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Abbadon breaks out of the eye, the emperor dying and being reborn either from being killed by an agent of chaos or the golden throne failing. The Necrons and Nids will be distractions, so will the orks, and the Emperor essentially begins the great crusade again gathering the shattered remnants of mankind. I see all signs pointing too this, the stuff about the throne failing, Cadia close to falling, Nids and Necrons returning, time of ending stuff.

Nowhere. Because they're not going to continue the story, and if they do it'll be slower than evolution.

The 3rd Armageddon War has been going on since 2nd Edition if I recall. The story is going nowhere, and I don't expect the upcoming 6th Edition to do anything to progress it at all. I doubt we'll even leave the 41st Millennium.

The imperium probably unleashes a few sisters of battle ordo to clean up the tau problem.
But, there will never be any huge change to fluff becase a portion of the community will feel betrayed by gw.

I don't know where this crazy idea of story progression came from, lol.

The game will never see a resolution to it.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:I don't know where this crazy idea of story progression came from, lol.

From 2nd edition when the years moved on a 1:1 ratio with real life years. The timeline advanced steadily. This thing with being frozen in time has only been since 3rd edition, and only after the Eye of Terror campaign.

It should be resumed again, because although the general status quo was much the same, what changed was the individual story of a range of characters. Some of the classic background taken for granted today was a direct result of progression of the timeline, giving room for characters to develop. The rivalry between Ghazghkull and Yarrick, carried over from the 2nd War for Armageddon, was expanded and fleshed out with the incorporation of the battle on Golgotha (which was originally an Epic Space Marine game battle report). The story of Tycho started with a battle report in which an unnamed Blood Angel captain was felled by an Ork Weirdboy's psychic powers, and then advanced through to the iteration of Tycho with his hatred of Orks and his mask, and finally through to his death and finding of some form of inner peace through the 3rd War of Armageddon.

It is a classic mistake to assume progression of background has to necessarily equate to massive upheaval and tossing out of the entire background. End game scenarios of each race's final victory or final doom are all never going to happen as it would mean the end of the franchise, but there is no necessity to think timeline progression means having to jump to the end of the universe. Just as there are more than 2 speeds for a car, there can be different rates of timeline advancement, and if GW wanted to, they could select a rate that allowed for character progression but which maintained the 40K universe in a form recognizable to current players.

Another reason in favor of timeline advancement is the cramped nature of the timeline for certain races. Only certain races get the 10,000 years of the Imperium's lifespan to have background inserted in. The Tyranids for example have been in the galaxy for less than 3 centuries, and likewise the Tau have been in their current recognizable technological state since about this time as well (the Damocles Crusade encountered Tau at a state of development recognizable to current players). For these races there isn't 10,000 years of past to play with. The amount of background they can have ends up being squeezed into these 200 or so years. This gap becomes ever more cramped and suspension of disbelief ever more strained as more and more is crammed into such a short space of time. An expansion of the timeline relieves this bind and frees up time for new hive fleets or new Tau technological developments or septs to be inserted in a less hurried cramped fashion.

Abaddon finally breaks through the Cadian Gate, makes his way to Terra and gets to the Emperors Throne Room.

He draws Drach'nyen and approaches the withered carcass of the Emperor. Inches away, enough to smell the decay of the Emperors Skin, he kneels. Abaddon, chosen of the Dark Gods, Warmaster of the Chaos Legions, so close to achieving his goal of so many tortured years, looks up to the Emperors death mask.

'Sorry' says the mighty Abaddon, as a single tear rolls from his eye, 'I was a bit upset'.

Chaos joins forces with the imperium

Pilau Rice wrote:Abaddon finally breaks through the Cadian Gate, makes his way to Terra and gets to the Emperors Throne Room.

Abaddon is already out of the Cadian Gate. The little background blurb in the Apocalypse rulebook places him in the Thesus Sector, which is not one of the Cadian Gate sectors as those were listed and fought over during the Eye of Terror campaign. He is also shown with a once more fully operational Planetkiller. He is also described as still on his 13th Black Crusade. Hence the time of this also has to occur subsequent to the events of the Eye of Terror campaign.

Iracundus wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:Abaddon finally breaks through the Cadian Gate, makes his way to Terra and gets to the Emperors Throne Room.

Abaddon is already out of the Cadian Gate. The little background blurb in the Apocalypse rulebook places him in the Thesus Sector, which is not one of the Cadian Gate sectors as those were listed and fought over during the Eye of Terror campaign. He is also shown with a once more fully operational Planetkiller.

