Warhammer 40K: Major Plot Holes GW Just Fixed
Let’s talk about how the recently announced GW 8th Edition retcon fixes some major plot holes.
Last week GW announced that they were performing a major retcon on the current 40K timeline. In short, rather than a 112-year time jump between the events of Gathering Storm and Dark Imperium, there is only a 12 year time jump. This moves the 40K timeline back a lot. Also, the Indomitus Crusade did not end during Dark Imperium but is now an ongoing event. While this is a major change to the timeline, it was done specifically to help clean things up, and as a result, it has fixed several major plot holes. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Calgar Crosses the Rubicon, Or Does He?
Marnus Calgar is one of the more important characters in current 40K. He reached new heights of importance. In the prelude to the Vigilus campaign, he became apparently the first Marine to cross the Rubicon Primaris and transition from Firstborn to Primaris. There was only a slight issue with this. Vigilus was clearly set fairly recently after the opening of the Great Rift. It was Abaddon’s next major target after the Fall of Cadia. This widely suggests that Calgar crossed the Rubicon only a few years after the Rift and likely during the Indomitus Crusade.
However, in Dark Imperium, which by all accounts was set well after Viglus, Calgar was still a Firstborn and had not yet crossed the Rubicon. A change to the timeline like this makes a lot more sense, however. With Dark Imperium set only 12 years later, all you need is a little Warp magic to have Vigilus take place after the events in Da k Imperium. It’s also possible that Calgar will be retconned to being a Primaris during its events and the Plague War during the rewriting of the novel.
Did Abaddon Get Lost?
This is another one tied into Vigilus. As I said above, it was Abaddon, and the 13th Black Crusade’s, next big target after Cadia. Seemingly this took place only a few years later. At the end of the campaign, Abaddon suffers a defeat and is driven off Vigilus, but it’s hinted that this may have been part of his plan all along, and he and the Black Crusade aren’t done with the Planet Killer roving around.
And then…. then that’s just kind of it. The 8th Edition timeline went nearly 200 years post the approximate date of Vigilus, and we just never heard of Abaddon again, really. The whole Black Crusade just vanished into limbo and never made it anywhere. It again makes a bit more sense, Abaddon suffered set back and is maybe regrouping a bit, but his forces and the Indomitus Crusade are still out there fighting.
Guilliman’s Legions
As the author of the Codex Astartes, Guilliman was the driving force behind breaking up the Space Marine Legions of old. Though his Ultramarines still maintained tight ties, especially those based in and around Ultramar, the Legions’ breaking up was largely successful. Upon his return to an active role in the Galaxy, however, one of his first acts was to effectively bring back the Legions in the form of the Unnumbered Sons.
These were 9 legion sized forces made up of roughly half the new Primaris Marines that acted as a major part of the Indomitus Crusade until the battle of the Pit of Raukos when the final formations of them were broken up into new chapters. It has been pointed out that commanding a force of several Legion sized formations for over 100 years was kind of odd for someone who didn’t believe in Legions anymore. Now, the Unnumbered Sons’ break up has been greatly accelerated, with them only being around for about 12 years and playing more of a stop-gap role.
The Effects of Psychic Awakening
The timeline for Psychic Awakening is never 100% established, but it’s clear that most, if not all, of the events, take place not too long after the opening of the Rift and during the Indomitus Crusade. Faith and Fury takes place right after Guilliman has left Terra to take part in the Crusade. In comparison, Blood of Baal takes place right after the Devastation of Baal, which, thanks to time weirdness, took place during the opening of the Rift and simultaneously sometime after the opening of the Rift when the Crusade was well in swing. It seemed likely that most if not all of the events in that series took place before the 112-year post Rift date of Dark Imperium.
Yet, if those events were so massively important (as big as the Horus Heresy), why had they had no effect on the galaxy 100-200 years later? Why had nothing come of them in the 9th Edition timeline? The time change now means that they are happening simultaneously as the “current” date of 40K, so it makes sense we haven’t seen their full outcome.
How Is Anyone Alive
40K is a super dangerous setting, with people, in general, having a pretty short life expectancy, especially major combatants. Even setting aside the world’s normal dangers, 200 years is a long time for many of the 40K races. And yet, given a 200-year time jump and a major galactic cataclysm, making it possibly the most dangerous 200 years of all time, not a single major or named character seemed to have died in that period. Even fragile humans and short-lived T’au all made it through.
The same could be asked about Firstborn Marines as well. How, after 200 years of no new ones being made, are there any, or at least any large numbers, of them left. How have then not all died or crossed the Rubicon at this point. Again a change from a 112-200 year jump to a 12-year jump makes everyone’s survival a lot more reasonable.
Bringing Back Stakes
The period that 40K jumped over had some pretty major events in it. The opening of the Great Rift. The Indomitus Crusade. The latter part of the 13th Black Crusade. The Plague Wars. The Psychic Awaking. The supposed Rise of the Ynnari. There were many major things, with the Indomitus Crusade, an action taking to restore stability to a stricken Imperium being the largest of them all. And yet, at the dawn of 8th Edition, all these things were in the past. The Imperium won clear as day. The Great Rift damage was stabilized, the attacks of Chaos were beaten off, and the Psychic Awakening didn’t have clear effects.
Everything covered during 8th effectively took place in the past, with its outcome already known and without any stakes. Months ago, Guy Haley said the new Indomtius Crusade novels would show us how the Crusade ended, but we already knew how it ended at that point, with a massive Imperial victory. By pushing the timeline back, all of these events become not the past but current and ongoing. This means the future is once more unknown, and things can again have stakes, and that’s a good thing.
Let us know what your favorite fixed plot hole is down in the comments!
