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Greater Good

2018-12-04T04:50:34Z

2600:1700:BF90:B950:40FF:1652:57F2:6E8D: /* The God of the Greater Good? */

{{topquote|The Golden Age is the most implausible of all dreams. But for it men have given up their life and strength; for the sake of it prophets have died and been slain; without it the people will not live and cannot die.|Fyodor Dostoevsky}}
{{topquote|I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace.|Albert Einstein}}

Space: the final frontier.

These are the voyages of the starship ''[[Tau]]’s Future Glory''. Its mission: to seek out new life and new civilizations and unify them with [[noblebright]]—and the occasional plasma blast—for the '''Greater Good''' of all, and to boldly go into a [[grimdark]] galaxy where no Weeaboo Space Communist has gone before.

And thus begins the adventures of the [[40k]] galaxy’s version of the Star Trek Federation, brought to you by unflagging belief in the Greater Good! Cake for all!

==But Seriously, Folks==
[[File:8812 md-Dawn Of War Humor Motivational Poster Poster The Greater Good.jpg|thumbnail|right|300px|This is what happens when you bring philosophy to a [[Thunder Hammer|thunder hammer]] fight.]]
For reals though, this is the background on it:

The Greater <s>Evil</s> Good is the central, guiding philosophical doctrine of the [[Tau Empire]] and its diverse citizens. Essentially, it involves always taking the course of action that is best for the majority of people (and the fact the majority of the Empire's citizens have blue skin and forehead slits is totally coincidental, we swear), and dictates that everyone and everything has its place in the system; as such, the system will look after you, and you after it. ([[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Real-life humans]] have thought of this too; it's called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism utilitarianism]). It goes a lot deeper than that for the Tau, who believe it is their duty to bring the enlightening message of the Greater Good to everyone in the galaxy, and subsequently join them under the rule of the Tau Empire in order to work together for a better future for all. (Real-life humans have also thought of this, it's called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny manifest destiny]).

It was the [[Ethereal]]s who first brought the message of the Greater Good to the other Tau on their homeworld during the age of civil war and barbarism that they now refer to as the Mont'au, or "The Terror." The Ethereals preached a message of peaceful cooperation between the four major Tau tribes, and explained that each tribe's skills should be harnessed for the benefit of all to secure a brighter future. In this way, the Ethereals united them as a single-minded people, and over the next few millennia, the Tau got their shit together in record time for a sapient species, much like [[fa/tg/uys]] might were it not for the insurmountable levels of [[skub]] and [[rage]] [[Grimdark|produced by the internet on a daily basis]]. There was a massive growth in technology, science and knowledge, and the Tau became a spacefaring race very rapidly compared to [[Imperium of Man|others]]. They <s>mind controlled</s> contacted several [[Kroot|less advanced]] [[Vespid|races]] and won them over with their ideals; these were some of the first non-Tau members of what would become the Tau Empire.

Since approaching the space controlled by the [[Imperium]], however, the Tau have been somewhat disabused of the notion that most of the galaxy's denizens are interested in anything but killing them, since every other major race they have encountered either rejects their overtures for unity with a bolt pistol or straightaway tries to fight or nom them. Even the Tau's own member species generally join in the hopes of killing things. [[Tau Diplomacy|Here]] are some typical instances of the Tau Empire's [[Rape|negotiations with]] [[RIP AND TEAR|other races]].

Cue galaxy-wide [[lulz]].

As mentioned above, the idea of a greater good is not really all that new in the real world. It has existed in modern society for a while, although not in the form of an official guiding doctrine, and instead as more of a general rule of thumb to do your best by society as a whole and to not be selfish. To create in full the Tau idea of the Greater Good you will need: communism, Marxism, utilitarianism, naïveté, enough politics to make your head spin, xenophilia, the power of friendship and working together, and of course guns, lots and lots of guns, just in case 'persuading' someone to adopt the Greater Good fails. The resulting mixture resembles none of the ingredients (and would make Karl Marx chew his own beard off) but gives you a sense of the different bits and pieces [[Games Workshop]] added into its big concept cauldron to concoct the Tau Empire's Greater Good.

