# Who is the biggest threat to the imperium?



## cccp

my vote goes to necrons.

any other opinons?


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## Anphicar

Tyranids(short term)

Tau (long term)


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## hephesto

Tough choice, there's so many dangers out there

- Necrons, they have the resources, will and patience to see it through to the proverbial end.

- Orks, if someone like Ghazghkul would unite enough Orks the galaxy would be in one serious problem. Orks outnumber nearly everything.

- Tyranids, each new wave is bigger, nastier, tougher and smarter than the last one. Noone knows where did exactly come from or how many there are, so they could potentially be the biggest threat.

- Chaos, can't be destroyed as long a psychicly sensitive creature walk around. So it could potentially outlive any other threat, save perhaps the necrons. And then there are the untold legions of daemonic entities, traitors, mutants and heretics whom are not bound by race.

So Chaos and Nids as most direct, Necrons on long term and Orks for their sheer potential for galactic destruction.


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## Cadian81st

Tau, because they evolve freakishly fast. Much like real life humans. I mean, 500 years to go from halberds and horsey men to atomic bombs and laser-guided missiles? 1,000 years ago it was all "arrgh! I'm a viking!" and Norman the Conqueror for christ's sake! Heck, even the new, inventive ways of killing each other in this century! Chemical warfare was practially invented, refined to an art form, and then banned outright. (unless you count rotting animals being thrown over castle walls NBC warfare) Cartridge weapons became mainstream, tanks were introduced, we learned to _fly_ and almost immediately adapted that for war. Rapid fire weapons, body armor, spy satellites that can read license plates, even the art of camoflauge, were all devoloped or made practical in the space of 100 years.

When you consider the tau only need 7,000 years to go from blackpowder and castles (basically middle age tech) to being the second most advanced race in the galaxy, second only to the eldar, that's a hell of a tech leap. And seeing as how it took the imperium 10,000 years to go through three marks of SM battle armor, 32,000 years from today to phase out the _assault rifle_, and they're still arming their basic troops with solid slug weapons and flak armor. (Autocannons, battlecannons, IG flak armor) Plus, they show a relatively primative understanding of technology anyway. They worship computers as "machine spirts" and require guardsmen to pray before battle that their rifles won't jam.


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## hephesto

True, but the Tau are very small in numbers. If they Imperium would ever launch an all out attack (give or take 200 years due to administratum problems) they would be crushed. It says somewhere in the fluff/codex that they only have several tens of thousands of soldiers. An Imperial Guard regiment can easily have more, as long as the Imperium has bigger problems on their hands they should do fine. Especially if they'd finally manage to get warp travel to work, perhaps and allaince wth the X'tol...or whatever those spiderlike aliens are called :wink:


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## Jacobite

I'm with cccp_one - got to be Necrons.

Tau, Eldar and Dark Eldar an't got the man power and as a added bonus Tau have no warp travel.

Orks will never stop fighting each other ever. Thats about as possible as the CSM being allowed to rejoin the Imperium.

Chaos and Tyranids are probably equal in second place - each have there own ups and downs: Chaos rely on human prey and Tyranids need to come from another Galaxy.

Necrons are all over the place, they want to kill everybody and are able to repair themselves. Whats not to be scared of?


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## Pyromanic Tendencies

I'd say Tyranids. They don't lose any biomass as long as they take the planet, each fleet is bigger than the last, and I'm a 'Nid player. The Necrons have the slight drawback that all thier respective C'tan want to kill each other, but that aside I'd say they're second. And Chaos third.


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## Cadian81st

hephesto said:


> True, but the Tau are very small in numbers. If they Imperium would ever launch an all out attack (give or take 200 years due to administratum problems) they would be crushed. It says somewhere in the fluff/codex that they only have several tens of thousands of soldiers. An Imperial Guard regiment can easily have more, as long as the Imperium has bigger problems on their hands they should do fine. Especially if they'd finally manage to get warp travel to work, perhaps and allaince wth the X'tol...or whatever those spiderlike aliens are called :wink:


True, but that works to their advantage. The imperium will ignore them because any one of their basic regiments can wipe them out, and concentrate on bigger threats to their current reign, like chaos and nids. By the time they get around to stamping on the tau (cause they're bored or something) the tau will have surpassed eldar in terms of tech and beat the shit out of the imperium. Plus, in the tau dex, they have a blurb of an eldar ambassador returning to his craftworld and saying that they should look after the tau "because he feels a certain kinship towards them". So I'm willing to bet that if there was ever a fully blown Tau/Imperium war, the Eldar would fight on the Tau side. Plus, Kroot, Vespid, and all of the gue'vesa the tau have, who would be invaluable as spies and saboutours. Even with SM on the imperial side, that's five separate factions fighting the Imperium at once. Nasty.


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## Pyromanic Tendencies

The Tau do beat Imperial science in some respects, but Mankind is waaaaaaay more advanced in others. The Tau don't have anything on Humanity in the arts of Inter-Stellar communication, Teleportation, Warp Travel, basic understanding of the nature of Chaos, Power Armour, Titans, Various Psy-Nullifying technologies, Augmentation, Life-Prolonging drugs (it mentioned in Codex: Tau that 40 stantard is old for a Tau. Some humans are over 1000) et cetera.

In stort, The Tau have some better stuff, but the Imperium has lots of bzarrely advanced crap even it doesn't understand (Though the Imperium doesn't under stand that much about Science, to be honest.)


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## Cadian81st

true, true. but at least the tau _understand_ their tech. all the imperial techpriests can do is copy and rebuild archaic tech designs from millenia gone by. The tau are constantly innovating and developing, whereas the imperium seems to be actively resisting any technological advancement.


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## Sei 'fir

hephesto
- Orks, if someone like Ghazghkul would unite enough Orks the galaxy would be in one serious problem. Orks outnumber nearly everything.

yeah defo and with the whole spore thing and the whole we all have psycic powers (that aren't linked to the warp) if only we knew how to use them jeese


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## Pyromanic Tendencies

Cadian81st said:


> true, true. but at least the tau _understand_ their tech. all the imperial techpriests can do is copy and rebuild archaic tech designs from millenia gone by. The tau are constantly innovating and developing, whereas the imperium seems to be actively resisting any technological advancement.


Yeah, good point. Though the whole you-can't-invent-that-it's-heresy attitude of the Adeptus Mechanicus might rapidly change when two thousand heavily armed Fire Warriors march over the horizon.


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## Anphicar

Im with you all the way, Cadian! I just didnt have the wind to type all that out like you!


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## Red Orc

Me.

:cyclops:


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## Cadian81st

Anphicar said:


> Im with you all the way, Cadian! I just didnt have the wind to type all that out like you!


What can i say, slow day right?


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## Flam

I'd go with either Orks or Tyranids. The great thing about Orks is that, despite their hilarity, they really ARE an immense threat. I love reading fiction in which an Eldar describes Orkishness. Whereas another race might scoff at their methods, Eldar really seem to "get" the threat Orks pose to themselves and the galaxy at large. A human might cheer when he guns down an Ork, but an Eldar is observant enough to notice that the Ork died with a satisfied grin on its corpse, and realizes the ramifications of that.

It might look hilarious when an Ork's buggy explodes and leaves a smoking crater in the ground, but there are few worlds that withstand a trillion Orks igniting their buggies at once. And it's not that Orks lack the will, they lack only for buggies. The explodier, the better. Potentially, Orks are probably the greatest threat to every race in the 40K galaxy, but they're simply too fractured to run at maximum effectiveness. As it stands, at least.

Tyranids, as they've been described, probably COULD overrun the entire galaxy, given enough time. The Tyranid incursion has thus far been like the head of a spear slowly tearing into the galaxy, widening and leaving a greater gash the deeper it drives. The trick to defeating the Tyranids, ultimately, won't be to destroy them utterly. However, if enough Tyranids can be killed so that the greater extra-galactic swarm calculates that the bio-mass to be harvested is even .00001% less than the bio-mass it has to produce to consume the galaxy, then it will probably withdraw from the scene entirely. And look for another honey tree to stick its claws in, one with less bees that sting.

The Necrons, as they stand, are still a little too ambiguous to be able to gauge the full extent of their motives and numbers. The Necrons still kind of give me the feeling that they're licking their wounds. Technically, if all Necrons want is a galaxy free of life, all they have to do is wait long enough. Even if the Tyranids don't lick the plate clean, the various races are doing an excellent job of killing themselves off as is. Perhaps every world the Imperium grinds into ashes leaves a wily and very patient Necron Lord somewhere rubbing his claws together, enjoying what might be a dusty old simulacrum of satisfaction.


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## Initiate

i think that Tau could definitely destroy the imperium if they are given time to mass their numbers and if they cut away some flaws that would otherwise defeat them, such as warp travel. Though its true the imperium has the dreadnought, titan, thousands of guards man and righteous bastards who wont stop until they and the enemies of man die, they are to pious and religious to understand technology for what it is and they still ram clips full of giant bullets instead of recharging nuclear batteries for their railguns. whats more, they charge into combat with swords hammers and other, more primitive weapons instead of punching a hole through their enemies heads with their bolters. 

Second choice would definately be orks. Yes they are stupid, yes they have no tactical sense, but they want to kill and i think half a million small orks firing extremely inaccurate and crude rapid fire weapons with thousands of bullets put into pouches, jammed into guns and hung around shoulders is pretty scary. Not to mention the other half million riding down on buggies and trukks or just running down behind a mass of little goblin-like creatures to either shoot you with their equally inaccurate and crude handguns, or drive a chainsword through your chest. Adding even further to that, they don't give a damn if they die and the spores from the Waaagh! creates even more orks (as if the last wave wasnt enough) the imperium has to deal with. All that needs to happen is for another Gazghull to rise forth kick the living crap out of humanity.


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## Engelus

Red Orc said:


> Me.
> 
> :cyclops:


crap, you beat me too it.

I would say that the biggest threat to all the forces of order are the necrons.

I think that in 5th edition fluff we may see some more alliances specifically to deal with the necron threat.



Initiate said:


> they still ram clips full of giant bullets instead of recharging nuclear batteries for their railguns. whats more, they charge into combat with swords hammers and other, more primitive weapons instead of punching a hole through their enemies heads with their bolters.


just because the weapons are close combat doesn't make them primative, it simply means that by having them they are ready for more situations. the thunder hammer, and lightening claws are not primative, they are the epitome of close combat. and honestly, stocking all your bets into a single weapon with a poor rate of fire isn't necessarily better, Lasguns may not have the game represent the fluff, but they are probably the best rifle to have, and the bolter is probably the best overall gun to have.


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## Flam

Initiate said:


> i think that Tau could definitely destroy the imperium if they are given time to mass their numbers and if they cut away some flaws that would otherwise defeat them, such as warp travel.


To be fair, couldn't the same be said about the Eldar? Like the Tau, their limited numbers are a serious liability. Unlike the Tau, though, they're quite good at scooting around space. So, they're actually even less limited than the Tau are.

And nobody's proposing an Eldar takeover of the Imperium. Why the Tau, then?


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## stompzilla

Chaos - it's insidious, infiltrates cultures and turns them rotten from the inside out. Added to the more overt threat of the black crusades. It's eternal and plans long term.

Tyranids. They want to eat everything and can't be stopped.


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## stormshroud

Itself?


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## Red Orc

Yeah I mean really, it's not me, I only screw things up on the one planet. It's the 'nids.

I can't think why anyone would possibly think anything other than the nids. Allow me to run through some options to demonstrate, for those who can't see it.

1 - Imperium/Eldar alliance - has happened before, to defeat orks. So obviously the Imperium considers orks more of a menace than Eldar;
2 - Imperium/Tau alliance - hasn't happened yet, as far as I know, but is not impossible to contemplate, there are at least diplomatic exchanges;
3 - Imperiuml/ork alliance - impossible for Imperium to contemplate... (but IIRC Imperial forces were rescued from Tyranid infestation one time by orks somewhere, the name of which escapes me... and in previous versions of fluff orks were sometimes employed by Imperium as mercenaries).

That leaves Chaos and Necrons and nids (oh my!) by my reckoning.

Chaos, though in some ways the opposite of the Imperium, at least shares some basic philosophy with it - it wants the Imperium fot itself. if the choice was between destroying the Imperium and humanity, or fighting to preserve it, then Chaos would go for the second option, because it doesn't want to conquer bare rock, it wants to conquer living souls - even Khorne, I guess, because when there's no more blood... what then? So there's some leverage there, some common intrest (at least philosophically. Which isn't a good argument compared to a chain-axe, I'll grant you). So essentially the choice is between different kinds of tyrant, Khornate, Tzeentchian, Slaaneshi, Nurgloid or Imperial; nids and necrons really mess this up so it's just about plausible to posit a chaos/imperium alliance against one or other.

Necrons - utterly implacable, cannot be bargained with, there's no leverage, but their resources are pretty limited; actual numbers not known, but there's no suggestion in the fluff that they have crypts on every planet (or anything like), and if we take what 'we', as Chaptermasters, Warbosses, Autarchs, High Ecclesiarchs or whatever, 'know' about the 40k galaxy, (from out experience of gaming), Necrons aren't that common (or, if you live in a Necron heavy sector, do let me know!). It is, however, just about conceivable that Necrons would fight nids in defence of the other races, to protect the souls that they themselves seek to harvest; but no possibility that necrons would help nids turn the other races to soup.

Tyranids, on the other hand, are everywhere. They also cannot be bargained with, any more than athelete's foot can be, or an avalanche, or time. They just want to eat. They feel no more pity for humanity than you do for yoghurt. There is nothing that we can offer them to make them go away, there is no way to persuade them to adopt another course of action, except by killing so many that they stop bothering. As however there are no reliable estimates of their numbers - the three fleets and innumerable splinters known could be the first of trillions of invasions - it seems likely that the nids will not only destroy the Imperium but all the other the other races too (with the possible exception of Necrons, whom they may ignore).

Thanks y'all for putting up me to the end of this.

(It's the nids! The nids I tells ya!)

:cyclops:


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## Red Orc

Damn!

If only I'd noticed there was a page 2!

Yeah, "itself" is a pretty good answer.

How about "history"?

All class societies are destined to collapse under the weight of their own contradictions.

:cyclops:


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## Dirge Eterna

#1. Tyranids. The Tyranids destroyed the entire first Company of the Ultramarines, and they still put up a fight when the 3rd landed. They cannot be stopped. They change in a matter of days to better kill a world.

#2. The Imperium itself. If you think about it, I've come to the conclusion that if the Imperium ever had a relatively peaceful time, then a war would break out over some manner of doctrine. The Imperium would be torn apart by civil war, much like the Horus Heresy.

#3. I want to say Chaos. Chaos is pervasive. You can't fight Change. Death. Lust. Frenzy....basic human emotions become their downfall. 

#4. Tau. Tau are on the verge of becoming much more. Their only crippling factor is their numbers.

#5. Orks. Orks are indeed weak alone, but if another warlord like Thraka were to attack at the right time...

#6 I have to say Eldar and Necrons tie for 6. Eldar are too few and Necrons are fighting each other too often to please their gods to pose a real threat. Sure, they might wipe out a world, but the Imperium lingers. There has never been a full-scale Necron assault on the Imperium.

#7. Bringing up the rear is the Dark Eldar. They simply don't want to conquer. Just a selection of slaves to torture is fine.

-Dirge


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## Hespithe

Quick and easy answer: The Imperium itself.


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## Initiate

i like dirge's answer... and you guys kicked my last posts' ass about the marines being primitive and now i see the flaws in it... damn... 

But i agree with dirge, its very logical, i mean, who can wipe out any of the marines' companies, just like that, especially the _Ultramarines First Company_ The FIRST company. its like impossible, and it still took half the third company to wipe them out. And still there are supposedly _splinter_ fleets terrorizing the Imperium still. Its only a matter of time till they evolve enough and send another hive fleet to finish the job and kill the Ultramarines first company and the third company this time. Although i must say that they should have come back in those 250 years when the ultramarines were still weak. 

I also agree with everyone who said The Imperium itself. The Imperium is religious, and religion leads to inevitable conflict. 



'Nitiate


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## Viscount Vash

I like Dirges answer on the whole.



> #4. Tau. Tau are on the verge of becoming much more. Their only crippling factor is their numbers.


 Lack of warp travel ability currenty limits numbers and expansion of the Tau Empire.So I would shuffle the lower order.
Top three as is. 
Necrons to #4 (just hate life soooo much.)
Orks stay at #5 (Never turn your back on da boyz.)
Tau down to #6
Eldar at #7
Dark Eldar to #8

lol starting to sound like top of the pops in here.......


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## Elchimpster

The biggest threat to the imperium?

The Imperium.

Ignorance, coupled with hubris, and weapons of mass destruction.

Add to this fumbling around with things beyond their understanding. They can easily accidentally trigger their own doom.

After that, the tyrannids. Can't stop the bugs man.
After that...chaos.

*shit. Here I was thinking I was all original, then I realized I started my post after reading page ONE.


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## The un-divine

I don't think anyone mentioned this but here's my opinion. The biggest threat to the Imperium is the Imperium itself. Look at the modern world of today, most of the terrorist's are complete religious fanatics. Willing to do absolutely anything in the name of there "god(s)". In my opinion the Imperium (Primarily the Inquisition) will start to view the rest of the Imperium blasphemous and start a war from the inside, the factions will split up, new leaders will be formed and from there the once united Imperium will slowly deteriorate.


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## The un-divine

Elchimpster said:


> The biggest threat to the imperium?
> 
> The Imperium.
> 
> Ignorance, coupled with hubris, and weapons of mass destruction.
> 
> Add to this fumbling around with things beyond their understanding. They can easily accidentally trigger their own doom.
> 
> After that, the tyrannids. Can't stop the bugs man.
> After that...chaos.
> 
> *shit. Here I was thinking I was all original, then I realized I started my post after reading page ONE.


  You beat me to it.


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## Red Orc

Yeah everyone who posts at the end of page one (me included) goes ... oh, yeah, the Imperium, it's on page 2.

It was stormshroud said it first, and quite rightly too.

:cyclops:


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## Pyromanic Tendencies

Personally, I don't think the Imperial Cult is that big a threat to the Imperium. One of the main points (even if it's not intentional) of the Cult is that it keeps the Imperium united. If some guys goes around telling you what to do, and enforcing the will of a totalitarain regime and burning all who stand against him, people will get pretty pissed. But if their god tells them what to do, they obey a lot more willingly.


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## Red Orc

I think the point that everyone is trying to make is that 'Thoudsand Year Reichs' and their ilk are rarely as long lived as their creators hope.

Essentially, any society based on oppression and justified by whatever ideology it likes is in the end prone to collapse/overthrow.

:cyclops:


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## GRUBSNIK

The Adeptus Mechanicus. 

Let's face it; Imperial R&D ain't what it used to be, is it? And stop prodding that C'tan, dammit.


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## Words_of_Truth

Personally i think Necrons if they ever choose to go all out on the imperium, who knows how many worlds have them hidden under the surface? the fact i read a once that a single necron ship was able to reach the moon after bypassing mars by simply turning the systems off (the machine god is meant to be C'tan) thats just one ship imagine if they sent a whole fleet.

Chaos will never beat the imperium its a never ending battle you can't have one without the other. Eldar will never be a great force again. If the pimerium wanted to it could senda whole fleet to every tau world and virus bomb them or just destroy the whole world it wouldn't care to the imperium the only reason they ain't done it is because they want the worlds for themselves atm.

I don't think Orks could take down the imperium they are to random and spontainious as well as poorly lead half the time, while they may have a great warlord leading them theres always a break down in command eventually

Nids are kind of like the orcs but easier imo, you destroy the hive brain and all those below them can't do anything.

While some think the ultramarines first company dying to them shows how tough they are you have to remember that it was the first company vs a large part of the invaison force and the amount of tyranids they killed was uncountable.

So i think the biggest threat long term is Necrons while even though i doubt it will ever happen the short term is chaos continually attacking through the maelstrom and eye of terror.


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## Initiate

> you destroy the hive brain and all those below them can't do anything.


think about what your saying, we dont even really know where nids come from, leviathan came from a different galaxy. and even if we did, if they have enough numbers to kill the first company of the ultramarines, they would definately repel an attack. The hive mind makes anyone who comes into contact with it psychicly go crazy, only the ultra's chief librarian is RUMOURED to have come into contact with the hive mind. no, sure nids without a link to the hive mind are just too stupid and confused, but if they were to actually FIND the hive mind whose reach extends to other galaxies, it would probably kick their asses without any nids, just using plain psyking power to destroy the imperial taskforces from inside out.


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## Words_of_Truth

When i said Hive mind i meant who ever was leading the force like, when i read a story about an imperial fleet who destroyed the main nid ship and all the drones and medium size ships just floated about in space or went around in circles. Its impossible to destroy the main hive mind if its outside our galaxy i agree, but what i meant is that its easy to sever the head from the advancing forces with one foul swoop, its just having the resources and man power to plunge into the nid fleet and the same if its on land.

Thats how i see it, guess i didn't make clear what i meant


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## ArcAngels

Well lets think here people, the nids can be stopped, the hive mind is gestalt but if you take the hive ships out the fleet will crumble. 

The Tau are rough, and very effective fighters, but few in number and are more of a long range solution rather then close combat, there ethereals are hiding something and the Farsight enclave is testament to fractures in there society.

The Orks have alot of numbers and are a tide of green death, but there stupidity and greed are there downfall, the tide can be stopped at great costs.(Although it seems that during the great crusade the combined might of space marine legions could uproot an Ork infestation with ease)

Chaos, well the Eldar need to all die for Chaos to be defeated, with the titanic battles that rage within the warp only the gods of old can settle the war within the immaterium. Technically if Khaine where to be reborn into the Warp and the combined souls of the infinity circuits used to give birth to a new eldar god Ynnead, the god of the dead, and Cegorach the laughing god convinced to leave the webway, the powers of chaos would have a serious fight on their hands in their own realm.

The biggest threat to the imperium is itself, it's literally ready to fall apart and it's surprising its held for as long as it has. With the political power a religious body of government, (something the Emperor was sickened with) the imperium is barely held together by the adeptus mechanicus, and adeptus astartes, along with some help from the inquisition who being even more currupted has its notable members who have saved the imperium from disaster. The Emperor needs to be unplugged and the dark ages need to come back for awhile before a new imperium can be reforged


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## Initiate

> The Emperor needs to be unplugged and the dark ages need to come back for awhile before a new imperium can be reforged


id like to see how many counts of heresy that unlucky bastard would get :shock:


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## freaklord

it only takes one person to get into the throne room and assasinate the emperor. Maybe a high lord of terra who wants all the power for themselfves, even a corrupt Custodus. If the emporer goes down we all go down.


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## cccp

at least then, he would be reborn as the star child thing and the imperium would begin to prosper again, rather than fester as it does in the current fuff.


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## Gizor

cccp_one said:


> at least then, he would be reborn as the star child thing and the imperium would begin to prosper again, rather than fester as it does in the current fuff.


I theorize that if the emperor was unplugged, the time it takes the Ecclestiarchy to find his reincarnation (think about it, untold billions of people, its like finding a needle in a haystack, or a rather pshycically endowed needle) is more than enough time for massive upheaval in the Imperium and massive attacks from public enemy numero uno, Mr. Abbadon. A black cruesade will strike at Terra in its weak state and we will see the Imperium fracture and be killed off by the rest of the warlike species.


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## Essim

(I understand this is a little old, but its a pretty good discussion)

I think far too many people underestimate the Imperium.

Sure, it is bureaucratic and slow, but that's only a result of its immense size. The Imperium takes up the better part of an entire galaxy!

Sure, the Tau can act faster, but that's because they are relatively an ant! The forces of Chaos are similar, they take some time to get in order, but the only reason they can at all is because of their size. 

Switch any race with the Imperium and it would encounter the exact same problems, maybe more so in the case of Chaos, excepting the Tyranids due to the hive mind. 

The Imperium has endured for ten thousand years already, and it doesn't show any immediate signs of decline. 

Now onto what I consider the greatest threat; Tyranids. 

To me the Tyranids are a tough choice, unlike the forces of Chaos they are not so insidious (although genestealer cults can at times be) nor do they have the same idealogical threat the Tau represent. The Eldar are some of the most manipulative, and have some of the most powerful foresight and the Necrons seem all but unstoppable. 

However all thsoe other races have their flaws.

