40K Pre-History

[MvS]

Back in the days of Portent I wrote and compiled a "pre-history" for the 40K universe based around the various codices, rulebooks and, of course, the many, many discussions on the Portent boards.

Diverse people gave feedback for me to improve the timeline, but because of other writing pressures I didn't manage to post it before Portent went down. Quite recently some people on these boards have commented on the old pre-history, so here it is along with my notes. Feel free to comment and make suggestions, but please, please, please don't post anything in this thread until I have posted the last part of the history. I want each section to flow into the next without being broken up with questions.

There will be plenty of space and time for comments and criticisms after I finish posting. So anyway, here goes...

[MvS]

40K Pre-History

Pre- 10,000,000,000 + B.C.

’Big Bang’. Universe comes into being. The Materium and Immaterium side by side. The Warp possesses laws seemingly contrary to Real-Space, possessing no physical dimensions as could be understood by an observer within the Materium.

The oldest stars begin to coalesce as raw gaseous giants. Pre-sensate C’tan start to form.

Circa. 10,000,000,000 B.C.

Planets form. Pre-sensate biological life begins to emerge. The ebb and flow of this basic biological life begins to affect the Warp in an entirely vague-yet-symbiotic ‘tidal’ fashion. There is no sentience so no thoughts coalesce within the Warp.

As primitive creatures and animals begin to evolve, their experiences, emotive responses and basic perceptions feed the Warp. The first coalescences or 'Islands in the Warp' begin to form, but these are entirely 'lifeless' things – psychic aggregates that could be regarded as metaphysical elements or compounds, like rocks, water, or gas.

Circa. 80,000,000 B.C.

Slann have emerged as the dominant species on their homeworld. Their sentience is very different from all subsequent races to evolve in the galaxy. Although they have individual minds and are complete and intelligent beings as individuals, their minds also exist simultaneously and fully consciously within the Warp as a kind of group mind. As such they do not empathise or emote with each other, because they do not need to. They already fully understand each other and share identical goals. They do not posses individual ambitions.

Their awareness and knowledge of the Warp is inherent. The Slann do not fully perceive the separation between the Materium and Immaterium that later races do, because they exist simultaneously and consciously in both. The Warp is enriched and made more active by the logic and Zen-like 'Oneness' of the Slann’s thoughts – the Warp is still entirely harmonious however. Although the wild and monstrous ancestors of a few other species are slowly evolving (Necrontyr being the first amongst them), the Slann become first to reach into the stars. They have learned how to manipulate the still-pure energies of the Warp and how warp energy effects the physical laws of the Materium. Basic Warpgate technology developed.

The thought and emotion emanations of the earliest ancestors of other sentient and intelligent life-forms begin to have an effect upon the Warp, causing the original lifeless Warp aggregates to have a kind of momentum, creating strange vortices of experience and emotion. Completely lacking many of the drives and passions of later races, and permeated by the warp as much as they occupy it, the Slann themselves do not cause any coagulations or vortices within the Warp. The Slann are fascinated by this process that they themselves cannot yet understand, and they are drawn to these vortices and aggregates within the Warp like Moths to light.

The Slann find that to a small degree they can influence these disturbances and impose predictable patterns upon them to a small degree, but they cannot yet create such disturbances themselves. But not being able to create such structures themselves, the Slann are drawn to the inactive ‘islands’ within the Warp. Their curiosity towards these ‘islands’ is completely obsessive. Moving through these warp islands affects the Slann in curious ways, and they also act as a kind of fixed point or measure within the otherwise dimensionless and infinite potential of the Warp.

Both addicted to experiencing and witnessing these new movements within the warp, and fascinated by their development, the Slann encourage different life-forms to develop in different environments and with varying degrees of intelligence and connection to the Warp, just to observe what happens. The Slann begin to seed thousands of worlds all across the galaxy with life, and tweak the biological and psychic makeup of many existing life forms. Their actions are incredibly slow and methodical, they spend countless millennia developing and analysing eco-systems on thousands of planets, protecting some from random happenstances as controlled experiments, while leaving others to the forces of the universe. Most planets they incept with life are little more that Petri dishes to them, and they impose harsh and unpleasant environments as readily as they create seeming utopias, all to observe what effect these have upon the thoughts and feelings of living creatures, and therefore what effect these have within the Warp.

They notice that the sun above the planet of the burgeoning civilisation of the Necrontyr has begun to decay rapidly due to the predation of some sort of massive cloud-like parasite (later named and personified as the C'tan, Khaelis Ra). The Slann use their talents to assure that the Necrontyr do not die out, however, and also assure that the biology of the Necrontyr does not ever adapt entirely to their environment, and in fact cause the Necrontyr to suffer from their blight no matter how far they travel away from the dying star of their home-system.

The resulting disturbances within the warp prove stimulating and fascinating in equal measure.

Circa. 65,500,000 B.C.

Slann technology reaches its pinnacle. It is a blend of fathomlessly complex crystalline biological constructs that are symbiotic with their creators, perhaps actually part of their creators, and almost entirely psychic in nature. Warpgate technology is perfected. The Slann have spawned in their countless billions and have traversed the Warp, opening portals into the Materium almost at random. As a result, they either directly control or at least have a presence across roughly 70% the galaxy, and have explored at least in passing around 90% of it. They continue their experiments wherever they go.

Each individual Slann not only has the same drives and purposes as the entirety of its race, but it also has the technology and warp-power to affect an entire planet all by itself. One Slann can have a profound affect upon an entire star system, altering, observing and ultimately controlling everything that happens within it as the Slann so pleases. As their minds are joined within the Warp, the experiments and experiences of the Slann are linked and observed in real-time across the galaxy by every other Slann through their shared super-identity within the Warp. Even if they could feel such emotions, the Slann never get lonely or feel isolated because of this connection, and they spend much of their time actually within the Warp rather than in stations or habitats within the Materium.

The Necrontyr reach intelligence as a species and rise to dominate their homeworld. They are a physically blighted species and their technologies only seem to allay the symptoms of their strange and ever shifting genetic flaws rather than eradicate them. As the millennia pass they begin to reach into space and colonise their own harsh solar system. The Slann watch the slow expansion of the Necrontyr with interest, as they are the first race other than the Slann themselves to develop technology sufficient enough to reach into space – all without any help from the Slann. Largely ignoring the Necrontyr’s physical development, and still absorbed with the disturbances within the Warp caused by the egos, drives and desperation of the Necrontyr, the Slann disdain all contact with them for millennia.

[MvS]

Circa. 65,490,000 B.C.

The Necrontyr have forged their own empire comprising of the few star-systems around their home system. They finally encounter the Slann and have begun to comprehend the Slann's vast influence across the galaxy, although the Slann disdain all direct communication with the Necrontyr. They largely ignore the progress of this younger race within the Materium, fixated instead on their effect upon the Warp. The Necrontyr become deeply resentful of the Slann’s seeming absolute control over the space around the Necrontyr Empire, and the ruthlessly enforced interdict placed around further Necrontyr expansion. The only indication that the Necrontyr have that this interdict exists is when their ships enter any region the Slann don’t wish them to, only to be eradicated.

The Necrontyr are deeply suspicious of the Slann. They are aware that the Slann have manipulated and even created many eco-systems across the galaxy, and the Necrontyr have become jealous of many of the Slann’s other primitive, though often seemingly perfect, creations when they themselves are a short lived race blighted with genetic flaws. They are also jealous, and not a little frightened by what they suspect to be the Slann’s own immeasurable life spans.

They send out emissaries to what they assume to be the Slann’s many shmmering, quasi-organic and partially extra-dimensional stations scattered throughout Necrontyr space, and they also send out transmissions in every language and mathematical algorithm they can come up with in an attempt to communicate with the Slann. They wish to share in the Slann’s arcane and technological secrets.

The Slann do not respond for centuries, perceiving and experiencing time and its passing differently from the Necrontyr. Finally a message arrives from the Slann. It suddenly appears within the mind of every living Necrontyr, though not as words, but instead as a sudden and complete understanding of a simple fact. The Slann will not help the Necrontyr. The Necrontyr are an experiment. The Necrontyr also get the vaguest impression of how their ultimate ancestors were altered buy the Slann.

