You could easily tie this in to the thread from earlier on about the Dark Angels being excommunicated:
>>14865000

Personally I see the monodominants doing their best to create a new Imperium structured around one of the other well defended hive systems like Necromunda or Armageddon, while other facets of humanity across the galaxy are forced into new alliances with the Eldar, Tau, Astartes empires and whatever the new AdMech organization is to try to survive the neverending Tyranid swarms.

>>14872042
Ultramarines are OM NOM NOMed.

Fists and Custodes along with the Grey Knights protect Sol. Cadia lasts for 10 years tops. Abbadon gets his shit together. Gazzie's WAAAGH gets on the right footing from his new base on Armageddon.

A while back I was writting some alternate history on the Imperium splitting into two after the Horus Heresy (due to the Codex Astartes and the threat of civil war. Think the East and West Roman Empires, but both with the same Emperor).

One idea from that which could work here is the idea of there being a huge HRE expy surronding the Ultramarines and their successors. A huge "empire" composed of lots of tiny states lead by Spess Mahreen chapters, all with plenty of autonomy.

>>14872064
What about those other Ork Empires? The Arch-Arsonist's and that other one.

In their own way those empires would almost be the safest place in the galaxy. Most stable anyway...

>>14872108
In my scenario, they would most likely be in constant war with the encroaching tyranids.

I'd say Iyanden, Tau and whatever surviving Ultramarines would pretty much be forced to ally if they wanted to survive. None of them have any real support on that side of the galaxy otherwise.

All I have to say is that would lead to some pretty badass dreadnoughts...

>>14872135
Makes sense. The bugs would be devouring our galaxy wholesale at that point.

without the astronomicon nids are actually very likely to lose interest. The dominant threat would actually be chaos pouring out of the eye of terror.

most of hte segmentum obscurus would fall apart, it might take a hundred years but the templar and imperial fists would likely close ranks around terra and try to hold the cradle of humanity. The space wolves would definitely start expanding back to legion strength and try to control the fenris system.

As much as I HATE the ultramarines, ultima segementum is most likely to be hte safest place in the galaxy. The vast majority of space marine chapters are loyal to the Ultras, they're very much "serf" chapters. They'd close and try to hold onto as much territory as possible. If the tyranid threat peters out then its very possible ultramar would become hte center of the new imperium.

It's also VERY possible given current fluff that the templar would turn on the grey knights if the whole "we use sorcery cause we're better than you" bit ever got to helbrecht which would probably destroy anything remaining of the current imperium including the GK's templar and imp fists.

>>14872259
>without the astronomicon nids are actually very likely to lose interest
well, they'll stop gunning for Terra specifically like moths to a flame but that doesn't mean they'll suddenly become vegetarians or something...

Also how could anyone rally around Terra if it is the epicenter of a warp storm?

Depending on if the Emperor, in his death, emits a powerful psychic blast, more Necrons could start to wake up as well. Depending on how you see it, that could balance things out a bit, since now Chaos, Orks, and Tyranids have to worry about green death.

>>14872364
Even if not, we'll be seeing more necron awakenings before the year 44,000 anyway so yeah they're definitely a force to figure out the role of too.

>Imperium collapses
>Ultramar establishes its own empire
>In three centuries, do away with the Mechanicus cult
>In several millennia, perfect the Astartes creation process, enough so that they can live in their armor indefinitely, and implants can be added at any stage of life, for either sex.
>In ten thousand years, the entire population of Ultramar sector ascends to post-humanity by becoming Space Marines.

>>14872392
>gets eaten by tyranid

I liked the idea of an Ultramarine civil war breaking out like /tg/ was discussing a few weeks ago.

missed that somehow. That makes the grey knights fate interesting, they've got a planetary scale gellar field strong enough to keep the warp at bay. What if they sacrificed themselves to seal the warp breach on terra? if anything could do it that could.

>>14872471
transporting golden age tech through the warp storm to get to Terra would be hellish though.

