"Cloning tech" appears in WH40K

[PainRack]

Um...there is a VERY good argument for using convicts to create servitors, no matter how fast the cloning process is:
Punishment.
That sole purpose justifies their conversion - especially since you already have a fully grown human if you use them, so it can't be that much slower than cloning (even if the cloning is instant).
So we can't really establish anything about the speed of cloning from this, since the reason they use convicts is entirely unrelated to economics.

There appears to be a trend towards establishing Forge and other manufactories to involve human labour as opposed to automated/servitors under supervision of techpriests and human acolytes.

But given the 2nd and 3rd edition description of Forge Worlds, the cost of using a servitor must have been comparable to using human labour as factory worlds were miminally manned, but able to rival the material output of Hive worlds.

Also, guys, can we agree on some definition of clone? Is a clone a exact copy of another person genetics or are we using vat born here to describe cloning as well? The "clones of Macharius" are obviously not true clones as there were both males and females soldiers!

[PainRack]

On the subject of cloning Space Marines the problem is not with the clone it self (the human part) but the gene seed. When you try to clone the marine specific organs and components bad things tend to happen. Especially since the organs require the human body to be in the exact right age and physical condition (puberty) for the implantation to succeed so the procedure of cloning a full Astartes from scratch would have to supplement for this somehow or be way to slow to be useful. And for all we know it could be this that is causing the problems.

Frankly... it should be doable. We know that the maturation of seed organs require both physical and mental training, it should be possible to stimulate such training and growth spurts chemically, physically as well as via hypnotraining.

As it is, all of the above are already intergrated into the normal process of creating a Marine. Some form of mechanical exercise for clones in vivo might be possible. The real kicker should be the mental process. Space Marines are supposed to be utterly dedicated to the Emperor and steadfast in battle etc etc etc. Indoctrination might do for the first, not so sure how you're going to simulate that for the second.

Beside, let's not forget that according to Connor, the Mechanicus does grow gene seed in servitors already, so it can't be much of a technical limitation.

[white_rabbit]

There appears to be a trend towards establishing Forge and other manufactories to involve human labour as opposed to automated/servitors under supervision of techpriests and human acolytes.

How did you establish that this trend exists ?

[Purple]

...

I would disagree with you on the gene seed thing.

You see, yes they can clone a human to adult age and they can clone gene seed for that human. The issue is when you do what the Raven Guard did and try to accelerate the process of bonding the two into a marine. They essentially tried to rush what is a process that lasts for months if not years into a short time span and that did what it did.

There seems to be something in attempting to accelerate that bonding process that causes rampant mutation.

[xt828]

That might be a valued point if it was not for the case that it does not nessisarly be the case. Krieg is the big point about it, the soldiers of Krieg are a bunch of Disciplined Fanatics and a lot of them are clones. Maybe its just a superstition that this might happen or if it was done by a sloppytechpriest mutation will result.

Zor

I don't recall Kreig's use of cloning specifically being called out, only that there was something thoroughly unnatural about how they keep coming up with the numbers for regiments. That could cover anything from cloning to iron wombs to the entire female population doing nothing but squeeze out new soldiers.

Imperial Overlord, you're quite right, I'd forgotten about that. I got the impression that it is a 5th Element-style regrowing, which is cool.

[Raxmei]

Not really what the Imperium needs. Their constraints are not so much people as they are knowledge and equipment. The lives of Imperial Guardsmen are already worth less to the Imperium than the weapons they carry. The Imperium isn't exactly hurting for cheap expendable manpower. You could build the facilities to grow clone legions out of tanks, or you could just go to the nearest hive and skim a few million young adults from their excess population. Why use a shiny technological solution when you can solve the problem with grimdark instead?

Craftworlders in all likelihood have religious reasons for avoiding it. Dark Eldar apparently already use it and are probably only a going concern because they do. Tau might find a use for it.

[mr friendly guy]

Ok, but doesn't the Emperor need the sacrifice of Psychkers to keep Chaos at bay. Can't cloning a gigantic bunch of time in overwhelming numbers give him an edge of the Chaos gods?

What about say, the use of the immortality gate? For those who didn't see that Doctor Who episode, essentially once a template steps in, they can "reprogram" all six billion people on Earth to become genetically like that person's template. Apparently it also deals with loss / gain of mass if that person isn't the same size as the template.

Assuming an equivalent Earth size world in 40 K, could they Imperium not use this to just wipe out entire worlds of peksy Orks or Chaos troops. If you are worried about corruption get one of those guys like Inquisitors or somewhat who are resistant to Chaos pull and get them to be the template.

