Headhanger said:

Excellent idea.  I'll see you there.  I'm certain sooner or later we'll think of something stunningly original to call ourselves.

aethel said:

Perhaps the hmmm amalgamalathians?

(amalgam: creating an alloy, alloys being generally stronger or better in some way than the sum of its parts)

since we are trying to create a strong front to hold the imperium where it is now.

Val

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Not much of a fan of the ranting in that story. Maidens? Mars? The kind of power ascribed to the Emperor in that begs the question, how could he possibly have even NEEDED the primarchs? Why didn't he do the same to the galaxy in general? The power he is given in that story makes the entire crusade and his painfully slow rise to power all the more ridiculous.

What I think would be more interesting is if the Emperor Gambit of the old shamans simply failed. They didn't create him for the purposes he set himself, he didn't even KNOW about the greater galaxy at the time of his creation. The shamans were very narrow in their reasons for creating him.

Thus, just because the souls of some Australopithicus africanus reincarnated into a single form DOESN'T mean that he is galactically destined to actually DO anything. There is every chance he isn't strong enough or even capable of doing what they wanted him to.

There is no reason that other psychic races couldn't create their own 'Emperor', the process as described is not a unique thing, the Infinity Circuit of the Eldar is very similar to the Emperor, just not as focused.

So I would like to see something OTHER than 'teh empra roxxors'. He doesn't roxxor, he's failed his stated objective and he wasn't created by infallible beings so isn't destined to fix everything. That's what he WANTS to do, but wanting and destiny are seperate things.

I would think something more interesting would happen. For instance, the Nicassar create an Emperor gestalt, or several mini emperors. Ynnead forms etc.

I'm over the Emperor being the centre of all things, considering that from an objective perspective he never was nor will ever be. That's an arrogant conceit on the parts of his creators.

Hellebore

Know what I think would be genuinely cool? The emperor awakens. He's  barely able to communicate, and speaks for less than an hour a day, but his corpse like form croaks out a few words every day. Old technological principles, battle plans. For 10 minutes a day, he reviews combat strategies for major campaigns, making adjustments and corrections like some kind of savant. he's the imperium's secret weapon, emboldening fleets all across the galaxy, bolstering the crumbling empire with his godlike ingenuity, even as something seems amiss.Purges are ordered against imperial worlds, for no apparent reason, seemingly important campaigns are neglected or ignored. The carrion king is smashing his empire even as he saves it. Destroying, reshaping, rebuilding. Sensing the resurgence of their most ancient foe, even as the entire imperium creaks and groans, Chaos Space Marines pour forth from ther Eye Of Terror in the single bloodiest Black Crusade ever known. Dissent is sown by cultists and sorcery far and wide, and a newly empowered abbadon sweeps aside the imperial defences and burns Cadia to ashes.

Do any of these "Emperor awakens" "Emperor dies" or "emperor is awake/is dead" scenarios advance the story of the 40K universe at all. Its like saying "Khorne packs up his toys and goes home" or "Slaneesh apologizes" or "the orks plant a garden and make you  a sandwhich", sure it changes how things work, but does it really advance the story?

The Imperium spreading into a new segmentum, or carrying on a crusade to colonize the Ghoul or Halo Stars advances the story better in my opinion.

Perhaps the emperor moans out a cryptic message that the High Lords somehow do not manage to supress and that message is intepreted by some as to expand, while others see it as a warning not to expand? That would be more along the lines of expanding the meta plot of 40K. The emperor dying and the astronomicon failing and the imperium fragmenting will only result in the next ork/nid/chaos invastion wiping out mankind and then GW will have store rooms full of figs no longer in use.

You are more likely to see a new line of figs then the removal of another line (Im sure GW wishes it kept the Squats, just for monetary value).

My take is ideas that are fun to think about and play around with, though YMMV.  I quite like the idea of metaplots, but don't expect anything related to RPG to actually drive/change the overall 40K timeline.

AJC

Well the TT rulebook seems to imply that such an ending may be on the Horizon...

