Alt-History: What would happen if the Great Crusade never happened?

Exactly what is says on the tin.

Everything happens as the current history dictates right up until the point the Primarchs are spirited away to their planets by Chaos.

At this point, the Emperor slips as he's getting out of the bath, headbutts the rim of the toilet and swears so vigorously that the psychic backlash accidentally wipes out his very existence like he did to Horus, dragging Holy Terra into the warp in the process. The Chaos gods p*ss themselves with laughter so hard that they forget all about their little plot to screw with Empy (God Rest His Soul).

What happens next?

What does the universe look like in the 41st millenium?

For this little scenario, we'll assume that Angron ROFLstomps the army sent after him and Mortarion, down on his knees and wheezing from poisonous fumes, punches the sneering Warlord in the groin so hard its head explodes and the shrapnel from its helmet wipes out all of its followers.

Wouldn't the Dark Eldar still just be taking the scattered remnants of humanity as slaves back to Commorragh?
But without having to worry about running into any genetically engineered trans-human warriors? Or any real organised resistance for that matter.

Until the Tyranids arrive and devour everything.

I would say Macragge expands.

The other Primarchs become fueding warlords. SOme make friends, others really, really don't, and all the while Ultramar expands its borders and becomes the new Imperium.

Basically humanity is not united, so that the various other factions easily walk all over them. Until the Nids come and nom-nom-nom everything. Unless the Chaos gods come to help prevent their own distruction (they need followers to exist, and nids dont worship Chaos)

Yep sounds about right much better situation for the Dark Eldar

I think provided Angron survived his little showdown he could end up carving out quite an empire for himself, given that he landed on a world with Imperium-level tech plus the odd bit of archeotech.

Might be more interesting if the Chaos Gods spirited away their legions as well as them.

Would the Imperium be stronger than 20 separate squabbling Primarch-led space marine legions?

Nah, IoM needs bodies. Without the million worlds feeding the machine, nothing can happen. A united IoM can barely hold things togeather. A fractured IoM couldent change a lightbulb.

Your missing an important factor - no Imperium means no Space Marines. The Legions were created AFTER the Primarchs. All the Emperor had at the time were the Thunder.....guys. I forgot their name.
They may have kept going a little, but they weren;t as good as Marines. They would have devolved in squabbling Warlords too until a Primarch came along to slap them down.
But the Primarch would have had to do it solo, or with whatever army he had available. Guilliman had managed to forge an empire of his own, whilst the others had barely, if at all, been able to leave their one world.

Squidmaster wrote:

Your missing an important factor - no Imperium means no Space Marines. The Legions were created AFTER the Primarchs. All the Emperor had at the time were the Thunder.....guys. I forgot their name.
They may have kept going a little, but they weren;t as good as Marines. They would have devolved in squabbling Warlords too until a Primarch came along to slap them down.
But the Primarch would have had to do it solo, or with whatever army he had available. Guilliman had managed to forge an empire of his own, whilst the others had barely, if at all, been able to leave their one world.

Yeah that did occur to me after a bit of thinking, that Primarch-led human kingdoms would still probably be hopelessly outclassed by pretty much everything they came up against.

Might be more interesting if it was a Primarch and their legions that got spirited away...

Most of the modern marines are just ultramarine clones right? The rise of Macragge seems right.

Of the Primarchs, Guiiliman I think built the largets empire before the Emperor came.
So it makes sense that he would simply keep going and become the new Imperium.
I could see him finding common cause, and maybe teaming up with the likes of Rogal Dorn who had also stretched into a galactic empire, but he would have had to go to war with and kill Angron, probably Russ too. Very likely Curze.

Interesting. So we've got a Dorn/Guilliman federation, basically an army of Khorne Berserkers in all but name for Angron, Fenrisians going 'viking' among the stars. Curze would be a force to be reckoned with I think. A civilisation led by a pre-cog grimdark batman could be pretty effective.

I think Vulkan (if he escaped the retaliation of the True Kin of course...) and Ferrus would have decent interstellar empires as well, founded on technological development.

Reading about him, Fulgrim would have a decent head-start as well. The planet he landed on had interstellar travel capabilities, and other advanced tech.

Guys, most of these "mini empires" that could have been created by the Primarchs would have been quite small. Tau empire small. Easily wiped out by Orks/Necrons/Chaos/Nids... the list goes on.

TBH, Tau shouldent even be on the table-top they are so small (fluff wise). Eldar are still major players, but that is due to their existing pre-fall technology. None of these mini-empires would have that advantage.

Everything would be Nid food at the first tendrils of a hive fleet. This is a Grim-dark universe, remember? The True Kin would be happy though... at least for a while

Orks and nids would fight for control of the galaxy. one ork got as big as the emperor on Ullanar or something? Primarchs would be the wrench in the works, especially the forgotten ones who would not be forgotten in this alternate 40k universe. If any of the primarchs made it to earth and found the emperor's gene vaults...new imperium. necrons would be the other contender. we in the dark city will just be laughing hard as we have the best specimins for the arena we have ever had ^^

With the Emprah out of the scene the the Primarchs would establish small inter-sistem kingdoms, small scale empires, maybe in conflict with one another.
Chaos would still raid out of the warp but without the motivation of the Armless Big Bad.
Craftworlders could focus in reestablishing their past glory, less chaos incursion means less She How Thirsts, less Imperium means less opposition.
Tau would get a little boost in their ranks, annexing the occasional human world.
Necrons would start waking up undisturbed becoming the first major threat to the new Eldar empire, Orks being the second.
Enter the Nids.
Endar and necrons would split their effort of war between the two fronts in a three way fight for the galaxy.
I could see Eldar and Tau allying against the common enemy.
The True Kin laughs while raiding the real space as it always does, but with less opposition.

As an Eldar player (in general), I quite like that possible outcome

I would add that with the threat of Ahirman out of the way, Harlequins might be able tot ake a more active role in saving the Eldar.

Better and better

Quote :

I would say Macragge expands

Robaute will just make his Empire. And instead of great crusade, create interplanetary federation of planets, diplomatic relations with xenos is established, though probably he would unite or try to unite the humanity and the primarchs, but i doubt that through tyranny, like the Emperor.

Chaos frak all in the end, humanity in time ascends to being a psychis race and suffer Fall V2 (as explained in new book about the Emperor his whole motivation was to avert Fall) but much more harder then Eldar. Everyone die, chaos gods laugh.

He wanted to avert the fall? I thought he wanted to weaken or kill the chaos gods by taking away believers and use the Webway for travel to bypass the warp.

Did he really feared a second eye out terror?

Those two goals are probably one and the same thing. I think it was his plan to guide humanity through its metamorphosis into a fully psychic race, one of the pitfalls to which is evidently birthing a dread entity in the warp that wants to eat all your souls.

The eye of terror thing is more a side-effect of the birth (or death) of a powerful psychic entity.

The Interex would likely have become a major player. We know they were willing to befriend aliens, had allies among the craftworlder hippies, ect. I can see them making friends with Robaute once the two meet up, but after 10 thousand years I am seeing the Interex being part of a powerful Eldar-Human alliance, likely with Tau as an allies.