WH40k without the Chaos Gods

The Imperium is the good guy though. Story is told from the imperial perspective, Ave Imperator.

I actually agree. Though you could keep demons as incomprehensible beings that would sometime pop out and rape your ass if you poke the warp wrong. Just another catastrophe than can happen with psykers.

Actually, just making the 4 chaos gods just big demons among others of their kinds would be enough for me but have your fun user.

If the chaos gods were nerfed down to unsharded c'tan or pre fall eldar God strength instead of literally unstoppable that would be a massive improvement.

Alright so Magnus, Russ, and Sanguinus fall because they fear a purge of their defective sons once the campaign is done. Who else could join them. Angron makes sense as well, he and his legion are also defective. There any other fucked up legions i'm forgetting?

guys lets actually do this, like hektor heresy/nobledark alternate timelines shit old school Veeky Forums autism orgy.

Any idea what we'd call it, and how much we'd diverge?

holy shit please not another thing for me to mirror and edit on 1d4

but I'm actually secretly super proud of my sweet precious nobledark child being there as one of *those* 40k AU timelines

Isant 40k a setting?

It's the general human collective. It's by default the "good" faction for that alone. Us vs. them, in blunt terms.

they may be genocidal catholic space nazis, but by god they're OUR genocidal catholic space nazis!

Fear the Mutant: a tale of Heresy. The heretic chapters get consumed by the flaws in their geneseed. Wulfen, Death company, mutated abominations and sorcerers, and really really angry magic roid guys everywhere. Also, more focus on mutants in 40k in this alt. I mean they are there, but other than "there are muties under the hives and they are bad" we don't really see them and they don't really have to much effect. Lets change that. Lets make the Muties an important part of the setting. Especially if we are pulling away from the demonic aspect of the warp, lets look at its ability to warp flesh and change bone and blood. Heretical mutie chapters working with underhiver mutants and scavies to lead uprisings against the "pure" imperial forces

It would be Warhammer: Rouge Trader, the first edition of the game

Read it.

Basically since in this time line only four of the legions went rogue they aren't as numerous, and since they don't have an eye to go hide in, they have to be careful. Their plan was a decapitating strike to kill the emperor in secret. They were only partially successful. They did manage to kill the Emperor, but Sanguinus died (kicking off black rage and exacerbating the problem), and they got caught by the others. So they had to flee. Now they hide on the edges of space and secretly infiltrate the Imperium to lead uprisings, disrupt supply lines, and assassinate key figures. They can't stand up to them in a straight fight but the Imperium is such an inefficient lumbering behemoth of bureaucracy they avoid their attempts to squash them and slowly wear away at them.

>Hello Veeky Forums. I found myself wondering how would be the setting of Wh40k without the Ruinous Powers of Chaos,
My gut reaction was xenos-free, but without the threat of the chaos gods, the shamans never would have formed the Emperor.

The setting would be unrecognizable.

Holy crap he is right. We didn't consider that. darn, and i was having fun with imagining my renegade mutie chapters.

I think lets try to force a lot of analogues to not abandon what we love, but I would say lets diverge a lot (sorry I can't quantify it). I would think like nobledark we have a lot of similarities and yet crazy differences, ala Empy being alive or dying some other way or some other time. Perhaps best way is lets re-do the heresy and then let everything else evolve organically from its implications?

Necron, tyrannid and orks could all be emphasized more as earlier threats to humanity (maybe even necrons having a hand in the heresy). That being said, i think even c'tan have to be nerfed a touch or re-imagined without chaos as a philosophical opponent.

No clue for name. Nodaemon 40k.

> I love starcraft

Lawful Grimdark?

hahaha i made an alignment joke i'm funny now guys someone please love me

Iron men are still alive, shamans fear that some will link with necron, thus they form the emperor?

...

Nah, Men of Iron are DaoT creations; Emps is back in 8000BCish.

How about, just so even the setting itself starts off with "you don't need Chaos to have a Bad Time", the shamans originally fucked around with the warp bc they just wanted power and immortality and all that - except that those who couldn't keep control of it got far greater powers but went mad (but weren't necessarily posessed by something else, fine distinction). Eventually, whole ritual suicide thing was done so that all the wisdom'd be compiled and reborn into a Responsible Adult who could keep a handle on psyker alchemists and off them if necessary

what with the genestealer cults, you're pretty right.