In the first edition Tau Codex the idea of the Greater Good was pretty clean if vague, a noble goal to unite the galaxy. The book "Fire Warrior", though, which was published at this time, goes into it at great length, including what it means and what happens when a Tau has his or her eyes open to what kind of galaxy they live in (in a mature, non-grimdark way too). By the first Tau Empire book, though, there is some gritty realism, with stories of people resisting the Greater Good, and in the current situation there are clear cases where the Greater Good will be meaningless ([[Orks]], [[Tyranids]], etc.).

In the wider galaxy, if you don't like the Greater Good, you hate it. In this way it is kind of like [[skub]]. The [[Imperium]] hates it because it is a challenge to their authority and they are afraid that [[Gue'vesa|nervous, weak-willed humans]] will see it as an alternative to what the Imperium offers, and they can't have that. [[Chaos]] hates it because it is the antithesis to what each of the four ruinous powers stand for: selflessness and discipline over indulgence ([[Slaanesh]]); peace over war ([[Khorne]]); growth and progress over decay ([[Nurgle]]); and structured order over change and randomness ([[Tzeentch]]). In short, the concept of the Greater Good is in direct opposition to the powers of Chaos, and exactly why Chaos has not launched a [[Black Crusade]] against the Tau Empire so far is unclear. (Obvious reasons include the Eye and the Tau being separated by an entire galaxy, the Imperum being a juicer target with more squishy blood-filled sacrifices, and because Chaos hasn't had a codex update, the Riptide spam is too strong, and that [[Failbaddon|Abbadon]] still can't do anything right.) [[Necrons]] and [[Eldar]] dislike the Greater Good simply because they consider it to be the starry-eyed drivel of a young species (although the Eldar have a soft spot for the Tau, likely because they created them), and the [[Orks]] and [[Tyranids]] couldn't care less, obviously. They will fight (and eat) anyone.

So all in all, pretty hard times being a missionary for the Greater Good in the 41st millennium.

==Accusations of epic trolling on GW's part==
When the Tau first came out, it was believed all this Greater Good lovey-dovey business was an epic example of trolling on GW's part against their franchise and the fan base, what with the 40k galaxy being completely grimdark previously. The presence of a race that was (shock-horror) normal by most sci-fi standards confused some and enraged others. GW declared they wanted a new, dynamic race for their setting. Fans thought they went a bit too far in this regard and had created something that clashed thematically with the setting it was in.

As of the most recent codex and [[fluff]] updates, however, the Tau and the Greater Good have been made more 'realistic' in the context of the 40k galaxy. The Ethereals have declared certain races "lost causes" which are beyond the capability of the Greater Good to help them (the Orks and the Tyranids, though this declaration should have been made upon one glimpse of those assholes). And as of the most recent expansion phase in the Empire, the Tau have at times abandoned the slow but steady option of diplomacy in favour of just annexing worlds and forcing the Greater Good onto anyone there via military might. Considering this is more in line with the Imperium's way of doing things, we shall have to see how that goes. Other grimdark things done to and in the name of the Greater Good can be found in the next section.

==Is it all really sunshine and lollipops?==
The codices and fluff hinted from the start that all was not what it seemed in the Tau Empire, and with the recent updates, especially the [[Farsight]] Enclaves supplement, the Ethereals have been portrayed as subtly evil space tyrants ruling an empire through clever mind control tricks which the Tau population is unaware of. Basically, the books hint that the Ethereals, a strange breed of Tau who appeared out of nowhere, use some form of mind control or pheromone to influence other Tau to listen to what they say and to obey orders without question. It is further hinted that this has had a diminished effect on even non-Tau. It is in this way they sell the Greater Good. It is the sort of thing the Party in ''[[1984]]'' would love to be able to do and would make their work load much easier.

There has been no solid confirmation on the origin or power of the Hypnotau, and like a lot of potentially cool plot points, it has been left underdeveloped in order to [[Advancing the Storyline|drag out the plot]]. Thanks GW. Of course, ''[[Xenology]]'' really, ''really'' heavily implies that the [[Eldar]] stole some other alien race's mind-control pheromones and integrated them into Tau biology.

That said, it's also heavily implied that the Ethereals' pheromones affect the Ethereals themselves as well. They fully believe in everything they preach, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink#Origin_and_concepts as opposed to ''1984'''s leaders]. In the novel ''Fire Warrior'', an Ethereal actually resists falling to goddamn [[Chaos Spawn|daemonic possession]] not because of any psychic resistance or relic but because his faith in the Greater Good gives him total balance and control over his mind, meaning no emotional flaws for a daemon to exploit.

