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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:39:05 GMT -5
This is done by somebody on Portent called M.v.S. he also worked on the Liber Chaotica books IIRC. He wrote something about the War in Heaven which might inspire you guys...Im putting it here in case some members here are not on Portent:
40K Pre-History
Circa. 10,000,000,000,000 + B.C.
The oldest stars begin to coalesce as raw gaseous giants. Pre-sensate C’tan start to form. Warp comes into existence, but only as the physical universe’s faint metaphysical ‘echo.’
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 effect the Warp in an entirely symbiotic and ‘tidal’ fashion. There is no sentience so no thoughts coalesce within the Warp.
Circa. 80,000,000 B.C.
Dinosaurs rule Terra. Slann / ‘Old Ones’ have emerged as the dominant species on their homeworld. They are cold blooded, logical, methodical and have not developed emotions as humanity would understand it, possessing no concept of personal ambition. They possess an inherent awareness and knowledge of the Warp, and the Warp is enriched and made more active by the pure logic 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. Basic Warpgate technology developed. Lacking in emotion, the Slann’s logical minds and beliefs impose basic ‘rules’ upon the Warp, but nothing random. Deciding that Life itself is the most important aspect of the universe, seeing it as both logical and necessary for the universe to grow (which, they have decided, is the whole point of its existence), the Slann begin to seed thousands of worlds all across the galaxy with basic life. Their actions are incredibly slow and methodical, they spend countless millennia developing and analysing sound and balanced eco-systems on thousands of planets, protecting them from random happenstances.
Circa. 65,500,000 B.C.
Warpgate technology perfected. Slann now masters of 98% of the galaxy and they have imposed their own notions of order and balance upon it. Necrontyr reach intelligence as a species and rise to dominate their homeworld. 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. Not wanting to interfere with the Necrontyr’s development, the Slann avoid all contact with them for millennia.
Circa. 65,490,000 B.C.
The Necrontyr have forged their own empire comprising of the few star-systems around their home world. They finally encounter the Slann and have learned of their galaxy-spanning Empire. They are suspicious of the Slann’s reasons for manipulating and creating so many eco-systems in the universe, and become jealous of the Slann’s primitive, though seemingly perfect, creations when they themselves are a short lived race blighted with genetic flaws. They are also jealous of Slann’s own immeasurable life spans. They demand to know all of the Slann’s arcane and technological secrets. The Slann deem the Necrontyr too flawed, too passionate and too irrational a species to deal with and so calmly ignored them, continuing with their own mysterious projects. The Necrontyr declare war on the Slann. For over a thousand years this war rages on and off between the Slann and the Necrontyr, but each time the Necrontyr move against the Slann they are easily driven back – despite the Necrontyr’s ever improving technologies. Although the Slann never choose to eradicate the Necrontyr, they eventually tire of the constant, if sporadic, inscursions by this blighted race. Finally, they push the Necrontyr to the galactic rim and leave them there.
The Necrontyr became inward looking, perfecting their already considerable technologies. Eventually they perceive the vast and ethereal C’tan, and somehow began the millennia-long process of trying to communicate with the star-gods diffuse minds. Meanwhile the first Vortex of emotion has begun to form in the Warp. It is forming first from the Necrontyr’s desire to expand into the stars, then from their 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 and also possess 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 (which is still denied them, so weak is their Warp awareness – perhaps even less than the Tau in the current era). The C’tan are worshipped as gods by the Necrontyr, and they 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. They have consumed the entire race and have encased their basic thought engrams within the sophisticated neural networks of robotic bodies. The Necrons as they are known today are born. The C’tan lead their metallic slaves against the other burgeoning races in the galaxy.
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 the roughly 2% demarcation of the galaxy that is not controlled by the Slann. Almost all of the ancient races that evolved independently of the Necrons and Slann have been 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. The Slann move to protect their creations from this onslaught. The First War in Heaven begins.
The galaxy divides in two, the Slann and the C’tan claiming ownership of opposing 'sides'. The C’tan control around two thirds of the galaxy. The C’tan become intoxicated with their corporeal forms and their immense powers, and their perspectives shift slightly. Defeating the Slann becomes less important than enjoying their god status. The C’tan spend hundreds of thousands of years pushing many of the species seeded by the Slann 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.
