So I mentioned in another thread on the game masters forum that someone's acolytes who had awaken suddenly on a fereal world could discover that through the oddities of the warp found themselves far in the future, possibly in a Post-Imperium Galaxy. This got me to thinking about what things might be like in the 51st millenium. I know there's lore out there dealing with the Star Child Prophecy where the Emperor finally dies, but is reborn when the Sensei are sacrificed in the same moment, thus giving him the power to finally defeat the ruinous powers, yet, this sounds too cheery for the setting in my oppinion. I think GW may even agree as the lore is rather obscure, coming only from a couple sources such as the Inquisition War trilogy.

In my oppinion, I'm fairly certain that the Imperium falls when the Emperor finally dies. According to the current timeline, an unrepairable malfunction in the Golden Throne is discovered by the Adeptus Mechanicus in the 42nd millenium, right around the time of the 13th Black Crusade. This leads me to wonder what will become of the galaxy when this happens. With the Imperium of Man out of the way that leaves the forces of Chaos, the reawakening Necrons, the Tyranid swarm, and I believe, the Tau Empire as the main players for domination. Orks remain just as disbanded as they always were, and man would join the Eldar in a failing species. The Tau, though small during the 41st millenium, I feel would likely fill the void left by the Imperium, going through a phase of rapid expansion, likely assimilating humanity and possibly the Eldar along the way.

What do you guys think? I know it's a possability that should the Imperium fall, Chaos might claim the majority of humanity instead. The Tau expansion is just my theory.

If the emperor actually died the Astronomican would go out, communication and anvigation would become impossible. Humanity would jsut fall apart into small self proclaimed colonies, which could quite easily be assimmilated by the Tau, as you said The Eldar..I'm not sure what would happen to them :/ They'd probably be the same, but with a better advantage than they do now, as Humanity is fractured and no-longer united.

If the emperor dies demons will flood out of the fake webway behind the golden throne, and probably turn our solar system into another eye of terror. The astronomicon would go out, making warp travel next to impossible. His death would probably cause a warp storm preventing anyone from moving away from earth, or towards it.

The eldar will pretty much be dead, as there are less and less of them each year. Most space marine chapters will succumb to flaws in the gene seeds. Tyranids will have wiped out the tau, at least. Orcs will be doing what they always do. So will necrons.

All in all, humans are *#%^&ed.

It's mentioned in Disciples of the Dark Gods as a potential plot hook that it might be possible to accurately ply the warp without the help of the Astronomican. Add to this the fact that the Adeptus Mechanicus flew ships through the warp before the Age of Strife ended and it is a reasonable conclusion to make the Imperium in some form will survive for a time. Travel will certainly become slower and more dangerous but only if Imperium doesn't make crucial advances in tech much like the Tau have.

Besides the distance part I believe the Imperium even with new warp abilities will fall with the death of the Emperor. He was the only person keeping it together through faith, and without that the realm with long fail because infighting before any enemy of man. This will cause the powers at hand then to ignore crucial hostile forces creeping in to their new domains. At most I give it 1000yrs until humanity gradually dies out.

I think all the predictions/theories of the Tau assimilating or conquering humanity after the fall of the IoM are just a tad optimistic. Now, don't get me wrong I've been playing the little blue guys in the TTG since 3rd ed, but the chances of the Tau ruling the galaxy seem astronomically small to me. In the grand scale of things, their "empire" is about the size of a single to a few sectors and their population is tiny compared to the IoM. Long established sept worlds can have as little as a few hundred million inhabitants. Start comparing that to places like Necromunda (just one hive world among many), with circa 300 billion human beings and you'll see how hopelessly outmatched they are. Frankly, the only reason they have been able to expand at all so far is that they are fortunate enough to be located as far from the center of Imperial power as it is possible to be and still remain within the milky way. They Tau are ultimately small fish in a galaxy full of big, nasty and very hungry sharks. Tau assimilating humanity would be like Luxemburg occupying Russia.

Humanity has already survived one age of strife. The Emperor's great crusade was a war of reconquest, not recolonisation of a galaxy scoured of human life. There were even a few decently sized human empires out there, like the Interex (from one of the Horus Heresy books IIRC), so clearly humans can survive without the Imperium.

It's mentioned in Disciples of the Dark Gods as a potential plot hook that it might be possible to accurately ply the warp without the help of the Astronomican. Add to this the fact that the Adeptus Mechanicus flew ships through the warp before the Age of Strife ended and it is a reasonable conclusion to make the Imperium in some form will survive for a time. Travel will certainly become slower and more dangerous but only if Imperium doesn't make crucial advances in tech much like the Tau have.

