A few things

1) Warp travel, as has been previously mentioned, is possible without Navigators. It's just sucks.

2) The Astronomican is already invisible in the Eastern fringe around Ultramar. They use other psychic beacons for navigation.

3) Navigators can still Navigate without a beacon, they just don't have the continious reference point which makes things easier and safer.

And as for the Emperor dying

1) There's the whole "Acension to true godhood" thing that may or may not happen.

2) The Emperor is sitting on top of a giant warp gate from when Magnus's sorcery screwed up his attempt to seize control of the Eldar Webway. He's only left Terra once since that, and that was to fight Horus. Malacor the Sigilite, a supremely powerful psyker, took his place during that time and the strain of preventing the Earth from getting eaten killed him. So Terra is gone along with the HQ of the Inquisition and the Officio Assassinorum. The HQs of the Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus are now very close to a very scary warp rift.

3) Space Marine Librarians can communicate astropathically without being soul bonded. There are other ways of being soul bonded that don't involve the Emperor, although they might be unsuitable for Astropaths.

4) It's really likely the Imperium will start fracturing (it'll take a while though, the feudal and widely spread nature of the Imperium means it'll take a while for the effects to be felt).

The single greatest problem for Humanity would more than likely be the rise of the psykers. With the death of the Emperor and the resultant shockwaves, the fleet of Black Ships would more or less be disabled.

Lots of psykers, now uncontrolled...

Just like old times. The bad old times.

The single greatest problem for Humanity would more than likely be the rise of the psykers. With the death of the Emperor and the resultant shockwaves, the fleet of Black Ships would more or less be disabled.

Lots of psykers, now uncontrolled...

Just like old times. The bad old times.

I don't see that happening. They'd probably resort to plan B which is employed anyway when you've got too many of them to hold for the Black Ships: Shoot them all.

Now the lack of inquisition might mean that more cults develop, leading to psykers finding a safe harbour more easily and allowing them to form cults which could indeed destabilise the region and ultimately take over rulership (or alternatively make some warp entities really happy when they see their giftwrapped shiny new lunch on a silver platter) - but the Black Ships are only relevant when you've got an Emperor to feed, an Astronomican to maintain and astropaths to train.

That is kind of my point Cifer, but I didn't express it well. There is presently a systematic way in the Imperium through which psykers are tracked down, rounded up, evaluated, and sent to their respective fates. That entire system would be likely to break down fairly spectacularly, allowing far more psykers to slip through the cracks. Unregulated psykers is pretty much what led to the horrors of the Age of Strife.

At any rate, this whole idea reminds me a bit of another FFG roleplaying game, Midnight .

@ King of Sand: LOL...i think u have touched on something there. the more ppl talk about it....the more the whole thing becomes even more delicious...the utter....CHAOS of it all...when the wheels come off...i rather like it. i have no problem breaking the system whatsoever. i'm Radical like that.

but for later, much later for the PCs....they need more investment. they need to feel that loss. keenly.

Cifer was correct in how the charcter attitude would be...they would be devestated. what happens next though, becomes the potential true tales of legend. the possibility to reforge the Imperium anew. side with a faction. this may be , even a chance for a schism in the party who will side with the Inquisitor? who will leave? who will murder a fellow PC in their rage? a new party could very well emerge.

the best stories are those that occur in the real depth of change.

imagine how the xenos breeds will take sway. the Tau incursions- how many will eventually become part of the Greater Good? further Ork invasions? rampaging Tyrannids? what will the Eldar do? the rise of new Xenos?

u gotta love change

I’ve had a similar idea, and I’m also making an entire campaign based on this storyline. Here’s how I’m going to play it:

All that stuff about the Emperor holding back Chaos, guiding and protecting humanity from within the warp, watching over the Astropaths through the soul-bond, ect, ect,... Is all wrong.

In reality all the Golden Throne does (and ever did since the Emperors interment in it) is keep his soul trapped helpless in a near dead, comatose body. It’s basically a multi purpose psychic life support machine that’s been running mindlessly on automatic this whole time. All of the things that everyone thinks the Emperor does is nothing but ignorance and superstition built upon over the thousands of years since his near death.

The Astronomicon works only because of the psychers sacrificed on the throne each day. The Emperor doesn’t focus it, the machine itself does it. The Emperor doesn’t hold the warp gate closed, the Throne does. And finally, the Emperor doesn’t really soul bond with Astropaths, the Throne performs some sort of psychic lobotomy on them that prevents their corruption from chaos.

