#40k theory

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

The Inverted Chaos Gods and their potential champions

Aright, let's start this off with an easy question: if there are four Dark Gods, and if we ignore Malice throwing a tantrum in the background because once more he was ignored and in this case even deliberatly, why does the official Chaos Symbol look like this?

That's a bit more than four going on, twice that number to be exact. So as canon lore hints at, its that the Chaos Gods themselves are not exactly stable entities. They might appear so to the perspective of a mortal human being, but they are suspectible to change even if they themselves might not exactly like it. If the cultures and species in an entire galaxy shift and change over the milenia, so will the gods who are shaped by those in said galaxy.

There is this bit of lore that Khorne was formed due to the terran middle ages, which at first sounds like a joke: how was one backwater savage planet with not even a billion hailress monkeys able to spawn a literal god? The answer to that is as simple as it is anticilmatic: they did not create Khorne. They, however, did make up a VERSION of Khorne that eventually would become a smiliar version to the one we all know today. At the same time, there was probably not just a single version of Khorne - while the humans had their version, a few systems over there was still murder and bloodshed going on by some other backward planet. They shared absolutely nothing with humans in terms of origin or culture, but the fundamental concept of violence and the institutions of civilication to control it were the same and fed the same warp-entity that was also existing on terra.

There's just one issue: the warp and reality are not exactly compatible. In reality one has to adhere to the laws of time and space, and if there is a thing that exists in two different places at the same time, they are, by definition of the universe, different things. While deep down "alien Khorne" and "human Khorne" might be the same thing, when interacting with reality they might even be considered almost entirey seperate entities with possibly no knowledge of the other. As this is basic mechanics of the divine in the setting, one could assume that this works the same for all of the Big Four.

Also, we all know that the Chaos Gods are not evil in their entirety, but that they also include their "non-evil" counterpart. Khorne for example is violence, but also the mechanisms to control said violence, like honor or "rules of battle" that forbid stuff like targetting medics on the battlefield or murdering civillians. This is where the eight-pointed-star comes from, as it is not 4 Gods, but actually 8, each of them also containing in their own mirror-image.

So if we assume that the chaos gods could have aspects of them running around that even they themselves are only aware of on a subconscious level and we know the nature of said gods as changing over insane amounts of time, wouldn't it be too weird to assume there are "variants" of them running around that are "not evil"? Possibly from before the Warp got all messed up, or maybe it just spawns occasionally before it gets absorbed by the currently stronger concepts.

Assuming those variants run around, they must be SIGNIFICANTLY weaker than their bigger evil counterparts - and the weaker a warp entity is, the less power it can use when affecting reality. It therefore requires someone to act in its stead, a "Chosen" or a "Champion" if you will.

A faction surrounding such a Champion would certainly be in a weird spot: the more they help their variant of a chaos god, since in the end it is the same entity, the stronger the "bigger version" gets too. So the end goal would ultimatively to "reform" the image of the whole thing so "their" variant becomes the dominant one. A risky play, mostly because in the end it could all be for nothing, the "good variant" gets absorbed, and in the end you got an evil god twice as strong as before.

But you know what's the best about this theory? We already might have one of these Champions running around on the tabletop!

Let's see, Khrone's favourite color is red, he likes melee combat, can't do anything psykery, his favourite number is eight, and the "good" aspects of him can be distilled to honor and chivalry.

How curious then we got this honorable red lad with no psykic powers leading his combat group called "The Eight" being the only one in his entire culture to swap a railgun for a melee weapon. The T'au are a culture that abhors melee combat as barbaric, and yet here we are getting the guy who gets up every morning and chooses melee violence as his choice of combat. Oh, and his break with the T'au Empire happened over matters of honor (they lied to him) right after encountering Khrone demons.

That's a bit too many coincidences piling up, don't ya think?

But that's just Khrone, now where are the others? We still got three gods left after all. There's two options here: either they all come from the T'au, and this is somehow an milenia spanning plan to reform the Warp, OR these Champions will appear randomly in all the factions save for maybe the Tyrannids.