>Necron, tyrannid and orks could all be emphasized more as earlier threats

No. They should still be serious, and present threats. Retroactive defeats and nerfs are ridiculous.

>i think even c'tan have to be nerfed a touch

As powerful as the Emperor.

So, in this scenario, what of the Eldar? Maybe the Eye of Terror still exists. Except...that's just where the Eldar live. They're not dying of Slaanesh...they've basically just got the Warp equivalent of Necrontyr's Disease. That's what they've had from Day 1. Thus, Ynnead would be Their One Hope. A God that rules in the Warp and protects them from the hellishness. Which is also why the mutant/psyker legions turned. They turned to Ynnead, or at least the idea of Ynnead. Because the Emperor cannot provide that. He's too weak. The 'Eldar Empire' still exists. It's just not a place non-psykers and mutants can spend more than 5 seconds in without exploding into...something.

No Choas= No Emps= shamans still alive

therefore humanity was ruled and guided through the ages by a oligarchy of super powerful immortal reincarnating beings, who guided their less developed kin as their shepherds. While they form a council, a unitary body, each acts as the administrator for an area/population of humanity. Each develop their own unique servants to help them manage their portion of humanity. Disagreements are rare, they've all been around and known each other for hundreds of thousands of years. Generally speaking humanity is united. What are the logical repercutions and consequences of this Veeky Forums. How would this different model of humanity have shaped the galaxy. OH SNAP no chaos means no slaanesh, means no fall of the Eldar. Eldar could potentially still be the galactic superpower when humanity begins to reach for the stars.

Eye of terror is still a Warp dingleberry, but it was just because of Eldar experimentation with it? Again, hubrishubrishubris

Also...maybe the C'tan were sharded in their war against the Eldar gods. Necrons are trying to keep the Eldar OUT of Reality. Killing them off is the ideal, but creating anti-warp shit is the main goal. Bringing back the C'tan is part of this. Mortarian &/or Perturabo fell to the C'tan as well. They were made blanks, maybe? As the last proof of loyalty and devotion.

No. Just because of Eldar existing there. Remember: they're, to a man, psykers. Imagine they all lived in the same general place for a million years. They likely adapted to ONLY being able to live there after a time. Which made the problems worse. And worse. And worse. x60, 000, 000. It gradually expands, and takes reality with it.

So what your saying is Eldar became the inhabitants of the warp. Eldar=not!demons in that demons are the denizens of the warp and cannot exist long on the material plane without some manner of anchor or aid. Basically Eldar would be warp beings, but they are only arrogant cunts who look down on you, rather than genocidal disease spreading rapist cunts who trick you into helping them.

>So what your saying is Eldar became the inhabitants of the warp.

They were born psykers and are the logical conclusion of what happens when EVERYBODY in a civilization is a psyker in this AU. It goes badly. Reality rips apart and everyone gets mutated. They got made into Warp denizens, kinda, just by existing near each other for too long. They're also not just arrogant, an Eldar warband would wreack havoc on the local populace just by being near. They'd cause crazy mutations and head explosions and whatnot. They just couldn't leave the area of the EoT, though. If you enter the Warp, you're theirs. IF not, you're safe. 100%, safe. The closer you get to the EoT, though...

Also, the EoT is slowly expanding. They also can't really be killed because they just reincarnate in the Warp. No Webway. They can't even use it, really. They can only live in the EoT & Warp. They can't leave it due to hyper-adaptation. With Ynnead, the Warp, EoT & realspace would be one, though.

All the other arcane and crazy xenos shit out there or Dark Age of Tech horrors taking up the slack.

Empire would have never been able to get off the ground as while decadent the eldar empire would still be very much alive and have tech that could crush anyone who dared stand in opposition to their rule of the galaxy

But what is saying is that they ascended? I think? To the point that they're just beings of sheer warpstuff; effectively daemons but made from keikaku instead of edge.

>Perturabo becoming a blank to forget his home planet.

The feels...

I feel like they're a bit similar to daemons though.

