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How do?

Odd thought. But we know that Daemons are, essentially, the merest sliver of a God, forced into our reality through warp riffs etc.

And it struck me, surely that means there must have been a first Daemon? Slicing off the merest sliver of self, imbuing it with some kind of sentience and using it further your ineffable goals doesn’t seem like an automatic thought?

Surely there must’ve been a time when the Chaos Gods existed, but Daemons didn’t.

Leaning further down that rabbit hole, I’m wondering if it was Tzeentch that beat everyone to the punch? I mean, every Daemon, from the mightiest Bloodthirster to the simplest Nurgling is the merest fragment of an honest to goodness God. So, why imbue them with any kind of personality? Surely it’d be better to avoid them having their own schemes, by simply having them be you? But to not do that, and instead give them a mission of some kind, and at least mock independence seems very, very Tzeentch. Pebbles thrown in the pond to cause ripples you can then manipulate at leisure.

From there, I think it’s possible the other Gods simply followed suit, never pondering whether absolute direct control might be more beneficial. Or it could be they simply enjoyed the anarchy and nonsense that typically follows any Daemonic incursion.

What are your thoughts, Dakka?

The cop-out answer is: time doesn't work normally in the warp, so daemons existed before they were created.

I’ve always seen it as the other way around, first there were people of whichever species, and their emotions were reflected in the warp. Those reflections coalesced into larger entities connected by the same or very similar emotions and eventually there’s a critical mass and sentience emerges. This sentient warp entity is a daemon. Countless daemons manifest in this way and the stronger ones grow and consume the weaker ones both through the real world feeling those emotions strongly and by enough people and through altercations between the warp entities in the warp itself as well as consuming the souls of mortals. Some become greater daemons and the very strongest of those, who appeal to base emotions which are prevalent across the largest populations of mortals become so powerful that they get called gods. At this point they would be orders of magnitude more powerful than greater daemons who they would subjugate. This resulted in the big 3 and Slaanesh would have started off similarly, but crossed the threshold into godhood based on the decadence of the eldar specifically and the consumption of vast quantities of eldar souls.

Of course because time isn’t the same in the warp, and doesn’t really exist, all of this is still going on, has already finished and the gods were always there and they themselves manipulated the squabbling amongst the earliest daemons to ensure their own eventual ascension to godhood.

Not sure if the lore supports this or not, but it’s basically how I’ve always understood the warp and the warp gods etc.

It's notable that daemons typically are mere parts or aspects of particular gods in the Warp.

Drach'nyen is said to have been created from the first murder.

The first human murder. There was murder long before that.

Vague recollections of the 2nd ed Chaos codex saying Doombreed was one of the first Daemons having been elevated from a human warlord on old earth millenia ago by Khorne.

Well since time is not the same in the warp - there isn't nor ever been any daemons whatsoever.

 Ratius wrote:
Vague recollections of the 2nd ed Chaos codex saying Doombreed was one of the first Daemons having been elevated from a human warlord on old earth millenia ago by Khorne.

Doombreed was one of the first daemon princes as opposed to one of the first daemons iirc. Wasn’t it implied that he used to be Genghis Khan?

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Well since time is not the same in the warp - there isn't nor ever been any daemons whatsoever.

I'd agree with this. If the Warp is the pleroma, then in pleromatic time Demons both always have, and never have, existed at the same time. Experiential time likely does not exist within the Warp, or at least in the way we'd conceive of time in "regular" 4D non-Euclidean sapcetime, so any notion of "first" is just an artifact of perspective, not an continuity in-itself. That would be my personal take though.

But even more simply, I'd really doubt that causality, within the Warp, is anywhere near what we'd conceive of as our "usual" notional causality. I'd actually think that retroactivity would be the norm, rathan than something out of place within the Warp. Which means there probably was a "first" but only if you "flatten" the pleromatic time to a correspondence with our usual time. Even so, that correspondence is still just that and there likely is a failure of a matching of what we would want to call causal regularity in places (at least).

Of course though, even in the real world, both time and causality are still pretty contentious concepts, so you could do whatever you like within the bounds of fiction.

pm713 wrote:
The first human murder. There was murder long before that.

