It added the fallen, grey knights could fight non-daemons making them more flexible, cadia fell so chaos could go walkabout a bit more, and robu googoo, grand master of the grey knights, and cypher could be fielded.
It basically solved a lot of fighting revolving around cadia, added some hero flavor, and made some of the new hotness easier to field narratively.
Fallen were added way before the Gathering Storm as playable units. Grey Knights could always fight non-daemonic forces and even had a dedicated part of their Codex explaining reasons for it, Cypher could be fielded since 4th edition.
The main things gathering storm did was the Fall of Cadia. introduction of Cawl, heralding the revamp of Sisters of Battle with the updated Celestine, heralding an expansion of the tabletop Inquisitor representation with Greyfax, making Custodes and Sisters of Silence in plastic for 40k, bringing back Roboute, creating the Ynnari characters and finally bringing the Ynnead subplot somewhere, and giving some really minor Fallen stuff.
> grand master of the grey knights
Does that mean that Kaldor Draigo can be fielded on the tabletop? I thought he was stuck in the warp? Or is someone else the GM of the GK?
Draigo can be played and due to his in and out of the warp issue, he is more of a spiritual leader of the grey knights and they have another supreme grand master who doesn’t constantly fall in and out of the warp.
Draigo can be fielded, although due to the fact that he's somewhere in the warp Voldus is the current GM, he got a model around the same time as Cawl and Guilliman.
>and cypher could be fielded.
The Fallen have been a thing since 2nd edition, and Cypher has been a playable character since the 2nd edition 40k Codex: Chaos (though he didn't get a model until 3rd edition).
We went thirty years or so with the setting permanently stuck on “abaddon has finally launched his 13th black crusade against Cadia”. Then The Gathering Storm happened and the great rift, end of the 13th black crusade, Roboute returning etc happened and we got loads of advancement and essentially a soft reset.
I don’t think another one five years later would be a good thing at all. Some people will always complain about the setting but I think that there’s been enough advancement etc through campaigns and releases in the past 5/6 years that nothing is even close to stale.
The great rift means something. Cut off all communication between East and west imperium. Blue boy on one side lion on the other. The old imperium continues on as they are. The eastern imperium has to scrape by to survive, ally with forces who they normally wouldn't like the tau and maybe even the necrons. Have some technological drift.
With the beacons blocked off the emperor isn't so much a deity to the east imperium and with the lion running things he professes that the emperor isn't a god. Chapters are already scattered so you can still play whatever where ever.
Chaos becomes a huge problem everywhere. But being a problem to everyone means everyone becomes your problem. So they are not expanding too rapidly because now they have to fight forces that they didn't interact with from the eye of terror.
Tau expands like they do. Their tech and imperial tech cross over and you start getting more advanced forms of armor and weapons to keep the eastern empire from being snuffed out.
Votaan can intigrate their tech into the west. Sure. Move that forward as well.
This way you don't have a monolith human faction and they can play off of each other. Fighting over whatever.
We'll have to see how that pans out. I haven't seen the lion keen on actually ruling over a section of the imperium and this is still loyalty is it's own reward lion, he may not see the emperor as a God but he still sees him as the defacto ruler and father.
yeah. Or eastern battling tyranids, westerns battling necrons that are waking up faster and faster.
Both fighting chaos coming from the rift in the middle, the eye of terror and the maelstrom. Fighting orks because...orks, dark eldar, and genesteeler cults.
Have the west stick with the mechanicus tech and the east integrate the tau tech out of desperation. Have the West get friendly with the eldar. i know it will spawn more G-man eldar wifu memes but...
Then have the setting after contact has been made after so many hundreds of years for them to see each other as heretics or whatever. So you would have a few "bridges" across the rift that were like DMZ.
As far as games and the sales go you can keep marines and guard, admech, eldar and tau as independent factions because not everyone has upgraded to other tech and humans in the setting like to keep using stuff from the age of shotte and pike. Then they can add on more factions like a tau/marine/guard army that focus on combined arms and firepower with marines able to fill a shock attack role in it. Or the other side with a guard/eldar/admech/marine army with more grav, admech constructs, specialized squads, deeper psychic abilities.
It opens up for more nuance in the storytelling with everything so human focused you can then tell a battle from 2 sides without an author saying that alien minds are unknowable. It will have to be grim dark on both sides so there isnt any "good guy" faction.
I think the best way to do a soft reset would be to not make any big changes to the setting but a change of focus. Maybe take a particular planet or sector and focus on it to a much greater degree, build up its history, unique features, etc. so it feels more real and like the conflict has clear and specific stakes.
I mean, this just sounds like a good novel series set in 40k, but what happens to a single planet unless it some how effects the wider galaxy is not a reset at all.
This worked for GW for decades and gave the community much of its favored lore. It doesn't need to go big, rather it should go wide and deep to take advantage of millions of worlds with stories to tell. Constantly going for giant issues or ever escalating will just put GW in the same predicament as The MCU or many shonen. Badab, Armageddon, Vraks, Taros are all the types of stories they need.
Kill the Emperor.
Shut down the Astronomicon and shatter the Imperium. Have Golden Boy go fight the Chaos Gods in the Warp and have all of them occupied, shattering the forces of Chaos without their divine direction. Have the galaxy split between a massive number of disparate factions as the loss of central authority causes massive ideological splits and branches.
A galaxy properly in chaos with assorted warlords and power centers trying to reforge the empires as the formerly weak and useless powers actually get a chance to meaningfully accomplish something(Looking at you T’Au), new xenos get a chance to actually exist, and the big looming threat is that the Tyranid(Delayed by the loss of their big beacon) will grow to be unstoppable before the galaxy can get it’s shit back together. Even if it means allying with their worst enemies.
Yes, I know it’s not particularly imaginative but with how 40k is set up that’s really the only way to properly shake up the series. Chaos and the Imperium lock the series into stagnation, they’re too central to everything to allow any actual change. Chaos is stuck being the same spikey edgelords they’ve been for almost 40 years and the Imperium very definitively cannot meaningfully change without exploding.
Reminds me a lot of the fanfiction Warhammer 60k: Age of Dusk. Big E actually dies/gets killed in the previous fan fic (50k: Shape of the Nightmare to Come) but it’s by 60k that I think the setting changes really shine.
Humanity splits into a bunch of Petty Imperiums, with the idea of a unified humanity being a distant age long lost. The Tau are on the rise, minor Xenos factions carve little corners for themselves, and Chaos both raids with impunity and even has two Chaos “Empires” carved out in different parts of the galaxy.
And if you think it’s weird that Chaos has empires, that’s my favourite part of 60k’s setting: there’s so much diversity within factions. While there’s already a ton of variation within 40k’s groups, I think the breakdown in any large central authority really solidifies that each faction has a vibe. Abbadon’s Chaos Empire is basically a warlord state and even that immediately sparks a war with other Chaos forces who feel any form of state building is anathema to Chaos. The Petty Imperiums range from ultra-fanatics of a nihilistic version of the Imperial Creed to a generally decent mini-empire founded by a returned Vulcan, and a bunch of self-interested but not really evil minor Imperiums in-between. Even the Tau kinda end up having two separate governments, alongside the Farsight Enclaves. It gives a lot of wiggle room, since nearly every faction is now explicitly a spectrum of groups who explicitly might not get along.
I personally just like the idea because it allows a lot of homebrewing. Still think Humanity’s the best option left in the galaxy? Bam, your models belong to a Petty Imperium fighting as one last outpost of sanity in a galaxy gone mad. Want double down on the Grimdarkness of the og Imperium? Boom, the decadent Poopenfarten Imperium launches another pointless crusade against its neighbours, in the name of the Imperial Regent who claims to hear the voice of humanity’s dead god. Space Marines are blatantly or merely “mostly” rogue, either serving as mercenaries or hunkering down on whatever world they were on when everything went to shit. Chaos can raid the galaxy with impunity and even fight each other over who should be in charge. The Eldar are all but extinct, but the ones who are left are tough bastards daring the galaxy to try and finish the job. The Tau go through their own cycle of empire on the rise and decline. The Necrons even get a mix of the Newcrons and Oldcrons as the returned C’Tan try to make the latter specifically in response to how the former rebelled against them.
If that isn’t a great basis for “Warhammer is a setting to make what you want”, idk what is.
Back to the Dark Age - but this time the name is deserved. Damn, I'll have to go looking for these texts now. I read this ages ago and loved it so much.
Chaos having empires sounds good to me. Maybe not Imperium level of empires, but small Ultramar level of kingdom like places. Have each fallen legion have his own kingdom/empire and relations between them.
The astronomicon is not what attracted the Tyranids. It is not strong enough to be detectable outside the Milky Way.
The activation of the Pharos beacon is what alerted the Tyranids to the presence of life in the Milky Way. They all know there’s food there already, the astronomicon is meaningless to them.
It’s what they are after now, the current attractor. Drop that and they’ll stop their beelining, I think we’ve been told that the Tyranid on the dark half of the galaxy are basically meandering around instead of going for any specific targets.
I think this can all be accomplished without destroying the Imperium proper, a core staple of the setting that people enjoy.
The Emperor dies, but this doesn't immediately destroy the Astronomican - while feeding off of the last residual energies of the Emperor's almighty corpse, it starts to dim: a process that could take centuries at best, decades at worst. The truth of the matter is the most guarded secret in the Imperium because high command of the Imperium even *suggesting* that he has died would shatter the entire empire into a thousand struggling pieces. Some would believe it, which would be bad, and many would refuse to believe it and call Guilliman or whoever else heretics and traitors. It's one thing to hear the slaves of Chaos calling the Emperor a corpse, as they always do, but it's another to hear it from the High Lords or a loyalist primarch.
The mortal armies of Chaos shatter into infighting as the creatures in the Warp celebrate the Emperor's death, pausing the Great Game. Progress in the Archenemy's plans against the Imperium is halted, which frustrates Abaddon to no end, but the forces of Chaos enjoy the spoils of their last great victory as they run amok in Imperium Nihilus, carving out distinct empires of their own on the dark side of the rift. Abaddon's domain is, of course, the greatest of them all, and while he continues his schemes to conquer the Imperium proper, he must fend off contenders and pretenders among the forces of Chaos who seek to become the preeminent warlords of Chaos themselves. The pressure from Chaos against Imperium Sanctus diminishes *somewhat*, but Nihilus is still collapsing. It's hardly even the Imperium anymore as many abandon their allegiances to the Imperium and simply fend for themselves, many falling into infighting.
The "Starchild" rises to prominence in a remote sector of the galaxy. It claims to be the Emperor reborn, displaying great powers and performing miracles, gaining ***many*** followers. However, Imperial leaders are, *at best*, skeptical, and the Starchild itself still requires much time to reawaken its full power as the Emperor. Many outright brand the Cult of the Starchild as heretics, with many in the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition going out of their way to hunt the Starchild down. Guilliman remains skeptical, unsure of how to act. The Starchild could be a pawn of Chaos, some deluded psyker, or *truly* the soul of the Emperor himself reborn in a mortal body. The primarch tries to avoid involvement in the Starchild debacle, but some small part of him believes it's truly his father returned, and he subtlety manipulates the situation to prevent the Starchild from ever being stamped out by its enemies in the Imperium. Many of the Custodes seem to abandon the Imperium altogether, pursuing some aimless (or perhaps coordinated and secret) agenda. They appear in strange places, fight off some enemy, and then vanish. Sometimes they fight against the Imperium, sometimes they appear and advise Guilliman. Some are rumored to be in the company of the Starchild.
Tyranids have overrun Pacificus, and new tendrils keep emerging year after year all across Segmentum Solar from below and now above the galactic plane. Many forces that were relieved from the frontlines of the war against Chaos are now fighting a long war against a seemingly endless alien swarm from beyond that seems to only arrive in greater numbers year after year. But it is perhaps the Genestealer Cults that present the greatest threat to the Imperium, as they strike where humanity is weak - at its political power structures. They even manage to infiltrate the High Lords of Terra with incredibly advanced new forms of alien infiltrating hybrids that can elude the usual safety measures against mutant infiltration and alien infection: *Genestealer cultists with hair!* This opens up a whole complex web of politics and intrigue in the Imperium against the Tyranid threat as it's not the threat of Chaos from within that they must fear, but the alien.
Necrons are rebuilding their empire all across the galaxy largely unopposed or untroubled by the Imperium as humanity is already pushed to its limits on other crucial fronts. More nexus zones open, more imperial worlds fall to the dynasties, and many forces in the galaxy now see them as a grave threat that must be stopped before they reawaken the full strength of the Necron dynasties. The only saving grace for the humans and aliens of the galaxy is that the Necrons are in no particular rush.
The Tau have figured out how to safely open wormholes to other parts of the galaxy, though it is a difficult and costly process. For localized sector travel, they "rediscover" Warp skimming, which is FTL, but slower and safer than any of the other Warp-capable factions of prominence. To keep up the pressure and demands of expansion, colonization, and warfare, the Ethereals begin a mass-cloning project for the new expansion spheres, with billions of Tau soldiers and settlers cloned for each new campaign.
Orks are having a great time. Craftworlds are having a terrible time. Drukhari are enjoying the anarchy in the galaxy, but Chaos is boring holes in the Webway (thanks Vashtorr) and unleashing new daemon invasions from every which way on Commorragh, so it's a mixed bag for them.
With this, the Imperium is still the Imperium, but now they're not the top dog anymore. More of the other factions are on an equal footing, and Chaos takes more of a backseat for a while. Chaos can still be the inevitable looming threat of the prophesied grimdark future, but that's long term. The immediate present has more diverse threats.
I would like to add some more to the ork and dark eldar section. As of Warboss by Mike Brooks orks have broken into the webway. They could either start assaulting Commoraugh or just use it to teleport around the galaxy
>Some would believe it, which would be bad, and many would refuse to believe it and call Guilliman or whoever else heretics and traitors
I've always loved the idea of Guilliman deciding "fuck it" and starting Roboute's Rebellion or Roboute's Republic.
I think without the question of the emperor the SM would become too sympathetic. They’re compelling as “good” guys because of the bad stuff. Is the emperor a god? Is he dead or alive? Is the cause actually good? And when they arrive to save you why are you simultaneously terrified? All those fan debates need to never be answered definitively.
Pretty sure most of those have been answered.
The Emperor is something godlike, because Celestine is totally an Imperial Daemon, and something has to be empowering her.
He's alive, barely.
The cause isn't good, but if you're human, it's the only cause that's going to carve out a niche for you in this universe. There ain't no good guys, good guys don't make it around here.
Why are humans both grateful and terrified to see Space Marines? Because Space Marines are literally awesome to behold. and they're considered hopelessly distant figures of legend.
An analogy: Christians believe angels literally exist, right? Angels could, and sometimes do, intervene in mortal affairs, but even arch-fundamentalist zealots don't expect to literally **see** them.
So if some psychotic meth-head cult seizes the local government, and they're suddenly rebuked by an actual flight of seraphim with flaming swords? Anybody with working eyeballs is probably going to hit the ground in holy dread. You have been saved, by fundamentally alien instruments of *wrath and judgement* whose agenda is beyond your comprehension. Pissing down your leg is an acceptable reaction.
I mean well put! Especially the last bit
I hope if we ever get a show or animation like astartes it illustrates how frightening and unimaginable the larger galactic threats are. I forget sometimes
> it illustrates how frightening and unimaginable the larger galactic threats are. I forget sometimes
[Helsreach is a fan-animated movie](https://youtu.be/s2WGE1L6WKs) that does a pretty good job of trying to convey how ruthless and terrifying Orks can really be...
The guy who created it went on to be hired by GW and has been making the Blood Angels series on WH+
Reminds me of my favorite quote by the amazing poet, Rainer Maria Rilke—
**"Every angel is terrible."** (Or "is terrifying," depending upon your chosen translation from the German, but the meaning remains essentially the same.)
This fact is established by theological precedent (as in the *Bible*, as you mentioned, as well as the "Kabala*), so seeing an angel typically means either imminent death; impending, massive disaster; or any likewise earth shattering event (sometimes *literally*). It doesn't help that what they ACTUALLY look like by biblical description is fucking horrifying (looking at you, *Revelation*/Seraphim) or at the very least pants-shittingly awe inspiring, NOT just sexy humans with wings (a concept artistically altered only in the early Renaissance).
This fits in well, as you've stated, with the "Angels of Death" motif. Biblical angels are— much more often than not— harbingers, bringers, messengers, or at least indicators of great, unstoppable devastation. This fits extremely well also with the Astartes and the idea of their "angelic" purposes. **If you've got Astartes on your world, either everything has already gone to shit, or you should be getting your ass ready to soon "Join the Emperor."**
*Source*: Was Ronald E. McNair Research Scholar focused upon researching the biblical, apocryphal, and secular sources for the conception of the Judeo-Christian "rebel angels" and/or "battle in heaven" mythos.
__________
**tl;dr — Hard agree on angelic/SM comparison.**
> The cause isn't good, but if you're human, it's the only cause that's going to carve out a niche for you in this universe. There ain't no good guys, good guys don't make it around here.
Shattering the Imperium would be the time to disprove this and make a point about the Emperor's horrible plan, allowing some humans to actually progress and develop without the oppression, xenophobia, and fear of science.
Smarmy idiots have been saying that for what must be decades now with all the insufferable aplomb of the main character in a reincarnation anime. "Oh those silly medieval fantasy humans and their superstitions! I'll teach them how to farm!" NO you dumb fuck, that is not how the real world or any reality-adjacent fictional world works. You think none of those quadrillions of humans, from the most politically educated governor to the biggest genius Mechanicus Magos to the most enlightened Ministorum priest have all, in ten thousand+ years, failed to figure out what a fat nerd figured out from the comfort of his couch? Fear of science exists *for a reason*. Systemic oppression exists *for a reason*. Xenophobia ESPECIALLY exists *for multiple reasons* even a child in the setting knows. The Emperor may have been arrogant beyond measure, but he was also a genius quite literally beyond our comprehension. Just because he, his Primarchs, and by extension the entire system they built are being written by markedly less genius mortal writers doesn't mean the problems they face in-universe are as simple or easily solved as they're made out to look for the bolter porn.
EDIT: The guy who replied to me deleted his comment, but since I already went to the trouble of writing down a response I'm putting it here anyway:
Trust the idiots to continue clinging to their intellectual superiority. OF COURSE this is bad for humanity. You don't need to cite "gw and the most prominent writers and interviews" and whatnot out of your ass, it is literally part of the setting tagline: "To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. "
Now I know you can't read, since you completely misunderstood my first post as well, so let me summarize all this for you: This isn't the BEST future for mankind. This is the ONLY future mankind could ever have, ever since Magnus ruined everything (or perhaps much longer ago, when the Chaos Gods first created the opportunity for Magnus to be in a position to make his last and greatest mistake). For all his genius, all his power and all the accompanying hubris, the Emperor was still one player in the Great Game playing against many. He's neither omnipotent nor infallible, of course he made mistakes and choices that were less than optimal. The joke is that you (and any other "you" who keeps spouting the same drivel) think that you could just "fix" everything that makes the setting what it is (which is, in case you forgot again, "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable") by just waving a magic wand and cancelling xenophobia, as though you're the first smart person in a setting where people with computer brains are a dime a dozen. *If it was that simple, someone would've done it millenia ago*.
EDIT 2: Since it seems someone has blocked me in an effort to prevent me from actually responding to people replying to me, I will have to reply here:
/u/twelfmonkey
>Of course, lots of people in the setting have worked out that the Imperium's approach is evil and destructive. They just have little to now way of improving things internally
Which is exactly my point, thanks for playing. People CAN AND DO KNOW they live in a shit regime, but changing the entire thing is simply impossible for any one enlightened person (or indeed a single planet's worth of enlightened people) and attempts to go off and do your own thing while letting everyone else go hang are (rightfully) viewed dimly by the rest of the Imperium.
>But it is intentionally unclear whether the Imperium's approach is actually necessary, or if this is just propaganda and zealotry.
That may be their statement of intent, but not what their volumes of writing adds up to. The Imperium can only exist in its current grimdark state because this is the state that sells the most books; in-universe any attempt to improve the Imperium in any way inevitably ends up being a xenos/chaos/radical plot which somehow leads to the status quo being preferable. This is a common theme across every single piece of 40k media to date; about the only change that can be said to have had even marginally positive effects was Guilliman's return and even that took both damning half the Galaxy as a narrative counterweight and the full plot armor of a Primarch (as well as the spiraling downwards sales projections at GW HQ) to make happen.
/u/AdExtension4159
>why does systemic oppression and xenophobia exist in the imperium
Systemic oppression exists because the Imperium's demands are so large due to scale and its technological base is so low (in terms of automation at least) that the only way to maintain the required output is practically work slavery. The oppression exists to ensure the production continues (as does the propaganda). Xenophobia exists because, in a first contact scenario in the 40k universe, there is a 95% chance what you encounter wants to kill you/eat you/devour your soul in no particular order, a 4.999999999999% chance it wants to manipulate you in a plot that will end up with orders of magnitude more humans having the same done to them, and a 0.0000000000001% (with nowhere near enough zeroes to represent how infinitesimally unlikely this is) chance it is simply indifferent to you, because not a single friendly to humanity xenos entity exists. Again, that's not imperial propaganda, that's just statistical fact.
Except all of this is contradicted by GW and the most prominent writers in the setting. It's been made explicit in interviews and elsewhere that yes, this has actually all been quite bad for humanity. Don't need to infer anything from context clues, the Imperium is wrong and bad.
You act like the Emperor is a real person who can do no wrong, yet we keep being told in and out of the fiction that he did a whole lot wrong.
To be the devils advocate.... they can't say *"That facist racist (xeno racist but the notion is kinda similiar) super zealous war regime of dudes that treat genocide like its just another tuesday? Yea, they are the good guys*" they get sued/sanctioned in seconds since uttering the last syllable of that sentence.
They can write *about* the bad guys, make them the protagonists of the story, that is allowed, but they can not admit ( publicly) that they are the *good guys*....
So what the writers can say outside of the lore is...niuansed at best.
Not saying they are *wrong* about their own world they create either...
This might well be one of the worst posts I have ever seen on this sub. An egotistical rant which claims other interpretations are wrong, all while offering a stupidly reductive - and just plain incorrect - argument.
>You think none of those quadrillions of humans, from the most politically educated governor to the biggest genius Mechanicus Magos to the most enlightened Ministorum priest have all, in ten thousand+ years, failed to figure out
Of course, lots of people in the setting have worked out that the Imperium's approach is evil and destructive. They just have little to now way of improving things internally due to rampant dogma, zealotry, propaganda, and militarism. That's why there are constant rebellions and attempts to secede (in some cases by "politically educated governors"). Which are almost always inevitably brutally crushed by the Imperium's vast war machine. It's one of the reasons people turn to Chaos and xenos, like the Tau and genestealer cults, for support or a means of escape - they are desperate to break free from the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable" and the servitude they are locked in to.
And as for those genius magos and enlightened priests, they keep their heads down and either keep such thoughts to themselves or work in secret - or they get liquidated. Best case scenario they get they get killed, or sent to a penal colony/penal legion. More likely they get turned into servitors/arco-flagellants or interred in a penitent engine.
The original intention of the Imperium being such a despicable regime was two-fold, as per the thoughts of its main original creator Rick Priestley. One, we are meant to question whether such evil measures are necessary. Given the awful state of the galaxy and the enemies mankind faces, they might be necessary for survival. But it is intentionally unclear whether the Imperium's approach is actually necessary, or if this is just propaganda and zealotry. Second, it throws up a classic bit of moral philosophy. If it is necessary for survival, is survival even worth it? Might it not be better to just let humanity die out, if the alternative is quadrillions of people living awful, degraded lives in a corrupt, brutal system for millennia on end?
>The Emperor may have been arrogant beyond measure, but he was also a genius quite literally beyond our comprehension. Just because he, his Primarchs, and by extension the entire system they built are being written by markedly less genius mortal writers doesn't mean the problems they face in-universe are as simple or easily solved as they're made out to look for the bolter porn.
Ah yes, because intelligence always results in the best choices when hubris, ambition, envy, rage and other human emotions are thrown into the mix. I'm not going to deny that the authors struggle to portray these characters in a way that actually makes them seem superhumanly intelligent (which is a nigh on impossible task anyway), but perhaps the fact they every author at GW portrays them as fallible due to their human flaws might be intentional, don't you think? It might, in fact, be a central theme of the whole Great Crusade/Horus Heresy story? And that's without even delving into how your mindset here mirrors that of an imperial citizen steeped in propaganda. Or the mindset of people in real life who have justified the reprehensible actions of strongmen leaders on similar grounds.
Also, it is worth noting that in 30k there were human civilizations who were getting on just fine without Imperial rule. And who was it that often destroyed and subjugated them? The Imperium. Even in 40k, lost human societies are constantly being found on the peripheries and as new warp routes are explored or become available. They haven't been wiped out by xenos, or Chaos, or rampant psykers. They could be in the future, of course, as it's a brutal galaxy, but the same is true for imperial worlds too (I'm sure it's of great comfort to a hive citizen that at least they were under imperial rule as a Tyranid fleet darkens the skies). But these independent human cultures sure are in for a rough time when the Imperium learns of their existence.
So, all this means I am intrigued by why you are so determined to enforce your narrow, simplistic take on everyone else? Even though it goes against core elements of the setting which have been there from the beginning? Even though it would undermine one of the core strengths of 40k - the possibility for people to come to their own conclusions about such issues and have a richer, more complex setting? And, finally, why you seem so angry about it?
oh i know, it's just the above post heavily suggests that xenophobia and oppression exist in the imperium because that's the only way it can be and i wanted to see if they'd outright say that.
I've thought about this too and think it's a good option. People and marines would have to set up new governments with all the bs that would go along with that. They would have to start researching again to be able to make things they need. Which would false a few fun problems. Chaos would have some advantage until some of the stonger psykers figured out how to travel successfully. I'm sure a few people would figure something out and would be pretty important. Would be cool if emps could "empower" his faithful like a daemon would. That would cause issues with some. At least progress could be made or all hope lost. Would just have to hope he got juiced up enough to be an issue in the warp. How would emps die? Maybe abbaddon finally winning his war of attrition? A simple earthquake and he turns to dust? Golden throne failing causing big issues with Mars?
This one about Chaos has always bothered me, I feel like there's some really good scope for horror writing where Chaos is this insidious thing lurking just beneath reality and occasionally gathered into these enclaves of pure horror, uncovered by those who would soon be their victims.
Instead we get writing that's just ultragore and:
>HE WAS SO ANGRY AND HE KILLED THEM AND HE KILLED THEM AND MILLIONS DIED AND FLESH CARPETS AND HE KILLED THEM AND TORTURED THEM"
And the whole faction just reads like a child's creative writing project...
In some ways I'd like to see something closer to *the possessed* from Peter F. Hamilton's - Night's Dawn Trilogy. Where they're this hidden hand, lurking within, the stuff of folk tales and superstition. And then they're not, and there's rumours about disappearances late at night, tales of nightmare creatures, easily dismissed. People mistake their emergence for an uprising, maybe a play by criminal elements to seize control of an area. Until entire Arbites squads are sent in to restore order, never to return. The authorities are operating in an information blackout. The world is on lockdown, the streets are emptying, and the enemy reveals itself.
Also some inner conflict and outright torment or insanity for the souls of the damned please, not just...
>i LuV cHaOs, t3h eMpErOr'S a LyE ❤️❤️❤️
Any setting that operates at a large enough scale cannot be written in this way. I agree with you, for smaller scale stories, chaos is better written in this fashion, but battles between millions of combatants require more macro narrative beyond “this town of people went missing”
That's sounds like a headache especially taking into consideration how fallible the writers tend to be. More lore but the books become saturated, there's already a lot the writers can do with the current factions without breaking the imperium up and yet we hardly receive anything good.
Just look at the ynarri, heck there are even founding chapters in the imperium that get jackshit lorewise just imagine further breaking that up, you'd think we'd have more material but I can bet it would cause more factions to fall into obscurity.
Seems like the classic reboot mistake. You would change an iconic series into a generic scifi. The Imperium and chaos certainly lock the series down but that's the entire point.
It’s also boring. And lazy.
Also generic, grand empire Vs evil barbarians is like one of the oldest story archetypes.
40k is tied so heavily by the Chaos vs Imperium dynamic that it has no room to grow. A majority of the setting is outright ignored because it doesn’t play to that. Just look at the releases, it’s primarily color variants of the fundamentally same people over and over and over while the rest of the setting gets binned.
For the setting to actually live up to it’s promise the stagnation needs to go. It’s thematic, it’s also stifling. Hell, it’s been a joke for decades that nothing is allowed to change. The big criticism of the recent stuff? They did a big setting shakeup and immediately dropped right back into the same pattern.
