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Okay, so say that for some reason there were only 1 other race left in 40k. A non super aggressive faction such as maybe Eldar. Theoretically, could the race 'kill off' the chaos gods just by remaining idle? Sounds ridiculous, I know, but hear me out.

(This is all in a setting where daemons could not bring themselves to realspace)
Think of it like this:
With Eldar basically having immortality (from the infinity circuit), would Nurgle slowly grow weaker and weaker until he just 'dies'?
If the Eldar didn't partake in any sort of sexual or excessive act and managed to keep every soul from She Who Thirsts, would Slaanesh slowly wither and end?
If they limited themselves to the same daily routine every day, with absolutely nothing changing over the course of Millenia, would Tzeench 'die'?
And, if they all abandoned the Path of the Warrior and never fought in any conflict again, would Khorne die too?

I'm only trying to see if it would be theoretical. Just think of them in the most ideal of situations and conditions.

Also, I'm sorry for any cringing that may have happened to any Daemon/Chaos player out there reading this. Haha.

They certainly could be weakened, but it'd be impossible to actually get rid of the gods because of how much stuff they actually gain power from. The only race I can see actually killing them is the tyranids, because once all other life is dead, no one can worship them.

The tyranid point is good. If i'm assuming the best of scenarios, does that mean the chaos gods also can no longer influence any mortal? Because in that case, all you need to assume are those two things, the daemons can't enter realspace or influence mortals, and they might as well be dead. Even if they continued to exist mortals wouldn't know, or care.

But if we aren't assuming they can no longer influence mortals i think they would take whatever inch they could and force it to be a mile. I don't think it's possible for every mortal in a galaxy to resist negative emotions or behaviours, even if there wasn't crazy gods tempting and driving them towards evil.

However, it brings to light another interesting question, was there mortals for a time before any chaos gods existed, or was it a process that evolved along with the intelligence of the beings in the galaxy until they both became sentient?

Nope.
Chaos is pan-galactic and multi-dimensional so has no shortage of things to feed on.
It is also beyond linear notions of time, in essence it will always exist because it once came into existence.

And yet it's supposed to be entirely possible for Ynnead to take out Slaanesh.

I forgot about the Ynnead idea. Would Slaneesh (or a new form of Excess) be reborn elsewhere at the new largest site of pain and origies, after gaining enough power, restarting the whole process?

Keep in mind that because of their timelessness, if they were to ever be destroyed, they would never have existed, just like Slaneesh always existed, because he exists now.

The warp is a reflection of emotions. If every living thing would die, then yes, the warp would be silent, but if something feels then there are ripples that grow into eddies, which form into currents, which coalesce into pools, which grow into a sea, that accumulates into an ocean which births a god (small g version), that encompasses a specific emotion.

Simply being, in a large enough quantity, makes a chaos god, and at that point your accumulated emotions (which transcend time, so all the emotions of your entire race since it's inception ar factored in, as well as all the emotions your race would potentially have [and therefore have already had], are included). If every last being did nothing, then you would birth a god of stagnation and if you somehow got 'nothing' to be the main focus of every living thing, then that new god would be more powerful than what all 4 current chaos gods are.

The Chaos Gods are arguably Sapient beings that exist without Sentience. By that, I mean they are capable of intelligent action, but not reflection, change, or personal growth. They're simply reflections of the warp, and as such slaves to their nature. More akin to natural forces, than individuals.

If you managed to significantly remove the physical and emotional fuel that the Gods require from the galaxy, then in theory, nothing would 'die' as they are not alive, but they would possibly cease to exist.

You'd then up with one of two scenarios;
1) The Warp would be becalmed, but unless existence carried on in this way perpetually, they would simply be reborn anew. Would an eternity of stagnation be preferable to the current status quo?
2) A new God would be born that was a reflection of this new state of affairs, and left unchallenged, being a God of stagnation, would likely keep the galaxy in this state forever, as it empowered him.

So you have stagnation by choice, of stagnation by force. Neither is too appealing.

The better option would be to think outside the box, and socially engineer society to be based on positive emotions, and fuel a Chaos God of compassion, and one of joy, etc. Cynicaly create Gods that are in service to your desires, rather than ones that are parasitic.

Chaos is already self sustaining from human populations in the warp on daemon worlds. Not to mention they ignore causality, so killing them at all may even be flat out impossible. mantling them would be a better idea.