However, one thing that people seem to forget is that even if pheromones and the like really are controlling the Tau, it is very unlikely for those same pheromones to afflict the Empire's member races in the same way, (with the exception of the kroot who if they snacked down on some Tau would start to be effected) so there still has to be a solid message there for other races to latch onto... unless that's what the Nagi are for. Who are the Nagi? Oh, just a client race of mind-controlling brain worms who regularly council with the Ethereals. The fluff doesn't talk about them much, but the moment you read "mind-controlling brain worms" that's immediately going to raise some red flags. But as far as we know, the Nagi have no direct contact with the other client races and there is the question of how the Ethereal got the Nagi in on the greater good. So whether or not there's mind control amongst the Tau themselves, the Greater Good is still a legitimate philosophy that is proving itself to be quite effective at uniting disparate civilizations.

==Reasons to accept the Greater Good==
* The Tau Empire is open to diplomacy and talking things through. Even if they are primarily focused on getting what they want (like every sensible person is), they will still listen to what you want as well and potentially allow room for it. The Imperium does diplomacy too, but merely as a pretense until they can get enough guns there. If they have enough guns already then diplomacy sounds like {{BLAM|'''BLAM!'''}}
* <s>[[Faptau]] and/or [[Schlicktau]] will teach you how to masturbate like a professional.</s> {{BLAM|'''THIS SECTION OF TEXT IS A LIE AGAINST THE GREATER GOOD. ALL INDIVIDUALS INVOLVED WILL BE BROUGHT BACK TO TAU FOR REEDUCATION.'''}}
* You can be friends or allies with other alien races unless they're ones deemed [[Orks|a]] [[Tyranids|lost]] [[Dark Eldar|cause]] by the Greater Good.
* [[Railgun]]s.
* [[Battlesuit]]s.
* Life in the Empire is significantly better for civilians, especially lower-class ones, than in most other civilizations. Hell, they even have free health care - in the Imperium you don't have ANY health care unless you're at least a valued middle class specialist or a soldier.
* <s>You will be allowed to worship who you want, as long as it doesn't conflict with the Greater Good.</s> <s>Retconned as of eighth edition.</s> (Not a retcon) Though worship of your own gods is permitted, the Water caste actively try to get their citizens to devote their energies to the idea of the greater good.
* You will not be blown up in a dickish preemptive orbital strike by [[Commander Or'es'Ka]].
* It advocates what is best for everyone and states that everyone can contribute to it in their own way, which we must agree is a better sell than Imperial zealots screaming that you owe the Emperor your life, so get busy dying for him, and no complaining or we'll make you die for him {{Blam|'''RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!'''}}
* Machines are seen simply as machines, not as holy relics with [[Machine Spirit|souls]] that need to be fawned over with ridiculous rituals, and so a lot of things are automated. You don't have to do a tenth of the awful, soul-sucking menial labour that occurs in every corner of the Imperium. This automatically makes the Tau a thousand times more [[Awesome|practical and sensible]].

