History TearJerker / Warhammer40000

** Hatred of AI's? There was a massive revolution of AI that led to the destruction of humanity's intergalactic empire and near extinction of humanity as a whole.

** Hatred of AI's? There was a massive revolution of AI that nearly lead to the destruction of of humanity's intergalactic empire.
** Hatred of Psykers? Psykers were used as portals for daemonic invasion during the Age of Strife and the only planets that survived were the ones that killed all the Psykers on the planets.

* The ending to The Fall of Cadia. [[spoiler: As the name suggests, Cadia fell to the 13th Black Crusade. Creed lost his best friend Kell, most of his men and his arm to Abaddon The Despoiler and was finally left to die on the shattered planet, only to later be approached by what is implied to be a C'Tan.]]

** Perturabo was a rather tender and peaceful soul who wanted to be an architect but endless years of being pointed at meatgrinder sieges without even being recognised or thanked for his accomplishments turned him into a brutal StrawNihilist. Konrad Curze was haunted throughout his life by premonitions and dropped on a planet of endless night ruled by criminals through violence and intimidation, he lived in sewers and ate vermin and eventually became the ruler of the planet by adopting the brutal methods of the planet's rulers and becoming a grimdark cross of Batman and Vlad the Impaler, only for the planet to go to hell in his absence and the justification for all his actions fell apart and his mind went with it. Angron had an implant in his brain which caused him immense pain all the time; he led a slave rebellion against the brutal rulers of his home planet, and right at the cusp of their final victory he was whisked away by the Emperor and forced to fight a war he never cared about when all he wanted was to die fighting at the side of his friends on his homeworld. Fulgrim got corrupted by Keeper of Secrets from Laer blade, which he realised when it was too late. The traitor primarchs were monsters, but they weren't really given a chance to become anything else.

[[AC: Fanstuff]]
* ''Film/{{Damnatus}}'' -- The Exterminatus scene.
* [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Gav_and_Bob Gav and Bob]].
* [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Makari Makari the banna wava]]. In canon, he was sat on by Ghazhkull by accident and had his squashed corpse fed to a squig without a second of thought. In fanon, however, he was the only being that Ghazhkull had any compassion or sympathy towards. In a battle against humans, Makari got killed, thus fueling Ghazhkull's hatred towards humanity and avenged his favorite gretchin by wiping out the human planet where his death took place. He still visits his grave from time to time, mourning the death of the single person he had ever truly cared about.
-->''Everyone knew Orks were belched back into another body after they died. Not Gretchin though. No Gretchin could ever replace Makari.''
* [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/madhouse-a-40k-oneshot.255087/#post-10440094 This]] oneshot detailing the fall of a planet to Chaos, in a series of speeches from key characters, ends with a speech from an Imperial priest in response to the Chaos worshipper. The priest's quiet and firm tone as he declares "For I have faith, and that is enough" is both a TearJerker and a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome. He doesn't scream and roar like the Khornate, whisper like the Slaaneshi, or drip smugness like the Tzeentchian, nor does he shout and rant like the Nurgle worshippers and the follower of Malal - he just quietly declares his faith in the Emperor as he prepares to fight to his last breath.

* The revived Roboute Guilliman's reaction to the current state of the Imperium: ''"Why do I still live? What more do you want from me? I gave everything I had to you, to them. Look what they have made of our dream. This bloated, rotten carcass of an empire is driven not by reason and hope, but by fear, hate and ignorance. Better that we had all burned in the fire of Horus' ambition than lived to see this."''

** [[spoiler: Near the end, Dante quietly notes how, despite the some 2000 remaining marines on Baal, the Angelic Host will never recover. Considering how, in the sheer grimdarkness of the universe, the majority of the Blood Angels and their successsors have typically been among the most kind and noble Space Marines, it's little wonder Dante cries at the realisation that his long reign as Chapter <aster will end with death of one of the last few lights of kindness in the grimdark future.]]

