Editing Aun'Va (section)

=The Third Sphere of Expansion=
After fighting the Farsight Enclaves and the Great War of Confederation (a combined invasion of Tyranids and Orks that almost put an end to the Tau Empire), the Tau Military was in a surprisingly good position: their armies were replete with hardened veterans and quickly recovering. While their military technology had advanced quite a lot to counter the tyranids and the ork WAAAGH, they needed a morale boost after all of those efforts, as the orks and [[Hive Fleet Gorgon]] had weakened the defensive capabilities of many planets. Thus, Aun'Va decided to launch the Third Sphere of Expansion in 997.M41, with Commander Shadowsun and himself at the front. The idea was to advance throughout the Damocles Gulf taking advantage of the weakness of their enemies, with the Imperium having to deal with many other threats elsewhere. Shadowsun's strategy of attacking with hit and run tactics and then swiftly concentrating her troops to deal a heavy blow was quite successful, and it quickly seemed that a good chunk of the Damocles Gulf was now in Tau hands. Aun'Va was present during many of the sieges of the important planets in the area, to improve the morale of the Tau troops.

However, the [[Imperium]] quickly mounted a counteroffensive, way sooner than the Tau High Command thought it would come. However, Shadowsun had a contingency plan for this, and managed to concentrate the efforts of many of the Space marine Chapters sent to the war in a relatively unimportant area of space. Thanks to this ruse, the rest of the Tau forces managed to conquer hundreds of Imperial planets, doubling the size of their empire, while also managing to troll Cato Sicarius. To celebrate this, the Ethereals decided to broadcast their victories to everyone that could receive the message, both pissing off the Imperial forces to an absurd point of rage, and making some minor xenos species shit their pants, having heard of Humanity's [[RAGE]] when scorned. This was unnoticed by the Tau, though, so drunk they were at their current rate of victories.

[[File:Aun'Va_is_Fucked_Three_Ways_to_Sunday.png|400px|thumb|right|Aun'Va and the Culexus, right before [[RIP AND TEAR|all hell broke loose]] [[derp|(why does he look like he's half asleep, though?]])]]

During this, a massive Imperial counterattack was organized, alongside an order for the Officio Assassinorum to hunt down and kill the leaders of the Tau main force. Aun'Va was, at the time, coming back to the front after one of his speeches, and was stuck on the planet of Agrellan, now called Mu'gulath Bay. An Execution Force consisting of a [[Callidus]], [[Eversor]], [[Vindicare]] and [[Culexus]] assassin was dispatched to the planet. As a distraction, an Imperial task force was sent there as well to occupy the Tau forces on the planet. Lucky for them, they managed to isolate the Tau forces by trapping them under a bunker, and then the assassin Execution Force attacked. [[Bullshit|And whereas the Callidus, the Eversor and the Vindicare were all killed without completing their missions because...reasons]], the blank abilities of the Culexus assassin meant that he went undetected through the Tau lines, allowing them to kill the ethereal's guard and, in a moment of sweet revenge for Mankind, [[grimdark|butcher the ethereal in a horrifying way, while the Tau pope tried to run in terror from the monster that hunted him]]. This also means the first death of a named character in decades. After that was over, the Imperium decided to put the icing on the cake and throw an [[Exterminatus]] bomb on the planet, leaving no doubt on the Ethereal's death. [[derp|Then again, why bother with the assassins if you're just going to blow up the planet anyway?]] Pragmatism with the Imperium has always fallen short but also shows they do not fuck around. Finally, how many times a named character in fiction survives a planet blowing up is ridiculous so gotta make double sure that the dead stay dead. No bullshit medicine that can revive the dead no bullshit escape from Exterminatus.

The death of Aun'Va was devastating for the Tau's war efforts. The death of an Ethereal usually results in a massive drop in morale, so just imagine what the death of the main ethereal could do. The Third Sphere of Expansion ground to a halt, and many planets begun falling back into Imperial hands. Shadowsun could do little after the Ethereal's death, and she was busy preparing her troops against Farsight anyway, so the campaign was considered over. In theory it counts as a Tau victory because they have more planets now than when they started, but the Tau Empire is on shaky ground now.