The Black Legion supplement says it "existed long before the rise of Mankind" - so was it the first human murder with added timey-wimey stuff, or just the first murder?

beast_gts wrote:

pm713 wrote:
The first human murder. There was murder long before that.

The Black Legion supplement says it "existed long before the rise of Mankind" - so was it the first human murder with added timey-wimey stuff, or just the first murder?

First human murder as in Cain and Abel kind of thing. The rise of mankind is really ambiguous. It could be the DAoT, Great Crusade or us going to the Moon.

I asked Gavin Thrope how it was possible for slaaneshi demons to be around during the war in heaven (before he/she/it was born) in "wild rider". He gave me this answer.

"It's also true that the non-linear nature of the warp means that Slaanesh has always existed, though created by the Fall of the Eldar. As soon as Slaanesh came into being, Slaanesh had always come into being, hence the nascent power of Slaanesh to influence the Eldar minds and bring them to the Fall, creating a lovely loop / paradox!"

So I guess the answer is that there never was a first demon.

IOW GW can't keep a canon and need cop outs like that because they can't admit they're bad at their job. Hence the whole nothing is canon argument as well.

pm713 wrote:
IOW GW can't keep a canon and need cop outs like that because they can't admit they're bad at their job. Hence the whole nothing is canon argument as well.

Pretty much.

This whole "as soon as it lived, it always was" thing is really the biggest flaw in the 40k setting, at least IMO.

It more-or-less leads to Chaos never being able to lose or be effectively opposed. Because if Chaos exists at all times at once, and can influence the past effortlessly because it's all the present to them.. Then they're unbeatable. But at the same time it also makes no sense, because with that kind of power they would've already won by now.

It makes even less sense when you factor in the Emperor. Apparently he tricked the big 4 and majorly pissed them off, but then they got back at him and tried to have him killed, but failed, and now he's on the road to being a threat to them once again? And they refer to him as simply "Anathema," because he's the ultimate counter to the warp and Chaos gods?

But if they exists at all points in time, and were aware of all futures, they would've just had him strangled in his crib? Or just known he was going to trick them, and double-crossed him pre-emptively?

It also makes no sense for the great game. If all four gods are immediately aware of all times, then they know who's going to win. And if no one's going to win, they know there's absolutely no point in even playing; so how can they possibly wax and wane in power with that much omnipotent knowledge?

The "non-linear" time thing is also annoying combined with the idea of the warp being a reflection of emotions from realspace. If time in the warp is meaningless, then so are statements like "this daemon was born from this particular event." Pushing the idea further that the warp has no rules and makes no sense means that everything becomes existent and non-existent at the same time, everything is both true and false and nothing matters anymore, because anything can happen for no reason.

What that kind of "logic" really does is turn the warp into the ultimate source of deus ex machina for lazy writers.

 morganfreeman wrote:

pm713 wrote:
IOW GW can't keep a canon and need cop outs like that because they can't admit they're bad at their job. Hence the whole nothing is canon argument as well.

Pretty much.

This whole "as soon as it lived, it always was" thing is really the biggest flaw in the 40k setting, at least IMO.

Hardly. Its the only logical solution.

In warhammer 40k, there are two dimensions. Planes of existence. The physical universe. The place where time, space, and matter all exist. Time is a construct of this reality. It does not exist in other planes of existence.

Now lets say we have another plane of existence. Being entirely different, nothing in this plane correlates with ant other plane of existence.

Now lets say that two planes interact with each other. One plane, being a linear plane of existence constrained by this thing called time, has an event occur in it that causes an effect in another plane of existence(the Warp) as well. That event happens at a fixed point in time, in physical universe. However, since it also does something in a different plane of existence where time does not exist, then the effect it had on that other timeless plane will(from the pov of observers in the plane where time exists) will have always been there.

Its really a basic trope of time or extra-dimensional travel. Its hardly a flaw, its just a thing.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

pm713 wrote:
IOW GW can't keep a canon and need cop outs like that because they can't admit they're bad at their job. Hence the whole nothing is canon argument as well.

Pretty much.

This whole "as soon as it lived, it always was" thing is really the biggest flaw in the 40k setting, at least IMO.

Hardly. Its the only logical solution.

Spoiler:

In warhammer 40k, there are two dimensions. Planes of existence. The physical universe. The place where time, space, and matter all exist. Time is a construct of this reality. It does not exist in other planes of existence.