** [[spoiler: And at the end of all this, when the Indomitus Crusade arrives, and Dante is rescued and being carried to see Guilliman, his already hazy mind hallucinates, just for a moment, that his father is carrying him. Even a millenia later, Dante remembers his father, and his typically stoic facade gives way, just for a moment, to tell his father that he became a space marine. And then he's gone.]]

* A lot of the traitor Primarchs were downright tragic. Perturabo was a rather tender and peaceful soul who wanted to be an architect but endless years of being pointed at meatgrinder sieges without even being recognised or thanked for his accomplishments turned him into a brutal StrawNihilist. Konrad Curze was haunted throughout his life by premonitions and dropped on a planet of endless night ruled by criminals through violence and intimidation, he lived in sewers and ate vermin and eventually became the ruler of the planet by adopting the brutal methods of the planet's rulers and becoming a grimdark cross of Batman and Vlad the Impaler, only for the planet to go to hell in his absence and the justification for all his actions fell apart and his mind went with it. Angron had an implant in his brain which caused him immense pain all the time; he led a slave rebellion against the brutal rulers of his home planet, and right at the cusp of their final victory he was whisked away by the Emperor and forced to fight a war he never cared about when all he wanted was to die fighting at the side of his friends on his homeworld. Fulgrim got corrupted by Keeper of Secrets from Laer blade, which he realised when it was too late. The traitor primarchs were monsters, but they weren't really given a chance to become anything else.

** "CCCP", for anyone who doesn't know, stands for "Союз Советских Социалистических Республик", which in English is ''Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik'' - [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]. In other words, they are the last relics from humanity's first space faring civilisation, and possibly the last remnant of "our" era in the living nightmare that is the 41st millennium. And they will be forgotten or destroyed very soon.

* The Beastmen that live in the Warhammer 40k universe have a terribly sad situation that they live in. Unlike a abhuman like a ratling that can have a tolerable life due to a ratlings human like appearance a Beastman has the appearance of a human mixed with animals like goats. In somewhere like the imperium that can get them killed as soon as anyone that isn’t a mutant looks at them. And this hatred often drives them to the chaos gods reinforcing the belief among imperial humans that they can never be accepted. Everything about their existence is a never ending cycle of sadness and hatred.
* Devestation of Baal gives us several tearjerkers throughout, fittingly for the last stand of the Blood Angels.

* The short story "Xenocide" is set on a world that hasn't been in contact with the Imperium since before the Heresy, and is torn apart by orks. It follows a peaceful farmer as he joins a militia that everntually joins up with other forces. He loses his wife and son (or rather, insisted they join a caravan that almost certainly was wiped out by greenskins, and beats himself up over it), loses many of his FireForgedFriends, and we learn he has slight precognitive powers that allowed him to survive this long (and even takes out a Killa Kan by stabbing it through its eyeslit). Finally Imperials arrive and exterminate the orks and immediately begin getting the planet up to Imperial standards... meaning the protagonist, instead of joining a regiment as he wanted, is hauled off into a Black Ship to be sacrificed to the Emperor.

* [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Makari Makari the banna wava]]. In canon, he was sat on by Ghazhkull by accident and had his squashed corpse fed to a squigg without a second of thought. In fanon, however, he was the only being that Ghazhkull had any compassion or sympathy towards. In a battle against humans, Makari got killed, thus fueling Ghazhkull's hatred towards humanity and avenged his favorite gretchin by wiping out the human planet where his death took place. He still visits his grave from time to time, mourning the death of the single person he had ever truly cared about.

--> '''Alaric:''' Good work officer. What is your name?
--> '''Officer:''' ''None'' of us have names. Deployment in six minutes, brother-captain. The Emperor Protects.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} VideoGame/DawnOfWar: Winter Assault'' has a tear jerker [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKIAMAqGNIY here]] that invokes true ManlyTears at its [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome awesome.]]

