The Imperium - Dying out or going strong?

[Etra]

Etra, your theory on Chaos supposes that there a finite number of CSM; that they consist of only those that 'fell' during the Heresy. This is not true. The fluff mentions SM 'turning' to the Ruinous Powers; sometimes only individuals, sometimes whole squads. In the case of the Astral Claws, an entire (oversize) chapter. In a universe where no-one really knows how many SM chapters there are or have been, no-one knows how many of them have 'fallen', either. You also assume that CSM have no way of recruiting. This may well be an erroneous assumption. The fluff mentions Red Corsairs recruiting and you don't know what happens to the geneseed of fallen CSM. What happens in the Eye of Terror, stays in the Eye of Terror, so to speak.

This is the only one of your points I want to comment on.

No doubt - Chaos has within it Space Marines beyond the original traitor Legions. I have in my hand the current edition codex for CSM, and I am reading examples of this as I type this post.

At the same time, I can't help but also read about characters such as Kharn the Betrayer, who in an adjacent article is depicted as a blood-crazy warrior who kills five of his "Brother-Slaughterer's" because - one corpse in the name of Khorne is as good as any other. There are tons of examples making the explicit point that while Chaos is still deadly, they are far from what they once were.

• Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters, led his Legion of 50,000 Space Marines in a rampage lasting two hundred years across 70 sectors in an event called the Dominion of Fire. This was in M38 - Angron had far more than 50,000 Space Marines before throwing in with Horus. And Angron did not finish the Dominion of Fire with 50,000 Space Marines - no doubt he took casualties.
• And keeping with Kharn and the World Eaters is the event at Skalathrax, where indecision amongst the World Eaters while fighting a campaign of genocide against the Emperor's Children fragmented the Legion forever - since Skalathrax, there has been no World Eaters Legion - just the Khorne Berserker. Their numbers are only diminishing. With a breakdown in organization, more things are going to slip through the cracks - this means gene-seeds are forgotten and left on the battlefield.
• The Thousand Sons started weak and only got weaker. True, Magnus was the first Primarch and was with the Emperor since Terra, but mutation among his Legion led to it's near destruction even during the Grand Crusade. And then the Space Wolves wiped out their homeworld of Prospero and many Thousand Suns in the process. And then, after the fall to Chaos, again mutation among the Legion's psykers thinned their ranks until finally Ahriman came up with a solution - but this left the vast majority of surviving Thousand Suns as mere shells - their bodies are destroyed, only their armor remains. This means there is no gene-seed to salvage. By the time Ahriman enacted his final solution, the lore doesn't support Thousand Suns having more than maybe 5,000 members, maximum. And this was back in M31, and we can assume they've taken casualties in the ensuing 10,000 years.
• The Emperor's Children and Night Lords are barely worth talking about in terms of sustaining the Chaos war-machine - they never had the numbers to be anything more than additions to a larger force. The Emperor's Children were born with a defect that dwindled their numbers to sub-Legion size, forcing them to accompany Horus's Luna Wolves in the early days of the Grand Crusade - and after losing themselves to Slaanesh, it's only been downhill. The Night Lords similarly lost their **** after Conrad was assassinated, pulling a World Eater and fragmenting into warbands and mercenaries. More disorganization, more dysfunction, more cracks.
• Mortarion doomed his Death Guard with service to Nurgle. The Destroyer Plague is as likely to kill a Space Marine as it is to create a new Plague Marine - hardly an efficient means of recruitment. The lore says Typhus and Mortarion had a falling out and split - more likely Mortarion sent Typhus away to keep the Destroyer Plague from completely tearing the heart out of his Legion. It says right here that Typhus was the only survivor of his ship that had been infected with the plague - what happened to everyone else? Obliteration, that's what.
• When you read about Huron Blackheart, it's in the context that he's completed another daring raid and his army of followers has grown. What the lore doesn't hide, but still fails to emphasize is that he isn't recruiting patriotic Imperials - rather he's picking up stray Chaos warbands. This is kind of cheating - because Chaos isn't growing, it's just falling into line behind a leader so it may be counted. Yea, Space Marines are betraying the Emperor in ones and twos, but that's hardly a flood, more like a trickle, and not enough to stop a string of bad luck from tearing Blackheart's 'empire' in half.
• Lastly, I want to talk about Abaddon. You don't get his full picture until you've read about everyone else - he is only as strong because he has recruited everyone else. The Khorne Surgeons needed to make more Berserkers? Abaddon hired them. The Thousand Sun sorcerers? Abaddon bought them. The Night Lord Raptors? Abaddon. Abaddon did not go on a massive PR campaign to recruit from Imperium forge-worlds, swaying loyal Space Marines to his cause. Rather, Abaddon went to the bar every CSM was hanging out at and bought them with gold. Think less 'Alexander the Great of Macedon', and more 'Captain Jack Sparrow in Tortuga.'