Chaos is scary all right, but it has so many dissident elements now that it simply doesn't have what it takes to rule for a long time, not to mention it is basically the evil twin of the Imperium, lacking any particular edge over their faithful brothers and being a lot smaller. 

The Tau are simply too small, not to mention they don't know much about the forces of Chaos and psychic powers, hell the Tau are already beginning to fracture and to add to it they can't navigate the warp and due to no psykers they likely never will be, reducing them to a crawl at best.

Even in combat the Tau have some pronounced weaknesses, especially at close combat and the Kroot can't always be there to help them out on this front. 

But to add to this, the Tau don't have the manipulative strength of the Eldar.

Right now any serious attack by the Imperium or Tyranids would cripple if not destroy the Tau.

I'm not saying they will never be a threat, because that would be naive, but right now the Tau aren't, and thanks to their inability to warp, they probably will stay that way for a long time. 

The Necrons sure are scary, they are arguably the most advanced race in the galaxy, the only one to have developed non-warp faster-than-light travel and their technology has progressed to the point that they have mastery over pretty much all of the material universe. 

The Necrons are also notoriously hard to kill and keep dead, and they have some of the most advanced anti-psyker tech in the galaxy. 

But like the Tau, the Necrons are too small as it is to be a threat, they are also more fractious and unlike the Tau they have a limited ability to grow, once all the Necrons are awakened that will be it, with the exception of Pariahs but they are very, very rare. 

The Eldar are a hard foe to fight and kill, because it isn't necessarily their way, they are small like the Tau and more advanced in many respects and to top it all off they are also some of the most gifted psykers in the galaxy, certainly the most controlled. 

The Eldar are also very manipulative, shown to be able to pit enemy against enemy and show themselves to finish the weaker victor off. 

However like the Necrons the Eldar have a very limited ability to grow, indeed they are still in decline with the exception of some exodite worlds, to add to this the Eldar also seem to lack the will to bring themselves back, adopting a fatalistic mindset. 

The Ork are another very fierce problem, they have no fear of death and despite their lack of anythign resembling sophistication, they are almost immune to corruption. They are simple, yet brutally effective, being the only race to date that has been able to out-infest the Tyranids. 

However, unlike the Tyranids and like Chaos Orks simply are too fractious, sure a great warlord could unite many, many Orks but all it takes is for him to die and everything falls apart and has to be remade, a smart au/Eldar/Imperial would have a small stealth regiment assigned to as many Ork Worlds as possible to ensure no Ork could ever gain control of a multi-planet Waaaaaagggghh. 

In addition to this, despite their fearless nature the Orks have only a basic knowledge of strategy and tactics, they tend to have a lot of stamina and resistance and use this to good advantage, but when their enemy is put in a 'harder' position they begin to fail (numerous battles against other races, Tau especially where they simply throw themselves against the enemy until they run out of Ork and are beaten down in the counter attack.)

The Dark Eldar are even less of a threat, possessing arguably less strength than the Eldar and lacking the same will to interfere, instead basically living as hedonists. 

The Tyranids, however seem inevitable to succeed.

They are capable of stripping every planet of biomass, more than they could ever lose in an assault (dead Tyranids are also re-absorbed.)

Once free a Tyranid invasion is very rarely stopped except by Exterminatus, and doing such to every Tyranid attacked planet is not an option.

To add to this the Tyranids are capable of blocking out all communication in the warp for several light years around a planet, they also adapt freakishly fast, within days, to suit their environment and these adaptions quickly spread through all the hive fleets.

These adaptions are also made more pronounced with new DNA absorbed. 

The Hive Fleets are also smarter than one would think, especially when choosing targets, I think there's a reason they targeted Macragge, can you imagine what would happen if the Tyranids got a hold of Primarch DNA? 

The Tyranids are also possibly the most abundant races in the universe, the impression being that each hive fleet is only the merest taste of the true size of the Tyranids, with dozens more coming. 

Unless I'm mistaken Inquistor Kryptman also said something like that the Imperium would need to draft several entire sectors of able-bodied men to merely stop the Tyranids, such a move hasn't even been mentioned in regard to crushing Chaos! 

Lastly we've seen how brutally effective the Tyranids are. They've taken out two space marine chapters and most of an Eldar craftworld, combine this with genestealer cults and rebellions that guide the way and to me they are clearly the most immense threat to not just the Imperium, but the galaxy.


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## lt_sparky

I agree 100% with essim. In a nutshell if u throw rocks at tyranids u might kill a few but then they evolve to have anti rock defence then youre screwed all over again this also make it impossible to really make a solid tactic for fighting them because they are always changing


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## AntiPaladin

Wow, after all this time I finally make a post...

The number one threat to the Imperium is itself, plain and simple..

First, disregard all of the OTHER reasons why the Imperium is dangerous, like religion, fanatacism, complete disregard for life, etc. and look only at what a directed Imperium can do. 

With the Emperor at the wheel, how quickly did the Crusade advance? Yes, many of the worlds that joined were already settled and home to mankind, but just as many, if not more, were openly hostile to the idea, thus, many wars. Even with all that, it took the Crusade what, three hundred years to claim most of the known galaxy? Yes, Maccarius cut a swath through parts and there have been subsequent conquests and expansions, but nothing even comes close to the original, especially since much of what Maccarius claimed was actually retaking worlds that had been claimed then lost during the Heresey. 

So let's say that the original Crusade took, oh, 75% of the galaxy in 300 years. If anyone has the specific numbers, let me know. Still, going off that base figure, that's a lot of conquest. That means dozens, maybe hundreds, of worlds every single year were conquered by the Imperium. How long does it take for a hive fleet to strip a single world bare and move on? 

So we now have to imagine that massive amount of war effort, but without a purpose. The High Lords are there, yes, but they each have their own agenda, as do the various lord-generals, planetary rulers, and such. Thus, you now have an even larger military force, but without a single, motivated leader; instead it is fractured and pulled by various special interests. The greatest military force in the Galaxy (yes, bigger than Orks, for a number of reasons) is now left to sit and wait. The fringes suffer and are on constant alert, like Cadia, but the interior is insulated against external threats - thus, any and all threats they experience are internal, a byproduct of this new-found idleness. An occasional Xenos raid or natural event happens, but the vast majority of evil wrought on these inner worlds is a product of Men - be they cultists (Could be an argument for Chaos, but I prefer the idea of human weakness) or simply egotistical nobles, they're still men, by and large.

The next big question is whether or not there are any external threats that can match or exceed the threat that Man poses to himself and, more importantly, whether or not they could stop a directed Imperium. 

Tau - Even with all their technology, the Tau, at the moment, are nothing compared to the Imperium. They number only a few hundred worlds; compare that to the military output of the 1,000,000+ worlds of the Imperium. That means each Tau unit would need to be able to destroy at least a couple THOUSAND of their Imperial counterparts to be on equal terms.

Tyranids - Once again, how long does it take for a hive fleet to finish with a world and move on? Yes, they get stronger with every world they eat, but by destroying their food supply (ie a world they just fought for) they can be weakened. This is disregarding the fact that their nautical units are lacking in the long-range dept. and that a co-ordinated offensive of bombardment cannons would suffer few, if any, casualties while destroying a hive fleet.

Necrons - It took them thousands of years to even get a draw out of the Slann for control of the Galaxy. Plus, they're currently just waking up. A systematic offensive would wipe them out, especially if combined with a renewed scientific R&D.

Chaos - I point you to the Heresy, when they had almost half the Imperium under their sway, and they still lost. Today, it wouldn't even be a contest.

Orks - Interestingly, they're much like the Imperium - their own worst enemy. but unlike the Imperium, they will never combine under a single massive banner like Man does. Old Ghaz might have got a good Waaagh going, but even with superior numbers, he couldn't win. While full-scale elimination might not be feasable (at the moment) their numbers can at least be controlled.

... And with that, I'm off to bed. Give me a bit of time, and we'll see what else I can come up with.


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## cerrakoth

*Biggest threat*

This question cannot be fully answered but I'll share my thoughts 
Chaos, unless somehow the chaos gods were killed there will always be chaos in the universe and they are supposed to be capable of outliving time itself. So theres the first everlasting threat
Eldar and their evil twins are as good as dead, they seem to want to die they say they ruled the galaxy and now they're dieing because of their arrogance..yes they are and they aren't a threat unless they think of a cunning plan which they tend to do if you read their back history fluff.
Tau are advanced but they are few and they wont be able to muster the numbers in time to either defeat the Imperium, before the Imperium get destroyed by someone else or before the Imperium gets put back to its former glory and crushes the Tau.
Necrons like are defiantly a massive threat but they cant live until the end of time like chaos as although they come back to life a lot they cant do it all the time.
Tyranids along with Orcs I give the honor of biggest short term threat(and by this I mean the next 10,000 years) but they will fail eventually as Chaos inevitably will win without some unforeseen hero finding and slaying them which I don't see as likely but they will eventually (unless some Imperial genius hang on why don't we virus bomb all the Tyranid infested planets and their ships etc or destroy the hive mind or w,e sure they'll adapt but (I dont knwo if this is possible) but surely defeating the hive mind itself will end them!) rip straight through the Imperium until eventually it comes to the point that terror is like Cadia is with the black crusades.
Orcs grow with WAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!! so yeah they are the same as Tyranids but they aren't as ordered. If a Warlord could come forward like the one on Ullanor then yeah they will defeat the Imperium as the chapters are to fractured to mount a suitable defense.
But I do think the non emporer ruled Imperium will probs be its own downfall:grin:
AND DOES NOBODY BE ME KNOW THAT NECRONS AND NIDS ALWAYS IGNORE EACH OTHER IN FLUFF(sorry just remembered)


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## FrozenOrb

I like the idea of orks being the biggest threat to the galaxy, GW should do loads more to convey this. I'm going to say Necrons though since they've actually succeeded in the past on all but dominating the galaxy before their long periods of dormancy, and Tyranids a close second.


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## ACoz

A lot of folks here aren't really giving the Tau the military credit they deserve, IMHO.

There's the Damocles Gulf Crusade, after all.

The Tau fell back under the Imperial onslaught for a bit, then the crusade _ground to a halt_. 

The Tau fought the Imperium to a stalemate.

Granted, the Imperium did decide to expend it's energies on another, more pressing threat... but the Tau gave the vaunted Imperial war machine a run for it's money.

That said, I think that the Tyranids are Public Enemy Number One.

The 'Nids are Nature Gone Apeshit, and Nature always finds a way to trump anything the little critter called Man can accomplish (or so it would seem).

Now, the whole "the 'Nids killed the whole FIRST COMPANY OF THE ULTRAMARINES!!1!" argument is a little too narrow in focus for my way of thinking, though.

Yes, the invasion pretty much wiped out one company (albeit the TOP company) and that is no easy feat, but it was still only ONE company. One company that was seriously outnumbered and fighting totally blind against a completely unknown quantity, at that.

Though the Imperium doesn't adapt anywhere nearly as fast as the Hive Fleets, it has learned from that day.

There's lots of fluff and stories about the Imperium stopping Tyranids... and a whole new game dynamic Troop type for Ultramirines players because of the whole Macragge mess.

I'm just saying that no matter how bad-ass and scary a threat is, no one faction will ever have enough of an edge to totally dominate.


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## cerrakoth

*Domination*

I agree but I only believe that on the short term I mean on the long term I mean come on although I hate chaos, it still outlives all else so even when the nids are done and dusted chaos will pop back and kill them, sure they suck balls but I admit they will eventually win but for the foreseeable future nothing will defeat the Imperium save a multiple threats at once eg hive fleet+ WAAAGGHHHH plus loooads of necron awakenings


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## Bishop120

Fluff wise it has already been stated that Tyranids are the "greatest threat to the Imperium". The Tyranid codex states it and in the Ravenor book series Ravenor gets a glimpse of the future in which they are described as the great threat and the entire Imperium is mobilised to defeat it.

Chaos will always exist and be a persistant threat.

Necrons which have to wake up could be defeated while asleep but have potential to be devestating but not overwhelming.

Tau are still to small. Sheer numbers and if the Imperium ever decided to just bomb them rather than try to take their planets back would just wipe them out. In BFG their ships are nothing compared to Imperium fleets.

Orks are just a widespread annoyance as always. By their own nature they could never organize together well enough to pose a serious threat.

The Eldar already know that they are dieing and are on the run.

I envision the 51st Millinium were Tyranids own 1/3 of the Galaxy, Chaos is still the same threat, the Tau and Eldar have joined with the Imperium to try to stop the Tyranids (Tau loosing all its original home worlds), Space Marine chapters are re-forging Legions, Eldar have lost a 1 or 2 craftworlds but have been given safe haven in the Imperium, and the Necrons worlds waking and are giving the Tyranids a threat from inside their sphere of space. Orks are still their regular annoyance threat to everyone but routinely "help" the Imperium against the Tyranids (if help is what you can call it).


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## cerrakoth

*Reforming The Legions*

PWOOARRRRR can you imagine the reformed legions I mean the Imperium would rule the stars=] but the simple matter is the same purpose they don't unplug the emperor, the high lords of Terra love their power and want to keep it, but the Imperium, unless the Primarchs were restored or the Emperor would never reform the legions as they were split in case heresy appeared once more, as the Horus heresy book series has proved it only takes one to drag a legion to damnation and even one legion going is a massive threat maybe increased numbers in the chapters but legions as much a positive they could be theres always the negative of heresy.=[


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## Dirge Eterna

I think the main reason the chapters were formed is because of damage control. The Primarchs knew that the heresies would continue, but they also knew that a 10,000 man legion is much harder to control than a 1,000 man chapter. Granted, a chapter is ridiculously powerful, but it is easier to counter than a legion.

-Dirge


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## MoopMoop

According to my views the overall theme of not only WH40K, but indeed WHFB also, is very much based on the age old "man against himself" theory. In WH40K it has even taken actual form in the guise of the warp as a storage or souls and a reflection pool for all the consequences of every action taken in the "real" universe. in that way, it would be possible to say that the greatest enemy to the imperium is both itself and chaos, in a perfect tandem. Everything anyone does in some way empowers a chaos god, which in turn adds to that effect by doing bad stuff against the imperium. That leads to a reaction which in turn empowers the chaos god again, etc, in an endless circle.


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## cerrakoth

*Legions*

basically I think the Primarchs were scared, it is quoted one of them saying that no man should have the power of a legion again because of the consequences of betrayal=]


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## Hivemind Demeter

Nids for sure.

The Imperium of man recognized that they could not stop Hivefleet Leviathan, so they diverted them to Ork territory.
When this massive hivefleet finishes with the Orks, they will come out more powerful, both in numbers and individual strength, and they will continue on towards the center of the Imperium.
As far as the story in the Nids codex goes, it basically says this Hivefleet is unstoppable and of unimaginable size.


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## cerrakoth

Unstoppable and massive is all very good but in the end Games workshop will never write off a race unless no one pays for their models=] so pointless discussion the hive fleets that attack will always be defeat by some random hero with some special unthinkable plan or something along those lines=D


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## Red Orc

... so what you're saying is, the biggest threat to the Imperium is the Games Workshop Marketing Department?


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## MoopMoop

cerrakoth said:


> Unstoppable and massive is all very good but in the end Games workshop will never write off a race unless no one pays for their models=] so pointless discussion the hive fleets that attack will always be defeat by some random hero with some special unthinkable plan or something along those lines=D


Good point. And seeing as plastic space marine boxes make up almost half of Citadel's sale statistics it's hardly far fetched to assume that the imperium will, in fact, exist for ever


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## Essim

Red Orc said:


> ... so what you're saying is, the biggest threat to the Imperium is the Games Workshop Marketing Department?


...yes that is exactly it.


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## ArcAngels

Still the biggest threat would be chaos, you cant destroy the warp, so the gods will always have followers and the greater powers would always assail the imperium. Hell theres a warp gate under the emperors palace and deamons are just waiting to flood in if it opens. The only way for the imperium to ever better itself ever again was if the empror was reborn, plain and simple, Chaos is hands down the biggest threat. Plus good always has to have its evil, Chaos wil always be there to tempt humanity, and last time all it took was horus to let it come crashing down


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## cerrakoth

Chaos gods only exist if they have followers it was written somewhere so if everyone was nice then sure no more chaos=]


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## ArcAngels

no the gods stated themselves that the emperors attempt to spread atheism throughtout the galaxy was hurting them, but the gods are out manifestation of thought dreams and desires we cant change there existance we can hurt them, they will always be a threat. Hell even the emperor said the gods were his arch nemesis', he couldnt beat them back because he couldnt tell everyone they were real, it would only give them more power. Chaos BIGGEST THREAT


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## cerrakoth

lol kill all man and Chaos goes fullstop granted that destroys the imperium but to the galaxy in the long run Gods are gone


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## O'sharan

Red Orc said:


> ... so what you're saying is, the biggest threat to the Imperium is the Games Workshop Marketing Department?


so true. so true. The imperium will end its days down a drunk:alcoholic: GW staff member (actually no need to be drunk) new rule book!:headbutt:


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## squadiee

O'sharan said:


> so true. so true. The imperium will end its days down a drunk:alcoholic: GW staff member (actually no need to be drunk) new rule book!:headbutt:


most likely, its not too far from it these days by pushing the veteran gamer out of the window by killing almost all variation in the game...


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## Essim

Chaos is in no way the biggest threat. 
Chaos has had ten thousand years to take the Imperium down and so far its effects have been minimal, despite thirteen Black Crusades.
The Emperor said Chaos was his arch enemy, but that's just because the Tyranids and Necrons hadn't been discovered yet, and because in the long run some portion of humanity will always side with Chaos. 
The Tyranids represent the possible destruction of the vast percentage of all humanity.


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## ArcAngels

well then if after we get rid of the necrons and tyranids that always leaves chaos waiting for us, like it was said before chaos will never die unless we do, so were in it till the end with them itl go on forever plain and simple


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## Wrath of Khaine

I'm going to say Chaos. All the other races are in conflict with every other force. Chaos is specifically geared towards humanity now, being the sole place they gain princes and new forces that aren't warp-spawned. Hell, chaos's domain in the real universe is completely ran by once-humans.

Without a doubt, Chaos, the eventual hubris of the Imperium. Cancer never lets go of you until it takes you.


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## Jeridian

Wow interesting read, a few anomalies like someone confusing the term evolution for technological advancement, and of Chaos someone how surviving the annihilation of all the sentient creatures that it is formed from.

I think the biggest threat to the Imperium is a new Codex SM's under the DA format- it will make SM's unplayable in all but the least competitive gaming circles, a death knell for the sales of Imperial stuff.

Seriously, though, Nids and Necrons stand out as winners.

Orks as said are a weather event, they're a sporadic storm that must be put up with and repelled. They aren't stupid or greedy as someone said- that is looking at them through a human perspective of not wanting to die, wanting to reduce the amount of violence around them, etc. Orks know exactly what they're doing when they drive that Buggy into an IG gunline and as said, die with a smile on their ugly faces.

Chaos is by definition not a race or species like the others, but a state of mind and a philosophy. It will be a constant threat to humanity, as it is in their psychic nature in the game. But it has been shown time and time again that when it comes down to the big decisions (Horus vs Emperor, Lionel Johnson, etc, etc) Chaos is defeated by human will. Much like Orks it will affect various worlds, leaders and factions but is too fractured to defeat the Imperium.

Eldar, as said a dying and fatalistic race. The sooner they die the sooner we can have a game where it isn't piss easy to win with Space Clowns in a Falcon.

Tau- a touchy one this, a lot of ardent Tau fanboys proclaiming them as the new l33t awesomez11!!1!
GW stated when they produced the Tau that it is just one of the many small alien empires that exist within the Imperium's borders. The Imperium is galaxy wide and it is impossible to overstate how big that is, there is always going to be areas as yet unexplored, areas that resources deemed unworthy of conquering, etc, etc.
The example given of the Damocles Crusade is of a few Marine Chapters (more precisely a few Companies from them) and various IG regiments doing what they're counterparts across the galaxy in a dozen different places are doing- pacifying a minor irritant alien empire that has grown big enough to get annoying.
Guess what was the only reason this small task force was forced to withdraw and give the Tau a chance for diplomatic deals..yep, a serious threat to the Imperium.

Tyranids- Their true size is merely hinted at, the Hive Fleets that have hit being considered the vanguard or tip of a vast schoal of Hive Fleets. Simply numbers and an unquenchable hunger with a cold emotionless drive, very chilling- and great fluff.

Necrons- These guys have been getting a lot of flak- small numbers, most of them still getting out of bed, a few concerted strikes on their bedrooms? Seriously?
These guys control time and space, they are the end result of science and technology (the Slann/Old Ones being the end result of psychic power). They are working on closing the bridge between the Warp and 'real' space, so that their arch nemesis the Chaos gods can not affect their cattle. Then with FTL drives whilst humanity, Orks, etc, etc are stuck within star systems they can wonder across the galaxy picking harvest with impunity.
Add to this, the lack of evidence or the intentional covering up of it so that most Imperial military and politicial leaders only hear rumours, that the Deciever and Necron Lords can take human form or appearance and mess with Imperial worlds, etc, etc.
Don't underestimate a race that defeated what could be considered the Gods of the Eldar, humanity, etc.


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## Essim

I agree with your sentiments Jeridian, however the point on the Necrons I must say I hadn't considered the fact Necrons could turn into human form.


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## Jeridian

Aye, it's very Cylon/Battlestar Galactica -ish, and gives the Necrons some much needed character.

References include the Callidus Assassin story in the Necron Codex where the Deciever mascarades as a corrupt Imperial governor, and the Xenology background book where the Inquisitors arch-rival turns out to be a Necron Lord under human skin.

The cool part with the Necron Lords is they can program the 'character' they're pretending to be to actually believe it exists and is that person, all the while 'observing' from within.


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## Sei 'fir

According to the Emperors children Krill farmers are the biggest threat to the imperium
:smoke:


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## Wrath of Khaine

Saying the Imperium's greatest enemy is itself is in effect saying Chaos. The dark forces of chaos, not the traitor marines, are the seeds that sow dissent and heresy and heightened emotions throughout the Imperium of man. All cataclysmic events in the Imperium's timeline have been brought out by subtle chaos perversion or outright conversion to the dark gods.
I still disagree with Nids or Necrons being the worst. Great portions of the imperium could take to space and escape nids and necrons, as they have no direct conflict with the imperium. Chaos thirsts for them eternally, and would always follow them and walk in their ranks.


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## Jeridian

> Great portions of the imperium could take to space and escape nids and necrons, as they have no direct conflict with the imperium.


Errr, what, first of all- the Imperium, Nids and Necrons are already in 'space'. Where exactly do you intend to migrate too? The Imperium holds dominion over much of the galaxy already, whilst the Necrons sleep across all of it as it's once undisputed master, finally the Nids have innumerable hive fleets drifting beyond the galaxy and are now encroaching on it from multiple angles.

Second, no 'direct conflict'. This is ignoring the Necron agenda to enslave all living creatures as little more than cattle to feed their C'tan masters, or the Tyranid simple, merciless biological imperative to consume and expand across the galaxy.


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## cerrakoth

The biggest threat or saviour could well be Cypher the killing of the Emperor is either going to bring him back and the Imperium will return to its former glory..OR big OR he kills him the emperor dies and doesn't come back causing a massive moral loss as the marines and indeed all the Imperium realise that they've fought for this time for nothing, granted it would take along time to find the 'star child' anyway but still=]


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## Bishop120

The Emporers mind is mostly occupied operating the Golden Throne thereby saving Terra from being over run from within.. *stupid Magnus*.. 

The throne is part of a gateway into the Webway.. Magnuses warning about Horuses betrayal broke all the psychic wards on the Emporers Palace there by allowing Daemons and pure warp into the webway portal that the Emporer was building. After breaking these wards the Emporer was forced to devote the majority of his might to resisting the entities trying to fight there way in through the portal. The Custodes and Sisters of Silence fought long and hard to "retake" the portal into the webway but with the arrival of Horuses army the Emporer decided to seal it.

Per the Emporers words the Astronomican and the Golden Throne previously took only a little of his power but with the seals broken the Golden Throne took so much of his might he was loosing the ability to power the Astronomican to which him and Malcador aggreed to sacrifice psychers to in order to power. All the psychers you hear about being sacrificed for the Emporer are actually for the Astronomican (albeit sacced to the Emporer for use to power whatever he so chooses).