I thought he was stuck on Cadia still? Anyway, I wasn't being serious so

Pilau Rice wrote:Abaddon finally breaks through the Cadian Gate, makes his way to Terra and gets to the Emperors Throne Room.

He draws Drach'nyen and approaches the withered carcass of the Emperor. Inches away, enough to smell the decay of the Emperors Skin, he kneels. Abaddon, chosen of the Dark Gods, Warmaster of the Chaos Legions, so close to achieving his goal of so many tortured years, looks up to the Emperors death mask.

'Sorry' says the mighty Abaddon, as a single tear rolls from his eye, 'I was a bit upset'.

Chaos joins forces with the imperium

Pretty much Durza!

Nowhere. Each and every Traitor Legion, the Blood Ravens, the Tau, and the Eldar, each get a new Codex, some new rules, maybe even new wars, Crusades, and so on, but nothing will really change.

Durza wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:Abaddon finally breaks through the Cadian Gate, makes his way to Terra and gets to the Emperors Throne Room.

He draws Drach'nyen and approaches the withered carcass of the Emperor. Inches away, enough to smell the decay of the Emperors Skin, he kneels. Abaddon, chosen of the Dark Gods, Warmaster of the Chaos Legions, so close to achieving his goal of so many tortured years, looks up to the Emperors death mask.

'Sorry' says the mighty Abaddon, as a single tear rolls from his eye, 'I was a bit upset'.

Chaos joins forces with the imperium

UPCOMING HERESY:
The Emperor becoming a god and the elder Chaos Powers are 'purified' to become Mankind's gods in the same fashion as the old Eldar pantheon is in fact the Emperor's plan all along.

By the way, why aren't there any berzerkers in the pic?

Tadashi wrote:

By the way, why aren't there any berzerkers in the pic?

There's only 6 squares?

Who knows? Not annoying enough?

My prediction

The Imperium will contnue to be embattled on all fronts while miraculously not losing any meaningful battles that might actually make a difference to the ongoing status -quo.

A few new Chapters will be invented and then wiped out to a man so that it looks like SM lose occasionally, but in doing so they'll win (fill in battle here) using some new unit or weapon that just got realesed in their newest codex., or allow another chapter to do so.

The Emperor will stay deadish, Chaos, Nids, Necrons etc will continue to be 'threats of galactic proportions' while doing jack all, and the Marines will get all the credit while the Guard do all the work


Believe me, i'd rather something else, but chances are low.

Orks unite and Win

WolfBrother916 wrote:Orks unite and Win

I vote for this. And once they win, they can go back to playing overly violent street soccer.

The Emperor dies and reincarnates himself as the Star Child... During a Tyranid Invasion.


And the Rippers go OM NOM NOM on the would-be Emperor...


That would be the most hilarious thing ever...

Honestly i have to go with the no where crowd.

I could see the story advancing while effectively going no where. e.g black crusade is defeated but the gate has to be reinforced so there isn't a realease of troops the imperium needs, same with the nids.

Only way I can see the the story stumbling a long is if the imperium prevails, there can always be another armageddon, black crusade, hive fleet or waaagh but it anyof the other win bye bye imperium and that half the armies gone

The thirteenth black crusade finally succeeds in breaking out of the Cadian sector, but then Hive Fleet Leviathan descends upon it and devours it. The forces of chaos fight on bitterly, but are vastly outnumbered and are slaughtered en masse, crippling them for millenia to come. The traitor legions scatter even harder in the shock and confusion as they are overwhelmed by "mere xenos" and the straggling remnants of the crusade flee back into the eye. The planetkiller is made into hive ship food and Abaddon is ripped limb from limb by a hundred Lictor broods attacking simultaneously and is replaced by someone else to sell a new model.

Considering that this all started out with rouge trader and added much since then I think the stories open for change. I also don't think letting empy die/resurrected and the despoiler break out from cadia would end the game or story, just have things happening on different planets with slightly different fluff. You'd still have Chaos, Xenos, Imperial Guard and Space Marines.

Everybody sees the errors of their ways and forgive each other for their evil doings in order to unite and make the galaxy a peaceful and wonderful place to live in peace and harmony with each other and nature... joke lol they continue killing each other in horrific (including violent purge or loads o' dakka) ways to please us .

Nothing will change in any major way.

Some war-zones will be closed and others will opened up
We will be told that change is imminent, but not actually here yet.
No major issues will be resolved, but a few new ones might pop up.
No races will be defeated. We might be told of a few new ones that are threatening the Imperium.

You are welcome to quote me on this as being the case for the next three editions at least.


