I'm a noob to the franchise so bear with me. Here's what I know about the series, the Human galactic empire known as the Imperium of a man...to be frank it's a freaking mess. The only man that can save it has been in a state of near death for 10,000 years his life force maintained by sacrificing a thousand psykers every single day, and his life support is breaking down, the Imperium is run by a fanatical inquisition that blow up planets with little provocation and are torture happy, the armies of the Imperium employ wave motion tactics, sending men with shitty equipment to their deaths by the millions and the bureaucracy is a nightmare.

And then there there are the enemies of man, the forces of four evil gods, including hoards of demons, waves of fanatic cultists, and of course Chaos Space Marines, a race of retards that slaughter for the Hell of it, a race of stuck up assholes that in reality, caused ALL of this bullshit, a splinter faction of that race that are torture and rape happy, omnicidle robots with incredibly advanced tech that answer to a star god, a fleet of bugs that devoured their home galaxy and are now eyeing ours, and an Empire of brainwashing space communists, who, ironically, are debatably the most morally sound faction. Now that that has all been established, I have one question.

What is going to happen?

Will the Emperor die and bring about the Second age of strife at which point it will be only a matter of time until Humanity is wiped out? Will the Eldar create their god of Death who will unleash who knows what across the galaxy? Will the Necrons or the Tynraids succeed in their goals? Will the Tau rise and bring the Greater Good to the galaxy? Will Chaos consume reality? Or (I kinda doubt it" will the Emperor rise again, ushering a new golden age for Humanity?

TL;DR How will 40k end? Will 40K ever end? Discuss.

I doubt Warhammer 40K will change very much from this set formula. Unless they want to pull the plug on the whole thing (or take an exceptionally wild gamble and try for a relaunch with an entirely new set of lore to back it), I don't think they would want to upset the balance very much. All factions have their problems and grievances, all factions have an unfulfilled greater goal and all factions have something that might bring them complete victory, yet it'll never happen or be utilized.

Again, unless Games Workshop gets tired of the whole thing and decides to euthanize it, or they decide to relaunch the whole thing but with a few more millenia and events past with a vastly different universe, I can't see anything that really matters really changing.

Muspelheim:
I doubt Warhammer 40K will change very much from this set formula. Unless they want to pull the plug on the whole thing (or take an exceptionally wild gamble and try for a relaunch with an entirely new set of lore to back it), I don't think they would want to upset the balance very much. All factions have their problems and grievances, all factions have an unfulfilled greater goal and all factions have something that might bring them complete victory, yet it'll never happen or be utilized.

Again, unless Games Workshop gets tired of the whole thing and decides to euthanize it, or they decide to relaunch the whole thing but with a few more millenia and events past with a vastly different universe, I can't see anything that really matters really changing.

So what you're saying is that you think that it'll keep being dragged out?

I doubt Warhammer 40k will ever end or undergo any sudden, dramatic change, mostly because the major factions are too popular among tabletop players. Eliminating one or more means potentially losing fans and their money.

Also, it's implied in the "fluff" that the conflict will never truly end, as indicated by the preface to every WH40k novel:

"There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

Personally, I think there's a few different "endgame" scenarios. If the Emperor dies, it will result in the end of the Imperium (or the end of Chaos if he is reborn as the "Star Child"). If the Emperor persists in his vegetative state, the galaxy will probably be either consumed by the Tyranids (it won't be the first one they've picked clean) or scourged by the Necrons as they turn up in ever-increasing numbers. The other factions probably won't be able to win due to their own problems (Eldar are too few, Orks fight amongst themselves too much, the Tau are too naive, etc).

Hey, the inquisitors fight a noble cause, and don't do that sort of thing. Yes, blow up planets and torture, but they're not that happy about it. Inquisitors should do their best to leave the followers of the emperor alive.

Honestly, I think the near future is going to be spent exploring different aspects of the current universe. Honestly I don't know much about how the tabletop game with the figurines goes, but with books, video game releases, D&D style games and any I've missed, I think there's still a lot of places to go around the 40k universe.

erttheking:

So what you're saying is that you think that it'll keep being dragged out?

Aye, unless Games Workshop are prepared to weather a nerd-riot of epic proportions.

The 40K-lore at this point is like a pair of comfortable, well worn-in and predictable trousers, and there's going to be a lot of complaining if they attempt to change that. 40K is their main cashcow, and they are being rather careful with it. And, I imagine, it would be a rather Herculean task to change anything substantial in the 40K formula and still keep the feel.