In fact, by finally killing the Emperors broken body his soul would be finally freed to reincarnate. This would bring about a golden age for all of humanity. This is the fact that the Inquisitor in my campaign discovers but dares not tell anyone, even his own acolytes. How could he tell anyone? Most anyone (human) in the 40K universe would consider this a dire and deadly heresy and oppose him in any way possible.

In my storyline the Hereticus Tenebrae is an ancient Necron super weapon designed to destroy super powerful psychers (since the necrons’ masters hate psychics of any kind). The Eldar managed to banish it into the warp (where its power is greatly diminished). The upswing in warp incursions and psycher activity when the Tenebrae appears is due to the weapon attempting to ‘surface’ from within the warp. Ironically, the increased psychic activity forces the weapon back ‘down’ each time it begins to appear.

Anyway, good luck with your campaign. I hope my ideas might help or inspire you in some way. Pleas keep us updated on how this goes for you.

Draggah

King of Sand said:

Cynical Cat said:

3) IIRC Librarians can do it because of the geneseed. Not sure what other methods you are talking about, please elaborate.

4) Actually without the astropaths the fracturing will be almost immediate. The Imperial navy would be paralyzed. Without astropaths the navy would have to spread itself so thin protecting all the planets that they would be useless. Or more likely they would have to abandon 95%+ of the worlds in order to concentrate forces enough to protect their supply chain. IE they would need (in simplist space opera terms) a forge world(to build/repair ships), an agro world(to provide food), a hive world (to provide people), and a mining world (to provide raw materials for the forge world). The rest of the planets would have to be abandoned to their fates (which would be gruesome).

This would come down along sector lines (which is how the navy is organized) so out of a whole sector only a handful of planets would have any chance of survival, and even then without the ability to call for aid from other sectors they would be doomed as soon as a major enemy showed up. Inter sector communictions would cease to exist with only the odd rogue trader to bring word of what is going on.

The next black crusade, major tyranid hive fleet, major necron awakening, etc that happened would sweep across the imperium virtually unopposed. Look at it this way, the entire 40k setting is purposly and utterly grimdark, the whole point is that the imperium is either balanced on a knifes edge or actually already sliding into the abyss already. Rip out the astronomicon, astropaths, and the emperor... bad juju man bad juju...

My responce to a gm having this happen because of the roleplaying challenge and the story factor would be to tell him/her to go write a novel, and instigate a group vote to hit the reset button (yes that has actually happened before when the gm has gone off the deep end). There have been a number of people say well it may be ok if the plot was done really well or if the players are center stage in why how it happened. This may be true, but if you can come up with a plot that does degenerate into a completely hopeless situation for the players, and does not feal like a Dues Ex Machina to the players you probably really should write that novel.

This is interesting in an academic way but ultimately pointless because its a moot point.

There is no weapon of eldar make that could possibly destroy the astronomicon. Not even close unless you are using some serious creative license or GM fiat. The most powerful weapon the Eldar have ever made, even at the height of their power, were the blackstone fortresses end even one of those wouldn't make it an inch into terran space. The fleets surrounding Terra would be able to blow any single weapon out of space, no matter how powerful. If it was possible Chaos forces would have done it in the past 10k years.

On another note any weapon strong enough to destroy the golden throne in a single shot would probably be able to destroy the whole planet, being that the inner sanctum is buried under the palace which happens to be the size of all of England and probably protected by several dozen void shields, psychic barriers and good ol ferrocrete.

If you still want to go through with the plot I offer the following suggestions:

1. Instead of targetting Terra, it seeks out one of the Astronomicon boosters. Still hugely damaging but recoverable.

2. All superweapons have a simple to exploit weakness. Exhaust port anyone?

3. Chaos would be throwing absolutely everything they had to stop the Emperor from being killed including throwing their fleets in front of this thing. One theory is If the Emperor completely dies, he becomes the Star Child warp entity and goes apeshit on Chaos on their home turf calling all of his forces into the warp and leading from the front. The Chaos gods don't want that, even the possibility is unpleasent to them. They need to weaken the Emperor's power base before killing him or he could possibly over power them.

llsoth said:

Dark Heresy mentions other forms of Soul Bonding (including being soul bonded to daemons). So other forms of Soul Bonding happens. It doesn't discuss if you could make astropaths with these methods, which is why I said they probably can't be used to make astropaths but I didn't say they couldn't because I don't know that with absolute surety..