As a unified inter-stellar civilisation the Necrontyr declare total war against the Slann. The Necrontyr become ever more martial, permanently seeking ways to move against the more advanced Slann. Each time the Necrontyr move against the Slann they are easily driven back – despite the Necrontyr’s ever improving technologies. After a millennia of this, the Necrontyr as a species have become entirely obsessed with warfare and technological advancement, with each and every one of their people bending their entire lives to improving and strengthening their species in whatever way they can.

Although the Slann never choose to eradicate the Necrontyr, they eventually tire of the constant, if sporadic, incursions by this blighted race. Finally, they push the Necrontyr to the galactic rim and abandon them there in the weak light of dying stars.

Defeated but still determined, the Necrontyr become ever more inward looking, advancing and perfecting their already considerable technologies. Eventually they perceive the vast and ethereal entities they call the C’tan and somehow begin the millennia-long process of trying to communicate with the star-gods diffuse minds.

Meanwhile, and much to the obsessive fascination and of the Slann, the first great Vortex of mortal experiences and emotions has begun to form in the Warp. It is forming first from the Necrontyr’s desire to expand into the stars, then from their fury towards and hatred of the Slann, and finally from the violence of their thousand year long war.

Circa. 65,485,000 B.C.

The C’tan become personified into physical bodies through the efforts of Necrontyr incredible technology. The Necrontyr have mastered nano-technology, the pinnacle of which is the Necrodermis technology of the C’tan, which actually sculpts molecules into new forms using tiny and tightly controlled gravitational fields. This is the rarest and hardest to produce of all Necrontyr technology.

Because the Slann have long used their control of the Warp to block the Necrontyr access to it, the Necrontyr have developed spacecraft that can actual ‘fold’ space, enabling them to cross vast tracts of space in the blink of an eye without needing access to the Warp. Despite the fact that the Necrontyr have negligible awareness and effect upon the Warp (perhaps even less than the Tau in the current era), the fact that the entirety of the Necrontyr race have begun to worship the C’tan as gods and have faith in these ‘gods’ that far outstrips the C’tan’s abilities, strange new momentum is caused within the Warp. This conscious and willing exaggeration of expectation begins to cause crystalline concepts to bind with basic drives and emotions within the Warp for the first time. While the Slann are utterly absorbed with this phenomena, the C’tan spread their influence across the handful of star-systems that comprise the Necrontyr Empire.

Within a few centuries the C’tan are now the undisputed rulers and gods of the Necrontyr. Yet the C'tan were driven insane when the Necrontyr coalesced them into the metallic Necrodermi. C'tan intelligence and consciousness was subtly degraded in some aspects and upgraded in others, but as they were essentially ripped from their natural habitat the trauma shifted their perceptions and unhinged their minds even as it focussed their minds in to one space and time. They have become addicted in the most profound and unwholesome way to the ‘taste’ of the electrical, magnetic and other energy sources within sentient life. The C’tan consume the entire Necrontyr race and encase their basic thought engrams within the sophisticated neural networks of highly advanced robotic bodies. The Necrons as they are known today are born. Desperate for more lives to consume, the C’tan lead their metallic slaves to ‘harvest’ the other burgeoning races in the galaxy.

This time of conflict and consumption would have give birth to some lasting Warp aggregates and vortices. The Slann lose almost all interest in the Materium, completely fixated upon the changes within the Warp, sampling and experiencing them and musing as to their meaning.

Circa. 65,460,000 B.C.

Though it has taken them nearly 30,000 years, the C’tan have expanded across the galaxy faster than the Slann thought possible. They have taken complete control of roughly 20% of the galaxy, but only areas not controlled by the Slann themselves. Many of the ancient races that evolved independently of the Necrons and Slann have been enslaved or consumed by the C’tan. Only now do the C’tan turn their attentions to the holdings of the Slann themselves, devouring races that have been seeded and nurtured by the Slann. Facing for the first time in their existence a genuine challenge to their own dominance within the Materium, and for the first time in millions of years some of their number experiencing physical harm, the Slann move their attention away from the Warp slightly and mobilise to protect their creations and experiments from the C’tan onslaught. The First War in Heaven begins.

The battle cannot be won by the Slann as easily as before. The galaxy divides into three spheres, those controlled by the Slann, those controlled by the C’tan, and various "no man's lands", demilitarised zones, devestated expanses and hidden empires areas that aren't controlled by either side. The C’tan are completely intoxicated with their corporeal forms and their immense powers, and their perspectives have shifted drastically. Defeating the Slann becomes less important than enjoying their godlike status. The C’tan spend hundreds of thousands of years pushing many species up the evolutionary ladder towards intelligence and then totally dominating them as gods. Countless thousands of races and civilisations rise, are enslaved by the C’tan, and, as the millennia pass, are consumed.

This respite in their otherwise unending war gives the Slann some breathing space to observe the changes wrought upon the galaxy and within the Warp. They realise that the C’tan really are a threat and may disrupt or even destroy all the Slann’s experiments, and maybe even the Slann themselves. Although they do not possess individual fears and knowing that their sentience can exist in the Warp beyond physical death, still the Slann do not wish to have their work unravelled by the C’tan.

They lay down the biological blueprints of various new life forms rooted in the Materium as the Slann are not (or, at least, not enough to focus on the physical battle against the C’tan), that will be intelligent and more ambitious warriors than the Slann themselves. They will be populace and expendable soldiers to fight against the C’tan. The Rashan are first of these new creations to rise to intelligence, but their homeworld is too close to where Slann space borders the space controlled by the C’tan. Before the Rashan can develop adequate technologies to defend themselves against the Necrontyr, the civilisation is consumed by the C’tan, its few survivors scattered and lost.

The Slann lay the seeds of their second great warrior race, the Eldar. They decide that that this race will have to evolve with an inherent ability to protect itself from the C’tan, with or without technology. They resolve that these new creatures will have to have the strongest link to the Warp of all intelligent life forms (other than the Slann themselves), and perhaps even find ways to harness the strange vortices and aggregates within the Warp as weapons in this battle.

[MvS]

Circa. 65,000,000 B.C.

The harvests of life begin to thin within the C’tan’s demarcation of the galaxy and so they begin to spread into the Slann space again. The Slann resist them with a vehemence that exceeds all prior engagements between the two species. The Slann prove powerful indeed and manage to hold back the C’tan. Their new expansion is too slow for the C’tan, and for this reason, and countless other more enigmatic ones, the C’tan begin to turn on one another. They turn their Necron servants, and countless other slave races against each other. Even going to the extent of seeding their own biological races, ushering them through evolution and then using them as pawns in their wars against each other – or simply consuming them all.

The Slann as a race begin a slow decline as the C’tan slowly but surely begin to defeat and consume them as well. Though the Eldar have now emerged as a definite species, they have as yet only reached primitive intelligence, and so are not yet ready to fight against the C’tan and their Necrons. The Slann continue to seed new races in a desperate attempt to balance out the vast consumption of life by the C’tan. A species that will one day be called the K’nib take the first steps upon the path to intelligence.

Circa. 60,100,000 B.C.

No more than twelve of the C’tan have survived their fraternal and cannibalistic wars, but these are amongst the most powerful or devious and they are still more than enough to destroy the Slann and their works. The Slann return to the Eldar. They see that the Eldar have become a rich and vibrant culture (similar to a Utopian view of ancient Greece). Most pleasingly to the Slann, they see that the Eldar have become powerful psykers and magicians and can re-incarnate after death. They have also subconsciously used their talents to create and personify benevolent Warp entities. There are two entities, Isha and Kurnous, and they personify various constructive traits and beliefs of the Eldar, like the symbiotic relationship with nature and the joy of life. The Eldar worship them as gods and much to the Slann’s surprise, though they are entities forged from concept and given form by the power of the Warp, they can manifest themselves in the physical universe for long periods of time (living in harmony with the Eldar), due to the Eldar’s immense psychic power as a race and passionate belief in them. The Eldar have a third ‘god’ whom they call Asuryan, although this is not a god that is yet personified within the Warp. Asuryan is the name and identity the Eldar have given to their concept of the Great Balance, the Warp in its pure state. Asuryan’ could be seen as a balanced version of Chaos Undivided – not really an entity, but not just a concept either. The Slann come to believe that this ‘Asuryan’ is in fact the Eldar’s culturally stylised vision of the structures and flows imposed within the Warp by the cold logic of the Slann.

