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Any place for multiversal concepts in the WH40K setting?


b1soul

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I was re-reading Inferno's fluff about the localised Warp storm caused by Canis Vertex's fall...it seems like this apparently caused a number of alternate timelines to intersect.

 

The Warp/Chaos also offers multiple visions of alternate realities, e.g. Russ and Curze slaying Lorgar, Horus slaying Lorgar. Sanguinius perceives a reality in which he manages to pull off the tiny-probability feat of killing Horus.

 

The Dornian Heresy is also a great fanon example of an interesting alternate timeline.

 

I think it is hinted that 40K universe exists in a multiverse, would you like to see more BL fiction exploring this concept or incidents touching upon this concept?

 

To be clear, I think 40K's metaplot should stay away from Marvel/DC-style mutiversal events...the Great Rift, Imperium Nihilus, Guilliman's leadership and the return of maybe a few other loyalist Primarchs, Daemon Primarchs becoming more active in realspace, Abaddon's future...these should be more than enough to sustain an interesting metaplot.

 

HOWEVER, I'd love to see some degree of multiversal interaction on a smaller scale...

 

Perhaps a smaller group of Astartes or Guardsmen (what have you) stranded in an alternate reality after disastrous Warp jump

 

Perhaps a branch of the Inquisition dedicated to exploring multiversal phenomena

 

Perhaps a loyalist chapter founded by "Traitors"...but these Traitors are actually Loyalists of their native timeline, just some ideas...

 

Bonus Idea: Time-travel by IoM inhabitants to distant epochs like the Age of Strife or Dark Age of Tech or even WH50K. I think this might not add add much to the setting, but Warp travel may involve time-jumps either future or past, right? Wouldn't it make sense for a more extreme example of this to be explored or at least touched upon?

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That, and we know from the ill-fated Warp-shenanigans of the Orks that time-travel issues tend to not work out well, when that Warboss travelled back in time, and killed himself to get two of his favourite gun, and is implied to have met a horrible, universe-correcting-itself type of fate.

 

There's also the theory that the Hrud are humans from the even further-distant future, travelling back in time for safety from some horrific future event (or possibly an attempt to prevent the Heresy).

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This is not exactly what you are saying, but The Outcast Dead provided the first opportunity (via mistake?) for a multi-verse or inconsistent setting - but, alas, it was abandoned.

 

I'm not a fan of the idea of having Earth 2 and all that stuff, but I like the idea of the novels in the setting being internally consistent but not consistent to each other. It removes constraints from authors and allows massively differing perspectives without having to try and explain away the inconsistencies. And i'm not talking about the boring operational stuff of whether voidfare takes a week or 1 hour, but things like the nature of the races.

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I don't think the metaplot should mash mutiple sandboxes together...like have Galaxy 1 and Galaxy 2 Guillimans team up and save the day or some such comic book madness.

 

I would be totally down for subtle links or micro-interactions between Galaxy 1 and Galaxy 2, possibly involving Warp shenanigans...I don't want multiversal plots to be central to 40K in the way Marvel and DC rely on them

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Alt verse Ferrus learns about main verse Ferrus

 

"He trusted THAT one?"

 

Alt verse Horus learns about main verse Horus

 

"Wait? HE became what?!"

 

Alt verse Dorn learns about main verse Dorn

 

"He built walls? Did nobody tell him that attack is the best form of defense??" *shrugs inside his black & white armor*

 

Alt verse Alpharius Omegon learns about main verse

 

"Yeah. Could be me."

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I liked it in the way you mention, the way it was used in Inferno. There it's essentially another means of getting across the insanity/warp-weirdness that came with Prospero, which is a pretty admirable goal.

 

Like you have that one SW warrior who is recorded as having died in different ways in Tizca, even in the sagas, and yet there apparently exists archival footage of him with his brothers in the SW muster after Prospero. That's good creepy stuff, that's using ambiguity for a worthwhile end, as well as 'letting' multiple conflicting accounts exist and playing with the fuzziness of historical narrative and personal recollection.

 

Some of the examples you mention could do the same thing but it has to be done with a light touch and for reasons of atmosphere. In snippets as mc warhammer says. Beyond that, the big stuff like going to 50k or anything involving the metaplot, no way. It's too Marvel/DC and it's the death of creativity. The small stuff adds weirdness and makes the universe feel strange; the big stuff makes everything feel like another branding iteration, like a way of shuffling off anything interesting into its own silo.

 

EDIT: It occurs to me that part of the reason that the Inferno example works well is that it's not in a novel or short story-based narrative. It doesn't have to be 'resolved' for a plot point, it's about conveying the uneasiness of the archivist as they slowly realise the facts just don't add up and that they're dealing with an event that can't be represented in a linear historical fashion because it's too fraught with paradoxes and impossibilities.

 

It can be done in BL fiction - the paradoxes in Ahriman: Sorceror and Black Legion were both excellent - but it might be easier to do in the in-universe 'semi-historical text' format.

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I think short stories would be the way to go IMO

 

I'd even be down for a novel about "a branch of the Inquisition dedicated to exploring multiversal phenomena"...but without metaplot ramifications.

 

The safest bet would be to have inhabitants of our familiar, native 40K universe visit the alternate universe.

 

Of course you could have the reverse situation on a small scale. Perhaps a story about how the Inquisition discovers the nature of a small number of such non-natives.