Could the Eldar not use cloning tech to boost their numbers so they can kick Slannesh's arse by combining their psychic powers? Could they not use the immortality gate to devastate IoM world's by sending it with a template via the Webway?

Are these viable tactics? Or am I just clutching in the wind with my ignorance of 40K.

[white_rabbit]

Its worth remembering that Cloning related experimentation produced Teturact.

[OmegaChief]

As for the whole "Templating over Cultists thing", uh I'm not entirly sure that wouled remove thier chaos corruption or not.

Now the Eldar, they'd never accept the solution you're proposing, at least at fulls cale, because you and your technology are not Eldar

[Todeswind]

Ok, but doesn't the Emperor need the sacrifice of Psychkers to keep Chaos at bay. Can't cloning a gigantic bunch of time in overwhelming numbers give him an edge of the Chaos gods?

They aren't sacrificed to keep chaos at "bay" per se, they fuel the astronimicon. Even so, considering the increased propensity for abnormal mutations in even the most vanilla of clones I would say no. The potential for psychers to have horrible daemonic possession as a result of mutation or other issues in 40k seems like a bit too much of a risk.

And really it's not like there's a shortage of psychers from which to chose already, if there's anything the IoM has a surplus of it's disposable population. Even without the risk there isn't really a need. The IoM views psychics as an unfortunate necessity at best and a heresy that must be killed at worst, the idea of sacrificing millions or even billions of them probably hardly even phases them.

What about say, the use of the immortality gate? For those who didn't see that Doctor Who episode, essentially once a template steps in, they can "reprogram" all six billion people on Earth to become genetically like that person's template. Apparently it also deals with loss / gain of mass if that person isn't the same size as the template.

Assuming an equivalent Earth size world in 40 K, could they Imperium not use this to just wipe out entire worlds of peksy Orks or Chaos troops. If you are worried about corruption get one of those guys like Inquisitors or somewhat who are resistant to Chaos pull and get them to be the template.

You lost me on this one. Does this actually exist in the 40k cannon? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Could the Eldar not use cloning tech to boost their numbers so they can kick Slannesh's arse by combining their psychic powers? Could they not use the immortality gate to devastate IoM world's by sending it with a template via the Webway?

No. No they could not, Slaaneshi's power is directly a result of the Eldar her consumption of their souls only serves to increase her power. There is also significant evidence to suggest that even living Eldar provide power to Slaaneshi in some sort of passive way, the Eldar Circumvent this with soul-stones the Dark Eldar embrace it with acts of depravity to take the place of their own souls.

Yes, if they somehow got the Immortality Gate from Dr.Who they could but it begs the question where in the hell did they get it? To my knowledge that sort of technology simply doesn't exist in the 40k world.

Are these viable tactics? Or am I just clutching in the wind with my ignorance of 40K.

Offhand I would say not.

[Serafina]

Trivia-time!
The grand master-plan of the Eldar (well, at least of Eldrad and Ulthwe) is this: Exterminate the Eldar.

Yes, you read that right - their plan is a slow, painful decline towards extinction, which fuels the rise of a new god - one who takes care of the souls of the Eldar. Ynnead (the new Eldar-god) is pretty much the only option the Eldar have to preserve their souls in any other way than soul stones.

[Purple]

Ok, but doesn't the Emperor need the sacrifice of Psychkers to keep Chaos at bay. Can't cloning a gigantic bunch of time in overwhelming numbers give him an edge of the Chaos gods?

Won't the chaos gods take notice and pay a visit to the all you can eat diner you just created?

What about say, the use of the immortality gate? For those who didn't see that Doctor Who episode, essentially once a template steps in, they can "reprogram" all six billion people on Earth to become genetically like that person's template. Apparently it also deals with loss / gain of mass if that person isn't the same size as the template.

Does it also give them the exact same personality, memories and all? And how does it effect the soul that lives in the warp?
That sounds like opening a nasty can of worms right there.

Assuming an equivalent Earth size world in 40 K, could they Imperium not use this to just wipe out entire worlds of peksy Orks or Chaos troops. If you are worried about corruption get one of those guys like Inquisitors or somewhat who are resistant to Chaos pull and get them to be the template.

Inquisitors are not genetically chaos resistant. It comes down to implants, equipment and training.
And does the device work cross species? Since the orks are plants.

