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KEEEEEEELLLLL HEEEEEM!!!

Warp travel is possible without Astronomican,you just need to make a lot of short jumps(4 lys).

A contentious subject indeed.

Let me elaborate on why, theoretically, I don't think it would be that much of a stretch for GW to bump off the Emperor.

Like it or not, the Imperium isnt really run by the Emperor anymore, he is more a figurehead and a source of great power. But the day to day stuff is managed by the Senatorum Imperialis or Council of Terra and all the other subdivisions off that.

If the Emperor dies/ascends into godhood, there would be great mourning, wailing, gnashing of teeth, etc but the council would hold things together. That is, if the council decides to reveal he has died.

Of course, the psychic boom unleashed by his death in the warp would garner the attentions of the Nids, Eldar and most importantly Chaos and all would react in their various ways depending on circumstance. IMHO though, instead of weakening these armies, the event would make them stronger as they begin to sense a weakness in mankind to be exploited. The renewed activity with some of these armies would quite rightly cause previously owned Imperial worlds to be captured by xenos forces and, in response, the council will allow the formation of new crusades in order to rid the galaxy once again of heretics and unite mankind.

While I agree this story would be a bold move, it really does work as a catalyst to some epic confrontations.

The problem for GW is the "day after" aspect of this. While a Emperor dying/Terra invaded campaign would be exciting and see a boost for 40k, it would eventually die out and fans would feel compelled to go back to the status quo. The constant deaths and rebirths of superheroes in American comics is pretty much a reflection of the same dilemma.

It WOULD be interesting. But I don't think it can really focus on imperium vs chaos and succeed, the other elements need their attention as well.

He can't die, the psychic feedback would kill half of the loyal astartes and the imperium would fall. Just because the star child is born, he's not going to waltz up to the lords of terra and present himself. If anything, Lion el'Jonson will wake up from inside the rock and succeed the emperor. Either that or just kill a ton of traitors/warp spawns/xenos. Russ may pop out of the warp as well.

Horizon9 wrote:He can't die, the psychic feedback would kill half of the loyal astartes

No, I'm fairly certain that far fewer than half of all loyal Astartes are Librarians.

They don't ne essarily have to be librarians. Look at what happened to the blood angels and sanguinas. But on a gander scale be use it's the emperor

And yet, when other primarchs died, their legions didn't necessarily suffer for it aside from lack of effective leadership.

While the Imperium would definitely falter, dunno if it would collapse. Depends on if the Emperor's soul just plain vanishes, or if he becomes a godlike entity in Empyrean. If it's the latter, Chaos would still have a hard time fighting the Imperium, because of the Emperor's interference. If the Emperor simply vanished outright, Chaos would suddenly not be held in check quite so easily, and attack humanity full force-- not necessarily through overt attacks but through corruption.

It's a possibility not worth experimenting with

The problem is the astronomicon. If it doesn't stay lit, humanity's only strength, its incomprehensible vastness, becomes irrelevant, as it can no longer shuffle its forces about to swat anything that looks at it askew. Which means the Cadian gate stops getting resupplied and reinforced and the Tyranids no longer face even the minor forces required to slaughter the mindless beasts by the millions.

Actually humanity doesn't need the Astronomican to move about the galaxy. It just really, REALLY helps.

My short version.

Cypher, finally makes it to earth (as his pattern of travel seems to be taking him there). With that sword he carries on his back he kneels before the Emperor to ask forgiveness on behalf of the Lion who was fence sitting during the Heresy. Knowing what must be done he kills the Emperor to release the Star child.

The great psychic backlash that was expected never materielises (see Y2k and other doomsday prophecies for references) as the star child becomes the new beacon.

The current High Lords of Terra and the Eclesiarchy are insensed. their grip on power undone they seek to minimise the effects by denying that anything has happened and declaring anyone who states otherwise as heretics. But the jig is up and the Imperium is plunged into a civil war unseen since the Heresy. both sides claim to be fighting for the Emperor.

Legions begin to reform. specifically the Blood Angels who combine with their successors (more so for survival). the Lion is reawakened by these events and begins his path of redemption, fighting for the star child. The Alpha Legion, seeing the reality of what has happened and their reason for fighting the Imperium to begin with realised, declare for the star child and reject chaos. The Space wolves become insensed at the lies that are truly revealed and attack Titan with the goal of destroying the Inquisition. The Grey Knights and Spacewolves fight a bitter battle and are mutually decimated, leaving only scattered remnants of their former selves. Magnus begins a quest to confront the Star Child, secretly hoping that he is the key to his chapter's slavation.