If we go by my Eldar idea, they'd be very well confined to the EoT & Warp. So while they have god-tech, they'd have no reason or ability to use it against people outside their territory.

It's not really an ascent. Also, it wasn't planned. It just happened over millions of years of living together and ALL being psykers.

Imagine if human history was 100% the same, except we all naturally mutated each other and ripped reality apart just by existing together in cities and shit. Then imagine that happening over millions of years, on planetary scales. It was like climate change but even slower and didn't quite affect them so badly immediately.

You guys are bad at this.
Without Chaos, the original human Empire wouldn't have ceased to exist, due to the warp Storm caused by Slaanesh never cutting off humanity from one another.
The Eldar would be just fat slobs as they were never punished for their excessive ways.
The Tyranids would never have come, as they would never have been attracted by the golden throne.
The Tau would probs still be savages depending on what the ethereals are.
We are pretty much looking at Orks Verse Humans in my opinion.

Thank you for that very helpful and constructive post. I'm glad to see your doing your part to make the board a better place.

I would direct your attention first to
Where the idea that the original human government would still be there is brought up, though there has not been time to discuss it in length. Mayhaps you have something to add?

Your concept for the Eldar is certainly a possibility, but seeing as this whole idea is based on the warp behaving differently there is nothing to say that

could not be, and it seems more interesting that fat hedonistic fucks. Which is not to say there would not be hedonistic fucks among them. There would be.

Your point about the Nids is entirely valid.

Since Tau are not dependant on the warp, irregardless of whatever is going on there i think they would probably be in more or less the same boat, unless everything was tzeench, in which case you are probably correct and they are a non factor.

Necrons would still be Relevant.

Man V Ork was pretty much the Crusades, and its how it all started. I have no objections to this. I like the Boyz. It'd be nice if they were more relevant.

>Man V Ork was pretty much the Crusades
m-muh mudslimes

>Without Chaos, the original human Empire wouldn't have ceased to exist, due to the warp Storm caused by Slaanesh never cutting off humanity from one another.
Original human empire grows larger and larger while the Eldar are in the final stages of transitioning into something else. Humans go through a singularity, build AIs that proceed to go through x amounts of singularities themselves but stay more or less loyal to humanity. At this point, no human can fully or even partially understand the tech that surrounds them. Shit might as well be magic to them. Cue AIs messing too much with the warp all the while the Eldar are doing the same(some to undo what's being done to them and others to expand the warp's presence on this side). Everything goes fubar at the same time. AIs all go nuts, the warp goes nuts, Eldar space goes super nuts.

>The Tyranids would never have come, as they would never have been attracted by the golden throne.
Simple, we're on their migratory path.

sorry typo meant so say Crusade, as in the Emperor's Great Crusade. They fought a lot of orks, at least going off the novels i read. I won't pretend to have read all of them, but the ones i did orks came up a lot.

Humans already had an AI revolt, that's why the Emperor banned them.

I feel like Fulgrim could fit in as well. Being so obsessed with becoming the perfect legion he goes a bit bonkers, realises that his legion will never be perfect in the eyes of Emps, becomes fearful that his legion would be purged for not being perfect. Might be a bit of a stretch though.

Eh i could see it. He was always pretty neurotic, i guess in this case he just goes crazy with his lust for perfection again that's all. Though i think at this point the mutie thing is seperate from the no chaos gods thing, seeing as its pretty well agreed there would be no emps, and therefor no primarchs.

I like the idea that all Eldar would be dark eldar because there was no Slanesh to destroy them.

Oh sorry I didn't realise we were just going to twist all the facts to the point of complete fiction.
Carry On.

Worse, they'd be psychic, eternally respawning Dark Eldar.

sorry, to clarify, I meant they were encountered earlier in the history of mankind, and thus the totalitarian society was created to respond to such a threat.

Ok guys, i think this obsession with the shamans needing chaos explicitly to form the emperor is bordering on the autistic.

Can't we contrive of an alternate reason as to why theu make the god emperor? Something they forsee or encounter (i like the c'tan suggestion)?

this is a made up re-imagining of made up future history, its ok if he remakes parts of it.

Without the Chaos GODS or without CHAOS? Because there's a different answer both ways.

