What happens if the Imperium wins, and somehow Chaos, all Xenos, all mutants, all heretics, and all Renegades are vanquished forever?
we party
They become chaos.
>>92470060Imperium would collapse within a year, as it explicitly runs on Othering all that isn't Imperium. Remove that threat of the Other, and it turns on itself like any fascist regime.
>What happens if [list of several impossible things]?Well they would all move to Big Rock Candy Mountain together, of course.
>>92470060It collapses under its own inefficiencies as without an existential threat to unite its constituent parts the Imperium is a thousand states of conflicting interests and ideologies.
>>92470060One galaxy down, at least 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe to go.
>>92470060They would actually have the time and luxury of being able to improve their situation. It would take centuries, and there would still be a lot of strife, but it's retarded to think that constant meat grinder warfare is somehow more sustainable for the Imperium than peace.
dunno ask the general
>>92470060Humanity manages to achieve the psychic apotheosis that the Emperor intended to shepherd the species too, fucks off into the Warp, and then new species evolve to fill the niches left by all of the exterminated Xenos and now absent humans.
>>92471452AFTER THE AVENGING SON AVENGES THE MILKY WAY WE TURN OUR EYES TO THE REST OF THE PUNK-ASS DUSTBOWLS OUT THERE IN THE UNIVERSE.ANDROMEDA? DOGWALKED.LGS-3? DOGWALKED.TRIANGULUM? DOGWALKED.TUCANA, AQUARIUS, IT DOESN'T MATTER - ALL DWARFS WILL BE GAPED.
>>92471437>They would actually have the time and luxury of being able to improve their situationWhat makes you think they want to?
>>92470060what makes you think the imperium would even survive such a task? like warhammer 40 thousand ways of mutually assured destruction.
The good guys win
>>92470060A bit of lore no one ever talks about is that the galaxy even before the age of strife was almost in constant warfare. A few thousands years after humanity discovered warp travel they were already different empires and human factions constantly fighting each other like a big game of stellaris. And thats even with all of the dark age technology tech and utopia planets. What keeps the imperium from civil war is the constant extreme threats to its existence but even with that there was the age of apostasy with Mr.VandireSo if even before demons or galactic threats or extreme religious dogma there was constant human vs human warfare, I imagine that it would turn into total civil war with sectors of the human galaxy fighting other humans. This isn't star trek.
>>92470060Same thing that happened to the eldar
>>92470060The Emperor's plan for humanity to "win" the game was to get the human webway in play so they no longer needed to rely on the Warp to travel the stars. That didn't work out, so ultimately the Emperor's dream is ruined forever. The Emperor's golden age cannot come to pass without that. Even if miraculously the Imperium prevails over all current known threats, it will still be a crumbling shitpile barely held together by duct tape and prayers, and it will eventually collapse under its own fetid, rotting weight.
>>92472587Even if the humans got the webway how would that achieve a utopian vision? The Eldar had the webway and look what happened to them.
>>92472820The Eldar had 60 million years of peace and prosperity before they collapsed to boredom. By the Emperor's estimates humanity would have around a million years of prosperity ahead if he got the webway up and running to solidfy the Imperium and weather-proof it against Chaos. Then it would inevitably collapse for one reason or another. The Emperor had no illusions about the fact that no empire can remain dominant forever and humanity would inevitably find a way to fuck it all up. The difference though is between 10,000 years of rapid stagnation and a slow, bleeding death to their enemies and 1 million years of being basically untouchable.
>>92470060It turns on itself. The imperium is just a giant war machine in 40k that offers no progress, just survival at most. If it has no outside enemies it will make it's own when people realise they're throwing themselves at enemies that don't exist anymore for no reward.
Implode into a constant state of civil war (probably mostly religious officials and forge worlds declaring crusades against each other because of petty disputes over the minutiae of their respective religious doctrines) once there's no external threat to focus on.
>>92470060It becomes pretty fucking boring then.
>>92470060Presumably the warp would be closed in such a scenario meaning no more FTL travel since humanity will never have a webway or necron style drive. In that scenario the Imperium collapses utterly. Then it's just a waiting game to see if the orcs arrive on the isolated world first and then the Tyranids show up and eat them, or if the Tyranids show up first. As written, the Tyranids and Orkz are a far more apocalyptic threat that really have no believable explanation for why they haven't already scoured the galaxy except for muh plot armor, and in a situation where the Imperium can't warp around million man "regiments" at will to stomp out fires it's beyond implausible even in 40k's awful world building to believe that orkz and nids wouldn't totally annihilate every other lifeform minus the eldar.