Considering that the Golden Throne is failing, I suspect that with the death of the Emperor, then Chaos will succeed during the following Black Crusade. Unless they go with the whole Star Child thing....Oh, we are talking about the game. Don't know about you but before Dawn of War I had no knowledge of Warhammers existence. I suspect that because of those games that more people will develop an interest in the Tabletop. Heck I am thinking of an offshoot Iron Warrior/Night Hunter war band.

My opinions

-Imperium slowing continues to die, within another ten millenia, I'd wager it'd be dead or in it's final hours.
-The eldar will finally go extinct (and thank fuck for that)
-Tau will probably be devourved by the tyranids.
-Orks, Nids and Necrons continue three way war.

Not that we'll see any of that, GW have kept the setting in the same bubble year since the game first started.

Should the emperor die I would like to see some kind of civil war within the Imperium, perhaps the Inquisition vs some of the Space Marine chapters? More falling to Chaos, something like that. Would be interesting to see an Imperium which is completely destroyed, more and more planets turning to Chaos or being overrun by Xenos. God knows that we need some story progression within the fluff.

Next is Warhammer 50k :P

It's not really suppose to go anywhere, the universe is there as is to tell neat space D&D stories.
Sure you can brew up some great revolution or the fall of a faction, but you can never follow through with it because you fuck up the universe for everyone.

Just imagine they end a game with the entire Space Marine / Orc / Tau / Eldar / Chaos faction being wiped out.
Do they rise again, do they have some hidden worlds? Nope, every last one dead forever, won't see them again... well fuck that.

The setting will not advance. It is specifically designed in a way that massive events will still have very little overall influence in the bigger picture.

Short of the Emperor dying, I don't see any significant change anytime soon.

Why would it advance? There's too much MONEY in it.

I'm guessing it will continue to be dragged out as long as its a revenue supply. Each race is too popular to kill off and GW knows they don't need make substantial changes to the lore as long as people are having fun.

I bet you would see a significant change only when the game was on its last legs and isn't making money. Since GW built enough catastrophes into the galaxy to wipe it out 5 time over, it will be interesting to see which one they choose.

Mr.K.:
Just imagine they end a game with the entire Space Marine / Orc / Tau / Eldar / Chaos faction being wiped out.
Do they rise again, do they have some hidden worlds? Nope, every last one dead forever, won't see them again... well fuck that.

They did it with the Squat, but then they weren't selling as well, so they axed the range and then made up the story about being eaten by Tyrannids. No off-world colonies, so surviving pockets, just all dead.

Besides, the Emperor is already dead, surely people haven't forgotten that he is the 'Corpse-god of the Imperium'. Only his psychic strength to operate the Astronomican remains, fed by the sacrifice of thousands of human psykers gathered for ritual slaughter to preserve the totalitarian state of the Imperium of Man.

I love grim, dystopian science fiction...

The story does inch forward in the fluff, albeit very slowly and invariably in order to make things even more GRIMDARK. Like the Tau, who were introduced as the most reasonable race in the 40K universe (not that that's saying much) and then retconned to make them evil bastards like everyone else.

In one respect GW does have an interest in moving things forward. If they ever wanted to completely invalidate an existing army list they could justify it with the fluff. As a fan of the woefully neglected Sisters of Battle I sometimes find myself wondering if they'll be the next to get 'squatted'.

erttheking:
What is going to happen?

- Humanity will invent Terminator Armors for Titans. And Terminator Armors for Terminator Armors that suit Titans. There's still debate about Terminator Armors for Terminator Armors for Terminator Armors for Titans.
- Emperor finally dies.
- Every chapter will gain new type of Armor, not unlike overpowered exoskeletons.
- The Humanity collapses.
- New Armor for new Armor will be introduced.
- There will be another war over dominance.
- Survivors will split into different factions, some led by different Chapter of Marines enclosed in Terminator Armors^6, some true to faith of Machine God. The rest will become "Old Empire" guarded by Flesh..., i mean Flashlight wielders.
(Thanks to this, people will be able to play skirmishes between different chapters without caring about "aren't we on the same side ?" problem)
- No, Imperial troops won't gain new Armors.
- Humanity will search for next Emperor, i mean his incarnation.
- There will be a prophecy that new Emperor will be one and only capable of wearing new type of Armor.
- Some new factions will emerge. All will be utter crap when compared to Ultramarines (Hail to Utramarines !) wearing newest, most powerful armor, and weapons capable of obliterating space destroyers "harbored" on planetary orbit.
- MORE ARMORS !

