40k

What would 40k be like if Chaos still existed but there was not the chaos Gods to have their will put forth. There are still demons and the Warp still works the same besides having the ability to have all the similar emotional energies come together to make a God. Not sentient ones at lest.

Well, no Slaneesh so, no Fall of Eldar, so no chance of Humans spreading throughout the galaxy, no Imperium. Basically, Humans will be highly advanced (no Horus Heresy) technologically but just a minor regional power, like the Tau.

You can't really have chaos without the gods, they are the total accumulation of their element. When they are referred to as gods, it's merely followers trying to anthropomorphize their beliefs.
The gods aren't anymore sentient than a raging storm or an earthquake

Pre-fall Eldar were only located in what is currently the Eye of Terror, the Webway, and the exodite worlds (that are few and located on the galactic fringe); and were decided on not interacting with lesser races.
Most of the galaxy would be shared between the orks and the humans, like it is currently.

You'd probably have an Eldar civil war like in WHFB, with Chaos worshippers against followers of the Eldar pantheon.

DAoT mankind still gets fucked by warpstorms, psychic emergence and machine rebellion.
Horus heresy could still be a thing, Lorgar getting corrupted by a daemon prince or another entity.
Probably a couple of "positive" warp entities, since they could be separate instead of being minor aspects of the gods.

It would be considerably cooler imo.

I figure like the Fade in Dragon Age.

Don't know why. Just seems right to me.

>pre-fall Eldar were only located in what is currently Eye of Terror, the webway and the Exodite worlds

Nope, they were fucking sprawling everywere. They were more concentrated on the planets around the eye of terror but the galaxy was THEIR galaxy

>were decided on not interacting with lesser races
Except to move them away like roaches and other undersirables when the massive Eldar empire was at stake. Or like, if they wanted to make a new maiden world.

>DAoT mankind still gets fucked by warpstorms
Those were in part due to Slaanesh stirring in the galactic womb, the warp storm calmed down after it was born. No Slaanesh, no warp storms. (or at least not enough to completely disrupt mankind)

>Probably a couple of positive warp entities
Yeah, like the darn Eldar gods who would still be running around

>The gods aren't anymore sentient than a raging storm or an earthquake
Sounds like Imperial propaganda to me. The sort stuff they tell to Inquisition underlings and the like.

>The gods aren't anymore sentient than a raging storm or an earthquake

An Earthquake doesn't choose to shove a sword the size of a moon into a planet.

Or throw giant brass skulls at select people.

Horus Heresy would be extremely unlikely, because it resulted from direct intervention by the chaos Gods

So you attribute every seemingly fated catastrophe to a god?
Brazen skulls or droughts, the only thing that separates these two are an extra magical variable added to one.
Giving life natural phenomena is a very primitive and dangerous line of thinking.

>Pre-fall Eldar were only located in what is currently the Eye of Terror, the Webway, and the exodite worlds (that are few and located on the galactic fringe)

That's just blatantly false.
The pre-fall Eldar were spread all across the galaxy. How thinly or "thickly" they were spread, is an open question, but there is no questioning the fact that they had a galaxy wide presence. That is evident by the fact that webway gates, eldar ruins and artefacts, ancient eldar worlds, maiden worlds and of course, exodite worlds, etc, can be found all across the galaxy.
The heart of the Eldar empire was located where the Eye of Terror is, but that was by no means the only region the Eldar inhabited. They were the indisputable rulers of the galaxy at that time, and if we go by the Asurmen novel, the Eldar empire faced virtually no threats from any of the other races, as the automated war constructs they had created waged their wars for them.

Stop spreading this bullshit.

Eldar are explicitly stated to have been spread across the galaxy, with the seat of their empire where the Eye is now. There are Maiden Worlds and old Eldar webway gates all over for a reason.

It'd be Eldar v Necrons edition with humans as a minor power.

So, just like the actual tabletop game.