If it's without CHAOS as a whole, then the Necrotyr conquer everything and... well... win well before humanity gets written technology.

If it's without the Chaos GODS, then the Enslaver plague is probably a much bigger deal, because the birth of Slaanesh doesn't stop it, and the warp-threat has a much more mind-controller-ey, orderly, OBEY feel too it. Granted, I think in the timeline, this is still after The Emperor was created, so he probably protects Earth, and still tries to create a human society, but it's one built to withstand the onslaught of constant Enslaver threat instead of constant Chaos-God threat.

You know there are no facts, right? The whole thing is fiction. Has been the whole time.

There's just a few loud autists trying to approach this like they're being graded for accuracy in predicting actual changes, and not adapting a setting.

Read OP, make your own thread you shitlord

War in Heaven can still make the warp a chaotic nightmare realm of various horrors, only they don't coalesce into four massive villain sues.

>villain sues.

Eat a dick.

They're immortal, unstoppable supreme entities that are certain to win in the end.
The fuck else would they be?

Yahweh.

>implying YHWH is not also a villain sue

OP here, and holy Emperor, when I went to sleep this thread was at six replies and I was almost sure it was going into oblivion! So thank you all for participating and for all the input.

Here are a few ideas:

>Why would the Shamans create the Emperor?
I was thinking perhaps the Shamans have gained insight of the enormity and unpredictability of the galaxy around them. They have visions of the War in Heaven, they know of the risk posed by Eldar, maybe they even perceive the infinitely distant echoes of the Tyranid Hive Mind from universes away. Not to mention the perils that space poses to a civilization restrained to only one planet - one wrong asteroid or one supernova too close, and here goes human civilization. So they decided to unite in something that would be greater than just the sum of their might, someone powerful enough to shield Humanity in its infancy and guide it to the stars when it would become adult.
One user suggested that some Shamans themselves might have succumbed to Warp madness, which is a good idea as well - the Shamans realize their own fragility and that only united (literally) they can endure, not to mention overcome the risk of individualism or infighting, and make humanity endure as well.

>What happened to the Eldar without Slaanesh?
Being a civilization plagued by 'Warp sickness' as you have suggested sounds pretty great. Perhaps now the Wraithbone and soulstones serve to keep them 'stable', preventing them from mutating in horrible ways?
In addition, let's just consider decadence to the point of a galaxy-wide cultural ennui. Combined with warp sickness, they might just have all but lost their ability to procreate, and attempts to artificially create 'children' are met with horrible mutant spawn. They slowly fade into literal oblivion. I can imagine a whole craftworld sinking so deep into existential depression that, given their psychic powers and consequent instability, they eventually just vanish in the Warp.

(cont'd)
The idea that the Eldar spawn the Eye of Terror works wonderfully as well. Maybe their whole affinity with the Warp comes from both a natural disposition and from constant dabbling in it. Which would mean...
>The Emperor knows exactly what could happen if humanity began to rely on warp technology and 'space magic' too much, since he basically witnessed the Fall of the Eldar
>One of the traitor Primarch's motives might be that they believe they can do better than the Eldar and use the Warp to go beyond singulariy and to transhumanism. Hybris, again.

>What happened to the Necrontyr?
Considering the scope of the War in Heaven, I'd say it forced them to go into slumber even without the threat of Chaos. Eventually they realize that the war has devastated the galaxy to a point where substaining it any longer would consume much more than they can possibly harvest. So they have to wait until it's ripe again.

>About the traitor legions
The idea that defective chapters betray out of 'fear' of what could become of them is great, but it doesn't have to be the only reason for betrayal. Other Primarchs may simply lust for power and/or believe that the Emperor's views on the Warp are just too restrictive, while they want to use it to bring humanity to immense power. Some might just feel emphaty for their 'defective' brothers, or growing disdain for Emp's cryptic ways and lack of trust, or just for his vision for humanity or how tyrannical his Empire is becoming.

An idea: what if the shamans of old did create the Emperor for the sake of keeping human psykers in line, as another user suggested, but once Big E is dead psykers go back to making mankind fall into a civil war for the benefit of power hungry psychic assholes. I'd think such a setting would be much less religious to begin with so why not redo the whole reason for why the Imperium us falling into decadence following the Heresy.

