Who will "win" in warhammer 40k?

[Grifthin]

If the Eldar manage to pull off their little God of the Dead gambit they win. They can start breeding at a increased rate again - with a Enormous amount of people walking the path of the warrior and their seers talents at avoiding unfavorable conflict they can once more take control of the universe. Plus there's the hole Stars living and dying at their command - if they start throwing around that sort of tech again as well as inhabiting their maiden worlds the other races are in for a world of hurt.

[DeltaEmil]

No, they can't. Their "winning" gambit involves all eldar to be dead, so that their souls can combine into Ynnead in the infinity circuit, and them being released into oblivion, instead of remaining conscious while their souls enters the warp.

Also, as of 4th edition, this condition is only a seldom mentioned vision shared by even fewer seers, who do not believe in it.

Now, how the dark eldar of the webway cities play a role into this is another question.

[Alleran]

If by "win" we mean that one race achieves dominance over the others, I'd go with the following:

The Imperium, if the Emperor dies and finally triggers the Star Child. Additionally, the Emperor is actually just human evolution kickstarted up several notches, so if that could somehow be done on a wide scale, humanity would evolve into a fully psychic race. Where everybody has the powers of the Emperor. Every. Last. Human. The C'Tan will probably flee in terror at that point (the Emperor went up against Void Dragon once in 1300 AD, and curbstomped him so hard that when he built a rocket and fired the C'Tan to Mars, Void Dragon hit so hard that he's only just now coming out of his comatose state).

They can also win if the AdMech finds a fully-functioning STC (I remember an amusing comic I saw somewhere that pointed out how if the AdMech would send a fleet of ships and give entire planets to somebody who found a diagram of an STC-built knife, if you were to get a working STC they would literally strap rockets onto Mars and fly the planet to you). With a single STC, they could probably reproduce more of them, and from that point onward, it's back to the Dark Age of Technology in terms of advancement. There was one planet still at Dark Age levels (with an STC) that the Imperium tried to attack for ten years straight. They continually repulsed every single attempt, and because the technology the Imperium faced was too advanced for them, they just had to give up and quarantine the place.

Orks. Well, the entire galaxy is at war anyway. So the Orks have already won, in a sense. If they win a fight, they win. If they die, then they're dead, so they haven't technically lost, and they get to die fighting so they win anyway.

Tau... I think they're going to get on the wrong side of Chaos at some point. I remember implications that the Eldar have been meddling in their evolution for a while now as well.

[Tinydwarfman]

Speaking of, is there any 'win condition' for the Dark Eldar or Chaos? I'm not too familiar with them.

[chiasaur11]

Orkz, as others have mentioned.

They win?

Well, hey now. They win. Nothing else to be said.

They lose but don't die?

Well, they can run away to fight another day, when they'll win, so it's winning.

They die?

They're Orkz, so if they die it's going to be in battle, which don't count.

They won already.

If we're talking long term survival? Orkz too, probably. Can match the 'nids for numbers, resistant to outside influences (and prone to the murdering of any gits who get all spiky), and top it all off with the possibility of generating individuals more powerful than anyone else, ever (One Warboss, if I remember, took on the GEOM. And would have won if Horus wasn't there. Nasty powerful fellow)

Oddly, this is less bad for the losing parties than most other win conditions.




Of course, all this is intentionally ignoring CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM. He'd win the whole deal by hisself.

[DeltaEmil]

The Imperium, if the Emperor dies and finally triggers the Star Child. Additionally, the Emperor is actually just human evolution kickstarted up several notches, so if that could somehow be done on a wide scale, humanity would evolve into a fully psychic race. Where everybody has the powers of the Emperor. Every. Last. Human. The C'Tan will probably flee in terror at that point (the Emperor went up against Void Dragon once in 1300 AD, and curbstomped him so hard that when he built a rocket and fired the C'Tan to Mars, Void Dragon hit so hard that he's only just now coming out of his comatose state).