Yes, it is possible. Orks do it, the Tau do it, well pretty much everyone but the IoM. The reason the IoM needs the navigators is the sheer scale of the Imperium. All the other spacefaring species do just fine without navigators because in comparison the distances they usually need to travel are much, much shorter.

...but only if Imperium doesn't make crucial advances in tech much like the Tau have.

The Tau's spacefaring tech is actually less advanced than the Imps. Much of their fleet is still made up of merchant ships and explorers converted into warships. They have one class of newly constructed cruisers that come close to the capabilities of a bog standard Imp ship of the same mass. They have no real equalivents of the Imperial Navys battleships and battlecruisers. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's the Tau who are trying to catch up, not the other way around...especially when it comes to warp travel. The blueskins average warp speed is one fifth of what human vessels are capable of.

Hmm, I could agree that the Tau might night completely assimilate humanity (especially since the Ruinous Powers would take large swathes of them) but I can just see them assimilating a large portion of humanity into their fold. After all in the hopelessness that would follow the Emperor's fall, the loving embrace of T'au would certainly be seductive. Then also assuming the Star Child Prophecy failed the Eldar may even find them an acceptable ally. (Albiet that last one would be a much larger if.) I don't know, I just think in the fall of the Imperium, the Tau would rise to a much higher level than they are now.

Perhaps it would be more realistic to think that the Imperium would fall, the Tau would expand, and a couple large human empires would pop up. Chaos would expand, but then there was always the looming war with the Necrons for them, not to mention the Tyranid threat to everyone. Heh, and GW calls the 41st Millenium the "grim dark future", the 51st looks even worse.

I would assume that one of the many Primarchs would assume the role of Emperor. After all, they were made from the Emperor's Geneseed and Horus was next in line to the throne if he hadn't of rebelled against the Empire. Of course though this could lead to a very bloody civil war between the various chapters over succession but if all that takes place out of earshot and the Astronomicon can be maintained, only the Navigators and various Psyker's would feel the aftershock and the general populace would be non the wiser.

Ignayus said:

The Primarchs are in effect MIA with a few exceptions... Those turned into Daemon Princes, Roboute Gulliman who is in a stasis field possibly healing atm, and those who are dead.

Ignayus said:

Heh I do not think the Imperium would hold togheter if the Empreror died. It would be a to major cultural and political event for a revelution not to start. I do not have an apocalyptic view on it though. HUmanity would not die out. Some sectors and planets they would offcause thats how it always been. But if travel and commnication islimited different sectors and planets would develop differently. Some might even have a liberal revelution alowing for science and technical development. Others would fall into building mud castles. So unity betwin humans in some sectors while others dwells for themself.

Agh, forgot about the webway gate behind the Golden Throne XD

Also, out of curiosity, is there any information on the 12 high lords of Terra? I'm assuming one would take command?

Actually I think there's something to the Space Marine chapters trying to keep order after the Emperor falls. I know I mentioned a couple human empires being born in the Imperium's wake. I can very much see them being rulled and run by space marine chapters. Ultramarines and Space Wolves maybe?

I'm inclined to believe that humanity may very well be decimated, though not destroyed. One of the reasons the imperium is in a bad way is surely that its over extended its forces, there are only a finite number of spacemarines/imperial guard and they can't be everywhere at once. With the loss of Terra which would undoubtably be turned into a refuge of chaos should everything go wrong, it leaves systems to fight for themselves, more humans in a smaller space equals more defence and thus a stronger foothold.

I believe one of humanities traits in the 40k universe is its ability to survive through some of the hardests and toughest times. Someone mentioned the great crusade being a reunification of human colonies rather than an invasion, how long did the period before the crusade last? (was it the Dark Age of Technology?) I forget.

What I am ambling slowly towards is an opinion of humanity will survive, their numbers will not be as great, and it may require some radical, almost heretical leadership by the standards of the 41st millenium but I believe there are plenty of Pure servants of the emporer out there to make it happen. (I'm with the people who believe in small pockets of humanity surviving).

Call me an optimist

As to warp travel, its perfectly possible, I mean the Gellar field that keeps the warp at bay would still function and if they made short hops instead of long voyages then while taking longer I believe they would reach their destination unharmed. I do not believe Warp travel to be as dangerous as its made out to be, I think its very unnerving and those who are fragile of mind would possibly give an entrance to the forces of chaos and corruption and thats where the trouble starts.

