Are demons infinite?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

If they’re infinite why don’t the chaos gods just utterly swarm the material realm with demons and just claim victory through saturation?

[Scribe]

27 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

If they’re infinite why don’t the chaos gods just utterly swarm the material realm with demons and just claim victory through saturation?

Why can't I just walk on the bottom of the ocean?

 

They are not beings of the material realm.

[BadgersinHills]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

If they’re infinite why don’t the chaos gods just utterly swarm the material realm with demons and just claim victory through saturation?

 

There's a good case to be made that they already have won, with the Emperor's dream for humanity being destroyed by the Heresy. Moreover as @Scribe noted, they're of the warp which is why daemons need to be summoned or otherwise need some psychic energy to sustain them.

Edited March 23, 2023 by BadgersinHills

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

Why can't I just walk on the bottom of the ocean?

 

They are not beings of the material realm.

And yet they show up in the material realm all the time. 

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

And yet they show up in the material realm all the time. 

 

Not without help. They need an energy that they cannot get from just walking around.

[Special Officer Doofy]

11 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

If they’re infinite why don’t the chaos gods just utterly swarm the material realm with demons and just claim victory through saturation?

 

I get the sentiment, but at some point you just got to accept it. I had to watch my nephew for a weekend and he's never seen any of the lord of the rings, so he binged watched all of them. After the final movie he just looked at me and went "why didn't they just ride the giant birds to mount doom from the beginning?". My answer was then there would not be three books/movies to enjoy. I can poke alot more holes in the Warhammer 40k universe that are far worse than the "infinite" Daemon debacle.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I'm also not sure they are infinite.  Yes, there are a lot of them, but its not like the warp is wall-to-wall demons, there's a lot of empty space there too.  So, I would say there a finite amount of demons, but that if all of them were suddenly able to appear in the material realm they would most likely overwhelm any possible resistance.

 

As mentioned by those above, though, they can't just all show up in the material realm.  The fluff is clear that getting there and staying there are both difficult - it just doesn't happen without some sort of intervention (a ritual, a pscyher being dumb, or whatever) from our end, and then even more intervention (usually bloodshed) to keep them here.  Sure it "happens all the time", but that's only because 40K covers a huge amount of space and time - so its kind of like saying people are struck by lightning all the time, but the vast majority of people are never going to be struck by lighting or even know someone who was.

 

Its like asking why (IRL) we don't conquer the moon - we can get there and there is no resistance, so why not?  Well... because its difficult to get and to stay there.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[MithrilForge]

13 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

I get the sentiment, but at some point you just got to accept it. I had to watch my nephew for a weekend and he's never seen any of the lord of the rings, so he binged watched all of them. After the final movie he just looked at me and went "why didn't they just ride the giant birds to mount doom from the beginning?". My answer was then there would not be three books/movies to enjoy. I can poke alot more holes in the Warhammer 40k universe that are far worse than the "infinite" Daemon debacle.

 

LOL ... That's exactly what i said to a mate when we watched em all.... 

I'm Glad you inducted your nephew into the realm of Middle Earth  

M. 

[Ulfast]

Is it not so in the fluff that Gulliuams sword, actually kills daemons permanent? I think I have read it somewhere but I´m not sure.

[Karhedron]

Yes, the Emperor's Sword is one of the few things that can truly kill daemons. Also I do not think daemons are infinite or the Great Game of the Chaos Gods would be meaningless. Each God's power waxes and wanes depending on the dedication of their mortal followers. Increasing and decreasing is meaningless if they have infinite quantities of followers.

 

Also, even if they were infinite, the number and size that could manifest in the material realm is dependent on other factors such as the size of the warp rift and the amount of psychic energy available. Even for mortal armies, having an infinite number of troops would not win a war unless you can find a way to deploy, supply and feed them. Daemons still face logistical issues, it is just that they are far more metaphysical in nature.

[MithrilForge]

“Are daemons infinite?”….. No , they come in boxes of 10. .

as mentioned above by Karhedron 

I think that sums it up quite well.

Although I’m pretty sure GW writers would never put Kairos the Fate weaver or skarbrand or Be’lakor anywhere within striking distance of The Emperor’s Sword … 

 

M. 

[Arkangilos]

Also, daemons seem to have come from acts. Some come from murders, some from seductions, some from despair. So they are as infinite as those acts are. 
 

But yeah, daemons can’t just flood our realm. There has to be spells, sacrifices, etc. to summon them. 

[Paradigm]

Short answer is that daemons are weird.

 

Long answer: no they aren’t infinite. There are always as many as there are right now, tomorrow there will always have been as many as there will be then, and yesterday there was always as many as there is. Time has no meaning in the warp, you just have to know when you are going to get where you want to be.

To sum it up, the number changes, but when it does it changes both forwards and backwards in time. So there is always the same amount as there ever was and ever will be, even if the objective number changes.
 

Daemons are pieces of the chaos gods, in the same way your arm is a part of you. But chaos gods gain power and tend to “grow arms” so to speak as they do. Because it’s chaos, their arms just happen to be sentient semi-autonomous appendages with their own goals and desires. Sometimes they come into conflict with the greater body and/or each other. 

There are many unaligned entities in the warp, that could more or less behave the same way chaos gods behave, and it seems daemons seem to think they can also become truly autonomous and behave just as the chaos gods do.
 

So there are many different daemons in the warp, and they always have had exactly the number they will ever have. Which isn’t infinite, because even though time has no meaning they’re always whenever they are as well. And since the warp reflects reality’s emotional state, as long as no one emotion dominates reality, the influence and power of any one god will be limited by the existence of the others. 
 

Edit: I’m not saying they aren’t infinite, because effectively they are, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t finite as well. Leave it to the warp to have something defy logic. Luckily, if we don’t go gazing into the empyrean, it (probably) won’t gaze back. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Paradigm

[Dr_Ruminahui]

While time in the warp is weird, I disagree that time is meaningless in the warp and the contention is that chaos is as strong as it ever was and it will ever be.  To do so would make the emotions of mortals meaningless, as they would have no effect on the strength of the powers, which is directly contrary to everything I've read from GW.  Additionally, it would mean the chaos gods would not wax and wane in power, which again something that they do.

[Rhavien]

That's the problem with other dimensions. Our human mind is bound to ours. We can create constructs and theories to try to grasp what's going on on the other side, but we will never truly fully understand. Just like physics in the real world. You can come closer, but it's unlikely that we will hit the spot where we say "That's it. Case closed." 

 

In the lore there was definitely a time where the warp was calm and much saver to travel. Tales tell that the emotions of the living beings stirred it up. Warp storms happened. IoM was torn apart. Then the birth of slaneesh has happened. So on and so on. But time seems to be irrelevant for the Warp. At least when you're in the Warp. It's weird, as demons experience things which they remember and influence them. They are actively plotting, so there as to be motion, but maybe those are artifical bubbles of time created interacting with our world. I guess it gets a bit to metaphysical at this point. Ask your local ordo malleus inquisitor if you want to know more. Or better not...