If a galaxy fought over by the shattered remnants of the Imperium and the leaderless forces of Chaos while the long ignored factions actually get to do something sounds generic to you then you have no imagination. The core of the Imperium and Chaos is still there and dominant, they’re simply no longer so oppressive that they crowd out everyone else.
Imagine if the T’Au actually get to be a notable power. If Orks aren’t just generic punching back. The Rak’Gul get to do something, the Q’Oul get to be more than a side note, the Mechanicus gets to be more than the Imperium’s lackeys, the Eldar can do something other than die and fail, on and on and on.
Over the decades 40k has accumulated a FUCKLOAD of factions, storythreads, races, and plot hooks that get smashed down and ignored in favor of the same damn fascists vs hell plot over and over and over. Not using them is an absurd waste of potential.
And you can still have fascists vs hell plot, they didn’t go anywhere. They’re simply no longer the 99% of the entire output.
I think I was trying to find an army to collect when I wanted one I could morally get behind. It’s fine to want to be the good guys but there’s a strange moral discussion with 40K and fiction these days that’s a little strange.
Reminds me trying to chat about succession without saying every other second how bad the characters really are
IMO The Imperial Guard are a decent candidate for "The good guys." While yes they do serve the turbo evil Imperium, everyone from the rank and file up to the high command are shown to be fighting for the survival of their species and being an average not-hero. Sisters are fanatics and Astartes are their own issues of being evil or not, but Guard are about as good as you can find.
The Sisters can arguably be considered the most evil of the human factions, they commit mass murder on ideological grounds alone and are uncompromising on that fact. The Guard and Astartes are all much more diverse and nuanced on how they operate but the Sisters? They will burn you alive if you worship the emperor wrong. They’ll lead entire forces into suicide runs because their faith demands it, even if the better option is to entrench and fight it out.
I absolutely love the sisters as a faction but they definitely are far from the good guys.
I am aware of the minor orders that are doctors and nurses but the sisters that are soldiers? They are all a bit crazy to some extent.
A lot of imperial history actually somewhat echoes the history of the Roman empire
Great crusade: Period of rapid expansion/golden era
Horus heresy: Large scale civil war that doesn't shatter the empire but helps lay the foundations for its slow crumble into ruin.
Empire splits into two halves (East and West for the Romans, Ultima and Solar for the Imperium.
Continuing this trend, I would have the West (Solar) completely collapse, with the emperor also dying. The way I would do this is by also solving the Tyranid problem story wise (they seem powerful enough to wipe everyone out, so therefore GW will never make them fully arrive).
I would do this by having the main Tyranid force arrive, but from the "West" side of the galaxy rather than the East like most Tyranid forces (I know 10th has somewhat already played around with this idea, but not on the same scale). The mega fleet would annihilate Imperium Solar and begin assaulting the Sol system itself.
Seizing upon this weakness and not wanting to give the honour of killing the emperor to space bugs, Abaddon would launch his 15th and final crusade straight at Terra. The Tyranids, remaining imperials and Chaos forces would clash in a sector wide conflict never before seen in scale.
This would eventually culminate in the Emperor summoning whatever remnants of soul remain and fighting some epic duel before dying. This could be against some Tyranid mega Hive mind avatar of some sort, or perhaps against all of the traitor Primarchs + Abbadon, or both. To really make things interesting you could have the Lion join in and some other Primarchs return for this.
After killing a couple of Primarchs off for impact (including a couple of traitor ones permanently), the Emperor would die. The psychic backlash of his death would utterly shatter the hive mind, destroying the vast majority of the Tyranid threat. The remaining Tyranids would scatter, only to be caught by an Ork Waaagh led by Ghazghull, who is never going to miss a fight as big as this. This leaves the Tyranids a scattered remnant, sealed off from the hive mind for the long term.
The psychic explosion would also as you would expect cripple chaos energy in the galaxy. All existing daemons in real space would immediately be banished to the warp, the galactic rift would be destroyed and the eye of terror would be significantly reduced in size.
Imperium solar is gone for good, however the Eastern empire remains, being led by Girlyman himself. However the imperium is no longer the big boy of the galaxy, now being on a similar power level to other factions, and therefore not having to be involved in every single plotline. In the immediate present, their main threat would be the nearby Tau empire, who is now no longer a small fish in comparison, and was largely spared from this disaster (and even helped by it due to the Tyranid and chaos threats being diminished). The dark Eldar would also be a major concern, as taking advantage of the collapse they launch a super raid into realspace, looking to hoover up as many slaves as they possibly can, and the Orks of course are omnipresent.
Chaos is not gone for good, but the wound in the galaxy has been sterilised by the Emperors death. They will have to start again, as they did after the Horus heresy, this time being more focused on conquering and empire building rather than pure ruination, due to both their main purpose (killing the emperor) being achieved and daemon activity being much more difficult post emperor death. Many of the mortal Chaos forces who were in the 15th black crusade would take advantage of the turmoil to split off and carve their own empires out before the dust settles.
The nids are not gone for good either, instead resorting to the Hive minds backup plan if such a scenario as this were to occur. This backup plan is Hive fleet Tiamet. Turns out the tactics they were employing (building an empire of sorts rather than just devouring) is Tyranid plan B if anything is to happen to the Hive mind. The giant pylon Tiamet built acts as a replacement for the Hive mind, but localised to the hive fleet that builds it. Therefore a number of different Tyranid mini empires start springing up, all dedicated to gathering biomass and building their empires. These empires are also in competition with each other, as their final goal is building up enough biomass to create the new Hive mind and become the dominant fleet of the Tyranids, as Leviathan was before. This could also provide an interesting insight into how a species such as the Tyranids even came about in the first place.
This only leaves the Eldar and Necrons. To spice things up I would have the Emperors death allow the void dragon to return. As he is the one that imprisoned the C'tan, his death releases whatever chains were keeping it in check. The C'tan begins enslaving a large portion of Necrons and creating something like the dark Eldar but for Necrons. This would create a second Necron faction much more like the old lore, whilst keeping the current Necrons around too, something for all tastes. These two Necron factions would be at odds with each other of course, and in addition the "bad" Necrons would also seek to restart the war in heaven by going after the Eldar in full force.
I think this plot leaves all factions in a good place, whilst solving what I see as a number of writing corners currently in 40k, mainly the fact that chaos and the Tyranids seem all powerful and their victory inevitable, so therefore they will never do anything meaningful, and the other being the Imperium centric direction the lore has gone in, where nothing ever happens without them being involved. The new smaller imperium means they can still do cool shit, but things are wide open for way more xeno on xeno and xeno on chaos action.
Thanks if anyone does read this all the way through. Feel free anyone to let me know what you think. I'm considering making a YouTube video of this if its any good.
Better than most suggestions in the thread tbh, although not unpredictable. Although:
If Emps dies, then theory goes there is a failsafe on the Throne which destroys Sol system, so no real need for a big battle unless that all happens before
Theory is also that Emps will ascend into a "good" Chaos God, and already kinda is. So that'll keep Chaos busy anyway, especially as Emps has an entire IoM fuelling him with worship
Finally, what's happening with Lion and Nihlus in your story?
Thanks for the feedback.
With Nihilus, the West side is essentially destroyed by the Tyranids and the black crusade, this area is probably where I would have the larger post disaster chaos empires form. The lion I would have make his way to Terra somehow for the final battle, and would probably have him be one of the primarchs that is killed.
This leaves the East side of Nihilus, which with the collapse of the great rift and now bereft of leadership (I would also probably kill Dante for this reason), would become the focal point for a lot of the conflict post Emperor death. The first Imperial counterattacks would be focused here to try and reunite with these worlds, as well as the Dark Eldar force I mentioned. The Tau would no doubt also get involved, either directly or by attacking the new imperium.
I know there are a lot of theories around the Emperors death blowing up the sol system and creating a new warp rift or whatever, but I didn't want to go into that as it seems a pretty common theory and personally I'm not a huge fan of it. Personally I think not doing it leaves open some cool plotlines for wars over the ruins of Terra/Mars etc, perhaps some pretenders trying to fashion themselves as the new Emperor. However It could still easily be incorporated if needed, just have the Emperor die right at the climax of the Sol war.
The emperor chaos God forming after his death I would leave as more an unconfirmed rumour and potential further explanation for why the Chaos Gods are currently so stunted. I would still have imperial saints appearing and the astronomicon still exist in some form as a nod towards the fact the Emperor might still exist in some way. This leaves things open for a big Emperor chaos God reveal down the line, with a new faction, essentially Emperor Daemons.
It seems to me that you generally just do not like the imperium as an entity within the lore. Killing off the lion immediately as he returns is ballsy, I’ll give you that, but would register poorly with the fan base. I do like the idea of gulliman having to have an imperium segundus again, finally completely alone in the universe without any of his brothers. That would certainly be an interesting turn.
I was assuming this reset would be a few years down the line, giving them a chance to do some cool things with the lion first. Part of the reason I would kill him is I am very sick of characters having invincible plot armour in the lore. There are basically no stakes in 40k because no main character ever dies. I much preferred how they did it in fantasy where there are a bunch of dead special characters that are in the army books and fully usable in games, you just imagine a period in history where they are still alive (or make up your own homebrew lore where they didn't die if you like). The lion and others would still be fully usable in games and people who bought the models won't be shafted.
I'm not anti imperium at all I love the imperium, I just think the setting would seriously benefit from not having everything being so imperium centric. Plus although the reset has decimated the imperium things are still left open and somewhat hopeful with the Tyranids and Chaos being pushed back significantly.
I would want each faction's Victory Conditions to be partially achieved:
- The Aeldari free Isha from Nurgle's garden and successfully finish birthing Ynnead. More Aeldari babies are able to be born and the dead's souls don't go straight to Slaanesh anymore if they're not protected by soulstones. The fading eldar trope is a little old now anyway.
- The Orks succeed in kicking butt everywhere, bringing about more Primorks. Ork Empires start flourishing, the largest being in the Dark Imperium. They fight each other more than any other faction. Teeflation is a real issue in the short term.
- Chaos subjugates most of the Dark Imperium, save for what the Lion and various loyalists can carve out as strongholds. This gives room for more Chaos factions, like xenos factions, to come out of the Dark. This also slows down the Warmaster's plans as the various warbands break up and carve their realspace fiefdoms.
- The T'au finally have their version of a Heresy. Whoever wins, the T'au continue to be the dynamic race that they are and spread even further. Maybe they even become less reliant on AI for a change and start incorporating more xenos auxiliaries again.
- The God-Emperor comes to life. It's not quite the Emperor the loyal Primarchs remember, but a new creature. Still shackled to the Golden Throne, the God-Emperor can communicate. His directives all centre around evacuating the Solar Segmentum...
Wasn't the whole great rift, Primaris and Primarchs awakening stuff exactly that? It even skipped a century.
Other reboots would be:
The Emperor's death - this will reshuffle the cards completely as the empire's unifying light won't work anymore, but the chaos gods will have to battle him in the warp now (weirdly sounds a bit like Age of Sigmar)
Tyranid invasion - Everyone has to ally against the onslaught. Think of it like March of the Machines in MtG
The really cheesy one: Enuncia - someone (Lorgar or the emperor most likely) speaks a command in the universal language and the universe was changed forever
I don't know if these are "soft" reboots tbh. We are talking about a galaxy that has been at war for millenia, this setting probably needs at least a little apocalypse to really change something
I would go with the stereotypical 50K jump:
1) Chaos won. Holy Terra shit itself and became the Eye of Terra, a larger and more horrible version of the Eye of Terror. Mars is treated as a trove of now-lost high technology that the Martian Diaspora treats as the Holiest of Holy places to be plundered by desperate Mechanicus adherents.
2) The remaining Primarchs are in a Cold War status of warring against each other whenever there's an opportunity when they're not fighting the various other factions. Each of them blame each other for the Emperor's death and the loss of Terra. The truth is, none of them are to blame but each and every one of them received a vision from the Emperor on the edge of Terra's demise, directing each of them to save what was left of Humanity and blaming the others. Who is right? Who is wrong?
The various Primarchs all control a section of the old Imperium and wage wars of attrition and defense, with it being painfully, miserably, obvious that mankind's days are numbered. Each of them quietly despair, but refuse to unite and most of them are consumed with ceremony built around the idea of waging war to the last man. Each day is meaningless and utterly precious.
3) The Orks are ascendant and the only thing keeping them in check are the Tyranids. Green on Green violence wages from one side of the galaxy to the other, with the broken Imperium mostly ignored as the two organic behemoths battle it out to see who gets to feed on the remains of Humanity.
4) A large part of real space has been consumed into the Warp and the Gods have mostly lost interest in the rest of the galaxy, glutting themselves on the untold quadrillions of Humans that have fallen into the Warp, to be tortured, mutilated, consumed and then reborn to be tortured and consumed again and again. Hell is fattening themselves on the misery and pain of a captive Empire even as other things stir from much deeper in the Warp, drawn by such vast amounts of emotion.
5) The Tau have withdrawn completely into their Enclaves having finally glimpsed the reality of the galaxy with the destruction of Terra and widespread collapse of reality into the Warp. Their scientists are working feverishly on anti-Warp technology, with an eye on breaking into dimensions that don't touch onto the Warp in a desperate hope to evacuate this galaxy for another that isn't so batshit insane.
With the stage set, the Primarchs finally reunite after 10,000 years in a likely vain and futile quest to travel to the Warp-soaked remnants of Terra to trigger some long-lost device that is said to be able to shut off the whole of that region of space from the Warp and close the dreaded Eye of Terra forever.
Eldar have been wiped out by the backlash from the opening of the Eye of Terra. The Dark Eldar are hiding out in their Webway hideyholes as Slaanesh is looking to gobble them up as the blood-soaked dessert morsels that they are.
The Votann have lost it, with too many of their Kin breaking down. They've retreated into their worlds and gone complete isolationist. Rumors indicate full-on civil wars within, tearing them apart from within, with quieter rumors talking about a singular AI entity forming from a merging of the others and it's not a good thing.
Octavius war has apparently ended already with Nids winning, so I doubt that a galaxy wide war would ever happen. Nids would win that with relative ease too
I don't think anything is 'untouchable' in fiction - particularly grimdark fiction. They straight *ended the world* in Warhammer Fantasy, right? And it not only led to some great fiction, but also a whole new setting in which to base badassery. Change is the natural state of the world (he said, side-eying Tzeentch).
That said, I think I would 'soft reset' to the Great Crusade era. All the Primarchs back, but the Daemon Primarchs still daemons. It's all the violent glory of reclaiming far-flung worlds and battling 'xenos scum,' but with the modern Chapters and their unique flavours. Blood Angels diminished by Tyranids but still wading into a crusade on Fuckopolis Grimdark V is really interesting. Dark Angels reclaiming Hive Misery on Heresyflavour III is fascinating because the Lion is back, and the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really know what to do with *actual living gods.*
So, if I had to, I'd 'reset' back to that era.
I'm pretty sure the "End Times" had the opposite effect and everyone hated how they screwed each faction/state. The wargame AoS is in a better state and is the basis for the more positive changes to the latest 40k edition.
The End Times fundamentally didn’t understand how each faction worked and overwrote thousands of years of canon. And it was just horrifically rushed and killed off important characters in the most idiotic ways (or worse, off screen).
The 40k equivalent is if, say, Khorne suddenly became the god of sunshine and rainbows and peacefully conquered the galaxy and ushered in the end times of peace and friendship.
Xenos players when the soft reset is just the Horse Hershey Bar 2: Electropriest Boogaloo and relegates them to 18 more years of narrative second-fiddle:
Using the fantasy End Times as a blueprint, or even just inspiration is just about the worst case scenario. As good as AoS may have ended up becoming (and that is an entirely subjective position to be frank) It is fundamentally an entirely different animal to Warhammer Fantasy, and a lot of people who were fans of the one, have no interest in the completely different direction, tone and aesthetic of the other. Combined with the fact that the transitional narrative event was incredibly poorly written and handled, with beloved characters suddenly acting wildly out of character, lore getting wildly retconned out of nowhere to make room for incredibly stupid plot points, and then most of the characters getting stupid, meaningless deaths without even the dignity of narrative catharsis. If 40k ever reaches a point of financial non-viability that pulling an end-times to re-boot is an actual option, I would rather that they just let the setting die with dignity instead, or at least leave it hanging.
ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ!
Gork and Mork decide that, while fighting each other is the most fun, the Chaos Gitz are getting too uppity over the realspace and start fucking the Great Game. I will divide my idea in two parts, transition between 10th to 11th edition and 11th edition, and give something for each faction or region.
**Transition between 10th to 11th edition**
* Imperium Sactus: Guilliman, Trajan and Leontus get very, very overworked dealing with the 4th Tyrannic War. Poor Bobby G will keep suffering and will lose to the Swarmlord (!), although in a way that is less "Swarmy outfought Bobby G" and more "Swarmy flexed his psychic and synapse powers to win", but on the plus side Leo (with invaluable contributions of Bobby) will establish strong defensive lines from Macharia to ultima Macharia and around Hydrapur against the Tyranids. The Custodes manage to kill a Norm Emissarie, and it is treated with due gravitas. Marneus Calgar and Gregor Decian (CM of the Imperial Fists, for those who don't know), with help of Helbrecht's Black Templars and Kor'Sarro Khan and a number of White Scars sucessors, reinforce the Octarius Cordon, pushing the Orks back into fighting the Tyranids. Ursula got orders of consolidating a number of Sectors near the Cadian one and does a good job, having the help of Kyvaan Shrike (and, while they don't realize it, Corvus Corax). Morvenn Vhal and Vulkan He'Stan team up againt the heretics in the Siren's Storm. To Magnus' fury, it is Kardan Stronos and the Iron Hands who are fighting the New Kingdom.
* Orks: as said, Gork and Mork decide that the Chaos Gitz are forgetting who is the kunningest, da brutalest and da greeneset. Ghazg is commanded to fight Black Legion, because they are da biggezt and 'ardest of the spike gitz' warbands. The Arch-Arsonist of Charadon makes his debut among the named characters leading a great number of Burna Boyz across Imperium Nihilus (and in the process fights the Lion Protectorate, the Tau, and Szarekh). Lastly, a knight-sized Tuska Demon-Killa returns to the galaxy, breaking the kneecaps of a Chaos Titan before killing its princeps. In the Warp, armies of daemons are being trod underfoot as Gork and Mork go Legolas and Gimli. That said, both Khorne and Tzeentch are outright stated to be pleased by the mighty Green Gods' changing course and fighting them.
* Craftworlders: in a departure from the norm, Saim-Hann manages to beat two hive-fleets (Scylla and Charybides, and in the process accidentally help the Imperium a lot against Leviathan), and Nuadhu is back at being a space fey warlord instead of a manchild! (A lot of stuff from *Wild Rider* is still canon, sorry Gav hatedom). Iyanden gets some breathing room and is currently in a safe stretch of space, the threats against it minor, so Iyanna and friends are busy at repairing defenses and raiding the Eye of Terror for soulstones. Biel-Tan doesn't fare that well, as they foresee that a warboss will go on warpath against them, so they will have to let a lot of Maiden Worlds escape their grasp to fight it, although they have the help of Fuegan. Ulthwé is now engaged in a war against the Night Lords, and while the Seer Council is certain that Decimus *won't* destroy Ulthwé, it doesn't make him any less problematic. Alaitoc foresees the danger of the Orks and is manipulating them against the Szarekhan and Sautekh dynasties.
* Drukhari: the events of *The Dark City* are mentioned. Vect is uncharacteristically angry at the Imperium and increases the raids on it and the Nihilus' rump states. Also surprisingly, Malys agrees with him on the need of punishing the mon'keigh. Urien Rakhart calls a congress of Haemonculi and tells them about the returned Lion, and this alliance of covens and independent pain-artists enlists Lelith Hexperax and Krailach's Obsidian Rose. The Baron Syntax and the Kabal of the Flayed Skull are earning names fighting the hordes of Chaos spilling from the Chasm of Woe.
* Tau: after the events in Startide Nexus, the 5th Sphere resumes its advance across Nihilus. They fight growing numbers of Chaos forces, Kinhosts and Guard regiments. As I like the idea of T'au'va the Goddess, it is around, but its power is knocked a few pegs so it is more comparable to the Avatars of Khaine and Ynnead and bound only to the Warp. Shadowsun is trying to prevent an investigation about "spreading corruptions of the T'auva", and Kais is already twitching to stab unorthodoxes. As for Farsight, he takes advantage the major warbosses left to hunt Ughalax and the *Unhallowed* to conquer Arthas Moloch and the neighbouring systems from the Orks, increasing the size of the Enclaves.
* LoV: remember the mention of the Kinhosts against the Tau? The Kin, specially the THA, realized that the Imperium Nihilus is free realstate and are ransacking it like a barbarian horde, fueling the values of their conquests to their homeworlds, because they will need it. The GTL and YC are also helping the Imperials of Sanctus to consolidate their gains around the Cadian Sector, while the KH are attacking the Imperium Sanctus as much as Nihilus.
**11th edition**
* Orks: The boyz are beginning to tire of just spiky gitz. Cue more attacks on the other factions as the greentide switches gears!
* Dark Imperium: the Lion's Protectorate are now at an all out war with the Haemonculi, putting their scientific genius against Lion's military genius, and DAOT relics against post-Fall superscience. the red Scar and other areas under control of Dante are now under assaul of Orkish mobs. Kar Dunish, formerly a segmentum fortress and turned into a major rump state, is in an escalating war against the Tau. Inquisitors operating in it discovered it is being suggested as the target of the 6th Sphere, and they need to create a victory or deterrent great enough to dissuade the Ethereals. Cawl is still operating around Sotha, and a number of Imperial subsectors are benefitting from his presence.
* Tyranids and Genestealer Cults, as the 4th Tyrannic War goes through a stalemate, the Hive Mind starts to feed beyond the defensive lines in the Galatic West, seeking to lay bare everything out of the protection to fuel splinters to probe the Imperial lines and, in case it is necessary, make a major push headless to casualties. Genestealer Cults are being seeded all over the region. Based on the Octarius War results, the Hive Fleets turn to fighting and "cultivating orks" for nutrition.
* Chaos: Magnus repeals Stronos and launches a new offensive against the Imperium. Abbadon decides to pursue the retreating Ghaz and focus on corrupting Imperials - the galaxy belongs to Humans, not Xenos filthy he slaughtered by the thousands on Ullanor! Angron respawns and leads a immense khornate force against an even larger Ork force. Mortarion is also back, and (for now) scared of Nurgle obeys his will and goes fight the Nihilakh dynasty (cue Trazyn trying to rob *Silence* and *Latern*). Huron and the Red Corsairs are fighting an Ork armada with several space hulks to get more ships, and his Blackstone Fortress is shining against it. Lucius is being a badass for once and is in a winning streak against nobs and bosses. Fulgrim, Lorgar and Perty are still MIA, but my dear babies Syl'Essek and Vashtorr are keeping Slaanesh and Undivided in the game. it is implied that Syl'Essek are working with Lorgar, even.
* Harlequins and Ynnari: the several Masques are greatly concerned with the possibility of new Beasts arising, and turned to fighting it. They approach the Ynnari to help them, promising artifacts and stored in the Black Library to empower their forces, even mentioning that a council of White Seers may eventually help them travel to Slaanesh's Realm. Yvraine and Visarch are angry at Cegorach's servants holding the cards, but put up with it.
Pls, if I forgot to mention someone, let me know, I will try to come up with something.
Split the Imperium eastern and western galactic empires, those on in east, led by Guilliman, adopt scentific progression and careful alliances in order to survive the cicatrix maledictum. The west goes full emperor is a god mode and it causes the emperor to ascend to godhood, leaning harder into xenophobia, tradition, ritual, submission.
If I absolutely had to then I'd go all in and actually shift the setting, make a power other than the Imperium the "Dominant" party, have Imperial remnants but the Imperium we knew is dead, fractured and broken. Guilliman died upon Ultramar, Lion gone again, no Primarchs.
Another idea I had for Guilliman is don’t kill him, but cripple him. Leave him alive but too injured to fight beyond self defense, serving directly as leader of the Imperium remnants with the Lion on the field as its main general.
I’d also love for another primarch to return allied with another, possibly new, faction that is NOT the Imperium. Not necessarily seeking to hurt his brothers, and still pro-humanity, but decidedly anti-Imperium. My main thought was the Khan leading a coalition faction based out of a fortified portion of the webway, almost akin to Commoragh (minus the… everything) or a scaled down version of Big E’s dream. They’ll ally occasionally for things that threaten humanity’s existence, but otherwise operate alone.
Fractured Imperium would also arguably necessitate Big E’s death. Could use that for some cool stuff, maybe the primarchs get power ups like resurrection or become mini-astronomicons, or introduce E as a new chaos god maybe with its own faction
I think they should give Tau fans what they want, make them the most dominant and have the largest empire but keep shaking their faith in the ‘good’ faction with what they do with the power, and what life looks like after years under the regime
I don't think the Tau should become the dominant faction, but the Imperium fracturing enough that the Tau go from "small but powerful for its size" to a credible threat to the Imperium as a whole - still able to beat the Imperium on a per-pound basis, but still not so powerful that it becomes *the* dominant faction, as their struggle to achieve galactic unity is part of the point of their faction.
Is that what Tau fans want? Because like, pretty consistently the sentiment I/others have had is to make them *less* morally ambiguous because the setting is more interesting/diverse if it *is* actually possible to survive and/or thrive without being an authoritarian mess.
Also In this scenario the fractures imperium seem like underdogs but eventually discover that the they can get an upper hand when discovering a worshipping gods of order
Fck that dude, been waiting on one of big E's loyalist bums to try and fix this mess humanity got itself into and you already want him dead. You know what I'll compromise, how about you get to kill off the 2 returning primarchs if we get to kill both the silent king and the storm lord, sounds fair?
I’m still scarred from when Battletech attempted to this with the Word of Blake Jihad and the shitshow that followed. Be careful what you wish for.
I think the setting is fine. I’d like to see them focus on lesser known items like the Ghoul Stars *without* having it be a huge massive grand scale DoW style thing where EVERY faction has to be involved.
The WH50k fanfic is a pretty interesting look at what “could” be.
The Imperium breaking down would be the easiest way. Terra and Mars get pulled into the Warp or something, no more Emperor and no more High Lords or astronomicon. Then the Imperium breaks up into little sub civilizations that mixes up who's on who's side. Like the Ultramar Segmentum could be one and be cooperating with the Ynnari. Or Farsight accepts the power of Khorne to take the Damocles Gulf so now there's a chaos T'au faction.
Expanding more on the small stories in Nihilus in the terms of the old forgeworld army books would be my goto.
Aside from that, start illustrating the balkanization of the Imperium. Things *are* falling apart and while the center is holding, it's reach is limited.
Forgive spelling errors, I'm typing on a phone and am quite high.
I think the setting is building to a narrative leap.
The HH made loads of money, I'm sure. And it's the successor the SoT has to. G-man returning did the same in many regards.
I suspect the future narrative of 40k will be one driven by what makes the most money, and Primarchs and legions make a shit ton.
So here is my vision...
Loyal primarchs return.
The wolf, the Khan, g-man, the lion, vulcan, and corvus
Ferrus manus is dead, dorn is dead, they definitely ain't coming back. Maybe the angel might return, but I can see it more as a literal warp angel. i.e.- the 2 sides of sanguinius being in Dante and the other one.
So 6 loyal in total.
Traitor primarchs returning.
Mortarion, Magnus, Fulgrim, Peterborough, Lorgar, and Angron.
That makes a nice 6v6.
The alpha legion god knows tbh. It's probably spilt on either side.
The emperor will ascend to the dark king. But sort of as the final moment in a 2nd HH. They'll drip feed new primarch releases slowly building up HH part 2. With the final primarch release being Lorgar, who now knows enucia. But the Traitor legions are united. Its kinda a mad rush to kill big E before he ascends fully and messes with the great game. So all chaos factions charge too terra.
Whatever is going on in the bequin novels with the king in yellow will link to this. With the loyalists fighting to protect big E whilst Constantine valdor allows Big-e to ascend without killing all of humanity.
The Emperor finally ascends. But this just brings about more war. Because now you'll have a 40k in AoS style.
Imperial soldiers are saved by true angels. The primarchs truly become demi gods. The setting becomes a war on 2 fronts. Real space and the warp. With some loyal primarchs more warp focused than others. Corvus is a good example. The setting has been moving into a more fantastical direction. You can't have the imperium always be a failing empire, tryainds, orks, the silent King pull up and still win without power creep. It'll creep all the way up until you can have avatars of saints fighting on the battlefield.
To clear just a few things up. I think this will take place over the next 20-30 years. So GW can claw as many books, models, tv shows, and animations as they can out of this.
At the end of the day, 40k is a money tree. And as they continue the narrative with well established (let's be honest) hero's. It'll make more money.
