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Scattered throughout publications in Codex's, and especially in the full length Rule Book for warhammer 40k, there is alot of Talk about mutation. If memory serves, the Rule Book even goes as far to say that all of humanity is on the verge of mass mutation, or wide spread evolution. This has been kept in check by Imperial Dogma which fosters hatred for mutants, which in turn drives the regular Human populace to kill off the mutant population. But what will happpen when the sheer scale of mutation reaches a point where there are less "regular" humans than mutants?

I bleive the rule book also makes a vague refrence to this evolution giving humanity the power to better fight off all the threats it faces. My second question is, should the Emperor die, would this become the only option left for humanity to maintain its Empire? My third question, what would happen if the Emperor returned, only to find that the human race has become something else entirely from what it was when he was placed in the Golden Throne millenia ago?

First of all let me say that real evolution last for millions of years, and it mostly depends on species.

Mutations that are happening to Humans in 40k are result of radiation ( from a planet with low magnetic field ), gravity ( planets with bigger/lesser gravitational field then Earth ) and Warp ( mere exposure to hte Warp can cause mutations in normal Humans ).

And we can't really use theory of evolution here as there are great number of factors witch are unknown to us right now ( most notable one being that theory of evolution works for Earth species, but what when that specie left Earth and colonize other planets? ). Evolution is in fact a overall change in species to make it better suited for the current location ( like first fish that started to live near land developed legs to actually walk on land. Or other species gaining/loosing hair so that they can survive climate ). ANd we Humans are knows as one of the most adoptable species on the planet ( we can live literary everywhere, being deset, Arctic, jungle, mountain or plains. We can even survive in space and below water ) because we are good at adapting to current situation or in other way - adapting certain locations to our needs.

Now to answer your questions:
1) Like I said: that last millions of years and depend on planet in question, furthermore it can't effect entire species because they are not on a same planet anymore. Anyway, Inquisition is watching so there is no need to panic, Humans woudn't change for a LONG time.
2) If the Emperor dies Astronomicon will shut down and Imperium will lose a LOT of territory. Only thing Humans can do in that time is to reinforce their defense around Segmentum Solar, rearm and regroup and then regain all they lost. Of course, that would be the case if Chaos wouldn't mess around in witch I highly doubt.
3) He would try to change them, he is alive for how long now? almost 50.000 years? He is very patient and he would try to fix things, no matter if he would need 1.000 or 10.000 years more.

Do not listen to Coa. Evolution does not take millions of years. Just look at the different types of bird on the Galapagos islands. It did not take millions of years for them.

Warrior Squirrel wrote:Do not listen to Coa. Evolution does not take millions of years. Just look at the different types of bird on the Galapagos islands. It did not take millions of years for them.

This article disagree with you: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution[url/]
For further proof I present ourself: Humanity.
Mankind was evolving for millions of years until we reach this stadium of our evolution. We exist as Homo Sapiens for some 200,000 years only, and we have a LOT of ancestors before that...
Also from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human we can find: " Molecular evidence suggests that the last common ancestor between humans and the remaining great apes diverged 4–8 million years ago." Meaning that Humans begin their development some 4 to 8 million years ago, and we reach Homo Sapiens level some 200,000 years ago.

blaze115 wrote: Scattered throughout publications in Codex's, and especially in the full length Rule Book for warhammer 40k, there is alot of Talk about mutation. If memory serves, the Rule Book even goes as far to say that all of humanity is on the verge of mass mutation, or wide spread evolution.

I'm pretty sure the mutation it references is Psychic ability which is becoming more and more widespread amongst Humanity. It's not talking about physical mutation. This evolution is a huge threat as well as a potential boon to the Imperium as most Psykers don't know how to control their powers and as such are a threat to everyone around them (hence being rounded up by the Black Ships) as well as themselves. Even if they don't mean to, they can end up unleashing Daemons or other denizens of the Warp (such as Enslavers), potentially causing the loss of a world). If the Emperor died the Imperium would undoubtedly shrink due to logistical issues, but the increasing number of Psykers wouldn't help that much unless a much larger proportion were stable and managed to control their abilities. As for the Emperor, He was already aware that Mankind was becoming increasingly Psychic and so probably wouldn't be surprised.

This "great evolution" referred to in the fluff is a psychic one.

Mankind is close to undergoing a Psychic evolution where there will suddenly be a vast majority of the species which has psychic powers.

Indeed, Psychic abilities are the only real significant evolution that mankind has had between now and the year 40,000.

