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Just wanted to know what people's thoughts are about expanding the setting to the Andromeda Galaxy. Ideas could include new lore as well as what kind of things you'd like to see. Here are some of my ideas.

Lore: Sometime in the 42nd millennium, a Rogue Trader finds a strange route through the warp to the Andromeda galaxy. This warp route occurred as a direct result of the great rift and somehow the light of Astronimican is somehow burning its way through the warp route and into this previously unexplored galaxy. This leads to a mass exodus of refugees, fleeing the raging wars of the Milky Way and the establishment of new sectors in Andromeda. However the other factions are not far behind...

Though battles still rage, the conflicts are more limited to raids and...in the case of tyranids, infestations. (Like the movie Aliens)

A dead galaxy: Though the newly found sectors are somewhat less prone to all out war, not a single earth like planet or even any life itself can be found.

Product Ideas:

-Squats: Squat refugees would play a central role in building colonies on lifeless worlds.

-Rules for airless world, poisonous atmospheres, high gravity. etc. (If they already have this than never mind).

-Scenarios for indoor and underground colonies. Including modifications to Imperial Guard for planetary defense forces.

Given the Imperiums control over information, how would any find out about it? Let alone leading to mass refugees.

If its dead with no viable planets or life, why would anyone go?

 Dekskull wrote:
Just wanted to know what people's thoughts are about expanding the setting to the Andromeda Galaxy. Ideas could include new lore as well as what kind of things you'd like to see. Here are some of my ideas.

Lore: Sometime in the 42nd millennium, a Rogue Trader finds a strange route through the warp to the Andromeda galaxy. This warp route occurred as a direct result of the great rift and somehow the light of Astronimican is somehow burning its way through the warp route and into this previously unexplored galaxy. This leads to a mass exodus of refugees, fleeing the raging wars of the Milky Way and the establishment of new sectors in Andromeda. However the other factions are not far behind...

Well, these refugees would need to have patrons with sufficient power (or at least ships) to transport them to this new frontier. And people with that kind of power generally have a vested interest in keeping a hold on their peasantry and continuing to benefit from the wealth and power afforded them by the imperium (or whomever their patrons are). Rogue Traders are generally interested in accumulating money and power. So if this route was discovered by a Rogue Trader, I imagine the most likely reason people would be traveling to a dead galaxy would be to serve as a workforce for said trader. Maybe he gets recruits with an interest in escaping warzones, being farther from imperial overlords, etc., but their new lives are probably going to boil down to comparable toil to whatever manufactorum they were in prior to relocating. Especially if the planets in the new galaxy are exclusively death rocks. The humans would have to spend their lives inside of environmentally sealed hab domes kept running with recycled air, corpse starch, and whatever supplies the trader's dynasty drops off for them.

Also, it seems like this route wouldn't be the sort of thing other factions would sneak through from time to time. If the launch point for the route is small enough (think Cadian gate), then factions probably tend to lose control of it wholesale. So if orks are passing through the route, there's a good chance they killed every human in the launch sector before they did so.

Though battles still rage, the conflicts are more limited to raids and...in the case of tyranids, infestations. (Like the movie Aliens)

Why would that be? If the only thing in this new area are newly-founded human colonies, then they're probably way less protected than imperial worlds within the milky way. And reinforcements are certainly harder to reach than in the milky way. So the first ork or chaos fleet to come across the colonies has a decent chance of obliterating any defenses and then farming the planet for all they're worth. Why would they stick to small raids?

Product Ideas:

-Squats: Squat refugees would play a central role in building colonies on lifeless worlds.

-Rules for airless world, poisonous atmospheres, high gravity. etc. (If they already have this than never mind).

-Scenarios for indoor and underground colonies. Including modifications to Imperial Guard for planetary defense forces.

I guess what I'm not getting is this: Why do you need to go to a new galaxy to do any of that? You could just homebrew your own minor sector in the milkyway and say that it's light on habitable planets, big on hab domes and underground colonies as a result, and happens to be where a concentration of the semi-extinct squat population happens to be concentrated. You could say that it's kind of removed from any popular warp routes and strategically off of everyone's radar, so the sector only gets visited by occassional raiding forces and exploratory fleets. And those raiders don't have much interest in setting down roots (being just the occassional freebota ship or drukhari that would rather let the population restock so they can raid it again later).

Having to figure out a way to transport all relevant factions to the new galaxy probably just makes things messy.

Things I would want to know if we were to get a peek at another galaxy in the 40k setting:
* What is the warp like in a physical location so far removed from the milkyway? Does physical distance from the majority of the life forms that create reflections in the warp mean that daemons are functionally distant, or is distance irrelevant due to the weird non-physics of the warp?

* Any sign of tyranids? We know they came from outside of the milkyway, but some lore suggests that they were created by beings from the milkyway.

* Is there organic life? And if so, what similarities does it have to the Old Ones or their creations? It's implied that the number of humanoid species in the milkyway is due to Old Ones ancient astronaughting the galaxy. The presence or absence of Old One-esque beings would be telling.

But honestly, I'm not sure going to another galaxy within the 40k universe is all that interesting. If you're no longer within the main setting, then you lose all the stories you can tell from inside that setting. You could potentially do something with people from the grimdark horribleness meeting species from a relatively chill galaxy and see how that goes, but you could do that in a homebrew setting without having to keep track of all the 40k baggage. Like, if you want to write a story about the grimdark aliens that arrive and interact with the less-grim aliens, you can just do that. You can even have the grimdark aliens be knock off astartes or eldar or whatever. But I'm not sure there's much reason to have the grimdark aliens literally be from 40k.

