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Necrodermis

2021-11-29T11:57:28Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F: /* Living Metal */

[[File:Necrodermis.JPG|right|200px|thumb|The T-X lives on in 40k.]]
'''Necrodermis''' is the mysterious "living metal" (even though it comes from Greek roots meaning "dead skin") from which [[Necron]]s and their constructs are made. It is more resistant to damage than most materials known to the [[Imperium]] and is capable of repairing itself to a certain extent -- [[melta]] weapons and other "overkill" weapons will put them down for good, but many [[Imperial Guard]]smen have filled [[Necron Warrior]]s with [[lasgun]] holes and knocked them down, only to see them rise up whole.

As a whole, Necrodermis borders between [[Flak Armour]] and [[Carapace Armour]]. Something analogous to the [[Eldar|Eldar's]] [[Mesh Armour]]. Whilst it can take more direct hits from small arms than Flak Armour, heavier weapons like [[Bolters]] would most definitely punch through this material (Although it depends on how thick the Necrodermis is). The main catch of course, is that it could self-repair over time as previously mentioned.

The shape of a Necrodermis can also be modified at will by its C'tan inhabitant, leading to vast differences between the bodies of each Star God. This also allows the spontaneous formation of cutting and slashing weapons as required.

==Living Metal==

The material that makes up Necrodermis is the aforementioned living metal. The Necrontyr originally invented living metal for use in constructing their ships. It is most often associated with the skin of the C'tan as well as the bodies of the Necrons and their amazing regenerative abilities.

The hull of all Necron vehicles, including the Necron Monolith and the Necron Pylon, is also made of this living metal, where its adaptive and regenerative capabilities render powerful weapons such as Meltaguns, Lascannons and Power Fists almost obsolete. It also has the curious effect of interfering with any attempts at warpcraft. While certainly not to the same degree as blackstone, on the few occasions that daemons or warp-inclined Chaos Space Marines have come into contact with the Necrons, it's oft mentioned that the necrodermis seems to play havoc on any warpfuckery.

Ferrus Manus's iron hands might (or might not) be made out of Necrodermis which he got from murdering a huge worm-like creature made out of "some kind of metal" ([[Tomb Stalker|sounds familiar]]) with his BARE Hands. Actually he single handedly drowned the creature in a pool of lava and the molten metal that dripped from the creature got fused with his hands.

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
T1000 bullet holes.gif|It's kind of like this.
</gallery>
{{40k-Armor}}

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Armour]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

[[Category: Necrodermis]]

Flayed Ones

2021-11-29T11:45:27Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F: /* Fluff */

[[File:Flayed_one_bloody.jpg|thumb|right|400px|He almost looks cute and [[Khorne|that pleases Him]]]]

{{topquote|To those who have turned their faces away. To those who are faithless and wretched in their jealousies. To those who have denied us. To those who have denied me. I will wreak vengeance. I will wrench your souls and break your bones. I will cast hunger through your accursed existence. Down the eons, you will not forget. I will grant you this gift from love turned aside and make you like me, break you in my image as you have broken me. I shall cast the fear of myself into you and all of your kind. I am Llandu’gor. I am the hunger. I am the flayer, and from this moment, you shall be too.|The Curse of Llandu'gor the Flayer}}
{{topquote|They'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.|Corporal [[Firefly|Zoe Washburne]], 57th Overlanders Brigade}}
{{topquote|Some hundreds of years may have passed. I don't know. AM has been having fun for some time, accelerating and retarding my time sense. I will say the word now. Now. It took me ten months to say now. I don't know. I think it has been some hundreds of years.|Ted, I have No Mouth and I Must Scream}}

'''Flayed Ones''' are [[Necron]]s who go about wearing the bloody flesh of their victims. They are victims of the Flayer virus, a program error where they develop a desire to reclaim their flesh and blood existence [[Sons of Malice|by devouring the flesh of the living]] (And since they don't have any kind of digestive system, the eaten flesh just falls down through their ribcages).

It's the end result of the [[C'Tan]] known as Llandu'gor the Flayer, who was not sharded like the others, but completely destroyed. Still, he had enough warning to curse the Necrons who killed him to suffer the Flayer virus as a parting fuck you; they spread the virus to others, who spread it still further, and so on for quite some time until the other Necrons caught on.

==Fluff==
Flayed Ones are basically the Lepers of Necron society, feared and ostracized for their disease. Although instead of sending them to a Leper colony, the Necrons simply try to kill them to prevent the spread of infection before it fully emerges (that's disease control in [[Warhammer 40,000]] for you); the ones that don't die (and being Necrons with the ability to self-repair even after being nuked that's most of them) end up in a weird subspace dimension where they hang out with other Flayed Ones until they sense bloody battle, at which time they warp out, kill everything with a pulse, and warp back there again once they're done. The "clean" Necrons don't mind this so much as long as the Flayed Ones fuck off as soon as the battle is up.

This new lore comes from the Fifth Edition Necron [[Codex]]. In Third Edition, Flayed Ones were just close-combat specialists whose affliction caused them to become feral, but also heavily increased their already considerable melee prowess. If that were the end of it, then they could have almost been thought of as Necron <s>wulfen</s> digganobz, but the fact that Flayed Ones like to play dress-up with the skins of their slain foes makes any such comparison impossible. Their choice of attire was because they'd gone insane, either from being roboticized or because [[Grimdark|the hibernation protocol failed and they were forced to spend 65 million years awake and immobile I-Have-No-Mouth-And-I-Must-Scream-style]].

The novels/stories have added new dimensions that make them even nastier. In one book, the Flayed Ones flay people because in their warped minds they're just trying to turn themselves back into beings of flesh and blood. In the Psychic Awakening story "Gone Dark" their intelligence and sadism get a boost; a Flayed One flays a guardswoman and wears her skin before messing with her brother by impersonating her - including flawless voice mimicry and awareness of their relation - to get close to him and then attacking.

Unfortunately, their models and their lore were not updated well -- they went from "pray we kill you ''before'' we flay you" to "dance party."

That is, until 9th edition hit and now they have some great plastic models which resemble those from Dark Crusade.

===The Bone Kingdom of Drazak===
A nice piece of story from the 5th Edition Necron Codex tells of a legendary [[Tomb World]] named Drazak (located in the Ghoul Stars) or alternatively the Bone Kingdom. It's a world populated almost entirely by Flayed Ones, who are ruled by Valgul the Fallen, a Necron Lord who is immune to the Flayer virus. The world is devoid of living creatures, so the Flayed ones roam around fighting each other for scraps of rotten meat and bone. Every few ''months'' Valgul rises from his throne of bone and announces a Time of Bounty, where they launch fleets to raid nearby planets to collect flesh and blood of the living to sate his subject's hunger. Which leaves the questions '''a)''' Why anyone would stay on those nearby planets, '''b)''' Why nobody has performed [[Exterminatus]] upon Drazak yet and '''c)''' Why the Flayed Ones return to Drazak instead of crusading across the stars. All three questions are answered by one word: [[Grimdark]].

== On the tabletop ==

[[File:FlayedOne5th.jpg|250px|thumb|right|"I'm gonna show you the world, Herbert. Thank you for your face, by the way."]]

[[File:Screen_Shot_2016-08-24_at_2.26.08_pm.png|250px|thumb|right|Flayed one from the 6th ed. 'cron codex]]

They used to <s>mostly</s> suck. They were, and still are, Elites (one of the most competitive slots in the Necron army), they have one of the few 4+ armor saves in an army of [[MEQ]]s, they could only do close combat but only have Initiative 2, they can't take transports, and they couldn't score. What they could achieve was based on their cheap price (same price as [[Necron Warrior]]s), large squad size and their ability to [[Deep Strike]] and Infiltrate; basically, you fielded them along with Warriors and [[Scarab]] Swarms if you wanted to play Necrons horde-style...

But never again will the Flayed Ones be one of the prime examples of bad design - the 7th Edition Codex is arriving, and it heralds a new time for our favourite robot lepers. While their statline remain unchanged, they now count as having two separate melee weapons, for an extra attack at no extra cost. This of course is pretty good... But it doesn't stop there. Oh no. Not only were the [[Miscellaneous Weapons#Flensing Claw|Flayer Claws]] made separate weapons, they gained Shred and AP 5 as well. Fuck yes. Throw ten Flayed Ones into some Guardsmen and [[Rip and tear|unleash ''40'' Bolter hits with Shred]] (mmmm guardsmen my favorite). [[Troll|Remind your opponent to bring a handbroom to remove his mutilated hordes easily.]]

[[Maynarkh Dynasty]]/"Dark Harvest" supplement from [[Imperial Armor]] also fixed most of their problems their own way. They can be Troops so as not to fight for an Elites slot, being Troops gain Objective Secured, and they can buy Flensing Scarabs to re-roll failed to-wound rolls for a turn.

===8th edition===

They're okay. They're still an elites choice (and cost almost as much per model as Praetorians) but with their deep strike and +1 to morale tests for nearby enemy units they can be very useful for probing the enemy back lines. Unfortunately with the deep strike rules they're gonna need a 9" charge to get into combat on the same turn they deep strike and have only melee attacks, but if they do get into combat they can seriously fuck up [[MEQ]] and below. A full squad of FO can deal out a face-melting [[Rape|''40 attacks per turn with a re-roll to wound'']]. Take them with [[Anrakyr the Traveller|Anrakyr]] to deal out 50 attacks and watch your opponent cry as you delete his units. Still relying on making that 9" charge though (although you can reduce it to 8" if you use Anrakyr's MWBD on the flayed ones, also meaning you'll get [[Anal_circumference|50 attacks hitting on 2s]]).

== See Also ==

* [[Never Forget You]], a sad story about a Flayed One.

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

{{Necrons-Forces}}

Flayed Ones

2021-11-29T11:43:55Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F:

[[File:Flayed_one_bloody.jpg|thumb|right|400px|He almost looks cute and [[Khorne|that pleases Him]]]]

{{topquote|To those who have turned their faces away. To those who are faithless and wretched in their jealousies. To those who have denied us. To those who have denied me. I will wreak vengeance. I will wrench your souls and break your bones. I will cast hunger through your accursed existence. Down the eons, you will not forget. I will grant you this gift from love turned aside and make you like me, break you in my image as you have broken me. I shall cast the fear of myself into you and all of your kind. I am Llandu’gor. I am the hunger. I am the flayer, and from this moment, you shall be too.|The Curse of Llandu'gor the Flayer}}
{{topquote|They'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.|Corporal [[Firefly|Zoe Washburne]], 57th Overlanders Brigade}}
{{topquote|Some hundreds of years may have passed. I don't know. AM has been having fun for some time, accelerating and retarding my time sense. I will say the word now. Now. It took me ten months to say now. I don't know. I think it has been some hundreds of years.|Ted, I have No Mouth and I Must Scream}}

'''Flayed Ones''' are [[Necron]]s who go about wearing the bloody flesh of their victims. They are victims of the Flayer virus, a program error where they develop a desire to reclaim their flesh and blood existence [[Sons of Malice|by devouring the flesh of the living]] (And since they don't have any kind of digestive system, the eaten flesh just falls down through their ribcages).

It's the end result of the [[C'Tan]] known as Llandu'gor the Flayer, who was not sharded like the others, but completely destroyed. Still, he had enough warning to curse the Necrons who killed him to suffer the Flayer virus as a parting fuck you; they spread the virus to others, who spread it still further, and so on for quite some time until the other Necrons caught on.

