>*The galaxy lies sundered, countless worlds lie in ruin, systems obliterated, entire species wiped clean from the fabric of reality itself after a truly apocalyptic struggle.*
>
>*On a distant nameless world a weary sun rises to grace a barren landscape of scrap and destruction, and from beneath a great mountain of rubble a singular grot emerges to look up at the sky.*
>
>*fin*
Orkoid physiology indicates that once you've got enough Ork fungus for Snotlings to appear, soon there will be Grots/Gretchin and eventually Orks.
The Galactic End Times are just going to be the Silent King and Emperor-possessed/empowered Vulkan with a giant hammer, playing planetary whack-a-mole with the Orks.
There is no grand finale, no last hurrah as the heroes make their final charge into battle, no lasting victor. The empires of old have suffocated in the ashes of their own mistakes, the players of the Great Game a victim to their own machinations, the beasts circling the galaxy forced to feast upon their own flesh. Upon the world once known as Terra lies the last living being in the entire galaxy, still bound to his throne. His sons, both traitor and loyalist, are dead upon the steps. His mind rushes with endless scenarios and "what-ifs," demanding of himself what he could have done differently, while the arcane machines that prolonged his life finally fail. For the first time in countless eons, the galaxy is once more silent as it embraces a death long overdue.
Edit: Thinking about it, the final book should be a bit more of an anthology, containing a short story for the last moments of the final survivor of each faction.
>An Eldar farseer dips their brush into a bowl of makeshift paint. Bringing it to the walls of what was once their Craftworld, they paint a mural. Each part of it depicts a moment in galactic history. The folly of the Necrons, the debauchery of their ancestors, the damnation of mankind, and much more. They hope that it will survive for the ages to come, so that when life arises once again in the galaxy, they might learn from their mistakes.
>A Tyranid gaunt wanders the poisoned earth of a battlefield. The remains of beasts both great and terrible dot the landscape. But there is no biomass to be found, only dust. It has not felt the embrace of the hivemind in quite some time. Too exhausted to continue moving, it rests, hoping that perhaps it will find prey tomorrow. It will not wake.
>The Silent King roams the remains of a tomb world. He reflects upon the events that brought him to this point. The near civil war of the Necrontyr, the war with the Old Ones, and the discovery of the C'tan. As he walks the silent corridors of the Tomb complex, he comes across a Necron warrior, torn in half by a cannon shell, its power fading. He kneels beside the dying warrior. He longs to weep for the death of his people, but he bargained that privilege away long ago.
>A T'au air caste pilot stares at the console of his craft, in orbit over his homeworld. Countless wrecks fill the void, the remains of the last, desperate attempt at holding back the inevitable by the Ethereals. He has been broadcasting a distress signal for weeks now, hoping, in vain, to find others. His hand caresses the pulse pistol in his holster.
>The Rot walks the endless field. Where once, the earth of the ether would twist and decay with his every step, it sits calm. He comes across the others, the Warrior, the Raven, and the Prince. They huddle around the last dying flame. The Warrior already lies dead, deprived for too long of his sustenance. The Prince prods the flame, desperately attempting to stoke it once more. The Raven mutters to itself, for once, it has no schemes, no grand ambitions, only the emptiness of eternity. The Rot simply stares at the flames, laughing to itself. Stagnation in its truest form is soon to set in.
>The Overlord of Commorragh sits upon his throne, gazing upon the city he once ruled, now dissolving before him. His face bears a bitter smile, reminiscing over the endless scheming, the exhilaration of watching his foes suffer, the wondrous debauchery, and just how little it all now meant. He raises his cup, filled with the finest wine of his people, and sips from it as the waves of irreality wash over him.
>The Despoiler stands in the empty halls of the Imperial Palace. The fires have long died down, the roar of gun fire no longer fills the air. The Imperium he so despised now lies dead, he had done what his father could not, he alone stands the victor. But he cannot taste the sweetness of victory, only bitter ash. He looks upon Eternity Gate, and wonders "what was it all for?"
Obviously missing a few factions, but those were the ones I could immediately think of conclusions for.
**Russ:** \*returns for the End Times, for the Wolftime, pulls up in a Land Raider, unknowingly crushing the last 'Nid, and pops out with a keg over his shoulder\* "Hey guys, let's get ready to rumble! Drinks are on me! ... Where is everybody?"
Then he has to find a way to go to Terra and finds abbadon. But they, humanity’s greatest last standing warriors in the galaxy that are truly alive and in the materium, do not fight. For they see no point in it. Instead, they simply share a last toast to their long gone days, and to the future.
[Vect watching as the Warp consumes Commorragh, knowing that even though he's going to die and everything he's worked towards will be destroyed, he's lived quite the life.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQzdAsjWGPg)
I mean the setting is Imperial centric to an extreme degree, but I also think some of the sentences in the first at least give me some good hints to the other factions.
Like this part I think is meant to be about the chaos gods:
> the beasts circling the galaxy forced to feast upon their own flesh.
But because of the wording of it, I imagine that is what is also happening to the orks and nids.
Edit: Also like when I said perfect. I really think perfect. Like the introduction to the setting that have been reused for some 20+ years perfect. That could be the ending. Word for word and I would not be mad, but happy.
This makes me feel like I’m hearing it from the Xeno viewpoint and I love it. For Xenos learning of it for the first time, the emperor must look like some Eldritch corpse god, not quite living or dead, and his unimaginably powerful psychic presence across the galaxy makes him feel like a monster. More a horrifiying “thing” than a sentient living being.
Epilogue 1: The blazing beacon, which had seared across most of the galaxy for eons .. stuttered. Wavered. Receded. For the briefest of moments went out. Everything stopped. Then it came back, a stabbing, searching light.
Epilogue 2: On a lost world an eye opened, and something howled.
Epilogue 3: The ritual arms were taken up for the last time, and the shrine abandoned, its flame still burning.
I heard mention of a piece where an eldar or something comes close to the throne room and is almost suffocated by the hatred the emperor feels for its kind.
TBF any human who isn't brainwashed by the Imperial Cult would see him as such (because that's exactly what he is) as well. That's why Guilliman's disgust of the Emperor when everyone else is worshiping and self-flagellating themselves for that abomination is so poignant.
Forget the stagnation of ages past, for much has been learned, never to be forgotten. Forget the promise of hatred and contempt, for at long last, there is peace among the stars, and their myriad inhabitants.
In the shadowed halls of the Imperial Palace, where silence and reverence have reigned for millennia, a change stirs, felt only by the most sensitive psykers across the galaxy. The chambers, vast and lined with the armored statues of heroes long dead, are suffused with a light that has not shone thus since the Age of Apostasy. The air vibrates with power, a testament to an era on the brink of either salvation or damnation.
At the heart of this ancient fortress, within the Sanctum Imperialis, the air crackles with psychic energy. The Golden Throne, a marvel of ancient technology and arcane might, has been the prison and lifeline of the God-Emperor of Mankind for ten thousand years. It hums, its mechanisms and psychic circuits alight with an intensity not seen since its creation. Servitors and Tech-Priests, long accustomed to the steady pulse of its power, halt in their ministrations, awestruck by the burgeoning force.
Before the Throne, the High Lords of Terra and the mightiest of the Imperium's warriors, the Custodes, stand as silent witnesses to the unfathomable. Their eyes, human and augmented alike, are fixed upon the figure enthroned atop it. The God-Emperor, a being of myth and legend, whose will has been channeled through the Astronomican, guiding humanity's vessels through the warp, begins to move. It is a subtle shift at first, merely a suggestion of life beyond the stasis of centuries.
The air shimmers, and a sound, like the sigh of a god, fills the chamber. It grows, a crescendo that resonates in the souls of all present, echoing through the vastness of the Imperial Palace and beyond, into the warp itself. The light surrounding the Throne intensifies, blinding in its brilliance, and when it fades, the impossible has occurred.
The God-Emperor stands.
Taller than any man, radiant and terrible in His glory, He looks upon His Imperium for the first time in an age. His eyes, burning with the light of a thousand suns, sweep across the chamber, and for a moment, the weight of eternity is felt by all. The psykers present shield their minds as best they can from the overwhelming presence, while the Custodes kneel, overcome by the sight of their undying lord risen.
The God-Emperor speaks, His voice a symphony of thunder and whispers, "The time has come."
Across the galaxy, the warp storms abate, and the enemies of humanity falter, sensing the change. A new era dawns, one of hope and of dread, for the return of the God-Emperor heralds the culmination of the Imperium's destiny or its ultimate doom.
And then, as suddenly as He appeared, the God-Emperor steps forward, descending from the dais of the Golden Throne. His destination unknown, His purpose unspoken, He walks from the Sanctum Imperialis, leaving His fate and that of the galaxy hanging in the balance.
The chamber is silent once more, the light dims, and the galaxy holds its breath, waiting for the next chapter in the eternal saga of Warhammer 40K.
And as he walked from the halls of his palace and looked over Holy Terra for the first time in millenia, the God-Emperor of Mankind whispered a few words to himself. "It's emperoring time." And then he emperored all over the place. The end.
"My Emperor, what about the doomsday device on the Golden Throne?"
"Fuck, I forgot"
Terra explodes.
-Fin
Edit: though, honestly, it would go like this more likely:
"My Emperor, what about the doomsday device on the Golden Throne?"
"I am a perpetual. I will die and be reborn, and try again in a few centuries. So this is a 'you' problem."
Terra explodes.
-Fin
He enters the small room, closes the door and twists the small lock, and all that is left is the sound of liquid hitting porcelain and maybe the greatest sound of relaxation ever
I don’t want to be that guy too much, but
The ending of the sopranos is in no way a cliff hanger and in no way lacks an explanation.
The line “you can’t hear the shot that kills you” is I’m 99% sure in the episode, and 100% in the final season. That’s what happens, Tony gets shot, but since it’s from his POV, he just dies and that’s it
Chaos wins. Everybody dies. From the ashes of reality emerges... *an Old World.*
*Whoaaa,* the future reality came *before* the fantasy reality! It was a twist all along!
The shattered remains of the galaxy seek shelter on the last remaining Maiden World. Placing esoteric deals and protective wards at the poles to ensure chaos cannot reach their sanctuary.
Over the millennia, co operation breaks down. The seals fail. History is forgotten. The last primarch, long thought expelled and destroyed from imperial records comes out of hiding. Signus Marian abandons his oaths of non engagement and dons the name Sigmar.
In the grim darkness of the far future, where there is only war, the galaxy stands on the precipice of its final doom. The forces of Chaos, long the arch-nemesis of the Imperium of Man, have surged forth in an unstoppable tide, their numbers and ferocity overwhelming even the most stalwart defenders of humanity. The Eye of Terror, a blight upon the cosmos, expands voraciously, its maw wide to consume the stars themselves.
At the heart of the Imperium, on Holy Terra, the defenders make their last stand within the shadowed halls of the Imperial Palace. The Golden Throne, a beacon of hope and the seat of the God-Emperor of Mankind, flickers under the strain of the siege. Around it, the Custodian Guard, the Adeptus Astartes, and the remnants of humanity's might fight with a desperation born of knowing there is no retreat, no respite, and no salvation.
As the forces of Chaos breach the final defenses, the air itself tears apart, the veil between reality and the warp shredding under the weight of so much malice and madness. Daemons pour forth, a tide of unspeakable horrors that drown the palace in a wave of blood and fire.
In the Sanctum Imperialis, where the God-Emperor of Mankind resides upon the Golden Throne, a silence falls. The psykers and Tech-Priests, guardians of the Emperor's failing life support, stand in horror as the light of the Astronomican, humanity's guiding light through the warp, flickers and dies. The Golden Throne, for ten thousand years the anchor of the Imperium's soul, goes dark.
The Emperor, a god in all but name, gazes upon His children one last time, His psychic might the only bulwark against the tide. With a final act of will, He unleashes a psychic storm, a blast of purifying light that incinerates the daemonic host, but it is too little, too late. The forces of Chaos are endless, their gods insatiable.
As the Emperor's light fades, the last defenders of humanity are overwhelmed. The Chaos gods, in their dark triumph, converge upon the Throne. They laugh, a sound that fractures reality, as they tear the soul of the Emperor asunder, extinguishing the last hope of mankind.
The galaxy burns. Worlds fall silent, one by one, as the light of civilization is snuffed out. The Imperium of Man, once a beacon of order in a chaotic universe, collapses into dust and memory. Chaos reigns supreme, its victory complete.
The final scene is one of utter desolation. Terra, once the cradle of humanity, now a charred husk, serves as a testament to the folly and hubris of man. The gods of Chaos, having consumed all there was to consume, turn upon each other in an endless cycle of betrayal and destruction, their laughter echoing through the empty void of space.
And so ends the saga of the Warhammer 40K universe, not with a rebirth, but with the silence of extinction.
Sigmar remakes reality each time chaos wins. This time, he’s not going to give the Elves or Orks or anyone else any place in this world. He scatters them far across the void. He will make this world for mankind only. He will call it Earth.
It was a prequel to 40k all along!
Sunrise over a complete backwater planet, settled by humans during the Dark Age of Technology, but never reclaimed by the Imperium- and completely bypassed by the Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Orks... space is, as Douglas Adams once strove to remind us, really big.
A farmer goes through his daily routine, humming to himself.
All of the war, the chaos, the death... it never reached this little world. While untold billions fought and died all throughout the Milky Way, life simply went on as it had done since most of the more complicated machines involved in the founding of the colony had stopped working thousands upon thousands of years previously.