Without the direct guidance of the emperor, when humanity evolves into a fully psychic race, they all die and get eaten by warp wasps, or are transformed into fleshy warpgates by the eponymous enslavers, who nearly destroyed all life in the galaxy almost 60 million years ago. The natural warp creatures are different from such weak beings like chaos gods or the emperor.
This event is already starting, with many thousand worlds being cut off by warp storms and overrun by chaos daemons or the even worse warp predators, enabled by the uncontrolled masses of psykers amongst the 1 million worlds that the Imperium controls, and not even the Inquisition is capable of finding them all.
When the emperor turns into the starchild, the Imperium will since long have ceased to exist, as without the astropathich choir or the astronomican, no communication nor guiding light in the warp is possible.
Without the great protection of the Imperium's army and naval fleets or the legendary space marines, most worlds will fall into anarchy, rebell, worship demonic gods or get conquered and possibly annihilated by aliens.
Perhaps a few non-psychic human settlements might survive and start anew, like in the great diaspora that came after the death of Leto II. in Dune, so there might be hope, but not really.
Also, the visions of the void dragon are not reliable, and nobody knows how the emperor defeated the c'tan. The fact that the Old Ones and their eldar servants couldn't really kill him when they used the might of the black fortresses (then known as the talismans of vaul) means that the c'tan can't be killed, only weakened at best, and might have been still in that state when the emperor confronted it.
And then there's the rumors that the dragon is responsible for the great wars in the age of strife, when robots started killing humans, psykers unleashed warp storms and aliens plundered and pillaged everything.

They can also win if the AdMech finds a fully-functioning STC (I remember an amusing comic I saw somewhere that pointed out how if the AdMech would send a fleet of ships and give entire planets to somebody who found a diagram of an STC-built knife, if you were to get a working STC they would literally strap rockets onto Mars and fly the planet to you). With a single STC, they could probably reproduce more of them, and from that point onward, it's back to the Dark Age of Technology in terms of advancement. There was one planet still at Dark Age levels (with an STC) that the Imperium tried to attack for ten years straight. They continually repulsed every single attempt, and because the technology the Imperium faced was too advanced for them, they just had to give up and quarantine the place.

The imperium in fact destroyed the world by plunging several meteors onto it's surface, which the kult mechanikus did object to.
Standart template constructs come in different forms. Blueprints, and factories. Of course, the factories that can create nearly everything are more valuable than the ones who can only print the instructions how to create the things, or only some parts of it.
After finding it, however, the adeptus mechanicus will still need to analize it for almost a milennia. You must after all pay proper respect to the machine god (who might be the emperor, or the dragon himself, depending on who in the kult mechanikus you ask).

Tau... I think they're going to get on the wrong side of Chaos at some point. I remember implications that the Eldar have been meddling in their evolution for a while now as well.

Only a speculation of an insane magos biologis, who's been manipulated by a necron lord, and with a grotesque mistake (the oft-mentioned tau with feet that can't be - warp mutation, chaos tau or just mental breakdown of the magos to explain this)
The only fact is that a craftword once defeated an ork Waaagh! that threatened the planet T'Au, before the Tau themselves had achieved space flight, or were even united under the mysterious ethereals.

[Alleran]

I had a huge response typed up, but my computer burped and I lost it.

So cliff notes, I guess.

Without the direct guidance of the emperor, when humanity evolves into a fully psychic race, they all die and get eaten by warp wasps,

The Emperor survived for thousands of years. He's also stronger than all four in concert, depending on your viewpoint of his blasting them out of Horus. Additionally, the shamans who kept being eaten by those same Warp creatures in between reincarnations used their reincarnation into the Emperor to escape that problem. And since then, there hasn't been an issue with it. Not for the Emperor, at least.

This event is already starting, with many thousand worlds being cut off by warp storms and overrun by chaos daemons or the even worse warp predators, enabled by the uncontrolled masses of psykers amongst the 1 million worlds that the Imperium controls, and not even the Inquisition is capable of finding them all.

Yes. My hypothetical situation is if every human is kickstarted past this event like the Emperor was.

When the emperor turns into the starchild, the Imperium will since long have ceased to exist, as without the astropathich choir or the astronomican, no communication nor guiding light in the warp is possible.

All the Star Child needs to reach full bloom is the death of the Emperor's mortal body. That's the trigger event it is waiting for. So unless the Astronomicon fails before the Emperor dies (and since he's maintaining it while he's alive, it's more likely that it could fail when he expires, not before - and I wouldn't put it past him to have a backup plan in that event anyway), humanity should be safe on that account.

and nobody knows how the emperor defeated the c'tan.