* The Space Marine Battles Novel Rynn's World has an especially heartwrenching scene that doubles as a Crowning Moment of heartwarming. Captain Cortez saves a Mother and her children (one of whom is just a baby) from being murdered by Orks. Chapter Master Pedro Kantor is ''less than pleased'' with this development, as there are (to his knowledge) only a dozen or so Crimson Fists left after the destruction of their monastery, and they cannot afford to bring refugees along. Nevertheless, Kantor says the family can tag along as long as they can keep pace with the Space Marines, which anyone will tell you is no small feat. After a while, the mother becomes tired and unable to keep up. Kantor moves to the back of the column, to (as the reader is led to believe) "grant her the final mercy." As he kneels next to the mother with his wrist mounted storm bolter pointed disturbingly close to her head, we believe he's going to kill her. Then, after the mother pants that she tried, but her children were just so heavy, Kantor (who did not want her there in the first place) replies with the following:

* In Eisenhorn, this happens in one instance at the Thracian Gate when a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming get subverted. A space marine cradles an injured child, intending to carry him safety. [[spoiler: It turns out the child was one of the captured psykers that got loose in the confusion, and he made old Gregor kill the marine, and very nearly himself if it weren't for Voke's [[BigDamnHeroes Big Damn Hero]] moment.]]

* [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/madhouse-a-40k-oneshot.255087/#post-10440094 This]] oneshot detailing the fall of a planet to Chaos, in a series of speeches from key characters, ends with a speech from an Imperial priest in response to the Chaos worshipper. The priest's quiet and firm tone as he declares "For I have faith, and that is enough" is both a TearJerker and a CrowningMomentOfAwesome. He doesn't scream and roar like the Khornate, whisper like the Slaaneshi, or drip smugness like the Tzeentchian, nor does he shout and rant like the Nurgle worshippers and the follower of Malal - he just quietly declares his faith in the Emperor as he prepares to fight to his last breath.

* The [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone remorse]] and despair of the [[TheGrotesque Lord of the Unfleshed]] near the end of The Killing Ground, after being posessed and used by a vengeful revolutionary. [[YouAreNotAlone Uriel comforts him]] and shows him a holy icon of the God-Emperor; the Lord of the Unfleshed's visage is reflected as the boy he once was before the forces of the Ruinous Powers [[WasOnceAMan turned him into a monster]]. As the Lord of the Unfleshed sobs in joy, believing that the Emperor never abandoned him, Uriel [[MercyKill grants him the Emperor's Mercy]].

* The Space Marine Battles Novel Rynn's World has an especially heartwrenching scene that doubles as a Crowning Moment of heartwarming. Captain Cortez saves a Mother and her children (one of whom is just a baby)from being murdered by Orks. Chapter Master Pedro Kantor is ''less than pleased'' with this development, as there are (to his knowledge) only a dozen or so Crimson Fists left after the destruction of their monestary, and they cannot afford to bring refugees along. But Kantor says that the family can tag along as long as they can keep pace with the Space Marines, which anyone will tell you is no small feat. After a while, the mother becomes tired and unable to keep up. Kantor moves to the back of the column, to (as the reader is led to believe) "grant her the final mercy." As he kneels next to the mother with his wrist mounted storm bolter pointed disturbingly close to her head, we believe he's going to kill her. Then, after the mother pants that she tried, but her children were just so heavy, Kantor, (who, I feel the need to stress, ''did not want her there in the first place'') replies with the following.
-->'''Kantor:''' You did well to bring them this far....It is time that someone carried you now.
** As he picks her up in his arms and carries her the rest of the journey to rejoin their remaining battle brothers. If that doesn't encapsulate what it truly means to be a Space Marine in Warhammer 40k, we don't know what does.
* The Space Marines Battles novel ''Legion of the Damned'' actually has one. [[spoiler: During the battle in the cloister Zachariah Kersch sees his absterge Bethesda being attacked by two Flesh Hounds of Khorne. She is the only person who has been consistently nice to him, even his own servants believed Kersch was worthless after his past failures, but Bethesda always believed in him. He grabs a whip and gets it around her leg in an attempt to save her, even the company Librarian tries to help by blasting the Hounds who are sadly immune to psychic powers. Kersch is not strong enough and the Hounds drag the screaming girl into an alley. ''You can guess what happened next.'']]
* "I wanted to be a hero. You can see how that turned out."

