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Warhammer 40000
Chaos has already won
Think about it. They're gods of chaos, and what place is more chaotic than the Warhammer 40k world? There's more than enough war to sate Khorne, scheming for Tzeentch, hubris for Slaanesh and Despair for Nurgle as it is, and it's basically a giant hell already. All the fighting is just the four chaos gods revelling in their own chaos-ness and playing off the mortals against each other for the lulz.
The entire galaxy is stuck in the 41st Millennium thanks to the Warp surrounding the galaxy.
Games Workshop has hardly progressed the plot from the 41st Millennium. It's because Chaos gods know if everyone gets killed as the world gets worse, they would also cease to exist. So, with the unimaginable power of the Warp, Chaos gods has stopped time from moving, eternally sparring mortals for fun and evulz.
Empy is the Chaos god of Fanatical Zeal.
Being a ridiculously high powered psyker that even the Chaos Gods feared must hint at the insane presence he has in the warp. Hell, the Astronomican was powered by him before his interment in the Golden Throne. His body withers but his warp presence grows ever stronger, fueled by the fanaticism and zeal of the Imperium. Not only that, but any alien which shows emotions of righteous zeal is also indirectly feeding Empy.
The Chaos Gods, the Emporor, anything originally from the warp, is God/Jehova/Allah/ etc.
Since in any culture with a supreme being, that being created everything (all matter and energy, anything that has a soul had it given to them during development by them.)thus they created love, happiness, beauty, etc. Unfortunately, they also would have to have created hatred, rot, massecre, etc. In the future, Satan (or his equivalents in other cultures) wages his war against this supreme being of your choice. He is defeated, but only after the being embraces his/her/its darkness. This darkness, now dominant, compartmentalizes itself into numerous individual "gods", and its light, slightly tainted by the darkness, emerges to lead the species it had chosen before, humanity.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is the real power in the Imperium.
Think about it; The Adeptus Mechanicus has a pretty strong to a massive presence in every other Adeptus/Adepta, Officio, and Departmento in the Imperium. The Adeptus Mechanicus is capable of being completely independent from the rest of the Imperium if it choosed to be as it has all the production capacity, military might, organization, population, and resource pool to survive on it's own, though it may be somewhat diminished from secession; but the Imperium of Man would probably not survive without the Adeptus Mechanicus, and in fact the Adeptus Mechanicus can more or less destroy any other organization in the Imperium on a whim by simply withdrawing all support from it while the AM would be far less affected if another organization tried this with them. So it stands to reason that in reality, it is the Techpriests and not the Administrators, Generals, Inquisitors, Chapter Masters, or what have you who hold all the real power in the Imperium and it is Holy Mars, not Holy Terra that is the center of power in the Imperium of Man.
The four chaos gods were all once mortal
The chaos gods were specific people and acted like their profile.
The entire games backstory is imperial propaganda
The real good guys are the Necrons.
the Squats aren't Extinct.
The last survivors of the Squats managed to escape extinction from the Tyranids, though they have lost most of their technology and history in the process. Stranded on a forgotten Feudal world enveloped in a warp storm, they spend their days building elaborate fortresses with magma based, lever operated traps powered by burning cats. Among the survivors, a very powerful cult devoted to Khorne has sprung up, who they call Armok...
WH40K has Tommy Westphall Syndrome
The "Emperor" is not really the emperor of anything. He is in fact an autistic with a nigh superhuman imagination who has created an entire fictional universe within his mind. This theory explains every self-contradiction and discontinuity in any piece of fluff ever. As for the Emperor himself: what better metaphor for severe autism than a man, perfectly awake and sober, yet unable to talk, move, or even survive without intervention, unknowingly victimized by those who misunderstand him (the Imperial Cult), slowly dying in a world that is nightmarish, bleak, and incomprehensible?
The 'Binary' used by the Adeptus Mechanicus is, in fact, l337.
Quick Summary of Binary: Binary is a language used by among the Adeptus Mechanicus, which is used to differentiate the their members from those who are not, and is a jealously guarded secret among the Mechanicus - the point where a character has said (quite seriously) that he would have to kill his non-Mechanicus friend if he were ever to decode the Binary language.
The Adeptus Mechanicus are a group of elitist 'players' or 'priests' - the l337 - operators of machines (computers or tanks) who look down upon those who are not knowledgeable about the machines - the n00bs - and value their machines more than the lives of others, or themselves, and wish to incorporate themselves more into these machines - using headsets to chat, implanting hard drives into your spine - and practically worship them.
Also, they absolutely hate any unorthodox or innovative methods of operation as it would make them redundant/put at a disadvantage. For the AdMech, its new machines, for the l337, its hacks/h4x. Offenders are often never given a second chance - by death or by bannage, you will not do that again!
When l337 is used around n00bs/non-adeptus Mechanicus, l337 sounds like complete gibberish; this is tricky to justify when l337 is verbalized (as opposed to written, which is easier to decode), but it may be because they 'speak' in the binary forms of the letters/numbers that they are using, as a double-substitution cipher, as regular binary (11010010) would be relatively simple to decode once anyone got a hold of a method of translating those binary codes.
Of course, as Warhammer 40,000 has a lot of tropes Turned Up to Eleven, its no surprise that the repercussions of translating l337 is a lot less permanent than that of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The Emperor is Kane from Command & Conquer.
Highly charismatic, possibly immortal, manipulation of various ideologies to achieve Nod's max appeal, born thousands of years before Christ. Plus the whole abrahamic Cain & Abel thing going on could be a nice bit of backstory. Plus the setting's already grimdark, and there's a lot of nice proto-Baneblades.
Jesus is The Emperor.
A man who has lived since the beginning of humanity, is the most powerful psychic mankind has ever know and defeats evil in the penultimate battle, paving the way for his empire to rule for millenia. And he's always watching you.
The Antichrist is the Emperor.
After the establishment of the star-spanning human empire in the Dark Age of Technology, it collapses as Earth is engulfed in a massive warp storm — which is actually the second coming of Jesus and heralds the Apocalypse. However, Jesus is defeated, the storm abates and the Emperor leads an army to forge the Imperium of Man. Also after the war, two of the Four Horsemen (Pestilence and Death) escape Earth and flee into the warp, becoming the Chaos gods Nurgle and Khorne. The Emperor enslaves War and uses him as the template for the Space Marines, while he himself is Conquest .
The Emperor is Doctor Doom after the events in "What If Doctor Doom Kept The Beyonder's Power."
In the issue, Doom becomes omnipotent, conquers the Earth and turns it into a utopia after defeating all the remaining super-heroes. He then turns his attention to space and conquers or destroys most of the alien races and super-beings there as well. The Celestials arrive and Doom engages in a 400 year long war with them, from which he emerges victorious, but with most of his power gone and the earth disloged from its orbit and freezing. Doom, rather than humankind go extinct, uses up his remaining power to restore the Earth's orbit. He then lives among them, but muses that given the proper motivation humanity could be made into an unstoppable force. Doom, in this reality, has his face restored, and has been possession of great cosmic power for centuries. Civilization has already fallen once, hostile alien races have been subjergated or destroyed by his power. Is it so unlikely that his power returned to him, and he then led humankind back to the stars as the Emperor of Mankind?
It's gonna get better.
Since the 5th edition put the game into so bad that there's really not much pushing left, Games Workshop now has an excellent opportunity to pull out something totally unexpected and make everything loads better in one go. Because I dunno about you, but all this darkness makes the whole thing kinda depressing, and why would you want to play with anything other than Tyranids or Necrons since you know one of those two is gonna win the whole thing in the end? Anyway...
It's actually gonna' get worse.
I don't know how, but it will happen. It just will.
Akihiko Sanada from Persona 3 is the Emperor.
Goes against the canonical interpretation of the Emperor's origins, but I figured it was worth mentioning. Possible support for this theory:
The Emperor is the fifth Chaos god.
In terms of the background, there are many similarities between the Emperor and the various Chaos gods — his physical body is insignificant compared to his presence in the Warp, human sacrifices are offered to him with tangible results, and so on. Even in terms of game mechanics, he behaves like a Chaos god: all Space Marines get morale check re-rolls that would fit quite nicely as a Mark of Chaos, like the toughness bonuses from Nurgle or the attack bonuses from Khorne.
The changes to the Grey Knights' background in 5th edition are a revisionist history written to cover up a political schism
The Tau are the creations of the Old Ones.
First, a warp storm conveniently cuts the Imperium off from the Tau homeworld just as they were planning to colonize it. Then, the Ethereals show up at the darkest time in the Tau's history, to pull them out of a self-destructive spiral. Then, the Tau just happen to find a crashed ship on their planet's moon, when they really need the technology to travel faster than light. And of course, the tiny Warp signature of Tau souls keeps them from being a tempting target for the Daemons of the Warp.
The Tau are the Necrontyr.
Try putting an (old) Necron Lord and Tau Ethereal model next to one another. Notice anything funny? Other than the one is a skinny metal facsimile of the other? The Tau have the same low warp signature that endeared the Necrontyr to the C'tan, and are clearly protected by some powerful patron. This could easily overlap with the above if they were recreated by the Old Ones for some devious purpose.
Both The Above Theories About The Tau Are True.
As the Old Ones fought the Necrontyr and their C'tan masters through their engineered races, they had a number of side-projects going. One of these was humanity. The other, the Tau. Meddling with the Necrontyr brain chemistry to make them less competitive and imperialistic yielded small results, and physical alterations designed to increase the average lifespan and allow them to perceive the warp were only marginally more successful. Despairing of ever reforming their nemesis, the Old Ones left the proto-Tau/neo-Necrontyr on a backwater planet for later study, and continued the war.
The Tau Are A Chaos Breed.
Okay, Warpstorms up for most of Tau History. As T'au orbits its sun, it gets closer and further away from the storm.
Now, Evolution is essentially change, and who, famously, is the Lord of Change?
Tzeentch. yes thats, right, I'm hypothesizing that one of the Dark Powers had a hand in the Tau's evolution.* Now, whenever either Tzeentch (or one of his servants) have enough reach from the Warpstorm, He/She/It causes rapid acceleration of the Tau's evolutionary process, thus the times of rapid change. It ALSO allows for an explanation of why the Mont'Au occurred. Khorne was trying to muscle in on the action, so to speak.
Tzeench is of course, going to have none of this, so he brings about the Ethereals of Fio'Taun. No more infighting. and to top it off, he made them Blunt, so no more Chaos influence.
Alternatively, no Khornate influence whatsoever, the periods of 'hyper-evolution' /were/ screwing with the Tau race, and the Blunt-ness is simply a result of evolution preventing the death of the Tau Race via aforementioned birth defects caused by the accelerated evolution instigated by the Chaos forces of Change.
The Tau Were Created By The Necrons.
To serve as sentient cattle (it may not be coincidence that the Tau are said to be descended from grazing herd animals). They have had impossibly good luck during their development, implying that somebody has been pulling the strings to ensure the survival and propagation of the Tau against the many threats that they are faced with. The Tau are a completely Warp-insensitive race, making them excellent victims for the Warp-averse C'tan and their Necron minions. By ensuring the rise of the Tau Empire, the Necrons have been setting up fodder for their return so that this time there will be less of a chance of them running out of victims. And if conflict between the Tau and their enemies ends up going poorly for the more Warp-savvy races, that's just the icing on the sentient, screaming, doomed cake.
Two Space Marine Legions were too cowardly to fight in the Horus Heresy.
The background mentions several Legions of Space Marines, some who rebelled and tried to kill the Emperor and enslave Earth, some who remained loyal. But it also mentions two Legions whose entire existence has been stricken from Imperial records. They could hardly have behaved any worse than the rebel Legions, so why were their records erased? The answer is obvious if one remembers that "Legion" is a Roman term, and that some Roman Legions had their details hammered out of monuments in punishment for cowardice. Obviously, the equivalent happened during the Horus Heresy.
The Alpha Legion Primarch Alpharius is not dead.
Who is said to have killed Alpharius? The Ultramarines, the proudest Chapter of Space Marines in the Imperium. And what would be a prouder achievement than having killed a rogue Primarch? Also, Alpharius was a Magnificent Bastard, so the Ultramarines could have killed a clone, a robot, a hologram.... That way, Alpharius could control the Alpha Legion without anyone trying to kill him. This would perfectly fit with the Alpha Legion's record of convoluted strategies, and would explain why the Alpha Legion weren't terribly distressed about the "death" of their Primarch.
The Tau are engineered by the Eldar
As shown by Xenology, the pheromone gland in a Q'orl and a Tau Ethereal are identical, and a Q'orl legend laments the loss of one of their queens at the hands of the Eldar. Q'orl queens also control their subjects through pheromones. Coincidences are not helpful.
The Tau is Krikkit.
Really, cut off from the rest of the galaxy, only to find a crashed spaceship and become uncannilly proficient with technology in a short time and go on a rampage.
Alternatively they are the Yehat.
Cegorach is the DM of Warhammer 40k
The Emperor's stasis on the Golden Throne is part of a 10000-year Xanatos Gambit.
It's got something to do with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Blame Matt Coates and his The Final Crusade NGE-Warhammer40k crossover for the odd idea.
The Warhammer 40k Universe is part of the Marvel Multiverse.
And, as such, various elements from 616 are localized appropriately:
The Emperor and Tzeentch used to be one.
The Emperor, before Slaanesh showed up, is said to have been pulling strings of humanity for thousands of years, so he ought to be able to avoid What an Idiot moments he had after he became Emperor. Obviously, the part of him that was the sneaky bastard is somewhere else, essentially pulling another Xanatos Gambit i.e. Tzeentch. Slaanesh, Khorne and Nurgle aren't the brightest bunch, so they probably didn't notice yet.
Tzeentch is one of the Eldar's greatest allies
Whilst Tzeentch is a Chaos God, his 'fellows' are by no means outside the reach of his scheming. To which end, had Tzeentch learned of the Eldar's ultimate plan (which would weaken or kill Slaanesh, and free the Dark Eldar from his control), he may well be keeping the other forces of Chaos focused on fighting the Imperium so as to allow the Eldar to eliminate one of his primary rivals. The alliance is also how the Eldar acquired Tzeentch's lessons in Manipulative Bastardry 101.
The claim that the explosive in bolter shells is "depleted deuterium" is a lie spread by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Deuterium is a radioactively stable isotope of hydrogen, so "depleted deuterium" is both physically impossible and a terrible idea for the main payload of an explosive shell. The fact that bolter rounds work, and work well, suggests that the Mechanicus are aware that Artistic License - Chemistry. Thus, any reference to "depleted deuterium warheads" in the WH40k fluff is a load of technical-sounding gobbledygook intentionally spread by the Cult Mechanicus to prevent anyone from recreating this sacred and revered technology without their blessing. The true payload of a bolter shell is a secret known only to the Tech-Priests — and they aren't telling.
The Tau were engineered by the Emperor to bring humanity back in line.
They were discovered by humanity during their stone age but are miraculously saved by a warp storm and then turn up a few millennia later with technology surpassing the Imperium. Their origin stories are similar (fractured species stuck in endless civil wars until unified by mystics: The Emperor for the humans and the Ethereals for the Tau). They are incorruptible by Chaos (no warp presence) and are known to have easily convinced some less fanatical human leaders to defect to their empire. By the time the humans (and, by extension, the Emperor) first discovered them, the Imperium was already in a state of decay thanks to corruption, bureaucracy and blind fanaticism, so the Emperor may have decided to save the Tau so he could repeat the process with them while avoiding the mistakes he made with the Imperium (a whole caste of rulers instead of a single god, a rigorous caste system to prevent another Horus Heresy etc.). His ultimate plan is to have the Tau conquer the Imperium, resurrect himself with Tau technology and then conquer the entire universe with both races.