Now lets say we have another plane of existence. Being entirely different, nothing in this plane correlates with ant other plane of existence.

Now lets say that two planes interact with each other. One plane, being a linear plane of existence constrained by this thing called time, has an event occur in it that causes an effect in another plane of existence(the Warp) as well. That event happens at a fixed point in time, in physical universe. However, since it also does something in a different plane of existence where time does not exist, then the effect it had on that other timeless plane will(from the pov of observers in the plane where time exists) will have always been there.

Its really a basic trope of time or extra-dimensional travel. Its hardly a flaw, its just a thing.

Snip

You seem to think I don't understand the core concept, which isn't the case. I get it.

It's just dumb as hell.

And to clarify, it's not dumb because it's a stupid idea. It's a fine idea. But it falls in on itself when you have ultra powerful deities in the no-time reality which then attempt to influence the time-based reality. Even more so when you have individuals from the time-based reality actually trick and betray the no-time based deities. If they're outside of time, and able to both see and comprehend all of time in the other dimension, no such thing could happen. Ever. Even if you could veil some period of time from them, they'd notice the massive spot on their time-vision and also the not-desired effects which come after.

It becomes even sillier when you realize that they've had MULTIPLE plans foiled by the time-based individuals. Events such as the Horus Heresy.

Then it becomes even more pants-on-head slowed when you realize that every single warp denizen supposedly has this bs. Why would M'tar (I think that was his name?) show up on that planet twice to curse Draigo, knowing it wouldn't do jack? Why would that Great Unclean One that Girly-man killed during the Plague wars show up at all and suffer permanent death? Why has Chaos not won the war already with this knowledge?

I understand the concept just fine. I also understand that giving an antagonist true omnipotence in a setting is anathema to good storytelling. Because whomever has it either immediately wins, or else it gets retconned to not be -true- omnipotence down the line.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

pm713 wrote:
IOW GW can't keep a canon and need cop outs like that because they can't admit they're bad at their job. Hence the whole nothing is canon argument as well.

Pretty much.

This whole "as soon as it lived, it always was" thing is really the biggest flaw in the 40k setting, at least IMO.

Hardly. Its the only logical solution.

Spoiler:

In warhammer 40k, there are two dimensions. Planes of existence. The physical universe. The place where time, space, and matter all exist. Time is a construct of this reality. It does not exist in other planes of existence.

Now lets say we have another plane of existence. Being entirely different, nothing in this plane correlates with ant other plane of existence.

Now lets say that two planes interact with each other. One plane, being a linear plane of existence constrained by this thing called time, has an event occur in it that causes an effect in another plane of existence(the Warp) as well. That event happens at a fixed point in time, in physical universe. However, since it also does something in a different plane of existence where time does not exist, then the effect it had on that other timeless plane will(from the pov of observers in the plane where time exists) will have always been there.

Its really a basic trope of time or extra-dimensional travel. Its hardly a flaw, its just a thing.

Snip

You seem to think I don't understand the core concept, which isn't the case. I get it.

It's just dumb as hell.

And to clarify, it's not dumb because it's a stupid idea. It's a fine idea. But it falls in on itself when you have ultra powerful deities in the no-time reality which then attempt to influence the time-based reality. Even more so when you have individuals from the time-based reality actually trick and betray the no-time based deities. If they're outside of time, and able to both see and comprehend all of time in the other dimension, no such thing could happen. Ever. Even if you could veil some period of time from them, they'd notice the massive spot on their time-vision and also the not-desired effects which come after.

It becomes even sillier when you realize that they've had MULTIPLE plans foiled by the time-based individuals. Events such as the Horus Heresy.

Then it becomes even more pants-on-head slowed when you realize that every single warp denizen supposedly has this bs. Why would M'tar (I think that was his name?) show up on that planet twice to curse Draigo, knowing it wouldn't do jack? Why would that Great Unclean One that Girly-man killed during the Plague wars show up at all and suffer permanent death? Why has Chaos not won the war already with this knowledge?

I understand the concept just fine. I also understand that giving an antagonist true omnipotence in a setting is anathema to good storytelling. Because whomever has it either immediately wins, or else it gets retconned to not be -true- omnipotence down the line.

