>No space marines and primarchs
How would this change affect the setting?
>>47579998
Drastically less sales
>>47579998
extra HERESY!
>>47579998
the setting would be FORCED to branch out and become something wonderful after the failed experiments that are called space marines left the mortal coil
>>47579998
>no more shitfits on /tg/ about which primarch is the least autistic
>>47579998
The Horus Heresy never happens
>>47579998
The Imperium isn't reformed nearly as fast if at all and the Horus Heresy never happens.
>>47579998
You just shift the power-levels around a bit. I would imagine Power Armor becomes more of a thing in various Imperial Guard Regiments who then inherent most of the Marine's shit like Rhinos and Grav Bikes. minus the built in tendencies that make every Chapter "Unique"
Doom GW. 90% of people care the most about Marines and Primarchs even if that makes /tg/ mad.
>>47579998
Not a big effect on the setting. Marines are just replaced with other "elite" armies like Sisters and Storm Troopers.
>>47579998
It becomes more WHFB like.
>>47581257
Non-profitable and non-existent?
>>47582884
Too soon man, too soon
>>47579998
Nothing would change. Humanity was wildly successful before the Long Night, and it did it just fine without Space Marines. Just like the thunder warriors, the space marines were never intended to be the final product, and would have been eventually pulled from service. They were a test-bed for the Emperor to try out new and exotic genetic therapies, but these advances were ultimately going to be used on such a widespread scale that every human in the Imperium would have some rudiments of the organs and implants that make SM's so awesome.
The Emperor endowed the Space Marines with the ability to live forever, but he did not intend for them to proliferate the galaxy and replace humankind. Just like the Thunder Warriors were designed to last long enough for Him to unite Terra, the SM's were designed to last long enough to start and finish the Great Crusade and ensure peace in the newly cleansed human portion of the galaxy.
The Primarchs are a different story. I suspect, for many reasons, the Emperor wanted beings he could relate to, seeing as mere mortals could not easily make emotional connections with a glorious demigod.
However, Magnus fucked up the Webway project, gave the Emperor a massive migraine, Horus fucked up the Emperor, and all the projects he was running at the time of his internment were iced.
The Emperor was not the only one with this idea of human advancement, though. Look at the projects Fabius Bile was running at the dawn of the great crusade, trying to peel apart the Astartes gene-seed to ferret out portions to improve his warriors. Look at the projects of the many Magos Biologis, their skittari, the Raptors of the Raven Guard, pretty much anything in the Kreig Death Korps.
There would be change. There was change before the Emperor ever decided to reveal his glorious visage, and there has been change over the last ten millenia, no matter how stridently it is denied.
>>47580464
C'mon, we all know they're equally autistic, just differently
>shiggydiggy.jpg
>>47579998
Humanity would almost definitely be worse off. Yes Emps is still running around, but if our standing military is composed of Imperial Guard and nothing else, we're strait fucked. Cause talk all the shit you want, but at the end of the day the Space Marines are the best line of defense against a universe that wants to murder us.
>>47579998
Humanity sells out to either Chaos or Tau, depends which finds each planet in turn first. Way more Xenos running around.
>>47585296
But if the Emperor had been able to complete humanities webway we may have only had imperial guard, but that could potentially be all of imperial guard anywhere they want to be in the galaxy almost immediately.
ALL the guard from a million human worlds!
That is easily 1 trillion guardsmen faster than you can raise a militia!
Ork Waagh? No problem. More guardsmen are there than orks before they make planetfall.
Tyranids are coming to turn Cadia into a lifeless ball of rock. Don't bother the united imperial defense forces have already consumed all of the oxygen themselves with their presence.
Necrons wouldn't even emerge from their tombs, they would see how much life there sensors are detecting, assume they are faulty, and go back to sleep.
I suppose chaos still has a potential to fuck shit up. Not through direct force. It would all be on Alpha Legion
>>47580340
The year 30k was marked as Henry's Heresy in which a prominent guardsmen serving dark ruinous powers rebelled calling our beloved Emperor a false god. He was reduced to a fine mist shortly afterwards.
>>47580399
Your right! Wonderfully forgotten!
>>47585435
Come to think of it, the only reason why we care about the Cadian Gate is because it makes for safe(ish) warp travel in that region. If we had a working system of webway portals, we wouldn't need any of that shit.