They would not "die" in the conventional sense, but if mortal life as we know it were to disappear, the Warp would eventually "settle down", as all the torrents of emotion (good and bad) ended and the maelstrom that it is now became basically a placid pond.

The sentiences that form the Ruinous Powers (and all the Warp Gods) would fade out into the "background" of the Warp and cease to be sentient, as would all the daemons, leaving the Warp a silent, still place.

Until sentient life once again rose in the galaxy, either by extra-galactic immigrants or the natural forces of evolution that eventually give rise to intelligent life. At that point, the Chaos Gods would again, eventually, exist, as these new mortals tap into their power-bases, along with whatever new Warp Gods are birthed by the beliefs of these new people.

kungfujew wrote:
Keep in mind that because of their timelessness, if they were to ever be destroyed, they would never have existed, just like Slaneesh always existed, because he exists now.

The warp is a reflection of emotions. If every living thing would die, then yes, the warp would be silent, but if something feels then there are ripples that grow into eddies, which form into currents, which coalesce into pools, which grow into a sea, that accumulates into an ocean which births a god (small g version), that encompasses a specific emotion.

Simply being, in a large enough quantity, makes a chaos god, and at that point your accumulated emotions (which transcend time, so all the emotions of your entire race since it's inception ar factored in, as well as all the emotions your race would potentially have [and therefore have already had], are included). If every last being did nothing, then you would birth a god of stagnation and if you somehow got 'nothing' to be the main focus of every living thing, then that new god would be more powerful than what all 4 current chaos gods are.

Really like this take on it. Never thought about it like this. Cool!


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Hierophant wrote:
The Chaos Gods are arguably Sapient beings that exist without Sentience. By that, I mean they are capable of intelligent action, but not reflection, change, or personal growth. They're simply reflections of the warp, and as such slaves to their nature. More akin to natural forces, than individuals.

If you managed to significantly remove the physical and emotional fuel that the Gods require from the galaxy, then in theory, nothing would 'die' as they are not alive, but they would possibly cease to exist.

You'd then up with one of two scenarios;
1) The Warp would be becalmed, but unless existence carried on in this way perpetually, they would simply be reborn anew. Would an eternity of stagnation be preferable to the current status quo?
2) A new God would be born that was a reflection of this new state of affairs, and left unchallenged, being a God of stagnation, would likely keep the galaxy in this state forever, as it empowered him.

So you have stagnation by choice, of stagnation by force. Neither is too appealing.

The better option would be to think outside the box, and socially engineer society to be based on positive emotions, and fuel a Chaos God of compassion, and one of joy, etc. Cynicaly create Gods that are in service to your desires, rather than ones that are parasitic.

Cool. I suppose that could work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks for the replies everyone.

TCF wrote:
And yet it's supposed to be entirely possible for Ynnead to take out Slaanesh.

What the Eldar believe or wish to believe is not necessarily the truth.

kungfujew wrote:
Keep in mind that because of their timelessness, if they were to ever be destroyed, they would never have existed, just like Slaneesh always existed, because he exists now.

Not how it works. Slaanesh is said to both have always existed and to not exist.
They will always exist because they have existed, and they will never exist because they once did not.

Even if only one race existed, Nurgle would continue to grow in strength. There is always death and decay. If there were no wars or conflict then Khorne would continue to exist but his strength would wane.

If there was only Eldar left, since Eldar souls technically belong to She Who Thirsts the only Chaos gods that wouldn't weaken would be Slaanesh or Nurgle

He's a plague and pestilence god, not a god like Charon or Osiris. If you die of natural causes having lived a full life, then Nurgle isn't influencing you.

Animus wrote:

TCF wrote:
And yet it's supposed to be entirely possible for Ynnead to take out Slaanesh.

What the Eldar believe or wish to believe is not necessarily the truth.

kungfujew wrote:
Keep in mind that because of their timelessness, if they were to ever be destroyed, they would never have existed, just like Slaneesh always existed, because he exists now.

Not how it works. Slaanesh is said to both have always existed and to not exist.
They will always exist because they have existed, and they will never exist because they once did not.

