Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-6078851-20150628150826/@comment-6078851-20150703155726

... except that the primarchs occaisionally have traits that they didn't get from emps' genetic heretige. the only arguement which has any weight for emps being a perpetual is that vulkan is one, but that isn't proof (and in 48,000 years of life you would think emps would've found out by now if he was a perpetual :P) - the primarchs were all exposed to the energies of the warp when they were newborns (or newly decanted), and no-one knows how long each primarch may have spent in warpspace, and sanguinius' wings are 1 result of that, plus every primarch was subject to insane genetic modifications to simply be primarchs, but after jonson emps 'tinkered', at times significantly, with each and every one - russ had canine attributes (hell, emps gave him canine/lupine dna :P), alpharius turned out to be twins. vulkan's perpetuality could be from emps' genome (but if that was the case then surely more primarchs would also have been perpetuals?), but there's far more likelyhood that it was a by-product of emps' tinkering or from warp influence.

if emps was a perpetual then the imperium wouldn't be in the state it's in, because he would've been fine after the fight with horus. there's an idea that the perpetual ability is a passive-psychic ability and that the throne may be hampering this perpetual ability, except that the throne is a psychic amplifier, so if anything the throne would have sped up a perpetual ability if he had it. while it is definitely possible that emps is a perpetual, it's a pretty low possibility - there's a far greater chance that he may re-incarnate (what with him being the amalgamation of re-incarnating shaman :P).

i doubt emps is a perpetual, and with emps being a corporeal, and mortal, being i also doubt that he'll ascend to warp god. both these scenarios would result in old material being recycled though, so if gw are serious about advancing the story and shaking things up that leaves the scenario of the throne failing, emps actually physically and psychically dying and the end times kicking-off with his death :P -

'the end times'

his death results in the collapse of the empire, which is saved from an all-consuming collapse by any returning primarchs who hold together a few last desperate, and disparate, bastions in the encroaching night. the eldar forego the attempt to summon ynnead as further awakening necrons seek to annihilate the remains of the eldar, and as the eldar have no choice but to flee from the vastly more numerous necrons they stumble into the arms of approaching hive fleets, which also destroy any pursueing necrons. with emps' death the astronomican briefly flared so bright as to be seen from a hundred neighbouring galaxies and all tyranids begin to awaken to point unerringly towards terra, and begin to move inexorably, and more quickly. with the psychic flash of emps' demise large portions of the webway are punctured, buckled or destroyed, and commoragh suffers mightily.

after a few years the only bastions of humanity left are single solar systems each led by a primarch, and a few forge world systems who have the tech to defend themselves. the eldar are all gone, hounded and harassed to the last. with the unexpected increase in speed from tyranids the tau situation becomes very perilous and they make the decision to abandon their empire as they know they could not hold it in the face of the galactic tsunami of bio-organisms. as they try to flee to 'safe' space they encounter remnants of the imperium - a single world here, a conglomeration of naval forces there, but as the entire tau race are moving any military remnants are no match against such tau force, though they will loose many, many people and tech in their exodus. eventually they hear of primarch led systems and attempt to make contact: the primarchs, being wise and such, see the benefit of a true alliance with the tau in these darkest of times, and mange to eke-out a new empire - not as large as the tau's original empire but these are tough days. during these years the necrons have mostly been fighting the ever encroaching tyranids, and losing, continually being forced back, being destroyed, being devoured.

41, 752 a.d: the human/tau empire is entirely surrounded by tyranids, there is literally no way out. the necron dynasties are mostly gone, those left are stranded on individual worlds, their technologies having failed them against the tyranid onslaught of flesh. the dark eldar are gone, the webway having long ago been destroyed, rendered uninhabitable and unusable by repeated daemonic incursions. during this whole time the orks have been having a whale of a time, "best dayz eva!!" has been the most popular phrase in the ork lexicon for centuries. like everyone else their empires have also suffered, they now only inhabit a fraction of what they once did, but those ork strongholds which are left have been so consistently bombarded by tyranid organisms that the orks of these worlds are so vicious, fearsome, and giant, that to take the world would require planetary destruction. but that works against the hive mind - because of the abundance of genetic material the hive mind has been 'farming' these ork worlds, and many tyranids now have a distinct green hue.

41, 998 a.d: the human/tau empire now consists of 1 solar system, the necrons are almost gone, but they defended, and used (far more than they would've liked), the most important weapon they have in these times, and those ruling necrons who remain are considering the most drastic of measures. the milky way is almost overflowing with tyranids, all is lost...

41,999 a.d: the necrons activate the entire celestial orrery...

50,000 a.d: those tyranids that hadn't yet reached the boundries of the milky way think "awww, i was hungry" and then go back to sleep to wake at the next truck stop. having lost such a vast portion of itself the hive-mind is somewhat reduced, but still 'alive'.

the end (times :P)

oops, that's a long post, i got carried away a little :)  that's maybe not what i would want to happen but i would like something like this to happen, and at the risk of sounding somewhat self-indulgent this scenario has epic all over it :P