We do know that he beat him. And that Void Dragon spent the next few tens of thousands of years in a comatose state because of it.

The fact that the Old Ones and their eldar servants couldn't really kill him when they used the might of the black fortresses (then known as the talismans of vaul)

The Talismans of Vaul are weapons designed to use the Warp against an opponent. The Warp is anathema to the C'Tan. What exactly happened between Vaul and the Void Dragon is unknown, though the general rumour-fluff that 40K runs on is that he screwed up somehow, letting Void Dragon escape. Had he done it right, VD would be dead. The C'Tan can't handle the Warp.

The imperium in fact destroyed the world by plunging several meteors onto it's surface, which the kult mechanikus did object to.

I don't remember that part, just the quarantine one. You're sure it wasn't a different Dark Age-level planet?

Standart template constructs come in different forms. Blueprints, and factories. Of course, the factories that can create nearly everything are more valuable than the ones who can only print the instructions how to create the things, or only some parts of it.

I'm talking about the ones that, when used on a world composed of trees and grass (and you want to build a suit of Power Armour), will tell you exactly how to produce that suit of Power Armour (or produce it itself), and because it's an STC-made or STC-designed suit, it'll be better than any other suit of Power Armour around.

After finding it, however, the adeptus mechanicus will still need to analize it for almost a milennia.

It took them about six to twelve months at the most to turn a Baneblade STC diagram into entire convoys of fully armed and operational battle stat- er, tanks.

You must after all pay proper respect to the machine god (who might be the emperor, or the dragon himself, depending on who in the kult mechanikus you ask).

The Machine Spirit/God is a farce, really. If you clean your gun with oil and remove dirt and grit from the barrel, you're not placating a Machine Spirit, you're making sure the gun doesn't jam. Except because of the decay of knowledge regarding technology, it's believed that you ARE placating a Machine Spirit, even though you really aren't. Though the nature of 40K means that you might end up creating a Warp God Machine God anyway as a result, depending on belief.

About the closest thing to a real Machine Spirit is the AI programs in a Land Raider, off the top of my head. And those are more like:

IF PILOT=NONE, THEN MODE=Search_For_Enemy, AND IF ENEMY=Found, THEN COMMENCE PROGRAM Kill_Enemy

Not really very smart. Nowhere near what humanity had during the Dark Age.

[BladeofOblivion]

It is worth remembering that (For Humans, anyway) Deific Ascention WORKS. If you revere something enough, and convert enough people, that God will form in the warp. So Yeah...

On the other hand, I have to agree there.

[Killer Angel]

Ah, the eternal conflict fueled by internet debates!

Anyway, don't know who'll win, but Orks will have the greatest fun.

[BladeofOblivion]

Ah, the eternal conflict fueled by internet debates!

Anyway, don't know who'll win, but Orks will have the greatest fun.

That is really the only thing we can know for sure. Except that Eldar don't stand a chance.

[DeltaEmil]

The Emperor survived for thousands of years. He's also stronger than all four in concert, depending on your viewpoint of his blasting them out of Horus. Additionally, the shamans who kept being eaten by those same Warp creatures in between reincarnations used their reincarnation into the Emperor to escape that problem. And since then, there hasn't been an issue with it. Not for the Emperor, at least.

The original text from 10 years ago only tells that the emperor only felt how the chaos gods withdrew from Horus, just as they withdraw from any champion they don't like anymore.
As of 999M.41, the emperor's body's dead, only kept working by the golden throne, which has an "unexplainable" malfunction. Back then, when the shamans formed, the warp wass less dangerous, and the shamans had foreseen that Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch would come into their current form millennia later, so they had enough time to become the emperor. By the time Khorne was born as first, the emperor already walked the Earth for centuries, even many thousand years.

Mankind's fate in the grim darkness of the 41st milennium however is to die one way or the other, no matter how much the emperor kicks ass in his rotten state to prevent that.

Yes. My hypothetical situation is if every human is kickstarted past this event like the Emperor was.