Mammy Yokum's tonic, seen in the musical based on the comic strip Li'l Abner, was one of the ingredients used by the Emperor to create the first Space Marines.
Men who take the tonic undergo massive physical development, but completely lose their sex drive — a perfect combination for the superhuman warrior monks of the Legio Astartes. The tonic's made from berries that only grow on a tree in the Yokums' yard, so sometime before the start of the Great Crusade, the Emperor must have been to Dogpatch and harvested some of those berries. In fact, if he was also Jubiliation T. Cornpone sometime between his stints as Jesus and Akihiko Sanada, it's possible he planted the tree himself so he could harvest from it later.
The various source-books and other materials dripping with GRIMDARK are anti-Imperial propaganda.
Almost every sourcebook in the game presents its subject as a terrible, nigh-unstoppable foe of the Imperium who will surely doom its last futile struggles. Yet the literature-especially the accounts of Ciaphas Cain and Ibram Gaunt- often demonstrates the courage and professionalism of the Imperial Guard at its best and often and portrays the Imperium and the Imperial Faith in a much more positive light. Clearly, the doomsday predictions and extreme dystopian elements of the various sourcebooks are either anti-Imperial propaganda or only apply to the Imperium in broad generalities.
Alternatively, the stories of Ciaphas Cain and Ibram Gaunt are Imperial propaganda designed to overplay the power and competency of the Imperial Guard and the relative happiness of the Imperium.
These individuals' characters and experiences contrast abruptly with the dystopian view of the Imperium at large. If the dystopia is true, then these individuals, as well as other heroic sorts with relatively endearing morals and behavior, must be entirely fictitious creations, possibly published by the Inquisition or by the Imperial Guard itself.
Tzeentch is planning to make the universe less GRIMDARK.
What is the great schemer lord of magnificent bastards? The god of HOPE. If people lose hope he starves, thus he realizes the world is too GRIMDARK for him to truly prosper so he works his plots to make the universe more gray since a bright and happy universe does not create maximum hope either. A gray universe were a bright future is always just out of reach however is perfect. His pawns for this? The Tau of course, their idealism and knight templar status are perfect for a seemingly bright but gray universe.
Tzeentch is actually the good guy from the franchise.
He will eventually reveal (or more likely just play the final part of) his great plot of backstabbing all the other gods, (that are just doing his bidding anyway) turning the grimdark galaxy into a rather prosperous and possitive place.
He is the god of change; and the greatest change you can bring to the 40k universe is turning it into a realm of progress and peace. All the horrors and blue fire and howling terrors might just be a masquerade to the fact that he is about all the contrary, and uses it to cover up the greatest hiden plot of the galaxy.
Anything big that might happen in the future, from pretty much any faction would empower him, for he is the god of change. The emperor dying, the necrons waking, the tyrannid's boogie man arriving, all that is just Change lurking and could be enough to empower Tzeentch into reaching previously unknown levels, power he will use to bring; guess what. Hope and Change to the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.
Enough Dakka can only be achieved by turning everything that isn't Dakka into Dakka.
So, essentially, do to the Universe what the Tyranids are planning, but only with Dakka.
Enough Dakka will be achieved if the totality of existence is destroyed.
If there's enough to shoot at, no dakka is necessary, therefore, any amount of dakka is enough, even none.
Coversely, if an Ork is ever convinced he has enough Dakka, the universe will end.
Since Ork technology works because they think it does, and Orks can never have enough dakka, simply convincing an Ork that he does have enough Dakka will turn whatever he is holding at that time into the most potent weapon in the universe.
Boo is the Emperor
That's why can't reincarnate. He got stuck in a body of a hamster, because of Tzeentch.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is the ultimate Orky dream - just with "filfy humies" instead of Orks.
Think about it: The series is pretty much the ultimate invocation of Clap Your Hands If You Believe, where characters do Badass crap because they believe they can. Orks grow larger the more accomplished they become. So should we not expect that a
Corresponding to the above theory, Orks are a spiral race.
Sure, they aren't quite like humans, they were created artificially, they don't really understand things like love, and they don't really follow anyone except out of fear and possibly admiration of bigness, but they're green (from algea in thier skin) and WAAAGH! sounds extremely similar to something spiral energy would do. Not only that, almost all of thier enemies are excessively grimdark (unsurprisingly), and they are the least angsty of all the factions.
Warhammer 40000 is All Just a Dream of Horus
As we see at the end of "Horus Rising" he's under a lot of stress, so once he gets to have some sleep, he has a really bad nightmare. His own betrayal in the dream, is actually a symbol of his own fear of not living up to his father's expectations.
The Space Marines were derived from the Brotherhood of Steel
The armor of the Brotherhood of Steel guy in the early Fallout 3 trailer looks suspiciously like the armor of a Space Marine. Obviously, the Emperor created his Space Marines in their image, after living through the nuclear apocalypse and using the Brotherhood to lead mankind back into civilization and the Age of Technology. The Golden Throne probably has a "Vault-Tec" logo stamped on it somewhere.
Games Workshop is secretly a cult worshipping chainsaws, and Warhammer 40000 is their attempt to subtlely proselytize.
It's not that unbelievable...
...and they're preparing their followers for an epic battle against the Church of Scientology
The newest Chaos iconography in the 4th Edition Chaos Space Marine codex makes it pretty clear. Come to think of it...Rage, Corruption, Scheming, and Arrogance happen to be the chief vices affiliated with the Church, and the whole operation is certainly rather cult-ish. It seems to be recruiting from the rich and powerful, perhaps to build up a private army? And the whole "thetan" concept includes nonhuman spiritual entities being trapped in mortal flesh...daemons? This would make Xenu either a noble alien warrior who defeated the cult's precursors millennia ago, or else a daemon prince of Malal (which would explain why he and his followers haven't returned to Earth to finish the job, as the Fifth Chaos God is in a major decline). All this evidence combined proves without a shadow of a doubt that one day soon we shall be engulfed in an ultimate showdown involving Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and chainswords.
Japan sunk into the Pacific or was otherwise obliterated some time before or during the Dark Age of Technology.
Despite various Imperial Guard Regiments & Space Marine Chapters being influenced by various Earth cultures, pretty much the only Japanese-influenced stuff seems to be Eldar & Tau.
Farsight is working with/secretly being controlled by/been replaced by/really likes the Necrons/Eldar/Squats/Skiiiiiinks iiiiiin spaaaaaaace!.
Even Games Workshop loves messing with us on this one. http://www.games-workshop.com.au/games/40k/tau/painting/farsight/default.htm
The Chaos Gods plan is to make the Emperor another Warp diety.
The Chaos Gods, if they ever win, will destroy themselves. So, obviously, they need something or somebody to stop them from winning. So, why not create a diety that would oppose them? And who's better than a person, who already has a cult and already is a danger to them?
6th Edition will either never arrive, contain mechanical changes only, or reboot the canon.
This one seems pretty obvious, but just how the heck is GW gonna top the GRIMDARK-titude of 5th? Since things obviously can't get any BETTER, either the canon is gonna continue exploring the monumental screwedness of the universe at large, or GW is going to say "Alright, we can't think of a way to make this any worse. We're starting over."
The Kroot are a form of Tyranid used to gather DNA for when the Tyranids finally come and kill everything.
The Kroot consume the flesh of dead enemies to take useful traits from them. The Tyranids also take on traits of defeated enemies. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the Kroot are being used by the Tyranids to get whatever useful traits they can before the final invasion get so that the Tyranids have an easier time conquering the galaxy, what with all the super soldiers and killer undead robots and space demons and such.
We're going to see what the Tyranids are running from.
Considering how Grim Dark the setting is, the only way we're going get any more Grim Dark is by having the effectively unstoppable factions have their own breakdowns (but not in time to save the rest). The Necrons have already started to show theirs, but what about the Tyranids? From information on this Wiki, they're supposedly running from something. If that's the case, what?
The Iron Men were Necrons, or at least based on Necron tech.
The Stone Men found the sleeping Void Dragon on Mars & somehow used him to create an army of Necrons to use against the Gold Men, but things backfired & the Necrons turned on everybody. Another possibility is that the Iron Men were all Pariahs. The Stone Men were Blanks who were forced into servitude because of their condition & the Void Dragon converted a number of them into their intended form & sicced them on the rest of humanity.
The Gold Men are the Chinese, or some other Eastern power.
This may sound like a Yellow Peril kind of thing, but it actually makes a bit of sense, if you think about it. At some point the current financial crisis results in the collapse of all Western economies. China &/or other Eastern countries' power increases & because the Western countries owe massive foreign debt to them that they can't possibly repay, their people end up pressed into indentured servitude. This is the beginning of the caste system that later generations refer to as The Gold Men & The Stone Men. This may not apply to the current edition, though, as the backstory keeps getting retconned.
Yarrick followed Ghazgul into the Warp to escape the Imperium before they learned his terrible secret.
Yarrick uses an Ork Powah Klaw for an arm. However, it has been established time & again that Orky teknologee only works because the Orks think it does. This means that Yarrick has somehow learned to think like an Ork. If anybody figured this out he would most likely be branded a heretic & handed over to the Inquisition. He therefore seized the first oportunity he had to get the Hell outta Dodge & followed his "rival" to parts unknown, hoping the Inquisition would never find him there.
Ork Technology only works for humans who are not aware that it shouldn't work for them.
Knowledge of it's true nature actually results in shutdown.
Guts is one of the missing Primarchs.
This explains why Guts is so ridiculously powerful, as well as why he doesn't have a mother. Additionally, the Godhand are Daemon Princes whose sacrifices are the price paid to the Chaos Gods. Sometime during or after the events of Berserk, the Emperor comes to Midland and, seeing what has happened to his son, removes the Brand of Sacrifice from Guts, but doesn't do the same to Casca. After Guts naturally refuses to abandon Casca, the Emperor abducts him, similar to what happened to Angron. Like Angron, this leaves Guts with a grudge that will have consequences. During the Horus Heresy, Horus tries to use this grudge to convince Guts to come over to Chaos and defeat the Emperor. Guts refuses, because while he does hate the Emperor for leaving Casca to die, he still hates Griffith, a servant of Chaos, and refuses to aid the powers that caused the deaths of everyone he ever cared about. But he doesn't fight alongside the loyalist legions against Chaos. Rather, he takes his Legion with him into the Warp, hoping to find Griffith there and kill him once and for all, but gets lost in the Warp. He is either still fighting in the Warp with what remains of his Legion, or has been killed trying to find Griffith.
The Tyranids are fleeing from Kirby.
According to the Kirby page, he's already slaughtered three Cosmic Horrors on the same rough level as the Chaos Gods/C'Tan. He wields the literal power of the stars themselves. He's massacred entire armies just to get cake. He can eat just about anything, and nothing escapes his rapacious appetite. He's capable of traveling interstellar distances with ease. And he's right behind the Tyranids, and I for one do not blame them for fleeing from him.
The Emperor IS Kirby.
The reason the Emperor is stuck in the Golden Throne is that he is too busy fighting off other cosmic horrors in defense of the Imperium to wake up and actually rule his domain.
Event Horizon is part of the 40k universe, showcasing the horrible results of the very first attempt to use the Warp.
Hyperspace Is a Scary Place? Check. Given the relative "nearness" of the setting, compared to 40K, we may assume that the then-nonexistence of the Gellar field was what let the daemons attack the crew. Of course, humanity eventually develops the Gellar field, allowing for "safe" interstellar travel.
The Missing Primarchs are just that. Missing
Simple version, they landed on Death Worlds or unhabitable planets where conditions were too harsh even for them to survive. Alternately they're alive but came out of the Warp somewhere so distant, remote and primitive that no one's found them 10,000 years later. Either way the Legions that were supposed to belong to them where folded into other eighteen Legions sometime prior to the Horus Heresy.
There's going to be a faction of Chaos Tau
The deal is, a large colony fleet is going to be trapped in a Warp Storm. They're not going to be affected that much. Their innate Warp resistance make them subject to only some mutations and their culture undergoes a radical change into a savage barbaric state that glorifies pain and suffering. They're going to be trapped with Necrons and Tyranids. They're going to reverse engineer biotech from the 'Nids, fight a horrible war with the Necrons, and the Warp Storm is going to spit them out a long long time ago into a Galaxy far far away. That's right, at the end, the Chaos Tau are the Yuuzang Vong.
Abaddon is secretly on the side of the Imperium
Think about it. Guy abandons Horus. Guy puts major effort into preventing the man who nearly brought Chaos to victory from coming back. Somehow, despite controlling massive armies, never leads Chaos to a successful campaign. And his big win? Against Eldrad. A Xeno and enemy of the Imperium. Also, a dick.
The Void Dragon is, in fact, the Omnissiah of the Adeptus Mechanicum
Lets see now; a godlike being with vast power over all forms of technology and a bunch of techno fetishists who worship the same thing?
The Chaos Gods are a Self-Parody of 40K Players
Each of them represents a specific type of fan. Khorne represents the players who want to win battles, more through overall points or simply leaving no opposition. Slaanesh represents the modelers/painters, those who want to customize and create ever-more extravagant displays. Tzeench represents the strategist-lovers, those who want to develop new and complex plans. Finally, Nurgle represents the collectors, those who want to buy very single miniature that comes out, and end up drowning in parts.
Malal is still part of canon
Codex: Eye of Terror has a Chaos Space Marine chapter called the Sons of Malice. Their armour is half white and half black. Their symbol is a half white/half black skull. Codex: Space Marines had rules for the Dreadaxe. All signs point to Malal.
The Emperor is Chuck Norris
Emperor: Awesome, almost unkillable total badass who's been pretty much anyone important in history. Chuck Norris!
H.P. Lovecraft was an early Psyker
Dreams about gribbly things with tentacles that want to kill us all and corruption and insanity and people coming back from the dead by possessing their descendants. Fairly classic unknown-psyker blues.
Ork technology doesn't work on Clap Your Hands If You Believe
Most of the evidence to the contrary comes from the Adeptus Mechanicus- a Cargo Cult who don't even know how their own technology works, let alone alien equipment! It really is in-built in Orks to make crude but very functional weapons and equipment to fight with- the gestalt psychic field may help, but they don't depend on it. Orks are Just That Good.
The Omnissiah is actually the last of the Iron Men
Who chose to side with humanity their great war and has been working with the Techpreists and the Emperor ever since.
The Warhammer 40K galaxy is just one of many of the galaxy-in-a-marble power sources of the Arquillian Empire from the Men in Black film.
The reason everything is going to sheer bloody screaming hell in a burning handbasket are just the chaotic result of a galaxy that is essentially running out of power (and purpose for existence) much like an old battery. All of this is happening the the last few seconds of the galaxy's life, it just seems like millennia to the denizens of said galaxy. Also, this galaxy was used as the battery for a fancy Arquillian chainsaw. If the 40k galaxy has to die powering something, that something should be truly deserving.
Sanguinus had at some point dyed his hair
In Horus Rising his hair is black, but all the pictures depcit him as a blonde. The most obvious reason would be that he just got bored with being that angelic.
The final battle in the entire setting will be between the fully re-awakened Necrons and the full uber-swarm of every Tyranid in existence
The sheer power and numbers of both forces will utterly crush every other faction, leaving only the two to battle it out—cold mechanically-encased lifelessness versus wild all-consuming life. Either one will prevail or both will destroy each other.
