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Who’s your candidate for the post powerful character in 40K lore?

Let me start with an unorthodox candidate: Asuryan the Phoenix King (at the prime of his power).

But didn’t Slaanesh destroy Asuryan’s and absorb his power? Isn’t she therefore stronger?

Not really. Slaanesh didn’t destroy Asuryan at the prime of his power.

Remember that the power of warp entities is a function of two things: worship, and the behavior of mortals in realspace.

Over the thousands of years that led to The Fall, in which Slaanesh faced Asuryan, Aeldari society became depraved and corrupted. In the same way that Slaanesh was powered by that depravity, and in the same way that Khorn is powered by violence (even the violence of those who do not follow him), warp entities can lose power when the behavior and emotions of mortals no longer reflect their nature.

The Aeldari also gradually stopped worshiping their pantheon, and worshiped dark muses instead. Asuryan would have already been significantly weakened as the fall drew near.
The birth of Slaanesh then destroyed over 99% of the Aeldari population – whatever worshipers Asuryan had left would have been reduced to almost nothing. By this point Asuryan would have been a pathetic echo of his former self. This is the Asuryan that Slaanesh defeated.

It should also be noted that even in this depowered state, Slaneesh didn't really fully absorb Asuryan's full power. Before Asuryan was defeated he attached all of his psychic power (i.e. the main power he was known for) to the Eldar to prevent Slaanesh from having it. It is said that if the Farseers of Eldar were to unite and wield this power, they could revive Asuryan or birth the nascent god Ynnead (Ynnead in turn has been prophesied to be powerful enough to not only defeat Slaanesh but also create a third dimension alongside the immaterium and realspace in which the Eldar will live). And even after giving up his psychic power, Slaanesh still couldn't actually destroy him, only imprison him in stasis in her heart.

Feats

Having addressed what I see as the biggest misconceptions about Asuryan, let me list a few more feats in chronological order:

As a newborn god – at the very beginning of his development – Asuryan re-arranged a constellation of suns to create a sun storm that mortally wounded a full power (unsplintered) Nightbringe i.e he used stars to beat a creature that literally eats stars. The enslaver plague that followed the War in Heaven turned the warp into such a dangerous place that it threatened to destroy all sentient life and ultimately forced the Necrons into the great sleep – yet Asuryan survived.

The Aeldari then inherited the Old One’s empire and expanded upon it - for 60 million years! 40K fans, and especially Imperium fans are accustomed to a story in which civilization/technology stays stagnant or even regresses. But how far can a civilization at peace advance over 60 million years? It’s hard to imagine. One testament to what they could do is the fact that they could literally move stars around the galaxy at their whim – as they did when they brought the black suns that light Commoragh into the webway. If the power of gods are a function of the civilizations that worship them, Asuryan was worshiped by a great civilization indeed.

Asuryan created the barrier that separates immaterium from realspace. This barrier was erected to stop Khaine from killing all the Aeldari and has stood for millions of years. Even 10,000 years after Asuryan’s absorption, the four chaos gods (Slaanesh included) have not been able to break through this barrier. In fact even when the four Chaos gods unite, as they did in the 13th Black Crusade, the best they can do is put a crack in this barrier (could they even do this if a full powered Asuryan was still around?). This ability to create laws of physics and metaphysics – laws that rule over both the warp and realspace, and that even gods must follow – is IMHO Asuryan’s most impressive feat.

Three of the Chaos Gods emerged around the 2nd millennium. For the next 28 thousand years that preceded the fall, they lived alongside Asuryan in the warp and didn’t seem to pose much of a challenge to his rule.

So that’s my case for Asuryan. Thoughts?

Who would you put forward as a candidate?

Does the Tyranid race count as a single character sharing the whole Hive Mind? If so maybe that?

Gork or maybe Mork would be my suggestion. Less out of any significant background and more because they run on Ork belief. They are fueled by the primary drive of any ork; that no ork can ever be beaten in battle. The entire psychic might of the orks fuels this thought and therefore it makes the two impossible to defeat. They are literally unbeatable. Of course they’d just as soon fight each other as some other deity so they’re held in check.