I could see Titan being like a bubble of calm in the warp though with a skeleton crew of Knights defending the graves of their fallen brothers.

Hmm...The death of the emperor causes the necrons to wake up en-masse, they take up the mantle of eradicating chaos.

Ok... Half of mars actively worships the dragon, does he use magic necron powers to save mars? We are told that the warp is anathema to C'tan... And the talismans of vaul were designed to "kill" one by plungin it into the warp, but none have ever succeeded at their purpose.

What happens when a C'Tan is plunged into the warp? Does he die? Does he Mutate? is a new chaos god born? Is he ALSO anathema to the warp creating some sort of black hole? This is a being who eats stars! IN an area where reality and the warp are one, is the radius going to affect nearby earth? titan? Sol?

I'd have to go back and read it but whats to say they couldn't use SORCERY! to physically MOVE titan to earth. What if htey parked titan on the emperors palace. Yes, apocalyptic is only a word to describe a moon landing on the himalayas, but what if it "saves" terra after a fashion. Imagine generatino after generation of grey knights, custodes, and tech priests desperately trying to keep the gellar fields operative and fighting back wave after wave of demons nad chaos marines trying to destroy them. A siege that can never be broken fought for the very soul of a dead imperium.

>>14872414
We've been discussing that on-and-off ever since the 'spiritual liege' thing, if not earlier.

>>14872564
It's a nifty idea with no small amount of potential but part of it feels counter to the whole "fall of humanity" thing if Terra doesn't actually fall and the Sol system isn't completely shattered.

Personally --seeing as there'd be so little warp communication over very long distances to prove the claim wrong-- I'd LOVE to see this develop as a legend. A beautiful lie for humanity to cling to for hope.

>>14872565
well yeah but we had a particularly in depth thread a few weeks back that went into inter-chapter alliances, who the people next in line for Chapter Master were and so on. It was a good read. Hopefully someone archived it.

>>14872548
another question: what would the relationship between the dark mechanicus and the dragon mechanicus be?

>>14872414
It's all but canon that this Should Happen. Even Ward fluff has Sicarius/Agemman pissing contests and marines worrying about civil war.

Ultramar will fall from within, and with 4/10s of the Chapter gone to Honsou's cats-paws as of 999.M41...

The Black Templars, spread out throughout the galaxy in numbers greater than 10,000, bring back order sector by bloody sector alongside the other sons of Dorn. The Space Wolves, White Scars, and other Chapters fortify their home systems. The Ultramarines collapse as they are invaded by the Nids, Tau, and a splinter faction of the Ultras who are actually gene-mutated heirs of the lost legions, in a millenium-old plan concocted by Alpharius and Omegon.

>>14872825
Only a millenium old?
Indeed, captcha - revelat segmenting, indeed.

>>14873334
Woops, got the decimal point wrong. Millenia-old.

tl;dr BLACK TEMPLARS ANGRY, BLACK TEMPLARS KILL KILL KILL

>>14873342
Templars and Wolves would definitely still be presences due to their size.

After the inevitable destruction of Ultramar I could see the remaining Tyranid Hunters joining up with whatever contingency plan the Deathwatch has going.

Gryphonne would probably become the new mechanicus hub although I could see Mars having warp proof bunkers with gellar fields in the same manner as the grey knights so there could still be a cult of the dragon in the catacombs beneath the surface.

my guess is prepare your anus
assuming we get a worst case scenario

-cadia WILL fall
-the ultramarines will be destroyed slowly with the next tyranid hives (if the warp does not disturb their progress)
-armageddon should be safe since the orks wont be able to reach it
-more humans will turn to chaos as a means to escape
-orks wont be able to launch effective waaaghs anymore (until they start jacking tau transport tech)
-Eldar who relied on Imperium help to stem the tides of enemies threatening their craftworlds will die off
-necrons will awaken at a faster rate destroying more worlds
-humans will kill themselves to extinction, or to something resembling what the eldar have now
-chaos will no longer have the sacrifices and souls they need to survive (once humans are gone for good) and will most likely fade away

but the worst fate of all
-tau will replace humans as the dominant force in the galaxy.