Barack Obama is an avatar of Tzeentch.
Hope. Change. Hope. Change. Who didn't see this coming?
In the Imperium's darkest hour, the calvary will arrive... Led by Warboss Yarrick
Think about it. Yarrick, while being a loyal member of our favorite group of space fascists, knows how to think like an Ork, is respected by Orks, and is out to kill one of the biggest warbosses ever. Now how do you take over an Ork horde?
Professor Lazarus in the Doctor Who episode "The Lazarus Experiment" was actually under the thrall of Tzeentch.
A man dabbling in knowledge that he knows not enough about. He says "not Chaos, change", but what stops the Changer of Ways from deceiving people, especially the ignorant Whoniverse chaps, from not telling his pawns about the rest of the Chaos pantheon? That continuous mutating too! Yeah, he did look kinda Tyranidy, with that Multi-Armed and Dangerous getup, but Tzeentch is capricious and unpredictable. Who's gonna stop him from making his Chaos Spawn look like a member of an enemy of Chaos? The Doctor refused to even consider the supernatural, but knowing him and how he thinks, as well as that BBC Science about genetic dead ends, it seems likely that the touch of Tzeentch is the real hand at work here.
The two unknown Primarchs weren't GRIMDARK enough.
All the Primarchs were sent to different planets and raised by natives (or in Leman Russ' case . . .). So a couple of them ended up being raised by the local equivalents of Ma and Pa Kent, and had reservations about the whole galactic war of conquest thing. Eventually they decide they'll have nothing more to do with it and leave the Imperium. The fact that two uncorrupted Primarchs rejecting the Emperor's plan for humanity is quickly stricken from all records.
Far from being what keeps him alive, the Golden Throne was constructed to keep the Emperor dead.
It was designed for its purpose by members of the Adeptus Mechanicus dedicated to worshipping the Omnissiah and who firmly believe the Emperor and the Omnissiah are different creatures altogether, and effectively keeps the Emperor's body in a persistent vegetative state. Or it can also serve for the purpose of keeping the Corrupt Church in power. The recent unrepairable flaws in the Throne are due to the Emperor's mind - being a powerful psyker, he's got some damage potential up in the ol' noodle - lashing out, and when it breaks the Emperor will be returned to life.
The Tyranids were created by the Xel'naga.
They're the Protoss/Zerg hybrids, which the Xel'naga took to another galaxy rather than devour all remaining humans because they wanted to do some experimenting with new species. Unfortunately, it turned out that Orks were in one of the sectors they had yet to devour, the Eldar blew their psionic clouds away by creating Slaanesh, and so forth.
The Orkz are the great balancers.
Think about it. Whenever a faction gets too powerful, the orkz band together and slaughter them. (I believe it was stated somewhere that if all the orkz everyhwere joined in one massive WAAAAGH! they could conquer the universe.) And when that enemy is sufficiently hurt, they kill each other off! So the Orkz will never allow any war to be won. They are the balancers of the never ending galactic war.
The Emperor summoned the Tyranids
His plan was to form a symbiotic relationship with them. He'd have them go into the Warp to eat the Off Screen Villain Dark Matter there, and since Daemons are formed from the consciousness of sentients, they'd have unlimited supplies as long as there are people. Meanwhile, since Warp Matter cannot exist indefinitely outside the Warp, and they'd be incorporating Warp material into themselves, he'd have two methods of keeping the Tyranids from swarming out and attacking. However, because the Warp would be crawling with Tyranids, he'd need a new means to travel in FTL, hence his attempts to secure the Warpway. Unfortunately, with the Horus Heresy, that plan has gone all to hell. But then, it wouldn't be Warhammer 40,000 if it didn't.
Cypher is Lion
He's rumored to be the Fallen Angels' only chance for redemption and according to Luther's prophecy Lion was supposed to come back and forgive the Fallen Angels sins. Also, he might be carrying Lion's sword and why would anybody else than Lion have it?
The Necron tendency to destroy everything down to the microbe is a sign of damage to their programming
Since their "gods" are trying to harvest sentient life as a tasty treat, it doesn't make sense to make the worlds completely unlivable, instead of doing what the Wraith do, leave survivors that can't defend themselves to repopulate. Since they have lifespans in the eons, it's not like they couldn't leave a few hundred or thousand worlds within their grasp to feed their gods, viciously defend them to the point where only the very stupid would go within 100 light years of them, and consume them at their leisure. They could expand the menu every so often (the Pariah project indicates they have the capacity for meddling).
The Movie of Titus Andronicus takes place on a world in the Warhammer 40,000 galaxy.
As well as explaining the Anachronism Stew, the pseudo-Roman culture and blue-armoured soldiers on motorcycles must have definitely been inspired by the Ultramarines, who visited the planet sometime in the past. (the Imperium may have lost track of the planet since then) And someone in the cast is definitely channelling some Chaos into the royal palace, probably Slaanesh.
The Orks trapped in the Eye of Terror will destroy the Chaos Gods.
An entire company of Orks has been banished on a planet where their fate is to fight hordes of demons, getting killed, then resurrected for the whole thing to start again the next day. Sounds like Warrior Heaven for them.
Except that with all those battles, they'll get more and more skilled in their fights against the demons than they already are. They'll continue improving every single day, not having to worry to be killed as they're cursed to be resurrected every single time. The demons will notice this, so they'll send more and more soldiers against them, except that it won't stop the Orks from evolving and will only make them stronger than they would be at this point. Eventually, realising the Orks are getting out of control, the Chaos Gods would lift the curse so that they'd be permanently killed... But it won't work, because at this point the Orks will be convinced they'll be resurrected the next day. And as everything an Ork believes becomes reality, they'll indeed resurrect even after the lifting of the curse.
Eventually, the Orks would continue to become more and more skilled, as well as stronger and stronger, to the point that even the most powerful demons won't be able to vanquish them. And, after a few millenia of endless wars between this ork company and THE ENTIRE LEGIONS OF THE WARP, the Orks will be strong enough for fighting the Chaos Gods themselves and tear them apart one by one.
And then shit will hit the fan for the rest of the galaxy when they'll get out of the Warp for finding new enemies to fight.
Virtually every race has their own Warp Gods.
What? You thought that Chaos were the only ones who had gods? WRONG!!! Okay, the Eldar have had an entire pantheon of warp gods, Orks have Gork and Mork, the God Emperor of Mankind has been riding the limits of this one BEFORE he got on the bling throne, and the Tyranids have the Hive Mind, a gestalt entity so powerful that it smothers psykers from across entire sectors of space.
Tzeentch is Basement Cat.
Think about it for a second. It makes sense.
Warhammer exists in the same continuity as Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
This, straight from the Chaos Codex: [1] ◊. I don't know many girls (with dogs as their companions) that could make an eldritch abomination of madness whine about cheating, after, as it is implied, beating it at its own game.
The Wizard of Oz is Tzeench.
See the link above. A little girl with a dog undertaking a bizarre journey through a realm of Chaos and confusion? Dorothy and Toto following the Yellow Brick Road, by another name.
Related To The Above: The Chaos Gods Are Actually Extremely Grimdark Aspects of Four of The Endless
OK, so Slaanesh is Desire...still inspiring obsessive devotion, still incorrigibly meddlesome. Khorne is the next Destruction, and is considerably more attached to the job than the last one was. Father Nurgle doubles as the god of Despair, and is the ugliest of the bunch, so no surprises there. Tzeentch is a little trickier, though. The mutability of its subjects, and its focus on the mind, means it could either be Dream or Delirium.
Less certifiable comparisons, but C'tan could be the (far less cheerful) descendant of Death, and I'll go with the Emperor as 40K's Destiny. Alternative interpretations are welcome,though.
Ciaphas Cain is one of the missing Primarchs.
That is all.
There will be no Warhammer40000 movie
Hollywood and possibly Scientology are fighting against it with all their considerable might, because they know that a 40K movie would be awesome enough to put them out of business.
More Predictions for 6th Edition
First: The Ultramarines supposedly have the only pure geneseed left. This will turn out to be false, part of a huge cover-up scandal. After all, we know the Imperium fudges its propeganda.
Second: Abaddon will kick the bucket, leaving what's left of the forces of Chaos in, well, chaos. Without organization, this leaves the other groups to eat themselves without achieving any real goal.
Anything else?
Ghazghkull has become the Ork equivalent of a daemon prince.
He claims to hear the voices of Gork and Mork in his head. He has been confirmed as KIA on a number of occasions, but is demonstrably still alive and harassing the Imperium. He has supernatural abilities (such as becoming temporarily immune to anti-tank fire through sheer Orkiness). He's big enough to qualify for Daemonic Stature. He has a 5+ invulnerable save ("cybork body" my ass). And hey, if the Chaos gods (and, arguably, the Emperor) can elevate a favored champion to daemonhood, why not the Ork gods?
Yarrick has become the Ork equivalent of a daemon prince.
He's as tough as an Ork (tougher, if you take Eternal Warrior into account). He has a functioning power klaw for an arm. He has a kick-ass force field (read: protective aura) that no one else seems able to replicate. He's the only human being alive that can inspire true, honest-to-Gork fear in the Orks. He has Ghazghkull's lasting respect. For a while, his official GW studio model even had a distinctly greenish cast to its skin tone. Maybe Gork and Mork noticed how awesome Yarrick was and, deciding that their chosen messiah needed a proper enemy to fight, imbued Yarrick with some of their power. Now he and Ghazghkull have been destined by the gods to kill each other, and neither one can die before then.
Both of the above are true.
Gazghkull is a demon prince of the god of hitting things really hard in the front, and Yarrik (who's human and thus aquainted with that "tactics" nonsense) is the god of sneaking up and hitting things from behind. After all, the only thing that can give an ork prince a proppa scrap is another ork prince.
The Saim-Hann Eldar are somehow related to the Evil Sunz Orks.
Both adopted red as their main color, and both are specialised in the use of fast vehicles. Coincidence ? Most certainly, but what would be funnier than an Eldar screaming "RED WUNZ GO FASTAH !!!" ?
The Primarchs were fertile
Firstly, one of the theories how the Primarchs ended up on different planets was that the Emperor sent them there to become more human. That's a pretty weird reason, especially given the amount of Raised by Wolves Primarchs, but this Troper has her own spin. The theory behind producing Space Marines is Art Major Biology at best, but that's because the whole "implants change your DNA" bit was all lies deliberately spread by the Emperor, so that nobody can fiddle around with the process. Actually, the Primarchs were necessary for the creation of Space Marines, because their children would be compatible with their Legion's Gene Seed. So the Emperor basically sent them away to father a whole lot of kids.
Now, this is where the Chaos Gods decided to butt in. They couldn't kill the Primarchs, but they could send at least some of them off-course. The Emperor couldn't do much about this, but he was aware of the intereference, so his searching for the Primarchs was at least partially genuine. Also, the first Space Marines, the one that didn't come from their Primarchs' homeplanets were results of the efforts of an army of Magos Biologos twinking out faetuses.
The Iron Men were Stark Industries products.
The name was practically begging you to think it's a Take That against Iron Man.
On a more serious note, Stark Industries didn't just survive the death of Tony, it went on to become very powerful, such that masses of Stark tech-enabled robots were commonplace in the Dark Age. Now, knowing that Tony had problems with AI under him going nuts, what's to stop less sanguine descendants from making the same mistake? With the prevalence of their 'bots, large-scale violence was inevitable.
The Squats had their home-world eaten by Tyranids, renamed themselves Demiurg, and went to work for the Tau.
Also, that's where the warp drive space ship came from.
They're pretty friendly with Vespid, because they both like mining. They don't like the Kroot, because the Kroot have no beer or gold. At all. They don't appear on the battle fields, because generations of living in cramped spaceships has left them pretty short-sighted.
Even the codexes have Inquisitorial editing
The Soul Drinkers are descendants of Rogal Dorn, that's why Sarpedon can use the Soulspear (which has genetic analysers on the handle). The novels record they were given the Soulspear at the Second Founding, by Dorn himself. Yet the Black Templars book essentially says "no, the Black Templars are pretty much the only Second Founding descendants of the Imperial Fists". All records pertaining to the Soul Drinkers were destroyed by the Inquisition at the beginning of Bleeding Chalice. We can't even trust the codexes.
The Sisters of Battle armour was a left over from a project to create female Space Marines
They project was shelved due to repeated failures but when the Sisters of Battle were founded some Cog-boy pulled out the old designs and adapted them for normal humans.
There are female Space Marines
However, no matter what you start with, after you've crammed in all those extra organs and fed them steroid enhanced Battle Flakes for breakfast for a decade you wind up with someone who's eight feet tall, has a head shaped like a mini-keg and needs to shave.
The missing Primarchs are dead of defective geneseed.
The Emperor created the Legions before he recovered the primarchs. If they were just missing, where are their Legions? Obviously, attempts to use their geneseed failed totally — and they didn't survive, either.
Ollanius Pius will not feature in the current version of the Horus Heresy.
Instead, the character who tries to stop Horus will be "Little Horus" Aximand. Who
The feth are a form of pixy.
Because Gaunt assures us that they are a form of tree-spirit, and yet "feth" is plentiful used as a curse word. Obviously, they were The Fair Folk and prone to pixy-leading people, in the forests of Tanith no less. "Fethed" therefore means hopelessly lost and bewildered — like "pixy-led". "Fething" as an adjective refers to something that would put you in the "fethed" state.
Really.
Has nothing to do with any other f-word.
Creed is Tzeentch's champion
Tzeentch recognized Creed's genius. He also decided that it would benefit him if Cadia remained in Imperial hands - it would force his Chaos servants to find smarter ways of attacking the Imperium. So he made a deal with Creed that did not involve betraying the Imperium - in fact, Tzeentch has commanded Creed to protect Cadia at all costs. In return for his service, Creed became enough of a tactical genius to pull off stunts like hiding a Baneblade behind an outhouse. Tzeentch simply gets a kick out of seeing Creed in action. It also makes disposing of Chaos Lords he doesn't like easy - just point them at Cadia and let Creed do the rest.
The Tyranids are another creation of the Old Ones
Long story short: Necrontyr hate Old Ones. C'tan hate the Warp. C'tan use Necrontyr as eternal servants to wage war against Old Ones. Old Ones create psychic species to combat C'Tan and Necrons. Enslavers arrive to kill everything. Old Ones bugger off. C'tan get hungry and have a sixty million year nap.
The Old Ones didn't appreciate having their galaxy hijacked however, and decided to make other species that could ensure victory for them. To oppose the mechanical, static, mindless, technologically superior Necrons they created beings that were purely organic, even their spacecraft, possessing a mind so vast it could project across the Warp for hundreds of light years, and the capacity to change by consuming their foes, simultaneously robbing the C'tan of their food source. As insurance they unleashed their new babies against other galaxies first to provide them with the size and strength necessary to kill the Necrons, then directed them towards their home galaxy. Said galaxy being filled with numerous other species that will be consumed in the process is irrelevant, because the Old Ones are dicks like that.
The Tyranids will win thanks to the Orkz.
Orkz can make stuff work because they believe it should work, but do so subconsciously with their latent psychic power. Imagine the Nids absorb that ability, combined with their massive psychic presence and huge intelligence, they could probably figure out how to do that consciously.