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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:39:28 GMT -5
This respite in their otherwise unending war gives the Slann some breathing space to lay down the biological blueprints of various new lifeforms that will be intelligent, but also possess a passion and vibrancy that the Slann lack themselves. They believe that this might make them greater and more ambitious warriors than the Slann themselves. 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 the technologies needed for space travel, their entire race and eco-system is consumed by the C’tan.
The Slann lay the seeds of their second great warrior race, the Eldar. They decide that that this race will have to evolve with the ability to protect itself from the C’tan, with or without technology. They resolve that the creatures that will one day become the Eldar will have to have the strongest link to the Warp of all intelligent lifeforms (other than the Slann themselves). Meanwhile, the C’tan continue to rule over the rest of the galaxy.
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. 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.
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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:39:52 GMT -5
Circa. 60,099,000 B.C.
The Eldar have developed into a highly intelligent culture. They have little or no technology beyond the equivalent of ancient Rome, but they now have fully mastered their psychic abilities, and with their considerable magics they can do almost anything. Over the last millennia, the Old Ones have 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 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, and Morai-Heg (Ingenuity, Magic & quest for Wisdom, 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 noble 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.
Circa. 60,080,000 B.C.
The Entire galaxy is in turmoil.
The Eldar have spread across the galaxy and are the most populous species next to the Necron machines. Over the millennia their 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 genetic blueprints that will one day evolve into an 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.
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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:40:18 GMT -5
The Warp gods have become incredibly powerful, easily the equal of the C’tan. 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. 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 killed himself, finding his own essence trapped in the star god’s Necrodermis. Worst of all, his 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 was 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, encoding into the very DNA of all mortal creatures he finds the fear of death – and the more intelligent a species becomes the more they will fear extinction. Khaelis-Ra also encodes its own shrouded image as a genetic memory within many of the younger races and within countless primitive eco-systems – including Terra (although life forms will not recall the image until they grow the consciousness and intelligence). The cataclysm wrought by Khaelis-Ra’s revenge causes the Dinosaurs on Terra to become all-but extinct.
Such is the 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.
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.
Due predominantly to the Eldar’s continuous use of magic and Warp gates, 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. The Old Ones are besieged from all sides of the physical and metaphysical universes and their most ancient civilisation is all but gone. 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, 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 and kills Eldanesh (the last Eldar prince who can control the Warp gods to any large degree). But at no point does Khaine vanish like Vaul suggested he might.
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 and Warp magic, 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 teaches the Eldar to forge weapons, armour, vessels and buildings from various psycho-reactive crystals and a magic-warped primitive lifeform that is similar to, and can be grown like, coral, but with properties that mimic those of metal. 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 Warp magic.
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.
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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:40:40 GMT -5
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 injured and Mephet’ran flees. Khaine is not so easily put off from his rage, and is less vulnerable to the raw Warp energy pumped out by the Talismans (unlike the C’tan). He turns on the weakened Dragon, mutilating the him and casting him down, toppling a mountain on top of him – 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.
Circa. 60,069,000 B.C.
The Old Ones’ civilisation finally collapses. Their homeworlds shattered by the C’tan and the Necrons, they have not the strength to hold back the tide of powerful and insane warp entities that spew through their Warp gates to consume their minds and souls. The Old Ones seem to vanish from history. Without the Old Ones, nothing can slow the spread of these Warp entities – these daemons. 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 driving 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 sows what will become known as the ‘Pariah’ gene within the biological makeup of several planetary eco-systems, including Terra.
Then the Enslaver plague begins. The near constant interaction of Materium and Immaterium for so many millennia has led to the evolution of a strange life form that the Eldar name the Enslavers. These are creatures neither wholly of the Warp nor the Mortal universe, but a bit of both. These entities 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 raw Warp energy and malevolent entities renewed access to the mortal plane.