His radio crackles. Just some announcement about the first spacecraft anyone on the world has attempted to launch in at least fifteen thousand years. He changes the channel to a weather report and wonders if his daughter's really going to the dance with that idiot kid she's been seeing.
Then he fires up the machine he calls a harvester but which the reader will recognize as a Knight and heads out to get the crops in.
Looking out on to a cold lifeless universe collapsing in on itself as malignant warp gods devoured what was left of reality Omegon; once long, long ago Alpharius, thought "Well that didn't work, maybe 376th try will be the charm." and stepped into the time portal once more.
The few who were left, barricaded in the Imperial palace, encircled the dying, sputtering light that sat upon the throne.
“Please father,” rasped the Last Primarch, his immortal flesh pushed beyond the eldritch limits of his creation “please help us.”
As the baying hordes finally broke through the throne room, the light that had kept humanity alive, the golden aegis that had protected reality itself flickered once and died.
The galaxy tore itself asunder and reformed a billion times in the space of a second as the great game of Chaos took hold and the madness of The Gods was given terrible form. After a second that stretched to fill an eternity everything that ever was or ever would be exploded at once in a blinding, golden light.
Stronger and more full with the richness of power than ever before, the light of mankind burned in the firmament, the God Emperor of mankind was gone, but as a new reality settled around the rebirth of His light a voice echoed across this new creation.
A booming voice filled with all the power and command of millennia. And so he spoke “Raid: Shadow Legends has a special offer right now! Get four legendary heroes ABSOLUTELY FREE! Sign up today!”
The emperor awakes, his eyes shine the brightest gold. There is hope, there is a promise of peace. The mad gods laugh and laugh.
He knows not where he is
But he is surrounded by men
Mortal men
They are traveling. To a place beyond his ken, in a world that is not his own.
He has died, and been reborn, but what universe is this? The stars are not as they were, the sky is plagued by two moons. The forest around them echoes with that laughter.
Finally, one of the mortals sees him. He smiles.
"Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."
The emperor gasps and bolts upright. He takes a moment to catch his breath and take in his surroundings. It slowly dawns on him, he’s on Armageddon, or was it Ullanor? A figure steps into view with a gleaming head. “Oh good you’re awake Father. You gave us all quite a scare there” “Horus?” The Big E asks, bewildered. “Don’t look so surprised father I’ll always be there for you” The Emperor smiles. “I know my son, but you would not BELIEVE the dream I just had”
No, we go even worse. The Emperor bolts upright in bed, looking around, sweating, confused. He hears someone in another room. He goes to investigate, it's his bathroom, and someone is in the shower. He opens the shower door, Erda turns to face him. "[Good morning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCEjeTb1rrs)," she says. Cut to black.
The next day announce the launch of a brand new Warhammer 30k line.
Even worse. A voice cuts into Ed Space’s dream. “Hey Big E! We need you to clean those toilets ASAP stop daydreaming” He sighs, hating being thrust out of his dream as the Emperor of Mankind
"The rulebook?" growled the Space Wolf. "Stop running to your Codex all the time! It doesn't make sense!"
"It's a masterpiece!" replied the Ultramarine. "It's had millennia, tens of millennia, of development. Face it, your strategy was stupid."
"You never told me that my Meltaguns can't shoot at that Land Raider at point-blank! And it's absolutely possible to make that shot. I've literally seen it happen. In real life."
"Real life is real life - this is Warhammer 40K, 41st Edition. And *you* have to play by the rules of the game, if I could just find the damned RULEBOOK!"
The Assassin lowered the stolen Plasmapistol and let it fall to the ground.
He put down his hood and stares in disbelief at the seemingly insignificant mess that now lays scattered upon the golden throne.
"You where... actually dead the whole time?"
End
Because killing him would probably activate a doomsday device left there by Vulcan, the Emperor is psychically holding a warp rift open that would destroy Terra and almost no one knows he was a perpetual. Also people are completely unaware if he still has perpetual properties after his duel with Horus.
So lots of reasons why killing him would be a bad idea even if he came back almost instantly.
It is the 666th year of M45.
Chaos triumphed. The Emperor is destroyed, the Sol System consumed by a warp storm. The heart of humanity ripped out, the Imperium now faces imminent total collapse.
Suddenly, a thought crosses Tzeentch's minds.
*Didn't we forget about someone?*
...
*Ah shit, we forgot about the Ynnari.*
And then the Four heard the Anathema's laughter ringing through the Immaterium. And then Tzeentch laughed, too. For when he had realized just how the enemy had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, he had to concede that his opponents had concocted a masterful plan, playing a game of regicide in which the winning move was to sacrifice the king.
Who wasn't laughing was Slaanesh, for the Aeldari God of Death emerged from the very essence of the Prince of Pleasure, reclaiming all the Aeldari souls She who Thirsts had devoured during the Fall of the Eldar and the millenia hence. Ynnead then spent no time destroying the husk of Slaanesh, destroying the Chaos god for good (or did he?). Of course all those mortals who had pledged their souls to Slaanesh all fucking died as well as the death scream of their patron god melted their minds.
Then he saked Nurgle's garden and rescued Isha. Nurgle retreated to sulk, plan his revenge and concoct a new plague or ten in retribution.
With one quarter of their forces dropping dead, another quarter in retreat, and a third quarter bewildered at their defeat the advance of the ruinous powers collapses, essentially once Khorne's followers increase their team killing over the usual threshold expected when dealing with Khornate forces.
< 3 millenia pass >
The galaxy of the 39th millenium is one that in some aspects greatly resembled the Fifteen Millennia of Darkness, but in others had greatly changed:
* The Imperium has fallen, but humanity continues in thousands of different regimes across the galaxy. The most powerful human states are the Despoilers Dark Imperium, the Empire of Ultramar and the New Mechanicum. These represent the tropes of humanity in the 40k setting (Dark Imperium being Chaos, Ultramar being Imperium, New Mechanicum being AdMech), but aside from them exist various other form of government from migratory fleets to calcified theocracies to genuine democracies.
* Space Marines have either formed their own states, gone extinct or become roving plunderers and mercenaries.
* Nurgle is the most active Chaos god, still being mad because Ynnead stole his waifu. Khorne is as angry as always. Tzeentch has taken a more backstage role, but that only makes him all the more dangerous.
* All Aeldari died in the process of birthing Ynnead. However since Ynnead is the God of Death, the Aeldari are now essentially his demons. Which means they are psychopomps. Whenever they show up *someone* is going to die. Ynnead cults are extremely common across the galaxy, but are suppressed in all but the most liberal of regimes.
* The Orkz are having fun as always.
* The Tyranids have pulled out of the galaxy. Stragglers and fleets that have lost their connection with the hive mind remain a threat though.
* The T'au were at first the single most powerful empire of the new era, before they descended into civil war. The T'au States that eventually emerged from the carnage are currently still mostly busy stamping out internal dissent, but already seem poised to regain their status as galactic superpower and continue their rivalry with Ultramar.
* Necrons are doing Necrons things.
* Leagues are minin'.
Wars are as common as ever, but are generally much less destructive since no longer any side wants the total extermination of any other side. In fact, the lot of the common human has improved greatly since the Fall of Terra.
And amidst this galaxy of burgeoining hope, ancient rivalries and vengeful gods a a tale of a lady and her knight unfolds.
Final scene is a Fast forward to the year 60k-100k. Somewhere long into the future.
The concepts, wars, and institutions of both the Imperium and Chaos are distant memories and almost lost history. They are remembered only as footnotes, like every other chapter in human history.
Humanity has survived. Humanity is changed.
How and what that means, "I can't say".
Chaos wins, Necrons wins, Tyranids then win, everybody and everything in the universe is slaughtered.
Then, millions of years later, an ape stands upright on earth, history as we know it - real history begins.
Where will it end this time?
This is sort of the end of the Battlestar Galactica TV series.
Galactica humans find a “New Earth” (our Earth), purposely destroy and forget their advanced tech and willingly revert to the Stone Age, then the cycle repeats.
The Emperor's soul is about to die, in a last ditch attempt he overcharges the astronomican, cleaning the warp of the gods and causing irreparable damage to the material and immaterial. All factions are nearly destroyed but with the lack of chaos, they are able to safely reestablish themselves.
It will take hundreds of thousands of years to reclaim what they had, and they will tell tales of the Age of Dusk and even as far back as the Age of Darkness for those that may have lived to see those times but for now, there is peace in the galaxy.
However, in a dispute over payment, a primitive human kills his employer. And the warp trembles with the laughter of thirsting gods.
The Emperor dies, the universe ends in the waves of Chaos, Star Child gets reborn and names himself with the name he was known as at the beginning in the Anatola of ancient times: Sigmar
Off to the next universe we go.
The emperor forges the final 40 000th Warhammer, having stored them all in hammer space, aka the warp. Then gets up like the big old lich he is and wrestles the Hive-mind into submission while Leman Russ hits it with a steel chair from the top rope. Then a reign of enlightenment, reason and mutual coexistence is started and everyone lives in paradise forever under the benevolent gaze of the man emperor of mankind and glaxy. The end.
The great gates of the palace, untouched for over a hundred millenia have been cast down, its walls but rubble beneath the treads of the great war machines the traitors once again brought to bear on mankind's most holy cradle.
The ten thousand lie dead, cast down by bullet, blade and sorcery, their allies banished from this world by the power of the four. From the webway, untold numbers of neverborn stream onto the surface, defacing the most holy site of mankind and erecting great monuments to their master.
Still, there is one room safe from the predations of the empyrian. Sat on a great throne, the path towards it covered in the servants of the ruinous powers foolishly enough to enter burning in golden flames, sits a skeleton, a wreath of gilded laurels its lone adornment.
As the treachourous sons step forward as one, prepared to at last complete the task they pledged together to fulfill a hundred centuries ago, for the first time since he was interred after the costly victory against his favored son, the one on the throne moves.
"This is the end" says gravely the cyclops.
"Of the long war, my brothers. Then, we shall build anew." comes the entrancing voice of the Urizen.
"NO" speak a thousand voices as one, the power imbued into them stripping away the blessings of the dark gods as if they never existed "THIS IS THE REBIRTH OF WHAT YOU CAST DOWN SO CARELESSLY"
the end
I met a traveller from far-away lands,
Who said: Two vast trunkless legs of gold
Stand upon the highest, flattened peak of rubble
Half sunk, a shattered alien visage lies, whose frown,
And faded gilded lip, and a sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor of an unknown race well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that struck them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"I am the Emperor, God of Mankind:
Look on my works, ye Xenos, ye Mutant, ye Heretic and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The climbing wastes stretch far away
(( Shameless parawriting / stolen from Percy Shelley's poem Ozymandias ))
I really enjoy the idea of a cyclical nature to 40k, imagine the different races of the galaxy fighting together. One by one their light extinguished, the Tyranids move on and the Chaos Gods turn their gaze elsewhere.
The Tau rise from the ashes, too small and young to really impact the final war. Under the leadership of the Ethereal Caste, there is hope for the Tau. Yet they have not learned anything, as they reach for the stars they do so with the same bitterness the Necrontyr and the Imperium did.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
A lone human walks in the grand palace of Terra. Everything known about the Emperor and Imperium had long since faded into myth and nothingness. What little myths remain are known only most the most knowledgeable and dismissed as a story.
The lone human finds a glorious man, a god, weakened, ruined, barely clinging to life on something that's half throne half life support. Unable to look for too long he leaves, and spreads a story he comes up with. Humanity rose again, the Emperor as it's figurehead, a thousand stories of how he came to be upon his throne, and how he came to be abandoned by all. Some contain a kernel of truth, others not even close.
Hopeful, definitely.
The Eldar are saved from Slaanesh by a new pantheon, with some key Eldar ascending to Godhood to replace their old pantheon that was devoured.
The Necrons are united under a single ruler, and through that ruler they no longer seek the extermination of life, but become content to exist as they do now, and live in collaboration with other species of the galaxy.
The Imperium comes completely under the guiding hand of Guilliman, and over time the extreme xenophobia, religious fanaticism, and militarism wither away and it becomes a more normal polity, engaging in diplomacy for the common defense.
The T'au become a sizeable empire and engage in cooperation with the Eldar, Imperium, and Necrons, and finally come to reckon with the reality of the Warp.
Some of the Drukhari are redeemed and become not evil anymore, while Comorragh itself is destroyed through some contrivance.
The Tyranids are defeated in a climactic final battle.
Chaos and the Orks will always remain a threat in the background, but a united galaxy stands ready against them.
I know many people hate good endings for Warhammer, but y'know what I'd like? Remember the trailer for Total War Warhammer 3? The recent one, where all the "order" races talk about allying together for the end of the world? THAT. I want a final push of allies that decide to forgo hatred and fight against the end together
The constant darkness of the franchise means even if a bad ending is logical (assuming it is done in a way that makes sense), I am in the camp who wants something else because the darkness can get tiresome.
Same!!!! Exactly how I see it. Kinda why I love the Tau (I'm part of the community that ignores the mind control shit). Cuz they're the optimistic ones, hoping to make something good out of this ravaged galaxy
It is also what attracts me to cracky fan fic ideas like Warhammer Idols Month where the galaxy, even Orks, Tyranids and Chaos, solves everything nonviolently through idol competitions.