...

ZSO SAHALL wrote:Considering that this all started out with rouge trader and added much since then I think the stories open for change. I also don't think letting empy die/resurrected and the despoiler break out from cadia would end the game or story, just have things happening on different planets with slightly different fluff. You'd still have Chaos, Xenos, Imperial Guard and Space Marines.

Yeah, but how long has it been since anything new has actually happened? At least 10ish years.

Kain wrote:The thirteenth black crusade finally succeeds in breaking out of the Cadian sector, but then Hive Fleet Leviathan descends upon it and devours it. The forces of chaos fight on bitterly, but are vastly outnumbered and are slaughtered en masse, crippling them for millenia to come. The traitor legions scatter even harder in the shock and confusion as they are overwhelmed by "mere xenos" and the straggling remnants of the crusade flee back into the eye. The planetkiller is made into hive ship food and Abaddon is ripped limb from limb by a hundred Lictor broods attacking simultaneously and is replaced by someone else to sell a new model.

That would be possible if the Hive Fleet were anywhere near Cadia.

Or...

Leviathan continues its flap-tastic way towards Terra, crossing the unimaginable gulfs of empty space between it and the Golden Throne when, suddenly...

... they run mandible-first into a cluster of star-systems that are the Crownworlds of an as-yet-unreleased Necron line, who have been awake for a couple thousand years now, just going about their immortal, Egyptian lives, and are pleased as pie to have some new visitors, because their Tombs didn't have Torch-ships or Dolmen Gates, so they've been a bit bored and lonely, you see, and then things go south when the Tyranids prove themselves to be bad neighbors, and so a few billion Necrons proceed to gauss-flay the Hive Fleet into only slightly more threatening than a small anthill.

Durza wrote:

Kain wrote:The thirteenth black crusade finally succeeds in breaking out of the Cadian sector, but then Hive Fleet Leviathan descends upon it and devours it. The forces of chaos fight on bitterly, but are vastly outnumbered and are slaughtered en masse, crippling them for millenia to come. The traitor legions scatter even harder in the shock and confusion as they are overwhelmed by "mere xenos" and the straggling remnants of the crusade flee back into the eye. The planetkiller is made into hive ship food and Abaddon is ripped limb from limb by a hundred Lictor broods attacking simultaneously and is replaced by someone else to sell a new model.

That would be possible if the Hive Fleet were anywhere near Cadia.

The thing about leviathan is that it's coming up from beneath the galaxy in a colossal wave of unprecedented size that doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Nowhere in the galaxy is safe from leviathan because it can and has popped up just about anywhere. So yeah, GW will probably go for some excuse to get Chaos players to buy new models by killing off a slew of old special characters. Abaddon will get a footnote about going down as he gets mobbed by Lictors and ripped limb from limb.

Having the story advance dramatically would possibly render certain armies dead depending on how they do it. I think it would be possible to move it forward at a 100:1 ratio, but I don't think GW has any interest in doing so, since this is their money pot.

KplKeegan wrote:The Emperor dies and reincarnates himself as the Star Child... During a Tyranid Invasion.


And the Rippers go OM NOM NOM on the would-be Emperor...


That would be the most hilarious thing ever...

Then the enslavers come back.
Hahaha. No more nids -.-

Kain wrote:

Durza wrote:

Kain wrote:The thirteenth black crusade finally succeeds in breaking out of the Cadian sector, but then Hive Fleet Leviathan descends upon it and devours it. The forces of chaos fight on bitterly, but are vastly outnumbered and are slaughtered en masse, crippling them for millenia to come. The traitor legions scatter even harder in the shock and confusion as they are overwhelmed by "mere xenos" and the straggling remnants of the crusade flee back into the eye. The planetkiller is made into hive ship food and Abaddon is ripped limb from limb by a hundred Lictor broods attacking simultaneously and is replaced by someone else to sell a new model.

That would be possible if the Hive Fleet were anywhere near Cadia.

The thing about leviathan is that it's coming up from beneath the galaxy in a colossal wave of unprecedented size that doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Nowhere in the galaxy is safe from leviathan because it can and has popped up just about anywhere. So yeah, GW will probably go for some excuse to get Chaos players to buy new models by killing off a slew of old special characters. Abaddon will get a footnote about going down as he gets mobbed by Lictors and ripped limb from limb.

GW doesn't need to kill off old Chaos characters to introduce new ones. And characters that get killed off stay in their codex as viable options anyway, like Eldrad. As the Chosen of Chaos, Abaddon is the least likely to be killed off without a massive event to commemorate it anyway.