Librarians can use astropathy because their enhanced bodies can take the strain. Other extraordinary psykers may be able to do so as well. In any case, Space Marines are the quick reaction force of the Imperium and they will have communications. The astropaths won't all drop dead instantly and Imperial technology can extend lives for centuries. With few or no more astropaths, these individuals will become almost priceless.

The fracturing wouldn't happen immediately because the Imperium is already fractured. That's why its broken down into Segmentums and Sectors and Subsectors. Warp disturbances often cause communications break downs and Tyranid invasions, Necrons, Orks, etctera are local matters handled at the planetary, sector, subsector, and Segmentum levels. Communications break down happens often enough in the Imperium that the existing system can handle it, albeit at the cost of degraded fucntion. Furthermore information will still be passed around on warp capable vessels. The Tau et. al. maintain empires just fine without astropaths. It will, however, lead to increased difficulty of the central administrative organs in running anything. The IoM can take that for a while, because it happens all the time. As this condition will be galaxy wide and persistent, it will start to take its toll.

Nothing is going to collapse instantly. The persistent communication and travel issues and the disolution of central authority from Terra (which almost no one has any direct contact anyway) will lead to a slow but continous erosion of the IoM as it breaks down into a hundreds of pocket empires, possibly centered around Space Marine chapters.

This is interesting in an academic way but ultimately pointless because its a moot point.

There is no weapon of eldar make that could possibly destroy the astronomicon. Not even close unless you are using some serious creative license or GM fiat. The most powerful weapon the Eldar have ever made' date=' even at the height of their power, were the blackstone fortresses end even one of those wouldn't make it an inch into terran space. The fleets surrounding Terra would be able to blow any single weapon out of space, no matter how powerful. If it was possible Chaos forces would have done it in the past 10k years.[/quote']

Assuming only one Blackstone was in on the assault, you may be right. Actually, if we do assume that, you are almost certain (as in: more than 99.99% likelihood) to be right- quite aside from the squadrons (if not entire fleets ) of battleships, battlecruisers and other capital vessels, the sheer number of escorts likely to be assigned to screen Home Fleet would probably be able to squash one single weapons platform, no matter how powerful.

However, the Blackstones were not (apparently) the greatest of eldar weapons (although for the life of me I can't remember what is/was and where I read it, so we'll assume for the purposes of this discussion that they are/were), and furthermore, were designed to work together . Given that fact, and the shape of the Sol system (or any star system), I would have to say that they could not only get into Sol space, but probably do so in such a fashion that they could devastate the entire system before they could be destroyed by the guard fleets, forts and orbital weapons systems, especially if they were properly supported and/or in eldar hands.
I specify in eldar hands because the eldar can, when necessary, create new webway portals and channels (or possibly simply move existing ones into position without notice from outside interests- as happened over Stalinvast, just before it was accidentally subject to exterminatus), potentially large enough for even the Talismans of Vaul. A conventional fleet can be spotted by psychic listening posts while it is still warping towards their destination, and an interception planned and prepared. A movement through the webway cannot be so tracked. In actual fact, it is this more than anything that keeps Terra safe- the forces most likely to try and attack the Sol system are mostly based at least a quarter of the way across the galaxy, and would have to fight their way through the biggest number of choke points, ambuscades and all out bastions of Imperial might before they got within sniffing distance (apparently 12 parsecs, according to Chekov). Either that, or try and sneak through the most strongly held sectors of the entire Imperium of Man.

Now while sneaking wouldn't be easy, it would be possible. In fact, it actually has been done: the Tormentum Malum , having been identified as belonging to a renegade inquisitor (the same one who accidentally got Stalinvast smashed, as it happens) managed not only to reach Sol, but actually land a team on Terra itself, and then escape back out to the Oort Cloud and lose her pursuers. Indeed, the team in question (Inquisitor Draco and his retinue) managed to penetrate the Throne Room itself before exfiltrating.

I'll grant you that the activation of a superweapon that could destroy the Golden Throne and/or the Astronomican probably would destroy or render uninhabitable a fair proportion of the planet's surface (especially if space-based, and ignoring the psychic death-trauma I described in a previous post), although possibly less so in the case of the Astronomican (look for the mountain with the big psychic signature and drop a thousand kilos of nickel on it- even if doesn't crash all the way through the walls of the hollow mountain, it's going to cause serious spalling, structural instability and quite probably a rather large untouchable event right on top of the galaxy's biggest concentration of psychic power... and the direct physical effects on the environment won't be much worse than, say, Krakatoa or Popigai).

