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We all know that the Imperium is basically doomed. Necrons are practically unstoppable, Orks outnumber humanity severely and the Tyranids are already on their way to Terra. To top it off, the Eldar are willing to start entire centuries long wars for the Imperium in order to protect a single one of their own while Choas just pops up anywhere, even in the most defended of places and turns everything into an uncontrollable mess.

However where there's a will there's a way and no doubt the Imperium has billions of people called Will. So I was wondering what exactly could the Imperium do to survive. Humans are like cockroaches, they will always find a way to survive even if the Imperium doesn't, but I want to know exactly how slim the Imperiums chances are.

None, Lasting survival was never an option. It's all the Imperium could do to delay the inevitable.

Well, Humanity will almost certainly outlast the Imperium. Just not as a barely functional but vast, galaxy spanning super-civilisation.

Well if the HH novels and the Cabal are anything to go by, then humanity is certainly doomed. The theory was that either a) Emperor lives humanity will spread too thin and die out b) Emperor dies and Terra falls, also taking Chaos with it.

But instead what happened was c) Emperor half-dies and war drags on for 10K plus years, strengthening Chaos. With the threat of Chaos not enough Imperial attention can be given to Tyranids/Necrons/Tau/Eldar/Orks. So bad news bears.

 lcmiracle wrote:
None, Lasting survival was never an option. It's all the Imperium could do to delay the inevitable.

LOL

The Imperium has the gun to everyone else's head as much as anyone as the gun to ours. Ever heard of the STCs? You find one fully functional STC and it's game over for every xenos scumbag inside the galactic rim. And the Mechanicus has tens of thousands of relentless, fanatical searchers scrying the galaxy, with new fleets being launched every year. Even just a partial STC or one blueprint of one of the millions of super weapons from the DAoT and the game entirely changes. That's assuming the Lion doesn't wake up, that Sanguinus doesn't reincarnate into Mephiston, that Cypher doesn't kill the Emperor and allow him to resurrect, etc, etc. Humans have plenty of doomsday, rocks fall all xenos die tricks as well.


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Shoot, one, uno, rogue inquisitor came within a hair's breadth of replicating the cadian pylons and generating a null shock wave that collapsed the eye of terror and walled off that entire chaos incursion. How long do you think before that happens again? Centuries? Clock is ticking for everyone, even Chaos. That's what makes the game so damn exciting.

That depends on a lot of things. If they find a fully functioning STC and manage to secure it for mass dissemination the Imperium's chances would skyrocket. If the Emperor came back their chances would improve. If some of the loyalist Primarchs came back... I don't know. That would probably cue the traitor Primarchs to come back as well. It'd be a wash. If the Eldar and the Imperium decided to settle their differences and work together to defeat chaos that would improve their chances.

All of these things are possible with varying degrees of probability. So we will have to wait and see how GW develops the story if and when they ever do.

 Silverthorne wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:
None, Lasting survival was never an option. It's all the Imperium could do to delay the inevitable.

LOL

The Imperium has the gun to everyone else's head as much as anyone as the gun to ours. Ever heard of the STCs? You find one fully functional STC and it's game over for every xenos scumbag inside the galactic rim. And the Mechanicus has tens of thousands of relentless, fanatical searchers scrying the galaxy, with new fleets being launched every year. Even just a partial STC or one blueprint of one of the millions of super weapons from the DAoT and the game entirely changes. That's assuming the Lion doesn't wake up, that Sanguinus doesn't reincarnate into Mephiston, that Cypher doesn't kill the Emperor and allow him to resurrect, etc, etc. Humans have plenty of doomsday, rocks fall all xenos die tricks as well.


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Shoot, one, uno, rogue inquisitor came within a hair's breadth of replicating the cadian pylons and generating a null shock wave that collapsed the eye of terror and walled off that entire chaos incursion. How long do you think before that happens again? Centuries? Clock is ticking for everyone, even Chaos. That's what makes the game so damn exciting.

That's a whole lotta optimism
One thing to take into account, a lot of the Primarch and reincarnation stories are either fan made or just as likely stories made by Imperial citizens. None of those (Sanguinius reincarnation / Cypher brining back the emperor / Lion waking up / Guilliman healing in stasis / Khan coming back from his hunt / Leman Russ returning / Vulkan being alive and waiting) have any real support. Closer to rumors and stories than possibilities.

The Lion is explicitly stated to be A-OK in the Codex, not to mention that the Sanguinor is probably some funky reincarnation of Sanguinius. Vulkan's alive. Any moron should realize at this point that Guilliman can be healed with a simple bionic neck.

I think the bigger reason Guilliman is in stasis is due to the poison, not the neck injury itself. The toxin is already in his blood, so just patching his neck wont help anything. The stasis keeps it from coursing through his veins, IIRC.

Again though, until any of the Primarchs actually show up again they can be accredited little more than hopeful stories. Game wise I would not expect GW to touch on the Primarchs at least until the HH is in its full stage of release.