It would just be the Eldar empire curb stomping everything.
Without birth of Slaanesh, the Eldar empire would not have crumbled, thus there wouldn't be the massive power vacuum left in their wake, that allowed the rise of the Imperium, Chaos gaining massive foothold in the galaxy, Orks re-surging in massive numbers, Necrons waking up pretty much unopposed, and Tyranids spreading into the galaxy without concentrated efforts to destroy them.

I thought the entire point of Tzeentch was that he never stopped scheming and influencing the world for his own amusement.

Well I guess. But that is a very literal interpretation, what I'm saying is that Tzeentch is one of those awesome examples of deities exist only when they are needed, i.e.

Person 1:"Shit I think I lost my wallet in that hab block"
Person 2: "Don't sweat it, have an lho-stick"
Person 1 gets cancer, Tzeentch gave him cancer.

>Yeah, like the darn Eldar gods who would still be running around
Except OP explicitely said no gods.

Powerful doesn't necessary mean physically present. Take the US. They are currently the top power on Earth, but they don't hold the majority of the territories on the planet.

About the Asurmen novel: The Fall is stated to have snuffed the soulds of every eldar in a thousand light-year radius. Going by that number, their empire had a diameter of 2000ly.
For the sake of comparison, let's say it's off by an order of magnitude. Pic is how a circle with a diameter of 20 000ly looks compared to the milky way.
In the same novel, it is said that the Eldar empire at his peak contained 10.000 worlds. Even if we exclude maiden worlds, that's pretty low in a galaxy of 400 billions stars. That pretty low compared to the Imperium of a million worlds. Or to the various ork worlds.
(yeah, I know GW can't into numbers, but since there isn't anything else to base yourself on)

Yes, they travelled freely across the whole galaxy. The webway gates, craftworlds and exodite worlds are a testament of that. But it doesn't mean the empire had permanent population settlements outside the now crone worlds.
After all they could have agriworlds with nothing but machines and don't need factories for the most part; why would they want to leave the capital?

If they were spread thorough the entire galaxy, there would be no point to craftsworlds, since you would be able to move goods and people anywhere though the webway.
I think the webway gates were made by explorations missions, ala Wake, so they could go to the place they already visited if the need arised.

>Yes, they travelled freely across the whole galaxy. The webway gates, craftworlds and exodite worlds are a testament of that. But it doesn't mean the empire had permanent population settlements outside the now crone worlds.
I think this is how most view it. They called those worlds their own, but most Eldar were present in what's today the eye of terror. For what they used these worlds is not known. Maybe as vacation, for looking at beautiful plants and for shooting aliens. Maybe machines harvested all the ressources they wanted from this planet automatically. And there should ben need for masses of Eldar being on those planets, when all of them are protected by machines anyway. It would make sense for them to congregate at one place, to do more degenerate stuff to each other.

>About the Asurmen novel

Start posting copypastas.

>So you attribute every seemingly fated catastrophe to a god?

Yes because said catastrophe targeted me and screamed by name. The laughing giant brass skull in backyards keeps screaming praises to Khorne and promising death for me and my family.

They're ruining the neighborhood, I tell you

>Nope, they were fucking sprawling everywere.

Then why aren't there any Eldar worlds outside of the ones in the Eye of Terror and the ones Exodites live on. Exodites who fled the empire and moved far away from it.

The Eldar ruled the galaxy, but you don't have to colonize all of it. They merely subdued others and kept an eye on things.

>Then why aren't there any Eldar worlds outside of the ones in the Eye of Terror
But there are.
There are countless former Eldar worlds that Imperium, and other aliens have conquered, or just settled over the eons, with the surviving Eldar being mostly unable to stop them.

This story features one.
Valedor novel also features one.
There are eldar ruins and maiden worlds all across the galaxy.

>"It had become a holy war, an example to the mon-keigh that you do not anger us, that we are not yet finished with the galaxy. We would scour all mon-keigh existence from Taqamathi, we would bathe in their blood and glory in scattering the bones of their children to the harsh winds. No, there could be no turning back now, Khaine was with us, and we had become the servants of death."