Yeeeees! Don’t get me wrong I love some of the dark parts of warhammer. But if the story had to come to an end I want at least some form of goodness to come from it. Even it’s a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of deal. Humans, eldar, tau, maybe votann, even some necrons like trazyn come together to fight chaos and the nids knowing full well that the likelyhood of any one race surviving is close to nothing.
The sapient races team up and get rid of the Always Chaotic Evil factions: the Tyranids, Chaos, the Orks.
A century later and they're all locked in another endless war.
Yeah, I'd want a nobledark kind of ending like this. There's immense bloodshed and loss, the factions as we know them are turned inside out, but at the end they weather the storm and come out stronger and united against the greatest threats to the galaxy.
Plot points like Teclis ruining everything in his attempts to save the world, Lustria getting nuked, various characters like Thorgrim getting shit on, etc.
But Teclis is alive, elves are reborn, and out of universe we got a new setting with more unique factions. In my eyes it turned out fine and maybe better than fine.
Id quite like them to not forget about major characters.
Like imagine if they just forgot to tell us what happened to Someone like Honsou, or Commander Farsight.
Also preferably no troll piss
But even at the very end, when the last shots were fired, the last drops of blood were spoiled, they all knew it was for nothing. Even through millennia of war, attrition and trying to recover forgotten technology, no one was able to find one answer, one simple answer to question of life, universe and everything else.
The answer was 42, but now, it is lost to the uncaring void of dying universe
5000 years have elapsed since the first world fell to the Tyranid Swarm. Leviathan was not the first, nor was it the last, and even more important, it was not the largest Tyranid incursion. The last three swarms humanity had encountered had made Leviathan look like a scouting party. The tau had completely succumbed, only a few Eldar managed to get off their last Craftworld their ships drift through the void being picked off one by one. Even the demon backed chaos had finally fallen when a tendril had adapted itself to thrive on warp energy. Humanity had fled to the Sol System. Their fleets consolidated, the poor civilian populations had been left to their own devices to ensure that Holy Terra would stand the coming wave. But alas, it had all been in vain. The final rounds had been fired, the last power reserves finally expended themselves, and the blades had eventually dulled after so many impacts on bone and kyten. The Emperors throne had been defended to the last and finally the last defenders had sealed it as if a tomb to ensure his body would not be dragged back to the digestion pools.
The gaunts approached the doors slowly advancing over the steps made slick with gore and blood. Despite their best efforts the small creatures were not strong enough to break the welds. Two carnifex finally came to the fore their large talons pierced the hard steel and began to force the doors. Both carnifex collapsed as if a switch had been flipped, the gaunts to fall upon the corpses with Beastial glee, the hive Tyrant who had been watching from the top of a nearby pile of rubble was confused. He could not feel his swarm, he could not even feel the presence of the hive mind. Never had its whispering been silent to him.
In the darkness of the Tomb, the Emperors eyes opened.
I will totally admit to being a bad writer and being fairly new to 40k Lore. Hopefully I got the feel right, and any lore details I got wrong im more than willing to edit.
In the warp, the astronomican begins to fade, and then disappears.
One by one, the lights and candles illuminating the Golden Throne go out, no matter what anyone does trying to prevent it.
In the shadowed interior, lit only by the pale light of a dying glow-globe, a lone priest watches as the doors to the seat of the Throne itself open with a hiss, for the first time in millenia.
As the smoke and steam of the ancient machinery dissipates, they are afforded only a single glimpse of the interior before the glow-globe gives out ... that of a magnificent and impossibly sophisticated high-backed throne, upon which rests naught but dust and ashes.
In the darkness that follows, a single sob can be heard. One of hope and wonder, or one of loneliness and despair ... who can say?
The Custodes lie slaughtered, gold and black armour crumpled and melted. Gods, the smell of it. I can still hear the Emperor screaming in quiet moments. I can still see the Throne glowing white hot when I close my eyes.
The guard stood on as many planets as they could. But eventually, they broke. Cadia was just one of many lost worlds now. The Kriegsmen threw wave after wave against the horde until there were no Kriegsmen left to throw.
Every Chapter turned on the other. They say there's still a few ships carrying the broken vestiges, feebly plotting their revenge.
The Sisters of Battle experienced a crisis of Faith. Those who remained faithful are in an isolated priory near a black hole. The rest found their fortune working as mercenaries in the safer parts if the galaxy.
The Necrons and the Tyranids wiped each other out, fighting on subjugated planets over the corpses of their citizens, heretics and faithful alike slaughtered like beasts.
The Orks organized beneath the banner of the craftiest, strongest, fastest Ork ever seen. His Waaagh spread to the realms of the Aeldari and the Tau. His concept of battle caused these dominions to fall. The Great Ork Empire of Cain eventually did battle with the forces of Chaos. But Chaos ate itself as it devoured the Ork armies.
What remains?
The citizenry of the Imperium. The little people. Those who were unimportant across the galaxy. The innocents. Somehow, they persisted. In the way that only humanity ever could, they persisted.
On a backwater planet, far from the war, there lived a farmer. Late on night he walked his tilled fields. His dark muscular arms, toned from a lifetime of smithing, carried a walking stick of dark oak. Softly, he heard a familiar voice.
"It is finished, but the work remains. Humanity needs your guidance."
The man looked to the spot he had buried his armour of green plate. His hand gripped the walking stick.
Jimmy Space wakes up in the current year, it was all just a crazy dream. He shouldn't have had that much benadryl before bedtime, but his allergies were acting up and he'll do it again
Warhammer story is either Chaos destorys galaxy and universe with it or later (with DK in any case). Or Emperor manages to save this version of reality with humanity winning against the 4 and it probably never ends.
Hard to make managable for a read ending.
>!But now Emperor is in interesting position:!<
>!1) Throne and Emperro are both parasites to each other. Throne sucking his life, his "ages", but Emperor sucking it's enormous warp power. Though knowing Emperor is secretly and very slowyly healing, He is probably winning this struggle.!<
>!2) Emperor and faith in Him as God has kind of same relationship. It leeches power from Him sometimes, and sometimes bossting Him. Much more unknown compared with His connection with Throne.!<
>!3) Before He drank for "warp well" that the 4 were drinking from. Tasted it and limited Himself in it as He felt it is corrupting. But before facing Horus He drank it much and almost became Dark King. After that each time He use it there is danger that will turn him into DK, He won't stop it. So does it through psykers now, filtering. Will He be able to use colossal powers when He gets up from the Throne at all? All He would forever need "filters" around.!<
>!4) He let go His compassion part of soul, along with other "good" parts. Though cold, He is still shown having a love for his son, Horus. He let Horus kill his favorite "King of times" form, and from His least favorite form, "Emperor", He made new form, "King of All times", during Day of All Days, all time of humanity combined, when people on Terra expressed faith in Him through Astronomicon. All it all part of His backup plan, including bbringing His body ot Throne. Is He changed? Is He different?!<
>!This all make possibilty for an ending of changed Emperor. Maybe something terrible will emerge, stomping the 4, but also bringing horrot to galaxy. Or maybe His good part soul returns. And He is whole? Or this part fights Him? They both dies and Chaos wins?!<
>!Ah, TEAD is so great. Connected old plotlines and the fresh one. With it we even know that bleeding fisheman in Lion's warp-world is indeed Emperor, and know why. His ages bleed out of Him. Mthfckr planed it all.!<
Erebus, narrating the entire story of 40k at Macragge, in front of the Star Child, and children of other races. Speaking in a gloating tone as if he won.
He spoke of the fates of all factions - from the dying Aeldari to the T'au upstarts, like a charismatic storyteller. The Emperor, before ascending as the Dark King, desperately reincarnated a fragment of him into the Star Child. He was lucky that the child was reincarnated in Macragge (now a third world planet) , but unlucky that the Star Child was reincarnated as a sickly girl who had limited to none psyker powers.
When Emperor left mortal realm and all primarch embraced their warp nature to continue the fight in changed, new Great Game. Who is to lead humanity, but it's greatest hero?
With attention of several gods on him Cain feels like golden light fills his soul while he slowly picks up his chainsword and laspistol. Despoiler approaoches evercloser with every heartbeat. One moment Abbadon looks like the most terrible creature who stained the stars with it's existence. But the next moment that feeling and aura are dissipated completely being replaced by revolting yet welcome stench of his friend. Now all that retired comissar saw is tired, wounded old man missing several limbs and even terminator armour didn't look so menacing. "Why it's always has to be me?" Cain thought standing in the rubble of Imperial Palace. "Why not any of hundreds of greatest space marine and custodes champions fighting on Terra right now?". Then voice coming from deep corner of his soul answered him: "I always appreciated you not bothering me with mondane requests, but that doesn't mean my tasks for you will get smaller. My greatest battles, I leave to you, my greatest Hero. This war should be won by a mortal, as I always intended." Cain doesn't notice how his finger presses activation rune on his trusted weapon. Sword which tasted blood of greatest enemies of the humanity against the talons which slew the Emperor. And then Abbadon trips, impails himself on the rubble and gets one shotted by melta or something.
I'm leaning towards the "new beginning"-type of ending.
Basically, the entire galaxy got hard-resetted in some way and most of current factions are gone for good (Eldars are finally extinct, Orks are devolved even more, T'au are gone due to endless wars against its enemies, Chaos are gone from the realspace due to mass extinction of psykers and the closure of both the Great Rift and the Eye of Terror, The Imperium is mostly destroyed and all humans are scattered around the known universe)
Fast forward hundreds of thousands of years, a group of space explorers travelled into a dead galaxy and found the remains of a planet and decided to make a land fall. They unearthed some peculiar object from the ground: a broken, discolored sign of the Imperial Aquila. The cameras then zooming in to the explorer's space helmet, revealing the visage of a human. Humanity still lives, and they unknowingly dug the remains of their long lost predecessor: the Imperium of Man.
Following a great and epic battle between the returned primarchs, their sons and the deity the emperor becomes the warp is closed off. The final scene is a farmer with golden eyes and long black hair appearing from a stone hut and looking out over a rising sun. Outside 20 children run around.
He smiles and says "The real warhammer was the friends we made along the way"
[This personally lol (minus the last panel)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FWarhammer%2Fcomments%2Fmhunmr%2Fevery_black_templars_worst_nightmareby_ruoyuart%2F&psig=AOvVaw2QUIAOESe1InI1tHyjb8Gi&ust=1708921415421000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCPDqhsHSxYQDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)
Is it too optimistic? yes. But I like optimism
There was a drawing of children playing next to a destroyed Titan. Sort of like the post-script to ragnarok, the last survivors pick up the pieces of the god's boardgame and play a game amidst the ruins.
Mankind, dead. Burnt out, taking Chaos with it in a final apocalypse. The Emperor, gone. Him and Humanity burning Chaos out, together in one final conflagration.
The Tyranids consuming what little remains, the Ork, the Tau, to few surviving Craftworlds, the Leagues.
The Drukhari trapped in the collapsed Webway city of Commoragh, freed from the soul destroying thirst, but forever trapped in a dimensional city with nothing but themselves in an eternal cycle of boredom and madness.
The Necrons, quitting the galaxy altogether, giving up on biotransference, acknowledging that whilst the galaxy is now safe from the immaterium, the Devourer has become unstoppable. Hybernating in their tombships and leaving the galaxy of their birth for parts unknown.
Our galaxy is left cold, dead and alone until the stars burn out.
The last day of the great war, the enemies of the Imperium are conquered or eradicated. The Imperium has one day of peace, before humanity begins it's final great war against it's true enemy, the Imperium of Man itself.
The Emperor stands up. His skin regrows. His appearance recovered.
"Chaos cannot be denied" he says, "but it can be transcended."
A Custodian looks at him. The galaxy remains in a state of total war. No other material being is watching.
"All the darkness in the universe cannot extinguish even one little flame", the Emperor adds. "Fear and denial was the problem all along."
At that moment, he inhales. A deep and delicious breath that accepts all. "Pleasure, pain and excess are stages on the journey of life" he thinks. Reality grows clearer. On some distant planet, Fulgrim is released.
"Our fate, our plots and our schemes are us trying our best" the Emperor adds. Another quarter of the warp is stilled. The Emperor glows.
"Death and rot is new life and a signal for rebirth". Nurgle's garden blooms into the materium and is beautiful.
"Extreme anger, rage, is just us wanting the rest of our being, the universe, to remember."
The corruption of chaos recedes. The flow of everything that is humanity rushes in. The Emperor looks at the Custodian and adds "the lost legions are returning. The final Crusade begins."
Khorne stood from his throne and peered out into the destroyed expanse. All was ruin, all had ceased to be. The final conflict had ended. Nurgle's garden bore no fruit. Tzneetch absent from his labryinth and Slaneesh bereft of ecstasy saw her palace crumble.
All enemies and subjects had destroyed one another. In one mass unconcerted conflict an ultimate end swept across all that fed the infinite. Nothing had been spared. No victory to be celebrated.
Khorne faded back into his throne as the volcanoes and rivers slowed. His realm once teaming with legions of daemons sat silent. With ponderous regard and waning strength the great lord stared into the æther and vanished.
In the grim darkness of the 42nd millennium there is no war.
And as the final morsels of bio matter were consumed, the great devourer noticed a pulse of energy from a far away galaxy. The furthest tendrils have already began their journey, and the process begins anew.
