Cheers!
The other day I happened to see a post on the facebook group «The Oldhammer community», in which a parishioner shared a text that appeared in White Dwarf number 87 (British version, I think). This text not only evidences the original use of the term ” WH40K ” for Warhammer 40,000 , but also the recognition by one of its creators, Rick Priestley , that 40k was (is) a futuristic version of the Warhammer world . From here, it occurred to me to do some research on the subject, and it seems that there are some clues that the Age of Sigmar universe could be inside the Cicatrix Maledictum of the 40k galaxy …
Here you have the post in question, by user Trish Davies. (Image disappeared in La Quema) .
I’m not a background expert. That first thing. I like it a lot, I’ve read a lot, but I don’t know all the details by heart and I haven’t read the Black Library novels. So maybe there is a detail that makes this whole theory collapse.
Well it seems confirmed that Warhammer and 40k are the same universe. What is not clear is if they are different realities (one medieval and one futuristic), if the Warhammer world was the 40k past, or even a planet located in the 40k galaxy. What Priestley is saying is that 40k is a futuristic version of Warhammer, which doesn’t necessarily imply that 40k is the future of the Old World.
Given this, it could be that by the same logic the AoS and 40k universes are also the same. So it is natural to ask ourselves where is the universe of AoS? Is it a parallel universe? is it in another galaxy? Is it the future or the past of 40k?
What seems evident is that the reference is no longer the world of Warhammer but 40k. That is to say, before 40k was a future (or a past , who knows) of Warhammer, because the reference was the latter. By contrast, today the reference is the 40k galaxy. So looking for the AoS universe somewhere, you should start exploring the limits of it. In other words, 40k is not in the AoS universe, but possibly the other way around.
So in that post, I ask, “If 40k is the future of Warhammer, where is the AoS universe?” . And one of the patrons, Ashwin Ooi, answers me: «Inside the Cicatrix Maledictum» .
That sounds like a very appealing idea to me. So I started looking for references to see if that holds up.
And I was surprised to discover something very curious about the old 40k map. If you pay attention, in the center of the galaxy there is a cluster of very bright stars.
Then it occurred to me to compare the release date of the first edition of Age of Sigmar with the appearance of the Cicatrix (which appears after the disappearance of the bright star cluster, since they are in the same place) in the Eighth edition of 40k.
And it turns out that in the background of AoS the world of Warhammer, the world-that-was, is (I don’t know at what time) as a fiery sphere called Mallus. According to the Wiki
« Mallus , also known as the Broken World , the World Before Time or the world-that-was , is the metallic core of a planet preserved in the skies of the Kingdom of Azyr, above Azyrheim and Sigmarion. From there come all the races currently present in the Mortal Realms and their gods, destroyed in a cataclysmic battle known as the End Times. The Chaos gods allowed these remnants to survive and they became a magnet for the souls of those who wanted to deny Chaos its final victory.”.
Could it be that Mallus, glowing sphere, is in the center of that glowing cluster in the center of the old 40k map? So, if so, was the Warhammer world at the center of the 40k galaxy, but already destroyed?
And of course, after the destruction of the world-that-was, Age of Sigmar appears, back in 2015. And after this, in 2017 the Eighth Edition of 40k appears, which presents us with a galaxy broken by the Cicatrix Maledictum (I’m going to stop aside the similarity of the names “Maledictum” and “Mallus”). The Cicatrix appears after the rise of AoS, a universe that coincidentally is also in space, where there are various magical worlds connected by interdimensional portals.
So we have a star cluster implosion, and the appearance of a reality rupture that nobody knows what’s inside… just warp, magic, and stuff like that. Could the interior of the Cicatrix be the Arcane Cosmos, the place where the Mortal Realms, the Realm of Chaos, the Places Between Realms and the Aetheric Void are located? The Arcane Cosmos, did it exist before the End Times? Because if not, it seems that the thing is clear. On the other hand, the similarity between interdimensional travel and the Web or the Immaterium (the Warp ) of 40k would seem to indicate that the same “laws” (or “non-laws”) exist in both universes.
There is another interesting detail, and it is that it would not seem logical that inside the Cicatrix, much darker and more fearsome, there is a world of light and color as it was in the first AoS. Of course, and it is that after the Eighth of 40k the second edition of AoS comes out, much darker and gloomier. The “light” has been fading.
Anyway, maybe all this is not officially like that in the background, but it is still curious to find these coincidences. Chronologically ( real world time), the facts agree. World-That-Went-Burning corresponds to the old 40k map, which transitions to a darker map with a large Cicatrix just as the ages have passed and Mallus, or the World-That-Went-Burning, goes out and gives way to the current Age of Sigmar, which is gradually darkening. The aesthetic darkening of both games would also go along these lines. And in the end, for GW it’s a way to unite, to match, its two main games, creating a common framework. As I often say, GW’s mission is to create its own cosmology, based on bits and pieces of mythology (instead of History as in Warhammer), and that serves to connect with the mentality of contemporary society and culture.
What do you think?
All the best.