I get that it is optimistic, but I think the human-centric, pessismistic view of the game actually makes the xenos seem more shallow. They are fighting for their lives, as they realize if the Imperium un-feths 1 or 2 things, they are going to be sucking some major exterminatus torpedoes.

So let's say:

1) Working STC is found
2) Guilliman is revived using DAoT tech
3) The Lion wakes up from his nap
4) Vulkan escapes from Trazyn the Infinite's basement
5) Khan slips his bonds and waltzes out of Commorragh
6) Golden Throne finally fails. Terra is overrun by daemons, but then the Emperor curbstomp them, because of course he would.
7) ...
8) Galactic conquest?

...or would the combined might of the Tyranids/Necrons/Orks still be insurmountable?

I'd say about a 35.0% chance.

Really after #1 I think you can skip to step 8. Even the emperor during the great crusade didn't have an STC. I've always considered the most likely endgame for 40k is the mechanicus (maybe not the imperium) winning, actually. An STC allows you to build sentient artificial intelligences. Yeah yeah yeah that's tech heresy but the kind of optimization that would be possible on forge world's is staggering. Like warhound titans becoming as common as russes, regiments of artificer armored guard zerg rushing you with lightning claws and grav cannons for everyone, and even podunk ship yards turning out a HEAVILY upgraded Mars class battleship every week. That's assuming you are smart and don't just mic drop with iron men and try to out necron the necrons. Didn't work out great last time


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You could just shoot a micro sub assembling nanoswarm into that big world where the Orks are fighting the nids and come back in a month to see the bots have atomically rearranged all the matter in the entire system (including the xenos) into 6 brand new Phalanx class battle fortresses. An STC is the ultimate I win button

What was holding back the humans during the DAoT, was it just the Eldar dominance of the galaxy? If the Eldar at their peak were stronger than the DAoT humans, then would the Necrons really feasibly been able to take them on? For that matter, could the Eldar have successfully fought off the Tyranid invasions?

 DanielBeaver wrote:
What was holding back the humans during the DAoT, was it just the Eldar dominance of the galaxy? If the Eldar at their peak were stronger than the DAoT humans, then would the Necrons really feasibly been able to take them on? For that matter, could the Eldar have successfully fought off the Tyranid invasions?

There was nothing holding back humans in the DAOT- they were the supreme rulers of the galaxy at the time. The Eldar meanwhile, while more powerful, kept to a very small, extremely dense part of space and didn't expand beyond its borders.

Also if the Imperium were to get a working STC, it could even pose a significant threat to the Necrons. We're talking about battleships armed with black hole cannons that fire munitions at tachyon speeds. Manufactorums spitting out Imperator Titans on an hourly basis. Volkites and Plasma Guns becoming standard munitions. Mass produced Space Marines. Construction of mobile star forts similar to the Phalanx. Etc.

I'm trying to figure out how you would court martial a guy who negligently discharged a tachyon gun.

I haven't seen a background question yet where Wyzilla and I disagree. STC wielding humans in a very short time come to have almost the same tech as necrons, almost the same psychic capabilities as Eldar, and almost the same numbers as the orks. That's a bad combo for anyone not on team fancy primates

No, the psychic powers of the Eldar and the technological prowess of the Necrons are greater. Eldar at their height could mold worlds with their minds, or even built a machine that could create anything they dreamed. Necrons meanwhile developed weapons of such horrifying might to shatter the C'tan (which are directly tied to the universe itself) that broke reality to defeat their slaver lords. Along with phase tech, time travel, von neumann nanomachine swarms, more manipulation of reality (Celestial Orrery), etc.


Of course when looking at what happens when humans and Chaos mix, I very-much doubt humanity would develop in a similar pattern to either races. Given how powerful human pyskers can become, I wonder if they would even need ships anymore.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
What was holding back the humans during the DAoT, was it just the Eldar dominance of the galaxy? If the Eldar at their peak were stronger than the DAoT humans, then would the Necrons really feasibly been able to take them on? For that matter, could the Eldar have successfully fought off the Tyranid invasions?

As Wyzilla said, the DAoT saw no one able to feasibly contest with Mankind. The problem was a series of things. The Iron Men rebelled (and there was something about golden men too?) which was a huge blow, because they were a large portion of the tools needed. The entire galaxy also became totally rife with warp storms, making it stupid difficult to imossible to get anywhere. Lastly, humanity began to developing Psykers, which was new and unheard of - so lots of demons got through and raped isolated worlds.

Any one of those things would have been manageable, any two probably could have been overcome, but all three happend in a short time-frame and fethed over humanity.

Humans won't be as good as psykers as the eldar or as good of tech nerds as the Necrons, but it''s an 80% thing. If they are 80% as good at both as either of them are at their specialty, and they probably outnumber both, then you can see how that starts to be an insurmountable problem for both.

The whole timeline conflict between the DAoT and the Eldar is due to a series of unfortunate background decisions by GW about 8 years ago to make the fall of the eldar tied to 30k. It wasn't before that, and it's one of the major weaknesses of the background, IMO.