Chaos is not growing. Chaos has never been growing. After Horus was defeated, loyalist Space Marines undertook "The Scouring" in which... I'll quote it in it's entirety:

City-by-city, world-by-world, the forces of the Emperor reclaimed the galaxy once again from the armies of darkness. The Space Marines loyal to the Emperor fought and fought and eventually hounded the Traitors into the 'Eye of Terror' - that strange area of space where warpspace and realspace are bound together. This bizarre region became the prison of the traitors - and their greatest stronghold. Guardian fleets patrolled its borders and nearby planets became garrison worlds ever ready to combat raiding forces from the 'Eye'.

Within the giant warpstorm, the traitor Primarchs and their Legions found sancutary amongst the nightmare demon worlds. They warred amongst themselves for dominance and territory, while factions split from the Legions to found other warbands and armies. Thus started the struggle that has lasted for ten thousand years and even now besets the Imperium.

The Imperium kicked Chaos's butt, corralling them in the Eye, and forces them to go up against crack troops if ever they want to take a peek.

No, Chaos is not growing. What happens in the Eye does indeed stay in the Eye - the problem is not much entered the Eye to begin with, and they've only been tearing each other down since they arrived.

This thread is about whether the Imperium is shrinking or growing. If the Imperium is shrinking, I hope I've made the case that it isn't Chaos that's causing it. They have their own problems to deal with first.

[Hive Mind]

Your post is riddled with assumptions, guesswork and flawed logic presented as fact, most notably the assumption that geneseed is a finite resource, that a new CSM can only be 'made' from the recovered geneseed of a dead CSM. This isn't true for SM, why should it be true for CSM?

Chaos also isn't just CSM. CSM are not the greatest threat to the Imperium from Chaos, cults and heretics are.

While the Imperium may call him the God-Emperor there is no escaping the fact that he is not and never was a god or that humanity's greatest hero has sat, immobile and rotting, since the Heresy. The Chaos gods on the other hand, actually are gods.

[Etra]

You're totally right that I'm using flawed logic, guesswork, and assumptions. Because Games Workshop has given to us an incomplete puzzle. It is incumbent upon us to use intuition, informed speculation, and reasoning to infer on knowledge that we don't have. For example, we don't know how many Space Marines there are in the Ultramarines, the most publicized Chapter. After the Tyranid invasion of their sector of space, you'd think the Chapter would be hollowed out, crippled. The Hive Fleet would have consumed the bodies of the fallen - meaning all those dead SM's are lost forever.

You're criticizing me for making rational leaps, but given the circumstances that Games Workshop plays with their cards very close to their chest, involving even basic details, am I really such a criminal? What else could I do - except interpret intentionally hazy language as best I can.

Yes, gene-seed is a finite resource. Where has it ever been written that brand new gene-seed is being created? Who's creating it? Why don't they assembly-line that goo and manufacture ten million more Space Marines?

Because they can't. Because that technology was lost, probably during the Siege of Terra. Horus probably bombed the Emperor's labs under the Himalayas. I don't know - the lore doesn't say what happened to the facilities that created the Primarchs - why couldn't the Mechanicum create more Primarchs? We don't know.

We don't know because the lore is full of holes. Fanfiction might provide a solution, but neither of us want to go there.

Writers make conspicuous mention that Apothecaries recover the gene-seed of their fallen brethren because once it's all gone, there won't be any more Space Marines. There are only two ways Chaos can replace their casualties: make new SM's out of recovered gene-seed, or Renegades. And every time Chaos loses a battle, they get smaller in the aggregate. And Chaos probably had already shrunk to half their size by the time the Scouring ended. And once inside the Eye, they only tore themselves down smaller.

Edit *** *** *** *** *** ***

I want to elaborate more on my reservations on the Mechanicum, basically that they're terrible at their jobs.

• We read that many new Space Marines must wear the armor of their gene-seed donor because new Power Armor cannot be made, the technology was lost.
• The same is in effect for weapons too; I think I read somewhere that the technology behind Plasma Guns was lost and no new Plasma Guns could be made - what they have is all that's left.
• The technology behind Dreadnought and Terminator Armor was definitely lost - all we read about are ancient ghosts haunting these war-machines. What's the age of the youngest Dreadnought pilot - 700 years? In Dawn of War 2, a character is interned into a Dreadnought - I'm curious what happened to it's previous occupant.
• When was the last time a new Titan was christened? You know - smash a champagne bottle against the hull in celebration that we've built a new one.

