[Novel] War of Secrets

[Panzer]

So there's a new novel coming out. It's about Dark Angels but they're going against the T'au Empire so it's still relevant for us.

 

Bad news? It's written by Phil Kelly again who really can't write T'au novels at all imo. (facepalm)

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/18/new-covers-revealed/

 

 

Meanwhile, in the 41st Millennium, Phil Kelly is waging a ‘War of Secrets’. With a title and art like that, it could only be the Dark Angels involved, couldn’t it…? It seems that this novel will show us how the sons of the Lion get on with the Primaris Space Marines, as this tale is set in the Dark Imperium, and sees the Dark Angels battling the resurgent T’au Empire in the shadow of the Great Rift.

 

 

So what are you expecting? Are you going to read that one? I honestly expect more T'au fluff getting on and it makes me kinda sad. At the same time however I'm looking forward to learn what the T'au Empire is up to 200 years after the Great Rift appeared.

[Guest Triszin]

I'll check it out, as long as the writing is better than damocles

[Aothaine]

After finding Aaron Dembski-Bowden's works I'm very hesitant to read books by other authors. He just hits all the right spots for me as a writer. Though if it gets really good reviews I might dip into it.

[Panzer]

Well Kellys last book about T'au was 'Crisis of Faith' which had some very questionable stuff in. I guess if War of Secrets gets good reviews it'll be mostly from the Dark Angels readers.

[jeffersonian000]

Should have gotten Gav Thorpe to write it, that way the Dark Angels would definitely be the bad guys.

 

SJ

[CoffeeGrunt]

I think I'll give this a miss tbh. We haven't really had much in the way of good fluff for Tau. Tbh I almost exclusively read Abnett and ADB these days.

[Panzer]

Yeah ADB for sure. My favorite BL author by far. Tho there are other good ones as well. Hinks and Haley did a very good job with the recent Mephiston and Dante novels as well.

[Commander Dawnstar]

I've only skimmed this novel so far to confirm a few things I'd heard about it, but I thought it was worth giving this thread a nudge to let you guys in on how War of Secrets actually contains some pretty big things from the T'au perspective. Considering that it absolutely comes across as something aimed squarely at Dark Angels fans, Phil Kelly certainly threw some pretty damn significant plot points in here for the Fourth Sphere Expansion.

 

Those interesting things (but no actual details) for those who might want to read this themselves:

 

Kais, the third of Puretide's pupils, appears in this novel and it offers an explanation for both how the Fourth Sphere Expansion escaped its sojourn in the Warp and why the T'au who survived that passage have taken on a xenocidal stance.

 

I'll go into proper detail at a later time, assuming you guys want me to, when I've had a chance to properly read through this and take it all in.

[Panzer]

Oh thanks for sharing informations from that book. I decided to never read any book with T'au written by Kelly again. Does he still butcher the T'au lore like in the past books? (I know it's not a T'au novel but they're in there so there's that ^^).

 

Also yay for Kais. I hope he gets a model eventually as well. Don't mind sharing the juicy details here as well. We have spoiler tags for a reason and people who don't want to get spoilered shouldn't click on spoiler tags in a thread about a novel ... and there are people like me who want to know those details in detail without reading the book after all. :P

[Guest Triszin]

I've only skimmed this novel so far to confirm a few things I'd heard about it, but I thought it was worth giving this thread a nudge to let you guys in on how War of Secrets actually contains some pretty big things from the T'au perspective. Considering that it absolutely comes across as something aimed squarely at Dark Angels fans, Phil Kelly certainly threw some pretty damn significant plot points in here for the Fourth Sphere Expansion.

 

Those interesting things (but no actual details) for those who might want to read this themselves:

 

Kais, the third of Puretide's pupils, appears in this novel and it offers an explanation for both how the Fourth Sphere Expansion escaped its sojourn in the Warp and why the T'au who survived that passage have taken on a xenocidal stance.

 

I'll go into proper detail at a later time, assuming you guys want me to, when I've had a chance to properly read through this and take it all in.

please do, happily awaiting.

 

I really would like to see Kais introduced as a model, in a modified Ghostkeel, that is now a weapons platform, with minimal stealth ability.