When trying to make predictions on who goes where, maybe Farsight's case could be an indicator: regular old Khorne has little to zero interest in the T'au. His initial presence with them is fairly low, so if there is a variant of going around, it would fly under the radar for quite some time. With that in mind, let's assing the Champions of the Inverted Gods to the various potential factions!

Slaanesh: Being a non-evil mirror to Slaanesh is probably weird, as excessive emotion, sensation, and pleasure are not exactly evil as long as you are not catholic. But if there is a faction that is naturally immune and also irrelevant to Slaanesh just as the T'au are to Khrone, it is the Necrons. There must at least be some Overlord who wishes he could feel the wind on his skin or smell the flowers once more - and to use that to free his warriors/servants from their mindless existence. Their goal would not to have an excess of emotion and sensation, but any at all really. It would be a Necron faction that cares about art, about aesthetics, and maybe also about genuine emotional connections. You could call it the "Romanticist Necron" faction if you will, and other Necrons would probably not get along with them.

Nurgle: Nurgle has always been about nature, the cycle of life and death, and all that stuff. The thing is, with him being both life and death, he steadly keeps everything stagnating with nothing ever truly dieing and making way for whatever new thing could rise from the ashes. Now, who could qualify as a very stagnant faction that at the same time holds little interest to the big guy? The Aeldari - they do not die natural deaths, and when they die either their Soulstones or Slaanesh gets them. They might even be actively on the way to do that with this whole Ynnead project, but given the setting it might as well brutally backfire. You don't just bring a god of death into 40k and expect it to work for you, no?

Tzeentch: Being a god of magic, grand plans, and schemes, Tzeentch hates probably nothing more than the Orks, dumb brutes bashing in their heads for millions of years without anything ever coming from it - despite them actually having a lot of psykic potential with their Weirdboys and their Meks showing some insane innate understanding of warp-infused technology. But just imagine the concept of an Orc-Psyker able to rival Ahriman, while not exactly caring about Gork&Mork. Imagine, if you will, the impossible: a smart, calculating, and scheming Ork. Not in a Bloodaxes sort of way, but in how a regular Tzeench Champion would operate. A small subsection of Orks becoming actually smarter, knowing when to hold back and how to use diplomacy and politics, might be something that should give half the galaxy plenty to worry about...

[midwesternnerd-40k]

Ten Doomed Sons Theory: The Basics

The Emperor made a bargain with the Chaos Gods in order to take twenty powerful warp entities and place them in superhuman bodies. The Primarchs. The Chaos Gods said that they would eventually corrupt ten of these superhumans as payment for allowing the Emperor to create them.

Alpharius and Omegon were made from a particularly confused entity, and so ended up in two bodies. The Chaos Gods likely did end up counting them as two separate beings, however.

So of the planned twenty Primarchs, two were [REDACTED], and a different one was split into two. That left nineteen Primarchs, the Ruinous Powers corrupted ten, leaving the Emperor with nine. Of course, being total dickheads, the Chaos Gods also put plans in motion to kill the loyalist Primarchs.

But that’s just a theory. A GAME THE-

[circeius-invidioso]

What I love about the forgotten legions in 40k is that you can construct some wild theories and there is no one to stop you. Games workshop doesn't care but we do.

But my personal concern is.

The lore says unknown, but I am not satisfied with that response.

So today we will attemp to get inside Malcador's head and answer one of the Imperium's best kept secrets.

The facts we have so far

BUT WAIT.

The plot thickens because if we take it as fact that the geneseed was stolen from another legion we have to guess who is the father?

But fear not we have more evidence as to guess who might be.

1) All of the Grey Knights are sorcerers and pretty powerful ones at that.

2) One of the first hand picked, finger pointed, wholeheartedly selected Grey Knights was a Night Lord.

3) They are smug, walking talking warp magic nukes. They have that wap. Wild ass potential.

Also I am not joking. The Emperor saw that Night Lord and I guess was impressed by his human skin collection and agreed for him to join.

Malcador too. But at this point we all can agree Malcy Malc boy was a thief. Bad choices is his strongest suit.