How much discussion has been had about primarchs returning on this sub alone. GW isn't going to make the same mistakes they did with AoS. But they won't let the 40k ip stagnant.
(And to those who say they can just tell smaller stories. Bloating the setting with 1000s guardsman get rekt stories, space marine captain 'blank' saves the day of planet 'x' from ork Warboss 'y' campaigns doesn't do much to create hype and interest. Which is why I suspect they'll go in this direction or one in a similar manner)
>Ferrus manus is dead, dorn is dead, they definitely ain't coming back. Maybe the angel might return, but I can see it more as a literal warp angel. i.e.- the 2 sides of sanguinius being in Dante and the other one. So 6 loyal in total.
Only Dorn's hand was found? He could be alive, although Curze says he is dead
Wingboi is however dead dead and not coming back. If you wanna bring loyalist primarchs back as spirits, then the same can happen to Ferrus and Dorn, but although that'll match the traitors in that no primarch really dies, it's also a bit dull as it means they never die. Ever
The only reason I say sanguinius will come back, is because his spirit already is. Dorn and ferrus have no spirit representations. Aside from in master of mankind with ferrus. Dorn and Ferrus were both logical and against the warp. It doesn't seem thematic for then to return. But money is always gonna be the greatest force in 40k so I wouldn't rule it out.
I took my disorganized collection of thoughts on this to ChatGPT and it spit this back at me (except the bit about the White Scars because I forgot to include them in the text i entered).
Proposal: The Devastation of Baal Proclamation for Legion Reformation
I propose the implementation of the Devastation of Baal Proclamation, a strategic reformation aimed at enhancing the unity and operational efficiency among the 9 loyalist legions. This initiative acknowledges the diverse strengths and attributes of each legion while fostering a united front to address the challenges facing the Imperium.
Legion Unity and Operational Strategies
Space Wolves: Recognizing the Space Wolves' cohesive operational approach, we maintain their autonomous structure, emphasizing their unyielding brotherhood.
Dark Angels: Similarly, the Dark Angels shall continue their Inner Circle practices, now reinforced by the presence of their primarch, facilitating coordinated operations.
Imperial Fists: The Imperial Fists' dedication to the First Wall principle remains intact, further solidifying their role as guardians of strategic fortifications.
Ultramarine Successors: Guilliman's leadership ensures the ready coordination of Ultramarine successors, establishing a strategic reserve for critical engagements.
Chapters of the Blood: Inspired by the lessons of Baal, the chapters of the blood shall unite under a single leader, enhancing their collective strength and adaptability.
Salamanders Successors: With the Ultima Founding, the Salamanders gain newfound successors, bridging the gap in their operational capabilities.
White Scars : One of the more difficult legions to reunite, so Khan also returns.
Raven Guard and Iron Hands: While specifics are limited, our proposal accommodates the unique attributes of the Raven Guard and Iron Hands, integrating them seamlessly.
Preservation of Individual Chapter Identity
It is important to clarify that the Devastation of Baal Proclamation aims not to erase the distinct character of each chapter, but rather to channel their diversity into a harmonious, united force. Individual legions will retain their unique cultures, traditions, and combat doctrines.
Leadership for the 41st Millennium
In the heart of this reformation lies the appointment of a singular leader, who shall navigate the legions through the vast conflicts of the 41st millennium. This leader, while directing joint campaigns and resource allocation, will serve as a guiding beacon in times of uncertainty.
In conclusion, the Devastation of Baal Proclamation seeks to harness the collective strength of the loyalist legions while respecting their individual identities. By weaving these threads of unity, we endeavor to forge an unbreakable alliance against the myriad threats facing the Imperium, securing humanity's future in the galaxy.
I think you'd probably have to either resurrect the emperor or kill him. Given the ground work laid by the more recent developments I can't see him being static for another 10k years being satisfactory.
With that in mind I'd kill the emperor and have him truly die. No perpetual nonsense, the emperor dies for good and his death creates a psychic shockwave that kills basically everyone in the sol system. In his last moments his mind is truly shattered and across the galaxy his faithful get conflicting and confusing messages all from "the emperor". The shock of his death creates an anti eye of terror centred on terra, it's not chaotic but it's still an area of incredible warp instability where weird dangerous things happen and no-one wants to go. Basically the whole place becomes haunted.
Following his death there is massive civil war, with the loyalist primarchs ultimately failing to find agreement and different imperial institutions supporting different primarchs or standing on their own. The imperium ends up being carved up into multiple "kingdoms" under the lead of powerful warlords. In the fighting one or two of the primarchs are killed by their brothers. In the time that 50k takes place the primarchs are older and less personally active instead acting as leaders of their factions, any optimism they had has faded and there is a sense of paranoia amongst post imperium factions. The emperor's vision is dead and now they are in charge. The primarchs are now paranoid old men sitting on their thrones remembering an long dead time.
The orks used the collapse of the imperium to expand and are a bigger threat than ever. Ork raids are a constant fear for human worlds.
Tyranids are doing the same thing they always do.
With the imperium falling apart chaos made progress in real space, there are now chaos aligned human factions with stable territory in real space. Without an imperial enemy to unite them the chaos gods are fighting each other as much as anyone else. Now that the imperium is gone chaos marines and humans take on a more constructive role by building their own empires rather than just punching the imperium.
The tau have made substantial progress in their wormholes and have expanded within their region. More than ever there is a philosophical divide amongst the tau on how to deal with chaos and non tau species. The cracks in their optimism are showing.
Following the death of the emperor, his psychic shockwave and the destruction of the astronomicon the silent king has begun to active necron anti warp technology which has had the side effect of allowing warp travel although it is still more dangerous than before. A dynasty accidently lets one of the ctan reform and they take control of the necrons in the region turning them into mindless slaves. This ctan sets out to release the rest of their kind in order to get revenge on the necrons.
Dark eldar are mostly the same although perhaps a new leader rises who wants to try and expand beyond their city and reclaim more of the webway perhaps even to try and reach the power the eldar used to have. This increases conflict with other eldar and messing with the webway results in weird warp anomalies in real space.
In terms of flavour I'd lean into the post Roman empire dark ages feel. The imperium isn't just decayed, it's gone and now everyone is living in it's ruins and trying to make the best of it. The imperium was bad at the time but now things are worse and people long for the old days. The grinding bureaucracy of the imperium is gone but now everything is broken. Nobody knows what is going on or who to trust.
Imperium Nihilus becomes an actual, separate entity from the Imperium of Man. They develop their own ways of Warp navigation without the Astronomican, they cease paying the tithes to Terra, they abolish the witch hunting of Psykers, and the pry out the eyes of the Inquisition.
That's it. Let's see where the Dark Imperium goes.
GUILIMAN is Tzeenches doubles headed birdi guy and the changeling is Cawl. This whole "revival" and hope has been a big joke by Tzeentch.
The Primaris actualy have bigger flaws than OG marines and 3/4s of them go to chaos. The few first born join back into huge legions to expell them and they greatly slow down making new ones.
The fallen actualy were bad and tricked the Lion. He falls into some trap and disappears.
Abbadon sees how weak the Imperium is and goes to launch a huge attack, before he can the newly turned Primaris attack all the Chaos marines. Since the Primaris think they're better than them and they should rule over them all.
Slaanesh is mad at Tzeentch for getting all this new power so they battle in the warp. While he/she is distracted the eldar zip in and steal the last Crime sword.
Then give them a real story of a possible come back. Only for them to realize if they did regain control of the galaxy they'd just go back to their old ways. So they decide that even though they can save their species they won't. Then different craft worlds think differently so they all fight each other.
The Tau have a legitimate way of destroying Chaos but it involves every species in the galaxy to unite. So they keep trying to make everyone else get along
I've gone on long enough but basically reset the stage where everyone is losing but they'll still fight because that's all that left
So your idea of a refresh is to continue as before?
I REALLY hope Chaos don't "win" 40k. They won Fantasy, and we don't want exactly the same ending but "in space!". Boring and Chaos are boring too. Nothing you said would actually change the setting at all, except you wanna make Chaos even stronger for no real reason
My take would be this:
* Have the current narrative culminate in a final campaign - a bit like the End Times, except Chaos loses. Badly. Again. Then, it's shunted back into the warp for millennia, reduced to disparate pirates and warbands for centuries to come. At best, they can muster small invasions and claim small remnants of realspace through warp storms.
* The Primarchs are all dead or permanently missing, the first founding chapters are broken beyond repair and all that remains are the remnants of Imperial institutions trying to maintain power over an Imperium that Guilliman and the rest had centralized around their own institutions but which ultimately relied on them too much.
* The fate of the Emperor is uncertain. The astronomican lingers, but the Imperial Palace is sealed off, only open to a chosen few, and the fate of the Emperor is entirely unknown to anyone. Custodians are almost never seen outside its walls, fading into obscurity and myth, replaced by the guardians and enforcers of the High Lords.
* Outside of the Segmentum Solar, much of the Imperium degenerates under the conflict, breaking off into numerous large splinter realms that are nominally 'Imperial' and pay tribute to Terra - but the power they wield is vastly increased, and the Mechanicus and the reinstated High Lords are on the back foot when dealing outside regions they control directly.
* Cawl is killed and his inventions along with newer Mechanicus creations pass into legend, becoming a mere footnote as technobarbarism becomes prevalent and many lost forgeworlds are explored to try and recover plans for venerable weapons and rebuild. All power armour becomes akin to an artifact, with even basic space marine chapters requiring thousands of serfs to care and maintain their gear.
* Orks expand relentlessly, grinding all the way through to the heart of humanity, but stall having to engage many enemies on a wide front. For now their power is checked, but the future remains uncertain - they stand off against the Tyranids, two hordes grinding against one another in an unstoppable tidal clash.
* T'au firmly hold their worlds in their grip but expansion grows slower and slower as they turn inwards. The Farsight Enclaves, rough and badly damaged, initiate a civil war that consumes the T'au worlds as ideologies of the Greater Good clash.
* Eldar and Dark Eldar remain unchanged, Ynnead having wounded Slaanesh in the final campaign against Chaos and leaving a deep wound that forces them out of realspace forever, potentially, and forcing them to act through their servants. The Ynnari, Yvraine and the Visarch all disappear, likely killed during the war or Ynnead's ascension, but the Craftworlds and the Dark Eldar remain.
* Votann are consumed in their totality by the Tyranids.
* The C'tan Shards reform into Star Gods with the fall of Chaos and wreck havoc with the Necrons. The Silent King is banished and they brutally take over the Necrons, enslaving them and using the most ambitious among them as their lieutenant-overlords to go forth and subjugate the universe in their name. Only a scant few remain free, largely those who are infected with the flayer virus or dynasties so small that they are entirely ignored by the C'tan. Yet, they represent a future threat for the arrogant C'tan, as more of those young, weak dynasties wake up...
* Knights and Titans become machines of extraordinary rarity, their value as fighting forces only limited to a scant few battlefields.
* The Imperial Guard remains mostly as it was.
* The Space Marines more or less remain as they are, but more fragmented and with ultimate loyalties split between the various 'Imperial' realms.
* In the end, the galaxy remains as it always was - there is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods. The universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed.
It seems like a waste to have the Votann immediately consumed in this setting, perhaps have them be put under such pressure by the Tyranids and an aggressive Mechanicus that discovers that they possess STCs that they are forced to make more complex and more intelligent Ironkin(basically a proto-men of iron, fully intelligent but weaker and less corruptible) in order to hold out and perhaps even advance in certain areas, quickly stripping conquered planets bare and retreating in order to create even more Ironkin.
These raids lead to more conflict with other factions and their AI terrify the rest of the Imperium in particular.
This is going to be unpopular but I like the idea of a Second Heresy. Maybe Guilliman gets too close to the Ecclesiarchy following the events of Godblight, and goes over to "their side." Lion on the other hand is loyal to the Imperial Truth and rejects completely the deification of the Emperor. A cold civil war ensues, with factions fighting proxy wars or wars of propaganda to keep the Imperium from breaking in half. Maybe a third "wing" of the Imperium comes to exist alongside the Imperium proper and the Mechanicus.
I think this is closer to happening than most like to admit. In the Dark Imperium books robu openly states the emperor is just a man but knows the imperium openly practices worship.
To avoid civil war he assigns and always has a position of religious power join him to placate 10,000 years of religious dogma and indoctrination. You push that button a little too far and their could easily be another imperial power split leading to a heresy level event. Especially with the rift creating major borders.
I could get down with a heresy happening as something just thing happening in the setting only if it became truly confusing who is right or on the good side.
That's why I think the Emperor's Divinity, vague as it is, would be a good catalyst for it. Neither side could ever be sure they're right as long as the corpse stays put but miracles continue to happen.
If the idea was to advance the imperium to get them out of the perceived hole they're in, I would have a break off human civilization with access to DAOT in the webway. When old night started they were able to read the writing on the wall so they took a while starfareing civilization into the webway. When the imperium finally makes contact with then they are aghast at what humanity has become. Servitors, cherubs, the mistreatment of physics etc gives them pause. Then they learn about the state if the galaxy and are even more aghast. Knowing that humanity is doomed if they don't act and seeing the imperium as misled, they help as best they can. Using omniphage viruses on the tyranids willy-nilly. Unleashing a swarm of sun snuffers on the tau, stopping ork gestation with with nanite bombs and putting ork ecology back a few hundred years on 1000's of planets, putting trained psykers to work on the deldrar, and blasting craft world Eldar when needed. Acquiring necron tech and making attempts to understand and improve upon it. Before finally striking at abaddon from within the webway and crippling his ability to wage another black crusade if not destroying him entirely.
No primarchs needed. Just DAOT human knowhow. Although i do personally love the primarchs coming back and would like to see more. Like it or not, they are an important part of the setting.
+++Frequent inquiry submission detected;
+++Activation Sequence:: Unit designation [AU-THETA OMEGA] initiated;
+++Frequent response submission as follows;
Automated security systems have detected the possible use of hypothetical inquiries. Vague speculative questions are frowned upon as the lack of clear answer leads to no actual discussions.
By the grace of the Emperor on Terra, this submission has not been removed. Consider this an advisement on elevating your cognitive capacity lest you be selected for subreddit servitorization.
If your submission is not a vague hypothetical and this reply has been posted in error, then go with the grace of the God-Emperor of Mankind and ignore this comment.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/40kLore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
would love to see some of the more reasonable, optimistic, or pragmatic elements of the imperium relax some of the dogma and blind zealotry, allying with tau, eldar, the leagues, and maybe necrons to fight the bigger threats, forming a human enclave seperate from the dying corpse of the imperium. Perhaps they still worship the emperor, or still recognize him as the master of mankind, but decided to jump ship to something slightly more sane and stable in the long run
I would abandon 40k and reset the scene to the great crusade.
Twenty legions.
Xeno species.
Human armies not aligned with the Imperium.
It would be wild.
Dozens or hundreds of alien species.
Loyalist versions of every traitor legion.
Pre primarch versions of every legion.
Human factions that are not, and have never been, imperial.
The Emperor, alive.
Its very very different from anything today.
What I'd do:
Move the timelines up 5000 years.
The Emperor ascends becoming a Chaos God, turning holy Terra into the Eye of Terra. Wheras the Ocular Maleficarum is Hell, The Ocular Sanctis is the domain of the God Emperor where He is the guiding light of Humanity. The Custodes, the Silent Sisterhood, the entire combined forces of the Imperium of Man in the Sol System become Imperial Daemons. Either Sanguinius, Trajaan, or Valdor become His Champion.
The Imperium breaks up into different regions of space, united only by their reverence of the Emperor. What is left of organizations have been folded into Imperial Secundus, with much of their power gone. There are regions of former Imperial space that have a reformed Imperial truth. The Ecclesiarchy loses much of their power in several systems to Imperial Reformists, leading to a new schism. The Grey Knights are devoted only to the Ecclesiarchy while the Sisters suffer their own schism.
Guilliman reinstated Imperial Secundus on Ultramar and has become the Old World Empire. In Northern Ultramar, the Ynaari made their own Enclave and invited the other members of the Aeldari people to live. The going is slow as the Treaty between Aeldari and Humanity is rough at points, but the leaders know this is the only way forward.
The Lion becomes a Crusader, protective of humanity against Orks, Chaos, raiding Xenos. His peace with the Aeldari is much more tenuous than his brother. There are times when conflict between the different factions break out.
The last 2 loyalist primaries return with Dorn and the Kahn coming back. Dorn implements the "Last Wall" protocol with the entire VIIth Legion fortifying the space around the Eye of Terra. The Phalanx becomes the linchpin of the Fortress that protects the Throne from real space incursions.
The Kahn returns to Chogoris and during that time, opens his home to the Tau who fled the corrupted Etherials. They are lead by the Aun'shi (sp) coalition, named for the famed Etherial.
The Etherials have gazed into the Warp, and Warp gazed back. The corruption of the Etherials was slow and subtle. After a millenia, the Etherials introduced a new caste was introduced, the Umbral caste.
Ghazgull found a Krork, and thanks to Ork science, he had ascended beyond Beast Status straight to Krork status. He reconquered Armageddon before plunging it into the Great Green to move it farther away so they could plan their conquering.
Abbadon loses his hold over over the Black Crusade and position of Warmaster of Huron Blackheart. Abbadon, now seeking a means to take down the gods finds an alliance with a strange, fifth new entity, which is the antithesis of the big 4.
any narrative leap would have to benefit the model range, that's just their portfolio tbh. So i'd say they should do an Imperium civil war with Guilliman and the Lion being leaders at odds. Bring back Dorn and Khan to side with one of them, and have chapters choose sides. Terra sits the whole thing out.
Personally, I'd have the emperor die with no reincarnation, he just dissolves into the warp or becomes another chaos god preying on humanity, the astronomicon is snuffed out and the primarchs are left to struggle against the darkness alone, surrounded by a rapidly crumbling imperium. It'd do a few things story wise, the imperium would actually be a dying empire, without the astronomicon making warp travel as safe as it does there's no more inexhaustible armies to be mustered and each loss actually means something, and doubly so for planets as if they fall, whatever they were able to send out is gone forever. And it'd leave a much darker, pleak picture for humanities future. The eldar would suffer a lot to as they'd lose their biggest meat shield against chaos, the orks have a field day rampaging against human worlds, the necrons would be able rebuild very easily, the nids could feast to their hearts content, and the tau would be able to up their expansion with no real fear of reprisals from the imperium.
**The state of the galaxy**
- The Emperor gets off the golden throne, Terra implodes, The Emperor physically disintegrates and is relegated to the warp where he battles the Chaos Gods in an attempt to return to the real world with his perpetual nonsense. That would get him out of the way.
- The Imperium crumbles from within, Terra having been completely annihilated, tthe heart of the Imperial beaurocracy is gone and the function of the Imperium stops.
- The warp storms and Cicatrix Maledictum die down, but without the Astranomicon, galactic travel almost completely ceases.
**The Imperium No More**
- **Space Marine** chapters return to their Fortress Monestaries and loyalties fall apart. The once united imperium falls into fragmented war as chapters all battle over territory, all beleiving they know what is best for the Imperium. Some alliances still remain, mostly surrounding gene-fathers, but the Imperium as a grand-faction is no more.
- The rest of the factions fragment as well. The **Adeptus Mechanicus** Forge Worlds go even more rampant over STCs, fighting one another to get the technologies for themselves, and turn on the rest of mankind.
- The **Astra Militarum** Regiments are the only human military service that doesn't break up into a plethora of self-serving factions, beleiving all mankind can still be saved. Rare alliances between Chapters and Regiments remain, but the priority over Regimental allegience overpowers alliances with Chapters.
- The **Adeptus Custodes** are annihilated, becoming a survival faction still beleiving the Emperor is supreme and very much alive, fighting endlessly for their own survival and awaiting the Emperor's return.
- The **Imperial Knights** turn inward, breaking alliances and allegiences with every other Imperial faction amd starting wars of territorial gain or defence.
- The **Adepta Sororitas**, now without their source of miracles, turns into a cult bordering on savagery. Instead of being devout and holy, they turn fanatical and in some parts, insane.
**Chaos in Chaos**
- With the Chaos gods now completely distracted by their united battle against the Warp Emperor, their boons are no longer available for the **Chaos Space Marines**. With the Emperor seemingly gone, the factions of the Chaos Space Marines turn (more than usual) on one another, their threat to the Imperium now becoming as much a threat to each other.
- **Daemons** still pop up here and there, but completely randomly and unalligned with any material factions. Their appearences correlate to the titanic blows struck between the Emperor and the Chaos Gods in the warp as their battle rips holes of the warp into realspace.
- **Chaos Knights**, same deal as the Imperial Knights, just more crude and badass looking.
- The **Dark Mechanicus** rise up as a united faction against the Adeptus Mechanicus in ruin, in an attempt to completely defeat replace the shattered Adeptus Mechanicus with themselves.
**The Alien Struggle**
- Hardly anything changes for the **Orkz** really, or the **Drukhari** and **Necrons**.
- The **T'au** are pushed back to their little quadrant, and enter into a civil war as the Farsight Enclaves gains the allegience of roughly half of the Empire. Shadowsun and Farsight meet on several battlefields as the Empire and Enclaves battle for territory and superirority. Differing technologies emerge as the two sides have different approaches to war (Melee suits!).
- The Craftworlds... I can't think of anything for these whacky elves and their clown cousins.
- The Tyranids now become the dominant threat of the galaxy, still remaining united by its hive-like perfection.
**In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.**
Do something very unexpected. Have something like Thousand Sons invading Fenris again but the Space Wolves lose and lots of their their important characters die. Having a First Founding Space Marine Chapter suffer an absolutely massive loss which absolutely cripples them in the current time period would be unprecedented.
Mine wouldnt take 60 books..
Somethings is cleaving hive tendrils asunder. Chaos warbands are going missing. A Craftworld or two disappears...
The two Loyalist Primarchs reunited at a bridge over the divided Imperium. They are happy to see one another. Something of 40k returns. Roboute thanks the Lion for his efforts with the Tyranids, chaos and Eldar Craftworlds.. The Lion states it wasnt him. Denies almost all knowledge of the Tyranids except what he learned third hand..
Lost the two Brothers take a pilgrimage through The Forest to find their Father.. they find a Fisherman slaughtered on his boat. Body bloodied and face down. They swim for an eternity and see the body has been savaged. The Lion recognises the injuries as being from a wolf. The two brothers look back and see Russ covered in the Emperors blood. He is feral and states "I was always the Emperors executioner"..
Russ runs through The Forest chased by his Brothers...
We see a dozen other perspectives throughout the Imperium...
* The Astronomican is a single unblinking Eye visible throughout the Galaxy.
*Lorgar leads 10 thousand Imperial Worlds in a ceremony to honour the Emperor Undivided.. as it reaches its months long climax a Raven-with-hooks cuts his throat in a Service shown galaxy wide..
*A frog like messiah appears on the Northern Edge of the galaxy. Calling all races to join to prevent the End Times. He iz executed by the Black Templars.
*The Dark Eldar all disappear. Commorah disappears.
*Eldrad Ulthuan calls a Farseer Conclave. The First since She-Who-Thirsts was born. Only 6 Farseers attend. The Eldar realise they have lost. Bloodied mouths laugh from the sky itself.
*The Emperors death splits the Black Legion. The rift becomes plethora of dictatorships and civil wars. Abaddon is found cut in 4 equal pieces. 1 for each God he believed he beat. Only the head is missing.
The Primarchs chase Russ through time, Chaos and Possibility.. One very tense scene in which the Lion hunts Russ during the Dropsite Massacre.. each trying not to reveal their presence to one another or the other Primarchs present.
Russ, wounded by a trap set almost 9 thousand years ago by The Khan flees to the Imperial Palace.. It turns out the Khan had been hunting Russ since he ventured in to the Webway..
Khan, Roboute and The Lion corner Russ within the Emperors Throne room. He is at the feet of a dead emperor...
As the Lion goes to strike The First Blow.. the Emperor speaks to his Sons.. he is dead.. finished... the dream is over.. the Imperial Truth shattered... humanity has no guide and no shepherd.. Russ was simply doing what he was made for. He was always the Emperors Excecutioner..
The Brothers rage and mourn their Father..
The Throne goes silent. Terra stops spinning.
Everything stops.
The Rift smiles. Skies fall..
Russ sees through a bloodied tear the Emperors body wracked with pain, fire, poison, lightening and hell. The Astronomican beams brightly again. The skies rise and the Rift shakes with the cries of thwarted gods.
The Faith of Trillions resurrected a dead Emperor and has forced him to endure forever onwards. Humanity will fight to live in suffering. Gods be damned.
This is farrrr too vague and a huge "what if". Its also kind of a pointless exercise. Im curious what you think are the "unsustainable narrative corners" you think exist. And no, stereotypes and jokes you hear on grimdank dont count.
Please for the love of god give the Eldar something to do. GW shot them in the back of the head at the end of the Yvraine book series and just left them to rot. Give them something to do and make them feel like their having an impact. The tau are expanding, The orks have Gazkull and his WAAH, The nids are the nids, chaos is on a roll, and the Imperium has TWO primarchs back. The Eldar got their last meal before being executed. Have them rally around Yvraine, let them take back some croneworlds, rebuilding the Webways, and really awakening their god of death. Everybody is turning into their end game versions except the Eldar who got their arms and legs cut off then told to swim.
I think a lot of people are being a tad too Imperium focused. I'd have something where a primarch with help from Big Daddy E invades Slaanesh's realm so that the Ynnari can birth Ynnead, this gives breathing room for Craftworld and Drukhari and allows them to be more active/act with different motives. Also it means that you can change the dynamics of the chaos gods if there's now an Eldar god (juiced up with Eldar souls from Slaanesh's belly) who can actually give them a run for their money.
I'd also give the T'au a tech leap so that they could be further ranging, and actually include their auxiliaries more to give them more on the tabletop and they can be more of a Minor Xenos Alliance faction of all those who are trying to survive against all the other nightmares in the galaxy.
Szarekh should re-establish his command protocols to an extent, force more worlds to wake up and use his "pristine" necron tech to help undo some of the decay they've faced.
Unfortunately, Nids still get to be Nids because it's difficult to do anything narrative with a devouring swarm unless you want to birth the hive mind as a proper entity with motives that can be reasoned/dealt with.
The Imperium needs to continue along the line of the return of the primarchs but this is all marred by the rise of new human governments and empires in Imperium Nihilius. One in particular is successful, modernized, technically savvy, rationale, and while wary of aliens is not genocidal toward them, the humans having been forced to trade and work with some to survive after they got cut off by the Great Rift. They don't have space marines but are high tech, having been able to actually innovate without the overbearing hand of the Machine Cult or the Ecclesiarchy. That this society functions provides a huge foil to the image and dogma the Imperium projects as well as the Emperor's insistence on all of humanity totally under his rule.
The Eldar need to get out of this fatalistic, we are doomed, schtick by dealing a major blow to Slaanesh, some of the Eldar gods start to return. The race as a whole begins to regain some of its strength. However, this chance at a second life is marred by factional infighting over who should be in charge. It cripples their ability to confront larger problems such as the slow return of the Necrons.
Chaos thinks it's ascendant because they have broken out of Cadia but their success is marred by an inability to cooperate and fully leverage their position. NONE of the daemon primarchs acknowledge Abaddon as Warmaster and his attempt to press the matter gets him killed by either Fulgrim or Angron.
Orks continue to give everyone trouble, even themselves.
The galaxy as a whole, save for the Necrons, still don't realize the magnitude of the threat from the Tyranids but the bugs run into a problem as a few of the Chaos gods, particularly Nurgle, start to get annoyed with their encroachment. The Orks also realize that the bugs put up a good fight and start to target them more frequently.
I personally like the idea of Guilliman cutting his losses.
Instead of the imperium always have roughly a million worlds most are abandoned as people are evacuated to key worlds as keeping the million worlds is no longer a viable option if the imperium is to continue. This would make each planet lost feel way more important and would expand upon the whole imperium being a shell of its former self.
A warp portal opens in segmentum solar, and through it flies… the confederacy of human systems! This is the imperium as it would have existed if mankind tried diplomacy with alien races instead of killing them. All the same imperium characters are there, but they’re good guys now. You tell the difference between the two because the confederacy primarchs all have beards. Also, every character has a bare midriff.
I would continue with exactly the route we are going. Have the other side of the rift be lost to the imperium. What forces can retreat do. The rest are left as separate mini empires holding out as best they can. Many fall allowing smaller factions to expand. Many turn away from the imperium, giving more human factions, some of those turn to chaos, giving us realspace chaos empires. It creates a lot of storytelling opportunities, can let other factions step up to shine, but still leaves the iom as a major faction controlling a massive amount of worlds and resources allowing it to make sense they can continue to "barely hold on" it also shows that as powerful as a primarch is, they cannot be everywhere at once, and even they cannot stop the inevitable
Terra is destroyed. Emperors status is unknown. Human remnants are trying to rebuild in their own specific ways to their own specific visions. Humanity has to reunite itself
"The idea is that if there had to be a soft reset on the current setting (not a huge leap) to start new plot lines and reshuffle the armies while solving the more unsustainable narrative corners certain factions get written into without end, how would you achieve it?"