The emperor had the advantage of forming when the warp was okay, and the chaos gods hadn't be given consciousness yet. In the 41st milennium, the warp is chokefull of chaos daemons, the chaos gods are more powerful than ever, and with the eye of terror, they can now influence the real universe better than ever.
Chaos is now at it's peak, and will remain so unless the Tyranids will devour all life, or the Necrons and their C'tan masters finish their great work.
Humanity however, will die out with the eldar.

All the Star Child needs to reach full bloom is the death of the Emperor's mortal body. That's the trigger event it is waiting for. So unless the Astronomicon fails before the Emperor dies (and since he's maintaining it while he's alive, it's more likely that it could fail when he expires, not before - and I wouldn't put it past him to have a backup plan in that event anyway), humanity should be safe on that account.

The emperor had only limited foresight, which didn't work anymore when the Horus Heresy started. Also, the emperor never wanted to be stuck for many thousand years later till his body completely dies. Mere mortals, the predecessors of the Inquisitors, have done the unthinkable and imprisoned the emperor, so that they could capitalize on the emerging religious movement which deified the emperor (who tried to stop this in the first place, as worship also strengthens the ruinous powers).
All the plans of the emperor have failed, and he is prisoner.
The malfunction in the throne might perhaps one day free him, but perhaps mankind will have long since then ceased to exist...

We do know that he beat him. And that Void Dragon spent the next few tens of thousands of years in a comatose state because of it.

A time that is nothing for the ageless C'tan, who slept over 60 million years till food grew again.

The Talismans of Vaul are weapons designed to use the Warp against an opponent. The Warp is anathema to the C'Tan. What exactly happened between Vaul and the Void Dragon is unknown, though the general rumour-fluff that 40K runs on is that he screwed up somehow, letting Void Dragon escape. Had he done it right, VD would be dead. The C'Tan can't handle the Warp.

Vaul didn't screw up (the only part of him and screwing up with any C'tan was only about forging the weapons that Khaine needed against the Nightbringer, a myth I consider to be about warfleets and the creation of the first ships with infinity circuits). The talismans all functioned perfectly, yet still only giving pause to the dragon (although he had to flee at least). Also, no story exists about how the C'tan can ever be killed except for their own, when the Outsider started the cycling of devouring each another. The warp being anathema for the C'tan only means that they dislike it and can't influence its strange properties.

I don't remember that part, just the quarantine one. You're sure it wasn't a different Dark Age-level planet?

Depends if we're talking about the same. There was one planet that defied Lord Commander Solar Macharius, who conquered a thousand worlds in only a few years, hailed as the greatest warmaster (or lord solar) since the age of the crusade. That planet had technology from the Dark/Golden Age of Technology, which was very important to the adeptus mechanicus, but their defenses proved impenetrable for any ground and orbital forces the crusade had, so they took several heavy asteroids from the local belt and threw them to that planet. A great loss for the kult mechanikus, and for mankind.

I'm talking about the ones that, when used on a world composed of trees and grass (and you want to build a suit of Power Armour), will tell you exactly how to produce that suit of Power Armour (or produce it itself), and because it's an STC-made or STC-designed suit, it'll be better than any other suit of Power Armour around.

All current power armor used by the astartes are STC-designed armor, created under the watchful eyes of the emperor himself when he still walked amongst men. Many technology comes from STC. Lasguns were created from STCs, tanks (the sturdy Leman Russ, the Baneblade), the titans, many warships etc.
STCs that build all stuff there ever is on their own are only a belief in the mechanicus, seeing as amongst the two million worlds the Imperium conquered before the Horus Heresy, nothing of that sort was found.

It took them about six to twelve months at the most to turn a Baneblade STC diagram into entire convoys of fully armed and operational battle stat- er, tanks.

After they prayed to the machine god, annointed the libraries that would those sacred designs, sacrificed ceremonial animals and such. And that's only for a bunch of blueprints. A fabled superfactory that builds everything and has all knowledge intact would kill half of all techno-priests dead by sheer orgasm...

The Machine Spirit/God is a farce, really. If you clean your gun with oil and remove dirt and grit from the barrel, you're not placating a Machine Spirit, you're making sure the gun doesn't jam. Except because of the decay of knowledge regarding technology, it's believed that you ARE placating a Machine Spirit, even though you really aren't. Though the nature of 40K means that you might end up creating a Warp God Machine God anyway as a result, depending on belief.

