Which faction is the greatess threat to the Imperium ?

[TSINI]

none of the above

its obviously the MOLE PEOPLE!

[gwensdad]

I'd almost like to change my answer to "The greatest threat to The Imperium is...The Imperium itself"

[Mike X]

I must say Chaos, since it not only split the Imperium in two, but also indirectly caused the deaths or disappearances of every loyalist primarch. Plus, it's a threat from within and without.

[Inquisitor Soren]

I agree here, but the fact is it seems extremely unlikely they will ever unite. I remember reading a post one time stating that the Orks were like the Milky Ways immune system. Their job is to get rid of any big threat to the existence of life in the galaxy, and to prevent any factions from being too strong. Although the Imperium is plently strong, they have been fighting Orks for millennia and they cant wipe them out. In fact, even in battles Orks lose, they will still linger on the planet for years due to their spore reproduction mechanism. So Orks provide a constant threat, but not a overwhelming threat to the Imperium.

True but stranger things have happened in the 40k 'verse, also Wazdaka has 'seen' the webway in his dreams, and where humans fail, orks generally succeed for the simple fact they are orks and if you throw enough orks at any problem it will fix it...probably...if the orks gained the webway they would be the greatest threat to anyone, suddenly the entire race can, in theory, pick up and brick any planet with a webway gate, and has a massive strike capability with the ship sized gates, can you imagine an entire ork army popping outta the webway and saying 'hello', it would be a speed freaks dream, and all orks follow the biggest toughest ork around, and the one who leads them to the most battles.

In a way you could view the orks as an immune system for the galaxy and if the Imperium ever fell I'd toss my hat into the ring with the orks, nothing like hiding behind a thick green wall of muscle, eh?

Now the 'nids are scary little critters though, there is a law in nature, sort of at least, a being which cannot support itself in its normal environment in a self-sustainable way without destroying the balance, or creating a new one at the very least, is not in its natural environment, which means the 'nids were probably, no more than likely, created by an outside force as a biological weapon, I personally like the idea of a crazed old one escaping the galaxy and being the hive-mind, and that happens to be the one I subscribe to.

The 'crons are only a real threat if we assume every 'cron is working for the C'tan, which honestly doesn't feel right to me, so if we assume they fight amongst themselves and are very vulnerable to the warp, they will destroy each other at least in part, hopefully, heck I'd say just flood the tomb worlds with a daemonic legion and let them have at it, sounds like a decent solution from my stand point, or just blow the world up, God knows kryptman has blown up enough worlds that no one will probably notice one or two more. (Even if there are thousands of tomb worlds.) I wonder if 'crons are EMP shielded...

If I had to pick one that would scare me if they were real it would still be the 'nids hands down, orks can be bartered with if your smart/tough enough and 'crons, well you've still got time to stop the 'crons plus they have a fairly easily exploited weakness, the warp.

(Yup, I'm a radical Inquisitor, my IG followers regularly are chased by 'crons, 'nids, and raven guard for their radical beliefs. We must know to much...)

[Prometheus]

Although many of the factions have a strong claim to being the biggest threat the Tyranids win in the end. I mean think about it the Eldar could co-exist, Dark Eldar would keep the Imperium around as slaves, Orks just wanna fight, Chaos needs souls, Tau would incorporate the humans into thier empire, the Necrons want to harvest souls for the C'Tan, whereas the Tyranids want to eat everything. If the Tyranids had it thier way thier would be no life in the galaxy at all. Thats no humans, no space marines, no plants, no bugs nothing at all now thats a threat for ya.

[Emperorsmercy]

I think Necrons are the greatest thyreat, and I* love watching Necrons adn Tyranids on the tabletop, and I personally think it's gonna end up with Necrons and Tyranids fighting constantly, the Necrons focusing on them while the others, most notably the Orks, come up and bash the winner.

[Drew da Destroya]

From a Socialogical point of view, the Tau are a pretty big threat, as they can show the general citizenry of the Imperium that there is a better way than the day-to-day feudalism and slavery that currently exists. If the Greater Good were to catch on and spread across the Hive Worlds of the Imperium, it would be massively destabilizing.

