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At my local gaming store we got talking about what gw should do now and we came up with moving the timeline on in the fluff.

This was an interesting idea we thought and it would sort of make sense if they did it well. And the one idea one of the guys came up with was for the emporium to possibly go into disarray due to the death of the emperor himself.

Now this act would basically cut Terra off from the rest of humanity etc but say the emperors last hoorah was to send out a large psychic blast awakening possibly all of his lost son's and the Crusade would start anew.

What are your thoughts about this scenario?

No, I don't think GW should move the time-line.

I think they should return the timeline back to when the 13th crusade cracked Cadia.

Steelmage99 wrote:
No, I don't think GW should move the time-line.

Why though?

There is no timeline.

There is no story.

40K is a setting, not a narrative.

No I don't because it would serve no purpose with a narrative setting that also happens to have a very large game attached to it.

Changing the story or advancing it can do one of two things:

One, it advances and makes significant changes. This in turn causes significant changes to the armies and, therefore, the players. What do you tell the players who have a stake in a particular story aspect? "Sorry, your thing is irrelevant now". And this can apply to any army. This is how you kill enthusiasm for a game when it is decided that something needs to change. It makes no sense for a business to just invalidate its customers.

Two, it advances and makes no significant changes. In turn, nothing changes and the 'story advancement' does nothing. It is a futile, impotent gesture of progress that satisfies nobody from writer to reader.

No.

I hope they don´t move it forward.

We have 10000 years and 100.000.000 stars to play with. I don´t want to know the final answers of the "story". It is not a story.

It is a setting. For those of us who prefer the "creative/narrative" part of the game, it is far better this way.

No and I don't think it's worth moving forwards.

I just want them to stop creeping the timeline backwards.

 captain bloody fists wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
No, I don't think GW should move the time-line.

Why though?

It is as pointless as Not moving it forward. They cant let Chaos win or Tau win. Its like when in Warmachine thy advance the timeline, but it is useless, because Cygnar will never conquer Khador, Trolls wont wipe out humanity and Scyrah wont die or they loose factions. It would be an endless "This happened, as did this"

Given cadia is basically screwed in 13th crusade, you may hurt a lot of guard players.

There one of bigger maybe biggest IG factions

No. The end of the 40k universe is already clear with Necrons ruling the corporeal universe while Chaos rules the warp (thus the incorporeal part) and anything in between should be up to the player's imagination, leaving plenty of space for people to come up with interesting fanction or campaigns to enjoy for as many people as possible.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 captain bloody fists wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
No, I don't think GW should move the time-line.

Why though?

It is as pointless as Not moving it forward. They cant let Chaos win or Tau win. Its like when in Warmachine thy advance the timeline, but it is useless, because Cygnar will never conquer Khador, Trolls wont wipe out humanity and Scyrah wont die or they loose factions. It would be an endless "This happened, as did this"

This, its kind of hard to advance a story which is basically aiming to remain in a static state for the most part. The game requires a static story or setting because the factions, how they play and their fluff is what draws in many players. If you then change that up in the game suddenly those people lose interest in a big way.

PP works by mostly writing stories about their characters, making a narrative with them whilst the setting they are in remains fairly static. They've also got the bonus that the way they work it they bring in new models into the story as it unfolds. That works for the way they release their game; but for GW it simply wouldn't work based on their release design of whole armies re-done at once.


Heck major events in the 40K world such as the invasion of Tyranids are little more than a blip and have had no effect on the actual game (Ultramarines are not suddenly super scarce nor gaining ultra bonuses against nids).

The only way they can advance the story is to release a new game that plays out in the new setting. Thus leaving the original alone and allowing a new setting to form.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
No. The end of the 40k universe is already clear with Necrons ruling the corporeal universe while Chaos rules the warp.

I like to think it ends when the Nids get serious and invade at multiple angles with multiple Hive Fleets and just eat everyone!

 Sigvatr wrote:
No. The end of the 40k universe is already clear with Necrons ruling the corporeal universe while Chaos rules the warp (thus the incorporeal part) and anything in between should be up to the player's imagination, leaving plenty of space for people to come up with interesting fanction or campaigns to enjoy for as many people as possible.

That's probably not it.

Necrons are inorganic, so are of no interest to Nids, but both forces are essentially able to replenish themselves infinitely, and Necrons are unlikely to tolerate Nids in their airspace, so you'd need to find a way of resolving that. Then, as the warp feeds mainly off humanity, Chaos wouldn't rule the warp, as their existence is inextricably linked to that of humanity.

Because of the interplay between factions, there's no clear winner, or anyone can win, depending on how you approach it.

Yes.

You can have substantial development without it affecting the game negatively. Even major occurences such as chaos overwhelming Cadia wouldn't be problematic - there are likely more Cadians off-planet than there are on-planet so people playing Cadians can continue to do so. If anything, it makes their fights against chaos that much more awesome as they're fighting to reclaim their homeworld.

