The Sa'cea Sally Archives
The Sa'cea Sally archive pages
Introducing the Archive
Welcome to the NWLGG's archive of Steve Patterson's Sa'cea Sally posts. Here you will find all of Steve's posts while in character, plus many of the posts he directly refered to or which directly commented on the text. It provides a look at the entirety of the role-play exercise as conducted over the eight weeks of Games Workshop's Eye of Terror campaign.
The idea for "Sally" came about almost by accident. Steve was playing his Tau in the EoT campaign, and was exploring the Tau message boards provided by Games Workshop for players to exchange ideas among each other. He saw one post mentioning, as a tangent, that psychological warfare akin to the broadcasts of "Tokyo Rose" would be appropriately Tau-ish. So he dashed off a quick few paragraphs as a joke.
This post drew some very favourable attention. One of the board members saw the post and thought it would be amusing to put it up on the Imperial message board. This drew a lot more favourable notice, with some requests for more. So Steve obliged, and started the whole thread rolling.
There is much to be said about role-playing online. Not only is it relatively simple to play online, requiring no graphics or audio effects, but it can reach a much broader audience (or should that be "more participants?") than the face-to-face version. So the appeal can be strong, especially with a very creative group.
Hopefully you will see some of this appeal in these Archives, and be encouraged to participate in your own or another's group. It's far more social than simply browsing pictures!
Who is Sa'cea Sally?
Sally is a human being working for the alien Tau Empire. Her ancestors, along with many other Imperial Guard officers and troops, were abandoned after an Imperial crusade into Tau space was recalled to deal with the first Tyranid Hive fleet. Many soliders were very embittered by being abandoned to the enemy, and found themselves gradually won over by the graciousness shown by the Tau upon their capture. When they were offered citizenship in the Tau Empire, the vast majority accepted.
So Sally grew up in a household grateful to the Tau for their rescue, and hostile to the callous Administratum who left them to their fate. During her childhood she met many Tau and other aliens during the hard reconstruction work following the failed invasion, and her inherited xenophobia rubbed away. As children do, she learned many of their tongues and customs; and as the children of exiles do, she sought to leave behind what was lost forever and forget the Imperium.
Of course, this was impossible. Not only was the Imperium a constant threat to the Tau Empire, but Sally and her parents were still devout followers of the Emperor cult. In a spiritual sense she is very much still a follower of the Golden Throne. However she does not follow the Ecclesiarchy's argument that they are the only true interpreters of the Emperor's will, and shuns their narrow-minded zealotry and bigotted opinions. She views the Administratum as corrupt, blind, and incompetant. She loathes the Machine Cult, which kept her ancestors ignorant of how to operate all but the simplest of devices and thus trapped them into the low status that left them vulnerable to impression into the Guard. And she fears and despises the super-human Space Marines as the epitome of all that is wrong with the Imperium; superstition, misuse of technology, ignorance, and reliance on brute strength and violence. Plus, of course, they are the greatest threat to "her" Empire.
So when the Imperium began making aggressive moves in the Galactic East to forstall the Tau from taking advantage of Abaddon's Thirteenth Crusade, she volunteered to make propaganda broadcasts for Imperial troops in the border area. The Water caste found the idea intreguing, and passed the request on to the governing body. The Tau superiors approved, and allocated the necessary resources.
As the Tau garrison was composed of Fire Warriors of the Sa'cea sept (the Tau's most populous world), she adopted the nickname "Sa'cea Sally" for her broadcasts. And that's how it all started.
You may notice that Sally has a distinctive "voice"; her speaking patterns have changed from the Low Gothic common to the worlds of the Galactic East due to her early exposure to alien languages. In fact, she is now less fluent in Low Gothic than she is in Tau due to lack of use. So you will find her a touch "proper" and studied in her delivery.
A note on attributions
You will note that some of the text is in italics. This is text written by someone other than Steve. Attributions, when available, are made "in character" to reflect the role-play atmosphere. Should anyone find their text quoted here under the wrong attribution, or not attributed at all, please feel free to email Steve at Sally's address and we would be glad to make any necessary corrections.
Annotations coming soon
After the Eye of Terror campaign is finished, Steve will make annotations in the left margin of each page, noting significant events or reasoning behind certain posts. This will provide more background and hopefully will show why some things happened that may not make sense at first glance. Expect to see the first of these around September 14th, 2003.