# Story Advancement to 41k



## SoulGazer (Jun 14, 2009)

Assuming GW ever advances the story into the 42nd milleniun, how would you like to see it done? Or do you prefer the story should be perpetually kept in 40k and back story like the HH series is enough?


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## General-jwj (Sep 22, 2011)

In a way they have already moved the story to M42, if the Ciaphas Cain novels are anything to go by. They happen decades after the year 41.000


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## Lubacca (Sep 4, 2011)

I personally think there's so much rich history that could be mined from 40k that advancement would be a detriment. But that's me. 

I mean if you really think about it, if you're going to progress to 41k it better be a major shift. Like the Emperium of man fighting amoungst itself or the Tyranid threat basically just about taking over the entire space sector. It has to be something BIG you know? It can't just be change for the sake of change, but again that's just me


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## cegorach (Nov 29, 2010)

I think we should wait untill at least the seige of terra and all 18 of the known primarchs have been ironed out in the great crusade till we consider advancement. 
But we do have a thousand years of constant combat to fill, so I think we have enough, its just people who want the universe permanantly shaped that want to advance things, but as it is we have balence. Well, balence except where Eldar are concerned. 

But I have come to terms with it being the end of the Eldar.


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## SoulGazer (Jun 14, 2009)

General-jwj said:


> In a way they have already moved the story to M42, if the Ciaphas Cain novels are anything to go by. They happen decades after the year 41.000


Well, that's more like letting us know at least the Imperium is still around at that point. It paves the way for more, I suppose. I just want to know what else is going on around that time with the rest of the galaxy. :wink:


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Would have to be a dramatic shift in some shape or fashion to really emphasise the change otherwise they might as well do it all in the spare space within the 40k time frame.


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

This is the Time of Ending. Anything that comes after is going to be drastically different from how it is now. Such a shift will definitely require some juggling of the army balance (not on the table but in terms of the current fluff stalemate) which will piss some people off. As such I doubt GW will move it forward (why risk alienating some of you consumer base) and with such an expansive and rich history to mine they have no reason to.


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

There's no reason to advance anything, 40K is what it is, it hasn't really changed in the 25 odd years I've been playing (on and off) and I don't really see any point in changing it now.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

I'd say it should be a combination of factors... but I also think there are many more things to be explored before we go past the 11th hour. There are literally ten millennia worth of time to be explored, and a million or more worlds said events could take place on. There's so much lore that can be fleshed out before a leap is taken that is sure to polarize the fan-base.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Problem is it's really hard to slide major events into the current timeline, the only way to do something major is to progress past the current timeline, it really depends on whether you truly want something new and major to happen or continue to just flesh out the current timeline with many minor events.


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## General-jwj (Sep 22, 2011)

Considering it wouldn't take much to irrevocably damage the status quo and send some of the more endangered races in the game into a hopeless downward spiral of complete annihilation ... I don't think GW will do anything drastic anytime soon.

If the Tyranids get an advantage or press the assault, it's over. Same with the Necrons. The Tau and Eldar are small in numbers and influence as it is, so if it really started raining down on them at this point they'd probably be done for.

But the question is, how to advance the story ? The Tyranids get more worlds ? The Necrons get more worlds ? The Orks get more worlds ? The Imperium finds a new kick-ass STC or a Primarch or something ? The Eldar reactivate some millenia-old sorcerous trinket that they had lying about wth devastating consequences ?

I don't know enough about the lore to think of something game-changing that could happen outside of those possibilities ...


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## cegorach (Nov 29, 2010)

We can not under any circumstances let the players decide, there are far too many space wolf and space marine lovers in proportion to the other races to allow for an even transition. 
We cannot allow players to decide because then it would just turn the whole of the 40k universe into a "who has the biggest fan base" competition, and the losers would be made massivly worse off

By losers I do primarily mean the Eldar


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## Black Steel Feathers (Aug 17, 2011)

Maybe the turth about the Lost Primarchs comes out...


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Wahammer 40,000 is a setting, not an advancing story line... Thus it is good as it is...


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

The Imperium has hope in the form of Dormant primarchs and potentially rediscovered STC`s. 

And who knows what failsafes the guardians of the Black Library may instigate should they become desperate enough? 

Assuming the plot ever progresses, their are plenty of potential rabbits to pull out of proverbial hats so plot advancement while keeping balance wouldn`t be a problem. However, given the paperwork and rewriting of sourcebooks needed I don`t really see it happening.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

Doelago said:


> Wahammer 40,000 is a setting, not an advancing story line... Thus it is good as it is...