Now Tau on the other hand, they are young and eager and I think they have begun to slow in their advance. There is a chance they will make the same mistake the Imperium made and become over stretched, but at the moment they have not made the mistake of making their belief too centralized. The imperium put all their belief in one place, meaning that you only have to hit that one place to send humanity reeling. The Tau on the other hand have spread their faith out over their whole race, meaning it is infinately more difficult to scatter the Tau.

Anyway I think I've geeked out enough with this reply

laters!

Milova said:

Oh definitely. The Ultras already have their own little pocket empire (Ultramar), which IMO probably would survive the fall of the IoM. They are already quite isolated from the core of the Imperium, so their situation would not be that much worse than it already is.

Many chapters would probably go the same route, their chapter homeworlds becoming safe havens akin to the fortresses of local nobles during the dark ages. Without the galaxy-spanning Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy to help them local human worlds would have to look to the Astartes for protection. I can easily see them becoming the ruling warrior class of small Imperial successor states.

I actually have to disagree with those saying that the imperium would survive in small numbers. I understand that the Dark Age of Technology had a vast empire that fell and then was partially reconquered during the Great Crusade. But at the time, there were not numerous species that had dedicated their lives to the destruction of humanity. Most xenos around the time of the Great Crusade only occupied either a single, or a very small number of worlds. Tyranids? Who are they? Necrons and Chaos? No one was exactly going out of their way to destroy the Imperium except for possibly Orks.

If the Emperor died and the Imperium collapsed into smaller factions, any one of the great hoards I mentioned could systematiclly destroy each sector one by one. For those who feel that smaller area means its easier to defend, unfortunatly, the Imperial Guard's strength is directly tied to how big of a population they're drawing from. With fewer planets, there would be immensely fewer guard numbers, making the traditional tactic of overwhelming by numbers much less effective.

As for the Space Marines holding things together, as far as I know Terra is the only location that has stores of Geneseed or the technology to make more. Sure chapters could harvest some from fallen comrades to keep going, but even at that rate, a loss of a geneseed is a permanent reduction in the number of space marines the chapter can have. With no way to replenish geneseed, eventually the marines would die out.

As for the Space Marines holding things together, as far as I know Terra is the only location that has stores of Geneseed or the technology to make more. Sure chapters could harvest some from fallen comrades to keep going, but even at that rate, a loss of a geneseed is a permanent reduction in the number of space marines the chapter can have. With no way to replenish geneseed, eventually the marines would die out.

Not true. Space marine chapters are required to send a tithe of 5% of their geneseed to Mars (not Terra). This allows the AdMech to check the purity of their geneseed and also build up reserves that can be used to found new chapters. As for making more marines, each and every chapter have the technical and medical expertise to not only extract the progenoid glands, but to implant them as well. They do not need outside help to replenish their numbers, altough it can be a slow process.

Demo said:

My mistake. But even still, if Terra became a new Eye of Terror, what are the odds that Mars will be able to survive? And if that's the case, I feel the space marine chapters that currently exist may not be able to restore their numbers fast enough.

jareddm said:

Well, Mars really has nothing to do with how fast chapters replace their losses, that's not what they use their geneseed banks for. So wether Mars survives or not has no bearing on how fast generic space marine chapter X replace their fallen. The replenishment rate depends on how much geneseed they recover from their dead. In an ideal world they would get both progenoid glands from every fallen marine, but of course that does not always happen. Even so, they can probably achieve a modest rate of growth if they throw the Codex Astartes out of the window.

Demo:

Even so, they can probably achieve a modest rate of growth if they throw the Codex Astartes out of the window.

I think here in lies a problem, during the time of the dark age humanity had not yet dedicated its faith to the emporer, now they have for literally thousands of years. Nobody remembers a time before that, so how easily would a new imperium adapt? I think the Imperial Guard and planetary governors could change their ways, and maybe even the general populous could if they are led by a strong character...but the Space Marines are for the most part are set in their ways...I don't see them as being able to adapt very well. People say the ultramarines would do well, maybe not since they are pretty much the most dedicated to the codex, living and dieing by it, such a radical change could take them a long time to get to grips with.

Earlier I said I sided with the people who said humanity would survive in smaller numbers, I'm still in that camp because I like to be positive!

As to Jareddm's point:

But at the time, there were not numerous species that had dedicated their lives to the destruction of humanity. Most xenos around the time of the Great Crusade only occupied either a single, or a very small number of worlds.

