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A few friends of mine were standing around after a fine day of wargaming when the topic came up that one of our club members had met the head publisher of The Black Library at last year's Feast of Blades and had gotten him quite drunk. At such a time, he told my friend that there were indeed two possible endings officially recognized by all of the writers. And what actually happened to the two lost legions. Neither of which will likely ever be published.. But still, here's the two possible endings to 40k.
0. You're expecting the star child, that makes it no fun for it to be an option.
1. The Emperor is killed and the Astronomicon goes out. Grim Dark gets darker and Games Workshop continues selling models. Humanity is shattered and disjointed, but it would be an awesome atmosphere to game in.
2. In case Games Workshop decides they don't want to make more money.. The sad part is that this idea has some legs and there have been books written about it! The second ending is that as the Imperial clock strikes midnight at the end of 999.999 MK 41 or whatever that the entire human race dies instantaneously.. Apparently the human race stopped existing when the Emperor, being the last perpetual died fighting Horus and that these last 20k years were all just a space/time distortion where the Emperor's death shriek hasn't caught up yet..

Does it disturb anyone else that 2 is the preferred option.

Also missing Legion 1 was sent to colonize another galaxy and Legion 2 was disbanded, because their primarch went crazy, enslaved a planet and was just fething with people when the Emperor found him.

Oh God, the Inquisition is here!

 Iyandenseer wrote:
The second ending is that as the Imperial clock strikes midnight at the end of 999.999 MK 41

eastern standard time? also, I'm pretty sure we've ad storylines based after this time

 Iyandenseer wrote:
when the Emperor, being the last perpetual died fighting Horus and that these last 20k years

10K

sure, you're story that you friend met a guy is plausible, but just because some BL fellow wants to play it out like that isn't an indication that every other writer gives a damn about that set up.

Option 0) Gak

Option 1) Gak

Option 2) Dude, that's the gakest think I ever heard.


It took the big E two hundred years (give or take) to bring the galaxy under his heel (mostly) with eighteen legions and Primarchs. If he woke up tomorrow it would take him like twenty thousand years to do the same job with a tenth of the golden crusades forces he has now (which still kicks ass and takes names).

Just bite the bullet GW and wake his ass up and explain away why he can't mass produce millions of marines to take back the galaxy in half an hour because....

He has lots of senior moments.

That part of his brain fell out while rotting on the throne.

He fought the four chaos Gods, or something in the warp, and manages to drive it/them off but suffers some sort of memory loss. Following the string of light back to his body he awakens to find that he has no memory, only brief flashes from the last fourty thousand years of his life.

The point is there are plenty of ways to bring the Emphra back into play but keep him weak, and thus the IoM too so nothing has to change over night. Well apart from that whole religion thing, but that's another thread.

All strictly inferior to the Emperasque.

I'm not so sure on the MK41 thing.. It's whenever our current millennium acutally ends.

I 100% agree with the gakking. Except option 1. I recommended that our game of deathwatch take place after the Astronomicon went out so gak would really be going down and it would be even grim darker.. Because that would be cool.

The part where the Emperor wakes up is essentially the star child ending. Except he becomes a full god in the process. But that's too easy. So is saying, hey! he's better now!

Option 2 ruined my day it's so terrible,but apparently a certain spiritual liege and his enclave is very excited about it. Hence why the fluff section in the new rulebook is entitled, When The Bell Peals Midnight, and it's talking about the imperial clock and such. I would be sincerely worried, but there's no way GW picks the option that stops making money.


In addition it's much cooler now since it's most likely that the High Lords of Terra are keeping the Emperor dead to maintain their own supremacy. And that Cypher is the goodest good guy to ever do good. Plus that the dark angels are heretics. The Alpha Legion are the good guys. There's so much to keep the brain churning, they'd better do a damn good job of summing it up if and when the time comes. I kind of like letting Cypher plunge the sword into the Emprah's heart and letting the light of the throne go out. Everything goes black as the Imperium is eaten alive from every angle and it can't even see it coming. Every kingdom for itself. Praying that the Emperor returns to bring salvation. It's like 40k Judgement Day.

 Iyandenseer wrote:
A few friends of mine were standing around after a fine day of wargaming when the topic came up that one of our club members had met the head publisher of The Black Library at last year's Feast of Blades and had gotten him quite drunk.

Here is where I stopped reading. Not saying you're lying, but I bet he was.

the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

or, option two would be he dies and is reborn, still powerful, and leads the Imperuim out of the dark age of technology. still imposes his iron will on all.

The "gotten quite drunk" line almost sounds comical. Also, even if he DID meet the head publisher of BL under those circumstances, could he really trust the head publisher's word if he was "quite drunk"?

