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To understand events and how devastating they were, you must understand what caused those events.

Knowledge without understanding is worthless.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Age of Strife, without the intervention of the Emperor, would have been the extinction event for mankind. Without the Great Crusade, humanity would have been condemned to a long drawn out extinction.

No. Just... no.
Diasporex
Interex
Auretian Technocracy
A more accuracate description of the fallout of the Dark Age of Technology would be "The Age of Strife, without the intervention of the Emperor, would have been the cause of humanity losing its domination of the Galaxy and simply becoming one of many dominant species within the galaxy".

But mankind is now basically assured continual existence thanks to Chaos. The Emperor has created a perfect opponent for chaos. A foe for them to eternally fight and thrive off the conflict generated. They'll never destroy the Imperium because they don't want to. They want an eternal stalemate, and they've basically gotten that.

I agree completely. Chaos will let Abaddon die before the Ruinous Powers let him destroy the Imperium.

 dusara217 wrote:

A more accuracate description of the fallout of the Dark Age of Technology would be "The Age of Strife, without the intervention of the Emperor, would have been the cause of humanity losing its domination of the Galaxy and simply becoming one of many dominant species within the galaxy".

Without a unified opponent however a Waaagh! the size of the one the Beast mustered or the Tyranid invasions would have swept aside all opposition.

dusara217 wrote:I agree completely. Chaos will let Abaddon die before the Ruinous Powers let him destroy the Imperium.

I disagree. The vast majority of humanity willingly serving the Ruinous Powers would likely grant them greatly power than as things stand.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

A more accuracate description of the fallout of the Dark Age of Technology would be "The Age of Strife, without the intervention of the Emperor, would have been the cause of humanity losing its domination of the Galaxy and simply becoming one of many dominant species within the galaxy".

Without a unified opponent however a Waaagh! the size of the one the Beast mustered or the Tyranid invasions would have swept aside all opposition.

dusara217 wrote:I agree completely. Chaos will let Abaddon die before the Ruinous Powers let him destroy the Imperium.

I disagree. The vast majority of humanity willingly serving the Ruinous Powers would likely grant them greatly power than as things stand.

You forget the effect that the Warp has upon virtually every living thing in the Materium; endless mutation. The breeding stock would get so mutated that it would cease to be viable.

The Yu'uvath indicate differently, as do Beastmen. What they might have once looked like, we have no idea (we do with Beastmen, not Yu'uvath). Chaos is quirky like that.

Humanity would probably be greatly depopulated, but would eventually stabilize into a race of Beastmen.

Beastmen were the product of genetic engineering, not Chaos mutation. And the Yu'uvath worshiped Chaos, they weren't bathed in an endless ocean of Warp energies - like the Laer, they based their civilization upon their worship of the Ruinous Powers.

Which is a likely result of Abbadon's victory. The Eye of Terror isn't going to suddenly explode to devour the galaxy (if the loss of life during the Heresy and the Great Crusade didn't do it, a centuries-long war across all of known space isn't going to do it, either) so in the most-likely scenario of an Abaddon victory, we end up with a change of capitals.

Abaddon conquers the Imperium and moves the seat of government to either his flagship or a crown-world of some sort in the Eye of Terror. The Imperium of Man now becomes the Imperium of Chaos, and continues its wars against the various Xenos.

The age of Strife brought the second golden age of man but the universe is still recovering from the Horus Hersey

 DarkRaven89 wrote:
The age of Strife brought the second golden age of man but the universe is still recovering from the Horus Hersey

The Imperium had a 4k year golden age after the HH, whereas the Age of Strife had 4k year Dark Age