 

 

also intruiged about the 4th

[Panzer]

I wouldn't be surprised if GW were to give him a Broadside variant since then they'd have Farsight in a Crisis Suit dropping from above, Shadowsun in a Stealth Suit and Kais in a Broadside for more heavy weaponry. ^^

[Guest Triszin]

I wouldn't be surprised if GW were to give him a Broadside variant since then they'd have Farsight in a Crisis Suit dropping from above, Shadowsun in a Stealth Suit and Kais in a Broadside for more heavy weaponry. ^^

I'd be for it, but***

 

Kais gets no missle pod or heavy rail gun.

 

instead broadside with

- Sms, can be swapped for a twin linked Rail rifle ( stats from pathfinder team)

- fusion or flamers

- heavy Cyclic Ion rifle or Heavy Pulse Repeater ( think if a Heavy pulse rifle became a triple shot, that every to hit of a 6 also counted as marker light hits)

[Commander Dawnstar]

Okay, I'm going to give this my best shot:

 

First and foremost, War of Secrets is a Dark Angels book. Indeed I think it's probably not wrong to say that it's so much a Dark Angels book that you could remove all chapters focused on the T'au side of the story without directly affecting the core narrative. At its heart this is very much a story about the many layers of secrets within the Dark Angels Chapter and how they lead it down pathways that seem utterly bizarre to those without the same perspective, and while the T'au do factor into that it certainly isn't necessary to see things from their perspective in order to understand the story.

 

As for the story itself ... I'm really undecided as to how I feel towards it. It's eminently readable and indeed I found myself enjoying it quite a bit for much of the first half of the novel, but I can't help but feel it gets very bogged down in a number of plot threads that either aren't connected to the main narrative or that are utterly functional and are used solely to get us from Point A to Point B despite feeling like there should be so much more to them. It doesn't help that there are a number of ideas that feel very overused (the significance of one of the Primaris' new organs is a recurring thing and major plot point) and you get weirdness like something to the effect of "[The T'au are] a physically feeble race made formidable by their blasphemous warsuit technology" appearing in dialogue, narration and a character's internal thoughts on separate occasions. It certainly isn't something I would advise seeking out for the sake of the T'au material unless you also have an interest in Dark Angels.

 

So on to the spoiler material:

 

To try and boil down the plot of the novel to its core elements, War of Secrets is a story about collusion between the Inner Circle of the Dark Angels and the command of the Fourth Sphere Expansion in order to quarantine and exterminate some kind of psychic plague. A psychic ague of some sort is present which essentially causes those infected to vomit up white ectoplasm which is capable both of spreading the infection and melting through ceramite on contact. Even the Space Marines are not immune to this infection ... but the T'au are. The psi-inert nature of the T'au physiology seemingly grants them immunity to this nightmarish condition, and through this the two factions end up coming into something of an uneasy alliance.

 

For some time now the T'au have been using stealth suits to eliminate Gue'Vesa on one of their worlds in order to stem the spread of the plague. Naturally they cannot act on this cull openly, both for morale reasons and because they believe the Sept Worlds would censor them for it, and thus the extermination has been carried out solely on the quiet, with the human population referring to these unknown killers as "Takers." When the Dark Angels arrive on-world in pursuit of the individual responsible for the plague (one of the Fallen, naturally) they do so under the guise of taking the fight to the T'au and liberating the planet ... and they're quick to leave in pursuit of their target without actually taking the world back. Their chase takes them Allhallow, homeworld of the Angels of Absolution, and ultimately leads them into a situation where they fight alongside the T'au prosecuting war against those infected with the psi-plague. From this comes an accord of sorts: The Astartes will carry out an extermination campaign on the T'au-held world while the T'au maintain a presence on Allhallow to try and contain the plague, being immune to its effects. Through this both factions can achieve their goals without appearing to be waging war on their own allies.

 

From the T'au side of things that's basically all of the main narrative that matters. Anything beyond that solely concerns the Dark Angels.