==Fluff==
Flayed Ones are basically the Lepers of Necron society, feared and ostracized for their disease. Although instead of sending them to a Leper colony, the Necrons simply try to kill them to prevent the spread of infection before it fully emerges (that's disease control in [[Warhammer 40,000]] for you); the ones that don't die (and being Necrons with the ability to self-repair even after being nuked that's most of them) end up in a weird subspace dimension where they hang out with other Flayed Ones until they sense bloody battle, at which time they warp out, kill everything with a pulse, and warp back there again once they're done. The "clean" Necrons don't mind this so much as long as the Flayed Ones fuck off as soon as the battle is up.

This new lore comes from the Fifth Edition Necron [[Codex]]. In Third Edition, Flayed Ones were just close-combat specialists whose affliction caused them to become feral, but also heavily increased their already considerable melee prowess. If that were the end of it, then they could have almost been thought of as Necron <s>wulfen<s/> digganobz, but the fact that Flayed Ones like to play dress-up with the skins of their slain foes makes any such comparison impossible. Their choice of attire was because they'd gone insane, either from being roboticized or because [[Grimdark|the hibernation protocol failed and they were forced to spend 65 million years awake and immobile I-Have-No-Mouth-And-I-Must-Scream-style]].

The novels/stories have added new dimensions that make them even nastier. In one book, the Flayed Ones flay people because in their warped minds they're just trying to turn themselves back into beings of flesh and blood. In the Psychic Awakening story "Gone Dark" their intelligence and sadism get a boost; a Flayed One flays a guardswoman and wears her skin before messing with her brother by impersonating her - including flawless voice mimicry and awareness of their relation - to get close to him and then attacking.

Unfortunately, their models and their lore were not updated well -- they went from "pray we kill you ''before'' we flay you" to "dance party."

That is, until 9th edition hit and now they have some great plastic models which resemble those from Dark Crusade.

===The Bone Kingdom of Drazak===
A nice piece of story from the 5th Edition Necron Codex tells of a legendary [[Tomb World]] named Drazak (located in the Ghoul Stars) or alternatively the Bone Kingdom. It's a world populated almost entirely by Flayed Ones, who are ruled by Valgul the Fallen, a Necron Lord who is immune to the Flayer virus. The world is devoid of living creatures, so the Flayed ones roam around fighting each other for scraps of rotten meat and bone. Every few ''months'' Valgul rises from his throne of bone and announces a Time of Bounty, where they launch fleets to raid nearby planets to collect flesh and blood of the living to sate his subject's hunger. Which leaves the questions '''a)''' Why anyone would stay on those nearby planets, '''b)''' Why nobody has performed [[Exterminatus]] upon Drazak yet and '''c)''' Why the Flayed Ones return to Drazak instead of crusading across the stars. All three questions are answered by one word: [[Grimdark]].

== On the tabletop ==

[[File:FlayedOne5th.jpg|250px|thumb|right|"I'm gonna show you the world, Herbert. Thank you for your face, by the way."]]

[[File:Screen_Shot_2016-08-24_at_2.26.08_pm.png|250px|thumb|right|Flayed one from the 6th ed. 'cron codex]]

They used to <s>mostly</s> suck. They were, and still are, Elites (one of the most competitive slots in the Necron army), they have one of the few 4+ armor saves in an army of [[MEQ]]s, they could only do close combat but only have Initiative 2, they can't take transports, and they couldn't score. What they could achieve was based on their cheap price (same price as [[Necron Warrior]]s), large squad size and their ability to [[Deep Strike]] and Infiltrate; basically, you fielded them along with Warriors and [[Scarab]] Swarms if you wanted to play Necrons horde-style...

But never again will the Flayed Ones be one of the prime examples of bad design - the 7th Edition Codex is arriving, and it heralds a new time for our favourite robot lepers. While their statline remain unchanged, they now count as having two separate melee weapons, for an extra attack at no extra cost. This of course is pretty good... But it doesn't stop there. Oh no. Not only were the [[Miscellaneous Weapons#Flensing Claw|Flayer Claws]] made separate weapons, they gained Shred and AP 5 as well. Fuck yes. Throw ten Flayed Ones into some Guardsmen and [[Rip and tear|unleash ''40'' Bolter hits with Shred]] (mmmm guardsmen my favorite). [[Troll|Remind your opponent to bring a handbroom to remove his mutilated hordes easily.]]

[[Maynarkh Dynasty]]/"Dark Harvest" supplement from [[Imperial Armor]] also fixed most of their problems their own way. They can be Troops so as not to fight for an Elites slot, being Troops gain Objective Secured, and they can buy Flensing Scarabs to re-roll failed to-wound rolls for a turn.

===8th edition===

They're okay. They're still an elites choice (and cost almost as much per model as Praetorians) but with their deep strike and +1 to morale tests for nearby enemy units they can be very useful for probing the enemy back lines. Unfortunately with the deep strike rules they're gonna need a 9" charge to get into combat on the same turn they deep strike and have only melee attacks, but if they do get into combat they can seriously fuck up [[MEQ]] and below. A full squad of FO can deal out a face-melting [[Rape|''40 attacks per turn with a re-roll to wound'']]. Take them with [[Anrakyr the Traveller|Anrakyr]] to deal out 50 attacks and watch your opponent cry as you delete his units. Still relying on making that 9" charge though (although you can reduce it to 8" if you use Anrakyr's MWBD on the flayed ones, also meaning you'll get [[Anal_circumference|50 attacks hitting on 2s]]).

== See Also ==

* [[Never Forget You]], a sad story about a Flayed One.

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

{{Necrons-Forces}}

Great Rift

2021-11-26T03:27:09Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F: /* So what exactly started it all? */

[[File:Galaxy.jpg|thumb|Daww, the Eye of Terror and the Hadex Anomaly had a baby!]]

The Great Rift, also known as '''Cicatrix Maledictum''' (which more or less means the Cursed Scar), Gork's Grin, Mouth's Ruin, and the Dathedian among others, is a massive chain of Warp-storms that has torn realspace in half after the destruction of [[Cadia]] and its pylons by the [[Warmaster]] of [[Chaos]], [[Abaddon | Abaddon the Despoiler]]. In its current state, it has divided the galaxy into two halves, plus a couple of independent warpstorms in certain areas. This has obviously meant bad news to every major faction in the galaxy other than Chaos (and maybe orks, because now there are more spiky gits to krump), and has especially affected the [[Imperium of Man]], dividing its territory into two halves almost isolated from each other: the part where the [[Astronomican]] still shines normally, and the part where its light can barely reach. This latter half usually gets the name Imperium Nihilus (or the Dark Imperium), both because it's been darkened by the Great Rift and because it's becoming an increasingly bad place to live in, due to Warp shenanigans and xeno attacks.

==So what exactly started it all?==

During the last couple of centuries, the tides of the [[Warp]] became more and more erratic and violent, making space travel more and more dangerous. It's been widely believed that Abaddon the Despoiler's Black Crusades had the secret objective to destroy a series of ancient structures made by the [[Necrons]] that kept the Warp from overflowing into the materium. During the [[13th Black Crusade]] and its final assault on Cadia, Chaos forces managed to destroy the last big series of pylons, the ones that prevented the growth of the [[Eye of Terror]]. The destruction of those last pylons, alongside the rest of the planet, started a chain reaction that formed multiple warpstorms throughout the galaxy. Abaddon's original plan was to, in theory, cause a warpstorm big enough in Holy Terra's direction to either destroy the planet and the Emperor of Mankind or to invade with all the forces Chaos could muster, assuring the destruction of the Imperium. However, these massive warpstorms started joining with each other and instead of growing into the direction of the Segmentum Solar, it went into the [[Maelstrom]], consumed the Galactic Core, then moved into a straight line dividing the galaxy neatly in two. Failbaddon would pulling his topknot out if only he had any arms to do it with.

Despite supposedly destroying the Cadian pylons, Abaddon still managed to get hold of some from somewhere, either from the wreckage or dug up somewhere else. He managed to actually transport them in giant grand cruisers to various worlds in the [[Segmentum]] Solar, originally part of a plan to becalm the warp-space around [[Terra]] and isolate [[Roboute Guilliman]] while the [[High Lords of Terra]] [[fail|tried]] to depose him; this was only thwarted because the [[Sisters of Silence]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]] performed a rogue operation and exposed the plot before it was completed. [[Dante]] is then assigned by Guilliman to be the regent of the Dark Imperium.

==What does this mean for the galaxy?==

It means bad news. Horrifically, apocalyptically bad news.

Imagine the danger that the Eye of Terror represented to the galaxy back when it was just a single region in realspace. Now imagine that same danger multiplied by a hundred and spread around most of the galaxy. The Eye of Terror spreads the madness and dangers of the Warp into realspace at twice the rate, and affects a much, much bigger area than before. Hundreds, if not thousands of systems were immediately sucked into its warpstorms, with all the horrific consequences implied from that, not to mention all the space-time distortions effects that an event like this could mean: planets frozen in time while other live full millenniums in the blink of an eye, planets changing place and appearing out of nowhere or just disappearing... you get the idea. It's gotten so bad that even in-universe any kind of objective measure of time is no longer meaningful.

Each faction, however, has reacted to it differently.