==Reasons not to accept the Greater Good==
* You will be a walking target for life for [[HERESY]], and hence [[Blam|BLAMMING]], in the Imperium for even thinking about xenos in a positive light. (Just a reminder: the Inquisition is not afraid to [[Exterminatus|blow up an entire planet just to kill you]]. If not, there will always be [[Space Marine|some]][[Assassin|one]] waiting for you). This only applies if you choose to remain in Imperium territory; the Tau are expanding their territory so I'm sure they have room for at least one more.
* You are probably being compelled by pheromones and mind control to be a good person, which is to say your [[noblebright]] is the result of [[grimdark]].
* You will be horrified at how barbaric and violent the rest of the galaxy is, so make sure you cover your eyes when you're outside the Empire.
* You will be compared to Jehovah's Witnesses because your message is just irritating to anyone who is not already '''ONE OF US…'''
* You will be compared to communists by most people despite the fact that the Tau Empire only resembles such sociopolitical ideals in the most dubious of ways.
* Inter-caste breeding is strictly prohibited in the Tau Empire. Their view on Tau getting it on with non-Tau is even worse. So if you meet a stunning Water Caste babe and you're a member of the Air Caste, or a member of a non-Tau race, you're unfortunately gonna have to go all Romeo and Juliet on that shit.
* The problem above is irrelevant but only because if you're Tau, your libido is almost nonexistent, and you don't think of sex as anything more than a method of reproduction. Some, however, may think this is an advantage rather than drawback; Then again, some sources claim Tau like sex as much as humans do but their Caste system and the Ethereal's control restrict it.
* You have to accept that you won't be in charge of your own destiny. But then, no one really is in the 40k galaxy…:'(
* Although it may seem all nice and happy, be careful. Big Brother is always watching you... but Tau Big Brother is more polite and less trigger-happy or invasive than Imperium Big Brother. Which means the subtle alien and daemonic threats Imperium Big Brother protects you against will get through Tau Big Brother and do horrible, horrible things to you and your soul.
* It might be an Eldar conspiracy to convince foolish Mon...Gue'la to die for a mysterious force that isn't Chaos.
* Alternatively, it might be a [[Nagi|brainworm]] conspiracy to use a bunch of blue and pink meat puppets to fight their battles for them.
*Machine spirits actually do exist in 40k, and not having them in your technology could be a problem when Chaos shows up.
* You run a great risked of being OMNOMED by Tyranids, atom raped by Necrons, kidnapped by Dark Eldar, or slaughtered by Orcs.
* There are only three reasons why you still exist. First, the Imperium saves you from major threats because those threats are so terrible they believe not even you deserve them. Second, the threats were shattered by the Imperium and you only dealt with a miniscule fraction of a fragment yet it still nearly eradicated your civilization utterly. Third, you're so small and pathetic that nobody cares about you. Once any one of these factors change, you will be exterminated or worse by anyone else in the galaxy or from outside of the galaxy. Enjoy your existence while it lasts.

==What is important to remember is this!==
Despite all the jeers about naiveté, subtle mind control and Big Brother watching you, the Tau Empire and its philosophy of the Greater Good is still the nicest option to go with in the 40k universe, especially if you're one of those rare [[neckbeard]]s who actually realizes that grimderp and sadness doesn't always equal coolness and profundity (but not smart enough to realize it exists for survival and lacking it means death or worse). So what if your leaders control the population like a club of puppet masters? At least you can trust these people not to throw you and your family into a meat grinder suicide war or to crush all the individuality and freedom out of you while saying it is for your own good. Some have said "give it ten thousand more years and the Tau Empire will be just like the Imperium" (don't forget the current Imperium is a lot more backwards and oppressive than the Emperor intended). But really, will it? The Tau are quite different from humans, so their response will be quite different as well. Until then, the Greater Good remains one of the few doctrines of the 40k universe that makes sense, and despite all the grimdark made of it recently, it is still so [[noblebright]] it can blind [[Night Lords]] a light year away.

At the level of narrative a big part about The Greater Good is that it's an ideology that many a real world person today would find to some degree or another attractive. Even if there are reasons in universe as to why it's the case the Imperial Creed is going to be a hard sell to pretty much everyone in the modern day to say the least even when we see what it's like in practice. The Greater Good is in general a much more palatable. In Star Trek the philosophy of the Vulcans, which is framed in a positive light, is "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" and "The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few". Encouraging altruism, cooperation between different groups, the idea that society should have a place for everyone and striving for an idea of societal harmony is things that many people can get behind. Of course people can do horrible things in service of noble ideals even as they strive for them, but that does not mean that the ideas in of themselves are fundamentally repugnant.

==Further Imperial Thoughts on the Tau==
Another interesting point regarding Imperial-Tau relations is spelled out in the current Tau codex. If you really want to get to the core of what the Imperium's problem with the Tau Empire is, you have to look to those who actually have the bigger picture of just what the fuck is going on in the galaxy. While your average inquisitor will shoot anything not human without a second thought, the bigwigs at the top of the food chain (specifically in the Mechanicus and the High Lords) are concerned about the Tau for several "good" reasons. Not only does the Empire offer a life of something more than "make bullets for the Emperor until you die and be thankful for it" (which you can imagine sounds pretty good to your average menial laborer), but they actually see a bit of themselves in the Tau. The Tau Empire is very similar to humanity during the Golden Age of Technology, which if you know [[Age of Strife|how that ended]] the Imperium's problem with the Tau is a bit more understandable.

