The Warp is replaced by The Force (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario one day in the 41st millennia an event happens, the Inmaterium is permanently severed from the Materium. Objects like starships are pushed out into realspace, as are the contents of the webway. Objects made of wraithbone and any daemons caught in the material world mundanicize, becoming regular matter. In it's place is a similar realm which can be accessed, though a calm one which daemons could neither arise nor thrive, thus allowing for interstellar travel to continue without much disruption.

However every living cell in the Warhammer 40,000 universe is permiated by a something new, a living Force with both a Llight and Dark Side who's abilities will begin to manifest itself.

Also Sheev Palpatine (as of the events of Episode One) and Obi Wan Kenobi (as of the same time frame) are deposited on two of the less notable inhabited worlds of the Imperium of Man.

What happens?

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Palpatine immediately changes his first name. Sheev. Really? Maybe that's what gave him the rage he needed to become a master of the dark side.

Anyway...

Chaos is of course out of the picture. The Eye of Terror basically ceases to exist for all purposes, as it's so Warp-mutated that everything which exists there now is unstable without the Warp.

Do the orks' "make technology function by wishful thinking" abilities still work?

What happens to the God-Emperor of Man? Without the Warp, his psychic abilities... do they become irrelevant? Does he become a 'shut-in' who has no means whatsoever of interacting with the outside galaxy? Is he able to manifest Force influence comparable to his old Warp-based powers? If he dies does he become a Force ghost? An ordinary one, or an extremely persistent/omnipresent one?

What about other psychics? Do they begin manifesting Force abilities? Do they just become powerless? Do they require training in order to develop abilities on the Jedi/Sith level, as the Jedi and Sith themselves do? If so, who can provide this training?

What is the effect on FTL navigation? There is no Astronomicon*. Sure, the new medium for FTL travel is easy to move through and safe, but does that mean navigation is easy for human and/or alien pilots?

Assuming Palpatine has his full powers he has a massive advantage over Obi-Wan, and may well have one over everyone else in the galaxy. Obi-Wan is just barely finished with his training and has yet to acquire many years of experience before he can truly be rated a 'master.' Palpatine, on the other hand, has just about every Force technique he might need to dominate his own galaxy. Unless someone else (say, the God-Emperor-as-Force-ghost, or masses of Imperium psykers who inexplicably turn into Jedi) can resist him, he's going to have a pretty open playing field.

It'd be a lot more fair if we brought in someone more fully familiar with the Light Side, such as Qui-Gon or Mace Windu. Obviously not a non-human like Yoda, though, not if we want anyone in the Imperium to listen to them.
__________________________

*(spelling? Can't spell-check that right now...)

[bilateralrope]

Does the nid hive mind still function ?

Because I've heard that they have a non-warp FTL. Which means that the disruption to the warp and webway might have just given them a major advantage.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Chaos dies, the Emperor thinks "what the fuck just happened" assuming he remains alive, the Eldar are free from Slannesh's endless thirst, the Dark Eldar are trapped forever in Commoragh (good riddance), the Orks and Nids keep doing what they do, the Tau scratch their heads and the Necrons say "hey, remember those Immaterium Gods that kept us frustrated because we can't fight them? They're dead, so let's go conquer shit."

Seriously, the Necrons get the most out of this, since psychic stuff is their greatest weakness, what with not having souls and such. They can't touch the Immaterium, but boom, the Warp isn't a threat now. And Palpatine or other force users can be dealt with with Tesseract Arrows (I tihnk that's what they're called, basically a one-shot weapon that removes an enemy model and traps them in a pocket dimension).

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Assuming Palpatine has his full powers he has a massive advantage over Obi-Wan, and may well have one over everyone else in the galaxy. Obi-Wan is just barely finished with his training and has yet to acquire many years of experience before he can truly be rated a 'master.' Palpatine, on the other hand, has just about every Force technique he might need to dominate his own galaxy. Unless someone else (say, the God-Emperor-as-Force-ghost, or masses of Imperium psykers who inexplicably turn into Jedi) can resist him, he's going to have a pretty open playing field.