Though much more powerful than the Eldar, these young ‘gods’ can by no means match the combined psychic might of the Slann. Then another of the elder races, the Vendichi, one of the few surviving races that evolved by themselves (after both the Slann and the Necrontyr had reached into the galaxy), discover the Eldar’s world. They have been brutalised by tens of thousands of years of war, and they are fleeing the C’tan. They attack the Eldar homeworld. The Slann reveal themselves to the Eldar and help them fight these invaders, taking little direct action themselves in the fighting. The Eldar perceive the ancient wisdom and greatness of the Slann, and are the first to call them the ‘Old Ones’ – a term that will spread throughout the galaxy in many languages and through many other subsequent races.

The Old Ones realise how useful the Eldar’s ‘gods’ would be in a battle against the C’tan, and encourage the Eldar to use their Warp born powers and gods against the invaders. The Eldar are victorious and the Vendichi are shattered and forced to flee in disarray.

Circa. 60,099,000 B.C.

The Eldar have developed into a highly intelligent culture. They have little or no technology as we might understand it, but as fundamentally warp-attuned creatures, they have learned to use to use warp in a way that other races might use physical material without giving a second thought to it. They cause crops and herbs to grow through a kind of psychic manipulation rather than just physical labour with the plough and hoe. However, the Eldar are not completely removed from the land, and they have not yet learned the arcane spirit-technology of Wraithbone and Wraithstones. This comes later. This being said, Eldar civilisation is similar in many ways to an even more contemplative and philosophically-inclined ancient Athens, only relying on their psychic powers to support them instead of slavery.

Over the millennia the Old Ones have subtly guided the Eldar and encouraged them to look deeper into the Warp and tap into the Great Vortex that has been building in there since the Necrontyr first brought war to the Old Ones and had grown steadily over the millions of years since then. This Vortex is the potential that will one day be Khorne, and it is greater in power than the tiny vortices that are the Eldar’s existing gods, although it has no identity. The Old Ones encourage the Eldar to give it an identity and a purpose, and manifest it upon the mortal plane. So Khaine is born, intended by the Old Ones to be their greatest weapon against the C’tan.

Finally, with the Old Ones’ guidance and the power of their new gods, the Eldar learn how to open actual portals or ‘doorways’ into the Warp, through which they can step from world to world without the need for technology. The C’tan get wind of this somehow and bring war to the Eldar. The Eldar fight back with colossal psychic forces, knowing that even if they died in battle their souls would survive to be reborn. No longer united and so complacent are they in their godlike abilities, the C’tan are unprepared for the magnitude and power of the Eldar’s attack. They assumed that the Eldar’s almost complete lack of technology would make them easy meat, but such are the Eldar’s psychic abilities that they don’t need spaceships or advanced technologies to be able to do almost all the things that the Necrons can. For the first time in millions of years the C’tan’s armies are sent reeling.

Circa. 60,092,000 B.C.

The C’tan have begun to fight back in earnest. The K’nib join with the Eldar in an uneasy alliance against the C’tan. As the war stretches on and on, Khaine’s influence over the Eldar grows. Over time the Eldar’s beliefs are influenced by the K’nib’s beliefs and several other young races that are slowly emerging. The Eldar’s understanding and use of the Warp continues to grow. More gods have come into being including Vaul, Hoeth, Lilaeth and Morai-Heg (Ingenuity, Wisdom & quest for Wisdom, the creation and study of warpcraft and finally the idea of Fate & notion that some knowledge is Hidden and Unknowable). All help (and are used by) the Eldar against the C’tan - though none now are as powerful as Khaine.

Perceiving (too late) the threat posed by the growing the Warp Gods, and seeing all their plans coming undone, the Old Ones rush through the creation of the Krork and the Jokaero – deliberately unimaginative warrior races that would have a higher resistance to the Warp Powers and would be able to expand across vast tracts of space very quickly and fight back against the Necrons.

[MvS]

Circa. 60,080,000 B.C.

The Entire galaxy is in turmoil.

The Eldar have proved to be the most fertile and long lived of all races, living for many thousands of years and remaining able (and willing) to produce offspring throughout their incredibly long lives. With the continued blessings of Isha, the Eldar’s fertility goddess, Eldar females are able to recover to full health incredibly quickly from child birth, and are able to conceive safely within a short period of giving birth, should they so choose. Giving birth to twins and triplets is the norm for Eldar women. Resultantly, the Eldar have spread right across the galaxy and are the most populous species next to the Necron machines.

Over the millennia Eldar technology has not advanced particularly, largely because their considerable psychic powers have gone from strength to strength. With their many gods at their side, and their own grasp of the ways of the Warp, the Eldar can do almost anything with magic that the Necrontyr can do with technology. However, the Eldar are as held back by their gods as they are helped by them. Millions of years of war and worship as gods has begun to affect the already inexplicable minds of the C’tan. As it becomes harder and harder for them to consume the Eldar at will, they have once again turned upon each other – predominantly at the prompting of the C’tan called Mephet’ran.

As the younger races grow in ingenuity, pushing back the boundries of science and sorcery, seeking to ever increase their knowledge and improve their lot in life, the various Warp Vortices of all the many races that represent anything to do with ingenuity, knowledge and wisdom, have expanded exponentially, and have been bound together by a new and massive vortex that is the product of all mortals’ desire to change; to pursue and forge the future – a Vortex of hope that the C’tan might one day be defeated and that Galactic War might one day be brought to an end. These vortices have begun to merge together, forming the pre-sensate, proto-Tzeentch, a vortex that is now almost as big as the Vortex of anger, hatred, domination and warfare that is Khaine.

The personalities of these vortices become ever more distinct and they now possess identity beyond that which the Eldar and other younger races have given them. Khaine desires ever more efficient warriors and so has ‘imprisoned’ the gods Isha and Kurnous because they promote rustic and tranquil notions that are at odds with Khaine’s need for violence, anger and bloodshed in the war against the C’tan.

Circa. 60,078,000 B.C.

Four C’tan remain. On the planet that will one day be called ‘Terra’, the Old Ones have laid down the gene strands that will eventually become active within the intelligent and psychically active species of humanity. The C’tan have united against the Eldar, the Old Ones and the other young races. Mephet’ran has established himself as a god in many different mythologies, in times benevolent and malevolent, anarchic and orderly. He has spent millennia playing races and gods off against each other, whether they be other C’tan and their servants, or the Warp gods and their peoples.

The Warp gods have become incredibly powerful, easily the equal of the C’tan – and more. The Old Ones find their attentions divided between guiding the younger races, restraining the power and ambition of the Warp gods, and fighting the C’tan. The Old Ones are essentially fighting on three fronts, and their numbers are dwindling. Eldanesh and Ulthanesh are born with the ability to control even the greatest of the Warp gods, while limiting their ambition and keeping them manifested within strict parameters.

Vaul, now exceedingly powerful in his own right (and in one sense a minor aspect of the slowly awakening Greater God, Tzeentch), strikes a deal with Khaine, he wants Isha and Kurnous released because they promote ideas that are at odds with Khaine, and will therefore sap Khaine of some of his power. He does not explain his reasoning to Khaine, but instead promises to forge the mighty War God the one hundred swords of unsurpassed power, that will be able to slay both Warp entity and Necrontyr with equal ease, while also empowering its possessor with great strength and a powerful bloodlust. Khaine agrees and the One Hundred Swords of Khaine are forged, although one disappears – perhaps stolen by one of the C’tan, or whisked away by the Old Ones, or perhaps even hidden by Vaul himself or some other Warp entity. Khaine does not yet notice the missing blade and so releases Kurnous and Isha.