>>14873500
>-orks wont be able to launch effective waaaghs anymore (until they start jacking tau transport tech)

Why? Thought they had their own ways of getting around.

>>14873538
all their stuff currently is warp based
-their ships
-spachulks
once the warp stops working for them its game over for their waaaghs until they learn how to use tau ftl

>>14873500
>-the ultramarines will be destroyed slowly with the next tyranid hives (if the warp does not disturb their progress)
nids don't use realspace ftl rather than the warp so I don't see how it could

Ok.

The emperor dies to a bang, not a whimper. Every imperial vessel in warp transit is instantly lost. On terra ancient wards fall and demons pour into the dungeons of the emperors palace from the webway. Little did anyone suspect that the emperor had a tenuous connection to the eldar webway when magnus breached his shields. The golden throne was the only thing preventing daemons from entering the webway. From the breach in its man-made shields daemons pour into the webway attacking earth and the craftworlds.

The imperial fists, grey knights, custodes and ten million loyal guardsmen fight to hold the entrance to the webway. Titan is displaced to the warp and brought into alignment with the webway opening, the hope is that titan's gellar fields can hold the demons at bay.

The plan almost works but for the eldar. With the imperial palace blocked from the webway ALL of the demons entering the breach pour their attacks onto the craftworlds, the entire craftworld iyanden sacrifices itself by plunging into the warp in the terra system, thousands of wraithlords and wraithguard fight across titan until they rupture the gellar field generators, the explosion rips the tenuous hold the emperors portal has to the webway and the warp storm begins to brew.

The surviving imperial forces realize that they're in the middle of a forming maelstrom and make a fighting retreat to their ships. The custodes take the golden throne and the emperors remains with them in reverence.

>>14873557
Who says the warp will stop working? the Astronomican only works if you have an astropath.

>>14873557
.....why would the warp stop working for everyone if the emperor dies. Its not like orks use the astronomicon for navigation or that the emperor is the only thing keeping the warp in existence

>>14873572
you cant move the golden thrown...

>>14873570
derp ignore that first don't meant to say, nids use realspace ftl not warp based ftl.

>>14873619
>>14873621
oh i see, just read the top. only the astronomicon
in that case fuck tau

ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ

Meanwhile, on mars.
The psychic explosion of the emperor awakens the dragon. It takes precious days for him to fully regain conciousness and realize the scale of whats going on at his doorstep. He is the weakest surviving C'Tan and is at once terrified of abandoning his powerful cult to be alone among predators and remaining to be destroyed in the warp. He immediately begins a purge of all non-cult mechanicus who can prevent him from taking the jovian shipyards. The Dragon races to jupiter and reveals himself as the god-machine reborn. He takes EVERY vessel, complete or not out of the system by scavenging every gellar field he can find, and rigging many of the void shield generators on the local space stations. When the warp storm forms there are no mechanicus survivors left. The Dragon sets out to become the new god emperor of mankind, gathering worlds while claiming to be the machine-god incarnate. He begins purging psykers from humanity and teaches the mechanicus to use necron navigation technology to ply the ways between the stars. Eventually, many space marine chapters make their way to him, the mentor legion and Iron Hands chief among them.

>>14873629
why not? its not like the imperium doesn't have ships big enough to fit it in.

>>14873673
>Jupiter
>he thinks the Void Dragon wouldn't be cut down by the Wardian Grey Knight uberubermensch.

