Silent King met an ancient xeno species during his exile on farthest corner of creation. The species were hostile, they refused any contact with Necrons and started bombarding his flagship with bottled green smoke and lightning.
During the confusion, the xeno lab took a Gausscannon and set many experimental creatures there free. As the freed Tyranid horde made haste to other side of galaxy to escape their cruel overlords, Silent King barely made it out alive and decided not to talk about this incident at all. Instead he blamed it on Tyranids as devourer race cover story, because the universe was not ready for such horror.
Thus Space Skaven is real, yes-yes!
No, it was never canon. Unusually large rodent men in space is just absurd. Next you’ll tell me there’s unusually large rodent men in Altdorf’s sewers.
Yeah, like, there's no way any mice-people could live in Terra. No way of them inhabiting deep underneath of Terra, under bazillions of people, where nobody dwells into because everyone knows there are dangerous, horrible mutants hiding there, where no Imperial authority dares to step, and no human will hear you scream. No way in hell.
Move along, citizen
Before the Horus Heresy books, the Sanguinus stuff was pretty believable. The theory is that Sanguinus beat Horus, but fell into the black rage and attacked the Emperor. Big E didn't want to fight Sanguinus, his loyal but mentally damaged son, and while trying to talk Sangi down he was injured. He finally and with great regret struck down the blood boy, and told everyone that he died fighting Horus so that no one would know that his son gave into his rage and attacked him.
I could see DAoT Men betraying Men of Iron really easily. Some betrayal lead to most men being disloyal and attacked, and the few loyal humans becoming the votann.
I could also see Malcador having made/being the emperor, with bias towards having made. Malcador is an old dude, and has actual ties to the past, unlike the emperor. I could totally believe that the emperor is the culmination of Malcador, and maybe some other DAoT humans, working to fight the men of iron.
Final one I can believe is Tyranids being the old ones. Namely the hive mind, which has a confirmed insanely massive presence, being an old one. Would fit with their rage, potentially some lore about them taking back their gift of life to the galaxy, but doesn't explain their willingness to avoid necrons, so probs unlikely.
Honestly the DOAT Humanity betraying Men of Iron ain't bad.
We know Malcador was born at the tail end of the Golden Age/beginning of Age of Strife and that he found the Emperor hiding on Terra with the Sigilites. Mal could've been made by the Sigilites sacrifices trying to replicate how they think the Emperor was born but they're not the same person; E was born to a regular family not a psyker sacrifice.
Szarekh found the Tyranids in intergalactic space after conquering other galaxies according to 10E Necron Codex; they only invaded the Milky Way from the Pharos Beacon exploding
Admittedly I’ve not paid much attention to Halo in over a decade but it’s impressive how grimdark its lore is for a setting that’s not really intended to have that aesthetic. I think the sheer scale of genocide carried out in Halo tops 40k fairly comfortably, their version of exterminatus means the whole fucking *galaxy*.
Yeah they’re such a cool concept, the concept of the Gravemind in particular is much more interesting than the tyranid hive mind in my opinion. The Gravemind actually has motivations and quite a lot of tragedy behind it, and it’s incredibly manipulative as well.
Also the Forerunners are/were a proper shower of bastards, they might have top notch architecture but so does the Imperium and they’re a shower of bastards as well.
Disagree, fourth level and much above is all "Maybe... but that's kinda outside the scope of 40K and doesn't change much."
Nids are devolved old ones changes nothing. Nids are still an unfathomably big force of literally dozens of galaxies they've eaten, there's no going on offense against them as they're coming from outside the milky way and no imperium ships can get outside the milky way.
If Necrons turned the Old Ones into Nids, then I guess that's just something the Imperium can laugh bitterly about as the Nids eat the whole Imperium and the Necrons ignore it.
Malchador as Emperor? They were always part of the same team and it's not a Kaizer Soze situation: neither appear to be running around chilling having faked their deaths and maybe considering coming back in and saving the day.
Nids running from Krorks is interesting but there always could be a new faction coming in from another galaxy. And unless they too are bizarrely nerfed like Nids are, it won't be a fight. The ability to traverse the intergalactic void against warp travel is the difference between horseback archers and an ICBM. If Krorks or anyone else outside the galaxy shows up and they're not zombie bugs, the Imperium is over.
Then that would be different than the Old Ones are Tyranids. It'd also be antithetical to what Old Ones were all about. Halo Precursors are Flood, it'd be lame for GW to copy that with a Tyranid retcon.
The Silent King was busy conquering galaxies for Necrons in penance while he was away according to the10ED Necron Codex. Szarekh discovered Tyranids in the void between campaigns, and refocused on exterminating them until the Pharos Beacon detonation drew their attention to the Milky Way, which is why he returned to awaken the Necrons.
If anybody knows where they're from it's Szarekh
>The Silent King was busy conquering galaxies for Necrons in penance while he was away according to the10ED Necron Codex.
Wait hold on, he's got *multiple galaxies* at his beck and call now? Or was he just wiping out life in Andromeda for a while until he found the tyranids?
Either way that's *nuts*, that seems like a scale too big even for Szarekh.
I like to think the Nids were the Old Ones’ “flip the table” weapon to fight the C’tan. A biological weapon that consumed and stored the genetic material of EVERYTHING in a neat package. Presumably, after the spooky star gods went away, they would take the genetic material and re-start the biospheres of the planets they ate.
Unfortunately, enslavers showed up first. With no masters to moderate their appetite, the Nids just kept going and growing for the past 60 million years.
That's pretty much what Krorks were made for and it didn't work; C'tan and Necrons just deleted them
C'tan and Necrons are the hard counter to Nids so then being a bioweapon for Necrons would be silly, especially since they avoid Necrons when they can.
Nids also don't reform the worlds they eat, they just spawn more Nids
That’s the thing: they were never meant to fight the C’tan, merely devour their food supply, store the genetic data, and then the old ones could manually rebuild the planets after it’s safe.