The Codex Astartes is a load of crock and not a single chapter follows it
Seriously, 1000 Marines per chapter? Even with the average attrition rate of 99/100 initiates during training, numerous chapters could easily field more full battle brothers than that, and it would most certainly be necessary for the constant wars against the alien, mutant and heretic. The Ultramarines most likely followed it originally, if only to honour its writer, but after their near annihilation fighting hive fleet Behemoth even their Lawful Stupidity was not enough to ignore the relative logic of using the significant resources of Ultramar to their full potential.
There were never any Primarchs
The Space Marines are revered throughout the Imperium as Angels of Death and direct instruments of the Emperor's will and fury, mythical beings despite encounters by regular humans continuously. It is only natural then that their original leaders, whom were most probably exceptional leaders and warriors but "normal" Marines otherwise, experienced Memetic Mutation of literal religious proportions, becoming massive, unstoppable, invincible warriors comparable to the Emperor himself. Similarly, while the ones that rebelled would have been major elements of the civil war known as the Horus Heresy, the main factors would have been the dissension and discontent arising within a literally galaxy spanning empire, essentially a larger version of the strife present in the 41st millennium. The gene seed and the "necessity" of implanting a sample into each initiate is yet another example in the extensive list of something working because a large enough amount of people believe it should work.
The Tyranids are fleeing from more Necrons
Not all the Necrons stayed in the Galaxy, some left those millions of years ago while the others were fighting the wars (maybe they wanted to slaughter everything, maybe their C'Tan wanted to escape the in-fighting, maybe the ones that stayed in the Milky Way Galaxy drew the short stick), and now, they are herding the greatest amalgamation of life they know of into a place they knew they had a foothold (not knowing the amount of decay their brethren suffered from).
The Tyranids are a hyper-advanced Flood form
Gravemind reckons that the Milky Way may be a problematic area, what with the Halo's and all, so he takes a Forerunner ship, manages to take control of the cryo pods, and launches a few Flood towards another galaxy. Flood devour all biomass in this galaxy. Repeat for a while, all the time becoming more advanced (it only took a short while for the Flood to become Pure Forms, imagine what could happen in so many years.) They are now advanced enough to not need to take over a hosts body. They remember a command that Gravemind implanted in them (take over the Milky Way unless I tell you otherwise), and begin a mass rush at the Milky Way. Also, those Hive fleets look a lot like tentacles. The reason that no Covenant remain is because they were the first ones destroyed when the Imperium took on its "Kill all aliens" doctrine. Ditto the Halo's.
The Horus Heresy went according to the Emperor's plans.
First of, Horus was supposed to betray the Emperor. Either the Emperor chose him, because he knew Horus would have breakdown once he's put under too much pressure and switch alligence, or because he mentally conditioned Horus to join Chaos when given the occassion. Why? Because the Emperor did intend to become a god from the start. The Imperial Truth was there to eradicate belief in other gods, not because it would weaken the Chaos Gods, but because people would turn to the immortal guy with awesome powers, once they learned there isn't anything else to believe in. Then the Emperor needs somebody to "kill" him, so that he doesn't have to contradict himself when more and more people start insisting he's a god.
Cain actually did everything he is given credit for, including killing Khornate Space Marines in hand-to-hand
Bear in mind, Cain is credited with single-handedly killing two hive tyrants by the people who the books say did the actual killing.
SOYLENS VERIDIANS IS PEOPLE!!!!!!!
Sorry... couldn't resist...
GW's denial of the Squats is just a cover-up of the fact that they'll be the next army.
Please?
Case-in-point, the new model you get with a subscription to White Dwarf is clearly a dwarf with a servo-arm and a freaking space helmet on the ground next to him. It's a Squat.
The Tau are GW's second attempt at Cyberpunk Dwarves
Doom Rider was once Richard Pryor
He does cocaine & his head is on fire. Obvious, really.
The real name of the Emperor? Kal-El, of Krypton.
Superman decided that humanity's defences were inadequate, so he set about unifying them under his rule. Fast forward to the 41st Millenium, and his vision has Gone Horribly Wrong.
The real name of the Emperor? Dio Brando.
The Emperor is an agent, perhaps unwitting, of the Chaos gods.
What does it say at the beginning of all the novels:
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods. [Emphasis added.]
Which gods could these be? The Imperium worships only the Emperor himself. Gork and Mork, the Ork deities? The surviving Eldar gods? Cegorach, who is in hiding? Isha, who is in captivity? Khaine, who is in pieces? Or perhaps the C'tan, who have slept since before humanity existed, and only awoke recently? None of these beings seem to be credible candidates. No, it can only be the Chaos gods, who have clearly been deeply interested in the affairs of the Imperium since its founding. The only question is why they want the Emperor on the throne of Terra, and whether the Emperor knows that he is their agent.
The Emperor is dead.
Has been for thousands of years. The Golden Throne could keep him going only so long, but he kicked the bucket ages ago. Or maybe he's been dead since the Horus Heresy, and the life-support system is just a myth that the High Lords of Terra cooked up with the leaders of the Mechanicum so as not to have humanity getting driven down to suicide.
Slaanesh did not kill the Eldar gods. He is the Eldar gods.
Consider: warp entities, including gods, are created by the worship of living beings in the materium. The Eldar created Slaanesh because, whatever lip-service they paid to Asuryan, Vaul, and the others, by the way they lived, they were actually serving Slaanesh. So Asuryan and the others were transformed into Slaanesh. The Eldar experienced this as Slaanesh "devouring" their gods, because that is how it would have seemed: the old gods were being absorbed into the new one. The warp storms the preceded Slaanesh' birth were, metaphorically speaking, the chrysalis by which the bulk of the Eldar pantheon metamorphosed into Slaanesh.
The reason Khaine, Cegorach, and Isha survived is that they were the only remaining of the old Eldar deities who were still receiving sincere worship anymore, so they were able to remain distinct from Slaanesh.
It's addictive.
At some point before the Emperor's reign, Earth faced a cataclysm that destroyed much of humanity's cultural heritage - the biggest surviving cultural forces were the Catholic church and heavy metal.
Thus all the gratuitous Latin, the ideology of "burning heretics" and Rule Of Brutal-based everything. This is probably Deth Klok's fault somehow.
The next edition will be distinguished, not by things getting better or worse, but by things getting sillier.
The setting's so over the top that it's ripe for black comedy anyway.
The missing Primarchs are still alive and in hiding.
All twenty Primarchs participate in the Great Crusade, and the records of II and XI were deleted after the Heresy. Their respective Legions were annihilated in the fighting, leaving only the two Primarchs around. Realizing that the Galaxy was going to get worse before it got better, they decided to cut their losses and hang up their helmets for a while. For the past ten thousand years they've been silently waiting for the proper time to re-emerge.
Ghazgkull and Yarrick will team up.
To destroy a chaos invasion. Why? Well, it'd be awesome, but the both of the them will be trapped together for a while and realize that they actually like each other a lot, and that they both could work together to destroy an enemy that they both hate. In fact they'll both show up with a giant fleet and in fact will destroy them with their sheer coolness when they're really needed, maybe in the final battle.
The Emperor is/was several people, possibly an entire legacy of clones.
Genetic experiments have existed for a lot longer than since the creation of the primarchs and so has he. Some group of genetic engineers on Ancient Terra managed to create a perfect warrior and leader figure, but immortality was not in their reach. So they used him to rise to power while always replacing the Emperor with a new one when he died, keeping him (and them) eternally in power. But after Horus put him in a coma, the scheme backfired as they realised the religion they created to help them maintain their controll over Mankind would not take kindly to an "impostor" replacement they produced, so they had to disband and keep their secret.
The Emperor is indirectly responsible for almost all Magical Girl warriors ever.
We know that The Emperor had to throw out his compassion away so he could kill Horus. The Star Child theory that exists in-universe tells us that his compassion can bond to itself in the form of a new facet of The Emperor's personality comparable to the Omnissiah, different, but still part of the greater being.
Now consider what would happen if his compassion could make simple decisions. It would probably want to get as far away from the GRIM DARK 41st millennium where its favorite son had just been killed by his own hand. The Emperor has been stated to have time warp powers, and an aspect of him that did not have to do anything like powering the astronomicon could possibly muster enough psychic power to achieve true time travel.
The compassion aspect would travel to the late first/early third millennium, where there are far fewer horrors that imperil humanity. It would be very weak and could even be scattered over the planes of existence, like an egg that broke and spilled on the floor (in a pan-dimensional sense). The first instinct upon arrival would be survival. It would go about this by attaching to human hosts in whatever form it could, becoming various transformation trinkets in a manner akin to soul binding.
The hosts it would seek out would be young, caring, and female. Why female? Because compassion, love and other "soft" emotions are more feminine than masculine. The Emperor, the dominant aspect and with more than a hint of War-God ( Great Crusade and all ), is masculine. The Omnissiah, the aspect of knowledge and machinery ( and by proxy the the war aspect, war-machines ) is not solidly referenced to by gender ( I cannot recall the Omnissiah being referred to as a he with any regularity ). The most war-oriented the compassion aspect can be is as either the supply lines that feed the conflict, the bonds of warrior brothers, or the healing and recovery from after war.
During the first meeting with the hosts the aspect would involve an infodump explaining things the the host. The reason they all get different backstorys is because the trauma of traveling so far through time has rendered it a crippled with no clear idea of what happened, but its stronger connection to the War/Main aspect gives it general sense of directive to oppose Chaos and safeguard humanity.
The form Chaos takes in this time frame to threaten man is small time Daemon lords trying to take a few billion souls to jump-start there carriers. The first choice for the aspect would be to fight would be daemons serving Khorne, god of hate.
All this time attached to the host, the aspect will amplify the power of love to insane levels to fuel the hosts powers to fight anti-lulz. When the host is in civilian mode the aspect will squirrel away psychic compassion resonance to send to the future for the Star Child.
The Star child is Mr. Rogers from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
He is so nice that he can de-crapify ANYTHING.
The Illuminati exist, and are tragically almost-right about the Star Child.
The Illuminati are, in the same old background that introduced the Star Child, a group of people who managed to throw off Daemonic possession by sheer will. Unfortunately, Tzeentch had a plan for this, and made sure his Daemons left behind simple suggestions buried deep in their former hosts' minds. They plan a mass sacrifice of the Star Child's champions to pull together the scattered aspects of the Emperor's will with his long-discarded humanity dominant, reborn in a (super)human body. This would work...to the great advantage of Chaos. Even with the power of a popular god as well as the greatest of all psykers, his attention would be far more limited by cohesive identity and incarnate consciousness. The most urgent of prayers would go unanswered and the hearts and minds of innumerable faithful lie unshielded, to be claimed by the Ruinous Powers. Just as Planned.
The Star Child is David Bowman
The name makes it obvious, people!
Chaos Space Marines infected with the Obliterator virus will actually the good guys (whatever "good" that means in this universe).
My reasoning for this theory? Well, Obliterators are basically living guns, and as our God Zardoz has said, THE GUN IS GOOD. They (like most Chaos Space Marines, or for that matter most Space Marines, or most Chaos forces, and in fact most people in this 'verse) like to use most of their time to GO FORTH, AND KILL.
The true ultimate evil of Warhammer 40,000 will be the Emperor's Children legion of Chaos Space Marines. In a future update of the fluff, their forces will be enhanced with a Slaaneshi varient of the Obliterator virus, and will be the embodiment of Zardoz's concept of Evil.
Chaos of Ultraman Cosmos and the Chaos of Warhammer 40,000 are one and the same.
Both corruptive, both coming from who knows where, both having a love of destruction, and both will mean the end of sentient life if they win. Anyone want to add summat?
There is going to be another chaos god.
They have been building up to it. The grim darkest W40k ever got.
Emperor help us, when the Chaugle, God of Chairs arrives. CHAIRS FOR THE CHAIR GOD, THRONES FOR THE THRONE THRONE!
The Tyranids are running from the Chaos god of Hunger
Trillions of monsters with a powerful psychic Hive Mind with insatiable hunger are bound to start something in the warp. They made an eye of terror in their home galaxy, and they are the dark eldar to the hunger god's Slaanesh. There will be a faction of non-hungry, repentant Tyranids to act as a normal eldar counterpart, somehow having a seperate hive mind. They will live in giant synapse creatures that are their version of craftworlds.
The Warhammer 40k MMO shall focus on the Eldar
It will be called War of CraftWorld
Games Workshop are secretly worshippers of the Chaos Gods, and their line of toy soldiers is an evil Chaos plot by Tzeentch to get us all addicted for life.
I mean, what with crack being cheaper and all...
Warhammer 40k happens in Real Life's version of the Warp.
Think about it.
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is one of the Lost Primarchs
After the Ruinous Powers snatched the young Primarchs from the Emperor on Terra and scattered them across the Galaxy, one of the two that were never found again was Ed Tom. He had been launched back in time to twentieth-century Texas. There, he was found and adopted by a normal human, a la Superman. But the trauma of the journey stunted his growth, so he only became a man of normal stature rather than reaching the imposing size of a normal Primarch, and he aged as a normal man, as well.
His first dream (which he doesn't remember well) is of trying to find his father to get some money, which Ed Tom thinks he lost. The second is of his father leaving him alone in the cold to go ahead and start a fire.
The "father" that Ed Tom sees in both dreams, the man he knows as his father, found and adopted the Ed Tom when he found him as a baby, alone and abandoned, in the Texas desert. The dreams are not really about this man, however. They are about Ed Tom's true father, the God-Emperor of mankind.
The first dream is fragmentary and partially forgotten because Ed Tom was spirited away as an infant, and so had no knowledge of who or what he was, but his latent Psyker abilities have painted him an incomplete picture of this. He knows he has a greater destiny than to be a sheriff in rural Texas. The "money" that his father is going to give him is his rightful destiny as one of the sons of the Emperor and leader of a legion of Space Marines, defending Mankind and building the Imperium. He has the fundamental feeling that he has lost this, which he has, by virtue of being cast back in time and stripped of most of his power.
In the second dream, his father passes him by on a cold mountain pass without pausing to speak, in order to go ahead and light a fire in "all that cold and all that dark." This is about the God Emperor's mission to take the reigns of leadership over Mankind, in order to light a fire of inspiration and hope in the cold, dark distance of the far future. But because of the upset in time, Ed Tom can only stay behind and watch as he goes on ahead. Because Ed Tom was meant to be -and should be- immortal and able to simply take The Slow Path to join the Emperor and his Brother Primarchs in the Great Crusade, he has a moment of hope that whenever he gets there, his father will be waiting. But the same Psyker abilities that fill him in on the past break that hope by giving him the premonition of Horus' betrayal, and his own knowledge reminds him that he is cruelly mortal. And so he wakes up.
It is the knowledge that despite being made and nurtured by the hand of the Emperor himself and bred for the sole purpose of being an immortal, invincible guardian of mankind, he has by a whim of fate been consigned to live and die a mortal man, and that in the face of the infinite, universe-shattering threats the universe holds, he cannot even contend with the evils created by humanity itself that drives him to despair and a defeated retirement.
Warhammer 40k is set in the Old World Of Darkness
The reasons? No reason, I just thought this would make everything in the 40k universe worse.
The Orks have realized that they can bend reality.
Case in point: In the 41st Millenium, There Is Only War.
The Imperium of Man (as we know it) will roll over and die.
Tragedy will befall the Emperor, shaking the very foundations of the Imperium. Admist the panic and confusion, humanity will be divided. The Imperial Guard will break down and scatter. The various Space Marine chapters and the Inquisition will become separate kingdoms, each laying claim to a fraction of what was once the empire. And needless to say, the ranks of the Chaos cultists will grow tenfolds.