 

EDIT: Yes, I know this is wish-listing...couldn't help it

 

Also...what a cool (not perfect of course) snippet from Dornian Heresy

 

Skyrar's Rift

Fighting down the rising sense of apprehension, Brother-Captain Iaos extended his mental probe of the rent in space-time. It was bad enough that more than three hundred of his brothers had died in the explosion, but that Wolf Lord Skyrar and his butcher warband could have survived to emerge on the other side was unconscionable. Preliminary scans confirmed the initial report that the rift was indeed a form of wormhole, and that the local celestial body was the Fenris system‟s sun. Simple triangulation with the Astronomicon confirmed this, but something nagged at him. The star was being orbited by a planet eerily familiar: Fenris! It should be long-dead and gone, but here it was! Mastering the rising sense of panic, Iaos tentatively interfaced with the Astropathic network beyond the threshold, and despite finding the protocols very different, searched for word of Skyrar. What he learned revolted him. Not the brief mention of Skyrar, but what had become of his beloved Thousand Sons in this warped reality... He withdrew his mind from beyond the threshold and bitterly collapsed the rift with a spread of plasma torpedoes. Skyrar had not escaped justice, it seemed. Being stuck in that terrible place would be his life sentence.

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Multiverse theory is likely how 40K and Fantasy were always supposed to work - for a long time players were encouraged to treat the settings like a roleplaying game and make their own heroes, villains and places (hence why so many people do so). Back then, it wasn't done in a dismissive way, but as something entirely valid. GW may never acknowledge your Chapter, world or campaign, but that didn't mean it wasn't an official part of the universe. Naturally, that requires a way to explain inevitable contradictions - and lo, the multiverse.

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Yeah fantasy used to be a planet surrounded by a huge warpstorm somewhere in the 40k universe. They didn't straight out tell us but it was heavily implied. Like many fantasy settings having a sci-fi background at that time.

Also 40k has/had something like that officially as well. Just take a look at T'au who had their whole history including world wars happen while being trapped inside of a warpstorm so the Imperium didn't know what's happening on that planet which used to pose no threat to anything before.

 

About actual multi-verses in the 40k setting ... well the universe is big and it's not impossible for something to get swallowed up in a warpstorm and end up in bizarro 40k. It's just not an official thing and likely won't ever be. GW even tries to ignore the time travel shenanigans as much as possible despite time flow being screwed up by warpstorms everywhere.

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It’s all down to how it’s handled, it can be well done but it can be really badly done. I read a lot of comics and at the minute I’m stuck into infinity countdown/prime/wars. It has quite a lot of multiverse action going on. Marvel has used the multiverse as a reset button in the past which is ok in my book but it can get a little head wrecking at times.
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I would rather they avoid using the multiverse trope on any large scale. I could handle, for example, smaller scale multiverse phenomena within a particular system, such as having two different nigh-identical planets co-existing in what should be the same location (but isn't), but once you start scaling it up to an entire universe, it becomes ridiculous. Warhammer 40k is already a HUGE setting both chronologically and spatially; one hardly needs to resort to multiverses to explore most of the "what if" ideas that push other story genres like comics towards multiverse themes.

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Well, there is the Ordo Chronos...

The Ordo Chronos is probably as close as we'll get in the canon, but they're really more about issues regarding time rather than alternate universes. Yes there's some degree of crossover what with time travel potentially being used to create new universes/timelines but in regards to simply peering into other universes for study as discussed here a new Ordo might be warranted, especially given I remember reading somewhere that the entirety of the Ordo Chronos up and disappeared without a trace at some point.

 

Regardless, I'd like to humbly put forward a name for this theoretical Ordo, the Ordo Speculum, meaning "mirror", or "looking glass" in Latin.

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I would rather they avoid using the multiverse trope on any large scale. I could handle, for example, smaller scale multiverse phenomena within a particular system, such as having two different nigh-identical planets co-existing in what should be the same location (but isn't), but once you start scaling it up to an entire universe, it becomes ridiculous. Warhammer 40k is already a HUGE setting both chronologically and spatially; one hardly needs to resort to multiverses to explore most of the "what if" ideas that push other story genres like comics towards multiverse themes.

Yes your right. The scale and scope of 40k allows any story to be told.

Macro stories like ‘what if Horus won’ wouldn’t interest me at all. So many stories to tell already.

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There is a short story by Guy Haley called The Uncanny Crusade where the Black Templars are fighting a xenos race called the Cythor who operate out of the ghoul stars. They employed some dimension altering technology and it is theorised by the chief techmarine that they only use our dimension to breed. It was somewhat amusing reading about a techmarine, who only has the vague knowledge of multiverse theory he learnt on mars trying to explain it to his brother Templars.

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Is Uncanny Crusaded collected anywhere?

 

I think mutiversal stuff should be avoides by the codices, other than snippets

 

My wish is that Black Library stories with more of a micro-focus would further explore the concept

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There is a short story by Guy Haley called The Uncanny Crusade where the Black Templars are fighting a xenos race called the Cythor who operate out of the ghoul stars. They employed some dimension altering technology and it is theorised by the chief techmarine that they only use our dimension to breed. It was somewhat amusing reading about a techmarine, who only has the vague knowledge of multiverse theory he learnt on mars trying to explain it to his brother Templars.

 

Damn sex tourists ... must be pretty exciting to breed in a :cuss ed up universe full of war like the 40k one lmao

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I would love a one off story about an alternative reality where Guilliman was the arch traitor, and Horus became the Avenging Son. Maybe some Marines from the two realities are displaced?
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A work by a favorite author of mine, though I don't read this piece much.

 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10578370/1/The-Roboutian-Heresy

 

Rather well done, though, and the product of one (I think anyway) author.

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@sfPanzer

 

They're more like honeymooners

 

Not much better if at all. Who visits a permanent warzone of the worst imaginable magnitude for their honeymoon? :D

Unless of course their dimension is even worse off. Then I'd just feel sorry for them. :D

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