Tau, Necrons, 'Nids, Chaos could all make large inroads into Imperial space at the same time and it would be business as usual for the Imperium. Then the Imperium could get a saint, push them back in one area, a Lord Solar to push them back in another.

Worst case, if GW kills off characters/chapters/whatever in your army you can easily say you're playing in 40K not 41K, just as people play 30K with characters long dead. People already play armies based on 36K characters and so on so I see no problem.

If they advanced the storyline, I think one of two things happen:

1) The Emperor dies, and does not come back. Because of humanity's dependence on the Astronomicon it will wither away and fall into ruin. Without the Astronomicon interstellar travel is hopeless for them. No interstellar travel means no supply, no ability to fight war, and serious political breakdown. The Space Marines would fare well for the longest, and probably the Astra Militarum because of it's sheer size (which would end up being problematic because it would splinter apart and become separate entities allowing for less leadership coordination and a weaker tactical structure), but in the end the various Xenos races will overwhelm and destroy humanity one planet at a time.

2) The Emperor dies and is reborn. Naturally once his true identity is confirmed he would take command of all of the Space Marine Legions (Chapter Masters would ultimately answer to him much like Primarchs) and probably try to launch a new Crusade. While this on it's own shows a whole new world of story opportunities, unlike the Great Crusade, he would have to deal with far more than just Chaos Marines. This time around there are the Tau, the Tyrannids, Orks, and probably worst of all, the Necrons. It just creates a new grind for the storyline, because IMO even with the full might of the Space Marines and Astra Militarum it would be very difficult for the Emperor to make any serious headway for a VERY LONG TIME.

I honestly think that they should keep the story the way it is now because I don't want to HAVE to accept future scenarios. 40K to me is about the end times of man. Things are at their darkest, and the last hope of salvation that we have slowly slips away as we realize in horror that there is nothing we can do about it. It leaves open that aura of salvation or damnation and I think that is cool.

Plus, why not forge a narrative and play out a series of campaigns that advances the story for your Universe?

I accept that is a setting and not a story. Simultaneously, I would like the story to progress. Curran has already laid out very good reasons why that's a bad idea and will not happen.

 Yonan wrote:

Tau, Necrons, 'Nids, Chaos could all make large inroads into Imperial space at the same time and it would be business as usual for the Imperium..

That's already been done. The last major hive fleet basically ate its way all the way to the Ultramarines homeworld and was only then just pushed back (or more correctly mostly deflected into an endless battle with orcs). Major things do happen in the setting; its just so vast that the overall story structure remains the same.

New factions arising is about the most major we can expect - possibly with Tau making some kind of major sudden grab at land and technology to secure themselves (at the moment they are mostly existing because whilst they are a nasty thorn they are digging into a rhino that is the Imperium of man so its really not very much noticing them)

Yes, definitely. They need to do a similar thing to the 13th Black Crusade, where customers have a say in how the timeline is advanced. Best thing that happened to the fluff since the fluff was created. And, rather than hide the fact that Chaos pwned, actually accept the result and move the timeline forward. Bye bye Cadia.

Personally I think it's time for the emp to come back, along with Guiliman and the 'lost' primarchs, to bitch slap the universe into accepting the dominance of the human race.

captain bloody fists wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
No, I don't think GW should move the time-line.

Why though?

azreal13 wrote:There is no timeline.

There is no story.

40K is a setting, not a narrative.

This is an exact representation of my thoughts on the issue.

 azreal13 wrote:
There is no timeline.

There is no story.

40K is a setting, not a narrative.

Definitely a narrative, from the Dark Age of Technology, to the Age of Strife, to the Age of the Imperium/Great Crusade, to the Time of Ending. If we can have prequels [HH], why not sequels?

I agree that the overarching narrative could be advanced, or at least deepened, without significantly affecting hobbiests. The advancement doesn't need to be massive after all, as seen above with the fall of Cadia example. Anyone who thinks that a plot advancement would be something like the emperor dying has a weak grasp on storytelling, since that would essentially be concluding the narrative.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
There is no timeline.

There is no story.

40K is a setting, not a narrative.

Definitely a narrative, from the Dark Age of Technology, to the Age of Strife, to the Age of the Imperium/Great Crusade, to the Time of Ending. If we can have prequels [HH], why not sequels?

Ok, not an ongoing narrative for the pedantic out there.

 azreal13 wrote:


Necrons are inorganic, so are of no interest to Nids, but both forces are essentially able to replenish themselves infinitely, and Necrons are unlikely to tolerate Nids in their airspace, so you'd need to find a way of resolving that. Then, as the warp feeds mainly off humanity, Chaos wouldn't rule the warp, as their existence is inextricably linked to that of humanity. .