Could the Eldar not use cloning tech to boost their numbers so they can kick Slannesh's arse by combining their psychic powers? Could they not use the immortality gate to devastate IoM world's by sending it with a template via the Webway?

Again, how does that effect the soul? Do we get a bunch of soulless Eldar or do we get a huge ping on the chaos diner detector?

[Connor MacLeod]

Not really what the Imperium needs. Their constraints are not so much people as they are knowledge and equipment. The lives of Imperial Guardsmen are already worth less to the Imperium than the weapons they carry.

Depends on who you ask. The Munitorum and AdMech generally share that view of course, but the ones on the pointy ends of the stick tend to be more variable (you can run from "Clog the EYe of Terror with their bodies" Dravere to someone like General Xarius from Crimson Tears, who does NOt like to waste lives.)

The Imperium isn't exactly hurting for cheap expendable manpower.

At the current rate of warfare, no. Despite the whole GALAXY AT WAR! grimdark schtick. That could change when, say, the 'Nids arrive, of course.

You could build the facilities to grow clone legions out of tanks, or you could just go to the nearest hive and skim a few million young adults from their excess population. Why use a shiny technological solution when you can solve the problem with grimdark instead?

There can be lots of reasons. Unintended consequences for one thing. As much as we like to criticize the AdMech for their practices, there ARE some viable reasons for their caution and approach, becuase to be blunt, tech development in 40K (at least if you are a psychically sensitive race) is prone to extreme amounts of fuckery. The Horus Heresy is a testament to that (Dark Mechanicum, the flaws developing in the Space Marines.) A more modern example, as White Rabbit points out, is the creation of Teteurach, who was defeated only by a lucky/stupid fluke (depending on how you want ot view Sarpedon's intervention) and who had taken over a whole sector of Imperial space and stymied efforts to combat or defeat him up to that point.

Craftworlders in all likelihood have religious reasons for avoiding it. Dark Eldar apparently already use it and are probably only a going concern because they do. Tau might find a use for it.

I hate to poitn this out, but the Dark Eldar are fucking nutcases. This being 40K, there could be any number of drawbacks to cloning (or at least certain viable methods) that limit its use by more "sane" forces (like the Craftworld Eldar.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Trivia-time!
The grand master-plan of the Eldar (well, at least of Eldrad and Ulthwe) is this: Exterminate the Eldar.

Yes, you read that right - their plan is a slow, painful decline towards extinction, which fuels the rise of a new god - one who takes care of the souls of the Eldar. Ynnead (the new Eldar-god) is pretty much the only option the Eldar have to preserve their souls in any other way than soul stones.

Wait, What?? Where the hell has this been ever stated?

I know about Ynnead and the God of the Dead, and the whole attempt at using the infinity circuits to eventually birth a new Chaos God to defeat Slaanesh using dead Eldar souls, but there's never been anything about a "suicide pact" type approach you seem to be claiming. In fact, Eldrad (and the Eldar in general) tend to act towards preserving as much Eldar life as possible, to prolong the survival of the race for as long as they possibly can. Which in turn allows more Eldar (however few) to be born, and thus add more souls to the circuit at some point. There is no "God of the dead" if the Eldar all die out en masse.

[Serafina]

I think that Eldrad once stated that the hoped that Ynnead would be born before the last Eldar died - but that such death was necessary to get there. Cue some babble about a difficult balance-act.

Also, a "god of the dead" is created by, well, death. If the Eldar would start to be a prosperous race once again, you would not get a god like Ynnead.

[mr friendly guy]

The potential for psychers to have horrible daemonic possession as a result of mutation or other issues in 40k seems like a bit too much of a risk.

Certainly this occurs with 40 K tech. But I am using tech from other sci fi universes which are somewhat more reliable.

You lost me on this one. Does this actually exist in the 40k cannon? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Are you for real? Did you bothered to read the OP? Did you get a feel for the board's threads in sci fi? This is a board dedicated to Star Trek vs Star Wars. I am pretty Darth Vader doesn't exist in Star Trek cannon either, but it doesn't stop us having threads about what would happen if he appeared in another universes. Going on, vs threads where we crossover aspects from one sci fi / fantasy world to another occurs all the time. Hence the purpose of this thread. To see if more superior cloning or related tech from another universe will change the balance of power.

No. No they could not, Slaaneshi's power is directly a result of the Eldar her consumption of their souls only serves to increase her power. There is also significant evidence to suggest that even living Eldar provide power to Slaaneshi in some sort of passive way, the Eldar Circumvent this with soul-stones the Dark Eldar embrace it with acts of depravity to take the place of their own souls.