I agree, but GW seem to be advancing it anyway, if only in miniscule ways. Little tidbits like the Golden Toilet starting to act up and the Astronomican apparently not as bright as it was would make it appear that there are dark times ahead for humanity. If they're only going to move it along in tiny increments like this with every new edition, then it'll be 25 or 30 years before we see any significant developments.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Words_of_Truth said:


> Problem is it's really hard to slide major events into the current timeline, the only way to do something major is to progress past the current timeline, it really depends on whether you truly want something new and major to happen or continue to just flesh out the current timeline with many minor events.


I'd argue the term "minor". Some of Abaddon's Black Crusades have been "minor". I think between the Sabbat Worlds Crusades and the various campaigns Forge World has put out for their "Imperial Armour" series, it's been shown that there are a lot of interesting concepts yet to be explored.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

By minor I meant nothing on the scale of affecting all the races in the universe.


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

Words_of_Truth said:


> By minor I meant nothing on the scale of affecting all the races in the universe.


Which is for the best. Anything that messes with the overall status of a race is a *bad* idea. People will get pissed, GW will loose customers and it will become an even more Marine-centric universe. You can have lots of fun messing around without permenantly altering the status quo of races.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Well they are already leaning towards other races, what with the most recent rulebook pretty much stating the Emperor is going to die soon and the rest of the Imperium is falling into ruin.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Words_of_Truth said:


> By minor I meant nothing on the scale of affecting all the races in the universe.


I understood that. 

But again, I would point out that "minor" can still be very exciting... doubly so when "major" would inevitably involve something polarizing for the fan base. As fresh as it would be for the setting, I would not want to see it advanced if it meant, e.g., that the Eldar were finally annihilated or that the Necron threat was abated for another ten millennia (or something).



> Well they are already leaning towards other races, what with the most recent rulebook pretty much stating the Emperor is going to die soon and the rest of the Imperium is falling into ruin.


I'm not sure I understand you here.

What is "soon"? The Tech Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus discovered failures in the mechanisms of the Golden Throne that are far beyond their ability to repair. No timeline is given, though. The Throne has lasted for ten thousand years. This might not even be an issue until Warhammer 42K, for instance.

Also, I'm not sure how this involves "leaning toward other races". I'm pretty sure that, no matter what change or advancement to the setting that comes in the future (if any), it won't involve the Imperium and/or the Adeptus Astartes losing out (in terms of coverage, products, fluff, etc.) to other races.

Cheers,
P.


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Well it's leaning towards the other races in the fact the guiding light is getting weaker, the golden throne is failing and the other races are running amok all across the Imperium.


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

While that is true it's also to be expected. After all the Imperium is already the primary ruling body, it had its chance to wipe everybody else out and failed. Having the Imperium improve it's standing isn't really progressing the plot so much as eliminating some of the smaller races (much to the rage of Eldar/Tau fanboys everywhere).

Regardless we can all rest assured that *nothing* will threaten the existance of the Astartes.


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## SoulGazer (Jun 14, 2009)

I wouldn't mind every race getting a "returning Primarch" of some kind. The story could advance and each race would have a reason that they survived the re-shuffling of galactic power. I don't want things to get unbalanced or lose races, I just want a reason for more more continuity. Of course, Primarch models would probably sell pretty well, so I'm not opposed to that, either. :wink:


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

They shouldn't of killed off Eldrad for the Eldar, once they did that then every sodding codex had a craftworld getting owned randomly.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Doelago said:


> Wahammer 40,000 is a setting, not an advancing story line... Thus it is good as it is...


:goodpost:

The whole point is that *YOU* the player advances the story with the actions of your army with your club with your friends on your terms, GW help with that by adding new models and codexs to keep things fresh, but ultimately its your game and you can do with it what you like, you dont need to be spoon fed anything from GW HQ,Its up to you what part of the time line your on or if you want to follow the fluff as its set out or if you want to be in a different time stream altogether. 

Anyway GW will never progress the "setting" fluff and battles and campaigns will happen but in the end it will always be nearly the year 40000 give or take, the imperium of man will always be in decline, the eldar will be dying out,the Orks will be everywhere but never organised enough,Nids will eat everything but get stopped by an impossible alliance,chaos will do chaosy things,but apart from the possibility of a new race at some point the story will stay the same as it has for 25 years,because for every successive generation that joins the hobby the story is current and new


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Phoebus said:


> What is "soon"? The Tech Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus discovered failures in the mechanisms of the Golden Throne that are far beyond their ability to repair. No timeline is given, though. The Throne has lasted for ten thousand years. This might not even be an issue until Warhammer 42K, for instance.