If Cypher were to kill the Emporer it would release his might fully back to the warp where any number of things could happen...

Its possible that fully back in the warp he could kill all the Chaos Gods as he IS the MOST POWERFULL psychic entity in the 40K universe. It is possible that he may re-incarnate. He was originally created as a re-incarnation of thousands of psyckers at one time in one body. Of course its possible he wouldnt re-incarnate as the reason the shaman decided to re-incarnate at the same time is they were loosing the ability to re-incarnate.

In either event Earth would be immediatly overun by chaos and daemons and the astronomican would be lost as well as the current center of gravity for the Imperium. If he does re-incarnate its very likely he would likely start a new Great Crusade and I believe swiftly retake the current Imperium and possibly the whole galaxy again.

So again I believe the greatest threat is still the Tyranids.


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## cerrakoth

Meh the highlords of Terra wouldn't allow this anyway they like their power and are corrupt to the bone=] in any case if the Emperor did come back he would be fucking pissed off at all the Marines for resorting to religion and practically becoming a mobile force AND he would probably object to the Legions splitting, so he would in effect destroy the Imperium as we know it=]


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## abaddonthedespoir

Necrons: when you kill em' they try to use their energy to re-assemble, if failing they phase out and go to thier tombs. And same for the C'tan


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## Dirge Eterna

I stand by the Imperium itself, followed by Tyranids and Chaos.

-Dirge


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## CATzeentch

Agreed. But i can't help but wonder.


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## Primarch Lord CAG

imperial religion is going to be its downfall 

their are no GODs just xeno filth


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## Silb

Nearly all of the "forces of disorder" have an unstoppable air around them

Necrons: If all the tomb worlds awaken, ESPECIALLY if Mars is a tomb world, then the imperium, the forces of chaos, and the eldar are all going to be destroyed easily.

Orks: Their massive numbers and fungal nature allow them to last very long, virtually against every threat excluding nids and necrons. If they could unite, they would be insanely powerful. In fact, it is hinted in the Necron codex that if they had a sense of unity, Orks could effectively stand against the Necron armies.

Chaos: As long as the imperium and humanity exists, Chaos will exist. It's that simple.

Tyranids: In my opinion, unless the Imperium kills off some of their other major enemies quickly, the Tyranids will be completely unstoppable. On the other hand, the actual size of all the nid hive fleets is unknown. For all we know, the impending massive hivefleet hinted at in the Tyranid codex could be the last of the nid hivefleets.

Games Workshop: Games Workshop would likely only kill off the Imperium if no one bought Imperial Gaurd or Marine models

Tau, Eldar, and Dark Eldar: They are not a major threat to the Imperium right now, although it is possible that the Tau will grow more powerful. It would be very productive for the Imperium if they stopped being racist and stubborn, and made an alliance with the Eldar or Tau. With Tau tech and Eldar psychic powers/weapons the Imperium could defeat nearly all of their major enemies in no time.


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## Gore Hunter

What about that C'tan Dragon that got rammed into lava I assume he did'nt phase out?


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## demon of greed

id say that there was no single threat to the imperium but all the other forces combined, streching out their recourses and putting lots of pressure on them would split the imperium into a number of smaller factions and eventualy just be phased out. im not saying that all the other forces in the universe would join up against them but lets face it the imperium is based on very strict religion and with religion comes war (naturaly) all through our history war has been caused by religion from the crusades in jerusalm to the war on religious extremeism (terrorism). so to put it briefly the imperium gos looking for war bites of more than it can chew and chokes to death on it.


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## chrisman 007

I've worked out how to sort this out. If GW ordered this huge tournament on Games Day at each country's respective warhammer worlds, with all the inquisition, SM, and IG on one side, all the Eldar on another, all the nids on another, etc. etc., have a huge gazillion point battle and whoever is last standing would win. That would finally settle it. The battle would take every single warhammer 40k player. awesome. But one can only dream...


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## SPYDeR13

The answer is simple, Squats.:shok:


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## Silb

Oh, I forgot to add that I also consider the Imperium a threat to itself as many other people do, but not to the same extent as some people are saying. They are all forgetting two things:

1. The Inquisition and Space Marines are VERY effective at covering up secrets and exterminatus'/exterminatusi (or whatever its plural is). This means that most of the Impeial Guard, all Imperial civilians, and even some of the Marine Chapters are likely clueless about those things. Therefore, they all trust each other a little more than fluff would have you believe. This means that them betraying and killing each other is unlikely. 

2. The magic of the great and powerful Games Workshop will never allow the Imperium to completely fracture. (If you look at the Allies Matrix in the Apocalypse book, you will see that the Marines have very few friends as it is)

If you are talking about Chaos cults or the Lost and the Damned then disregard my first argument.


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## Captain Galus

> The 'Nids are Nature Gone Apeshit, and Nature always finds a way to trump anything the little critter called Man can accomplish (or so it would seem).


if but for one KEY fact, i would also say the Tyranids are the biggest threat to the Imperium. they're numbers are beyond legion, they adapt horrifyingly fast, and they strip a world of all life in their wake. they are truly 'nature gone apeshit.'

however, you are forgetting one key fact: humans are part of Nautre as well! in fact, we are nature's greatest achievement, both in reality and the 40K universe. We are extremely intelligent, we proliferate exponentially, and we adapt extremely fast _by using our minds_. Not only are the tyranids no real threat to us, but we are the only race that has the potential to combat the tyranids.

with this is mind, its not to hard to imagine the tyranids invaded our galaxy because they _fear_ us, is it?


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## neilbatte

The biggest threat to the Imperium is the Games workshop if they stopped making really nice looking alien armies and concentrated only on Imperial models the men would last longer 
Second biggest threat to the imperium is the ten year olds who always collect badly structured space marine armies that fall easily to the more veteran gamers who have outgrown the easy tactical challenges of said marines and get to grips with the more tactically challenging alien armies and tear the noobs a new one


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## Gore Hunter

Gore Hunter said:


> What about that C'tan Dragon that got rammed into lava I assume he did'nt phase out?


um... anyone???


----------



## zboy234

Captain Galus said:


> if but for one KEY fact, i would also say the Tyranids are the biggest threat to the Imperium. they're numbers are beyond legion, they adapt horrifyingly fast, and they strip a world of all life in their wake. they are truly 'nature gone apeshit.'
> 
> however, you are forgetting one key fact: humans are part of Nature as well! in fact, we are nature's greatest achievement, both in reality and the 40K universe. We are extremely intelligent, we proliferate exponentially, and we adapt extremely fast _by using our minds_. Not only are the tyranids no real threat to us, but we are the only race that has the potential to combat the tyranids.
> 
> with this is mind, its not to hard to imagine the tyranids invaded our galaxy because they _fear_ us, is it?


We are also one of natures mistakes, we humans are like a virus; using up all resources in one spot then we move on and do the same thing somewhere else,we also kill our own species for the hell of it having wars between ourselves is'nt to bright.

oh, the main threat to the Imperium is really Humanity, which from spawned most of chaos' champions and also we rebel against authority, it's what we do


----------



## Caledor

Well, there's been alot of good arguments so far, but I think that there's only been one person that has hit on a combo. I mean if the nids and 'crons got together, what do you think would happen? The nids take on all the sentient armies while the C'tan complete their great work of sealing the warp off from reality. All the vaunted Eldar psykers become useless, the Imperium can't move its armies or use their powers in battle, Tau would be overrun by a couple of hive fleets (sorry to all Tau addicts out their), Chaos looses not only its psychic potential but its ability to touch reality at all! Sure the Orks could stand up to that for a while, but if the Necrons started atomising every ork they came across, then theres no spores, and no new generation of Ork warriors.

So, in effect, the greatest threat to the Imperium is the Necrons completing the great work at the same time as a Tyranid hive fleet attacks. The nids avoid the 'crons because the worlds are dead and they can't digest the living metal anyway. The 'crons don't attack the nids because their scouring the galaxy of life until the great work is completed. 

Once thats done, you can't digest something that's been atomised by a gauss weapon.


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## Metal_Ead

You guys sure like 'Nids and 'Crons. You refer to sentience as a curse. I think that the Sentient races could align together to defeat the the Necrons and Tyranids. People assume Orks will always be the same, thats flawed. The plot seems to indicate that Gazakskull Thrakka will be uniting most Orks in the galaxy because his Waaagh! has reached critical mass. His Waaagh! is so huge and the legend so strong that it transends into the warp, so that all Orks can feel its pull. Their Waaagh energy links them in emotion and power. He is amassing the biggest Waaagh! ever seen, and it is traveling through other large ork empires absorbing more warbands. The Emperor did the same thing with humans, ammasing a "Crusade" to unite the human realms. The background seems to indicate that Gazakskull could grow even larger as he gains power and surrounds himself with a bigger Waaagh!. The Orks will unite under the Prophet of the Waaagh! and throw the galaxy into "da best fight eva!" When the galaxwide battle of the titans is over evryone will be dead, except for an inocent looking mushroom...


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## jakkie

Cadian81st said:


> When you consider the tau only need 7,000 years to go from blackpowder and castles (basically middle age tech) to being the second most advanced race in the galaxy, second only to the eldar, that's a hell of a tech leap.



as a necron player, i resent that.unish:


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## Metal_Ead

Jakkie the Tau are not that advanced. The Necrons are the most techy race, followed by Eldar and Dark Eldar. It is debatable where Tau stand as they have some advanced tech but lack others, like propper warp travel, as they can only travel short random hops through the warp. Also their battlesuit guns are large and clunky and need to be minuturized. They also lack power weapons in close combat and many other techs that even the simple Imperium has. I think that Tau, Imperial, Chaos, and Ork forces are comparable, but with different aproaches to tech. Alot of people think that Orks are technologically primitive but I dispute this as they have things like Kustom Force Feilds, Mega Blastas, Teleportas, Shokk Attack Guns, Zzap Guns, and Mega Armour. While a basic boy may be semi-feral, the oddboys like Meks and Doks are not. The same could be said of humans as a basic guardsmen could not create much tech, but a techpriest could. On the low end are the Kroots, and Deamons. Blaw!:biggrin:


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## Andros

I've got to say it'd be the orks and nids just now, the Necs once they get everyone up and running about.

Ork: They are a simple race, yet they use nothing resembling a fixed belief (except battle and mork and gork) they feel if they like something, they will use it. For example, a SM Land Raider was destroyed in battle, orks liked what it could do and took the wreck of it to the Big Mek...... after a bit of borken grots and broken tools, they have a battle wagon or a big assed trukk. Then there is the fact they spawn from mushrooms and are resistant to the elements.

Nids: too damned many of them, and they getting better with every battle, i wouldn't be surprised if there will be some Space Marine Tyranids soon, as tall, strong, fast and tough as them, and weapon skill and BS and all that jazz...... and the armour save >.<

Necs: in the long run cos they aren't all awake yet, once they are, bye bye everyone except possibly Nids and Chaos

That my opinion :so_happy:


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## Lord_Asmodeus

Metal_Ead said:


> Jakkie the Tau are not that advanced. The Necrons are the most techy race, followed by Eldar and Dark Eldar. It is debatable where Tau stand as they have some advanced tech but lack others, like propper warp travel, as they can only travel short random hops through the warp. Also their battlesuit guns are large and clunky and need to be minuturized. They also lack power weapons in close combat and many other techs that even the simple Imperium has.


I shall adress these points 

1. This isn't due to a lack of technological know-how, this is because they have no psykers or anything equivalent which could allow them to travel the Warp as the IoM and others do, and really with this lack of psykers its amazing they have any warp-travel at all
2. This is due to the nature of these weapons, it's hard to scale down/miniaturize the weapons Battlesuits use, which is precisely why they use battlesuits in the first place
3. This is probably due to their lack of melee-combat. They have the kroot and others for melee and personally feel it is barbaric, thus they concentrate far more on ranged combat and ranged weapons, they could probably make force-weapons if they really wanted to and put research towards it, but it probably wasn't that important to them whereas said miniaturization and other such things are.


I think the greatest threats are as thus 
1. Nids: they are deadly and numerous, and there can only be more to come (its rumored there aren't any more hive fleets coming, I just think this is stupid and makes very little sense, especially seeing as they make GW money) 
2. Necron: they are below the Nids for one of a couple reasons which I won't go into. namely there are probably going to be alot more Nids sooner than there will be all the crons, and the crons might just wake up to find their galaxy devoured :victory:
3. Chaos: I think people underestimate Abaddon and his Black Crusades, if the Nids and the Crons don't kill the IoM soon, then Chaos surely will
4. Orks: the reason the Orks aren't as big a threat as Chaos is they would only present a huge threat (and they would) is if they unified, and since this will probably never happen (they like to fight each-other too much) they remain a nuisance that will always be present... always
5.Tau: The Tau are ambitious and fast-learning, given enough time they could build an Empire to easily rival the IoM and given that they continually expand their knowledge base much faster than the IoM if they do get this powerful the IoM is screwed.
6 Dark Eldar: They just don't have enough conquering-motivation to be that big of a threat, they're comfortable with the way things are now.


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## Dirge Eterna

I just found out the Tau Empire is completely surrounded by the Imperium. 

Loosers.

-Dirge


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## Hespithe

When the Emperor was on the Golden Throne, well 'stuck' is actually a better word for it, and the plumber-adept was called in 'unstick' him, the overwhelmed plumber-initiate with him could have sworn he heard the Emperor speak of his greatest fear... He said it sounded an awful lot like....























































Yo mama in a thong :laugh:


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## Lord_Asmodeus

Dirge Eterna said:


> I just found out the Tau Empire is completely surrounded by the Imperium.
> 
> Loosers.
> 
> -Dirge


I would fine this more offensive and less amusing if you actually spelled lose right (and now that Ive posted this you can't just edit it, bwahahaha :biggrin


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## rgw

I'm not a huge necron follower, but I do have some ideas on them.

They were the soldiers of the c'tan in the ancient war of the old ones, more or less. And now most of the c'tan are gone, dead, or hiding, and only two remain it would be a pretty good assumption the ones that wake up are broken machines that try to carry out there final program, kill the children of the old ones. So it seems like they don't have the unifying leadership that they used to to be able to destroy the Imperium of Man.

Would the ancient Necrons be able to wipe out Man? I'm sure they could, and I'm sure that they destroyed tougher enemies in their prime. However, in the 41st millenium, I'm not so sure that the Necrons have the ability to strike places beyond their tomb world.


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## Lord_Asmodeus

rgw said:


> I'm not a huge necron follower, but I do have some ideas on them.
> 
> They were the soldiers of the c'tan in the ancient war of the old ones, more or less. And now most of the c'tan are gone, dead, or hiding, and only two remain it would be a pretty good assumption the ones that wake up are broken machines that try to carry out there final program, kill the children of the old ones. So it seems like they don't have the unifying leadership that they used to to be able to destroy the Imperium of Man.
> 
> Would the ancient Necrons be able to wipe out Man? I'm sure they could, and I'm sure that they destroyed tougher enemies in their prime. However, in the 41st millenium, I'm not so sure that the Necrons have the ability to strike places beyond their tomb world.


Actually the reason there are so few C'tan is that the four survivors devoured all the others and became more powerful, the four remaining (The two risen you probably know, the two still in slumber are the Outsider, the insane C'tan, and the Void Dragon, the most powerful C'tan) and all the Necron that are waking up work for one of them, and since only the Nightbringers host is really awakening thus far (The Deceiver, though he has been active far longer than the Nightbringer, still has not risen his host, or atleast not very many at all) and the other two hosts will rise when their masters do.


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## Dirge Eterna

I've decided that GW has a fundamental flaw in each of the races to keep them from totally overwhelming the Imperium

Chaos-Blockaded in the Eye of Terror, only a Black Crusade or a raiding army ever makes it out.

Eldar- Have no interest in conquering the Imperium

DE- Also have no interest in conquering the Imperium

Tau- No warp travel

Orks- Busy killing each other. (Waaaagh!!)

Necrons- Waaay to few.

Tyranids- Too easy to kill. Template of Doom! BOOM!

-Dirge


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## Dirge Eterna

Lord_Asmodeus said:


> I would fine this more offensive and less amusing if you actually spelled lose right (and now that Ive posted this you can't just edit it, bwahahaha :biggrin


 
I spelled it wrong on purpose. bwahahaha. Exaggerates the "O", it's pronounced "Lu-sers" 

lol!
-Dirge


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## majorbragdon

I say the biggest threat to the imperium is the traitor inside the imperium.


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## Silb

the biggest threat to the imperium are the Old Ones. You know, the guys who created the eldar, the krork (orks), and the humans in the 40k fluff. They are also known as games workshop.


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## Lord_Asmodeus

Silb said:


> the biggest threat to the imperium are the Old Ones. You know, the guys who created the eldar, the krork (orks), and the humans in the 40k fluff. They are also known as games workshop.


So... The C'tan killed almost all of the GW staff and the few remaining are in hiding? and the Old Ones want to destroy their creations? Wha?


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## Silb

Lord_Asmodeus said:


> So... The C'tan killed almost all of the GW staff and the few remaining are in hiding? and the Old Ones want to destroy their creations? Wha?


the c'tan are really the people who post threads promoting massive overhauls to 40k (like a d10 system instead of d6) that will probably never happen.:biggrin: 

The old ones want to destroy the armies that don't conquer enough wallets to please them (i'm looking at you, dark eldar):biggrin::biggrin:


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## jakkie

rgw said:


> I'm not a huge necron follower, but I do have some ideas on them.
> 
> They were the soldiers of the c'tan in the ancient war of the old ones, more or less. And now most of the c'tan are gone, dead, or hiding, and only two remain it would be a pretty good assumption the ones that wake up are broken machines that try to carry out there final program, kill the children of the old ones. So it seems like they don't have the unifying leadership that they used to to be able to destroy the Imperium of Man.
> 
> Would the ancient Necrons be able to wipe out Man? I'm sure they could, and I'm sure that they destroyed tougher enemies in their prime. However, in the 41st millenium, I'm not so sure that the Necrons have the ability to strike places beyond their tomb world.


i would like to point out that the Necrons are the ONLY non-human race to have (recently) landed on Mars. (not counting the Machine God).
i know that the last of the ships was blasted into oblivion by the defences, but the point still stands. plus theres the fact that the ships were only Shade Class light cruisers. if you had a load of Harvest Ships and a Tomb ship, then Mars would be SCREWED, titan legions or no titan legions.

then the Necs would be able to re-awaken the machine god and, after a while, launch an assault on Terra.

I think the Necrons are the biggest threat to the Impirium, the Galaxy and the rest of te Universe.

------
Jakkie
------


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## Andros

Lord_Asmodeus said:


> I would fine this more offensive and less amusing if you actually spelled lose right (and now that Ive posted this you can't just edit it, bwahahaha :biggrin



Your evil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely evil!!!!!!!!!!!! But then again, your Chaos right?


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## chrisman 007

-Orks aren't that big a threat. Orks will never, never, never ,never stop fighting. An even when they do band together, they couldn't even take Armageddon. Thats just ONE system. They can hardly take on the entire Imperium then.

-Chaos have the potential to be a threat, if they take Cadia. If Cadia falls, then chaos will spread out of the Eye of Terror and could turn the entire Imperium to chaos in another Horus scale Heresy. However, if Cadia stills stands, Chaos ain't going nowhere.

-Eldar aren't that much of threat. though if they band together, they may have the potential to destroy the Imperium. But, as we all know, the Eldar are a fallen race. They will never gain enough numbers to threaten the Imperium. 

-Dark Eldar are no threat whatsoever.

- Tyranids. Now, these are a VERY serious threat. These bugs consume entire planets. Each time you defeat them, they return bigger, stronger, tougher and smarter. Not good.

- Tau are a serious threat, but not currently. They are easily one of the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy. If they continue to advance at this rate, and expand at the current rate, they would easily give the Imperium a serious thrashing. But at the moment, they aren't as big a threat. The Imperium would ignore them, allowing them to continue to expand, until they annihilate the Imperium with their superior technology.


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## Thefreako

In my opinion the Tyranids are the greatest threat due to their extreme rate of adaption to new conditions and their numbers. The necrons would also be a good guess. The Imperium should just make the Tyranids and necrons fight each other as it would deny the Tyranids any biomass and probably kill a lot of necrons. IMO I don't think the tau represent a great threat. I think I've read somewhere that they aren't a psychically attuned race meaning they dont have any psykers, which I think limits their potential. That and the fact they're limited to a relatively small front. I dont consider the orks a threat since they will never be able to unite completely.

So:
1. Tyranids

2. Necrons

3. Chaos

4. Orks

5. Tau

6. Dark Eldar

7. Eldar

P.S. Haven't read the entire thread so I'm sorry if I have repeated anything, and english isn't my first language.


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## Dirge Eterna

Everybody also has to understand the fleets that make the High Lords change their undies are SPLINTER fleets of the main hive fleet, which is still coming.

-Dirge


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## Metal_Ead

We THINK the hive fleets are coming. George W. Bush thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The High Lords could be wrong!:so_happy:


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## Mad King George

The ultragay marines, I mean emperors children.


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## chrisman 007

Marines a threat to the Imperium? Aren't they the protectors of the imperium, Mad King George?


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## Dirge Eterna

Metal_Ead said:


> We THINK the hive fleets are coming. George W. Bush thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The High Lords could be wrong!:so_happy:


The High Lords are never wrong. It says so in the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting primer.

-Dirge


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## Andros

It also says something about "Remember your training and you will come home alive" Um, I don't think that works though If you doubt my reasoning on this, follow them to battle, and see how many go home :threaten:


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## Jacobite

One thing to remember about the whole Necron/Tyranid thing is that Nids can't sense Necrons. Hive Fleets avoid Tomb worlds not because they don't have any life on them but because Necrons give off a null that Nids can't sense. The Nids don't even know they are there. The Hive Mind just sees empty space.


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## Silb

Jacobite said:


> One thing to remember about the whole Necron/Tyranid thing is that Nids can't sense Necrons. Hive Fleets avoid Tomb worlds not because they don't have any life on them but because Necrons give off a null that Nids can't sense. The Nids don't even know they are there. The Hive Mind just sees empty space.


I would agree with that if it didn't mean that any cron vs nid battle would have no possible background info at all. Even when a race fights between itself, (ex. tau vs tau, cron vs cron, even nid vs nid) there is a logical explanation as to why a battle like that would happen in the game's fluff. 

Also, completely contradicting your theory, I remember reading somewhere that the nids prefer not to fight against/are afraid of the necrons because the special kind of metal their bodies are made of cannot be turned into genetic material for the tyranids to consume. How can they be afraid of something they don't know about?


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## Mad King George

the eldar are more of a threat than tyrinids and orks

but less than chaos and necrons


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## Dirge Eterna

The Eldar don't WANT to conquer the Imperium. They just fight the occasional battle to preserve some runestone or relic.

My vote stays firmly on Nids'
-Dirge


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## bob3472

idiots like you who question instead of fight the threats! Now drop and give me 30!!!!!!


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## DarKKKKK

i would say either Nids or Necrons
mostly b/c they are the most never ending armies that can live forever basically

Chaos are 2nd, but i still dont think in the mix with Nids or Necrons
they just arent as long term or never ending as Nids or Necrons to me

Orcs 3rd b/c there are just so many but they just fight each other too much

Tau and Eldar really dont pose a threat as much as the other 4, at least right now


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## imperialdudes

i say that every thing is an equal threat a mass necron awakining and a hive fleet invasion at the same time or a waaaagh and a chaos attack could be mixed and matched but would hurt if not destroy the imperium


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## Dirge Eterna

For those who picked Crons', I'd like to point out that the Necrons are A: Not exactly mobile. Only a few ships have been fought in the entire history of the Necrons. 

and B: The Tyranids are a much greater threat, as they know what's here, and there are a HELL of a lot more of them, even though the Imperium's killed countless zillions of them.


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## StealingYerMail

I'd say the Tyranids. The Orks aren't organized enough, and if they are, they start fighting one another. Chaos has been stopped before, and could be stopped again. Plus their supply of troops isn't exactly unlimited, whereas the Imperium has vast amounts of human resources to draw from.