 

---

 

Kais was assigned to the Fourth Sphere Expansion in much the same way that Farsight led the Second and Shadowsun the Third, but rather than being intended as a leader for the Expansion he was sent there very much in his role as Tha'hasiro - The Living Weapon. Kais was apparently put back into stasis following his role in the Fi'rios campaign (and all evidence of his role there destroyed by the Water Caste) with the intention of being used solely as a weapon of last resort rather than made into a figurehead as his peers were. Nobody short of the Ethereals and individuals of Commander rank even knows that his stasis pod was brought by the Expansion fleet.

 

At the time of War of Lies, Kais is mentioned to have spent just short of 250 years in stasis awaiting the call to arms ... and all of it fully conscious. The man says himself that he only retained his sanity by planning every possible permutation of how he might kill every last known enemy over and over again within his mind, refining and perfecting Monat strategies for every possible eventuality until he had committed them all to memory. That includes how he might kill his fellow T'au. Kais is a very cold and violent individual who sways between being utterly unemotive and extreme anger; he's the sort of character who says things like "I am a weapon [...] I should be wielded as one" and "I am the sharpest of instruments," and his first course of action upon being released from stasis is to punch the individual who freed him in the throat to shut them up. He's absolutely someone who has ceased to have the ability to play nice with others.

 

Ultimately Kais is unleashed on Allhallow in order to single-handedly purge the fortress monastery of the Angels of Absolution in a Ghostkeel and honestly seems well on the way to doing it. His combat scenes try to distinguish his style by showing the thought process by which he picks apart the scene before him and decides on which pre-determined Monat strategy to use against it (i.e. Mono-Imperial Scenario 2934/E, Mono-Imperial Scenario 2991/D), and while he's not shown to be invincible he cuts a bloody swathe through most of those before him and pushes a Chapter Master, Librarian, Chapter Champion and their supporting elements to the limits, killing all but the first ... and then an orbital strike comes down right on top of the fortress monastery.

 

Kais doesn't die - there's no body in the cockpit of his suit in the wake of the strike - but his ultimate fate is left up in the air.

 

In the epilogue it appears (I'm not going to claim absolute certainty on this) that Kais and those around him have been manipulated by the Ethereals with it being entirely intentional that he remain conscious while in stasis, his mind somehow shielded from decay with time, and information about technological developments and combat data being fed to him between his periods of lucidity. He apparently represents the test case for a plan to create a new generation of Monats through this unusual training method, a test case considered a roaring success. The Ethereal in charge calls for them to aim to create another 64 Monats in his image if they can find adequately promising individuals.

 

---

 

As for the survival of the Fourth Sphere Expansion ...

 

The Fourth Sphere Expansion was saved by a new minor Warp deity formed in the image of the Greater Good as a reflection of the souls of those psychically-active races which have come to serve under the banner of the Empire, predominantly humans. It appears as an entity that falls somewhere between human and T'au concepts of beauty, something of a bulkier Ethereal, with a great many arms of both four and five digits, no face and an aura that intermingles benevolent calm with a ravenous hunger to take the entire galaxy within its embrace and reshape it in its own image. All members of the fleet are mentioned to have seen this entity and we're shown at points in the book that some human cultures have created a cult in its worship with a priesthood and everything, literally praying to T'au'va for salvation. This being created the portal that allowed the Fourth Sphere Expansion to escape after they became becalmed in the Warp.

 

Needless to say the T'au have not taken this well.

 

‘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.’

 

As I always say when going over these things, what I've put down here is absolutely not the full story. Obviously you're not getting all of the details and what you're seeing is coloured by both my own biases and choices to simplify and express the content, so some things you take away from this may not be truly representative of what's down in print. Nonetheless I hope I've given at least an adequate idea of the information pertinent to the Fourth Sphere Expansion in War of Lies.

[Guest Triszin]

ehh, sounds like Kelly. and not in the good way.

 

Even the Space Marines are not immune to this infection ... but the T'au are.

 

( what could've saved this, is if the plague was created by the tau to kill all non tau, and they secretly field tested it)

 

and kelly keeps trying to make the tau completely immune to chaos, they have dim souls, they do not have inert souls. and even then, machines and inert things can be possessed by chaos.

 

ya, I'm going to pretend that the results of this book happened, but everything that occured in the book is fake.  just like how I view damocles and the other kelly writings.