You would think the Eldar would help. Despite being enemies, I am sure they are aware of the Emperor's efforts of keeping a lot of daemons away from the material realm.


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## General-jwj (Sep 22, 2011)

Malus Darkblade said:


> You would think the Eldar would help. Despite being enemies, I am sure they are aware of the Emperor's efforts of keeping a lot of daemons away from the material realm.


I'm probably ignorant and I don't know much about the thing in question but what would the Eldar know of the Throne ? Sure its probably ripped off of their stuff since "webway gate something something" but it's the most advanced piece of functioning technology in the Imperium as far as I know and it took the Emperor all of his concentration and knowledge to build it. Not to mention it's human tech built by humans to be used by humans.
How come they'd be able to do anything useful to it ?


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

General-jwj said:


> How come they'd be able to do anything useful to it ?


because they are Eldar and they are better than you


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## Agarwaen (Oct 8, 2011)

I think that before they worry about 41k, they should finish off the Horus Heresy, and fill in the gaps between then to now.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

I would personally like to see some sort of advancement, but then all i care about is the fluff and of course advancing the plot in any significant way would no doubt require alot of changes on the table aswell, but obviously you can't change all the armies in one go, so its difficult to impliment. But sure, i would definely love to see some advancement, its half the reason i love LordLucans 50/60k fanfic series.

The background can still be easily fleshed out at the same time aswell, Star Wars has done it just find, as has WoW.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

I used to be for advancement but then I realized there is possibly an infinite number of things they can do with the 40k timeline.

Introducing a new xenos threat like the Slaughth for example or shedding some light on the halo/ghoul stars would be something fresh I think.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

I am not sure about advancement but I am always going to advocate the revival of world wide campaigns with results that stem from it.

Maybe not as large as the 13th black crusade was but definitely bigger than Medusa 5.

These sort of campaigns can fill in the gaps between the heresy years and the current timeline.


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## Big Mek LugNutz (Jul 10, 2011)

I really want some elements of the plot wrapped up, like the discovery of the long lost Primarchs (especially Leman Russ. I want him to beat the crap out of that red Thousand Sons bloke.) Or the "could be" return of El Jackson fella from the Dark Angles as well as the hunts for the Unforgiven. Or the recovery of Jaghtai Khan, from the Dark Eldar Webway...

And what about the Emperor, will they scower the filing cabinets for the "ancient knowledge" needed to fix the Golden Thrown, or attempt to build a new one?

Theres so much stuff to wrap up! and I wish GW would continue these stories, instead of making up new ones every codex! I really think they should start something like a Hammer Wiki, or Lexacanum that updates all the time so we can all know What Happens Next!

-LugNutz


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

Big Mek LugNutz said:


> I really want some elements of the plot wrapped up, like the discovery of the long lost Primarchs (especially Leman Russ. I want him to beat the crap out of that red Thousand Sons bloke.) Or the "could be" return of El Jackson fella from the Dark Angles as well as the hunts for the Unforgiven. Or the recovery of Jaghtai Khan, from the Dark Eldar Webway...
> 
> And what about the Emperor, will they scower the filing cabinets for the "ancient knowledge" needed to fix the Golden Thrown, or attempt to build a new one?
> 
> ...


Because of this 



bitsandkits said:


> The whole point is that *YOU* the player advances the story with the actions of your army with your club with your friends on your terms, GW help with that by adding new models and codexs to keep things fresh, but ultimately its your game and you can do with it what you like, you dont need to be spoon fed anything from GW HQ,Its up to you what part of the time line your on or if you want to follow the fluff as its set out or if you want to be in a different time stream altogether.
> 
> Anyway GW will never progress the "setting" fluff and battles and campaigns will happen but in the end it will always be nearly the year 40000 give or take, the imperium of man will always be in decline, the eldar will be dying out,the Orks will be everywhere but never organised enough,Nids will eat everything but get stopped by an impossible alliance,chaos will do chaosy things,but apart from the possibility of a new race at some point the story will stay the same as it has for 25 years,because for every successive generation that joins the hobby the story is current and new


And this



Doelago said:


> Wahammer 40,000 is a setting, not an advancing story line... Thus it is good as it is...



If you really want the story to advance then I'm sorry but you're playing the wrong game.


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## Lubacca (Sep 4, 2011)

If you are a child of anything but the 2000s you will remember the 'Build your own adventure' books. 

40k is like that, but with figures. 

The End.


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