Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-88.114.255.138-20130111160957/@comment-27890440-20160310162230

I'm pretty sceptical to be honest of any scenario that pits various godlike beings in situations that mirror physical and/or psychic combat and extrapolates from that. We've had descriptions of gods "fighting" in the warp many times (most notably the eldar pantheon) but it seems to make more sense to interpret that as analogy rather than literal. Khorne is a concept given consciousness in a world whose properties are not fully understood by anyone either in universe or out. The Emperor is best described as a human (ish) creature with an unparalleled level of access to that domain. Likewise the other major warp beings each represent a concept, principle or collective psychic pesence within that domain.

Warfare is everywhere, lust and ambition are everywhere. To localise them to a specific point and assume that they would act as a literal humanoid analogy, fighting as mortals or even daemons might is likely taking the analogy too far and then making predictions based on a flawed model. The image of Khorne presenting as an axe wielding satan like figure is more likely the way the human mind commonly interprets that being when required to interact with it, becaus ethat is exactly the sort of primal imagery we associate with that concept. Likewise in the human mind Slaanesh would be interpreted as an amalgalm of various hidden perversions and lusts drawn from the subconscious of trillions of beings, rather than literally existing as a strange overly sexualised pseudo humanoid.

The strength of a particular god might be better examined as the level of psychic activity relating to it's particular niche and it's actions regarded as being a manifestation of those concepts. Exactly how such beings could directly combat each other (if at all) is not truly made clear and to my way of thinking descriptions that involve physical concepts such as striking blows and running away are ways for the human mind to interpret those interactions rather than literal facts. Conflict and competition between them would be some measure of how commonly and strongly they are represented at a given time and how contextual factors would influence that.

As such it is also unlikely that any chaos god could be truly defeated per se, as whatever concept they represent would continue to be represented in the minds of trillions of beings and therefore their existence would continue.