Shadowsun

"Heh, nothing personnel, gue'la" (Clearly a Possessed Marine or an Ork, but just roll with it...)

Commander O'Shaserra, better known by the moniker Shadowsun (see also Undyne The Undying and prepare for a Battle Against a "True Genius of Kauyon"), is a commander in the Fire Caste of the Tau Empire and one of their best tacticians and stealth operatives. She is the most tsundere of Tau generals, according to fanon, despite actual canon describing her as a cold-hearted manipulative bitch. (Though some may say that is a symptom of her tsundereness...)

Fa/tg/uys masturbate furiously over pictures of her with large breasts. Warhammer 40,000 fluff states nowhere that Tau females have breasts and there is little evidence to support the notion, but that doesn't stop drawfags from constantly adding tits to them. Or neckbeards from crying when they see them, for that matter. This really shouldn't surprise anyone because she's a tough and hot alien chick who loves fusion blasters, and you know we love a tough-n-hot alien chick who loves fusion blasters.

Origin

Even as a young Fire Caste warrior, O'Shaserra showed great promise as a military leader in the academies of the Tau Empire. Eventually she, as well as two Tau named Shoh and Kais (yes, that Kais), were among those selected after a meteoric rise through the ranks to study under the esteemed Commander Puretide, a legendary leader and tactical genius celebrated everywhere in the Tau Empire. With him, the three of them trained together in competitive and aggressive combat and tactics, and quickly proved themselves as Puretide's top three students. As such, they were made force commanders upon completing their training. Together with O'Shovah, who would eventually become known throughout the Tau Empire as Commander Farsight, O'Shaserra played a key role in the defense of the Dal'yth sept world during the Damocles Crusade, during which Farsight's daring counterattacks against the invading Imperial forces gained him much attention and esteem. However, many of them would likely have failed if not for O'Shaserra's patient efforts to coax the humans into opportune positions for Farsight's aggression.

When the old and incontinent Commander Puretide eventually died, an effort was mounted by the Ethereals to preserve his strategic brilliance for the sake of posterity. As part of this effort, they decreed that O'Shaserra, along with her fellow star Puretide disciples, would be put into a cycle of cryogenic stasis, with one awake and two asleep at all times, so that each of them could continue to serve the Greater Good far into the future. It was decided that Farsight would be the first to remain active, and O'Shaserra and Kais dutifully began their artificial slumber, trusting their comrade to do both their mentor and the Empire proud in their absence. However, Shadowsun was awakened almost two centuries later only to find that Farsight had given the Tau Empire a huge middle finger and become the leader of a group of renegade colonies on the Empire's fringe, space which was now designated as the Forbidden Zone. (See Farsight's article for details and his side of the story.) Moreover, the Fire Caste was now divided over the issues of Farsight's motives and loyalty, with some still supporting him and others denouncing him.

Recent Engagements

Commander O'Shaserra soon learned that she had actually been awakened prematurely due to a fuckhuge Ork invasion, the biggest the Tau had ever seen, and she was needed to help repel it. The Ethereal Aun'Va had initially planned to reawaken her in preparation for the Empire's Third Sphere Expansion campaign, but the new Ork threat hastened his plans. As expected, Commander O'Shaserra once more proved her value as a leader as she quickly proceeded to blow the shit out of the Ork forces with the armies at her command, using similar tactics (patience and stealth) to the ones she found effective against the Imperium during the Damocles Crusade. This war against the Orks became known as the Great War of Confederation.

O'Shaserra earned the nickname "Shadowsun" when, in the K'resh Expansion, she arranged her fleet in orbit in front of the local star in order to cast an eclipse-like shadow over an Ork base at the heart of their forces. Under the cover of this darkness, she subsequently infiltrated with some of her own forces and crippled the Ork leadership, cutting the head off the snake and delivering a killing blow to their war effort before the Greenskins even knew what the hell was happening. Shadowsun personally sought out the main Ork Warlord and fusion blasted his dumb fungal ass into a pile of boiling slag. The rest of Shadowsun's army then attacked, ambushing and exterminating the rest of the confused and fleeing Orks.

Of course, the problem with this is that the Tau ships are neither large enough nor numerous enough to have any impact at all on the sunlight over the Ork base unless they were a few dozen meters or so above it. On the other hand, the Orks sure wouldn't expect that.

