[Carlington]

what do you think would happen to the imperium?

i think that there would be a 2nd massive civil war as men scramble to take power and build there own empires, The Space Marines would be powerless to stop this happening and would have to pick sides and fight for who ever they felt was the right hier to the emperor.... but thats just me

 

[The Boz]

GW would go bankrupt.

 

[Elrathan]

GW would go bankrupt.

...and the skies shall rain fire, and the seas will become as blood. The righteous shall fall before the wicked, and all of Creation shall tremble before the burning standards of Hell!

Edit: On a more serious note, warp travel would be impossible without the emperors psychic beacon , causing the planets of the empire to become isolated. Then Tyranids, Chaos, Tau, Necrons ect will slowly take over imperial territory until humans become a minor race in the galactic war. In the end they will probably be more prosperous under the Tau empire then as an autonomous race.

 

[vacantghost]

yeah, we'd be fucked. The astartes would probably be too lazy to get off their righteous asses to do anything about it.

 

[bane-of-banes]

GW would go bankrupt.

lmao, yeah, no doubt :laugh:

But as for fluff, if the emperor was to really die, yeah, humanity would be fucked in the ass and that would be the end of us as a major player within the collection of galactic races.

 

[Masterthesword]

One thing I can see happening is this.

The imperium of man is desparate because the golden throne is falling apart and they have no way to fix it. There are two races in the Galaxy that have the technological know-how to examine, diagnose, and fix the problem. Tau and Necrons. Obviously the Necrons are not going to be inclined to help Humanity stay alive, and the Imperium would have no reason to trust them. So that leaves the Tau.

I know it would be extremely taboo for a xenos to enter the presence of the Emperor, but I believe that in desperation they would allow a group of Tau to save the emperor. Now, after the fact would Mankind keep whatever promises it made to the Tau? Who knows. I think that the Tau are the only Xenos race that Humans can have a successful alliance with for these reasons.

1. Tau have honor. The Eldar also have great nobility, but they are dying out and they have little to gain by joining Humans. The Imperium already leaves the Craftworlds alone, so it wouldn't be that helpful. They both already have a "cease fire" if you want to call it that, and they have very similar enemies.

2. Tau have ingrained in their minds the greater good. If the Tau joined the Imperium they would work with the humans as long as the humans worked with them.

3. Technology. One word would be enough for this point but I figured I would elaborate. The Imperium doesn't know how it's machines work. They could gain much by regaining that knowledge. The Tau on the other hand could learn more of the mass production that the Imperium conducts.

That's my 2 cents. I'm off now.

 

[ZepherZealot257]

I remember reading somewhere (possibly lexicanum) that a sect of the illuminati believe that half of the emperor's soul is laying dormant in the warp and when his other hald dies, it will join with the other half and the Emperor would become an actual God?

:victory:

 

[Malak Falco]

And then there's the raging debate on if it's the Emperor, or if that soul ends up being \ripped to shreds to fuel the ascention of the Carrion Lord that is the twisted version of the emperor that humanity worships.

Having the actual Emperor as a Warp God would kick ninteen BILLION kinds of awesome since I'm sure his first act would be to EAT the Lords of Terra for doing a shoddy job in his absense (that htey possibly engineered in the first place to take total control.)

If it were the Carrion Lord to emerge... for some reason my thought is that would be horribly Bad... think a blending of Khorne and Tzunpronouncable.

 

[LukeValantine]

You really know what the star child/carrion lord would be like, going by GW's tendencies he would probably be one of the following.

1) A greater warp entity compleatly seperated from the other chaos gods to weak to defeat them, but strong enough to allow warp travel and essist in the comming invasion by chaos forces, but to weak to sway the battle compleatly against their enemies (Hence restablishing a stailmate with imperial forces seeming to benifit from mystical assistance, but much weakend from the attempted death blow by their enemies.). Still like their birth of any magor warp eneity expect earth to be destroyed by the surge of energy caused by his assenccion.

2. He dies, the imperium is shatered yet by some miracle the emperors last sacrifies is to sacrifice what remains of his soul to make a safe beacon in the warp as a way to help what remains after the imperium to defend itself from the coming storm.

3) Almost every imperial world is burnt to ash... I know people find this the most possible occurrence, but honestly if it was that grim it would never be allowed to come because the removal of the imperium of man (Normal Humans) would kill a lot of peoples interest in warhammer 40000.

 

[Malak Falco]

I like option 1 for several reasons.

Most obviously the Emperor becomes active and can actually govern as opposed to being stuck on the throne wondering when they're going to add a fresh roll of paper.

Easy way of explaining why his sudden direct guidance doesn't turn the whole of humanity into uberawesomsoldiers, especially if he believes an alliance, albeit one that leaves the imperium autonomous rather than being absorbed into the Tau's empire, is that humanity splinters further. Not everyone believes the Emperor's 'rebirth' istrue and that it is instead some form of trick by the Ruinous Powers to rally to them, or others not wanting to give up personal power and are short sighted enough to feel that they would be better off making their own fiefdom. Plus the powers of chaos would start moving against the Emperor in a more direct manner since... well... he had 'em on the ropes LAST time he came out to play.