SO.

👏🏻

Dad Theory No1

THE FATHER MIGHT BE. (empasis on might but it would be really funny if it was the truth)

Same same. But now a different picture. From a better angle.

The Crimson King is their dad.

Yes I am serious.

My limited research leads me to believe Magnus was the one... used for his geneseed by Malcador to create the loyalist version of nucler houdinis.

And you know what would make this theory even funnier if it was true.

Oh yes. Or oh no. Its the same at this point.

If the Grey Knights are indeed just a bunch of Thousand Sons but painted chrome and artificially orphaned.

That bastard Malcador.

He created 1000 sons and did not even have the decency to tell them who their dad was.

1000 men left out in the cold. With no place to call home.

1000 Sons -

1000 SONS PEOPLE THE GREY KNIGHTS ARE 1000 IN TOTAL. THATS THE FINAL CLUE WE NEEDED.

THEY ARE THE SONS OF MAGNUS BUT IN KNIGHT COSPLAY.

THIS IS CANON NOW.

MALCADOR STOLE MAGNUS SEED (THAT SOUNDS WRONG). AND MADE THE GREY KNIGHTS.

AND NOT ONLY THAT RUBRIC HAPPENED AND SINCE THOSE DUDES DON'T KNOW WHO THEIR DAD IS THEY PROBABLY WOKE UP ONE DAY +10 IN ALL THEIR STATS AND COULD NOT EXPLAIN WHY

Case closed

This is canon now

What will games workshop do?

Refute it?

[ladymirdan]

Guys: “I wish more girls liked 40k”

Me: “Strap in, we are gonna discuss the inherent nepotism of Ultramar and the possibilities of a seperatist Guilliman”

Guys: “wat? Not like that 😐”

[brungeons-and-bragons]

Need a Timkon fic where the world resets again and Kon is unwritten from time again and no one remembers him but Tim who is going actually crazy trying to find any evidence that his totally-just-best-friend ever even existed.

[ghostinthegallery]

But seriously necrons are queer AF...

I basically can't shut up about necrons and how they really lend themselves to queer theory/queer interpretation and I want to dive into that a little. I am not An Intellectual by any means, so someone else could definitely do this better, but an imperfect hero is better than none (there's a joke about Trazyn on Cadia here but I'm too lazy to flesh it out).

I'm more interested in how a) Queer Theory is all about challenging the default cishet lens through which the majority of media is created/analyzed/consumed and b) the fact that necron existence is basically 12 Queer Metaphors in an Trenchcoat

Necrons come to the table raising some interesting narrative questions: how does a being exist without a soul? What even IS a soul? What is mortality? How does all of that relate to the mind and to the body?

Biotransference, when you get right down to it, took the three basic parts of what we might think of as "the self" (mind, body, soul) and divided them. The soul vanished, while the body and mind remained, but the relationship between them was completely recontextualized. So all those big questions above can only be answered in that context. This ties so beautifully into themes of queer experience because queerness also invites a reimagining of the spirit/mind/body relationship. How the body relates to identity and vice versa. How that combination relates to other people. Any singular "default" answer of x body=y identity=z mental state does not exist for necrons. How can it when each individual deals with their own existence in such varying ways? From denial to distraction to euphoric acceptance, and each individual's character is largely defined by that choice.

This can be more explicitly LQBTQ-themed (my kingdom for a story about Anathrosis, the canonically trans dynasty Matriarch) or metaphorical. It can dwell on inner conflict or external conflicts. This separation was not something they chose, but it is a fundamental fact of their existence. You basically have no choice but to tell queer stories with necrons if you want to explore their nature/characters in any depth.

Tl;dr all the space robots are gay and also disasters and sorry that's just canon

[noelle666]

I've been thinking about one thing for couple of days and I need to write it down to not forget.

We know Heinrix had Knight implants which were removed when his gift was discovered, then he got implants for sanctioned psykers and served in the Imperial Guard. As far as I understand it was not necessary to remove psyker implants when Heinrix become an acolyte of Lord Inquisitor.