>>47585732
I thought it was because everyone found it was funny to fuck with abbadon's shitty laid plans
>>47585435
This is of course, assuming, that the Eldar and Deldar just sit around with their thumbs up their asses while a bunch of mon'keigh prance around through their precious dimensional corridors?
Or is the idea that Emps somehow charms his way into Eldrad's good graces while intimidating Vect enough to keep mum?
>>47585296
The positive side: No chaos space marines. And there are still titans and co.
>>47583175
7th and 8th did that, it wasn't intrinsic to the setting.
>>47579998
No horus heresy I guess, orks would probably have more ground, once necrons start awakening and the nids started to arrive the imperium would lose
>>47587588
>>47587588
On negative note chaos deamons and no grey knights to counter them.
>>47581257
>>47582884And then they fix?it by adding Space Marines.
>>47585435
>Necrons wouldn't even emerge from their tombs, they would see how much life there sensors are detecting, assume they are faulty, and go back to sleep.
Newcrons set their alarm clocks for a specific time rather than relying on the presence of other races, although the latter will still trigger a faster awakening. So even with all the tomb worlds whose wake-up calls were pushed back by glitches (and some were actually brought forward for the same reason), there would still be plenty of Necrons up in time to be washed away by the Pink Tide. Or at least fight with them over who gets to steal webway access now.
>>47580321
kek
>>47579998
Stronger imperial guard.
>>47579998
Well it wouldn't change much.
I mean, there would still be space marines and primarchs right?
>>47591486
Guessin it would look a bit like this.
Solar Auxilla
>>47585499
Without the desire to make primarchs the Emperor wouldn't have stolen power from the four of Chaos.
Emperor is less powerful.
Still Alpha++ levels of powerful but not some sort of walking godthing.
Henry, Dark Apostle, First Prophet and Dragon whose name is Ruination proves himself worthy beyond all others of the trillions of the unhappy masses.
He is risen up.
All that power the Emperor didn't steal is now his.
Now he is the Godthing and he doesn't try to betray his patrons.
Shit gets real.
An avatar of Chaos Undivided, not just a mere prince of deamons. A horror not seen since the rise of man, not even since the days of Be'Lakor's ascension and maybe not even then.
Shit gets ruined.
The Henry Heresy could be epic.
>>47591709
>the Emperor wouldn't have stolen power from the four of Chaos.
Wait, what?
>>47591771
Has this little turd nugget of HH era fluff escaped you?
Emperor visits a planet name Moloch or some such during the onset of the Great Crusade.
Finds a hole in reality to the very Realm of Chaos itself at the bottom of a deep valley in the middle of bumfuckistan nowhere on that backwater planet.
Decides, like the retard that he is, to step through it. Enters a deal with the gods of Chaos. They give him permanent buffs and he spreads the good news of Chaos to every corner of the galaxy.
Emperor gets the power, gets out of the hole, teleports himself back to Old Earth and sets to work on the Priamrch project. Pramarchs are made with portions of his Soul/Warp Presence/God Gift. Then sets about stamping out Chaos.
Understandable annoyed at this betrayal the gods of Chaos scatter his children to the corners of space and arrange matters so that shit gonna get fucked up and all his dreams turn to bitter ash.
Emperor left his old girlfriend guarding the warp hole because no way was he going near it again.
>>47591842
Horus Heresy is the worst thing to happen to 40k canon.
>>47591868
I couldn't agree more.
Perpetuals, Cabal, Euphoric.
Sweet Jesus.
>>47579998
The Mechanicus, without the threat of the superhuman legions, begins a Civil War that ends with Fabricator-General at the head of the Imperium.
>>47592596
>Admech Imperium
Now that is an interesting tho-
>le chaos must be involved
oh wait, it isn't.
>>47579998
It'd be like Star Wars without the Force. It'd be something else entirely.
Probably something like Macharius's crusade, with a heavy Imperial Guard and AdMech focus. Just like Clone Wars had a heavy clone trooper focus and not much Jedis other than the protags.
>>47579998
Significant improvement, to the point of potential mainstream recognition. fa/tg/uys would be seen as cool people to know for trivia and shit.
>>47592648
What if Chaos wasn't involved? Maybe the Mechanicum just wanted more power.