Khaelis-Ra slays Ulthanesh who has the misfortune of bearing a non-magical blade. Yet, thanks largely to information given to him by Mephet’ran (in the guise of the Great Harlequin), Khaine manages to defeat Khaelis Ra in combat, shattering the Star God’s Necrodermis. But Khaine is almost destroyed himself, finding his own essence trapped in the star god’s Necrodermis – something alive enough for a warp god to posses (willingly or otherwise), but something not dead enough for a Warp god to escape at will. Worst of all, Khaine’s physical aspect is further tainted by association with Khaelis Ra, and Khaine becomes ever more desiring of death in his own name.

Perhaps Vaul/proto-Tzeentch planned for this, for while Khaine’s physical presence is bound to a metal body and therefore physical laws, he no longer has the near omnipresence of other Warp Gods. Having experienced true pain for the first time, and having known something less than absolute victory, Khaine becomes ever more frustrated and angry.

After his own defeat, Khaelis Ra roars through the galaxy, his fury descending like rain on any and all creatures he passes. He causes every asteroid and meteor in his path to accelerate away from him furiously at random. The ensuing chaos brings about the cataclysm that causes the Dinosaurs on Terra to become all-but extinct.

Khaine’s own fury at his injuries while facing Khaelis Ra, and the fear, pain and suffering caused by Khaelis Ra throughout the galaxy leave an indelible stain upon certain parts of the Warp, generated by the species destroyed and tortured over the millions of years by Khaelis Ra. His image, that of the shrouded and frightening Reaper is plucked subconsciously fresh from the Warp by each new generation of sentient and intelligent races that evolve from this time right the way down to the 41st Millennium.

Such is the immense turmoil in the Warp only the strongest Eldar psykers can re-incarnate now, where all of them used to be able to before Khaelis-Ra instilled so much fear in them.

[MvS]

Circa. 60,070,000 B.C.

Either the Great Harlequin, or Mephet’ran posing as him, has driven the Outsider insane. No one is sure why. Though not dead, the Outsider vanishes from history.

The K’nib and the Jokaero have learned the secrets of Warp travel, though their grasp is by no means as superb as the Eldar. Due predominantly to the continuous use of magic and Warpgates, many daemons and gods of the other younger races (not just the Eldar) walk the galaxy, although none are as powerful or widely worshipped as the Eldar’s gods or the C’tan themselves. Such is the strain upon the fabric of the Materium in some regions, Warpgates have begun to open and close apparently of their own accord.

The Old Ones are besieged from all sides of the physical and metaphysical universes and their most ancient civilisation is all but gone. In their own inexplicable way, many of the Old Ones have begun to develop individual goals and egos, separating themselves from their races super-mind within the Warp and ultimately go insane. This is due to the ever more ‘cluttered’ and violently tempestuous nature of the Warp, which is pulling their attention and consciousnesses in every direction while also bombarding and permeating their minds and souls with sensations, concepts and emotions that are not natural to the psyche, spirituality and neurology of their species. The logic framework they had imposed on the Warp is just a distant memory, as violent and sudden variation fill the Warp, creating entropy and chaos. Without this framework, many of the Slann ho have not been cursed by the insanity of independent egos begin to find themselves increasingly devoid of thought, almost mindless, due predominantly to their inability to evolve or act outside of their original mind/Warp based framework.

In exchange for secrets of Necron technology, Vaul tells Mephet’ran that the greatest threat from amongst the Warp Gods is Khaine, and tells him that the best way to destroy Khaine would be by turning the Eldar against him. He tells the C’tan that without the Eldar’s respect and faith to sustain him, the personified identity Khaine will gradually dissipate.

So Mephet’ran poses as Khaine in many battles against the Eldar, causing them to believe that their god has sided with the C’tan. They war against Khaine. For his part, Khaine comes to perceive that his Eldar children have become tainted by the C’tan – he perhaps even knows that Mephet’ran is posing as numerous gods and heroes in an attempt to poison the Eldar against their physically manifested god, Khaine.

His rage, and the Eldar's growing lack of trust in him, pushes Khaine over the edge to insanity. Without the Eldar’s respect and strict beliefs to bind him, Khaine comes more and more to personify rage, bloodlust and the psychotic urge to kill for killing’s sake. He turns on the Eldar. Eldanesh, the last Eldar prince who can control the Warp gods to any large degree, tries to bring Khaine back under control. Yet Eldanesh's control extends only to Eldar gods and certain other less powerful Warp entities, whereas Khaine has evolved beyond the Eldar's racial memory and has acquired a good measure of independence – meaning he is no longer bound to one specific species but gets his energy from all sentient species.

With Eldanesh gone, Vaul also becomes more independent from the Eldar (which may well have been part of his plan all along, perhaps as a demonstration of the subtle manipulation of the as-yet still unrealised proto-awareness that is Tzeentch.

Throughout his war against the Eldar at no point does Khaine vanish like Vaul had led Mephet’ran to believe.

Mephet’ran the Deceiver has in turn been deceived. Finally realising the magnitude of the threat posed to them by the Warp Gods, Mephet’ran and the other two remaining C’tan (the Dragon and Khaelis Ra) unite for the first time in millennia and begin their Great Work to seal of the physical plane from the Warp.

Meanwhile, using a hybrid of Necron technology, his own Warp-born sorceries and countless Eldar artisans, Vaul creates the ‘Iron Knights’ that would be physical repositories for Eldar souls, in a similar way to how the Necron’s bodies were receptacles for neural-patterns only. Where the Necrons use metal alloys and incredibly advanced nano-technologies, Vaul and his Eldar acolytes ‘grow’ weapons, armour, vessels and buildings from various psycho-reactive crystals and the magic-warped primitive life form first cultivated by the Old Ones that is similar to a kind of psychically-reactive coral, but with properties similar to the very strongest metals – this material becomes known as Wraithbone.

Vaul teaches the Eldar how to use these mighty tools against the ‘Dragon’ – the most technologically minded of the C’tan, and the one that has been most successful exterminating the Eldar. Also, the Dragon is the C’tan who is providing most of the slaves and technology for the Great Work.

This buys Vaul and Morai Heg (separate entities, but also Vortices existing upon the periphery of the greater Vortex of magic, ingenuity and hope that is the proto-Tzeentch) time to create their great Talismans that will be able to utterly destroy the C’tan, again using hybrid Necron technology (evident to this day in the strange pyramid-shaped heart of the Blackstone Fortresses) crossed with the arcane technologies of sorcery.

When Mephet’ran finds out he goes to Khaine in his disguise of the Eldar’s Great Harlequin, (as he had done before Khaine’s battle with Khaelis Ra). He convinces Khaine that he can help him get revenge upon Vaul for tricking Khaine into releasing Isha and Kurnous – the event that led to Khaine’s physical incarceration in Khaelis Ra’s Necrodermis. As Vaul and the Dragon move to fight one another upon the Dragon’s primary tomb world (the planet that will one day be called Mars), Khaine and Mephet’ran descend in their fury with vast armies.

Now facing Khaine, Mephet’ran and the Dragon, Vaul knows he cannot win, but still unleashes the power of his Talismans before escaping with them into the Warp. The Dragon is seriously injured and Mephet’ran flees. Khaine is not so easily put off from his rage, and is absolutely saturated by the Warp energy spewed out from the Talismans. In his insane fury Khaine turns on the weakened Dragon, mutilating the him and casting him down, toppling a mountain on top of him, trapping him deep within the crust of Mars – this is the seed of the confused legend that Khaine blinded Vaul and chained him to his anvil. The Dragon’s weakened incorporeal essence flees into its crypt and is not seen again.

[MvS]

Circa. 60,069,000 B.C.