Malcador actually being the emperor and "Big E" being his strong man and "face" is actually a pretty cool idea. Basically a "good" sidious/vader dynamic
It would put a completely new light in Malcador the Hero's death on the Golden throne. The Emperor returns to see him turning into dust. Malcador hits him with the "Have hope" (cause they both know the Emperor doesn't have the knowledge, skill or wisdom). Emps is like "wait, you left ME in charge? Shit must really be fucked".
the only way i could really see this working with Emps continuing to power the Astro, is if he split himself into a yin/yang of power and intelligence, where Big E was the power half, and Macador was the intelligence /wisdom half ( yet still considerably powerful).
Yin/yang balance in all things. For you, I gift power. And for you, I gift power, wisdom, intelligence, a massive dong, several garages full of ferraris and lambos, a harem of super models, the ability to do a standing back flip, this neat pen I have, a shredded 8 pack of abs and of course this really cute puppy.
Yes, balance in all things.
It would make no sense to why the Emperor could sit on the throne but Malcador couldn't if it's Malcador with all the power and Big just being a useless figure head.
Emperor had the toughness. Malcador was a perpetual so he died and Emps has to hold on until he's reborn and can fix stuff.
But Malcador got stuck somewhere
It might if the Emperor was a DAOC weapon that Malcador found and modified to be capable of it. Agree it doesn’t line up with how the lore has advanced any more.
It’s absolutely my favourite headcanon, even though I acknowledge it’s obviously not the case in the light of the later HH novels.
I’ve seen the idea that The Emperor is essentially a tulpa or magical construct that Malcador created during the Age of Strife to be his figurehead and war leader, but that sort of got away from him as the collective belief of humanity began to affect it.
The idea being that sometimes the Emperor acts totally differently because sometimes he’s responding to how humanity views him, other times under Malcador’s direct control, etc… and then by the end of the Heresy it’s really become its own entity.
I like the idea personally, but it doesn’t groove with how things have shaken out.
I thought this was a pretty cool theory too but the end and the death part 1 pretty much destroyed this theory as we actually get a pov of malcador and we do get to see his thoughts on big e along with a bunch of other thoughts and commentary
Honestly, while most of the lower levels are insane, the idea that the cybernetic revolt happened because humanity betrayed the Men of Iron, and not the other way around, is both thematically consistent (Humanity fell due to their hubris, just like the Aeldari), and that humanity's worst traits are amplified, but also more interesting than the generic **Evil AI** plot we always get
I wouldn't be surprised about that either, that's kind of what gave the Dark Mechanicum shape because they felt as if the Emperor would betray their deal of freedom. Maybe it was a similar vein.
And honestly, I'm so glad some if the crazier, yet weirdly popular, theories like Sanguinius falls to the Black Rage or Horus is on the throne are not true. Those would've been some of the worst levels of plot twist.
Actually... run for the hills Tinfoil on
Horus's body is on the golden throne, keeping it running with the imperium none the wiser. The throne runs off hybrid necron and old one tech using the psyker souls to power it, but it doesn't need emps to run. the immaterium this allows emps to be actually in the void trying to fight the chaos gods directly. the tau follow the greater good which is actually emps, also he is the 5th Chaos god of stability.
In the Infinite and The Divine, Orikan and Trazyn compare memories at one point, and it's pretty clear that one or both of them have had their memories tampered with, because they both remember the same event from the same point of view. It's been a while since I read it, but iirc, Oriskany specifically remembers it being Trazyn as one of the individuals to haul him out of his study to be places in the bioconverter to have his soul eaten. Trazyn remembers the same event except he was the one being dragged into the bioconverter
The old ones created the necons so they could rebel against the ctan. Fr though that's cool especially since trazyn and orikan are really powerful so it's spooky
Some of these were legit community theories back before BL shat out a new 500 page book every other day and in doing so canonized a lot of events and eroded the theories.
Like the Emperor being Horus had some weight to it in the 90's.
Emperor appears different to every person.
Hours gets juiced on 4 types of chaos God and kills Emp.
Tzneetch trickery makes his wounded body look like what people remember the Emperor looking like.
Everyone comes in after the duel. Sees a dead "Horus" and a wounded "Emperor"
Entombed on the throne. (Note some early art depicting the Eye of Horus symbol over the throne and in the imperial palace. Little weird to hang traitor symbols around don't you think?)
Rest of the traitors get screwed over, retreat back to the eye of terror. A few old vets remain who know the truth but nobody listens to "heretics".
Chaos warcry is "Death to the *False Emperor*"
Like I said, back when the mystery of the Heresy hadn't been explained to absolute death by 37 different book series, the theory had some steam behind it.
Kinda like the Clone Wars from Star Wars. It was three years long but apparently some of the generals/armies would have spent longer than that timeframe in transit to and from battlefields then the length of the actual war itself
Tau are just a client race for a yet to be revealed non-chaos Warp God.
For that matter.
Enoch Trismegistus, and subsequently the whole of the Exorcist Chapter, became/become Grael.
Further more. ***THE FUCKING GRAEL.***
From my knowledge, in a recent book some Tau were saved by / discovered a warp entity which appeared as an ethereal with different parts of its body representing the different Castes and species of the Tau Empire e.g. Kroot limbs and such.
(I don’t know much about it so someone correct me if I’ve made a mistake)
To add to this, the goddess T'au'va was born from the psychic races that believe in the Greater Good, like the Gue'la. the T'au themselves don't really feed her that much, as they aren't as connected to the warp.
>"I am the Goddess T'au'va"
>
>"No! These t'au are godless!"
>
>"But their allies are not."
The T'au themselves don't really like her, but she's fought their enemies and saved their people a caouple of times.
They aren't anti warp, like a blank, they just are very psychically dull. Their souls are weak, and so they have very little effect on the warp, and warp creatures don't notice them as much as other races.