Depends on which Obi-Wan we're talking about, the one from Episode IV or the prequels. And, Palpatine's demonstrated only two Force powers in the six movies he was featured in: Force lightning and farseeing. Going strictly by the prequels, he accomplished much of his deviltry not by using the Force, but simply manipulating the existing situation and players to his advantage.

And, other than demons, what is the difference between the Force and the Warp in principle? My understanding of both is(leaving aside the midichlorian issue for the moment)that the Force is created by life itself("every living being," according to Obi-Wan in Ep. IV*), while the Warp is created by the collective unconscious of nearly every being in the Galaxy(excepting the Tau and the Necrons), so I'd imagine psykers would become Force users, including the Emperor Himself, and that Chaos cultists and good ol' Abbadon would become dark siders.

A good question would be would warp blanks such as Fenrik Jurgen be able to negate Force abilities as they could warpcraft, as they both arise from the same basic source?

As for FTL travel, no Astronomicon means astropaths are pretty much out of a job, especially if the cogboys come up with a reliable navicomputer or navigational servitor to navigate hyperspace(or whatever the new dimension is called), unless the Emperor's ability in that area becomes just another Force power.

less notable inhabited worlds of the Imperium of Man.

Which would mean most of the Imperial worlds. With so many worlds and so many beings on those worlds, the Administratum has few, if any detailled records on most of the worlds of the Imperial demesene, other than the more important Forge and Hive worlds, military bases, and, of course, the Solar System itself. In fact, the last attempt to take a census on the Hive world of Necromunda was abandoned, due to the sheer scope of the project at hand.

And, speaking of Necromunda, would it be that inconceivable to have both Palpatine and Obi-Wan end up on that particular world, seething with unrest of all sorts, wars over control of the spook trade, and Redeemptionist fanatics(not to mention that its population probably either rivals or beggars that of Coruscant). Assuming he could get any headway, Palpatine would find such an enviroment perfect for whatever plans he has in mind, and, with luck, he may even end up being Necromunda's new Imperial governor. And, from there....



*Obi-Wan, in ANH, has had 20 years to contemplate the nature of the Force, and to clear his mind of Jedi dogma. And, we don't know if midichlorians create the Force, or are drawn to the Force, as they are mentioned only in TPM and heard of only infrequently after that. For all we know, the idea of midichlorians creating the Force is Jedi/Sith dogma with little or no basis in fact.

[Eternal_Freedom]

While Lightning and Precog are the main Force powers we see Palpy use, he also is a pretty damn good saber duelist and worryingly good at Telekinesis if the fight with Yoda in the Senate is anything to go by.

If every Psyker etc becomes a Force user than that is a good outcome, even if Abaddon and co are now all Darksiders. Reason? No Chaos Gods. No more plagues from Nurgle or destiny-changing dickery from Tzeentch. And no desire to shag/eat/snort everything in sight from Slaneesh. And no demons is also a huge boost since that's a big chunk of Chaos's strength. Though fuck knows what this change will do to the mutated Chaos Marines.

[Simon_Jester]

Does the nid hive mind still function ?

Because I've heard that they have a non-warp FTL. Which means that the disruption to the warp and webway might have just given them a major advantage.

The warp and the webway may not be so much disrupted as... cleaned, with all the storms and cross-currents that normally interfere with FTL travel in Warhammer 40000 having been removed. Speed may be if anything improved- but navigation is going to be a problem.

I imagine that navigation guides in Warhammer 40000 look a lot like 'rutters' of medieval sailing directions: essentially, books of sailing directions that describe the places and qualitative experiences a navigator can expect to encounter, generally without the mathematical precision that we now think of when we talk about the art of navigation.

So I'm not sure how long it would take humans and other species that travel via ships in the Warp to adapt.