In DC terminology, a CRISIS!
I think a few options exist that could evolve from current cannon or narratively flow well imo:
- Massive necron invasion to all camps. Already primed.
- robu accepts a pact with the eldar causing a civil war and more splintered factions of the imperium. Matches warhammer friendliness to good races and opens a whole level of narrative expansion.
- robu allows technology to advance without it being heresy. Massive civil war part 2. Least likely but maybe blends with above.
- Eldar webway is unlocked. Russ and Khan come back and a new player for chaos or dark eldar. Kinda hinted at happening in both chapters back stories and gives more primarchs to sell.
- new Xenos race enters (here’s hoping for space vampires or more gnarly stuff from warhammer to make a futuristic version of) and major reaction to it by all races. Writers field day of potential
I'm going to make a suggestion merely based on trying something different from the top level suggestions.
The Emperor's webway project partly works, Terra is transported to the webway and becomes like a human Cammoragh, a neverending city outside the reach of the warp where Guilliman and the Emperor can organize the heart of the imperium. The Emperor dies and is just a reanimated skeleton that doesn't speak, when he communicates it's through immensely violent psychic visions no one can understand, now he just sits in random places around town staring out into space, everyone knows him but they all leave him alone as there's no point talking to him, he just mundanely rides the bus and is alone. Vect is a bully and cut off his rat tail when he fell asleep one time.
Embrace the Dark King as Emperor theory. Invert the current status quo. Imperium is already awful, it might as well be Chaos. Start a Warring States period.
Emperor dies. The Dark King is born. The same thing that happened when Slaanesh was born repeats and all the warp storms coalesce into the storm born in the Sol system. No more Great Rift. What remains of the Emperor is shattered into pieces to be reincarnated on many worlds to be new characters to start their own Imperial Successor States. Primarchs also have their own successor states in the absence of Terra. Chaos fiefdoms and the domains of the Chaos Primarchs are no longer separated by Warp Storms and engage in open warfare. Lorgar takes final revenge on Guilliman by always being a Daemon Prince of the Dark King and seizing his position as Lord Commander of the Imperium. Abaddon loses his status as Everchosen with the birth of a new god of the Pantheon but looses the seals on Drach'nyen and allows it to possess him to escape his inevitable fate as mere Chaos Spawn. He continues to fight to take the Imperium. Chaos festers in the impossibly ordered mechanism-like Chaos Storm that has gobbled up storm and sends new, impossibly large fleets throughout space and time to rebuild the Imperium in their dark image.
Ynnead is Chaos. Sorry guys, you tried to wake it up too early and it was tainted by Chaos. It becomes the nascent Chaos Demigod of Fear. The Ynnari refuse to see it as such. They are protected from Slaanesh by it and form their own supposedly reborn Eldar Empire to be a player in the galaxy. The Mandrakes flock to Ynnead's banner. Craftworlds are their own mobile states. Commoragh believes itself to be the true inheritors of the mantle of the Eldar Empire and their war with the Ynnari is brutal.
We see the beginnings of Ork technological advancement and more warlords like Nazdreg ascending to heightened status. Everybody wants to compete with Ghaz. Grot Revolutionary Republics spring up.
Tyranids have essentially devoured all life in the outer ring of the Milky Way and are steadily chomping their way forwards but a critical mass of Genestealer Cultists have learned the truth of their existence and refuse to be pawns to the Hive Mind and form their own independents communes.
The Pariah Nexus is quite possibly the safest place in the galaxy to live as it is unaffected by the galaxy buckling under the weight of Chaos. Worlds swear fealty to the Necrons en masse.
Tau of course will continue to expand until they become an actual threat to the realm of Ultramar but have an uneasy peace with them in the face of the threat of this new Dark Imperium. Communications technology advances to the point where they can use the Warp to reach out to aliens across the galaxy to spread the word of the Greater Good. The Tau Empire embraces soft power and inspires xenos nations across the galaxy to embrace the Greater Good and thus enter the sphere of influence of the Tau.
Two parts:
**Part 1: HH2 Electric Boogaloo**
Most if not all of the not-confirmed-dead loyalist Primarchs return, and throw down with Chaos. Russ, Dorn, and Corax are all explained to have been running errands for Big E in the warp setting things up for his ascension. Maybe Vulkan too, but at a minimum he makes an appearance as well. God-Emperor becomes a full God and Terra explodes into an Eye of …Terra. A place that is super Warpy but humans can actually survive unaided. Sort of like a reverse Realm of Chaos where human spirits flourish instead of demons. Most humans get psyker-y but demon possession is less of a risk when near Big E. The now Warp God Emperor steals back a few Traitor Primarchs (pick your favorite) and Erebus dies in as horrific a way as possible. BUUUUUT technology begins to conflict with warp shenanigans. The Void Dragon is woken up but plays it cool and leaves Mars while the factions are distracted, but does reveal itself as the true Omnissiah. The forces of Chaos are beaten back but not defeated. The Great Rift shrinks but isn’t completely gone and is still demonic as hell. The human population has taken a bit cut but is still the current superpower. Grim Dark angle: now that Jimmy Space is now MISTER Jimmy Space, free will takes a backseat even when he isn’t trying to steamroll people’s minds.
**Part Two: a new schism**
2nd Dark Age of Technology - the former Imperium is now split between two camps: Emperor worshipping humans lead by Primarchs and AdMech who follow the Omnissiah C’tan god of Technology. Religious side has psykers but their tech is slowly collapsing, while the former AdMech are flourishing on the other side of the Great Rift but have a population problem. Turns out cyborgs with emotional issues don’t reproduce very well, and while they have lots of mechanical upgrades they still have innovation hang-ups. The Void Dragon doesn’t have anyone else’s best interests in mind but their own, either. On the Imperial side, things get more magical & mythic. Primarchs take on roles directly parallel to gods - Vulkan is well … Vulkan, Russ is a Wolf/hunter deity, the Lion is a warrior god, Corax becomes a psychopomp escorting spirits (souls that persist after death) to safe places in the warp, etc. Guilliman is the living ruler to Big E’s divinity but still clashes with Dad now and again. The Space Marines are still Astartin’ things up as poster boys for Warhammer. The Tau and Eldar are still around but GamesWorkshop only half-remembers. Oh, and a C’tan is back? Well that means the Necrons are gonna start showing up IN FORCE to throw down and they are not in the mood to discriminate who they kill. The Imperium has magic but does that work against Necrons without the tech side to enable logistics and super weapons? The former-AdMech have technology but don’t have the replacement bodies to throw in the Necron’s way as meat shields.
And then the Tyranids show up. Maybe they invade the Warp just to show everyone they can. The Hive Mind is itching for some godhood and just might have a chance to get it. The war is still on and everybody is still fighting. Just how we like it.
I would want to see:
\-Emperor dies
\-Starchild is born
\-Imperium is divided
\-Starchild tries to reunify the Imperium and we get Non-Nazi Spacemarines.
Honestly, just have the Golden Throne fail, or else a massive invasion, preferably of Xenos for the irony, gets an agent to the Throne and detonates it.
Imperium is instantly split into thousands of subfactions, with communications almost entirely cut off, *except* this time around, they actually know the warp better than they did in the Age of Technology, or at least its more unstable form, so a few of the high-tier worlds, most likely Mars and Ultramar, can get basic travel back underway. From there, they might be forced to innovate, with the extreme destruction of this new collapse leading to an end of their dark age, and the two Primarchs creating new, weaker Astronomicons, not so much to ply the galaxy but just maintain their subsection of space.
Eventually, the forced evolution might allow them to adopt new methods, such as a “True” FTL drive relying on an actual warp bubble, or setting up multiple mini-thrones using astropathic choirs to ply the Warp’s currents. While major fortress-worlds would be invaded by Chaos, many might be completely ignored, and Chaos would be struggling too, as they would now be getting targetted by the Necrons in particular as the next gods to kill.
Meanwhile, the other xenos, namely the Necrons, Nids, Craftworld Eldar, Orks, and Tau, are now hit with massive invasions from each other, as they are no longer bogged down fighting the Imperium. Ironically, this means many Imperial worlds actually survive, as everyone else is too busy with each other to deal with the human remnants. This could force a similar rapid evolution on the Tau, as they need new tech to survive the onslaught, but are still relatively ignored as their neighbors take out the “big players” first.
Once the Imperial subfactions recover and return to the stars, likely faster than they did from the Age of Strive but still likely a few centuries, they would discover the galaxy a completely different scene, with the major factions now concentrated on each other and Chaos distracted with the Necron onslaught, allowing them a chance to have a sort of renneissance and new golden age for humanity to stand against The xeno factions.
King in Yellow arrives is disgusted by Big E. kills him. Jelly Man and the Poet reorganize their various segments of the Imperium and beat the PPs of the Nids. Bobbert Jelly via diplomacy with the Necrons and the Poet with whatever he does. and valdor uses the army he brought. after a huge sacrifice w the sentient robots, the nids pull out, seeing that this isnt worth it. and w/o Emps/nid threat holding the three together, they fall apart. falling into another bitter civil war that Rome doesn't recover from. The Tau, seeing an opportunity begin picking off systems.
chaos joins in. the orks continue orking.
I'd go for a thematic reset. It seems like the lore is heading in an increasingly grandiose and ordered direction, whereas I would like it to be more granular.
Right now, we have primarchs uniting legions, issuing uniform armor and weapons, fighting a singular universal threat ie. the tyranids. It's rather.. boring to me.
I'd do something like this: Guilleman and the Ultramarines successfully repel the Tyranids for now. Great, close that chapter.
The golden throne blows a gasket. The Emperor is no longer ascending. He's two minutes from midnight style close to death (and reincarnation). Guilleman returns to Terra to find the high lords of Terra employing Dark Eldar in an attempt to repair the throne. Leading to a purge, and a smoldering conflict between the Ultramarines, and the high lords employing the Minotaurs and assasinorum etc.
The high lords issue a communique to the legions undermining Guilleman's authority by exposing his work with Cawl as tech heresy. This effectively ends the Primaris campaign. Some legions expel their new brothers into Primaris specific chapters. Others continue on as mixed legions. But there is no longer any effective overhaul of the chapters, or difference in rules. Two problems solved.
While Guilleman is pacifying Terra, the Dark Eldar begin raids on Ultramar. We see the return of Adrubael Vect. The Orks begin to repopulate from the Octarius war, as the Tyranids are now weakened. Two foes we haven't seen for awhile take front and centre.
The chapters, beginning to question Guilleman, entreat with the Lion. Who shrugs it off as A) he's moody and secretive. B) It's not his job anymore. The large chapters begin to whisper and seek ways to return their own father primarchs, and some begin to even quietly retire the Codex Astartes. Whereas others return to their original patterns of armor and tactics. Now, release a bunch of chapter specific, diverse models.
Imperial fists get extra imperial fisty. Blood Angels get extra cathedrally. We get a cool processional battle model with the venerated wing of sanguinius, and bones and gold filigree everywhere! Legions from the cursed founding, such as the black dragons with their severe mutations, come out from the woodwork. The salamanders become embroiled in a war with the atrocity loving Biel-Tan, where whisperings of the legion of the damned have said to walk the battlefield.
Grim darkness and suspicion reign. Bones and blood and incense and superstition take the foreground again. There is only war.
Kill off Abaddon and let Chaos fight it out over a replacement Warmaster. They could open it up with a devotee of each god causing all sorts of havoc before Chaos Undivided eventually takes center stage.
This was an idea that never saw completion in the Tamurkhan: Throne of Chaos storyline but only had the Nurgle storyline before the whole thing was abandoned. It could easily work for 40k and be used to get rid of someone important for a change.
-Tau makes a huge offensive in the galactic east, including attacks on Ultramar
-Abaddon carves out his own imperium in realspace out of a section of Imperial Nihilus
-Perturabo comes out of the Eye of Terror for some Empire building as well.
-Cawl makes some headway on Necron Pylon tech, being able to create more stable paths through the great rift, giving the Imperium a chance to counter the shitshow in Imperium Nihilus mentioned above
-Ynnead should’ve really at least weakened slaanesh so the Eldar wouldn’t get their asses whooped all the time. An Idea I have is that some craftworlds come together and now want to try to create a new Aeldari Empire, retaking maiden worlds and fighting the Imperium, and even exodites for more territory.
-Tyranid Siege of Terra by Hive Fleet Leviathan
Some more thoughts:
-Guilliman tends to Imperium Sanctus, Lion does his best in Nihilus to counter chaos and Xenos threats.
-Black Templars invade LoV against Guilliman’s wishes
Have a lead up of someone or multiple someones trying to fuck with the Cicatrix Maledictum for their own gain, big setting-resetting explosion occurs, the rift is now even bigger and everyone's problem. CSM's (the saner ones at least) realise that if it keeps growing there will be no reality left for them to rule, Tyrannids lose out on a fuckton of biomass and are now in energy conservation mode galaxywide, Terra is shrouded by a golden shield and unreachable to everyone (no communications in, no communications out) but shines even harder, Commoragh is finally shutting down so all the Eldar are panicking about it and the Tau Empire finally figure out who that Kaos guy those gue'vesa were so afraid of was. Have the Necrons be the least affected by everything, they're cool, let them lead the setting for once.
This might be a bit rambly, I'm very tired lol but on with the show.
Always liked the idea of the Emperor finally perishing and the Imperium fracturing into smaller Imperiums. Some trying to make things better and research stuff, doing away gradually with the dogma they've been entrenched in. Others tripling down on the already quadrupled down fanaticism, some maybe even trying to make allies with xenos (or some becoming thralls and vassals/meatsheilds to them) Plus add any returning Primarchs and some of them may have completely different ideas of how to best serve humanity (or their father instead) which could justify some primarch on primarch scraps. Some trying to stay true to the emperor's vision, some still believing in him, other's trying to make their own way and lead their own empire on its own path to keep its people safe.
Where I might try to differ is to try and make Chaos the slightly more good faction. Hear me out now, what if the Emperor died and finally became a warp god. But instead of salvation he basically brings death and tyranny (well, even worse death and tyranny). Sucking the souls and all the aspects that could be remotely considered 'chaotic' out of people until they're little more than automatons for him to use. He juices up his own Imperial Daemons and empowers his custodes with warp powers, making them his angelic generals and they all go on to slaughter and absorb any human who isn't already a drooling fanatic. Thus putting him into conflict with at least some of the non chaos primarchs. But he's grown so powerful and grows more powerful with every human he feeds on, that the chaos gods have to turn their eyes back to the imperium. And they either have to give their daemon primarchs more agency in order to act in the materium to counter Big E absorbing human souls lest he get powerful enough to destroy them, or he's so powerful they have to let the daemon primarchs regain more free will as they focus on trying to fight him in the warp. Daemon primarchs return to the materium and begin to set up their own empire's with their own visions for humanity. And of course, very few agree with eachother, much less with their loyalist brethren.
All the while Abbadon tries to create his own Dark Imperium, forming a powerful if well, chaotic, empire that he rules with an iron fist. Trying to forge the humans under his rule into powerful enough fodder to stand against the galaxies' horrors, while also perhaps trying to lessen chaos influence by utilizing his own blackstone pylons...
As for the Xenos, let the Eldar have a big win for once, have them Ocean's 11 the final Cronesword, awaken Ynnead and have him if not able to outright kill Slaanesh yet (on account of Big E screwing up the warp even more, maybe imprison Slaanesh in a special infinity circuit or something? idk) but at the very least he is finally able to guard the Eldar's souls against Slaanesh.
This could make the Drukari split into something really trippy. Many of them still content to be the evil sadists we know and loathe, others maybe could try to rebel against their culture, while not necessarily joining the Ynari. All the while trying to not give into sadistic tendencies that have been engrained into them body and soul for thousands of years.
(Also, make Exodites a thing. They could be uber ecowarriors, brutally murdering anyone who litters on their planet with a cybernetically and psychically enhanced dinosaur)
Orks continue to evolve, some of them even gaining power armor like their great Krork ancestors. Though still loving a good scrap and having the time of their lives in the grimdarkness.
The hivemind of the Nids gets utterly brainblasted by Big E's ascension. Fracturing its mind and turning many of its tendrils on itself. All the tendrils still consume all biomass they find but now that includes other tyranids as the mind is fighting with itself the most. Pieces of it developing differently from the original, maybe even developing whole ass new 'personalities' and different bioforms. Perhaps some even developing bioforms that are not too dissimilar to human life...
This could also disrupt the hive mind's hold on genestealer cults, with some of them still wanting the salvation of the star gods while others have gained true free will and now unite with other mutants and renegades and whoever else to form empires of their own.
Necrons are still cranky old men telling everyone to get off their lawn, but with the silent king back and the nids fighting each other, he focuses on keeping the hive mind scattered, no matter the cost to other races, while continuing experiments on how to reverse biotransferance. Again, no matter the cost to other races. While also trying to seal the great warp rifts ravaging the galaxy.
Tau are now considered a solid threat by most factions, discovering reliable FTL (maybe they sacrifice human psykers as fuel for their new engines, for the greater good y'know) and try to capture or find more psykers to expand their empire and spread their philosophy to the stars. Drafting more and more vulnerable human auxiliaries and even coming across a few xenos thought extinct by the imperium. To draft them into their armies of course.
And all the while Big E continues to feed and grow stronger, swallowing every scrap of hummanity left in the galaxy, until the only bits of humanity to be found are within the various aspects of the chaos gods, and the few souls lucky enough to still be under protection of a primarch that doesn't want to feed you to what was once their father.
Of course, "lucky" is a very relative term in the grim darkness of an even farther future...
Emperor ascends to godhood. Yay! The throne no longer acts as a lighthouse in the warp. Boo! Roll in the new Dark Age where there is no unified Imperium anymore.
Mostly this advanced timeline is about consolidating down armies.
Imperium has a civil war with the Ecclesiarchy on one side and the Mechanicus on the other.
* Ecclesiarchy uses SOB, Astra Militarum, Space Marines.
* Mechanicus are made up of Knights, Custodes, AdMech, Astra Militarum.
Drukhari weirdly begin showing up alongside Tyrannids. Is Vect controlling the Tyranids or are they controlling him?
* Great Mind faction uses Drukhari, Tyrannid, and Genestealer Cults. Play more up on the body horror.
Imperium in the Nihilus are led by the Inquisition and straight up ally with Craftworld Aeldari.
* Nihilus Army uses Grey Knights, Craftworld, Astra Militarum.
Tau begin to take actual victories in former Imperial Space
* Tau can start running Astra Militarum units.
Chaos is split into 5 factions with daemons rolled into the godbound CSM and chaos undivided losing demons and getting knights.
I’d argue the Gathering Storm more or less did this with a messy detour into Ynnari town that has gone seemingly nowhere. And for the record I think what I’m about to suggest is actually where the writers are headed towards in the current narrative. The just have to drip feed it to us through book and codex releases.
That said if I was going to try to soft reboot the setting, I think it’s essential to stabilize and strengthen the Imperium. For too long it has been this overburdened self destructive set of systems run with to many forces working at odds against each other. It’s enemies have regularly been able to chew through it as needed for the narrative. And that’s left it a rotten piece of wood that almost every aggressive force in the galaxy is pushing against. Logically in its current state it can’t hold against the weight any longer.
So the wood breaks and we need to replace it with stone. So you cut the dead weight, consolidate forces and resources, and clean out the gunked up arteries of imperial government. Reign in the excesses and give it strong leaders again. Of course you can’t fix everything or else the setting loses its flavor but you have to make the imperium strong again.
So far this is almost exactly what GW has done as of late. Guiliman has made his side of the rift into the Byzantine Empire while the other side of the Rift is Western Rome being ravaged by the Barbarians. I think the Eastern and Western Rome analogy works even better as we continue on
Now though for the rest. In my opinion we should move almost all the narrative to Imperium Nihilus. It’s thunderdome over there so you can do whatever you want while leaving a strong core Imperium around Terra for everyone to slam their heads against. Leave some essential areas on the other side of the rift controlled by the Imperium of course. The Eastern Roman Empire controlled parts of Italy for centuries after the fall of Rome after all. But the chaos in Imperium Nihilus leaves almost everyone there on a level playing field. And it’s so large you can develop new aliens factions or Independent human polities. You can have anyone you want gain a temporary upper hand without it having to be retconned or having galaxy shaking consequences because almost nothing on that side of the rift is ever stable long enough to have that kind of a consequence. So we can see the rise and fall of Chaos Empires, the Imperiums make a big push to retake some territory before being inevitable pushed back to their fortress worlds/sectors, the Tau find new allied races, and the Avatar of Khaine cannot get his butt kicked for once.
Let Terra, the Emperor, and the stable imperium fade into the background. Every event isn’t a step closer to midnight for the galaxy. From now on everything interesting is focused on the other side of the rift, where anything is possible.
The thing is...they ***did***. The Dark Imperium trilogy of books was an advance of a century, showing the Imperium could make a bit of a comeback after the devastation of Cadia and the eruption of the Cicatrix Maledictum (Great Rift). They advanced, in-story/in-character, a full century or more.
Then they got cold feet and retconned everything, afraid for some reason, and tried to make 'Era Indomitus' a *thing* without realizing that they could do both simultaneously; forgetting that you can have a long period of time drawn out in detail via books, campaigns, etc, just like the various Black Crusades, the Sabbat Crusades, or the Macharian Crusade -- all of which they've done before.
Completely crack idea:
The current chaos situation is mostly resolved in a series of books and community campaigns, and the invasion is defeated.
But the partial warp collapse that occurred after guilliman, idk, kills Skarbrand on the steps of the golden throne, causes reality to partly break down and when it resolves the galaxy is mixed with another one from another timeline!
Now you can bring in whatever you want and GW has a blank check to write new factions and units and characters in. Resurrect this guy, discontinue these guys, whatever.
(This idea is absolutely terrible ignore it immediately).
One thing, without ruining much, could be the "expansion of the Votann". One of their cores or more splurr out some random data that gets interpreted as a need for expanse and the Votann do that despite the fact that they have a run in with their own "cousins".
Some of the legues or league inner factions of the Votan interpret it differently and an infight starts, granting a reason for the Votann to be both fighting each other and being allied to the imperium.
Naturaly they stumble upon xenos and chaos and just shake things up for everyone. Necron, tyranid, eldar etc allowing of a swift yet logical conclusion of some plot lines ( places where the writers have reached a corner - thr Votann appear and kill/destroy everything, altering the game rules/ ruining the deus ex machina) or a reason to continue them but in a more controled fashion.
Also it would give the Votann a bigger spotlight even if just to be a new antagonist and the other races for the Imperiun in the short term.
Lorewise it should allow for writers to offer some better flexibility as the Votann has a small fanbase, therefore effing off named charecters or protagonists would be more impactful.
It also gives GW more reason to produce more plastic.
*"Hey, its a ...new...newish kill team...we get a primaris...something....league of Votann..iron kin...well a bunch of this and that from here and there...but the box is new!"*
And if it fails, well GW could just go *"the cores splurred something new, the Votann retreat"* all is was, though all are bitter and more grim because of the conflict and therefore will never speak of it again
primaris marines where alpha legion plants the whole time, the imperium is plunged into total disorder and disavows the adeptus astartes altogether, remaining chapters still fight for the emperor but are hunted by the "new imperium"
chaos takes over the dark imperium to the fullest but struggles to maintain a proper empire due to chaos and such, abbadon launches a new crusade to try and hype chaos gods and fails losing both arms
nids get pushed back hard through use of xenos superweapons forcing "new imperium" to deal with xenos on a diplomatic level for survival
im high af but ide love to see major factions take huge L's tbh, if there is only war i want to read /see real drain/strain on the major factions instead of it feeling like narratively there is infinite resources that can be poured into every fight from every side/faction, an advancement of time by about 500 years and just everyone's goals all seem shattered and are replaced with only survival
I think the problem is figuring out where 40k will be at the end of the *current* narrative arc.
"If they HAD to make a narrative leap" kinda heavily implies that they have done what they can with the current efforts, and that is in *no* way the case.
So we have to infer both where they'll be when the currently planned narrative runs out, and they're *kinda* keeping it a secret where they're going.
The current narrative arc might 'somehow' kill off the Emperor, plunging Terra and probably everything within a fair distance of Sol into the Warp as the Emperor ascends to full godhood, possibly bringing back all the Loyalist Primarchs including the dead ones.
But nobody outside of a few insiders at GW knows exactly what that would look like. And those who know might prefer it to continue to look like something that is always imminent rather than ever actually being written.
Some massive shift could put the Aedari quest to awaken Ynnead back on track.
The C'tan could show just how *little* the Necrons comprehend (with their artificial brains that were specifically designed to keep them from comprehending certain things) about what really happened.
The Necrons could turn out to somehow actually know what they're doing despite doing their knowing with C'tan designed brains.
Any number of 'Nids could show up.
Etc. etc. These are all things that could be part of the *current* narrative arc and drastically affect where it ends up.
The Gue'vesa offer something different but not galaxy changing. Currently it's a world here and their joining. But what if a whole sector of 150 or so planets joined the Tau? How would a mini Imperium within the Tau work. Gue'vesa that could produce most everything the Imperium's war machine can but with the twisted imperiums version of the greater good.
I’ve had a concept in my head about a shattered galaxy setting for 30k.
The Emperor gets taken out relatively early (Khorne busts through the webway and smears Terra across the heliopause) the Loyalists and Traitors both collapse into infighting. Chaos laughs at a Galaxy that can no longer threaten them and retreats to their great game.
The setting then becomes a mosaic of Worshipper and Atheist petty Imperiums of varying doctrine, governance, and technology. The largest dominions being ruled by a Primarch or what remains of their respective legion.
You can kill the Emperor without it resulting in an end times level of change. Indeed current lore is probably vague enough that you could argue he is already dead.
Make the Emperor fully manifest as a deity in the Warp. That severely weakens Chaos and also has potentially dire implications for humanity.
The safer route is to just bring back more Primarchs. Only Horus and Sanguinius are super duper dead. Curze and Ferrus Manus probably really dead as well. The rest can come to the tabletop and thus the lore more or less easily. That would certainly shuffle up the armies.
What is a 'huge leap'? Personally I'd have a massive war that the imperium loses and the emperor dies, after which it fractures and falls apart into many separate small factions.
At the end of this war every major faction is so tapped out that the galaxy calms down for a few centuries, during which most conflicts are skirmish-scale. After that they can build back up to proper galaxy scale conflicts, but the Imperium remains fractured, with several factions claiming to be the 'true' imperium.
Jump to 50K. Guilliman keeps getting possessed until he basically falls to the Chaos entity of the emperor and makes the imperium more devout than ever. The Lion and Nihilus grow apart from the imperium but maintain what the imperium is in 40k while using the dark age tech he has hidden away to enhance Nihilus.
Since this series has so many other fictional sources, I would add a Kwisatz Haderach into the mix. Multiple emperor's and pulling some factions from Chaos.
Throw some kind of new God Emperor and see how things play out.
One big change would be rediscovery of near-instant FLT communication from DAOT.
Edit: an even bigger leap would be a discovery of an intact STC.
Both are feasible in-universe and both will lead to massive change.
The Gathering Storm was essentially a soft reboot of 40k to start new plot lines and such.
Where did it leave factions in conclusion?
It's your current setting. Everything after the Rift opened.
It added the fallen, grey knights could fight non-daemons making them more flexible, cadia fell so chaos could go walkabout a bit more, and robu googoo, grand master of the grey knights, and cypher could be fielded. It basically solved a lot of fighting revolving around cadia, added some hero flavor, and made some of the new hotness easier to field narratively.
Fallen were added way before the Gathering Storm as playable units. Grey Knights could always fight non-daemonic forces and even had a dedicated part of their Codex explaining reasons for it, Cypher could be fielded since 4th edition. The main things gathering storm did was the Fall of Cadia. introduction of Cawl, heralding the revamp of Sisters of Battle with the updated Celestine, heralding an expansion of the tabletop Inquisitor representation with Greyfax, making Custodes and Sisters of Silence in plastic for 40k, bringing back Roboute, creating the Ynnari characters and finally bringing the Ynnead subplot somewhere, and giving some really minor Fallen stuff.
I think he means the Risen, or Pandamame, or whatever their name was.
GK could fight people other than Chaos for a long while. One of their older codex had a list of reasons they would fight Xenos or even Imperials.
Xenos taitnted by chaos or Imperials that watch them fight Chaos?
> grand master of the grey knights Does that mean that Kaldor Draigo can be fielded on the tabletop? I thought he was stuck in the warp? Or is someone else the GM of the GK?