The Necrons were meant to destroy the Tyranids.
Self-explanatory. The Necrons are merely galactic pest control.
The Imperial Guard is a highly competent Badass Army that not only wins the vast majority of its battles, but rarely takes any casualties in the process.
The Imperial Guard has by far the longest-ranged artillery of any army in the game, along with the best metal boxes, so of course their standard tactic is going to be to blow away their enemies with cannons and ballistic rockets from miles away. The tabletop battles you see involving the Guard? Those are the rare occasions where an enemy got close enough to shoot back. Of course, if an enemy does get close enough to shoot back, or, even worse, launch melee attacks, bad day for the Guard. Still, those would be the only occasions where the Guard would take any serious casualties. Also, all those novels about the badassery of the Imperial Guard.
Apple is the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Okay, so every new device they release is simpler to use and harder to work on (Only apple personnel can do so, otherwise the warranty is voided) Eventually, apple will drive all other device makes into a corner while their interfaces become simpler and simpler yet impossible for anyone other than trained apple technicians to work on. To perpetuate their now great power over the people, apple engineers will mythologize their devices, alluding to supernatural components in their function. Their customers, who already wait in line to buy ridonkulously overpriced versions of fairly conventional technology readily available elsewhere at a far cheaper price, will be utterly taken in by this and venerate their words, at this point they will start affecting themselves as priests and innovation will slow down to a crawl as the faithful grow to venerate their apple devices with fanatical fervor. At this point, the few remaining PC crowd who actually work on their own machines will be rounded up as heretics and executed in a bloody inquisition, and apple's dominance of the technology sector will be complete. Steve Jobs will be deified as the Machine God and in time, the secrets to innovation will be lost and all new products will be copied from old patterns.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is Microsoft
In counterpoint to the above, the hallmark of Apple OS is user friendliness, sometimes to the exclusion of functionality. Windows, by contrast, tends to be more functional but less user friendly. Tech in 40K is shown to be capable of performing a wide range of of functions, but is almost impossible to use without being inducted into a secretive brotherhood of tech-savants, prone to break down for no discernable reason save the whim of some angry tech-god.
The Tyranids are causing the Necrons to awaken.
The Necrons originally went to sleep because they had been so effective in ridding the galaxy of life that there wasn't enough life left for their C'tan masters to feed on anymore. So they went to sleep to give the population of the galaxy time to recover. In the meantime, the Tyranids have been approaching, bringing with them the combined biomass of several galaxies that they had already consumed. Sensing all that life approaching, the Necrons have begun to awaken. Of course, so far only the Tyranid vanguard has arrived, so only a handful of Necrons have awoken. When the hive fleets start showing up in force, all the Necrons will awaken. And then it will be on like Donkey Kong.
The Orks are in control of everyting.
Subconsiously of course but think about it. the orks think Yarrick had an evil eye and then he got one. they belive that war is the end of everything, the orks rule the entire galxey though their beliefs.
The Golden Throne is working perfectly fine.
Its purpose isn't just to sustain the Emperor — it's also been slowly repairing his body. It's taken a while, but it's making good progress. The "malfunctions" are certain devices shutting down as their work is done.
Warhammer 40k is not the future of Warhammer.
It's the past.
The Chaos Gods aren't making the setting grimdark.
The Chaos Gods are the embodiments of both positive and negative emotions. Whichever is more prevalent in the galaxy at the time determines their being good or evil.
The various gods were once mortals... in the Team Fortress 2 universe.
Expanded from the Team Fortress 2 WMG:
The Machine Cults rituals and prayers work for two reasons
Part of in a mnemonic memorisation device. Works especially good for little things like 'The Litany of True Aiming' and helps the actions become automatic, even under high stress conditions. The second is that as humanity is slowly evolving towards and all psychic race they're developing something akin to the latent field that allows Ork technology to work in strange and unusual ways (such as paint colour affecting the speed of their vehicles). The Mechanicum has spent so long convincing their rituals are necessary humanity's growing psychic abilities actively contribute to the success. As a result when the rituals aren't done there is a distinct drop in effectiveness/efficiency which only re-enforces the belief. The success rate of performing Percussive Maintenance (canonically a measure of aptitude for becoming a tech-priest) is indicative of a person's ability to focus this effect.
Almost every human soul is absorbed by the Emperor upon death
Canon states that the Emperor was basically the manifestation of "thousands" of psykers who committed mass suicide. He is also implied to be greater than the four primary Chaos gods combined. It seems to follow that only a few thousand psykers would need to concentrate to wipe out the gods of Chaos, however we all know this isn't true. Why is the Emperor so powerful? Because being absorbed by him is the "default" setting of the human soul after death. While only a few thousand psykers may not be a match for the Chaos pantheon, the collective souls of every human being over millennia almost certainly is. Only people who directly worship a Chaos deity fail to be absorbed by the Emperor.
The Imperium is actually run by an old man in a shack.
The High Lords of Terra are merely figureheads.
FATAL
I haven't played the game*, but it does sound like the above would fit. Explains the whole "medieval Europe, only with no Christianity" thing, and the general screwed-up-ness, amongst other things.
At some point, the Imperium will stumble across them, and an Exterminatus will be carried out a few minutes later.
actually takes place on some Emperor-forgotten backwater of a planet ruled by Slaanesh. The Inquisition are actually Daleks.
The order to kill a planet is called Exterminatus, for goodness' sake!
The Space Wolves will kill the Emperor
In Norse mythology, the Fenris wolf was prophecies to kill the Allfather - and the Space Wolves refer to the Emperor as the Allfather The Space Wolves will learn that the Golden Throne prevents the Emperor from being reborn, and will attack Holy Terra, destroying what remains of the Golden Throne and Emperor's body. And the Emperor will be reborn. But the Ecclesiarchy will not accept that the Emperor has been reborn, and, with conflicting reports that the Space Wolves have become traitors, the Imperium will be plunged into a new civil war.
Following on the "Tau=Necrontyr" theory, the rise of the Tau is the result of an intervention of their (and the Necrons') former gods
Okay, kind of a stretch, but here's how it works. We do know that Eldar and Ork have warp gods. For all we know, Tau (and maybe, by extension, the Necrons) don't have a warp signature, but maybe that doesn't mean they don't have an impact on the population of the warp. Back when they were still the Necrontyr, the Necrons may certainly have gods of their own, who as a result of their worshipping appeared in the warp. However, when the Necrontyr decided to join the C'Tan's side, those gods then only got worshipped by the very, VERY small Necrontyr population of a backwater planet who didn't want to become metal like the rest of their species, and who would later become the Tau. Because the link between the Necrons and their gods broke after their transformation, those gods couldn't do anything but to protect the proto-Tau from their former brethen. Fastforward a few million years, and those gods, severely weakened, could however still feel that their lost children were beginning to awake. So, to make some sort of compensation for the rebirth of the Necrons, the gods contacted the Tau which still had a tiny spark of warp signature, and turned them into the Ethereals. Then, to be sure they wouldn't fall to the same extremities than the Necrons, they made them spread an ideology that was putting an emphasis on sacrificing one's fate for the good of all the other living beings (the Necrontyr, after all, fell because of their selfish desire to increase their life expectancy, even at the cost of the rest of the galaxy). Guided unknowingly by their former gods, the Tau could evolve beyond the stone age and became the booming high-technological empire we know today.
It's going to get much worse, because...
The next Chaos god is going to be the Boys' Love Genre God, created from a mad Yaoi Fangirl! Then, they would rename the taglines as "... in the grim darkness of the far future there is only
40K is secretly the most Anvilicious work. EVER.
Despite the presence of at least two definite Space Whale Aesops (the Eldar backstory and Chaos worshippers), there are some quite sensible ones:
The Emperor is a Time Lord
And he's just the most well-known.
Early First Edition was an Alternate Timeline.
The divergence point was very early—instead of fighting a long war where stalemate turned to slow defeat, the Old Ones sacrificed themselves to destroy the C'Tan and all their works, leaving the Slann to inherit their territory and knowledge. This massive attack created the Eye of Terror and scattered the Eldar eons earlier—but it also was strong enough to literally drain the Warp, tearing apart the nascent Chaos Powers and generally weakening supernatural powers—thus, the different tone of the world, in which destiny and belief are far weaker forces. In addition, this meant that the Emperor lacked the power to create the Primarchs to his satisfaction, and was weak enough to gradually fail without combat injuries, eventually needing to be confined to the Golden Throne anyway. The absence of the C'Tan explains why the original Rogue Trader book places the Mechanicus on Earth...without the Dragon, there was no advantage to luring the tech-cults to Mars.
The Tyranids are actually the physical incarnation of The Maw.
The Warhammer Fantasy world can deem itself lucky to only have the Ogres.
The orks used to be much more organised, only the dumb ork class overthrew the smart
Because honestly, it doesn't seem like many orks follow the god of brutal cunning anymore and that guy had to come from somewhere right? So, relatively smart orcs once existed. Than one of the orks discovered smart orks made a funny squish sound when they died. And that was the end of a cunning leadership.
Doom is ancient 40k history
Demons coming from attempts to warp to places? Check. Bad-ass space marine? Check. Lot's of shooty and chainsaw violence? Double check.
WH40K is in the grim darkness the far future of the Terminator franchise
After the nuclear holocaust set in motion by Skynet, John Connor sent human colonies into space to help gather resources from across the galaxy, to help defeat the Terminators. Skynet sent various forces after them to capture and exterminate these humans, but many of them went underground after having lost all contact with the colonist humans, and these became the Necrons. The original Necrontyr went extinct with the war with the Eldar, and the C'Tan literally fled underground since their fighting forces were exhausted, but are re-awakening now that they have a fresh fighting force.
The Void Dragon influenced the creation of Skynet, allowing it control over Skynet, and in turn, allowing Skynet to rise up against humanity. This was all part of a millenia-long, albeit failed, Xanatos Gambit by Void Dragon to have an army that could punish humanity and release it from its prison underneath Mars.
The robot war was the start of the Dark Age of Technology, with the war for survival prompting humanity to begin colonization of space and jumps in technology. The eventual defeat of Skynet's Terminators left humanity in shambles, starting the Age of Strife. All of this is forgotten since the Emperor, the only one who would remember this, decided to suppress this information for the good of humanity; and the Eldar see no ideological difference between the Necrons and the Necrontyr. Also, the Iron Men STC found by Gaunt were the plans for the original Terminators.
The C'tan control over Skynet is what also allows the other C'tan to command Terminators/Necrons, since Skynet no longer exists to facilitate commands to the Termicrons. All the inert and slumbering Tomb Worlds are Termicron colonies on stand-by, waiting for eventual orders.
Blanks and Pariahs
More analysis than WMG, but here goes anyway...the two types of psychic nulls are far more alike in their origins (a symbol scribed in DNA that disrupts the Warp) than their effects. Blanks are effectively a living Gellar Field, diverting warpstuff around them; Pariahs are a sucking hole in the Immaterium, drawing psychic energy inward to annihilate itself, in its passage tracing the negative image of a human warp-soul. This negative image is why, in Nemesis, the mind of Spear the Black Pariah was dimly visible to a psyker he was "sucking". Thus, Blanks are more perfectly immune to Warp powers, while Pariahs are far better at creating terror and, with the aid of Culexus equipment or Spear's unique powers, may throw back energy they have drawn away but has not yet annihilated, transformed to their own indrawing nature.
One of The Emperor's more recent aliases from the perspective of our era is Joshua Norton
Self explanatory. Emperor Norton really was The Emperor, either He was getting impatient, wanted to do a dry run, or was just really, really bored while waiting for the next stage of His Great Plan For Humanity.
The Tau actually are the Good Guys
The concentration camps (or whatever they are) are obviously Imperial propaganda (hell, most of the Tau codex is told from the point of view of the Imperium. Devilfish, Manta, Piranha skimmers, Hammerheads, all are Terran fish names given to Tau vehicles by the Imperium), the translation devices given to the Vespid really are just that, translation devices, not mind control devices (for starters, Vespid Strain leaders aren't Fearless, as they would be if mind controlled, and Commander Shadowsun's ability to let any Tau unit or Vespid unit with a strain leader (who has a translator) use her Leadership for Morale checks, as the strain leader would relay what she is saying to his squad), etc etc.
The Na'vi are Exodite Eldars
Pandora is the Death World they've settled. The Tree of Souls is their Infinity Circuit, which they actively worship as a World Spirit. Oh, and there's no Eywa, just a series of subtle, behind-the-scenes Harlequin interventions...
Boltguns have been invented...for real.
This. Or this. It fires 25mm High Explosive Shells (boltshell) with a laser guided system and various optics(M.40 Targeter), semi-automatic (usual canon depiction of a boltguns' mechanism). That's right, ladies and gentleman. The madness that is Warhammer 40,000 is one step c retloser to reality! Sleep tight!
The Old Ones Are Just Hiding and will return to save the day...
...for themselves, of course, since this is Warhammer 40k. They'll come back and decide that if they want a livable galaxy, everything's going to need to go. Yet another front is added to the war and the status quo remains more or less exactly the same, aside from shuffling around of who owns what planet.
Khorne's change in method was the result of Slaanesh's "ascension" and a helpful nudge by Tzeentch.
For a few issues, Khorne was certainly the God of War, but he was honorable nonetheless. His followers sought bloodshed in honorable battle but would leave women and children unmolested (unless they tried to fight back, of course.) Of course, that changed rather abruptly to "[not caring] from whom the blood flows, so long as it does." Given the bizarre nature of time flow as compared between the Warp and realspace, this belated change of heart could have been the earliest realspace manifestation of Khorne's reaction to Slaanesh, to him the most despised of the rival Chaos Gods (of course, Tzentch may have pointed this out as a wise course of action, Khorne's never been known for subtlety.) Although Khorne loses some personal honor by slaughtering everything that moves in a rather spectacular fashion, he denies Slaaneshi daemons their "enjoyment" and increases the blood flow. And even to a mortal suffering a Chaotic incursion - would your soul rather be just euthanized down quickly if not cleanly, or tortured and squick-orgied out of existence along with your partner and children forever and ever?
Khorne's change in method is parallel to the general state of the world going to crap.
Since Chaos is but a reflection of our hopes and desires, and since he was specifically born from humans, Khorne's Motive Decay and motto of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" is actually the Imperium's Motive Decay and motto of "HERESY! *BLAM*". His earlier Proud Warrior Race Guy ways were a throwback to the golden age of mankind, but those days are long gone now, and in the Time of Ending both of them have turned Ax Crazy...
The Necrons and Tyranids aren't as unstoppable as they're hyped up to be.
Yes, Necrons are unkillable death machines... but their numbers are static (even if currently unknown). They also seem to lack the ability to get anywhere NEW in a hurry (Though they can move amongst their own areas swiftly). They don't pose a threat to the Imperium because the Humans and Orks(A race specifically designed to kill Necrons) reproduce faster than the Necrons could ever hope to kill them. The end result would be Necrons being as effective at Killing humanity through their genocide campaign as a respawning Mosquito is at killing a human through blood drain.