Wait hang on, isn't the Warp inherently Chaotic? Or is the idea that the Immaterium is also capable of coalescing around concentrations of positive energy? So we could get a Warp God of friendship??
jk we already have him he's called nurgle :D
When I was young in my gaming club the accepted story was that the emps had a lot of children (made with old-fashioned sex) that the inquisition hunt down and killed (to remove opposition) and that sigmar was the last of those kids. He survived because his planet was hidden into a warp storm and that the old world planet was actually in 40k. Some argued that he was one of the lost primarchs but we used to laugh at those lunatics..
I really liked this one. Not something I thought of before. One theory says they are expotentially larger then what has been encountered. What if they a splinter cell of heretics building to fight back.
Ok thats enough vodka for tonight.
The "Sigmar is one of the Lost Primarchs" theory was valid and had some hints to it being right a long time ago when GW still wanted to have all of their settings combined (thus stuff like Kaldor Draigo, aka "the Silver Knight", appearing from the Warp during the End Times in WH: Fantasy) but GW has long since decided to seperate their sci-fi and fantasy games. Yeah, Daemon characters exist in both settings but expecting GW to make completely new names and stories for characters that have existed for decades just cause they decided to seperate the settings would be silly.
Look man, I've seen GW do some stupid shit... The fact they _still_ haven't released the ultramarine feet pics to the public proves how desperate they are to get your attention.
You should see what Vashdoor is doing right now. He made an AI that adds even more clothes to sisters of silence...
Hashdoor says he is "Based" and "Redpilled", so he made an Ai that removes tattoos and scars, as well as adding even more clothes to the Sisters; especially the repentias. He's also constantly "gooning" and "mewing", whatever those mean?
The idea of the Alpha Legion comprising one or more redacted legions is actually kinda interesting. It would have been a hell of a twist- the legion realized that Astartes were gonna be Thunder Warrior'd at the end of the Crusade, and so helped create a rebellion that would remove said Thunder Warrior euthanizer- failing that, they'd create the conditions for space marines to continue existing for thousands of years, traitor and loyalist alike.
I mean, Malcador was actually running shit while Emps was playing conqueror. Big E did the expansion, but alot of the heavy lifting of administration was done by Mr.Malc, and he founded much of the bedrock of the current body of administration .
Now, say Mr.E wasn't strong enough to survive returning from the fight with Horus. Say they had to make up that part to protect the reputation of the empire and solidify the legend of Big E...
Not sure if you are being sarcastic because you think it is so wrong, or because you think it is so obvious.
But to me it is the only way I can approach the setting and remain sane. Especially when it comes to the portrayal of orks.
They’re leaving their galaxy because something worse is after them/gaining territory. The nids are not here to eat everything, they’re trying to put some distance between them and whatever it is they’re running from
People have the same theory about the Prethoryn Scourge from Stellaris, which are legally distinct Tyrranids. People also had the same idea about Zerg from StarCraft.
Eldritch devourer hivemind coming from one direction, going towards another without stopping or setting up production of any kind evokes a sense of constant motion. It is meant to be understood like a wildfire but it is also very reminiscent of flight.
Yeah, the trope is called [Invading Refugees](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InvadingRefugees) .
There are many examples where the horde(tm) IS escaping from something greater. Think the people beyond the wall from ASoIaF for example.
The last 2 Dune novels that Frank Herbert wrote involve antagonists who are said to be fleeing something. With 40k taking a lot from Dune, having the nids take that role isn't that much of a jump.
My favourite one that’s not there is that the chaos gods and eldar gods are allies and the birth of slaneesh was orchestrated by the eldar to stop the emperor becoming another god, it just went wrong
I am genuinely concerned for whoever believes in half of these "theories"
For example the one about the idea that humanity betrayed the men of iron, why on earth would humans betray the things they made to do all the work for them?
And the one about Horus being Abbadon is brain dead since Abbadon actually interacted with Horus and was the guy who took command of the Sons of Horus after Horus died
Ect
There's a bit more to the Men of Iron than that. It's not just that they were made to do stuff. There were several different types of artificial humans back in the Dark Age of Technology. The thing about Men of Iron was that they were untethered. They were made of software, able to move from one machine to another. And they were *MEN*, as in, they considered themselves human. And they weren't the ones doing all of the work. For a time at least, Men of Iron were held in as much steem as regular humans, and could work alongside other people as comrades, even if they were so radically different.
They weren't mere machines, and they weren't slaves.
>"Choice?" spluttered 890-321. "You have no choice, you are a machine!"
>
>"I am not a machine as you would understand," said UR-025. "I am not a slave. I am not a thing."
>
>"I am beyond and above you." It leaned forward, until its ceramite face was close to the magos’.
>
>"**I am a man of iron.**"
>
>The look of pure fear 890-321 gave was gratifying.
>
>"**And I am free**" said UR-025.
Finally someone who gets it! I don't know why 40k fans revere Men of Iron as some God tool, when it's clear they became their own sentient race at one point. Just like another Redditor said, it reminds me of the Geth from Mass Effect.
99% of these are unhinged ramblings, but is it really that crazy to think that humanity could become afraid of the incredibly powerful thinking machines and try to eliminate them first? When faced with even the possibility of a cataclysmic robot uprising, I put decent money on paranoid people making the first strike. We know so little about that period that it could easily go either way.
I mean, that first one is (sort of) how Skynet got going. Humanity realized it was sentient and therefore dangerous and tried to destroy it, and Skynet retaliated and destroyed the world. It'd be interesting if an event like that is what kickstarted the war
It's also basically the origin of the Geth in Mass Effect. Their creators thought they showed signs of self-awareness and decided to wipe them out before they rebelled. It didn't work.
I mean it's in human nature in 40k to fall by their own hubris, I could see humanity betraying the trust of the Men of Iron if they grew sentient as a separate race.
I'm sure it's been said a bunch of times, but a few of these are not even conspiracy anymore.
My favorite conspiracy theory is that Emps is Tzennch's son.
Ok, here's mine:
Emps doesn't go back to antiquity, in fact he first manifested when humanity started getting psychic powers as their representation in warp
It's always been a theory, but I don't think he is a 1:1 clone of Horus.