So here is my fan theory: what if Calcazar wanted to test his new acolyte? He, I'm sure, knew Heinrix is adequate, stable and responsible, and maybe during this period he started to think who could become his right hand (well, maybe it was too early, but still). So he put van Calox through a trial, a gruesome one, but not something capable biomancer cannot pass. And then, after years of regeneration, when Heinrix recovered his "human" appearance, Xavier got the proof: if van Calox is stubborn enough to recover himself, this man can be very useful.

[alex-leweird]

Thinking about Deathmarks.

What if the origin of them was a Mistery cult (when I use the term is reference of the Mysteries like Demeter's, Dyonisus, Isis, Cybeles, Orphics mysteries/cults in Ancient times) related to the old cult of the Nightbringer (not the C'tan but the God based on)?

We know that C'tan's bodies were created based on old gods in the Necrontyr culture.

Deathmarks are peculiar. They follow a code, has access to niche knowledge to hyper-dimensional technology and even if they are warriors, they don't fit, even having ancient rules to not deploy them against nobility.

Using some reference in myth of our world I can't not think about Apollo and Artemis. Apollo and Artemis were the deathbringer for males and women (in A.Greek poem's and fragments we found a lot of references about this. Like in the Illiad, the first appereance of Apollo was shooting the Greek soldiers. In the Odyssey, when Odysseus visits his mother he asks if she was dead bc of the plague or bc Artemis) Also Eros (at least the firsts versions of him fits here). The similarities of these gods are that they use a bow. In Ancient times an archer was a symbol of lethality. A soldier couldn't see the archer and an arrow was always lethal, or it kill instantly or the wound was fatal. One of the best analogies I have heard of this was from my professor: "If the Ancient Greeks were able to know about some of our technology, Eros, Apollo and Artemis would be snipers".

So imagine, that the original Deathmarks were a cult who worshiped the ancient Nightbringer of the necrontyr culture as the Mysteries cults. The cult would evolved and left the religious roots of the begining.

Maybe the role could be similar to La acabadora or the S'Agabbadora (In the Mediterranean towns there was a woman who would finnish off someone who would be suffering for a long time by a sickness or something similar) and hitmans in the begining. Seeing the potential, nobles or officials would deploy him at wars too as a special force.

[voidscreamintheories]

The (Not-so-)Big four

Spoilers for the first arc of Hunter the Parenting

Right so: Hunter the Parenting was started after the end of If the Emperor had a text-to-speech device, a parody of Warhammer 40K. There is DNA from that 40K lineage in the show, namely in the D family which I will talk about in another post. But as any fan of Warhammer, upon seeing a group of four antagonists I must immediately question if they are the four Chaos gods. Now before getting into this it is important to note that the gods of Chaos are already a lil flexible in their definitions, so it could be real easy to mold anything you want to fit them. They fit well with the four horsemen of the apocalypse, for example However, I am still going to fit these funni bois into funni molds, because it's fun.

SO

Shitbeard: He is violent, quick to anger, one of the two oldest, and he was embraced in association with the "Bikers for Blood" donation drive. It's Khorne, he's Khorne. Now of course, vampires also have a thing for blood, but I feel calling it out specifically with shitbeard COULD be a nod to the good ole "blood for the blood god". Getting into some deep lore here: Clan Brujah used to be known as Warrior Scholars, before their clan devolved into violent rabble rousers. This actually fits with some depictions of Khorne worship, where they are noble and strong warriors who eventually slip into being raving madmen. Of note as well is which member of the group he dislikes the most fits with Khorne, becaaaaaaaause

Ape: Ape and Shitbeard don't get along. Ape is the youngest of the group. Ape is constantly mentioning his hunger and it's called out that he has been "overfeeding" which Ape retorts that there's no such thing. Ape is Slaanesh. Now it's missing a few hallmarks of The Prince of Pleasure, but I think that's partly because of time constraints and partly because of the tone they were going for (I am happy that Ape wasn't humping the walls or snorting coke every other scene). Also, Ape's weapon of choice was his claws, and that's very in line with Tabletop Slaanesh.