Also, the daemons should be a lot different, if there are no gods to channel them. There's potential for brainstorming.

Imperium becomes slightly less sympathetic.

Still, their main opponents would be extra-smug (No slaaneesh) Eldar, Orks (Who are Orks) and Nids (All devouring)

>Imperium becomes slightly less sympathetic.
Not entirely a bad thing.
Most importantly, the whole conflict would move from "Necessary Evil Supernazi Regime /VS/ Bonkers Space Satanists from Rapehell" to an actual galactic civil war between horribly flawed and horribly human sides.

>at least the authors would have to actually think of stories with motivations a bit more interesting that Chaos Ex Machina

You see, that occaisionally does happen in 40k, but the plot and setting is far more overtaken by space marine-wankfests and I don't think this setting alteration does anything to change the issue. Even Veeky Forums homebrew AU's (Hektor Heresy, Nobledark etc.) are so obsessively focused on them it all kinda seems like a bunch of cosmetic alterations to the lore.

I'd rather get more 40k fiction about stuff outside of the space marines (minor xenos like the Dolrathi or Enslavers, or the dozens of minor human empires/pirate fleets scattered throughout the galaxy). Feels like a lot of untapped potential elsewhere that often fails to see any use.

I feel you on this, user. Also more focus on IG and PDF as well, considering the Space Marines are just one drop in the endless sea of bodies thrown in the fray.

Not canon.

They're tragic heroes, they had high hopes and ambitions but the galaxy they live in is fucking hell. A whole other mirror dimension that wants to fuck you over eternally forever and ever. Vastly technologically and physically superior psychic space elves that think youre dirt. Trillions of war loving space gorillas that will gladly organise system wide invasions just to cave in some skulls. Among many many other things, humans have to make horrific and dark choices to simply keep the species alive. They aren't good people but in the setting they are the closest to "good guys" (except probably tau)

>Chaos Ex Machina

We still take the idea of the primarchs being dispersed after their creation, arent we? Not by the will of the chaos gods, just because warp bollocks. I'd take then the idea of Alpharius crashing in some alien planet (or not) learning their ways (or not). Any way, his motivation to betray the Emperor would be that he thinks his vision of humanity is wrong, and the hate to the alien in the imperium. He would be basically a tolerant guy pissed off by the racism and fascism of the imperium. Or not.

>because the birth of Slaanesh doesn't stop it
Pretty sure the birth of slaanesh happened 10k years ago, while the enslaver plague happened 65 million years ago

Yeah, the Primarchs scattering can be preserved. Maybe they all have an inherent psychic might (even those who aren't properly psykers) so great that being all present in one place causes some critical mass effect and, basically, they briefly disappear in the Warp to reappear somewhere else in the cosmos. When they mature they gain enough subconscious control of their power through their enormous force of will and personality that there's no danger of something similar happening again even if they get too close.

I like how it does not matter how much you alter the rules of 40k universe, orks always remain the same. Truly stubborn race dat is.

so demon would be more like warp fauna, like warp spider, void whales and psyneuchein. Rather than christian demon, they would be then sentient warp alien.
I like it. With all the chaos wankery that's going on lately it needs a good ol'nerf

Well Angron is an obvious choice. Even without Khorne he hated the Emperor's shit and would jump ship the first chance he got to murder him. The Iron Warriors are also still in the cards - they got all the shit jobs for decades and they're fucking tired of it.

I don't get it...without Chaos Gods, so without Slaanesh, don't you just get a depraved Eldar Empire ruling the galaxy till the nids come?

Without Slaanesh to start the Fall the Eldar will remain the galactic hegemon till the nids come. The only other people who can challenge them, Necrontyr, are unlikely to survive when the Eldar as an Empire can exterminate them if the first tombs start awakening piecemeal.

(More realistically the Silent King will probably be smart enough not to start awakening them as early since the Eldar are in a better position to attack them if they awaken piecemeal).

Additionally didn't the Emperor need the Chaos Gods on Molech in order to gain the power to make Primarchs and the like?

So, keep the Warp as a reflections of the minds of all sapient species, except remove the gods and all sources of focused, intelligent intent?