Other renegade chapters take the opportunity to launch a new black crusade. Xenos close in.

The Realm of Ultramar isolates itself from the Imperium taking with it scores of successor chapters and declare that they are the true keepers of Humanity's legacy and fortify themselves against all takers. Refugees stream towards that area of space.

The stage is set. Three factions of humanity fighting for survival. The old remnants of the Imperium. The Star Child's supporters. The isolationist realm of Ultramar.
The possibility of redemption for the Thousand Sons, the Alpha Legion and the Dark Angel. And everyone surrounded by xenos, daemons and squats (ok ok, not squats.).

Cue music, roll credits for the next age of man.

Actually, that's entirely plausible to the point where I'm questioning if you are a gw designer

While some of the more corrupt individuals in the Ecclesiarchy might fight against the Emperor, I think the more devout ones (especially the Sisters) would support the starchild. Sisters are touched by His Divine Majesty after all.

Mind you, I favor a Thorian perspective to the Emperor's activities since his internment upon the Golden Throne.

If the Astronomican disappeared it would impede the IoM's ability to make long range jumps. This wouldn't make a lot of difference strategically since most forces are already stationed in the areas where trouble is expected.

Think of a draughts board (checkers to the Americans). The Astronican allows you to move a piece right across the board in one jump. Without it, though you can move a piece one square, and another piece one square, and so on, so you end up with an empty square in one corner and a full square in the diagonal opposite.

Long range message transmission might suffer. I'm not clear how that ties into the Astronomican.

On the plus side, the Tyranids use the Astronomican for homing, so their advance would be slowed and this might compensate for other ill effects.

Regarding the situation with Chaos. There is an image of Chais being the water behind a tall dam. When the dam breaks, the water spills free in a devastating flood. However, perhaps Chaos is like a gang of men pushing at a castlle door. If the door is suddenly flung open, they all fall down and have to pick up and re-organise themselves before they can advance.

I'm just suggesting lines of potential fluff which could be used to explain how the death of the Emporer would not lead to an immediate collapse of the IoM.

Astropaths don't need the astronomican to communicate, so it wouldn't really harm communication. Warp instability might though, and with Chaos jumping at the bit after the Emperor's death, that might cause more instability than normal.

of chourse it would hurt comunication, it is hard for astropaths to communicate over planeteary distances (even magnus had trouble), the astronimica is needed to navigate ships through the warp, even though if the tyranids reach the astronomica I doubt they would be able to withstand the intesity of it.

There is no intensity of the Astronomican. You need to be psychically attuned to sense it, and it has practically the same strength throughout the galaxy.

Simply mathematics shows that the Astronomican must not obey an inverse square or even an inverse law of signal strength, otherwise ships could not go within hundreds of light years of Earth.

My opinion, no I find it unlikely the emperor will die because I believe the realm of 40k to be designed for sort of "In Fiction Stasis". However I've only started 40k stuff 1.5 years ago so I could be totally perceiving the passage of time wrong.

The way I see it the stories of the Starchild, the Eldar god of the dead, all are created to be a sort of fictional beacon of hope so as to create a more compelling universe narrative. Something that is dangled in front of us but in all practicality not there.

For the more fluffy and fun theorizing. The Imperium would be totally ruined by the Astronomicon, and thus if the emperor died and the status quo didn't just revert (like there had been no change at all) the Imperium as we know it would contract violently, or vanish.

Without the Great Beacon travel would become slower and definitely more dangerous. The Imperium, which spans around a trillion worlds (Codex Space Marine notes there being 1 Marine to a million worlds, same sentence describes there being around 1 million Marines) could not stay cohesive. Even now the Imperium is described as barely cohesive with years being required to traverse it imagine if that got worse.

The Beacon is THE most important thing to holding the Imperium together as is. It's what makes the relatively centralized galactic-spanning pseudo-feudal empire possible. It'd be like taking your modern country (mine being the US) and cutting all transportation down to say 20 miles an hour and communication down to a maybe 200 mile range (as it is to my understanding that Astropaths, aka the psychic telephone, are soul-bound to the Emperor-Astronomican)


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And because I'm long winded.

Let's not forget that the emperor was attempting to give Humanity access to the webway to make his empire cohesive (more so than it is at the moment). I'd say the Imperium is at the growth limit for it's current level of transportation/communication technology judging by the description of the way things are today.

