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I could see two possibilities
1. They kill everything resulting in the gods own destruction
2. They make everything mildly intelligent thing (including corrupting and making the Hive Mind worship them somehow, so quadrillions of followers there already) worship them and have them all feed the gods by waging massive bloody wars (still mildly controlled so as not to kill entire populations), spreading disease, indulging in their desires, and all of them vying for control and power through trickery. They develop technologies to leave the galaxy and spread the chaos all over.

Do you think Chaos is intelligent enough to go for option 2?

Can chaos be ordered?

chaos cant win since it's really only a reflection of the universe, if the imperium collapsed then the diffrent chaos conqured worlds would go t war with each other for the glory of the gods. No one warlord would be powerful enough to hold it all, just like no one is powerful enough to controll the eye of terror at present.

"Chaos always defeats order, because it is better organised."
- Terry Pratchett

Chaos is definitely capable of achieving goal 2. It would make the galaxy pretty much a giant Eye of Terror/Maelstrom, and as you can see life is perfectly capable of surviving and even thriving there. It would forge a strong population where the weak die out quickly or are enslaved to the will of the strong. Once a brutal pecking order is established, attempts to conquer other galaxies may begin. I have no idea how one would go about this, but Chaos provides.

Humanity would hunt down the last xenos, their would still be war of course, but theirs war under the Emp, at last humanity wouldn't stagnate.

It seems obvious that there would never be any order or structure implemented. I always thought that it would just devolve into petty rivalries and infighting between groups and factions for supremacy. It's not like chaos orientated forces are exactly trustworthy, as soon as Terra was conquered everyone would just turn on each other.

Fun question. I say yes, the Chaos powers can survive even if it "won", which I guess means if they defeated Humanity.

Reason - it's already doing it, in the Eye of Terror. The Traitor Legions, while fighting the Imperium, have also been fighting among themselves, yet they don't seem to be wearing themselves out.

If the Chaos powers are putting aside their differences to work together against the Imperium, I can see that once they "won" that fight, they'll start infighting and eventually destroy themselves.

But the impression I get is they're fighting everything they come into contact with, the Imperium, each other, the xenos. The fact they haven't slowed down suggests their situation is quite sustainable.

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And then I like that follow up question: can Chaos be ordered, despite being Chaotic? Again, I say yes.

Reason - it's not intentional, but I think it's like Physics Class: Brownian motion. When you have all these random, chaotic stuff going on, they actually balance each other out without destroying each other.

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Those are neat questions you posed, and I think it goes to the fundamental nature of Chaos. What does Chaos do?

IMHO, and just IMHO, Chaos actually corrupts rather than outright destroy. It perverts, mutates Humanity.

So that notion of Chaos fighting Humanity isn't so much eradicating it into extinction, it's more like warping it into something that is no longer recognizable as Humanity. Like everyone ends up as a Chaos Spawn, but the Chaos powers are fine. I think they prefer it that way.

I don't think they're smart enough for option 2. Too messy to really accomplish something great.

Look at the Eye of Terror.

That's what happens if chaos wins. Humans, xenos, and all sorts of creatures are still alive, and still have free will. The only difference between their lives and ours is that everything they do is pervaded with kaaaaaaaos. People are gradually corrupted and mutated. Daemons breach into the material world with worrying ease, and go off doing their own things (which is usually but not always killing or enslaving). Those who can harness or at least work beside the powers of chaos tend to be incharge.

Lessay by 'win' we mean a Black Crusade invades Terra, defeats or corrupts every Imperial defense raised across the galaxy against it, and topples the Emperor from the Golden Throne. The fallout of this would include:

Astronomicon ceases. All Imperial forces now rendered helpless. Every Imperial planet is picked off one by one by various chaotic or alien forces. All remaining Imperial forces are stuck wherever they are and are likewise defeated piecemeal. Whatever space marines weren't part of the defense of terra are defeated, corrupted, or go into hiding and become guerrilla fighters in whatever sectors they're stuck in.

Another eye of terror opens where Terra was. The other warp rifts open further and half the galaxy is one giant area of warp space, probably spreading further day by day.

Chaos now has a giant hole into the webway on Terra and the entire concentrated might of the corrupted Imperium to go inside and flush out any eldar hiding within.

Everyone knows about chaos now, with no Inquisition to ruthlessly hide the truth. Belief means power, and the chaos gods' reach increases exponentially with the addition of the entirety of mankind. With more power than they've ever possessed before from an entire Imperium of worshippers and believers, the united Chaos gods destroy Gork and Mork, as well as the Emperor's psychic form. The tyranid hive mind is either destroyed or rendered incapable of entering this galaxy.

The combined power of Chaos and the corrupted Imperium (Chaosium?) enact a second Great Crusade and wipe the galaxy of all other threats.

The tyranids are pushed out, the eldar get devoured, the dark eldar get rooted out of the webway and devoured, the tau are destroyed, etc. Squats, genestealers, hrud, clawed fiends, the vampire things, umbra, everything else, it's all gone. Necrons, with their anti-chaos technology and vast armies, are the last to go.

Humanity becomes a full-fledged psychic race, except instead of being guided by the Emperor they are led by chaos. Nothing but mutants and psykers, and all the psychic power running rampant and unchecked leads to warp rifts opening everywhere. The fabric of reality bursts at the seams and the entirety of the galaxy becomes unreality.