Fucking chills man.

I wish that there were more stories that showed the Eldar absolutely RIPPING AND TEARING trough shit.
That's when they are at their best, as blood thirsty, murder machines, who have become living embodiment of war and carnage, in the name of their alien god.

I begin to understand why you shouldn't tell the Mon'keigh about the wisdom of the Eldar.

Well, without Chaos to fuck up things,
1: the Eldar's empire of degeneration would still be around. Very probably with internal conflict, as society splits in prudish team versus 'let's be ourselves and murderfuck the galaxy'-team. The former very likely to move out to colonies (maiden worlds), decentralizing their presence and trying to build independent nation-states (just like the craftworlds).
2: without warpstorms to fuck up mankind, the Age of Strife would be kinda of improbable. The war against the machines still happening, but without major techno-scientific knowledge loss. The Imperium, if formed and if engaging the Great Crusade, would grind against the Eldar, it's expansionism quickly corroded by massive attrition wars. In short, Humanity would be stronk-as-fug but forever trying to wrestle the galaxy's scepter from the Eldar, i.e second-most-powerful. After millennia, they finally win. ;^)

Other than that, things running as currently.

>as society splits in prudish team versus 'let's be ourselves and murderfuck the galaxy'-team. The former very likely to move out to colonies (maiden worlds), decentralizing their presence and trying to build independent nation-states (just like the craftworlds).

There wouldn't be a split or at least it would be very very small. The Exodites and Craftworlds left because they saw Slaanesh coming. With no Chaos, means no Slaanesh. No Slaanesh means no reason for the exodites and Craftworlds to leave.

Just because their degeneracy won't spawn a god of degeneracy doesn't make it any less degenerate.
The Eldar excess created Slaanesh, not the other way around.

There would still be splits, but exactly how much depends on how many of the craftworld eldar split off specifically because of Slaanesh and how many did it because they didn't like the direction their society was moving in. Which was probably a lot because it really was a shitty direction.

Craftworlders an Exodites fled not only because of Slaanesh, but they also saw their empire's decadence as "madness". They didn't agree with that kind of behavior, and decided moving to somewhere else.

And as Lexicanum states,
>"Eldar society eventually descended into full-scale anarchy as their excess grew past any limit thought possible. Brother fought brother and sadistic killers stalked the streets in pursuit of victims for their vile lusts. No life was spared and in the pursuit of their murderous and perverse pleasures. Eldar feasted upon each other in the streets. As sickening vice took Eldar society, they were unknowingly feeding a powerful psychic entity in the Warp with their dark desires.[1][2] As what would become the doom of the Eldar grew, social order broke down and gangs battled vigilante's as many others fled as refugees.[5]"

This means they weren't all-powerful by time of the Fall. Their society was broken and refugees were growing in number. If Slaanesh weren't born, their empire would still collapse, and they would be indeed splitted, territorially and socially.

The degenerate Eldar are pretty much Dark Eldar, right?

Humans still spread fairly far before the gestation/birth of Slaanesh messed up warp travels, so humanity would still travel quite far. From what I remember there were some clashes between humans and everyone, but manking spread quite far.

I can definitely see a huge Eldar civil war, though. When the craftworlds came to the heartlands, what they saw made them flip out - if this had gone on, the proto-Dark Eldar could have completely gone amok and both gone against most young races and against the more conservative eldar.

This could mean we could have a superpowered version of Dark Eldar in the position that Chaos currently occupies.

Yep, but with fuckhuge numbers.

>The Eldar excess created Slaanesh, not the other way around.

Actually, the sleeping Slaanesh and xir daemons fueled the Eldar decline.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg

Slaanesh just helped them along a little. They didn't actually need him do do what they were doing, although I do vaguely remember reading somewhere that many of the Eldar knew what was about to happen, but either couldn't be bothered to stop it or were looking forward to it.

