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There have been lots of debates over canon and a lot of people have mentioned how they have their own "personal" canon different from the Games Workshop one. So this is a thread to talk about your own personal canon and stuff. Here's mine!

Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines and Primarchs
-The super human nature of Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines is toned down to fit their in-game stats. Though extremely powerful, they aren't Gods given physical form like the fluff makes them appear to be.
-The Ultramarines are toned down somewhat. They'll still be the most accomplished Loyalist Legion/Chapter, but they'll have defeats and aren't as perfect and they'd appear to be. Also, Ultramar is just as bad as the rest of the Imperium, but there's more propaganda.
-The Alpha Legion fell because of pride, as in the earlier editions, not because of the Eldar. And that pride was Alpharius' downfall when he fought the Ultramarines, which is why he died (or did he?).
-Night Lords don't live in the Eye of Terror. It's idiotic to have the one Traitor Legion that is confirmed to not worship Chaos (the Alpha Legion is debatable) live in the Eye of Terror. After Konrad Curze died the Night Lords remained in the Eastern Fringe, though they still splintered into multiple warbands.
-Give the Dark Angels a better secret that's still a mystery. A huge portion of the Legions turned to Chaos, its not a very good secret to say that happened to the Dark Angels too. The secret will be something about their Primarch, Geneseed or the C'tan, not just the basic Chaos corrupted story.
-Space Marines look ugly and Chaos Space Marines look worse. Too much of the fluff has them looking normal or even attractive. They're super humans stuffed with implants and a strange metal layer under their skin. At the minimum they should look slightly off and disturbing to normal humans. Slaanesh Favored Chaos Space Marines are the only exception, but their beauty never lasts long.

Tyranids
-Hive Fleet Leviathan is larger than previously said and isn't confirmed to be the last Tyranid fleet. However, it's still currently tied up with the Orks, but this may just be making them stronger.
-There is no Swarmlord. That's idiotic. Tyranids are supposed to be a Hive with no individuals. They don't have some General Grievous rip off that commands them whenever they get scared or act stupid. There can be rare breeds of Tyranids, but there are no individual personalities.

The Emperor
-The Emperor isn't becoming a God. In his mortal life he was stronger than any single God, but that doesn't make him one. The dead pyskers go to empowering the Golden Throne and no one knows where the prayers go.
-No one knows what happened when Horus fought the Emperor, they just know what happened prior and what the aftermath was.

The Tau Empire and the Farsight Enclaves
-Ethereals control the Tau via pheromones. This was suggested in the fluff but not confirmed
-There is evidence to suggest that the Tau were created by an outside force, but what it is remains unclear. Some scholars point to the C'tan considering the Tau's extremely low and sometimes nonexistent impact on the Warp, but this is unconfirmed.
-Commander Farsight worships the C'tan.

Necrons and C'tan
-There is a massive amount of Necrons, enough to put up a far fight against the Imperium. At least 20 billion and probably more.
-The new Necron Codex is going to change it so that the Necrons enslaved C'tan and have their own Empires. Though some Necron Lords do have personalities and ambitions, the C'tan are clearly in control.

The Imperium
-The Imperium is in the decline. Every day planets are lost.
-The Imperium is just as bad as everything else. Leaders are corrupt and cruel zealots.

And the rest is pretty much the same. Orks and Eldar are pretty good.

I try not to talk about my personal canon in public. I mean then we have a canon showing contest and inevitably someone gets canon envy.

AustonT wrote:I try not to talk about my personal canon in public. I mean then we have a canon showing contest and inevitably someone gets canon envy.

I kind of loled.

My personal canon? Whatever portrays Space Marines the best.

