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What the title says, when was the Imperium closest to the brink of destruction in its history?

There's been a few - Nova Terra Interregnum, War of the Beast, The Reign of Blood, etc.

Is there something specific you're after?

I'd say either the War of the Beast (Terra itself being under threat from the attack moon) and the reign of Vangorich that it created after, Nova Terra Interregnum (which we have criminally little knowledge of), or the reign of Goge Vandire and the Age of Apostasy.

The beast wars, no other enemy of the imperium since Horus has set foot on terra, sure chaos does its thing, but having an ork diplomat drop down with bodyguard and walk into the imperial senate room to demand the surrender of the Imperium, not happened since Horus.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'd say either the War of the Beast (Terra itself being under threat from the attack moon) and the reign of Vangorich that it created after, Nova Terra Interregnum (which we have criminally little knowledge of), or the reign of Goge Vandire and the Age of Apostasy.

Even before Goge Vandire became lord of the Administratum and Ecclesiarch, the Imperium was beset by warp storms, isolating many systems and sectors.

I'ma break from the pack and say the Months of Shame.

Although it mostly gets written off as a tiff between the Space Wolves and a small minority of the Inquisition, it was perilously close to becoming so much more than that.

With the Astra Militarum and elements of the Imperial Navy strongly indebted to the Space Wolves after Armageddon (not to mention ALL the folks they fought and died with there while waiting for the Inquisition/Grey Knights to swoop in at the very end and pat themselves on the back for saving the day), there was every possibility of the battle for Fenris becoming more than the Inquisition could handle.

If that had happened, it would have started small (in the galactic sense), but as both sides would be able to slowly call on reinforcements they have political and legacy connections with, it could have grown, slowly, into an evenly matched, grinding war of attrition.

That's just a thought, though.

 Formosa wrote:
The beast wars, no other enemy of the imperium since Horus has set foot on terra, sure chaos does its thing, but having an ork diplomat drop down with bodyguard and walk into the imperial senate room to demand the surrender of the Imperium, not happened since Horus.

Orks have diplomats?! What?! How?!

The badab war is a cool imperium on imperium war.

chimera0205 wrote:
Orks have diplomats?! What?! How?!

In perhaps the ultimate expression of the Ork philosophy that you still win if you lose because you can come back stronger, The Beast - himself the most boss warboss (or council of warbosses) ever, pushed the Orks to unprecedented levels of development in every conceivable way. His regular boys were bigger, tougher, meaner, his nobs were described as Ork Astartes, his meks devised tech well exceeding even the Dark age of Technology, and strangest of all to the humans who witnessed them were the social changes to Ork behaviour: warriors were divided into clans with likeminded doctrines, civilian industry was observed, and yes, Ork diplomats set foot on Terra.

I do think the War of the Beast is probably the closest we've come to the Imperium falling after the Heresy, at least that we know of in detail in the fluff. Broadly speaking the Imperium was kept on the back foot for almost the entire conflict and only really succeeded thanks to a series of Hail Mary throws by Koorland - which ultimately failed, but gave Maximus Thane the groundwork to build his own Hail Mary throw on.

And ultimately it did destroy the Imperium to an extent - first chapter to fall to chaos post-heresy, countless worlds lost, laying the groundwork for the Imperium's decline into utter fanaticism.

chimera0205 wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
The beast wars, no other enemy of the imperium since Horus has set foot on terra, sure chaos does its thing, but having an ork diplomat drop down with bodyguard and walk into the imperial senate room to demand the surrender of the Imperium, not happened since Horus.

Orks have diplomats?! What?! How?!

Youze gits ain't fighting as hard as we thinks you could, so we is gonna propose a 5 year cease fire so youze can properly fortify your positions and equip your troops, then we orkses are gonna come back and then we can have a real big scrap. Gottit?!

Basically they'd demand the opposite of disarmament?

 Niiai wrote:
The badab war is a cool imperium on imperium war.

True, but it wasn't an existential threat to the Imperium.

nareik wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
The beast wars, no other enemy of the imperium since Horus has set foot on terra, sure chaos does its thing, but having an ork diplomat drop down with bodyguard and walk into the imperial senate room to demand the surrender of the Imperium, not happened since Horus.

Orks have diplomats?! What?! How?!

Youze gits ain't fighting as hard as we thinks you could, so we is gonna propose a 5 year cease fire so youze can properly fortify your positions and equip your troops, then we orkses are gonna come back and then we can have a real big scrap. Gottit?!

Basically they'd demand the opposite of disarmament?

Nah it wasn't that, although that does sound pretty orky!

In Ork society, if one boss proves dominate over another, then it is natural for the loser's boyz to join the stronger one (or get butchered!).
A simple and elegant design to ensure that manpower and resources aren't wasted.