*Chaos is obviously the one [[profit]]ing from this, although after the birth of the Great Rift, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade started to slow a bit due to the desire to pillage and burn for their own gain, instead of following an organized plan. But this ''is'' Chaos we're talking about - it's a miracle they even followed the plan as long as they did. Millions of Chaos pirates assault every planet they can while the Chaos Gods try to occupy more territory than their rivals. If it weren't for the Great Game monopolizing their attention, the Chaos Gods might have been able to completely wipe out their opposition on the spot.
**It's important to realize that Chaos is much more than Abaddon's own agenda. Whatever his goals might have originally been, the fact that daemons can more easily be brought into realspace is a BIG deal. Almost as soon as the Great Rift erupted Daemons of Khorne (without Marines or even the approval of the other three Chaos Gods) managed to attack Terra, and [[Plague Wars|Ultramar got a full-blown Nurgle/Death Guard invasion]] later on.
**Chaos Marines have always used warp storms to conceal their movements; while they may not be the most safe or reliable of places to hide, Chaos forces have a notable advantage when it comes to navigating them over everyone else. Notably, the traitor legions considered the Eye a "prison" as much as a haven, but they seem to be better able to leave the Rift more easily than they could leave the Eye of Terror.
* The [[Imperium of Man]] almost loses half of its territory, only managing to get in contact with the Imperium Nihilus by two warp corridors constantly under attack by daemons. The [[Indomitus Crusade]] was launched during the aftermath of the Great Rift's birth, trying to push back the Chaos hordes pouring from it. While Roboute Guilliman's leadership was able to stabilize the situation in the Dark Imperium for the time being, he expects that holding onto it will be difficult even for him.
** To help partially alleviate matters and give the dark side of the Imperium some actually reachable leadership, Roboute installed [[Chapter Master]] [[Dante]] of the [[Blood Angels]] as Lord-Regent of the Imperium Nihilus. Not quite as powerful, but more than capable of keeping the peace while shit gets sorted out.
* The [[Ork|Orks]] are having a zogging good time smashing, krumping and chopping all of the spiky gits and other fun things coming from the Rift. Indeed, they interpret the Great Rift as a divine miracle from their gods and a sign of their upcoming arrival on the mortal plane to usher in the final WAAAAGH! They've also recently taken up the habit of deliberately flying into it in the belief that the warp storms will scatter them somewhere else in the galaxy. And lest we forget, orks grow and thrive on conflict to a terrifying degree, and if Octarius is anything to go by, they've been growing a great deal in a pretty short time.
** [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Ghazzy]] is still trying to get the GREAT WAAAGH! going. So far he's stomped the Tyranids of the [[Octarius War|Octarius system]] real good and brought it into stalemate, so he's making some progress. He's somehow been able to be in multiple places at once; it may be that Gork and Mork gave him another power-up somewhere along the line (or someone dusted the old 'time travel in warp' explanation out of the deep, dark closet it had been tossed into and put it to use). Ghazzy might even be insane enough to travel back in time via Warp Express™ to fight in multiple places at the same time.
* The [[Eldar]] are trying to find a way to repair realspace, the dangers of the Immaterium being a very real threat to them. Travelling through some sections of the [[Webway]] has become impossible and some even fear the Cicatrix Maledictum could even end up breaking it. As such, there has been a massive collaboration between the different Aeldari groups in an effort to contain the warprift (even the Dark Eldar, who no doubt profited from all those undefended human planets before the daemons arrived), with the ultimate effect on this being the birth of the [[Ynnari]] and its "alliance" (along with Craftworld [[Alaitoc]]) with the Imperium of Man. The former has caused problems of its own, in no small part because many Eldar are suspicious at best about the newcomers' claims.
* [[Necron]]s are more or less unaffected by the Warp, having no soul and such, and the few occasions that the forces of Chaos have attempted to encroach on Necron worlds have ended spectacularly badly for the ruinous powers. Blackstone and necrodermis tend to have an adverse impact on the forces of chaos, to say nothing of necrons themselves. Some Necron Lords have become interested in stopping the Rift's growth as this is a threat to the ones attempting to rebuild the ancient Necrontyr empire. Plus if all the organics are gone or corrupted by the warp, how are they suppose to get flesh-and-blood bodies again? Some Necron Lord's empires have been expanded during this, too. Interestingly though, unlike the other factions, the Necrons do not seem to regard Chaos as a threat so much a disgusting annoyance.
** The pylons that held Cadia together were originally Necrontyr. Necron Crypteks (and at least [[Belisarius Cawl|one enterprising archmagos]]) are frantically trying to recover and [[Meme|construct additional pylons]] to pin the universe back together, although this has been a slow process and often involves scrape-ups with the Mechanicus, but continues to progress.
* The [[Tau]], trying to take advantage of the situation, launched a full expansion sphere equipped with their brand new Warp drives to prey upon the undefended planets they could - and immediately lost it due to said Warp drives opening a rift in the Warp. Contact was later re-established with the Fourth Sphere, but it's suggested their time stuck in the Warp may not have been good for their sanity. The fact that the Tau still don't fully understand what Chaos is means bad news for the short term safety of their empire, especially since [[Death Guard|another big Chaos force]] is headed their way. Having created a warp drive is one thing, but a warp drive is not to be toyed with unless you have a [[Gellar Field]]. Guess what? They don't. Now we have xenophobic and Chaos-worshipping Tau and hints at an avatar of the Greater Good.
* The [[Tyranid]]s have been hit hard by this. The warp storms blocks most psychic light in the galaxy, so they have lost track of thousands of potential meals, and some are travelling blind. A couple of splinter fleets have probably been lost in the Warp by the sudden warpstorm. [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]] managed to reach [[Baal]], but not before Khornate forces of [[Ka'bandha]] also launched an attack on the system and expressed their unwillingness to let the bugs steal his chance for revenge. [[Devastation of Baal|After fighting daemons, the Blood Angels and Guilliman's reinforcements]], Hive Fleet Leviathan has been reduced to a collection of splinter fleets like Behemoth and Kraken before it. This, combined with the fact the ‘nids are tied up in the [[Octarius War]], means that as of now there is no major Hive Fleet threatening the galaxy, only relatively harmless (by tyranid standards at least) splinter fleets. This has not discouraged the Great Devourer, and from the remains of all splinter fleets around, some new Hive Fleets have begun to emerge, more and more specialized in fighting daemons and Chaos elements; [[Hive Fleet Kronos]] in particular has become infamous for its success rate against daemons through massive long range firepower and a supercharged [[Shadow in the Warp]]. [[Hive Fleet Tiamet]] is also up to something, building a giant living structure in a backwater region of Ultima Segmentum; nobody else can tell what it is, although some speculate its a rally beacon for the Hive Fleets, which could be trouble for the galaxy as this will be another staging area for the Nids to use.

So basically everyone but Chaos, the Necrons, and arguably the Orks have been fucked in one way or another.
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

Indomitus Crusade

2021-11-26T03:22:49Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F:

{{Topquote|To the Space Marine Chapters bloodied and besieged in the [[Age of the Dark Imperium|Dark Imperium]], we bring reinforcement. To the Chapters lost in valiant duty or driven to destruction, we offer rebirth. To the enemies of my father's empire, we bring death. With these words I, Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium, son of the Emperor of Mankind declare the Indomitus Crusade. Traitors, mutants, daemons. Heed to the coming of my armies and the ruin we promise to your miserable kind. This galaxy is ours!|[[Roboute Guilliman]], Lord Commander of the Imperium, son of the [[Emperor]] of Mankind.}}

[[File:AAdNxj2_700b.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Roboute Guilliman, trying to channel as much the Emperor's charisma as possible while the sky goes bananas on him]]
The '''Indomitus Crusade''' is the Imperium's latest major military campaign, in response to Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, its successful destruction of Cadia and the fracturing of the galaxy in two pieces. After the combined efforts of Archmagos [[Cawl]], Saint [[Celestine]] and the [[Ynnari]] to bring the Primarch Roboute Guilliman back from stasis, he reaches Terra and takes full control of the Imperium to try and [[get shit done]]. To do this, he declares a massive crusade to push back the forces of Chaos, unveiling his brand new and very [[Games Workshop|marketable]] [[Primaris Marines]] to spearhead his attack against Chaos, even if no one really trusts these new guys. The Indomitus Crusade lasted around a century and managed to stabilize the Imperium, but the 13th Black Crusade is technically still going on. Also, this event is the first major step into the 42nd Millennium (or not because calendars are fucked in this grimdark future), [[Ciaphas Cain]]'s novels notwithstanding.

This event is especially remarkable because this is the biggest [[Advancing the Storyline|advance of the 40K storyline]] in decades, making people really afraid of this being another Age of Sigmar. For now, those fears have been pushed aside; the galaxy is still there, although split by the Cicatrix Maledictum.

==Phase 1: Gathering forces and the Second Battle of Terra==
Soon after Guilliman arrived to Terra and took the title of Lord Commander of the Imperium (basically becoming the ''de facto'' ruler of the Imperium of Mankind and Head of the [[High Lords of Terra]]), he started to gather up all the forces he could to counter the forces of Chaos that were pouring from the Warp in massive amounts: Astartes, Mechanicum, Navy, Guard Regiments, the Sisters of Silence, some Custodes elements (finally entering the galactic fray after millennia of doing fuck all), and the new and now on sale Primaris Marines to spearhead the counterattack. While he was busy gathering his forces Terra was attacked by the Legions of [[Khorne]]. The Blood God was fed up with the other idiots mucking about around the Cicatrix Maledictum believing they'd won, so he went to finish the job on his own and sent in eight of his Legions... who were quickly and swiftly sent running back to the Warp with [[rage|extreme prejudice]] and [[dakka|overwhelming firepower.]]

This small incursion, however, caused massive panic and unrest on Terra proper. The Terran anti-Warp defenses failing to prevent the opening of a rift from where Chaos attacks could pour from was a major concern, and some argued that Guilliman should stay to defend Terra. But the Primarch knew that to prevent the situation from going completely bad he had to bring the fight to the enemy. His forces set out from the centre of the Imperium, course set for the hundreds of planets either under siege or already conquered by the Ruinous Powers. During all of this, the Astronomicon was not working properly, constantly flickering and making Warp jumps a pretty risky move. And considering Guilliman's Crusade used almost half of the Navy Fleet in Segmentum Solar, they had to do very short jumps, slowing the beginning of the Crusade down considerably.

==Phase 2: Guilliman frees a bunch of planets and brings Primarines to the Chapters==
Guilliman soon arrived into the thick of things. He travelled around dozens of planets, liberating those that could be saved and exterminatusing those that could not. Slowly but surely, Imperial forces managed to push back the chaotic tide. Albeit only enough to stabilize some of the war fronts. The arrival to Catachan was a specially interesting point in the Crusade: the planet's local fauna was so deadly it scared away even the daemons, which probably brought a decent amount of morale-uplifting laughter to the Imperial forces involved. As the tides of the Warp calmed, astropathic communications started to improve all around (even if the Imperium Nihilus was still pretty much isolated from the light of the Astronomican). The more planets the Primarch freed, the more reinforcements he added to his campaign and the more momentum it built up. During this phase of the Crusade they went to the other side of the Imperium, the part that would be known as the Imperium Nihilus or Dark Imperium, and saw the horrible things that had been going on there without a consistent shine of the Astronomican. They came across the massive meatgrinder that was the [[Devastation of Baal|Battle for Baal]] between [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]] and all the [[Blood Angels]]' descendant chapters Dante could muster. Even though the battle was pretty much over when Guilliman arrived (stated by himself to [[Dante]] once the fight was over), Guilliman used his enormous fleet to purge and chase away as many splinter fleets of Leviathan as possible before the reconstruction of Baal and before they could restart the crusade against Chaos. Guilliman also appointed Dante as the military leader of the Imperium Nihilus, which means [[awesome|he has the maximum authority over half of the Imperium, only below the Primarch and the Emperor]].

It is also during this phase that the already extant Astartes Chapters started getting their Primaris reinforcements, with all manner of colourful reactions. After much grumbling, the general consensus ended up being "accept them or the [[Adeptus Custodes]] will shove a Guardian Spear up your ass, also fucking hell we need the manpower".

==Phase 3: Nurgle attacks [[Ultramar]] and Guilliman ends the Crusade==
After a century of war and freeing planets beyond count, the front was largely stabilized, Chaos contained into the Cicatrix Maledictum, and tentative contact had been reestablished with Imperium Nihilus. Guilliman's forces were however exhausted and Belisarius Cawl needed to refill the Primarines' ranks. Many of the crusading forces wanted to consolidate their gains rather than continuing the conquests and stretching their forces thinner and thinner throughout the galaxy.

The deciding point was the [[Plague Wars|invasion]] of the Ultramar realm by the forces of [[Nurgle]], taking advantage of the drawing of forces for the Crusade leaving planets relatively undefended. Thus after the Battle of Raukos on 111.M42, Guilliman called it a day and dissolved the Indomitus Crusade, capping off the Ultima Founding by disbanding the final core of [[Unnumbered Sons]] veterans to new Primaris chapters, allowing everyone to go home and deal with the invasion. With that, the Indomitus Crusade reached its end on a globally positive note as the 13th Black Crusade had been mostly contained and the situation was no longer deteriorating quite as badly as it was before, which is probably the closest thing to a change for the better within the setting since, well, ever.

===The Retconning===
So 9th Edition decided for whatever reason to retcon the crusade from concluded to still ongoing, with the Raukos conflict merely wrapping up a phase in the larger crusade. Probably because there was no reason to end the Crusade. You cannot win a war just by defending. To say nothing of how the Imperium, Adeptus Astartes, and countless other major factions would view ending the most important and successful offensive since the freaking ''Great Crusade'' merely because a few planets in Ultramar were invaded. Because of this new corporate direction, the entire Dark Imperium series of novels is being rewritten to better fit the situation in the Dawn of Fire novels and everything else (including the recent [[Psychic Awakening]] series to an extent) being built around this.