Nids cannot win against Necrons because they would face actual gods and Nids can't keep up with those. The Outsider's mere presence (!) made an entire swarm fleet turn around in fear and let's not forget about the Void Dragon. Another reason why Nids are at a huge disadvantage is because they feed on living material whereas Necrons just destroy it in their eternal hate for life. Ultimatively, the Tyranids will simply starve (in a very, very long run) or rather run out of things to feed on.

No. There is no reason for it to. You can keep writing fluff about the current era by making more sub factions, etc, very easily. You can even go and make ludicrous things like the Titan STC in the Grey Knights novels. But it doesn't change the core dynamics of the universe. Moving it forward starts changing the dynamics, but there's no actual reason to do so.

 azreal13 wrote:

Necrons are inorganic, so are of no interest to Nids, but both forces are essentially able to replenish themselves infinitely, and Necrons are unlikely to tolerate Nids in their airspace, so you'd need to find a way of resolving that. Then, as the warp feeds mainly off humanity, Chaos wouldn't rule the warp, as their existence is inextricably linked to that of humanity.

Because of the interplay between factions, there's no clear winner, or anyone can win, depending on how you approach it.

What? I'm not sure if that was the case back with the old-cron fluff but in the new-cron fluff they have no way to replenish themselves. With pariahs being retconned there is no evidence that they can even make more necrons, and even if they could at best they would be necron warriors since the majority of them consider other life forms insignificant (in fact some necrons failed to realize human were even intelligent, pg 25 "The Return of Thaszar the Invincible") and would be unwilling to make them equals. Now of course they can continue making Canoptek creations until all of their resources are depleted. Not only that but not all of the necrons who are destroyed phase out (pg 5, "fail to phase out, it self-destructs and is consumed in a blaze of emerald light"). If I am wrong on any of this please let me know, preferably with page numbers to reference.

It also says that there is no way to be sure that the destroyed necron is gone forever. I personally think that the work like cylons in BSG. They only "die" if they aren't close enough to a tomb world to revive?

OK, so the prevailing argument against it is that it is a "setting" and not a "narrative."

So what's wrong with giving us a new setting to play in? We already have the Horus Heresy from Forgeworld. Why not a 41K publication? Because we want the future of 40K to remain a mystery? A lot of mystery can still be maintained even if the timeline gets advanced a bit.

 Yonan wrote:
Yes.

You can have substantial development without it affecting the game negatively. Even major occurences such as chaos overwhelming Cadia wouldn't be problematic - there are likely more Cadians off-planet than there are on-planet so people playing Cadians can continue to do so. If anything, it makes their fights against chaos that much more awesome as they're fighting to reclaim their homeworld.

Tau, Necrons, 'Nids, Chaos could all make large inroads into Imperial space at the same time and it would be business as usual for the Imperium. Then the Imperium could get a saint, push them back in one area, a Lord Solar to push them back in another.

Worst case, if GW kills off characters/chapters/whatever in your army you can easily say you're playing in 40K not 41K, just as people play 30K with characters long dead. People already play armies based on 36K characters and so on so I see no problem.

In other words, nothing happens? That's the problem. Advancing the setting and remaining static pleases no one. Tyranids push in, get pushed back. Chaos pushes in, get pushed back. Nothing in the overall setting changes aside from a few footnotes in the fluff summary.

Or you have major changes. Maybe Tau space is steamrolled by a major tendril of Leviathan, Ork Waaagh or Imperial Crusade. Sorry Tau players, your race is only in the game now as a historical past faction.

Advancing the setting is either pointless or will alienate players. Expand sideways, look at areas if the setting that are mentioned only in passing, like the halo systems or the Ghoul Stars.

 Murdius Maximus wrote:
It also says that there is no way to be sure that the destroyed necron is gone forever. I personally think that the work like cylons in BSG. They only "die" if they aren't close enough to a tomb world to revive?

You are referring to the same page I was, Pg. 5 of the necron codex. To quote the entire passage "Should a fallen warrior fail to phase out, it self-destructs and is consumed in a blaze of emerald light. Outwardly, this appears little different to the glow of teleportation, leaving the foe to wonder whether the necron has finally been destroyed or has merely retreated to its tomb.", sadly there is no mention (from what I have read, I might have missed it) as to what causes the phase-out to fail.

However, and this is purely speculation on my part, looking at Anrakyr the Traveller and Thazar the Invincible who don't operate from a tomb world and Imotekh the StormLord who has launched system spanning conquest I doubt distance is the deciding factor. In the case of Anrakyr and Thazar their stasis crypts are (most likely, never says for certain one way or the other) on their tomb ships, and thus should have said stasis crypts near them, however it is repeated many times in the codex (Pg.'s 25 and 62) that Anrakyr's force are depleted despite the fact that his Tomb ship has not been destroyed. So at the very least their most be at least one other reason why they fail to phase-out.

All of this open to interpretation of course, and we most likely will never know for sure. And it is more than possible that you are correct and I am just reading to much into this.