Chaos dies, the Emperor thinks "what the fuck just happened" assuming he remains alive, the Eldar are free from Slannesh's endless thirst, the Dark Eldar are trapped forever in Commoragh (good riddance), the Orks and Nids keep doing what they do, the Tau scratch their heads and the Necrons say "hey, remember those Immaterium Gods that kept us frustrated because we can't fight them? They're dead, so let's go conquer shit."

Seriously, the Necrons get the most out of this, since psychic stuff is their greatest weakness, what with not having souls and such. They can't touch the Immaterium, but boom, the Warp isn't a threat now. And Palpatine or other force users can be dealt with with Tesseract Arrows (I tihnk that's what they're called, basically a one-shot weapon that removes an enemy model and traps them in a pocket dimension).

Hm... a distinct point. Would the Necrons start conquering things, though, or would they just murmur 'mission accomplished' and mostly go back to sleep?

Depends on which Obi-Wan we're talking about, the one from Episode IV or the prequels.

Zor said Episode I.

And, Palpatine's demonstrated only two Force powers in the six movies he was featured in: Force lightning and farseeing. Going strictly by the prequels, he accomplished much of his deviltry not by using the Force, but simply manipulating the existing situation and players to his advantage.

Also telekinesis; he can pick up big metal things and throw them at Yoda. Besides, if Force powers don't automatically let someone do all the same things a 40k psyker can, it doesn't matter that Palpatine's repertoire is limited. All his enemies have similarly limited repertoires. And compared to them, he's got more experience using that power set to overcome enemies with the same power set.

Thing is, his precognition is very effective, in that it allowed him to chart the course of his own rise to power... and he was somehow able to cloud the collective precognition of the Jedi, suggesting that he knew a few tricks they were ignorant of.

And, other than demons, what is the difference between the Force and the Warp in principle? My understanding of both is(leaving aside the midichlorian issue for the moment)that the Force is created by life itself("every living being," according to Obi-Wan in Ep. IV*), while the Warp is created by the collective unconscious of nearly every being in the Galaxy(excepting the Tau and the Necrons), so I'd imagine psykers would become Force users, including the Emperor Himself, and that Chaos cultists and good ol' Abbadon would become dark siders.

Probably a lot of the existing non-Chaos psykers would become dark siders, if you're right. Because fear, intolerance, or a lack of compassion can lead to the dark side.

Chaos is in some ways better at tempting people than the dark side of the Force is, sure- but the dark side has more diverse angles of attack. Imperium psykers wouldn't be well prepared against some of them.

A good question would be would warp blanks such as Fenrik Jurgen be able to negate Force abilities as they could warpcraft, as they both arise from the same basic source?

Since there are (in the old EU, and I believe in the new) organisms with that very ability to nullify Force powers right around themselves, I don't see why not.

As for FTL travel, no Astronomicon means astropaths are pretty much out of a job, especially if the cogboys come up with a reliable navicomputer or navigational servitor to navigate hyperspace(or whatever the new dimension is called), unless the Emperor's ability in that area becomes just another Force power.

Astropaths are long range telepaths, and don't rely on the Astronomican. However, since Jedi usually can't maintain telepathic contact over interstellar distances, the astropaths probably aren't effective.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Simon, I suspect what the Necrons do will vary depending on which Dynasty you are looking at. Some will keep to themselves, while the moer expansionist ones will jump at the chance.

Plus, according to the latest Codex, the Silent King has returned to the galaxy and is trying to rally all the Necrons to fight the Tyranids. With Chaos effectively neutralised, he may find a much more willing audience.

There is also the question of the shard of the Void Dragon that the Emperor sealed on Mars. If whatever method he used was Warp-based in nature (highly likely given the weakness Necrons/C'Tan have against the Warp) then that shard is free to take control of the Imperium's greatest Forge-World. That is very much not good at all.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

All his enemies have similarly limited repertoires. And compared to them, he's got more experience using that power set to overcome enemies with the same power set.