All in all, as scenarios go, it is possible, just barely plausible, but not particularly probable. I've already noted that it would be something of a setting-breaker ("It's 40k, Jim, but not as we know it"), but potentially awesome if he managed to pull it off. I'd certainly agree that it would make sense not to go for Terra itself but one of the Astronomican sub-stations- logically there would have to be a rather major and important one somewhere around the Hazeroth sub-, which would also make using the Tyrant Star more plausible.

There is no weapon of eldar make that could possibly destroy the astronomicon. Not even close unless you are using some serious creative license or GM fiat. The most powerful weapon the Eldar have ever made, even at the height of their power, were the blackstone fortresses end even one of those wouldn't make it an inch into terran space. The fleets surrounding Terra would be able to blow any single weapon out of space, no matter how powerful. If it was possible Chaos forces would have done it in the past 10k years.

Considering that the Eldar at the height of their power were described as being capable of moving a sun because it didn't fit their aesthetic ideals: says who?

LEGION3000 said:

I wonder how the five Necron Light Cruisers could reach (and one even land on) Mars (ie. terran space) then...

Alasseo said:

Sorry to cherry-pick here, but everything you said seems to make sense except for the above bit, but that is probably due to my ignorance. Why would any force opposed to the Imperium have to fight through other sectors to get to the Sol System if they are moving through the warp or web way? When exiting the warp, do you have to do it near a star system instead of dead space? Would a chaos fleet have to ever exit the warp between their entrance point and their destination? Can you engage an enemy while in the warp? Is that what the choke points are, fleets that patrol the stable warp routs? If not, what makes up these choke points?

Just really curious on those points as I've always been damned curious about what the heck stops suicide attacks or the utter destruction of the Sol System by some of the Imperum's more fanatical enemies aside from Sol's Plot Armour. I know Terra has some damned fine defenses, but what stops folks from making it to those defenses and testing them on a regular basis?

It's sort of a cross between navigational problems and logistical ones- in theory you could make one long warp jump from wherever (let's say from the Maelstrom) all the way to Sol, but unless your Navigator (or equivalent) is incredibly good or incredibly lucky, when you try and come out, you'll be lost. Even with the best of Navigators, regular star fixes in real space are fairly essential.
In addition, making one long jump in the warp is going to put a lot of stress on key systems, such as the Geller field generators, and constant use is going to drain the reaction mass of your generatoria, and you have no way of refuelling while in the Immaterium. Also, Execution Hour suggests that warp drives require recharging every so often (in addition to the even less frequently required replenishment/refuelling), and that recharge is required after travelling less than a sector (at least for smaller ships: I don't know if larger vessels will have greater or lesser endurance).

While it is possible to drop back into real space away from a star system, it makes a lot more sense to avoid doing so- it is easier to get a star fix from a charted system than deep space, and if you have some sort of equipment failure it is a hell of a lot easier to repair and resupply when there's somewhere to do so (even if you are plundering the system for supplies).

It is possible to engage an enemy fleet in the warp, but doing so is very difficult- detection ranges drop to almost nothing (relative to normal distances that you may find common to fight at), any small craft you destroy will be destroyed as soon as they leave your Geller field, unmanned munitions will quite possibly disappear en route and all it takes is one lucky hit and your Geller field can collapse.

The choke points are those systems which an attacking force will have to reduce, either because they must drop out of warp and fight through it (as in the case of Cadia, and the other systems of the Gate), or because it has control of the most favourable warp routes (Medusa), or because they dare not have expose their flank and rear to the forces they support (Rebo, Port Maw, Armageddon).

Of course, those points apply only to warp travel- if someone is using the webway all bets are off, but with a few small exceptions (generally imperial inquisitors who have been given permission to visit the Black Library), only the eldar and dark eldar do so, and they are smart enough to know that even if they had the ships to spare for the attempt, sending their forces to attack Holy Terra would be suicide- as eldar ships are fast, graceful, deadly and have hulls of bacofoil

Though I assume the campaign has already gotten underway or been sidelined, I'm going to throw in my .02 gelt.

First off, if you're going to make the destruction of the Astronomican unavoidable, tell the players up-front and start the campaign at a few hours/days before all hell breaks loose. Just long enough to establish the characters in their normal day-to-day work before things turn upside down, and the story gets underway. Otherwise, give them a real chance to stop or affect the outcome. Maybe they find a way to redirect it "Hmm, I was hoping it would just destroy the Eye of Terror, or at least kill something big and nasty. I wonder what happened to it in there..." or mitigate it "Well, we can contain it one of three ways, if we do X it will just kill the emperor and destroy the throne, and possibly the web-way. If we do Y the sun will super-nova, which is bad, and if we do Z then the moon, half of earth, and the Astronimican will be destroyed, but the Emperor might survive. Eh, those all sound bad...".