I don't really have anything but Dark Eldar personally.
-Each Kabal has its own basic structure; they use whatever they want to fight with, take whatever the hell they want and do whatever the hell they want.
-There's billions and billions of them.
-The Dark City spans such a large area that it would be impossible to attack the collective 'Dark Eldar' at once, just a group or region.
-Since they're constantly able to capture and kill to their liking, it also suggests that humanity breeds crazy fast.
-Just like Orks, CSM and partially Tyranids, they simply won't ever unite and kill the entire galaxy. No race in 40k will ever get their end away, really, but Dark Eldar especially aren't capable of putting enough trust in their own kind to really start a large invasion of the Imperium or what not. They probably wouldn't because eradicating everything means there's no more things to poke.

Personal canon? Space wolves are dicks.

I have a few odds and ends.

Farsight is not ailed with the tau empire. He is not trying to save it or doing any secret good guy things.

Tau can fall to chaos & battlesuit neuroses is an affect of chaos corruption.

The IG is a meat grinder and the majority of commanders would sooner shoot an entire regiment then request an extra transport.

Crisissuits can do back flips.

GW and the Black Library write canon.

Everyone else writes fan fiction.

I'm pretty sure most BA players would classify The Swallow books as:
Fiction, Fan; poor

Basically a lot of my own 'personal' canon relates to Space Marines as well. They're often portrayed as incompetant, or barely able to survive battles without significant plot armour, but I simply believe that accurate portrayals of their capabilities are rare. The first Horus Heresy book does pretty well, so does Aron Dembski-Bowden. They're the elite of the elite, their power armour is like the armour of a tank, and any enemy they face has a hard time killing them.

My personal canon is for Star Wars.

Its a story about a Wall Street investor named Duke Skankspanker that has his daughter kidnapped by a group of intergalactic Ninja Frogs called "the Force". The ninja's are after his coffee, and want it or they'll mail his daughter back to him...in peices.

Skankspanker hijacks a Federation ship, the U.S.S. Entrepreneurship so he can get to planet Spectra and use his powers to enter the Matrix and jack their $hit up.

Anyway....that's MY own personal canon for Star Wars episode IV:A New Bag of Dope

F the stuff that Lucas wrote...the hack.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW my own personal canon for 40k is what the writers give me....b/c I'm not special, and it's their game that THEY created.

iproxtaco wrote:Basically a lot of my own 'personal' canon relates to Space Marines as well. They're often portrayed as incompetant, or barely able to survive battles without significant plot armour, but I simply believe that accurate portrayals of their capabilities are rare. The first Horus Heresy book does pretty well, so does Aron Dembski-Bowden. They're the elite of the elite, their power armour is like the armour of a tank, and any enemy they face has a hard time killing them.

I agree with this statement personally.

That being said, it's hard for many to reconcile years of contradictory fluff, obsolescent fluff, book fluff and especially, game play.

Over time, the 40k fan base has broken down into several schools of thought when it comes to the fluff. The readers and the gamers are two schools with a lot of crossover, but more often than not how they got involved colors their perception of the marines and what they view as the "correct" canon. You could further break this down into whether or not you prefer the "harder" science fiction or the more fantastical elements.

Because there has been so much waffling back and forth with the fluff, all of it colored by the many, many authors and their own perceptions of the 40k universe it's no wonder we have so many schools of thought on what the marines are or how they should be. The Horus Heresy tries to address some of this, but even those books vary widely in quality. They cover a legendary period in the history of the Imperium and sometimes it seems to me that the HH books are akin to modern day authors writting novels based on the Illiad and all that would entail. At least, this is how I keep a straight face as a fan when I read them.

The thing I try and keep in mind is that anything written about the marines (and authorized by the BL) is canon. GW and the BL have made statements to the fact that ALL threads are potentially open and it is up to us to determine what is fact and what is myth. Even things we considered completely false may still have some grain of truth in them.

Most of us find this a bitter pill and we then break off into our various camps and sometimes argue tooth and nail about what is "possible" some 30 to 40 thousand years in the future.

Even so, I find this aspect highly enjoyable as it leads to many good conversations where fans can come up with ideas that can far exceed the quality of the authors or even the creators.