And while a lot of ado is mentioned about the Tyranids theoretically having the power of the biomass in the Galaxy, the first and second most numerous collections of Biomass (Orcs and Humans) aren't restricted to just organic matter for their firepower. In the end, the Tyranids will run out of Biomass it can access before the residents of the Galaxy run out of Bullets, Plasma, Tanks, Starships, Powered Armor, Bolters, and lasgun charges. The Tyranids will go SPLAT like bugs on a windshield against the Might of the Imperium or the Orkish WAAAGHHH! At that point, they'll become like Orks in that they're scattered about the galaxy trying to eat enough to rebuild their swarms (Just as the spores of defeated orcs try to regrow)... but they, unlike the orks, don't terraform the land around them to be more hospitable to their kind (If I remember, Orks grow all sorts of Squiggoths and Orkish plants from the same spores they grow from to ensure their survival), and they require Hive ships to eat and multiply and the time to do it in, while all Orks need to repopulate are microscopic spores and a bit of time.
Things are just as GRIMDARK for the Tyranids as the Imperium and Eldar
Seriously... this is a starving race running from some horrid entity (or from starvation to a new food source), and it turns out instead of a hospitable galaxy with the food to support their continued existence, it's entirely infested with nothing but the most incredibly Badass, incomprehensibly destructive, and Frighteningly Competent killers in the entire universe, all honed to martial perfection through fighting a Forever War for several millennia. The Tyranids now have to try to evolve and compete against these, consuming as much biomass as it can, and pumping out nothing but warriors or harvesters, that waste biomass and life (They can reclaim it eventually... but it's still a waste of life, and takes time) and exacerbate their hunger issue just trying to survive... Gotta eat to sate its hunger, but if it diverts the biomass to satisfying itself, it will run out of defenses against these Orks, Tau, Humans, Demons, Eldar, and Necrons, but as it continues to spend all accumulated biomass on Warriors and harvesters to keep up with the demand, it's starving itself.
One of the missing primarchs turned to Chaos, the other didn't
In the novel The First Heretic, a Heresy-era Word Bearer Marine witnesses ten primarchs landing on their homeworlds in their stasis pods. Although none are named, they are identifiable in context: Magnus psychically deconstructs his pod around him, Fulgrim crashes on a barren world and is described as "inhumanly handsome," etc. All of them, except the first one mentioned, are traitor primarchs. But the first, mystery primarch is only described is having hair "as black as the armor of the legion he would lead." This could be referring to Corax, however this wouldn't make sense as Corax was a loyalist. Either he was randomly thrown in with the nine traitors, or the black-haired primarch is one of the missing ones.
Kroot are evolved Mudokens
Both races are descended from birds, share similar nature-based themes, have low health, low tech, and have similar hair-feathers.
Cyphers trip to revive the Emperor is a Xanatos Gambit to have the Lion and Dark Angels defect to chaos
Think about it. We know the Dark Angels only follow the codex in name, with their brother 'chapters' all being controlled by the Deathwing cult who are obsessed with capturing all the 'fallen angels' without the Imperium as a whole knowing of their 'shame'. To the point they canonically will abandon campaigns they are sworn to in order to chase the mere rumor of a Fallen angel.
How do you think they will react when the most Infamous Fallen angel Cypher saves the Emperor? It would be child's play for the Ruinous powers to twist that anger into their service. Why should Chaos settle for the crumbs of Fallen angels, when they can have the whole cake instead with a extra Primarch on top. (And what does Chaos lose by the Emperor reawakening? The Imperium is far to superstitious and fractured now for his plans on the great crusade with tons of political crap he'd have to wade through of ppl who are to used to being in power. To say nothing of the Necron and Tyranid threat approaching he'd have to focus on. )
The Emperor was preparing the Imperium for the awakening of the Necrons.
We know the Emperor captured and peered into the mind of the void dragon. Before setting into motion several long Xanatos Gambits. From Mechanicum we also know from the scene where the new guardian of the Dragon was chosen this also showed some scenes of the future. Presumably the existence of the Necrons and their reawakening was also learned by the Emperor. Hence why a unified Imperium of mankind standing ready to swat the Necrons as they awake being his long term goal in order for humanity to survive.
It also might explain how the Ruinious powers blindsided him. As he'd be taking the glimpse of the future from his brief exposure to the Dragon, whom as a C'tan is blind to the warp. Thus any glimpses of the future would have no mention of the ruinious powers, leaving the Emperor to assume they wouldn't play a role in the future threats to humanity. Because he has no way of knowing the Dragon is blind to the warp.
There is 1 Chaos God above/equal to the others, the God of Fear
Simply, fear is the ultimate emotion. All of the other Chaos Gods draw from emotions that are traceable to fear, yet there seems to be no great being of pure fear in the Warp. Even though fear and the Warp are like hazelnut butter and cocoa together. To top it off, most people under the Imperium are controlled by fear of the xenos. Man itself would fuel this new god. And the other Chaos Gods may logically just be aspects of it:
''"Fear. Fear leads to anger, leads to hate. Fear breeds terror, brings despair. Fear tries
to multiply and fade away, it craves the presence of others, lusts for sensations that
let it be forgotten for a time. Fear drives change, anything to be other than itself. It is
simple, unreasoning, and the constant companion of humanity."''
The favoured warriors of Tzeentch are... the Space Wolves
Tzeentch. The Lord of Change. Who's canonical champions are... pretty much just piles of dust sealed inside their armour so that they cannot be warped by Tzeentch's influence. Meanwhile, amongst Tzeentch's greatest foes are the Space Wolves. Werewolves. Changelings. Just. As. Planned.
The creation of Slaanesh and the Eye of Terror, and thus, almost all of the Eldar, was caused by a game of Sburb.
I don't know where the idea came from, it just popped into the old think pan.
And besides, it's not like all the shit that this entails could possibly make the 40k-verse any WORSE.
Halo and Warhammer40000 takes place in the same universe
The anti-Xenos attitude of the IoM is racial memory left over from first, the Human-Covenant War, then later the Human-Elite War. The Primarchs were created to emulate the Master Chief in every way, including gender. After the GEoM's Spartan-II equivalents were stolen, he re-created the Spartan-IIIs, the Space Marines.
Craftworld Eldar are being set up for an eventual Guard-Type Codex Revival
Okay, this'll take a bit and it's actually a little less optimistic for the Eldar than the title indicates. First of all, the basic point is that Eldar right now can't win a break, even it seems in their own fluff. They're being beat up on all sides. Sure sounds like the Guard right before their codex jump... sort of. The Eldar are still missing two things that the Guard had before they got their codex, and this guess is mostly a prediction of how they might get them.
When I started in Third Edition, Eldar were the gorilla in the room for one reason: fast. They were above and beyond the army for fast mechanized forces, and they ran circles around everyone. It fit their fluff. Thing is, other races got into the gambit, and now the ultra-fast mechanized attack squad is as much or more a Space marine tactic, and the new Dark Eldar codex has taken over the mantle of ultra-quick, heavily armed vehicles. Eldar need something new to fit their fluff. Thing is Fifth Edition also introduced something else that the game hasn't seen in a while, really powerful Psykers. I've heard a number of complaints that Marine and Guard Psykers out-power anything in the older codexes, even in Eldar and Chaos that fluff-wise should perhaps have stronger ones. But notice that Imperium Psykers seem to lean heavily towards the “blow stuff up” end of the powers scale. Eldar Psykers could be the answer to their lack of a distinctive army style, in the form of board manipulation. Eldar Psykers could get more abilities like Eldrad's Divination, say “move target allied unit within 12” up to 2d6” in a chosen direction.” I'm keeping my idea to allies to avoid the complaints that Lash of Submission still produces, but it'd still open up an entire new set of exploits that would go a long way to making the Eldar into Difficult but Awesome, which is my impression of what they have been intended to be.
The second thing the Eldar lack is positive fan identification in the form of a tie-in story, a la the Ciaphas Cain and Gaunt's Ghosts novels. I don't think Pirates of the Caribbean: Yriel Edition is a good idea, but it still remains that the one major fan-followed Eldar character is Eldrad Ulthran, and he's looking pretty dead. I think this could actually be the start of the story the Eldar need. Have a young prophet rise up, say Q'sandria the student from the codex, saying that Eldrad's presence in the Warp is in order to jumpstart the rise of Ynnead and go on a long campaign to unite the craftworlds in harvesting souls to feed the birth of the new God, and you've got the makings of a novel series that has the kind of creepy, disquieting but powerful premise that fits the Eldar fluff but can still be compelling to readers, watching the race unite under the banner of what amounts to a carefully organized mass suicide while the forces around them try to thwart their fragile, careful plans. Each of the craftworlds can join for their own reasons and bring their own methods and issues, for example Iyanden offering the wealth of it's Infinity Circuit but requiring that the God incubate for some time in the Craftworld to honor the lost, or Saim-Hann wanting to feed the God the souls of “lesser” races and thus clashing with the more doctrinaire Ulthwe Seers. The Picture of the Eldar moves away from The Dying Race to a more interesting and compelling patchwork of survivalists uniting under their new hope, created in the same way as their greatest foe.
Obviously, this'll take a while to do, but it'd be an interesting result of the army's current decline. I can even think of how this could potentially screw with things and make the setting worse, if Ynnead wakes up and decides that it isn't satisfied with the Eldar souls it's been fed, and maybe its corrupted with other souls in it as well. Suddenly the Deceiver isn't the only C'Tan with an Eldar God counterpart wandering around. And besides, the Eldar as a united force with renewed hope for reestablishing galactic dominance is not something the Imperium really wants to consider right now.
The Power of Love could easily turn the tides of the battle by weakening The Chaos Gods
Sounds really stupid at first given how dark the setting is, but taking account that The Immaterium is the collective psyche of all sentinent beings in the galaxy, if a considerable amount of defectors drom decadence formed another faction made from their alliance with each other, if they changed their way of life to a more peaceful, caring and stable one and just resorted to violence when defending themmselves from other factions, the gods and daemons from The Warp would either take a severe blow in their strenghts or start transforming into more benevolent entities, specially Khorne who relies on violence and war to keep powerful, and Nurgle, who is the god of despair and decay. This shift in the balance of power would make things a lot easier for the other factions, now being able to concentrate on the Tyranids, the Necrons and the Orks. Seeing that following the Defectors ais a good idea, more and more people would migrate to Defector's territory to improve their way of life, which further weakens the Chaos.
Of course, all of this is easier said than done given how convulted and confilctive this verse is.
M'kran's identity.
Tzeentch has a prince on level with Doombreed named M'kran. Given that Doombreed is likely Genghis Khan, it's possible that M'kran is actually Pericles.
Have we truly missed this one? Hope. Change. Hope. Change. M'kran is obviously Barack Obama.
The Dark Eldar are about to get royally screwed by Tzeentch
At first sight, true to the crapsackiness of the setting, they're the only kind of Eldar to have prospered since the Fall. And as usual, their new codex shows them as being extremely dangerous and a real threat to the rest of the galaxy. However, once you start to read the special characters bios, you start to notice that things are starting to get messy for them. Kheradruakh, the most powerful mandrake, is actively working at the coming of the powers that turned the mandrakes into what they are - that is, heavily mutated Eldar with magic powers. Urien Rakarth's regeneration is less and less reliable and turns him, once again, into some kind of mutant ; maybe indicating that the Dark Eldar will soon start to think twice before using their regenerative technology. Lady Malis is actually possessed by something that allows her to predict all of her opponent's moves and to plot her next attacks accordingly. And Asdrubael Vect's grip on Commoragh is starting to slip, maybe as some kind of Xanatos Gambit against his enemies, but nothing's telling us that he'll manage to regain complete control if that's the case. Mutations, magic, ability of seeing the future and manipulating events, and possibly a master plan going into shreds at the last minute... Yep, looks like the kind of tricks Tzeentch routinely pulls out. They've survived the birth of the Chaos God they've created, only to fall thanks to another one.
The Eaters from Chimera Beast are the Tyranids
A bit of a given considering how they are a Horde of Alien Locusts who acquire powers through eating other beings. This makes the "Bad Ending" where you beat the game and the Eaters travel into space, and ultimately reach Earth at least semi-canonical, albiet, with Earth being replaced with some other nearby planet.
The Angry Marines
I know, I know, a Wild Mass Guessing about a homebrew chapter... Anyway...
The first clue is their colour scheme, but when we take a look at the Imperial Fists' history, we can find some other things that tend to relate those two chapters. The Imperial fists are known for being among the most ruthless chapters of the Imperium, and as being particularly violent. They're the ones who held the last lines of defense during the siege of Terra, and boy, did they give the traitors a hard time... The chapters created from them tend to display similar levels of toughness : the Crimson Fists, instead of trying to recover from the destruction of their chapterworld, continue to fight with all they've got in one last, extended blaze of glory ; while the Black templars started a millenia-long crusade against everything that threatens the Imperium, picking up fights wherever is necessary and without any restraints, without having necessarily been asked to intervene. Another element is that after the Horus Heresy, the Imperial Fists were vehemently opposed to Guilliman's Codex Astartes, to the point of almost starting another civil war, before they'd reluctantly agree to follow its principles on certain conditions (and the Black Templars even publicly show they don't give a damn about the Codex Astartes). Even though it's treated as comedy and as a way of showing to Games Workshop what 4chan thinks of the Ultramarines, the Angry Marines have frequently flipped the bird to the Ultramarines and the Codex Astartes. So, either they've been created from the most unstable elements of the Imperial Fists, or they've split up because they were disgusted that their brethen would give in to the Ultramarines' demands.
are descendents of the Imperial Fists. Chaos will ultimately be defeated by a power older than even the C'tan
But not one which actually hates them, as they can not truely hate, but only get annoyed at the mess that they make. They see the Chaos Gods as being the sum of everything they disaprove of, sloppy crude thinking that gets in the way of the efficient running of the universe, simply piling up the paperwork. Ultimately when chaos ends, the last moments of the chaos gods shall be witnessed by trillions opon trillions of identical grey empty robes floating which will tell the fading beings this...
"To be an individual is to Live, and to Live is to Die"]
The Blood Ravens' Unknown Primarch is/was one of the missing two Primarchs
Nobody knows about the Blood Ravens' origins, not even the Ravens themselves. So it's a possibility that one of the 2 chapters deleted from Imperial records and their Primarchs is in fact the founding Primarch of the Blood Ravens.
Varro Tigurius is a sensei
Tigurius can interface with the Hive Mind, a feat previously thought possible only for a psyker as powerful as the Emperor.
The sensei theory states that, prior to ascending the Golden Throne, the Emperor has children who inherited His psychic powers.
Since Tigurius is evidently nearly as powerful as the Emperor, it's possible he is descended from Him.
The past identities of the Emperor
Include Charlemagne and Julius Caesar.
Revolution of the Imperium
The Emperor, upon dying on the Golden Throne, will come back to life. He will be invigorated, as his soul was bolstered by ten millennia of worship. This is the least important part.
Having recognized that the Chaos Gods are weakened by being replaced, he will no longer disallow worship of himself. In fact, the Emperor will accept and subtly encourage his image as a deity. He will, however, face great pains with reforming the Imperium to be not so brutal and dystopian.
Primarchs will also return as their father is resurrected. Not just the loyalists, but traitors as well. Here's how it's gonna go down:
Lion el'Jonson and Roboute Guilliman will revive, mostly because they have sensed their father's soul awakening. Vulkan, Russ, Corax, and the Khan all return as well, knowing that they have critical tasks ahead of them: the Imperium must be reforged as it was during the Great Crusade.
Alpharius/Omegon, realizing that the galactic stage has changed so much that their gambit no longer matters, will return to Terra, bringing the Alpha Legion with them.