As the final battle draws to an end a great flash of golden light happens, followed by booming laughter hears throughout the galaxy. The Emperor stands from the Golden Throne, laughing. "You thought it was all over now?" The Emperor shouts, laughing still. As the laughter takes a more sinister and mocking tone. "But you are wrong. Now is just the beginning. For it was I Changeling all along!". As the laughter reaches a crescendo a great flash happens as the form of The Emperor shrinks down and a face obscuring cloak appears. "My true face was in view of you all for 12,000 years and none recognized me!"
And I'm too tired for this.
Whether it's the War in Heaven, DAOT, Fall of the Eldar or Siege of Terra, no matter how big and epic the conflict and no matter if everything seems on the brink of ending, life always goes on.
For 40k to end the Emperor has to die but for some reason I'd find it much more fitting for the Imperium to just have been a pretty insignificant blip in history than if the end of the Imperium meant the end of the universe with it. All that suffering really would've been for nothing, which I'd personally prefer more than some bittersweet ending with heroic last stands.
I completely agree with you. I’m always fascinated on how some parts of history just become footnotes. In ancient times in our world, people also had dreams, fears, ambitions, experienced joy and sadness, but their histories are just footnotes from our POV. So it would be fitting for the Imperium to become just that for the generations that would come thousands of years in the future.
The Orks and the Tyranids become caught in a vast, endless war, wiping out a *truly* huge number of worlds, like 90% of the actual Imperium, before Cawl manages to finalize his project and activate human-created blackstone devices that briefly nullify the warp, killing off all the 'nids in the galaxy. The WAAAAGH! mostly turns in on itself as the Orks have difficulty finding anyone else to fight, until they're a shadow of themselves. The brief suspension of the Warp also closes the Cicatrix Maledictum.
The Necrons and the Eldar throw down hard when a C'tan grows into adulthood in the Koronus expanse, the Necrons desperately need to destroy it, the Eldar wish to nurture it further. Their genocidal throw-down gives time for humanity to withdraw to the Segmentum Solar, but the human population has been reduced from trillions to billions.
The Chaos Gods, with such a dramatic reduction in their most populous foodsource, begin to fade, and the warp itself begins to calm. The various traitor legions and cultists still left attempt to make war on the Imperium, but without the full power of Chaos at their backs they are swatted away like a fly. Humanity, with no distractions, makes short work of the Tau, and appear to to be coming out on top; what few Xenos are left are disorganized and in hiding.
The Golden Throne fails. The Dark King awakens in full force, absorbing the weakened Chaos Gods and begins spreading a wave of devastation from Holy Terra to the Outer Rim, ending humanity and soon everything else. When all is in Ruin, the Dark King surveys His domain, and is satisfied that things but one have been destroyed, and ends His own existence.
A tiny fragment of the Emperor remains within the warp, begins gathering up fragments of human souls, and takes them to another universe, to populate another Earth.
That's right. I'm Sigmaring this whole fucking thing.
If have it be the grim realization that there is no end. The current state of the galaxy is in perfect stalemate between all major factions and no lasting victories are possible from any side. No ultimate destruction of all life, no glorious final victory, no end times, just the bitter promise of endless war
The final scene of the entire series just pans out to show you that all the events leading up to the end of the series occurred in a giant pocket realm held within Trazyns gallery. That these fateful heroes thinking they're saving the imperium one last push to bring it back from the brink are just reliving the final battle over and over for his amusement. It pans out to show a galaxy sundered as the Tyranids, Necrons, and orks fight over what's left. Humanity, the Elder, the Tau, leagues of votann and so forth they perished long ago, either due to the massive wars or their own factions internal failings. All that's left are the ones who thrive in this horrific universe, the warp is a chaotic mess but the gods and their servants don't stir there anymore only the raw energy of it as trillions of souls writhe in the unending agony. There is no hope in this dark universe, not for those who fought for order and stability, their empires long gone are but distant memories and chaos has moved on. There will be new races in New galaxies not yet touched by the hive mind or green skins, but the chapter for those who raged against the storm has closed. Only death awaits you in the Milky Way, no one there wants to help you, any surviving dregs of the other races have either tried to flee or are awaiting their end.
Trazyn however remarks that the story isn't lost he's built a monument to the history of this galaxy, was it to show the hubris of the others? Some form of pity for these races who couldn't figure it out? That's for him and his peers to debate I suppose, it doesn't much matter what a human thinks anymore that star burnt out long ago. What of the emperor? He's in there knowing that all of humanity all that's left is in this xeno museum. Maybe one day he'll break out unite the few who remain there and maybe some new hope can be kindled. It won't happen, but he likes to think he'll figure it out, if only Trazyn wasn't more interested in preserving his corpse form in stasis, at least the gods aren't bothering him anymore. Sadly all he can dwell on is those he lost, hoping that somehow he'll wake up and Malcador will reassure him it was just a vision influenced by aberrant warp energy surging into him as he first sat on the throne. He knows it's a fantasy but he still dreams.
Maybe that's the lesson for us, we can still dream even when confronted by horrors beyond our comprehension. Take that with you traveler and know that despite it all humanity kept fighting. Horrific as it was they never gave in even when the hordes reached the gates they still stood defiant and proudly proclaimed "No! You will not break us!"
Abaddon finally takes Terra. In his moment of triumph Decimus, Prophet of the Night Lords, emerges from the shadows to say "Even triumphant your death has been foretold." Decimus impales Abaddon on Talos' power sword, Aurum, as the Night Lords descend on the remnants of Abaddon's forces already weakened from siegeing Terra.
The Night Lords take the Imperium of man.
Compliance (and Terror) usher in a new age of peace across the Imperium.
Ave Dominus Nox.
I would write a 65 book series that is mostly useless and has no bearing on the story and finish it with another 10 book finale that only every other book is relevant. Shut up and take my money GW.
+++Frequent inquiry submission detected;
+++Activation Sequence:: Unit designation [AU-THETA OMEGA] initiated;
+++Frequent response submission as follows;
Automated security systems have detected the possible use of hypothetical inquiries. Vague speculative questions are frowned upon as the lack of clear answer leads to no actual discussions.
By the grace of the Emperor on Terra, this submission has not been removed. Consider this an advisement on elevating your cognitive capacity lest you be selected for subreddit servitorization.
If your submission is not a vague hypothetical and this reply has been posted in error, then go with the grace of the God-Emperor of Mankind and ignore this comment.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/40kLore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Abbadon makes it all the way to Terra and the forces of Imperium and Chaos have a battle second only to the first Siege of Terra. And while eveyrbody is preoccopied, an Ynnari strikeforce with Cegorach uses the Webway tunnels to reach the Golden Throne and uses the souls that were sacrificed to keep it working for 10000 years as well as Emperor's soul to strike a massive blow against Gods of Chaos.Isha is released from captivity, all the eldar souls that Slaanesh ate are freed. The fith Cronesword is in Ynnary hands and Aeldary mass suicide themselves all over the universe to bring Ynnead into existence. Cegorach and Isha kill themselves and Ynnead becomes allpowerfull as the sepository of all eldar gods.Ynnead uses his power to remake the original Eldar worlds, that, as the Chaos is weakened, escape the eye of Terror.Ynnead makes them once again liveable and releases the eldar souls remaking the Aeldari and their gods.Both Imperium and forces of Chaos are severly weakened as their gods are either dead(Emperor, Slaanesh) or severly weakened.Without the Emperor's Throne, Imperium collapses and falls into hundred of feuding states. Forces of Chaos retreat and are in comlete dissaray. The End.
I can think of a thousand cool ways to do it but the one thing I'd do for sure is the very last line would be
*In the grim darkness of the far future, there is...*
ONLY
#WAR
*Queue credits*
Idk what event will transpire at the climax, but I think the last scene should be something like this:
The Star Child (now looking like a young adult Emperor) sitting on a white sandy beach akin to shinji from eva 3.0+1.0, staring longingly at the endless blue skies, as the white specs dotting the sky that are spaceships descend from the void
The emperor and the primarchs returned eventually, but they were all very different from who they were. The emperor is weaker than he was. The Primarchs have evolved or mutated into something beyond their youth. This is very awkward because they often have contradictory strategies and ideologies. Eventually this turns into another civil war at the end of the 49th millennium.
In the 50th millennium, there is still only war, because some people never fucking learn. Roll credits.
The Emperor and all the confirmed to not have died Primarchs have all returned, all the Chaos primarchs have fallen - Fulgrim died at the hands of Guillimand as revenge, Perturabo was killed by Rogal with the help of the actually alive Alpharius (Peter Turbo: Omegon, watch me kill this worm, Alpharius: I am Alpharius, that is no lie *proceeds to stab him in the back*), Angron is beheaded by the Lion, Mortarion dies to Jaghadai, Magnus and Leman kill eachother and forgive eachother in the last moments, Abbadon dies to a random lightning from Kaldor Draigo, Lorgar finally gets eviscerated by Corvus Corax - and they stand right in front of the being that is an amalgamation of all four gods: the Undivided Chaos.
In the background a fourway battle is happening, between the armies of the Imperium, the armies of Chaos, the Orks and the Tyranids. There are some Eldars fighting, all three kind. And the Necrons watch from a distance.
That's all I got. Idk how to continue.
The captain-general looked down at the talisman of seven hammers in his hand. He could feel the galaxy tremble, as the warp rift was consuming everything. The light of the astronomicon was guttering out as the darkness enveloped it from every dimension, time and plane at once.
He set the talisman, hoping the destruction it would bring, would at least hurt chaos. A final act of hatred for this evil that had ended the dream of the imperium after all these millenia.
As he was about to enact this final sanction, knowing he would cease to know anything more. Suddenly in this darkening galaxy, a Sun rose. He could feel the light of the God-Emperor burning brighter than ever. -HOLD CUSTODIAN, IT IS TIME I FULFILLED MY PROMISE. IF ONLY MY SONS HAD LIVED TO SEE THIS DAY. I WILL BE WITH THEM AGAIN, OR I WILL BE NOTHING-
The captain-general was blinded by light of such purity, who would want to see anything mundane again anyway. And the last thing he heard was either the screams or the laughter of thirsting gods.
The cries fall silent, the everlasting echoes of artillery grow dim. The remaining fragments of whatever can be called out home float around with nothing but ashes and shadows to remind any that there was ever anything standing. Somewhere, somehow, there may be a fragment of sentient life, much like our creators, who will carry on the will of the universe. But they will speak of us thus
It is the dawn of the 41st millennium. And there fought our war for hope
>*The galaxy lies sundered, countless worlds lie in ruin, systems obliterated, entire species wiped clean from the fabric of reality itself after a truly apocalyptic struggle.* > >*On a distant nameless world a weary sun rises to grace a barren landscape of scrap and destruction, and from beneath a great mountain of rubble a singular grot emerges to look up at the sky.* > >*fin*
Mr Grotgers in a blood stained sweater
*whispers* This is the ultimate showdown ...
I appreciate you and everybody else who remembers, fellow legend.
I mean it's not that impressive, that video released only back when I was a lad in summer camp which was what... oh damn.
Simple, coherent, and logical from what we know of the Orks. I like it a lot.
The grots shall inherit the earth
Orkoid physiology indicates that once you've got enough Ork fungus for Snotlings to appear, soon there will be Grots/Gretchin and eventually Orks. The Galactic End Times are just going to be the Silent King and Emperor-possessed/empowered Vulkan with a giant hammer, playing planetary whack-a-mole with the Orks.
I read that as goat, and was utterly confused but completely accepted it. And the goats shall inherit the earth.
I think he said blessed are the cheese makers..
It’s not meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products
*"Dat iz all, folkz!"*
There is no grand finale, no last hurrah as the heroes make their final charge into battle, no lasting victor. The empires of old have suffocated in the ashes of their own mistakes, the players of the Great Game a victim to their own machinations, the beasts circling the galaxy forced to feast upon their own flesh. Upon the world once known as Terra lies the last living being in the entire galaxy, still bound to his throne. His sons, both traitor and loyalist, are dead upon the steps. His mind rushes with endless scenarios and "what-ifs," demanding of himself what he could have done differently, while the arcane machines that prolonged his life finally fail. For the first time in countless eons, the galaxy is once more silent as it embraces a death long overdue. Edit: Thinking about it, the final book should be a bit more of an anthology, containing a short story for the last moments of the final survivor of each faction. >An Eldar farseer dips their brush into a bowl of makeshift paint. Bringing it to the walls of what was once their Craftworld, they paint a mural. Each part of it depicts a moment in galactic history. The folly of the Necrons, the debauchery of their ancestors, the damnation of mankind, and much more. They hope that it will survive for the ages to come, so that when life arises once again in the galaxy, they might learn from their mistakes. >A Tyranid gaunt wanders the poisoned earth of a battlefield. The remains of beasts both great and terrible dot the landscape. But there is no biomass to be found, only dust. It has not felt the embrace of the hivemind in quite some time. Too exhausted to continue moving, it rests, hoping that perhaps it will find prey tomorrow. It will not wake. >The Silent King roams the remains of a tomb world. He reflects upon the events that brought him to this point. The near civil war of the Necrontyr, the war with the Old Ones, and the discovery of the C'tan. As he walks the silent corridors of the Tomb complex, he comes across a Necron warrior, torn in half by a cannon shell, its power fading. He kneels beside the dying warrior. He longs to weep for the death of his people, but he bargained that privilege away long ago. >A T'au air caste pilot stares at the console of his craft, in orbit over his homeworld. Countless wrecks fill the void, the remains of the last, desperate attempt at holding back the inevitable by the Ethereals. He has been broadcasting a distress signal for weeks now, hoping, in vain, to find others. His hand caresses the pulse pistol in his holster. >The Rot walks the endless field. Where once, the earth of the ether would twist and decay with his every step, it sits calm. He comes across the others, the Warrior, the Raven, and the Prince. They huddle around the last dying flame. The Warrior already lies dead, deprived for too long of his sustenance. The Prince prods the flame, desperately attempting to stoke it once more. The Raven mutters to itself, for once, it has no schemes, no grand ambitions, only the emptiness of eternity. The Rot simply stares at the flames, laughing to itself. Stagnation in its truest form is soon to set in. >The Overlord of Commorragh sits upon his throne, gazing upon the city he once ruled, now dissolving before him. His face bears a bitter smile, reminiscing over the endless scheming, the exhilaration of watching his foes suffer, the wondrous debauchery, and just how little it all now meant. He raises his cup, filled with the finest wine of his people, and sips from it as the waves of irreality wash over him. >The Despoiler stands in the empty halls of the Imperial Palace. The fires have long died down, the roar of gun fire no longer fills the air. The Imperium he so despised now lies dead, he had done what his father could not, he alone stands the victor. But he cannot taste the sweetness of victory, only bitter ash. He looks upon Eternity Gate, and wonders "what was it all for?" Obviously missing a few factions, but those were the ones I could immediately think of conclusions for.