I tend to take the canonical fluff as written, but I do some personal stuff on a smaller scale - I have a small minor order of Battle Sisters with their own fanfiction fluff that reconciled their more brutal manner of purging heretics, and my current project is working on how to use daemons while making them more friendly, since I don't particularly like evil stuff except as bad guys.

My basic thought was to have a relatively small group of creatures from the Warp that have been drawn toward a particular individual, and they work with him toward his immediate goal of achieving planetary peace, and his long-term goal of bringing peace to the galaxy. The fact that they happen to have similar rules as Chaos Daemons is coincidental.

I only really have one, that being that the Necrons are a threat, but that after the millions of years of decay, they are too damaged or too few to be any form of major threat.

iproxtaco wrote:Basically a lot of my own 'personal' canon relates to Space Marines as well. They're often portrayed as incompetant, or barely able to survive battles without significant plot armour, but I simply believe that accurate portrayals of their capabilities are rare. The first Horus Heresy book does pretty well, so does Aron Dembski-Bowden. They're the elite of the elite, their power armour is like the armour of a tank, and any enemy they face has a hard time killing them.

This I agree with

My personal fluff is way too comprehensive to really post. Over the decade and a half or so I've been playing, I've been continuously integrating whatever bits of fluff make sense and ignoring the ones that don't, and trying to link it all together with as coherent and believable a description of the "science" of 40k as possible. Like, extensive musings on the nature of the warp and its interaction with reality, the physiology of various races, how to really implement the various types of armor and weapons, etc. It pains me to see ill-conceived retcons or new fluff, as each is just one more piece of GW's canon that I have to ignore to preserve my own sanity...

Maybe I need a new hobby?

Deadshane1 wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW my own personal canon for 40k is what the writers give me....b/c I'm not special, and it's their game that THEY created.

You don't have to be special to have your own person canon. All you have to say is, "Damn it, Matt Ward made the Necrons ally with Blood Angels. Maybe I'll just pretend that never happened" or something similar. If you used that kind of attitude regarding every aspect of 40k, conversions wouldn't be allowed (I'm not special, and it's their model that THEY created) and creating your own Chapters and Craftworlds and WAAGHs or factions wouldn't be allowed (I'm not special, GWs already made factions to play as).

LoneLictor wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW my own personal canon for 40k is what the writers give me....b/c I'm not special, and it's their game that THEY created.

You don't have to be special to have your own person canon. All you have to say is, "Damn it, Matt Ward made the Necrons ally with Blood Angels. Maybe I'll just pretend that never happened" or something similar. If you used that kind of attitude regarding every aspect of 40k, conversions wouldn't be allowed (I'm not special, and it's their model that THEY created) and creating your own Chapters and Craftworlds and WAAGHs or factions wouldn't be allowed (I'm not special, GWs already made factions to play as).

Adding to the universe (as with conversion modelling) is completely different from changing fundamental 40k 'FACTS'. Pretending the Swarmlord doesnt exist or that the BA's never allied with the Necron's in 40k is just denial in my opinion.

You're messing with the works of professional writers. Say what you like about Matt Ward's fluff, but he's a professional writer that created something. Your fictions would be much more readily accepted and interesting to read if they followed the rules set down in the universe by the professional writers actually tasked to define it.

Don't get me wrong, I applaud your attempts at fiction. I read your "Daemon Blade" story, and while I find much of the dialog to be 'juvenile' and/or 'silly' and not really befitting the characters in question....

EXAMPLES
"Come on you stupid sword, start working!" screamed Caius, hitting the useless blade against a rock. LOL!
"Feel the wrath of my psychic power!" I found this line hilarious!
"This is messed up. I'm not going to get involved with this. I'll take the broken force sword over this." A sorcerer finds it..."messed up, YO!"

.... you're still writing, and you've gotta get it wrong b4 you get it right. While I find your story to be ludicrous...it's also something to be proud of at the same time. Keep writing, as you only get better at it. It's obvious that you like to write stories, but there's something you should remember...