Machine spirits exist in two variants. The lie-for-children that the tech-priests teach to the ignorant imperials how they should treat the sacred machinery with respect, and the real ones also called machien spirits in form of partially bio-organic A.I. that can be found in titans, baneblades and other highly advanced pieces of machinery (only the flesh shall posess a soul in the beliefs of the crazed machine priests).

About the closest thing to a real Machine Spirit is the AI programs in a Land Raider, off the top of my head. And those are more like:

IF PILOT=NONE, THEN MODE=Search_For_Enemy, AND IF ENEMY=Found, THEN COMMENCE PROGRAM Kill_Enemy

Not really very smart. Nowhere near what humanity had during the Dark Age.

And the landraiders, yes. There was a story where a landraider flooded itself with radioactive melting waste when orks had killed the crew and were starting to board it, so at least kinda intelligent.

[Killer Angel]

IThe Emperor survived for thousands of years. He's also stronger than all four in concert, depending on your viewpoint of his blasting them out of Horus.

Exactly.
We have the major infos 'bout that fight, from sources not exactly impartial.
If we take the Black Legion Index Astartes, another sources not impartial, but official nonetheless, we know that once, The Emperor was beeing defeated by a single (powerful) warboss, and he was only saved by Horus.
So we see that the power edge is very variable, depending on circumstances.

The way I see the "blasting the Four out of Horus", is more as: the Chaos Gods saw that Horus was winning, so they abandoned him, obtaining their real objective: an Emperor crippled but still "active", at the edge of the Imperium of Men.
The Chaos' victory, is the actual situation: the Imperium contributes to the continual wars, it fuels hatred and violence cross the universe, and it's an endless source of corruptible souls. The Chaos Gods don't want to crush the Imperium... they like it the way it is, that's why they leave alone Horus on that fight.

[Meta]

I think the rulebook (arguably the most unbiased?) mentions that the Emperor was winning the fight with Horus, couldn't kill his beloved son, which is pretty much the Emperor's tragic flaw if you wanna bring some literature into this. So Horus smote him and the Emperor finished him off as he fell.

[hamishspence]

I've dug out the classic Battle for the Palace story from the fluff thread (where I originally quoted it):

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=975

and while the fact that the Emperor was holding back contributed to his defeat, it was a case of him being slowly curbstomped all through the fight, until finally, when someone else came into the room and Horus horribly killed him, the now badly wounded Emperor chose to direct a massive amount of power into killing Horus.

The very beat-up Emperor was then found by Rogal Dorn.

The Collected Visions of the Heresy book does expand the end of that scene slightly- with Horus asking the Emperor to kill him now before he's possessed again, and the Emperor asking Dorn to bring him to the Throne.

[DeltaEmil]

Which makes the emperor rather a jerkish dork. Horus had by then executed exterminatus on a lot of worlds, has brought the most devastating war to the Imperium yet, has openly used the forces of the ruinous powers, and killed Sanguinius, the blood angel primarch. And Horus also cackles maniacally.
By then, everybody should know that the other guy's quite irredemable or so deep in his feces, and the emperor did teleport up to Horus' battlebarge to kill him together with his most loyal remaining soldiers.
Only when a dude (a guardsman called Olanius Pius - retconned into either a blood angel terminator, an iron fist terminator or a custodian legionnary - GW needs to make up their minds who get killed so casually) got flicked into nothingness did the emperor decide that enough is enough. I mean, really? With other primarchs dead and several hundred billions having died till then didn't make the emperor angry? That's a joke.

[hamishspence]

He was always angry- but he was hoping he could get through to Horus- and that scene convinced him he couldn't.

[DeltaEmil]

And then do what? Kill him anyway? Because Horus had by then been irredemably corrupted by chaos and brought the greatest catastrophe upon man since they survived the apocalyptic age of strife.

"Sup dawg, we heard you like killing people and worshipping chaos stuff, so we're trying to kill your d00dz and you t00 while you were cackling."