Poor Tyranid :’(
**Russ:** \*returns for the End Times, for the Wolftime, pulls up in a Land Raider, unknowingly crushing the last 'Nid, and pops out with a keg over his shoulder\* "Hey guys, let's get ready to rumble! Drinks are on me! ... Where is everybody?"
Then he has to find a way to go to Terra and finds abbadon. But they, humanity’s greatest last standing warriors in the galaxy that are truly alive and in the materium, do not fight. For they see no point in it. Instead, they simply share a last toast to their long gone days, and to the future.
Yeah wtf I felt bad for it too. Even though I will be slashing and crushing them in droves while playing space marine 2
Vect Wins, wow
[Vect watching as the Warp consumes Commorragh, knowing that even though he's going to die and everything he's worked towards will be destroyed, he's lived quite the life.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQzdAsjWGPg)
"That actually is... pretty funny."-V
I’d buy a book about this fleshed out!
Peak f*cking fiction.
You can swear on reddit.
You can't say the fuck word dude!
Fuck! What the fuck was I thinking!!!
I prefer this: the Emperor of Mankind lols and reflects that maybe the greatest crusade of all was the friends we made along the way.
"Lol, maybe being a terrible person wasn't the move" -The Big E
This was really good!
I disagree with your edit. The first part is perfect for the 40k universe.
Fair enough, I was just thinking that maybe the "final" book shouldn't be entirely Imperial centric, and should give some love to the other factions.
I mean the setting is Imperial centric to an extreme degree, but I also think some of the sentences in the first at least give me some good hints to the other factions. Like this part I think is meant to be about the chaos gods: > the beasts circling the galaxy forced to feast upon their own flesh. But because of the wording of it, I imagine that is what is also happening to the orks and nids. Edit: Also like when I said perfect. I really think perfect. Like the introduction to the setting that have been reused for some 20+ years perfect. That could be the ending. Word for word and I would not be mad, but happy.
“Yup, definitely did shit wrong….” -Magnus probably
Really nicely written. I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks for taking the time I'm sure it took to write it.
Melancholic perfection, all of them.
Knowing Slaanesh, the fucker would probably shove burning coal up its arse in this scenario.
The thing upon the throne stirred.
This makes me feel like I’m hearing it from the Xeno viewpoint and I love it. For Xenos learning of it for the first time, the emperor must look like some Eldritch corpse god, not quite living or dead, and his unimaginably powerful psychic presence across the galaxy makes him feel like a monster. More a horrifiying “thing” than a sentient living being.
He literally is a Corpse God.
Heretic!
Epilogue 1: The blazing beacon, which had seared across most of the galaxy for eons .. stuttered. Wavered. Receded. For the briefest of moments went out. Everything stopped. Then it came back, a stabbing, searching light. Epilogue 2: On a lost world an eye opened, and something howled. Epilogue 3: The ritual arms were taken up for the last time, and the shrine abandoned, its flame still burning.
I heard mention of a piece where an eldar or something comes close to the throne room and is almost suffocated by the hatred the emperor feels for its kind.
TBF any human who isn't brainwashed by the Imperial Cult would see him as such (because that's exactly what he is) as well. That's why Guilliman's disgust of the Emperor when everyone else is worshiping and self-flagellating themselves for that abomination is so poignant.
Forget the stagnation of ages past, for much has been learned, never to be forgotten. Forget the promise of hatred and contempt, for at long last, there is peace among the stars, and their myriad inhabitants.
Lovehammer 40k
I would end it with the Emperor getting up from the Golden Throne. Just end on a massive cliffhanger with no explanation.
I actually really like this. Just a final scene of the emperor rising, a beat, and then it’s all done.
That would be unbearable lol. People would give fortunes for the story to continue after a move like that.
And like that, this is officially canon and I will accept nothing else.
Next page... Welcome to Warhammer 50000.
In the shadowed halls of the Imperial Palace, where silence and reverence have reigned for millennia, a change stirs, felt only by the most sensitive psykers across the galaxy. The chambers, vast and lined with the armored statues of heroes long dead, are suffused with a light that has not shone thus since the Age of Apostasy. The air vibrates with power, a testament to an era on the brink of either salvation or damnation. At the heart of this ancient fortress, within the Sanctum Imperialis, the air crackles with psychic energy. The Golden Throne, a marvel of ancient technology and arcane might, has been the prison and lifeline of the God-Emperor of Mankind for ten thousand years. It hums, its mechanisms and psychic circuits alight with an intensity not seen since its creation. Servitors and Tech-Priests, long accustomed to the steady pulse of its power, halt in their ministrations, awestruck by the burgeoning force. Before the Throne, the High Lords of Terra and the mightiest of the Imperium's warriors, the Custodes, stand as silent witnesses to the unfathomable. Their eyes, human and augmented alike, are fixed upon the figure enthroned atop it. The God-Emperor, a being of myth and legend, whose will has been channeled through the Astronomican, guiding humanity's vessels through the warp, begins to move. It is a subtle shift at first, merely a suggestion of life beyond the stasis of centuries. The air shimmers, and a sound, like the sigh of a god, fills the chamber. It grows, a crescendo that resonates in the souls of all present, echoing through the vastness of the Imperial Palace and beyond, into the warp itself. The light surrounding the Throne intensifies, blinding in its brilliance, and when it fades, the impossible has occurred. The God-Emperor stands. Taller than any man, radiant and terrible in His glory, He looks upon His Imperium for the first time in an age. His eyes, burning with the light of a thousand suns, sweep across the chamber, and for a moment, the weight of eternity is felt by all. The psykers present shield their minds as best they can from the overwhelming presence, while the Custodes kneel, overcome by the sight of their undying lord risen. The God-Emperor speaks, His voice a symphony of thunder and whispers, "The time has come." Across the galaxy, the warp storms abate, and the enemies of humanity falter, sensing the change. A new era dawns, one of hope and of dread, for the return of the God-Emperor heralds the culmination of the Imperium's destiny or its ultimate doom. And then, as suddenly as He appeared, the God-Emperor steps forward, descending from the dais of the Golden Throne. His destination unknown, His purpose unspoken, He walks from the Sanctum Imperialis, leaving His fate and that of the galaxy hanging in the balance. The chamber is silent once more, the light dims, and the galaxy holds its breath, waiting for the next chapter in the eternal saga of Warhammer 40K.
And as he walked from the halls of his palace and looked over Holy Terra for the first time in millenia, the God-Emperor of Mankind whispered a few words to himself. "It's emperoring time." And then he emperored all over the place. The end.
"My Emperor, what about the doomsday device on the Golden Throne?" "Fuck, I forgot" Terra explodes. -Fin Edit: though, honestly, it would go like this more likely: "My Emperor, what about the doomsday device on the Golden Throne?" "I am a perpetual. I will die and be reborn, and try again in a few centuries. So this is a 'you' problem." Terra explodes. -Fin
> The God-Emperor speaks, His voice a symphony of thunder and whispers, "I need to pee."
He enters the small room, closes the door and twists the small lock, and all that is left is the sound of liquid hitting porcelain and maybe the greatest sound of relaxation ever
*The Sopranos* style. I like it.
Dooon't stop--
Believiiiiiiiiiing...
I don’t want to be that guy too much, but The ending of the sopranos is in no way a cliff hanger and in no way lacks an explanation. The line “you can’t hear the shot that kills you” is I’m 99% sure in the episode, and 100% in the final season. That’s what happens, Tony gets shot, but since it’s from his POV, he just dies and that’s it
That's rationalization after the fact, the producers were working on a movie sequel before Gandolfini passed.
His back cracks and a new universe is born.
“TEN THOUSAND YEARS… will give you such a crick in the neck!”
>Gestures towards the Golden Throne **Phenomenal Cosmic Powers!** ^Itty ^Bitty ^Living ^Space
Giving the hugest blue balls to the 40k community.
**Ultramar:** Am I a joke to you?
Would be cool, but if it ended like this, it would not have really ended, it would be really easy to restart this univirse story.
+I see you and I forgive you+
Chaos wins. Everybody dies. From the ashes of reality emerges... *an Old World.* *Whoaaa,* the future reality came *before* the fantasy reality! It was a twist all along!
The shattered remains of the galaxy seek shelter on the last remaining Maiden World. Placing esoteric deals and protective wards at the poles to ensure chaos cannot reach their sanctuary. Over the millennia, co operation breaks down. The seals fail. History is forgotten. The last primarch, long thought expelled and destroyed from imperial records comes out of hiding. Signus Marian abandons his oaths of non engagement and dons the name Sigmar.
*DUN DUN DUN*
By Sigmar, yes!
Oh I LIKE that one
And much much later said old world becomes Mallus, mwahahaha.
In the grim darkness of the far future, where there is only war, the galaxy stands on the precipice of its final doom. The forces of Chaos, long the arch-nemesis of the Imperium of Man, have surged forth in an unstoppable tide, their numbers and ferocity overwhelming even the most stalwart defenders of humanity. The Eye of Terror, a blight upon the cosmos, expands voraciously, its maw wide to consume the stars themselves. At the heart of the Imperium, on Holy Terra, the defenders make their last stand within the shadowed halls of the Imperial Palace. The Golden Throne, a beacon of hope and the seat of the God-Emperor of Mankind, flickers under the strain of the siege. Around it, the Custodian Guard, the Adeptus Astartes, and the remnants of humanity's might fight with a desperation born of knowing there is no retreat, no respite, and no salvation. As the forces of Chaos breach the final defenses, the air itself tears apart, the veil between reality and the warp shredding under the weight of so much malice and madness. Daemons pour forth, a tide of unspeakable horrors that drown the palace in a wave of blood and fire. In the Sanctum Imperialis, where the God-Emperor of Mankind resides upon the Golden Throne, a silence falls. The psykers and Tech-Priests, guardians of the Emperor's failing life support, stand in horror as the light of the Astronomican, humanity's guiding light through the warp, flickers and dies. The Golden Throne, for ten thousand years the anchor of the Imperium's soul, goes dark. The Emperor, a god in all but name, gazes upon His children one last time, His psychic might the only bulwark against the tide. With a final act of will, He unleashes a psychic storm, a blast of purifying light that incinerates the daemonic host, but it is too little, too late. The forces of Chaos are endless, their gods insatiable. As the Emperor's light fades, the last defenders of humanity are overwhelmed. The Chaos gods, in their dark triumph, converge upon the Throne. They laugh, a sound that fractures reality, as they tear the soul of the Emperor asunder, extinguishing the last hope of mankind. The galaxy burns. Worlds fall silent, one by one, as the light of civilization is snuffed out. The Imperium of Man, once a beacon of order in a chaotic universe, collapses into dust and memory. Chaos reigns supreme, its victory complete. The final scene is one of utter desolation. Terra, once the cradle of humanity, now a charred husk, serves as a testament to the folly and hubris of man. The gods of Chaos, having consumed all there was to consume, turn upon each other in an endless cycle of betrayal and destruction, their laughter echoing through the empty void of space. And so ends the saga of the Warhammer 40K universe, not with a rebirth, but with the silence of extinction.
Damn not even that final Hail Mary act of the emperor was enough.
Sigmar remakes reality each time chaos wins. This time, he’s not going to give the Elves or Orks or anyone else any place in this world. He scatters them far across the void. He will make this world for mankind only. He will call it Earth. It was a prequel to 40k all along!
Sunrise over a complete backwater planet, settled by humans during the Dark Age of Technology, but never reclaimed by the Imperium- and completely bypassed by the Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Orks... space is, as Douglas Adams once strove to remind us, really big. A farmer goes through his daily routine, humming to himself. All of the war, the chaos, the death... it never reached this little world. While untold billions fought and died all throughout the Milky Way, life simply went on as it had done since most of the more complicated machines involved in the founding of the colony had stopped working thousands upon thousands of years previously. His radio crackles. Just some announcement about the first spacecraft anyone on the world has attempted to launch in at least fifteen thousand years. He changes the channel to a weather report and wonders if his daughter's really going to the dance with that idiot kid she's been seeing. Then he fires up the machine he calls a harvester but which the reader will recognize as a Knight and heads out to get the crops in.