You cannot destroy a God, because a past version of the God will simply retcon his future death.

ok, first we need to establish what made the chaos gods: War betwine Necrons and the old ones ruining the realm of souls, and then the eldar fething Slaanesh into existence. since they are warp beings, they can never die, but they can be severely weekend.
Were all war, murder, and blood shed to be stopped, Khorn would wither into literal nothingness, but still be there. If nothing ever changed, ever decayed, or altered it's form/life, Tzeentch and Nurgle would wither as well same goes for Slaanesh.
However, the problem with your idea is that there are not enough eldar to cause that, and with the nids coming in, war won't be stalling any time soon, everything decays, and at one point or another despairs, everything changes day to day, and everyone always wants more, therefor chaos gods are permanent.


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 Psienesis wrote:
He's a plague and pestilence god, not a god like Charon or Osiris. If you die of natural causes having lived a full life, then Nurgle isn't influencing you.

He's a god of sickness, decay, and death in general. In the older apoc. book, it says that at the end of his day, he reads how everyone died. all decay is attributed to him, in one way or another. That's part of the reason why Nurgle is one of the strongest chaos gods: because no matter what, everything is going to decay and break/die eventually.

I think the Chaos Gods can be "believed into death". Remember that they are the epitome of the saying "you are what you eat" - if you can get enough people think that the Chaos Gods don't exist, then they will cease to exist because their non-existence would be the majority "food" in the warp. Similarly, if you can get enough people think that Khorne is a compassionate and honorable cavalier, then Khorne will change into a compassionate and honorable cavalier as his essence would be filled with emotions that describe him as a compassionate and honorable cavalier.

 Psienesis wrote:
He's a plague and pestilence god, not a god like Charon or Osiris. If you die of natural causes having lived a full life, then Nurgle isn't influencing you.

Nurgle is decay/entropy. Guess what's the cause of aging?

What if the only race left was Necrons?

Well, this was certainly the Emperor's plan.

I dont think chaos could be utterly destroyed. However, in the book Legion they specifically state that the reason that the Alpha legion abandoned the emperor was to cause the Imperium to lose the war, and therefore extinguish humanity, and ultimately destroy (or weaken, I cant remember specifics) chaos. So I dont know.

I thought the Chaos Gods weren't actually 'gods'; just ancient Warp entities that have grown exceptionally powerful because the emotions they fed on in their early stages grew in substantial amounts (for example, Khorne fed on war, conquest, bloodlust, etc., which happened more frequently as the human race grew). I don't really have a source on that though, although I think the Emperor's backstory with the Shamans mentioned something about certain entities in the Warp growing stronger, who were apparently such a threat that the shamans combined their souls to create the Emperor.

So I think the Chaos Gods could be 'killed', but the means to do so are far beyond the reach of anything other than more powerful Warp entities or god-like creatures (so either the Emperor or one of the C'tan). I'm not sure if organized disbelief or denial of emotions would help much, as they have shown to be rather resourceful in terms of ways to corrupt people.

 Ezra Tyrius wrote:
I thought the Chaos Gods weren't actually 'gods'; just ancient Warp entities that have grown exceptionally powerful because the emotions they fed on in their early stages grew in substantial amounts (for example, Khorne fed on war, conquest, bloodlust, etc., which happened more frequently as the human race grew). I don't really have a source on that though, although I think the Emperor's backstory with the Shamans mentioned something about certain entities in the Warp growing stronger, who were apparently such a threat that the shamans combined their souls to create the Emperor.

So I think the Chaos Gods could be 'killed', but the means to do so are far beyond the reach of anything other than more powerful Warp entities or god-like creatures (so either the Emperor or one of the C'tan). I'm not sure if organized disbelief or denial of emotions would help much, as they have shown to be rather resourceful in terms of ways to corrupt people.

That was in Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned. Judging by the deaths of the Eldar Pantheon, it would seem that the only way for Chaos Gods to die is to be "consumed" by a different God. The main reason for this is that, in the same book, it is stated that the Chaos Gods expend energy with every action they do, and by creating Daemons (who are essentially really weak C'tan shards, only made from Chaos Gods instead of Star Gods). If a Chaos God was getting particularly weak, it could just stop doing gak, and conserve its energy; thereby forestalling its doom.

Heres a question: Can a thought survive the extinction of the person or people that thought it?
In the 40k universe it can, and the fluff history of 40K is littered with the traces of civilizations - remembered and forgotten - that have been exterminated.

The Warp is a psychic reflection of thoughts. What happens to the psychic resonances of all of those civilizations that have gone? They add to the essence of the Warp.
If this is what the Warp is, then its difficult to subtract from its essence (you can't unthink a thought). I don't think it is mentioned anywhere in the fluff, how to negate the Warp itself.