Depends on how much of his potential enemies' skills in manipulating the Warp are transferrable to skill in manipulating the Force.

And, I forgot about telekinesis. And, Force-leap as well, when he took on the Councillors in his office. Oh, the shame, the shame of it all.

Zor said Episode I.

So he did. Welp, that means Obi-Wan's fucked then. Dogmatic as he was then, he's likely to fall foul of the local ecclesiarchy and end up in the clutches of the Inquosition, before he even runs into Palpatine.

Or, at best, he's seduced by Chaos/the dark side, and that's still the end of him.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

and he was somehow able to cloud the collective precognition of the Jedi, suggesting that he knew a few tricks they were ignorant of.

If it was, in fact, all(or even partly)him, and not due to the Jedi Order's own dogmatic arrogance. Unless the new canon ruled otherwise(which would be a damned shame, thematically, but, is what it is)

[bilateralrope]

Don't forget that Palpatine didn't start from nothing in SW. Previous Sith had been laying the foundation for his takeover of the galaxy for quite some time.

In the 40k galaxy he is starting with nothing at the same time that the Imperium's communications are breaking down.

especially if the cogboys come up with a reliable navicomputer or navigational servitor to navigate hyperspace(or whatever the new dimension is called), unless the Emperor's ability in that area becomes just another Force power.

That would require the Ad-mech to innovate in a hurry. Not going to happen.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, arguing about Palpatine's abilities in this scenario is a waste of time, since a) the galaxy is in even more turmoil than usual, b) he has abilities that are likely to get him noticed by the Inquisitio9n inn a hurry (in their terms, he's an unsanctioned psyker and a very powerful one) and c), even if his end-goal is the same, seize control of the galaxy, that simply isn't possible for him in this setting.

The closest he could get would be becoming one of the High Lords of Terra and subverting/killing the rest, like Vandire did. And that is extremely unlikely to happen because a)he doesn't have a secret army of soldiers waiting in the wings, b) the Space Marines are loyal to the Emperor, not the High Lords and certainly not Palpatine, c) he isn't part of the nobility so won't get anywhere in the upper echelons of power and d) the Imperium is likely to either go tits-up or reform itself before he can even start working.

[NecronLord]

c) he isn't part of the nobility so won't get anywhere in the upper echelons of power

This varies by High Lords. One living (ex)High Lord, at least, started off as a commoner on a backwater, and ended up Master of the Administratum or Chancellor of the Estate Imperium, before the other High Lords gave him a Rogue Trader warrant and exile. There are institutions where birth counts for everything, and some (the Administratum) where ability counts. Birth is also irrelevant to being Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica; there's an astropath in recent Dark Heresy material who harbours ambition of being so and comes from a mundane background, but obviously you have to be a psyker.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good point (I didn't know of either of those) but that is one definite and one possible future case in ten thousand years. And frankly thats one of the minor objections I raised.

[NecronLord]

Well we only have partial biographies for about a dozen High Lords in the Imperium's history, there's talk about them being from noble families in the Abnett books, and there's also Macharius as a noble; but I'd say it's not impossible for a talented and very very lucky human to get to be one (mind you, they're all male, that we know of). Not that I imagine Palpatine could do it (there hasn't been a traitor in thousands of years, and even Vandire wasn't actually a traitor per-se) and unlike the High Chancellor of the Republic, there seem to be permanent investigators assigned to investigate what the High Lords are up to (the Inquisition's Ordo Senatorum) which is a great measure of surveillance.

[Purple]

All this is most irrelevant either way because the OP did not specify Palpatine getting knowledge about the IOM up front. And without that he will be left to his own devices to even figure out where the hell he is, let alone how the country (if you can call it such) works. And he isn't exactly getting younger either.