Much of the time, when you write within someone elses already established universe, there ARE rules. Take writing for STAR TREK for example. If you were to write for the tv show, you can access a 'writers bible' of sorts. If you had any hope at all of having your screenplay made into an actual episode you had to make sure to remain within the parameters of the ESTABLISHED UNIVERSE of STAR TREK. Otherwise...the network would simply round-file your creation.

If you want to practice writing, it's a good practice to get into to simply ADD TO rather than CHANGE fundamental facts about someone ELSES fiction. If you want to create your own stuff, do it within the already established boundaries. Doing that makes it more appealing to people that enjoy the fluff as it is. When you change things...it's not well recieved by fanbois that think everything is already gold.

Making up your own Canon is really less than nothing. If you want to write fictions, personally I say do so within the established boundaries. Have fun with 40k however you like, but don't be surprised when people happen along and say "WTF is this garbage?" when you're attempting to change things that someone might already think is awesome.

Personally, I hate what Matt Ward did to Inquisitor Coteaz' fluff. It's dumb now, IMHO. However, he's a professional writer that was tasked with completely revamping the Grey Knights codex. While his work isnt as well recieved as say, Phil Kelly's Dark Eldar fluff, it's still established, and pretending it isnt there at least serves to confuse people, at worst...annoys them.

What do I do when I find myself wishing that Ward didnt change my favorrite inquisitor's fluff? I go and write on my own fiction...a horror novel that I'm writing for my own personal enjoyment.

I know I've got no right to tell somebody how to enjoy 40k, but I think the whole idea of "personal canon" is just dumb. Calling it fan fiction is a better start, but taking 40k and warping it into what YOU think it should be even though you have no authority in the matter, again, to me it seems less than nothing. No difference there than if you were to write up your own codex that has no chance of seeing publication in any way other than an online thread....it means nothing.

Keep writing though. This is all just what one person...and possibly others...thinks about what you've created on here. You need more practice, all new writers do. I do. However keep it up. You can only get better. Take any thoughts or opinions here and consider them if you like.

Personally, I'd find any fiction that you create WITHIN the actual 40k universe to be much more interesting than any 40k-esque fictions that you create within your own 40k universe.

Deadshane1 wrote:

LoneLictor wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW my own personal canon for 40k is what the writers give me....b/c I'm not special, and it's their game that THEY created.

You don't have to be special to have your own person canon. All you have to say is, "Damn it, Matt Ward made the Necrons ally with Blood Angels. Maybe I'll just pretend that never happened" or something similar. If you used that kind of attitude regarding every aspect of 40k, conversions wouldn't be allowed (I'm not special, and it's their model that THEY created) and creating your own Chapters and Craftworlds and WAAGHs or factions wouldn't be allowed (I'm not special, GWs already made factions to play as).

Adding to the universe (as with conversion modelling) is completely different from changing fundamental 40k 'FACTS'. Pretending the Swarmlord doesnt exist or that the BA's never allied with the Necron's in 40k is just denial in my opinion.

You're messing with the works of professional writers. Say what you like about Matt Ward's fluff, but he's a professional writer that created something. Your fictions would be much more readily accepted and interesting to read if they followed the rules set down in the universe by the professional writers actually tasked to define it.

Don't get me wrong, I applaud your attempts at fiction. I read your "Daemon Blade" story, and while I find much of the dialog to be 'juvenile' and/or 'silly' and not really befitting the characters in question....

EXAMPLES
"Come on you stupid sword, start working!" screamed Caius, hitting the useless blade against a rock. LOL!
"Feel the wrath of my psychic power!" I found this line hilarious!
"This is messed up. I'm not going to get involved with this. I'll take the broken force sword over this." A sorcerer finds it..."messed up, YO!"