Maybe make it fundamentally more difficult for psykers to manipulate, with inexperienced psykers often losing control,causing violent and hideous deformations in reality as the warp spills into the Materium through them?

...

Accelerate/exaggerate Tyranid threat...

More Tyranid hive fleets show up sooner?

Radically stronger, tougher, larger Tyranid bioforms start showing up?

Turns out the Tyranids are running from something, it emerges from the void?

...

Reinvent the Necrons into a more active threat?

Rein back the space Egyptian motif so it isn't so on the nose?

Throw out the C'tan or replace the source of their strangeness and ambiguity by dropping the deification/mysticism aspect of the C'tan and playing up the incomprehensibly complex ancient alien AI angle? (Even with Chaos gone, too many fucking 'gods')

Get some competent writers to give them some more purpose and direction, something interesting but appropriately somber?

What happens is
Dark Eldar become the Imperium
Necrons become Chaos
Imperium become Tau
Tau become Squats

This would be an interesting 40k lore rewrite á la Imperium Asunder/Hektor Heresy. Though with less selfinsertfagging and mary sues. Keep all the existing characters, just rewrite them into the new setting and give them new motivations.

Speaking of which, what would happen to the Traitor Legions? Would Kharn still be a plantary-scale homicidal maniac? What would be the reason for that if there is no Khorne?

Phew, someone else knows.

I was thinking, what if the Emperor was BTFO on Ullanor? The Crusade still went on, but that Ork, wasn't just an Ork or even a crazy powerful Ork but like...you know. What The Beast or Ghaz is supposed to be fluffwise. He was The Ork. And when the Emperor fought him, he was really that fucking tough. He didn't quite lose, but he really did need Sanguinius' help. This lays the seed for Sanguinius & Lorgar to not quite believe so strongly in E's overwhelming might/godhood.

Then Lorgar makes a pilgrimage, of some sort, because he hears of 'a god.' E insists there are no Gods, but Lorgar MUST KNOW. He needs to know that there is nothing greater. So he travels and, somehow, convinces the Eldar to show him, well, their God. Something like that. Then after seeing the vastness of the embryonic Ynnead in the Warp, he starts preaching about it on Human worlds. Then you get the Ultramarine/Word Bearers fight and so on.

Then Big E, maybe, decides to play God.

I do like the idea of Lorgar's pilgrimage

Kharn was actually a pretty intelligent and coherent guy pre-heresy. If he didn't fall to Khorne I imagine he'd likely take over Angron's place if the Siege of Terra still plays out. Hell, maybe he'd rally the other legions together after and lead them the way Abaddon does now, only with less spikes.

Bump

What about all those functioning advanced STCs? Super advanced human coloneys spanning millions of worlds all with the arsenel of the space marines.

Scattered, damaged or destroyed by the AI uprising or the following inability to maintain them

>Not OP but there would still be heretics
lolno. Without the warp they'd have been skullfucked out of existance by the loyalists. Even with the power of 4 daemonic gods they got crammed back into the asshole of the galaxy.

Well I mean none of what we are talking about really effects them too much. Chaos or no chaos the war in heaven happened, the krork got made, and the orks will go right on being orky. It's not that they are resistant so much as that they are irrelevant to what we are discussing.

...that actually makes sense.

If by "heretic" we mean "Traitor legions", I'd say they'd be definitely still present. We have Sanguinius instead of Horus to mortally wound big E (pumped by Warp power); we can still assume that about one half of the Space Marine legions follow the betrayal and manage to bring non-SM armies with them, so the fight is 'even'; still, the Traitors are repelled, but for the following ten thousand years it is still civil war. Traitors have less qualms about using the Warp and endangering planets this way, and as the Imperium becomes more and more oppressive, it will become easier for entire star systems to go rogue and join the Traitors.

If chaos is no longer what it is, what do we do with the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus, other than just get rid of them?

I find it pretty bland, user. I'm thinking about something involving Omegon too. What if the one who got lost was Omegon, and the warp mutated him? Alpharius would have been the face of his legion as normal, but because Omegon would be an horror show. Maybe to Magnus level or more. When the Heresy start, Alpharius join the traitors with his brother. Or don't. Alpharius, being the normal twin, remaining loyal to the emperor, and Omegon joining the rebellion.