The Old Ones’ civilisation finally collapses. Their homeworlds in the Materium are shattered by the C’tan and the Necrons, and their minds and souls have been consumed or driven insane by the millions of major and minor warp entities that have some into existence, and indeed all other disturbances within the Warp. The Warp spills into the material universe and daemons and gods swarm across the galaxy.

All the fears and nightmares brought about through millions of years of warfare have coalesced in the Warp and are now free within the Materium. Entire Necron systems are ravaged and cast down, and yet so are the civilisations of the younger races. The plague of daemons grows unabated. Some Warp Entities are benevolent and help the younger races, but most simply hinder, hunt or lord over them.

Circa. 60,067,000 B.C.

The galaxy is devastated. The entire Eldar race is dominated by their unbounded gods and the manifested nightmares of all the younger races. Khaelis Ra is finally hounded into hiding by the few surviving fleets of the Eldar, the K’nib, the Krork, the Jokaero and a few others whose names have been lost to history. Mephet’ran aids them (though they do not realise it), he doesn’t trust Khaelis Ra, who has become more obsessed with death and the infliction of misery than he is with the Great Work. Mephet’ran does not intend for Khaelis Ra to be destroyed, merely weakened. Only Mephet’ran remains active, fighting against gods and daemons, always trying to finish the Great Work or at least find the hidden Talismans of Vaul and destroy them. He seems to ‘save’ planets of mortals from the grip of Warp entities, only to consume them himself or be driven off by other Warp entities. Using all his guile and cunning, he convinces the puissant Harlequin Shadowseers to aid him in laying a trap for Khaine, who is by far the most dangerous and unpredictable of all the Warp entities abroad in the universe. Khaine is bound to his physical shell and so can exist upon the physical plane indefinitely and cannot be banished as other daemons and gods can be. Together Mephet’ran and the Shadowseers manage to trick the physical manifestation of Khaine to enter a warp gate, only for the Shadowseers to turn it into a temporary vortex, and then collapse it. Khaine is banished to the Warp and as his identity (though not all of his power) is trapped within the Necrodermis, he is cast adrift, much reduced in ability, within the Warp.

Circa. 60,057,000 B.C.

Mephet’ran has had some success in banishing the swarms of daemons back into the Warp. Over the millennia he has tried to exterminate all the younger races whose passions, imagination and connection to the Warp generate and free the daemons. The K’nib are wise to his scheme and the relatively few survivors of their race go into hiding. The savage Krork breed faster than he can kill them. The Jokaero he hounds to near extinction. Though he hounds the Eldar across the galaxy, pounding their worlds that have the most Warp activity upon them into the stone-age, killing or consuming untold billions of them, they still prove far too populace for him to exterminate without the aid of the other C’tan. So he instead poses as a series of daemons, gods and heroes, both old and new, guiding them to embrace discipline and a more rustic lifestyle. He encourages them to control their raging psyche. The damage caused by the War in Heaven, and the damage still being caused by the daemons and gods loosed in the Materium, means that this process in painfully slow.

Mephet’ran engineers a specific gene sequence and somehow manages to sow it into the biological makeup of many planetary eco-systems, including Terra. One day this sequence will become active and will be named the ‘Pariah’ gene.

Then the Enslaver plague begins. The near constant interaction of Materium and Immaterium for so many millennia has led to the birth of a strange life form that the Eldar name the Enslavers. Eldar Shadowseers come to believe that the Enslavers were created by the Old Ones as a kind of psychic antibody. Wishing to return to the time when only their mind patterns were imposed upon, and active within, the Warp, the Shadowseers believe that the Old Ones devised (or spontaneously generated) the Enslavers to latch onto the psykers of all other sentient species (who are responsible for the creation of the aggregates and vortices within the Warp) and exterminate them and their planets and populations. The idea being that when enough of them have been erased from existence, the Warp will be calm once again. An insane dream for a now insane and decadent species.

The K’nib believe that the Enslavers are in fact the remains of the Old Ones themselves, considerably devolved into mindless protozoa-like creatures, spreading across the Materium and Immaterium like bacteria.

Whatever the case may be, the Enslavers are creatures neither wholly of the Warp nor the Mortal universe, but a bit of both. The Enslavers latch on to those with psychic ability and use them to open portals into the Warp. Why they do this is uncertain, but the process kills the psyker in question and allows other Enslavers, raw Warp energy and malevolent entities renewed access to the mortal plane.

[MvS]

Circa. 60,000,000 B.C.

The galaxy is almost totally overrun by the Enslavers, daemons and (strangely enough) the Krork. All is in ruins. Mephet’ran finally gives up on the Great Work and goes into stasis, waiting for the plague of Enslavers and daemons to subside by itself. The galaxy continues to descend into a hell-like state. Such are the intolerable conditions and sheer magnitude of the Enslaver plague that the Eldar and the few remaining other races scattered across the galaxy have been driven into a primitive and desperate state and are continuing to regress further. Many other races have slipped into extinction. Only the Krork seem to thrive, somehow managing to breed and populate hundreds of planets despite the fact they appear to have a negligible technology base.

The many stories of the ‘Old Ones’ (the Slann), the C’tan and the Eldar gods become ever more confused with the passage of time, the few facts cloaked in mythology and legend. Brutalised and scattered, and still plagued by the Enslavers and hunted by daemons, the Eldar regress even further into an almost stone age culture, becoming rustic and very much like incredibly simplistic and backward Wood Elves. The fact that they are still the most psychically attuned race in the galaxy means only that more daemons and Enslavers are attracted to them than any other culture. They become fearful of using their psychic abilities. The Eldar dwindle in numbers, ravaged by the Enslavers, the Krork, and the daemons and gods that assail their bodies, minds and souls.

The horror unleashed by the Enslaver plague and the slow decay of the galaxy’s many races and civilisations that has taken place over the last 60 or so millennia, and the despair that has come with this decay and the apparent betrayal of the hope promised by technology and civilisation, has begun to form a new vortex within the Warp. This vortex gradually spreads within the Warp, drawing to itself all the vortices of the countless gods and daemons of sadness, despair, hopelessness, fear (of which there are many, thanks to the millennia of war and Khaelis Ra’s influence over so many mortal creatures), cynicism, bitterness, desperation, defeat, loss of innocence, and other related concepts and feelings. As with the other great Warp vortex-amalgams that will one day become Tzeentch and Khorne, Nurgle begins to grow in the Warp – though none of them are yet fully personified or conscious - the consciousness of Khaine, who of all the ancient gods is closest to his future and greatest aspect, Khorne, is still trapped within Khaelis-Ra’s old Necrodermis. However, the blind and as yet unconscious Warp-energy of anger, hate, bloodlust, the knowledge of warfare, the need to inflict violence, and the actual experience of violence, still existence within the Warp as a truly monumental vortex that has drawn all smaller vortices of related emotions and concepts into itself. This will one day awake as Khorne.

This explains how and why the Eldar war god Khaine managed to remain a largely separate identity from Khorne. For although Khaine’s Necrodermis trapped consciousness and will is drawn towards the warp vortex that will one day awaken Khorne, it cannot be consumed by it entirely due to Khaine’s corporeal entrapment.

Circa. 10,000,000 B.C.

The Enslaver plague has long ended and with less Warp activity within the Materium, the numbers of daemons have died away considerably. The Eldar have managed to survive as a species. Few remember the War in Heaven, and for those that do the memories are hazy and shrouded in millions of years of myth and legend. The Eldar have begun to reoccupy some of the impossibly ancient cities of their distant ancestors and rediscover their culture. They have researched their past and have once again reached the evolutionary stage of a more utopian and magical vision of ancient Greece. They are filled with a new purpose as a people. They have greater control over their psychic powers and learn how to manipulate the energy of Warp more carefully than before.

The very few (and extremely powerful) Eldar Seers who can still re-incarnate have begun to contact each other psychically across the impossible distances between the occupied planets of the scattered Eldar race (something they had long avoided for fear of attracting the gaze of daemons or Enslavers). They deem their race strong and disciplined enough once more to reveal much of the lost wisdom and knowledge from the time of the War in Heaven.