Kevin: He's a wizard, it's Tzeentch. But more than that, we saw Kevin had schemes and ambitions to overthrow both the regent and Pyotr, very fitting for him as schemey old Tzeentch. Also, Kevin's tendency to still try fitting in with regular society does match up with the insidious infiltration of society of Tzeentch. Relatedly, while Big D seems to want Kevin as his Sigilite (Malcador best bro), this might end up backfiring. As we saw in the ad break of episode 4, D is feeding Kevin. If Kevin still has ambition and treachery as his domains, there's a non-zero chance that Big D may be betrayed.

Now, finally, which member of the sabbat did Kevin have the most beef with?

Pyotr: Process of elimination here, Pyotr is stinking old Nurgle. Now, nurgle is often depicted as big and round, obviously RIDDLED with disease, and jolly. How can Pyotr fit those themes? I think it has more to do with his clan association. The Nosferatu are a clan of UGLY vamps, who use vermin as spies, and are shockingly resilient and strong for their appearance, all very nurgly. As well, one of the most common reasons a Nosferatu will embrace someone is because the target is really pretty, the Nosferatu resenting beauty and wanting to curse them with the same ugliness. In much the same way Nurgle loves corrupting the beautiful for the sake of corruption (see the garden, his kidnapping of Isha). Based on the photo of Pyotr, we can see he was a handsome kine, I think it fits that he was turned for being too pretty. As a final note on the pretty thing, the fact that Nosferatu start seeing their own ugliness as being attractive (see "you're a goddamn tease loverboy"), that fits with Nurgle's embracing of decay and rot. Now one thing Pyotr MIGHT fit as Nurgle on his own is his stealthing ability. It's not always mentioned, but it's not uncommon for Nurgle worshippers to have a miasma around them which they use to conceal themselves. As a final point, Pyotr's speech about inevitability and futility is pretty fitting for Nurgle's embracing of entropy.

The group as a whole: Woah Chaos undivided, woooooo. But really, as a group they do work as the Pantheon. They all hate each other and scheme against one another, but will work together for their collective goal. When Markus let them fight, and Pyotr ate the other two, this would match with a long standing concept in Warhammer that once one of the gods got the upper hand, it would spell disaster for humanity (here represented by the hunters). As well Kevin seems depressed and almost listless without the other three around, could be because as much as they hate each other, the gods do need their opponents to enjoy the Great Game.

[v6-version]

if the theory that the Emperor is a weapon created by the Old Ones is true, could it be that he was not created as a god of humanity, but humanity were created in his image?

[cappadocius]

Holy Crap, the as-canonical-as-it-can-get 40K timeline lines up perfectly for the Primarchs of the II and XI Legions to be damnatio memoriaed by Da Emprah, kill the as-yet-unlocated 20th Primarch, and assume his or her identity as Alpharius and Omegon, the Last Primarch.

How's that for a conspiracy theory for ya?

[fantasyanthro]

First Theory

[owenthetokencishet]

The 2nd and 11th primarchs were both female, but the emperor had a bad breakup in the early days of the great crusade and from then on he declared that the legionnes astartes would be NO GIRLS ALLOWED

[mig-murgthenurg]

[ladymirdan]

Strangely accurate.

But also, im a fan of the theory that Cypher sits on the golden throne now 😂

[kess-in-the-perthchimzone]

Farewell to Sick Kang Theory

How do I even explain this ridiculous post?? Inspired in no small part by all the trailer footage of Kang fainting in the early days of Dangerous Romance I posited a theory that Kang had a chronic, life threatening health condition, which would explain why his dad talks to him the way he does.