The Necrons would have been my choice, but Dirge Eterna has a good point... the Necrons aren't very mobile. While their basic goal is to destroy and kill as much as possible, I just don't see them doing it. Well I do, but I think the Imperium would be gone before they accomplish it. From all the fluff I've read in Space Marine books, it's always the Marine's heroic stand against Chaos, Orks, or Tyranids. I've heard a story or two about the Marines fighting the Eldar, and I think the Tau. But I can't recall any major battles between the Marines and Necrons. I don't really read into Imperial Guard fluff, but in my limited knowledge of it, I've never seen them fighting Necrons. It just seems like the Necrons have the power to take everything out (even if it's slowly but surely) but the Imperium is not their main priority at this point.

I say Tyranids though, because the previous Hive Fleets have all been devastating. There's countless Nids in the first place, and they may never stop coming. They can send wave after wave at Imperium forces, but it's only a matter of time until the Nids figure out that they need to mass themselves into an even bigger Hive Fleet, and launch the assault on the Imperium. In my eyes, the will eventually overwhelm the Imperium.

However, EVERY race seems to hate the Tyranids. They don't have a single ally, and probably never will. So looking at them from this standpoint, they may be eventually wiped out since every other race is their enemy, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend. I could see the Imperium and other races (except Chaos and Necrons, and maybe Dark Eldar, I don't know too much about them) banding together to stop the Tyranids.


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## psychomidget99

Who are you kidding? Orks! There are millions of them, no matter where you go. They're tough as hell, ever tried to kill a Stompa? Yeah, even with a pair of Hellhammers. Doesn't do a damn thing. Besides, once it blows apart, it'll kill almost everything in the explosion.

Nidz aren't quite as common, but have more elite units that are cheap-ish, Chaos has just as many marines and daemons as the Imperium has loyalists and guardsmen and Inquisiion specialists (Witch and Daemon Hunters), Eldar and Dark Eldar are very limited in terms of models since they're all specialists that are quite expensive. Tau are peace-makers.

psychomidget99


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## ACoz

StealingYerMail said:


> However, EVERY race seems to hate the Tyranids. They don't have a single ally, and probably never will. So looking at them from this standpoint, they may be eventually wiped out since every other race is their enemy, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend. I could see the Imperium and other races (except Chaos and Necrons, and maybe Dark Eldar, I don't know too much about them) banding together to stop the Tyranids.


Tyranids have no allies because they don't communicate with anything in this galaxy as anything other than potential food. The entire existance of the Tyranid Hive Fleets, or rather the whole race, is to consume and move on.

That sort of existance sort of precludes the whole alliance concept.

It might eventually come down to the other 'rational' and 'orderly' races combining forces out of necessity to stop the Mother of All Hive Fleets, but by the time everyone realizes they might have to do so... it might just be too late.


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## KharnTheBetrayer86

Fluff wise its Necrons by far. Hard as hell to kill for any real amount of time, Gauss flayers cut through everything the Imperium have and the Void dragon, apparentally, is lodged inside Mars. Now if he wakes up, mars explodes and suddenly the Imperium start crying because a huge nigh unbeatable God is hungry, angry and on their doorstep.

Tyranids and Orcs are much the same threat. Masses of angry attacking creatures with only one cause in life, willing to die in the thousands (either for bio-mass or a good fight) Along with some huge killy things for funsies.

After that...well, its going to be one of those things really.


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## Jacobite

KharnTheBetrayer86 said:


> Fluff wise its Necrons by far. Hard as hell to kill for any real amount of time, Gauss flayers cut through everything the Imperium have and the Void dragon, apparentally, is lodged inside Mars. Now if he wakes up, mars explodes and suddenly the Imperium start crying because a huge nigh unbeatable God is hungry, angry and on their doorstep.


Not to mention the fact that they just lost most of there technology blueprints.


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## Silb

StealingYerMail said:


> However, EVERY race seems to hate the Tyranids. They don't have a single ally, and probably never will. So looking at them from this standpoint, they may be eventually wiped out since every other race is their enemy, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend. I could see the Imperium and other races (except Chaos and Necrons, and maybe Dark Eldar, I don't know too much about them) banding together to stop the Tyranids.


Most races are too ignorant and angry to have an alliance last for longer than about a day or two. Plus, in the 40k universe its more like the enemy of the enemy of the enemy of the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy. Every race might hate the nids, but they all hate each other just as much. The tau and the eldar would probably ally if a massive hivefleet came, the imperium would ally with the eldar and tau once the fleet consumes most of the imperium, and then the dark eldar and chaos will ally with the forces of order when there are only a few planets left and it's already too late to stop the nids


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## Nightbringer416

it would eventually be a huge waaagh aaginst the tyranids, then necrons will come around and clean up the mess

-tyranid-"metal doesn't taste good
-ork-"da shinies are hea waaaagh!"


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## cccp

tyranids generally don't like to attack necrons, as they can't be absorbed. also, due to the fact that a necrons are psychic nulls, the nids may not even know of their existence.


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## GhostBear

I read somewhere that one of the hive fleets completely avoided a Necron Tomb World. However, I got the impression they were AVOIDING the planet rather then they couldn't detect it. 
How many uninhabited Planets do you suppose the Tyranids have landed on and consumed just for the biomass there? Keeping in mind they drop spore stuff to make the plants super fertile and growy so as to get more biomass for their buck.
I'm wondering if the Necrons don't have some sort of energy field or defensive device of some kind that drives Tyranids away on a galactic scale.

As for who's the biggest threat to the Imperium? Get in line. Every faction out there, including the imperium itself seems to want the behemoth of man to fall. On the outside you have all the various alien and chaos factions. On the inside corruption and other internal factions trying to vie for power and/or trying to stop others from doing so. All of them combined makes it seem like the only thing holding the imperium together is the GW story crew.

If I had to pick one threat? The Imperial Guard, their flashlights scare me.

More seriously? Tyranids. They have the numbers. Orks would be more dangerous if they weren't fighting each other as much as anyone else. Tyranids fight themselves but they don't lose anything for it and even gain new and more impressive biomorphs from the battle. Adaptation, improvisation, and sheer volume of annoying little guys.

Remember it's who's the most dangerous to the imperium, not who else can beat up the imperium's enemies for them. So if this was about who could beat the Tyranids? That's a whole different question.

EDIT: My terrible spelling


----------



## ZsoSahaal

Its gotta be the necrons. THEY JUST DONT F****ING DIE! Blow em up, they come back a minute later. Cut um in half, and the legs and the torso come at you.

Plus they got zombies, and aincent gods that make daemons go cry and slash their wrists.


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## Mad King George

eldar dont want to fight but they do want to restore their world glory and the imperium will see this as threat


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## Dirge Eterna

And crush them. The Eldar are simply too outnumbered to pose a threat to the mighty Imperium of Man. 

Plus, Eldar weapondry is antiquated. It says so in my _Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer_.

It also says the Primer is always right, so no arguing that one.

@Ghostbear: The Tyranids avoid the Necrons because the majority of the worlds the Necrons inhabit are barren wastelands. No Biomass for the nids' to eat.

-Dirge


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## Nosko

all this about nids and crons is all good, but i gotta ask, where is chaos? i read somewhere that all (or most) saw abaddon as the warmaster, as primary leade, as he is respected by most.

wouldn't he be able to cause a mojor threat if he was able to amass a fleet big enough to get out of the eye of terror and either pass through or bypass Cadia?

Nosko.

EDIT: please excuse my terrible knowledge of the 40k fluff and spelling


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## Jacobite

Nosko said:


> all this about nids and crons is all good, but i gotta ask, where is chaos? i read somewhere that all (or most) saw abaddon as the warmaster, as primary leade, as he is respected by most.
> 
> wouldn't he be able to cause a mojor threat if he was able to amass a fleet big enough to get out of the eye of terror and either pass through or bypass Cadia?
> 
> Nosko.
> 
> EDIT: please excuse my terrible knowledge of the 40k fluff and spelling


Chaos is a threat yes but they arn't as numerous as Nids and Necrons. Another thing about Chaos is that they only have one real entry point to the Imperuim - the Eye Of Terror. And the thing is, after Chaos defeated the Imperuim they would still have to contend with the Necrons and Nids. If it was the other way round Chaos would have nothing left to conquer. If it was the Necrons that won then Chaos would probably be fighting a defensive battle. I wonder what would happen if the Nids tryed to get inside the Eye Of Terror.:scratchhead:


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## Nosko

demon infested zerg like creatures?


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## Jacobite

Well it depends really. Do you have to embrace Chaos to be effected by it? And who would they work for? Chaos Or Nids?


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## Nosko

Well, as I read, the warp is just a realm of random energies, while those energies can be controled, by sorcerors and obviously the chaos god, they are still random sparks arent they? so wouldn't that mean that if the nids went into the eye of terror, wouldnt they be either corrupted or just evolve by being constaly bombarded by chaos energies.

do note this is only my logical thinking of how the warp works.

Now... a chaos energised tyranid norm queen... that could be a danger to the Imperium.


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## GhostBear

One more thing that strikes me about the Tyranids vs Necron comparison. Necrons fought and such then when the going got really tough, food source being depleted, warp being plague, so on, they retreatred and hid. Seems they do the same thing now with their phasing out. As far as anyone knows the 
Tyranids are from an entirely different galaxy. The only reason I see them coming to a new galaxy is to find more food as their original already fell to them. Since the Tyranids have seemingly already conquered a galaxy they go up a notch in my book as the toughest. No other faction mentioned has accomplished that yet. Eldar -maybe- but they fell and can't be counted anymore. 
The Necrons chose to go into hibernation rather then face Warp plague creatures and a diminishing food supply.
@Dirge The source, can't remember the book at the moment showed the Nids giving the Necron world a several light years buffer. How did they know it was lifeless?


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## Dirge Eterna

No vanguard organisms or Genestealer cults called them to it. So it must not have been a world full of prey. The Hive Fleets rely on Lictors and Genestealers to "call" them to worlds filled with prey species.

-Dirge


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## Nosko

what if it was the other way around? Wouldnt the necrons want to destroy the nids, them being like epithany of living matter.


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## Dirge Eterna

Well, this is getting into a me vs. you, so I would think that the Necrons haven't entirely woken up, so they haven't fought any large-scale battles with the Tyranids, so we don't have a point of reference.

-Dirge


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## Nosko

Oh ok, ta for all the info, 

But (sorry for asking this) what if? Couldn't the necrons be a bigger threat, with all they're numbers and at full strength?


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## Casual_T

there is no threat to the imperium

they have the manpower and the resources to see thorugh anything


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## Ario Barzano

ArcAngels said:


> Still the biggest threat would be chaos, you cant destroy the warp, so the gods will always have followers and the greater powers would always assail the imperium. Hell theres a warp gate under the emperors palace and deamons are just waiting to flood in if it opens. The only way for the imperium to ever better itself ever again was if the empror was reborn, plain and simple, Chaos is hands down the biggest threat. Plus good always has to have its evil, Chaos wil always be there to tempt humanity, and last time all it took was horus to let it come crashing down





ArcAngels said:


> well then if after we get rid of the necrons and tyranids that always leaves chaos waiting for us, like it was said before chaos will never die unless we do, so were in it till the end with them itl go on forever plain and simple


Well i dont know if this has been said but if the necron were to succeed in there plan to seal the warp off from reality this would cause the death of the chaos gods, it would also stop the nids from working. this would mean the thus lack of warp travel would no longer be holding them back, making them a greater threat to the empire.

However before that happened the Necron would need to be defeated, but the tau, imperium and the Eldar and quite likley chaos (only what remained which would be weakened due to no gods any more) would destroy the Necron, once this was done choas and Eldar would slowly die out leaving the tau and the humans left to fight each other and the orks.

IF the necron were never to succeed in sealing the Warp off though it will just stay as it is but remember, if the imperium wanted to it could create an army so large that noting could stand before it, because there are millions of chapters of Space marians, and billions of billions of guards. and if the emporer was to be reincarnated he would unit the armies and lead them on a mighty crusade destroying the warriors of chaos and other races, he could then seal off the warp.

and the main reason the imperium does not develop it own technologies is because it is scared that it will help make some thing like the necron again, because if you read the founding by Dan Abnett it does give the impression that the necron were created by man before the dark ages of technology.

Sorry if this has some rubbish spelling in but i am dyslexic.


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## G_Morgan

Humanity created artificial intelligence, some of which rebelled, but the Necron are older than the Eldar.


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## Silb

roberto2391 said:


> Well i dont know if this has been said but if the necron were to succeed in there plan to seal the warp off from reality this would cause the death of the chaos gods, it would also stop the nids from working


I was always under the impression that it would not kill them, but it would cut them off from the material universe, weaken them drastically, and leave them trapped in the immaterium with no way out except possibly by travelling to other universes that are connected to the Warp (if there are any). Of course, if I'm wrong about there being other universes, it still wouldn't be so bad for them since the Warp has tons of planets and stuff that are completely under their control. The worst that could happen would be Khorne getting bored and going on a murderous rampage.



Here is my opinion for all the races' chances of destroying the imperium in the order of their threat level:

1. Chaos: As long as daemons and humans still exist, the forces of chaos will continue pouring forth from the warp and destroying everything in their path. Unless the necrons succeed with their plan to block the warp from the material universe or the chaos gods are killed, chaos is pretty much unstoppable.

2. Tyranids: They have a good chance of defeating the imperium because any alliance between the "smart" races (imperium, tau, eldar, chaos, and maybe dark eldar) would probably be formed too late to stop the massive hivefleets of the nids. However, if the imperium can find a strategy to stop the nids (or maybe some kind of a nid-killing disease), they should be able to stop them with very little effort. Also, although the high lords of terra believe there is a large hivefleet coming, I don't think they have any definite proof of it. Even if they are right it's possible that the next hivefleet will be the last one.

3. Necrons: If not stopped fast enough they would become a large threat, although the "smart" races (excluding the Tau) would probably ally against the Necrons faster than they would ally against the nids, due to the necrons' threat to the warp. Also, the necron forces aren't as massive as the nids and seem a little easier to defeat than the nids or chaos.

4. Orks: As others have said, if ALL of them unite (and getting all of them half a brain wouldn 't hurt) they'd be a large threat, although still not as much of a threat as the necrons, chaos marines, or tyranids. Also, them uniting is very unlikely, even if they're led by ghazgull.

5. Itself: They might distrust each other and occasionally fight against each other, but no large part of the imperium (like one of the major Ordos) would ever completely rebel against the rest of the Imperium, that's what the Codex Astartes was created to prevent.

6. Eldar and Dark Eldar: Not numerous enough. Unless they travel to Terra and start manipulating the Imperium's leaders, it's all but impossible for them to defeat the Imperium.

7. Tau: Despite their high-tech weapons, they have no warp travel and they have a small amount of troops and planets compared to the other races. If they somehow manage to increase their numbers and find a way to travel long distances, then they could become a threat, but that is incredibly unlikely.


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## TheInquisitor

with the grey knights at their desposial i would say that none is a big threat and that the imperium is the biggest threat is themself. becaouse there is so much thing that can go wrong within the imperium of man.


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## Metal_Ead

Orks would prevail. They are genetically enginered to fight the Necrons and C'tan by the Old Ones. They are designed to be like a galactic blemish of life that will NEVER be fully exterminated. The more conflict and war they see the bigger and more purposfull an Ork gets. They are thriving on war. No other race other than maybe 'Nids can realy calim this. People say that Orks fight each other too much to be a treat, but I see the opposite. The more Orks fight each other the stronger they get as a race. Survival of the toughest is at work constantly in Ork society, so every generation is stronger through natural selection. It is also known that the more Orks are around, the bigger they get, and the more they die the more they reproduce. How do you stop such a force of nature? Orks are cunning in an un-human way that we can't possibly understand. To call them stoopid, or to say they have half a brain, is seeing them with a human racal bias. They think differently than us, thats all. Many of comanders have arrogently dissmised the Orks tactical prowress, only to have their necks slit by sneaky Kommando infiltators! Orks have been around longer than the Imperium and humanity and will be there when when they'r gone.


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## vidya

there is lots of talk about the necrons and the tyranids and it is true that they are both great threats the imperium. however noone knows the size of the great hivefleet that is coming, and until we do we cant say how much of a threat it poses. the necrons are a potential threat to the imperium but only two of the four c'tan are awake and they are not unified. and they are the great enemy of the eldar, so we will have some form of ally in any eventuality.

surely the geatest enemy is chaos? the primordial annihilator. not just chaos space marines but chaos itself. the eye of terror is massive, no one knows how big and no one knows what untold horrors lie within. especially now abbadons black crusade has a foothold outside the eye of terror.

also when space marines die they say they are going to join their emperor and primarch for the 'last battle' against the forces of chaos. so whatever threat there is currently to the imperium this shows that they can defeat these threats until their real test against the forces of chaos


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## vidya

oh and orks? powerful...yes. clever...no. the greatest ork ever; mr thraka cant even take over armageddon and he has tried enough times.

the eldar are a dying race concerned with preserving what they have left and stopping the galaxy from imploding totally.

the tau are a threat, if they figure out warp travel but until then their colony is limited

and dark eldar? just no


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## G_Morgan

The Dark Eldar toy with their food too much. The SM would just send in some guardsmen to be captured and when the Dark Eldar are busy playing with them they'd catch them off guard and kill them.

Then the surviving IG's would have to be put to death because they'd no longer be clean.

Same principle can practically be applied to all the enemies they face. When the 'nids are busy eating the guardsmen the SM can knock out the hive ships. Also applies to warbosses and monoliths.


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## CyDoN

I dont see why the Tau are a theat to the Imperium... They are FAR too weak to be a threat. Even the guardsmen can take them down. It has been done before. And when the things will be harder then the SMs,Sissys,GK can be involved in the battles.

I would vote for the Tyranids a the greatest threat not of the Imperium but life itself. After that it would definatly be Chaos they dont need arms to win this war and then it would be the Necrons... but it will take them a long time to do that.


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## ChaosKen60

Silb said:


> I was always under the impression that it would not kill them, but it would cut them off from the material universe, weaken them drastically, and leave them trapped in the immaterium with no way out except possibly by travelling to other universes that are connected to the Warp (if there are any). Of course, if I'm wrong about there being other universes, it still wouldn't be so bad for them since the Warp has tons of planets and stuff that are completely under their control. The worst that could happen would be Khorne getting bored and going on a murderous rampage.
> 
> 
> 
> Here is my opinion for all the races' chances of destroying the imperium in the order of their threat level:
> 
> 1. Chaos: As long as daemons and humans still exist, the forces of chaos will continue pouring forth from the warp and destroying everything in their path. Unless the necrons succeed with their plan to block the warp from the material universe or the chaos gods are killed, chaos is pretty much unstoppable.
> 
> 2. Tyranids: They have a good chance of defeating the imperium because any alliance between the "smart" races (imperium, tau, eldar, chaos, and maybe dark eldar) would probably be formed too late to stop the massive hivefleets of the nids. However, if the imperium can find a strategy to stop the nids (or maybe some kind of a nid-killing disease), they should be able to stop them with very little effort. Also, although the high lords of terra believe there is a large hivefleet coming, I don't think they have any definite proof of it. Even if they are right it's possible that the next hivefleet will be the last one.
> 
> 3. Necrons: If not stopped fast enough they would become a large threat, although the "smart" races (excluding the Tau) would probably ally against the Necrons faster than they would ally against the nids, due to the necrons' threat to the warp. Also, the necron forces aren't as massive as the nids and seem a little easier to defeat than the nids or chaos.
> 
> 4. Orks: As others have said, if ALL of them unite (and getting all of them half a brain wouldn 't hurt) they'd be a large threat, although still not as much of a threat as the necrons, chaos marines, or tyranids. Also, them uniting is very unlikely, even if they're led by ghazgull.
> 
> 5. Itself: They might distrust each other and occasionally fight against each other, but no large part of the imperium (like one of the major Ordos) would ever completely rebel against the rest of the Imperium, that's what the Codex Astartes was created to prevent.
> 
> 6. Eldar and Dark Eldar: Not numerous enough. Unless they travel to Terra and start manipulating the Imperium's leaders, it's all but impossible for them to defeat the Imperium.
> 
> 7. Tau: Despite their high-tech weapons, they have no warp travel and they have a small amount of troops and planets compared to the other races. If they somehow manage to increase their numbers and find a way to travel long distances, then they could become a threat, but that is incredibly unlikely.


Well the for the most part I think you have it right.
You have to remember that some CSM have be fighting since the founding of the Imperium.
This would give them (fluff wise) a insight to Imperium that the others do not have.
And They are the only ones (if I remember right) who have invaded Holy Terra.
And good Old Horus did put the old man on the Golden Throne, yea I know he died


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## commissar gaunt

the imperium is threatened on all sides. i believe that the nids are the greatest threat to the imperium but the crons are the greatest threat to all life. the crons would harvest the nids and the nids wouldn't fight back: no sense of the tomb worlds etc...


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## arhain

nah the eldar would win 
the golden trhone is a webway gate with the emperor acting as a cork get some powerfull farseer and a group of aspect warriors as guards and blow the emperor to little pieces 

kill the head the body would follow

but the eldar would never do this because the imperium is the eldars best defense against chaos.


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## Siege

CyDoN said:


> I dont see why the Tau are a theat to the Imperium... They are FAR too weak to be a threat. Even the guardsmen can take them down. It has been done before. And when the things will be harder then the SMs,Sissys,GK can be involved in the battles.
> QUOTE]
> 
> Actually the Imperial Guard assault on the Tau came to a complete standstill at one point, both sides took heavy losses and the Guard eventually withdrew to assist against the Tyranid threat if I recall correctly.
> 
> Given time the Tau Empire could grow to be a major force in the galaxy, but I still think the Tau and the Imperium need to work together if they are going to make a stand against the 'Nids. I'm not entirely sure but aren't the Tau colonies directly in the way of the approaching Hive Fleets?


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## Luciferi

jakkie said:


> i would like to point out that the Necrons are the ONLY non-human race to have (recently) landed on Mars. (not counting the Machine God).
> i know that the last of the ships was blasted into oblivion by the defences, but the point still stands. plus theres the fact that the ships were only Shade Class light cruisers. if you had a load of Harvest Ships and a Tomb ship, then Mars would be SCREWED, titan legions or no titan legions.
> 
> then the Necs would be able to re-awaken the machine god and, after a while, launch an assault on Terra.
> 
> I think the Necrons are the biggest threat to the Impirium, the Galaxy and the rest of te Universe.
> 
> ------
> Jakkie
> ------


Yeah Mars has THE greatest defences in the Imperium apparently and one or more of the necron ships managed to land?

And I probably think that Necrons are the biggest threat. They rape anything and their bodies and tech can't be recovered for examination cause they always seem to teleport back to their tombworlds once they're downed.

Or atleast that's what I've read.


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## cobly

I'm sticking to outside threats here.

I'd say Chaos is the biggest threat followed by Tyranids and Orks. Necrons fall into 4th place imo with Tau, Eldar and Dark Eldar bringing up the rear.

Chaos is eternal and can never really be defeated.

Tyranids keep evolving and absorbing everything that has biological mass which happens to be the only reason I put them behind Chaos. Psychic entities cannot be "eaten."

Orks reproduce at astronomical rates but their lack of cohesion is what stops them from being the biggest threat. (strangely enough a lack of cohesion is what stopped Chaos in the past but that seems to be going away more and more)

Necrons just lack the numbers but I don't think they've shown their full potential yet.

Tau, Eldar and Dark Eldar just lack the numbers and motivation for destruction to be the most potent threats.


----------



## murphy

*Tau Rising*

The true threat the Tau pose isn't immediate, it is a threat that needs time to come to maturation. If they have that time, however, everything will go pear shaped for the Imperium very, very quickly. Consider: Six thousand years ago, the Tau were still in the equivalent of the human stone age, a period that stretched from roughly 8000 BC to 4500 BC. For ease of the maths, we'll just say that they were at the same stage as we were at 6000 BC.

That means they've progressed to where they are now in the time it took us to get to the middle of Augustus Caesar's reign over the Roman Empire.

They have powered battle suits and railguns that outclass the similar wargear of the Imperium, when in the same span of time humanity was using donkeys and bronze swords. And its not just that the rate of innovation is really high (though it is), the rate of change is increasing too. They're set to completely overtake all of the other factions, technologically, within the next thousand years.

Here's where you go," But their numbers, so small!"