==Results of the conflict==
The Indomitus Crusade managed to push the forces of Chaos long enough for the [[13th Black Crusade]] to start losing its momentum (because Chaos doesn't stay organized for long and a lot of its warlords decided to start pillaging nearby systems rather than keep pushing towards Terra), thus preventing more damage from being done. This doesn't mean that the Imperium didn't suffer a massive blow: the [[Great Rift|'''Cicatrix Maledictum''']] and the losing of planets in hundred thousands means this was the biggest blow the Imperium has suffered since the days of the [[Horus Heresy]] or the [[War of the Beast]]. And you can be sure those worlds in there are going to be shitting out Dark Mechanicum, Lost and the Damned, and Daemonic threats soon enough once they fully get their Chaos on. The only saving grace is that the process would devastate the worlds within and their populations and Chaos isn't all that good at building stuff compared to everyone else.

===The Dark Imperium Stabilizes===
Half of the Imperium still gets barely any light from the [[Astronomican]], isolating the Imperium Nihilus from the Emperor's light and also cutting it off from any reinforcements that might come from the other side of the Imperium (except through one available warp route occupied by a traitor Knight House or, y'know, going around or above or under the Great Rift), exposing it to future attacks from heretics and xenos alike and making warp travel an even more hazardous experience. The splitting of the Imperium into two halves (one that is able to keep itself stable enough due to Guilliman and being on the same side as the Astronomican, and one which is basically daemon food) is bound to cause problems on the off chance there's enough of the Imperium left to break away in the Imperium Nihilus, not to mention that most Chaos forces are still running amok throughout the galaxy and now have a ''gigantic'' base of operations to launch their attacks from instead of the much smaller [[Eye of Terror]] and the [[Maelstrom]].

That said, the Primaris reinforcements to the Dark Angels and Blood Angels have alleviated the worst of the 13th Black Crusade's rampage, so it's not entirely hopeless. [[Dante]] is also honored by Gulliman and placed in charge of the Imperium Nihilus when he can't get to it, so they're not without any sort of leadership.

===Other Imperial issues===
The Primaris Marines debate has only gotten worse after the end of the Crusade, with most people seeing Cawl's creations as either necessary abominations or an outright heresy, depending on whom you ask. If Guilliman speaks soon and intelligently, this could be dismissed by his pointing out the Primaris are made from the most pure gene-seed in a device created by the Emperor himself using techniques used in the creation of the Custodes, so calling it heresy is like saying the Primarchs and Astartes in general are heretical. The Custodes know the Emperor approves, and the Custodes ''do '''not''''' like it when people refuse the Emperor's will.

On the administrative side, Guilliman has to manage several warzones at once while ruling the whole Imperium and dealing with the [[Ecclesiarchy|various]] [[Inquisition|groups]] that are opposed to his attempted reforms, which is a difficult task even for the Primarch known for his administrative skills. It'll be fine once he realizes that the current Imperium would be totally chill with him just exterminating all the groups opposing him. Even if he tried to wipe out the Ecclesiarchy the vast majority of people wouldn't see a heretic destroying worship of the Emperor but instead would see their religious institution refusing to roll over and die on the whim of one of the God-Emperor's own sons and are therefore heretical for not dying when their god's son told them to. The Mechanicus's higher echelons are also highly annoyed that Cawl is calling so many shots, and only Cawl's seniority and knowledge of many long-lost technologies has kept them from declaring him a heretek, which is funny because he was a key part in creating the Primarines and their armor so anything he does with it can’t really be considered heresy as the Emperor gave him leave to manipulate Astartes genetics to do his job in the first place before the Great Crusade. Of course, this assumes the Emperor = Omnissiah thing is still a thing. Considering the political/religious tensions Guilliman's caused in the Imperium Proper since his return... yes, it's still a thing, since Mars has not been blown up. The Mechanicus knows full well that to reject the Emperor as Omnissiah would mean extermination by an Imperium that genuinely would not give a damn what the consequences would be so long as they could purge heretics.

===Xenos===
Meanwhile, the [[Tyranids]] ate some more planets and are pushing further into Segmentum Solar, the [[Tau]] lost a whole expansion sphere when they ran straight into the [[Death Guard]]'s main force, the [[Necrons]] expanded some of their empires, the [[Ork]]s did what Orks do (hint: it involves [[Waaagh]]!, [[choppa]] and [[dakka]]) but they're more organized now, and the [[Craftworld]] Eldar are trying to figure out what to think of the Ynnari while generally attempting to not get wiped out by Chaos. The xenos and the danger they pose haven't gone anywhere, but for the time being the Imperium considers Chaos to be the more immediate threat to its existence.

{{40k-Timeline}}

Great Rift

2021-11-24T13:46:49Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F: /* What does this mean for the galaxy? */

[[File:Galaxy.jpg|thumb|Daww, the Eye of Terror and the Hadex Anomaly had a baby!]]

The Great Rift, also known as '''Cicatrix Maledictum''' (which more or less means the Cursed Scar), Gork's Grin, Mouth's Ruin, and the Dathedian among others, is a massive chain of Warp-storms that has torn realspace in half after the destruction of [[Cadia]] and its pylons by the [[Warmaster]] of [[Chaos]], [[Abaddon | Abaddon the Despoiler]]. In its current state, it has divided the galaxy into two halves, plus a couple of independent warpstorms in certain areas. This has obviously meant bad news to every major faction in the galaxy other than Chaos (and maybe orks, because now there are more spiky gits to krump), and has especially affected the [[Imperium of Man]], dividing its territory into two halves almost isolated from each other: the part where the [[Astronomican]] still shines normally, and the part where its light can barely reach. This latter half usually gets the name Imperium Nihilus (or the Dark Imperium), both because it's been darkened by the Great Rift and because it's becoming an increasingly bad place to live in, due to Warp shenanigans and xeno attacks.

==So what exactly started it all?==

During the last couple of centuries, the tides of the [[Warp]] became more and more erratic and violent, making space travel more and more dangerous. It's been widely believed that Abaddon the Despoiler's Black Crusades had the secret objective to destroy a series of ancient structures made by the [[Necrons]] that kept the Warp from overflowing into the materium. During the [[13th Black Crusade]] and its final assault on Cadia, Chaos forces managed to destroy the last big series of pylons, the ones that prevented the growth of the [[Eye of Terror]]. The destruction of those last pylons, alongside the rest of the planet, started a chain reaction that formed multiple warpstorms throughout the galaxy. Abaddon's original plan was to, in theory, cause a warpstorm big enough in Holy Terra's direction to either destroy the planet and the Emperor of Mankind or to invade with all the forces Chaos could muster, assuring the destruction of the Imperium. However, these massive warpstorms started joining with each other and instead of growing into the direction of the Segmentum Solar, it went into the [[Maelstrom]], consumed the Galactic Core, then moved into a straight line dividing the galaxy neatly in two. Failbaddon would pulling his topknot out if only he had any arms to do it with.

Despite supposedly destroying the Cadian pylons, Abaddon still managed to get hold of some from somewhere, either from the wreckage or dug up somewhere else. He managed to actually transport them in giant grand cruisers to various worlds in the [[Segmentum]] Solar, originally part of a plan to becalm the warp-space around [[Terra]] and isolate [[Roboute Guilliman]] while the [[High Lords of Terra]] tried to depose him; this was only thwarted because the [[Sisters of Silence]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]] performed a rogue operation and exposed the plot before it was completed. [[Dante]] is then assigned by Guilliman to be the regent of the Dark Imperium.

==What does this mean for the galaxy?==

It means bad news. Horrifically, apocalyptically bad news.

Imagine the danger that the Eye of Terror represented to the galaxy back when it was just a single region in realspace. Now imagine that same danger multiplied by a hundred and spread around most of the galaxy. The Eye of Terror spreads the madness and dangers of the Warp into realspace at twice the rate, and affects a much, much bigger area than before. Hundreds, if not thousands of systems were immediately sucked into its warpstorms, with all the horrific consequences implied from that, not to mention all the space-time distortions effects that an event like this could mean: planets frozen in time while other live full millenniums in the blink of an eye, planets changing place and appearing out of nowhere or just disappearing... you get the idea. It's gotten so bad that even in-universe any kind of objective measure of time is no longer meaningful.

Each faction, however, has reacted to it differently.