After her victories in the Great War of Confederation, as well as a confrontation shortly after with a Tyranid splinter fleet from which she also emerged victorious, Shadowsun had become a hero throughout the Empire in the way that Farsight had been before her. Aun'Va declared that it was time for the Tau Empire to get a-conquerin' again, and the Third Sphere Expansion was officially underway. Shadowsun was chosen to spearhead the campaign and see if she couldn't get some more Greater Good up in this bitch. Before embarking on her epic conquer-spree, however, Shadowsun needed to get something off her chest (heh heh heh generic tit joke heh heh heh). She ordered an Empire-wide communication to be broadcast from the Mont'yr Battle Dome, where Commander Farsight had once trained. After delivering a rousing speech, she took aim with her fusion blasters at a big statue of Farsight and blew the thing apart in front of the entire Fire Caste, making perfectly clear to them just what she thought of O'Shovah and those who betray the Tau'va. With the Orks and Tyranids defeated for the time being and the Imperium distracted by other conflicts, Shadowsun has since been steadily expanding the borders of the Tau Empire. Diplomacy with the Farsight Enclaves, when she reaches them, seems unlikely.

The 3rd Sphere Expansion

Shadowsun had the honour of leading the Tau Empire's Third Sphere Expansion, crossing the Damocles Gulf and attacking several Imperial Worlds. Although the Tau continued to make use of diplomacy, seen in the capitulation of the Lagann System, Shadowsun also engineered a number of military take overs. One part of her grander military offensive was to sacrifice the entire Zeist Sector, and all Tau living within it, to Cato Sicarius (as she probably realized she wouldn't stand a chance against his plot armor against him in combat) although its never made clear how much was actually gained from this move making it seem, at best, of questionable effectiveness.

The first major conflict of the 3rd Sphere Expansion came on the Hive World of Agrellan, a minor Imperium world, where Shadowsun lead the forces of the Tau Empire against a combination of Imperial forces including House Terryn, White Scars, Raven Guard and Catachan. Despite stiff Imperial resistance Shadowsun secure the planet for the Tau Empire, though an effective rearguard action allowed most of the Imperial forces to survive the battle and relocate to the nearby Knight World of Voltoris.

Shadowsun would pursue her foe to Voltoris but, ironically, end up falling into an enormous ambush which saw her army crushed and her own life almost ended. Shadowsun was forced to flee and the entire Tau Empire gave up on any attempt to conquer Voltoris, seeking to instead bypass it and head for the nearby world of Prefectia in the resource rich Dovar System.

On Prefectia Shadowsun fought a combination of familiar Imperial foes and even managed to ambush and slay the Raven Guard Chapter Master in a Ghostkeel Battlesuit (which for some reason she can't use in the game). Deprived of their Chapter Master, and with the Tau Empire on the offensive, the Imperial forces abandoned Prefectia to the Tau. Celebrations for Shadowsun's latest victory were short-lived, however, as the Imperium were already preparing a retributive strike against Agrellan.

When the Imperium struck Agrellan it caught the Tau by surprise, trapping both Shadowsun and Aun'va on the planet, whilst the Tau Fleet fled to gather reinforcements. Conflict broke out on the world itself, due to powerful shield generators preventing the Imperium from simply flattening the Tau from space, and Shadowsun was driven back, defeat seeming inevitable. However, at this moment, Commander Farsight and his forces arrived, managing to sneak completely undetected through the Imperial Blockade, and intervening to save Shadowsun and Aun'va. Although relations between the rogue commander and his former peer and superior were still frosty, they put aside their differences in order to confront their mutual foe. Working together Shadowsun and Farsight managed to confound their Imperial opponents, although an Assassin squad did manage to slay the Supreme Ethereal Aun'va and to critically injure Shadowsun, confining her to a Space Ship for the remainder of the conflict. The Imperium, operating on a deadline, determined that they would waste no further time against the Tau's resistance and began a general withdrawal, with only the White Scars resisting the command. Before completing their withdrawal, however, Mechanicus forces within the taskforce scorched Agrellan, killing all life not beneath a shield generator and set fire to the entire Damocles Gulf region.

