Fan Retcons to Warhammer40K

I would retcon that the emperor was smart enough to include a text-to-speech device into his throne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_2nM1GEllg&list=PLyiDf91_bTEgnBN0jAvzNbqzrlMGID5WA&index=2

I don't think it's not a matter of him being smart enough to do that, but rather a matter of him remembering in the middle of all his dying agony to give instructions to the Tech-priests to that effect, rather than wrongly trusting that they'd do it on their own.

Virtually the entire Philverse is my headcanon now, heretical as it may be.

Khorne has the biggest, baddest daemon engines, see Abominatus and the Banelords (Now touring through your segmentum). It also seems to me that the most employed daemons are of the rip-and-tear Khornate bend, and no daemon army seems complete without some Bloodletters for shock troops.

Where am I going with this?

I think Khorne has sorcerers.

They're just not very, yaknow, wizardy. They're all daemons, all the time. Daemon engines, daemon weapons, daemon hosts, daemon armies, daemon, daemon, daemons! Their narrow specialty in daemonology has spurred them on to some of the greatest advancements in the field, outpacing the sorcerers of all the other gods in that regard.

You couldn't tell who the sorcerer of a warband is on the battlefield. This guy is not fighting any differently from his brothers, he fights as Khorne demands he fights. Except, ya know, he might be the one tricked out with all the daemon gear.

But if a Khornate band has daemon anything in their army, it didn't spontaneously pop out of Hell from sheer respect for their murdering prowess. That was only half of it. The other half was that a guy did a thing, and that guy is a sorcerer.

It just literally could be any dude. If I field some World Eaters with a daemon posse backing them up, I can point to just some random berzerker and say, "Yeah, this dude, he did it. He's a wizard."

edited 12th Dec '15 9:02:15 PM by God_of_Awesome

Khorne in canon is okay with psykers if they are enslaved by warriors to forge them armor/weapons, summon daemons, guide ships through the Warp, etc. As long as they aren't actually fighting and ruining the purity of combat.

If The Emperor Had a Text to Speech Device

I dun think you'd get all the cool shit Khorne gets from slaves.

I think he's a dude in the warband who fights with everyone else, he just doesn't wear a fancy hat or shoot mind bullets at people.

Imperial Guard regiments, no matter how overcrowded the world they're from seldom exceed 1000 or so men. Given that the base unit of a regiment is the company rather than the battalion, it's virtually impossible to mobilise thousands or even tens of thousands of men with such small units to work with. In fact, the level that focuses on regiments most is the operational level; the basic unit that high command would be most concerned with when invading (or defending) a world is the division, if not corps or higher.

edited 14th Jan '16 8:29:58 PM by SantosLHalper

in the early days of Millennia 42, several Tyranid Hive Fleets have been destroyed in orbit trying to get close to the largest psychic presence in the galaxy and a great wealth of biomass, Segmentum Solar, Sol System, Holy Terra itself, but not without heavy cost to the defenders, over half the Segmentum fleet has been destroyed in the battle. Despite the weakened state of the defenders, the Hive Mind decides it is best to change tactics for the time being, as it is inevitable the Imperium will bring in fleets from more peaceful regions to defend Holy Terra and The Emperor, as despite their great numbers they are not strong enough yet to take the most heavily defended part of the galaxy, they need more, so it turns to the second largest concentration of psychic energy and biomass in the galaxy, the Eye of Terror. Eating a few lightly defended worlds on the way to replenish some of their numbers, the great Hive Fleets bypass the Cadian Gate entirely, as attacking the fortress world and constant war zone of Cadia would cost the Hive Fleet too much for too little, for the time being, so instead they approach from the South West, the Shadow In The Warp calming the otherwise constant warp storms that would normally make the area unnavigable. However their presence has not gone without notice, the Chaos Gods can feel the Hive Mind weakening their power in the Materium, The Shadow cutting them off from their worshippers and preventing them interacting with the galaxy at large, so they cease their great game and focus on this new, more pressing threat to their power. Sending daemons without number against the Hive Fleet, aiming to weaken it before they send their most powerful servants against it, the Chaos Space Marines themselves, warbands from the Horus Heresy, Babdab War, and countless other conflicts that have led to the fall of Space Marines, even a few from events that have not yet happened in the Materium, for that is the nature of the Warp. Even as the hive fleet slows, and its tendrils are destroyed one by one, and the Gods of Chaos wrestle with the hive mind and pierce the Shadow, there are far reaching consequences, on Holy Terra a great, yet faint, thundering sound is heard across the entire world and hundreds of Cutodes emerge from the depths of the Imperial Palace, the warp rift that has threatened the world since the Horus Heresy has finally closed, to those who knew of its existence this seems to be a miracle brought about by the divine power of The Emperor himself. However the truth is far sinister, as the ones responsible, albeit indirectly, for the rifts closure are the Tryanids, as the Hive Fleets ultimately failed attempt to consume the Eye of Terror distracted the Chaos Gods just long enough to allow The Emperor to finally close the Warp Rift, the Hive Mind doesn't care though, this is just a set back, and there are more on the way, many more. Yet the miracles are not over, as across the galaxy, every psyker feels a great presence, not emerge, as this has always been there, but in the background for so long it was almost unnoticed, but return, in the Imperial Palace, the entire Adeptus Custodes rush to the Golden Throne to confirm if what every citizen of the Imperium has prayed for for so long as actually happened... then they see it, not some withered corpse, kept alive by arcane technology from an era long past, but The Emperor himself, standing before them, clad in gold and wielding a flaming sword, and he looks pissed....