*Chaos is obviously the one [[profit]]ing from this, although after the birth of the Great Rift, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade started to slow a bit due to the desire to pillage and burn for their own gain, instead of following an organized plan. But this ''is'' Chaos we're talking about - it's a miracle they even followed the plan as long as they did. Millions of Chaos pirates assault every planet they can while the Chaos Gods try to occupy more territory than their rivals. If it weren't for the Great Game monopolizing their attention, the Chaos Gods might have been able to completely wipe out their opposition on the spot.
**It's important to realize that Chaos is much more than Abaddon's own agenda. Whatever his goals might have originally been, the fact that daemons can more easily be brought into realspace is a BIG deal. Almost as soon as the Great Rift erupted Daemons of Khorne (without Marines or even the approval of the other three Chaos Gods) managed to attack Terra, and [[Plague Wars|Ultramar got a full-blown Nurgle/Death Guard invasion]] later on.
**Chaos Marines have always used warp storms to conceal their movements; while they may not be the most safe or reliable of places to hide, Chaos forces have a notable advantage when it comes to navigating them over everyone else. Notably, the traitor legions considered the Eye a "prison" as much as a haven, but they seem to be better able to leave the Rift more easily than they could leave the Eye of Terror.
* The [[Imperium of Man]] almost loses half of its territory, only managing to get in contact with the Imperium Nihilus by two warp corridors constantly under attack by daemons. The [[Indomitus Crusade]] was launched during the aftermath of the Great Rift's birth, trying to push back the Chaos hordes pouring from it. While Roboute Guilliman's leadership was able to stabilize the situation in the Dark Imperium for the time being, he expects that holding onto it will be difficult even for him.
** To help partially alleviate matters and give the dark side of the Imperium some actually reachable leadership, Roboute installed [[Chapter Master]] [[Dante]] of the [[Blood Angels]] as Lord-Regent of the Imperium Nihilus. Not quite as powerful, but more than capable of keeping the peace while shit gets sorted out.
* The [[Ork|Orks]] are having a zogging good time smashing, krumping and chopping all of the spiky gits and other fun things coming from the Rift. Indeed, they interpret the Great Rift as a divine miracle from their gods and a sign of their upcoming arrival on the mortal plane to usher in the final WAAAAGH! They've also recently taken up the habit of deliberately flying into it in the belief that the warp storms will scatter them somewhere else in the galaxy. And lest we forget, orks grow and thrive on conflict to a terrifying degree, and if Octarius is anything to go by, they've been growing a great deal in a pretty short time.
** [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Ghazzy]] is still trying to get the GREAT WAAAGH! going. So far he's stomped the Tyranids of the [[Octarius War|Octarius system]] real good and brought it into stalemate, so he's making some progress. He's somehow been able to be in multiple places at once; it may be that Gork and Mork gave him another power-up somewhere along the line (or someone dusted the old 'time travel in warp' explanation out of the deep, dark closet it had been tossed into and put it to use). Ghazzy might even be insane enough to travel back in time via Warp Express™ to fight in multiple places at the same time.
* The [[Eldar]] are trying to find a way to repair realspace, the dangers of the Immaterium being a very real threat to them. Travelling through some sections of the [[Webway]] has become impossible and some even fear the Cicatrix Maledictum could even end up breaking it. As such, there has been a massive collaboration between the different Aeldari groups in an effort to contain the warprift (even the Dark Eldar, who no doubt profited from all those undefended human planets before the daemons arrived), with the ultimate effect on this being the birth of the [[Ynnari]] and its "alliance" (along with Craftworld [[Alaitoc]]) with the Imperium of Man. The former has caused problems of its own, in no small part because many Eldar are suspicious at best about the newcomers' claims.
* [[Necron]]s are more or less unaffected by the Warp, having no soul and such, and the few occasions that the forces of Chaos have attempted to encroach on Necron worlds have ended spectacularly badly for the ruinous powers. Blackstone and necrodermis tend to have an adverse impact on the forces of chaos, to say nothing of necrons themselves. Some Necron Lords have become interested in stopping the Rift's growth as this is a threat to the ones attempting to rebuild the ancient Necrontyr empire. Plus if all the organics are gone or corrupted by the warp, how are they suppose to get flesh-and-blood bodies again? Some Necron Lord's empires have been expanded during this, too. Interestingly though, unlike the other factions, the Necrons do not seem to regard Chaos as a threat so much a disgusting annoyance.
** The pylons that held Cadia together were originally Necrontyr. Necron Crypteks (and at least [[Belisarius Cawl|one enterprising archmagos]]) are frantically trying to recover and [[Meme|construct additional pylons]] to pin the universe back together, although this has been a slow process and often involves scrape-ups with the Mechanicus, but continues to progress.
* The [[Tau]], trying to take advantage of the situation, launched a full expansion sphere equipped with their brand new Warp drives to prey upon the undefended planets they could - and immediately lost it due to said Warp drives opening a rift in the Warp. Contact was later re-established with the Fourth Sphere, but it's suggested their time stuck in the Warp may not have been good for their sanity. The fact that the Tau still don't fully understand what Chaos is means bad news for the short term safety of their empire, especially since [[Death Guard|another big Chaos force]] is headed their way. Having created a warp drive is one thing, but a warp drive is not to be toyed with unless you have a [[Gellar Field]]. Guess what? They don't. Now we have xenophobic and Chaos-worshipping Tau and hints at an avatar of the Greater Good.
* The [[Tyranid]]s have been hit hard by this. The warp storms blocks most psychic light in the galaxy, so they have lost track of thousands of potential meals, and some are travelling blind. A couple of splinter fleets have probably been lost in the Warp by the sudden warpstorm. [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]] managed to reach [[Baal]], but not before Khornate forces of [[Ka'bandha]] also launched an attack on the system and expressed their unwillingness to let the bugs steal his chance for revenge. [[Devastation of Baal|After fighting daemons, the Blood Angels and Guilliman's reinforcements]], Hive Fleet Leviathan has been reduced to a collection of splinter fleets like Behemoth and Kraken before it. This, combined with the fact the ‘nids are tied up in the [[Octarius War]], means that as of now there is no major Hive Fleet threatening the galaxy, only relatively harmless (by tyranid standards at least) splinter fleets. This has not discouraged the Great Devourer, and from the remains of all splinter fleets around, some new Hive Fleets have begun to emerge, more and more specialized in fighting daemons and Chaos elements; [[Hive Fleet Kronos]] in particular has become infamous for its success rate against daemons through massive long range firepower and a supercharged [[Shadow in the Warp]]. [[Hive Fleet Tiamet]] is also up to something, building a giant living structure in a backwater region of Ultima Segmentum; nobody else can tell what it is, although some speculate its a rally beacon for the Hive Fleets, which could be trouble for the galaxy as this will be another staging area for the Nids to use.

So basically everyone but Chaos, the Necrons, and arguably the Orks have been fucked in one way or another.
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

Great Rift

2021-11-24T13:24:50Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F: /* So what exactly started it all? */

[[File:Galaxy.jpg|thumb|Daww, the Eye of Terror and the Hadex Anomaly had a baby!]]

The Great Rift, also known as '''Cicatrix Maledictum''' (which more or less means the Cursed Scar), Gork's Grin, Mouth's Ruin, and the Dathedian among others, is a massive chain of Warp-storms that has torn realspace in half after the destruction of [[Cadia]] and its pylons by the [[Warmaster]] of [[Chaos]], [[Abaddon | Abaddon the Despoiler]]. In its current state, it has divided the galaxy into two halves, plus a couple of independent warpstorms in certain areas. This has obviously meant bad news to every major faction in the galaxy other than Chaos (and maybe orks, because now there are more spiky gits to krump), and has especially affected the [[Imperium of Man]], dividing its territory into two halves almost isolated from each other: the part where the [[Astronomican]] still shines normally, and the part where its light can barely reach. This latter half usually gets the name Imperium Nihilus (or the Dark Imperium), both because it's been darkened by the Great Rift and because it's becoming an increasingly bad place to live in, due to Warp shenanigans and xeno attacks.

==So what exactly started it all?==

During the last couple of centuries, the tides of the [[Warp]] became more and more erratic and violent, making space travel more and more dangerous. It's been widely believed that Abaddon the Despoiler's Black Crusades had the secret objective to destroy a series of ancient structures made by the [[Necrons]] that kept the Warp from overflowing into the materium. During the [[13th Black Crusade]] and its final assault on Cadia, Chaos forces managed to destroy the last big series of pylons, the ones that prevented the growth of the [[Eye of Terror]]. The destruction of those last pylons, alongside the rest of the planet, started a chain reaction that formed multiple warpstorms throughout the galaxy. Abaddon's original plan was to, in theory, cause a warpstorm big enough in Holy Terra's direction to either destroy the planet and the Emperor of Mankind or to invade with all the forces Chaos could muster, assuring the destruction of the Imperium. However, these massive warpstorms started joining with each other and instead of growing into the direction of the Segmentum Solar, it went into the [[Maelstrom]], consumed the Galactic Core, then moved into a straight line dividing the galaxy neatly in two. Failbaddon would pulling his topknot out if only he had any arms to do it with.

Despite supposedly destroying the Cadian pylons, Abaddon still managed to get hold of some from somewhere, either from the wreckage or dug up somewhere else. He managed to actually transport them in giant grand cruisers to various worlds in the [[Segmentum]] Solar, originally part of a plan to becalm the warp-space around [[Terra]] and isolate [[Roboute Guilliman]] while the [[High Lords of Terra]] tried to depose him; this was only thwarted because the [[Sisters of Silence]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]] performed a rogue operation and exposed the plot before it was completed. [[Dante]] is then assigned by Guilliman to be the regent of the Dark Imperium.

==What does this mean for the galaxy?==

It means bad news. Horrifically, apocalyptically bad news.

Imagine the danger that the Eye of Terror represented to the galaxy back when it was just a single region in realspace. Now imagine that same danger multiplied by a hundred and spread around most of the galaxy. The Eye of Terror spreads the madness and dangers of the Warp into realspace at twice the rate, and affects a much, much bigger area than before. Hundreds, if not thousands of systems were immediately sucked into its warpstorms, with all the horrific consequences implied from that, not to mention all the space-time distortions effects that an event like this could mean: planets frozen in time while other live full millenniums in the blink of an eye, planets changing place and appearing out of nowhere or just disappearing... you get the idea. It's gotten so bad that even in-universe any kind of objective measure of time is no longer meaningful.

Each faction, however, has reacted to it differently.

*Chaos is obviously the one [[profit]]ing from this, although after the birth of the Great Rift, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade started to slow a bit due to the desire to pillage and burn for their own gain, instead of following an organized plan. But this ''is'' Chaos we're talking about - it's a miracle they even followed the plan as long as they did. Millions of Chaos pirates assault every planet they can while the Chaos Gods try to occupy more territory than their rivals. If it weren't for the Great Game monopolizing their attention, the Chaos Gods might have been able to completely wipe out their opposition on the spot.
**It's important to realize that Chaos is much more than Abaddon's own agenda. Whatever his goals might have originally been, the fact that daemons can more easily be brought into realspace is a BIG deal. Almost as soon as the Great Rift erupted Daemons of Khorne (without Marines or even the approval of the other three Chaos Gods) managed to attack Terra, and [[Plague Wars|Ultramar got a full-blown Nurgle/Death Guard invasion]] later on.
**Chaos Marines have always used warp storms to conceal their movements; while they may not be the most safe or reliable of places to hide, Chaos forces have a notable advantage when it comes to navigating them over everyone else. Notably, the traitor legions considered the Eye a "prison" as much as a haven, but they seem to be better able to leave the Rift more easily than they could leave the Eye of Terror.
* The [[Imperium of Man]] almost loses half of its territory, only managing to get in contact with the Imperium Nihilus by two warp corridors constantly under attack by daemons. The [[Indomitus Crusade]] was launched during the aftermath of the Great Rift's birth, trying to push back the Chaos hordes pouring from it. While Roboute Guilliman's leadership was able to stabilize the situation in the Dark Imperium for the time being, he expects that holding onto it will be difficult even for him.
** To help partially alleviate matters and give the dark side of the Imperium some actually reachable leadership, Roboute installed [[Chapter Master]] [[Dante]] of the [[Blood Angels]] as Lord-Regent of the Imperium Nihilus. Not quite as powerful, but more than capable of keeping the peace while shit gets sorted out.
* The [[Ork|Orks]] are having a zogging good time smashing, krumping and chopping all of the spiky gits and other fun things coming from the Rift. Indeed, they interpret the Great Rift as a divine miracle from their gods and a sign of their upcoming arrival on the mortal plane to usher in the final WAAAAGH! They've also recently taken up the habit of deliberately flying into it in the belief that the warp storms will scatter them somewhere else in the galaxy.
** [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Ghazzy]] is still trying to get the GREAT WAAAGH! going. So far he's stomped the Tyranids of the [[Octarius War|Octarius system]] real good and brought it into stalemate, so he's making some progress. He's somehow been able to be in multiple places at once; it may be that Gork and Mork gave him another power-up somewhere along the line (or someone dusted the old 'time travel in warp' explanation out of the deep, dark closet it had been tossed into and put it to use). Ghazzy might even be insane enough to travel back in time via Warp Express™ to fight in multiple places at the same time.
* The [[Eldar]] are trying to find a way to repair realspace, the dangers of the Immaterium being a very real threat to them. Travelling through some sections of the [[Webway]] has become impossible and some even fear the Cicatrix Maledictum could even end up breaking it. As such, there has been a massive collaboration between the different Aeldari groups in an effort to contain the warprift (even the Dark Eldar, who no doubt profited from all those undefended human planets before the daemons arrived), with the ultimate effect on this being the birth of the [[Ynnari]] and its "alliance" (along with Craftworld [[Alaitoc]]) with the Imperium of Man. The former has caused problems of its own, in no small part because many Eldar are suspicious at best about the newcomers' claims.
* [[Necron]]s are more or less unaffected by the Warp, having no soul and such, but some Necron Lords have become interested in stopping the Rift's growth as this is a threat to the ones attempting to rebuild the ancient Necrontyr empire. Plus if all the organics are gone or corrupted by the warp, how are they suppose to get flesh-and-blood bodies again? Some Necron Lord's empires have been expanded during this, too.
** The pylons that held Cadia together were originally Necrontyr. Necron Crypteks (and at least [[Belisarius Cawl|one enterprising archmagos]]) are frantically trying to recover and [[Meme|construct additional pylons]] to pin the universe back together, although this has been a slow process and often involves scrape-ups with the Mechanicus.
* The [[Tau]], trying to take advantage of the situation, launched a full expansion sphere equipped with their brand new Warp drives to prey upon the undefended planets they could - and immediately lost it due to said Warp drives opening a rift in the Warp. Contact was later re-established with the Fourth Sphere, but it's suggested their time stuck in the Warp may not have been good for their sanity. The fact that the Tau still don't fully understand what Chaos is means bad news for the short term safety of their empire, especially since [[Death Guard|another big Chaos force]] is headed their way. Having created a warp drive is one thing, but a warp drive is not to be toyed with unless you have a [[Gellar Field]]. Guess what? They don't. Now we have xenophobic and Chaos-worshipping Tau and hints at an avatar of the Greater Good.
* The [[Tyranid]]s have been hit hard by this. The warp storms blocks most psychic light in the galaxy, so they have lost track of thousands of potential meals, and some are travelling blind. A couple of splinter fleets have probably been lost in the Warp by the sudden warpstorm. [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]] managed to reach [[Baal]], but not before Khornate forces of [[Ka'bandha]] also launched an attack on the system and expressed their unwillingness to let the bugs steal his chance for revenge. [[Devastation of Baal|After fighting daemons, the Blood Angels and Guilliman's reinforcements]], Hive Fleet Leviathan has been reduced to a collection of splinter fleets like Behemoth and Kraken before it. This, combined with the fact the ‘nids are tied up in the [[Octarius War]], means that as of now there is no major Hive Fleet threatening the galaxy, only relatively harmless (by tyranid standards at least) splinter fleets. This has not discouraged the Great Devourer, and from the remains of all splinter fleets around, some new Hive Fleets have begun to emerge, more and more specialized in fighting daemons and Chaos elements; [[Hive Fleet Kronos]] in particular has become infamous for its success rate against daemons through massive long range firepower and a supercharged [[Shadow in the Warp]]. [[Hive Fleet Tiamet]] is also up to something, building a giant living structure in a backwater region of Ultima Segmentum; nobody else can tell what it is, although some speculate its a rally beacon for the Hive Fleets, which could be trouble for the galaxy as this will be another staging area for the Nids to use.

