Wilfred Owen said:

Indeed.

The hands of the 40k clock are forever set at '1 minute to midnight'. I'm not suggesting nor wishing they would change that here, nor do i think they will.

I just thought it might be interesting to speculate what might happen when the Golden Throne fails...

What's with all the "Emperor Reborn" stuff? You take the one of the most powerful psykers the galaxy has ever seen, mix in some 10,000 years of worship by trillions of worshipers, and you get somethin with the strength of the Gods of Chaos. Saying that the Emperor will be reborn is like saying that Tzeentch is going to somehow get himself a mortal body. Far too much power for flesh to contain. What I would like to see is the Emperor becoming a Chaos God. The Chaos God of Order would be the best way for him to manifest in my opinion. It matches his mortal plans and the dogma of the church very nicely while highlighting the inherently contradictory nature of Chaos. Other candidates for his sphere of influence include dominatation and oppression.

I'm thinking that the minute he dies, the Sol System is obliterated in a Warp Storm similar to that of the Eye of Terror. This immediately obliterates the main seat of power for both the Imperium and the Mechanicum, blanks out the Astronomicon, destroys the Dragon and leaves the whole thing shrouded in mystery for the various factions of the Imperium to debate and speculate over why it happened. I'd also think that the same thing would happen to the other Warp Storms around the galaxy when the Eye of Terror was born, all the other Warp Storms reduced. So the Eye of Terror shrinks in size, as do a bunch of the other storms where Chaos Marines are hiding and a bunch of the other Warp Storms thoughout the galaxy disperse. Thus the Imperium is broken down into a bunch of warring empires, but Abbadon's lot and other chaos renegades do as well so that Humanity doesn't fall overnight. Just so that the setting can continue.

And then something interesting happens, the Emperor starts granting boons to his worshipers just as the other Gods do. He starts manifesting daemons aligned to his will. I'd like to see these daemons essentially be the Legion of the Damned. Now the thing is, worship of the Gods of Chaos is a bad thing. It weakens the barriors between the Materium and Immaterium. Because of this, we'll see all sorts of more prominent Chaos activity. Human empires aligned to the will of one of the Gods. And there will eventually be some factions that see this trend and turn away from worship of the Emperor because they realize the harm they are doing. So we'll see a mix of aligned and secular human empires in the galaxy.

This whole setup makes it so that the "In the future there is only war" tagline stays true. There are just a lot of different human factions fighting each other instead of the single beuracracy. The tabletop game wouldn't really change, then resolution of it all is nowhere in sight and GW can continue to pump money out of us while encouraging our creativity by telling us we can create our own little empires amungst the ruins of the Imperium, just as we could create our own Marine Chapters and regiments and things. It'd be less of an end and more of a new begining.

Its a trick the throne isnt failing the Emperor is merely shutting it down himself to cause his body to regenerate due to the immense psykic power he has achieved

once he is revived he kills all the high lords of terra for their mock worship of him and takes full control of the Empire fueling the astronomican with his own body saving thousands of pyskers for his use

he gives the adeptus mechanicus thousands of STCs he remembers from the dark days and ferrets out all heresy on every world he owns with his own bare hands and pure raw pyskic power

he unites his Empire once again ruling with an iron fist gaining billions of imperial guardsmen giving them new stratagens and weapondry

his own army of space marines gain a second breath and go into the eye of terror destroying their fallen brethren with the emperors might

the inquisition now seeks alien threats as heresy is destroyed and the ruinous powers are preparing a final bout

the sisters of battle fall to the side of their emperor and through their faithful service are rewarded and taken as the emperors personal army to combat the threats he faces in battle

as for the alien races

Orks: start to unite and launch one crusaded WAGGGGH!!! against hummies and the like being held back by a stronger Empire

Eldar: see this as a last stand of the brink of a new age the start attacking necrons full out trying to destroy them fully even destroying a C'tan

Dark Eldar: leave their port of death and start pirating the alien races the eldar and their alliances drive them back and with the emperors pyskic power seals them off in their port for all eternity

Necrons: the Void Dragon awakens on mars and half the Adeptus Mechanicus become necronized but the other half with the help of space marine chapters fend off and kill the new tech heretics and the mechanicus must now work much harder to keep the imperium running but the emperor provides salvation against the word of the omnisiah giving them STC's to triple production even weapons to destroy the necrons phasing ability severely weakening their threat

Chaos: launches a final crusade as the astonomican even still fueled by the emperor is let down enough to let the ruinous powers escape their prison of warp. destruction is rampant in the imperium though the emperor is stronger for his time away he defeats the ruinous powers one by one relinquishing their hold on the warp and calming its storms. with the aid of the eldar he destroys Slaneesh gaining their alliship for now as they combat the necron threat still

Tau: they gain more alien races for "the Greater Good" and start to try a takeover of imperial worlds they are held back by imperial guardsmen and space marines eventualy reaching a stand still and alliship with the Imperium combining the empires for now gaining both new technology and skill to work together and conquer together for now

Tyranids: all hive fleets move in from the galaxy beyond conquering and devouring all in their path. dead worlds are spared as necrons ally themselves with the vicious alien race. the hive ships themselves move into the galaxy destroying all in its path warring with orks waaaaggggghh crusade viciously wearing eachothers resources out extravagantly helping this stronger Imperium come together and defeat both of these ancient and new threats

as for a conclusion

once the threats are destroyed the emperor turn on his allies and destroys them utterly for only humans can survive in this universe through war and a peace comes across the galaxy as the Imperium of man is triumphant with their Emperor bringing in a new age of peace for now...

because in the 41st millenium there is only WAR

fimarach said:

GW have aaaaaaaaalways made 40k sound like that. It's just that this edition has added a little more grit to the description of the 40k Grimdark universe, to make it sound new and edgy.

Face it, GW will NEVER end their cashcow flagship of a game.