;)

i vote for space communists.
i like the tau and honestly think they have the technology and mindset to make communism work.
unless they are indeed a tool for chaos/eldar/C'tan(remember, nobody knows where the ethernals came from) in which case i guess i am rooting for the eldar. I really don't want them to go extinct because while they are largely dicks they are needed, yes they jump started at least one black crusade but i am sure they saved the imperium a number of times.

The Games Workshop virus will infect all with the need to maintain the status quo of perpetual destruction (i.e. keep buying their shit).

None of the factions are overtly powerful enough to topple the rest and they are either too small (Tau), too capricious (Chaos daemons) or too self-destructive (Dark Eldar) to be able to do anything to put so much as a dent in each other's demesnes. They've enough squabbles amongst themselves to last many more millennia. In the future, the most dramatic thing I can think that they'll (the GW concept designers, that is) is introduce a new race that will most likely be a hash up of a couple of others because it'd be rather difficult to think of anything particularly original. This new race will register as nothing more than a blip on the Imperium's spectrum and while they may clobber a few Waaaghs!, SM companies and IG regiments, they'll get pegged back by their own successes.

*walks off to read more Codex Necrons*

Change in the future?

In the future-

*Sunglasses*

There is only war.

*FOR THE EMPEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!*

I would say 40k is already past it's prime, and it's all because of one man.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Matthew_Ward

It's probably going to stay as it is, with the Eldar remaining way more badass than all the other factions combined.

I recall someone actually speculating on Warhammer 50k.

Ah, here's the TvTropes entry.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheShapeOfTheNightmareToCome

Never read it, myself, but someone here might want to.

Personally, I believe that all the races are going to fight each other until the Tau advance sufficiently to defeat them all. That's not "I like Tau" hubris, it's an honest prediction.

As for Games Workshop, nothing's ever really going to happen until they quit Warhammer 40,000 altogether.

TheRightToArmBears:
It's probably going to stay as it is, with the Eldar remaining way more badass than all the other factions combined.

Eldar die like bitches even in their own codex. Almost every victory they get nowadays is a Pyrrhic one.

I think that if 40k does experience a large or possibly large mainstream break in expect an overall shift in presentation. The Tau, to my understanding, were the biggest shift of recent years adding in "more anime stuff." Now that the aesthetic is prepared due to GoW and critically well received game, I'm wondering if mainstream reformating will happen.

Remember their used to be Space Dwarves people and they've carefully reformatted the Chaos Marines as well.

The sheer feasiblness of visual Tyranids may aid 40k getting in there and with that WILL come the adjustment for the masses with the popular thing.

Asclepion:
I would say 40k is already past it's prime, and it's all because of one man.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Matthew_Ward

Wow... just wow!

I read the books, and love the lore. Never got into the table top gaming, but wow.... i understand that 40K is a precious thing to many people and i understand why... but wow!

Wow at the hate, and Wow at what he did!

Asclepion:

TheRightToArmBears:
It's probably going to stay as it is, with the Eldar remaining way more badass than all the other factions combined.

Eldar die like bitches even in their own codex. Almost every victory they get nowadays is a Pyrrhic one.

My wraithlords do not care. They are too badass to care.

SneeringCanuck:
My opinions

-Imperium slowing continues to die, within another ten millenia, I'd wager it'd be dead or in it's final hours.
-The eldar will finally go extinct (and thank fuck for that)
-Tau will probably be devourved by the tyranids.
-Orks, Nids and Necrons continue three way war.

Not that we'll see any of that, GW have kept the setting in the same bubble year since the game first started.

In 6,000 years the Tau went from stone age to plasma weapons. They're the only non-infuriatingly static race in the mythos, unless you count the Tyranids who show some adaptive evolution capacity.

I'd argue that the Tau and Tyranids will eventually outpace the rest by virtue technological and physical advancement and be left to duke the rest out amongst each other.

As for the game changing... I doubt it, but If the Emperor dies i imagine a couple of things would happen.

Firstly that the Imperium will simply lie to the legions. They already run it without him. (I don't know how the astronomicon thing works, But if they can't travel through the warp without the emperor anymore then every planet in the Imperium will simply be consumed)

I remember reading somewhere that the Emperor dying would be a good thing to happen eventually because then he could assault and defeat the Gods of Chaos in their own realm. But i think that was removed from the cannonical lore.

