Tau origin?

[Beatnik cryptek]

I'm just curious as to whether or not there's been any actual background on the origin of the tau? It was made clear something pretty powerful was helpoing them along, isolating them from the imperium with warpstorms, the ethereals just coming out6 of nowhere, a ship with FTL drive just found conveniently drifting at the edge of their solar system, etc. Did they ever say who was behind the tau?

[Panzer]

I'm just curious as to whether or not there's been any actual background on the origin of the tau? It was made clear something pretty powerful was helpoing them along, isolating them from the imperium with warpstorms, the ethereals just coming out6 of nowhere, a ship with FTL drive just found conveniently drifting at the edge of their solar system, etc. Did they ever say who was behind the tau?

 

There has been nothing new concrete about their origin since GW introduced them to the settting.

A primitive race the Imperium scheduled for later extermination because they were of low priority, then a warpstorm denying the imperium access to the planet for several thousands of years and when the warp storm disappeared there was the T'au race as we know them today.

From the T'au perspective of things they nearly wiped themselves out in blood civil war until the Ethereal caste appeared all over the planet and took the lead, shaping them into what they are today.

[Lord_Caerolion]

There was a debatably-canonical book published by GW years back, Xenology, that implied that the Eldar created the Ethereal Caste in an attempt to create an anti-Chaos race. Some people didn't particularly like the book, as it made some "interesting" decisions with some of the featured races. I didn't particularly mind it, but to each their own.

[Beatnik cryptek]

I've wondered if the necrons created the tau. Seriously, they supposedly introduced the pariah gene that makes nulls  into humanity.Maybe they decided to interfere with the tau too.

The similarities are pretty big. No psychic shenanigans at all, the race is almost hardwired to obey a leader caste (Command protocols anyone?) the leaders sure seem to love their staffs, a strict hierarchy and division of the main population into defined functions, etc.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I thought there was an implication that the Necrons were far less caste-based before transference, and the only reason they're so socially segmented now is due to the resource-intensive nature of the bio-transference.

 

Personally, I just prefer them being their own race, that had strokes of good luck until they realized just how big and scary the galaxy really is.