With the Eldar engaged on a civil war, it's possible that they would go for some treatises/pacts (even as briefest) with the humans, in order to get meatshields allies against their cousins??

Big E would probably try to prevent this. But if he isn't around the Eldar might trick some humans into doing this.

Big E couldn't do shit if even a splinter faction of pre-fall Eldar set their mind on something. Double that if Slaanesh isn't breathing down their necks and they can use their psykery with impunity.

Oh yeah with the Chaos Gods Big E and his Boys are in force at full power. That's a whole lotta power and odds are he would create more.

There would be no Big E.

And psychic powers.
And access to actual Pre-fall Eldar war machines and weapons.

Keep in mind, none of the shit modern eldar, be it Craftworld or Dark Eldar, compares to the war machinery of the pre-fall eldar. That's simply because the fuckers who survived the fall, weren't exactly the ones who possessed that shit. Craftworlders descend from what amount to fucking truckers of the Pre-fall Eldar empire, they sure as hell didn't have the keys to the Eldar Empire WMDs, though they probably were able to loot some stuff before they fled their crumbling empire.
The Dark Eldar on the other hand, descend from a bunch of hedonistic aristocrats, who might have had the authority to command warmachines, but those machines and weapons most likely were not in the webway, and thus didn't survive the Fall.
Dark Eldar combat vehicles are basically god damn pleasure boats with a bunch of heavy weapons bolted onto them.

Wait, without chaos gods, would Emperor even have been created in the first place?
The shamans did that ritual sacrifice thing because warp was getting too hostile for souls, which I always figured to be a result of Chaos gods.

They did that way, way before the first chaos god was formed.

Was nurgle first? Or Khorne? I think Khorne, Atila's gay faggotry happened before the plague hit, so probably Khorne.

Slaanesh came first.

Be'lakor predates the Eldar fall by thousands, if not millions of years (dude has memories of the Eldar first homeworlds), and yet he was elevated by all four of the Chaos Gods and he has been wandering the galaxy ever since.

Khorne first.

Planetstrike had a quote in the same vein that I'm quite fond of:
>"There can be no peace. You have covered our world in filth, and by Khaine you will suffer for it. Every last one of you."
>- Anonymous Eldar transmission,
>the Final Days of Ire

Pic is yet another territorial dispute, though there's no rage on the Eldar's part in this one, just an Autarch gatecrashing a mon-keigh meetup and being a dick.

As per The Lost and the Damned, yes: the shamans' decision to commit mass suicide so they could be collectively reborn as the New Man was explicitly a response to the formation of the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods which, despite all the other intelligent races in the galaxy, were mostly created by primitive humans.

Khorne -> Tzeentch -> Nurgle -> Slaanesh (again going off LatD)

What would the Tau, Necrons, Orks and Nids be like in this scenario?

One thing is there would be a lot more... neutral-y demons running around. It changes the entire feel if fucking up your magic doesn't necessarily summon up a malevolent entity but instead a dead race's personal conception of Espirit de corps

That's typically what happens when you try to insert fantasy characters into a setting with a completely different timeline and origins of things.

Also, Belakor needs to be retconned from 40k. Literally no point in having him there. Half the shit in 40k predates Chaos, nevermind Slaanesh.

In this scenario
Human = Tau

The Warp's tenuous relationship with time is kinda fucked up at the moment. Slaanesh was not the first, but once born at the Fall, became present throughout time. Think Slaanesh as a perverse, sadistic, and deviant Doctor.

Don't respond to it.

Because there's no Big E, and thus no Astronomicon, the nids will just pass our galaxy over.

Orks would just be another minor race, because they wouldn't have the advanced tech of the other races.

Oh right someone mentioned Be'lakor positively in the context of 40k.

Is it ever not Carnac in that scenario? I mean, I sorta like Be'lakor in Fantasy as the Chaos Gods old toy that really tried his best to get on top of things but in 40k he's just a fucking mess of crappy "Just as Planned"s.