@moonshine maybe the tyranids couldn't withstand the Glow of the Astronomican (perhaps scouring their bestial minds from the direction of the Hive Mind), but they don't need to invade Earth to stop it. Simply disrupt the Psyker Harvest, and the Flame will dwindle leaving humanity to Void and its Maw, NOM NOM.

Honestly as I think about it more, a more collapsed Imperium would still keep a pretty compelling universe, and could keep the game pretty much the same (without making it seem overly unfluffy). As a business though, I'd be scared to introduce that sort of change... Unless I saw it as an opportunity. (would you rather shoot with a twin linked on BS 5 or just auto-hit)

Kilkrazy: I was refering to the effect it would have on the shadow in the warp, I imagine it would be like pointing a torch at a shadow, and if the shadow of the warp died I think the nid would die with it

What could really boost sales I think if the emporer did die is this:

His death does create a wave of instability within the Warp, thereby handicapping Nids and Chaos, instead of making them stronger. Maybe even Warp travel could be severely handicapped, making it difficult for Orks as well.

While there is a sort of pause in battles between Xenos and man, men begin to vie one another for control. The Imperial Guard and different chapters of Space Marines fight one another. The Star Child Never appears, or it needs a human host, so the various leaders of the sects vie with one another to gain control, so that their leader can be the new leader Emporer...each sect feels it is the best choice to lead, as once the Warp stabilizes the Xenos will be striking stronger than ever.

Would be amusing if the Emperor used the body of what was going to be a future Living Saint (which are apparently almost exclusively female, according to the latest Dark Heresy info on the subject) to reborn, and focused on using the Sororitas afterwards instead of the Astartes because of the former's loyalty to him even after his apparent death.

Effectively making it the Emperor / Sisters / Frateris Militia a fourth faction, along with the split between administratum, mechanicus, and astartes.

moonshine wrote:Kilkrazy: I was refering to the effect it would have on the shadow in the warp, I imagine it would be like pointing a torch at a shadow, and if the shadow of the warp died I think the nid would die with it

Well, if it worked that way. I don't think it works that way, though.


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Melissia wrote:Would be amusing if the Emperor used the body of what was going to be a future Living Saint (which are apparently almost exclusively female, according to the latest Dark Heresy info on the subject) to reborn, and focused on using the Sororitas afterwards instead of the Astartes because of the former's loyalty to him even after his apparent death.

Effectively making it the Emperor / Sisters / Frateris Militia a fourth faction, along with the split between administratum, mechanicus, and astartes.

That would be fun.

It wouldn't go down well with the target market, though.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Melissia wrote:Would be amusing if the Emperor used the body of what was going to be a future Living Saint (which are apparently almost exclusively female, according to the latest Dark Heresy info on the subject) to reborn, and focused on using the Sororitas afterwards instead of the Astartes because of the former's loyalty to him even after his apparent death.

Effectively making it the Emperor / Sisters / Frateris Militia a fourth faction, along with the split between administratum, mechanicus, and astartes.

That would be fun.

It wouldn't go down well with the target market, though.

Starting to smell like a version of Female Space Marines!

Seriously though, they really, REALLY should advance the time line for 6th edition.

By a bit too, not a little burp!

And really, sales (or lack thereof) would indicate that SOMETHING drastic might help!

But that would lead to the decrease in sales of GW's Ultra-smurfs if the emperor's chosen were the battle sisters

Alpharius wrote:Starting to smell like a version of Female Space Marines!

Not really, they're still just human. Space Marines failed him in his time of greatest glory, but Sisters didn't. So it would make sense.

moonshine wrote:No the emprorer will live because if he died there would be no more impirium and gw would not be able to sell space marines or guard

okay okay... REALLY PEOPLE??!!

I mean... I know that GW gets a lot of well deserved grief for just about... everything... But they are also the people who have led how many thousands of us to take for canon that a guy sitting on a golden toilet for 10k years still has enough power to maintain the astronomicon, appoint saints, eat psykers, etc. Is there any doubt that they could make us swallow something equally implausible if it meant that they could still sell us SM and IG and all that other imperial goodness?

I think GW could find someway to keep the IoM together by having some Badbutt psyker dedicating his life/existence to the astronomicon *cough* Tigurius*Cough*, though I could see it being hush hush as far as the emperors death goes(wouldn't it be funny if hes actually been dead for a couple thousand years, and the High council is spoon feeding the masses to keep loyalty), so I think it's possible, do I think gw would need to kick some writers in the head to get it to happen YES!!

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