I had an interesting scenario for a DH game called the Emporer Reborn in which the Emporer truly WAS reborn...the Corpse on the Golden Throne having been truly dead for 10 millenia and all this "Astronomicon" and "feeding souls to the Emporer" was in fact a farce perpetreated by the Imperial Cult and those Inquisitors who supported it.

Now 10k later his spirit really is reborn, Christ like, into a new body and the child is born and raised in secret...the game began with his coming of Age...and the Inquisitorial factions warring to both keep him alive and lead the Imperium to a new age (Recongregator style) and those wishing to kill the reborn Emporer and keep things the way they are (Amalathian style).  In the meantime the Emporer was too young to "go buckwild" but was capable of doing miracles (aka Christ again).   There were of course extremists on both sides of this "secret war" with it slowly unravelling as the news of the Emporer Reborn began to spiral outwards.

Ultimately (had I had anybody to play the story out) my idea was that this could have developed into a Imperium wide civil war and finally outright war between different factions - Dark Angels vs. Space Wolves, Radicals vs. Puritans, Ecclesiarchy vs. Pramatists, etc etc etc...

The civil war alone could rage for a very long time...giving plenty of time to decide what might happen with the Emporer Reborn

Would this change the TT game? No...all of the factions of the Imperium would sitll be present just on different sides than normal...potentially new factions (Mechanicus springs to mind, as well as true Inquisitorial armies)...but still in the sense of preserving the game world and selling models I think things would remain the same...

Would it change DH?  Well of course the storyline would change...but fundamentally it would still be in place...there would just be more BLATANT warfare between Inquisitors and the concept of who was Radical and Puritan and holy and heretic would change hugely...

IMHO radical changes like that do not advance the metaplot, but instead change the setting into something that is not 40K. It would be like having Sigmar return in WFRP or Christ return in the real world. Game over man, game over.

Simple fact, a galaxy wide schism would destroy the empire. The Orks and Tau and Chaos and even Dark Eldar and Eldar would take advantage of the turmoil and the Imperium would cease to exist.

Now a cult that thinks it has the emperor repborn (and maybe does) would be something everyone would pretty much want to wipe out or keep secret. Other wise you might as well run The Thousand Thrones adventure campaign set in 40Kiverse. And once the Imperium unravels, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch end. Just break out a copy of After the Bomb and play in Post-Apocalyptic 40K.

Again, this is all IMHO.

But I feel safe, GW wouldnt destroy their IP like that.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I do not think anyone here is wishing Games Workshop "wakens the Emperor"; it seems more just hypothetical thinking. 

Wilfred Owen said:

Indeed.

The hands of the 40k clock are forever set at '1 minute to midnight'.  I'm not suggesting nor wishing they would change that here, nor do i think they will.

I just thought it might be interesting to speculate what might happen when the Golden Throne fails...

What's with all the "Emperor Reborn" stuff? You take the one of the most powerful psykers the galaxy has ever seen, mix in some 10,000 years of worship by trillions of worshipers, and you get somethin with the strength of the Gods of Chaos. Saying that the Emperor will be reborn is like saying that Tzeentch is going to somehow get himself a mortal body. Far too much power for flesh to contain. What I would like to see is the Emperor becoming a Chaos God. The Chaos God of Order would be the best way for him to manifest in my opinion. It matches his mortal plans and the dogma of the church very nicely while highlighting the inherently contradictory nature of Chaos. Other candidates for his sphere of influence include dominatation and oppression.

I'm thinking that the minute he dies, the Sol System is obliterated in a Warp Storm similar to that of the Eye of Terror. This immediately obliterates the main seat of power for both the Imperium and the Mechanicum, blanks out the Astronomicon, destroys the Dragon and leaves the whole thing shrouded in mystery for the various factions of the Imperium to debate and speculate over why it happened. I'd also think that the same thing would happen to the other Warp Storms around the galaxy when the Eye of Terror was born, all the other Warp Storms reduced. So the Eye of Terror shrinks in size, as do a bunch of the other storms where Chaos Marines are hiding and a bunch of the other Warp Storms thoughout the galaxy disperse. Thus the Imperium is broken down into a bunch of warring empires, but Abbadon's lot and other chaos renegades do as well so that Humanity doesn't fall overnight. Just so that the setting can continue.

