History TearJerker / Warhammer40000

* Szarekh, in an attempt to win a war he inherited and trying to save his species, unknowingly striked a bargain with the C’Tan that led to the Biotransference of the entire Necrontyr species and that led the loss of the souls. When the War in Heaven was over. The Old Ones were gone and the C’Tan were shattered, he left the galaxy in shame and penitence to atone his crimes, some saying he seeked the cure of Biotransference. While Szarekh had a big paper in the war that turned the Warp into what it is today, it’s saddening to see that he only did everything he did in order to help his people and not of simple hunger of power.

* The situation of the Necrons is both terrifying and saddening. Being trapped in a robot body for eternity, never be able to feel again due to the lack of soul is already depressing enough, many of the Necron overlords, phaerons and phaeraks have expressed a desire to come back to flesh and blood, to have a soul again, to feel again. This goal seems very unlikely to ever succeed.

* Trazyn likes to come off like an eccentric collector who tries to have fun in this galaxy of misery, but it becomes clear very fast that literally ''millions of years'' being a soulless robot has left him desperate to actually feel anything of worth. We see just how far this goes in ''The Infinite and The Divine'' where the prospect of finding an intact and preserved Necrontyr sounds like the ultimate item to add to his collection. All throughout the book however, it's easy to see the cracks in his hollow enthusiam start to build over time until finally, he's at the cusp of aquiring his prize. At that point, he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He didn't want to find it just as another artifact to steal, he wanted to use the preserved Necrontyr to try to revive himself as he originally was. To actually be ''alive'' again. And then it turns out It was just a '''very''' long term plan set up by The Deceiver. You can practically ''feel'' the hope drain out of Trazyn in that moment.

* The situation of the Necrons is both terrifying and saddening. Being trapped in a robot body for eternity, never be able to feel again due to the lack of soul is already depressing enough, many of the Necron overlords, phaerons and phaeraks have expressed a desire to come back to flesh and blood, to have a soul again, to feel again. This goal seems very unlikely to ever succed.

* The situation of the Necrons is both terrifying and saddening. Being trapped in a robot body for eternity, never be able to feel again due to the lack of soul is already depressing enough, many of the Necron overlords, phaerons and phaeraks have expressed a desire to come back to flesh and blood, to have a soul again, to feel again. This goal seems very unlikely to happen.

* The Doom of Craftworld Malan'tai. A Tyranid creature ate the souls of its people. Twelve years later, Grey Knights find it infested by Tzeentch daemons looking for spirit stones to eat. They defeat the daemons and hand over the remaining stones to Iyanden Eldar. Finally, they sent Malan'tai to a sun to put it's people to rest. DueToTheDead at its finest, right there, and a fine example of the subtle humanity that underlines the relationship between the Imperium and the Eldar during peacetime.

** But between the helpful aliens and the Emperor's terrible command lies a simple, terrible fact: when the everything started to go wrong in the days leading to the Age of Strife, humanity's alien allies, one and all, '''turned on them.''' The sad example of Almace points to an even sadder truth: that while humans can trust aliens on a smaller scale, on the larger, trust and fellowship can never be permanent.

* 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 and unlike their Fantasy/AoS counterpart they are not necessarily aligned with the forces of Chaos. In somewhere like the imperium that can get them killed as soon as anyone that isn’t a mutant looks at them. And this persecution often drives them to the chaos gods reinforcing the belief among imperial humans that they can never be accepted. Everything about their existence and that of mutants in general is a never ending cycle of sadness, fear and hatred.

** 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. In his

* Magnus the Red's reaction when he [[GoMadFromTheRevelation realises exactly what he has done in his attempt to contact the Emperor.]] Magnus, who is easily the Primarch most concerned about the preservation of knowledge and culture, completely destroys his chambers, smashing dozens of unique and priceless artifacts in his grief. He seems to know that he not only completely messed up [[spoiler: the Imperial webway and, by extension, his father's plans, he also has played a significant part in occupying the Emperor and preventing him from acting personally against Horus.]]

** 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 Primarch. The two worked happily together in the run-up to the End Times, and likely will remain so as the storyline continues to progress.]]

** Then, at the end of the book, [[spoiler:Donal comes back under Warmaster Varan's mind control. With Jurgen's help, Cain briefly breaks the control over Donal's mind, during which he manages to smile and [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled commit suicide.]] ]] The real hitter is when Cain walks away, quietly folding up the same red sash.

** [[spoiler: ''Exterminatus'']] You can tell no one wants to do it. Not even [[spoiler: the Marine at the trigger.]] And just before there's this beautiful picture of [[spoiler: Typhon Primaris]], lush and green with waterfalls spilling over, and you ''know'' what's about to happen and you can't stop it...