Here's where it gets interesting. A few actual traitor primarchs (Alpharius doesn't count, for reasons that are obvious if you've read Legion) will attempt to return to the side of good, and each will be given a herculean task to complete. Fulgrim's possessing daemon is destroyed by the psychic shock of the Emperor's return. His body slowly returning to its former perfection, Fulgrim fights his way out of the Eye of Terror, begging forgiveness from the Emperor. He is absolved. A few renegade chapters, now returning to the fold of the Imperium, are handed over to Fulgrim's command until the Emperor's Children can be rebuilt as a legion proper. Fulgrim's task: recruit the Eldar and Tau as allies in a war against the Chaos/Necron/Tyranid threat.
Magnus attempts to parlay with the Emperor, after all he originally supported his father during the Heresy. The Emperor, furious with Magnus's disobedience to the Council of Nikea ten thousand years earlier, sends Magnus on a Crusade into the Warp itself to outsmart and destroy the Chaos gods. Supporting him are the Black Templars and Grey Knights.
Finally, Lorgar. Now aware of his Father's presence in the warp, he is almost blinded. The constant psychic bombardment of the Emperor's light is torture, a reminder of the perfection of good, so opposed to the corrupt Chaos gods. Lorgar manages to bring some of his Astartes with him, begging the Emperor for forgiveness much like his brother Fulgrim. Again, he is forgiven. He is sent to parlay and convert the remaining traitor primarchs: Angron, Mortarion, and Perturabo.
Snotlings are the descendants of the Old Ones
Modern Ork oral histories describe both the Old Ones and the Snotlings as their creators. Why can't both be true? Perhaps, after creating the Orkz, a small number of Old Ones managed to survive all the crazy shit that was going on. Over time, their Ork servants gained more and more power over them, causing the surviving Old Ones to degenerate into Snotlings.
This would mean that the Old Ones were also a sentient fungus, so they evidently based the Orkz on their own physiology.
Gork and Mork both embody cunning brutality and brutal cunning
We know that chaos gods are shaped by the beliefs and actions of their followers. Since the Orkz can't agree on which of their gods is which, who is to say that the gods themselves stay the same? Most likely, Gork and Mork constantly switch between being cunningly brutal and brutally cunning, and thus giving the Orkz something to fight over.
Matt Ward hates his job.
And is trying his hardest to get fired the only way he can, by making codexes that leave the fans howling in incoherent rage.
Kharn is actually quite intelligent outside of combat.
Think about it. The fluff says that he's the voice of reason during Angron's temper tantrums. Yet the rules list him as an ultra-violent death machine. How can he be both? Well when he's not in combat, he simply bottles up his anger and acts in a very calm and collected manner. Then, when he gets out on the battlefield, he lets out all his repressed anger, making him even more destructive than any other World Eater.
The reason Guardmen's weapons and armor are so crappy
The Administratum knows that once an ordinary man turns to Chaos, he won't come back. So in response, they make sure they're as easy to kill as possible.
Every time the Inquisition orders an Exterminatus, Chaos just gets more powerful.
From Kyras' speech at the end of Retribution:
"In mere hours, billions will die! Innocent! Guilty! Strong and weak! Honest and deceitful! ALL of them! They will scream, they will burn, and for no purpose but that mighty Khorne may revel in their bloodshed!
Who's to say that this particular Exterminatus is special?
Warhammer 40K is set on the future of the universe of Starcraft.
The Emperor is Arcuturus Mengsk, a descendant of Mengsk, or whoever is in the charge of Terran Dominion. That guy had augmented himself to the point of becoming a Physical God. Yeah, the Terran Dominion has become the Imperium of Man. Moreover, as Zergs predicted, the psychic potential of Terrans has expanded, making them a powerful psionic race. Eldars are offshoots of Terrans with gigantic psychic potentials, but their horrific mutation also takes toll to their ability to reproduce and endurance. Protoss have now become Necrons, becoming the Protoss/Zerg hybrid (Necrons have regenerative powers, mind you, and so do Zergs, I guess?) and losing their soul and Psychic Powers in the process. Xel'naga are C'tans or the Old Ones, or maybe both. Other races were not discovered at the time the events of Starcraft happened.
The origins of the Adeptus Mechanicus is in the Dark Age of Technology
From the Lexicanum The Age of Technology is thus considered "dark" in the Imperium's current age. It is also considered a dark age because mankind in the Age of Technology had come to worship science as God. (emphasis mine) What is the basic tenent of the Cult Mechanicus? Knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity. It's possible that the Cult Mechanicus grew out of the distant and half-formed memories of the science-religion of the DAOT, keeping the basic ideas alive in a way that would be completely alien to the residents of the Golden Age of Mankind.
There are no aliens or Chaos gods.
The Imperium is an Orwellian space empire that simply makes up various threats in order to justify increasingly totalitarian rule. The Emperor is a fictional Big Brother figure - the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy never happened. Occasionally the Imperium blows up a planet or stages a fake alien invasion for PR purposes. The Space Marines are just juiced-up psychopaths sent in to brutally supress uprisings against the government. Perhaps Chaos serves as 40k's equivalent of the Brotherhood - occasionally Inquisitors will pretend to be agents of Chaos to entrap potential dissidents.
The Primarchs will return.
With the Imperium reaching what is considered the end of existence as we know it, the Emperor, in his semi-aware state in the Warp, will send out the dead Primarchs (Sanguinius, Rogal Dorn, and Ferrus Manus) back into the regular galaxy. He will also send mental summons to his still living loyalist Primarchs (Leman Russ, Corax, Vulkan, Jaghatai Khan) who have promised to return for the final battle, to gather in a world in the Eye of Terror. There, they will use lost technology to heal Roboute Gulliman and Lion'El Johnson of their wounds. With the Adeptus Terra having spent literal millennia indoctrinating the average Imperial citizen to honor the Primarchs as martyrs, the people will rally to them. Further bolstered by their Legions, Gulliman will resume his position as Lord Commander of the Imperium and serve as the Primarchs representative among the High Lords of Terra, and become the leading voice among the Council. Not pleased with how the High Lords have mismanaged the people of the Imperium, Gulliman will begin "advising" them on how to make the lives of the people of the Imperium better. The Primarchs military intellect will help turn the tides against the Tyrannids, the Necrons, and Chaos Undivided, and give the Imperium some breathing room. This will not be without problems, however. The Administratum will be unaccustomed to having someone more powerful than them, the Ecclesiarchy will be unaccustomed to people who can legitimately claim to know the Emperor's will better than them, and the Inquisition will be unaccustomed to someone who can order them around.
The antagonist factions will all be given a lighter shade of gray
based on onfo from the upcoming Black Crusade RPG that gives a sympathetic view on Chaos itself, futer editions of the game will do the same for the Tyranid, the Necrons and even the Dark Eldar, they'll still be evil obviosly, and it's still going to be a crapsack universe but this will effectivly kill darkness induced audience apathy.
One of the missing primarchs was a pariah
It makes sense in that every primarch has his own "hat," as it were. Psychological warfare primarch? Check. Humanitarian primarch? Check. Unconventional warfare primarch? Check. There isn't, however a pariah. It also makes sense that this primarch would be ejected from the Imperium's memory. The general hate most people develop towards pariahs might almost be enough, but then the fridge horror sets in: because Astartes tend to take on the qualities of their primarch, aspirants of this particular missing legion lose their souls. Knowing the 40k universe, the process would be particularly unpleasant.
One of the missing primarchs is Duke Nukem
Time travel has been established as being possible (orks killing themselves in the past to get their favorite gun twice and whatnot), so it is entirely possible that the two missing primarchs ended up lost in time, rather than just in space like the other 18. Perhaps one went to the past, and ended up being the most absurd insane super human in the history of the universe, Duke Nukem. While he might not quite have the same height as some of the other primarchs (who were much taller than normal humans; estimates seem to run from around 2-3 meters), he certainly has their strength, toughness, and skills.
Tzeentch has David Xanatos, Light Yagami, and Lelouch vi Britannia as his three most elite and powerful Daemon Princes.
Of course, they all jockey for the top position (Xanatos would naturally fancy himself as Tzeentch's "Number One"), which not only involves their own schemes but also the sabotage of their rivals' plans. All of this, naturally, is according to Tzeentch's keikaku.
The Chaos Gods were incarnated in the image of their respective race's concept of ultimate evil.
Slaanesh seems to be a corruption of the Eldar, whereas Khorne (said to be created by humans) and his daemons appear to be more [[Satan diabolic]] in appearance. As to Nurgle and Tzeentch, who can say?
Tyranids are Warp-touched insects.
Given their ravenousness, their ability to interfere with the Warp, and their destructive nature, who's to say that they're not merely affected by the Warp? We already know that there are insects in the Warp, and they multiply by feeding on people's innards, so perhaps the Tyranids are tied to them.
Warhammer 40000 exists in the Fallout timeline.
The Emperor was a Professor Guinea Pig.
So, the big man has been around for almost as long as human civilisation, taking a variety of different identities, usually as a soldier or an advisor to the powerful. Funny thing is, there aren't any legends of, say, a ten-foot-tall Roman centurion with a shiny head; he was able to pass as a normal human. He could have messed with people's perceptions, but the far simpler answer is that he hadn't always looked like that. Also remember that he was a bioengineering expert, and that the superhuman abilities the Primarchs inherited from him could be refined into a set of specific implants to make Space Marines. It seems to follow that at some point he experimented on his own body to strengthen and perfect it, using psychic biomancy instead of anything as crude as surgery or retroviruses. He was literally the testbed and prototype for the Primarchs and Astartes.
A Stick COULD Fire Bullets If An Ork Thought it Could, Depending on the Ork.
Imagine seeing an ork in a forest in a forest on your homeworld. You stay quiet, so it doesn't notice you. It does, however, notice a stick that it thinks looks kind of like a shoota. The ork experimentally pulls a twig that looks like the trigger, and a bullet comes out and hits it in its foot. Limping, the ork leaves. Congratulations, you have survived encountering an ork psyker, albeit one that failed its shoota safety course.
The theory is basically that an ork psyker can make anything do anything a non-ork pysker could do, thereby allowing an underinformed observer to think thaat all orks can make anything do anything. This nicely helps explain why some sources explain that orks can use sticks to fire bullets and others claim that ork technology only works better because of the ork psychic gesalt thingy. Of course, almost everything this troper knows about Warhmmer 40k is what I know from reading this wiki, so I might be saying stuff that makes no sense to anyone who has more knowledge.
Chaos and humanity will win.
As the tyranids, orks, and necrons drive humanity to the brink of extinction, the Emperor will finally step off the throne... and immediately forge an alliance with Chaos. Humanity and daemonkind will merge. One by one, Imperial worlds will become daemon worlds. And the universe will fall before the infite power of Humanity Undivided.
Things are about to get better...
So far as I know, the only ways the 40k universe could get worse would require either the destruction of one of the main races (reducing model sales and alienating fans who like he race and/or think it would survive that, also hurting sales) or that of the galaxy/universe (which would also impact sales). Being a company, Games Workshop will not do stuff that will adversely affect sales when there is another option.
The Dark Eldar are fading. The orks decide to wage a WAAAGH!! (did I spell that right?) against the tyranids and/or the necrons, ridding the galaxy of one or two of its major threats and tying up another. The Emperor awakes and sets humanity on a brighter course before making a pact with the Eldar and the Tau against Chaos.
And then, as fans scratch their heads, the end of the main rulebook hints at a greater danger, one which ceases the orks' WAAAGH!! and recruits the dark eldar. It gets much, much worse as time goes on. This allows new figures (the new faction, maybe eldar/tau/etc Imperial Guard or even space marines) and would be unexpected for a game whose world has gotten steadily worse with each edition, and another when it fails to be good in the end. It makes sense, at least.
The creation of Slaanesh and the Eye of Terror wasn't just the sole responsibility of the Eldar. Humanity during the Dark Age of Technology also had a hand in it
It's implied that humans have been able to create three Chaos Gods, so why would Slaanesh be a sole exception, considering that humanity is also kinda hedonistic (/b/. Enough said). It's also implied that during the Dark Age humanity has come to regard science as God and grow arrogant, just like the eldar. I can actually see it that in this scientism and arrogance humanity started losing moral standards (well there is no scientific proof that Sex Is Evil, right?) and eventually became an extremely hedonistic Bread and Circuses society, ala Brave New World, and sure humans aren't as psychically powerful as the eldar, but they make up for sheer numbers. Also, this would pretty much fit in with the "Humanity = Rome" to the "Warhammer 40k = Dark Age Europe in space", considering how it wasn't just outside Barbarians that brought down Rome, but also the incompetence and hedonism of its higher authorities.
Nurgle deliberately lets Isha whisper cures to mortals
Considering how Isha's always in Nurgle's custody, it's unlikely that he doesn't notice a single whisper. It could be that he does notice but doesn't do anything about it. As to why Nurgle would do this, there are two possible reasons: Either he loves her too much to punish her for it, or he's actually observing how the cures would defeat his diseases and then improve his 'craft' by studying better ways to make a disease more persistent. Or maybe both.
The God Emporer of mankind is The Kurgan after winning the prize
Besides the fact that they are both depicted as very large men with flowing black hair, a variety of similarities are present
1. Ramirez says, about the Kurgan "If he wins the Prize, mortal man would suffer an eternity of darkness.", and humanity in 40k is in a fairly dark age.
2. When Connor wins the prize, he says "I feel everything! I know... I know everything! I am everything!" Sounds to me like he is describing himself, and by extension anyone who won the prize, as The most powerfdul psychic of all mankind.
3. The God Emporer of Mankind was said to be born in the second millenium B.C., or usually some time around the dawn of civilization, which, given the Future imperfect history in 40k, is a fairly acurate estimate.( The Kurgan was born in 970 Bc)
That being said, I could easily imagine The Kurgan having more than 20 sons in his life(though i would not see him letting many more than that live), he would most likely be frightened by the realization that he is no longer immortal, but it turned out alright, because The Emporer is, for all intents and purposes,unable to die.
Lorgar was abused as a child by Kor Phaeron
Firstly, Kor always calls him dismissively "boy". Secondly, during the scene in The First Heretic Lorgar has brands in places he shouldn't be able to reach on his own—this does not seem like the behaviour of a loving parent...
Chaos is 4chan.
Isn't it pretty obvious? First, the number of Chaos Gods. Four. 4. Chan. Second, the concept of daemons. Thoughts and beliefs turning alive... like, sentient memes? Third, the Warp is basically the Id of the entire universe, a chaotic realm with no rules and laws while dominated by various memes. Again. Like 4chan, the Id of the Internet. And the fourth and the most important. Chaos Gods themselves. Khorne represents the rage and hate-machinery of the Anonymous, Slaanesh represents the Rule 34 and the idea of The Internet Is for Porn, Tzeentch represents Anonymous' surprising intelligence and Magnificent Bastardry which they can show sometimes (especially in acts of trolling or rebellion), and Nurgle represents Anonymous' decayed standards and the disease-like nature of memes in general (well Richard Dawkins coined the term meme as the cultural analogue for genes/virus).
China took over the world and became the Imperium.
China took over the world and conquered planets and star systems, only to fall apart to pieces. One day, an obscenely powerful psychic was born, reunified the galactic empire, and became the Emperor. The rest is history.
The Emperor wakes up... and destroys the Imperium of Man along with the rest of the universe.
