Were Daemons much more powerful in the War in Heaven than in 40k?

[Brother Tyler]

I don't recall lore ever really touching upon other galaxies in terms of Chaos. Other galaxies are touched on with regard to rogue traders and xenos (especially the Tyranids). Despite Chaos's applicability on a universal scale, its presentation in the game setting has always focused on it as the antithesis of the Imperium, with a very (anti-)Human focus and within our galaxy. Even when describing Chaos's influence on other races, such as the Fall of the Aeldari, there is still a decided confinement to our galaxy and the races within it.

 

It would be interesting, though, to examine Chaos on a universal scale and see how it might have affected other galaxies. For example, what if, as with Slaanesh's creation from the failings of the Aeldari, Tzeentch was the product of some race in another galaxy? Or what of galaxies in which Chaos has become ascendant, such galaxies becoming galaxy-wide Warp realms? What if Vashtorr's origins lay within another galaxy and his ascension is simply the product of joining the wider intra-Chaos struggle? What if our galaxy is just one of numberless battlefields for the Chaos Powers and the results of that struggle, while important to us and our neighbors, really don't mean much in the grand scheme of things?

 

Such considerations may be very interesting from a lore perspective, but you can see how they might diminish the focus on the Imperium and its struggles with everyone, including itself (and everyone else's struggles with everyone else, for that matter).

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Khornestar said:

Obviously the stories we mostly care about take place in this galaxy, but is that relative isolation (or not) ever touched upon/relevant? In regards to chaos in particular.

 

Going way back to 1st edition, Ian Watson's "Space Marine" does touch on this a little. A boarding party of Marines encounter a Zoat on a Hive Ship. It mentions that the NIds are puzzled by Chaos which implies that it is localised to our Galaxy. We know that the Warp maps to realspace in some fashion as there are fixed routes through the Warp that correspond to specific journeys between systems. Maybe Chaos (as opposed to the Warp) is localised to our galaxy since that is where the sentient souls that daemons and gods feed from are found.

 

Of course this is very old fluff so its canonicity is questionable since Zoats don't even feature in the Nid fluff anymore.