In the aftermath of this bitter stalemate Shadowsun is weakened, the poison in her system leaving her ill, but she thanks Farsight for his aid by permitting him time to leave despite the orders of her superiors to capture him. Since then Shadowsun has presumably been stuck on Agrellan, with the 3rd Sphere Expansion grinding to a halt after capturing only 2 known planets.

The Fourth & Fifth Sphere Expansion

After the Fourth Sphere Expansion tore a giant asshole in the universe (due to Tau trying proper warptravel with their new AL-38 Slipstream Module) the Fourth Expansion fleet was deemed lost. Some years later, however, it turned out the giant asshole was indeed a wormhole, leading to a region of frontier Imperial space (the Ultima Segmentum, Imperium Nihilus, between Khar Dunaish and Hexos). The Fifth Expansion fleet was sent through and encountered the remnants of the Fourth Sphere Expansion fleet, huddled around what they called the 'Startide Nexus' and three colonized planets. Shadowsun fought a few battles alongside the Fourth Sphere armies, but quickly opted to pull them back when she was using auxiliaries, as they had turned into genocidal fuckwits (probably due to them witnessing their auxiliaries being mutated in the warp).

After some time, the old, fat, ugly bastard marines of Nurgle noticed a direct path to the heart of the Tau Empire, which they chose to exploit. Commander Tsundere somehow won when the Death Guard just retreated for some reason. She is now leading the Tau in the Fifth Sphere Expansion, in what is now dubbed the Nem'Yar Atoll.

Got a book titled after her written by the usual guy and it's... surprisingly good! It does look like she'll turn traitor ala Farsight 2, but otherwise she's shown as being pretty good. Seems she's getting wise as to what Chaos and the Warp are as well, which may be the reason for her potential defection since the Ethereals are known to be deliberately telling the Tau jack shit about it.

On the Tabletop

Looks like she finally got upgraded from her old Prototype suit. Buy two, one for her unhelmeted and one helmeted if you are a fan of Shas'O Kais

Shadowsun spent several editions being rather irrelevant, since she was originally designed for the Cities of Death supplement and was specialized for getting in close and frying things, then jumping around walls and buildings to avoid getting charged. Naturally, when there weren't walls and buildings, she suffered from being the one Tau model that wanted to be closer to her enemies. With the new codex, though, she got a bunch of buffs, mostly being able to actually join squads of other suits and make them invisible as well (which is now Shrouded and Stealth for a trolltastic +3 bonus to any cover or 4+ in the open) and an ability that grants re-rolled 1s to nearby squads, that make her a much more attractive choice. (Gee, I wonder what popular Tau model desperately wants to avoid rolling 1s...)

8th Edition

Here's her Tactics entry.

She doesn't directly buff Stealth Suits, but still synergises with them well - they can catch wounds for her on a 2+ if they're nearby, she can bring two shield drones for wound catching that have a 3++ to make everyone a bit more durable and a command drone to improve one unit's accuracy, and she's got all the same infiltration and camouflage abilities they do. Her dual Fusion Blasters also add a lot of punch to an infiltrating XV25 squad (and on top of that she can declare Kauyon twice per battle to reroll misses for nearby units at the cost of preventing all movement for even more firepower), but she is pretty darn expensive - in fact, she costs slightly more points than most Stealth Suit squads all by herself. If you're going heavy on the XV25s though, you'll probably still want her along.

By the way

Despite being next to each other alphabetically on this Wiki, Shadowsun has nothing to do with the cyberpunk game system Shadowrun.

Gallery

This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you.

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  Back when she didn't rock robotic arms on her armor.

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  I'd let her improve my morale, if you know what I mean

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  Probably a more fluff accurate version of naked Shadowsun, though the nose needs more work.

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  Dat treacherous xeno ass.

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  Sweet weeaboo heresy.

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  Good lord, someone really crafted a model based on that drawing.

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  Sweet Emprah, somebody actually made ANOTHER model of her, though the eyes need more work.

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  Finally, the dream of a big tiddie tau gf is reality.

Heroes of the Greater Good
Ethereals:	Aun'Shi - Aun'Va
Fire Caste:	Commander Farsight - Commander Puretide Commander Shadowsun - El'Myamoto Longstrike
Dawn of War:	Shas'O Or'es'Ka - Shas'O Kais