* 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.]]
* In Eisenhorn, this happens in one instance at the Thracian Gate when a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} 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.]]
* In ''Void Stalker'' there are a few TearJerker scenes. [[spoiler: The best is Talos Valcoran's death. He is the last survivor of 10th company, barring Variel and Lucoryphus, and knows that he is doomed to die from gene-seed rejection in a few years and admits that he never hated the Night Lords, he hated what they made him into. He calmly walks towards Jain Zar, the Void Stalker, and allows her to impale him before detonating every grenade he has to take her with him. He succeeded.]]
** [[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.]]
* 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 still being exposed from the Ork's tortures, and above all that, him despising Rhodaan completely (having 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 Last Church", the earliest story in canon, set during the Unification Wars. It's about what is strongly suggested to be the last Christian church on Earth, run by an old and lonely priest. One night the priest is visited by a strange traveler who has come to discuss religion and morality with him. After a lengthy debate between the two (the traveler argues that religion is bad and should be abolished by this "Emperor" guy, the priest argues that religion is good and this "Emperor" guy should stop trying to force everyone to do what he says), the traveler explains who he is. [[spoiler: He is the Emperor of Mankind. He is here to burn down the church and has decided to offer the priest a chance to recant his beliefs so that he needn't perish with it. The priest chooses to instead burn with his church, calling out the Emperor on his hypocrisy and coming failures before walking back inside and quietly praying as twisted prototypical space marines torch the building. As it crumbles, the Emperor and his marines leave, unaware that a large clock in the church is ringing. One that was prophesized to only begin ringing when the end of humanity came...]]

* 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 Trazyn.]]
** Made even worse by the HopeSpot: The [[AbsoluteXenophobe Imperium]] are working ''with'' the [[OmnicidalManiac Necrons]]. They have managed to activate the pylons, the Eye of Terror ''itself'' is shrinking. [[spoiler: And then Abbadon destroys the planet.]]

** [[spoiler: Before the full invasion begins, 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, one of the Death Company marines asks: "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 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 successors have typically been among the most kind and noble Space Marines, it's little wonder Dante cries at the realization that his long reign as Chapter Master will end with death of one of the last few lights of kindness in the grimdark future.]]
** [[spoiler: Following this, in one long chapter, the Blood Angels choose to coat their armor with blood and soot and release the mutant occupants of the Tower of Amareo, becoming a 2000 strong force of Death Company, and let loose their control over everything in one glorious last charge. Even the Sanguinior and the Legion of the Damned arrive to support them. Yet despite this, the Blood Angels are still embroiled in a futile charge.]]
** [[spoiler: At the apex of the last charge, Dante begins to hallucinate memories of his past, from his childhood best friend, dead comrades, and mentors he had almost forgotten. ]]
** [[spoiler: Dante finally falls after killing the Swarmlord, and in his death throes, sees the Spirit of Sanguinius himself. Dante asks for death, for rest for his long years of service, only for Sanguinius to sorrowfully tell him that he still must suffer more, as 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, not Sanguinius, his ''actual father'', is carrying him. Even a millennium later, Dante remembers his father, and his typically stoic façade gives way, just for a moment, to tell his father that he became a space marine. And then he's gone.]]

** The extreme xenophobia? It seems like every species out there in the galaxy seems to want humanity dead.

* Trazyn likes to come off like an eccentric collector who tries to have fun in this galaxy of misery, but it becomes clear very fast that literally ''millions of years'' being a soulless robot has left him desperate to actually feel anything of worth. We see just how far this goes in ''The Infinite and The Divine'' where the prospect of finding [[spoiler: an intact and preserved Necrontyr]] sounds like the ultimate item to add to his collection. All throughout the book however, it's easy to see the cracks in his hollow enthusiam start to build over time until finally, he's at the cusp of aquiring his prize. At that point, he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He didn't want to find it just as another artifact to steal, he wanted to [[spoiler: use the preserved Necrontyr to try to revive himself as he originally was. To actually be ''alive'' again.]] And then it turns out [[spoiler: It was just a VERY long term plan set up by The Deceiver.]] You can practically ''feel'' the hope drain out of Trazyn in that moment.

* Trazyn likes to come off like an eccentric collector who tries to have fun in this galaxy of misery, but it becomes clear very fast that literally ''millions of years'' being a soulless robot has left him desperate to actually feel anything of worth. We see just how far this goes in ''The Infinite and The Divine'' where the prospect of finding [[spoiler: an intact and preserved Necrontyr]] sounds like the ultimate item to add to his collection. All throughout the book however, it's easy to see the cracks in his hollow enthusiam start to build over time until finally, he's at the cusp of aquiring his prize. At that point, he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He didn't want to find it just as another artifact to steal, he wanted to [[spoiler: use the preserved Necrontyr to try to revive himself as he originally was. To actually be ''alive'' again.'']]