[hamishspence]

There was a very good reason why the Emperor never left Terra until that last battle- because he had to direct the Astronomicon, and after Magnus's message damaged the webway gate on Terra. he had to remain on the Throne and hold it secure to prevent a massive daemon incursion on Earth.

When he went after Horus, he put one of the most powerful psykers ever aside from him (Malcador) on the Throne to keep it secure while he fought Horus. By the time he got back, Malcador was on the brink of dying.

Also- in the most recent Horus Heresy book (still set early on) The Emperor does authorize assassins to be sent after Horus.

[Meta]

I've dug out the classic Battle for the Palace story from the fluff thread (where I originally quoted it):

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=975

and while the fact that the Emperor was holding back contributed to his defeat, it was a case of him being slowly curbstomped all through the fight, until finally, when someone else came into the room and Horus horribly killed him, the now badly wounded Emperor chose to direct a massive amount of power into killing Horus.

The very beat-up Emperor was then found by Rogal Dorn.

The Collected Visions of the Heresy book does expand the end of that scene slightly- with Horus asking the Emperor to kill him now before he's possessed again, and the Emperor asking Dorn to bring him to the Throne.

Entertaining. I think I read something a little different in the 3ed rulebook though. I could be mistaken, it's been quite awhile

[hamishspence]

a lot's happened since 3rd ed. However, Collected Visions, while having a lot of new stuff, has the Battle for the Palace be almost word for word what was in the William King story. Except at the end.

[DeltaEmil]

There was a very good reason why the Emperor never left Terra until that last battle- because he had to direct the Astronomicon, and after Magnus's message damaged the webway gate on Terra. he had to remain on the Throne and hold it secure to prevent a massive daemon incursion on Earth.

When he went after Horus, he put one of the most powerful psykers ever aside from him (Malcador) on the Throne to keep it secure while he fought Horus. By the time he got back, Malcador was on the brink of dying.

Also- in the most recent Horus Heresy book (still set early on) The Emperor does authorize assassins to be sent after Horus.

That I know. But I wonder why the emperor still tried to reason or to spare Horus, when Horus was already so tainted and disruptive to the Imperium that the Emperor didn't fight at full power from the beginning. Just because some nameless dude in terminator armor (who gets retconned into something else with each new mention of the battle between the emperor and Horus) died shouldn't make the emperor suddenly go super-sayajin on Horus' ass.
Unless the emperor was a huge ****, which might explain why he didn't train his overgrown children in a little bit maturity, and about the dangers of the warp.

"Sup dawg, I heard you burned half my empire to the ground for the lulz, so I was gonna talk to y00 to stop it."

[hamishspence]

That I know. But I wonder why the emperor still tried to reason or to spare Horus, when Horus was already so tainted and disruptive to the Imperium that the Emperor didn't fight at full power from the beginning. Just because some nameless dude in terminator armor (who gets retconned into something else with each new mention of the battle between the emperor and Horus) died shouldn't make the emperor suddenly go super-sayajin on Horus' ass.
Unless the emperor was a huge ****, which might explain why he didn't train his overgrown children in a little bit maturity, and about the dangers of the warp.

"Sup dawg, I heard you burned half my empire to the ground for the lulz, so I was gonna talk to y00 to stop it."

In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan has the same problem at first- because of his emotional attachment to Anakin he's unable to go full force- even though he was sent to kill him. Then he lets go of it, and Anakin loses both legs and an arm.

[Killer Angel]

I've dug out the classic Battle for the Palace story from the fluff thread (where I originally quoted it):

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=975

Nice recall, thanks.
Anyway, I find this interesting:

Mad laughter rings out. "Why? You ask me why? Have all those millennia tought you nothing? Weak fool, your timidity prevented you from binding the forces of Chaos. You shied away from the ultimate power. I have bound it to my will and will lead humanity into a new age. I, Horus, Master Of Chaos."

(big snip)

Driven by all the force of his rage and pain and hatred the Emperor wills Horus's death. He senses the forces of Chaos retreat, disengaging themselves from their pawn. As they do so sanity returns to the Warmaster. The Emperor sees realisation of the atrocities he has commited flicker across Horus's face. Tears glisten there.

what a masterful joke!
The Chaos Gods punished Horus, their too much prideful pawn, who presumed to control Them. They fueled Horus' power, 'til the BIG Emperor's strike, at which point, they stopped to shield Horus, leaving him to die, and returning to him his humanity, thus rendering his death much bitter.
Probably, They're still laughin', remembering that foolish pawn.