... Oh man. Tyranids and Chaos dun goofed!

I had my own headcanon on post-40k, loosely based on the Shape of the Nightmare to Come and spinoffs and a post-40k setting on Alternate History Dot Com^note The political division of Segmentum Pacificus is basically the same as that setting, minus the Paruwathayans. To wit (and this will eventually be completed):

• When the Emperor died, the Imperial Palace was of course invaded by daemons from the failed webway gate. Instead of overrunning Terra though, the proximity to the Grey Knights, the Imperial Fists presence and the thousands of psykers who normally would have been fed to the Astronomicon and the Golden Throne eventually overcame the incursion through a heroic effort. However, this left Terra's resources exhausted, so when the Void Dragon awoke, it conquered Terra with its Necrons and traitor Mechanicus forces. As of M47 (5000 years after the fall), the Void Dragon controls most of Segmentum Solar. The Imperium, of course, collapsed upon the Emperor's death.
• Shortly after the collapse of the Imperium, a new, terribly advanced force appeared in Segmentum Pacificus. This was the Paruwathayan Maharaj, a Magellanic based civilization that is the last remnant of Dark Age humanity. The Magellanic Clouds, being far away from the Milky Way proper managed to completely avoid the Psyker epidemic and the resulting Age of Strife due to the weakness of the Warp, and eventually sent an expedition into the Milky Way in late M41 to figure out what happened to the rest of human civilisation. Using terrifying weapons of war such as the Nebula Machines and even the Men of Iron themselves^note Mind you my headcanon is basically the Philverse when it comes to the DAOT, so the Men of Iron's betrayal boiled down to them (and the rest of the A.I.s) shutting themselves down when the planets broke down into infighting due to an ancient agreement rather than an open rebellion against humans, they managed to overrun large amounts of the Segmentum once the belief that the Galaxy had descended into superstition and barbarism was confirmed. However, the weakness of the Warp in the Megallanic Clouds led to a lack of psykers and knowlege of Chaos, so many of their initial conquests were left vulnerable to Chaos incursions, who in turn manage to take many of their worlds. While the Maharaj was busy trying to control the Chaos attacks, a coalition known as the League of Fortitude was formed amongst the post-Imperial states in the Segmentum led by the Sabbat Worlds Imperium, the Nova Terran Ur-Council and the Macharian Confederacy (with Krieger support) which managed to retake much of former Maharaj-held worlds and forced them into peace with member nations. As of the "present", the Maharaj is largely treated with ambivalence; after the War of the League of Fortitude it has maintained trade relations with the post-Imperials (even reintroducing lost technology from the Dark Age such as non-psychic FTL communication). However, millennia of Dark Age technology use in isolation led to its population almost completely abandoning their humanity in favour of cybernetics that make Mechanicus Magi look like Feral World tribals or even a completely digital "cloud" existence in computer networks. As a result, they are viewed with fear and suspicion that they have effectively become Necrons, with various border clashes between the Maharaj and the rest of the Segmentum occurring on an on-off basis.
• One of the largest surviving Imperial successors is the Synod (AKA the Ophelians), the remnaints of the Ecclesiarchy on Ophelia VII. After the death of the Emperor and the subsequent collapse of the Imperium, the Synod officially adapted the Cult of Star Child as their dogma, stating that the soul of Emperor will one day ascend to full godhood as the Star King, who will defeat the Chaos Gods and lead humanity into a golden age. The Synod is fairly influential amongst in the Segmentum Tempestus; not only do they control much of the northern Segmentum (which is disputed with Krieg; see below), but the Cult of the Star Child has spread to the rest of the galaxy thanks to missionaries and contact with traders from other Imperii.
• Much of the Segmentum Obscurus has fallen to Chaos, however, it did not occur in an expected manner. Rather, during the 14th Black Crusade shortly after the death of the Emperor, Abaddon once more was able to overrun much of Cadia due to the lack of Imperial troops other than the Cadians. When all hope seemed to be lost, Creed ordered the surviving Navy support to use Cyclonic Torpedoes on the worlds of the Gate, leading to Cadia's destruction and the death of Abaddon. As the Cadian Pylons that kept the Eye of Terror at bay no longer existed, the Eye of Terror expanded massively, consuming much of the Segmentum. Believing it was the time to come out of contemplation, Lorgar eventually took Abaddon's place as the de-facto leader of the Chaos Forces, and led numerous Black Crusades that took whatever remained of the sector. The only remnaint of post-Imperial rule are in the extremes of the sector: the Leonine Imperium and the Fenrisian Imperium.
• Vostroya weathered the fall of the Imperium relatively well. Being located in the Halo Zone, Vostroyan Navigators were already able to navigate without the Astronomicon with some level of ease, and their Imperial Guard regiments were able to retake much of the surrounding worlds. An even greater boon came in M43, when Lion El-Jonson reawoke from his millennia-long sleep. As the Rock was already in Vostroyan territory, and the Dark Angels already allied themselves to them, Lion El-Jonson and his Honour Guard immediately made their way to Vostroya, where he was crowned Primarch of the Imperium of Man and the Emperor's Regent (though this is usually referred to Leonine Imperium to distinguish it from the numerous other Imperii that sprung up).

