

I assume there to be a very primitive AI (AI in the video game sense of behaving a certain way within programmed parameters rather than in the scientific sense of having actual humanlike or alien intelligence ). Meaning the drone will be able to use visual and electronic IFF sensors to choose its targets and have a certain competency in needed areas, but "befriending" someone would likely be out of the question without reprogramming by the Tau commanders.

Firstly is that unlike every other army in the Galaxy (yes even the Imperials) the Tau aren't cold blooded murderers. With exception to the Orks and Tyranids, the Tau ALWAYS give the enemy the chance to join them before they are forced into combat. This is illustrated in the second thing I want to draw your attention to and that's that the Imperium of Man and the Tau Empire have a wary alliance, or perhaps it'd be more appropriate to say armastice. They won't go to war with each other unless the other takes the initiative. This would still work for your setting, a commander by all means could see to bring the light of the Greater Good to this system and its inhabitants.

I doubt that. They may not constantly be in a full-blown war, but whenever one of them shows weakness, the other party will exploit it. The situation of the Cain novel on Gravalax came to pass mainly because the Imperial forces were incapable of just eradicating the Tau without strong losses and a protracted campaign while their ressources were already needed elsewhere.

Otherwise, the Tau would certainly welcome defectors and allow for surrender, but that's not usually an option for your average fanatical acolyte group.

Cifer said:

A ceasefire is a ceasefire, and on the whole the two forces are in ceasefire. This doesn't stop individual actions - again, the galaxy is a big place, and there are always areas where the rules are different. It should be noted that many of the Imperial worlds taken by the Tau weren't taken in war, but were taken by diplomacy (promising to lower taxes and be less restrictive to technical development, and less dependent on the CRAZY FREAKING tech priests and Emperor cultists, gets you pretty far in that regard). There are whole PDF Guard legions now in the control of the Tau as a consequence of this. The fact that the Tau got a chance to pursue an act of diplomatic aggression tells me that they're not shooting at each other near as much as, say, Orks and the Imperium, and probably not even as much as Eldar and the Imperium.

In the present state of the galaxy, I'd say having a force that you're pretty sure will sustain an armistice is worth a considerable amount, given the fact that the Imperium is fighting wars on a dozen different fronts, and that's at the brush-stroke galactic view.

@Pneumonica

You are ignoring the fact that Imperium is not exactly attentive when it comes to certain worlds. As long as tithes are paid, many worlds are left almost completely on their own. Thus, if a planetary governor decides that he'll have diplomatic relations with the Tau, he can certainly do so - exactly up to the point where this is noticed by the Administratum which will then look for a way to drive them out again, either through outright war (which is pretty likely to cost the governor his head) or through a garrison force that makes sure the planet doesn't stray further from the Imperial team if there are not enough Guard forces available to rectify the problem right then and there.

Wait a minute. About the Tau Vs Empire's diplomatic status. If I remember right, the 2nd sphere of Tau expension was stopped with the Damocles Crusade, when the Empire reacted to diplo-annexation of some of their worlds. But because of the coming of Hive Fleet Behemot, and the heavy losses they were taking, the leaders of the Crusade accepted a peace treaty with the Tau...

And the Tau swiftly re-conquered all their lost world plus some more expansion.

Then, when for some reason, the Imperial Worlds nearby became weaker for some reason, they declared the 3rd Sphere of Expension, and conquered these world and went deeper in Imperial Territory.

The 3rd Sphere's was mostly military conquest. Maybe the Empire has not used the occasion to declare a new war against the Tau, but it was clearly an act of aggression... Wasn't it?

As for "cold-blooded murderers", well, I was planning on the Stealth Team Shas'ui planning to kill the dangerously armed human party that wanders in their combat zone. Maybe capture them, but eventually give them their weapons back and use them as bait (Kauyon Doctrine) against a coming wave of Tyranids. If the party can fight well, and even go and save the Stealth Team's ass because they (Tau) underestimated the Nids' intelligence, then maybe there could be a limited - and non-communicative - trust established.

SolkaTruesilver said:

The Imperium hasn't yet had time to act - the Third Phase Expansion started shortly before the Thirteenth Black Crusade (as per the timeline in the 5th edition 40k Rulebook), and the 13th Black Crusade itself began in 998.999M41 (about 17 hours before the end of the 41st Millennium), so from an in-setting perspective, the conclusions to those events, though known from the global campaigns that players across the world participated in, haven't yet happened in 40k. Thus, any reaction from the Imperium to the Third Phase Expansion is yet to take place.

Has there? Good. What was the outcome of the player-played events?

According to the Ork Codex, the Third Sphere is being contested by an Ork Waaagh right now and they have currently lost most of the worlds they have gained in that sphere of expansion.

so what possible stat line could be used for Tau? curious myself

SolkaTruesilver said:

From the Tau Empire Codex, page 31, insert.

"Drones are independent artificial intelligences, programmed to protect the Tau. Unlike the Imperium, the Tau make extensive use of machine intelligences. Normally drones will require regular orders from a Tau, but when several drones are networked together in a squadron they become capable of acting independently for a long period."

So, yes they have an independent AI but a networked one that seems to work like a hive mind. A lone drone isn't very smart but 4 drones together (the minimum size for a drone squad in the codex) are smart enough to act as an combat-effective unit.

Edit: Offhand, I find myself envisioning a lone drone as about as smart as a hunting dog. I can definitely see one "taking a liking" to someone who saves it and maybe even protecting that person... up until that came into conflict with the drones core programming: to protect the Tau.

It could work, Tau AI is pretty advanced, when grouped together that is. A single drone is about as smart as....something not that smart. But when together, their networks all sort of mesh, they cna become more sentient and effective

But I don't think, I'm not that well informed about the Tau, only a few bits and bobs, but I don't think they bomb planets :/ Or where you referring to the imperium? Also, how did the Tau cross the galaxy and get into the Calixis Sector? They've no warp travel

Tau have warp travel it's just not as good the Imperium. Basically they skim the warp. It's slow (1/4), and safer than actually entering the warp. See the Battle Fleet Gothic books on line.