[Elheru Aran]

It's a good question whether Palpatine could even pass for his normal human state, as IIRC it's never been declared whether his prune-face look was actually a result of getting hit by his own Sith lightning or whether he was running with a facade... Of course in the Imperium there's plenty of people who look like that or worse, anyway, so they might not even notice...

The biggest change, as noted, is that Chaos is now effectively out of the game. This takes a HUGE burden off the Imperium and trades it for a few more-- the Tyranids and Necrons primarily, as noted, but IIRC vaguely the Orks would occasionally feud with Chaos when they wanted some sport with the spikey boyz, so it's possible they may shift their attention as well. Once the Eldar get a few orgies out of their system, they *might* ally with the Imperium, but more likely they'll just flip everybody in the galaxy the bird and run for it before it becomes a fistfight between the Nids and Crons.

Unless Palpatine can come by a likely apprentice in time, he's not very likely to get far. Obi-Wan as a full Jedi Master could get somewhere, but as just a Knight? Not so much.

[Solauren]

If the chaos using beings suddenly find that can access the Force instead, the end effects are hard to tell. For all we know, the Imperium is now
under a newly born Jedi Order, lead by the 'God-Emperor Jedi Grand Master'

If all Chaos based powers (or powers that could probably be Chaos based, like Ork-tech) are also gone, without an immediate replacement, then I see the Imperium breaking apart, and the galaxy slipping into a more 'standard' sci-fi style war.

Regardless, Palpatine's best bet is to go to ground, find a suitable apprentice, and start the 'Grand plan' a new.

Palpatine succeeded because he had POLITICAL power, position, and opportunity. He lacks them all now.

Obi-wan's best bet to to head to Terra, and try to get in with the establishment.

Otherwise, they're both screwed, and the Warhammer universe doesn't even notice.

[bilateralrope]

When stuff is thrown out of the warp/webway, where does it emerge in the materium ?

Lets go over what happens to each faction:

Tau: The Tau lose their FTL. Not that it matters, as they never had any hope of surviving long-term.

Necrons: They aren't affected directly as the bulk of their tech doesn't rely on the warp. They might have a few warp based things, but they don't need them.

Tyranids: If the hive mind exists in the warp then they cease to exist as a threat to anyone as all nid organisms revert to their instinctive behaviour. We haven't seen the Force sustain a hive mind anything like the nids. If their hive mind somehow exists outside the warp, they are basically unaffected.

I'm going to assume that the hive mind is warp based due to the shadow is causes unless someone produces evidence otherwise. Meaning that the nids don't survive because with no hive mind, the individual nid organisms have nothing to tell them to bring biomass to feed the spawning pools.

Dark Eldar

Objects like starships are pushed out into realspace, as are the contents of the webway.

Commorragh is a massive city in the webway. One with a population exceeding that of star systems.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Commorragh

The Dark City is known to have "wandering shadows that tear apart the unwary" and is bathed in the crimson half-light of the Ilmaea, or "black suns," dying stars taken from realspace by the Eldar at the height of their technological prowess and installed within their own sub-realms within the Webway to provide Commorragh with light and power.

I don't think that Commorragh can survive being placed into realspace. There are two obvious problems:
- Keeping the air in. If Commorragh relies on the walls of the webway to keep the air in, then that air isn't going to stay in once the city is dumped into the materium without those walls.
- Non-elucidian layout. Commorragh is a city run by a faction that can shorten the distance between points via webway portals. But if they are thrown out of the webway and cut off from the warp, then those portals can not function. Meaning any infrastructure that relies on them doesn't function. Places that were in walking distance apart due to portals could easily become light minutes/hours apart. Any infrastructure running through those portals is going to be severed.

So the Dark Eldar are screwed even before someone else notices that they just lost the choke points that let them defend Commorragh from their enemies.

Craftworld Eldar

Objects made of wraithbone and any daemons caught in the material world mundanicize, becoming regular matter

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Wraithbone

It is a psychic conductor and thus provides not only the structure and armour for the things built of it, but also the power distribution and communications systems since Wraithbone carries psychic energy the way a wire or fiber optic cable carries electricity or photons.