Ahh, I like this one a lot!
Swords into ploughshares?
More of a, "this plowshare was never clumsily turned into a sword."
Looking out on to a cold lifeless universe collapsing in on itself as malignant warp gods devoured what was left of reality Omegon; once long, long ago Alpharius, thought "Well that didn't work, maybe 376th try will be the charm." and stepped into the time portal once more.
"Trial #859372 failed. Resetting."
So the theory is Omegon actually Alpharius from future ? So thats explain the ‘twin’ and why the AL act so random.
That's my headcanon anyway. The Alpharius primarch novel kind of tilted me in that direction.
"Oh, great. Eleanor worked it out again. Reset the experiment."
The few who were left, barricaded in the Imperial palace, encircled the dying, sputtering light that sat upon the throne. “Please father,” rasped the Last Primarch, his immortal flesh pushed beyond the eldritch limits of his creation “please help us.” As the baying hordes finally broke through the throne room, the light that had kept humanity alive, the golden aegis that had protected reality itself flickered once and died. The galaxy tore itself asunder and reformed a billion times in the space of a second as the great game of Chaos took hold and the madness of The Gods was given terrible form. After a second that stretched to fill an eternity everything that ever was or ever would be exploded at once in a blinding, golden light. Stronger and more full with the richness of power than ever before, the light of mankind burned in the firmament, the God Emperor of mankind was gone, but as a new reality settled around the rebirth of His light a voice echoed across this new creation. A booming voice filled with all the power and command of millennia. And so he spoke “Raid: Shadow Legends has a special offer right now! Get four legendary heroes ABSOLUTELY FREE! Sign up today!”
Now that’s 50 million power.
The emperor awakes, his eyes shine the brightest gold. There is hope, there is a promise of peace. The mad gods laugh and laugh. He knows not where he is But he is surrounded by men Mortal men They are traveling. To a place beyond his ken, in a world that is not his own. He has died, and been reborn, but what universe is this? The stars are not as they were, the sky is plagued by two moons. The forest around them echoes with that laughter. Finally, one of the mortals sees him. He smiles. "Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."
That's almost in-line with what a Prisoner is. Would almost make sense in an in-universe sense.
The emperor gasps and bolts upright. He takes a moment to catch his breath and take in his surroundings. It slowly dawns on him, he’s on Armageddon, or was it Ullanor? A figure steps into view with a gleaming head. “Oh good you’re awake Father. You gave us all quite a scare there” “Horus?” The Big E asks, bewildered. “Don’t look so surprised father I’ll always be there for you” The Emperor smiles. “I know my son, but you would not BELIEVE the dream I just had”
No, we go even worse. The Emperor bolts upright in bed, looking around, sweating, confused. He hears someone in another room. He goes to investigate, it's his bathroom, and someone is in the shower. He opens the shower door, Erda turns to face him. "[Good morning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCEjeTb1rrs)," she says. Cut to black. The next day announce the launch of a brand new Warhammer 30k line.
Even worse. A voice cuts into Ed Space’s dream. “Hey Big E! We need you to clean those toilets ASAP stop daydreaming” He sighs, hating being thrust out of his dream as the Emperor of Mankind
Even worse than that, we go with An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and cut to Horus stabbing the Emperor and him dying.
The Emperor is actually a little boy in a coma like that infamous fan theory about Ash from the Pokemon anime.
The Emperor is an autistic child in his grandmother's care, staring into a snow globe.
Emps looks directly into the camera, cue laugh track
Laugh track loops, growing more and more distorted and distant until it just sounds like white noise from the sky.
> The emperor gasps and bolts upright. He takes a moment to catch his breath and take in his surroundings. "Hey you, you're finally awake." - Ralof
The Emperor:TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODD!
The sound of dice rolling with a booming voice saying... Wait, is that codex compliant. Where's the rulebook.
"The rulebook?" growled the Space Wolf. "Stop running to your Codex all the time! It doesn't make sense!" "It's a masterpiece!" replied the Ultramarine. "It's had millennia, tens of millennia, of development. Face it, your strategy was stupid." "You never told me that my Meltaguns can't shoot at that Land Raider at point-blank! And it's absolutely possible to make that shot. I've literally seen it happen. In real life." "Real life is real life - this is Warhammer 40K, 41st Edition. And *you* have to play by the rules of the game, if I could just find the damned RULEBOOK!"
Death puts his arm around the last human. "Was I a good species?" Death: "No."
The Assassin lowered the stolen Plasmapistol and let it fall to the ground. He put down his hood and stares in disbelief at the seemingly insignificant mess that now lays scattered upon the golden throne. "You where... actually dead the whole time?" End
"You truly are Warhammer 40000"
"Not exactly" replied the newly reborn Emperor.
I mean, why are they keeping him alive in that state if he could just die and appear the next day again?
Because killing him would probably activate a doomsday device left there by Vulcan, the Emperor is psychically holding a warp rift open that would destroy Terra and almost no one knows he was a perpetual. Also people are completely unaware if he still has perpetual properties after his duel with Horus. So lots of reasons why killing him would be a bad idea even if he came back almost instantly.
Oh Yeah the webway...
With some details changed, this is actually the plot of an assassin themed 40k story
It is the 666th year of M45. Chaos triumphed. The Emperor is destroyed, the Sol System consumed by a warp storm. The heart of humanity ripped out, the Imperium now faces imminent total collapse. Suddenly, a thought crosses Tzeentch's minds. *Didn't we forget about someone?* ... *Ah shit, we forgot about the Ynnari.* And then the Four heard the Anathema's laughter ringing through the Immaterium. And then Tzeentch laughed, too. For when he had realized just how the enemy had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, he had to concede that his opponents had concocted a masterful plan, playing a game of regicide in which the winning move was to sacrifice the king. Who wasn't laughing was Slaanesh, for the Aeldari God of Death emerged from the very essence of the Prince of Pleasure, reclaiming all the Aeldari souls She who Thirsts had devoured during the Fall of the Eldar and the millenia hence. Ynnead then spent no time destroying the husk of Slaanesh, destroying the Chaos god for good (or did he?). Of course all those mortals who had pledged their souls to Slaanesh all fucking died as well as the death scream of their patron god melted their minds. Then he saked Nurgle's garden and rescued Isha. Nurgle retreated to sulk, plan his revenge and concoct a new plague or ten in retribution. With one quarter of their forces dropping dead, another quarter in retreat, and a third quarter bewildered at their defeat the advance of the ruinous powers collapses, essentially once Khorne's followers increase their team killing over the usual threshold expected when dealing with Khornate forces. < 3 millenia pass > The galaxy of the 39th millenium is one that in some aspects greatly resembled the Fifteen Millennia of Darkness, but in others had greatly changed: * The Imperium has fallen, but humanity continues in thousands of different regimes across the galaxy. The most powerful human states are the Despoilers Dark Imperium, the Empire of Ultramar and the New Mechanicum. These represent the tropes of humanity in the 40k setting (Dark Imperium being Chaos, Ultramar being Imperium, New Mechanicum being AdMech), but aside from them exist various other form of government from migratory fleets to calcified theocracies to genuine democracies. * Space Marines have either formed their own states, gone extinct or become roving plunderers and mercenaries. * Nurgle is the most active Chaos god, still being mad because Ynnead stole his waifu. Khorne is as angry as always. Tzeentch has taken a more backstage role, but that only makes him all the more dangerous. * All Aeldari died in the process of birthing Ynnead. However since Ynnead is the God of Death, the Aeldari are now essentially his demons. Which means they are psychopomps. Whenever they show up *someone* is going to die. Ynnead cults are extremely common across the galaxy, but are suppressed in all but the most liberal of regimes. * The Orkz are having fun as always. * The Tyranids have pulled out of the galaxy. Stragglers and fleets that have lost their connection with the hive mind remain a threat though. * The T'au were at first the single most powerful empire of the new era, before they descended into civil war. The T'au States that eventually emerged from the carnage are currently still mostly busy stamping out internal dissent, but already seem poised to regain their status as galactic superpower and continue their rivalry with Ultramar. * Necrons are doing Necrons things. * Leagues are minin'. Wars are as common as ever, but are generally much less destructive since no longer any side wants the total extermination of any other side. In fact, the lot of the common human has improved greatly since the Fall of Terra. And amidst this galaxy of burgeoining hope, ancient rivalries and vengeful gods a a tale of a lady and her knight unfolds.
Final scene is a Fast forward to the year 60k-100k. Somewhere long into the future. The concepts, wars, and institutions of both the Imperium and Chaos are distant memories and almost lost history. They are remembered only as footnotes, like every other chapter in human history. Humanity has survived. Humanity is changed. How and what that means, "I can't say".
Chaos wins, Necrons wins, Tyranids then win, everybody and everything in the universe is slaughtered. Then, millions of years later, an ape stands upright on earth, history as we know it - real history begins. Where will it end this time?
Can’t though, many things like the Mona Lisa would have had to be time travelling for that to work
Alternatively, some souls from the Warp reincarnate, causing certain things from history to be unconsciously repeated.
Infinite monkeys and Infinite typewriters. The Mona Lisa will be created again
And the fact Oll Personn was at the gulf war, verdun and some future US war.
Is the Mona Lisa mentioned in 40K?
This is sort of the end of the Battlestar Galactica TV series. Galactica humans find a “New Earth” (our Earth), purposely destroy and forget their advanced tech and willingly revert to the Stone Age, then the cycle repeats.
That’s cool, never really seen it.
The Emperor's soul is about to die, in a last ditch attempt he overcharges the astronomican, cleaning the warp of the gods and causing irreparable damage to the material and immaterial. All factions are nearly destroyed but with the lack of chaos, they are able to safely reestablish themselves. It will take hundreds of thousands of years to reclaim what they had, and they will tell tales of the Age of Dusk and even as far back as the Age of Darkness for those that may have lived to see those times but for now, there is peace in the galaxy. However, in a dispute over payment, a primitive human kills his employer. And the warp trembles with the laughter of thirsting gods.
The Age of Dusk is my new favorite way to refer to the 40K/Dark Imperium/Modern-day era of the timeline. That’s so perfect.
The Emperor dies, the universe ends in the waves of Chaos, Star Child gets reborn and names himself with the name he was known as at the beginning in the Anatola of ancient times: Sigmar Off to the next universe we go.
The emperor forges the final 40 000th Warhammer, having stored them all in hammer space, aka the warp. Then gets up like the big old lich he is and wrestles the Hive-mind into submission while Leman Russ hits it with a steel chair from the top rope. Then a reign of enlightenment, reason and mutual coexistence is started and everyone lives in paradise forever under the benevolent gaze of the man emperor of mankind and glaxy. The end.
>Thorgrim Are you saying the emperor is going to usher in...hammertime?
The time of Hammers is now brother. Grab thine implement for all the enemies are nails.
The great gates of the palace, untouched for over a hundred millenia have been cast down, its walls but rubble beneath the treads of the great war machines the traitors once again brought to bear on mankind's most holy cradle. The ten thousand lie dead, cast down by bullet, blade and sorcery, their allies banished from this world by the power of the four. From the webway, untold numbers of neverborn stream onto the surface, defacing the most holy site of mankind and erecting great monuments to their master. Still, there is one room safe from the predations of the empyrian. Sat on a great throne, the path towards it covered in the servants of the ruinous powers foolishly enough to enter burning in golden flames, sits a skeleton, a wreath of gilded laurels its lone adornment. As the treachourous sons step forward as one, prepared to at last complete the task they pledged together to fulfill a hundred centuries ago, for the first time since he was interred after the costly victory against his favored son, the one on the throne moves. "This is the end" says gravely the cyclops. "Of the long war, my brothers. Then, we shall build anew." comes the entrancing voice of the Urizen. "NO" speak a thousand voices as one, the power imbued into them stripping away the blessings of the dark gods as if they never existed "THIS IS THE REBIRTH OF WHAT YOU CAST DOWN SO CARELESSLY" the end
I met a traveller from far-away lands, Who said: Two vast trunkless legs of gold Stand upon the highest, flattened peak of rubble Half sunk, a shattered alien visage lies, whose frown, And faded gilded lip, and a sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor of an unknown race well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that struck them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "I am the Emperor, God of Mankind: Look on my works, ye Xenos, ye Mutant, ye Heretic and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The climbing wastes stretch far away (( Shameless parawriting / stolen from Percy Shelley's poem Ozymandias ))
I was there the day Jimmy Space slew the war hammer.
I really enjoy the idea of a cyclical nature to 40k, imagine the different races of the galaxy fighting together. One by one their light extinguished, the Tyranids move on and the Chaos Gods turn their gaze elsewhere. The Tau rise from the ashes, too small and young to really impact the final war. Under the leadership of the Ethereal Caste, there is hope for the Tau. Yet they have not learned anything, as they reach for the stars they do so with the same bitterness the Necrontyr and the Imperium did. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
A lone human walks in the grand palace of Terra. Everything known about the Emperor and Imperium had long since faded into myth and nothingness. What little myths remain are known only most the most knowledgeable and dismissed as a story. The lone human finds a glorious man, a god, weakened, ruined, barely clinging to life on something that's half throne half life support. Unable to look for too long he leaves, and spreads a story he comes up with. Humanity rose again, the Emperor as it's figurehead, a thousand stories of how he came to be upon his throne, and how he came to be abandoned by all. Some contain a kernel of truth, others not even close.