So you are saying, its possible for Craftworld Eldar to combine their powers, as long as they build more soul stones for each new clone to circumvent powering Slanesh. Which begs the question, how many soul stones can they produce.

Yes, if they somehow got the Immortality Gate from Dr.Who they could but it begs the question where in the hell did they get it? To my knowledge that sort of technology simply doesn't exist in the 40k world.

Yes the Star Wars empire could whop the Federation from Star Trek without missing a beat. The question is how do they even meet up in the first place. Clearly its not possible, so clearly this is a bullshit vs. Quick, the whole board better change its theme.

I cannot believe you come to a board whose original main talking point was to compare technology between two sci fi universes and then ask me that question.

Trivia-time!
The grand master-plan of the Eldar (well, at least of Eldrad and Ulthwe) is this: Exterminate the Eldar.

Yes, you read that right - their plan is a slow, painful decline towards extinction, which fuels the rise of a new god - one who takes care of the souls of the Eldar. Ynnead (the new Eldar-god) is pretty much the only option the Eldar have to preserve their souls in any other way than soul stones.

I am aware from Necron lord that this is their plan to fuel a new god from the souls of the dead. The thing is Slannesh and the old Eldar gods were fueled by the living right? So if one of these wank cloning tech appears, my question is, could they decide to change their plan and start fueling a new god from the souls of the now more numerous Eldar?

Won't the chaos gods take notice and pay a visit to the all you can eat diner you just created?

My understanding is that some people are more resistant to Chaos, eg Inquisitors. Some of these cloning tech has the ability to download memories directly into the clone. So my thoughts are that you download the loyalty to the Emperor, anti chaos mindset etc into the clone.

Does it also give them the exact same personality, memories and all? And how does it effect the soul that lives in the warp?
That sounds like opening a nasty can of worms right there.

Yes to the personality, memories and all that jazz. As to how it effects the soul in the warp, you will have to explain the mechanics of how that works. Presumably if the population increases, more souls are created? I have no idea what would happen to an existing soul if their body gets transmuted, but I assume they are as good as dead. And yes its opening up a nasty can of worms, as more crossover vs type threads will do.

And does the device work cross species? Since the orks are plants.

It worked against cross species in Doctor Who, ie worked against humans with a Time Lord template. And the device wasn't even built to service either of those species. I don't see why it won't work against plants when you adjust the settings, since it just rewrites the genetic code and transmutes the body. Unless plants are more resistant to gene manipulation (wouldn't have thought so since we kind of do that with them already with existing tech) or transmutation (again would have thought this is a function of how strong the atoms / ions / molecules are bonded to each other, so not a problem there either).

Again, how does that effect the soul? Do we get a bunch of soulless Eldar or do we get a huge ping on the chaos diner detector?

Thats why I am asking the 40 K experts, since I am not sure about the mechanics of the soul. However I am assuming the same thing the Eldar used to avoid being Slannesh dinner ie through soul stones, disciplines could apply here. Especially when some of the cloning tech I listed comes with a "download memories by pressing this button here" feature.

[Connor MacLeod]

The problemw ith the whole "cloning a ton of psykers to overpower the Emperor" idea, aside from the whole risk of creating another (or a gorupof ) Teturact type beings, is that there are a ton of things we don't know involved in that speculation.

For one thing, even if they do clone a ton of psykers successfully, how many can they safely wire into the Golden Throne to link to the Emperor? They don't understand the technology, they can't improve on it (as far as we know.) so there is bound to be a finite number they can join to it, and for all we know they are already at the limit.

More over, we don't know a damn thing about how powerful the Emperor is or how much of that he could control or direct, and what impact that would have. Does someone here have a mapping of all the things the Emperor is busy overseeing? Does suddenly providing him more power draw his attention away from something else (watching what the Chaos Gods are doing, or the filthy Xenos, or what some random lunatic might be doing on some planet?) IS this going to disrupt communication, or the tarot, or something else?

And then there's the issue of whether a clone would be considered a worthy human. Does it have a soul? Can you even CLONE a soul? If so, do vat grown servitor bodies have souls, and do they feed the Emperor? So on and so forth.
***

Second: The whole "Eldar powering Slaanesh" bit is also complicated, as it gets into the murky issue of how/where Chaos Gods draw their power from, and how one defines worshippers and suchlike. Slaanesh is a Chaos God of pleasure and decadence and sensation and such, but he's also a distinctly Eldar god. We know he can derive power from sensual or pleasurably activities of eldar and non-Eldar both, but he also seems to be able to gain power from Eldar souls regardless of whether they are engaged in pleasure or not.

