There’s T’au discourse on my dash! How exciting! However since I just have a dumb joke and don’t have anything particularly salient to contribute I’m gonna make my own post.
Are the T’au bad guys? I mean from any reasonable perspective, sure- they’re expansionist colonizers with a strong sense of ‘manifest destiny’ so to speak- these would make compelling villains in a different sort of story. Compared to the Imperium, though, they’re… fuckin’ puppies and sunshine, man.
Like, imagine you’re an overworked drudge laborer in the depths of some abysmal hive world. Your life is such garbage that when your routine is interrupted by a planetary invasion, things actually get better in that you can get away with sneaking extra rations more often and sometimes you don’t have to work a triple shift because the manufactorum is currently the location of an active firefight. Eventually the Heroic Defenders (who probably stole some of your desperately needed food tbh) are routed and the T’au take over. Their ambassadors address the entire planet bit by bit- rigging up big screens or somesuch. The broadcast goes something like this:
“Do not fear, simple gue’la- although this is an active warzone and as such your world will need to bear some austerity measures to further the efforts of our noble shas’la, your biological needs will be taken into consideration. As such, you will work no more than ten hour shifts, eight if the work is strenuous, and you will be provided with no less than 1500 kilocalories per diem, with those performing strenuous activity naturally receiving more sustenance.”
You blink. Ten hour shifts? You’ve worked twice that, for weeks on end… that’s practically a vacation! And 1500 kCal… guaranteed?! Guaranteed?! You won’t starve! Ever! No one in your family will starve! You rush to the streets, tears streaming down your face. “FOR THE GREATER GOOD!”
It’s not an undeserved reputation- even those among us considered ‘funny’ generally have a dry sort of humor. In the Heresy era I was considered particularly hilarious, but among my current Company I have found only Epistolary Diomedes and Ancient Lepida generally ‘get’ my wry observations are meant to be humorous. I can tell when a joke lands because Diomedes snorts softly, and Lepida shakes her head and tries not to smirk.
Either that or they recognize I’m trying to be funny, and decide it’s politic to humor me.
As for a humorous non-battlefield tale, there were a great many attempts during the early days to try and fit the Ultramarines legionnaires into the larger society of Ultramar- we were invited to all manner of social events, soirees, balls, fetes, and so forth. The Emperor made us to ‘know no fear’, but apparently social anxiety was all right. I know of a number of marines who made complete fools of themselves trying to escape awkward conversations, but the one that comes to mind is the story of what happened to Brother Parvus.
Brother Parvus was considered unusually handsome, and he had a much more gracile build than most of us, and was short enough that he could occasionally pass for a particularly tall mortal. He was also painfully shy, which led to a casual comment from Lord Guilliman himself that Brother Parvus needed to ‘make more of an effort’ to engage in social activity. Naturally he took this offhand remark as an Order From On High, and so began actively seeking out guests to engage in some of the most awkward conversations I have ever witnessed. The entire process caused him such distress that his endocrine system began producing combat-levels of stimulants. He poured sweat, his fingers twitched, and his eyes roved like a trapped animal. That alone was pretty funny.
But by this point, the High Lady of some important colony world or another had set her sights firmly upon Parvus, and was standing closer and closer to him. When she lay a hand upon his arm, he startled and reflexively crushed the wineglass in his hand, splashing them both. He flushed crimson and began dabbing at her dress in an attempt to salvage it- genuinely dabbing with a soft cloth, nothing remotely sexual, but the mere fact that he had placed a cloth upon her not insignificant bosom was apparently enough to send him nearly purple with embarrassment and he began stammering all manner of grandiose apologies, offering to do anything she asked to make up for the ‘indignity’ he’d inflicted upon her. She stood on her toes, and whispered something into his ears- no doubt what he could do to earn her forgiveness.
I have never seen a space marine grin sheepishly before but as she led him out, there was no other word for his expression. He returned to his post the next day, and if you think we missed a single opportunity to remark upon his slightly disheveled appearance with feigned ignorance just to see him turn bright red again, you don’t understand Ultramarine humor.
As for a more direct joke, here’s one we told each other in the Great Crusade. First Marine: “How many orks does it take to-” Second Marine: “…all of them, apparently.”
BL mentions language barriers rarely and inconsistently, but my headcanon is that the Heresy-era High Gothic that Guilliman speaks and the 40k-era Low Gothic dialect everyone’s speaking in Ultramar are as mutually incomprehensible to each other as early Roman Latin from late medieval French. So the only person who can communicate fluently with Guilliman the first few hours after they wake him up is Celestine, who knows extensive Ecclesiarchal High Gothic as part of her very good religious education and devotions. Most other people only know a spattering of words–and certainly not conjugation–and mostly say their prayers in the modern language or mumble them by route. Even she, as far as Guilliman is concerned, talks really weird compared to how the language was used in his day–religious references aside–but at least she’s understandable. By the end of the first day, he’s fluent in the modern language so it’s a moot point, but for those first few hours it makes everything harder, yet somehow easier to break things to him piece by piece.
lookashiny 