That's true. Without the big 4 stepping on anyone smaller than them, your pretty much get every single emotion as different types of daemons. Still not likely to be outright benevolent, but at the very least there would be less trying to immediatly murder you.

>What would 40k be like if Chaos still existed but there was not the chaos Gods
just read Rogue Trader's rulebook, you dip

Even without benevolence they'll be more likely to have motives that can be worked around. An Espirit de corps daemon wants Espirit de corps-y things, and if you put it in the right circumstances that can probably be quite the asset. In some ways the setting could end up almost animistic.

Reading through this thread, I realise that the Horus Heresy books are a fucking mess conflicting a lot of old lore.

Can still work with other daemons.
In that case, bad emotions affecting the Immaterium would result in swarms of negative daemons preying on the shamans instead of the emergence of Chaos gods.

Actually Nurgle predates Khorne.
So it's N>K>T>S

Nids came because of the Pharos now. Although really, as far as I know, it was never stated that the Astronomican was what brought them to the galaxy in the first place. The map in the 5e codex only said it was drawing them towards Terra, with no indication of how long - or more precisely, from how far away - they'd been following it, and that's as much detail as I'm aware exists on the matter.

>Actually Nurgle predates Khorne.
Source? I was using ye olde Realm of Chaos because if people are talking about shamans, that's essentially what they're doing too, and also just because it's a source that I can actually remember. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's been overwritten or contradicted at some point in the following 26 years, but still, citations.

Eldar would be around more. Eventually completely overshadowed my mankind. The latter's tech evolved far faster.

Really boring.

So can he and every other psyker.

Craftworlders and Imperials teaming up to take down the Dark Eldar's super-empire. After thousands of years and near destruction of the two factions, victory is achieved and peace is brought to the Galaxy. Hybridization ensues.

Without Chaos to fuck things up, mankind would have very sleek high tech AND understand them AND innovating. Instead of late medieval Gothic analogs, humanity would look like Star Trek's Federation. We will be the young upstarts against the old and moribound Eldar.

Wrong as fuck.

Honestly if humanity tried to go up against the Eldar it wouldn't end very well for the humans, the Eldar would have access to an unknown amount of Blackstone fortresses and have the ability to crew and activate them.
While alot may be hedonistic thrill seeker's, the Craftworld Eldar made it clear not everyone is. some of them were picked up by the craftworlds because they were still sane enough add the amount of craftworlds that were trying to escape on top of the robot army and sane people they have, suddently there's some defence against other threats.
Now we know that the Eldar are great with precognition so its unlikely that they won't see the human spreading and taking over.

I also remember something about them being able to resurrect, with Eldar committing suicide just to feel what it feels like they stopped being able to do that when slaneesh appeared and eats their souls instantly. And another thing about a Pre-Fall building that was corrupted by chaos, but it essentially allowed you to build anything you can imagine. But I cant remember where those are from.

Whoops, sorry about lack of punctuation.

As has already been stated, the Eye of Terror consumes their central worlds, yes, but you are forgetting that Slaanesh's birth screams extended well beyond that and killed nearly every eldar in the galaxy, well beyond the EoT. Only the exodite worlds and craftworlds at the fringes survived the scream.

A good example showcasing this is a barren world shown in The Path of the Incubus novel. The Imperium and orks keep invading this one dead planet thinking there is some great eldar weapon or relic there because every time they do, huge eldar warhosts show up to kill everyone trying. However, the truth of it is that it was just one of the central hub worlds of the eldar that died from the screams, and because it has the greatest surviving webway portals out of the all galaxy, making it essential for M41 travel, they are forced to defend it every time some race tries claiming it.

>also remember something about them being able to resurrect, with Eldar committing suicide just to feel what it feels like
Haemonculi still do this. It is absolutely hilarious.

And later on...

>Take the US. They are currently the top power on Earth, but they don't hold the majority of the territories on the planet

The US doesn't control the world. The Eldar controlled the galaxy like a zookeeper controls a zoo.

Humans wouldn't be anywhere near the size of the tau empire. Humans were such a small blip on the Eldar's radar no one even knew who they were or cared.