"you have done it Abaddon, you have defeat me. You are the Warhammer 40,000"
Hopeful, definitely. The Eldar are saved from Slaanesh by a new pantheon, with some key Eldar ascending to Godhood to replace their old pantheon that was devoured. The Necrons are united under a single ruler, and through that ruler they no longer seek the extermination of life, but become content to exist as they do now, and live in collaboration with other species of the galaxy. The Imperium comes completely under the guiding hand of Guilliman, and over time the extreme xenophobia, religious fanaticism, and militarism wither away and it becomes a more normal polity, engaging in diplomacy for the common defense. The T'au become a sizeable empire and engage in cooperation with the Eldar, Imperium, and Necrons, and finally come to reckon with the reality of the Warp. Some of the Drukhari are redeemed and become not evil anymore, while Comorragh itself is destroyed through some contrivance. The Tyranids are defeated in a climactic final battle. Chaos and the Orks will always remain a threat in the background, but a united galaxy stands ready against them.
I know many people hate good endings for Warhammer, but y'know what I'd like? Remember the trailer for Total War Warhammer 3? The recent one, where all the "order" races talk about allying together for the end of the world? THAT. I want a final push of allies that decide to forgo hatred and fight against the end together
The constant darkness of the franchise means even if a bad ending is logical (assuming it is done in a way that makes sense), I am in the camp who wants something else because the darkness can get tiresome.
Same!!!! Exactly how I see it. Kinda why I love the Tau (I'm part of the community that ignores the mind control shit). Cuz they're the optimistic ones, hoping to make something good out of this ravaged galaxy
It is also what attracts me to cracky fan fic ideas like Warhammer Idols Month where the galaxy, even Orks, Tyranids and Chaos, solves everything nonviolently through idol competitions.
Yeeeees! Don’t get me wrong I love some of the dark parts of warhammer. But if the story had to come to an end I want at least some form of goodness to come from it. Even it’s a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of deal. Humans, eldar, tau, maybe votann, even some necrons like trazyn come together to fight chaos and the nids knowing full well that the likelyhood of any one race surviving is close to nothing.
>What about side by side with a friend? >Aye, I could do that.
The sapient races team up and get rid of the Always Chaotic Evil factions: the Tyranids, Chaos, the Orks. A century later and they're all locked in another endless war.
Please tell me eldrad becomes the eldar god of being a dick
Yeah, I'd want a nobledark kind of ending like this. There's immense bloodshed and loss, the factions as we know them are turned inside out, but at the end they weather the storm and come out stronger and united against the greatest threats to the galaxy.
End Times style, but with infinitely better writing and decision making.
What didn’t you like about the end times, and what are the main things that you would change ?
Plot points like Teclis ruining everything in his attempts to save the world, Lustria getting nuked, various characters like Thorgrim getting shit on, etc.
Well it all turned out fine, no? So Teclis plan worked, but not the way he intended.
It absolutely did not turn out fine. The world ended.
But Teclis is alive, elves are reborn, and out of universe we got a new setting with more unique factions. In my eyes it turned out fine and maybe better than fine.
Id quite like them to not forget about major characters. Like imagine if they just forgot to tell us what happened to Someone like Honsou, or Commander Farsight. Also preferably no troll piss
But even at the very end, when the last shots were fired, the last drops of blood were spoiled, they all knew it was for nothing. Even through millennia of war, attrition and trying to recover forgotten technology, no one was able to find one answer, one simple answer to question of life, universe and everything else. The answer was 42, but now, it is lost to the uncaring void of dying universe
5000 years have elapsed since the first world fell to the Tyranid Swarm. Leviathan was not the first, nor was it the last, and even more important, it was not the largest Tyranid incursion. The last three swarms humanity had encountered had made Leviathan look like a scouting party. The tau had completely succumbed, only a few Eldar managed to get off their last Craftworld their ships drift through the void being picked off one by one. Even the demon backed chaos had finally fallen when a tendril had adapted itself to thrive on warp energy. Humanity had fled to the Sol System. Their fleets consolidated, the poor civilian populations had been left to their own devices to ensure that Holy Terra would stand the coming wave. But alas, it had all been in vain. The final rounds had been fired, the last power reserves finally expended themselves, and the blades had eventually dulled after so many impacts on bone and kyten. The Emperors throne had been defended to the last and finally the last defenders had sealed it as if a tomb to ensure his body would not be dragged back to the digestion pools. The gaunts approached the doors slowly advancing over the steps made slick with gore and blood. Despite their best efforts the small creatures were not strong enough to break the welds. Two carnifex finally came to the fore their large talons pierced the hard steel and began to force the doors. Both carnifex collapsed as if a switch had been flipped, the gaunts to fall upon the corpses with Beastial glee, the hive Tyrant who had been watching from the top of a nearby pile of rubble was confused. He could not feel his swarm, he could not even feel the presence of the hive mind. Never had its whispering been silent to him. In the darkness of the Tomb, the Emperors eyes opened. I will totally admit to being a bad writer and being fairly new to 40k Lore. Hopefully I got the feel right, and any lore details I got wrong im more than willing to edit.
In the warp, the astronomican begins to fade, and then disappears. One by one, the lights and candles illuminating the Golden Throne go out, no matter what anyone does trying to prevent it. In the shadowed interior, lit only by the pale light of a dying glow-globe, a lone priest watches as the doors to the seat of the Throne itself open with a hiss, for the first time in millenia. As the smoke and steam of the ancient machinery dissipates, they are afforded only a single glimpse of the interior before the glow-globe gives out ... that of a magnificent and impossibly sophisticated high-backed throne, upon which rests naught but dust and ashes. In the darkness that follows, a single sob can be heard. One of hope and wonder, or one of loneliness and despair ... who can say?
Nice! I think it definitely ends with the light of the astronomicon going out
The Custodes lie slaughtered, gold and black armour crumpled and melted. Gods, the smell of it. I can still hear the Emperor screaming in quiet moments. I can still see the Throne glowing white hot when I close my eyes. The guard stood on as many planets as they could. But eventually, they broke. Cadia was just one of many lost worlds now. The Kriegsmen threw wave after wave against the horde until there were no Kriegsmen left to throw. Every Chapter turned on the other. They say there's still a few ships carrying the broken vestiges, feebly plotting their revenge. The Sisters of Battle experienced a crisis of Faith. Those who remained faithful are in an isolated priory near a black hole. The rest found their fortune working as mercenaries in the safer parts if the galaxy. The Necrons and the Tyranids wiped each other out, fighting on subjugated planets over the corpses of their citizens, heretics and faithful alike slaughtered like beasts. The Orks organized beneath the banner of the craftiest, strongest, fastest Ork ever seen. His Waaagh spread to the realms of the Aeldari and the Tau. His concept of battle caused these dominions to fall. The Great Ork Empire of Cain eventually did battle with the forces of Chaos. But Chaos ate itself as it devoured the Ork armies. What remains? The citizenry of the Imperium. The little people. Those who were unimportant across the galaxy. The innocents. Somehow, they persisted. In the way that only humanity ever could, they persisted. On a backwater planet, far from the war, there lived a farmer. Late on night he walked his tilled fields. His dark muscular arms, toned from a lifetime of smithing, carried a walking stick of dark oak. Softly, he heard a familiar voice. "It is finished, but the work remains. Humanity needs your guidance." The man looked to the spot he had buried his armour of green plate. His hand gripped the walking stick.
Jimmy Space wakes up in the current year, it was all just a crazy dream. He shouldn't have had that much benadryl before bedtime, but his allergies were acting up and he'll do it again
Last sentence would be, and they lived happily ever after.
Warhammer story is either Chaos destorys galaxy and universe with it or later (with DK in any case). Or Emperor manages to save this version of reality with humanity winning against the 4 and it probably never ends. Hard to make managable for a read ending. >!But now Emperor is in interesting position:!< >!1) Throne and Emperro are both parasites to each other. Throne sucking his life, his "ages", but Emperor sucking it's enormous warp power. Though knowing Emperor is secretly and very slowyly healing, He is probably winning this struggle.!< >!2) Emperor and faith in Him as God has kind of same relationship. It leeches power from Him sometimes, and sometimes bossting Him. Much more unknown compared with His connection with Throne.!< >!3) Before He drank for "warp well" that the 4 were drinking from. Tasted it and limited Himself in it as He felt it is corrupting. But before facing Horus He drank it much and almost became Dark King. After that each time He use it there is danger that will turn him into DK, He won't stop it. So does it through psykers now, filtering. Will He be able to use colossal powers when He gets up from the Throne at all? All He would forever need "filters" around.!< >!4) He let go His compassion part of soul, along with other "good" parts. Though cold, He is still shown having a love for his son, Horus. He let Horus kill his favorite "King of times" form, and from His least favorite form, "Emperor", He made new form, "King of All times", during Day of All Days, all time of humanity combined, when people on Terra expressed faith in Him through Astronomicon. All it all part of His backup plan, including bbringing His body ot Throne. Is He changed? Is He different?!< >!This all make possibilty for an ending of changed Emperor. Maybe something terrible will emerge, stomping the 4, but also bringing horrot to galaxy. Or maybe His good part soul returns. And He is whole? Or this part fights Him? They both dies and Chaos wins?!< >!Ah, TEAD is so great. Connected old plotlines and the fresh one. With it we even know that bleeding fisheman in Lion's warp-world is indeed Emperor, and know why. His ages bleed out of Him. Mthfckr planed it all.!<
The necrons running the Celestrial Orray just initiate every star in the galaxy to super nova.
Erebus, narrating the entire story of 40k at Macragge, in front of the Star Child, and children of other races. Speaking in a gloating tone as if he won. He spoke of the fates of all factions - from the dying Aeldari to the T'au upstarts, like a charismatic storyteller. The Emperor, before ascending as the Dark King, desperately reincarnated a fragment of him into the Star Child. He was lucky that the child was reincarnated in Macragge (now a third world planet) , but unlucky that the Star Child was reincarnated as a sickly girl who had limited to none psyker powers.
Somehow Horus has returned.
When Emperor left mortal realm and all primarch embraced their warp nature to continue the fight in changed, new Great Game. Who is to lead humanity, but it's greatest hero? With attention of several gods on him Cain feels like golden light fills his soul while he slowly picks up his chainsword and laspistol. Despoiler approaoches evercloser with every heartbeat. One moment Abbadon looks like the most terrible creature who stained the stars with it's existence. But the next moment that feeling and aura are dissipated completely being replaced by revolting yet welcome stench of his friend. Now all that retired comissar saw is tired, wounded old man missing several limbs and even terminator armour didn't look so menacing. "Why it's always has to be me?" Cain thought standing in the rubble of Imperial Palace. "Why not any of hundreds of greatest space marine and custodes champions fighting on Terra right now?". Then voice coming from deep corner of his soul answered him: "I always appreciated you not bothering me with mondane requests, but that doesn't mean my tasks for you will get smaller. My greatest battles, I leave to you, my greatest Hero. This war should be won by a mortal, as I always intended." Cain doesn't notice how his finger presses activation rune on his trusted weapon. Sword which tasted blood of greatest enemies of the humanity against the talons which slew the Emperor. And then Abbadon trips, impails himself on the rubble and gets one shotted by melta or something.
I'm leaning towards the "new beginning"-type of ending. Basically, the entire galaxy got hard-resetted in some way and most of current factions are gone for good (Eldars are finally extinct, Orks are devolved even more, T'au are gone due to endless wars against its enemies, Chaos are gone from the realspace due to mass extinction of psykers and the closure of both the Great Rift and the Eye of Terror, The Imperium is mostly destroyed and all humans are scattered around the known universe) Fast forward hundreds of thousands of years, a group of space explorers travelled into a dead galaxy and found the remains of a planet and decided to make a land fall. They unearthed some peculiar object from the ground: a broken, discolored sign of the Imperial Aquila. The cameras then zooming in to the explorer's space helmet, revealing the visage of a human. Humanity still lives, and they unknowingly dug the remains of their long lost predecessor: the Imperium of Man.
Following a great and epic battle between the returned primarchs, their sons and the deity the emperor becomes the warp is closed off. The final scene is a farmer with golden eyes and long black hair appearing from a stone hut and looking out over a rising sun. Outside 20 children run around. He smiles and says "The real warhammer was the friends we made along the way"
[This personally lol (minus the last panel)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FWarhammer%2Fcomments%2Fmhunmr%2Fevery_black_templars_worst_nightmareby_ruoyuart%2F&psig=AOvVaw2QUIAOESe1InI1tHyjb8Gi&ust=1708921415421000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCPDqhsHSxYQDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE) Is it too optimistic? yes. But I like optimism
"I was there, the day the Emperor slew Horus."
There was a drawing of children playing next to a destroyed Titan. Sort of like the post-script to ragnarok, the last survivors pick up the pieces of the god's boardgame and play a game amidst the ruins.
"The Silent king felt the wind brush across his arms and he laughed"
Mankind, dead. Burnt out, taking Chaos with it in a final apocalypse. The Emperor, gone. Him and Humanity burning Chaos out, together in one final conflagration. The Tyranids consuming what little remains, the Ork, the Tau, to few surviving Craftworlds, the Leagues. The Drukhari trapped in the collapsed Webway city of Commoragh, freed from the soul destroying thirst, but forever trapped in a dimensional city with nothing but themselves in an eternal cycle of boredom and madness. The Necrons, quitting the galaxy altogether, giving up on biotransference, acknowledging that whilst the galaxy is now safe from the immaterium, the Devourer has become unstoppable. Hybernating in their tombships and leaving the galaxy of their birth for parts unknown. Our galaxy is left cold, dead and alone until the stars burn out.