I do not think that humanity is facing such a huge threat as you think. The Tyrannids do not actively seek to fight humanity, or atleast I have yet to see any great maliciousness in their actions, though I am willing to be proved wrong I don't know much about them. The Eldar only fight humanity when something big is at stake, infact they have been known to aid humanity. The Orks go where the fighting is best, while they have a bone to pick with humanity when they see that one of their enemies is weak they'll go after the bigger boyz Chaos. Necrons only pose a threat if you get in their way, I can never remember the stories exactly but aren't they a sworn enemy of the eldar not humanity? Dark Eldar are a threat to everyone and they might see an opportunity but they're pansies. The only threat I'm seeing is chaos, and admittedly they are a BIG threat but humanity has seen them off at the worst of times, again I'm being an optimist when I say why not again.

Thats everyone I can think of.

The Tau were tinkered with for this very reason - it is obvious that the Imperium only has another few millenia left before it falls, if that, and the Tau are intended to succeed them. It wouldn't happen easily, probably taking millenia, but eventually they would absorb the remnants of human civilisation.

Of course, that's the plan . And of course no plan survives contact with the enemy. The necrons are probably the biggest threat to the Tau's dominion of the galaxy. They have the potential to pull off one ore more "I win" scenarios, where they unleash some technological trump card to conquer the galaxy. However, they are hindered by the C'tans hatred of each other. If any one of them comes too close to creating such a device, one of the others will probably step in to stop him.

The 'nids are another problem, but their fleets have been beaten and shattered repeatedly. It is still unclear how many of them there are in total, but once the Tau reach a certain power level (capable of destroying a full hive fleet) they should be able to hold them off.

I think here in lies a problem, during the time of the dark age humanity had not yet dedicated its faith to the emporer, now they have for literally thousands of years. Nobody remembers a time before that, so how easily would a new imperium adapt? I think the Imperial Guard and planetary governors could change their ways, and maybe even the general populous could if they are led by a strong character...but the Space Marines are for the most part are set in their ways...I don't see them as being able to adapt very well. People say the ultramarines would do well, maybe not since they are pretty much the most dedicated to the codex, living and dieing by it, such a radical change could take them a long time to get to grips with.

Interesting. I agree that they would be very slow to adapt, seeing as their primarch wrote the codex and they have understandably been very zealous about following it. But to some extent they are already changing their organisation, having formed a special unit dedicated to fighting 'nids (as per the 5th ed codex entry for Chaplain Cassius). A small change perhaps, but it seems even the more dogmatic chapters like the ultras are sometimes willing to compromise with the rules if the situation calls for it. There are also a small but significant number of chapters who do not adhere to the codex at all (ie the Space Wolves, Black Templars, etc). The Black Templars especially are important in the context of this discussion, as they are already blatantly breaking the "1000 marines per chapter" rule.

As for the Astartes faith in the Emperor, many chapters do not even venerate the Emperor as a god. Logically that would make it easier for them to cope with his death than it would be for other Imperial organisations or the general populace of the IoM.

Lastly, there are quite a few instances of chapters that have gone rogue or tried to carve out their own empires over the millennia as it is (the Badab War anyone?). In the scenario we're talking about here, with the Emperor dying and the IoM falling apart as a result, I think Astartes empire building would be practically inevitable. Their motivations might differ. Some will do it because they feel a genuine duty to protect mankind and the Emperors legacy, some will do it for no reason other than that they have the power and the oppurtunity. When it comes down to it, war and conquest is all they really know and personally I don't think they will give up and go quietly into the night if the Imperium falls. "They shall know no fear", and all that.

Earlier I said I sided with the people who said humanity would survive in smaller numbers, I'm still in that camp because I like to be positive!

I'm right with you. Humanity in the 40K-verse is too widespread and numerous to go down easily.

macd21 said:

I'd say the Tau, whilst being possibly meant for greatness due to Eldar tinkering, would never achieve anything like the level of power of the Imperium, partially due to the fact that there is more nasty stuff in the galaxy in the 41st Millennium than there was when humanity first wandered out (humanity has killed off an awful lot of xenos...) and partially because, in comparison to humans of the Dark Age of Technology (when humanity was kicking the crap out of Eldar Craftworlds, the most highly-advanced and best-designed ships since the Old Ones, possibly not counting Tombships), Tau are technologically backward . Humanity has massively regressed in technological terms since then, and even when they were joined by, for want of a better term, an incarnate god, they were unable to defeat all of their enemies. Heck, they couldn't even keep from nearly destroying themselves.

