The Shape of the Nightmare to Come

"It is the 51st Millennium and I cannot wake up from this nightmare! I cannot wake up!"

- From the Introduction, and It Gets Worse from there.

What's worse than Warhammer 40k? Warhammer 50k. The Orks and Tyranids become a hybrid, The God Emperor has perished, the Imperium is shattered, the Necrons reawaken, Chaos reigns supreme, and that's just the beginning. The sheer amount of despair and horror can be unnerving at times, and the often Lovecraftian style of writing amplifies these elements. Basically, this is to 40k as 40k is to Star Wars or Star Trek. The story can be found here. Note that since it is posted on a forum, there will inevitably be some posts between the updates. There is now a sequel, The Age of Dusk, which can be found here.

Because this is a fanfiction of Warhammer 40000, please consult that page for tropes pertaining to the original universe of which this fanfic is set.


 * All Your Powers Combined: The New Devourer is basically what happens when the optimal hybrid forms of Ork and Tyranid are created by the Octarius war; they then decide to eat their forebears and everything in the way (i.e. half the galaxy). There is one thing that The New Devourer doesn't do as well as its predecessors, and that is the tyranid's shadow in the warp. This is because The New Devourer's hive mind works through the an adapted ork Waaagh
 * The Alliance: The Thexian Trade Empire.
 * Anticlimax: Ynnead, the Eldar God of Death which will rise up and finally defeat Slaanesh, comes into existence early.
 * Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In a truly horrifying version of the Star Child theory, the Emperor upon death becomes the Chaos God of Order.
 * Balkanize Me: The fate of the Imperium, which collapses into thousands of "Petty Imperiums", all trying to re-unify the galaxy.
 * Came Back Wrong: The God-Emperor / Star Father, as noted above.
 * Corrupt Church: The Ophelian Imperium.
 * Dark Fic: Of Warhammer 40000. That should be saying something.
 * The Empire: Abbadon's Chaos Imperium, Grand Sicarum (previously known as Ultramar), Huron Blackheart's Chaos Imperium and the Tau, to name a few.
 * Eldritch Abomination The Ophilim Kiasoz, which unmakes solar systems just by passing by them. Also the Star Father and the Nex. The New Devourer could possibly be this, but it's hard to know since it was Put on a Bus (it did eat about half the galaxy beforehand, though).
 * Evil Versus Evil: Abbadon's Chaos Imperium versus the Perturabo-Angron alliance (Abaddon wins), and later on Abaddon's Chaos Imperium versus Huron Blackheart's Chaos Imperium (ends in a draw).
 * Fallen Hero: Commissar Yarrick, hero of Hades hive, butcher of Betek.
 * Framing Device: The story presents itself as a scholar's record to collect and store the history of the Post-Imperial galaxy.
 * A God Am I: Cato Sicarius.
 * God Is Evil: The Star Father, the aforementioned Chaos God of order.
 * Hidden Elf Village: Many Forge Worlds become this, often combining it with Mordor. Ironically averted with the surviving Eldar, who manage to trick their way into top positions of several Petty Imperiums (the Exodites), become pirates (the Corsairs), or become The Empire (Biel-Tan).
 * Last Stand: The Imperial Fists on Terra, the Orks on Octavius, the Space Wolves on Fenris, the Grey Knights and Custodes on Titan...
 * Our Angyls Are Different: They're the daemons of the Star Father.
 * Private Military Contractor: The Free Companies (Astartes for hire), the Kroot (not suprisingly), Janisar's Fremen (no, not those Fremen), and the Serf-Soldiery of Krieg (formerly the Death Korps of Krieg), among many others.
 * The Reveal: At the end, it is revealed that the (in-universe) author of the Fictional Document is none other than . In addition, the Hermit mentioned.
 * Scavenger World: Even more prevalent than in 40k. Gerhed Lussor's Rogue Trader Empire is an entire star empire based on scavenging.
 * The Cavalry: A villainous example. Typhus the Traveller and his fleet arrive just in time (although it actually took them two weeks to traverse the Warp) to reinforce Abaddon's fleet during his war with Perturabo and Angron. The Nurglesque vessels besiege the Goliath Engine and heavily damage it, enough for Abaddon's capital ship to finish it off and win the battle.
 * Truce Zone: Belius, the Barter King's world, free geld.
 * Ultimate Evil: The Nex, which is hinted to be related to the deepest layers of the Warp, and the Ophilim Kiasoz, of which almost nothing is known except for the above.