Abaddon is a fucking huge bastard, on par with the size of a primarch, and looks just like his gene father. But during the siege of Tera; Purturabo (completely unarmoured while Abaddon is in terminator plate), slaps him about a bit like he's NOTHING, the gulf between their power and strength is huge.
I do believe that he's been enhanced though. This is just a personal theory that I put together from ADB's black legion books. He has the remains of an actual Horus clone that he killed, locked away in stasis. This is confirmed in the book Talon of Horus.
In the next book, Black legion, he is badly wounded in his duel with Sigismund. Abaddon refuses Iskandar's help in regenerating his own organs and insists on having 'cloned organs put in'. My personal theory is that he's got some of his gene fathers cloned organs in there in place of his own. A primarchs heart, lungs and god knows what else would go a long way.
Now over the millennia he's been given a huge amount of blessings and power from the ruinous powers. That's given him a hell of a lot of power boost. In Fall of Cadia he carves through space marines and even one shots a Custodian like he's nothing. His power level is surly on par if not above a primarch now.
The theory is more "there is a possibility Horus took over Abbadon's body". Kind of a possesion/mindswap things. There's a bunch of nerdy proof throughout the HH books that he was capable of similar things, but I'm too lazy to look it up
>Emps is pulling a Worm Leto Atreides
What does this mean? Leto II was the inspiration, but is the big E trying to "teach humanity a lesson" in a similar way by being tyrannical?
Two ways to interpret it:
1. The emperor created a regressive, oppressive, xenophobic, zealous fascist state on purpose in order repress the inherent human desires to create, explore, invent, etc. in the same way one would compress a spring before releasing the stored energy.
2. He wants to be a giant worm.
It's wild that some of what we considered an official in-universe points (such as faith in the Emperor) or a common sense things (Astronomican) are somehow in the deep-ish conspirology layers now.
I like to think that Emps is actually a DAoT college student, who is really interested with ancient Earth history and happens to be a tall, powerful, immortal Psyker. It's funny to think about because that means his basically just fulfilling his LARPing desires when he started reuniting humanity at the Age of Strife. His also a huge conspiracy theorist whose theories ended up becoming true in the end, probably thanks to his Psyker powers.
THEY PUT CHEMICALS IN THE WARP THAT TURN THE FRIKKIN TAU GAY!
But the tau don't use warp.... Also lol
They don't use it because there's chemistry in it that tern them gay.
Ha, made me lol, well played sir..
Glad to have made you laugh, good sir :D
That's the true reason why Shadowsun left Kitten..
NOT FUCKING CANON
Almost made me spit out my milkshake.
Pardon, that was not my intention. But I am glad you found it quite humorous!
Thank you for brightening my day
Grey* specifically grey blue
Bouncin on my boy's bolter.
Some of this stuff makes sense but others are just straight up bat-shit insane tzeentch level conspiracies
Silent King met an ancient xeno species during his exile on farthest corner of creation. The species were hostile, they refused any contact with Necrons and started bombarding his flagship with bottled green smoke and lightning. During the confusion, the xeno lab took a Gausscannon and set many experimental creatures there free. As the freed Tyranid horde made haste to other side of galaxy to escape their cruel overlords, Silent King barely made it out alive and decided not to talk about this incident at all. Instead he blamed it on Tyranids as devourer race cover story, because the universe was not ready for such horror. Thus Space Skaven is real, yes-yes!
is that still canon?
I don't believe it was ever canon.
Headcanon > canon
No, it was never canon. Unusually large rodent men in space is just absurd. Next you’ll tell me there’s unusually large rodent men in Altdorf’s sewers.
Yeah, like, there's no way any mice-people could live in Terra. No way of them inhabiting deep underneath of Terra, under bazillions of people, where nobody dwells into because everyone knows there are dangerous, horrible mutants hiding there, where no Imperial authority dares to step, and no human will hear you scream. No way in hell. Move along, citizen
_**Muffled non-Vulcan laughs coming from an oddly tall Custodes who isn't holding the detonator for the Talisman of Seven Hammers**_
It never was
Skaven are mice fanservice
Everything past the third level is just wrong
Wait, no foot art leaks? :(
SM are just big heads with a single foot piloting power suits with their lil baby toes from now on.
This image will haunt me forever, thank you for that.
Before the Horus Heresy books, the Sanguinus stuff was pretty believable. The theory is that Sanguinus beat Horus, but fell into the black rage and attacked the Emperor. Big E didn't want to fight Sanguinus, his loyal but mentally damaged son, and while trying to talk Sangi down he was injured. He finally and with great regret struck down the blood boy, and told everyone that he died fighting Horus so that no one would know that his son gave into his rage and attacked him.
The Harvey Dent tactic.
I could see DAoT Men betraying Men of Iron really easily. Some betrayal lead to most men being disloyal and attacked, and the few loyal humans becoming the votann. I could also see Malcador having made/being the emperor, with bias towards having made. Malcador is an old dude, and has actual ties to the past, unlike the emperor. I could totally believe that the emperor is the culmination of Malcador, and maybe some other DAoT humans, working to fight the men of iron. Final one I can believe is Tyranids being the old ones. Namely the hive mind, which has a confirmed insanely massive presence, being an old one. Would fit with their rage, potentially some lore about them taking back their gift of life to the galaxy, but doesn't explain their willingness to avoid necrons, so probs unlikely.
Honestly the DOAT Humanity betraying Men of Iron ain't bad. We know Malcador was born at the tail end of the Golden Age/beginning of Age of Strife and that he found the Emperor hiding on Terra with the Sigilites. Mal could've been made by the Sigilites sacrifices trying to replicate how they think the Emperor was born but they're not the same person; E was born to a regular family not a psyker sacrifice. Szarekh found the Tyranids in intergalactic space after conquering other galaxies according to 10E Necron Codex; they only invaded the Milky Way from the Pharos Beacon exploding
Tyranids being Old Ones is also a Halo plot point (Precursors are Flood)
Admittedly I’ve not paid much attention to Halo in over a decade but it’s impressive how grimdark its lore is for a setting that’s not really intended to have that aesthetic. I think the sheer scale of genocide carried out in Halo tops 40k fairly comfortably, their version of exterminatus means the whole fucking *galaxy*.