>>92471437>>92470305I would say both occur. The primary threat removed, the Imperium would have the luxury to improve efficency and overall quality of life. However, this would also allow the luxury of regional and internal powers to start breaking up and apart. Since they no longer have the array of external threats that the Imperium nominally serves to protect them from. The cost to benefit ratio of being in the Imperium shifts a lot more into the costs.
>>92470060I don't think the Emperor actually wanted to kill all Xenos. He seemed to be chill with the Eldar, for one.
>>92470060A golden age in the short term, and civil war and collapse eventually in the long term once cracks start to develop between the thousands of competing factions.
>>92475322>He seemed to be chill with the Eldar, for oneThey were still 'kill on sight', it was just harder to kill them because they were, you know, the Eldar. Hell, his entire webway project literally consisted of "I'm going to build an entrance to the webway and KILL ALL THE ELDAR UNTIL THEY'RE GONE FROM IT"
>>92470060The various factions of the Imperium would likely start fighting each other, lol
>>92470060>I guess I'll have a coke.
>>92475061Also, what happens to the warp, and space travel in general, if Chaos is defeated and the Emperor is either healed or finally dies?
>>92470060Different factions in the Imperium would start slaughtering each other over increasingly stupid and petty shit.
>>92476306That also kind of defeats the question. If all the Imperium's enemies vanish, then the Emperor doesn't have to strain himself to keep the demons sealed out of Terra and can actually regenerate. At which point, he would probably know exactly how to push humanity in the right direction. Maybe he would intentionally shut down the Astronomican and let the disparate human colonies fend for themselves since they would no longer need to fear xenos or chaos predation.
>>92476306The Warp becomes calm.
>>92474346>OP explicitly specified all xenos vanquished forever>orks and nids still somehow manifest from thin air because I say so
>>92470060eventually mankind falls on himself all the same
>>92472838The thing about genocide is that, even if the imperium collapses, he has removed every real or potential threat to human dominance. Therefore it can rise again, and humanity is never again in the position that it was before the imperium.
>>92485288The problem with being genetic masters is that you can always just make your own new threats
Conservatives never conserve anything.
>>92470060It turns out that Gulliman was chaos all along and warhammer 50,000 is the war against chaos emperor gulliman from his ultramar seat against the legions of thundermen created by billy cawl and fabulous billy from nova terra, with the golden throne being inaccessible due to warp storms after the emperor died (somehow this did not create a chaos god).
>>92470060it's back on the "let's try to reverse engineer ancient tech" project that emps had goingafter that? i guess the final objective is to everyone to become like the emp.
>>92470305These bigots need to stop othering PURPLE BODIES and be more accepting of Undocumented Tyranids. Also, the imperium needs to recognize Ork Excellence and Necron Girl Magic (tm). Defending oneself against others is an unforgivable act of racism and it would be better if the imperium just scheduled Dark Eldar History Month and respected Genestealer rights. If someone is not actively trying to kill you, you die.
>>92487541this, but unironically
>>92470060This could have been a comment in the general. Why the fuck did you make a thread for this, retard?
>>92470060Civil war
>>92470060Best ending.
>>92470060They find out what the Tyranids were running from.
>>92477274>mankindUhh sweetie, this is 40k, I think you meant "womankind"
>>92485288Humanity can rise again so long as Terra remains. The Emperor talks about how more than one threat has beaten humanity all the way to Terra, but Terra managed to hold out and win, and that ensured humanity's survival even through the Age of Strife. The problem with the failure of the Webway project is that now there's an Eye of Terror underneath the Golden Throne just waiting to burst loose and annihilate every star system in a thousand light years, and the second that the Emperor dies that's what's going to happen. Humanity didn't just lose the webway, it lost Terra and the Golden Throne isn't going to hold out much longer.
>>92485643He was a psyker so he thought as a psyker, but it's possible to take the opposite route [cough peter watts cough] and go full hylic. The Slaugth did it so we know a genetically all-blank race is possible.
>>92470060You'd probably get a good couple decades to a century of peace as news spreads and things calm down. That period would probably be followed by some centrifugal forces acting to break up the Imperium. The real unknown is if the now "relaxed" Imperium is capable of managing that part and I personally believe they can now that resources can be devoted to advancing tech, wealth, and overall wellbeing that generally would counteract such tendencies. The Imperium would probably move away from the sort of feudal confederacy it currently is and probably adopt a more centralized power structure. That though is incredibly dependent upon if FTL Travel and Communications improve from their current unreliable nature since you can't rule what you can't talk and trade with.