The fact that 99.99% of Eldar were killed after Slaanesh's birth and they somehow still remain a major faction in the galaxy negates your theory. As psychotic as Eldar society became they never would have lost control over the galaxy if it wasn't for Slaanesh. If anything they would have become even harsher masters, hunting various species (including humans) to extinction like they were on a sadistic safari.

I disagree.

The harlequins say that Chaos predates all. They were just hiding in the depths of the Warp.

>The gods aren't anymore sentient than a raging storm or an earthquake

Except they are.

>You'd probably have an Eldar civil war like in WHFB, with Chaos worshippers against followers of the Eldar pantheon.

The Elven civil war in Fantasy had nothing to do with Chaos, it was over who should be Phoenix King.

>Horus heresy could still be a thing, Lorgar getting corrupted by a daemon prince or another entity.

How would there even be Daemon Princes if there were no gods?

>Reading through this thread, I realise that the Horus Heresy books are a fucking mess conflicting a lot of old lore.

In what way? If it's a conflict between the two the HH overrides.

>The Elven civil war in Fantasy had nothing to do with Chaos, it was over who should be Phoenix King.

Actually, it has a lot to to do with Chaos.

-The Chaos Gods corrupted the minds of Elves and made them desire peace rather than war. Also made them fear Malekith and deny him the throne. The Chaos Gods were like the third hidden party during that council
-Malekith resolved to unite the Elves against Chaos after his soul journey into the Realm of Chaos where he saw the doom of all that is
>Slaanesh poisoned Elf society by making the worship of the Elven Goddess of pleasure popular. Thus the pleasure cults were formed and they were the catalyst and tools Malekith and Morathi required in their plans

They might not have been there personallt but the Chaos Gods manipulated the Elves into their civil war.

user, your Eldarbooism is showing.
The zoo analogy is actually quite nice, since you usually have only one keeper living in a small remote house.
>Humans wouldn't be anywhere near the size of the tau empire. Humans were such a small blip on the Eldar's radar no one even knew who they were or cared.
Nope, see pic. For them to settle on Exodite worlds, they need a pretty big empire, because earth isn't exactly on the fringes of the galaxy.

>they never would have lost control over the galaxy
>What is civil war?
It's not like they were frictions in the Empire, right? After all, even discounting all those that dies in the Fall, we already have 5 independant eldar factions (craftworld, exodite, corsair, DEldar, harlequin).

It was a WD article in the 300 range.
IIRC the reason was that Nurgle appeared with the first signs of life, Khorne appeared with beasts, Tzeench with intelligent life, and Slaanesh with the Fall.
There was no mention of humans creating them, it was mostly a galactic effort IIRC.
Lexicanum says so, too.
wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nurgle

>If it's a conflict between the two the HH overrides.
I know.
I just wish it was a bit more respectful of what came before, and didn't create retarded (at least in execution) things like Perpetuals and the Cabal.

>It was a WD article in the 300 range.

As a guy who read them, I doubt it. You using the lexi that doesn't bother to cite it.

Please if you want to make claim, properly cite it. For example, Khorne is said to be the first of the gods, source the Saga of Khorn in the Liber Chaotica

I would if I remembered the exact number and didn't have to go through a hundred issues to find it again.
It makes sense, though. There was death and decay before there was rage and violence.

Honestly I have no interest in lying here, it's such a minor point in the fluff; but I don't force you to believe me.

>It makes sense, though. There was death and decay before there was rage and violence.

The Liber Chaotica puts forth that Rage is the first emotion of sentient life. Thus Khorne is the first of the Gods.

Before a newborn understands concepts like hope and despair, at the moment of his/her birth he/she cries out in rage as the air painfully fills his/her lungs. Covered in blood, all newborns cry out Khorne's song.

Liber chaotica was pretty humanocentric, since it was made for warhammer fantasy in the first place.
There are sentient aliens in 40k that don't fit that bill.