So basically everyone but Chaos and arguably the Orks have been fucked in one way or another.
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

Imperial Truth

2021-11-14T19:51:48Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F:

{{Heresy}}
{{topquote|The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.|Tahar Ben Jelloun}}
{{topquote|There can be daemons in a secular cosmos, [[Knights-Errant#Garviel Loken|Garviel]]. Just as long as we understand the use of the word.|Warmaster [[Horus]], ''Horus Rising''}}
{{topquote|The Truth will come out. You won't be able to hold the blindfold in place, and once it slips, the fury of those you deceived will be limitless.|[[Jaghatai Khan]] to [[Malcador]] on the subject of Imperial Truth}}
{{topquote|Thou hast also written that prayer and supplications have been offered by thee, that I might find a good entry into Baptism. This prayer of thine... I have not understood.|Güyük Khan to Pope Innocent IV, in a diplomatic letter written in Persian}}

The Imperial Truth is the atheist rationalist doctrine espoused by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] as part of the [[Great Crusade]]. According to the Imperial Truth, the Emperor believed that religion and superstition had divided mankind too much during its history. On one hand, the Emperor had reason to believe since he'd lived through most of [[Earth|Terra]]'s religious wars (although his statements about them in The Last Church implies he either actually didn't bother knowing anything about them or he was purposefully lying to try and win an argument, both sound like him). On the other hand, these were motivated by secular reasons, defensive responses or fanatics who would have simply attached their obsession to something else if they had no religion at the time. Thus did the Emperor [[The Last Church|become an extreme militant atheist who violently purged the religions of Terra]]. His plan was for [[Imperium of Man]] to become a secular state [[Star Trek|espousing science and reason]] (based on the Emperor's conjectures linking religious worship to the powers of Chaos, as seen below). Although, the science and reason thing didn't shake the religious trappings and presence (such as angelic figures, daemons, and various vernacular and art quirks of the Imperium).

Unsurprising; it's easy to convince someone that there is no buff guy in the sky throwing lightning bolts when you can prove it, but when confronted with something like "everything exist because God says so, the end" you can't really disprove it since anything you use was "created by God" or religions focused on an afterlife because A) can't be dis-proven even in 40K and B) souls actually ''do'' go to ''the other side of the Warp'' assuming nothing catches them and so that would actually ''encourage'' afterlife religious belief. Following the [[Horus Heresy]] and the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne, the Imperial Truth collapsed, the Emperor's very own philosophy denounced as [[HERESY]] wherever it was not simply forgotten, and the Imperium of Man has become [[Grimdark|a theocratic dictatorship where questioning anything results in a painful death]]. So, exactly what the Emperor wanted just with worship instead of atheism as its official religious belief.

Its probable that, given the massive proliferation of Chaos-lite cults throughout the galaxy after the Age of Strife, from tribal practices that wouldn't be out of place in [[Norsca]] to [[Colchis|complete theocracies]], the Emperor didn't want to take any chances and just banned any religious practices regardless of whether or not they were more or less obviously connected to Chaos. Even in the 40th millennium, part of their modus operandi still involves infiltrating and corrupting otherwise legitimate religious and philosophical institutions, after all. However, that is only due to how common they are. Secular organizations are just as vulnerable. More so, even, due to lacking the shield of faith nearly so strongly as that in religious-focused groups.

While the Emperor was viscerally against religion as a concept, attributing to it many of the woes that had plagued Mankind's history, he didn't just ban and purge religion simply because he disagreed with it. During his millennia of existence, the Emperor had come to partially determine the nature of the relationship sentient life had with the [[Warp]]. Knowing that the belief in gods would only serve to create them and empower the Warp creatures, the Emperor hoped to starve the [[Chaos Gods]] by denying them worshipers. Because creating and worshiping loving gods who protected humanity from the extremes Chaos represented would be a bad idea because...? Oh, right, da Emprah was also a control-freak to a degree.

This was doomed to failure from the get-go since the Emperor had failed to appreciate that the Chaos Gods were powered not only by faith, but also by raw emotions. For a bit of context: it's stated in some of the old lore and still implied in the new that in short, emotion gives the Ruinous Powers sustenance, but faith gives them sentience. Anger will always exist, so Khorne will always have a presence in the Warp, but with no one to worship him, he loses his agency and will. People going about their daily lives experiencing their normal emotions would still empower the Chaos Gods. Also the same behaviors and traits some, such as the Emperor, hated and associated with religious people are also found among the non-religious. He also failed to realize that faith was actually the greatest weapon against the Chaos Gods, what was needed was an alternative to direct the belief at such as a God, a God-Emperor or the religions that existed at the time before Emps decided to go all [[Communism|Stalin]] on them. In fact, the Emperor may even have BEEN Stalin and Soviet Russia - the first nation in history with an avowed goal of purging religion and replacing it with atheism - might have been a precursor to the Imperial Truth. Faith enables a Guardsman to kill a daemon (sometimes) because that Guardsman believes so utterly that it becomes real for that daemon. Given the deeds of normal humans in the fluff which do not even involve daemons and still amount to things even a Space Marine would be impressed by, it is likely that faith and the Warp related to humanity goes beyond just fighting Chaos. Heck, look at the Acts of Faith for the Sisters of Battle as an example. Freaking Living Saints, even (potentially).

The final deathblow for his case came when proof was found during the Horus Heresy that faith in something else, and by extension other religions, actually hurts Chaos. While a non-religious creed against Chaos (like what the [[Interex]] had) can fend them off, at most this would achieve a stalemate until a controlled psyker decided to go outside the lines. But theistic religiosity proved superior since it gave the means to [[Ynnead|actually take the fight to Chaos, beat them back and, MAYBE... one day, even defeat the Chaos Gods]]. Or maybe that Eldar god made of Eldar souls will succeed in slaying a Warp god that specializes in eating Eldar souls...yeah, that’s going to end [[Grimdark|perfectly.]]

An alternative view is that the Emprah's plan wasn't to actually kill the Chaos Gods but to remove them from the Materium (in hindsight we know how hilariously ridiculous ''that'' idea is). The Emprah had a few major pet-peeves: religion, uncontrolled [[psyker]]s, [[unregulated xenos]] and [[Astronomican|warp travel]]. Without [[Cultist-chan]] and chaos-worshiping xenos, there would be no summoning of [[daemons]]. Without uncontrolled psykers, few possessions would occur. Without warp travel, there would be few opportunities for Chaos Gods to [[rape|fuck Man up]]. Thus, without religion, xenos, psykers and warp travel, the Chaos Gods and their minions wouldn't be able to access the Materium (for the most part). Who gives a shit if the Chaos Gods are powerful if they are unable to do shit with that power? Answer, Emprah knows BEST!!!! (Although the Emprah withholding this knowledge from nearly everyone, including his own [[Primarch|sons]] who are out on their own all over the galaxy, probably wasn't the best idea since knowing the enemy is the first step in fighting it.) However there was one big problem with this idea in the form of the [[Eye of Terror]], which would still be providing a connection between the Materium and the Immaterium even in Emps purged religion, uncontrolled psykers, warp travel and aliens (not to mention humans are fallible and entropy is a thing, so a controlled psyker can become an uncontrolled one).

Unfortunately, any doctrine based upon scientific materialism and skepticism doesn't work in practical terms in a universe where gods are real and active (whether you believe in real life or not, they are most definitely there in 40k) / eternal & ethereal souls exist / people come back from the dead / technology is animistic / prayer actually works / sorcery does not require being a psyker / failure to burn enough witches at the stake makes your world a putrid mess with rivers of pus / Red 'Unz do go Fasta! / and the second most (technologically) advanced alien race in the setting is practicing Polytheism, works on prophecies and ghost powered mechanized support plus summoning an avatar of one of their gods. Chaos in particular is especially irreconcilable with such things, as everything about it is contradictory and unpredictable. Not only will trying to observe it make you go insane, ''replicating'' it would almost certainly destroy all of reality even if it didn't work.

The Tau tried treating things scientifically on Kronus (Eldar weapons), Kaurava (Living Saints), and Medusa V (analyzing a warp rift). In the first two cases they could not understand a thing about how they worked, and on Medusa they basically made the scientific equivalent of "Here be dragons". Still though, chaos gods HATE the Tau both for the greater good ideology that opposes all the principal aspects of the chaos gods (peace over war, health over disease, meritocracy over ambitious backstabbing and not excessives allowed) and got the control over the civil population to actually make it happen.

Still, why wasn't the Emprah more straightforward? He could have said: "There are no gods, just alien dimension energy beings that are so fucked up, they think they are Gods. They are lying and will fuck you over." But he probably didn't do that since the whole idea of the Great Crusade was to eliminate such creatures, and telling everyone about them like that would only lead to overzealous idiots making contact with 'the monsters' in an attempt to cage or eliminate them (a trait [[Fulgrim|sadly]] [[Angron|common]] [[Jaghatai Khan|in]] [[Mortarion|his]] [[Konrad Curze|sons]]), and that would open its own can of worms. Another reason for him not to tell anyone is that what counts as a "god" is entirely up to each individual person. To the Greeks, Zeus and Poseidon were gods. To the Christians, Zeus and Poseidon either do not exist or do not count as gods because they are more limited than the Christian God. It's all subjective, which means telling people about Chaos and daemons would still cause huge numbers of people to decide they're gods which A) would make them stronger due to that belief even if the believers hated them and tried to fight against them and B) a lot of the people would start worshiping and following them like wet-rot under the carpet.