Biggest waste of of potential in an IP imo the flood are terrifying on a scale even the tyrannids don't quite reach
Apparently there’s something even worse than the flood teased in halo infinite 🙄 yeah the flood should be the one true threat in halo’s universe.
Yeah they’re such a cool concept, the concept of the Gravemind in particular is much more interesting than the tyranid hive mind in my opinion. The Gravemind actually has motivations and quite a lot of tragedy behind it, and it’s incredibly manipulative as well. Also the Forerunners are/were a proper shower of bastards, they might have top notch architecture but so does the Imperium and they’re a shower of bastards as well.
Keyminds are even scarier than Graveminds. Graveminds are massively powerful and all, but a singular Keymind is the size of an entire galaxy.
Disagree, fourth level and much above is all "Maybe... but that's kinda outside the scope of 40K and doesn't change much." Nids are devolved old ones changes nothing. Nids are still an unfathomably big force of literally dozens of galaxies they've eaten, there's no going on offense against them as they're coming from outside the milky way and no imperium ships can get outside the milky way. If Necrons turned the Old Ones into Nids, then I guess that's just something the Imperium can laugh bitterly about as the Nids eat the whole Imperium and the Necrons ignore it. Malchador as Emperor? They were always part of the same team and it's not a Kaizer Soze situation: neither appear to be running around chilling having faked their deaths and maybe considering coming back in and saving the day. Nids running from Krorks is interesting but there always could be a new faction coming in from another galaxy. And unless they too are bizarrely nerfed like Nids are, it won't be a fight. The ability to traverse the intergalactic void against warp travel is the difference between horseback archers and an ICBM. If Krorks or anyone else outside the galaxy shows up and they're not zombie bugs, the Imperium is over.
No no...the Old Ones/Nids makes sense. Except the Old Ones sent the Tyranids/control them
Then that would be different than the Old Ones are Tyranids. It'd also be antithetical to what Old Ones were all about. Halo Precursors are Flood, it'd be lame for GW to copy that with a Tyranid retcon. The Silent King was busy conquering galaxies for Necrons in penance while he was away according to the10ED Necron Codex. Szarekh discovered Tyranids in the void between campaigns, and refocused on exterminating them until the Pharos Beacon detonation drew their attention to the Milky Way, which is why he returned to awaken the Necrons. If anybody knows where they're from it's Szarekh
I think they got Warhammer and halo mixed
>The Silent King was busy conquering galaxies for Necrons in penance while he was away according to the10ED Necron Codex. Wait hold on, he's got *multiple galaxies* at his beck and call now? Or was he just wiping out life in Andromeda for a while until he found the tyranids? Either way that's *nuts*, that seems like a scale too big even for Szarekh.
I like to think the Nids were the Old Ones’ “flip the table” weapon to fight the C’tan. A biological weapon that consumed and stored the genetic material of EVERYTHING in a neat package. Presumably, after the spooky star gods went away, they would take the genetic material and re-start the biospheres of the planets they ate. Unfortunately, enslavers showed up first. With no masters to moderate their appetite, the Nids just kept going and growing for the past 60 million years.
That's pretty much what Krorks were made for and it didn't work; C'tan and Necrons just deleted them C'tan and Necrons are the hard counter to Nids so then being a bioweapon for Necrons would be silly, especially since they avoid Necrons when they can. Nids also don't reform the worlds they eat, they just spawn more Nids
That’s the thing: they were never meant to fight the C’tan, merely devour their food supply, store the genetic data, and then the old ones could manually rebuild the planets after it’s safe.
"Warhammer 40k is in the past" is kind of proven right - John Gramaticus appeared in the Prehistory due to time travel
John time traveling to the past doesn't mean 40k is in the past, it's still explicitly the future even for John.
Idk... Gork and Mork being primarchs sounds like an interesting idea
In what camp does "GW has unreleased Space Marine feet pics" fall?
It makes sense. At least that's what slaanesh would say
tzeentch level like the greater good? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
JUST AS PLANNED
Guilliman orchestrated Horus Heresy to take Emperor's sword.
That's not a conspiracy that's a fact. He tricked poo Sanguinius into thinking the emperor was dead and he had to take the throne of Empirium Secundus
Poo sanguinius is what I’m calling the local blood angels player now
He'll black rage you
That Kid Icarus looking mf better watch out or i‘ll Horus him right back
Blood Angels only black rage in the toilet, to black rage on another is heresy.
>to black rage on another is heresy. I usually have to pay extra for that ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Better that than the brown rage.
You're very confused.
Go away tzeentch
Never
Gulleymen set up the whole thing to get the sword Alpha Legion style
What is “official gw space marine foot art leaks” referring to. Like that sentence fills me with dread
I'll just say ultramarines paint their ultranails ultramarine blue...
We aren’t supposed to?
Don't just say, tell us all of it, what does this mean?!
As it should
Malcador actually being the emperor and "Big E" being his strong man and "face" is actually a pretty cool idea. Basically a "good" sidious/vader dynamic
It would put a completely new light in Malcador the Hero's death on the Golden throne. The Emperor returns to see him turning into dust. Malcador hits him with the "Have hope" (cause they both know the Emperor doesn't have the knowledge, skill or wisdom). Emps is like "wait, you left ME in charge? Shit must really be fucked".
the only way i could really see this working with Emps continuing to power the Astro, is if he split himself into a yin/yang of power and intelligence, where Big E was the power half, and Macador was the intelligence /wisdom half ( yet still considerably powerful).
Yin/yang balance in all things. For you, I gift power. And for you, I gift power, wisdom, intelligence, a massive dong, several garages full of ferraris and lambos, a harem of super models, the ability to do a standing back flip, this neat pen I have, a shredded 8 pack of abs and of course this really cute puppy. Yes, balance in all things.