Another example: we know Khorne is a god of war, violence, and bloodshed in general. But how does he impact on a war conducted by the Orks (who as far as we know are not adherents of Khorne, and never will be)? How about a holy crusade carried out in the name of the Emperor? The same can be said in regards to activities involving death and decay (does Nurgle get a huge boost in power every time an Inquisitor virus bombs a world in the name of the Emperor? Or when NBC weapons in general get used in a given war?) Or what about Death Cultists? Many Imperial servants use them, and many of those cults are truly dedicated to the Emperor, but many also take great pleasure or enjoyment (or even artirstry) in killing "For the Emperor" - something that many Slaaneshi Adherents could also do.

It's really a gray area and one that is hard to predict on, especially considering that it could be that the answer is not mutually exclusive - a single soul (or large numbers of them) may or may not be feeding just one god with a given action. EG, a servant dedicated to the Emperor may very well give a little power to Khorne and/or (indirectly) Nurgle and Slaanesh through their actions if they kill a hated rival and revel in that victory, but the percentages differe based on priority - eg the Bulk going to the Emperor, then (maybe) Khorne, then Nurgle, then Slaanesh. Such (at least) would certainly be in line with the way the power of Various Chaos Gods works (Khorne is most powerful consistently, Nurgle's power can wax and wane, etc.)

And we can certainly say that devoting yourself to a particualr god DOES seem to give special benefits in that regard too (worship matters, or else why bother trying to attract worshippers to a particular god?). And of course 'racial' gods also seem to have strong advantages (Again, the Orks.)

[Todeswind]

Trivia-time!
The grand master-plan of the Eldar (well, at least of Eldrad and Ulthwe) is this: Exterminate the Eldar.

Yes, you read that right - their plan is a slow, painful decline towards extinction, which fuels the rise of a new god - one who takes care of the souls of the Eldar. Ynnead (the new Eldar-god) is pretty much the only option the Eldar have to preserve their souls in any other way than soul stones.

Wait, What?? Where the hell has this been ever stated?

I know about Ynnead and the God of the Dead, and the whole attempt at using the infinity circuits to eventually birth a new Chaos God to defeat Slaanesh using dead Eldar souls, but there's never been anything about a "suicide pact" type approach you seem to be claiming. In fact, Eldrad (and the Eldar in general) tend to act towards preserving as much Eldar life as possible, to prolong the survival of the race for as long as they possibly can. Which in turn allows more Eldar (however few) to be born, and thus add more souls to the circuit at some point. There is no "God of the dead" if the Eldar all die out en masse.

It's never been mentioned in more than a couple of offhand comments but it has been stated by GW but it's about as legitimate as the star-child theory. There are a lot of these in GW.

[Todeswind]

You lost me on this one. Does this actually exist in the 40k cannon? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Are you for real? Did you bothered to read the OP? Did you get a feel for the board's threads in sci fi? This is a board dedicated to Star Trek vs Star Wars. I am pretty Darth Vader doesn't exist in Star Trek cannon either, but it doesn't stop us having threads about what would happen if he appeared in another universes. Going on, vs threads where we crossover aspects from one sci fi / fantasy world to another occurs all the time. Hence the purpose of this thread. To see if more superior cloning or related tech from another universe will change the balance of power.

I missed that part of the OP, sorry.

Yes, if they somehow got the Immortality Gate from Dr.Who they could but it begs the question where in the hell did they get it? To my knowledge that sort of technology simply doesn't exist in the 40k world.

Yes the Star Wars empire could whop the Federation from Star Trek without missing a beat. The question is how do they even meet up in the first place. Clearly its not possible, so clearly this is a bullshit vs. Quick, the whole board better change its theme.

I cannot believe you come to a board whose original main talking point was to compare technology between two sci fi universes and then ask me that question.

I honestly missed that that specific machine was part of the OP.

No. No they could not, Slaaneshi's power is directly a result of the Eldar her consumption of their souls only serves to increase her power. There is also significant evidence to suggest that even living Eldar provide power to Slaaneshi in some sort of passive way, the Eldar Circumvent this with soul-stones the Dark Eldar embrace it with acts of depravity to take the place of their own souls.

So you are saying, its possible for Craftworld Eldar to combine their powers, as long as they build more soul stones for each new clone to circumvent powering Slanesh. Which begs the question, how many soul stones can they produce.