That is missing the point, that is applying real world logic to a plain where time and space have no meaning, so everything changes. Knowledge and memories are concepts that work, because time doesn’t work. Our language struggles to convey this because it is entirely based around time and finite facts. The only stuff that makes sense to discuss the warp is emotion and our language can’t convey that. It requires a bit of faith and imagination, you can’t analyse it like you would any other back ground.

It’s not a cop out to have time be meaningless in the warp. It’s a strong story arc that shows why chaos hasn’t won yet, because yet hasn’t happened and neither had the past. Those demons I are talking about having knowledge of future events is wrong, there is no future. And no past. You have to accept a view point beyond your understanding. It is not a Parallel universe it’s an entirely alternate reality utterly different from real space.

To me it’s the best bit of the setting. Hands down. It’s bonkers and genius I have seen so many people struggle to comprehend that you can’t apply rules or logic to it.

Doombreed was one of the first daemon princes as opposed to one of the first daemons iirc.

Rechecked the codex, it simply says he was one of the first mortals to be raised to daemonhood. No mention of him being a DP (but probably implied).

 Ratius wrote:

Doombreed was one of the first daemon princes as opposed to one of the first daemons iirc.

Rechecked the codex, it simply says he was one of the first mortals to be raised to daemonhood. No mention of him being a DP (but probably implied).

That kind of is the definition of a daemon prince.

Andykp wrote:

That is missing the point, that is applying real world logic to a plain where time and space have no meaning, so everything changes. Knowledge and memories are concepts that work, because time doesn’t work. Our language struggles to convey this because it is entirely based around time and finite facts. The only stuff that makes sense to discuss the warp is emotion and our language can’t convey that. It requires a bit of faith and imagination, you can’t analyse it like you would any other back ground.

It’s not a cop out to have time be meaningless in the warp. It’s a strong story arc that shows why chaos hasn’t won yet, because yet hasn’t happened and neither had the past. Those demons I are talking about having knowledge of future events is wrong, there is no future. And no past. You have to accept a view point beyond your understanding. It is not a Parallel universe it’s an entirely alternate reality utterly different from real space.

To me it’s the best bit of the setting. Hands down. It’s bonkers and genius I have seen so many people struggle to comprehend that you can’t apply rules or logic to it.

The problem is that we have bits of lore saying that the warp was so peaceful before the war in heaven that the gods didn't even exist back then. During the age of strife, the warp was so violently shaken that warp storms happened everywhere. Then Slaanesh was born and it calmed down a little. How can you reconcile events happening in a purely linear fashion, with a relatively clear beginning and end, with a realm that has no time and no logic? If Slaanesh has always existed, how come he didn't eat eldar souls before his birth? What about the rest of the eldar pantheon? How can they be dead now, since they're just as timeless as the rest?

The war in heaven, the fall of the eldar, traitor primarchs ascending to daemonhood... There are plenty of examples showing that at some point in time, something changed in the warp. There was a before and an after.

 morganfreeman wrote:

pm713 wrote:
IOW GW can't keep a canon and need cop outs like that because they can't admit they're bad at their job. Hence the whole nothing is canon argument as well.

Pretty much.

This whole "as soon as it lived, it always was" thing is really the biggest flaw in the 40k setting, at least IMO.

It more-or-less leads to Chaos never being able to lose or be effectively opposed.

Welcome to 40k. That's seriously the fundamental principle of the setting.
'There is no time for peace, no respite, no forgiveness, there is only war.'

The flaw here is taking it seriously.

The exact timeline millions (billions?) of years before the setting doesn't matter. You might as well argue about the effects of stone age hunters on the roots of American government.

 Tiennos wrote:

Andykp wrote:

That is missing the point, that is applying real world logic to a plain where time and space have no meaning, so everything changes. Knowledge and memories are concepts that work, because time doesn’t work. Our language struggles to convey this because it is entirely based around time and finite facts. The only stuff that makes sense to discuss the warp is emotion and our language can’t convey that. It requires a bit of faith and imagination, you can’t analyse it like you would any other back ground.

It’s not a cop out to have time be meaningless in the warp. It’s a strong story arc that shows why chaos hasn’t won yet, because yet hasn’t happened and neither had the past. Those demons I are talking about having knowledge of future events is wrong, there is no future. And no past. You have to accept a view point beyond your understanding. It is not a Parallel universe it’s an entirely alternate reality utterly different from real space.