.... you're still writing, and you've gotta get it wrong b4 you get it right. While I find your story to be ludicrous...it's also something to be proud of at the same time. Keep writing, as you only get better at it. It's obvious that you like to write stories, but there's something you should remember...

Much of the time, when you write within someone elses already established universe, there ARE rules. Take writing for STAR TREK for example. If you were to write for the tv show, you can access a 'writers bible' of sorts. If you had any hope at all of having your screenplay made into an actual episode you had to make sure to remain within the parameters of the ESTABLISHED UNIVERSE of STAR TREK. Otherwise...the network would simply round-file your creation.

If you want to practice writing, it's a good practice to get into to simply ADD TO rather than CHANGE fundamental facts about someone ELSES fiction. If you want to create your own stuff, do it within the already established boundaries. Doing that makes it more appealing to people that enjoy the fluff as it is. When you change things...it's not well recieved by fanbois that think everything is already gold.

Making up your own Canon is really less than nothing. If you want to write fictions, personally I say do so within the established boundaries. Have fun with 40k however you like, but don't be surprised when people happen along and say "WTF is this garbage?" when you're attempting to change things that someone might already think is awesome.

Personally, I hate what Matt Ward did to Inquisitor Coteaz' fluff. It's dumb now, IMHO. However, he's a professional writer that was tasked with completely revamping the Grey Knights codex. While his work isnt as well recieved as say, Phil Kelly's Dark Eldar fluff, it's still established, and pretending it isnt there at least serves to confuse people, at worst...annoys them.

What do I do when I find myself wishing that Ward didnt change my favorrite inquisitor's fluff? I go and write on my own fiction...a horror novel that I'm writing for my own personal enjoyment.

I know I've got no right to tell somebody how to enjoy 40k, but I think the whole idea of "personal canon" is just dumb. Calling it fan fiction is a better start, but taking 40k and warping it into what YOU think it should be even though you have no authority in the matter, again, to me it seems less than nothing. No difference there than if you were to write up your own codex that has no chance of seeing publication in any way other than an online thread....it means nothing.

Keep writing though. This is all just what one person...and possibly others...thinks about what you've created on here. You need more practice, all new writers do. I do. However keep it up. You can only get better. Take any thoughts or opinions here and consider them if you like.

Personally, I'd find any fiction that you create WITHIN the actual 40k universe to be much more interesting than any 40k-esque fictions that you create within your own 40k universe.

The story/fan fiction I'm writing actually takes place in the GW canonical 40k universe actually, simply because I think I'm the only person interested in my personal canon. That's why it's personal. And I'd be fine if I was a Black Library writer and people didn't regard my work as canon, because it goes with a more lighthearted tone and I acknowledge that the dialogue can be... yeah. That's my main weakness as a writer.

As for being in denial about the fluff that doesn't fit my view of 40k, I deny it because it's slightly better than complaining about it in my opinion. Look at how many threads are derailed by Matt Ward hatred or Space Wolf hatred or anything else. Instead of complaining, with accomplishes nothing, I just say, "Well in my personal canon not every Space Marine wants to be an Ultramarine" and then I feel less peeved about it.

There is no such thing as "personal canon." It's either official across the whole game and backstory, or it is not. You can't just make up your own stuff and say "this is canon because I want it to be." I love making up theoretical ideas to fit into 40k, but I know that they aren't canon in any way, shape, fashion, or form.

And I'd never show them to anyone. Good lord.

If you want to succeed as a writer, you need to do your own work. If you really, really want to write in someone else's world, be it Games Workshop's, the Forgotten Realms, or any others, you have to prove that you can write on your own first.

Shane's advice is pretty good. I'd take it.