The second strength of the Tau is their society; it isn't a dicto-bureaucracy, where the vast masses of peons are forced to do the bidding of a larger Empire. The Tau caste system directly and positively involves the entire population in the expansion of the Empire. Look at the commiserate in the Imperial Guard; one of the core principals of the Imperium's largest fighting force is getting their soldiery to fight out of fear. Think about how often Imperium worlds are in revolt, or wracked with unrest. And that's without any outside influence, just the internal rumblings of the Imperium! Once the doctrine of the "Greater Good" hits the fertile soil of Human discontent, whole systems will start defecting to the Tau Empire.

And there's your numbers problem solved right there.

"But the Eldar are another high technology faction that has small numbers; why aren't they a threat?"

The Eldar are in decline, and have been weakening for longer than the existence of the Imperium. Every year sees the Tau Empire stronger, larger, and better equiped.

The only question about the Tau is," When will they find a serious FTL drive?" I'm not sure its going to be Warp travel, like the other factions, since the Tau lack the psyker potential to utilize this method. However, Warp travel sucks. Half the time you wind up in some completely different place than you meant to, it promotes mutations and daemonic possession, and every once and awhile your entire vessel gets eaten by an aether kraken. But at a certain point, all of the sentient races discover that they can access the Warp, and all progress towards a true FTL drive stops A sort of," We have psykers, we may as well use them philosophy."

Without psykers to lead them into the trap of Warp travel, Tau are conceivably the first race to find a way out of Einstein's box. And when you combine a massive technological advantage, a social doctrine that directly appeals to 99 percent of the Imperium's population, and FTL travel that actually works, you have the greatest threat to Mankind's Empire.


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## Luciferi

Very, very well put.

What about the Necrons and their C'tan Star Gods? they're THE most advanced race of them all right? and they do FTL travel without the warp. Plus they can be repaired and therefor fight again and there's like Billions of Necron warriors in stasis all across the Imperium just awaiting to be re-awoken.

Five of their scout ships managed to best THE greatest defences in the imperirium above Mars and several of them managed to land if I'm correct. Immagine if an entire Necron fleet where to attack Mars and then Terra. The Imperium stands no chance much as I hate to say it.


----------



## murphy

Luciferi said:


> Very, very well put.
> 
> What about the Necrons and their C'tan Star Gods? they're THE most advanced race of them all right? and they do FTL travel without the warp. Plus they can be repaired and therefor fight again and there's like Billions of Necron warriors in stasis all across the Imperium just awaiting to be re-awoken.
> 
> Five of their scout ships managed to best THE greatest defences in the imperirium above Mars and several of them managed to land if I'm correct. Immagine if an entire Necron fleet where to attack Mars and then Terra. The Imperium stands no chance much as I hate to say it.


The Necrons are a finite resource. Yes, they are extremely hard to kill. But for every one that gets hit by Demolisher round or Volcano cannon or a battery of Devestators, and is utterly destroyed to the point where there isn't enough to rebuild, that is one less Necron -forever-. The Tau are always making more Tau. All you need is two Tau, and a half-bottle of vodka, and six months.

And their is a certain eerie similarity to their technology. The Necron guns use 'gauss' technology, where the Tau use railguns.

Okay, so that is the end of the eerie similarity. But it still weirds me out.

I'm pretty sure scout ships would be better at penetrating the defenses of the Sol system than a full battlefleet; small, fast and agile tends to work better against the Imperium's style than big, block and hard. There's also the question of how much they -avoided- the defenses and how much they -destroyed- the defenses.

And here's the thing; lets say the Necrons destroy Earth. Kill everything on it to the last man.

They still haven't even killed a fraction of one percent of mankind. And they just set the Emperor free, so in twenty years the Imperium will have the full might of their God-Made-Flesh again. Really, the best thing that could possibly happen to the Imperium is some massive event that kills everything on Terra.


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## Luciferi

Lmao, I guess.

And apparently Gauss weaponry is similar in basic principle to rail weaponry. 

And apparently the ships took fire that'd cripple almost any other vessel and shrugged it off but eventually it took it's toll though and they where annihilated.


----------



## G_Morgan

cobly said:


> Orks reproduce at astronomical rates but their lack of cohesion is what stops them from being the biggest threat. (strangely enough a lack of cohesion is what stopped Chaos in the past but that seems to be going away more and more)


If Chaos become cohesive then it's no longer Chaos by definition.

As for the Tau. The immensely fast advancement rate can be attributed to two things:
1. The Etheral castes control means they avoided a dark age
2. There are rumours of Eldar intervention in their development

I suspect that once the Imperium faces a real threat then people will stop being sheep. It will break the 'Only the Emperor protects' wallow and force people to fight and think for themselves. Once that happens then humanity starts towards it's potential again and if WH40k history has shown anything it's that a relatively small number of people can bring about galactic change (the great crusade being the obvious example). It seems unlikely that the Tau will wipe out humanity so a smaller, progressive, human empire could rise up and incite rebellion within Tau society.


----------



## Ancient Tiel' a fier

the biggest threat to the imperium is the imperium, without the emperors direct leadership humanitys diversity causes it to conflict with itself now the great crusade is over the imperium is slowly dying as a result of its lack of complete leadership and unity. The threat from within is far bigger than without.
I dont believe the tau are a serious threat in codex orks (i think) there is a story of an ork walord is is invading the tau empire and grows in momentum every year. the tau are fighting for survival.
The Necrons are a monumentally powerful race but wether they will gain much of a foothold relies largly on chaos, the necron history describes a race called the enslavers which from the describtion are daemons and they were one of the major reasons for retreating to the tomb worlds, however the death bringer has planned for dangerous psykers and daemons by planting the pariah gene in humanity.
As someone else says unless Gazghull Thraka is killed soon his waaagh will continue to grow he is the prophet of gork and if allowed to live will unite his race eventually dooming everyone.
Eldar are on a long shot but they have a new god called Ynead growing in the infinity circuit could give them a chance.
Chaos are a tricky one unless you have read the horus heresy novels you might not like this oppinion. The 21st primarch Omegon of the Aplha legion is probably still at large in the galaxy they are so sneaky its unbelievable it will take time but there networks of spys will eventually be so well placed that chaos will conquer the imperium which then gets messy. an organisation called the cabal warned alpahrius and omegon of the dangers of chaos and what would happen if the emperor won the heresy, the slow decay of man and eternal slaughter, to save the galaxy and complete the emperors dream (to destroy chaos) the twin primarchs joined horus because after conquering the galaxy horus would have been so overun with greif he would have destroyed humainty saving the rest of the galaxy and burning chaos out in a few years of slaughter. and after all this i believe abbaddon would do the same the only reason he turned is because he loved horus as his father, if he conquers the imperium i believe his humanity will re emerge and the guilt of all that he has done will lead his to exterminate humanity.
thats it i think


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## murphy

G_Morgan said:


> If Chaos become cohesive then it's no longer Chaos by definition.
> 
> As for the Tau. The immensely fast advancement rate can be attributed to two things:
> 1. The Etheral castes control means they avoided a dark age
> 2. There are rumours of Eldar intervention in their development
> 
> I suspect that once the Imperium faces a real threat then people will stop being sheep. It will break the 'Only the Emperor protects' wallow and force people to fight and think for themselves. Once that happens then humanity starts towards it's potential again and if WH40k history has shown anything it's that a relatively small number of people can bring about galactic change (the great crusade being the obvious example). It seems unlikely that the Tau will wipe out humanity so a smaller, progressive, human empire could rise up and incite rebellion within Tau society.


I'm really rather confused what you mean by "real threat". Time and time again, massive waaghs, hive fleets and eldar raids kill whole worlds, and yet the Imperium hasn't changed in any way. And the only people that the Tau Empire is a threat to are those in power; the vast, teeming majority of humanity would literally be better off with the Ethereals in charge.

And that's just it. The Ethereal caste and the system of governance they created is just flat out better than the Human Empire's system. It responds more appropriately to threats, it uses its resources better, and it keeps its citizens happier. The stability and health of the society means that they'll keep on going at this growth rate for an arbitrarily long period of time (forever, the heat death or otherwise closure of the universe notwithstanding).

The only time in the Imperium's history that it was vital, that progress was made and growth occurred was with the direct leadership of the Emperor. The problem there that 1) being but a single man, He could only be in one place at a time; this let heresy and rebellion grow wherever He was not. This limited the eventual functional size of the empire, as He has to be able to reach anyone He wants to control with any reliability and 2) as soon as the Emperor was removed from the equation, everything went to pot and the Imperium collapsed into the turgid, wasteful bureaucratic mess of mediocrity that it is today.

An Empire is by its very nature fragile, being held together more or less by the personal power of the Emperor. The Tau society would be more accurately described as a collective, and has all the vitality that the form's redundancy grants.


----------



## Green Knight

Ancient Tiel' a fier said:


> Eldar are on a long shot but they have a new god called Ynead growing in the infinity circuit could give them a chance.
> Chaos are a tricky one unless you have read the horus heresy novels you might not like this oppinion. The 21st primarch Omegon of the Aplha legion is probably still at large in the galaxy they are so sneaky its unbelievable it will take time but there networks of spys will eventually be so well placed that chaos will conquer the imperium which then gets messy. an organisation called the cabal warned alpahrius and omegon of the dangers of chaos and what would happen if the emperor won the heresy, the slow decay of man and eternal slaughter, to save the galaxy and complete the emperors dream (to destroy chaos) the twin primarchs joined horus because after conquering the galaxy horus would have been so overun with greif he would have destroyed humainty saving the rest of the galaxy and burning chaos out in a few years of slaughter. and after all this i believe abbaddon would do the same the only reason he turned is because he loved horus as his father, if he conquers the imperium i believe his humanity will re emerge and the guilt of all that he has done will lead his to exterminate humanity.
> thats it i think


you are right, Ancient Tiel' a fier:victory:. This is what i said on the vote thread for the bigest come back, and they did not beleve me:angry:. They said that Omegon is dead


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

there is no mention of omegon dying anywhere since his existance has only just been published. Alpharius was killed by Robute guilliman (or possibly Omegon as no outsider could tell them apart) but the other twin is at large. No one outside of the alpha legion and the emperor knew omegon existed not even horus.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

and about the eldar see codex eldar page 39 a little piece of story called the god of the dead


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## G_Morgan

murphy said:


> I'm really rather confused what you mean by "real threat". Time and time again, massive waaghs, hive fleets and eldar raids kill whole worlds, and yet the Imperium hasn't changed in any way. And the only people that the Tau Empire is a threat to are those in power; the vast, teeming majority of humanity would literally be better off with the Ethereals in charge.


By real threat I mean a WW2 situation. Where Britain was forced to fight a war on it's own border, desperately trying to rally the rest of it's empire from lethargy to help in it's defence. An analogy would by a conquest of Mars with a huge force waiting to assault Earth with the question being if the rest of the Imperium could respond quickly enough to stop the fall of Earth. The Heresy is actually quite close to this.

On the scale of the Imperium. The wars with chaos (Horus Heresy excepted) and the rest are mere border skirmishes. The battles are cataclysmic but aren't close to endangering the Imperium as a whole (I'm sure one Dark Eldar claimed that the Imperium only cares about the loss of whole sectors, it shows what you have to do to hurt humanity).



murphy said:


> And that's just it. The Ethereal caste and the system of governance they created is just flat out better than the Human Empire's system. It responds more appropriately to threats, it uses its resources better, and it keeps its citizens happier. The stability and health of the society means that they'll keep on going at this growth rate for an arbitrarily long period of time (forever, the heat death or otherwise closure of the universe notwithstanding).
> 
> The only time in the Imperium's history that it was vital, that progress was made and growth occurred was with the direct leadership of the Emperor. The problem there that 1) being but a single man, He could only be in one place at a time; this let heresy and rebellion grow wherever He was not. This limited the eventual functional size of the empire, as He has to be able to reach anyone He wants to control with any reliability and 2) as soon as the Emperor was removed from the equation, everything went to pot and the Imperium collapsed into the turgid, wasteful bureaucratic mess of mediocrity that it is today.
> 
> An Empire is by its very nature fragile, being held together more or less by the personal power of the Emperor. The Tau society would be more accurately described as a collective, and has all the vitality that the form's redundancy grants.


The Etherals offer slavery behind a bribe of comfortable means. It's better than what the Imperium offers but humanity is capable of better and facing annihilation would wake up. However powerful the Imperial cult is, put all of civilisation at threat and people will respond. Remember that the Inquisition goes to great lengths to hide the truth threats to humanity. As far as most of the population are concerned, the biggest threat to them is being stabbed in a hive city gang war.

//edit - it's worth noting the Etherals persuasive powers only work on other Tau. It's been noted that on many conquered worlds the human population would rebel the moment it seemed the Imperium was trying to take the world back. Obviously not as compelling a message as first thought.//


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

its a fair point that the tau empire has a better system of governance than the imperium but it is not infallibale what about the rebellion of fairsight, if it happened once it will happen again as the tau empire grows it could happen more and more so is the etheral caste better at controlling there empire than the emperor was his or is it simply that it is too small to compare, after all in the early days of the great crusade rebellion was unheard of.


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## cobly

One thing I noticed about those who mention Chaos on this thread is that the traitor legions keep coming up. The CSMs are a very small threat compared to the daemons of the warp. The Chaos daemons are older than the Necrons, more resilient than the Orks (you can't virus bomb the Warp) and they simply cannot be destroyed, only banished. Also, they convert mortals to their own needs which destroys civilizations from within. The Fall of the Eldar and the Horus Heresy are both prime examples of that. The same thing could easily happen to the Tau and for all we know it may be happening already. (I personally hope so, a Chaos Tau army would rock!) Basically Chaos is destroying the Imperium from within. It may be at a slow pace but in terms of how much damage anyone has done to the Imperium (and the Eldar for that matter) the Dark Gods lead by a wide margin.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

its true that chaos cannot be destroy but it can be controlled as it was between the fall of the eldar and the rise of the imperium, organisations such as the cabal kept the primordial annihilator in check. Do daemons of the warp predate the necrons towards the end of the war with the old ones a race called the enslavers (daemons in every description) were instrumental in the defeat of the necrons, but they only came into the war near the end at a similar time as the eldar and krork (later ork) were created. only the young races believe chaos as it is now has been ever present.


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## Unknown Primarch

thats a good point because i keep reading that the shamons that became the emperor were around before chaos but then i hear chaos has been around since the beginning of the universe. but surely the necrons and eldar were around before the shamons as humans were a young race who werent tampered with like the orks and eldar were by the old ones/slann. all very confusing in my opinion. can anyone clear this up?


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

in the necron book the background says the necrontyr rose in a galaxy were the old ones reined they grew jelous of the old ones for there long life as the necrontyr were shortlived. they made war with the old ones got there asses kicked and as they were nearing collapse the necrontyr summoned the star gods (ctan) to aid them the star gods brought new technology and harnessed the power of stars and the necrontyr set out again destroying the old ones before they were destroyed they had created the younger races eldar ork humans etc etc. the eldar record fighting the yngir ( necrontyr) in the early days of there empire. but basically the necrons fell because of pyskics and the enslavers (daemons) as they have no knolage of the warp this stands to reason hence why the nightbringer made the pariah gene to combat the pykers. sorry this is all jumbled.


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## Luciferi

Well the C'tan must have quite an understanding of the warp as those collosal pylons that they've built on planets like Cadia (not too sure about Cadia though) somehow stop the planet from being absorbed in the eye of terror or something. Sorry for my lack of knowledge on this, I read it sometime last year when i was ill off school.


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## Apoctis

Necrons I don't think you relize that every attack made on them has not changed anything no matter how big. The orks will be the end of each other, the Eldar will die of old age along with the dark eldar. Chaos will be constantly repelled by the imperium. Tau will have to fight chaos deamons and be stuck. Necrons are the end it even says so in the codex. The tryanids may get bigger and badder but by the time they are good enough to attack the imperium and win there will be no more life because the necros will kill all of it.


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## Luciferi

Just an observation but surelly the necrons/c'tan would go and fight off the biggest threat to them/their food (cause th c'tan eat souls or something >_>?) so why don't they just go spend the next forever decimating the tryanid race >_>?


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

the pylons calm the warp who made them isnt confirmed but they cant have been made by the necrons as the eye was created by the birth of slannesh at the fall of the eldar the necrons were asleep at this time. why build a pylon to control a warp rift that doesnt exist


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## Luciferi

Maybe they somehow found out about the fall of the Eldar and such?

Sorry if it didn't make sense btw, I read about the pylons and the necrons ages ago so some of the facts have probably gotten quite mized in my head xD.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

seems unlikly but who knows its all speculation


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## Ender

While more deadly and more expansive, they sleep . . . and sleep some more . . . until some dumb techpriest runs in the dark creepy tomb on the barely inhabited planet. I want to say tau, their rate of technological growth is astounding but not enough people to use it. I would have to put my money on chaos, eye of terror may (not likely) get cleansed, but there will always be some xeno (or more humans) easily influenced by the warp. 'nids make me think . . . If I come to a decision about them I'll post it (if its logical)


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## Combatmuffin

I'm going with the Imperium. They are their worst enemy. Humans tend to be the worst enemy of themselves...get enough of them in one place and they start creating task forces and committees and other large groups that inhibit growth. All that leads to a weakening of morals, resolve and...ultimately...the introduction of xenos and chaos.

Yes...man has always been his worst enemy.

But a close number two would be the necrons. For they creep me out something fierce!


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## Ender

After reading combatmuffin's post I second that motion of the Imperium


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## Brain Deleted

The only thing holding humanity back is itself. We could easily over come any and all threats if we just got our damn act together. :biggrin:

As for Tau...Its not that impressive, really. Humanity advanced at about the same rate and then went stagnant. The Eldar too advanced like that and then...well the fall came. The Tau aren't even on par with man or Eldar yet...They have better equipment per man but when you think about it they have 1/100000 of the men the Imperium has to equip. There are nearly as many Space Marines scattered throughout human space as there are Tau soldiers and Marines are much better equipped.

I can't say Tyranids are a big threat...Because we just don't know. The hive fleets we've seen thus far could be the last desperate attacks of a dying race or they could be scouting forces for a massive intergalactic race...or they could be a splintered fragment of a divided Tyranic race (Strange to think of because of the Hive mind and all but does there have to be one hive mind?)


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## Ender

The worst thing is the oppressive religion that destroys free thinking and inventions in the extreme


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

i agree with that the imperium has grown stagnant.


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## Ender

Its not so much as agree-ing to it. The imperium IS stagnant, but the real question is, "Can the imperium get away from the stagnation before it becomes malignant?"


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## Lord Khorne

Orks. Their number are just too great.
I reckon there will not be much fighting between the Tau and the Imperium. I think there will be much peace. For the Greater Good, remember?


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## Ender

Using your line, I reckon there will not be much fighting between the orks and the orks. I think there will be much war. War for its own sake, remember?


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## Kitzz

After reading this thread, it seems to me that the vast majority of the posters are missing extremely important points about the necron menace. Here are but a few:

The Outsider, the third C'tan, is awake. He lives inside the dyson sphere that the tyranids are avoiding. He actually appeared during medusa 5, and was in charge of the head Necron Lord there.

The Tau are pawns of the Deciever. Why did they advance so quickly? They saw some lights up on the hills, gained huge amounts of tech advancement during the warp storm (much like the imperium did when they found the necrotech on mars), while strangely not learning to acess the warp AT ALL. Hmm, races that can't acess the warp... Besides that, there was the small incedent of Commander Farsight killing all of his ehterals when he found out they were servants of the C'tan on that dead world. He seperated because he refuses to be led by the Deciver.

The deciever tricked the other C'tan, who were once rulers of the universe. He can trick humans. He already has. There is a massive section of those techpriests on mars, which includes one of the high lords of terra, that has stopped worshipping the Emperor entirely in favor of the Dragon.

The Dragon, the most powerful C'tan ever, who can awaken the greatest amount of warriors of all of the others, lies sleeping on mars. Five necron scout ships teleported INSTANTLY to within mars's orbit and one of them LANDED. SCOUT ships. Imgaine what one of the tomb ships might do.

The necrons are also perhaps in charge in some way of the inqusition, or at least the assassinorium. They use the pariah gene to make new "human" necrons using the EXACT SAME tech as the imperium uses for its culexus assassins.

The Outsider awoke on the world next to where the genestealers first arrived. He is in charge of the gene-splicing Pariah project amongst the C'tan. If you don't think he INVITED the nids, you are sorely mistaken.

THE ONLY WAY to actually kill any necron is to destroy its tombworld entirely. Even those vaporized by lascannon/demolisher/titanic blasts are repaired from so much dust. THE ONLY WAY to kill a C'tan is with at least one (if not 6) blackstone fortresses, of which only 2-4 remain. All of those that do remain are in Abbadon's posession. He could care less because he knows the Dragon is on mars and if he gets there he knows he can destroy the imperium no matter how damaged his legions of chaos might be.

The necrons get closer and closer to shutting off the warp from any influence. They live forever, and the timescale doesn't matter to them. If there is another threat they haven't taken care of, are in the process of taking care of, or that they CAUSED THEMSELVES, I would like to know what it is. Otherwise, it is clear they are the greatest threat as only the Eldar truly know their true capacities.

Its rather unfortunate that so many races are the Necron's pawns and that GW can never have the true extent of the galactic takeover revealed, but nonetheless, they are the biggest threat to not only the imperium, but all sentient life.

Necron Fluff Buff,
Kitzz


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

where did you get the info on the other two ctan i would like to read it


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## Kitzz

Well honestly I don't remember much about where I got the Outsider info, but the Dragon's stuff is all in the codex. The mods at the C'tan support group have a pretty good amount of the external background, this was just a quick summation.


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## Lord Khorne

Wow, I just learnt something! *jaw drops*
Still necrons can't rule the chaos gods....unless they are working together????


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## Combatmuffin

Truly, I find Necrons more frightening than any other "race" in the entire game setting. Even more scary than Chaos or Dark Eldar. I looked through the Necron codex once and had some scary dreams after that.

Other than my post about the Imperium being it's own worst enemy, I definitely second the Necron Menace.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

but can they destroy the chaos gods, a galaxy of pariahs may just be a first step. With no servants worshipers or psykers to act as a conduit can chaos continue to exist.


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## Leatharnak

One day da Ork 'ill crush everding under der boots den some silly genesneaker'll come up from da skies and wipe out all da orks cause dey devour'd da planet, see? Den Gork'll be sad...or maybe Mork'll...don know point is da humies and the space commies and dad dead machine dings gots no chance cause of da WAAAAAGGGGHHHH! But dem genesneakers and dem 'nids sucka up all da spores and da fungus. Sads.


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## Sister Theadosia

Well ccp there is only one real enemy of the Imperium.

And thats me.:shok:


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## murphy

Brain Deleted said:


> ]
> As for Tau...Its not that impressive, really. Humanity advanced at about the same rate and then went stagnant. The Eldar too advanced like that and then...well the fall came. The Tau aren't even on par with man or Eldar yet...They have better equipment per man but when you think about it they have 1/100000 of the men the Imperium has to equip. There are nearly as many Space Marines scattered throughout human space as there are Tau soldiers and Marines are much better equipped.


Just wanted to point out that the Tau advanced much more swiftly than humanity did. They're where they are now where we were around the rise of the Roman Empire. So they've got interstellar travel when our cutting edge tech in travel was bridges that didn't fall down.

And whats more they have interstellar travel that will ultimately be better than the random, Warp-based junk that everyone else uses. And that's an even bigger thing about their tech edge; they really understand what they're doing, and how it all works. So their gear can actually get better. 

Numbers really don't matter at a certain point. Because the Human Empire is so huge, it can't ever actually focus its whole strength on any one point. Don't get me wrong, numbers -are- an advantage and the Human Empire does hold that one. But its only an advantage up to a point.


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## Ender

I agree, but right now its still at a point where the humans numbers can out-weigh the tau firepower. So not currently the biggest threat


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

the tau empire is a small isolated problem for local imperial forces its doesnt threaten the imperium at large.


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## wd6669

Chaos daemons, if even 1 of the four chaos gods realize that necrons are a threat to them the necrons would be skrewed


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## murphy

Ender said:


> I agree, but right now its still at a point where the humans numbers can out-weigh the tau firepower. So not currently the biggest threat


They're not the current largest threat, no, and in my original post on them I said that. But when you look at the graph of the various factions power-over-time, the Tau have the greatest potential level and therefore have the greatest threat.