>>92503020>now that resources can be devoted to advancing tech, wealth, and overall wellbeingThe Imperium doesn't choose not to devote resources to those things because it can't, it chooses not to devote resources to those things because it doesn't care about those things.
>>92470060Sanctioned war against itself as they gradually de-militarize for thousands of years. I feel like I've stumbled upon a premise for a franchise now.
>>92470305When has this ever happened in history?
>>92503233Never since there's never been a one world government in our history.
>>92485336Yeah, but why would you do that? They already have orks as the convenient retard enemies who can be casually genocided but still reappear somehow.>>92501253Humanity can do whatever contrived bullshit that the Tau do to have an interstellar empire, or navigators just cope without the astronomicon. Emperor worship continues, Emperor arguably becomes an unironic god on par with the 4 major chaos gods in this scenario too, so the playing field will change too.
>>92470060All real world empires in history have collapsed under internal corruption and that would realistically happen to IoM too.
>Generic 40k AI thread #12325467You know what bros. Normally I would try to reply with a cool thought out post, but.....I'm tired. warhammer was my obsession for years, but now...I just can't bring myself to care. I'm done.Ask in the general anon. Please. I
>>92470305The Imperium does not in any way adhere to fascist ideology and principles. It is a mostly feudal society with a massively powerful church and nobility. Mass politics, futurism and socialism are all regarded as subversive in the Imperium. Stop calling the Imperium a fascist regime, it's something only politically illiterate retards do.
>>92503281And if there was they would find/create a new other. This is at least one of the versions of necron history.
how else the GW will be able to sell more plastics ? idea wise it would lead to civil wars
>>92470060Civil war and we start all over again
>>92470060>what happens The brave bold independent femstodes who don't need no man braap their period juices all over the primarchs and singlehandedly save the Imperium and improve life for everyone because all they even needed was a woman's touch.AND THEN EVERYONE CLAPPED
>>92470060The Imperium would get solo’ed by Tyranids and Necrons by their lonesome so good luck pulling that off
>>92503233Facist states collapsing?All of them.
>>92508359Yeah like the USSR amd Khmer Rouge and Cuba
>>92470206spbp
>>92470060it'll be M72 before any of that even starts to begin
Phil Kelly's all but confirmed tau are the new protagonists because they're "friendly" woke socialists.
>>92470060Hmm, what would happen if a faction basically wins and has nothing to do for a prolonged period of time? Hmmmmmmm. If only there was a previous precedent for this sort of scenerio.
>>92470060Dark King comes true, Emperor becomes a singular Chaos God more terrible than the 4 combined, an eternity of misery & enslavement as the Imperium becomes more & more of a dystopian ouroboros as they keep trying to find new heresy to purge.>>92519550I'm seriously tired of Youtube lorewatchers or culturewar activists trying to retcon Tau as Good Guys when they are explicitly a eugenicist caste hierarchy, inbetween Stalinism & a dystopian Plato's Republic. There's no liberty at all, you're assigned a role until you die based on birth caste, non-Tau are explicitly lower class. Original implications were also that humans are sterilised, that the Vespid are mind controlled slaves, and that the Ethereals are mind-controlling the Tau themselves. This was the original point, the implication that beneath their shiny smiley "Guiz we're the Federation we're so nice guiz" they were as bad as everyone else just wanting to enslave everyone for life rather than kill instantly, a different flavour of grimdark.Over time, roughly around 5-6e, that got bastardised into "Actually we're gonna scale back/ignore the dark implications the Tau are actually the nicest most inclusive good guys & the grimdark part is nobody likes them see its a metaphor for our opinions".People will lie & say "No you missed the point of the Tau" but this was there in the 1st Codex til a small core of political activist consumers nudged things into a different direction.Same as "The Imperium are meant to be a parody of fascism they're not good guys". 1st- they're theocratic feudalists, not all dictatorships are fascist even if fascism is always dictatorial. 2nd- There are NO good guys just your guys. I started right around the release of 3e, that was the whole point of grimdark. I collect Eldar main, Orks 2nd, Tau 3rd. You pick the flavour of bad you most resonate with/find cool. Activists who try to make their political avatar the objectively good guys ruin 40k, whatever their politics.