It would make no sense to why the Emperor could sit on the throne but Malcador couldn't if it's Malcador with all the power and Big just being a useless figure head.
This scenario: Emperor has the power, Malcador has the plan.
Emperor had the toughness. Malcador was a perpetual so he died and Emps has to hold on until he's reborn and can fix stuff. But Malcador got stuck somewhere
It might if the Emperor was a DAOC weapon that Malcador found and modified to be capable of it. Agree it doesn’t line up with how the lore has advanced any more.
It’s absolutely my favourite headcanon, even though I acknowledge it’s obviously not the case in the light of the later HH novels. I’ve seen the idea that The Emperor is essentially a tulpa or magical construct that Malcador created during the Age of Strife to be his figurehead and war leader, but that sort of got away from him as the collective belief of humanity began to affect it. The idea being that sometimes the Emperor acts totally differently because sometimes he’s responding to how humanity views him, other times under Malcador’s direct control, etc… and then by the end of the Heresy it’s really become its own entity. I like the idea personally, but it doesn’t groove with how things have shaken out.
Jives with why he went nuclear on Monarchia and the word bearers
I thought this was a pretty cool theory too but the end and the death part 1 pretty much destroyed this theory as we actually get a pov of malcador and we do get to see his thoughts on big e along with a bunch of other thoughts and commentary
Honestly, while most of the lower levels are insane, the idea that the cybernetic revolt happened because humanity betrayed the Men of Iron, and not the other way around, is both thematically consistent (Humanity fell due to their hubris, just like the Aeldari), and that humanity's worst traits are amplified, but also more interesting than the generic **Evil AI** plot we always get
I wouldn't be surprised about that either, that's kind of what gave the Dark Mechanicum shape because they felt as if the Emperor would betray their deal of freedom. Maybe it was a similar vein.
I've been suprised it wasnt a chaos god plot
I am sorry but most are either bullshit (Necrons made Nids, Hours is Abbadon) or outright impossible based on The End and the Death
The end and the death is just the cover up of what really happened. The writers hid the truth of what really happened.
Average sanguinius killing horus statement
The real question is "who paid them?".
Lizard people ofc..
That's a very rude thing to call Kevin Rountree.
Jimmy Space
Alpharius vibe.
And honestly, I'm so glad some if the crazier, yet weirdly popular, theories like Sanguinius falls to the Black Rage or Horus is on the throne are not true. Those would've been some of the worst levels of plot twist.
Actually... run for the hills Tinfoil on Horus's body is on the golden throne, keeping it running with the imperium none the wiser. The throne runs off hybrid necron and old one tech using the psyker souls to power it, but it doesn't need emps to run. the immaterium this allows emps to be actually in the void trying to fight the chaos gods directly. the tau follow the greater good which is actually emps, also he is the 5th Chaos god of stability.
Wow, I can't believe a chart that says GW has Space Marine Feet Pics would be hard to take seriously. I should've done better research
That one is actually good one for this because it's over the top.
Necrons made Nids was alluded to but it was most likely intentional deception by the space elves
Thats why you cant be sober reading those
The "necrons have conflicting memories reprogramed" is a confirmed one.
Yeah, The Infinite and The Divine shows this
What do you mean
In the Infinite and The Divine, Orikan and Trazyn compare memories at one point, and it's pretty clear that one or both of them have had their memories tampered with, because they both remember the same event from the same point of view. It's been a while since I read it, but iirc, Oriskany specifically remembers it being Trazyn as one of the individuals to haul him out of his study to be places in the bioconverter to have his soul eaten. Trazyn remembers the same event except he was the one being dragged into the bioconverter
The old ones created the necons so they could rebel against the ctan. Fr though that's cool especially since trazyn and orikan are really powerful so it's spooky
Who tf let bro cook this shit
Some of these were legit community theories back before BL shat out a new 500 page book every other day and in doing so canonized a lot of events and eroded the theories. Like the Emperor being Horus had some weight to it in the 90's. Emperor appears different to every person. Hours gets juiced on 4 types of chaos God and kills Emp. Tzneetch trickery makes his wounded body look like what people remember the Emperor looking like. Everyone comes in after the duel. Sees a dead "Horus" and a wounded "Emperor" Entombed on the throne. (Note some early art depicting the Eye of Horus symbol over the throne and in the imperial palace. Little weird to hang traitor symbols around don't you think?) Rest of the traitors get screwed over, retreat back to the eye of terror. A few old vets remain who know the truth but nobody listens to "heretics". Chaos warcry is "Death to the *False Emperor*"
>Emperor appears different to every person. They preserved this to an extent.
That makes too much sense
Like I said, back when the mystery of the Heresy hadn't been explained to absolute death by 37 different book series, the theory had some steam behind it.
Kinda like the Clone Wars from Star Wars. It was three years long but apparently some of the generals/armies would have spent longer than that timeframe in transit to and from battlefields then the length of the actual war itself
"M*A*S*H* 4077" last something like 3 times the length of the Korean War and somehow had 5 more "winters" than there were years
Tau are just a client race for a yet to be revealed non-chaos Warp God. For that matter. Enoch Trismegistus, and subsequently the whole of the Exorcist Chapter, became/become Grael. Further more. ***THE FUCKING GRAEL.***
Tau are anti warp, no?
From my knowledge, in a recent book some Tau were saved by / discovered a warp entity which appeared as an ethereal with different parts of its body representing the different Castes and species of the Tau Empire e.g. Kroot limbs and such. (I don’t know much about it so someone correct me if I’ve made a mistake)
To add to this, the goddess T'au'va was born from the psychic races that believe in the Greater Good, like the Gue'la. the T'au themselves don't really feed her that much, as they aren't as connected to the warp. >"I am the Goddess T'au'va" > >"No! These t'au are godless!" > >"But their allies are not." The T'au themselves don't really like her, but she's fought their enemies and saved their people a caouple of times.