>>47592971
chaos would have to be involved eventually making it terribly dull.
Can't just be normal tek heresies or splinter empires or anything
has to be demons.
>>47592992
You got a problem with Chaos?
>>47579998
Emperor has to unite Terra and conquer Luna without Thunder Warriors. Great Crusade goes at snail pace.
>>47592931
It's hilarious how delusional you faggots are. Space Marines are like 75% or more of GW's entire sales, eclipsing entire other franchises like LotR and WHFB.
You wouldn't become mainstream, you'd become DEAD. The only reason you even know about GW right now is because of space marines. Otherwise you'd have fucked off to a Warmahordes or X-Wing thread.
>>47593072
The bias to it and the "its gonna win you all know it" stuff really killed any fondness towards it as a part of 40k.
I like many things about chaos, Fabius, traitor primarchs, Ahriman, to name a few, but the overbearing feeling it gives off right now.
I just want it turned back a few notches in terms of world ending threat. The setting feels pointless almost because everything will end due to/because of lol chaos.
If I am mistaken please do correct me.
>>47593126
Well, there's nothing TO correct. I feel it's a tad too much as well.
Although I'm willing to accept that Chaos would be a major player in a hypothetical Imperium Mechanicus timeline.
>>47593126
>>47593296
You know, I applaud you for responding with a cool head to my question. I felt it read too much like an accusation.
>>47593296
I am as well, I guess, but reluctantly.
>>47593316
I made a guess and I was lucky. I wasn't sure if it was accusatorial or not, but reasoned it would not hurt to answer clearly either way.
>>47579998
the setting would much worse. Probably more grimdark and more boring.
>>47593126
The sad part is Chaos Always Wins was debatable, until GW killed fantasy and turned conjecture into fact.
>>47595676
Exactly. And with it being pretty much only a matter of time before 40k: End Times, it has (I think) made the setting a lame duck.
Nothing matters because of Chaos Always Wins.
>>47593074
That could actually be a good thing.
Without the overwhelming superiority that the Space Marine Legions brought the Emperor would have been forced to either learn diplomacy, employ someone who can or give up on galactic conquest.
The other small Empires of Man being brought together for deals of mutual protection, trade and access to the navigator houses.
By the time the Horus Heresy isn't happening the Imperium would consist of The Terran Imperium and hundreds of squabbling, bickering and occasionally infighting little empires.
Chaos still exists but is not the main Adversary of the Imperium. They are the omnipresent upsetter constantly gnawing at the roots of the Imperium and every so often launching a crusade.
The main threat is the Orks this time round.
Less Rome in space and more Holy Roman Empire in space.
I had this rough idea about most Space Marines killing each other during the Age of Apostasy, except for the Ultramarines and their successors that seccede. The modern Imperium would have the Daughters of the Emperor filling the Space Marine role and the Frateris Templar and the Skitarii integrated in the Imperial Guard and Navy.
>>47595952
Man think of the intrigue and fun plots allowed by multiple micro Imperiums interacting
And how snobbish anyone from the Terran Imperium would be.
Ciaphas Cain would have had far more fuel to work with.
>>47595975
I like your idea.
>>47595780
Indeed. The *setting* should be filled with despair and pointless banality, not the *players*.
>>47595985
It could be good.
You got the Old Empire that either formed during or before the Age of Strife hanging on, the only rivals to Terra's old money power. Ultramar, Interex, Inwit and maybe a few others.
You got the new lesser empires that have formed under the umbrella of the Imperiums protection believing they are the future.
You got the 'Trader Dynasties being the East India and Hudson Bay Trading Companies and being powers in their own right.
You got the eldar selling their services to any side that won't shoot them and acting like the old Greek oracles dispensing prophesies for a price.
The Terran Imperium is mostly xenophobic as fuck but the further away you get the less of a shit people give to the point where Ultramar is the biggest trading hub on the eastern half of the galaxy and seems to do 80% of it's business with fucked up xenos like the Tau and vassal peoples, the Demiurge, the Church of Dracolith and the Thraxian Trade Elite.
The Emperor is dead this time around. Totally dead.
First Crownless King, Regent of Terra and Steward of the Empty Throne was Pherom Sichar of Hy Brasil. It takes a unanimous vote of High Lords to choose a Regent and only the Regent can appoint High Lords.