As the centuries pass, the Eldar rediscover the art of making Warpgates and have begun to contact their gods directly once more – although this time in only the most limited of ways. They do not summon any Warp entity onto the mortal plane. They begin to colonise and reconquer hundreds of star systems, this time utilising science and technology in tandem with their Warp powers – just as Vaul had started to teach them millions of years before. Their growth is very slow and steady compared to how it was at the genesis of their race, but it is consciously so. There is no War in Heaven impelling them to act in haste or face extinction. They spend as much time refining their religions, philosophies, aesthetics and souls, as they do perfecting and expanding their technologies, factual knowledge and mental discipline. In time they come to exceed the greatness of their distant ancestors

[MvS]

Circa. 5,000,000 B.C.

The Eldar are once again the dominant species in the galaxy, their position contested here and there only by the still incredibly populace Krork. They have opened relations with many of the new intelligent races that have emerged, and have re-established contact with some of the older ones. They have better control over their thoughts and psyche and have banished all remaining daemons back into the Warp, and have assured that their gods remain in the Warp also. They assure that no race disturbs the sleeping C’tan, and they nurture life on many worlds. The ancestors of humanity have emerged on Terra. The Eldar leave Terra and many other planets as unspoiled gardens, perhaps curious to see what will be the results of the Old Ones’ last experiments.

Circa. 10,000 – 6,000 B.C.

On the planet that will one day be known as Terra, humanity has emerged as the dominant and intelligent species and has begun farming. Humans have considerable, though largely latent and very uncontrolled, psychic abilities. Over the following millennia, this young and passionate race begin to spread across Terra, with their emotions and thoughts raging uncontrolled. Over time the various warp vortices that are not bound solely to the minds and fates of alien races begin to be drawn to humanity.

Humanity is deeply affected by this attention, and indeed the warp vortices are whipped up with fresher and more vibrant momentum. It appears that humanity has a greater potential with regards to psychic ability than even the Eldar, but this potential is locked behind almost insurmountable hurdles deep within them, perhaps by design of the Old Ones themselves. Although these psychic powers manifest themselves only within a relative few of the humans, and then only weakly, their wild and completely subconscious affect upon the Warp is colossal. In a relatively short space of time humanity causes the awakening to consciousness of the vortices that are now known Khorne and Tzeentch. The Warp reels as these two gods are born, one shortly after the other. Khorne and Tzeentch go about absorbing ever more of the lesser existing Warp vortices that are in any way related to their core selves – anger (and the desire to survive) and the desire to change (or at least add to oneself and/or one’s world).

Around this time the being who will become known as the Emperor is also born of the combined souls and intellects of all humanity’s psykers who know of their own power – all shaman, seers, healers, witch doctors, and all ‘holy’ men and women – ho choose to kill themselves and be reborn as one being so as to avoid the predations of the predatory warp gods and also to guide humanity to its destiny as a fully psychic race.

Circa. 1,200 – 1,400 A.D.

Many civilisation have risen and fallen on Terra. Humanity is no longer an innocent race. Corruption and misery is rife. Desperation and despair is endemic. In the Medieval period that Terra is now in, plagues and famine ravage much of the world. The Black Death spreads everywhere from Europe, the Middle East, parts of India and to the hinterlands of China. Millions die. The horror and despair of the latently psychic humanity screams throughout the Warp.

All of this has an effect in the Warp. The immensely powerful subconscious of humanity provides the gel and final tipping momentum within the Warp that allows for the awakening of Nurgle last as the supreme Warp entity embodying, personifying and presiding over despair, fear, both the disgust and acceptance of disease and decay as an implicit part of life, and bitterness. For a while he is more powerful than both Khorne and Tzeentch, who are themselves infinitely more powerful than all other Warp entities. Such is his power at his birth that Nurgle pulls to himself and consumes all other Warp vortices of despair, fear, bitterness, horror, misery, apathy, disgust, sloth and cynicism, and all other Warp entities spawned by other species that personify or are related to concepts of disease or decay.

Nurgle has been waiting as a truly massive potential within the Warp for millions of years, and his awakening into full consciousness, just as with Khorne and Tzeentch, has been held in check only by the efforts of the trillions of Eldar in the galaxy. As a species they try to emulate in their own way what the Old Ones attempted to do, imposing order upon the Warp. Although the Eldar were unable to disperse the largest vortices and aggregates of concept and emotion within the Warp, they were able to deny these vortices and aggregates full sentience and self-realisation. The massive power within the Warp of humanity’s raging emotions created chinks in the Eldar’s psychic chains upon these vortices, and in time the vortices were able to reach out and latch onto the minds of humanity, feeding of the psychic momentum created by the humans, and encouraging humanity to subconsciously sculpt these small strands of the major Warp vortices to personify self-aware gods and daemons, whose existence would in themselves add to the self awareness and growing sense of cohesive identity of the greater vortices.

Nurgle’s birth has an effect upon the Eldar, who begin upon their imperceptible and painfully slow journey to civilisational decay.

Circa. 29,000 A.D.

Humanity has long arisen as a powerful intelligent species, and has long reached into space. Humanity has spiralled through good and bad fortunes, suffering at the hands of their creations as Machine Intelligences wage war upon them from within. The Cult Mechanicus that holds the Machine and Intelligence as the Ultimate Sanctity and demonstration of divinity has been formed. Some believe that this cult has been formed through the influence of ancient aliens, perhaps connected to secrets buried beneath the Cult homeworld of Mars. Nothing can be proven and all notions of central governance of humanity collapses.

Ab-humans have evolved from humanity on those planets that have very different atmospheres from Terra. The Eldar have largely ignored humanity, as they have not colonised many worlds yet within the reach of humanity’s slow progress across the stars. Yet still, humanity strives for perfection.

[MvS]

Circa. 30,000 A.D.

Though in every sense at the very pinnacle of their civilisation and cultural achievement, the Eldar have fallen into terrible decadence and arrogance. Indeed, such is their arrogance that they begin to experiment more with the dangerous aspects of the Warp. Many turn from these more unwholesome sorceries, knowing that they could not truly control the forces their indulgent brethren invigorate within the Warp.

Since the dawn of consciousness in the universe, vortices had formed in the Warp that encapsulated such mortal notions and feelings as pleasure, gratification, delight, ecstasy, rapture, exaltation, joy, the desire to experience pleasure and satisfaction, sensation, the desire or need to ‘feel’, the pursuit of pleasure, happiness, contentment and perfection, selfishness, vanity and pride. The drives and excesses of the now billions-strong and emotionally turbulent humans has only added to this. Yet it is the incredible achievements and impossibly heightened intellect and emotiveness of the untold trillions of Eldar throughout the galaxy that begins to draw these disparate vortices together within one great Vortex.

Slaanesh grows almost entirely from the realised and unrealised excesses of the Eldar. While alive, many of the Eldar strive to suppress and control their raging feelings, but when they die their souls melted back into the Warp, and all their long-guarded temptations and secret delights are released, drawn together and then absorbed by the nascent reality that was Slaanesh.

Some of the more enlightened Eldar strive to prevent Slaanesh from reaching full consciousness. But even by recognising the possibility of the birth of embryonic Warp entity, the Eldar give it an identity. Without fully realising what is happening, the Eldar begin to be manipulated by the psychic-potential, the Warp Vortex, they themselves have fuelled, conceived and perceived. The vast majority of the Eldar pause in their quest for self-improvement and the civilisational enlightenment and choose a darker path of inward-looking excess, debauchery and self-satisfaction. So highly charged are the Eldar’s psychic minds that daemons and other warp entities manage to break free from the Warp once more and spread across the Eldar’s vast empire.

Many of the Eldar renounce the ways of their brothers and sisters, and retreat into vast exploratory spaceships, warships, moon-sized space-stations and smaller trading vessels of all kinds, abandoning whole worlds and star-systems to their corrupted brethren. The Warpgates that led to corrupted worlds are sealed shut, and these who are the ancestors of the Craftworld Eldar drift away into space. The Eldar they left behind sink ever deeper into their dark practices. A racial madness had taken them over, an insanity that had only one end.