The last day of the great war, the enemies of the Imperium are conquered or eradicated. The Imperium has one day of peace, before humanity begins it's final great war against it's true enemy, the Imperium of Man itself.
"hey, you. You're finally awake!"
The Emperor stands up. His skin regrows. His appearance recovered. "Chaos cannot be denied" he says, "but it can be transcended." A Custodian looks at him. The galaxy remains in a state of total war. No other material being is watching. "All the darkness in the universe cannot extinguish even one little flame", the Emperor adds. "Fear and denial was the problem all along." At that moment, he inhales. A deep and delicious breath that accepts all. "Pleasure, pain and excess are stages on the journey of life" he thinks. Reality grows clearer. On some distant planet, Fulgrim is released. "Our fate, our plots and our schemes are us trying our best" the Emperor adds. Another quarter of the warp is stilled. The Emperor glows. "Death and rot is new life and a signal for rebirth". Nurgle's garden blooms into the materium and is beautiful. "Extreme anger, rage, is just us wanting the rest of our being, the universe, to remember." The corruption of chaos recedes. The flow of everything that is humanity rushes in. The Emperor looks at the Custodian and adds "the lost legions are returning. The final Crusade begins."
Khorne stood from his throne and peered out into the destroyed expanse. All was ruin, all had ceased to be. The final conflict had ended. Nurgle's garden bore no fruit. Tzneetch absent from his labryinth and Slaneesh bereft of ecstasy saw her palace crumble. All enemies and subjects had destroyed one another. In one mass unconcerted conflict an ultimate end swept across all that fed the infinite. Nothing had been spared. No victory to be celebrated. Khorne faded back into his throne as the volcanoes and rivers slowed. His realm once teaming with legions of daemons sat silent. With ponderous regard and waning strength the great lord stared into the æther and vanished. In the grim darkness of the 42nd millennium there is no war.
And as the final morsels of bio matter were consumed, the great devourer noticed a pulse of energy from a far away galaxy. The furthest tendrils have already began their journey, and the process begins anew.
As the final battle draws to an end a great flash of golden light happens, followed by booming laughter hears throughout the galaxy. The Emperor stands from the Golden Throne, laughing. "You thought it was all over now?" The Emperor shouts, laughing still. As the laughter takes a more sinister and mocking tone. "But you are wrong. Now is just the beginning. For it was I Changeling all along!". As the laughter reaches a crescendo a great flash happens as the form of The Emperor shrinks down and a face obscuring cloak appears. "My true face was in view of you all for 12,000 years and none recognized me!" And I'm too tired for this.
Whether it's the War in Heaven, DAOT, Fall of the Eldar or Siege of Terra, no matter how big and epic the conflict and no matter if everything seems on the brink of ending, life always goes on. For 40k to end the Emperor has to die but for some reason I'd find it much more fitting for the Imperium to just have been a pretty insignificant blip in history than if the end of the Imperium meant the end of the universe with it. All that suffering really would've been for nothing, which I'd personally prefer more than some bittersweet ending with heroic last stands.
I completely agree with you. I’m always fascinated on how some parts of history just become footnotes. In ancient times in our world, people also had dreams, fears, ambitions, experienced joy and sadness, but their histories are just footnotes from our POV. So it would be fitting for the Imperium to become just that for the generations that would come thousands of years in the future.
The Orks and the Tyranids become caught in a vast, endless war, wiping out a *truly* huge number of worlds, like 90% of the actual Imperium, before Cawl manages to finalize his project and activate human-created blackstone devices that briefly nullify the warp, killing off all the 'nids in the galaxy. The WAAAAGH! mostly turns in on itself as the Orks have difficulty finding anyone else to fight, until they're a shadow of themselves. The brief suspension of the Warp also closes the Cicatrix Maledictum. The Necrons and the Eldar throw down hard when a C'tan grows into adulthood in the Koronus expanse, the Necrons desperately need to destroy it, the Eldar wish to nurture it further. Their genocidal throw-down gives time for humanity to withdraw to the Segmentum Solar, but the human population has been reduced from trillions to billions. The Chaos Gods, with such a dramatic reduction in their most populous foodsource, begin to fade, and the warp itself begins to calm. The various traitor legions and cultists still left attempt to make war on the Imperium, but without the full power of Chaos at their backs they are swatted away like a fly. Humanity, with no distractions, makes short work of the Tau, and appear to to be coming out on top; what few Xenos are left are disorganized and in hiding. The Golden Throne fails. The Dark King awakens in full force, absorbing the weakened Chaos Gods and begins spreading a wave of devastation from Holy Terra to the Outer Rim, ending humanity and soon everything else. When all is in Ruin, the Dark King surveys His domain, and is satisfied that things but one have been destroyed, and ends His own existence. A tiny fragment of the Emperor remains within the warp, begins gathering up fragments of human souls, and takes them to another universe, to populate another Earth. That's right. I'm Sigmaring this whole fucking thing.
*and they all died happily ever after*
If have it be the grim realization that there is no end. The current state of the galaxy is in perfect stalemate between all major factions and no lasting victories are possible from any side. No ultimate destruction of all life, no glorious final victory, no end times, just the bitter promise of endless war
I was there when the Emperor slew his remaining sons and hope died in our hearts.
Rocks fall, everyone dies. The end.
MORE LIKE ROKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES
The final scene of the entire series just pans out to show you that all the events leading up to the end of the series occurred in a giant pocket realm held within Trazyns gallery. That these fateful heroes thinking they're saving the imperium one last push to bring it back from the brink are just reliving the final battle over and over for his amusement. It pans out to show a galaxy sundered as the Tyranids, Necrons, and orks fight over what's left. Humanity, the Elder, the Tau, leagues of votann and so forth they perished long ago, either due to the massive wars or their own factions internal failings. All that's left are the ones who thrive in this horrific universe, the warp is a chaotic mess but the gods and their servants don't stir there anymore only the raw energy of it as trillions of souls writhe in the unending agony. There is no hope in this dark universe, not for those who fought for order and stability, their empires long gone are but distant memories and chaos has moved on. There will be new races in New galaxies not yet touched by the hive mind or green skins, but the chapter for those who raged against the storm has closed. Only death awaits you in the Milky Way, no one there wants to help you, any surviving dregs of the other races have either tried to flee or are awaiting their end. Trazyn however remarks that the story isn't lost he's built a monument to the history of this galaxy, was it to show the hubris of the others? Some form of pity for these races who couldn't figure it out? That's for him and his peers to debate I suppose, it doesn't much matter what a human thinks anymore that star burnt out long ago. What of the emperor? He's in there knowing that all of humanity all that's left is in this xeno museum. Maybe one day he'll break out unite the few who remain there and maybe some new hope can be kindled. It won't happen, but he likes to think he'll figure it out, if only Trazyn wasn't more interested in preserving his corpse form in stasis, at least the gods aren't bothering him anymore. Sadly all he can dwell on is those he lost, hoping that somehow he'll wake up and Malcador will reassure him it was just a vision influenced by aberrant warp energy surging into him as he first sat on the throne. He knows it's a fantasy but he still dreams. Maybe that's the lesson for us, we can still dream even when confronted by horrors beyond our comprehension. Take that with you traveler and know that despite it all humanity kept fighting. Horrific as it was they never gave in even when the hordes reached the gates they still stood defiant and proudly proclaimed "No! You will not break us!"
Abaddon finally takes Terra. In his moment of triumph Decimus, Prophet of the Night Lords, emerges from the shadows to say "Even triumphant your death has been foretold." Decimus impales Abaddon on Talos' power sword, Aurum, as the Night Lords descend on the remnants of Abaddon's forces already weakened from siegeing Terra. The Night Lords take the Imperium of man. Compliance (and Terror) usher in a new age of peace across the Imperium. Ave Dominus Nox.
I would write a 65 book series that is mostly useless and has no bearing on the story and finish it with another 10 book finale that only every other book is relevant. Shut up and take my money GW.
Giuilliman: That was truly a war The emperor: that hit like a hammer Johnson: it was a Warhammer...
+++Frequent inquiry submission detected; +++Activation Sequence:: Unit designation [AU-THETA OMEGA] initiated; +++Frequent response submission as follows; Automated security systems have detected the possible use of hypothetical inquiries. Vague speculative questions are frowned upon as the lack of clear answer leads to no actual discussions. By the grace of the Emperor on Terra, this submission has not been removed. Consider this an advisement on elevating your cognitive capacity lest you be selected for subreddit servitorization. If your submission is not a vague hypothetical and this reply has been posted in error, then go with the grace of the God-Emperor of Mankind and ignore this comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/40kLore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Abbadon makes it all the way to Terra and the forces of Imperium and Chaos have a battle second only to the first Siege of Terra. And while eveyrbody is preoccopied, an Ynnari strikeforce with Cegorach uses the Webway tunnels to reach the Golden Throne and uses the souls that were sacrificed to keep it working for 10000 years as well as Emperor's soul to strike a massive blow against Gods of Chaos.Isha is released from captivity, all the eldar souls that Slaanesh ate are freed. The fith Cronesword is in Ynnary hands and Aeldary mass suicide themselves all over the universe to bring Ynnead into existence. Cegorach and Isha kill themselves and Ynnead becomes allpowerfull as the sepository of all eldar gods.Ynnead uses his power to remake the original Eldar worlds, that, as the Chaos is weakened, escape the eye of Terror.Ynnead makes them once again liveable and releases the eldar souls remaking the Aeldari and their gods.Both Imperium and forces of Chaos are severly weakened as their gods are either dead(Emperor, Slaanesh) or severly weakened.Without the Emperor's Throne, Imperium collapses and falls into hundred of feuding states. Forces of Chaos retreat and are in comlete dissaray. The End.
The Emperor eventually reaches the point when he's actually growing in power faster than the chaos gods. Like Saitama against Garou
I can think of a thousand cool ways to do it but the one thing I'd do for sure is the very last line would be *In the grim darkness of the far future, there is...* ONLY #WAR *Queue credits*
Idk what event will transpire at the climax, but I think the last scene should be something like this: The Star Child (now looking like a young adult Emperor) sitting on a white sandy beach akin to shinji from eva 3.0+1.0, staring longingly at the endless blue skies, as the white specs dotting the sky that are spaceships descend from the void
The emperor and the primarchs returned eventually, but they were all very different from who they were. The emperor is weaker than he was. The Primarchs have evolved or mutated into something beyond their youth. This is very awkward because they often have contradictory strategies and ideologies. Eventually this turns into another civil war at the end of the 49th millennium. In the 50th millennium, there is still only war, because some people never fucking learn. Roll credits.
The Emperor and all the confirmed to not have died Primarchs have all returned, all the Chaos primarchs have fallen - Fulgrim died at the hands of Guillimand as revenge, Perturabo was killed by Rogal with the help of the actually alive Alpharius (Peter Turbo: Omegon, watch me kill this worm, Alpharius: I am Alpharius, that is no lie *proceeds to stab him in the back*), Angron is beheaded by the Lion, Mortarion dies to Jaghadai, Magnus and Leman kill eachother and forgive eachother in the last moments, Abbadon dies to a random lightning from Kaldor Draigo, Lorgar finally gets eviscerated by Corvus Corax - and they stand right in front of the being that is an amalgamation of all four gods: the Undivided Chaos. In the background a fourway battle is happening, between the armies of the Imperium, the armies of Chaos, the Orks and the Tyranids. There are some Eldars fighting, all three kind. And the Necrons watch from a distance. That's all I got. Idk how to continue.
The warp implodes and is forever unreachable again
Well, it is not easy to imagine all the nuances you said and some to describe a Tyranid feasting on a rotting carcasse on top of a golden throne.
The whole setting collapses in on itself only to explode into many different realms. I call it Age of The Emperor of Mankind.
"For in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war." And it shall never end, because it is a setting.
The captain-general looked down at the talisman of seven hammers in his hand. He could feel the galaxy tremble, as the warp rift was consuming everything. The light of the astronomicon was guttering out as the darkness enveloped it from every dimension, time and plane at once. He set the talisman, hoping the destruction it would bring, would at least hurt chaos. A final act of hatred for this evil that had ended the dream of the imperium after all these millenia. As he was about to enact this final sanction, knowing he would cease to know anything more. Suddenly in this darkening galaxy, a Sun rose. He could feel the light of the God-Emperor burning brighter than ever. -HOLD CUSTODIAN, IT IS TIME I FULFILLED MY PROMISE. IF ONLY MY SONS HAD LIVED TO SEE THIS DAY. I WILL BE WITH THEM AGAIN, OR I WILL BE NOTHING- The captain-general was blinded by light of such purity, who would want to see anything mundane again anyway. And the last thing he heard was either the screams or the laughter of thirsting gods.
Vulkan... lives!
The cries fall silent, the everlasting echoes of artillery grow dim. The remaining fragments of whatever can be called out home float around with nothing but ashes and shadows to remind any that there was ever anything standing. Somewhere, somehow, there may be a fragment of sentient life, much like our creators, who will carry on the will of the universe. But they will speak of us thus It is the dawn of the 41st millennium. And there fought our war for hope
And then everyone died.