The diplomat essentially gave the save offer the the hoomies after they had been slapped around by the Beast's forces for a few books. i.e become the Beast's slaves and give him all your shiny stuff, or he'll kill every human in the Imperium.
At this point the human resistance was presumably so pathetic that the Beast didn't even notice they were still fighting!

I'd agree that the beast war is the closest thing to the imperium falling.

The Ork diplomat is brilliant, he metaphorically bitch slaps all of humanity with his words, showing in seconds how totally fethed up the Imperium is. The witnesses are too shocked to hear an Ork speaking Gothic to really react.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I'd agree that the beast war is the closest thing to the imperium falling.

The Ork diplomat is brilliant, he metaphorically bitch slaps all of humanity with his words, showing in seconds how totally fethed up the Imperium is. The witnesses are too shocked to hear an Ork speaking Gothic to really react.

That part is what simultaneously made me hate and like the War of the Beast series. It had so much potential to explore Orks what they can collectively become when united under a large enough WAAAGH!, yet it focuses too much on Imperial bickering and repetitive arcs (invading Ullanor three times...yikes!) to really show more facets of Ork culture in such an environment.

 Grimskul wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I'd agree that the beast war is the closest thing to the imperium falling.

The Ork diplomat is brilliant, he metaphorically bitch slaps all of humanity with his words, showing in seconds how totally fethed up the Imperium is. The witnesses are too shocked to hear an Ork speaking Gothic to really react.

That part is what simultaneously made me hate and like the War of the Beast series. It had so much potential to explore Orks what they can collectively become when united under a large enough WAAAGH!, yet it focuses too much on Imperial bickering and repetitive arcs (invading Ullanor three times...yikes!) to really show more facets of Ork culture in such an environment.

Seriously. 12 novels and not one from the Ork perspective was disappointing. I suppose it was a concious decision to keep them solely as an unkowable, elemental force for the antagonists.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I'd agree that the beast war is the closest thing to the imperium falling.

The Ork diplomat is brilliant, he metaphorically bitch slaps all of humanity with his words, showing in seconds how totally fethed up the Imperium is. The witnesses are too shocked to hear an Ork speaking Gothic to really react.

That part is what simultaneously made me hate and like the War of the Beast series. It had so much potential to explore Orks what they can collectively become when united under a large enough WAAAGH!, yet it focuses too much on Imperial bickering and repetitive arcs (invading Ullanor three times...yikes!) to really show more facets of Ork culture in such an environment.

Seriously. 12 novels and not one from the Ork perspective was disappointing. I suppose it was a concious decision to keep them solely as an unkowable, elemental force for the antagonists.

a small 2 or 3 book miniseries telling the story of the war of the beast from the ork perpective.could be cool.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I'd agree that the beast war is the closest thing to the imperium falling.

The Ork diplomat is brilliant, he metaphorically bitch slaps all of humanity with his words, showing in seconds how totally fethed up the Imperium is. The witnesses are too shocked to hear an Ork speaking Gothic to really react.

That part is what simultaneously made me hate and like the War of the Beast series. It had so much potential to explore Orks what they can collectively become when united under a large enough WAAAGH!, yet it focuses too much on Imperial bickering and repetitive arcs (invading Ullanor three times...yikes!) to really show more facets of Ork culture in such an environment.

Seriously. 12 novels and not one from the Ork perspective was disappointing. I suppose it was a concious decision to keep them solely as an unkowable, elemental force for the antagonists.

It was weird too since there seemed to be some inkling of their defeat from Ullanor potentially retconning some of the elements of Ork Klanz having somewhat originated from the Heresy itself, as the Prime-Orks seemed to ape the Primarchs that helped conquer Ullanor and it was during the War of the Beast that the Imperium seemed to notice distinct klan kulturs that each Prime-Ork headed. The dumb part of having an elemental force for the antagonists to defeat is that the Tyranids already fill that role, so it really does Orks a disservice if that was the intention. It would have been much more engaging if that stuck with one Prime-Ork that Koorland was obsessed with destroying after losing his entire chapter to him and setting it from there.

Side question based on the above. Are there any BL novels written from an orks perspective ? I'd like to read one if such a book exists and isn't total trash.

I've heard that Baneblade by Gavin Thorpe is, in part, from the Ork's perspective.

I've yet to read it myself though.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Side question based on the above. Are there any BL novels written from an orks perspective ? I'd like to read one if such a book exists and isn't total trash.

There's the Prophets of Waaagh! audio drama.

On topic; the corrupt Imperial Saint Basillius, who launched the Abyssal Crusade, was probably the closest the Imperium came to falling to Chaos post-heresy. He had enormous influence over the High Lords and Space Marines for a significant amount of time.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Side question based on the above. Are there any BL novels written from an orks perspective ? I'd like to read one if such a book exists and isn't total trash.

Evil sun rising, by Guy Haley