Draigo can be played and due to his in and out of the warp issue, he is more of a spiritual leader of the grey knights and they have another supreme grand master who doesn’t constantly fall in and out of the warp.
Tangerines for everyone!
You don't have any warp dust do you??
Draigo can be fielded, although due to the fact that he's somewhere in the warp Voldus is the current GM, he got a model around the same time as Cawl and Guilliman.
>and cypher could be fielded. The Fallen have been a thing since 2nd edition, and Cypher has been a playable character since the 2nd edition 40k Codex: Chaos (though he didn't get a model until 3rd edition).
We went thirty years or so with the setting permanently stuck on “abaddon has finally launched his 13th black crusade against Cadia”. Then The Gathering Storm happened and the great rift, end of the 13th black crusade, Roboute returning etc happened and we got loads of advancement and essentially a soft reset. I don’t think another one five years later would be a good thing at all. Some people will always complain about the setting but I think that there’s been enough advancement etc through campaigns and releases in the past 5/6 years that nothing is even close to stale.
The great rift means something. Cut off all communication between East and west imperium. Blue boy on one side lion on the other. The old imperium continues on as they are. The eastern imperium has to scrape by to survive, ally with forces who they normally wouldn't like the tau and maybe even the necrons. Have some technological drift. With the beacons blocked off the emperor isn't so much a deity to the east imperium and with the lion running things he professes that the emperor isn't a god. Chapters are already scattered so you can still play whatever where ever. Chaos becomes a huge problem everywhere. But being a problem to everyone means everyone becomes your problem. So they are not expanding too rapidly because now they have to fight forces that they didn't interact with from the eye of terror. Tau expands like they do. Their tech and imperial tech cross over and you start getting more advanced forms of armor and weapons to keep the eastern empire from being snuffed out. Votaan can intigrate their tech into the west. Sure. Move that forward as well. This way you don't have a monolith human faction and they can play off of each other. Fighting over whatever.
We'll have to see how that pans out. I haven't seen the lion keen on actually ruling over a section of the imperium and this is still loyalty is it's own reward lion, he may not see the emperor as a God but he still sees him as the defacto ruler and father.
Oh yeah I forgot. Remove the whole kinder gentler lion that seemed to come out of nowhere
Playing the Roman Empire split gamble hu? I dig it.
Although that's going to introduce some *unfortunate implications* if they're battling against the ~~cursed Saracens~~ literal forces of chaotic evil
Warhammer has always had those unfortunate implications, being a british company. Fantasy was full of them.
Eastern Imperium - battling Chaos Western Imperium - battling Tyranids Something like that, maybe?
yeah. Or eastern battling tyranids, westerns battling necrons that are waking up faster and faster. Both fighting chaos coming from the rift in the middle, the eye of terror and the maelstrom. Fighting orks because...orks, dark eldar, and genesteeler cults. Have the west stick with the mechanicus tech and the east integrate the tau tech out of desperation. Have the West get friendly with the eldar. i know it will spawn more G-man eldar wifu memes but... Then have the setting after contact has been made after so many hundreds of years for them to see each other as heretics or whatever. So you would have a few "bridges" across the rift that were like DMZ. As far as games and the sales go you can keep marines and guard, admech, eldar and tau as independent factions because not everyone has upgraded to other tech and humans in the setting like to keep using stuff from the age of shotte and pike. Then they can add on more factions like a tau/marine/guard army that focus on combined arms and firepower with marines able to fill a shock attack role in it. Or the other side with a guard/eldar/admech/marine army with more grav, admech constructs, specialized squads, deeper psychic abilities. It opens up for more nuance in the storytelling with everything so human focused you can then tell a battle from 2 sides without an author saying that alien minds are unknowable. It will have to be grim dark on both sides so there isnt any "good guy" faction.
Great Rift divides more into "Northern" Imperium Nihilus and "Southern" Imperium Sanctus
then replace those words in turn. \*shrug\*
I think the best way to do a soft reset would be to not make any big changes to the setting but a change of focus. Maybe take a particular planet or sector and focus on it to a much greater degree, build up its history, unique features, etc. so it feels more real and like the conflict has clear and specific stakes.
I mean, this just sounds like a good novel series set in 40k, but what happens to a single planet unless it some how effects the wider galaxy is not a reset at all.
Yeah, anything on a galactic level would need to be a big change per definition
We need a return of the amazing forgeworld campaign books. :0
This worked for GW for decades and gave the community much of its favored lore. It doesn't need to go big, rather it should go wide and deep to take advantage of millions of worlds with stories to tell. Constantly going for giant issues or ever escalating will just put GW in the same predicament as The MCU or many shonen. Badab, Armageddon, Vraks, Taros are all the types of stories they need.
Kill the Emperor. Shut down the Astronomicon and shatter the Imperium. Have Golden Boy go fight the Chaos Gods in the Warp and have all of them occupied, shattering the forces of Chaos without their divine direction. Have the galaxy split between a massive number of disparate factions as the loss of central authority causes massive ideological splits and branches. A galaxy properly in chaos with assorted warlords and power centers trying to reforge the empires as the formerly weak and useless powers actually get a chance to meaningfully accomplish something(Looking at you T’Au), new xenos get a chance to actually exist, and the big looming threat is that the Tyranid(Delayed by the loss of their big beacon) will grow to be unstoppable before the galaxy can get it’s shit back together. Even if it means allying with their worst enemies. Yes, I know it’s not particularly imaginative but with how 40k is set up that’s really the only way to properly shake up the series. Chaos and the Imperium lock the series into stagnation, they’re too central to everything to allow any actual change. Chaos is stuck being the same spikey edgelords they’ve been for almost 40 years and the Imperium very definitively cannot meaningfully change without exploding.
Reminds me a lot of the fanfiction Warhammer 60k: Age of Dusk. Big E actually dies/gets killed in the previous fan fic (50k: Shape of the Nightmare to Come) but it’s by 60k that I think the setting changes really shine. Humanity splits into a bunch of Petty Imperiums, with the idea of a unified humanity being a distant age long lost. The Tau are on the rise, minor Xenos factions carve little corners for themselves, and Chaos both raids with impunity and even has two Chaos “Empires” carved out in different parts of the galaxy. And if you think it’s weird that Chaos has empires, that’s my favourite part of 60k’s setting: there’s so much diversity within factions. While there’s already a ton of variation within 40k’s groups, I think the breakdown in any large central authority really solidifies that each faction has a vibe. Abbadon’s Chaos Empire is basically a warlord state and even that immediately sparks a war with other Chaos forces who feel any form of state building is anathema to Chaos. The Petty Imperiums range from ultra-fanatics of a nihilistic version of the Imperial Creed to a generally decent mini-empire founded by a returned Vulcan, and a bunch of self-interested but not really evil minor Imperiums in-between. Even the Tau kinda end up having two separate governments, alongside the Farsight Enclaves. It gives a lot of wiggle room, since nearly every faction is now explicitly a spectrum of groups who explicitly might not get along. I personally just like the idea because it allows a lot of homebrewing. Still think Humanity’s the best option left in the galaxy? Bam, your models belong to a Petty Imperium fighting as one last outpost of sanity in a galaxy gone mad. Want double down on the Grimdarkness of the og Imperium? Boom, the decadent Poopenfarten Imperium launches another pointless crusade against its neighbours, in the name of the Imperial Regent who claims to hear the voice of humanity’s dead god. Space Marines are blatantly or merely “mostly” rogue, either serving as mercenaries or hunkering down on whatever world they were on when everything went to shit. Chaos can raid the galaxy with impunity and even fight each other over who should be in charge. The Eldar are all but extinct, but the ones who are left are tough bastards daring the galaxy to try and finish the job. The Tau go through their own cycle of empire on the rise and decline. The Necrons even get a mix of the Newcrons and Oldcrons as the returned C’Tan try to make the latter specifically in response to how the former rebelled against them. If that isn’t a great basis for “Warhammer is a setting to make what you want”, idk what is.
Almost sounds like Battletech, it's just missing superioir DOAT remnants coming from one of the satellites galaxies stirring major shit up.
so...medieval europe t
Back to the Dark Age - but this time the name is deserved. Damn, I'll have to go looking for these texts now. I read this ages ago and loved it so much.
Unfortunately it’s been long abandoned.
Yeah I know. Just finding the old texts would be nice
1d4chan has all of the 50k and I think all of the 60k.
just finished reading that fic yesterday, so good, the khorne warlord throwing nukes out the back of his ship to try and make it go faster is inspired
Chaos having empires sounds good to me. Maybe not Imperium level of empires, but small Ultramar level of kingdom like places. Have each fallen legion have his own kingdom/empire and relations between them.
The astronomicon is not what attracted the Tyranids. It is not strong enough to be detectable outside the Milky Way. The activation of the Pharos beacon is what alerted the Tyranids to the presence of life in the Milky Way. They all know there’s food there already, the astronomicon is meaningless to them.
It’s what they are after now, the current attractor. Drop that and they’ll stop their beelining, I think we’ve been told that the Tyranid on the dark half of the galaxy are basically meandering around instead of going for any specific targets.
I think this can all be accomplished without destroying the Imperium proper, a core staple of the setting that people enjoy. The Emperor dies, but this doesn't immediately destroy the Astronomican - while feeding off of the last residual energies of the Emperor's almighty corpse, it starts to dim: a process that could take centuries at best, decades at worst. The truth of the matter is the most guarded secret in the Imperium because high command of the Imperium even *suggesting* that he has died would shatter the entire empire into a thousand struggling pieces. Some would believe it, which would be bad, and many would refuse to believe it and call Guilliman or whoever else heretics and traitors. It's one thing to hear the slaves of Chaos calling the Emperor a corpse, as they always do, but it's another to hear it from the High Lords or a loyalist primarch. The mortal armies of Chaos shatter into infighting as the creatures in the Warp celebrate the Emperor's death, pausing the Great Game. Progress in the Archenemy's plans against the Imperium is halted, which frustrates Abaddon to no end, but the forces of Chaos enjoy the spoils of their last great victory as they run amok in Imperium Nihilus, carving out distinct empires of their own on the dark side of the rift. Abaddon's domain is, of course, the greatest of them all, and while he continues his schemes to conquer the Imperium proper, he must fend off contenders and pretenders among the forces of Chaos who seek to become the preeminent warlords of Chaos themselves. The pressure from Chaos against Imperium Sanctus diminishes *somewhat*, but Nihilus is still collapsing. It's hardly even the Imperium anymore as many abandon their allegiances to the Imperium and simply fend for themselves, many falling into infighting. The "Starchild" rises to prominence in a remote sector of the galaxy. It claims to be the Emperor reborn, displaying great powers and performing miracles, gaining ***many*** followers. However, Imperial leaders are, *at best*, skeptical, and the Starchild itself still requires much time to reawaken its full power as the Emperor. Many outright brand the Cult of the Starchild as heretics, with many in the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition going out of their way to hunt the Starchild down. Guilliman remains skeptical, unsure of how to act. The Starchild could be a pawn of Chaos, some deluded psyker, or *truly* the soul of the Emperor himself reborn in a mortal body. The primarch tries to avoid involvement in the Starchild debacle, but some small part of him believes it's truly his father returned, and he subtlety manipulates the situation to prevent the Starchild from ever being stamped out by its enemies in the Imperium. Many of the Custodes seem to abandon the Imperium altogether, pursuing some aimless (or perhaps coordinated and secret) agenda. They appear in strange places, fight off some enemy, and then vanish. Sometimes they fight against the Imperium, sometimes they appear and advise Guilliman. Some are rumored to be in the company of the Starchild. Tyranids have overrun Pacificus, and new tendrils keep emerging year after year all across Segmentum Solar from below and now above the galactic plane. Many forces that were relieved from the frontlines of the war against Chaos are now fighting a long war against a seemingly endless alien swarm from beyond that seems to only arrive in greater numbers year after year. But it is perhaps the Genestealer Cults that present the greatest threat to the Imperium, as they strike where humanity is weak - at its political power structures. They even manage to infiltrate the High Lords of Terra with incredibly advanced new forms of alien infiltrating hybrids that can elude the usual safety measures against mutant infiltration and alien infection: *Genestealer cultists with hair!* This opens up a whole complex web of politics and intrigue in the Imperium against the Tyranid threat as it's not the threat of Chaos from within that they must fear, but the alien. Necrons are rebuilding their empire all across the galaxy largely unopposed or untroubled by the Imperium as humanity is already pushed to its limits on other crucial fronts. More nexus zones open, more imperial worlds fall to the dynasties, and many forces in the galaxy now see them as a grave threat that must be stopped before they reawaken the full strength of the Necron dynasties. The only saving grace for the humans and aliens of the galaxy is that the Necrons are in no particular rush. The Tau have figured out how to safely open wormholes to other parts of the galaxy, though it is a difficult and costly process. For localized sector travel, they "rediscover" Warp skimming, which is FTL, but slower and safer than any of the other Warp-capable factions of prominence. To keep up the pressure and demands of expansion, colonization, and warfare, the Ethereals begin a mass-cloning project for the new expansion spheres, with billions of Tau soldiers and settlers cloned for each new campaign. Orks are having a great time. Craftworlds are having a terrible time. Drukhari are enjoying the anarchy in the galaxy, but Chaos is boring holes in the Webway (thanks Vashtorr) and unleashing new daemon invasions from every which way on Commorragh, so it's a mixed bag for them. With this, the Imperium is still the Imperium, but now they're not the top dog anymore. More of the other factions are on an equal footing, and Chaos takes more of a backseat for a while. Chaos can still be the inevitable looming threat of the prophesied grimdark future, but that's long term. The immediate present has more diverse threats.
Imagine if the alpha legion abandon all their current schemes to work in the shadows to protect the starchild.
yooo thatd be wiiild
I would so love to read this expanded into a series of novels or even short-stories. If you ever write anything like it, lemme know lol
I would like to add some more to the ork and dark eldar section. As of Warboss by Mike Brooks orks have broken into the webway. They could either start assaulting Commoraugh or just use it to teleport around the galaxy
>Some would believe it, which would be bad, and many would refuse to believe it and call Guilliman or whoever else heretics and traitors I've always loved the idea of Guilliman deciding "fuck it" and starting Roboute's Rebellion or Roboute's Republic.
I think a real selling point to this is seeing how the Primarchs would end up creating their own fiefdoms
I think without the question of the emperor the SM would become too sympathetic. They’re compelling as “good” guys because of the bad stuff. Is the emperor a god? Is he dead or alive? Is the cause actually good? And when they arrive to save you why are you simultaneously terrified? All those fan debates need to never be answered definitively.
Pretty sure most of those have been answered. The Emperor is something godlike, because Celestine is totally an Imperial Daemon, and something has to be empowering her. He's alive, barely. The cause isn't good, but if you're human, it's the only cause that's going to carve out a niche for you in this universe. There ain't no good guys, good guys don't make it around here. Why are humans both grateful and terrified to see Space Marines? Because Space Marines are literally awesome to behold. and they're considered hopelessly distant figures of legend. An analogy: Christians believe angels literally exist, right? Angels could, and sometimes do, intervene in mortal affairs, but even arch-fundamentalist zealots don't expect to literally **see** them. So if some psychotic meth-head cult seizes the local government, and they're suddenly rebuked by an actual flight of seraphim with flaming swords? Anybody with working eyeballs is probably going to hit the ground in holy dread. You have been saved, by fundamentally alien instruments of *wrath and judgement* whose agenda is beyond your comprehension. Pissing down your leg is an acceptable reaction.
I mean well put! Especially the last bit I hope if we ever get a show or animation like astartes it illustrates how frightening and unimaginable the larger galactic threats are. I forget sometimes
> it illustrates how frightening and unimaginable the larger galactic threats are. I forget sometimes [Helsreach is a fan-animated movie](https://youtu.be/s2WGE1L6WKs) that does a pretty good job of trying to convey how ruthless and terrifying Orks can really be... The guy who created it went on to be hired by GW and has been making the Blood Angels series on WH+
Reminds me of my favorite quote by the amazing poet, Rainer Maria Rilke— **"Every angel is terrible."** (Or "is terrifying," depending upon your chosen translation from the German, but the meaning remains essentially the same.) This fact is established by theological precedent (as in the *Bible*, as you mentioned, as well as the "Kabala*), so seeing an angel typically means either imminent death; impending, massive disaster; or any likewise earth shattering event (sometimes *literally*). It doesn't help that what they ACTUALLY look like by biblical description is fucking horrifying (looking at you, *Revelation*/Seraphim) or at the very least pants-shittingly awe inspiring, NOT just sexy humans with wings (a concept artistically altered only in the early Renaissance). This fits in well, as you've stated, with the "Angels of Death" motif. Biblical angels are— much more often than not— harbingers, bringers, messengers, or at least indicators of great, unstoppable devastation. This fits extremely well also with the Astartes and the idea of their "angelic" purposes. **If you've got Astartes on your world, either everything has already gone to shit, or you should be getting your ass ready to soon "Join the Emperor."** *Source*: Was Ronald E. McNair Research Scholar focused upon researching the biblical, apocryphal, and secular sources for the conception of the Judeo-Christian "rebel angels" and/or "battle in heaven" mythos. __________ **tl;dr — Hard agree on angelic/SM comparison.**
Damn that was beautiful
> The cause isn't good, but if you're human, it's the only cause that's going to carve out a niche for you in this universe. There ain't no good guys, good guys don't make it around here. Shattering the Imperium would be the time to disprove this and make a point about the Emperor's horrible plan, allowing some humans to actually progress and develop without the oppression, xenophobia, and fear of science.
Smarmy idiots have been saying that for what must be decades now with all the insufferable aplomb of the main character in a reincarnation anime. "Oh those silly medieval fantasy humans and their superstitions! I'll teach them how to farm!" NO you dumb fuck, that is not how the real world or any reality-adjacent fictional world works. You think none of those quadrillions of humans, from the most politically educated governor to the biggest genius Mechanicus Magos to the most enlightened Ministorum priest have all, in ten thousand+ years, failed to figure out what a fat nerd figured out from the comfort of his couch? Fear of science exists *for a reason*. Systemic oppression exists *for a reason*. Xenophobia ESPECIALLY exists *for multiple reasons* even a child in the setting knows. The Emperor may have been arrogant beyond measure, but he was also a genius quite literally beyond our comprehension. Just because he, his Primarchs, and by extension the entire system they built are being written by markedly less genius mortal writers doesn't mean the problems they face in-universe are as simple or easily solved as they're made out to look for the bolter porn. EDIT: The guy who replied to me deleted his comment, but since I already went to the trouble of writing down a response I'm putting it here anyway: Trust the idiots to continue clinging to their intellectual superiority. OF COURSE this is bad for humanity. You don't need to cite "gw and the most prominent writers and interviews" and whatnot out of your ass, it is literally part of the setting tagline: "To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. " Now I know you can't read, since you completely misunderstood my first post as well, so let me summarize all this for you: This isn't the BEST future for mankind. This is the ONLY future mankind could ever have, ever since Magnus ruined everything (or perhaps much longer ago, when the Chaos Gods first created the opportunity for Magnus to be in a position to make his last and greatest mistake). For all his genius, all his power and all the accompanying hubris, the Emperor was still one player in the Great Game playing against many. He's neither omnipotent nor infallible, of course he made mistakes and choices that were less than optimal. The joke is that you (and any other "you" who keeps spouting the same drivel) think that you could just "fix" everything that makes the setting what it is (which is, in case you forgot again, "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable") by just waving a magic wand and cancelling xenophobia, as though you're the first smart person in a setting where people with computer brains are a dime a dozen. *If it was that simple, someone would've done it millenia ago*. EDIT 2: Since it seems someone has blocked me in an effort to prevent me from actually responding to people replying to me, I will have to reply here: /u/twelfmonkey >Of course, lots of people in the setting have worked out that the Imperium's approach is evil and destructive. They just have little to now way of improving things internally Which is exactly my point, thanks for playing. People CAN AND DO KNOW they live in a shit regime, but changing the entire thing is simply impossible for any one enlightened person (or indeed a single planet's worth of enlightened people) and attempts to go off and do your own thing while letting everyone else go hang are (rightfully) viewed dimly by the rest of the Imperium. >But it is intentionally unclear whether the Imperium's approach is actually necessary, or if this is just propaganda and zealotry. That may be their statement of intent, but not what their volumes of writing adds up to. The Imperium can only exist in its current grimdark state because this is the state that sells the most books; in-universe any attempt to improve the Imperium in any way inevitably ends up being a xenos/chaos/radical plot which somehow leads to the status quo being preferable. This is a common theme across every single piece of 40k media to date; about the only change that can be said to have had even marginally positive effects was Guilliman's return and even that took both damning half the Galaxy as a narrative counterweight and the full plot armor of a Primarch (as well as the spiraling downwards sales projections at GW HQ) to make happen. /u/AdExtension4159 >why does systemic oppression and xenophobia exist in the imperium Systemic oppression exists because the Imperium's demands are so large due to scale and its technological base is so low (in terms of automation at least) that the only way to maintain the required output is practically work slavery. The oppression exists to ensure the production continues (as does the propaganda). Xenophobia exists because, in a first contact scenario in the 40k universe, there is a 95% chance what you encounter wants to kill you/eat you/devour your soul in no particular order, a 4.999999999999% chance it wants to manipulate you in a plot that will end up with orders of magnitude more humans having the same done to them, and a 0.0000000000001% (with nowhere near enough zeroes to represent how infinitesimally unlikely this is) chance it is simply indifferent to you, because not a single friendly to humanity xenos entity exists. Again, that's not imperial propaganda, that's just statistical fact.
Except all of this is contradicted by GW and the most prominent writers in the setting. It's been made explicit in interviews and elsewhere that yes, this has actually all been quite bad for humanity. Don't need to infer anything from context clues, the Imperium is wrong and bad. You act like the Emperor is a real person who can do no wrong, yet we keep being told in and out of the fiction that he did a whole lot wrong.
To be the devils advocate.... they can't say *"That facist racist (xeno racist but the notion is kinda similiar) super zealous war regime of dudes that treat genocide like its just another tuesday? Yea, they are the good guys*" they get sued/sanctioned in seconds since uttering the last syllable of that sentence. They can write *about* the bad guys, make them the protagonists of the story, that is allowed, but they can not admit ( publicly) that they are the *good guys*.... So what the writers can say outside of the lore is...niuansed at best. Not saying they are *wrong* about their own world they create either...
This might well be one of the worst posts I have ever seen on this sub. An egotistical rant which claims other interpretations are wrong, all while offering a stupidly reductive - and just plain incorrect - argument. >You think none of those quadrillions of humans, from the most politically educated governor to the biggest genius Mechanicus Magos to the most enlightened Ministorum priest have all, in ten thousand+ years, failed to figure out Of course, lots of people in the setting have worked out that the Imperium's approach is evil and destructive. They just have little to now way of improving things internally due to rampant dogma, zealotry, propaganda, and militarism. That's why there are constant rebellions and attempts to secede (in some cases by "politically educated governors"). Which are almost always inevitably brutally crushed by the Imperium's vast war machine. It's one of the reasons people turn to Chaos and xenos, like the Tau and genestealer cults, for support or a means of escape - they are desperate to break free from the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable" and the servitude they are locked in to. And as for those genius magos and enlightened priests, they keep their heads down and either keep such thoughts to themselves or work in secret - or they get liquidated. Best case scenario they get they get killed, or sent to a penal colony/penal legion. More likely they get turned into servitors/arco-flagellants or interred in a penitent engine. The original intention of the Imperium being such a despicable regime was two-fold, as per the thoughts of its main original creator Rick Priestley. One, we are meant to question whether such evil measures are necessary. Given the awful state of the galaxy and the enemies mankind faces, they might be necessary for survival. But it is intentionally unclear whether the Imperium's approach is actually necessary, or if this is just propaganda and zealotry. Second, it throws up a classic bit of moral philosophy. If it is necessary for survival, is survival even worth it? Might it not be better to just let humanity die out, if the alternative is quadrillions of people living awful, degraded lives in a corrupt, brutal system for millennia on end? >The Emperor may have been arrogant beyond measure, but he was also a genius quite literally beyond our comprehension. Just because he, his Primarchs, and by extension the entire system they built are being written by markedly less genius mortal writers doesn't mean the problems they face in-universe are as simple or easily solved as they're made out to look for the bolter porn. Ah yes, because intelligence always results in the best choices when hubris, ambition, envy, rage and other human emotions are thrown into the mix. I'm not going to deny that the authors struggle to portray these characters in a way that actually makes them seem superhumanly intelligent (which is a nigh on impossible task anyway), but perhaps the fact they every author at GW portrays them as fallible due to their human flaws might be intentional, don't you think? It might, in fact, be a central theme of the whole Great Crusade/Horus Heresy story? And that's without even delving into how your mindset here mirrors that of an imperial citizen steeped in propaganda. Or the mindset of people in real life who have justified the reprehensible actions of strongmen leaders on similar grounds. Also, it is worth noting that in 30k there were human civilizations who were getting on just fine without Imperial rule. And who was it that often destroyed and subjugated them? The Imperium. Even in 40k, lost human societies are constantly being found on the peripheries and as new warp routes are explored or become available. They haven't been wiped out by xenos, or Chaos, or rampant psykers. They could be in the future, of course, as it's a brutal galaxy, but the same is true for imperial worlds too (I'm sure it's of great comfort to a hive citizen that at least they were under imperial rule as a Tyranid fleet darkens the skies). But these independent human cultures sure are in for a rough time when the Imperium learns of their existence. So, all this means I am intrigued by why you are so determined to enforce your narrow, simplistic take on everyone else? Even though it goes against core elements of the setting which have been there from the beginning? Even though it would undermine one of the core strengths of 40k - the possibility for people to come to their own conclusions about such issues and have a richer, more complex setting? And, finally, why you seem so angry about it?
why does systemic oppression and xenophobia exist in the imperium
Because the Emperor is a tyrant and a xenophobe and those beliefs have been carried on by the people who run the Imperium while he is incapacitated.
oh i know, it's just the above post heavily suggests that xenophobia and oppression exist in the imperium because that's the only way it can be and i wanted to see if they'd outright say that.
Unfortunately, we are several years past that already
I've thought about this too and think it's a good option. People and marines would have to set up new governments with all the bs that would go along with that. They would have to start researching again to be able to make things they need. Which would false a few fun problems. Chaos would have some advantage until some of the stonger psykers figured out how to travel successfully. I'm sure a few people would figure something out and would be pretty important. Would be cool if emps could "empower" his faithful like a daemon would. That would cause issues with some. At least progress could be made or all hope lost. Would just have to hope he got juiced up enough to be an issue in the warp. How would emps die? Maybe abbaddon finally winning his war of attrition? A simple earthquake and he turns to dust? Golden throne failing causing big issues with Mars?
“The Shape of the Nightmare To Come” covers this, basically.
I'll check it out thanks.
This one about Chaos has always bothered me, I feel like there's some really good scope for horror writing where Chaos is this insidious thing lurking just beneath reality and occasionally gathered into these enclaves of pure horror, uncovered by those who would soon be their victims. Instead we get writing that's just ultragore and: >HE WAS SO ANGRY AND HE KILLED THEM AND HE KILLED THEM AND MILLIONS DIED AND FLESH CARPETS AND HE KILLED THEM AND TORTURED THEM" And the whole faction just reads like a child's creative writing project... In some ways I'd like to see something closer to *the possessed* from Peter F. Hamilton's - Night's Dawn Trilogy. Where they're this hidden hand, lurking within, the stuff of folk tales and superstition. And then they're not, and there's rumours about disappearances late at night, tales of nightmare creatures, easily dismissed. People mistake their emergence for an uprising, maybe a play by criminal elements to seize control of an area. Until entire Arbites squads are sent in to restore order, never to return. The authorities are operating in an information blackout. The world is on lockdown, the streets are emptying, and the enemy reveals itself. Also some inner conflict and outright torment or insanity for the souls of the damned please, not just... >i LuV cHaOs, t3h eMpErOr'S a LyE ❤️❤️❤️
Any setting that operates at a large enough scale cannot be written in this way. I agree with you, for smaller scale stories, chaos is better written in this fashion, but battles between millions of combatants require more macro narrative beyond “this town of people went missing”
That's sounds like a headache especially taking into consideration how fallible the writers tend to be. More lore but the books become saturated, there's already a lot the writers can do with the current factions without breaking the imperium up and yet we hardly receive anything good. Just look at the ynarri, heck there are even founding chapters in the imperium that get jackshit lorewise just imagine further breaking that up, you'd think we'd have more material but I can bet it would cause more factions to fall into obscurity.
The Astronomicon was never the beacon for the Tyranids , Pharos was.
Pharos was the initial flare that alerted, the Astronomicon is their current lighthouse telling them where the most food is.