To me it’s the best bit of the setting. Hands down. It’s bonkers and genius I have seen so many people struggle to comprehend that you can’t apply rules or logic to it.

The problem is that we have bits of lore saying that the warp was so peaceful before the war in heaven that the gods didn't even exist back then. During the age of strife, the warp was so violently shaken that warp storms happened everywhere. Then Slaanesh was born and it calmed down a little. How can you reconcile events happening in a purely linear fashion, with a relatively clear beginning and end, with a realm that has no time and no logic? If Slaanesh has always existed, how come he didn't eat eldar souls before his birth? What about the rest of the eldar pantheon? How can they be dead now, since they're just as timeless as the rest?

The war in heaven, the fall of the eldar, traitor primarchs ascending to daemonhood... There are plenty of examples showing that at some point in time, something changed in the warp. There was a before and an after.

We only hear about those things from a realspace perspective where causality exists

Voss wrote:

Welcome to 40k. That's seriously the fundamental principle of the setting.
'There is no time for peace, no respite, no forgiveness, there is only war.'

The flaw here is taking it seriously.

The exact timeline millions (billions?) of years before the setting doesn't matter. You might as well argue about the effects of stone age hunters on the roots of American government.

There are some cannons / IP's where I have an actual investment in the story, and 40k is not one of them. I don't take the story seriously. That does not mean I don't notice when it tries to pull pants-on-head slowed crap. There's a term called 'internal consistency' which applies to the many fictional settings that exist.

Basically, what what that means is that the setting has to play nice for itself. For examples, let's look to some classical examples from famous sources:

Popeye: Spinach makes Pop-eye hulk out, it's his trump card. When he eats spinach he becomes unbeatable. This doesn't just apply to Popeye, we have an episode where he force-feeds it to Bluto in order to make Bluto give him a thorough roughing up, and he then gains sympathy from Oliveoil. We also see Oliveoil eat it at some point and gain the effects.

So the internal consistency is that, in the Popeye universe, spinach is basically on-demand steroids. It makes whomever consumes it super strong. It's consistent, it's logical, it makes sense in the setting.

So what happens if, all of a sudden, a character ate spinach and didn't get the effects? There had better be a damn good reason, and it'd better be made clear. If not the setting's internal consistency is thrown into turmoil, and the building blocks of what makes it tick no longer do that.

Roadrunner: I'll keep it simpler with this one. An integral part of the Roadrunner / Willy Coyote 'universe' is that the Roadrunner will always outrun Willy, so he has to reply on tricks and traps to try and catch him. What happens if, without warning, we have an episode which features Willy able to out run Roadrunner with ease? There has to be something behind it, because it's been staunchly established that this does not happen. If it happens with no explanation, it makes show hard to appreciate because the creators are gakking all over the rules of the universe, which are mandatory to create tension.

These are baseline examples, but it applies to a lot of things.

Now with 40k, we have the same concept. Yes 40k is satire, but satire must still have internal consistency and logic or else it loses its fangs.

As someone else pointed out, we have a demonstrable timeline in the 'real' universe. This is internally logical. The warp, however, can throw people around in time when they leap-frog through it. This is also logical.

We also know that all factions will do anything to achieve their end goals. Chaos isn't holding any tricks or weapons back when it comes to corrupting & conquering real space, and the gods themselves aren't pulling punches about one another.

So what you have is a faction with no moral issues with any steps they could take to win, who is also totally omnipotent for all actions that ever have, or will be, under taken. Combining those two elements gives you with a faction that wins the race as soon as it starts running. And if it doesn't, it violates the internal logic of the setting.

That's just the most glaring issue. There are other ones which have been pointed out. Ones like Slaanesh not retroactively nomming all Eldar souls, Mortarian not having Draigo's name carved into his heart as soon as he was born, M'tar not knowing the consequences for tangling with Draigo, the Emperor tricking the big 4, ect.

Absolutely none of this works, story wise, if the warp denizens simultaneously have no time barriers and complete comprehension of time in the mortal realm. It rips away the internal consistency of the conflict, and makes it tepid and weak.

