Phil Kelly’s Farsight: Crisis of Faith follows on from his 2016 novel Blades of Damocles, and continues to explore the career of the headstrong t’au Commander at a pivotal moment in time. As the T’au Empire rebuilds after the aborted Imperial crusade, Farsight is tasked with leading a massive expedition back across the Damocles Gulf to reconquer worlds lost to the humans. Uncomfortable with the role given to him by the ethereals, Farsight has to deal with conflicting emotions regarding his people’s leadership and secrets lurking within the expedition even as he faces up to the brutal, uncompromising might of the Imperium.
Farsight is a great character to explore the t’au mentality, as he offers a respected voice within the Empire while also being capable of challenging the status quo. At this point he’s still relatively conformist, but as his emotions get the better of him – haring off in a prototype battlesuit to riskily take the fight to the enemy, questioning the ethereals themselves – Kelly demonstrates his strength of character while foreshadowing what’s to come in his future. Whether wrestling with his growing sense of unease – at the organisation of the expedition, his status as both warrior and symbol, even his subordinates’ overconfidence – or battling Space Marines and Skitarii, Farsight provides a strong connection to themes of trust and unity, the balance between confidence and arrogance, and the vigour of youth contrasting with the brutal reality of experience.
Aside from Farsight himself, who feels very human and relatable, many of the other t’au characters can be hard to warm to, coming across as brash, arrogant and generally difficult to like (with the exception, ironically, of artificial intelligence Ob’lotai 3-0). In contrast, however, the Space Marines (primarily the bullish Scar Lords) Farsight encounters feel brutish in comparison, and it’s both fascinating and horrifying to see the Imperium through t’au eyes. At this point in the still-early stages of their relationship with the Imperium, Farsight and his fellows quickly adapt to Imperial tactics and comprehend how to tackle them on the battlefield, but completely fail to understand what really drives humans. The t’au see everything from a logical, technological perspective, so their naive view of ‘Imperial mind-science’ for example (i.e. psykers) is equal parts endearing and wryly amusing.
While the main narrative concentrates on Farsight forming and leading the expedition, Kelly includes interesting sub-plots touching upon the t’au’s understanding of and susceptibility to Chaos, and their (over-)trusting relationship with human auxiliaries – all furthering that sense of foreshadowing. As both a character study of Farsight and an opportunity to see 40k from a xenos perspective, there’s a lot to enjoy here – the t’au offer perhaps the most relatable viewpoint on the setting, in terms of closeness to our real-world perspective, and certainly more so than the aeldari, for example. The very specific t’au terminology can sometimes be tricky to follow (despite the glossary), occasionally distracting from the story despite the largely enjoyable sense of verisimilitude it provides, but look past that veneer of utopian alien technology and philosophy and the darkness at the heart of the t’au is there to see, even if Kelly wisely avoids any overt explanations in favour of hints and suggestions.