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. 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 dominated by the Enslavers, 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. Also, the Krork assure that the galaxy remains in an almost constant state of warfare. The Eldar dwindle in numbers, ravaged by 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 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 nercromdermis. 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 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.
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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:41:18 GMT -5
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 their technologies, knowledge and minds. In time they come to exceed the greatness of their ancestors
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 Krork. They have opened relations with the many new intelligent races to have emerged, and have re-established contact with some of the older ones. They have better control over their psyche, their ego and their id, and have banished nearly all daemons that remained in the Materium back into the Warp, and they 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. Early primate ancestors of humanity have emerged on Terra. The Eldar leave Terra and countless other planets as unspoiled gardens, perhaps curious to see what will be the results of the (now largely mythical) Old Ones’ last experiments.
Circa. 10,000 – 6,000 B.C.
On the planet Terra, humanity has emerged as an intelligent species and has begun farming. 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 affected by this attention and in a relatively short space of time they cause 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 emotions, concepts and existing Warp vortices that are in some way related to their core selves – anger 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.
Circa. 1,200 – 1,400 A.D.
Many civilisation have risen and fallen on Terra. Humanity is no longer an entirely innocent race. Corruption and misery is rife. Desperation and despair is endemic. In the Medieval period that Terra is now in, plagues ravage much of the world. The Black Death spreads everywhere from Europe, the Middle East, parts of India and to the hinterlands of China. Countless millions die.
All of this has an effect in the Warp. Nurgle awakens at last as the supreme Warp entity 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, Nurgle pulls to himself all other Warp vortices of despair, fear, bitterness and cynicism, and all other Warp entities that personify or are related to concepts of disease or decay.
Nurgle’s birth has a slight and embryonic effect upon the Eldar, who begin upon their imperceptible and painfully slow journey to moral and aesthetic decay.
Circa. 29,000 A.D.
Humanity has long arisen as a powerful intelligent species, and has long reached into space 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.
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Post by malika on Sept 19, 2004 16:41:38 GMT -5
Circa. 30,000 A.D.
Though technologically, economically, militaristically and culturally at the pinnacle of their civilisation, 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. Although many turn from these more unwholesome Chaos magics, 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, sensation, the desire or need to ‘feel’, the pursuit of happiness or perfection, selfishness, vanity and pride. 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 of pleasure.
Slaanesh grows almost entirely from the realised and unrealised pleasures 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 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 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 they themselves have conceived and perceived. The majority of the Eldar pause in their quest for enlightenment and choose a darker path of inward-looking excess and debauchery. Daemons and other Chaos entities break free from the Warp once more and spread across the Eldar’s vast empire.
Some of the Eldar renounce the ways of their brothers and sisters, and retreat into vast spaceships, space-stations and smaller trading vessels of all kinds, abandoning whole worlds to their corrupted brethren. The warpgates that led to these corrupted worlds are sealed shut, and these who are the first Craftworld Eldar drift away into space. The Eldar they left behind sank 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 billions the Eldar’s souls were swallowed by Slaanesh, their bodies simply evaporating from the material universe as raw Chaos broiled out from their minds. Where the populations of the Eldar had been most dense, the Aethyr literally spilled from their minds to mix and tear the material universe. A massive hole was 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 against 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.
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Post by Philip on Sept 19, 2004 17:08:28 GMT -5
Hi malika Marijan (MvS) posts here, I was talking to him on Portent, and he has an updated version of the 40K timeline that you may be interested in. Say hello via PM here
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Post by malika on Sept 20, 2004 10:00:27 GMT -5
Hmm...I hope he isnt pissed off that I posted his work here, I didnt know that he already was a member here...
Is the updated timeline already posted on Portent?
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Post by Philip on Sept 20, 2004 10:56:41 GMT -5
No, but he’s e-mailing me a copy when he gets back from LA, I’m not sure if it is a release/ public copy, a work in progress or if it’s for BL/ GW etc. I’ll ask him if he would like to post it here, he’s already posted quite a bit in the ‘nature of the warp’ thread so you may be in luck.
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Post by malika on Sept 20, 2004 11:33:22 GMT -5
I havent really checked that thread yet, I will though, I like his stuff
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