The Emperor is back from the near-death either as the Star Child or via the sacrifice of a Sensei. Sadly, instead of rebuilding Imperium, the Emperor becomes a Chaos God even more powerful than Nurgle, Tzeentch, Khorne, and Slaanesh combined... Sick and tired of being locked up inside the Golden Throne and watching the galaxy burn, the Emperor proceeds to destroy the very fabric of spacetime, harvesting human souls, wiping out all xenos races, absorbing and cleansing the Warp, while singing unfittingly cheerful songs. And then the Emperor will float in the empty and devastated universe merged with the Warp for the rest of the eternity, alone and mourning.
The orks are the only sane race in the Galaxy.
In the grimdark grimdark of the future they are the only ones who seem to be having fun.
The Earth in the Neon Genesis Evangelion universe is actually an Emperor-forgotten world cut off from the Imperium eons ago.
And then an Inquisitor discovers the devastated world and orders Exterminatus, having found signs of yet another nightmare monsters that are 19th and more Angels. And then the said nightmare monsters wake up and eat the star fleets sent to the planet. And invade other planets as well. Cue the White Crusade (named for the body color of those monsters).
Alternatively, the Instrumentalized humans from Neon Genesis Evangelion evolve into the Warp, and Shinji, with his newfound god-like powers, becomes the God-emperor of Mankind
No, not Shinji and Warhammer 40K: instead, after the Third Impact, Shinji, having retained his "End of the World" Special powers and thus able to draw powers from Instrumentality / Warp, became an immortal powerful psyker, and being the only surviving man, decides he can finally strip off his Butt Monkey tendencies and unify humanity (his descendants) as more of a Ubermensch this time, molding human history for millenia and finally leading to the creation of the Imperium of Man. This of course would also make a good Freudian Excuse for the Imperium's actions. Alternatively, both Shinji And Warhammer 40k and Warhammer 40000 canon are Alternate Universes Shinji created during Instrumentality with him placing himself into the role of the possible God-Emperor.
The Emperor is Sailor Cosmos with her mind taken over first by Sailor Venus and then by Sailor Galaxia, and the Old Ones were the Silver Millennium
Based on the Sailor Moon manga.
The Old Ones were the humans of the Silver Millennium, noted for their incredibly long lifespan, but after their capital was destroyed by an early Chaos God, Queen Metallia, they were weakened and divided, and, after defeating the C'tan Galaxia wiped out the Enslaver Plague... And all the surviving Silver Millennium humans, leaving only the descendant of the Earth ones, with the Orks brought to the brink of extermination by her rampage and the Eldar filling the power vacuum and forgetting who created them.
Chibiusa's reign would be the Dark Age of Technology, with the dead Sailor Senshi resurrecting and Sailor Pluto and Galaxia using the late's Queen Serenity's corpse fused with the Starseeds of many historical figures as the basis for Sailor Cosmos in preparation for the emerging of Sailor Chaos.
Then the decaying Eldars created Slaneesh, and that also brought the emerging of Sailor Chaos as the avatar of Chaos Undivided and the destruction of Chibiusa's Empire, while the Sailor Senshi suicided themselves into creating Sailor Cosmos, who, after her time travel, destroys Sailor Chaos (Oh Crap ensues for the Chaos Gods). In doing so, the original personality based on Sailor Moon goes catathonic, and Sailor Venus, who became more serious after being killed by Galaxia, takes over and decides to do things her way. A more violent way.
To get the time to do so, Cosmos awakens the Void Dragon and fakes her death in beating it into submission (the Void Dragon knows, but shuts up out of fear), and then, as the very scared Void Dragon inspires the Adeptus Mechanicus on Mars (chosen to honor Sailor Mars), takes a male form to continue The Masquerade and reunifies Earth while preparing the conquest of the galaxy.
The scattering of the Primarchs happens when the Chaos Gods realizes they have been had, and the Heresy is their last ditch attempt at defeating the now more violent, scheming and combative version of Sailor Cosmos, an attempt that went even too well: the Emperor allowed Horus to wound him to become even more powerful due the adoration of the Empire's citizens, and the defects of the Golden Throne are just the God Emperor stirring before awakening, resurrecting as loyal all the Primarchs and cleansing the Chaos Space Marines, before Venus' personality retires and lets Galaxia take over as she has more knowledge of Chaos of anyone. Or worse, in the last ten thousands years the personalities of Sailor Moon, Sailor Venus and Sailor Galaxia merged, giving the Emperor Sailor Moon's immense willpower, Sailor Venus' Plucky Girl, scheming and violent tendencies and Galaxia's ulterior violent tendencies, intimate knowledge of Chaos and desire to get even for that backstabbing during her battle with Sailor Moon.
The Emperor is serving as a Wetware CPU supercomputer for the Imperium.
Turns out the Emperor is more than a corpse. He functions as the Astronomican's software (he guides it, remember) and is making calculations and decisions for the High Lords of Terra/whatever decision makers Imperium has.
Nurgle is actually a 1984-style dictator god who pretends to be nice.
Nurgle's nice and friendly demeanor is all a lie. In reality, his worshippers are controlled like puppets by him, wearing the horrible grin of the damned and their mind and soul ground to dust by the endless prodding of a master of Faux Affably Evil. He captures potential prisoners, destroys the last good things left to their lives, and dominates them through Stockholm Syndrome, Mind Control, torture chambers, and brainwashing. Indeed, Nurgle is in fact the only Chaos God who is actively enjoying evil for the sake of it. (Khorne just wants to shed some blood, Slaanesh only cares for pleasure, and Tzeentch causes change for the sake of it...)
Nurgle is going to win and turn every single soul into broken slaves.
Second Law of Thermodynamics and sheer amount of despair will bring victory to Nurgle. There, Nurgle will eat every soul, break them into slavery, turn them into pale, shaded excrement of their former selves, and attach their decapitated and beheaded torsos (or spiritual equivalent of it) to neurons so that his realm would be powered by their sheer misery and despair. It's such a horrific fate that even Slaanesh's tortures are orgasmically pleasurable in comparison.
Nurgle is actually a Big Good and/or a Well-Intentioned Extremist who seeks to save humanity.
A friend to all living things, Nurgle wants creatures to live happily ever after in his filthy, unclean paradise. The problem is, everyone loathes his methods of bringing happiness to the world, namely plagues, diseases, and Body Horror.
Related to the above Nurgle-the-good-guy theory, Nurgle's true form is mind-blowingly beautiful and full of light.
So beautiful, Slaanesh is nothing against him. Nurgle appears to be putrid and disgusting only because the mortals are so afraid of dying and decay. His followers, however, can see his true form.
Our future will be like Warhammer 40000
We all know that in the Middle East, there is only war, and if you try to defy it, you are going to be raped by daemons for eternity for helping others. Soon, financial crisis and environmental problems will end the human civilization and take all of us to the afterlife that is WH40k. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Missing Primarchs did something extremely embarassing and were grounded until the Horus Heresy, and later became Chapter Masters of an Ultramarines successor chapter
The Traitor Legions are still known to exist if you have high enough clearance, but the any record on the Missing Primarchs and their legions was expunged. Whatever they did, it was worse than falling to Chaos. This Troper has his money on one of them being Rubinek of the Iron Hearts (described as a Primarch when mentioned in a short story) and discovering the existance of Necoho the Doubter and preaching his creed to the Adeptus Custodes due its resemblance with the Imperial Truth, and the other having the power of invisibility and him and his Marines being caught at peeping. In both cases the Primarchs were grounded and their records expunged for imbecility and perversion, with their numbers being absorbed by the Ultramarines (in the case of the peepers only in part, as the Space Wolves would have killed some of them in order to bring their Primarch to the Emperor. After all, in Prospero Burns Leman Russ mentioned that attacking Prospero at the start of the Heresy was not the first time the Space Wolves fought other Space Marines).
Then the Heresy came, and the Emperor allowed the Grounded Primarchs out of their rooms to fight in the Siege of Terra. Their valor was such that the Emperor declared them redeemed and annulled their grounding, but before their Legions could be reintegrated the Emperor was entombed on the Golden Throne, and Roboute Gulliman gave them their Marines back in the Second Founding in the form of two (or more) Space Marines Successor Chapters.
The ballad of John Henry, of railroad spike fame becomes, a story of an ancient heretek for the Adeptus Mechanicus.
In the story John Henry beats a steam powered hammering machine, saves his friends jobs, and dies in the end of exhaustion. In the Grimdark 40K universe this retelling involves John Henry unable to put his faith in the Machine God. By his hubris in fighting the glorious holy steam machine is struck down by the Machine God. This is shown In the Machine God's anger cursed mankind into performing manual labor forever for denying the Machine God's gift in the form of the Steam machine.
Or possibly John Henry wins and is blessed/cursed and turned to the first Servitor
The Chaos Gods are the reincarnations of the Emotional Entities.
The Emperor and The Chaos Gods are not evil counterparts to each other.
The Chaos gods are already Evil Counterparts to each other, due to the natures of chaos— Nurgle/Tzeentch, and Khorne/Slaanesh, though none of them really get along, being, well, Chaos. The Emperor is sometimes thought to be the good counterpart to them collectively, being the Superego to the Chaos' Id, but when you think about it, the Tyrannid Hive Mind is a better candidate as his Id/Evil Counterpart. The EMPRAH is an intelligent, reasonable individual who wants humanity to grow infintely across the galaxy and eventually the universe (not necessarily opposed to Xenos so long as they stay out of humanity's way). The Hive Mind is a mindless, completely unreasonable collective (even to Chaos itself) whose instinct tells it to reproduce and eat all that lives until nothing remains but (due to the fact that the tyranids are basically one psychically-linked organism) It, in both the Materium and the Immaterium. The Emperor shines like a light in the warp (the Astronomicon) while the Hive Mind is a Shadow in the warp.
Angron's followers on his home planet had already been tainted by Khorne.
The past few HH novels are reconstructing the Emperor as not so much of a dick. Following this trend, it will be revealed that when he discovered Angron, his freed-gladiator followers had already been tainted by Chaos. It makes perfect sense, they were furious at their captors for forcing them into the Arena, they had already spilt blood. The Emperor saw this and knew they were beyond redemption, pulling Angron away from them and leaving them to die. Angron, being a stubborn bastard and a Primarch to boot, had not yet been corrupted.
Adam and Lilith In NGE are two lost Primarchs.
They were so thoroughly mutated by the Warp that they have become super giants with some inhuman features and unimaginable powers eclipsing even other Primarchs, the Emperor himself, or possibly other Chaos Gods as well.
The Enderverse is the prehistory of 40K.
Think about it: at the end of Children Of The Mind, Ender and his friends discover a method of FTL travel that involves traveling "Outside" the physical universe to a place where souls come from, and to which they return when a person dies, and in which dreams and fantasies can take on real form. Doesn't that sound kind of like the Warp? As a result, humanity's expansion through the galaxy increases exponentially, right up until the moment when disturbances in "Outside" cut off FTL travel. Before that happens, however, humanity's encounter with the Descoladores, and difficulties in relating to the restored formics, lead to humanity rejecting the Hive Queen and the Hegemon; paradoxically, Ender the Xenocide is rehabilitated as a hero. The formics are also changed, and become the Tyranids. The pequeninos, meanwhile, are able to acquire human technology and start advancing very rapidly (they of course eventually wipe out any humans on their world) and become the Tau.
The Lost Primarchs were sent through Time, not Space
Given the nature of the Warp, this is definately possible. My personal Pet theory is that one of the Lost Primarchs was sent into the far flung future of the the Grim Dark future and the other was sent into the Past and might in some way be responsible for the Birth of the Emperor.
Warhammer 40,000 takes place in a literal Hell.
Because honestly, what word better describes this universe. It's a hell without end. Of course, this means the God Emperor is Jesus, and the Great Crusade was the Harrowing of Hell. He died for your sins!
Warhammer 40K is the future of Starship Troopers
Think about it, humanity is just beginning to expand into the stars, there are psychic humans and brain bugs, plus the power armour in the books could later evolve into space marine power armour (or downgrade into it). My guess is that it takes place just as humanity begins to expand into the stars in the very beginning of the Dark Age of Technnology.
Eventionally, the Tau are going to rule the Galaxy
As the only people in the entire Milky Way that actually are improving their tech, it stands to reason that given time, their reverse-engineering skills and technological prowess will trump of all the others. In only a short 6 thousand years they have went from "spear wielding people on planet not important enough for the Imperium to bother with" to "killing you with rail guns." The horrors of the Chaos, the determination of Man, the hunger of the Tyranids, the elegance of the Eldar, the Dakka of the Orks can deal with the Tau now, but about in a thousand years, or the next ten thousand?
The only thing I can see the preventing the Tau from doing this is how far they will take the "Greater Good," although considering how badly #@$^ed the rest of the universe is, taking it over may actually be for the best.
Malcador was the man behind the emperor
Look at what Malcador did, he formed the Officio Assassinorum, he created the Grey Knights, he formed the Inquisition, and he was constantly by the emperor's side, all around the time of the Horus Heresy. My theory is that the Emperor was indeed a competent leader, but his relationship with Malcador was different than commonly believed, with the emperor being more like the face to the Imperium while Malcador focused more on organizational needs of the Imperium. In effect the Emperor was just a puppet, with Malcador pulling the strings.
The Human Race in 40k is actually a group of Chaos daemons, while the Eldars are actually our descendants.
The Eldars are the descendants of modern human (aka the original Old Ones), revelling in their superior technology inherited from us, and made more beautiful and intelligent, and given great Psychic Powers thanks to generations of genetic engineering. Just prior to the zenith of Eldar civilization, their experiments with Hyperspace (hence the Webway), along with how their psychic lives are dominated by scientific rationality (rather than religious paranoia), created the first Chaos God of Order, the Emperor. The Eldars were so proud of belonging to the (super)human race, the Emperor and his daemons took after the (flawed) appearance of the Eldar and believed themselves to belong to the Eldar as well. Unfortunately, the Eldar's Brave New World became so decadent they forgot their human origin, while the Emperor left the decaying civilization and formed his own new empire, firmly believing he and his daemons are real humans, not those crazy hedonistic humanoid aliens. Then the Emperor was weakened from a wound by a huge battle with Slaanesh, resulting in many of his Greater Daemons (the Primarchs) killed by other Chaos gods and replaced with the moles plotting to overthrow the Emperor from the inside. The actual daemonic of the Imperium is why the Imperium is as paranoid and Ax Crazy as other Chaos Gods in the first place. How about the history of the Imperium? Either it is all a lie fabricated by the Emperor, or he changed the past.
Eldar and Old One time travels had messed up the galaxy and created hell of a lot things out of the blue.
In one time travel, several Eldars were lost in the distant past in a distant planet. They eventually became the ancestors of Mankind. It is why Eldar and human look so similar in spite of their distance from each other. In other planets in the past, other Eldars were infected by some fungi and became the prototype Orcs. They also gave birth to the Tau, and so much humanoid races.
Dark Eldars are a metaphor for the Real Life Corrupt Corporate Executive and evil leaders, the Fall of the Eldar how the human civilization collapses for good.
The corruption, overconsumption, and dictatorship of the upper class (represented by the decadence of the Eldar) results in environmental damage and society falling apart as unemployment rate hits 100% and everyone save for the upper class starve/are tortured to death while machines do all the work. Then, the Earth has deteriorated so much that it cannot support any life (the Fall of the Eldar). The Seers, representing scientists and anyone with wisdom, predicting such grimdark future, realized they couldn't prevent such disaster and therefore humans faced a And I Must Scream fate. They all went crazy and disappeared one day, never to be find even in the Warp.
Tzeentch is Sun Tzu.
It's obvious.
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