That said, I don't think Chaos would be stupid enough to kill the Emperor if it meant humanity would be extinguished. Unless of course they didn't want to kill the Emperor but Horus betrayed the gods and took their plot off the rails and killed the Emperor anyways, I suppose (which might actually be possible I suppose. There are several hints that Horus has his own agenda...)

...ironically the Cabal would kinda be right in this case (humanity extinguishing itself, albeit with a delayed reaction)

 Iyandenseer wrote:
A few friends of mine were standing around after a fine day of wargaming when the topic came up that one of our club members had met the head publisher of The Black Library at last year's Feast of Blades and had gotten him quite drunk.

Yeah, I'm sure that happened.

Please. This is the biggest load of bull I've ever heard.

 Iyandenseer wrote:
The second ending is that as the Imperial clock strikes midnight at the end of 999.999 MK 41 or whatever that the entire human race dies instantaneously.. Apparently the human race stopped existing when the Emperor, being the last perpetual died fighting Horus and that these last 20k years were all just a space/time distortion where the Emperor's death shriek hasn't caught up yet..

some parts of 40k are set in the 42nd millenium and people are still alive.

This smells suspicious...

It's a setting, not a story.

The 2nd one is VERY anticlimactic anyways. Really, if WH40k is to end, it should be in a gigantic ball of fire of everyone DESTROYING each other. Not a clock going "ding" and everything poofing out of existence. That's a really really lame and stupid way to end a universe that's supposed to be "up to eleven" to the point of sometimes being satirical. There's nothing "up to eleven" or "awesome" about things just popping out of existence.

I suppose that does make it depressing. Depressing in how lame and stupid it is.

I imagine that chaos will be the ones to break free from their prison and maybe even to shatter Imperium's hearth- Holy Terra. With its capital gone, rampaging hordes of chaos and anarchy that will follow will claim many, weaker worlds thus making chaos main beating bag/meat shield of the galaxy. Other half will go into fanatical frenzy, whole planets will cry out for salvation and might be even dedicated to death cults. Another will try to reform, after sudden and harsh disappearance of Imperial government. There will be many, independent worlds initially, but their number will decrease over time, especially seeing Tyranids, who rally on this galaxy's inner wars.

codemonkey wrote:
All strictly inferior to the Emperasque.

Seconded.

 raiden wrote:
the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

Age of Dusk (Warhammer 60k) high five!

Black Library writer ----> Club member ----> A few of your friends ----> Iyandenseer.

There's a few too many links in this chain for me to take this without vast quantities of sodium chloride...

 raiden wrote:
the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

or, option two would be he dies and is reborn, still powerful, and leads the Imperuim out of the dark age of technology. still imposes his iron will on all.

That's actually not a bad idea.

You could have these Daemons of Order be mask wearing identical automatons. Think a mixture of Menoth from warmachine, the forces of Juggalag from Elder Scrolls, and neo-gothic knights.

So you would have a new codex(Daemons of Order) on the side of the "good guys", but at the same time have the Imperium be fractured by this turn of events. So you would have some portions following the Emperor and others who don't as they believe him to be an Imposter.

 Zed wrote:
Black Library writer ----> Club member ----> A few of your friends ----> Iyandenseer.

There's a few too many links in this chain for me to take this without vast quantities of sodium chloride...

Not to mention the 'hurr hurr and he was totally drunk too!' link that just adds that extra layer of childish and immature BS.

Well the club member and one of my friends is the same person so the chain isn't so far apart.

All he was saying that in a lot of the inner circles of GW these are the stories that are floating around which are popular as endings if they were ever to be written.

Honestly the part where we all poof out of existence made me really sad. Everyone just gets a weird look on their face when they hear it.. Definitely not how I'd want it to end.

The order god/star child concept is my personal favorite, and I've read a fan fiction called '40k the end times' which resolved all of the plot angles without the Emperor being reborn at all.

I just heard a rumor through the grape vine and I thought it would be fun to share. Trust me, I don't support this garbage over so many other cool things that could be done.

I still do have a pet fetish for the astronomicon going out and total chaos ensuing.. But That's not going to happen and we all know that.

I don't think the story is so unbelievable that my friend met one of the big time publishers from black library and that said publisher clued him in to what a good number of 40k writers have in their heads about the end times. It doesn't mean that it'll ever be more than an office wide joke.

 Zed wrote:
Black Library writer ----> Club member ----> A few of your friends ----> Iyandenseer.

There's a few too many links in this chain for me to take this without vast quantities of sodium chloride...