Well yes and no, I suppose they could "combine" their powers but Slaaneshi's power is proportionally increased by the Eldar themselves the more Eldar there are the stronger She Who Thirsts becomes. Soulstones are there to protect the Eldar from losing their souls to her after death but they still feel the tug of her in life and provide that passive strength to her in spite of their deepest desire not to.

Trivia-time!
The grand master-plan of the Eldar (well, at least of Eldrad and Ulthwe) is this: Exterminate the Eldar.

Yes, you read that right - their plan is a slow, painful decline towards extinction, which fuels the rise of a new god - one who takes care of the souls of the Eldar. Ynnead (the new Eldar-god) is pretty much the only option the Eldar have to preserve their souls in any other way than soul stones.

I am aware from Necron lord that this is their plan to fuel a new god from the souls of the dead. The thing is Slannesh and the old Eldar gods were fueled by the living right? So if one of these wank cloning tech appears, my question is, could they decide to change their plan and start fueling a new god from the souls of the now more numerous Eldar?

Ynnead is an Eldar hope, a dream. It's like the theory that pulling the plug on the Emperor will bring him back, or that he'll ascend to godhood, or so on and so on. Presuming it's true I guess it could work but it doesn't really feel in character with the more etherial and sorcerous Eldar.

[[R_H]]

Another example: we know Khorne is a god of war, violence, and bloodshed in general. But how does he impact on a war conducted by the Orks (who as far as we know are not adherents of Khorne, and never will be)? How about a holy crusade carried out in the name of the Emperor? The same can be said in regards to activities involving death and decay (does Nurgle get a huge boost in power every time an Inquisitor virus bombs a world in the name of the Emperor? Or when NBC weapons in general get used in a given war?) Or what about Death Cultists? Many Imperial servants use them, and many of those cults are truly dedicated to the Emperor, but many also take great pleasure or enjoyment (or even artirstry) in killing "For the Emperor" - something that many Slaaneshi Adherents could also do.

Isn't that because of how powerful the ork gods (Gork and Mork?) are, relative to the others?

[Simon_Jester]

On the psychic plane, the Emperor is also quite powerful compared to the Chaos gods; bear in mind that he has managed to keep an entire galactic civilization from being eaten by them for something like ten thousand years.

Gork and Mork are powerful because they are the embodiments of what it means to be an ork, and there are a lot of orks. The Emperor, for broadly similar reasons, receives an enormous amount of veneration and support from humanity, and I suspect that on some level all that bolstering does give him more power to oppose the Chaos gods and deny them the benefits they might otherwise receive from acts carried out in his name.

[[R_H]]

On the psychic plane, the Emperor is also quite powerful compared to the Chaos gods; bear in mind that he has managed to keep an entire galactic civilization from being eaten by them for something like ten thousand years.

So he's as powerful as Chaos Undivided, and more powerful than any of the individual Chaos Gods?

[OmegaChief]

It's extremly hard to give any definates when dealing with Chaos, it is after all quite chaotic, the gods power waxes and wanes near constantly.

Perhaps the Emperors advantage is he stays pretty consistantly powered? At least in comparision.

[Simon_Jester]

I won't make definite statements about his power, but it's worth noticing that every time the forces of Chaos directly crossed swords with the Emperor, they lost. Usually quickly- note how fast the Emperor demolished Horus once he cut loose at the very end of their fight, even though Horus had the full backing of the Chaos gods.

This kind of thing is, to my way of thinking, suggestive that the Emperor really is powerful in the warp to the point of being on par with the Chaos gods, quite possibly even stronger.

When you get right down to it, Chaos is more or less a contained threat as far as the Imperium is concerned; were it not for the numerous other problems they have (not least among them being their own dysfunctional, decapitated power structure), Chaos alone they could deal with fairly well. It's having to fight Chaos and orks and the endless machinations of the Eldar at their expense and the rising threats of the Necrons and Tyranids that are causing them so much trouble.

[[R_H]]

When you get right down to it, Chaos is more or less a contained threat as far as the Imperium is concerned; were it not for the numerous other problems they have (not least among them being their own dysfunctional, decapitated power structure), Chaos alone they could deal with fairly well. It's having to fight Chaos and orks and the endless machinations of the Eldar at their expense and the rising threats of the Necrons and Tyranids that are causing them so much trouble.

IMO one of the primary causes of the Imperium's problems is that their long-range travel and communication is dependant on the Warp. They have trouble bringing their forces, or enough of them anyways, quick enough to bear.