And then something interesting happens, the Emperor starts granting boons to his worshipers just as the other Gods do. He starts manifesting daemons aligned to his will. I'd like to see these daemons essentially be the Legion of the Damned. Now the thing is, worship of the Gods of Chaos is a bad thing. It weakens the barriors between the Materium and Immaterium. Because of this, we'll see all sorts of more prominent Chaos activity. Human empires aligned to the will of one of the Gods. And there will eventually be some factions that see this trend and turn away from worship of the Emperor because they realize the harm they are doing. So we'll see a mix of aligned and secular human empires in the galaxy.

This whole setup makes it so that the "In the future there is only war" tagline stays true. There are just a lot of different human factions fighting each other instead of the single beuracracy. The tabletop game wouldn't really change, then resolution of it all is nowhere in sight and GW can continue to pump money out of us while encouraging our creativity by telling us we can create our own little empires amungst the ruins of the Imperium, just as we could create our own Marine Chapters and regiments and things. It'd be less of an end and more of a new begining.

Its a trick the throne isnt failing the Emperor is merely shutting it down himself to cause his body to regenerate due to the immense psykic power he has achieved

once he is revived he kills all the high lords of terra for their mock worship of him and takes full control of the Empire fueling the astronomican with his own body saving thousands of pyskers for his use

he gives the adeptus mechanicus thousands of STCs he remembers from the dark days and ferrets out all heresy on every world he owns with his own bare hands and pure raw pyskic power

he unites his Empire once again ruling with an iron fist gaining billions of imperial guardsmen giving them new stratagens and weapondry

his own army of space marines gain a second breath and go into the eye of terror destroying their fallen brethren with the emperors might

the inquisition now seeks alien threats as heresy is destroyed and the ruinous powers are preparing a final bout

the sisters of battle fall to the side of their emperor and through their faithful service are rewarded and taken as the emperors personal army to combat the threats he faces in battle

as for the alien races

Orks: start to unite and launch one crusaded WAGGGGH!!! against hummies and the like being held back by a stronger Empire

Eldar: see this as a last stand of the brink of a new age the start attacking necrons full out trying to destroy them fully even destroying a C'tan

Dark Eldar: leave their port of death and start pirating the alien races the eldar and their alliances drive them back and with the emperors pyskic power seals them off in their port for all eternity

Necrons: the Void Dragon awakens on mars and half the Adeptus Mechanicus become necronized but the other half with the help of space marine chapters fend off and kill the new tech heretics and the mechanicus must now work much harder to keep the imperium running but the emperor provides salvation against the word of the omnisiah giving them STC's to triple production even weapons to destroy the necrons phasing ability severely weakening their threat

Chaos: launches a final crusade as the astonomican even still fueled by the emperor is let down enough to let the ruinous powers escape their prison of warp. destruction is rampant in the imperium though the emperor is stronger for his time away he defeats the ruinous powers one by one relinquishing their hold on the warp and calming its storms. with the aid of the eldar he destroys Slaneesh gaining their alliship for now as they combat the necron threat still

Tau: they gain more alien races for "the Greater Good" and start to try a takeover of imperial worlds they are held back by imperial guardsmen and space marines eventualy reaching a stand still and alliship with the Imperium combining the empires for now gaining both new technology and skill to work together and conquer together for now

Tyranids: all hive fleets move in from the galaxy beyond conquering and devouring all in their path. dead worlds are spared as necrons ally themselves with the vicious alien race. the hive ships themselves move into the galaxy destroying all in its path warring with orks waaaaggggghh crusade viciously wearing eachothers resources out extravagantly helping this stronger Imperium come together and defeat both of these ancient and new threats

as for a conclusion

once the threats are destroyed the emperor turn on his allies and destroys them utterly for only humans can survive in this universe through war and a peace comes across the galaxy as the Imperium of man is triumphant with their Emperor bringing in a new age of peace for now...

because in the 41st millenium there is only WAR

fimarach said:

GW have aaaaaaaaalways made 40k sound like that. It's just that this edition has added a little more grit to the description of the 40k Grimdark universe, to make it sound new and edgy.

Face it, GW will NEVER end their cashcow flagship of a game.