The WoffBoot Chronicles: Tau

Tau

T'Pau Sept

Early in the Fifth Expansion, a group of T'au colony ships set out for a group of Imperial systems. Their mission was to bring the Greater Good to the hapless citizens labouring under the Imperium's yoke. Led by the young and intrepid Commander K'ral D'Kaa, they brought with them a full complement of their people's finest warriors and technology to ensure that they could not fail.

Disaster, as is often the way in the 41st Millenium, struck them.

Something went wrong with the colony ship's life support system. Fully two-thirds of the army and colonists perished as the T'au ships performed their long, slow FTL jumps towards their goals. Arriving on the edge of the Rylstone system, the leaders of the mission faced a terrible choice. Return home having failed, or push on with their assaults in the face of overwhelmingly superior enemy numbers.

It was an easy decision, in some respects. The merest possibility of success drove them on. In Klebellia and Troon, their fleets foundered on Imperial defence lines. The ships arriving in Delavigne vanished in the Ork tide residing there. But in Rylstone, they gained a foothold. Luck was with them, the Imperial defenders were away fighting on other fronts, and the sudden aggression from a technologically superior foe swept away the defenders in a matter of months. Only Rylstone V, the homeworld of the Crypt Angels, stood defiant.

The tiny T'au force reigned over the system. Using backup personality engrams from the life support systems of their ships, they were able to program and boost their forces with a hitherto unseen number of drones, each controlled by an artifical mind cloned from one of the original colonists. The manufactoriums on Rylstone III were re-tasked with churning out hundreds upon thousands of these constructs, which were thrown straight into combat on Rylstone V.

Thus was born the T'Pau Sept, 'The Fragile Holding' in their tongue. Deeply reliant on their drones in war, determined not to fail in their mission and unwilling to give the slightest ground in their expansion war, Commander D'kaa has somehow not yet lost her optimism. Even after the Crypt Angels returned to Rylstone V and drove her forces back, she has still designated Rylstone officially part of her demesnes. Leading her troops from the front, she will not concede against any foe until the Greater Good has prevailed.