 

christ, they need to ban kelly from writing tau books, its worse than the fan fiction

[Panzer]

Agreed.

Also

Kais being fully concious while being in stasis

 

 

That really makes no sense. That's not how stasis works. Unless they somehow managed to detach his mind from his body by loading it into a computer or whatever.

That being said I think Kais is slowly becoming my favorite of the big three. I hope we'll hear more from him and really get a model eventually.

 

 

 

Oh and

He apparently represents the test case for a plan to create a new generation of Monats through this unusual training method, a test case considered a roaring success. The Ethereal in charge calls for them to aim to create another 64 Monats in his image if they can find adequately promising individuals.

 

Sounds like foreshadowing for a new kind of battlesuit unit. We know GW likes to include new units etc. into novels and Kelly is not just a writer for Black Library so he might have heard something that's in developed and decided to include it in one of his books somehow. Not saying it's like that, but it's a possibility.

 

 

 

Lastly

As for the survival of the Fourth Sphere Expansion ...

The Fourth Sphere Expansion was saved by a new minor Warp deity formed in the image of the Greater Good as a reflection of the souls of those psychically-active races which have come to serve under the banner of the Empire, predominantly humans. It appears as an entity that falls somewhere between human and T'au concepts of beauty, something of a bulkier Ethereal, with a great many arms of both four and five digits, no face and an aura that intermingles benevolent calm with a ravenous hunger to take the entire galaxy within its embrace and reshape it in its own image. All members of the fleet are mentioned to have seen this entity and we're shown at points in the book that some human cultures have created a cult in its worship with a priesthood and everything, literally praying to T'au'va for salvation. This being created the portal that allowed the Fourth Sphere Expansion to escape after they became becalmed in the Warp.

 

 

lol WHAT?
So Eldar have to sacrifice a whole planet to create their death god and fall deep into depravity to create Slaanesh (note: it was always a zero to onehundred thing, never a 'minor deity'. The whole of humanity is praying for thousands of years madly devoted to the Emperor and he's still no god (as far as we know). But a few Gue'vesa pray to the T'au'va and within an extremely short time it becomes a minor deity. 

[Panzer]

And to give the post a bit more non-spoiler substance: thanks for typing all that stuff out. It just confirms that I don't want to read T'au lore by Kelly even more, but it's still great to know what's actually happening since even if I don't like it ... it seems Kelly is the only one GW is willed to let write T'au stuff so it kinda will become canon until GW decides to retcon it by letting someone better write T'au stuff. 

[Guest Triszin]

Agreed.

Also

Kais being fully concious while being in stasis

 

 

That really makes no sense. That's not how stasis works. Unless they somehow managed to detach his mind from his body by loading it into a computer or whatever.

That being said I think Kais is slowly becoming my favorite of the big three. I hope we'll hear more from him and really get a model eventually.

 

 

 

Oh and

He apparently represents the test case for a plan to create a new generation of Monats through this unusual training method, a test case considered a roaring success. The Ethereal in charge calls for them to aim to create another 64 Monats in his image if they can find adequately promising individuals.

 

Sounds like foreshadowing for a new kind of battlesuit unit. We know GW likes to include new units etc. into novels and Kelly is not just a writer for Black Library so he might have heard something that's in developed and decided to include it in one of his books somehow. Not saying it's like that, but it's a possibility.

 

 

 

Lastly

As for the survival of the Fourth Sphere Expansion ...

The Fourth Sphere Expansion was saved by a new minor Warp deity formed in the image of the Greater Good as a reflection of the souls of those psychically-active races which have come to serve under the banner of the Empire, predominantly humans. It appears as an entity that falls somewhere between human and T'au concepts of beauty, something of a bulkier Ethereal, with a great many arms of both four and five digits, no face and an aura that intermingles benevolent calm with a ravenous hunger to take the entire galaxy within its embrace and reshape it in its own image. All members of the fleet are mentioned to have seen this entity and we're shown at points in the book that some human cultures have created a cult in its worship with a priesthood and everything, literally praying to T'au'va for salvation. This being created the portal that allowed the Fourth Sphere Expansion to escape after they became becalmed in the Warp.

 

 

lol WHAT?