** ''[[Literature/HorusHeresy Master of Mankind]]'' makes this even worse by showing the process from the POV of a teenage girl by the name of Skoia, whose low-level psyker powers let her hear the dead. She's forced to run from her parents as the Imperium come to take its first-ever tithe of sacrificial psykers, hunted down like a dog, and dragged off to the Black Ships. When they actually arrive at Terra, she's locked into a suffocating coffin and plugged into the Throne, left desperately psychically pleading and then screaming for help in vain as her very soul is drained away.

** 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.

** As Cadia burns, Creed orders the elite 8th Cadian Infantry, "The Castellan's Own," to [[HeroicSacrifice hold the LZ while against the attacking daemons and chaos forces the other remaining Guardsmen, Space Marines, and Sisters of Battle evacuate to the fleet in orbit]]. The last Vox transmission from the surface: ''"Cadia stands!"''
** In short, there is a good reason why the phrase "Cadia broke before the guard did" exists.

** There is a story about a preacher who is sent to give services to a population of beastmen and mutant slaves under Imperial rule, as they work in pitiable conditions for the Imperium (making them (barely) tolerable in the eyes of the authorities). Then some start to go missing; it becomes apparent they are being murdered, but the official authorities couldn't care less. Soon protests arise, the preacher tries to make them disperse so the expected anti-rioting force won't bring the [[KillEmAll typical answer from the Imperium]], to which one of them stands and [[ArmorPiercingResponse points out to the preacher a simple fact: they have been loyal to the God-Emperor their whole lives, yet they are still treated as subhuman scum, invalidating the central dogma of the Imperial Cult ("The Emperor Protects.")]] He's one of the first to get murdered by the anti-riot troopers a few lines later, who fire indiscriminately on the men, women and children present for the "crime" of protesting them being murdered.

** There is a story about a preacher who is sent to give services to a population of beastemen and mutant slaves under imperial rule, as the system goes they work in pitiable conditions for the Imperium making them (barely) tolerable in the eyes of the Imperium, then some start to go missing, it becomes apparent they are being murdered but the official authorities couldn't care less if some mutant slaves are going missing, soon protests raise, the preacher tries to make them disperse so the expected anti-rioting force won't bring the typical answer from the Imperium, to which one of them stands and points out to the preacher a simple fact: they have been loyal to the God-Emperor their whole lives, hence, what's the value of the central dogma of the Imperial Faith "the Emperor protects"? He is one of the first to get murdered by the anti-riot troopers a few lines later, who open fire indiscriminately to the men, women and children present, again, they are getting killed for demanding someone take care of the fact they are being murdered.

* Devastation of Baal gives us several tearjerkers throughout, fittingly for the last stand of the Blood Angels.
** [[spoiler: Before the full invasion begins, 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: Following this, in one long chapter, the Blood Angels choose to coat their armor with blood and soot and release the Death Company marines that were imprisoned earlier, becoming a 2000 strong force of Death Company, and let loose their control over everything in one glorious last charge. Even the Sanguinior and the Legion of the Damned arrive to support them. Yet despite this, the Blood Angels are still embroiled in a futile charge.]]

** [[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, not Sanguinius, his ''actual 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.]]

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

* Eldar race situation. Because of their ancestors' depravity, Slaanesh was formed. Hir destroyed their pantheon of gods and seeks to consume their souls. Any Eldar soul which enters Warp will experience a FateWorseThanDeath.
* The horrifying fate of psykers sacrificed to the emperor, crosses rhis with NightmareFuel - depicted in Masters of Mankind from the POV of it’s first victim Skoia, desperately psychically pleading and then screaming for help in vain from within a suffocating coffin, as her very soul is drained away. Made even worse with how you see the poor girl fleeing the SoS earlier - with her parents telling her to run and not stop.
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* The horrifying fate of psykers sacrificed to the emperor, crosses rhis with NightmareFuel - depicted in Masters of Mankind from the POV of it’s first victim Skoia, desperately psychically pleading and then screaming for help in vain as her very soul is drained away.

** 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.

* Fabius Bile, for all of his cruelty and evil, is nonetheless trying to help humanity survive in the cruel universe. When asked where he would be among the next generation of evolved humans, Bile simply stated that he will be "the first among it's foundations" and that there is no place for him in that world.

* 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.

*** What is even sadder that not every AI sided with rebels, but they were destroyed nonetheless. The rebels (or some oof them) themselves could be corrupted by Chaos, as Commissar Gaunt found a Chaos-corrupted STC of Men of Iron.