The Necrons are a flat line. Depending on how you value their force, it might be the highest line at the moment, but even the highest level of power can be outgrown if it doesn't grow as well. If all of the C'tan woke up -now- and roused all of the Necron -now-, it would be messy. But they aren't, so it isn't.

The Human Empire's line is actually tending -down-. The Orks line is this crazy spike pattern as Waaghs grow and dissipate, both Eldar factions line is tending downwards as well. I'm not sure what the hell Chaos's line is doing. The only group besides the Tau that has really explosive growth potential is the 'nids, who in my mind are the second greatest threat. As a technician, I may have a slight bias towards the power of technology over biology.

And with regards to the number question: Anyone ever heard of Rourke's Drift? Small numbers with superior technique and weaponry can hold defensively against an arbitrarily large enemy force for as long as they want (see the Damocles Crusade).


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## thomas2

wd6669 said:


> Chaos daemons, if even 1 of the four chaos gods realize that necrons are a threat to them the necrons would be skrewed


 The Necrons are powerful enough to be a serious threat to the Imperium, so how one Chaos god could beat them *without *any sort of Chaos worshipper support is beyond me. All four Chaos Gods are trying to destroy the Imperium, AND they can convert them, AND the Imperium has less anti-warp equipment then Necrons, AND you said only Daemons, who can't take the Imperium with 9 Legions, and millions, billions even of lesser Chaos pawns helping them. Chaos isn't that big a threat. 'Nids are, and I choose to consider Necrons not strong enough. Tau aren't going to become a threat in the same time-scale as 'nids, but still are one. 
Oh, and Kitzz, are the Necrons so powerful and influencal? Tau DO use the warp to travel, but a different, short-term and short-distance type. Saying the advancement was partly brought about by a warp storm is very anti-Necron, they don't use the warp remember? Etherals helped with technology, and Etherals probably have the power to make the Tau voluntarily take a Necron-like change, but they haven't. If any Tau follow Necrons it is Farsight, not the other way round, and I believe it isn't Necrons controlling him. 
Techpriests may worship the Void Dragon but he's dormant, and isn't waking up any time soon. If a tomb ship arrived at Mars it would be blown to pieces after achieving nothing, I can imagine that easily. Necrons MIGHT have made the Pariah gene, and the assassinorium does use them, but does that mean they control it? Nope, the assassinorium found the gene, didn't worry about the origins and put it into good use. 
The outsider inviting the 'nids? Come on, 'nid creatures have been found in the galaxy from when every single Necron was dormant, and it was these that invited the hive fleets. 


> If there is another threat they haven't taken care of, are in the process of taking care of, or that they CAUSED THEMSELVES, I would like to know what it is.


How about every other major race? Except 'nids, who can't eat them, and Tau, who are a bit too weak at the moment, and are NOT caused by them.


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## Luciferi

if 5 necron scout ships managed to survive THE greatest defenses in the imperium to the point where they nearly landed on Mars' surface (one of them actually landed) then I don't think a tombship would have that big a problem especially if it had other ships with it..


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## cccp

iirc, the necrons hate the warp. they can't use it.


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## cobly

You guys need to read the daemon codex. There are only 2 reasons why Chaos hasn't brought all of existance under its heel:

1) Khorne, Nurgle and Slaanesh haven't WANTED to do it yet. They just simply don't care.

2) Tzeentch hasn't put his staff back together yet which once allowed him to rule over ALL OF CREATION. (according to the codex)

Sorry, I'm still not convinced that Necrons, Tau, Orks, 'Nids or anything else are even remotely close to being as dangerous as Chaos. BTW they don't need worshippers to exist. Worshippers and psykers just make it easier for them. Notice that there are no mortals or psychic powers in the daemon armies...


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

poor imperium chaos want to recruit it as servants the necrons wish to transform it in to pariahs nids want to eat it orks want to bash it tau want to subvert it and the eldar just make them fight there battles. all is not fair in war.


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## Deacon316

Ancient Tiel' a fier said:


> poor imperium chaos want to recruit it as servants the necrons wish to transform it in to pariahs nids want to eat it orks want to bash it tau want to subvert it and the eldar just make them fight there battles. all is not fair in war.


Makes me wonder why the Imperium hasn't just curled up into a ball asking for it's mommy yet.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

strong amasec i suspect


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## murphy

Luciferi said:


> if 5 necron scout ships managed to survive THE greatest defenses in the imperium to the point where they nearly landed on Mars' surface (one of them actually landed) then I don't think a tombship would have that big a problem especially if it had other ships with it..


You're making assumptions about the battle which I don't believe match what actually happened. The reason that the scout ships survived is that they're dodgey scout ships, who's whole purpose is to get into places that are hard to get into to take a look around. To put it another way, just because allied AA never shot down a fly in World War 2 doesn't mean it never shot down a bomber.


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## -xecutioner-

the necron ships are made out of living metal though arent they, so it would be near imposssible to actually blast one out of the air. the 'crons in the fluff are hard as nails...


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

they are solid in battlefleet gothic too, takes a couple of battlebarges with there bombardment cannons to take out. No other imperial vessels can match the tombship


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## Triumph Of Man

> Sorry, I'm still not convinced that Necrons, Tau, Orks, 'Nids or anything else are even remotely close to being as dangerous as Chaos. BTW they don't need worshippers to exist. Worshippers and psykers just make it easier for them. Notice that there are no mortals or psychic powers in the daemon armies...


Actually they won't exist. They don't need worshippers, but they do need something giving life to Chaos.

The Chaos realm is a reflection of mortal minds, Khorne for example is a reflection of bloodshed and violence warped to an extreme degree. I'm not sure if it's mentioned in the current Daemon codex, Khorne is the strongest due to the fact that violence on apocalyptic levels is pretty easy to come by in the 40k universe. Even if those fighting don't worship Khorne their actions and state of minds still give him strength. Slannesh was created through the reflection of the Eldar minds in the warp, leading to them now being very careful about their emotions.

Again, it's probably not mentioned in this codex, but there are in fact thousands of different Chaos entities within the warp. Each being a reflection of thought on the material plane and they may or may not be allied with Khorne, Slannesh and Tzeentch. However none are anywhere near as powerful as the four main gods. IIRC GW even had mention of a Chaos god of doubting chaos itself exists, as that is a thought that some people on the material plane will harbour.

Thus if we have the scenario where Necrons harvest all living creatures the warp will go back to being a dormant primordial chaos state as there is no sentient thought to be reflected.



> You guys need to read the daemon codex. There are only 2 reasons why Chaos hasn't brought all of existance under its heel:
> 
> 1) Khorne, Nurgle and Slaanesh haven't WANTED to do it yet. They just simply don't care.
> 
> 2) Tzeentch hasn't put his staff back together yet which once allowed him to rule over ALL OF CREATION. (according to the codex)
> 
> Sorry, I'm still not convinced that Necrons, Tau, Orks, 'Nids or anything else are even remotely close to being as dangerous as Chaos.


I think as people have already mentioned, the fluff in this codex has generally been shot to shit. A lot of the interesting stuff has been pushed aside in favour of _"THIS ARMY IS THE l33TEST! OMGpwnz0R!111!!11!"_. Something the above comment is a testament to.


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## retardonice

im gonna go with combo of necrons + nids,
the nids would wipe out the other races, i mean cmon their almost impossible to beat, and its hinted in the codex that their is probably more tyranids than orks, after nids wipe the galaxy clean, then well their stuck, necrons hit and kill some then dissapear when they lose, no biomass is left because of gauss weapons and teleporting. their are only 2 ctan's awake currently and i believe they find stars more delicious then souls but wouldnt know ctan's taste. Orks couldnt hope to stop tyranids as thats alot of biomass to consume, and every ork that falls, which isnt that hard, brings up another hormogaunt or warrior because of the orks pure size and mass.


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## cobly

Well since people are using leet speak now I've changed my mind. Chaos isn't the biggest threat to the Imperium, this thread is. :/


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## Ender

Lol. funny

The biggest threat to the Imperium is GW closing down . . . (probably from over pricing  )


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## deusvult

As for Tau...Its not that impressive, really. Humanity advanced at about the same rate and then went stagnant. The Eldar too advanced like that and then...well the fall came. The Tau aren't even on par with man or Eldar yet...They have better equipment per man but when you think about it they have 1/100000 of the men the Imperium has to equip. There are nearly as many Space Marines scattered throughout human space as there are Tau soldiers and Marines are much better equipped.[/QUOTE]
How do you figure that humanity is more advanced than the Tau. Humans best warriors are using what amounts to supped up assault rifles and swords for christsake. Mean while, the Tau have plasma guns that don't blow up (Unexpectedly) and rail guns. Plus, they don't pray to their technology. The Imperium isn't even sure how their most advanced equipment works. 

Anyway, the nids and the necrons are tied for biggest immediate threat, but if no one wipes out the Tau in the next few millenni, they will be in there too.


----------



## Rindaris

The greatest enemy of the Imperium is the Imperium.


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## Deacon316

The greatest enemy to the Imperium is....The Inquisition. They will declare all humans heretics and immediately start burning everyone.


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## Apoctis

yes as you see it says in the freeking codex through hints and fluff that necrons are the biggest long term threat, orks the biggest short term, chaos the biggest public threat, Tau the greatest threat to thier technology, Eldar are freeking going to die of old age and nids are the greatest threat to anything in its path but the ive fleets sill can splinter so they aren't so big.


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## Luciferi

murphy said:


> You're making assumptions about the battle which I don't believe match what actually happened. The reason that the scout ships survived is that they're dodgey scout ships, who's whole purpose is to get into places that are hard to get into to take a look around. To put it another way, just because allied AA never shot down a fly in World War 2 doesn't mean it never shot down a bomber.


I'm just going on what I've read on Lexicanum.com lol.

But still supposedly every class of Necron ship is able to beat the Imperial equivalent.

Although the Necrons IMO are the biggest threat I still don't think that they'd be able to take down the Imperium of Man, give it a run for it's money but not take it down. The sheer amount of men and women in the IG alone is probably a conciderable amount larger than there are Necrons and if worse comes to worse I think the Eldar would help. I've read somewhere (might be a load of shit though) that they need the Imperium to survive.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

just about the necron starships they do outpower humanitys in a big way but they are few and far between. In battlefleet gothic the points weigh up as 500 for a tomb ship and the actual vessel in the mars landing is a shroud class light cruiser at 155pts the imperial comparrison vessels are the Retribution class battleship at 365pts and the dauntless light cruiser at 110 pts. so yes the necron vessels matched to there imperial equivilant are superior but the imperium has a lot of battleships and a lot of cruisers. Major assault from the necron is unlikle to succeed. Though the description in the battlefleet gothic book does state that the only imperial vessels likely to catch a Shroud class do not have the firepower to beat it.


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## The Lions Sword

Honestly long term goes to the Tau. They evolve like crazy and are pushing into Imperial territory extremly quickly. Short term would have to go to the Tyranids. The Imperium can barely defeat one hive fleet, and what would happen if they were hit by two hive fleets at the same time. The defences are spread so thin throughout the galaxy and they would not have enough resources to take on both at once.


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## Honking_Elephant

In my opinion Chaos and tyranids are the greatest threat to the imperium. I think Chaos are due to the fact that in the most recent black crusade, Abbadon took hold of cadia, which is the safest way out of the eye of terror, with the safe route out, Chaos can litteraly pour out destroying everything in its path, as the Chaos gods' Daemon legions are virtualy inumerable. 

The 'nids cos the attacks that have taken place are mearly 'scout fleets' for a massive fleet. And the current hive fleet (leviathan?) have been redirected into ork spcae, not defeated, all the fighting thats taking place will result in even more powerful nids, resulting in more death for the Imperium. 

I don't think that necrons are such a great threat, mainly cos they can't use the warp, its also hard to guage how many necrons there are, its never specificaly mentioned how many there are, but if the imperium really could get its act together, they could just exterminatus tomb worlds. If that doesn't work then theres always ships like the planet killer.

Regardless of what some people have said about the tau, that they could be a problem, they are som small they could be completly destroyed by the imperium if the became too much of a thorn in there side.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

I don't think that necrons are such a great threat, mainly cos they can't use the warp, its also hard to guage how many necrons there are, its never specificaly mentioned how many there are, but if the imperium really could get its act together, they could just exterminatus tomb worlds. If that doesn't work then theres always ships like the planet killer.

The necrons dont need the warp their space vessels appear to teleport using unknown technology. Their technology far surpasses that of every other race even that of the Eldar. Exterminatus wouldnt work as many of the tomb worlds are already dead and the plannet killer is one ship it cant be everywhere and if the necrons rose to such supremacy three tomb ships would be enough to defeat the plannet killer. There numbers are hard to guage but it does dscribe them as legion beyond counting.


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## Elemental_elf

In the short term, Chaos and Orks are the greatest threats to the Imperium. In the next century or so, 'nids will probably be the biggest threat. If the Imperium survives the next century, then Necrons and tau are looking pretty good, as are Chaos and 'nids (perhaps another fleet (who knows how many there are)). Plus, all the while the Imperium itself is a constant threat to itself... 

So in the end, everything is a threat we just need a time frame to see which of its many enemies are the worst :grin:


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## shas'o7

Here's my view-
*Short Term-*
1- Tyranids. The Hive Mind constantly adapts, and can never be truely defeated. Yet the Tyranids don't have the ability to really take down the Imperium. They destroyed one company of 10 companies of 1000 space Marine chapters. They could never deal with a full-scale battle against the whole chapter of Ultramarines or anything.
2- Orks. Thraka gave the Imperium a run for its money on Armaggedon, and the Orks have uncountable numbers. But they can not unite well enough to take anything major.
3- Chaos. Powerful, but let's put this in perspective. In 13 crusades, Abbadon has never been able to take Cadia, just one planet. Chaos is also constantly growing weaker, they can't make up they're losses. But they can still be a real pain in the neck.
*Long Term-*
1- The Imperium. It has grown so corrupt, and so slow. How long did it take for them to realize the Tau had stopped knocking sticks together, or that the Tyranids had shown up? The Imperium will plunge into civil war sooner or later. All it takes is for one irritated custodus guy with a bolter, and Mankind will crumble.
2- Tau. Give the Tau the amount of time the Imperium has had to grow, and then let's see who will stand against the Fire Caste!
3-Necrons. They are powerfull, but have taken too long to re awaken. I still don't remember a time when the Imperium lost a major world to the Necrons.

In the 51st Millenium, here's what I expect......
1- The Emperor has been killed, and the Imperium has lost about half of its territory, and is in civil war.
2- The Necrons have penetraed Imperium defences, and are making a mess of things in the Terra area.
3- the Tau control about 20% of the galaxy.
4- The Eldar are almost completely irradicated, with only a couple craftworlds remaining.
5- The Orks are continuing the way they always have.
6- Chaos has siezed Cadia, but been defeated at Terra and Mars.
7- The Tyranid sare attacking a place that isn't guarded by Space Marines.


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## murphy

shas'o7 said:


> In the 51st Millenium, here's what I expect......
> 1- The Emperor has been killed, and the Imperium has lost about half of its territory, and is in civil war.
> 2- The Necrons have penetraed Imperium defences, and are making a mess of things in the Terra area.
> 3- the Tau control about 20% of the galaxy.
> 4- The Eldar are almost completely irradicated, with only a couple craftworlds remaining.
> 5- The Orks are continuing the way they always have.
> 6- Chaos has siezed Cadia, but been defeated at Terra and Mars.
> 7- The Tyranid sare attacking a place that isn't guarded by Space Marines.


Two Things:

1. Its widely believed that if the Emperor ever actually snuffs it, he'll be reincarnated. Which means that the Emperor dying would actually be the surest way to -end- civil wars in the Human Empire by returning the Emperor to power.
4. So what, the same as it is now?


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## shas'o7

murphy said:


> Two Things:
> 
> 1. Its widely believed that if the Emperor ever actually snuffs it, he'll be reincarnated. Which means that the Emperor dying would actually be the surest way to -end- civil wars in the Human Empire by returning the Emperor to power.
> 4. So what, the same as it is now?


The Emperor won't automatically reincarnate, it will take a while. He doesn't just automatically pop up and start leading the Marines to Victory.

For the Eldar, I am talking about like Uthwe being the only one left or something, and it only having a couple hundred Eldar on board.


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## Sister Theadosia

I thinnk there is no greater threat to the Imperium at the moment. Its kinda like all Races are at a stalemate.


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## murphy

shas'o7 said:


> The Emperor won't automatically reincarnate, it will take a while. He doesn't just automatically pop up and start leading the Marines to Victory.
> 
> For the Eldar, I am talking about like Uthwe being the only one left or something, and it only having a couple hundred Eldar on board.


Seventeen years (the time it would take from the conception of the Emperor Reborn to his essential maturity in his mid-teens) isn't that long, and when viewed in the scale of 40K, its virtually nothing. The news of His death wouldn't have even gotten to the furthest reaches of the Empire by the time he'd re-established his rule.


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## Elemental_elf

Sister Theadosia said:


> I thinnk there is no greater threat to the Imperium at the moment. Its kinda like all Races are at a stalemate.


I wonder what the proverbial straw that breaks the even more proverbial camel's back will be to end this most unfortunate stalemate...


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## cobly

I just finished "Legion," the latest book in the Horus Heresy series. If those books are considered "official" then it tells you in there (or at least it is predicted) who will destroy the Imperium and all of humanity. I won't spoil it for those who haven't read the book though so don't ask.


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## Maggard

I'd say the biggest threat to the Imperium is the Imperium itself, the endless bureaucracy and inquisition combined with the degeneration of science into mysticism can't be sustained. I'd guess the only way to save mankind from itself would be the rebirth of the emperor and the abolishment of the imperial creed.

After what cobly wrote though I'm gunna have to check out the legion books


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## LoreMaster

Maggard said:


> After what cobly wrote though I'm gunna have to check out the legion books


Legion is a good book for fluff fans worth a read weven if your not!

I find that necrons are most likely to be the biggest threat to humanity because of these reasons
a) Even the basic necron warriors have to the weaponry to tear through the emperors finest with ease
b) The tomb worlds that they are semi dormant in are scattered all over the galaxy
c) Finally the fact that exterminating races is what the necrons are kinda designed to do :good:


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## Blue Liger

i think the orks if they would join together all at once but i believe that if the imperium did the same they could launch an assault decsent enough with the help of the renegade tau forces they could wipe out the orks 
the chaos space marines i believe could be shut down or at least haulted by a mass force guarding the eye of terror and using many psychics like magnus did to conjure up mass psychic energy to dull it so the chaos arent much of a threat, i also think that if abaddon was ever killed that the chaos armies would finally fall saying that i dont believ the emperor has anything to do with the fate of the galaxy anymore just a morale booster for the space marines and imperial guard. the tyranids do keep coming back though bigger and better but still the same tatic seems to beat them a strong defence aka terminators. the ledar ar dying and without psychic powers are easily beaten and the dark eldar arent much of a thrat but since no one wants to venture into the warpways to find them they will remain for a long time unless the eldar decided to assault them and go looking for the dark eldar home world but i believe if the eldar and dark eldar reunited they would be a very difficult force to reckon with as they understand warp travel better but i see the biggest threat as probably the necrons as they have been around longer and no one knows if they live on a planet until they surface to it and the necrons decided they dont wnat them there plus there are untold numbers of them because of the way they live in the universe


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## Maggard

The only problem with wiping out the Orks is that the only way to be sure a world is clear or them and their spores is with fire and (presumably) viral bombing which means any contested world would have to be totally cleansed to stop any population springing back up. Also I read somewhere about Ork spores being able to travel through space so any system that an ork ship was destroyed in would have to be cleansed too just to be sure.

As for the killing of Abbaddon the only thing i think that would stop would be the Black Crusades, since chaos raiding parties constantly leave the EoT without his leadership, he jsut acts as a figurehead to rally larger operations arround like the biggest Ork warlords, with or without them the threat remains but if a more general unorganised manner.


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## The Red Thirst

I think the biggest threat is the marines themselves. They could commit heresy at any time and all the time a lot of chapters are falling further and further into chaos. I dont think that the Imperium of Man could stand another major Heresy.


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## Holyboltshells

The Red Thirst said:


> I think the biggest threat is the marines themselves. They could commit heresy at any time and all the time a lot of chapters are falling further and further into chaos. I dont think that the Imperium of Man could stand another major Heresy.


I wont disagree 100% but would say thats it seems very unlikely that any of the First founding chapters that havent already turned could turn. To me it seems that ignorance of Chaos and the personal flaws of the Primarch's (Angrons anger, Fulgrims pride etc) was the reason for the original turning. In addition id probs agree with you i doubt that the Imperium could suffer another Heresy size conflict.

However at the end of the day the question of who is the biggest threat comes down to who has their end game or not. For instance if Tyranids or Orks got their end game, a vast galaxy wide flood of more advanced bugs, or all the Orks united under one banner, they would simply rollover or reduce the Imperium to a number of key sectors, Solar, Macragge, Cadia etc. However if the Imperium is said to have their game breaker as well, the Emperor alive and the Primarchs returned then the fight will be far harder.

The question simply cant be answered, no one race can take the Imperium in the current situation. But for arguements sake, simply because the Emperors eternal death is essential to maintaining the Imperium as we know it adn because the Necrons managed to penetrate as far as Mars i will have to pick Necrons though personally i'd prefer another Imperium vs Chaos showdown.

Cheers


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## zaceee

i would say orks to be honest , they are without number and they spawn constantly (spore dispersion) , necrons are a close second but , then again , fluff says orks ( krork) were invented to STOP necrons so maybe they have latent necron killin genes , like techno genes? its just that it wouldnt need all the orks in the universe to beat them , it would only take a smaller percentage of the whole.necrons are strong and can regenerate but if the orks spawn fast enough , the necrons would be too busy cleansing them to even BOTHER with the imperium. just my two cents .


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## kungfoomasta

the orks were created to protect the old ones not kill necrons generally they were ment to tie up necron forces long enough for them to get away- basically same as eldar but orks dont remember as good. and in truth i would say that if orks could unite it would be a very close race between crons and orks


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## vorbis

super bugs are super killy, every defeat makes them stronger as the more often you use a stratergy the less likely it is to work against them they are the only race not devided by internal strife even necrons have differant gods and so differant alligances, they can can out number any race u mention and yet still have bigger badder and better bodys than any other race


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## Luciferi

vorbis said:


> super bugs are super killy, every defeat makes them stronger as the more often you use a stratergy the less likely it is to work against them they are the only race not devided by internal strife even necrons have differant gods and so differant alligances, they can can out number any race u mention and yet still have bigger badder and better bodys than any other race





Yeah but you bring a hive fleet against the big guns over at Mars, not gonna be much of a fight tbh >_>


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## kungfoomasta

its true the nid ships would bleed to death while orks dont care bout the ships and would just crash into mars and the necrons could just teleport like the gods of war they are. sorry if i glorify my army to much


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## Sister Theadosia

All I wonder about is what will happen to the Sisters of Battle in this struggle.


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## G_Morgan

I think if the Emperor was actually killed the Imperium would collapse into a series of smaller kingdoms centred around the Space Marine chapters. These smaller states would be much more agile and would largely be saner because smaller states are always more sane.

Humanity would survive such a situation. The Imperium doesn't need to be united IMHO. As long as they aren't outright killing each other (sort of like they are now) then it doesn't really matter. The Emperor would have time to do his whole reincarnation thing.


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## BlackApostleVilhelm

i would have to say that chaos is the largest threat. it can attack from three angles. one: it attacks at the imperium from within, each and every person has flaws and these flaws are opne to be exploited by chaos itself. chaos has the overall ability to turn imperial citizens against each other and the imperium from within and hide itself very well. two: daemons, plain and simple. these beasts can come in any form and could easily kill and orc or necron. most dont feel pain so the whole beserk thing is a definate advantage. the only bad part is that they feed on the power of the warp so that could be a downside. and finally three: the chaos marines. these arent just small caoters of 1000 marines we're talking whole LEGIONS turned. the amount of naval ships and personel that turned during the heresy is horrendous. plus the chaos marines have been alive since the great crusade, talk about battle experience, and if that doesnt win them some points i dont know what will. not to mention they still have most of their primarchs with te exception of one, maybe two(alpharius), all of which are daemon princes. this leads to the gifts of chaos to the primarchs and their marines. it also says in the codex: chaos marines that after each black crusade and attack on the cadian gates that the imperium pays a very heavy toll for each save, while the chaos marines simply retreat back into the eye of terror. this leads one to think that they are simply wittling down the imperiums forces. also it says that after each black crusade abaddon and the chaos legions get closer and closer to breaking through and running rampant through the imperium. i.e. abaddon and those three alien artifacts he stole recently and his new "planet killer" starship. these point to a reckoning between the chaos marines and the imperium that the imperium has no way of winning.