" My lord...... The communications have gone silent."
The atmosphere was somber in the control room. No word in or out, all they could manage was communications to to troops in the field. It was as if the universe around them disappeared, that is all but that unholy visage in the sky. the constant reminder of what they had to defy, to stand against. No communications from the fleet, or even neighboring systems. No astropaths. Just a powerful silence that ate at the men's willpower. The Lord General watched as the green blips on the campaign picto board turned from green dots to red dots. The General walked towards the window to watch the distant battle ensue as the hordes of chaos renewed their war against them.
" My lord, your orders!?" The trooper demanded.
"We've held this rock for millenia, we can hold it in this darkness." He never took his gaze from the battle. He lifted his hands as if conducting the war from his fingertips, hearing inaudible music in his head.
The Darkness, no word of reinforcements, no warp transit around Cadia, only that of their great enemy. Cadia stood alone in the fight. The command room became a flurry of yelling as new reports from the front began pouring in, all of which seemed to glance off the Lord General.
" Astronomicon be damned. As long as Humanity can hold onto something the Gate will hold." He walked away from the window as bolter rounds cracked against the protective glass. " If the Emperor wills it, then this will be humanities last stand, and we will be remembered. We hold the gate."
A shell hit the window of the command room, filling the command center with its fiery wrath consuming all inside. Outside the planet ships harboring the last effort of humanity crawled towards their last and greatest fight. Their order's were simple and unchanged from before, but now it had a new meaning. They would hold the Gate.

>>14873695

Meanwhile, on Ultramar.

A bright spot of hope. The eldar of ulthwe realize that humanity at once fuels chaos and is the greatest hope at preventing it's spread. The new head farseer arranges to meet Tigerius on the field of battle by having orks attack a world while he's nearby. The farseer tells tigerius how to build a small astronomicon, it will only work for a few systems and still requires the sacrifice of hundreds of psykers a day. But it will allow navigation. Tigerius brings this information home and they set about implementing it. Within a decade of the emperor's death the Ultramarines have set up a growing empire and gathers several hundred marine chapters to their banner.

But all is not good. Word of the machine-god has reached ultima segmentum. Many of the cult mechanicus never believed that the emperor was their god. Civil wars break out on the forgeworlds. Marines are used as police to keep the fires of industry going. After all, what is a space marine with no ammunition. This leads to rioting, the calgar tries to reason with the cult mechanicus who see his stiff boot as more evidence that the marines have overplayed their hand. much of hte cult mechanicus tries to defect, some escape, some are killed. The manufacturing ability of the segmentum is reduced enormously. The ultramarines have the most powerful force remaining but struggle to supply them with weapons. Their effort to rebuild the imperium is failing and unless something can be done to rebuild their forgeworld populations eventually they will fall.

>>14873629
the golden throne is at once a HUGE device that takes up potentially MILES of space, and a largish lifesupport coffin containing the body of the emperor. This second is what they take.

>>14873689
The grey knights are on earth and in hte warp trying to save earth/the imperium while having a craftworld physically rammed into their planet, remember that a craftworld is somewhat the size of titan.

>>14873805
but the grey knights are based on saturn (titan if you want to be specific)not earth...

>>14873740
thank you, I pull out a gem every so often.

>>14873695
...and then the daemons and traitors noticed the main imperial fleet behind them...

TACTICAL GENIOUS

Meanwhile on cadia.
The eye of terror is quiet. Nobody has seen a demon in days. We're only getting supplies from a single in-system craftworld. People are starting to go hungry, we don't grow our own food, ti's all shipped in. If things don't get better soon cadia will go, and noone will notice until it's much, much too late.

Meanwhile on fenris.
The endtimes have come, it's time to seek the wolf lord. The space wolves recruit every barbarian they feel is worthy of bearing the wolf lord's gene-seed. They set out on a journey to find the wolf lord. Will they find their wayward lord? Will they come to cadia in it's time of need? They are heading for the eye of terror to seek leman russ. They will not fall to chaos, but theirs will be a long war. For the warp extends their age to unnatural length. The rune lords will cast their runes and fate itself will dictate their course. And sometimes, according to legend, when an old imperial world is about to fall, when all hope is lost, grey ships will emerge from the warp to disharge a legion of monsters to sweep away the enemy. When the great enemy is defeated they'll question the populace, relentlessly, have you seen the wolf lord?
And then they'll be gone, to ride the winds of destiny.

