Would the Imperium of Man survive if the Primarchs and Space Marines never existed?
The way I see it, while they are a very powerful force for humanity, they also cause a lot of problems for humanity as well, with the Horus Heresy probably being the biggest thing they were involved with.
IMO I'd say the Imperium would be stronger without them. In the sense that without Horus the emperor would still be alive and active.
Now the expansion speed would be barely a fraction of what it currently is and I'd imagine xenos empires would be a major threat (think the Tau, but thousands of them) but the lack of an organized force of magical supersoldiers from hell bent on destroying mankind would kind of balance that out.
Seriously, if the IG and the tempestus scions got all the resources that normally go to SM chapters they'd be far more competent. Vulnerable to chaos corruption, though.
Caveat: the Imperium would probably be less than half the current size.
Personally I think that would be better for humanity. It's not like they're short on manpower or space.
Also without a dedicated xenocidal Ethnic Cleansing Inc. force like the SM legions humanity might actually be able to make lasting alliances with xenos that are extinct in the canon timeline.
>If Spess Muhreenz didn't exist, Chaos would just be nice and leave everyone alone u gaiz
Are you retarded?
Firstly, tagged the wrong post. Secondly, already acknowledged the prospect of imperial troops falling to chaos.
Thirdly, Horus defeated the emperor because Big E held back out of love for his favourite son (iirc). What random posessed catachan or daemon prince or Deldar would Emps not go all-out against?
>Conveniently forgetting Orks
>Conveniently forgetting that during the Long Night, xenos took advantaged of Humanity and enslaved entire systems.
>Conveniently forgetting that Mars & Luna were held by humans with more advanced tech than Terra and more intent on holding on what they have instead of unifying Humanity
Pretty sure it was established that shit wouldn't be easy and there would be a LOT of differences.
The main noteworthy thing is that unless Khaine himself decided to stop on Terra (which is possible) it's likely the Emperor would be alive.
Meaning the imperial cult would be suppressed to a degree. Meaning projects like "human webway" that relied on space jesus might not have failed.
40k without space marines or primarchs is essentially 40k without the Horus Heresy or the Imperial Cult. It's such a massive difference it may as well be a new setting.
They'd need something to fill the gap, and you'd just end up with not-Primarchs and their not-legions.
perhaps something like Star Trek
instead of the power being consolidated in Terra, human worlds are self governing and world work together to maintain peace or eliminate threats against humanity
The Emperor needed the primarchs for the Imperium, though, specifically Magnus, so that he could power the golden throne. Even in a reality without space marines he needs some sort of suped up psyker to do that
There was a conversation about this in a HH thread a while back, where the idea was that the Crusade went just the same as it did without the Astsrtes as it did with the Adtsrtes up until Ullanor.
The Solar Auxilia were the mainstay of Crusade forces, and as such struggled against The Beast of Ullanor. The Emperor wouldn't have had Horus to save him when he was being strangled, and so sacrificed himself the same way he did to defeat Horus in order to put down The Beast.
This, of course, would lead to a smaller Imperium, with a very different tone. It would be more sombre, with an emphasis on mourning a god lost to Humanity. The Imperium is just about the size of Segmentum Solar, with a few outbranching systems here and there.
They're in uneasy alliance with The 500 Worlds of Ultramar, and I think we fluffed up a rival humab faction based near Cadia and the Eye of Terror, which is where you'd get Chaos worshipers from. They'd be using a lot more Abhumans tainted by Chaos like Tzaangors and such.
That's about all we got in that thread though
It would be the Tau but with Atheist humans instead.
Given their tiny numbers and GW's ridiculous sense of scale, you have maybe 1000 marines per chapter against billions of able bodied infantry in a planetary defense force.
They're a drop of water in the bucket. A very vibrant and powerful one, but little more.
>The Emperor wouldn't have had Horus to save him when he was being strangled
Honestly, if BL has as much of a hard-on for the Emperor as a complete monster who never cared at all about the Primarchs, Ullanor would have to be a test of Horus' loyalty coupled with an excuse to quit the Crusade and go back to Terra.
Although, if Horus wasn't around to save him on Ullanor, it could have been somebody else, like Valdor perhaps.
You'd think the Imperium would be smaller, but imagine - without Space Marines, we'd still have Solar Macharius. PErhaps more like him.
btw, has someone ever run the numbers as to how many Space Marines died in the Horus Heresy?
Is there even data for that?
Well, instead of creating the SPEESS MEHREENS and "perfecting" a "small" number of elite warriors he could have decided to upgrade the Imperial Guard wholesale. Just some minor genetic alteration here or there, small enhancment to strength, endurance, no new organs or anything. If they used some kind of weaker but also more easily produced version of the power armour, like the Sororitas do in the 41st millenium, it would be a pretty effective fighting force.
There are some cases where numbers are given (and often way off for a battle that scale) but it is mostly kept general.
Personally would say anywhere between half and three fourths were killed.
I think chaos would have picked another pawn...
BLAM?
^He is right you know.
>chaos corrupting Big-E's main dog.
>dude that mantained the beacon and turned into dust for his love of big-e
>dude that made greyknights uncorruptable
SURE CHAOS WOULD PICK ANOTHER CHAMPION.
The Legiones Astartes conquered the galaxy, they wrested control of it from aliens normal humans could not have defeated in the same timeframe or at all. Wars of attrition against a superior foe don't last, morale would be through the floor in no time.
It's been mentioned in thread but to summarize:
The imperium would be smaller, there was a power vacuum after the long night. Everybody got stomped, not just humanity and the big E wanted to capitalize. No lighting thrust super soldiers means every smaller kingdom that retained tech close to the young imperium would be a huge threat that would take longer to deal with (starting with terra itself and then mars) giving everything else in the Galaxy time to get their shit together. Cabal this means you.
There's no guarantee the big E would still be alive. The Imperial truth would still be a huge threat to the pantheon so they would have gone after Him some how.
And there would still be some kind of Human+ program. Making humanity into mega psychic super Angel race was always the Emperor's endgame. Maybe a more subtle, long term gene program. Maybe he would have gone with Malcador's femdom fantasy. Who knows, but he would have started something and we'd still get a class division in the species.
Half is the number I think I remember. But that's after Ravenguard force grew their second batch and the siege of terra. I think it was an imperial fists book, but It could have been one if those fluff anthologies.
>Malcador's femdom fantasy
?
There's still Thunder Warriors and Custodes, though, right? Without the Space Marines and Primarchs the Emperor still had superhuman warriors he could throw at people and smash shit. It's not like it's just normies without the Astartes. The Emperor sure as fuck didn't conquer Terra with an army of normies.
The interex would slowly conquer things and start beating chaos with their space Canadian powers
Malcador wanted the SpaceMarines to be women. He kind of called the whole 'boys will be boys' competitive bullshit amongst the primarchs and argued a warrior sisterhood wouldn't have to deal with that. The Emperor went "lol, nah son." And said it would take to long to convert his geneseed to something approaching what he wanted without a Y chromosome.
But isn't brotherhood better than sisterhood?
Don't boys just wrestle then get over it, whereas girls hold dwarf-grudges?