Realistically? A cold dead Galaxy full of planetary husks. Tyranids came through and munched everything. That's part of why the swarms are so huge. (Seriously, the image of the incoming invasion makes it look like the Tyranid fleet has more mass than the Milky Way Galaxy.

A dead galaxy makes a lot of sense thematically. Both because the Tyranids may have munched through it already (maybe leaving some of their organisms behind, frozen in the wastelands of dead worlds, AND/OR the old ones never went to Andromeda.

Now why would anyone want to go there if all the planets are dead? My guess would be there are still resources worth exploiting. Also with the great rift and tyranid hive fleets approaching, a general sense that the Milky Way may be done for.

Also something to think about. What would the level of warp energy in the new galaxy look like? I would think it would be a lot less than the Milky Way which seems to be overflowing since the great rift. Maybe psychic abilities are more difficult in Andromeda? That would make navigation and astro-telepathy even more difficult, but also would be harder for chaos to summon demons and what not. So maybe people see if (rightly or wrongly) as a safe refuge from chaos?

Working in the other non warp races could be tricky, but not implausible. Maybe we get some 4th Sphere Expansion Tau, now somewhat deranged. Dormant tyranid infestations, and Necrons...well because they're necrons. Maybe they found the "Andromeda gate" a trillion years ago and then went to sleep.

In any case, you all are right. Any product expansions could fit right in with the Milky Way (its got like what, 3 trillion stars in it. Plenty of room lol). But I thought a new galaxy would still be cool. (Mostly because I feel like the galactic "map" is feeling a little crowded right now). Darn maps!

The following is me nitpicking.

 Dekskull wrote:
A dead galaxy makes a lot of sense thematically. Both because the Tyranids may have munched through it already (maybe leaving some of their organisms behind, frozen in the wastelands of dead worlds, AND/OR the old ones never went to Andromeda.

Well, the Old Ones not showing up probably wouldn't result in a dead galaxy. One with fewer habitable planets due to a lack of terraforming and with less sapient life, certainly. But I'd think that the ingredients for spontaneous generation of life would probably be present in all galaxies unless there's something I don't know. Like, if only one in a million planets is Earth-like, a galaxy with billions (trillions?) of planets should still statistically happen to have a few of them. And that means there's a chance the planet is in the process of producing living organisms.

Now why would anyone want to go there if all the planets are dead? My guess would be there are still resources worth exploiting. Also with the great rift and tyranid hive fleets approaching, a general sense that the Milky Way may be done for.

Those reasons are still a bit tricky though. Sure, an entire galaxy probably has some cool gasses and metals that 40k's factions would like to have access to, but that's a heck of a trip to make to gain access to them. Even using an especially stable and "fast" warp route to get to them, you're ultimately still just dumping some colonists and ships into a new sector or two. Which you could already do in the Milky Way. So for mining to be the motivator, they'd have to be finding something absurdly valuable to justify the trip. Like, so valuable that suddenly having access to it would probably let one faction win the war in the Milky Way.

And if it's just people having a sense of dread, well, which people exactly? Some imperial noble who would functionally have to give up most of his wealth and power to try to establish a new colony? And who could conceivably be accused of cowardice/treason/sewing fear in the population by doing so. Really, no one in the guard or ecclesiarchy could easily try to run away to a new galaxy without it being seen as a punishable sign of weakness/lack of faith. But a random peasant in the 41st millenium probably doesn't have the resources to attempt such a trip either. So what population would hit our sweet spot of wealthy/powerful enough to use a bunch of ships to found at least one new colony in a new galaxy but also not so high profile that such an attempt would be nipped in the bud?

Also something to think about. What would the level of warp energy in the new galaxy look like? I would think it would be a lot less than the Milky Way which seems to be overflowing since the great rift. Maybe psychic abilities are more difficult in Andromeda? That would make navigation and astro-telepathy even more difficult, but also would be harder for chaos to summon demons and what not. So maybe people see if (rightly or wrongly) as a safe refuge from chaos?

Good question. My guess would be that, assuming distance from the Milky Way actually matters at all, the warp would be relatively calm, similar to how it was before the War in Heaven. Not sure if a "calm" warp means it's harder or easier to work with (Psychic Awakening suggests harder), but it would probably be a lot safer. A psyker could theoretically call upon larger amount of warp power without having to worry about a daemon suddenly eating him.

Working in the other non warp races could be tricky, but not implausible. Maybe we get some 4th Sphere Expansion Tau, now somewhat deranged. Dormant tyranid infestations, and Necrons...well because they're necrons. Maybe they found the "Andromeda gate" a trillion years ago and then went to sleep.

This does seem to be one of the bigger hurdles if you want to bring all the 40k factions along. The aeldari use the webway rather than actual warp travel, and the webway doesn't seem to really extend beyond the galaxy (although Ghost Warrior raises questions). So space elves would probably be out. 'Crons being outside the galaxy would mess with some of their existing lore. The Silent King leaving isn't really a big deal if he's basically just sailing off to visit his summer home in another galaxy, and the dynasties seem awfully concerned with beating each other up over territorial disputes if they could just head off to another galaxy where they wouldn't have to share.

In any case, you all are right. Any product expansions could fit right in with the Milky Way (its got like what, 3 trillion stars in it. Plenty of room lol). But I thought a new galaxy would still be cool. (Mostly because I feel like the galactic "map" is feeling a little crowded right now). Darn maps!

I find it helps to remember that any icon you see on a map is really, really inflated so that the features they're drawing your attention to are more readable. Some maps show Iybraesil as being in Terra's neck of the woods, but the distance between them is vast enough to hold as many different stories and scenarios as you want. Every patch of light on the map could have as many wars and bits of history tied to it as Armageddon, and the dark patches between that dot and the next one could hold even more.