So Eldar have to sacrifice a whole planet to create their death god and fall deep into depravity to create Slaanesh (note: it was always a zero to onehundred thing, never a 'minor deity'. The whole of humanity is praying for thousands of years madly devoted to the Emperor and he's still no god (as far as we know). But a few Gue'vesa pray to the T'au'va and within an extremely short time it becomes a minor deity. 

on A

 

yep, I find Kais as the somehow best and worst written, and fits inside the Tau spectrum. He understands he is a tool, and a tool that only serve sone purpose, eradicating opposition to the tau, the ethereals, even if that means eradicating tau.

 

on B

I get the feeling this might evolve into what we've been wanting.

Build your own commander, select his battelsuit and equipment.

 

or they become a "destroyer" unit where they are mid to close range heavily armored boradside suit

 

on C

yep... I was hoping it would be a fragment of an old one that was assisting the tau, not a tau diety.

[Panzer]

 

 

Oh and

He apparently represents the test case for a plan to create a new generation of Monats through this unusual training method, a test case considered a roaring success. The Ethereal in charge calls for them to aim to create another 64 Monats in his image if they can find adequately promising individuals.

 

Sounds like foreshadowing for a new kind of battlesuit unit. We know GW likes to include new units etc. into novels and Kelly is not just a writer for Black Library so he might have heard something that's in developed and decided to include it in one of his books somehow. Not saying it's like that, but it's a possibility.

 

 

 

on B

I get the feeling this might evolve into what we've been wanting.

Build your own commander, select his battelsuit and equipment.

 

or they become a "destroyer" unit where they are mid to close range heavily armored boradside suit

 

 

 

True. Could be that it's just more Commanders which we used to be able to play anyway (and still can in Narrative play I guess).

[Commander Dawnstar]

Agreed.

Also

Kais being fully concious while being in stasis

 

 

That really makes no sense. That's not how stasis works. Unless they somehow managed to detach his mind from his body by loading it into a computer or whatever.

That being said I think Kais is slowly becoming my favorite of the big three. I hope we'll hear more from him and really get a model eventually.

 

 

 

Oh and

He apparently represents the test case for a plan to create a new generation of Monats through this unusual training method, a test case considered a roaring success. The Ethereal in charge calls for them to aim to create another 64 Monats in his image if they can find adequately promising individuals.

 

Sounds like foreshadowing for a new kind of battlesuit unit. We know GW likes to include new units etc. into novels and Kelly is not just a writer for Black Library so he might have heard something that's in developed and decided to include it in one of his books somehow. Not saying it's like that, but it's a possibility.

 

 

 

Lastly

As for the survival of the Fourth Sphere Expansion ...

The Fourth Sphere Expansion was saved by a new minor Warp deity formed in the image of the Greater Good as a reflection of the souls of those psychically-active races which have come to serve under the banner of the Empire, predominantly humans. It appears as an entity that falls somewhere between human and T'au concepts of beauty, something of a bulkier Ethereal, with a great many arms of both four and five digits, no face and an aura that intermingles benevolent calm with a ravenous hunger to take the entire galaxy within its embrace and reshape it in its own image. All members of the fleet are mentioned to have seen this entity and we're shown at points in the book that some human cultures have created a cult in its worship with a priesthood and everything, literally praying to T'au'va for salvation. This being created the portal that allowed the Fourth Sphere Expansion to escape after they became becalmed in the Warp.

 

 

lol WHAT?

So Eldar have to sacrifice a whole planet to create their death god and fall deep into depravity to create Slaanesh (note: it was always a zero to onehundred thing, never a 'minor deity'. The whole of humanity is praying for thousands of years madly devoted to the Emperor and he's still no god (as far as we know). But a few Gue'vesa pray to the T'au'va and within an extremely short time it becomes a minor deity. 

 

A.

 

This might somehow be connected to something in one of of Kelly's other novels. The Ethereal says of Kais in the epilogue that "It is only a shame that O’Vesa cannot know just how sound his theories proved to be, all those t’au’cyr ago."

 

B.

 

Unfortunately I don't think that's the case. They propose producing these Monats via the same method, something that "... will take at least a few generations to produce results."

 

C.

 

For some broader context:

 

‘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.’