Add the internet in there and the fact it's faceless and you can make accounts easily, take any of the other links out, and poof it's suspicious.

If I'm asked... that second option indeed sounds like... well dull. *poof* Gone. Tau has their playground until Tyranids devours it all (as I presume that extinction of all men would also mean those aligned to chaos).

And indeed.. about first one. Isn't Emperor only thing preventing Chaos from claiming every single human soul? As in old Daemon codex, it was kinda referred as such.

So my version is still the same. Either awaken Emprah or get a replacement for him... or Chaos wins over IoM and battle continues without IoM on the board (Tyranids are still coming, Necrons are still waking up, Eldar are most likely still alive for some time and Orks aren't really easy to push away from galaxy either).

I doubt that it's the Emperor who will reborn. The fact that we didn't heard that Emperor's soul being sold on deamons auction mean that he might be stuck in the astronomican. Even more, knowing his pacts with chaos gods and following hard-core punishment that he were going to receive from his betrayal, it's likely that he decided to escape his fate and trapped himself/killed himself in that devise.

They would never actually kill the Big E as he is a perpetual and in all HH books once a perpetual dies they resurrect.

Keeping him in his state of mostly-dead keeps him stuck on the board and unable to play the game of thrones.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 raiden wrote:
the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

or, option two would be he dies and is reborn, still powerful, and leads the Imperuim out of the dark age of technology. still imposes his iron will on all.

That's actually not a bad idea.

You could have these Daemons of Order be mask wearing identical automatons. Think a mixture of Menoth from warmachine, the forces of Juggalag from Elder Scrolls, and neo-gothic knights.

So you would have a new codex(Daemons of Order) on the side of the "good guys", but at the same time have the Imperium be fractured by this turn of events. So you would have some portions following the Emperor and others who don't as they believe him to be an Imposter.

So the Daemons of Order are Steampunk Slendermen?

 Kain wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 raiden wrote:
the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

or, option two would be he dies and is reborn, still powerful, and leads the Imperuim out of the dark age of technology. still imposes his iron will on all.

That's actually not a bad idea.

You could have these Daemons of Order be mask wearing identical automatons. Think a mixture of Menoth from warmachine, the forces of Juggalag from Elder Scrolls, and neo-gothic knights.

So you would have a new codex(Daemons of Order) on the side of the "good guys", but at the same time have the Imperium be fractured by this turn of events. So you would have some portions following the Emperor and others who don't as they believe him to be an Imposter.

So the Daemons of Order are Steampunk Slendermen?

now that you mention it, yes! with guns!

 raiden wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 raiden wrote:
the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

or, option two would be he dies and is reborn, still powerful, and leads the Imperuim out of the dark age of technology. still imposes his iron will on all.

That's actually not a bad idea.

You could have these Daemons of Order be mask wearing identical automatons. Think a mixture of Menoth from warmachine, the forces of Juggalag from Elder Scrolls, and neo-gothic knights.

So you would have a new codex(Daemons of Order) on the side of the "good guys", but at the same time have the Imperium be fractured by this turn of events. So you would have some portions following the Emperor and others who don't as they believe him to be an Imposter.

So the Daemons of Order are Steampunk Slendermen?

now that you mention it, yes! with guns!

Do they hassle young women searching for pieces of paper in dark, lonely places?

 Kain wrote:

 raiden wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 raiden wrote:
the emperor comes back as a faceless chaos god of order, with faceless deamons? imposing his iron will on all and smiting those who do not heed it?

or, option two would be he dies and is reborn, still powerful, and leads the Imperuim out of the dark age of technology. still imposes his iron will on all.

That's actually not a bad idea.

You could have these Daemons of Order be mask wearing identical automatons. Think a mixture of Menoth from warmachine, the forces of Juggalag from Elder Scrolls, and neo-gothic knights.

So you would have a new codex(Daemons of Order) on the side of the "good guys", but at the same time have the Imperium be fractured by this turn of events. So you would have some portions following the Emperor and others who don't as they believe him to be an Imposter.

So the Daemons of Order are Steampunk Slendermen?

now that you mention it, yes! with guns!

Do they hassle young women searching for pieces of paper in dark, lonely places?

meh, its frowned upon but some still enjoy it.

I could probably write better endings drunk.

It would probably just go back to the early 90's Heavy Metal style Warhammer 40k had going on.

No, the End of 40k has the Emperor merging with a giant alien embryo and turning everyone into tang.

Or was that something else that I saw?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadowbrand wrote:
I could probably write better endings drunk.

It would probably just go back to the early 90's Heavy Metal style Warhammer 40k had going on.

And the world would rejoice.

Of course, by the world, I mean me.