Sword of Puretide

A Sword of Puretide is a Tau device that was the prototype predecessor of what would become the Puretide Engram Neurochip. Developed during the midst of the Damocles Gulf Crusade by the Earth Caste at the request of the Ethereals, these experimental neurochip prototypes contained recorded strategies of the great Commander Puretide.

During the war, these ‘Swords of Puretide’, as they came to be known, were surgically implanted into the minds of many Cadre Fireblades and Tau Commanders, allowing them to function as great military leaders that thought alike and could adapt to nearly any situation. Implanted commanders enjoyed great success when facing off against rank and file Imperial troops, but suffered when the Imperium brought forth its psykers to battle. Once implanted with a Sword of Puretide, a commander could not draw upon any of their own previous learnings. This caused many to falter badly in the face of the psyker threat; the confusion costing hundreds of lives as the minds of the leaders struggled to respond.

After the war, all of the engrams were forcibly removed from those who had them. The invasive procedures left those who were operated on as drooling and pliant simpletons, a sad loss to the Tau Empire but, as explained by the Water Caste such was the painful cost of victory. However, Commander Shas’vastos, a close friend of Commander Farsight’s, was hidden away before his scheduled engram removal and became the sole survivor of the Sword of Puretide program. Whilst the prototype neurochip suffered rapid degeneration quickly thereafter, the commander was secreted away in stasis until the Farsight Enclave Earth Caste scientist O’Vesa found a cure many decades later; recalibrating the neurochip and allowing the warrior to be safely awoken.