As a race, Tau are young, foolish and, if they believe they've faced all the threats they will face in the big, bad galaxy, naive. Especially in their possibly fatal underestimation of the Tyranid threat (at least in the fluff). Nid fleets are believed to stretch back out beyond the galaxy further than all auguries can fathom. That's a hell of a lot of hiveships...

I believe that the galaxy of the 51st Millennium will either be dead by Necron hands or well on the way to being consumed by Tyranids. If the Emperor dies, the Ecclesiarchy will either not believe it, or will help cover it up. After all, only the light of the Astronomican is proof of His life, and all the Tech-Priests have to do to remove even that hope is pretend the Astronomican-bits of the Golden Throne have malfunctioned and ol' skull-head can be got rid of...

EDIT: To add smilies, clean up the spelling and sound less snarky. It wasn't my intention to sound like an *******

foxfax said:

It should be remembered that, during the Dark Age of Technology, the Craftworlds were a lot smaller and a lot less populated, more akin to extremely large trading vessels than the refugee-filled world-ships they are now. Afterall, the Fall of the Eldar only happened 10 or so thousand years ago (it immediately preceded the end of the Age of Strife and the start of the Great Crusades), so during the Dark Age of Technology, the Eldar were still a galaxy-spanning Empire of such power that no external force could threaten them.

The Eldar as of the human Age of Technology would have been in societal decline from the peak of their accomplishments (which, IMO, would have taken place at some point before humanity started to explore space - a mere couple of dozen millennia, no time at all by the standards of Eldar civilisation), and largely insular, having become entirely complacent due to, essentially, ruling the galaxy unopposed.

Demo said:

Excellent point, I admit that some chapters including those who have up until recently adhered to the Codex Rigidly have begun to exert a particular willingness to adapt due to extreme exposure to particular influences (was it Hive Fleet Kraken that decimated the Ultramar segmentum?). So maybe they aren't as doomed as I thought. I had not considered chapters like Black Templars (despite them being my favourite) exceeding the 1000 marines rule. Also I had no realised that many chapters did not revere the emporer as a God, while I try and learn as much as possible a lot of recent lore from novels and such has slipped me by. I can't say I am familiar with the Badab War, though I will go research now!

Anyway we are talking a galaxy wide empire here, it can take years for information to travel from Terra to the outer reaches being relayed by Astropath, humanity ain't gonna collapse all of a sudden simply because the emporer dies. I always thought of astropathic communication like light, super fast but not instant, meaning the Astronomicon will still be lit for those furthest away for quite a while before they suddenly find out. Don't know if thats right though

I sometimes think that people forget that the races in the 40k universe are not formally at war, save maybe chaos and the imperium, there have been no declarations from Tau to humanity that they are at war, or from Eldar to humanity to say they're at war. They fight because their goals are at odds on the day of the battle. It is not unheard of for the less corrupted races to work together to a common goal and earn eachothers respect. I don't mean to sound above my station with that comment it was simply an observation, just hard to put it any other way so no offense to anyone

All the races will be around in the 51st millenium, Eldar will be few, the Tau will expand slowly though like foxfax said they will be no imperium, Necrons will be few and possibly at odds with chaos, the orks will be where the fighting is best, chaos will exert its influence but still faces many obsticles since no one is on their side, and Humanity will be there spread out in small clusters that were strong enough to come to terms with the event possibly overlooked by the Space marines. Tyrranids? well they'll be doing what they do best, eating the galaxy though that'll take a while!

Demo said:

The speed of growth of a chapter is gated on what means they are willing to go to grow. If they were willing to use slaves, and/or cloned bodies they could double in numbers every 5 years.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Progenoid

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Founding

****! Internet crapped out on me and by the time I got back, almost everything I had in mind had been said.

I hadn't thought about the chaos-necron interaction. That is certainly an interesting situation as one seeks corruption while the other seeks death. In either case, I'm putting my money on necron only because I feel they have greater potential.

My view of the 51st millenium is that the Eldar have been wiped out, Space Marines are still a force to be reckoned with, as they would only be protecting smaller areas of space. I still feel that the Imperial Guard and the Echlesiarchy would both fall. Normal humans are too tied in their belief in the emperor, especially within the armed services, though possibly not so much at the hive and agri-world level.

I also feel that many individuals are underestimating the vastness of the Tyranid hive fleets. The fleets stretch back farther than any human or psyker has ever seen. I would personally place their numbers at the value of infinite.

I feel that if the Tau can make themselves appear somehow "inedible" to the Tyranids, they would have a decent chance of survival. Otherwise, from the galatic view, the Tau would be taking the brunt of the hive fleets head-on. An act that I don't feel they have any chance of surving.