So we get the best of everything. Hope that the imperium can actually stop being backassward while at the same time keeping everything more or less balanced as compared to everything else. So sure humanity has it's emperor back... but now it's been made weaker by the splintering and upswing in Chaos activity.


...not to mention the idea of the void dragon waking up on mars or something else happening as a side effect of the wash of warp energies.

 

[Doelago]

what do you think would happen to the imperium

It would be, along with you, complety fucked up?

 

[SnoopyChicken]

I dont get why he cant reincarnate? He would surely be strong enough to survive in the warp long enough to do it?

I remember reading it took 18 or so years for the emperors previous memories to start coming back after he was reborn as the emperor first time around? If so he could give imperial systems a few years to stockpile supplies and make ready for no warp travel for a few decades, then die, reincarnate, and be back before 20 years fit and strong again.

 

[Malak Falco]

Nah. You have to remember Chaos would probably sense the great beacon going out so would go all swarm happy on the now splintered imperium. Plus no telling how long it would take for him to regain his power (if he were as niegh unstoppable as he was right before him and horous fought then there wouldn't have been that instance of Horous saving him from that ork sometime before then.)

Plus if anyone actually communicated with him that would mean he would've stil lbeen able to lead and direct rather than being a corpse with its soul stuck in the warp.

Then again the Thorians could be right and he's been busy directing mortals around and or affecting chance... which would go a long way to explaining why Caiphus Cain had managed to get in even worse trouble at every turn while trying to flee while at the same time always getting that lucky break that he could wedge his talents/knowledge/skill into to come out on top.

 

[BlackGuard]

Just to make a small point -- Humanity travelled the stars before the rise of the Emperor ... and even with the Emperor amongst them, Humanity travelled through the warp. If I'm not mistaken, the Astronomican, prior to the Emperor's supposed 'godhood', was made up of somewhere along the lines of 10,000 psykers.

Should the Emperor die -- my first thought would be that the High Lords would know that the Astronomican works irregardless of the Emperor's life -- therefore no one would effectively realize it, save probably a huge increase in rogue psykers and prophets claiming his death.

Of coarse this also begs the question of why Astropaths are soul-binded to the Emperor, and how that actually works since no book to my knowledge has ever really elaborated upon it and no character has every truly seen it with their own eyes.

I could be mistaken, but assuming I'm right, the Imperium would never know the Emperor died and the High Lords would just continue to play along -- each new member being more strictly chosen from now on to keep the secret.

Of coarse Abaddon would know and he'd be pissed that the Imperium just didn't die instantly.

 

[Malak Falco]

Abbadon needs a reason to be pissed?


...you know... that actually might explain the currrent state of affairs nicely. Emperor already dead and the High Lords keeping things hush hush. Of course the 'soul bindng' would have to be explained, but considering how long the Throne has been in contact with the emperor it's bound to leave imprints, which might explain things.


I always though the soul binding allowed for astropaths to reach eachother easier and over longer distances than their own innate power would account for as well as provide a bit of an added defense against daemonic possession.

 

[Samu3]

.....Gak!
Im Trying to remember were I heard it from some book from a while ago saying/hinting that some members of the Inquisition believe they know how to bring the Emperor back but fear that the event would cause a breakdown in Warp Travel and lead to The Imperiums Demise.
Dumbass'es :ireful2:

 

[Malak Falco]

Probably the 'let's kill him so his soul is reunited in the warp and becomes a Warp God' theorum.

 

[redbrain]

Hi i am new to this forum but i see so many comments about what if the emporer died etc. Some say GW would go bankrupt and i dont see why. Whats to stop BL from advancing the Fluff for people who care about it and not touching the rule book? I for one dont play table top i just like painting and reading the books. I dont see why advancing the story has to suddenly change the rules and really its only the fluff that would change its not as if a bolter suddenly does less dmg or somthing.

But then again i guess space marines would start to be super expensive points wise to fit the fluff in a rule book. But why not just keep the book as is or something. Or make him resurected and its now w41k lol. although it doesn't have the same ring to it...

 

[Bane_of_Kings]

I remember reading somewhere (possibly lexicanum) that a sect of the illuminati believe that half of the emperor's soul is laying dormant in the warp and when his other hald dies, it will join with the other half and the Emperor would become an actual God?

:victory:

I don't mean to be rude, but the Illuminati are actually, supossedly a secret society in Earth in the present, not in the 41st Mellenium.

Linky.


Now, back on topic, I reckon the Imperium's best bet would be to join the Tau for reasons already stated. However, a few Space Marine Chapters (I'm thinking Space Wolves, Black Templars), would probably never ally with an xenos race.

I didn't state the Ultramarines, because they probably would join the Tau as they've worked with them in the past, and I reckon all of the UM's descendants would follow suit, and so forth.

 

[Arkeoptrix]

He would become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. Oh wait, wrong science fiction universe...