Talk:Ba'Y'Skether Sept

This article has multiple issues, particularly regarding its treatment of and expansions upon canon.

Firstly your use of capitalisation is entirely arbitrary and is in poor form, which makes reading the article needlessly difficult. Absolutely highballing it, you'd only be capitalising proper nouns (e.g. Shas'O Kais, Inquisitor Eisenhorn, Bay'y'skether, etc.) and proper names like Space Marine, Gue'vesa, Ethereal and etc., the latter of which follows the trend of the Warhammer 40k Canon Wiki, which seems to prefer capitalising copyrighted terms. Stuff like "habitable", "diplomatic" and so fourth do not need capital letters.

Secondly, your treatment of Tau canon isn't exactly non-canon friendly, but it sure is quite brazen and cavalier in a manner that harms suspension of disbelief. Definitely feels like you're going for rule of cool here rather than realism.

To start off, yes, a disaster is a good starting point of a sept to start diverging away from the status quo of the Empire. But the source of the disaster occuring mid warp jump due to a large presence of psykers doesn't really add up: A simple fix to both issues could be changing this sept to a fourth sphere project that planned to experiment upon (and/or breed) human psykers. The disaster is already pre-written into the canon; fourth sphere septs are all cursed. Adding psykers is just asking for trouble.
 * 1) You're going to have to justify the large number of human psykers in a Tau expeditionary fleet. Why are they sending so many to settle a new world? Is it to research psychic capabilities? Train a psyker shock force for use against other psychic threats? The fact that it's "daring" doesn't really make the cut.
 * 2) Keep in mind the benefits of Tau FTL and why they'd see no benefit in switching to classic deep warp travel. It is slower, but is actually achievable by non-psykers, and with such a limited exposure to the warp (unlike, say, the startide nexus of the ill-fated fourth sphere expansion) it is safer. I don't see any reason for them to suddenly try out classic warp travel. You'll need a stronger reason if you wish to keep it, especially a better one than just casually hinging the fate of an entire colony fleet on technology that is known to be dangerous. This is Especially unbelievable after the disaster that was the fourth sphere expansion, which also saw the use of advanced technology go horribly wrong.

As for the psychic Tau. This is an old chestnut. I used to be entirely against it. But with recent canon, I could see it happening. Things have been getting weird. Again this is a justification problem. Yes, you've explained why it's happening, but not how it happens. Going by my previous suggestion, I'd have it be the result of jumping through the startide nexus + psychic experimentations gone wrong. Then, I could could very easily see it becoming terrifyingly lovecraftian (like The Colour Out of Space), where Psychic abilities become a virus-like memetic hazard that spreads from humans to latently psychic Tau through eye contact. It'd quickly become a planet-wide disaster with quarantine zones and civil wars.

This takes me to my second issue with the psychic Tau, as well as the widespread acceptance of Gue'vesa and new castes. So far, it seems like the planet quite calmly accepts these changes. The core Empire too, seems to just be A-okay with integrating this radically different sept. Surely such an upheaval would be met with resistance? Both from inside and out. Heavy Gue'vesa positivity and new castes, maybe, but the warp and psykers pose a severe danger that cannot be overlooked, and I highly doubt that the Empire would ever accept the existence of a psychic sept. The Greater Good is overwhelmingly about unity, Tau racial supremacy, the four castes, and conformity to the vision of the ethereals of T'au. You might have to have this sept go the way of the Farsight Enclaves, and declare independence.

Before the wars with external threats, I strongly recommend you write an internal war or two, one that sees the psykers win control of the sept over a traditionalist, non-psyker government backed by the main Empire. These wars too would be a reasonable explanation for the founding of these new castes too, and widespread acceptance of Gue'vesa into the sept (both born from war and bloodshed, and being necessary to win the war).

With all that addressed, I could see this being a fairly compelling article.

— NecrusIV   (Talk)  12:36, February 1, 2020 (UTC)