>>14873805
the imperium has huge ships that are miles long and are capable of landing on a planet. If they wanted to move the whole throne, they could.

>>14873820
conceptually titan has the strongest gellar field in the galaxy and a device capable of plunging the entire planet into the warp. WE know that planets in the warp can drift, ti's not unreasonable ot expect a CHAPTER of SORCERERS to be able to move it once ti's in the warp to a set location.

>>14873891
eerrr... ACTUALLY Cadia is mentioned to produce its own food and supplies.
Cadia CAN hold by itself, just barely, but beating chaos isn't about how, its a bout how much.. Even with all the odds stacked against them, the mission is simple

They hold the Gate.

>>14873922
throne damnit ariman

Meanwhile, helbrecht.

Helbrecht is in pursuit of Ghaskul Thraka when the astronomicon goes down. His hatred of the ork runs deep. Yarrik is completely obsessed with seeing ghaskul dead. Helbrecht, however, realizes their peril. The templar do not like psykers, they do not keep enough of them around to waste when one burns out. Their ability to work as a chapter will shatter if he does not bring them together. Helbrecht tells every ship in the chapter to make way to armageddon. When it's done gathering the templar fleet fills the skies of armageddon, It is the largest remaining fleet in the galaxy. Over ten thousand crusaders loyal to the emperor. They are singularly unsuited to a galaxy with no imperium. They have the might of the entire ultramarine segmentum gathered in one fleet with no purpose. For almost a decade they ply the starlanes around the armageddon system, fighting orks, eldar, expanding their numbers. Then, there is an astronomicon beacon. Fearing a trap helbrecht sends a small fleet to investigate. They find a world in the ultima segmentum, apparantly still loyal to the imperium Helbrecht makes contact with Calgar. Helbrecht elects to make a show of force for their first meeting, bringing the entire templar fleet to the meeting.

Calgar is no fool, he dislikes the templar and their abberant behaviour. They're loose cannons that he cannot control, and Calgar is not going to share power with some aberrant "high marshal" who can't even abide by the codex astartes.
Helbrecht is also no fool, the two of them know that there can be no bond formed between the templar and the ultramarines, but they do share the same goals and the same enemies. Calgar shares his intelligence about the Dragon's growing mechanicus empire. the lack of psykers, the claim that the machine god is reborn and that the machine god has never been the "soft" god emperor. This is enough to stoke Helbrecht's anger and it galvanizes the templar with a goal. They WILL crush this false machine god. If calgar picks up the bones then so be it. The templar will continue the great crusade, if calgar wants to be a beauracrat then there is no dishonor in helping him hold the imperium together. As long as he doesn't think he can give the orders.

whatcha think? did i waste my time brainstorming?

>>14874220
i was waiting for more actually.

this is pretty good

meanwhile in the webway.

Ahriman is in the webway with every thousand son he can muster. Last time he made it into the webway his force was alone, this time there are millions of demons running rampant to mask his presence.

Does he find the black library? Can he free the thousand sons? Can he can free magnus from his daemonhood? The spells are there. It can be done.
And what future awaits them, cursed traitors led by the most powerful psyker alive? If magnus is reborn then he will be a living astronomicon, attracting all in the galaxy to the rogue primarch who caused this chaos and maybe, is the only hope to fix it.

meanwhile the black crusade

The augeries of chaos game abbadon 200 years of warning that the storm would come. He mustered his forces in the warp near terra. When the shield protecting the webway came down his forces pressed in. The sudden appearance of titan cut his forces in half, the imperial robots, custodes and imperial fists decimated the forces emerging from the webway from their superior vantage points. Then the eldar were his salvation. An entire craftworld full of pointy-eared zombies plunged the planet of cursed grey knights into the warp, abbadon sent the black legion to claim the craftworld, while the rest of the legions overwhelmed the defenders. As soon as the defenders beat a retreat he ordered his defiles and predators to begin destroying machinery. More of the defenders escaped than he would have liked, adn they took the false emperors body with them.