All life is absorbed into the Warp galaxy and becomes a part of its ebbs and flows. Chaos is formed and empowered by the thoughts and dreams of sentient creatures, and without it, this new warp galaxy eventually grows smaller and smaller.

Tzeentch seemingly disappears first. With nothing left to sicken and infect, Nurgle ceases to exist next. With nothing else left to slay, Khorne kills Slaanesh and is slain by him/her simultaneously. Khorne, because there is nothing else left to kill and his reason for existence has ended. Slaanesh, because there is nothing else in existence with desire, and his/her reason has likewise ended.

Tzeentch pops back up momentarily, the long con set into motion at the moment if its creation finally come to fruition. It wins and rules everything. With nothing else to plan and scheme, its reason for existing now ends, and so does it. The galaxy goes with it.

I dont think the eye will start expanding rapidly just because the emperor dies. Sure it might pick up its pace slightly but all in all i think we're looking at pretty much the same situation that was around before the great crusade.

A daemons victory, would not be to kill everyone, but to convert everyone. While khorne daemons live to battle and kill, the other daemons have other agenda's that don't involve killing, but they are willing and capable of killing if it serves their purpose.

If Khorne came out as the top god, and conquered the galaxy, he would most likely orchestrate war's for eternity, wherin some areas of space would be devoted to raising warriors, and others would be devoted to pitting said warriors against each other. This is the only way khorne could sustain himself, as the more he kills, the less bloodlust and rage there is to sustain him. Khorne, isn't an idiot, however, as such I imagine he would do the first option. Why slaughter children, when they can be raised into bloodthirsty warriors, and serve a much bigger purpose for him after all.

Nurgle's great victory, would be twofold, firstly, he would fulfill his first great goal, to create a disease that could infect the dark god's themselves, which he would utilise against khorne, slaanesh and Tzeentch. After which, he would seek to convert all sentient life to his following. Nurgle, ironically, is actually benevolent and loving to his followers, and only kill's those who refuse to follow him. To those who follow him, he grant's immortality, and frees them from all pain. All he asks, is that you use his gifts to bring other's into his service, through infecting them.

However, if Nurgle ever succeed in conquering the mind's of every living being, then he would allow the universe to decay untill nothing, even himself, remained. This is Nurgle's belief, that everything, even the universe, even himself, must decay and die.

Slaanesh, while taking pleasure in killing, is just as happy in other excesses, and to him, the more people experiencing the exesses and pleasures he so loves, the better. He would seek to convert all sentient life to the ways of excess, and would only kill those who refused to do so. If Slaanesh "won", the universe would essentially be one huge, expanding cult of excess, where people only lived for pleasure, and ironicaly, he would most likely want to sustain the universe this way for as long as he could. Populations would boom, and every living being would experience constant excess, and most likely would be granted an eternity of it upon death within his own realm. Doesn't actually sound too bad IMO, but the stubbornness of mortals forces him to kill to create his pleasure and excess utopia.

Tzeentch, is the strangest one, as he constantly seeks change. His main goal, would be to reassemble his staff, which would make him the dominant chaos god once more. If he did this, he would dedicate all mortals to the pursuit of knowledge. However, if Tzeentch managed to convert all mortals, he would not only be extremely powerfull, but also would be unable to live with himself. The urge to change, would most likely drive him to essentially, start things all over again, either through reforming the universe back to how it was before he changed it, or creating his own on whatever whim he felt at the time. SO in a way, Tzeentch is the only god, who would conquer the universe, only to un-conquer it, just to satisfy his urge to change.

Wall of text. But I love daemons xD

I feel like Chaos wouldn't let themselves win. The amount of war and emotion being pumped out of the IoM and its wars are too great. If the IoM falls, there goes the only thing powerful enough (short of the Tyranids or Necrons, but I feel like they couldn't care less) that can really hold back Chaos so most of the galaxy would fall. Once everything falls, the Gods would have to resort to fighting themselves and EVENTUALLY kill themselves off as things stop feeding the emotion they need (nothing can feed Slaanesh, if it's all dead)

This is similar to how the Eldar most likely would help the IoM protect Terra (even if the IoM wants the help or not), since the Eldar see the Imperium as one of the few things that can fight Chaos. They may hate the Imperium, but they hate Chaos more, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend...

I would like to point you to the "Cabal" explanation of just such an event in the HH book Legion

IMHO, and just IMHO, Chaos actually corrupts rather than outright destroy. It perverts, mutates Humanity.

I wouldn't mind being corrupted. Provided I got cool powers as opposed to crippling deformities.

"Cabal

I'm really starting to dislike references to the cabal, can't we just leave it at a bunch of stupid aliens tried to trick humanity into killing itself off, it backfired, and the cabal leader got throw out an airlock.

 riverhawks32 wrote:
I would like to point you to the "Cabal" explanation of just such an event in the HH book Legion

Not really, the Cabal provide an explanation of what would happen if Horus won, which is Horus destroys Humanity out of shame. If Horus lost, they said there'd be eternal war, followed by the stagnation of the Imperium, followed by the galaxy's consumption by the Gods. We're just debating what said consumption might entail.

The cabal are partly why I hate the elder, to many snot nosed space elves who want to drag humanity down with them. Well at least we know what awaits them

I think that the necron and tau would be the last standing. All other races would either be killed off or corrupted.

Why chaos obviously wouldn't win! All would die assome super big scary bad monster appears that the nids were running from and then promptly everything blows up. GRIMDAHK!

We would finally get to unplug Terry shaivo (the emperor)