The Emprah's own biggest fuck up was not trusting Mankind or even his own Primarchs to be able to cope with the actual truth of the matter, the existence of eldritch entities in general without falling on our knees to worship them. Extra stupid points since the war against the Men of Iron happened after a ''daemonic invasion'' of human space, to say nothing of the Age of Strife's frequent wars against daemons. Humanity had more than proven that we weren't going to join the fuckers. The Emprah was like a manager that hides vital information from his employees because he doesn't think they can cope with the big picture, then the company falls apart when an engineer pisses off a major customer because of some unknown piece of said info. That is WH40K in a nutshell.

Perhaps it was more than anything the fact the Emperor knew in his heart of hearts too many people resented the Great Crusade, as in all wars there is a losing side, even if they became part of the Imperium there is still lots of people who saw their worlds shattered, they would be the first ones to give Chaos a try, not because they need to believe in something but as an attempt to escape their deplorable condition and take revenge upon those who enslaved them.

If the Imperial Truth is even known about by the time of 40k is uncertain, although more than likely the term is now used as pro-imperial propaganda by Imperial Missionaries trying to sell worship of the Emperor to disbelieving locals on your newly discovered savage world. In fact the novel Hammer & Anvil flat-out says that's what it is. Some [[Chaos Space Marine|Chaos Space Marines]] might remember it, but due to their worship of the [[Chaos Gods]] none of them follow it, with the exception of [[Fabius Bile]].

Most Space Marine chapter and the Adeptus Custodes as a whole also teaches their forces their own versions of the Imperial Truth. However because the Imperium needs the Emperor's elite creations and would not survive without them. The Inquisition officially considers their beliefs considered variants of the [[Imperial Cult]]. Well, that and the problem that if they called out the Astartes, the Astartes and their supporters would point out that the Astartes beliefs are what the Emperor told them to believe, so only a ''dirty '''heretic''''' would try to stop them.

Originally, atheism wasn't* part of the fluff. Possibly first appeared in the Horus Heresy novels. And since "everything is canon" in 40K, it could easily be passed off as nonsensical historians attempting to piece together the Great Crusade and getting something ridiculous and hypocritical to the point there would have hardly been any planets left after the Great Crusade finished as most worlds above feral would have questioned why the Imperium was destroying everything that didn't match the "official" histories of religion when those destroyed records were the same throughout the galaxy and only the Imperium's take was different. Questioning the Imperial Truth is an excellent way to be burned at the stake. Or on a pile of history books that disagree with the official narrative.

* Note the word "wasn't" is strictly past tense, which is kinda important.

The point is that the Imperial Truth comes off as beyond even 40k’s standard of stupidity because the setting had been heavily developed long before the atheism thing was injected into it. As a result, it’s less like shoving a square peg through a round hole and more like trying to play checkers on the board of holes and wondering why your chess pieces keep falling through.

That, and killing the people smart enough to actually learn things instead of assuming "common knowledge" is magically right and reject logic and reason to not feel dumb doesn't exactly encourage the Emperor's vision for humanity.

That said, how strongly the Imperial Truth was enforced very clearly varied from Legion to Legion. Case-in-point: Word Bearers. And religious people clearly still lived in the Great Crusade as something to ridicule by the government though to what degree of secrecy varied dramatically wherever they were. By and large, it seems likely the Imperium took the approach that if your religion can be disproven, it will be destroyed, if your religion cannot be disproven (such as belief in God creating everything or an afterlife) then active worship will be banned (probably for fear of split loyalties between religious and secular authorities which admittedly has caused a number of hardships in human history) and anyone believing in the religion would be mocked as weirdos. A “happy” balance between “feed the Christians/Jews to lions” and State Atheism in which religion can be ruthlessly purged but when the Imperium cannot actually disprove a religious belief it didn’t just murderize everyone...unless the Emperor was personally leading the conquest of your world. Then yeah, he’d totally kill everyone but Monarchia seems to imply he grew out of that after realizing the scope or he’d have killed everyone there instead of evacuating them before destroying it.

The Emperor not destroying the Machine Cult makes sense in this context. Allowing the worship of knowledge and science is basically worship of the Imperial Truth, which is something it's not surprising he'd tolerate. Allowing worship of "love thy neighbor" and "you go to a happy place when you die" probably wouldn't have bothered him either. Allowing worship of "lightning comes from an old due on a mountain throwing bolts like javelins" isn't tolerable.

Though there is the implication that the Emperor arranged for the Machine Cult being created during the DAoT. See the [[Omnissiah]] for the theories.

== Primarch's point of view ==
When [[Horus]] had a vision of the 41st millennium, part of his instant patricidal rage was that the Emperor was abandoning the Imperial Truth by seeking to become a real god (which made the Emperor a hypocrite if true). This in turn convinced him to renounce the Emperor. And then start worshiping the Chaos Gods. It’s double hypocritical when you realize that he could only get pissed at the belief his father was trying to become a god if Horus believed gods existed otherwise he’d think it was impossible. So, he broke the Imperial Truth in order to be able to believe the Emperor planned to break the Imperial Truth and then he broke it again by worshipping Chaos to stop the Emperor from breaking the Imperial Truth (Look, [[Horus]] was a right dumbass).

Magnus said that the Warp is just another type of knowledge to be used. The Warp, in turn, made him its bitch. Even ignoring that, there is nothing "possible, observable, and repeatable" when it comes to the Warp (before Mortarion fell to Chaos he believed this and attempted to put it into practice, which got him fucked up by a Daemon he wanted to interrogate), and many other things in 40k. It's well, chaotic, the hate, anger and madness of uncountable beings in the Galaxy. There is nothing rational about the emotional refuse of sentience, and trying to apply scientific principles to them is a waste of time at the absolute best.

During Jaghatai Khan's first visit on Terra, he didn't not have a great time with his father, kept butting words with him. He also didn't think highly of Malcador and kept delaying his meeting until his psyker buddy Yesugei convinced him to go. There the Khan and Malcador had a discussion about the Imperial Truth, which the Khan believe it to be a load of bullshit, a giant hypocrisy that can only delay [[chaos|the inevitable]], even compare it to the slaves from his planet, where they are promised freedom when is ready, except it never came and some had to rebelled. Malcador replied by saying the lie is noble and necessary, which is why they need the Primarch to get their asses to conquer planets fast before the lie expired.

[[Guilliman]] himself still believe in (at least modified version of) it after his return, and after being saved by a Living Saint during the Plague Wars he's seriously started to wonder if Lorgar and the Ecclesiarchy actually had it right all along. Even if he genuinely believed that the Emperor was telling the truth when he told Lorgar that he was no god, its entirely possible that he may more or less have become a god in his current state. He doesn't worship him, but does recognize that if he wasn't a god back then, he definitely is now.
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Imperial Truth

2021-11-14T19:40:37Z

2603:8001:6900:9D09:BD92:6ECD:2B04:8B8F:

{{Heresy}}
{{topquote|The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.|Tahar Ben Jelloun}}
{{topquote|There can be daemons in a secular cosmos, [[Knights-Errant#Garviel Loken|Garviel]]. Just as long as we understand the use of the word.|Warmaster [[Horus]], ''Horus Rising''}}
{{topquote|The Truth will come out. You won't be able to hold the blindfold in place, and once it slips, the fury of those you deceived will be limitless.|[[Jaghatai Khan]] to [[Malcador]] on the subject of Imperial Truth}}
{{topquote|Thou hast also written that prayer and supplications have been offered by thee, that I might find a good entry into Baptism. This prayer of thine... I have not understood.|Güyük Khan to Pope Innocent IV, in a diplomatic letter written in Persian}}

The Imperial Truth is the atheist rationalist doctrine espoused by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] as part of the [[Great Crusade]]. According to the Imperial Truth, the Emperor believed that religion and superstition had divided mankind too much during its history. On one hand, the Emperor had reason to believe since he'd lived through most of [[Earth|Terra]]'s religious wars (although his statements about them in The Last Church implies he either actually didn't bother knowing anything about them or he was purposefully lying to try and win an argument, both sound like him). On the other hand, these were motivated by secular reasons, defensive responses or fanatics who would have simply attached their obsession to something else if they had no religion at the time. Thus did the Emperor [[The Last Church|become an extreme militant atheist who violently purged the religions of Terra]]. His plan was for [[Imperium of Man]] to become a secular state [[Star Trek|espousing science and reason]] (based on the Emperor's conjectures linking religious worship to the powers of Chaos, as seen below). Although, the science and reason thing didn't shake the religious trappings and presence (such as angelic figures, daemons, and various vernacular and art quirks of the Imperium).

Unsurprising; it's easy to convince someone that there is no buff guy in the sky throwing lightning bolts when you can prove it, but when confronted with something like "everything exist because God says so, the end" you can't really disprove it since anything you use was "created by God" or religions focused on an afterlife because A) can't be dis-proven even in 40K and B) souls actually ''do'' go to ''the other side of the Warp'' assuming nothing catches them and so that would actually ''encourage'' afterlife religious belief. Following the [[Horus Heresy]] and the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne, the Imperial Truth collapsed, the Emperor's very own philosophy denounced as [[HERESY]] wherever it was not simply forgotten, and the Imperium of Man has become [[Grimdark|a theocratic dictatorship where questioning anything results in a painful death]]. So, exactly what the Emperor wanted just with worship instead of atheism as its official religious belief.

Its probable that, given the massive proliferation of Chaos-lite cults throughout the galaxy after the Age of Strife, from tribal practices that wouldn't be out of place in [[Norsca]] to [[Colchis|complete theocracies]], the Emperor didn't want to take any chances and just banned any religious practices regardless of whether or not they were more or less obviously connected to Chaos. Even in the 40th millennium, part of their modus operandi still involves infiltrating and corrupting otherwise legitimate religious and philosophical institutions, after all. However, that is only due to how common they are. Secular organizations are just as vulnerable. More so, even, due to lacking the shield of faith nearly so strongly as that in religious-focused groups.

While the Emperor was viscerally against religion as a concept, attributing to it many of the woes that had plagued Mankind's history, he didn't just ban and purge religion simply because he disagreed with it. During his millennia of existence, the Emperor had come to partially determine the nature of the relationship sentient life had with the [[Warp]]. Knowing that the belief in gods would only serve to create them and empower the Warp creatures, the Emperor hoped to starve the [[Chaos Gods]] by denying them worshipers. Because creating and worshiping loving gods who protected humanity from the extremes Chaos represented would be a bad idea because...? Oh, right, da Emprah was also a control-freak to a degree.

This was doomed to failure from the get-go since the Emperor had failed to realize that the Chaos Gods were powered not only by faith, but also by raw emotions. People going about their daily lives experiencing their normal emotions would still empower the Chaos Gods. Also the same behaviors and traits some, such as the Emperor, hated and associated with religious people are also found among the non-religious. He also failed to realize that faith was actually the greatest weapon against the Chaos Gods, what was needed was an alternative to direct the belief at such as a God, a God-Emperor or the religions that existed at the time before Emps decided to go all [[Communism|Stalin]] on them. In fact, the Emperor may even have BEEN Stalin and Soviet Russia - the first nation in history with an avowed goal of purging religion and replacing it with atheism - might have been a precursor to the Imperial Truth. Faith enables a Guardsman to kill a daemon (sometimes) because that Guardsman believes so utterly that it becomes real for that daemon. Given the deeds of normal humans in the fluff which do not even involve daemons and still amount to things even a Space Marine would be impressed by, it is likely that faith and the Warp related to humanity goes beyond just fighting Chaos. Heck, look at the Acts of Faith for the Sisters of Battle as an example. Freaking Living Saints, even (potentially).