Squats, ratlings, and Ogryns are examples of adaptation, which is expressly NOT evolution. The adaptation is stable and only an enviroment where the adaptation is unfavorable will cause it to regress. A modern example is varying skin shades. Black skin or white, you are still a human.

Black skin developed as a result of harsh sun exposure where it was needed to combat the dangerous UV rays.

However, Black skinned people don't suddenly have light skinned children after a few generations in a place where the sun protection isn't needed as much(It is slightly lighter, but they arn't going to become light skinned any time soon)

The black skin is simply a mutation that isn't going to go away unless it becomes a disadvantage.

<--- Middle school science teacher

Let's all do ourselves a favor and not try to square away real life evolution with magical space psychic evolution. It will just give you a headache. Real evolution is a lengthy, unreliable, and chaotic process. It takes hundreds of thousands of years to show real results, but is happening slowly right now. Real evolution cannot be "held in check" because it has no destination. Evolution is the process of reacting to your environment, which is the environment around you. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be slowed. It just is.

Magical space psychic evolution, however, can have a sense of intentionality and destiny that is absent in real life evolution. Thus the idea of mankind being "on the verge" of psychic awakening, this potential "held back" by artificial forces, can make sense.

IRL, no one knows how fast evolution is. I have read paper after paper claiming evolution works (in geological terms) in the blink of an eye... That evolution doesn't work by altering a species, it works by killing off species that can't cope and leaving only those with the required ability alive... I tend to agree with the latter. A species doesn't change too much, it just dies if it cannot thrive in the event of change and another species fills the gap, likely an off-shoot in genetic terms to the previously dominant species. No one knows.

Humans are different, we change the environment to suite us. When the ice age hit, rather than dying out because we had no fur we killed other animals and took theirs. When the soil dries and famine looks like it will strike, we divert water to the places afflicted.

Humans have been around for about 250,000 years IIRC, and we just changed the world to suite us rather than let nature create a different species that would fit in our place whenever the world cooled or warmed up etc.

To answer the OP, evolution would certainly effect humanity... But it would occur differently on other planets. If my beliefs are correct, we would just Terraform every place we settled or just not setle in a hostile place to begin with. But given the common theory: each planet would have it's own sub-species of humanity. There would be no "standard" Human as each planet presents different challenges that must be adapted to.

Hmm, it seems like that would actually just result in no net change in humanity at all because there is nothing to evolve to suit.

if all planets were made just like Earth, or people could just enter a climate controlled underground city, then there would be no reason for evolution to occur.

I seem to remember that the Imperium considers psykers to be Mankind's future, representing a more powerful and perfect form of Human, but at the same time, concedes that this evolution is incomplete, with only one-in-a-million Human psykers possessing the mental strength to resist chaotic influence/daemonic possession under normal circumstances (psychic Inquisitors are the best example). As such, it's the Imperium's job to control and regulate the majority of weak-minded Human psykers to prevent them from destroying Mankind, which as a species is still incapable of handling the powers and responsibilities of a psychic race. Apparently, the Emperor's plans (probably currently overseen by the Ordo Malleus) involve a psychic Human race replacing the Eldar as the dominant psychic species in the galaxy.

Brother Coa wrote:

Warrior Squirrel wrote:Do not listen to Coa. Evolution does not take millions of years. Just look at the different types of bird on the Galapagos islands. It did not take millions of years for them.

This article disagree with you: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution[url/]
For further proof I present ourself: Humanity.
Mankind was evolving for millions of years until we reach this stadium of our evolution. We exist as Homo Sapiens for some 200,000 years only, and we have a LOT of ancestors before that...
Also from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human we can find: " Molecular evidence suggests that the last common ancestor between humans and the remaining great apes diverged 4–8 million years ago." Meaning that Humans begin their development some 4 to 8 million years ago, and we reach Homo Sapiens level some 200,000 years ago.

And so you have given the rope to hang you with.

Evolution does not mean ape to man, or any one species to another, it mean every single genetic change that happens to each and every liveform and if that change makes it better suited to living. Evolution can be seen taking days even, all you have to do is look at bacteria, 'super bugs' are the descendants of bacteria that evolved a natural immunity to certain antibiotics.

Also evolution can be quite easily extroplated to humanlife that left this planet, however that is not the point as already stated the mutation that the rule books hint at is infact the next gestalt leap for the human race, the one which makes the psycher the standard for humanity.

To answer the OP, this step will either destroy or save humanity by its effect onthe chaos gods, it may create a race of emperor humans or lead to mass outdreak of deamons on every human held world.