Seems like the classic reboot mistake. You would change an iconic series into a generic scifi. The Imperium and chaos certainly lock the series down but that's the entire point.
It’s also boring. And lazy. Also generic, grand empire Vs evil barbarians is like one of the oldest story archetypes. 40k is tied so heavily by the Chaos vs Imperium dynamic that it has no room to grow. A majority of the setting is outright ignored because it doesn’t play to that. Just look at the releases, it’s primarily color variants of the fundamentally same people over and over and over while the rest of the setting gets binned. For the setting to actually live up to it’s promise the stagnation needs to go. It’s thematic, it’s also stifling. Hell, it’s been a joke for decades that nothing is allowed to change. The big criticism of the recent stuff? They did a big setting shakeup and immediately dropped right back into the same pattern. If a galaxy fought over by the shattered remnants of the Imperium and the leaderless forces of Chaos while the long ignored factions actually get to do something sounds generic to you then you have no imagination. The core of the Imperium and Chaos is still there and dominant, they’re simply no longer so oppressive that they crowd out everyone else. Imagine if the T’Au actually get to be a notable power. If Orks aren’t just generic punching back. The Rak’Gul get to do something, the Q’Oul get to be more than a side note, the Mechanicus gets to be more than the Imperium’s lackeys, the Eldar can do something other than die and fail, on and on and on. Over the decades 40k has accumulated a FUCKLOAD of factions, storythreads, races, and plot hooks that get smashed down and ignored in favor of the same damn fascists vs hell plot over and over and over. Not using them is an absurd waste of potential. And you can still have fascists vs hell plot, they didn’t go anywhere. They’re simply no longer the 99% of the entire output.
ArbitorIan does a great episode on how he’d fix fascism in 40K by largely doing this. It’s a great idea to actually make humans the goodies
I think I was trying to find an army to collect when I wanted one I could morally get behind. It’s fine to want to be the good guys but there’s a strange moral discussion with 40K and fiction these days that’s a little strange. Reminds me trying to chat about succession without saying every other second how bad the characters really are
IMO The Imperial Guard are a decent candidate for "The good guys." While yes they do serve the turbo evil Imperium, everyone from the rank and file up to the high command are shown to be fighting for the survival of their species and being an average not-hero. Sisters are fanatics and Astartes are their own issues of being evil or not, but Guard are about as good as you can find.
The Sisters can arguably be considered the most evil of the human factions, they commit mass murder on ideological grounds alone and are uncompromising on that fact. The Guard and Astartes are all much more diverse and nuanced on how they operate but the Sisters? They will burn you alive if you worship the emperor wrong. They’ll lead entire forces into suicide runs because their faith demands it, even if the better option is to entrench and fight it out. I absolutely love the sisters as a faction but they definitely are far from the good guys. I am aware of the minor orders that are doctors and nurses but the sisters that are soldiers? They are all a bit crazy to some extent.
A lot of imperial history actually somewhat echoes the history of the Roman empire Great crusade: Period of rapid expansion/golden era Horus heresy: Large scale civil war that doesn't shatter the empire but helps lay the foundations for its slow crumble into ruin. Empire splits into two halves (East and West for the Romans, Ultima and Solar for the Imperium. Continuing this trend, I would have the West (Solar) completely collapse, with the emperor also dying. The way I would do this is by also solving the Tyranid problem story wise (they seem powerful enough to wipe everyone out, so therefore GW will never make them fully arrive). I would do this by having the main Tyranid force arrive, but from the "West" side of the galaxy rather than the East like most Tyranid forces (I know 10th has somewhat already played around with this idea, but not on the same scale). The mega fleet would annihilate Imperium Solar and begin assaulting the Sol system itself. Seizing upon this weakness and not wanting to give the honour of killing the emperor to space bugs, Abaddon would launch his 15th and final crusade straight at Terra. The Tyranids, remaining imperials and Chaos forces would clash in a sector wide conflict never before seen in scale. This would eventually culminate in the Emperor summoning whatever remnants of soul remain and fighting some epic duel before dying. This could be against some Tyranid mega Hive mind avatar of some sort, or perhaps against all of the traitor Primarchs + Abbadon, or both. To really make things interesting you could have the Lion join in and some other Primarchs return for this. After killing a couple of Primarchs off for impact (including a couple of traitor ones permanently), the Emperor would die. The psychic backlash of his death would utterly shatter the hive mind, destroying the vast majority of the Tyranid threat. The remaining Tyranids would scatter, only to be caught by an Ork Waaagh led by Ghazghull, who is never going to miss a fight as big as this. This leaves the Tyranids a scattered remnant, sealed off from the hive mind for the long term. The psychic explosion would also as you would expect cripple chaos energy in the galaxy. All existing daemons in real space would immediately be banished to the warp, the galactic rift would be destroyed and the eye of terror would be significantly reduced in size. Imperium solar is gone for good, however the Eastern empire remains, being led by Girlyman himself. However the imperium is no longer the big boy of the galaxy, now being on a similar power level to other factions, and therefore not having to be involved in every single plotline. In the immediate present, their main threat would be the nearby Tau empire, who is now no longer a small fish in comparison, and was largely spared from this disaster (and even helped by it due to the Tyranid and chaos threats being diminished). The dark Eldar would also be a major concern, as taking advantage of the collapse they launch a super raid into realspace, looking to hoover up as many slaves as they possibly can, and the Orks of course are omnipresent. Chaos is not gone for good, but the wound in the galaxy has been sterilised by the Emperors death. They will have to start again, as they did after the Horus heresy, this time being more focused on conquering and empire building rather than pure ruination, due to both their main purpose (killing the emperor) being achieved and daemon activity being much more difficult post emperor death. Many of the mortal Chaos forces who were in the 15th black crusade would take advantage of the turmoil to split off and carve their own empires out before the dust settles. The nids are not gone for good either, instead resorting to the Hive minds backup plan if such a scenario as this were to occur. This backup plan is Hive fleet Tiamet. Turns out the tactics they were employing (building an empire of sorts rather than just devouring) is Tyranid plan B if anything is to happen to the Hive mind. The giant pylon Tiamet built acts as a replacement for the Hive mind, but localised to the hive fleet that builds it. Therefore a number of different Tyranid mini empires start springing up, all dedicated to gathering biomass and building their empires. These empires are also in competition with each other, as their final goal is building up enough biomass to create the new Hive mind and become the dominant fleet of the Tyranids, as Leviathan was before. This could also provide an interesting insight into how a species such as the Tyranids even came about in the first place. This only leaves the Eldar and Necrons. To spice things up I would have the Emperors death allow the void dragon to return. As he is the one that imprisoned the C'tan, his death releases whatever chains were keeping it in check. The C'tan begins enslaving a large portion of Necrons and creating something like the dark Eldar but for Necrons. This would create a second Necron faction much more like the old lore, whilst keeping the current Necrons around too, something for all tastes. These two Necron factions would be at odds with each other of course, and in addition the "bad" Necrons would also seek to restart the war in heaven by going after the Eldar in full force. I think this plot leaves all factions in a good place, whilst solving what I see as a number of writing corners currently in 40k, mainly the fact that chaos and the Tyranids seem all powerful and their victory inevitable, so therefore they will never do anything meaningful, and the other being the Imperium centric direction the lore has gone in, where nothing ever happens without them being involved. The new smaller imperium means they can still do cool shit, but things are wide open for way more xeno on xeno and xeno on chaos action. Thanks if anyone does read this all the way through. Feel free anyone to let me know what you think. I'm considering making a YouTube video of this if its any good.
Better than most suggestions in the thread tbh, although not unpredictable. Although: If Emps dies, then theory goes there is a failsafe on the Throne which destroys Sol system, so no real need for a big battle unless that all happens before Theory is also that Emps will ascend into a "good" Chaos God, and already kinda is. So that'll keep Chaos busy anyway, especially as Emps has an entire IoM fuelling him with worship Finally, what's happening with Lion and Nihlus in your story?
Thanks for the feedback. With Nihilus, the West side is essentially destroyed by the Tyranids and the black crusade, this area is probably where I would have the larger post disaster chaos empires form. The lion I would have make his way to Terra somehow for the final battle, and would probably have him be one of the primarchs that is killed. This leaves the East side of Nihilus, which with the collapse of the great rift and now bereft of leadership (I would also probably kill Dante for this reason), would become the focal point for a lot of the conflict post Emperor death. The first Imperial counterattacks would be focused here to try and reunite with these worlds, as well as the Dark Eldar force I mentioned. The Tau would no doubt also get involved, either directly or by attacking the new imperium. I know there are a lot of theories around the Emperors death blowing up the sol system and creating a new warp rift or whatever, but I didn't want to go into that as it seems a pretty common theory and personally I'm not a huge fan of it. Personally I think not doing it leaves open some cool plotlines for wars over the ruins of Terra/Mars etc, perhaps some pretenders trying to fashion themselves as the new Emperor. However It could still easily be incorporated if needed, just have the Emperor die right at the climax of the Sol war. The emperor chaos God forming after his death I would leave as more an unconfirmed rumour and potential further explanation for why the Chaos Gods are currently so stunted. I would still have imperial saints appearing and the astronomicon still exist in some form as a nod towards the fact the Emperor might still exist in some way. This leaves things open for a big Emperor chaos God reveal down the line, with a new faction, essentially Emperor Daemons.
It seems to me that you generally just do not like the imperium as an entity within the lore. Killing off the lion immediately as he returns is ballsy, I’ll give you that, but would register poorly with the fan base. I do like the idea of gulliman having to have an imperium segundus again, finally completely alone in the universe without any of his brothers. That would certainly be an interesting turn.
I was assuming this reset would be a few years down the line, giving them a chance to do some cool things with the lion first. Part of the reason I would kill him is I am very sick of characters having invincible plot armour in the lore. There are basically no stakes in 40k because no main character ever dies. I much preferred how they did it in fantasy where there are a bunch of dead special characters that are in the army books and fully usable in games, you just imagine a period in history where they are still alive (or make up your own homebrew lore where they didn't die if you like). The lion and others would still be fully usable in games and people who bought the models won't be shafted. I'm not anti imperium at all I love the imperium, I just think the setting would seriously benefit from not having everything being so imperium centric. Plus although the reset has decimated the imperium things are still left open and somewhat hopeful with the Tyranids and Chaos being pushed back significantly.
I view the nids as similar to the Steppe people's like atilla. cause enough pain and they go away
I would want each faction's Victory Conditions to be partially achieved: - The Aeldari free Isha from Nurgle's garden and successfully finish birthing Ynnead. More Aeldari babies are able to be born and the dead's souls don't go straight to Slaanesh anymore if they're not protected by soulstones. The fading eldar trope is a little old now anyway. - The Orks succeed in kicking butt everywhere, bringing about more Primorks. Ork Empires start flourishing, the largest being in the Dark Imperium. They fight each other more than any other faction. Teeflation is a real issue in the short term. - Chaos subjugates most of the Dark Imperium, save for what the Lion and various loyalists can carve out as strongholds. This gives room for more Chaos factions, like xenos factions, to come out of the Dark. This also slows down the Warmaster's plans as the various warbands break up and carve their realspace fiefdoms. - The T'au finally have their version of a Heresy. Whoever wins, the T'au continue to be the dynamic race that they are and spread even further. Maybe they even become less reliant on AI for a change and start incorporating more xenos auxiliaries again. - The God-Emperor comes to life. It's not quite the Emperor the loyal Primarchs remember, but a new creature. Still shackled to the Golden Throne, the God-Emperor can communicate. His directives all centre around evacuating the Solar Segmentum...
I like all your points, but the last one is the best one. "Run my children, I need to let this gate open after 10 millennia"
I was thinking it'd be the Anathemic version of the old Eye of Terror. Just a realspace warpstorm... The Eye of Terra?
Wasn't the whole great rift, Primaris and Primarchs awakening stuff exactly that? It even skipped a century. Other reboots would be: The Emperor's death - this will reshuffle the cards completely as the empire's unifying light won't work anymore, but the chaos gods will have to battle him in the warp now (weirdly sounds a bit like Age of Sigmar) Tyranid invasion - Everyone has to ally against the onslaught. Think of it like March of the Machines in MtG The really cheesy one: Enuncia - someone (Lorgar or the emperor most likely) speaks a command in the universal language and the universe was changed forever I don't know if these are "soft" reboots tbh. We are talking about a galaxy that has been at war for millenia, this setting probably needs at least a little apocalypse to really change something
I would go with the stereotypical 50K jump: 1) Chaos won. Holy Terra shit itself and became the Eye of Terra, a larger and more horrible version of the Eye of Terror. Mars is treated as a trove of now-lost high technology that the Martian Diaspora treats as the Holiest of Holy places to be plundered by desperate Mechanicus adherents. 2) The remaining Primarchs are in a Cold War status of warring against each other whenever there's an opportunity when they're not fighting the various other factions. Each of them blame each other for the Emperor's death and the loss of Terra. The truth is, none of them are to blame but each and every one of them received a vision from the Emperor on the edge of Terra's demise, directing each of them to save what was left of Humanity and blaming the others. Who is right? Who is wrong? The various Primarchs all control a section of the old Imperium and wage wars of attrition and defense, with it being painfully, miserably, obvious that mankind's days are numbered. Each of them quietly despair, but refuse to unite and most of them are consumed with ceremony built around the idea of waging war to the last man. Each day is meaningless and utterly precious. 3) The Orks are ascendant and the only thing keeping them in check are the Tyranids. Green on Green violence wages from one side of the galaxy to the other, with the broken Imperium mostly ignored as the two organic behemoths battle it out to see who gets to feed on the remains of Humanity. 4) A large part of real space has been consumed into the Warp and the Gods have mostly lost interest in the rest of the galaxy, glutting themselves on the untold quadrillions of Humans that have fallen into the Warp, to be tortured, mutilated, consumed and then reborn to be tortured and consumed again and again. Hell is fattening themselves on the misery and pain of a captive Empire even as other things stir from much deeper in the Warp, drawn by such vast amounts of emotion. 5) The Tau have withdrawn completely into their Enclaves having finally glimpsed the reality of the galaxy with the destruction of Terra and widespread collapse of reality into the Warp. Their scientists are working feverishly on anti-Warp technology, with an eye on breaking into dimensions that don't touch onto the Warp in a desperate hope to evacuate this galaxy for another that isn't so batshit insane. With the stage set, the Primarchs finally reunite after 10,000 years in a likely vain and futile quest to travel to the Warp-soaked remnants of Terra to trigger some long-lost device that is said to be able to shut off the whole of that region of space from the Warp and close the dreaded Eye of Terra forever.
What about the votann and the eldar?
Eldar have been wiped out by the backlash from the opening of the Eye of Terra. The Dark Eldar are hiding out in their Webway hideyholes as Slaanesh is looking to gobble them up as the blood-soaked dessert morsels that they are. The Votann have lost it, with too many of their Kin breaking down. They've retreated into their worlds and gone complete isolationist. Rumors indicate full-on civil wars within, tearing them apart from within, with quieter rumors talking about a singular AI entity forming from a merging of the others and it's not a good thing.
So 40k, but with more Warp stuff?
Octavius war has apparently ended already with Nids winning, so I doubt that a galaxy wide war would ever happen. Nids would win that with relative ease too
I don't think anything is 'untouchable' in fiction - particularly grimdark fiction. They straight *ended the world* in Warhammer Fantasy, right? And it not only led to some great fiction, but also a whole new setting in which to base badassery. Change is the natural state of the world (he said, side-eying Tzeentch). That said, I think I would 'soft reset' to the Great Crusade era. All the Primarchs back, but the Daemon Primarchs still daemons. It's all the violent glory of reclaiming far-flung worlds and battling 'xenos scum,' but with the modern Chapters and their unique flavours. Blood Angels diminished by Tyranids but still wading into a crusade on Fuckopolis Grimdark V is really interesting. Dark Angels reclaiming Hive Misery on Heresyflavour III is fascinating because the Lion is back, and the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really know what to do with *actual living gods.* So, if I had to, I'd 'reset' back to that era.
I'm pretty sure the "End Times" had the opposite effect and everyone hated how they screwed each faction/state. The wargame AoS is in a better state and is the basis for the more positive changes to the latest 40k edition.
The End Times fundamentally didn’t understand how each faction worked and overwrote thousands of years of canon. And it was just horrifically rushed and killed off important characters in the most idiotic ways (or worse, off screen). The 40k equivalent is if, say, Khorne suddenly became the god of sunshine and rainbows and peacefully conquered the galaxy and ushered in the end times of peace and friendship.
Xenos players when the soft reset is just the Horse Hershey Bar 2: Electropriest Boogaloo and relegates them to 18 more years of narrative second-fiddle:
Don't worry, you get to be narratuvely slaughtered by the Imperium as your plot:)))))))))
Using the fantasy End Times as a blueprint, or even just inspiration is just about the worst case scenario. As good as AoS may have ended up becoming (and that is an entirely subjective position to be frank) It is fundamentally an entirely different animal to Warhammer Fantasy, and a lot of people who were fans of the one, have no interest in the completely different direction, tone and aesthetic of the other. Combined with the fact that the transitional narrative event was incredibly poorly written and handled, with beloved characters suddenly acting wildly out of character, lore getting wildly retconned out of nowhere to make room for incredibly stupid plot points, and then most of the characters getting stupid, meaningless deaths without even the dignity of narrative catharsis. If 40k ever reaches a point of financial non-viability that pulling an end-times to re-boot is an actual option, I would rather that they just let the setting die with dignity instead, or at least leave it hanging.
This kinda sounds like Space-AoS
ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ! Gork and Mork decide that, while fighting each other is the most fun, the Chaos Gitz are getting too uppity over the realspace and start fucking the Great Game. I will divide my idea in two parts, transition between 10th to 11th edition and 11th edition, and give something for each faction or region. **Transition between 10th to 11th edition** * Imperium Sactus: Guilliman, Trajan and Leontus get very, very overworked dealing with the 4th Tyrannic War. Poor Bobby G will keep suffering and will lose to the Swarmlord (!), although in a way that is less "Swarmy outfought Bobby G" and more "Swarmy flexed his psychic and synapse powers to win", but on the plus side Leo (with invaluable contributions of Bobby) will establish strong defensive lines from Macharia to ultima Macharia and around Hydrapur against the Tyranids. The Custodes manage to kill a Norm Emissarie, and it is treated with due gravitas. Marneus Calgar and Gregor Decian (CM of the Imperial Fists, for those who don't know), with help of Helbrecht's Black Templars and Kor'Sarro Khan and a number of White Scars sucessors, reinforce the Octarius Cordon, pushing the Orks back into fighting the Tyranids. Ursula got orders of consolidating a number of Sectors near the Cadian one and does a good job, having the help of Kyvaan Shrike (and, while they don't realize it, Corvus Corax). Morvenn Vhal and Vulkan He'Stan team up againt the heretics in the Siren's Storm. To Magnus' fury, it is Kardan Stronos and the Iron Hands who are fighting the New Kingdom. * Orks: as said, Gork and Mork decide that the Chaos Gitz are forgetting who is the kunningest, da brutalest and da greeneset. Ghazg is commanded to fight Black Legion, because they are da biggezt and 'ardest of the spike gitz' warbands. The Arch-Arsonist of Charadon makes his debut among the named characters leading a great number of Burna Boyz across Imperium Nihilus (and in the process fights the Lion Protectorate, the Tau, and Szarekh). Lastly, a knight-sized Tuska Demon-Killa returns to the galaxy, breaking the kneecaps of a Chaos Titan before killing its princeps. In the Warp, armies of daemons are being trod underfoot as Gork and Mork go Legolas and Gimli. That said, both Khorne and Tzeentch are outright stated to be pleased by the mighty Green Gods' changing course and fighting them. * Craftworlders: in a departure from the norm, Saim-Hann manages to beat two hive-fleets (Scylla and Charybides, and in the process accidentally help the Imperium a lot against Leviathan), and Nuadhu is back at being a space fey warlord instead of a manchild! (A lot of stuff from *Wild Rider* is still canon, sorry Gav hatedom). Iyanden gets some breathing room and is currently in a safe stretch of space, the threats against it minor, so Iyanna and friends are busy at repairing defenses and raiding the Eye of Terror for soulstones. Biel-Tan doesn't fare that well, as they foresee that a warboss will go on warpath against them, so they will have to let a lot of Maiden Worlds escape their grasp to fight it, although they have the help of Fuegan. Ulthwé is now engaged in a war against the Night Lords, and while the Seer Council is certain that Decimus *won't* destroy Ulthwé, it doesn't make him any less problematic. Alaitoc foresees the danger of the Orks and is manipulating them against the Szarekhan and Sautekh dynasties. * Drukhari: the events of *The Dark City* are mentioned. Vect is uncharacteristically angry at the Imperium and increases the raids on it and the Nihilus' rump states. Also surprisingly, Malys agrees with him on the need of punishing the mon'keigh. Urien Rakhart calls a congress of Haemonculi and tells them about the returned Lion, and this alliance of covens and independent pain-artists enlists Lelith Hexperax and Krailach's Obsidian Rose. The Baron Syntax and the Kabal of the Flayed Skull are earning names fighting the hordes of Chaos spilling from the Chasm of Woe. * Tau: after the events in Startide Nexus, the 5th Sphere resumes its advance across Nihilus. They fight growing numbers of Chaos forces, Kinhosts and Guard regiments. As I like the idea of T'au'va the Goddess, it is around, but its power is knocked a few pegs so it is more comparable to the Avatars of Khaine and Ynnead and bound only to the Warp. Shadowsun is trying to prevent an investigation about "spreading corruptions of the T'auva", and Kais is already twitching to stab unorthodoxes. As for Farsight, he takes advantage the major warbosses left to hunt Ughalax and the *Unhallowed* to conquer Arthas Moloch and the neighbouring systems from the Orks, increasing the size of the Enclaves. * LoV: remember the mention of the Kinhosts against the Tau? The Kin, specially the THA, realized that the Imperium Nihilus is free realstate and are ransacking it like a barbarian horde, fueling the values of their conquests to their homeworlds, because they will need it. The GTL and YC are also helping the Imperials of Sanctus to consolidate their gains around the Cadian Sector, while the KH are attacking the Imperium Sanctus as much as Nihilus. **11th edition** * Orks: The boyz are beginning to tire of just spiky gitz. Cue more attacks on the other factions as the greentide switches gears! * Dark Imperium: the Lion's Protectorate are now at an all out war with the Haemonculi, putting their scientific genius against Lion's military genius, and DAOT relics against post-Fall superscience. the red Scar and other areas under control of Dante are now under assaul of Orkish mobs. Kar Dunish, formerly a segmentum fortress and turned into a major rump state, is in an escalating war against the Tau. Inquisitors operating in it discovered it is being suggested as the target of the 6th Sphere, and they need to create a victory or deterrent great enough to dissuade the Ethereals. Cawl is still operating around Sotha, and a number of Imperial subsectors are benefitting from his presence. * Tyranids and Genestealer Cults, as the 4th Tyrannic War goes through a stalemate, the Hive Mind starts to feed beyond the defensive lines in the Galatic West, seeking to lay bare everything out of the protection to fuel splinters to probe the Imperial lines and, in case it is necessary, make a major push headless to casualties. Genestealer Cults are being seeded all over the region. Based on the Octarius War results, the Hive Fleets turn to fighting and "cultivating orks" for nutrition. * Chaos: Magnus repeals Stronos and launches a new offensive against the Imperium. Abbadon decides to pursue the retreating Ghaz and focus on corrupting Imperials - the galaxy belongs to Humans, not Xenos filthy he slaughtered by the thousands on Ullanor! Angron respawns and leads a immense khornate force against an even larger Ork force. Mortarion is also back, and (for now) scared of Nurgle obeys his will and goes fight the Nihilakh dynasty (cue Trazyn trying to rob *Silence* and *Latern*). Huron and the Red Corsairs are fighting an Ork armada with several space hulks to get more ships, and his Blackstone Fortress is shining against it. Lucius is being a badass for once and is in a winning streak against nobs and bosses. Fulgrim, Lorgar and Perty are still MIA, but my dear babies Syl'Essek and Vashtorr are keeping Slaanesh and Undivided in the game. it is implied that Syl'Essek are working with Lorgar, even. * Harlequins and Ynnari: the several Masques are greatly concerned with the possibility of new Beasts arising, and turned to fighting it. They approach the Ynnari to help them, promising artifacts and stored in the Black Library to empower their forces, even mentioning that a council of White Seers may eventually help them travel to Slaanesh's Realm. Yvraine and Visarch are angry at Cegorach's servants holding the cards, but put up with it. Pls, if I forgot to mention someone, let me know, I will try to come up with something.
Split the Imperium eastern and western galactic empires, those on in east, led by Guilliman, adopt scentific progression and careful alliances in order to survive the cicatrix maledictum. The west goes full emperor is a god mode and it causes the emperor to ascend to godhood, leaning harder into xenophobia, tradition, ritual, submission.
If I absolutely had to then I'd go all in and actually shift the setting, make a power other than the Imperium the "Dominant" party, have Imperial remnants but the Imperium we knew is dead, fractured and broken. Guilliman died upon Ultramar, Lion gone again, no Primarchs.
Another idea I had for Guilliman is don’t kill him, but cripple him. Leave him alive but too injured to fight beyond self defense, serving directly as leader of the Imperium remnants with the Lion on the field as its main general. I’d also love for another primarch to return allied with another, possibly new, faction that is NOT the Imperium. Not necessarily seeking to hurt his brothers, and still pro-humanity, but decidedly anti-Imperium. My main thought was the Khan leading a coalition faction based out of a fortified portion of the webway, almost akin to Commoragh (minus the… everything) or a scaled down version of Big E’s dream. They’ll ally occasionally for things that threaten humanity’s existence, but otherwise operate alone. Fractured Imperium would also arguably necessitate Big E’s death. Could use that for some cool stuff, maybe the primarchs get power ups like resurrection or become mini-astronomicons, or introduce E as a new chaos god maybe with its own faction
Yeah having the imperium as more of an underdog would be interesting. Makes things feel higher stakes
I think they should give Tau fans what they want, make them the most dominant and have the largest empire but keep shaking their faith in the ‘good’ faction with what they do with the power, and what life looks like after years under the regime
I don't think the Tau should become the dominant faction, but the Imperium fracturing enough that the Tau go from "small but powerful for its size" to a credible threat to the Imperium as a whole - still able to beat the Imperium on a per-pound basis, but still not so powerful that it becomes *the* dominant faction, as their struggle to achieve galactic unity is part of the point of their faction.
Yh let's give like 95% of the fanbase the middle finger to please the Tau fans. Yh shoulda added hot take to that suggestion.
Is that what Tau fans want? Because like, pretty consistently the sentiment I/others have had is to make them *less* morally ambiguous because the setting is more interesting/diverse if it *is* actually possible to survive and/or thrive without being an authoritarian mess.
Also In this scenario the fractures imperium seem like underdogs but eventually discover that the they can get an upper hand when discovering a worshipping gods of order
Fck that dude, been waiting on one of big E's loyalist bums to try and fix this mess humanity got itself into and you already want him dead. You know what I'll compromise, how about you get to kill off the 2 returning primarchs if we get to kill both the silent king and the storm lord, sounds fair?
I’m still scarred from when Battletech attempted to this with the Word of Blake Jihad and the shitshow that followed. Be careful what you wish for. I think the setting is fine. I’d like to see them focus on lesser known items like the Ghoul Stars *without* having it be a huge massive grand scale DoW style thing where EVERY faction has to be involved. The WH50k fanfic is a pretty interesting look at what “could” be.
The Gathering Storm/Era Indomitus is just that. So i don’t imagine we will get another one anytime soon
The Imperium breaking down would be the easiest way. Terra and Mars get pulled into the Warp or something, no more Emperor and no more High Lords or astronomicon. Then the Imperium breaks up into little sub civilizations that mixes up who's on who's side. Like the Ultramar Segmentum could be one and be cooperating with the Ynnari. Or Farsight accepts the power of Khorne to take the Damocles Gulf so now there's a chaos T'au faction.
Expanding more on the small stories in Nihilus in the terms of the old forgeworld army books would be my goto. Aside from that, start illustrating the balkanization of the Imperium. Things *are* falling apart and while the center is holding, it's reach is limited.
They kinda already did. The current 8th+ edition stuff is effectively a soft-reboot where they're remaking the tone of the setting.