From a Theological point of view, Chaos is the winner. Chaos shows that real gods do exist, and they're more than capable of destroying your life on a whim. Furthermore, they show that not even the greatest, most powerful heroes of mankind are capable of stopping, or even resisting, Chaos. When faced with the fact that your own god is just a dead guy, sitting in a chair, powering a lighthouse, it's easy to have a crisis of faith. Also, it's easy to see why Inquistors destroy entire planetary populations at the slightest hint of a Chaos infection.

of course, these two threats are nothing compared to the physical threat of the Bugs and Bots. Either the Bugs are going to eat everyone and leave the galaxy (leaving millions of angry Necron shaking their collective fists in rage at the tail end of the Hive Fleet), or the Necron are going to seal off the Warp (which would wreck the Tyranid) and kill everyone before going back to sleep and waiting for life to evolve again.

[Sitnam]

True but stranger things have happened in the 40k 'verse, also Wazdaka has 'seen' the webway in his dreams, and where humans fail, orks generally succeed for the simple fact they are orks and if you throw enough orks at any problem it will fix it...probably...if the orks gained the webway they would be the greatest threat to anyone, suddenly the entire race can, in theory, pick up and brick any planet with a webway gate, and has a massive strike capability with the ship sized gates, can you imagine an entire ork army popping outta the webway and saying 'hello', it would be a speed freaks dream, and all orks follow the biggest toughest ork around, and the one who leads them to the most battles.

In a way you could view the orks as an immune system for the galaxy and if the Imperium ever fell I'd toss my hat into the ring with the orks, nothing like hiding behind a thick green wall of muscle, eh?

That is true. The Orks have some of the best potential, as you state, to take the Milky Way. I honestly believe the Necrons (not all of whom serve the same C'tan), and the Tyranids would be nowhere as threatening then if Warbosses like Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka became more common. The Imperial Guardhad 120 regiments of Armageddon Ash Waste Militia alone, not counting the other regiments. More then a dozen SM chapters sent elements to fight in the war. Sisters of Battle, Skitarii, even Arbites were all deployed to stop Thraka. Yet he was still able to make the world a stalemate battle, and the Imperium is using a great deal of resources to deal with one Waaagh! on one planet. Imagine several independent warbosses across the Milky Way galaxy launching simultaneous Armageddon-style Waaaghs!, unbenowest to each other. If one planet was alot, imagine the damage several Waaaghs! the size of Thraka's can do.

But the problem still remains: Orks just aren't united. While they can severely wound the Imperium, I think it'll take a warboss surpassing even Thraka's ability to even get close to taking Terra itself.

I personally like the idea of a crazed old one escaping the galaxy and being the hive-mind, and that happens to be the one I subscribe to.

The Old Ones did supposedly make the Orks and Eldar to serve their purposes against the Necrons. I would say Old One = Hive Mind is very probable.

[Inquisitor Soren]

Well in all honesty you don't need to 'throat' Terra to kill the Imperium (And Terra), I don't even think the 'nids would bother with that, the gain for lose ratio would probably be to high. All one needs to do is control/destroy the Agri-worlds, an army marches on its stomach after all, and all the lasrounds in the universe won't feed you...well not unless your a cannibal when the food runs out...and in the end the Imperium would stave to death. A really grim future if you ask me, would be the 'nids consuming enough agri-worlds that the Imperium is forced to shrink on itself drastically, and do to this they are weakened even further. While orks may pollute a planet with spores, the nids simply leave barren blasted marbles in the deep of space, leaving trillions to die of starvation, crushing morale, and limiting operations, and sounding the death kneel of the human race, at this point the Tau and Eldar, assuming they survive, would be able to fill the power vaccum as would Chaos, Chaos probably doing it quicker than any other group, with their relams undoubtedly flooded with desperate new followers. The C'tan would suddenly be starving as well, the sudden decrease in population and being faced with a single unified foe would be a true blow for them, the 'nids would suddenly be fighting to preserve biomass as the C'tan attack in desperation as to not starve to death, or they would just turn to stars a practice they say they don't like 'cause it doesn't taste good...lol

If the orks still continue to survive during this it would probably be truly interesting for them, probably with orks growing to massive sizes to confront their new threats, developing new 'grubbins' in classic orky fashion.

Dang now I have to make a nid theory of where they came from thread...

[RocketRollRebel]

Tyranids for sure. They are a fairly new race to the imperium who seems to be extremely efficient in taking out whole systems. They have a nice combination of subtle subversion (genestealer cults) and overwhelming brute force. Also it seems that every time the imperium manages to stop a hive fleet it comes at a ridiculously high cost which weakens them to other enemies.