| rdfs:comment
| - Following their initial success with the First Sphere Expansion and their alliance with the formidable Kroot, the Fire Caste armies of the Tau Empire were swollen by billions of additional warriors to aid the fight for the Greater Good, albeit in a more mercenary fashion than was considered ideal. With engineering centres in every Sept working diligently, the Earth Caste provided innumerable innovations, but the invention demanded by the Ethereals -- faster propulsion-technology to drive starcraft -- eluded them. At last, the quantum leap came from Fal'shia Sept, where they finalised development of the ZFR Horizon Accelerator Engine. An ingenious design, this powerful new mechanism allowed Tau voidships to attain near-light speed. It was this device that would usher in the next phase of pr
|
| abstract
| - Following their initial success with the First Sphere Expansion and their alliance with the formidable Kroot, the Fire Caste armies of the Tau Empire were swollen by billions of additional warriors to aid the fight for the Greater Good, albeit in a more mercenary fashion than was considered ideal. With engineering centres in every Sept working diligently, the Earth Caste provided innumerable innovations, but the invention demanded by the Ethereals -- faster propulsion-technology to drive starcraft -- eluded them. At last, the quantum leap came from Fal'shia Sept, where they finalised development of the ZFR Horizon Accelerator Engine. An ingenious design, this powerful new mechanism allowed Tau voidships to attain near-light speed. It was this device that would usher in the next phase of progress. With a faster fleet and armies buoyed by an influx of Kroot Carnivores, the Tau Ethereal Supreme, Aun'Wei, declared the massive build-up for the next round of interstellar exploration and settlement to be complete. With a single command that was heard throughout the Empire, the Tau launched the Second Sphere Expansion. Branching outwards from each of the hub centres of the First Sphere colonies, great Tau fleets speared into the dark, spreading the Greater Good to worlds that from distant T'au were mere specks of flickering light. The Second Sphere Expansion was to prove even more dynamic than the first, pushing further into space and establishing over a dozen new Septs. During this time, a legend arose from the Fire Caste, the greatest military thinker and strategist of his age, and perhaps of any other -- Commander Puretide. He led his warriors to swift victories, and star systems fell before his campaigns of conquest. Many of the Second Sphere Septs, such as Elsy'eir and Tash'var, owe their existence to Puretide's brilliant strategies, and it was his masterful counterattacks that warded off the Ork invasion that threatened to overrun Au'taal Sept. It was said that even the Orks grew to fear facing an army led by Puretide, for while the Greenskins loved to fight, the master tactician took much of the joy from their battles with his evasive, yet hard-hitting tactics. Puretide's application of strategy and military theory were thoroughly recorded and are still taught at every Fire Caste academy today. The last breakthrough of the Second Sphere Expansion was the successful crossing of the Damocles Gulf, a mysterious region to the galactic east that had long thwarted all attempts by the Tau to pass through. Once on the other side of that roiling and unnavigable space phenomenon, the Tau swiftly established many colonies and outposts, soon making their first contact with the single largest power in the galaxy, the Imperium of Man. After a long and subtle campaign, the Tau Empire had peaceably encroached upon many planets within the area of space known to the humans as the Timbra Sub-sector of Segmentum Ultima. The bitter and destructive wars that were soon unleashed there were unlike anything the Tau had ever experienced, and that bloody fighting marked the beginning of the end of the Second Sphere Expansion.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)