Imperium:

-The Imperium is not losing, it is just in a stalemate situation
-The Emperor is an entity that exists in the Warp, and is causing the increase in the number of psykers around the Imperium

Tau:

-The Ethereals are a creation of the Deceiver, who made them to mass hypnotize the entire primal Tau race and gave them the technology to wage war against all living using The Greater Good as an excuse
-The Tau can fall prey to chaos, it just occurs in a different way than with humans

Tyranids:

-The nids are a creation of the Outsider, who wants to consume all living just like the other C'tan do, and the hive mind is in fact his massive consciousness
-As said by the OP, Swarmlord is a lie, a superstition created by the fearfull civilians. Tyranids have no personality or attributes

Dark Eldar:

-Comorragh is insanely huge creation inside the Warp, and their numbers are counted in billions

Necrons:

-The necron lords are capable of thinking, but the C'tan keep them under control
-Void Dragon was killed by the Emperor in ancient times, and it's corpse is buried on Mars

And finally:

Jimsolo wrote:There is no such thing as "personal canon." It's either official across the whole game and backstory, or it is not. You can't just make up your own stuff and say "this is canon because I want it to be." I love making up theoretical ideas to fit into 40k, but I know that they aren't canon in any way, shape, fashion, or form.

And I'd never show them to anyone. Good lord.

If you want to succeed as a writer, you need to do your own work. If you really, really want to write in someone else's world, be it Games Workshop's, the Forgotten Realms, or any others, you have to prove that you can write on your own first.

Shane's advice is pretty good. I'd take it.

You clearly didn't read my post in response to his. My own canon is for ME only. The fan fiction I'm writing takes place in GW Canon. And I have my own personal canon because its preferable to complaining nonstop, like most users do. Instead of filling up an entire thread with complaints about Space Wolves I just think "Well in my own canon Space Wolves aren't that OTT" and thus I feel less peeved. There, I've restated what I said. Besides, the majority of the users who posted in this thread admitted they had their own person canon, it's not like its weird or unusual for 40k fans.

kronk wrote:GW and the Black Library write canon.

Everyone else writes fan fiction.

Word.

kronk wrote:GW and the Black Library write canon.
Everyone else writes fan fiction.

C.C.Goto discredited every BL novel being canon.
Mat Ward discredited every Codex being canon (-> "Chaos grey Knights" )
Sad but true.

As Jimsolo said, there's no such thing as "personal canon". That said, I think there are plenty of ways that you can interpret the existing canon to mean almost anything.

However things like "there's no Swarmlord" is silly. There IS a Swarmlord (though how he's made or whether he's consumed at the end of an invasion is a mystery to me). There's bad canon, I still cringe at Blood Knights, but it's canon which you can't just ignore becuase you don't like the sound of it.

Kroothawk wrote:C.C.Goto discredited every BL novel being canon.
Mat Ward discredited every Codex being canon (-> "Chaos grey Knights" )

Goto's work is the exception to the "It won't go away if you ignore it" rule. No one really likes to talk about it in a serious sense, so it's not there. But Codex: Grey Knights is real, it's canon, and you're going to have to deal with it.

TAU DO NOT EXIST. period. that's the only difference between my canon and the official one . It's pretty simple to justify since there aren't Tau players in my FLGS and I have expressely forbidden any Tau miniature inside my home...

@ the OP... Actually the real secret of DA is currently unknown... the whole Luther stuff is just the top of the iceberg... the Horus Hersy series suggests that maybe even Lion'el Johnson tried to betray the Big E...

Yuppyyyy 250th post!!!!

When I made this thread I didn't realize the concept of personal canon was so... controversial. Basically, I'll repeat what I said earlier "Personal canon is just so I feel less peeved over terrible fluff, contradicting fluff and poorly thought out mysteries. My writing doesn't take place in my personal canon, but someone brought it up anyways. I don't force my personal canon on others and I'd be fine with people regarding my writing as uncanon (which it is!) because it doesn't fit their view of 40." and then I'll leave the thread.

For me:

rulebook and codex fluff = Canon

BL = bad SM fan fiction, or some pretty good IG stories

My god...personal canon? I'll have to write you a book!

LumenPraebeo wrote:My god...personal canon? I'll have to write you a book!

My canon is bigger than your canon!