When/if the astronomican is wiped out, things will get really bad for a while, basically we'll be back to the Age of Strife. Rebellious worlds will become independent without backlash, the Imperium will begin to partially balkanize, and a good portion of the outer reagions will get swept up by the Imperium's enemies. Meanwhile, the shock of whatever happens will kill most astropaths, leaving non-astropathic psykers to try and muddle through while they come up with a new means of reliably communicating. Daemonic/warp activity will kick up, if for no other reason than this will be the proverbial "blood in the water" that kicks off the next Black Crusade. It's quite possible that the sudden change in the equilibrium of the warp heralds another massive warp-storm.

Navigators will have a hell of a time getting anywhere fast without the beacon, and chartist travel will probably even see some trouble, especially if storms do kick up. Hive worlds will get hit the worst, as news spreads/is cut off, riots will eventually break out, and they'll get 10 times as bad when food imports dry up and everyone's reduced to carefully managed corpse-starch rations. If the shockwave destroys Terra, or effectively does so, the Imperium will probably balkanize for good, unless the Emperor is reborn. However, as the weapon is likely to kill his essence as well as his body, it's unlikely that we'll see a ressurection. Without the binding symbol and figurehead of the church and state, without having their common origin (no earth), the Imperium will have a hell of a time holding it together.

However, the needs of humanity will find a way to get filled in time. A replacement for the Astropaths will be developed (other races have been doing it for a while now), Navigators will find a new way to do their thing (like using the eye, as above). it will take a long time to get settled, and humanity will be a fair bit smaller by then, but that's how I see it playing out.

yes, the Eldar would finally destroy the upstart empire of the mon-keigh!

No astronomican would mean no warp travel and no long distance communications-basically the imperium would fall.

incidently,this is why thorianism (re-birthing the emperor into a new body),does not have such a large following in the inquisition as these days at least the emperor and the astronomican are basically one and the same.

Jericus creed said:

Not quite. Warp Travel existed before the Astronomicon, as did Navigators (by several Millennia, in both cases), and long-distance communications via Astrotelepathy is in no way dependant upon the Astronomicon (though they are dependant upon the being that directs it, but that's a slightly different matter).

Short-distance warp travel (5ly or less) is possible without a Navigator (we know that Navigator-less Warp Jumps are possible, as the invention of the Warp Drive predates the creation of the first Navigators by centuries or millennia), using the cogitators aboard the ship. Longer journeys with Navigators are possible even without the Astronomicon (demonstrated by the fact that the Navigators were created more than five thousand years before the Emperor established the Astronomicon).

The loss of the Astronomicon would cripple the Imperium as a whole, but great numbers of distinct sectors would survive without it, at least until attacked from beyond by something too big for any one sector's armed forces to repel.

To Legion3000... the Blackstone Fortresses (at that time, known as the Talismen of Vaul) were made long before the Eldar were at the height of their power, having been constructed during the latter millennia of the War in Heaven as tools to combat the C'Tan. Eldar civilisation grew to dominate the galaxy without the support of their Old One/Slann creators, and the empire of the Eldar was the dominant civilisation in the Milky Way galaxy for the better part of sixty five million years after the creation of the Talismen of Vaul. Given that the Eldar had an essentially medieval level of technology in their own right during the War in Heaven (their more advanced technology being almost literally a 'gift from the gods'), you could hardly call it 'the height of their power'; quite the opposite, really. Eldar civilisation reached a point where the only thing that could possibly threaten lay it low was the folly of the Eldar themselves - a degree of stability still unattainable for mankind, and an impressive feat considering that the Orks have been around for almost as long as the Eldar.

The Laughing God said:

I hate to be "that guy" but the Eldar don't want humanity dead and gone. The Eldar don't like humans, in fact, they downright hate the Imperium. But they realize their own race is on the brink of extinction, and they know that the Imperium is the only faction that can challange the forces of chaos and keep them at bay. If anything, the Eldar will do whatever they can to keep the Emperor alive, because without him and the Astronomican the Imperium would become fractured and broken again, and our ability to mass forces against the forces of the dark gods will be gone. The Eldar may think us stupid Mon-keigh, but we can be **** useful, and they know it. Which is why in fights against large scale Chaos forces and fleets, they will almost always aid humanity.