Well yesterday @poetry-protest-pornography reminded me via this post that the theory is officially officially dead 😭. So while I LOVE everything we are getting on DR right now, I want to take a moment to pour one out for the AU that will forever hold a piece of my heart:

Kang’s mom died of a heart condition that he inherited

Afterwards, Kang’s father (and grandmother probably to a slightly lesser extent than the dad) were overprotective. At home, everything he did was monitored — was he eating healthy, sleeping enough, not stressing himself out.

the constant pressure of being told ‘you are weak, you are fragile’ is what manifested into the same bully Kang we saw in early episodes because he so desperately wanted to feel powerful

i love how this could overlap so closely with canon and still work. He still escalates with Sailom and brings a gun to his house but that scene might almost impact him MORE — he plays the hero and for the first time in his life he feels STRONG; he feels useful, and he’s addicted to it so he imprints on Sailom even more immediately

Episode 3 feels too fast for Sailom to learn so let’s say they start studying together and Sailom only gets pieces of this — he’s gradually realizing how Kang gets treated at home and Kang still drunkenly reveals how his dad makes him feel but Sailom doesn’t know WHY

In this verse you could do an interesting flip where Kang begs for the bike and does pass his tests and then the dad changes his mind and not only takes it away but (temporarily) takes away the tutoring because he didn’t like how hard Kang was exerting himself with all-nighters

so then Sailom coming to live with them would in part be so the dad can monitor their study sessions and make sure they are an appropriate length time and not too taxing on Kang

of course Sailom has been seeing all this happen — he’s been spending all this time with Kang and now has heard this pattern over and over where Kang gets talked down to — and he’s both furious at it and it’s increasingly nagging at him. He’s starting to feel like he’s missing something

but he’s also falling so deeply in love that he kind of willingly forgets to ask; he just wants to spend the time he’s getting with Kang

Here I don’t think we need the Pimfah love triangle at least on Kang’s side (I still don’t believe he ever truly had feelings for her anyway) — Kang would still be the king of mixed signals because he’d alternate between love-sick staring & wildly romantic lines then running away from his feelings

Pimfah knows about Kang; her dad runs the hospital where he spent most of his childhood but she doesn’t talk about it out of respect for his privacy

but maybe she still has feelings for Sailom which would lead to the rain scene after Sailom rejects her

oooh Kang taking care of Sailom would be SO IMPORTANT to him— he’s never gotten to be on the other side, to be the caretaker, and maybe later that memory of how much love he felt in that moment would stick with him

(because obviously in this verse the big end would be Kang doing something heroic to help save Sailom from Name and then collapsing and not waking up and having to be rushed into emergency surgery — which would necessitate him being willing to let Sailom take care of him as he recovers)

The art room would still happen but it would be Kang thinking “I can’t be with him because I don’t have a future to give him” and thus self-sacrificing

of course though, he wouldn’t be able to fight his jealousy or the strength of his feelings and he would still kiss Sailom in the locker room

and all this would come to a head in the fainting scene in episode 7. Because Kang would have spent the day flirting with Sailom and trying to act all tough and strong to impress his friends

but after he faints, he would be forced to go to the hospital to have a check up to make sure everything is okay with his heart

No matter how much he protests or just tries to play it off like he’s going home to rest, Sailom would insist on coming with him

so Sailom would finally learn the truth — I can so perfectly picture his face too. It would be the same face he had when the dad unveiled the bike. Mapping every interaction he’s had with Kang and suddenly feeling even more deeply empathetic towards him

The bar scene is obviously crucial, so that could be Kang later offering to buy them drinks for helping him; but maybe he’s keeping his distance from Sailom; he (stupidly) thinks Sailom won’t want him anymore now that the truth is out

and then I don’t know how the bleachers scene happens in this new context — maybe Kang had started playing football but after he fainted it was expressly forbidden and he is being really pathetic and in his feelings about that and thinking he can’t have Sailom

Which would mean the hug scene would be equally if not more meaningful to Kang here — because it would be Sailom saying ‘I think we have a future, I believe you have a future, I want to be with you. Stop avoiding me, you asshole’

I don't know I just really love it!! And it would be so powerful seeing a chronically ill character spouting insanely romantic lines, and being jealous/possessive, and getting to play the protective hero!!

Am I glad I don’t have to worry as much about Kang possibly DYING for the romance of it all? Yes. But will I still miss it a little bit? Also yes.