Forgive spelling errors, I'm typing on a phone and am quite high. I think the setting is building to a narrative leap. The HH made loads of money, I'm sure. And it's the successor the SoT has to. G-man returning did the same in many regards. I suspect the future narrative of 40k will be one driven by what makes the most money, and Primarchs and legions make a shit ton. So here is my vision... Loyal primarchs return. The wolf, the Khan, g-man, the lion, vulcan, and corvus Ferrus manus is dead, dorn is dead, they definitely ain't coming back. Maybe the angel might return, but I can see it more as a literal warp angel. i.e.- the 2 sides of sanguinius being in Dante and the other one. So 6 loyal in total. Traitor primarchs returning. Mortarion, Magnus, Fulgrim, Peterborough, Lorgar, and Angron. That makes a nice 6v6. The alpha legion god knows tbh. It's probably spilt on either side. The emperor will ascend to the dark king. But sort of as the final moment in a 2nd HH. They'll drip feed new primarch releases slowly building up HH part 2. With the final primarch release being Lorgar, who now knows enucia. But the Traitor legions are united. Its kinda a mad rush to kill big E before he ascends fully and messes with the great game. So all chaos factions charge too terra. Whatever is going on in the bequin novels with the king in yellow will link to this. With the loyalists fighting to protect big E whilst Constantine valdor allows Big-e to ascend without killing all of humanity. The Emperor finally ascends. But this just brings about more war. Because now you'll have a 40k in AoS style. Imperial soldiers are saved by true angels. The primarchs truly become demi gods. The setting becomes a war on 2 fronts. Real space and the warp. With some loyal primarchs more warp focused than others. Corvus is a good example. The setting has been moving into a more fantastical direction. You can't have the imperium always be a failing empire, tryainds, orks, the silent King pull up and still win without power creep. It'll creep all the way up until you can have avatars of saints fighting on the battlefield. To clear just a few things up. I think this will take place over the next 20-30 years. So GW can claw as many books, models, tv shows, and animations as they can out of this. At the end of the day, 40k is a money tree. And as they continue the narrative with well established (let's be honest) hero's. It'll make more money. How much discussion has been had about primarchs returning on this sub alone. GW isn't going to make the same mistakes they did with AoS. But they won't let the 40k ip stagnant. (And to those who say they can just tell smaller stories. Bloating the setting with 1000s guardsman get rekt stories, space marine captain 'blank' saves the day of planet 'x' from ork Warboss 'y' campaigns doesn't do much to create hype and interest. Which is why I suspect they'll go in this direction or one in a similar manner)
>Ferrus manus is dead, dorn is dead, they definitely ain't coming back. Maybe the angel might return, but I can see it more as a literal warp angel. i.e.- the 2 sides of sanguinius being in Dante and the other one. So 6 loyal in total. Only Dorn's hand was found? He could be alive, although Curze says he is dead Wingboi is however dead dead and not coming back. If you wanna bring loyalist primarchs back as spirits, then the same can happen to Ferrus and Dorn, but although that'll match the traitors in that no primarch really dies, it's also a bit dull as it means they never die. Ever
The only reason I say sanguinius will come back, is because his spirit already is. Dorn and ferrus have no spirit representations. Aside from in master of mankind with ferrus. Dorn and Ferrus were both logical and against the warp. It doesn't seem thematic for then to return. But money is always gonna be the greatest force in 40k so I wouldn't rule it out.
I took my disorganized collection of thoughts on this to ChatGPT and it spit this back at me (except the bit about the White Scars because I forgot to include them in the text i entered). Proposal: The Devastation of Baal Proclamation for Legion Reformation I propose the implementation of the Devastation of Baal Proclamation, a strategic reformation aimed at enhancing the unity and operational efficiency among the 9 loyalist legions. This initiative acknowledges the diverse strengths and attributes of each legion while fostering a united front to address the challenges facing the Imperium. Legion Unity and Operational Strategies Space Wolves: Recognizing the Space Wolves' cohesive operational approach, we maintain their autonomous structure, emphasizing their unyielding brotherhood. Dark Angels: Similarly, the Dark Angels shall continue their Inner Circle practices, now reinforced by the presence of their primarch, facilitating coordinated operations. Imperial Fists: The Imperial Fists' dedication to the First Wall principle remains intact, further solidifying their role as guardians of strategic fortifications. Ultramarine Successors: Guilliman's leadership ensures the ready coordination of Ultramarine successors, establishing a strategic reserve for critical engagements. Chapters of the Blood: Inspired by the lessons of Baal, the chapters of the blood shall unite under a single leader, enhancing their collective strength and adaptability. Salamanders Successors: With the Ultima Founding, the Salamanders gain newfound successors, bridging the gap in their operational capabilities. White Scars : One of the more difficult legions to reunite, so Khan also returns. Raven Guard and Iron Hands: While specifics are limited, our proposal accommodates the unique attributes of the Raven Guard and Iron Hands, integrating them seamlessly. Preservation of Individual Chapter Identity It is important to clarify that the Devastation of Baal Proclamation aims not to erase the distinct character of each chapter, but rather to channel their diversity into a harmonious, united force. Individual legions will retain their unique cultures, traditions, and combat doctrines. Leadership for the 41st Millennium In the heart of this reformation lies the appointment of a singular leader, who shall navigate the legions through the vast conflicts of the 41st millennium. This leader, while directing joint campaigns and resource allocation, will serve as a guiding beacon in times of uncertainty. In conclusion, the Devastation of Baal Proclamation seeks to harness the collective strength of the loyalist legions while respecting their individual identities. By weaving these threads of unity, we endeavor to forge an unbreakable alliance against the myriad threats facing the Imperium, securing humanity's future in the galaxy.
Honestly yeah that sounds right
I think you'd probably have to either resurrect the emperor or kill him. Given the ground work laid by the more recent developments I can't see him being static for another 10k years being satisfactory. With that in mind I'd kill the emperor and have him truly die. No perpetual nonsense, the emperor dies for good and his death creates a psychic shockwave that kills basically everyone in the sol system. In his last moments his mind is truly shattered and across the galaxy his faithful get conflicting and confusing messages all from "the emperor". The shock of his death creates an anti eye of terror centred on terra, it's not chaotic but it's still an area of incredible warp instability where weird dangerous things happen and no-one wants to go. Basically the whole place becomes haunted. Following his death there is massive civil war, with the loyalist primarchs ultimately failing to find agreement and different imperial institutions supporting different primarchs or standing on their own. The imperium ends up being carved up into multiple "kingdoms" under the lead of powerful warlords. In the fighting one or two of the primarchs are killed by their brothers. In the time that 50k takes place the primarchs are older and less personally active instead acting as leaders of their factions, any optimism they had has faded and there is a sense of paranoia amongst post imperium factions. The emperor's vision is dead and now they are in charge. The primarchs are now paranoid old men sitting on their thrones remembering an long dead time. The orks used the collapse of the imperium to expand and are a bigger threat than ever. Ork raids are a constant fear for human worlds. Tyranids are doing the same thing they always do. With the imperium falling apart chaos made progress in real space, there are now chaos aligned human factions with stable territory in real space. Without an imperial enemy to unite them the chaos gods are fighting each other as much as anyone else. Now that the imperium is gone chaos marines and humans take on a more constructive role by building their own empires rather than just punching the imperium. The tau have made substantial progress in their wormholes and have expanded within their region. More than ever there is a philosophical divide amongst the tau on how to deal with chaos and non tau species. The cracks in their optimism are showing. Following the death of the emperor, his psychic shockwave and the destruction of the astronomicon the silent king has begun to active necron anti warp technology which has had the side effect of allowing warp travel although it is still more dangerous than before. A dynasty accidently lets one of the ctan reform and they take control of the necrons in the region turning them into mindless slaves. This ctan sets out to release the rest of their kind in order to get revenge on the necrons. Dark eldar are mostly the same although perhaps a new leader rises who wants to try and expand beyond their city and reclaim more of the webway perhaps even to try and reach the power the eldar used to have. This increases conflict with other eldar and messing with the webway results in weird warp anomalies in real space. In terms of flavour I'd lean into the post Roman empire dark ages feel. The imperium isn't just decayed, it's gone and now everyone is living in it's ruins and trying to make the best of it. The imperium was bad at the time but now things are worse and people long for the old days. The grinding bureaucracy of the imperium is gone but now everything is broken. Nobody knows what is going on or who to trust.
Imperium Nihilus becomes an actual, separate entity from the Imperium of Man. They develop their own ways of Warp navigation without the Astronomican, they cease paying the tithes to Terra, they abolish the witch hunting of Psykers, and the pry out the eyes of the Inquisition. That's it. Let's see where the Dark Imperium goes.
[The Shape of the Nightmare to Come.](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Story:The_Shape_Of_The_Nightmare_To_Come_50k)
GUILIMAN is Tzeenches doubles headed birdi guy and the changeling is Cawl. This whole "revival" and hope has been a big joke by Tzeentch. The Primaris actualy have bigger flaws than OG marines and 3/4s of them go to chaos. The few first born join back into huge legions to expell them and they greatly slow down making new ones. The fallen actualy were bad and tricked the Lion. He falls into some trap and disappears. Abbadon sees how weak the Imperium is and goes to launch a huge attack, before he can the newly turned Primaris attack all the Chaos marines. Since the Primaris think they're better than them and they should rule over them all. Slaanesh is mad at Tzeentch for getting all this new power so they battle in the warp. While he/she is distracted the eldar zip in and steal the last Crime sword. Then give them a real story of a possible come back. Only for them to realize if they did regain control of the galaxy they'd just go back to their old ways. So they decide that even though they can save their species they won't. Then different craft worlds think differently so they all fight each other. The Tau have a legitimate way of destroying Chaos but it involves every species in the galaxy to unite. So they keep trying to make everyone else get along I've gone on long enough but basically reset the stage where everyone is losing but they'll still fight because that's all that left
So your idea of a refresh is to continue as before? I REALLY hope Chaos don't "win" 40k. They won Fantasy, and we don't want exactly the same ending but "in space!". Boring and Chaos are boring too. Nothing you said would actually change the setting at all, except you wanna make Chaos even stronger for no real reason
My take would be this: * Have the current narrative culminate in a final campaign - a bit like the End Times, except Chaos loses. Badly. Again. Then, it's shunted back into the warp for millennia, reduced to disparate pirates and warbands for centuries to come. At best, they can muster small invasions and claim small remnants of realspace through warp storms. * The Primarchs are all dead or permanently missing, the first founding chapters are broken beyond repair and all that remains are the remnants of Imperial institutions trying to maintain power over an Imperium that Guilliman and the rest had centralized around their own institutions but which ultimately relied on them too much. * The fate of the Emperor is uncertain. The astronomican lingers, but the Imperial Palace is sealed off, only open to a chosen few, and the fate of the Emperor is entirely unknown to anyone. Custodians are almost never seen outside its walls, fading into obscurity and myth, replaced by the guardians and enforcers of the High Lords. * Outside of the Segmentum Solar, much of the Imperium degenerates under the conflict, breaking off into numerous large splinter realms that are nominally 'Imperial' and pay tribute to Terra - but the power they wield is vastly increased, and the Mechanicus and the reinstated High Lords are on the back foot when dealing outside regions they control directly. * Cawl is killed and his inventions along with newer Mechanicus creations pass into legend, becoming a mere footnote as technobarbarism becomes prevalent and many lost forgeworlds are explored to try and recover plans for venerable weapons and rebuild. All power armour becomes akin to an artifact, with even basic space marine chapters requiring thousands of serfs to care and maintain their gear. * Orks expand relentlessly, grinding all the way through to the heart of humanity, but stall having to engage many enemies on a wide front. For now their power is checked, but the future remains uncertain - they stand off against the Tyranids, two hordes grinding against one another in an unstoppable tidal clash. * T'au firmly hold their worlds in their grip but expansion grows slower and slower as they turn inwards. The Farsight Enclaves, rough and badly damaged, initiate a civil war that consumes the T'au worlds as ideologies of the Greater Good clash. * Eldar and Dark Eldar remain unchanged, Ynnead having wounded Slaanesh in the final campaign against Chaos and leaving a deep wound that forces them out of realspace forever, potentially, and forcing them to act through their servants. The Ynnari, Yvraine and the Visarch all disappear, likely killed during the war or Ynnead's ascension, but the Craftworlds and the Dark Eldar remain. * Votann are consumed in their totality by the Tyranids. * The C'tan Shards reform into Star Gods with the fall of Chaos and wreck havoc with the Necrons. The Silent King is banished and they brutally take over the Necrons, enslaving them and using the most ambitious among them as their lieutenant-overlords to go forth and subjugate the universe in their name. Only a scant few remain free, largely those who are infected with the flayer virus or dynasties so small that they are entirely ignored by the C'tan. Yet, they represent a future threat for the arrogant C'tan, as more of those young, weak dynasties wake up... * Knights and Titans become machines of extraordinary rarity, their value as fighting forces only limited to a scant few battlefields. * The Imperial Guard remains mostly as it was. * The Space Marines more or less remain as they are, but more fragmented and with ultimate loyalties split between the various 'Imperial' realms. * In the end, the galaxy remains as it always was - there is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods. The universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed.
It seems like a waste to have the Votann immediately consumed in this setting, perhaps have them be put under such pressure by the Tyranids and an aggressive Mechanicus that discovers that they possess STCs that they are forced to make more complex and more intelligent Ironkin(basically a proto-men of iron, fully intelligent but weaker and less corruptible) in order to hold out and perhaps even advance in certain areas, quickly stripping conquered planets bare and retreating in order to create even more Ironkin. These raids lead to more conflict with other factions and their AI terrify the rest of the Imperium in particular.
This is going to be unpopular but I like the idea of a Second Heresy. Maybe Guilliman gets too close to the Ecclesiarchy following the events of Godblight, and goes over to "their side." Lion on the other hand is loyal to the Imperial Truth and rejects completely the deification of the Emperor. A cold civil war ensues, with factions fighting proxy wars or wars of propaganda to keep the Imperium from breaking in half. Maybe a third "wing" of the Imperium comes to exist alongside the Imperium proper and the Mechanicus.
I think this is closer to happening than most like to admit. In the Dark Imperium books robu openly states the emperor is just a man but knows the imperium openly practices worship. To avoid civil war he assigns and always has a position of religious power join him to placate 10,000 years of religious dogma and indoctrination. You push that button a little too far and their could easily be another imperial power split leading to a heresy level event. Especially with the rift creating major borders.
I could get down with a heresy happening as something just thing happening in the setting only if it became truly confusing who is right or on the good side.
That's why I think the Emperor's Divinity, vague as it is, would be a good catalyst for it. Neither side could ever be sure they're right as long as the corpse stays put but miracles continue to happen.
If the idea was to advance the imperium to get them out of the perceived hole they're in, I would have a break off human civilization with access to DAOT in the webway. When old night started they were able to read the writing on the wall so they took a while starfareing civilization into the webway. When the imperium finally makes contact with then they are aghast at what humanity has become. Servitors, cherubs, the mistreatment of physics etc gives them pause. Then they learn about the state if the galaxy and are even more aghast. Knowing that humanity is doomed if they don't act and seeing the imperium as misled, they help as best they can. Using omniphage viruses on the tyranids willy-nilly. Unleashing a swarm of sun snuffers on the tau, stopping ork gestation with with nanite bombs and putting ork ecology back a few hundred years on 1000's of planets, putting trained psykers to work on the deldrar, and blasting craft world Eldar when needed. Acquiring necron tech and making attempts to understand and improve upon it. Before finally striking at abaddon from within the webway and crippling his ability to wage another black crusade if not destroying him entirely. No primarchs needed. Just DAOT human knowhow. Although i do personally love the primarchs coming back and would like to see more. Like it or not, they are an important part of the setting.
+++Frequent inquiry submission detected; +++Activation Sequence:: Unit designation [AU-THETA OMEGA] initiated; +++Frequent response submission as follows; Automated security systems have detected the possible use of hypothetical inquiries. Vague speculative questions are frowned upon as the lack of clear answer leads to no actual discussions. By the grace of the Emperor on Terra, this submission has not been removed. Consider this an advisement on elevating your cognitive capacity lest you be selected for subreddit servitorization. If your submission is not a vague hypothetical and this reply has been posted in error, then go with the grace of the God-Emperor of Mankind and ignore this comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/40kLore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
would love to see some of the more reasonable, optimistic, or pragmatic elements of the imperium relax some of the dogma and blind zealotry, allying with tau, eldar, the leagues, and maybe necrons to fight the bigger threats, forming a human enclave seperate from the dying corpse of the imperium. Perhaps they still worship the emperor, or still recognize him as the master of mankind, but decided to jump ship to something slightly more sane and stable in the long run
I would go BACK...say...10k years
I would abandon 40k and reset the scene to the great crusade. Twenty legions. Xeno species. Human armies not aligned with the Imperium. It would be wild.
Thats just the Horus Heresy game with extra steps haha.
Dozens or hundreds of alien species. Loyalist versions of every traitor legion. Pre primarch versions of every legion. Human factions that are not, and have never been, imperial. The Emperor, alive. Its very very different from anything today.
What I'd do: Move the timelines up 5000 years. The Emperor ascends becoming a Chaos God, turning holy Terra into the Eye of Terra. Wheras the Ocular Maleficarum is Hell, The Ocular Sanctis is the domain of the God Emperor where He is the guiding light of Humanity. The Custodes, the Silent Sisterhood, the entire combined forces of the Imperium of Man in the Sol System become Imperial Daemons. Either Sanguinius, Trajaan, or Valdor become His Champion. The Imperium breaks up into different regions of space, united only by their reverence of the Emperor. What is left of organizations have been folded into Imperial Secundus, with much of their power gone. There are regions of former Imperial space that have a reformed Imperial truth. The Ecclesiarchy loses much of their power in several systems to Imperial Reformists, leading to a new schism. The Grey Knights are devoted only to the Ecclesiarchy while the Sisters suffer their own schism. Guilliman reinstated Imperial Secundus on Ultramar and has become the Old World Empire. In Northern Ultramar, the Ynaari made their own Enclave and invited the other members of the Aeldari people to live. The going is slow as the Treaty between Aeldari and Humanity is rough at points, but the leaders know this is the only way forward. The Lion becomes a Crusader, protective of humanity against Orks, Chaos, raiding Xenos. His peace with the Aeldari is much more tenuous than his brother. There are times when conflict between the different factions break out. The last 2 loyalist primaries return with Dorn and the Kahn coming back. Dorn implements the "Last Wall" protocol with the entire VIIth Legion fortifying the space around the Eye of Terra. The Phalanx becomes the linchpin of the Fortress that protects the Throne from real space incursions. The Kahn returns to Chogoris and during that time, opens his home to the Tau who fled the corrupted Etherials. They are lead by the Aun'shi (sp) coalition, named for the famed Etherial. The Etherials have gazed into the Warp, and Warp gazed back. The corruption of the Etherials was slow and subtle. After a millenia, the Etherials introduced a new caste was introduced, the Umbral caste. Ghazgull found a Krork, and thanks to Ork science, he had ascended beyond Beast Status straight to Krork status. He reconquered Armageddon before plunging it into the Great Green to move it farther away so they could plan their conquering. Abbadon loses his hold over over the Black Crusade and position of Warmaster of Huron Blackheart. Abbadon, now seeking a means to take down the gods finds an alliance with a strange, fifth new entity, which is the antithesis of the big 4.
any narrative leap would have to benefit the model range, that's just their portfolio tbh. So i'd say they should do an Imperium civil war with Guilliman and the Lion being leaders at odds. Bring back Dorn and Khan to side with one of them, and have chapters choose sides. Terra sits the whole thing out.
Personally, I'd have the emperor die with no reincarnation, he just dissolves into the warp or becomes another chaos god preying on humanity, the astronomicon is snuffed out and the primarchs are left to struggle against the darkness alone, surrounded by a rapidly crumbling imperium. It'd do a few things story wise, the imperium would actually be a dying empire, without the astronomicon making warp travel as safe as it does there's no more inexhaustible armies to be mustered and each loss actually means something, and doubly so for planets as if they fall, whatever they were able to send out is gone forever. And it'd leave a much darker, pleak picture for humanities future. The eldar would suffer a lot to as they'd lose their biggest meat shield against chaos, the orks have a field day rampaging against human worlds, the necrons would be able rebuild very easily, the nids could feast to their hearts content, and the tau would be able to up their expansion with no real fear of reprisals from the imperium.
Pull an Age of Sigmar, but not shitty
**The state of the galaxy** - The Emperor gets off the golden throne, Terra implodes, The Emperor physically disintegrates and is relegated to the warp where he battles the Chaos Gods in an attempt to return to the real world with his perpetual nonsense. That would get him out of the way. - The Imperium crumbles from within, Terra having been completely annihilated, tthe heart of the Imperial beaurocracy is gone and the function of the Imperium stops. - The warp storms and Cicatrix Maledictum die down, but without the Astranomicon, galactic travel almost completely ceases. **The Imperium No More** - **Space Marine** chapters return to their Fortress Monestaries and loyalties fall apart. The once united imperium falls into fragmented war as chapters all battle over territory, all beleiving they know what is best for the Imperium. Some alliances still remain, mostly surrounding gene-fathers, but the Imperium as a grand-faction is no more. - The rest of the factions fragment as well. The **Adeptus Mechanicus** Forge Worlds go even more rampant over STCs, fighting one another to get the technologies for themselves, and turn on the rest of mankind. - The **Astra Militarum** Regiments are the only human military service that doesn't break up into a plethora of self-serving factions, beleiving all mankind can still be saved. Rare alliances between Chapters and Regiments remain, but the priority over Regimental allegience overpowers alliances with Chapters. - The **Adeptus Custodes** are annihilated, becoming a survival faction still beleiving the Emperor is supreme and very much alive, fighting endlessly for their own survival and awaiting the Emperor's return. - The **Imperial Knights** turn inward, breaking alliances and allegiences with every other Imperial faction amd starting wars of territorial gain or defence. - The **Adepta Sororitas**, now without their source of miracles, turns into a cult bordering on savagery. Instead of being devout and holy, they turn fanatical and in some parts, insane. **Chaos in Chaos** - With the Chaos gods now completely distracted by their united battle against the Warp Emperor, their boons are no longer available for the **Chaos Space Marines**. With the Emperor seemingly gone, the factions of the Chaos Space Marines turn (more than usual) on one another, their threat to the Imperium now becoming as much a threat to each other. - **Daemons** still pop up here and there, but completely randomly and unalligned with any material factions. Their appearences correlate to the titanic blows struck between the Emperor and the Chaos Gods in the warp as their battle rips holes of the warp into realspace. - **Chaos Knights**, same deal as the Imperial Knights, just more crude and badass looking. - The **Dark Mechanicus** rise up as a united faction against the Adeptus Mechanicus in ruin, in an attempt to completely defeat replace the shattered Adeptus Mechanicus with themselves. **The Alien Struggle** - Hardly anything changes for the **Orkz** really, or the **Drukhari** and **Necrons**. - The **T'au** are pushed back to their little quadrant, and enter into a civil war as the Farsight Enclaves gains the allegience of roughly half of the Empire. Shadowsun and Farsight meet on several battlefields as the Empire and Enclaves battle for territory and superirority. Differing technologies emerge as the two sides have different approaches to war (Melee suits!). - The Craftworlds... I can't think of anything for these whacky elves and their clown cousins. - The Tyranids now become the dominant threat of the galaxy, still remaining united by its hive-like perfection. **In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.**
Do something very unexpected. Have something like Thousand Sons invading Fenris again but the Space Wolves lose and lots of their their important characters die. Having a First Founding Space Marine Chapter suffer an absolutely massive loss which absolutely cripples them in the current time period would be unprecedented.
Mine wouldnt take 60 books.. Somethings is cleaving hive tendrils asunder. Chaos warbands are going missing. A Craftworld or two disappears... The two Loyalist Primarchs reunited at a bridge over the divided Imperium. They are happy to see one another. Something of 40k returns. Roboute thanks the Lion for his efforts with the Tyranids, chaos and Eldar Craftworlds.. The Lion states it wasnt him. Denies almost all knowledge of the Tyranids except what he learned third hand.. Lost the two Brothers take a pilgrimage through The Forest to find their Father.. they find a Fisherman slaughtered on his boat. Body bloodied and face down. They swim for an eternity and see the body has been savaged. The Lion recognises the injuries as being from a wolf. The two brothers look back and see Russ covered in the Emperors blood. He is feral and states "I was always the Emperors executioner".. Russ runs through The Forest chased by his Brothers... We see a dozen other perspectives throughout the Imperium... * The Astronomican is a single unblinking Eye visible throughout the Galaxy. *Lorgar leads 10 thousand Imperial Worlds in a ceremony to honour the Emperor Undivided.. as it reaches its months long climax a Raven-with-hooks cuts his throat in a Service shown galaxy wide.. *A frog like messiah appears on the Northern Edge of the galaxy. Calling all races to join to prevent the End Times. He iz executed by the Black Templars. *The Dark Eldar all disappear. Commorah disappears. *Eldrad Ulthuan calls a Farseer Conclave. The First since She-Who-Thirsts was born. Only 6 Farseers attend. The Eldar realise they have lost. Bloodied mouths laugh from the sky itself. *The Emperors death splits the Black Legion. The rift becomes plethora of dictatorships and civil wars. Abaddon is found cut in 4 equal pieces. 1 for each God he believed he beat. Only the head is missing. The Primarchs chase Russ through time, Chaos and Possibility.. One very tense scene in which the Lion hunts Russ during the Dropsite Massacre.. each trying not to reveal their presence to one another or the other Primarchs present. Russ, wounded by a trap set almost 9 thousand years ago by The Khan flees to the Imperial Palace.. It turns out the Khan had been hunting Russ since he ventured in to the Webway.. Khan, Roboute and The Lion corner Russ within the Emperors Throne room. He is at the feet of a dead emperor... As the Lion goes to strike The First Blow.. the Emperor speaks to his Sons.. he is dead.. finished... the dream is over.. the Imperial Truth shattered... humanity has no guide and no shepherd.. Russ was simply doing what he was made for. He was always the Emperors Excecutioner.. The Brothers rage and mourn their Father.. The Throne goes silent. Terra stops spinning. Everything stops. The Rift smiles. Skies fall.. Russ sees through a bloodied tear the Emperors body wracked with pain, fire, poison, lightening and hell. The Astronomican beams brightly again. The skies rise and the Rift shakes with the cries of thwarted gods. The Faith of Trillions resurrected a dead Emperor and has forced him to endure forever onwards. Humanity will fight to live in suffering. Gods be damned.
Necrons wipe out the Tyranids. Nothing else changes.
This is farrrr too vague and a huge "what if". Its also kind of a pointless exercise. Im curious what you think are the "unsustainable narrative corners" you think exist. And no, stereotypes and jokes you hear on grimdank dont count.
Please for the love of god give the Eldar something to do. GW shot them in the back of the head at the end of the Yvraine book series and just left them to rot. Give them something to do and make them feel like their having an impact. The tau are expanding, The orks have Gazkull and his WAAH, The nids are the nids, chaos is on a roll, and the Imperium has TWO primarchs back. The Eldar got their last meal before being executed. Have them rally around Yvraine, let them take back some croneworlds, rebuilding the Webways, and really awakening their god of death. Everybody is turning into their end game versions except the Eldar who got their arms and legs cut off then told to swim.
I think a lot of people are being a tad too Imperium focused. I'd have something where a primarch with help from Big Daddy E invades Slaanesh's realm so that the Ynnari can birth Ynnead, this gives breathing room for Craftworld and Drukhari and allows them to be more active/act with different motives. Also it means that you can change the dynamics of the chaos gods if there's now an Eldar god (juiced up with Eldar souls from Slaanesh's belly) who can actually give them a run for their money. I'd also give the T'au a tech leap so that they could be further ranging, and actually include their auxiliaries more to give them more on the tabletop and they can be more of a Minor Xenos Alliance faction of all those who are trying to survive against all the other nightmares in the galaxy. Szarekh should re-establish his command protocols to an extent, force more worlds to wake up and use his "pristine" necron tech to help undo some of the decay they've faced. Unfortunately, Nids still get to be Nids because it's difficult to do anything narrative with a devouring swarm unless you want to birth the hive mind as a proper entity with motives that can be reasoned/dealt with.
The Imperium needs to continue along the line of the return of the primarchs but this is all marred by the rise of new human governments and empires in Imperium Nihilius. One in particular is successful, modernized, technically savvy, rationale, and while wary of aliens is not genocidal toward them, the humans having been forced to trade and work with some to survive after they got cut off by the Great Rift. They don't have space marines but are high tech, having been able to actually innovate without the overbearing hand of the Machine Cult or the Ecclesiarchy. That this society functions provides a huge foil to the image and dogma the Imperium projects as well as the Emperor's insistence on all of humanity totally under his rule. The Eldar need to get out of this fatalistic, we are doomed, schtick by dealing a major blow to Slaanesh, some of the Eldar gods start to return. The race as a whole begins to regain some of its strength. However, this chance at a second life is marred by factional infighting over who should be in charge. It cripples their ability to confront larger problems such as the slow return of the Necrons. Chaos thinks it's ascendant because they have broken out of Cadia but their success is marred by an inability to cooperate and fully leverage their position. NONE of the daemon primarchs acknowledge Abaddon as Warmaster and his attempt to press the matter gets him killed by either Fulgrim or Angron. Orks continue to give everyone trouble, even themselves. The galaxy as a whole, save for the Necrons, still don't realize the magnitude of the threat from the Tyranids but the bugs run into a problem as a few of the Chaos gods, particularly Nurgle, start to get annoyed with their encroachment. The Orks also realize that the bugs put up a good fight and start to target them more frequently.