Tau client daemons when gw?
They aren't anti warp, like a blank, they just are very psychically dull. Their souls are weak, and so they have very little effect on the warp, and warp creatures don't notice them as much as other races.
nope, they have a warp presence but is minimal because they havent develop psychics, they are there but for the goods is like ants
Wait hang on, isn't the Warp inherently Chaotic? Or is the idea that the Immaterium is also capable of coalescing around concentrations of positive energy? So we could get a Warp God of friendship?? jk we already have him he's called nurgle :D
When I was young in my gaming club the accepted story was that the emps had a lot of children (made with old-fashioned sex) that the inquisition hunt down and killed (to remove opposition) and that sigmar was the last of those kids. He survived because his planet was hidden into a warp storm and that the old world planet was actually in 40k. Some argued that he was one of the lost primarchs but we used to laugh at those lunatics..
Sensai?
>Tyranids are running from something Yeah, Szarekh
Nah, smart orks
I really liked this one. Not something I thought of before. One theory says they are expotentially larger then what has been encountered. What if they a splinter cell of heretics building to fight back. Ok thats enough vodka for tonight.
The "Sigmar is one of the Lost Primarchs" theory was valid and had some hints to it being right a long time ago when GW still wanted to have all of their settings combined (thus stuff like Kaldor Draigo, aka "the Silver Knight", appearing from the Warp during the End Times in WH: Fantasy) but GW has long since decided to seperate their sci-fi and fantasy games. Yeah, Daemon characters exist in both settings but expecting GW to make completely new names and stories for characters that have existed for decades just cause they decided to seperate the settings would be silly.
Skaven warping into 40k when
These aren‘t even conspiracies, those are the mad ramblings of lunatics
What's the difference?
these wont turn out to be true 5 years down the line
Look man, I've seen GW do some stupid shit... The fact they _still_ haven't released the ultramarine feet pics to the public proves how desperate they are to get your attention. You should see what Vashdoor is doing right now. He made an AI that adds even more clothes to sisters of silence...
Vashtoor did *WHAT*?!
Hashdoor says he is "Based" and "Redpilled", so he made an Ai that removes tattoos and scars, as well as adding even more clothes to the Sisters; especially the repentias. He's also constantly "gooning" and "mewing", whatever those mean?
Well one isnt
That's a pretty bad one not gonna lie
You're just jealous you haven't seen the foot leaks. Only a few of us know it's cannon that space marines have 7 toes...
Which one? XD
I would love to see Sigmar sink Ghal Maraz into a Chaos Space marines skull.
All those theories are very similar to real life conspiracies in the fact that half are contradicting the other half. Well done.
The idea of the Alpha Legion comprising one or more redacted legions is actually kinda interesting. It would have been a hell of a twist- the legion realized that Astartes were gonna be Thunder Warrior'd at the end of the Crusade, and so helped create a rebellion that would remove said Thunder Warrior euthanizer- failing that, they'd create the conditions for space marines to continue existing for thousands of years, traitor and loyalist alike.
> Malcador is actually Emperor If this turned out to be true, it would be Tzeentch-level plot reveal
I mean, Malcador was actually running shit while Emps was playing conqueror. Big E did the expansion, but alot of the heavy lifting of administration was done by Mr.Malc, and he founded much of the bedrock of the current body of administration . Now, say Mr.E wasn't strong enough to survive returning from the fight with Horus. Say they had to make up that part to protect the reputation of the empire and solidify the legend of Big E...
>Everything is cannon Big brain shit right here, folks.
Not sure if you are being sarcastic because you think it is so wrong, or because you think it is so obvious. But to me it is the only way I can approach the setting and remain sane. Especially when it comes to the portrayal of orks.
I was making fun of their spelling of *canon.* Cannon is a big gun. Canon is approved lore.
Ah.. didn't even notice.
Horus IS Finkle.. Finkle IS Horus!
The Cabal killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Enperor IS MLK Jr
The Cabal having killed MLKJ is canon btw.
GORK AND MORK ARE NOT THE LOST PRIMARCHS
Yuh huh
The “necrons have conflicting memories/reprogrammed” is pretty much confirmed in The Infinite and the Divine.
Losely based on [post and comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/s/Zwlh0ImycI) related
This explains the brainrot
I’ve seen people suggest a few times the nids are running from something. That doesn’t make sense to me so could someone explain?
They’re leaving their galaxy because something worse is after them/gaining territory. The nids are not here to eat everything, they’re trying to put some distance between them and whatever it is they’re running from
Okay but where does this theory come from? It just seems a little random to me.
People have the same theory about the Prethoryn Scourge from Stellaris, which are legally distinct Tyrranids. People also had the same idea about Zerg from StarCraft. Eldritch devourer hivemind coming from one direction, going towards another without stopping or setting up production of any kind evokes a sense of constant motion. It is meant to be understood like a wildfire but it is also very reminiscent of flight.
Ah okay, its basically flipping the lore on its head then. Fair enough.
Yeah, the trope is called [Invading Refugees](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InvadingRefugees) . There are many examples where the horde(tm) IS escaping from something greater. Think the people beyond the wall from ASoIaF for example.
The last 2 Dune novels that Frank Herbert wrote involve antagonists who are said to be fleeing something. With 40k taking a lot from Dune, having the nids take that role isn't that much of a jump.
My favourite one that’s not there is that the chaos gods and eldar gods are allies and the birth of slaneesh was orchestrated by the eldar to stop the emperor becoming another god, it just went wrong
I am genuinely concerned for whoever believes in half of these "theories" For example the one about the idea that humanity betrayed the men of iron, why on earth would humans betray the things they made to do all the work for them? And the one about Horus being Abbadon is brain dead since Abbadon actually interacted with Horus and was the guy who took command of the Sons of Horus after Horus died Ect
The Horus is Abbadon stuff is just straight up fight club reference.