[hamishspence]

I think it was announced that William King is writing Warhammer books for Black Library again (after a long hiatus- the last book I recall him writing was Giantslayer).

Here's hoping that he writes the full-length novel version of the events immediately before and including Battle For the Palace- when the Horus Heresy novel series finally reaches that point.

[Artanis]

I'm not terribly familiar with the WH40K fluff, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that Imperial ships don't strictly need the Astronomicon to travel, it simply lets them get where they're going a hell of a lot faster. So I honestly ask, is/was that the case at the moment?



As for who will win, as some have implied during this thread, you win a war by accomplishing your objectives, not necessarily by conquering everything or killing all of the enemy*. With that being the case, I agree that the Orks (objective: WAAAGH!) have basically already won, and the Tyranids (objective: NOM NOM NOM) have the best chance of winning in the end as well. Also, the Eldar's chances (objective: take Slaanesh down with them) look a lot better, albeit still very slim at best.



*Of course, winning requires those things if they ARE your objectives.

[hamishspence]

They need it to navigate- without it, Navigators are horribly in trouble.

4-light year jumps can be done without a Navigator's input- but they are risky. Anything more than that, and it's out of the question.

The outer edges of the Imperium, especially along the Eastern Fringe, are at the distance where this is the only way to travel.

[DeltaEmil]

Also, before the Horus Heresy, the warp was more calm than afterwards, which didn't cause so many distortions in time and space when traveling through it. "Nowadays", when a ship stays in the warp too long, you could end in the past, in the future, could arrive before you actually started, be at your goal only after 1 second had happened in the real universe, or never arrive at all and fuse together with other lost ships to become Space Hulks.
Navigators ensure that those things don't happen if possible, which allows a ship to stay in the warp for a long time.

[Coidzor]

He was always angry

Wait, the Emprah's an Angry Marine?!

[Tiki Snakes]

Wait, the Emprah's an Angry Marine?!

Marines, if I recall, are made from the primarchs. The Primarchs, if I recall, were made from the Emprah.

Therefor, Angry Marine's are made from the Emprah. He's the Original Angry Marine.
Or, well, not.

[classy one]

The Imperium could technically go back to shallow jumps. They would have to make their territory much much smaller (like the size of the Tau) but as long argi and forge worlds are connected to hive worlds it should be sustainable, albeit much more fragmented.
If done in an organized way, the Imperium (or the confederation that will follow it) could survive until the star child matures.
No seemed to mention that the rebirth of the Emperor will also require the death of all his offspring (Sensei). These "blanks" are the opposite of the shamans of old and just like the shamans they all need to willingly sacrifice themselves to allow the Emperor's reincarnation. Of course, the Inquisition hunts these Sensei like it is their job (I guess it IS their job).

Everyone has mentioned the Necrons already but I'll give my take on them (finally)
Necrons
Sci-fi undead with their C'tan "gods" have technology that likily exceeds the Eldar, immortal shells, and the leadership of ageless beings on their side. The War in Heaven showed that they could have harvested all life of it wasn't for the pesky enslavers.
Chances of success: Decent. They were basically winning against the Old Ones and the young races so they have history on their side. They are all nearly invincible. Even if a speck of necrodermis exists, full regeneration is possible. The C'tan are awesome in their power and scope of knowledge and perfect for directing this undying force.

What's stopping them: the powers of the warp are even more powerful than ever and C'tan HATE the warp. Chaos is at an all time high while Necrons are the same as ever. Even if you are immortal, superior numbers will just overwhlem you multiple times. The Necrons are still waking from a long sleep which reduces their numbers even more. In many ways, the Necrons are just as stagnant as the Imperium. No culture, no advancement, no progress, no proliferation. In sixy million years they now only have 2 C'tan (sane ones). Also C'tan ARE NOT gods, unlike the Chaos gods. I highly doubt a C'tan could stand up to a Deamon prince much less Nurgle himself.