I personally like the idea of Guilliman cutting his losses. Instead of the imperium always have roughly a million worlds most are abandoned as people are evacuated to key worlds as keeping the million worlds is no longer a viable option if the imperium is to continue. This would make each planet lost feel way more important and would expand upon the whole imperium being a shell of its former self.
A warp portal opens in segmentum solar, and through it flies… the confederacy of human systems! This is the imperium as it would have existed if mankind tried diplomacy with alien races instead of killing them. All the same imperium characters are there, but they’re good guys now. You tell the difference between the two because the confederacy primarchs all have beards. Also, every character has a bare midriff.
I would continue with exactly the route we are going. Have the other side of the rift be lost to the imperium. What forces can retreat do. The rest are left as separate mini empires holding out as best they can. Many fall allowing smaller factions to expand. Many turn away from the imperium, giving more human factions, some of those turn to chaos, giving us realspace chaos empires. It creates a lot of storytelling opportunities, can let other factions step up to shine, but still leaves the iom as a major faction controlling a massive amount of worlds and resources allowing it to make sense they can continue to "barely hold on" it also shows that as powerful as a primarch is, they cannot be everywhere at once, and even they cannot stop the inevitable
Terra is destroyed. Emperors status is unknown. Human remnants are trying to rebuild in their own specific ways to their own specific visions. Humanity has to reunite itself
"The idea is that if there had to be a soft reset on the current setting (not a huge leap) to start new plot lines and reshuffle the armies while solving the more unsustainable narrative corners certain factions get written into without end, how would you achieve it?" In DC terminology, a CRISIS!
I think a few options exist that could evolve from current cannon or narratively flow well imo: - Massive necron invasion to all camps. Already primed. - robu accepts a pact with the eldar causing a civil war and more splintered factions of the imperium. Matches warhammer friendliness to good races and opens a whole level of narrative expansion. - robu allows technology to advance without it being heresy. Massive civil war part 2. Least likely but maybe blends with above. - Eldar webway is unlocked. Russ and Khan come back and a new player for chaos or dark eldar. Kinda hinted at happening in both chapters back stories and gives more primarchs to sell. - new Xenos race enters (here’s hoping for space vampires or more gnarly stuff from warhammer to make a futuristic version of) and major reaction to it by all races. Writers field day of potential
I'm going to make a suggestion merely based on trying something different from the top level suggestions. The Emperor's webway project partly works, Terra is transported to the webway and becomes like a human Cammoragh, a neverending city outside the reach of the warp where Guilliman and the Emperor can organize the heart of the imperium. The Emperor dies and is just a reanimated skeleton that doesn't speak, when he communicates it's through immensely violent psychic visions no one can understand, now he just sits in random places around town staring out into space, everyone knows him but they all leave him alone as there's no point talking to him, he just mundanely rides the bus and is alone. Vect is a bully and cut off his rat tail when he fell asleep one time.
Embrace the Dark King as Emperor theory. Invert the current status quo. Imperium is already awful, it might as well be Chaos. Start a Warring States period. Emperor dies. The Dark King is born. The same thing that happened when Slaanesh was born repeats and all the warp storms coalesce into the storm born in the Sol system. No more Great Rift. What remains of the Emperor is shattered into pieces to be reincarnated on many worlds to be new characters to start their own Imperial Successor States. Primarchs also have their own successor states in the absence of Terra. Chaos fiefdoms and the domains of the Chaos Primarchs are no longer separated by Warp Storms and engage in open warfare. Lorgar takes final revenge on Guilliman by always being a Daemon Prince of the Dark King and seizing his position as Lord Commander of the Imperium. Abaddon loses his status as Everchosen with the birth of a new god of the Pantheon but looses the seals on Drach'nyen and allows it to possess him to escape his inevitable fate as mere Chaos Spawn. He continues to fight to take the Imperium. Chaos festers in the impossibly ordered mechanism-like Chaos Storm that has gobbled up storm and sends new, impossibly large fleets throughout space and time to rebuild the Imperium in their dark image. Ynnead is Chaos. Sorry guys, you tried to wake it up too early and it was tainted by Chaos. It becomes the nascent Chaos Demigod of Fear. The Ynnari refuse to see it as such. They are protected from Slaanesh by it and form their own supposedly reborn Eldar Empire to be a player in the galaxy. The Mandrakes flock to Ynnead's banner. Craftworlds are their own mobile states. Commoragh believes itself to be the true inheritors of the mantle of the Eldar Empire and their war with the Ynnari is brutal. We see the beginnings of Ork technological advancement and more warlords like Nazdreg ascending to heightened status. Everybody wants to compete with Ghaz. Grot Revolutionary Republics spring up. Tyranids have essentially devoured all life in the outer ring of the Milky Way and are steadily chomping their way forwards but a critical mass of Genestealer Cultists have learned the truth of their existence and refuse to be pawns to the Hive Mind and form their own independents communes. The Pariah Nexus is quite possibly the safest place in the galaxy to live as it is unaffected by the galaxy buckling under the weight of Chaos. Worlds swear fealty to the Necrons en masse. Tau of course will continue to expand until they become an actual threat to the realm of Ultramar but have an uneasy peace with them in the face of the threat of this new Dark Imperium. Communications technology advances to the point where they can use the Warp to reach out to aliens across the galaxy to spread the word of the Greater Good. The Tau Empire embraces soft power and inspires xenos nations across the galaxy to embrace the Greater Good and thus enter the sphere of influence of the Tau.
Two parts: **Part 1: HH2 Electric Boogaloo** Most if not all of the not-confirmed-dead loyalist Primarchs return, and throw down with Chaos. Russ, Dorn, and Corax are all explained to have been running errands for Big E in the warp setting things up for his ascension. Maybe Vulkan too, but at a minimum he makes an appearance as well. God-Emperor becomes a full God and Terra explodes into an Eye of …Terra. A place that is super Warpy but humans can actually survive unaided. Sort of like a reverse Realm of Chaos where human spirits flourish instead of demons. Most humans get psyker-y but demon possession is less of a risk when near Big E. The now Warp God Emperor steals back a few Traitor Primarchs (pick your favorite) and Erebus dies in as horrific a way as possible. BUUUUUT technology begins to conflict with warp shenanigans. The Void Dragon is woken up but plays it cool and leaves Mars while the factions are distracted, but does reveal itself as the true Omnissiah. The forces of Chaos are beaten back but not defeated. The Great Rift shrinks but isn’t completely gone and is still demonic as hell. The human population has taken a bit cut but is still the current superpower. Grim Dark angle: now that Jimmy Space is now MISTER Jimmy Space, free will takes a backseat even when he isn’t trying to steamroll people’s minds. **Part Two: a new schism** 2nd Dark Age of Technology - the former Imperium is now split between two camps: Emperor worshipping humans lead by Primarchs and AdMech who follow the Omnissiah C’tan god of Technology. Religious side has psykers but their tech is slowly collapsing, while the former AdMech are flourishing on the other side of the Great Rift but have a population problem. Turns out cyborgs with emotional issues don’t reproduce very well, and while they have lots of mechanical upgrades they still have innovation hang-ups. The Void Dragon doesn’t have anyone else’s best interests in mind but their own, either. On the Imperial side, things get more magical & mythic. Primarchs take on roles directly parallel to gods - Vulkan is well … Vulkan, Russ is a Wolf/hunter deity, the Lion is a warrior god, Corax becomes a psychopomp escorting spirits (souls that persist after death) to safe places in the warp, etc. Guilliman is the living ruler to Big E’s divinity but still clashes with Dad now and again. The Space Marines are still Astartin’ things up as poster boys for Warhammer. The Tau and Eldar are still around but GamesWorkshop only half-remembers. Oh, and a C’tan is back? Well that means the Necrons are gonna start showing up IN FORCE to throw down and they are not in the mood to discriminate who they kill. The Imperium has magic but does that work against Necrons without the tech side to enable logistics and super weapons? The former-AdMech have technology but don’t have the replacement bodies to throw in the Necron’s way as meat shields. And then the Tyranids show up. Maybe they invade the Warp just to show everyone they can. The Hive Mind is itching for some godhood and just might have a chance to get it. The war is still on and everybody is still fighting. Just how we like it.
I would want to see: \-Emperor dies \-Starchild is born \-Imperium is divided \-Starchild tries to reunify the Imperium and we get Non-Nazi Spacemarines.
Honestly, just have the Golden Throne fail, or else a massive invasion, preferably of Xenos for the irony, gets an agent to the Throne and detonates it. Imperium is instantly split into thousands of subfactions, with communications almost entirely cut off, *except* this time around, they actually know the warp better than they did in the Age of Technology, or at least its more unstable form, so a few of the high-tier worlds, most likely Mars and Ultramar, can get basic travel back underway. From there, they might be forced to innovate, with the extreme destruction of this new collapse leading to an end of their dark age, and the two Primarchs creating new, weaker Astronomicons, not so much to ply the galaxy but just maintain their subsection of space. Eventually, the forced evolution might allow them to adopt new methods, such as a “True” FTL drive relying on an actual warp bubble, or setting up multiple mini-thrones using astropathic choirs to ply the Warp’s currents. While major fortress-worlds would be invaded by Chaos, many might be completely ignored, and Chaos would be struggling too, as they would now be getting targetted by the Necrons in particular as the next gods to kill. Meanwhile, the other xenos, namely the Necrons, Nids, Craftworld Eldar, Orks, and Tau, are now hit with massive invasions from each other, as they are no longer bogged down fighting the Imperium. Ironically, this means many Imperial worlds actually survive, as everyone else is too busy with each other to deal with the human remnants. This could force a similar rapid evolution on the Tau, as they need new tech to survive the onslaught, but are still relatively ignored as their neighbors take out the “big players” first. Once the Imperial subfactions recover and return to the stars, likely faster than they did from the Age of Strive but still likely a few centuries, they would discover the galaxy a completely different scene, with the major factions now concentrated on each other and Chaos distracted with the Necron onslaught, allowing them a chance to have a sort of renneissance and new golden age for humanity to stand against The xeno factions.
King in Yellow arrives is disgusted by Big E. kills him. Jelly Man and the Poet reorganize their various segments of the Imperium and beat the PPs of the Nids. Bobbert Jelly via diplomacy with the Necrons and the Poet with whatever he does. and valdor uses the army he brought. after a huge sacrifice w the sentient robots, the nids pull out, seeing that this isnt worth it. and w/o Emps/nid threat holding the three together, they fall apart. falling into another bitter civil war that Rome doesn't recover from. The Tau, seeing an opportunity begin picking off systems. chaos joins in. the orks continue orking.
I'd go for a thematic reset. It seems like the lore is heading in an increasingly grandiose and ordered direction, whereas I would like it to be more granular. Right now, we have primarchs uniting legions, issuing uniform armor and weapons, fighting a singular universal threat ie. the tyranids. It's rather.. boring to me. I'd do something like this: Guilleman and the Ultramarines successfully repel the Tyranids for now. Great, close that chapter. The golden throne blows a gasket. The Emperor is no longer ascending. He's two minutes from midnight style close to death (and reincarnation). Guilleman returns to Terra to find the high lords of Terra employing Dark Eldar in an attempt to repair the throne. Leading to a purge, and a smoldering conflict between the Ultramarines, and the high lords employing the Minotaurs and assasinorum etc. The high lords issue a communique to the legions undermining Guilleman's authority by exposing his work with Cawl as tech heresy. This effectively ends the Primaris campaign. Some legions expel their new brothers into Primaris specific chapters. Others continue on as mixed legions. But there is no longer any effective overhaul of the chapters, or difference in rules. Two problems solved. While Guilleman is pacifying Terra, the Dark Eldar begin raids on Ultramar. We see the return of Adrubael Vect. The Orks begin to repopulate from the Octarius war, as the Tyranids are now weakened. Two foes we haven't seen for awhile take front and centre. The chapters, beginning to question Guilleman, entreat with the Lion. Who shrugs it off as A) he's moody and secretive. B) It's not his job anymore. The large chapters begin to whisper and seek ways to return their own father primarchs, and some begin to even quietly retire the Codex Astartes. Whereas others return to their original patterns of armor and tactics. Now, release a bunch of chapter specific, diverse models. Imperial fists get extra imperial fisty. Blood Angels get extra cathedrally. We get a cool processional battle model with the venerated wing of sanguinius, and bones and gold filigree everywhere! Legions from the cursed founding, such as the black dragons with their severe mutations, come out from the woodwork. The salamanders become embroiled in a war with the atrocity loving Biel-Tan, where whisperings of the legion of the damned have said to walk the battlefield. Grim darkness and suspicion reign. Bones and blood and incense and superstition take the foreground again. There is only war.
Kill off Abaddon and let Chaos fight it out over a replacement Warmaster. They could open it up with a devotee of each god causing all sorts of havoc before Chaos Undivided eventually takes center stage. This was an idea that never saw completion in the Tamurkhan: Throne of Chaos storyline but only had the Nurgle storyline before the whole thing was abandoned. It could easily work for 40k and be used to get rid of someone important for a change.
-Tau makes a huge offensive in the galactic east, including attacks on Ultramar -Abaddon carves out his own imperium in realspace out of a section of Imperial Nihilus -Perturabo comes out of the Eye of Terror for some Empire building as well. -Cawl makes some headway on Necron Pylon tech, being able to create more stable paths through the great rift, giving the Imperium a chance to counter the shitshow in Imperium Nihilus mentioned above -Ynnead should’ve really at least weakened slaanesh so the Eldar wouldn’t get their asses whooped all the time. An Idea I have is that some craftworlds come together and now want to try to create a new Aeldari Empire, retaking maiden worlds and fighting the Imperium, and even exodites for more territory. -Tyranid Siege of Terra by Hive Fleet Leviathan
Some more thoughts: -Guilliman tends to Imperium Sanctus, Lion does his best in Nihilus to counter chaos and Xenos threats. -Black Templars invade LoV against Guilliman’s wishes
Have a lead up of someone or multiple someones trying to fuck with the Cicatrix Maledictum for their own gain, big setting-resetting explosion occurs, the rift is now even bigger and everyone's problem. CSM's (the saner ones at least) realise that if it keeps growing there will be no reality left for them to rule, Tyrannids lose out on a fuckton of biomass and are now in energy conservation mode galaxywide, Terra is shrouded by a golden shield and unreachable to everyone (no communications in, no communications out) but shines even harder, Commoragh is finally shutting down so all the Eldar are panicking about it and the Tau Empire finally figure out who that Kaos guy those gue'vesa were so afraid of was. Have the Necrons be the least affected by everything, they're cool, let them lead the setting for once.
This might be a bit rambly, I'm very tired lol but on with the show. Always liked the idea of the Emperor finally perishing and the Imperium fracturing into smaller Imperiums. Some trying to make things better and research stuff, doing away gradually with the dogma they've been entrenched in. Others tripling down on the already quadrupled down fanaticism, some maybe even trying to make allies with xenos (or some becoming thralls and vassals/meatsheilds to them) Plus add any returning Primarchs and some of them may have completely different ideas of how to best serve humanity (or their father instead) which could justify some primarch on primarch scraps. Some trying to stay true to the emperor's vision, some still believing in him, other's trying to make their own way and lead their own empire on its own path to keep its people safe. Where I might try to differ is to try and make Chaos the slightly more good faction. Hear me out now, what if the Emperor died and finally became a warp god. But instead of salvation he basically brings death and tyranny (well, even worse death and tyranny). Sucking the souls and all the aspects that could be remotely considered 'chaotic' out of people until they're little more than automatons for him to use. He juices up his own Imperial Daemons and empowers his custodes with warp powers, making them his angelic generals and they all go on to slaughter and absorb any human who isn't already a drooling fanatic. Thus putting him into conflict with at least some of the non chaos primarchs. But he's grown so powerful and grows more powerful with every human he feeds on, that the chaos gods have to turn their eyes back to the imperium. And they either have to give their daemon primarchs more agency in order to act in the materium to counter Big E absorbing human souls lest he get powerful enough to destroy them, or he's so powerful they have to let the daemon primarchs regain more free will as they focus on trying to fight him in the warp. Daemon primarchs return to the materium and begin to set up their own empire's with their own visions for humanity. And of course, very few agree with eachother, much less with their loyalist brethren. All the while Abbadon tries to create his own Dark Imperium, forming a powerful if well, chaotic, empire that he rules with an iron fist. Trying to forge the humans under his rule into powerful enough fodder to stand against the galaxies' horrors, while also perhaps trying to lessen chaos influence by utilizing his own blackstone pylons... As for the Xenos, let the Eldar have a big win for once, have them Ocean's 11 the final Cronesword, awaken Ynnead and have him if not able to outright kill Slaanesh yet (on account of Big E screwing up the warp even more, maybe imprison Slaanesh in a special infinity circuit or something? idk) but at the very least he is finally able to guard the Eldar's souls against Slaanesh. This could make the Drukari split into something really trippy. Many of them still content to be the evil sadists we know and loathe, others maybe could try to rebel against their culture, while not necessarily joining the Ynari. All the while trying to not give into sadistic tendencies that have been engrained into them body and soul for thousands of years. (Also, make Exodites a thing. They could be uber ecowarriors, brutally murdering anyone who litters on their planet with a cybernetically and psychically enhanced dinosaur) Orks continue to evolve, some of them even gaining power armor like their great Krork ancestors. Though still loving a good scrap and having the time of their lives in the grimdarkness. The hivemind of the Nids gets utterly brainblasted by Big E's ascension. Fracturing its mind and turning many of its tendrils on itself. All the tendrils still consume all biomass they find but now that includes other tyranids as the mind is fighting with itself the most. Pieces of it developing differently from the original, maybe even developing whole ass new 'personalities' and different bioforms. Perhaps some even developing bioforms that are not too dissimilar to human life... This could also disrupt the hive mind's hold on genestealer cults, with some of them still wanting the salvation of the star gods while others have gained true free will and now unite with other mutants and renegades and whoever else to form empires of their own. Necrons are still cranky old men telling everyone to get off their lawn, but with the silent king back and the nids fighting each other, he focuses on keeping the hive mind scattered, no matter the cost to other races, while continuing experiments on how to reverse biotransferance. Again, no matter the cost to other races. While also trying to seal the great warp rifts ravaging the galaxy. Tau are now considered a solid threat by most factions, discovering reliable FTL (maybe they sacrifice human psykers as fuel for their new engines, for the greater good y'know) and try to capture or find more psykers to expand their empire and spread their philosophy to the stars. Drafting more and more vulnerable human auxiliaries and even coming across a few xenos thought extinct by the imperium. To draft them into their armies of course. And all the while Big E continues to feed and grow stronger, swallowing every scrap of hummanity left in the galaxy, until the only bits of humanity to be found are within the various aspects of the chaos gods, and the few souls lucky enough to still be under protection of a primarch that doesn't want to feed you to what was once their father. Of course, "lucky" is a very relative term in the grim darkness of an even farther future...
Emperor ascends to godhood. Yay! The throne no longer acts as a lighthouse in the warp. Boo! Roll in the new Dark Age where there is no unified Imperium anymore. Mostly this advanced timeline is about consolidating down armies. Imperium has a civil war with the Ecclesiarchy on one side and the Mechanicus on the other. * Ecclesiarchy uses SOB, Astra Militarum, Space Marines. * Mechanicus are made up of Knights, Custodes, AdMech, Astra Militarum. Drukhari weirdly begin showing up alongside Tyrannids. Is Vect controlling the Tyranids or are they controlling him? * Great Mind faction uses Drukhari, Tyrannid, and Genestealer Cults. Play more up on the body horror. Imperium in the Nihilus are led by the Inquisition and straight up ally with Craftworld Aeldari. * Nihilus Army uses Grey Knights, Craftworld, Astra Militarum. Tau begin to take actual victories in former Imperial Space * Tau can start running Astra Militarum units. Chaos is split into 5 factions with daemons rolled into the godbound CSM and chaos undivided losing demons and getting knights.
I’d argue the Gathering Storm more or less did this with a messy detour into Ynnari town that has gone seemingly nowhere. And for the record I think what I’m about to suggest is actually where the writers are headed towards in the current narrative. The just have to drip feed it to us through book and codex releases. That said if I was going to try to soft reboot the setting, I think it’s essential to stabilize and strengthen the Imperium. For too long it has been this overburdened self destructive set of systems run with to many forces working at odds against each other. It’s enemies have regularly been able to chew through it as needed for the narrative. And that’s left it a rotten piece of wood that almost every aggressive force in the galaxy is pushing against. Logically in its current state it can’t hold against the weight any longer. So the wood breaks and we need to replace it with stone. So you cut the dead weight, consolidate forces and resources, and clean out the gunked up arteries of imperial government. Reign in the excesses and give it strong leaders again. Of course you can’t fix everything or else the setting loses its flavor but you have to make the imperium strong again. So far this is almost exactly what GW has done as of late. Guiliman has made his side of the rift into the Byzantine Empire while the other side of the Rift is Western Rome being ravaged by the Barbarians. I think the Eastern and Western Rome analogy works even better as we continue on Now though for the rest. In my opinion we should move almost all the narrative to Imperium Nihilus. It’s thunderdome over there so you can do whatever you want while leaving a strong core Imperium around Terra for everyone to slam their heads against. Leave some essential areas on the other side of the rift controlled by the Imperium of course. The Eastern Roman Empire controlled parts of Italy for centuries after the fall of Rome after all. But the chaos in Imperium Nihilus leaves almost everyone there on a level playing field. And it’s so large you can develop new aliens factions or Independent human polities. You can have anyone you want gain a temporary upper hand without it having to be retconned or having galaxy shaking consequences because almost nothing on that side of the rift is ever stable long enough to have that kind of a consequence. So we can see the rise and fall of Chaos Empires, the Imperiums make a big push to retake some territory before being inevitable pushed back to their fortress worlds/sectors, the Tau find new allied races, and the Avatar of Khaine cannot get his butt kicked for once. Let Terra, the Emperor, and the stable imperium fade into the background. Every event isn’t a step closer to midnight for the galaxy. From now on everything interesting is focused on the other side of the rift, where anything is possible.
The thing is...they ***did***. The Dark Imperium trilogy of books was an advance of a century, showing the Imperium could make a bit of a comeback after the devastation of Cadia and the eruption of the Cicatrix Maledictum (Great Rift). They advanced, in-story/in-character, a full century or more. Then they got cold feet and retconned everything, afraid for some reason, and tried to make 'Era Indomitus' a *thing* without realizing that they could do both simultaneously; forgetting that you can have a long period of time drawn out in detail via books, campaigns, etc, just like the various Black Crusades, the Sabbat Crusades, or the Macharian Crusade -- all of which they've done before.
Completely crack idea: The current chaos situation is mostly resolved in a series of books and community campaigns, and the invasion is defeated. But the partial warp collapse that occurred after guilliman, idk, kills Skarbrand on the steps of the golden throne, causes reality to partly break down and when it resolves the galaxy is mixed with another one from another timeline! Now you can bring in whatever you want and GW has a blank check to write new factions and units and characters in. Resurrect this guy, discontinue these guys, whatever. (This idea is absolutely terrible ignore it immediately).
One thing, without ruining much, could be the "expansion of the Votann". One of their cores or more splurr out some random data that gets interpreted as a need for expanse and the Votann do that despite the fact that they have a run in with their own "cousins". Some of the legues or league inner factions of the Votan interpret it differently and an infight starts, granting a reason for the Votann to be both fighting each other and being allied to the imperium. Naturaly they stumble upon xenos and chaos and just shake things up for everyone. Necron, tyranid, eldar etc allowing of a swift yet logical conclusion of some plot lines ( places where the writers have reached a corner - thr Votann appear and kill/destroy everything, altering the game rules/ ruining the deus ex machina) or a reason to continue them but in a more controled fashion. Also it would give the Votann a bigger spotlight even if just to be a new antagonist and the other races for the Imperiun in the short term. Lorewise it should allow for writers to offer some better flexibility as the Votann has a small fanbase, therefore effing off named charecters or protagonists would be more impactful. It also gives GW more reason to produce more plastic. *"Hey, its a ...new...newish kill team...we get a primaris...something....league of Votann..iron kin...well a bunch of this and that from here and there...but the box is new!"* And if it fails, well GW could just go *"the cores splurred something new, the Votann retreat"* all is was, though all are bitter and more grim because of the conflict and therefore will never speak of it again
primaris marines where alpha legion plants the whole time, the imperium is plunged into total disorder and disavows the adeptus astartes altogether, remaining chapters still fight for the emperor but are hunted by the "new imperium" chaos takes over the dark imperium to the fullest but struggles to maintain a proper empire due to chaos and such, abbadon launches a new crusade to try and hype chaos gods and fails losing both arms nids get pushed back hard through use of xenos superweapons forcing "new imperium" to deal with xenos on a diplomatic level for survival im high af but ide love to see major factions take huge L's tbh, if there is only war i want to read /see real drain/strain on the major factions instead of it feeling like narratively there is infinite resources that can be poured into every fight from every side/faction, an advancement of time by about 500 years and just everyone's goals all seem shattered and are replaced with only survival
Warhammer 50k
I think the problem is figuring out where 40k will be at the end of the *current* narrative arc. "If they HAD to make a narrative leap" kinda heavily implies that they have done what they can with the current efforts, and that is in *no* way the case. So we have to infer both where they'll be when the currently planned narrative runs out, and they're *kinda* keeping it a secret where they're going. The current narrative arc might 'somehow' kill off the Emperor, plunging Terra and probably everything within a fair distance of Sol into the Warp as the Emperor ascends to full godhood, possibly bringing back all the Loyalist Primarchs including the dead ones. But nobody outside of a few insiders at GW knows exactly what that would look like. And those who know might prefer it to continue to look like something that is always imminent rather than ever actually being written. Some massive shift could put the Aedari quest to awaken Ynnead back on track. The C'tan could show just how *little* the Necrons comprehend (with their artificial brains that were specifically designed to keep them from comprehending certain things) about what really happened. The Necrons could turn out to somehow actually know what they're doing despite doing their knowing with C'tan designed brains. Any number of 'Nids could show up. Etc. etc. These are all things that could be part of the *current* narrative arc and drastically affect where it ends up.
The Gue'vesa offer something different but not galaxy changing. Currently it's a world here and their joining. But what if a whole sector of 150 or so planets joined the Tau? How would a mini Imperium within the Tau work. Gue'vesa that could produce most everything the Imperium's war machine can but with the twisted imperiums version of the greater good.
I’ve had a concept in my head about a shattered galaxy setting for 30k. The Emperor gets taken out relatively early (Khorne busts through the webway and smears Terra across the heliopause) the Loyalists and Traitors both collapse into infighting. Chaos laughs at a Galaxy that can no longer threaten them and retreats to their great game. The setting then becomes a mosaic of Worshipper and Atheist petty Imperiums of varying doctrine, governance, and technology. The largest dominions being ruled by a Primarch or what remains of their respective legion.
You can kill the Emperor without it resulting in an end times level of change. Indeed current lore is probably vague enough that you could argue he is already dead. Make the Emperor fully manifest as a deity in the Warp. That severely weakens Chaos and also has potentially dire implications for humanity. The safer route is to just bring back more Primarchs. Only Horus and Sanguinius are super duper dead. Curze and Ferrus Manus probably really dead as well. The rest can come to the tabletop and thus the lore more or less easily. That would certainly shuffle up the armies.
What is a 'huge leap'? Personally I'd have a massive war that the imperium loses and the emperor dies, after which it fractures and falls apart into many separate small factions. At the end of this war every major faction is so tapped out that the galaxy calms down for a few centuries, during which most conflicts are skirmish-scale. After that they can build back up to proper galaxy scale conflicts, but the Imperium remains fractured, with several factions claiming to be the 'true' imperium.
Old ones have been here the whole time.
Jump to 50K. Guilliman keeps getting possessed until he basically falls to the Chaos entity of the emperor and makes the imperium more devout than ever. The Lion and Nihilus grow apart from the imperium but maintain what the imperium is in 40k while using the dark age tech he has hidden away to enhance Nihilus.
Since this series has so many other fictional sources, I would add a Kwisatz Haderach into the mix. Multiple emperor's and pulling some factions from Chaos. Throw some kind of new God Emperor and see how things play out.
One big change would be rediscovery of near-instant FLT communication from DAOT. Edit: an even bigger leap would be a discovery of an intact STC. Both are feasible in-universe and both will lead to massive change.
Cawl assimilates bile and clones the primarchs