What I'm driving at is that is that the Warp can't be weakened or destroyed. The histories of thought and emotion (know and forgotten) reside with it because they are it. It will always be. And because of this, the possibility of its influence will always be present waiting to be rediscovered. The Chaos Gods might become forgotten but they would still exist in the Warp.

Even is the last race were genetically engineered to be emotionless ambitionless Nulls (Necrons maybe?), that could not themselves engage with or feed the Warp or the Gods of Chaos, then that too would paradoxically empower Chaos, simply because somebody set out to engineer the hamstringing of the evolutionary potential of an entire species.

 Crankpin wrote:
Heres a question: Can a thought survive the extinction of the person or people that thought it?
In the 40k universe it can, and the fluff history of 40K is littered with the traces of civilizations - remembered and forgotten - that have been exterminated.

The Warp is a psychic reflection of thoughts. What happens to the psychic resonances of all of those civilizations that have gone? They add to the essence of the Warp.
If this is what the Warp is, then its difficult to subtract from its essence (you can't unthink a thought). I don't think it is mentioned anywhere in the fluff, how to negate the Warp itself.

What I'm driving at is that is that the Warp can't be weakened or destroyed. The histories of thought and emotion (know and forgotten) reside with it because they are it. It will always be. And because of this, the possibility of its influence will always be present waiting to be rediscovered. The Chaos Gods might become forgotten but they would still exist in the Warp.

Even is the last race were genetically engineered to be emotionless ambitionless Nulls (Necrons maybe?), that could not themselves engage with or feed the Warp or the Gods of Chaos, then that too would paradoxically empower Chaos, simply because somebody set out to engineer the hamstringing of the evolutionary potential of an entire species.

The Chaos Gods are engaged in an endless struggle for supremacy. If one facet of the Warp energies were to be cut off, the respective God would weaken and get consumed by a different one, and so on and so forth until all that's left is one, who's slowly fading away as it expends more and more energy struggling to acquire additional power and followers in the wake of the elimination of its mortal sources of power. Of course, more Gods would be created just as soon as more sentient life evolved, but still.

They could be killed if mankind was wiped out, otherwise no, as the emotions that sustain them are too ingrained in the human psyche

Thanks for the thoughts.

Are the elder gods dead/destroyed, or just shattered into shards?

The answer to this will explain wether the chaos gods can be destroyed. Whilst the chaos gods are more powerful, absolutely no denying that, the elder gods were also powerful at some point.

Conversely,

Another possible explanation is the destruction of Horus. Horus's soul was destroyed completely, by my understanding a soul is a warp entity in itself. Scaled up the chaos gods are warp entities, so if they are able to be destroyed on a small scale, it must be feasibly possible to destroy them on the grand scale also.

So there are two possible explanations to understand whether it is capable of destroying them, or not.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Are the elder gods dead/destroyed, or just shattered into shards?

The answer to this will explain wether the chaos gods can be destroyed. Whilst the chaos gods are more powerful, absolutely no denying that, the elder gods were also powerful at some point.

Conversely,

Another possible explanation is the destruction of Horus. Horus's soul was destroyed completely, by my understanding a soul is a warp entity in itself. Scaled up the chaos gods are warp entities, so if they are able to be destroyed on a small scale, it must be feasibly possible to destroy them on the grand scale also.

So there are two possible explanations to understand whether it is capable of destroying them, or not.

As I understand it the Eldar gods were "destroyed" by being consumed by the various Powers that also most represented thier own natures

so Khorne and Slaanesh fought over Khaine
Nurgle and Slaanesh fought over Isha etc

They likely have potential to still exist and be reborn if somehow detached from the main power I guess?

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Are the elder gods dead/destroyed, or just shattered into shards?

The answer to this will explain wether the chaos gods can be destroyed. Whilst the chaos gods are more powerful, absolutely no denying that, the elder gods were also powerful at some point.

Conversely,

Another possible explanation is the destruction of Horus. Horus's soul was destroyed completely, by my understanding a soul is a warp entity in itself. Scaled up the chaos gods are warp entities, so if they are able to be destroyed on a small scale, it must be feasibly possible to destroy them on the grand scale also.

So there are two possible explanations to understand whether it is capable of destroying them, or not.

The Eldar Gods were once worshipped by quintillions of Eldar, at one point, they were at least as powerful as Chaos. And, they were literally eaten by the Chaos Gods. This is Codex fluff, so pretty canon.