Also remember a time where the emperor was actually slowly getting better as was able to bestow blessings on certain things but i think they scrapped that lore part as well.

As for who will come out on top, i would imagine it would be the Tau, they are the only race that includes others in their make up and are the only ones who seem to evolve whereas the rest are stagnant.

teebeeohh:
i vote for space communists.
i like the tau and honestly think they have the technology and mindset to make communism work.

Well, except for being completely different from communists, you mean?

They favour the Tau (at least slightly) above all other races, and have a strict caste structure, with the Ethereals being born to rule.

That's about as un-communist as you can get. "The Greater Good" sounds like something a communist would say because it's something that everyone not a moustache twirling villain says. The Inquisition says that when they sign the death warrant for worlds, the Eldar say that when they let lesser species die, if chaos marines had to justify themselves they'd say that.

...

40k won't ever change, change, but it has drifted over time from it's roots from a weird take on the usual sci-fi setting, to an evocative universe of its own, to wallowing in OtT retcons with everyone being more GRIMDARK!!!!1111 than everyone else, especially themselves.

TheRightToArmBears:

Asclepion:

TheRightToArmBears:
It's probably going to stay as it is, with the Eldar remaining way more badass than all the other factions combined.

Eldar die like bitches even in their own codex. Almost every victory they get nowadays is a Pyrrhic one.

My wraithlords do not care. They are too badass to care.

They can't have sex to save their species. They're essentially Space Pandas.... :3

Iom: Dying unless deus ex machina happens (emperor reviving/reincarnating without the iom exploding in the process). Alternatively finding working STCS and allowing free thinking to the point where humans regain their old technology and are allowed to develop new toys..HERESY *blam*

Eldar: Dying and even their deus ex machina involves them dieing.

Orks: One of the few races with a genuine chance at survival and prosperity as things get more grim dark this is what mork 'n' gork made 'em for! If anyone has a hope of surviving a chaos vs necrons vs nids free for all its da orks.

Tyranids: All depends whether the nids are fleeing from something worst then them (has been hinted at) or have already eaten everything else to the point where the rest of the universe is a nid buffet.

Tau: Lol at peoples delusion at them here (caste system+mind control does not communist make, neither does their use of concentration camps and ethnic cleansing!), seems i will have to make a controversial stance here as i dont believe tau tech will keep progressing as some here believe (they kinda did have crashed imperial ships which they had the luxury of figuring out for 6000 years, iom tech>tau tech despite the sleek looks, also they have met technological walls which they seem to be completely puzzled by, most notably titans)and once their ultramarine grade plot armor runs out they would meet a swift end due to their empires small size.

Chaos: Depends what happens to humanity actually, they seem to rely on the 40k galaxy having living creatures to provide them with juicy emotions so though they seem to have the winning hand, necrons can yet screw them over Or nids if they eat everyone. Chaos might actually be forced to defend its flock...

Necrons:Depends what the C'tan have planned but if they get their way, they will close access to the warp and be free to harvest the living at their leisure. Time is on their side. They are the only race who nids seem to avoid so is a big + in their favor.

thaluikhain:

Well, except for being completely different from communists, you mean?

They favour the Tau (at least slightly) above all other races, and have a strict caste structure, with the Ethereals being born to rule.

That's about as un-communist as you can get. "The Greater Good" sounds like something a communist would say because it's something that everyone not a moustache twirling villain says. The Inquisition says that when they sign the death warrant for worlds, the Eldar say that when they let lesser species die, if chaos marines had to justify themselves they'd say that.

i didn't say they are communists, i just used the term "space communists" because everyone i know (how plays warhammer) calls them that. And i still think after wiping everyone else out they could make communism work.
And regarding the Ethernals, i am not sure(my 40k lore is a little rust since i stopped playing) but didn't they just turn up at the siege of something something out of nowhere? SO they either waited for the other tau to be ready to be lead or were placed in order to use the tau.

Never played 40K, but I do enjoy the books, video games and Ultramarines the movie. I'd like to see a Space Wolf or Last Chancers movie.

Asclepion:
I would say 40k is already past it's prime, and it's all because of one man.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Matthew_Ward

Ok, 4chan is basically a a different language for me, can you have pity on me and just write bullets on how this guy messed up? Wait a minute, was he the one that gave Necrons personalities?