My point is, the Imperium is definitely showing it's age. But Chaos, being a dark shadow of the Imperium, will have it even worse off, given that they're dependent on the Imperium for manpower and weapons. If the Mechanicum can't figure out how to make new Space Marines, or new suits of Power Armor, or new Bolters, or new Land Raiders, or new Dreadnoughts, or new anything, then what're the odds going to be that Chaos will have new stuff?

And don't even bring up Chaos being real gods - that's trivia at this point. Because if they had the power to end it, they'd have done it already. Instead, they have Abaddon making them look like jackasses.

[St. Murphy]

I have to think with the necron doom and a revamped chaos codex on the horizon that things are going to get worse for the imperium in 6th edition. But I love the little bits of messiah fluff that creeps in there with the primarchs. Alluding to Robute Guilliman slowly regenerating in his stasis field. Salamanders questing for Vulcan's artifacts and whereabouts. A "reincarnation" of Sanguinious. A primarch held by the 'crons. I'd love to see the darkness within inches of taking humanity only to have the emporer's sons rise in humanity's hour of need. Perhaps the emporer's light finally fails, but a new star illuminates the dark.

[St. Murphy]

I'm pretty certain in Graham McNeil's novels about the Iron Warriors it was stated that there were two locations that the mechanicum still produced gene seed, one of them is captured by the the iron warriors in Storm of Iron. So that means that, while limited, gene seed is still produced and that at least one chaos legion got a boost.

[JBRocky]

Yes I belive the Imperium is retreating but isn't how alot of the factions are? I know some are expanding like ORcs and Tau but others like the Eldar talk how they are a dying race.

[tdogp]

That depends on the edition. I think third ed had much more despair in it than 5th does. 3rd=C'tan (or evil of your choice) will kill man. 5th= Necrons team up with man because they are just so cool

[Grenadier]

The Imperium has highs and lows. But despite all the xenos preying upon it the Imperium is its own worst enemy. Annihilating entire populations and casting billions of lives into wars which often achieve very little.

But if we boil it down to its bare essence we'll dispense with "The Imperium" and instead we'll stick to humanity. Millions of colonized worlds are out there. And of course many more which have not been "re-discovered." The Imperium really doesn't know how big it really is. They have no clue as to how many citizens there are and how many worlds they control. They lose some worlds here. Gain some more there. There could even be Imperial worlds so far flung they've never experienced any warfare from an external threat.

But going back to humanity I think its safe to say humans will always populate the 40k universe. They may some day lose the government known as The Imperium. But they'll always be there. In particular those who have allied with the Tau may well survive when the Imperium vanishes.

But then again there's still ongoing conquest and reclamation of worlds. The Black Templars, for example, have been pushing the boundaries of the Imperium further and further for 10,000 years. They are the largest of the Chapters, probably the size of 3 or 4 chapters. They probably account for more worlds being claimed for the Emperor than any other chapter. And many of their crusades are so far apart they pretty much operate independently.

And then there are the exploration fleets, other chapters, and more. Humanity will always "grow" in the 40k universe even if the Imperium itself ceases to exist as a government.

[Sindamar]

In my opinion, the Imperium may fall, but if it does, I doubt it'll be down to Chaos. It seems fairly clear that the Chaos Gods engineered the Heresy to get to the current state of affairs. Ten thousand years of pain, misery, and bloodshed being what sustains them, rather than a quick feast followed by famine. Look at the second Heresy book and Horus's vision of the future. Seeing the results of his actions leads to him taking the actions that lead to that result. And then theres the Emperor. He's not a God, just an incredibly powerful psyker strapped into a throne that keeps him alive. But as the warp contains the essence of living beings "souls" consider this, how many loyal God-Emperor worshippers have died over 10,000 years? As they tend to coalesce in the warp, the likelyhood is that they would do so around the Astronomicon & the Emperor... So what would happen if he did die? He might not be a God now, but at the moment he passed over into the warp I wouldn't want to be one of the Chaos Gods...
The Tyranids may eat humanity. The Necrons may destroy them. The Orks may unite and slaughter them. But Chaos probably won't, because its not in the Chaos God's best interests...
Afterall, who lowered Horus's shields on the brink of victory?

[daKrovar]

I would agree with Grenadier's overall assesment, the Imperium is so large that I doubt if even the High Lords themselves really know how many worlds make up the Imperium. With the total control that only a dictatorship can hold over a body of worlds, I don't think the Imperium is shrinking. With the resources that can be thrown into any conflict the only thing that concerns me is the whole world war one mentality that has seized so many within the various arms of Imperial military. But with the fluff as it is written, anyone trying to change this viewpoint is only likely to gain the attention of the Inquistion.