Its also a matter of the warp and the Horus Heresy. Regardless of how many people in the Imperium know it, a major contributor was the primarchs finding things other than the Emperor or the Imperium to be loyal to, eventually causing a good half of them to turn traitor and put the Emperor on the Throne. Most of what came after was in response to this. The Greater Good is (in theory) separate from the leaders that espouse it. The Imperium, meanwhile, wants you to follow your leaders, regardless of the reasons or outcomes. As the Tau don't really have a presence in the warp, they don't have to worry about heretics and cults (at least for now). One can imagine the clusterfuck that develops when their human ranks are infiltrated by a cult and suddenly a horde of demons show up looking for lunch (having had the cultists for breakfast).

There are also the other races in the T'au empire. The minor aliens of the galaxy are... a mixed lot. The Tau tend to treat these with surprising amounts of courtesy, granting groups like the Kroot incredible independence, not overseeing or administrating their worlds and in numerous cases, such as Farsight, Commander Shadow and Ethereal seekers respecting and honouring the Kroot, whilst finding their practise of cannibalism still distasteful. Member species such as the Nicassar and Nagi are also frequently seen being treated well as advisors and permitted a limited form of input on governmental decisions. Rarely have member species ever been shown to be particularly aggravated or feel oppressed by the Tau. Regardless the fact that the Tau do not kill aliens on sight and simply have the explicit goal of annihilating all other life in the galaxy, makes them an attractive polity for aliens who are otherwise forced to contend with the xenocidal Humans, Orks, Chaos or Tyranid. Which eventually will result in the empire self-destructing, because those same aliens tend to be enslaving or xenocidal towards everyone else, too. Which is why the Imperium wants to wipe them out. Tau mind control helps direct it towards the enemies of the Tau instead of the empire, but that won't last forever. Especially if the Tau run out of "others" to point them at.

Regardless, the Imperium is largely willing to work with the Tau since they are the lesser of evils in a lot of sectors. [[Deathwatch]] talks about how most of the leadership of the Achilus Crusade (including the Deathwatch) would rather sign a non-agression pact with the tau against the invading Tyranids. The logic being that a world under the ideology of the Tau can be purged and be brought back to the Imperium, a world being nommed is of no value to anyone. Of course [[Grimdark|The pragmatic option isn't always the available one]] as the head of the Crusade is a paranoid idiot who would rather see the entire sector fall than compromise. The Tau themselves seem split between exploiting this character flaw so they will have strategic control and not having to send millions of troops to fight the Imperium on one front while hordes of giant space locusts arrive from another.

==The God of the Greater Good?==
Recent fluff from Phil Kelly's novels has revealed that the belief in the Greater Good by the Psychic Races of the Empire, including the Gue'vesa (especially them) and other races perceptions of the Greater Good and their emotional devotion for its ideals, and their worship of it has created a brand-new Warp God of the Greater Good. It's a five-fingered, many-armed, god taking a vague resemblance of an Ethereal wearing a blank and impassive mask, that seems like a benevolent being but has a hunger to spread its arms across the galaxy and reshape everything it its image. Which is reminding ''Sahasrabhuja'' from Buddhism. This massive entity that saved the Fourth Sphere and blasted a hole from the Warp into reality for them to escape.

The Fourth Sphere T'au are the only guys who know that entity exists (somehow) and it's gaining power the more the T'au Empire expands and assimilates races, and their commanders are not happy with it, seeing it as a corruption of the true Greater Good and a threat to their Empire. They secretly engineered the genocide of the T'au allied races in order to stop or kill the Greater Good God before it fully forms. Eventually, Shadowsun and the Ethereal Council disciplined the Fourth Sphere commanders with a ritual punishment before they were returned to the ranks or sent back to the empire for re-assimilation.

This is complete horseshit for a number of reasons, the first being that the Tau have a muted warp presence and even if we were to include all of their allied races, they wouldn't even equal a fraction of what the Eldar currently have in the setting, and they had to perform a complex ritual that had the backing of an actual god behind it just to make a new god start to exist/wake up. Even when they accidentally created Slaanesh it took countless trillions of Eldar souls and millennia of hedonism to create it. The second reason is that the Tau don't worship the concept of the greater good, saying they do is like saying people worship the country they live in (actually Phil Kelly addresses that: this new god feeds off human/kroot/deimurge/nicassar worship, not t'au; this exacerbates problem one but at least it eliminates problem two). The third is that the Tau have been around for a relatively short time which, combined with their relatively small population has barely been noticed by anything in the warp, let alone having them create a new god in it.