The final deathblow for his case came when proof was found during the Horus Heresy that faith in something else, and by extension other religions, actually hurts Chaos. While a non-religious creed against Chaos (like what the [[Interex]] had) can fend them off, at most this would achieve a stalemate until a controlled psyker decided to go outside the lines. But theistic religiosity proved superior since it gave the means to [[Ynnead|actually take the fight to Chaos, beat them back and, MAYBE... one day, even defeat the Chaos Gods]]. Or maybe that Eldar god made of Eldar souls will succeed in slaying a Warp god that specializes in eating Eldar souls...yeah, that’s going to end [[Grimdark|perfectly.]]

An alternative view is that the Emprah's plan wasn't to actually kill the Chaos Gods but to remove them from the Materium (in hindsight we know how hilariously ridiculous ''that'' idea is). The Emprah had a few major pet-peeves: religion, uncontrolled [[psyker]]s, [[unregulated xenos]] and [[Astronomican|warp travel]]. Without [[Cultist-chan]] and chaos-worshiping xenos, there would be no summoning of [[daemons]]. Without uncontrolled psykers, few possessions would occur. Without warp travel, there would be few opportunities for Chaos Gods to [[rape|fuck Man up]]. Thus, without religion, xenos, psykers and warp travel, the Chaos Gods and their minions wouldn't be able to access the Materium (for the most part). Who gives a shit if the Chaos Gods are powerful if they are unable to do shit with that power? Answer, Emprah knows BEST!!!! (Although the Emprah withholding this knowledge from nearly everyone, including his own [[Primarch|sons]] who are out on their own all over the galaxy, probably wasn't the best idea since knowing the enemy is the first step in fighting it.) However there was one big problem with this idea in the form of the [[Eye of Terror]], which would still be providing a connection between the Materium and the Immaterium even in Emps purged religion, uncontrolled psykers, warp travel and aliens (not to mention humans are fallible and entropy is a thing, so a controlled psyker can become an uncontrolled one).

Unfortunately, any doctrine based upon scientific materialism and skepticism doesn't work in practical terms in a universe where gods are real and active (whether you believe in real life or not, they are most definitely there in 40k) / eternal & ethereal souls exist / people come back from the dead / technology is animistic / prayer actually works / sorcery does not require being a psyker / failure to burn enough witches at the stake makes your world a putrid mess with rivers of pus / Red 'Unz do go Fasta! / and the second most (technologically) advanced alien race in the setting is practicing Polytheism, works on prophecies and ghost powered mechanized support plus summoning an avatar of one of their gods. Chaos in particular is especially irreconcilable with such things, as everything about it is contradictory and unpredictable. Not only will trying to observe it make you go insane, ''replicating'' it would almost certainly destroy all of reality even if it didn't work.

The Tau tried treating things scientifically on Kronus (Eldar weapons), Kaurava (Living Saints), and Medusa V (analyzing a warp rift). In the first two cases they could not understand a thing about how they worked, and on Medusa they basically made the scientific equivalent of "Here be dragons". Still though, chaos gods HATE the Tau both for the greater good ideology that opposes all the principal aspects of the chaos gods (peace over war, health over disease, meritocracy over ambitious backstabbing and not excessives allowed) and got the control over the civil population to actually make it happen.

Still, why wasn't the Emprah more straightforward? He could have said: "There are no gods, just alien dimension energy beings that are so fucked up, they think they are Gods. They are lying and will fuck you over." But he probably didn't do that since the whole idea of the Great Crusade was to eliminate such creatures, and telling everyone about them like that would only lead to overzealous idiots making contact with 'the monsters' in an attempt to cage or eliminate them (a trait [[Fulgrim|sadly]] [[Angron|common]] [[Jaghatai Khan|in]] [[Mortarion|his]] [[Konrad Curze|sons]]), and that would open its own can of worms. Another reason for him not to tell anyone is that what counts as a "god" is entirely up to each individual person. To the Greeks, Zeus and Poseidon were gods. To the Christians, Zeus and Poseidon either do not exist or do not count as gods because they are more limited than the Christian God. It's all subjective, which means telling people about Chaos and daemons would still cause huge numbers of people to decide they're gods which A) would make them stronger due to that belief even if the believers hated them and tried to fight against them and B) a lot of the people would start worshiping and following them like wet-rot under the carpet.

The Emprah's own biggest fuck up was not trusting Mankind or even his own Primarchs to be able to cope with the actual truth of the matter, the existence of eldritch entities in general without falling on our knees to worship them. Extra stupid points since the war against the Men of Iron happened after a ''daemonic invasion'' of human space, to say nothing of the Age of Strife's frequent wars against daemons. Humanity had more than proven that we weren't going to join the fuckers. The Emprah was like a manager that hides vital information from his employees because he doesn't think they can cope with the big picture, then the company falls apart when an engineer pisses off a major customer because of some unknown piece of said info. That is WH40K in a nutshell.

Perhaps it was more than anything the fact the Emperor knew in his heart of hearts too many people resented the Great Crusade, as in all wars there is a losing side, even if they became part of the Imperium there is still lots of people who saw their worlds shattered, they would be the first ones to give Chaos a try, not because they need to believe in something but as an attempt to escape their deplorable condition and take revenge upon those who enslaved them.

If the Imperial Truth is even known about by the time of 40k is uncertain, although more than likely the term is now used as pro-imperial propaganda by Imperial Missionaries trying to sell worship of the Emperor to disbelieving locals on your newly discovered savage world. In fact the novel Hammer & Anvil flat-out says that's what it is. Some [[Chaos Space Marine|Chaos Space Marines]] might remember it, but due to their worship of the [[Chaos Gods]] none of them follow it, with the exception of [[Fabius Bile]].

Most Space Marine chapter and the Adeptus Custodes as a whole also teaches their forces their own versions of the Imperial Truth. However because the Imperium needs the Emperor's elite creations and would not survive without them. The Inquisition officially considers their beliefs considered variants of the [[Imperial Cult]]. Well, that and the problem that if they called out the Astartes, the Astartes and their supporters would point out that the Astartes beliefs are what the Emperor told them to believe, so only a ''dirty '''heretic''''' would try to stop them.

Originally, atheism wasn't* part of the fluff. Possibly first appeared in the Horus Heresy novels. And since "everything is canon" in 40K, it could easily be passed off as nonsensical historians attempting to piece together the Great Crusade and getting something ridiculous and hypocritical to the point there would have hardly been any planets left after the Great Crusade finished as most worlds above feral would have questioned why the Imperium was destroying everything that didn't match the "official" histories of religion when those destroyed records were the same throughout the galaxy and only the Imperium's take was different. Questioning the Imperial Truth is an excellent way to be burned at the stake. Or on a pile of history books that disagree with the official narrative.

* Note the word "wasn't" is strictly past tense, which is kinda important.

The point is that the Imperial Truth comes off as beyond even 40k’s standard of stupidity because the setting had been heavily developed long before the atheism thing was injected into it. As a result, it’s less like shoving a square peg through a round hole and more like trying to play checkers on the board of holes and wondering why your chess pieces keep falling through.

That, and killing the people smart enough to actually learn things instead of assuming "common knowledge" is magically right and reject logic and reason to not feel dumb doesn't exactly encourage the Emperor's vision for humanity.

That said, how strongly the Imperial Truth was enforced very clearly varied from Legion to Legion. Case-in-point: Word Bearers. And religious people clearly still lived in the Great Crusade as something to ridicule by the government though to what degree of secrecy varied dramatically wherever they were. By and large, it seems likely the Imperium took the approach that if your religion can be disproven, it will be destroyed, if your religion cannot be disproven (such as belief in God creating everything or an afterlife) then active worship will be banned (probably for fear of split loyalties between religious and secular authorities which admittedly has caused a number of hardships in human history) and anyone believing in the religion would be mocked as weirdos. A “happy” balance between “feed the Christians/Jews to lions” and State Atheism in which religion can be ruthlessly purged but when the Imperium cannot actually disprove a religious belief it didn’t just murderize everyone...unless the Emperor was personally leading the conquest of your world. Then yeah, he’d totally kill everyone but Monarchia seems to imply he grew out of that after realizing the scope or he’d have killed everyone there instead of evacuating them before destroying it.

The Emperor not destroying the Machine Cult makes sense in this context. Allowing the worship of knowledge and science is basically worship of the Imperial Truth, which is something it's not surprising he'd tolerate. Allowing worship of "love thy neighbor" and "you go to a happy place when you die" probably wouldn't have bothered him either. Allowing worship of "lightning comes from an old due on a mountain throwing bolts like javelins" isn't tolerable.

Though there is the implication that the Emperor arranged for the Machine Cult being created during the DAoT. See the [[Omnissiah]] for the theories.

== Primarch's point of view ==
When [[Horus]] had a vision of the 41st millennium, part of his instant patricidal rage was that the Emperor was abandoning the Imperial Truth by seeking to become a real god (which made the Emperor a hypocrite if true). This in turn convinced him to renounce the Emperor. And then start worshiping the Chaos Gods. It’s double hypocritical when you realize that he could only get pissed at the belief his father was trying to become a god if Horus believed gods existed otherwise he’d think it was impossible. So, he broke the Imperial Truth in order to be able to believe the Emperor planned to break the Imperial Truth and then he broke it again by worshipping Chaos to stop the Emperor from breaking the Imperial Truth (Look, [[Horus]] was a right dumbass).

Magnus said that the Warp is just another type of knowledge to be used. The Warp, in turn, made him its bitch. Even ignoring that, there is nothing "possible, observable, and repeatable" when it comes to the Warp (before Mortarion fell to Chaos he believed this and attempted to put it into practice, which got him fucked up by a Daemon he wanted to interrogate), and many other things in 40k. It's well, chaotic, the hate, anger and madness of uncountable beings in the Galaxy. There is nothing rational about the emotional refuse of sentience, and trying to apply scientific principles to them is a waste of time at the absolute best.

During Jaghatai Khan's first visit on Terra, he didn't not have a great time with his father, kept butting words with him. He also didn't think highly of Malcador and kept delaying his meeting until his psyker buddy Yesugei convinced him to go. There the Khan and Malcador had a discussion about the Imperial Truth, which the Khan believe it to be a load of bullshit, a giant hypocrisy that can only delay [[chaos|the inevitable]], even compare it to the slaves from his planet, where they are promised freedom when is ready, except it never came and some had to rebelled. Malcador replied by saying the lie is noble and necessary, which is why they need the Primarch to get their asses to conquer planets fast before the lie expired.

[[Guilliman]] himself still believe in (at least modified version of) it after his return, and after being saved by a Living Saint during the Plague Wars he's seriously started to wonder if Lorgar and the Ecclesiarchy actually had it right all along. Even if he genuinely believed that the Emperor was telling the truth when he told Lorgar that he was no god, its entirely possible that he may more or less have become a god in his current state. He doesn't worship him, but does recognize that if he wasn't a god back then, he definitely is now.
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]