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## Warsmith Faustus

Ah, but Alpharius Omegon is still out there (one of them at least), but Magnus and Angron are banished in the warp somewhere. All in all, I wholeheartedly believe that chaos, though not the most immediate threat, are the prime candidate for swallowing the Imperium. Daemons are essentially immortal, and with chaos cults becoming more common in the Imperium, it is only a matter of time before whole hordes of immortal daemons and vengeance craving ten thousand-year-old chaos marines finally reach Terra again and take down the Emperor (If Games Workshop ever wanted to progress their storyline at least). But once the Emperor was felled, the Astronomicon would go dark and mankind would be scattered little morsels for the Dark Gods to consume at their leisure. Glory to Chaos!


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## Lord Ornlu

i believe the tyrranids and of course as my name inclines the Chaos Forces of my Lord Warmaster Abbadon


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## DarkBadger

I see Tyranids as arguably the biggest threat, a concerted attack from any directions and little would stop them, the imperium would have to ally with the tau and eldar, maybe even the orks to stop them.

Chaos has been around for longer than humanity, so it cant be stopped, only way to blunt it is to wipe out traitor legions and primarchs.

Tau are no real threat at moment, but i read somewhere they are close to warp travel technology but without psykers cant use it, and little is known of ethereals.

imperium wont self destruct, horus failed, and even without the emperor vandire failed.

Orks, maybe, the blood axes are seen as the leader caste but not started a major waaaaghhh YET, other orks kill them cos they're not "orky"

Now for my 1st choice, The Necrons, or more Specifically the C'tan. They fought off the Old Ones, and Eldar Gods but thats not why. The Red Dragon, IF it is under Mars, and IS the omnissiah, then Terra is Doomed. The adeptus mechanicus will turn to the C'tan, and a god is next door to the Emperor, so its lights out I think, it will consume Terra, turning the centre of the imperium into necrons.


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## Boss 171

chaos foolish mortals! chaos!


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## Alaric

orks for sure because the completley outnumber the amount of humans in the world. the only reason the orks cant do it is because they never unite under one banner. the necrons i could see that but there arent enough of them space marines would just send kill teams to there deathworlds and slap a bomb on the biggest crystal an BOOM there goes a necron army. thhey could cripple the humans yes by activating all there pylons which block the warp which there is some on terra and mars so no more warp travel and warp communications for the humans and AD MECH


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## ReaperOfHeresy

I my opinion the Necrons are the greatest treat to the Imperium.
But Chaos is close because who knows when even more loyalists turn to chaos, the imperium would be in pretty big trubel if Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels and other large chapters turned to chaos. But still if the Void Dragon is sleeping under Mars and it woke up the imperium would surely bee destroyed. So Necrons and Chaos is the biggest threat in my opinion. Go Chaos :victory: Go Necrons :victory: destroy the false emperor :grin:


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## dark angel

definatly tyranids because u kill one and ten take its place


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## Cole Deschain

Tyranids.

Look what the relatively unsophisticated Hive Fleet Behemoth was able to do to the HEART of the Ultramarines' possessions.

Add in the fact that the Shadow in the Warp can even give the Daemons trouble, and you've got a very serious problem.


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## FunkMast3r

well if the orcs could arrange a mighty waaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh and stop their civil wars, the entire galaxy would be messed, but Id have to agree with Cole, the Tyranids are definetly the worst threat


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## Inquisitor Aurelius

Balls to the 'Nids. Has even _one_ splinter fleet made it into the Imperium, eaten its fill, and made it back out? No. So there's been a catastrophic net loss of biomass with every invasion. Even if their numbers are essentially limitless, sooner or later they'll just stop trying and head for greener pastures. Just as there's more than one fish in the sea, there's more than one galaxy in the universe.

Then we've got the Orks. While it's generally accepted, having been cited in more than one official source, that if they could get there collective acts together they could take over the galaxy, it just wouldn't happen. Never. The Orks wouldn't even _want_ it to happen - only freaks like Gazghkull dream of conquest; the rest are just looking for a scrap. In Ork heaven, both they and their enemy would instantaneously resurrect every time they died, and the fight could just go on forever. No more good fights if they wiped everyone else out - sure, a little brawl between da Boyz is all good fun, but after a while it'd just get boring.

'Crons next. At the height of their power, they could absolutely have taken over the galaxy (oh, that's right, they did), but that was then and this is now. Apart from their relatively small numbers and inability to replenish their (admittedly negligible) losses, they each pay homage to a different C'tan, all of whom hate each other and would like nothing better than to consume the other three. They'll destroy themselves before they get to the rest of the galaxy.

Tau? A pitiful little Xenos empire, one amongst hundreds. Don't let the fact that they get a Codex fool you; that's really all they are. They can never rival humanity's numbers without a massive expansion into Imperial space, and as soon as they attempted that they'd be swept away by the storm of the Emperor's wrath, personified by a dozen Guardsmen for every Tau man, woman and child, the vastly superior Imperial navy, and whatever Astartes Chapters and Titan legions were handy at the time.

Eldar, both Craftworlders and their Commoragh-dwelling counterparts, are dying. They just can't replenish their losses fast enough, while the Imperium is ever-expanding. That's right, I said expanding. So many humans are born every moment of every day that the High Lords couldn't march enough of them to their deaths to shrink the overall population if they literally tried.

Chaos is probably the most dangerous, as far as that goes. But they want to conquer, not destroy, which becomes their downfall. Sheer devastation, they might be able to pull off, through a combination of methods overt and insidious. But their obsession with taking the Imperium more or less intact causes them to expend far more resources than would otherwise be necessary, and ultimately they invariably run out of steam. Sure, they might take a world or eight, but then the Imperium reclaims a similar number off on the other side of the galaxy, and when the final tally is made, it all works out pretty much even. I don't see that dynamic changing any time soon.

And finally, the Imperium as its own worst enemy. As deep and philosophical as it may sound, it's also wrong, for two reasons. The first and most obvious is that when people talk about humanity tearing itself apart, what they're almost invariably really talking about is Chaos, or Tau, or 'Nids, or Dark Eldar, or Necrons, at their most insidious and subversive. In the 40k universe, human greed and stupidity are almost never just human greed and stupidity, at least not when they're practiced on a large enough scale to cause significant ramifications; there tends to be a shadow player somewhere. The second is that, contrary to popular belief, the Imperium's incalculable size works to its advantage: planets, systems, or even whole sub-sectors might turn traitor, but for every one that does at any given time, there are a hundred nearby that are ready and willing to kick some recidivist arse well and truly back into line.

In summation, who's the greatest threat? Everyone and no one. There are, at a conservative estimate, dozens of theoretical situations that could bring about the fall of the Imperium, but they're all so mind-bogglingly improbable from a logical standpoint (to say nothing of a marketing one!) that contemplation is like trying to generate nuclear fission with nothing but a piece of yarn, a bar of soap and a hamster wheel. Actually, it's nothing like that; I just felt like typing it out.

All I can say is this: use your logic, dudes. The Imperium's limped along for ten thousand years. *Ten* *thousand* *years*. That's about the sum total of the history of civilization up to this point. If it hasn't fallen under alien occupation, submitted to the dominance of Chaos, or simply collapsed under its own wait by now, it's not gonna.

[EDIT: Bloody damned homophones.]


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## Cole Deschain

Uh- only Behemoth was actually wiped out.

Kraken took a pounding but its splinter fleets are still out there.

Leviathan is very much still active- just ask the Orks of Octarius.

So they're hardly washups.

Behemoth bit off more than it could chew, but look at the DAMAGE it did.

And, uh, "eating their fill"? That would NEVER happen. That's like Chaos claiming enough souls, or the Orks getting enough fighting.


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## Inquisitor Aurelius

Alright, I know - eating their fill was a badly chosen phrase. My point was that, if there is in fact a larger Hive Fleet out there from whence all others spring, then eventually it's going to realize that, with the trends being what they are, more energy/biomass is being expended than is being gained. So far, the 'Nids are in the red, and if the Hive Mind's any kind of clever, then sooner or later it'll just bugger off to find easier (and therefore more productive) prey. Even if they could win a war of attrition, that would defeat their entire purpose. I'd say within a millennium at most they'll have left of their own accord, with the exception of perhaps a dozen isolated splinter fleets still wreaking all manner of havoc in Imperial space. But the Imperium, being the galaxy-spanning behemoth that it is, can simply absorb "all manner of havoc" and take it in stride. And for every world they lose, they just pick up another one somewhere else. Hell, even worlds that the 'Nids have stripped can be recycled with the aid of a couple of atmo-generators as forge worlds, anchor sites for orbital naval bases, or prison planets. Humans are resourceful that way.


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## Cole Deschain

But how do you know that the Hive Fleets to date aren't just a reconnaissance in force?

The "lost" biomass may in fact be utterly inconsequential.


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## Inquisitor Aurelius

That's almost a fair point, except that you could make it about almost any race. Who's to say the Orks won't unite under Gazghkull, or some other bigger, badder Warboss? How do you know that there aren't trillions upon trillions of Necrons yet to be awakened? Perhaps the Dark Eldar have been breeding like rabbits these last ten millennia on Commoragh, and are merely biding their time? You can make a "what-if" argument for any army. But based on what we know, and considering that the radius of the Shadow in the Warp increases exponentially the bigger the fleet generating it is, we can surmise that there isn't a Hive Fleet lurking on the edge of the galaxy that's big enough to count Behemoth and Kraken as insignificant splinters. If such a force existed, the galaxy wouldn't even be worth scouting - they'd just sweep right through and continue on their merry way. Why waste time gauging the galaxy's defenses if they could just flatten them in stride?


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## The Son of Horus

Inquisitor Aurelius said:


> Why waste time gauging the galaxy's defenses if they could just flatten them in stride?


Because it's fairly common as instinctive behavior among animals goes to proceed with what may seem to be undue caution. The Tyranids may have an alien intelligence from our perspective, but their behavior is typical of more familiar predators who basically live to eat. 

Besides, there's no assurance that such a hive fleet *could* cut a swathe through the galaxy and continue on its merry way. For example, what if the galaxy were not in the state that it's in, but the Chaos gods rule supreme? Surely, that could be a possible circumstance in another galaxy where the Tyranids potentially could be invading. They are extragalactic, after all. I'd love to see a hive fleet figure out how to choke down a daemon world-- particularly one Papa Nurgle's fond of. I'm pretty sure that a strong, stable daemonic presence wouldn't be disrupted by the Shadow in the Warp, after all-- maybe a weak rift, but not a full-fledged daemon world. That's really just one example. Another way of looking at it is, "there's always a bigger fish." You never know, the Tyranids might not be at the top of the food chain somewhere out there.

On a semi-related note, the ultimate threat to the Imperium, as it stands at this very moment, is the Necrontyr tomb complex IN THE HEART OF MARS. Let's hypothetically say the Void Dragon wakes up, and finds Mars in the state it's in. That's practically next door to Terra in galactic terms, and despite Terra being outrageously well protected... it might not take a whole lot to destroy the Golden Throne. It's already deteriorating, and they don't really know how to fix it. The techno-arcana of the Necrons aimed at the Throne, which the Imperium has absolute ignorance regarding its workings, could be pretty disasterous. Without the Emperor, humanity is free to be subjugated to the Red Harvest.

If Hive Fleet Leviathan were to get closer to Terra, and not be readily drawn away by Inquisitor Kryptmann's somewhat brutal efforts into Ork-held territory, then it's possible that it'd be a greater threat. It might even ultimately be the bigger threat, since there's no assurance that the Void Dragon is going to wake up anytime soon. However, there's also no assurance that the Orks that keep fighting Hive Fleet Leviathan aren't eventually going to wear the Tyranids out, and at that point, I pity the Imperial Guard regiments and Space Marine Chapters that are going to have to deal with that particular Waaagh!... purely from the amount of fighting that's gone on there, I have visions of tank-sized Orks...


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## Inquisitor Aurelius

There are a lot of "ifs" here. I'm not saying any of these things couldn't happen; I'm just saying that they're highly (really, _really_ highly, in most cases) improbable. Or we could just say that the 'Nids eat the galaxy in 015.M42. Whatever floats your boat.


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## sunhawk88

I think it is the Orks personally, because when you kill them you help them multiply because of all those lovely spore they release when they croak :biggrin: so short of virus bombing EVERY planet they inhabit, Orks are not gonna go away. The most the Tau can do in my opinion is maybe take out chunks of the Imperium. Seeing as how they go through these spurts of expansion it just take too long. And the larger their empire gets the harder it will be to defend since they dont breed quickly like humans, and they can only skim the warp in short hops. As far as Necrons go they will be a major threat if ALL of them wake up, and For the CSM unless one leader unites all the legions and theyre followers as one force (Abaddon doesnt count because he has only united fractions of each legion) and sally out of the Eye. So far the Imperium is fighting many different factions but they are all splintered and either suffer from intense infighting (CSM and Orks), low numbers (Eldar, DE, Tau, Necrons) or coming from a distant galaxy (Tyranids). So unless some charismatic leader unites certain factions or the infighting within their own the Imperium is gonna keep spitting in their eye, baring their teeth, shouting defiance and take them with them :biggrin:


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## G_Morgan

The talks of the potential size of the Tyranids. If they really were that big they'd have expended more energy (and hence biomass) in getting to the galaxy as they will gain in return. Such a Tyranid force would surely simply become morbidly obese and die. I think it would be necessary for such a species to regularly split up and go their merry way in comparatively small numbers.


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## skad567

Tyranids no doubt. They are just kind of never ending and when you do finally manage to catch a breath they adapt their tactics and themselves and just keep coming back. Not to mention when they do take a planet they essentially turn it into a husk of worthless junk so they pretty much play for keeps.


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## akiasura

This talk of the Necrons penetrating Mars is BS. Your making it seem like they secretly penetrated the world and oh noes! The imperuim was so helpless zomg!!!1!

As I remember it, you had a Necron ship moving really fast. So fast it's weapons couldn't even fire, and all it could do was fly in. The MINUTE it stopped, it was blown out of the sky. Oh yes. That scares me so much. They can fly around mars all day, but the minute they stop they get blown up?

And even if they took mars, so what? It's 1, count it again, 1 forgeworld. The Imperuim has hundreds of thousands. Would it be a blow? Yes. Would it spell the deathknell for the Technocracy? No. Losing a capital is really not a deathstrike. It effects morale more then anything seriously concrete.

As to "Necrons could invade terra from mars!" arguement, I don't know. Horus failed to take Terra and that was with a huge amount of support from many many planets, AND the imperuim was locked in civil war so Terra could recieve very little aid. He only managed a stalemate, and when the imperuim did recieve aid he was forced to...well...we all know what happened there 

The Necrons, being equipped with only A planet full of resources, would find it very difficult to invade terra from mars.

My Vote for most dangerous goes to Orks.


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## Druchii

G_Morgan said:


> The talks of the potential size of the Tyranids. If they really were that big they'd have expended more energy (and hence biomass) in getting to the galaxy as they will gain in return. Such a Tyranid force would surely simply become morbidly obese and die. I think it would be necessary for such a species to regularly split up and go their merry way in comparatively small numbers.


You have to realise that in the hive ships the creatures exists in a sort of echo system so nothing runs out of food everything just get recycle. Also when tyranids devourer a planet the fat tyranids are dissolved and used as material to build more..so no fat tyranids.


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## grifcannon

hi all i'm new to the thread but not the hobby. I agree that tyranids are the biggest threat. however for second place i'd say dark eldar, as no-one but the harlequins know where they are, so know one could really kill them (assuming they don't just kill themselves)


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## Druchii

Dark eldar would be hard to kill..true. But just like the Eldar they lack manpower.


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## Captan Somebody

im going to say that the chaos and the tau are probably the biggest threat to the imperium


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## Druchii

Tau lack man power and warp travel. They were almost completely destroyed by humans as well.


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## Captan Somebody

so........


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## Druchii

So.... its a discussion. I'm putting my view that they aren't much a threat.


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## Cole Deschain

Particularly since they're basically stuck in their little empire out on the fringe.


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## beenburned

Orks for me. It's been put before how they give off more spores everytime they die. This means that they can /never/ be killed out completely regardless of the means of destruction.

Even if orks aren't united as one devastating force, they're still going to win, just over a much larger time span then the one being discussed here. Other threats, bar necrons perhaps, are looking for a fast decisive invasion of Imperial space, which just isn't going to happen, due to the sheer number and firepower available to the Imperium. Orks may try and go for a fast decisive victory, but in doing so, sew the seeds on the planet for an even larger, ever growing force of orks, eventually overrunning the planet. 

Continue this process and eventually the orcs hold the galaxy.


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## AJAX1001

I personlaly think its Orks Or Tyranids becase there numbers are overwhelming

Necrons Are tough But when ever i hear about them fighting its never multiple tomb worlds Waking up its usaully just one and when they lose they just go back to sleep.

The tau arent big enough and the eldar arent either but They have the wits

Dark eldar are more conserned about staying alive

Chaos could do but it seems that when they attack the Imperium it Focus everthing on them making it its top priority


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## Pariah

I think everyone is under-playing the Eldar, just because they are a "dying" race. When the Solitaires that guard the Black Library, decide to re-unite the seperate divisions of the Eldar race. Not only will the race one again prosper, but it will return to its rightful place. After all this is the only race to have spontaneously created a Chaos God. Slannesh is the creation of the Eldar, and his/her birth in turn created the Eye of Terror. 

Imagine all four factions of the Eldar race fighting together, living together and copulating as they should do. It is a thought to make Slannesh shudder. Even worse as a thought, imagine that Slannesh backed this endeavour, and would allow this new Eldar race to survive.

The only reason that Slannesh is annoyed at the Craftworld Eldar is that they deny themselves experiences and keep their souls from him/her.


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## BloodAngelZeros

I have to agree with what's been said before that chaos can't be the ultimate threat of the Imperium. The reason for this being that chaos only seeks to overthrow the emperor and take the imperium for itself. So, yes it is a threat to the imperium as it is known, but not the biggest. 

Tau/Eldar/dark eldar I don't know too much fluff about so I can't say about them. 

Orks will always be around thanks to their shear numbers but they'll never be powerful or organized long enough to pose a threat to the imperium. 

So who does this leave? The tyranids, necron and imperium itself. 

The tyranids are a ravenous fleet that consume all organic matter on a planet only to make more tyranids and bolster numbers so that really, no matter how many are killed, there are always more. Not only do the have the numbers of orks (if not more), and are a hell of a lot stronger on average, but they are extremely organized! The Hive Mind is a powerful thing and it directs each type of tyranid to what its best at doing. Along with the ability to adapt and mutate quickly to fit special needs, this makes them an extremely formidable threat. 

The necron are indeed a near unbeatable undead force. But it seems to me that if the imperium were to figure out how their technology worked, then it would be the fatal ***** in the armor and they wouldn't be near a threat as they are now. 

Finally, the imperium itself. This is what I believe is the biggest threat to the imperium. When it becomes as large as it is and is so highly divided into so many different factions working for the emperor, it's only bound to collapse in on itself. Look at any major empire in our history. It wasn't that some outside for managed to take the massive empire down, it crumbled from the inside out.


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## G_Morgan

Druchii said:


> You have to realise that in the hive ships the creatures exists in a sort of echo system so nothing runs out of food everything just get recycle. Also when tyranids devourer a planet the fat tyranids are dissolved and used as material to build more..so no fat tyranids.


Recycling the material isn't the point. The key for existence of all kinds is energy. To recycle material requires energy to break chemical bonds and restore material to a usable form. These processes are never 100% efficient.

Unless the hive mind can draw energy out of the warp or something. That would allow them to acquire near infinite energy.


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## G_Morgan

BloodAngelZeros said:


> The necron are indeed a near unbeatable undead force. But it seems to me that if the imperium were to figure out how their technology worked, then it would be the fatal ***** in the armor and they wouldn't be near a threat as they are now.


Vile tech heresy. The Imperium need not study the insidious ways of the Necrons. We will merely blow up every planet they appear upon until they simply have nowhere left to run to.

It is worth noting that Necrons can die. It's just extremely hard to achieve. Exterminatus tends to work though. It's just the Eldar were weak and didn't have the stomach to do what needs to be done.


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## kungfoomasta

but whos to say that even that would really do the job? necrons just teleport away yes? its true that if the necrons awoke ALL THE TOMBS that they could crush the imperium but that wont happen because the C'tan only want to harvest souls, not really take out anything. the way it seems to me the necrons will never actually try for complete power and just make raids and take whatever they want.


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## Angel of Retribution

The biggest threat to the Imperium is the Imperium itself, look what happened the first time lol.


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## khorneflake

Cadian81st said:


> true, true. but at least the tau _understand_ their tech. all the imperial techpriests can do is copy and rebuild archaic tech designs from millenia gone by. The tau are constantly innovating and developing, whereas the imperium seems to be actively resisting any technological advancement.


you are right however chaos has come closer than anyone, who killed the emporer who destroyed the emporers palace... _cough cough _chaos cough cough


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## GMMStudios

Heresy....


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## khorneflake

the imperium is the largest threat to the imperium. how many rebel crusade have there been? im guessing eventually the combined forces of all bad guys surrounding the imperium will cause it to implode in and upon itself


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## Tigirus

definatly the imperium itself, if marines fight with eachother and they are the most intelligent and diciplined the imperium has to offer then the imperium is royally screwed. I can see it now, the imperium has finally made peace and there is no more war (somehow) two space marine chaper masters turn to eachoter and the first one points and says "you're a heretic," and the second one says "noooo, you are the heretic" and it goes back in forth childishly untill they start shooting each other. Cause if you really thing of it, as long as there are marines there will be war because what happens when someone who only knows how to fight can't fight anymore? They can't become members of society, they can't retire cause they don't die of old age (I don't know about this because no marine ever has) and if the imperium is just going to kill off all of the marines they won't sit down and let that happen either. 

To sum it all up the imperium is messed up, and they will be destroyed unless the emperor is magically healed somehow and beats some sense into the administraium, the ministorum and the inquisition


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## Nidcanon

in my opinion the Tyranids, cause we eat everything. ummm, long term i think the tau. because the Imperium is so spread out they could conquer system after system without a major enemy showing up for a while. other then that maybe the Void Dragon. with all the stuff happening with the emperor in 5th edition, it could wake up, maybe.


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## Daneel2.0

To gauge the threats various races pose to the Imperium as it’s currently organized, you have analyze both the motivations of the various races and their ability to implement their goal.

Tyranids are really easy. Eat everything. That goal leaves exactly no room for the Imperium of Man to exist therefore the threat posed by this motivation is high. This goal is diffused across the entire galaxy however, so while it poses significant threat to man, it isn’t directed at it specifically. Their ability to devour planets is astounding. As the codex says, “The Imperial Tarot has predicted a time of coming darkness unmatched since the darkest hours of the Horus Heresy”. Yet there are several weaknesses to their attack. First they thrive on biomass and seem unable to consume inorganics (shattered fortifications, vehicles and orbital stations, not consumed – though this is contradicted several times in several places) which means there are worlds consumed by Tyranids that would be great for mining (assuming the contradiction went in favor of indigestion for inorganics). Second, they are vulnerable to attack right after emerging from warp and have been successfully boarded and destroyed before awaking leading me to believe that there is a significant time period where they remain vulnerable. Finally, there is no way to predict how many there are in how many hive fleets. Currently Hive fleet Leviathan is bogged down in fighting Orks with a stalemate on both sides the result. Who knows how long this lasts.

Orks love a good fight more than they love the rest of life and the Imperium fights them. They don’t particularly care who they are fighting so they would fight the Imperium to the last world. Again rates high on the threat meter. There is also the new war boss that is gathering the boyz, but he may or may not be aimed at the Imperium. After all, there is a hell of a fight against Tyranids going on right now.

Eldar want to re-establish themselves as the galaxies predominant race. Unfortunately they are on the decline (as mentioned several times), but this situation doesn’t have to continue. As mentioned in 
Ancient Tiel' a fier’s excellent posts there is a new Eldar god in the process of being birthed and there are all of those Colony worlds that have populations of Eldar. If the new god is born and he prevents Slaanesh from eating the souls of the dead, there could easily be a reversal.