The thing about an STC discovery is that the Imperium wouldn't need the Iron Men any more, because manpower isn't exactly in short supply and the Munitorium has zero problem with casualties. So you can sidestep that entire landmine there.

Depends on the status of the Eldar. Pre-Fall Eldar numbered in the quadrillions, potentially a tredecillion total. At one point the Eldar may have even outnumbered the Orks (certainly explains how they made Slaanesh).

I'm talking about today, where they are probably in the tens to hundreds of billions.

100%. The Big E is coming back, you guys. We will be fine.

The Imperium can't last because GW will do the End Times for 40k and move all the models to square bases

I don't think humanity will be better if the Emperor comes back though. Think about it, the Imperium has seperated so fa from the Emperors vision that they may reject any claims of him coming back if he tries to change things. The sheer number of civil wars that would start would finish the Imperium off before anything else.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
So let's say:

1) Working STC is found
2) Guilliman is revived using DAoT tech
3) The Lion wakes up from his nap
4) Vulkan escapes from Trazyn the Infinite's basement
5) Khan slips his bonds and waltzes out of Commorragh
6) Golden Throne finally fails. Terra is overrun by daemons, but then the Emperor curbstomp them, because of course he would.
7) ...
8) Galactic conquest?

...or would the combined might of the Tyranids/Necrons/Orks still be insurmountable?

Tyranids: Stomped
Orks: Stamped out for the most part but they'll be back around for another go.
Necrons: Probably War in Heaven 2: Electric Boogaloo. It would be devastating to the galaxy with how much firepower would be thrown around.

If the Emporer came back it would be interesting. He has shown he has no ethical or morale issue with wtfpwnbbq'ng human civilizations that fall into religious barbarism and continuing this crusade against humanity until all that's left are those who side with him. He has the 'my way or the highway' approach and current Imperium fell far from his way.

So if gaining access to a STC would put the Imperium on pole position to rule the galaxy, surely Eldar and Chaos would have the foresight to see this and attempt to stop it?

Could create an interesting merry go round of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', except when it's chaos, in which case it's still my enemy but less so than the Imperium

Chaos would not so much attempt to stop it as swoop in and steal the STC for themselves. As for Eldar, I guess it would depend on whether the Craftworld in question valued the ability to restore the Eldar Empire over the high possibility of the galaxy being scoured of all life. An STC equipped Imperium is the galaxy's only real hope against the horrors of the Tyranids, Orks and the, most of all, the Necrons.

The answer to this question is based entirely upon what happens after the Emperor dies. If he gets reincarnated into a normal human, then the Imperium is fethed, but a copy of it will be made in a few thousand years. If the Emperor dies while the Sensei are present and the Sensei get absorbed into him and he turns into an even more powerful God, the IoM is basically guaranteed to survive. If the Emperor dies and becomes a disembodied God of Order without any tethers to the physical universe and who now spawns Angels (Emperor's Daemons) to do his bidding, IoM is likely to survive. Personally, I hope that the latter happens and they add a new faction of Daemons who are the Emperor's Daemons. It wouldn't even be that hard, just flesh out the Legion of the Damned and give them more units and more lore.


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 Silverthorne wrote:
Really after #1 I think you can skip to step 8. Even the emperor during the great crusade didn't have an STC.

Emperor could easily have built his own STC, though. He had the knowledge and the intelligence, but he was too busy building armies, building Webways, massacring Xenos, etc. etc.


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 DanielBeaver wrote:
What was holding back the humans during the DAoT, was it just the Eldar dominance of the galaxy? If the Eldar at their peak were stronger than the DAoT humans, then would the Necrons really feasibly been able to take them on? For that matter, could the Eldar have successfully fought off the Tyranid invasions?

Humans were actually rational during the DAoT - you know, not xenocidal, genocidal, or completely and utterly xenophobic. They just wanted to grow and expand without commiting destroying sentient species.


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 TheCustomLime wrote:

Necrons: Probably War in Heaven 2: Electric Boogaloo. It would be devastating to the galaxy with how much firepower would be thrown around.

Necrons were united and far more numerous in the War in Heaven. Also, STC tech doesn't even come close to the Old Ones, whose psychic abilities were triple that of the Eldar at their height (Old Ones were basically Gods in their own right) Necrons don't have C'tan anymore, so minus a helluva lotta destruction right there, and the Necrons still have a lot of infighting.


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 TheCustomLime wrote:
Chaos would not so much attempt to stop it as swoop in and steal the STC for themselves. As for Eldar, I guess it would depend on whether the Craftworld in question valued the ability to restore the Eldar Empire over the high possibility of the galaxy being scoured of all life. An STC equipped Imperium is the galaxy's only real hope against the horrors of the Tyranids, Orks and the, most of all, the Necrons.

I agree. I'd like to see Biel-Tan get an STC and start actually rebuilding the Eldar Empire.

That would add a bit of hope/grimness to 40k.
"Thirsty for vengeance and more than willing to claim billions of lives to reclaim they're mighty empire, the eldar scythe through planets, eager to take what they lost millenia ago."