>>92504654You can rebrand it with as many Transtodes as you want, you're still gonna look like a retard, roman saluting and insisting that it's just all parody of an already appropriated cultural phenomenon
>>92470060everyone is dead i guess?
>>92470305You didn't need the word fascist in there as it applies to all larger human groupings, but you used it for ironically the sake of othering
>>92508359What about the current ones like the us, eu, china, india, russia, etc.?
>>92470305Isn't it amazing how effectively propaganda has been applied to defeat weak minds like that? Imagine believing that the Imperium wouldn't achieve a veritable Platinum Age after securing victory over several entire universes worth of utterly implacable and actively hostile enemies. Someone should read their 'Primer."Othering" is only required by inherently flawed polities such as Communism.*>*: inb4 real communism has never been tried etc
>>92522506Self awareness: 0.0.
>>92471828
>>92519550GW will retcon the IoM (or at least parts of it) to be woke long before they ever let the tau take center stage
>>92508359>>92470305They didn't ' turn on themselves' or 'collapse' , they got dismantled by the three superpowers you dumb moron, there was this big war where a hundred million people died that you might have heard of.
>>92470060The chaos gods of wholesome family values glomps the universe to death.
>>92470060The Imperium as we know it would cease to exist. It would have to. Every single aspect of their society has been funneled towards a never-ending war effort. If the war ends, 90% of the Imperium's logistical network suddenly stops making sense. The whole aparratus as we know it would have to be dismantled, which means a LOT of people who currently are in power would lose it because the source of their power stems directly to their control over the Imperium's military infrastructure. Rebellions and coups would become an inevitability. Whether by peaceful dissolution or violent civil war, the Imperium eats itself and becomes no more.
>>92470060then the Deceiver appears and rickrolls the galaxy
>>92519550The Tau are fascists, not socialists.
>>92485353What does that have to do with Warhammer or the question?
>>92504654It's Dune, it's basically the Imperium from Dune except it wars against aliens and people use guns more. But either the 8th or 9th edition rulebook calls it a fascist regime. Granted, that writer whoever wrote that has no clue what they're talking about.
>>92519550Phil Kelly's Tau are far from that. The SoB story I read from him plus the Farsight books make the Tau seem malicious, but with a nicer face.
>>92520327>they are explicitly a eugenicist caste hierarchy, inbetween Stalinism & a dystopian Plato's Republic.Not inaccurate.>Over time, roughly around 5-6e, that got bastardised into "Actually we're gonna scale back/ignore the dark implications the Tau are actually the nicest most inclusive good guys & the grimdark part is nobody likes them see its a metaphor for our opinions".That's where you are wrong. Those elements were somewhat there, but the designers in Gav Thorpe and Andy Chambers have come out and said that the original intention for the Tau were a lighter, more optimistic faction for newcomers. It's that they retconned them over time by adding those things or emphasizing things that could be darker.Also...>Original implications were also that humans are sterilisedThat is from a non-canon ending in one of the DoW games. There's nothing beyond that ending that ever suggests it as a norm or thing. Especially considering a huge part of Tau space have human majority populations.I'm also an Eldar player before you accuse me of being a Tau simp.
>>92503281That you know of.
>>92503233>tfw the good guys have never won in history
>>92471409That's what the FUCK I'm talkin' about, my brother. After we finish the tutorial, it's straight to the Hive Mind Nexus to give it a raw dicking.
>>92470305Not one fascist regime has ever turned on itself. It's literally never happened. When the Fascists win (Franco, Pinochet) they torture all the communists to death and then retire because there's nothing else to do.In this case, though, because the Imperium is explicitly not Fascist, but rather a vast multi-ethnic empire, the lack of external threats would result in the oppressed elements of that empire departing for new frontiers. Colonies on the fringes of society are typically afforded more autonomy in empires, as a way of releasing the tensions of their inherent contradictions, and this means that the Imperium gets more colonies the more oppressive its central authority is.The end of the empire comes when the colonies, due to being less controlled, become more vital and powerful than the empire's core, at which point you might get civil war as distant colonies break off or stronger, closer ones openly rebel.
>>92470060
>>92470060Emperior revives Horus and he cleanses the Imperium of Guilliman traitors.
>>92470060everything is canon, anon. Whatever you want to heppen already has.
>>92550869Pinochet and Franco aren't even good examples. Those were bog-standard capitalist autocracies. There was no mass movement, no total control over society.