 

One thing I actually wanted to run past you guys:

 

I don't own the new Codex so I have no idea if this detail comes from there, but we're told in War of Secrets that the first successful test of the Slipstream Drive was carried out with it attached to an XV65 Marlin. Has that model ever been mentioned before?

[Guest Triszin]

the only thing I could find on the XV6 series

 

 

XVx6 – Designates an air-space Battlesuit unit of any mass class.

 

which means its smaller than xv8's, but larger than xv25's.

 

so some time of flying terminator to counter inceptors?

[Panzer]

 

 

C.

 

For some broader context:

 

‘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.’

 

One thing I actually wanted to run past you guys:

 

I don't own the new Codex so I have no idea if this detail comes from there, but we're told in War of Secrets that the first successful test of the Slipstream Drive was carried out with it attached to an XV65 Marlin. Has that model ever been mentioned before?

 

 

I honestly don't get it. T'au didn't really have the concept of gods before nor did they particularly hate other races believing in such stuff nor did they particularly hate daemons more than Tyranids or whatever (the few non-FSE actually encountered).

 

Also on a more philosophical level ... when a god is a mix of the T'au ideology, triggered by the humans need to believe in something higher and fed by the psychic presence of other races belonging to the T'au Empire ... how is it a human god. It's very much a god of the T'au Empire in every regard. Just because the T'au didn't want one or actually created it with their own psychic presence doesn't mean it doesn't belong to them. Their contribution was giving the humans something they could believe that much in.

Sounds more like Kais is in extreme denial trying to force himself to believe it's a human thing and not responsibility of the T'au as well.

 

 

I haven't heard about the XV65 yet. The XV obviously means it's a Battlesuit, the 6 that it's designed for void operations and the 5 that it's outfitted with stealth technology. However the meaning of those numbers isn't 100% consistent anyway. Teleporting stealth suits sounds fun tho lol

[Indefragable]

lolz

 

 

 

 

...carry on.

[Commander Dawnstar]

I feel like it might actually be a mistake on Kelly's part as the Marlin is described as "A small craft, and nimble," and we're yet to see a Battlesuit with a fish-based designation like the T'au vehicles and aircraft.

[Panzer]

Wouldn't surprise me considering it's Kelly lol

[Skaorn]

C.

 

For some broader context:

 

‘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.’

Wow... that dialog...

 

Why would a fire caste warrior even call it a god? A very powerful, probably psychic, alien from another dimension that some Gue'vesa called a "God" I get. Is Xeno Religions an elective course at Fire caste academies? I mean, my guess is that it will ultimately by revealed to be Tzeentch trolling them anyways, but where do they get that it was the manifestation of human belief in the Greater Good. I'd honestly even settled for calling it Space Lincoln. I'd also expect a scene like this:

 

In spooky voice "I am the ghost of Greater Good Present"

Ethereal: "So I hear that you are interested in joining our empire. There is just some preliminary paper work to get you started on your path to citizenship. Water Caste, bring me... The Forms! I'm guessing a urine and blood sample is going to be difficult for you to supply..."

 

Twoblade as a name? I know their are bonding knives and all but Swordy McSwordsen really wouldn't be a real good Tau name either. Why not Two Gun Mojo, GunFu, Tequila, or Double Tap. Probably too cool for the character though and require a shas'o rank for any of them. Commander Double Tap should probably be a hero that doesn't allow FNP saves.

 

False gods kind of implies that you have a god to believe in, which is something that'd be kind of important to know about the Tau after all these years. Also mind-science races :cuss? Just call it psychic and probably use species instead of races.

 

Finally, the one that rely got me: "his veins standing out as if he was trapped in hard vacuum". It reminds of one of those terrible writing quotes from school kids: "McBride hit the pavement like a 20 gallon bag filled with chunky vegetable soup" only not as good or nearly as funny. I mean the only way one would know what that looks like would be to get in an EVA suit, strap someone nice and tight to it, strap tight to the ship, blow the airlock, and see what happens to their face when someone is exposed to space. He could have kept it simple with something like "a vein in his forehead began to bulge as his face flushed <Tau flush color> in anger".

 

Thanks again, Phil.