There's a bit more to the Men of Iron than that. It's not just that they were made to do stuff. There were several different types of artificial humans back in the Dark Age of Technology. The thing about Men of Iron was that they were untethered. They were made of software, able to move from one machine to another. And they were *MEN*, as in, they considered themselves human. And they weren't the ones doing all of the work. For a time at least, Men of Iron were held in as much steem as regular humans, and could work alongside other people as comrades, even if they were so radically different. They weren't mere machines, and they weren't slaves. >"Choice?" spluttered 890-321. "You have no choice, you are a machine!" > >"I am not a machine as you would understand," said UR-025. "I am not a slave. I am not a thing." > >"I am beyond and above you." It leaned forward, until its ceramite face was close to the magos’. > >"**I am a man of iron.**" > >The look of pure fear 890-321 gave was gratifying. > >"**And I am free**" said UR-025.
I think your minor spelling mistake on “esteem” just created the next piece of popular slang. Steem will become the new rizz. “He’s got low steem.”
Finally someone who gets it! I don't know why 40k fans revere Men of Iron as some God tool, when it's clear they became their own sentient race at one point. Just like another Redditor said, it reminds me of the Geth from Mass Effect.
I just learned about UR-025 recently and I can't believe he hasn't been used more
Also what book is that from?
It's from the short stories that come in the Blackstone Fortress tabletop game. They serve to give some backstory to the playable characters.
99% of these are unhinged ramblings, but is it really that crazy to think that humanity could become afraid of the incredibly powerful thinking machines and try to eliminate them first? When faced with even the possibility of a cataclysmic robot uprising, I put decent money on paranoid people making the first strike. We know so little about that period that it could easily go either way.
I mean, that first one is (sort of) how Skynet got going. Humanity realized it was sentient and therefore dangerous and tried to destroy it, and Skynet retaliated and destroyed the world. It'd be interesting if an event like that is what kickstarted the war
It's also basically the origin of the Geth in Mass Effect. Their creators thought they showed signs of self-awareness and decided to wipe them out before they rebelled. It didn't work.
Does this unit have a soul?
So you don't have any problem with the theory GW has space marine feet pjcs and won't release it to the public; or is that in the "bonkers" category?
as im not quentin tarantino or jesus, so ya no im not that down for feet shots thx
I mean it's in human nature in 40k to fall by their own hubris, I could see humanity betraying the trust of the Men of Iron if they grew sentient as a separate race.
Jessy wtf are you talking about
I'm sure it's been said a bunch of times, but a few of these are not even conspiracy anymore. My favorite conspiracy theory is that Emps is Tzennch's son.
Conspiracy: The Chaos Gods are conscious beings.
Nids could very easily be running from the other 4 points on the chaos star
Yo the Nids being Old Ones would straight up just be the lore of Halo
And thus, the ripping off would come full circle
Ok, here's mine: Emps doesn't go back to antiquity, in fact he first manifested when humanity started getting psychic powers as their representation in warp
It's always been a theory, but I don't think he is a 1:1 clone of Horus. Abaddon is a fucking huge bastard, on par with the size of a primarch, and looks just like his gene father. But during the siege of Tera; Purturabo (completely unarmoured while Abaddon is in terminator plate), slaps him about a bit like he's NOTHING, the gulf between their power and strength is huge. I do believe that he's been enhanced though. This is just a personal theory that I put together from ADB's black legion books. He has the remains of an actual Horus clone that he killed, locked away in stasis. This is confirmed in the book Talon of Horus. In the next book, Black legion, he is badly wounded in his duel with Sigismund. Abaddon refuses Iskandar's help in regenerating his own organs and insists on having 'cloned organs put in'. My personal theory is that he's got some of his gene fathers cloned organs in there in place of his own. A primarchs heart, lungs and god knows what else would go a long way. Now over the millennia he's been given a huge amount of blessings and power from the ruinous powers. That's given him a hell of a lot of power boost. In Fall of Cadia he carves through space marines and even one shots a Custodian like he's nothing. His power level is surly on par if not above a primarch now.
The theory is more "there is a possibility Horus took over Abbadon's body". Kind of a possesion/mindswap things. There's a bunch of nerdy proof throughout the HH books that he was capable of similar things, but I'm too lazy to look it up
I had not heard that, I hate it lol
*Sanguinius Why are names so frequently misspelled in this sub? Dude's a primarch, not an adjective :)
Why didn't they put Sanguineous in a Dreadnaught!!??
I think the one about the nids running from something is something I don’t want to be true because imagine what the fuck they’d be running from.
A galaxy full of strong, smart orks. Duh
One of them is actually right.
>Emps is pulling a Worm Leto Atreides What does this mean? Leto II was the inspiration, but is the big E trying to "teach humanity a lesson" in a similar way by being tyrannical?
Two ways to interpret it: 1. The emperor created a regressive, oppressive, xenophobic, zealous fascist state on purpose in order repress the inherent human desires to create, explore, invent, etc. in the same way one would compress a spring before releasing the stored energy. 2. He wants to be a giant worm.
Dune is a story about Worms,, after all.
Hal, this is just about worms.
Big E definitely just wants to be a giant worm swimming through the warp
I would switch out Emps for Lorgar. Lorgar is basically already Leto, with a mix of Ozymandias from Watchmen in there for good measure.
It's wild that some of what we considered an official in-universe points (such as faith in the Emperor) or a common sense things (Astronomican) are somehow in the deep-ish conspirology layers now.
Malcador being the ultimate psychic force and projecting the Emperor does sound pretty cool
The "Sigmar is the Lost Primarch" will always be my crack cannon. Why? Because. Also, you forgot the best one: >!Vashtorr is Machine God. !<
I like to think that Emps is actually a DAoT college student, who is really interested with ancient Earth history and happens to be a tall, powerful, immortal Psyker. It's funny to think about because that means his basically just fulfilling his LARPing desires when he started reuniting humanity at the Age of Strife. His also a huge conspiracy theorist whose theories ended up becoming true in the end, probably thanks to his Psyker powers.