* The novel The Siege of Castellax has a rather surprising Tear Jerker moment. [[spoiler: When Over-Captain Vallax escapes the Orks he unwittingly leads a team of Ork Kommandos into the Iron Warriors's citadel and is lambasted by Captain Rhodaan for it. Vallax is horrified by his actions and volunteers to stay behind alone while Rhodaan and his Raptors go off to deal with a traitor in their ranks, despite his armour weighing him down, his weapon being a beaten-up Ork piece of crap and part of his brain is still exposed from the Ork's tortures, and above all that he despises Rhodaan completely and has tried to kill him multiple times, he still stays behind to buy them the time they need, because they are his Legion brothers, and dies fighting. Later on the Ork Kommando Kaptain Grimruk has his head and thinks that Vallax fought exceptionally well.]]

* The Beastmen that live in the warhammer 40k universe have a terribly sad situation that they live in. Unlike a abhuman like a ratling that can have a tolerable life due to a ratlings human like appearance a Beastman has the appearance of a human mixed with animals like goats. In somewhere like the imperium that can get them killed as soon as anyone that isn’t a mutant looks at them. And this hatred often drives them to the chaos gods reinforcing the belief among imperial humans that they can never be accepted. Everything about their existence is a never ending cycle of sadness and hatred.

** [[spoiler: Before the full invasion begins, the Chapters of the Blood stow away their Death Company members. Some go away quietly, some go with anger, caught in the throes of the Black Rage. Among the many cries of hallucination-wrought cries, many of the Death Company marines ask: "Why? Why did you betray us, Horus?" There's no answer to give before the gates shut. ]]
** [[spoiler: During the initial orbital battle, Asante's forces are barely holding back the Tyranid onslaught, when they find out there is a second fleet approaching Baal. Shortly after, he and Bellerophon fall as their ship crashes into Baal. When Dante finds out they've died, he regrets their death, yet finds he cannot recall meeting them for the first time, and finds himself saddened at what he considers a second death for them.]]
** [[spoiler: Near the end, Dante quietly notes how, despite the some 2000 remaining marines on Baal, the Angelic Host will never recover. Considering how, in the sheer grimdarkness of the universe, the majority of the Blood Angels and their successsors have typically been among the most kind and noble Space Marines, it's little wonder Dante cries at the realisation that his long reign as chapter master will end with the death of one of the last few lights of kindness in the grimdasrk future.]]

** [[spoiler: Dante finally falls after killing the Swarmlord, and in his death throes, sees the Spirit of Sanguinius himself. Dante asks for death, rest for his long years of service, only for Sanguinius to sorrowfully tell him that he still must suffer more, his service is not yet done. Dante can only beg to die as he's dragged back to life by an apothecary. ]]
** [[spoiler: And at the end of all this, when the Indomitus Crusade arrives, and Dante is rescued and being carried to see Guilliman, his already hazy mind hallucinates, just for a moment, that his father is carrying him. Even a millenia later, Dante remembers his father, and his typically stoic facade gives way, just for a moment, to tell his father that he became a space marine. And then he's gone. ]]

* [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/madhouse-a-40k-oneshot.255087/#post-10440094 This]] oneshot detailing the fall of a planet to Chaos, in a series of speeches from key characters, and it ends with a speech from an Imperial priest in response to the Chaos worshipper. The priest's quiet and firm tone as he declares "For I have faith, and that is enough" is both a TearJerker, and a CrowningMomentOfAwesome. He doesn't scream and roar like the Khornate, whisper like the Slaaneshi, or drip smugness like the Tzeentchian, nor does he shout and rant like the Nurgle worshippers and the follower of Malal, he just quietly declares his faith in the Emperor as he prepares to fight to his last breath.