Slaanesh finally realised itself into a full entity, springing into the Warp from the psyche of the Eldar. In their untold billions the Eldar’s souls were swallowed by Slaanesh, their bodies simply evaporating from the material universe as raw Chaos broils out from their minds. Where the populations of the Eldar had been most dense, the Warp literally spills from their minds creating an apocalyptic mix of real and unreal. A massive hole is torn in Reality and the Eye of Terror was created.

Within the Warp, Khorne struggled against Slaanesh’s birth. While the metaphysical aspect of war and anger (being Khorne) struggled to suppress the emotions and concepts that fed Slaanesh, the corporeal, limited and less insane facet of Khorne that was Khaine struggled physically against it. But Slaanesh could not be stopped. When he is born, the Necrodermis that has bound Khaine for so many millions of years finally shatters, releasing Khaine’s warp essence once more. It is drawn into the larger vortex of Khorne and becomes a true part of Khorne, but yet still manages to maintain his own identity and will as Khaine, so long has it been independent from Khorne.

[MvS]

NOTES

Asuryan:
I'm making the cardinal sin in the timeline by talking from a godlike narrator position. I didn't feel that I needed to put that the Eldar had an entire creation myth involving their gods, or that Asuryan was their emperor god whom they believe divided light from darkness, Materium from Immaterium, and up from down. I was talking from the perspective of the Slann who perceived the Eldar gods for the warp constructs, or simple attempts to describe things that the Eldar feel but do not yet understand.

Myth Cycles:
Although I have borrowed certain references from the Eldar Myth Cycles, I'm not concerned about keeping to them. They are myths after all. Millions of years have passed since the coming of the C'tan, the War in Heaven and the evolution of the first sentient Warp Gods - think on that, millions of years. In our own civilisation we don't even have a clear picture about such legendary figures as King Arthur, and that was supposedly only 1,500 years ago. We got some good theories about who Arthur might have been (if he was anyone at all), but we still don't know precisely where the legend comes from (please, lets not get into a discussion about Arthur. Just take it as an example along with such things as the life of Jesus or Sidhartha). People believe items of religion and mythology, especially where they cross over with certain known facts of history. The Eldar have had millions of years to forget and mythologize events. They've also had endless wars, psychic plagues and daemon infestations.

So where Myth Cycles might state, ‘Vaul did this, for this reason, at this time to these people’, I would say that this is a religious belief and a rationalisation that has grown up across millions of years, and is not necessarily a point of fact. Perhaps not even close.

Myth and reality:
Another point worth mentioning is that it is possible that the 'lesser' gods of the Warp (like the identities of the majority of the Eldar gods), might actually believe for themselves what their worshippers believe of them. So Isha might truly remember creating the Eldar, even though she was in fact created by them...

Gods in war:
It is clear from the Necron and Eldar codices that the Eldar gods were physically involved in the war against the C'tan. Specifically Khaine, Vaul (who I believe were periphery aspects of the burgeoning greater warp-realities of Khorne and Tzeentch). At the start of the War when the Eldar and their gods became involved, perhaps the physical aspects of the Eldar gods, or even their warp aspect as well, were not much more powerful than Greater Daemons by 'modern' standards. The Slann would have had some interest in controlling and restricting them, if only to see if they could (although I believe it was more than that).

Non-Eldar Gods:
I see no reason why other gods couldn’t be pottering around the Materium at the same time as the Eldar gods. Firstly, a god could be any entity (in this case, Warp entity) who is incredibly powerful and has some cultural/mythical relevance to the race that perceives it. So the gods of other races might have been little more than relatively minor daemons, or they might have been as powerful as the Eldar gods. Also, note that the ancient Romans took their mythology and religion largely from the Greeks, although they changed gods’ names and gave them extra aspects. The same can be said for the Egyptians – they had a massive pantheon of gods (great and small) that grew up across the millennia through contact and absorption of other cultures. Why should it not be the same in the 40K universe where gods actually walk amongst mortals, showing their glory and their power?

Could the K’nib not have adopted some of the Eldar gods by different names, or perhaps even vice-versa? We’re talking about countless millennia of desperate warfare involving manifested gods and daemons (not to mention aliens with godlike powers – not that this distinction would have been that obvious to ordinary mortals), as well as cultural intermingling. So yes, I think many minor and major gods fought in the wars, although whether they were just easily defeated daemons or the same god by different names or in slightly different aspects (like Apollo was a Sun god, a war god, and sometimes a god of dreams…).

[MvS]

The Abilities of the Gods:
Why would Vaul wish to learn the secrets of Necron technology?

‘God’ he may have been, but what does that mean? It means that he is a powerful warp entity. That’s all. He personified the mortal activities and practices of smithing, ingenuity and artisanship. When he was ‘young’ during the days of the War I believe that Vaul’s knowledge was bound to the arcane and the (very) mundane, i.e.: magic and smithing.

I believe that he knew everything that the Eldar knew and had ever known about technology, and perhaps had absorbed some lesser daemons and deities of other races that personified the same things, but the Necrons supposedly had physical technologies that outstripped everyone else, even the Slann (although they lacked the Slann’s incredible understanding and virtuoso ability to manipulate Warp energies).

After being consumed by the C’tan, the Necrons no longer released thoughts or emotions into the Warp, and neither did the C’tan. Vaul (who I see at that time as a very powerful Greater Daemon or daemon Prince, not an omnipotent and omniscient uber-god) saw that the Eldar needed more than magic to eradicate the C’tan. The Slann would not have been too forthcoming about their own technologies to what they saw as a Warp construct that was starting to think a tad too independently and so why should Vaul not have sought to steal the Necron technology that was the wonder and horror of the galaxy?

We know that the gods needed tools in the Materium to be able to fight their wars, because if they didn’t, if they could just ‘be gods’ and snuff out the enemy because they are ‘gods’ and therefore all powerful, then they would have done. But they didn’t. They couldn’t just ‘do anything’. They needed to use materials for weaponry (not just Divine Smiting). They needed to use Slann Warpgate technology to step from world to world (in the absence of spacecraft), and so I say that they truly were limited and truly needed to learn about and possess physical materials and technologies. A bit like a Greater Daemon in contemporary 40K, it cannot simply manifest itself in the Materium (unless the environment it is drenched in Warp energy), it needs the ‘tool’ of a mortal body to possess. Without the biological ‘technology’ of a mortal’s body the daemon could not manifest itself. I think this ties back to Vaul and Necron technology.

The Pyramid in the Blackstone Fortresses:
I didn’t base the entire notion of inter-species technological influence upon the Necron-style pyramid. I just thought it tied in quite nicely because the Fortresses, or Talismans, date back to the time of the War in Heaven. I also thought the Wraithguard, being in a sense magical and spiritual versions of what the Necrons are, was a nice connection as well. In a war, one side uses propeller planes and the other creates jets, so the first side steals the idea of jets, but makes them to their own specifications, and so on…

The Supposed Crippling of ‘Vaul’:
How can a Warp Entity be crippled? His body can be damaged or destroyed in the Materium, but why can’t he just bathe in the Warp and come back as whole as ever. A C’tan though, being a product only of the Materium, might be a different matter – hence the connection I made with the Dragon.

Eldar Reincarnation:
Yes, I know it says they can do it, and I say the same during the early centuries of the War and millions of years later after the War when I suggest the Eldar were forced to regress. When the Materium started to become overrun with daemons, then Enslavers, I think the Warp mirrored this chaos, and the Eldar became less and less able to reincarnate, just as the Old Ones started to lose it. Eldar souls and minds were hunted by millions of hungry gods, daemons and Enslavers, and so only the very strongest of them managed to survive life after life. Or so I say.

Avatars of Khaine:
I suggest they are made from the fragments of Khaine’s shattered mortal shell – the Necrodermis shell that imprisoned him for so many millennia. The Avatars contain fragments or strong echoes of Khaine’s identity and drives, and need only absorb the soul of a willing Exarch sacrifice to fire up, tap into the Warp, and become a greater daemon of Khaine – essentially like a Greater Daemon of Khorne, but more limited and focussed by Eldar expectations and the identity traces of Khaine imprinted into the Necrodermis heart/shell of the Avatar’s physical form.