You're assuming that the denizens of the warp have complete control over the randomness of their own realm and that the Warp doesn't have its own "laws of nature".

As far as Mortarian not having a name carved into his heart. First off, Mortarian is a daemon, but he's also a former mortal who became a daemon. So he likely is bound to the rules of both universes. IE: linear time has an effect on him. Of course, we don't know for sure that the name carving wasn't retroactive. Its not like pre-Heresy Mortarian ever had his heart examined for graffiti.

M'tar and the Emperor's deception can be explained away because Time itself is meaningless in the warp. This can cut both ways though. Creatures that exist inside the flow of time can understand causality. Creatures that have origins outside the flow of time will have greater difficulty understanding causality.

Just like in Doctor Strange where he traps the evil entity in a time loop and he is completely confused by the existence of time itself. The Chaos gods might have difficulty in comprehending the past, present, and future. They see everything happening in a huge jumble, and might even not truly be able to make sense of it. The Emperor's betrayal and his original deal with them all occurred simultaneously from the Chaos god's point of view.

The Warp is confusing and unfathomable for mortals. It is therefore likely that, at least in some capacity, that the beings in the warp find Reality similarly confusing and alien. Creatures that exist outside time would have difficulty capitalizing on that benefit because they would have difficulty comprehending the very concept, must less how to actually use it to their advantage.

I have to agree that reality is an insane anathema to the denizens of the deeper layers of the warp (remember the surface layers of the warp are more strongly influenced by reality and as such are more ‘realistic’, but these layers are less accessible to the most powerful warp beings).

The question is why don’t the gods ‘interfere’ with the Emperor’s birth? I have a couple of suggestions to the answer.

During the Emperor’s time the warp was calmer. This means at this point in time warp beings had less ability to interface with reality. I suggest reality’s laws were projecting more strongly on the warp, so there was a very extended gradient in the surface layers of the warp (which the most powerful beings have difficulty penetrating) providing an effective buffer of protection from malign warp influence.

My second answer is the deepest warp beings have little a access to reality, or even the more structured surface areas of the warp, so don’t really have an effective conception of time. Perhaps the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra was the god’s attempt to kill the Emperor before he was born?

 Grey Templar wrote:
You're assuming that the denizens of the warp have complete control over the randomness of their own realm and that the Warp doesn't have its own "laws of nature".

As far as Mortarian not having a name carved into his heart. First off, Mortarian is a daemon, but he's also a former mortal who became a daemon. So he likely is bound to the rules of both universes. IE: linear time has an effect on him.

It does and it doesn’t. In Lords of Silence, when on the Plague Planet; Morty is assembling the DG for the assault on Cadia he talks about the the formation of the rift but has to give pause a little and correct himself as that event had not happened in real time yet. For the mortals he was addressing perceive time differently to him.

Have you seen those Twitch streams where they take a few dozen to a few hundred people and have the collective mass try to play a video game? Take that, and instead of playing one group of people playing one game, you’ve got an entire galaxy of different people and races playing a bunch of different games, and the games include options that can change the real world.

So you end up with a Twitch game run an anonymous mob of people, and the game can grant wishes to people. Imagine what happens if people try to point the game at themselves. Especially if you take the step that the background implies: Unlike the Twitch players, the galaxy of different people controlling the warp don’t realize what they’re doing or what’s happening.

That’s probably what it’s like to try to become a demon prince, and why Chaos doesn’t retroactively win.

If Chaos (or any part of it) could focus, or had self control, it wouldn’t be Chaos. Yet if you find out about the warp, and you didn’t know it was being run by the equivalent of a billion randomly connected Twitch-stream play groups, you’d try to explain it as intelligent yet fickle and infighting beings.

Well here's a curveball, isn't it possible the chaos gods has already won in what in real space would be the future but for them it has always been the case and they've already won. Which basically leads to them "starving" which is also a constant reality for them. And if the end result (seen from real space pov) is always the same it is futile for the chaos gods to do anything but go through the motions that will inevitably lead to their demise. View it as knowing what your own cause of death would be and when. Regardless of your actions you're left without any way to prevent it, so what's left but to play a galaxy spanning version of risk until it happens? Assuming they don't have warhammer 40k to play in the warp.

Tldr, them knowing the future as the present and the past locks it in as an inevitability.