* [[spoiler: Then Cyrion's death. Cyrion is wounded by Jain Zar and dies in Talos's arms. He is blind from the burns and gives his last request to Talos to not have his gene-seed extracted, stating that he just wants to rest, which Talos promises. He then dies with the final line, ''"I'm dying," he said. "Everyone else is dead. The slaves escaped. So..." he breathed out slowly, "...how are you?"'' Definitely a tear worthy moment.]]
* [[spoiler: Uzas's death is worthy of tears, even more so because of what happens afterwards. Uzas finally realises that he is not responsible for many of the murders he has been accused of, Cyrion is. He attacks Cyrion but before he can kill him Talos fatally wounds him, and tells him he is the worst excuse for a Night Lord in their history and that even Ruven was better than him. But before he dies Cyrion actually apologies to him posthumously, a ''traitor marine'' actually apologies to somebody and means it.]]
* [[spoiler: Xarl's death is much earlier on but is no less heartbreaking. He dies saving the rest of First Claw from a Genesis Chapter Company Champion. His last act is to tell Talos that he was wrong and that there is no shame in wanting more in life than just survival. He falls to the ground, dead, after finishing his sentence. Talos then carries out his cremation and harvesting himself, and cries after burning his friend's body.]]
* [[spoiler: Mercutian has a heartbreaking death as well. He is mortally wounded by Jain Zar during the fight in the catacombs and volunteers to stay behind and buy them a few seconds. He battles Jain Zar ferociously even though he is dying. She impales him and leaves him to die, giving him the chance to shiv her in the thigh. She finishes him off quickly, but the wound he gave her was the reason that Talos and the others had a fighting chance against her.]]

** Recent events have broken this while simultaneously making it even more poignant: [[spoiler: In the end, Ahriman failed. His attempts to make a second corrective Rubric were indirectly thwarted by Magnus, but in the process Ahriman was severed from his destiny, set free from the machinations of Tzeentch, and found himself no longer estranged from his Primach. The two worked happily together in the run-up to the End Times, and likely will remain so as the storyline continues to progress.]]

* Though Chaos utterly don't deserve sympathy, the fact that Warp was once an peaceful, wonderful realm that had been unwittingly utterly corrupted by Old Ones and Necron war, and later by Eldar, humanity and other species, is sad by itself.

--->'''Gabriel:''' If redemption is what you seek, then that is what I will give you.

* Though Chaos utterly don't deserve sympathy, the fact that Warp was once an peaceful, wonderful realm that had been unwittingly utterly corrupted by Old Ones and Necron war, and later by Eldar, humanity and other species, is sad by itself.

** [[spoiler: Dante finally falls after killing the Swarmlord, and in his death throes, sees the Spirit of Sanguinius himself. Dante asks for death, rest for his long years of service, only for Sanguinius to tell him that he still must suffer more, his service is not yet done. Dante can only beg to die as he's dragged back to life by an apothecary. ]]

* The Beastmen that live in the warhammer 40k universe have a terribly sad situation that they live in. Unlike a abhuman like a ratling that can have a tolerable life due to a ratlings human like appearance a Beastman has the appearance of a human mixed with animals like goats. In somewhere like the imperium that can get them killed as soon as anyone that isn’t a mutant looks at them. And this hatred often drives them to the chaos gods reinforcing the belief they can never be accepted. Everything about their existence is a never ending cycle of sadness and hatred.

* The Beastmen that live in the warhammer 40k universe have a terribly sad situation that they live in. Unlike a abhuman like a ratling that can have a tolerable life due to a ratlings human like appearance a Beastman has the appearance of a human mixed with animals like goats. In somewhere like the imperium that can get killed as soon as anyone that isn’t a mutant looks at them. And this hatred often drives them to the chaos gods reinforcing the belief they can never be accepted. Everything about their existence is a never ending cycle of sadness and hatred.

--->'''Castor:''' Merrick, the life of a Guardsman is to die. It is my job to send them to places where they will die. I am not afraid to spend soldiers, but I never waste them. (Later) So, you can continue with your attempt to kill me, but killing you Merrick would be very... wasteful.