The C’tan Controlling So Much Space:
I see them as being able to control so much space for 2 reasons: 1) they control countless other races who have been enslaved by the Necrons, or else have been reared from birth, and perhaps even genetically encoded, to worship the C’tan as gods, and so obeying every whim, and 2) I see the C’tan as being able to leave the Necrodermi and shoot across the galaxy at whim to posses other Necrodermi is various ‘temples’ and crypts on other planets. This added to the folding-space technology, and you’ve got C’tan who rule a large part of the galaxy.

Granted the slave races may not see their C’tan god’s for generations at a time, perhaps only seeing the odd Necron regiment and overseer, but they still are counted as part of the C’tan empire, and are under C’tan control. The Christian world never once saw Jesus throughout the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages through to the Enlightenment, but still it remained very staunchly Christian.

If Jesus had miraculously appeared and proved who he was with miralces, then everyone would have jumped into line without much hesitation. Hence a C’tan could be worshipped for millennia by a race without having to appear on their world, and when he does he would be very free with demonstrations of his immense power to enforce his will.

[MvS]

The Old Eldar Empire:
The Eldar didn’t have to be all over the galaxy to have an influence over the vast area that they did. They use Warp gates to step across impossibly vast tracts of space, joining with and freeing other races (like the K’nib). They fought in tandem with many other races that are not mentioned in the histories or are forgotten to time, simply because the Eldar came out on top (in the extreme long run), and so remember the War in Heaven in a rather ethnocentric way. ‘We did all the big stuff!


Necron Nano-tech:
Nano-tech is a simplistic term here. I see their nano-tech as far ahead of our vision of what nano-tech might be a few hundred years from now, as the nano-tech of a few hundred years from now is to us in the current era.

I see it as molecular and atomic nano-tech, the more sophisticated stuff being just for the C’tan. Perhaps the ‘nanites’ that make up the C’tan Necrodermi are not little machines so much as particles that are tightly controlled by incredibly specific magnetic fields. Perhaps it really is in a sense a ‘living’ metal, which, like a human body, can not only contain the immense energies of the Star-Vampire C’tan, but also the energy and identity of a daemon prince, but being much stronger it will not warp and break down over time.

Suffice to say, I see the Necrodermi as so far in advance our own ideas and expectations now as to be almost miraculous. So I think it is feasible to say that Khaine was trapped by it within the Materium, but that is not to say that the entire Vortex of anger, war and so on that Khaine was part of was trapped within the Materium. Perhaps only the conscious part. The unconscious part (that made up the vast majority of that vortex), remained as a pre-sensate presence within the Warp.

Human-Centrism and the Chaos Gods:
Humans caused Tzeentch, Khorne and Nurgle to awaken. I don’t like it, but it’s one of GWs basic principles. To rationalise, I see it as representative of the influence the Eldar have had over other races and themselves. They either know how to avoid allowing the dangerous Warp vortices sentience, or they do not affect the Warp in that way (as is the case with the Orks).

Nurgle was already there as a massive vortex of despair, fear, cynicism and so on. He just did not achieve sentience until humanity came along. They were the final straw that broke the camel’s back (as it were). The pre-sensate Nurgle had been growing throughout the suffering of the War in Heaven (I reference this in the timeline), and had no-doubt absorbed many miserable souls fragments throughout this time. Also, the Eldar’s slow degradation added to the growth of the god of decay.

I see all the gods as having been absorbed by the Greater Power that is closest to their own nature. Imagine one body where the hands, eyes, feet, organs and so on all have their own consciousness and will. However, they are all part of the same ‘whole’, they all rely on that whole body’s blood circulation, and are all controlled to some degree (great or small) by the brain of that body. That how I see Khorne and Khaine (amongst others). If Khaine’s servants and daemons sometimes fight against the daemons of Khorne, then Khorne can certainly fight back, and is certainly more powerful than Khaine (on the whole), but he can’t simply destroy Khaine without destroying a part or aspect of himself – without cutting off his own hand. The hand would wither and die, and Khorne would not possess those aspects of warfare and controlled rage that Khaine now personifies.

Or perhaps if Khorne did do this, Khaine would simply grow back because of the beliefs of mortals and the existence of warriors who believe in controlled violence, or whatever…

Slaanesh and the Eldar Gods:
I think Slaanesh dominates the Eldar psyche. He/she has consumed the other Eldar gods as much as he has consumed the parts of the Eldar psyche that allows them to manifest their own deities within the Warp - essentially preventing the various other gods from being able to separate from the Greater Power they exist within, and robbing them of individual consciousness or will.

Khaine is different because his shattered 'shell' still exists within the Materium in the form of the many avatars. Therefore, to me, elements of his individual will and consciousness still exist outside of the greater reality that is Khorne.

The Krork:
I seem to remember the reference to who they were 'made' to combat specifically as being somewhat ambiguous.

The way I saw it, the Enslaver plague was just that: a plague. Although they were animals (of a sort) and were like large octopi/amoeba type things that latched onto being with psychic potential, they weren't something that could be warred against exactly. They drifted in and out of the Warp, making Warpgates out of mortals, so I don't you could set up lines of battle against them.

The C'tan, the Necrons and their slave races on the other hand were a clear and present danger to the Old Ones and their all their creations, so I could see the Krork as the perfect self-propagating, fearless, 'won't stop bashing til its dead' species for the Slann to use as faceless tides of powerful footsoldiers.

It might be at the time of the Krork's rise to sentience and combat capability that the Slann had more direct control over them (as the so-called 'brain-boys' perhaps?), using them like biological weapons and little else. They might have been built with a pre-disposition to attack only those the Slann told them to, or else the Slann might have controlled them with specific chemicals or whatnot - either way, once the Slann passed into myth, the Krork would still have been running around the place fighting things, but without the control and direction of the Slann.

[MvS]

Done.

Feel free to question, criticise, suggest and comment.

[TheSonOfAbbadon]

You have way too much time on your hands.

I think I read some of that before on another site, and I'm even more amazed now.

[MvS]

Too much time? Me?? Ha!

No, I've just been tinkering with this lot since the beginning of 2001.

Excuse any typos or repetitions etc. I get completely snowblind reading through it all now.

[halo]

good god man, when did u find the time?
I shall print this off to mull over more fully.
I admire your dedication to the hobby, in trying to create my own chapter, i've spent months just trying to find the best hook for myself. But the ammount of actual groundwork you have done is awesome.
Even if it may contain errors, i for one think you have done an excellent job,
congrats.

[Philip S]

Hi MvS,

This may sound a bit far-out, but could the C’Tan be related warp entities?

I’m thinking that as the gravity of stars affects the warp, that small amounts of the warp are pulled into the materium via the stars. A form of ‘processed warp’ which collects in the centre of stars, which powered by the stars energy and contained by it’s gravity and eventually becomes sentient and able to maintain a form (in a similar way a daemon can hold a form in the materium) that is stable. Once powerful enough it can break free of the star-egg’s gravity and roam at will.

I notice that many of the C’Tan seem to have similar emotions to the chaos gods?

Philip

[Spooky]

that was an excellent interpretation of the Pre-History of the 40k Universe. I said reasonably mesermized for a nearly twenty minutes as I read through your material. While I do need some time to ponder it in its entirety I must applaud you on this diligent work.

I look forward to the debate, after everyone returns from their Labor Day weekends, that this should inspire.

[Inquisitor Engel]

Originally Posted by Spooky

I look forward to the debate, after everyone returns from their Labor Day weekends, that this should inspire.

MvS has the advantage of writing such heinously long posts and theories that most of us have so many things to comment on that we can't possibly know where to start.

I wonder if it would work better if he posted a thread for each "era" in 40k Prehistory... Even if it just made us more comfortable with finding an effective way to reply!