Imagine a space station where all the metal suddenly turns into plastic. Imagine everyone aboard dying because they can't power their life support systems. That is the equivalent of what just happened to every craftworld, every starship, every vehicle, every suit of sealed armor.
The only craftworlders who survive are those somewhere with a breathable atmosphere who can unseal their armor before they suffocate.

Chaos
What happens to daemon worlds when they are shoved into the materium ?
Because they often involve things that simply aren't possible under the regular laws of physics. A lot of mutants are likely to die because their mutated bodies can't survive without the warp. I doubt any daemon would get a body that can survive.

Orks
They have two warp gods. Their tech works in part because they believe it to. That implies a warp based effect on their technology. An effect that suddenly stops working, causing most of their tech to break. Question is, how much of their biology relies on the warp ?

Imperium
They just lost their means of FTL. The Ad-Mech are too slow at innovation to produce a replacement in any timeframe that matters, especially when the primary focus on most forge worlds is going to be food production for the immediate future.
They just lost astropathic communication.

Every system is isolated from every other system. If they rely on imported food the population starves, probably with devastating food riots. If an agri-world relies on imported tech/fuel to manage the farms, those farms become unmanagable.

Conclusion: The Necrons get through this unscathed. The Orks are probably fucked. Everyone else is definitely fucked.

[Elheru Aran]

The precise nature of the Orkish deities has never been conclusively established. They may have a presence in the Warp, or they may not. Their technology may work via the Warp, or it may simply be that they are a collectively powerful psychic species, they just don't know it and don't work through the Warp for that. It's all very uncertain.

One thing that isn't for certain though is that their nature won't change much-- if their guns fall apart, they'll just make axes and clubs and keep fighting.

[bilateralrope]

The precise nature of the Orkish deities has never been conclusively established. They may have a presence in the Warp, or they may not. Their technology may work via the Warp, or it may simply be that they are a collectively powerful psychic species, they just don't know it and don't work through the Warp for that. It's all very uncertain.

Last I heard, Gork and Mork were both warp gods. While Orks being corrupted by chaos is rare, it does happen. Which means that the Orks do have some presence in the Warp.

Painting Ork vehicles red does make them go faster along with other things that don't fit with the standard laws of physics, so their tech is effected by something other than the standard laws of physics.

So it's either the warp effecting Ork stuff, or it's something else. So, without proof of this other thing, I'm going with it being the warp doing it because that's the simplest explanation.

[Elheru Aran]

Fair enough.

[gigabytelord]

How exactly would the necrons not be affected by this? They use something called a "dolmen gate" to cut little holes in the webway to travel ftl, if the warp is gone then the necrons are just as fucked as everyone one else.

[Zor]

When stuff is thrown out of the warp/webway, where does it emerge in the materium ?

Yes.

Tau: The Tau lose their FTL. Not that it matters, as they never had any hope of surviving long-term.

No more than any other race that uses the warp for FTL travel. There is a similar domain that they can access.

Zor

[NecronLord]

How exactly would the necrons not be affected by this? They use something called a "dolmen gate" to cut little holes in the webway to travel ftl, if the warp is gone then the necrons are just as fucked as everyone one else.

That stupidity has been retconned back to whence it came. Latest studio released books have the necrons using inertialess drive again.

Turning his fleet toward the glinting crimson orbs of Cryptus, Anrakyr engaged his inertialess drive, his vast Necron armada streaking off into the void. Unlike the ships of the Imperium, those of the Necrons did not travel through the Warp, and so the great psychic barrier cast out by the Hive Mind was no impediment to their fleet.

Shield of Baal: Exterminatus, 2015.

The Domen Gates thing was daft anyway, in that the Sautekh supposedly controlled only six (!) of them among their fifty or so systems. Dolmen Gates aren't mentioned in the current necron codex either.