But now earth has a new emperor. A man worthy of being emperor. And what better way to start the new imperium than with a treasure trove of eldar souls. Greedy greedy slaanesh with trade in a wealth of favors for those precious souls. All hail the black emperor.

I rather like this sequence of events for Ultramarine evolution and eventual destruction by M.44

Ultramarine expansion --> Ultramarine civil war --> before it can be perfectly resolved tyranids attack

Ultramar is shattered, During the retreat Marneus Calgar is cut down by a carnifex but his body is placed within a dreadnought shell. Sicarius claims the right to lead what is left of the chapter but with only a hundred odd marines left the 1st company captain made the decision to pass the gauntlets of Ultramar on to the Genesis Chapter that they may continue Guilliman's legacy.

Then the surviving Ultramarines split into Tyranid hunters that ally with the deathwatch, Sicarius and his dirty dozen who go totally rogue and fuck lots of things up, and Cassius, Calgar and the old guard who retire from active battle and journey around trying to broker alliances for mutual survival between humans, eldar craftworlds and the nearby tau.

>>14874471
Iyanden are on the far side of the galaxy. They could get to Terra before M44 I suppose, but perhaps a closer craftworld with less to lose?

a hundred years pass.

Abbadon has expanded his empire. the iron warriors have dismantled whats left of titan. They have a new ship, it has the ability to plunge a planet into the warp. Abbadon's legions invade a planet and set up chaos shrines until it joins the warp storm, if they meet strong resistance the iron warriors plunge the entire planet into the warp and flood it with demons. Soon the black empire will rival the eye of terror in size.

The templar fleet has been at war with the dragon for the entirety of the past 100 years. Because of hte necessity of keeping their ships repaired the sacred oaths made to the mechanicus have been abandoned. Every templar spends time learning the cults secrets when they become an initiate. The templar have doubled their numbers, they have actively invaded worlds, they have mastered boarding actions, and have begun to try and damage a ship as little as possible. Their fleets have grown, the dragons armies were not numerous enough to deal with them when they attacked, and they have never been able to catch up.

However ghaskull hasn't been lax for the past hundred years. He's been rebuilding. He remembers helbrecht. Armageddon has been his greatest defeat and helbrecht puts up a great fight. The largest ork waagh in the past 10k years is ready to engage the templar in a battle on a scale that hasn't been seen in ten thousand years.

>>14873673
So. First off, the Void Dragon is the MOST powerful of the C'tan left, not the least. He was the greatest of them all, the one Vaul tried (and failed) to kill.

Secondly... damn, man. Work on your spelling, punctuation, and grammar, please. Furthermore, Ahriman - and the forces of Chaos in general - would have no desire to "fix" the destruction of the Astronomicon. Only the Imperium (and maybe a few lesser Xeno races, perhaps) use it for navigation; the forces of Chaos are guided by the Dark Gods and their daemons. (It's like the Imperials are navigating with star charts while Abaddon and company are using super-advances GPS.) Lastly, I'm not clear on what's going on with Abaddon and the "treasure trove of Eldar souls". Your language was a bit unclear.

>>14874545
farseers see trouble far ahead of time. and nobody has less to lose than iyanden, ti's basically a ghost world as is.

Ahriman DID discover the black library. He had to trick magnus into leaving the planet of sorcerers. The ritual was a success. And it will doom the galaxy.
Magnus awoke from demonhood, the fog of tzeench influence broke from his mind and he realized his folly. He sent his mind across the galaxy and realized that he COULD fix things. He frees the rest of the thousand sons, and the clothes himself in sackcloth. He will live the rest of time as a penitent. The thousand sons become the blood ravens who were wiped out fighting the tyranids. They make peace, and magnus dedicates his life to being an astronomicon and helping ot rebuild humanity.