All in all it's an idea that should have had the editor delete any mention of it, as it's right up there with the worst of fanfiction, likely (and hopefully) to be ignored by everything around it, much like anything C.S. Goto writes down. Wave it off as something the [[Emperor]] did (and the Tau survivors just saw it as a five-fingered Ethereal, which is sorta consistent with the Horus Heresy books) and promptly forget it afterward.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Tau]]

Greater Good

2018-12-04T04:46:35Z

2600:1700:BF90:B950:40FF:1652:57F2:6E8D: /* The God of the Greater Good? */

Kickstarter

2018-12-04T01:46:33Z

2600:1700:BF90:B950:40FF:1652:57F2:6E8D:

{{stub}}
'''Kickstarter''' is one of many crowfunding sites where people can throw money at projects or create their own for others to throw money at. The types of projects themselves vary: tabletop games and video games, toys and merchandise, drones and [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1359605477/ fucking submarines...] It's a veritable smorgasbord of ideas. Tabletop games in particular have a healthy market on Kickstarter (thus giving us just enough reason to make an article about it); you have a bitch of a time getting an actual publisher to take you up on your idea, and self-published stuff won't get you the playerbase to make it worth your labor of love, but crowdfunding is a great way to get your funding and fans. Perhaps too much funding as we will see...

==Explain?==
What's to explain?

If you can picture it, you can advertise it and someone will fund it.

...And sometimes that's [[Skub|sorta the problem]].

For every Kickstarter success story, there's at least a handful (if not more) of [[FAIL|prolific failures]]. Not in the "nowhere near its stretch goal" sense of the word, that's just unfortunate if anything.

No, when most people think of Kickstarter failures, they thing of the big projects that gave its backers an expensive ride upon the hype train, as they usually meet their goal a few times over - and before long, mismanagement, delays, and excuses set in for one reason or another. Insights into the project management's ethics (or lack thereof), a changing of hands, the fact most self-publishers don't have the connections to get the best of materials for their products, and other various factors combine to kill the previously built hype, and the end result is at least one of the following: A) the product never gets released and [[RAGE|the backers start demanding refunds]], or B) the product makes it out against all odds, but it ultimately becomes a shadow of its former self and a testament to its wasted potential... [[RAGE|and the backers start demanding refunds]].

==/tg/ related Kickstarters and how they fared==
*[[White Wolf]] and its subsidiary, Onyx Path, have recently funded many of its [[World of Darkness]] [[RPG]]s via Kickstarter. All of them were met in record time (most of them within a couple of hours, some of them in under just over one hour) with several times the goal met. This results in a large number of stretch goals, many of whom include books that came out a lot later than promised. The worst offender is ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]'' 20th anniversary, which was going to come out in Fall 2014 but it took until July 27th 2018 for it to actually release to the public.
*[[7th Sea]] funded its second edition via Kickstarter in 2015. They raked in a maddening $1,316,813 with 11,483, holding the record for the largest sum and most backers for a single RPG. The initial rules were due in October of 2016, but were instead released in ''June'' 2016, four months ahead of schedule. They have been less successful with their sourcebooks, with one being nine months overdue.
*[[Kingdom Death]] is a tabletop game with crazy detailed resin miniatures sold at crazy high prices, and most of them are rather lewd. Raking in $12.3 million from under 20k backers, the backer tiers are pretty expensive, with the lowest for their Monster 1.5 set starting at $50. But people still pay because they really like what it brings to the table.
*[[Mantic Games]] put two of its [[wargames]] on there: the sci-fi [[Warpath]] and the fantasy [[Kings of War]], raking in several times the goal to get funded.
*[[Shieldwolf Miniatures]] did a Kickstarter to expand their miniature range. Asking but a lowly $5000, they got $20k and used that money to make miniatures that are totally not [[Warhammer Fantasy]] inspired and are not meant for proxies in your armies, we swear.
*[[Shadowrun]] itself did not use Kickstarter, but the three recent videogames (Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong) based on it did successfully.
*[[Order of the Stick]] funded the more recent printed volumes of the comic via Kickstarter.