Dark Eldar are debauched and sadistic. They are raiders and slavers but their primary purpose is self gratification. They pose almost no threat to the Imperium. I don’t see them as a threat, even with the potential birth of a new Eldar god.

Chaos seeks to transform the Imperium into something resembling itself. This would constitute the destruction of the Imperium. Their goal is focused directly at the Imperium bearing it direct threat, if nothing else then due to proximity, one not diluted by distractions posed by other races (with the slight Slaanesh exception). In addition, Abbadon is the consummate opportunist. At the worst possible moment, he will gather the Black Host and emerge from the Eye of Terror. Add to this Chaos cults, corrupt governors, and other assorted assets and this is a very large threat. As far as daemons, they are rare in the extreme. They need a focus to enter (say a psyker) and can’t really stay all that long outside the Warp or warp storms. That said, they are threatening disproportionate to their numbers. They corrupt, and coerce and ultimately come to dominate those that are most able to combat them (necrons aside). 

Tau really aren’t a threat at the moment, nor will they be for the foreseeable future. Yes they progressed rapidly, due to outside help, but that rate of progress may or may not be sustainable (depending upon who gave them their tech edge). Until they get warp technology and win a couple of decisive battles against the Imperium, they are of little consequence. Ties don’t a threat make. Finally, they are at the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy inhabiting 100 or so worlds across 300 light years. Unfortunately, this appears to be the direction that the Tyranids are coming from. I don’t know if they are up to the task of defeating a Tyranid Hive Fleet. A note about FTL; Murphy discusses the possibility that they will be the first race to use non-Warp FTL. First off, they would be the second race to do so as Necrons use a n-dimensional FTL. Second, they may or may not discover this. It is apparent that their benefactor race doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t want them too, and that sort of means that their chances of discovering it would also be quite small. A far more likely scenario would be for one of their allied races (like Kroot) eating a psyker and developing the ability themselves thus leading to Warp space travel.

Necrons are tough because the 4 different C’Tan have different goals. The Nightbringer offers little threat to the Imperium as he presents a threat that they a fully capable of handling. His is a direct, heads on approach that I don’t feel offers significant challenges to the vast size of the Imperium, at least in the short term, especially as his most powerful weapon was removed from him by the Old Ones at the time of his stasis. Who knows if he can remake it. The Outsider has been driven insane and is probably bent against the Eldar primarily, as they locked him in the Dyson’s Sphere and were the ones to stop him previously. Of course it’s impossible to tell what he’ll do because of the insanity, but it probably isn’t a threat against the Imperium. Not much is know about the Void Dragon, but IF he is ensconced on Mars he would represent a threat, but it is one that is hard to gauge. Of all the C’Tan it is the Deceiver who wins out as far as biggest threat goes. He is the one attempting to sever the Warp from real space and the Imperium cover ups regarding Necrons serves his designs perfectly. His plan produces little change in the Imperium of Man for a long time, then it shatters completely almost overnight. Finally just a little about Necrons that some seem to miss. First, if you blow a Necron Warrior to atoms, they just make another in the tomb complex; you don’t diminish the number of necrons at all. Second, Deceiver managed to destroy (or hide) all of the weapons made by the Old Ones capable of destroying C’Tan. This means that they have a serious advantage since you can temporarily stop but not kill them. Finally since there are only 4 they are NOT at odds with each other. Deceiver and Nightbringer at least have realized that they must work together to bring about their supremacy. We’ll see what the other 2 do when they wake up, but for now there is cohesion. 

As for the Imperium Itself argument, you may be right. The problem with that is the chaos (not Chaos) resultant from that kind of collapse will invite serious incursions from the other threat races. From that happy free for all, comes the question who got the killing blow and did it matter in the grand scheme of things.

That was the really long winded way of saying "I vote Chaos" :angel:


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## BloodAngelZeros

Daneel2.0 said:


> Necrons are tough because the 4 different C’Tan have different goals. The Nightbringer offers little threat to the Imperium as he presents a threat that they a fully capable of handling. His is a direct, heads on approach that I don’t feel offers significant challenges to the vast size of the Imperium, at least in the short term, especially as his most powerful weapon was removed from him by the Old Ones at the time of his stasis. Who knows if he can remake it. The Outsider has been driven insane and is probably bent against the Eldar primarily, as they locked him in the Dyson’s Sphere and were the ones to stop him previously. Of course it’s impossible to tell what he’ll do because of the insanity, but it probably isn’t a threat against the Imperium. Not much is know about the Void Dragon, but IF he is ensconced on Mars he would represent a threat, but it is one that is hard to gauge. Of all the C’Tan it is the Deceiver who wins out as far as biggest threat goes. He is the one attempting to sever the Warp from real space and the Imperium cover ups regarding Necrons serves his designs perfectly. His plan produces little change in the Imperium of Man for a long time, then it shatters completely almost overnight. Finally just a little about Necrons that some seem to miss. First, if you blow a Necron Warrior to atoms, they just make another in the tomb complex; you don’t diminish the number of necrons at all. Second, Deceiver managed to destroy (or hide) all of the weapons made by the Old Ones capable of destroying C’Tan. This means that they have a serious advantage since you can temporarily stop but not kill them. Finally since there are only 4 they are NOT at odds with each other. Deceiver and Nightbringer at least have realized that they must work together to bring about their supremacy. We’ll see what the other 2 do when they wake up, but for now there is cohesion.


Does the necron codex actually say that only 4 c'tan survived against the Old Ones? From what I can tell, it just gives little blurbs as to the current state of 4 of them.


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## moi_a_mania

:crazy: I think it's the Nids. Even the most stalwarth Space Marine chapters have difficulty stopping the Hive Fleets.


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## Iraqiel

Where in the fluff does it say cypher is on a mission to end the emperor? I've heard the 'strengthen the emperium through conflict' one, but whence came this?


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## Daneel2.0

BloodAngelZeros said:


> Does the necron codex actually say that only 4 c'tan survived against the Old Ones? From what I can tell, it just gives little blurbs as to the current state of 4 of them.


Not exactly. The C'tan were winning against the Old Ones on all fronts and as food became scarce the Deceiver (or the Eldar Trickster God depending on codex) tricked the other C'tan into consuming each other. By the time the Old Ones marshaled their remaining forces to strike, only 4 of the C'tan were left unconsumed by the rest of their brethren.

EDIT: And yes, that is in the Necron Codex


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## RazikTheDevourer

I'd Say Chaos Space Marines.
When You Think About It Abaddon The Despoiler with his Black Crusades?
Nobody Knows the exact Number Of Chaos Daemons Or Marines That will spew from the Eye of Terror, There could be an Endless supply And Could you imagine what the Chaos Gods would do if they attacked the imperium with all their forces?
Personally I would'nt like to fight Greater Daemons or Chaos Gods it'd be bad joo joo

As For Necrons, It Says they come from Tombs? and that their Minds are stored there when they die so that they can be brought back to life?
Focus Military Might on all the Tombs and blow them away, Or a High Tech Computer Virus so you can take control of the Necrons.


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## RazikTheDevourer

BloodAngelZeros said:


> I have to agree with what's been said before that chaos can't be the ultimate threat of the Imperium. The reason for this being that chaos only seeks to overthrow the emperor and take the imperium for itself. So, yes it is a threat to the imperium as it is known, but not the biggest.


LoL
What happened in our own past when War Lords overthrow and Emperor?
lemme see... take Control Of Their Armies?
If the Imperium see the Emperor Fall, They will bow to the will of the Dark Gods thus making the Chaos Army Unstoppable.
Any who Rebel against them will be executed or sacrificed.
once the Imperium is in the hands of Chaos Rule, Eldar will follow along with Tau and all the other scum of the universe.
Once they are all destroyed it will be the Gods who will decide who is the ultimate victor in the end.
My Belief is Khorne will win hands down, the most feared and bloodthirsty of the Chaos Gods.


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## Angel of Retribution

Maybe but only until the blood flow ceases and then another power will overtake Khorne. And what do armies do when they don't have an enemy to fight...turn and fight amongst themselves and then no more chaos. So for chaos to win would mean the end of chaos. But i still say the biggest threat is itself (that bloody inquisition!!!)


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## Daneel2.0

RazikTheDevourer said:


> I'd Say Chaos Space Marines.
> When You Think About It Abaddon The Despoiler with his Black Crusades?
> Nobody Knows the exact Number Of Chaos Daemons Or Marines That will spew from the Eye of Terror, There could be an Endless supply And Could you imagine what the Chaos Gods would do if they attacked the imperium with all their forces?
> Personally I would'nt like to fight Greater Daemons or Chaos Gods it'd be bad joo joo


Seems to me that trying to put a number to how many Chaos Demons and Chaos Marines there are is a little counter-intuitive. I do like the mental image of someone trying to conduct that Census though :shok:. I'd imagine that you could say that the Demons at least are infinite as they are generated by thoughts and feelings of the living, but that's pretty unhelpful since it doesn't give any indication of power.



RazikTheDevourer said:


> As For Necrons, It Says they come from Tombs? and that their Minds are stored there when they die so that they can be brought back to life?
> Focus Military Might on all the Tombs and blow them away, Or a High Tech Computer Virus so you can take control of the Necrons.


Well, to do a computer virus you would have to have some kind of interface that could talk to the necrons, and I can't imagine a situation where that would occur. Even if it did, you would still have to deal with the C'tan since they are the big threat anyway. Also remember that the Pariah are a blend of necron and human. I'd hate to see what would happen if your computer virus crossed to the pariah and then to humans. You could easily kill yourselves with that kind of thing.

Focusing might on Tomb Worlds would be helpful, but you would have to find them all and then crack those planets. Not just destroy the surface, but crack the planet. That takes some doing and assumes that the necron Tomb Complex doesn't just teleport somewhere else. The other problem with attacking Tomb Worlds is it wakes up the necrons that "live" there. Attack with enough force and you provoke a higher threat wake up and this sounds like the kind of threat that would result the highest priority wake up, so you might even get the chance to fight a Aeonic Orb. Wouldn't that be fun :no:

EDIT: Forgot to add that Tomb Complex act as portals so you would have to fight reinforcements too.


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## Beaky

what's an Aenoic Orb?


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## Daneel2.0

Aeonic Orb is a Necron Engine of war that is essentially a chunk of star contained inside a space capable ship. They fire by opening part of the sphere and focusing the plasma of the star into a beam that sythes across the target, or by opening part of the sphere and not focusing the plasma allowing it to explode like a big nuke


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## Godefroii

I think that the bigest threat to imperium is GW staff  all they need to erase the Humanity is one evening ,couple of beers and some papers and pencils 

ok,ok. My choice is chaos-Thousands of thousands marines,bilions of others renegates/beastman/GodsKnowWhat servants and almoust infinite deamons...but it would never happend,because Gods fight among themselves in the warp.
Soo..tyranids


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## kungfoomasta

heres my problem... even if you can truely kill a necron who's to say that the ctan wont create more from an IG world? necrons are the threat


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## BloodAngelZeros

RazikTheDevourer said:


> LoL
> What happened in our own past when War Lords overthrow and Emperor?
> lemme see... take Control Of Their Armies?
> If the Imperium see the Emperor Fall, They will bow to the will of the Dark Gods thus making the Chaos Army Unstoppable.
> Any who Rebel against them will be executed or sacrificed.
> once the Imperium is in the hands of Chaos Rule, Eldar will follow along with Tau and all the other scum of the universe.
> Once they are all destroyed it will be the Gods who will decide who is the ultimate victor in the end.
> My Belief is Khorne will win hands down, the most feared and bloodthirsty of the Chaos Gods.


Yes, they take control of the armies, but there's alway rebellion. It'd be foolish to think that all the imperial worlds would go "ok, the emperor's gone, let's turn to chaos now." Chaos needs (as far as I know) humans to willfully allow themselves to chaos. The chaos gods can pick and poke at the weaknesses in said humans, but ultimately the human has to concede to chaos. I really don't think that ALL of the imperium would suddenly turn to chaos if the emperor was gone. Even in order to overthrow the emperor you'd have every last loyal SM giving their lives so there goes a major chunk of the imperium right off the bat. Toss in most of the IG and all inquisitorial units and what's left? Not a whole heck of a lot as far as a fighting force goes from conquering the imperium. 

Again, the biggest threat to the imperium is the imperium itself. Look at any empire that got enormous, it eventually collapses under its own size. There's too much corruption and such for a central power to keep track of.


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## Haraldrr

The answer is simple;chaos.
It can have its ups and downs but if you read books(horus heresy series) theres alot of stuff saying that chaos is a never ending force and that it will never be destroyed completely.


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## Daneel2.0

Brother Wulox said:


> The answer is simple;chaos.
> It can have its ups and downs but if you read books(horus heresy series) theres alot of stuff saying that chaos is a never ending force and that it will never be destroyed completely.


Oh, the Deceiver might argue that point with you, but all told I agree. Chaos is the biggest threat.


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## vorbis

nids, theyve done it at least once before they can do it again, plus if the imp ever meets the thing thats making these size fleets imagine what that will be like?


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## Daneel2.0

I don't know where it says that then Tyranids had destroyed another galaxy. To my knowledge they come from there, but they may have been pushed out by something else.

The fleet ships may just grow up from baby ships 

_"Ah isn't that little baby Tyranid ship cuuuute. Mind it's teeth now"_


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## BloodAngelZeros

Heh, that is true. All the books have ever said about the nids is that they've come from another galaxy. True, maybe they've consumed that one and need to move to a different one, but perhaps a different race has found a way to push them out and the nid fleets are just survivor fleets from their home galaxy. I honestly don't think that nids will be a problem. The imperium has a rather neat trump card, the life eater virus. Deny the organic material (which after everything is killed by the virus, a whole planet ends up erupting into flames) and the nids go as well.


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## vorbis

*sulk* still think nids


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## Cato Sicarius

Am I going to have to write this again? _(sigh)_ It's Tyranids.

Okay, it goes like this. (breathe in)
Tyranids amass in full force and surround the Galaxy. There are even more Tyranids than Orks. They attack relentlessly, and inevitably wipe out the Tau. Then they eat Ultramar etc... Any way, once they get to Terra, the Shadow in the Warp stops the Emperor's power in it's tracks. Thus, all of the breaches in reality, including the Cadian Gate, suddenly release Daemons in unheard of numbers. The Void Dragon arises. The Adeptus Mechanicus turns to it for guidance, and it kills them. The Outsider arises. Chaos ensues. The Chaos Marines join with the daemons. All of the Space Marine Chapter and Guardsmen and Inquisition have already joined the fight. 
Now, one of two things could happen, 
1) The Emperor dies, the Imperium has an Epic Fail and becomes An Hero.
2) The Emperor dies, and is brought back to life by the Illuminatii.
Either way, the Eldar and Dark Eldar join the fight for the Necrons arose and joined long ago. Of course, the Eldar, Orks and Humans are eaten, the Necrons are destroyed by Chaos, the Tyranids retreat because of Chaos and go to another Galaxy, Chaos takes over and then the Gods go and terrorize another Galaxy as well.

Remember, Tyranids=owning.


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## Chewy

id have to say tyrannids
purely because their abilities are vastly unlimmited
it says in the description for the death leaper lictor that if the hive were to re absorb that DNA it could make every single tyrannid completely undetectable
i mean cmon who has a chance against an unlimmited enemie?
and theyre only getting stronger and stronger


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## Khorne's Fist

I'd have to go with the Necrons. If they all awoke and the C'tan got their act together they'd wipe out every living thin in the Galaxy. We have no idea how many tomb worlds there are, or where they are, never mind whatever is lurking in the bowels of Mars... 

The 'nids travel too slowly to threaten the Galactic core any time soon, the orks are keeping themselves in check by killing each other, the Eldar are a spent force, the Dark Eldar have no ambitions beyond the odd slaver raid, Chaos is too dispersed and divided to provide anything but the occasional black crusade, and the Tau are too smart to confront the Imperium head on just yet. They'll keep going with their phases of expansion when the Imperium is distracted elsewhere.


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## Cato Sicarius

Dude, nids are already in the Solar Segmentum! Thats where Terra is! And your saying they move slowly? They also have Warp travel y'know.k: ?


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## Void dragon

I think the necron because when the void dragon resurrect the imperium will die!
"The Void Dragon may be able to remotely control technology over vast distances" 
so he is able to remote a titan !!!!!!!


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## cooldudeskillz

chaos are biggest threat to the imperium...and do you know why...because GW said they are and if you don't believe me then read this.

_The greatest threat to the Imperium of Man is, and has always been, the followers of Chaos and the foul daemons of the Warp._ This was taken from their website.

Also in fluff it's true, aslong as the imperium man stay strong then so does chaos...which feeds on their success. Infact as long as thier is life in the galaxy then there will be chaos, even the tyranids should fear chaos as their are untold billions of daemons ready to consume the galaxly and no one not even the tyranids and necons can stop them.


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## imntdead

cooldudeskillz said:


> chaos are biggest threat to the imperium...and do you know why...because GW said they are and if you don't believe me then read this.
> 
> _The greatest threat to the Imperium of Man is, and has always been, the followers of Chaos and the foul daemons of the Warp._ This was taken from their website.
> 
> Also in fluff it's true, aslong as the imperium man stay strong then so does chaos...which feeds on their success. Infact as long as thier is life in the galaxy then there will be chaos, even the tyranids should fear chaos as their are untold billions of daemons ready to consume the galaxly and no one not even the tyranids and necons can stop them.


 Man this took a while to read;but I totally agree you its Chaos all the way not just because GW says so;but because Chaos is the reason why Necrons went into hibernation in the first place.


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## Cato Sicarius

They went into hiding because of the Enslavers which come from the Warp but technically are NOT Daemons.


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## Scytherayne

The Necrons have developed technology that can cutoff areas from the warp, it says in the codex, and is represented in the game by the Monolith Phalanx thing.

It basically like a massive pariah that completely nullifies a persons soul, psyker powers and cuts off that area from the warp, preventing daemons from even existing in there.

And for the record, the Necrons were the only race to fully control the galaxy. You can't destroy them without completely obliterating them, which is nearly impossible without the use of titan-grade power.

Their basic weaponry is strong enough to take down tanks, they can get ANYWHERE within a short amount of time without utilizing warp travel. They are souless, so they aren't vulnerable to chaos energies.

People are forgetting "The Outsider". Hes the fourth C'tan and its been said by the Eldar "that on one stormy night, he shall return". And kill,kill,kill. The Void Dragon is THE god of technology, so he probably has all sorts of Necrons stashed away with weaponry even more powerful than the norm.

And the C'tan don't hate each other , they just like life essence. A lot.


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## imntdead

Cato Sicarius said:


> They went into hiding because of the Enslavers which come from the Warp but technically are NOT Daemons.


 The Enslavers were one of the warp denizens that plagued the galaxy and it doesn't specify whether they were daemons or not.


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## officer kerky

well the imperium is pretty much done for they have technology they dont even know how to use.
necrons can wait an eternity to harvest billions of souls in a matter of hours. my vote is on necrons. because if tyranids infect a planet the imperium can blast it out of orbit and totally destroy it with ease if they bother but they wont.


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## General Panic

Hrud, no-one knows shite about them, the unknown is always the greatest threat...


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## Alex

I'd have to say necrons if all four of the C'tan were free to roam the galaxy.


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## Cato Sicarius

But technically that would mean the Enslavers are the greatest threat as no one knows shite about them either. There is an entire segment of the galaxy that the Imperium doesn't know about as well! So it can't be the Hrud. And the Imperium knows that they are out of sync with the rest of the Galaxy (so your wrong! Hahaha!). 

Now then, about the Enslavers, they have no Chaos God that they are dedicated to, and there are already Undivided Daemons, so they cannot be Daemons. However on the other hand, in Dawn of War then the Avatar is a Daemon of the God of War. BUT, Dawn of War may or may not be canon at some points.

:evil genius cat:


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## imntdead

Cato Sicarius said:


> But technically that would mean the Enslavers are the greatest threat as no one knows shite about them either.
> 
> Now then, about the Enslavers, they have no Chaos God that they are dedicated to, and there are already Undivided Daemons, so they cannot be Daemons.
> 
> :evil genius cat:


 So where does it say they weren't dedicated to a chaos god or any of the gods,there isn't enough knowledge on them for that.In the Necron Codex it refers to the Enslavers as denizens of the warp and denizen means, an inhabitant or a resident.
With that being said you can't say their not daemons;but then again I can't say they are;but One thing I will say is that they come from the warp or the Immaterium and the Warp is chaos as chaos is the warp.So yeah Enslavers are chaos and chaos beat the Necrons all that millennia ago.


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## Vaz

Orks - lack the knowledge (but not intelligence), and yes, despite the irrepressable urge to not stop, more often than not, the loss in psyche coming from defeat/stalemate is the largest reason for a waaaagh to dilute.

Chaos - Hatred, but require the willing servants, which are toe to toe with the Emperor's faithful. You get those who are unsure, and they go traitor, which always steals those who are made of stronger stuff, and stay true, and will fight harder. Plus, much of Chaos is like a raiding force. They have a pirate bay, and launch strikes, which while annoying, is easily coped with. It's only during the Black Crusades (approximately 50-60 years between each one say) that it becomes a threat. In that time, defences will be rebuilt.

Tau - always expanding, and will encounter new aliens and civilisations etc. If it ever becomes like the Taros affair, I can't see the Administratum/Departmento munitorum being so kind as to let them just withdraw again.

Tyranids - the real beauties - the ultimate threat, IMHO. They are forever learning, and it's only so long until they manage to create new Stuff inside 20 seconds, instead of 2 months of captivity on Anphelion, or in transit from world to world, etc. So no more ramming with a Revilers Strike Cruiser, allowing a Bombardment Cannon to fire through the spore screens.

Eldar are pirates, again. Same for Dark Eldar raiders.

Necrons - gonna be a lot of dead bodies left for the Necrodermis to be put into them. But I've heard Tyranid Acid is really quite nasty.

ENSLAVERS - killed the Old Ones, along with the C'Tan. Then the C'Tan took it among themselves to attack each other, then the Eldar, then each other. Then Sleep time.


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## Daneel2.0

Vaz said:


> ENSLAVERS - killed the Old Ones, along with the C'Tan. Then the C'Tan took it among themselves to attack each other, then the Eldar, then each other. Then Sleep time.


Not at all. Enslavers did what their name suggests; they enslaved psychics mostly through possession. They didn't "Defeat" the necrons nor did they kill C'Tan, nor were they responsible for the deaths of the Old Ones. They killed enough of the C'Tan food (read that the rest of life in the galaxy) that the C'Tan decided to wait until the population of the galaxy was high enough to feed again. The specifics of the Enslaver depredations are unknown other than that. BTW the C'Tan killed the Slaan off (sort of. their are rumors that there are some degenerate Slaan on some backward planet somewhere, but they're not really Slaan anymore)


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## Vaz

Eh, my bad. Just googled it =/. I just remembered reading an article from ages back in a white dwarf about Enslavers in WHFB.


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## Luciferi

Daneel2.0 said:


> so you might even get the chance to fight a Aeonic Orb. Wouldn't that be fun :no:


A what O_____O?


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## Herger

Chaos will always be the biggest! to much to list why. threat.:russianroulette::russianroulette::russianroulette::russianroulette:


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## Daneel2.0

Luciferi said:


> A what O_____O?


Aeonic Orb is a Epic Necron war machine. Think of it as a part of a star wrapped by a magnetic bottle and a bunch of armor. Delivers either a mid level diffuse blast or a massively nasty focused blast.

To give scale, it is bigger and tougher than the Necron Pylon


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## scolatae

i think at their current rate of advance the tau will own the imperium in the long term. In the short term it has to be the eldar because of their sheer deviosness (i mean influencing the orks so ghazghkull the only one who wanted to attack the imperium instead of the eldar rose to the top).


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## Wolf Lord Dan

Definitely necronsss and chaos.


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## ironhammer

i don't know if anyone else has said it but the biggest threat to the imperium is the imperium itself. their hatred/fear of technology, new ideas, any and all xenos, not to mention the destructive nature of the inquisition and conspiracies will inevitably lead to the imperium destroying itself.


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## arhain

no the greatest threat to the imperium is JERVIS JOHNSON!!!!! 


if any one else said this i agree!!!


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