On Cadia:
The planet is in ruins. Fortifications have fallen, morale is decimated, and hope of victory is all but lost. A cluster of guardsman regiments cluster together in a corner of the world, desperately struggling to survive. The daemons and renegade marines push further every day, but the guardsmen hold the line, sustaining heavy casualties every day. The day comes when the latest attack threatens to do enough damage to conquer their beloved planet completely. But, at the brink of defeat, a lone guardsman looks up and sees flashes of blue in the sky, followed by a large light blue pulse that charges down from the night causing swathe of destruction among the chaos ranks, forcing them to fall back. The guardsman says one word in response, "Tau."

>>14874659
Trololol... NO. FUCK THE BLOOD RAVENS. FUCKING GARY-STUS EVEN FOR SPACE MARINES. FUCK!

Meanwhile in DEEP space

The hive fleet has been lost in deep space for a long time. They were following a powerful light in the warp but then it winked out and left the hive without any planets to resupply from. A hundred years passed with the fleet searching the endless empty void, lost between galaxies.

Then a new light formed. Almost as bright as the original. Easy to track. This galaxy has managed to drive off several fleets, this one is twice the size of the last one.

We will not be driven away again.
I think thats about the end of that series of events. The templar and ghaskull fight over the bones of a C'tan. Even the other c'tan are too wary of interfering in the conflict to eliminate a wayward brother. They fight eachother for hundreds of years, the bones of the dragon empire feeding the templar strength enough to stand up to the ork scourge.

Calgar realizes who he's in bed with early on and puts magnus in a different system entirely with many layers of remote detonation bombs to protect him. The tyranids reach ultima segmentum withing a few decades of magnus.

>>14874670
There is hope.
All across the world similar accounts of tau intervention occur, followed swiftly by the landing of additional soldiers and support to bolster the struggling Imperial defenses. The armor of a hundred different septs of the Fire cast decorates the world as they stand with the Guard in defense of their homeworld. Their campaign on Medusa IV finally paid off: they achieved their goal of independant warp travel. This, coupled with the instability of the galaxy at the time allowed the vigorous race to expand beyond all expectations, rivaling the remnants of the Imperium. The courage of the Fire Caste intertwines with the grim determination of the Guard as they protect the Gate which has stood for milennia against the forces of Chaos. The battle for Cadia has only begun, and the new alliance has no thought of losing.

>>14874697
oi, I didn't want to break out star maps to include the tau. Who is backing the tau makes them such a wild card in a scenario such as this. Are they backed by a Ctan? Are they some tzeench plot? Yea I just looked the Tau are on hte literal opposite side of the galaxy as Cadia.
>>14874670
LOL I had to come up wtih a chapter wtih a LOT of psykers who were potentially wiped out and I was writing into the tyranid angle so I kinda had blood ravens got wiped out by tyranids, yea that sounds right, so the thousand sons can just assume their identity, works out.

>>14874776
AT LAST.

AT LONG FUCKING LAST HUMANITY AND THE TAU TEAM UP.

I HAVE WAITED LONG FOR THIS DAY.

And thats the end of the story. The templar and the orks wage a battle that lasts until the tyranids come. Depending on how/if helbrecht develops as a character would determine wether there was any hope for the galaxy. If the nids show up, ghaskull will be pissed for them ruining his fun and offer to fight them with the templar, if they work together there's hope. Either force on their own is easy pickings for the hive fleet.

Ultima Segmentum really can't stand against the hive fleet, not with their depleted equipment. For the civil war fans, all that needs to happen is sicarius or someone to get nosey and the nids happen into a huge civil war when they come to investigate.

>>14874810
the tau empire would probably have exploded into another expansion phase shortly after the astronomicon turned off, entire sectors of imperial space would have been absorbed without a shot fired as humanity gets more and more desperate. In such turbulant times they might manage to convince the nisscar and/or kroot to help them develop their warp travel technology to the point where its near enough as good as the imperiums used to be but doesn't need the astronomicon.

>>14874810
read >>14874776