[[Category:Not related]]

Tumblr

2018-12-04T00:50:38Z

2600:1700:BF90:B950:40FF:1652:57F2:6E8D:

{{stub}}
{{heresy}}
'''Tumblr''' is a free microblogging platform owned and operated by Verizon. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' blogs, as well as make their blogs private, if desired. Much of the website's features are accessed from the "dashboard" interface, where the option to post content and posts of followed blogs appear. This enables, in theory, a stream of content even if a given blogger is not able to actively update that often. In practice, Tumblr's ability to reblog individual blogs tends to lead to a lot of flat-out cropped content from other blogs, but that's not what brought it to [[/tg/]]'s notice. The site wouldn't really warrant any interest from the *chans or /tg/ in general if it weren't for the fact that there's a number of artists on tumblr catering to [[PROMOTIONS|some]] [[Warhammer 40,000|of]] [[Hot Chicks|/tg/'s]] [[Monstergirls|many]] [[Slaanesh|interests]], and its often stormy relationship with the chans for reasons too complex to describe in depth within the scope of this article. If you really care [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Tumblr go ask ED.]

To make an increasingly long and irritating story short, Tumblr's heavy association as a gathering place for the [[SJW|terminally offended]] and their crusade against all things fun and entertaining clashes with *chan's atmosphere of no-holds-barred, obnoxious irreverence. Additionally, microblogs, specifically the emphasis on every user having his own name and writing about himself, tends to cause friction with a userbase of ([[tripfag|mostly]]) anonymous masses that shun all notions of identity. For what it is worth both groups have more crossover than they would generally care to admit, as evidenced by the "/co/umblr" phenomenon.

Of course, Tumblr isn't ''all'' leftist whackjobs circlejerking from their college's Starbucks. Much like how neo-Nazis and paleoconservatives drown out the ancaps, communists and liberatarians on [[/pol/]], the filter-bubbling, popularity-contest atmosphere of Tumblr means that of the varied political opinions found on the site only the whackos ever make their way out. Most of the site is memes and porn, artists [[/d/|putting dicks on things that should never have dicks]], and some hobby-related complaining mixed with batshit insane wackos trying to ship fictional characters with the seriousness of an elderly grandparent who wants grandchildren. Bear in mind that, thanks to algorithms trying to determine what content to suggest to you on the site, clicking mostly on things that offend you will eventually result in only seeing things that will piss you off and enforce a confirmation bias that the site is full of your political opposite. Our suggestion: come for the art, stay for the porn, leave when people start talking about their opinions.

Or rather, that's how it used to be. In late November 2018 Tumblr found its app removed from the Google play store because of all the spambots. Spambots advertising porn. Rather than crack down on spambots Tumblr staff told their algorithm to start banning porn accounts with a lot of search-engine prominence. Naturally this only banned the actually good artists and didn't solve any of the problems, causing a massive backlash as artists scrambled to get unbanned. On December 3rd Tumblr's corporate overlords announced they had learned exactly the wrong lesson and issued an ultimatum: Tumblr would be forever SFW, and the remaining porn artists had two weeks to GTFO.

==Art Blogs and Shit /tg/ Actually Cares About==
Many blogs contain mixed SFW and [[Promotions|NSFW]], in varying degrees.

===General===
* [http://tgweaver.tumblr.com/ tg weavers trash heap]; monster girls, you love them, I love them, we love them.
* [http://tenebrascastle.tumblr.com/ Cuteanon], another /tg/ monster lewd and request artist.
* [http://guoh-art.tumblr.com/ The artist Guoh], known for taking /tg/ art requests as well as providing [[Towergirls|Kobold porn]].
* [http://bolloxtothat.tumblr.com/ bolloxtothat], another artist who also does /tg/ art requests... and [[Kobold]] porn.

===''[[Shadowrun]]''===
* [http://shadowrun.tumblr.com/ ''Shadowrun''], the official Tumblr account for ''Shadowrun''.
* [http://intothesadows.tumblr.com/ Into the Shadows], a ''Shadowrun'' and general [[Cyberpunk]] art blog.
* [http://shadowruninsp.tumblr.com/ Shadowrun Inspiration], a more generalized Cyberpunk art blog, with emphasis on ''Shadowrun''.

===Comics===
* [http://elfquest-wolfriders.tumblr.com/ Elfquest], the Elfquest main Tumblr.

===''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''===
* [http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/ Blog of Mark Rosewater], head designer of [[Magic the Gathering|''MtG'']]. Primarily a Q&A page, with occasional links to [[fluff]] pieces or other ''Magic'' related nonsense.
* [http://whymtgcardsmith.tumblr.com/ Why MTGCardsmith?], an unofficial page that mockingly illustrates why custom ''Magic'' cards are a bad idea. .

[[Category:Meme]][[Category:Not related]]