Creed of course survived, when Abaddon went to strike him down, he found instead of the commander who had foiled so many of his plans, an realistic blow up doll, only a tactical genius could... CREEEEEEEEEED!

The vast, vast majority of mutants in the Imperium aren't Hollywood-style Mutants caused by Chaos or radiation, but ordinary people with minor genetic disorders such as conjoined digits or cleft palate that can be easily corrected with surgery. Likewise, most psykers don't even have powerful enough warp connections to cause daemonic possession and are only considered psykers because they have a slightly higher warp connection than baseline humans. However, the Black-and-White Insanity and Social Darwinist mentality of the Imperium basically means they're still the victim of Witch Hunts.

edited 1st Feb '16 10:43:10 AM by SantosLHalper

The mutant bit is actually kinda canon already. The psyker stuff, though... IINM canon actually says that Imperial authorities generally ignore those whose psychic power is judged to be too insignificant, i.e. you're safe unless you start getting prophetic visions or manifest obviously supernatural phenomena.

there are a lot of psykers like that actually, it was even a plot point in the of the Cain novels, Duty Calls if I recall correctly, where a Necron device powered up normally low level "ignore em, they ain't causing trouble" psykers to near Librarian levels

... Why would Necrons create anything that empowers psykers? They and the C'Tan detest the Warp.

it's more complex than that, it was just one part of a machine... so... READ THE BLOODY BOOKS! plus this was written while the Necrons were still slaves to the C'tan and did not have personalities

Even back then they hated it, though.

the complete device fucks with the warp big time, that is all that is known, not even the tech priests are crazy enough to use the whole "poke it and see what happens" approach on something that powerful

OK, now that is what a Necron (old or new) would do.

Like, someone is gonna try to get a Tyranid Fleet vs the Eye Of Chaos jamboree going.

And I wouldn't be surprised if some Khornate nut set it up.

The Malcador Heavy Tank is actually very, very common throughout the Imperium. Since Baneblades and their ilk are rarities only a select Forge Worlds can make, and the Macharius Tank was discovered relatively late, the Malcador is often the only Heavy tank available to Imperial commanders.

I seen many fanart and fancomics joke about this about Space Marines but this is something i'm curious. I know that as a result of their implants, Space Marines have no sexual desire and the implants made them barren but are they still..."capable of doing it" ?

If it's a yes.....then Lucius in If the Emperor had Text-to-Speech device series is much more disturbing.

Well, there is this one comic◊...

Part of me almost likes to imagine the Imperium not as a cohesive entity, but as a loose association of human worlds marred by heavy infighting and civil wars that only cease when an external threat unifies them. Not in a "Space Marine Chapter A dislikes Chapter B" sense, but "the Lord General ordered Army Group A to attack Army Group B after the other Lord General insulted him" or possibly even "Sheesh! Vostroya and Mordia are at war again." Incidents like the Macharian Heresy were only noticed by Imperial institutions due to the comparative state of unity previously, and this is only amplified in civil wars like the Age of Apostasy.

edited 29th Feb '16 7:58:35 PM by SantosLHalper