The Unexplained Year Of Ghosts - 40K Theories 

"Only in Death does Duty end." Pfffffffffffft ..for the Astra Militarum maybe..

The year of ghosts was the year where Halloween lasted an entire year thanks to an Administratum error in the Imperial calendar. The Inquisition covered up the incompetence of the Administratum with that brief description.

I see Halloween has an entire year in the lore

It's a year where Imperial Guard Regiments equip their new Proton Packs and test it out. Busting makes them feel good as it raises morale.

The most heretical lore, locked deep within Inquisitorial archives, suggests that humanity was plagued by daemonic entities known as “spooky scary skeletons”.

Inquisitor Archivist: Right, I see here we're censoring the Age of Ghosts. No problem, what's the reason though? I need it for the filing. Lord Inquisitor: Ghosts are scary :'( Inquisitor Archivist: ...okay. Fine. Whatever. We've censored for worse reasons.

"Year of the Ghosts" So... Ferrus Manus was bugging anyone and everyone as a Skost head for an entire year?

"Only in death does duty end" *Stares in servitor and cyberskull*

Obscure 40k lore: Exists 40k Theories: (bursts through wall) I hAvE a ThEoRY! Fans: post memes. We all know this is true, if you don’t think so look at half the Doot comments.

How do witnesses of these ghosts know they were servants of the Emperor? They were lead by a headless primarch.

Let’s be honest, in the horrifying, grimdark future every day is Halloween. Just less candy and more purging.

Maybe Corvus swooping around in the warp made the spirits of the warp restless. Perhaps it has something to do his new form.

Revenant Astarties have to be the most badass thing in this universe 💀 Even in death, do they serve 🤘

I like the idea that the Year of Ghosts was when the Legion of the Damned achieved "Daemonhood" (canonisation?), as opposed to being temporary half-formed manifestations of lost Loyalist Legionnaires from the Heresy that the Emperor had to consciously conjure. Modern Damned Legionnaires tend to manifest as wearing MK8 armour with rarer examples of earlier marks and obscured/destroyed iconography, so the majority of them should be the echoes or warp-spirits of more recently deceased Astartes. When great warp-entities come into their power they tend to cause significant manifestations in Realspace, for better or worse, so this could also be the point in time where the Warpside "God-Emperor" awakened and started to take up the baton that meat-Emperor had dropped... Living Saints would become fully empowered, Miracles could be described as truly "divine" as opposed to Emperor-assisted Psyker powers and intense faith in Him could start actually being a useful thing with practical applications rather than just coincidence/psychic placebo effect. This assumes the idea that the Legion of the Damned are "Lesser Daemons of the God-Emperor", of course.

"You are weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak, Vulcan!"

This video reminded me of an event in Horus Heresy Book Six: Retribution (page 70 in the paperback version) It's described as "the dead walked on Xana II", that the "broken bodies" of Legionnaires slain on Isstvan V (and some appearing with the livery of those slain during the Great Crusade) came to life and attacked traitor forces, aided by equally damaged Dreadnoughts and "half-wrecked tanks and rapier weapons platforms".

“The Year of the Ghost” was actually the year we’re the largest amount of people were ‘ghosted’ by their significant other ever recorded in human history. The amount so huge that it was believed that it encompassed the whole imperium. The only reason why details are scarce is because you don’t want to dig up painful pasts.

It was an Administratum typo, it was actually The Year Of Goats when the Draenei invaded

40k is the only media were things are so dark Necromancy is actually benevolent magic.

Oooh, _dammit._ I am sitting here, with a nasty infection of my eyes that makes my eyelids swollen and keeps me from wearing my glasses and I was actually reading _"The Year of Goats"._ As a result, I was a bit baffled when you began talking about ghosts all of a sudden, wondering how goats would eventually fit into this. Well, I finally realised my mistake and "ghosts" definitely makes more sense, but I must confess that I am still a bit disappointed.

"duty only ends in death" "Even in death I serve -a bloodraven dreadnaught

_Adeptus Notificatus, _*_REPRESENT._* or be counted a ghost

While I do believe the Year of Ghosts is more in reference to an massive increase in sightings of the Legion of the Damned, the idea of a 'faith virus' reanimating the faithful dead to battle Warpspawn does have a certain "charm" to it...if by that, you mean the idea that it's frikkin' awesome.

Its either ferrus manus skost, Emperor trolling or just tzeeentch getting bored. Also nice vid for spoopy month

Even the 41st millenium is not safe from Spooktober.

Could it be an ost of dreadnoughts that all went back online at the same time and did indeed fight some warp horrors ? That is the way I remember understanding this line anyway

These are the blessings of the Emperor and the Honored Dead are those that ever close to his spirit. In that, they are likely those that have faithfully served him throughout the ages.

I can see it: An entire regiment of Skeletons rise up, fix bayonets and proceed to spooking the traitors

So basically the Emprah, sorry the “All-Father”, is Odín, and he summons the Einherjar to fight for him. Right.

Commisar: only in death does duty end! Everyone else: Even in death i still serve...

Until refuted, I will imagine grimdark Ghostbusters with ghosts chilling and being goofy until very large angry people strike them down with unconventional weaponry.

i have seen these entities only twice before.... Mysterious brothers indeed..

3:11 It seems that the king as returned, and made those of the dead fulfill their oath

In all this talk of spooky times we are forgetting about Slaaneshmas. Only a few months away little warplings!

I am in the camp that dead warriors brought back to fight. Since the legion of the dammed are not technically dead.

I hope GW investigates this tidbit further. Could be very interesting. On a related note, I hope you cover the Noctis Aeterna some time soon. There is so little info and some of it is contradictory. I'd love to see the information codified, especially considering it includes what is supposedly the largest known manifestation of the Legion of the Damned on record.

Eldar constructs are refered to as ghosts or wraiths i think. correct me if im wrong. Could this event refer to eldar intervention?

Be honest who else was nerdy enough to also say the line “only in death does duty end” along with him xD

Spooky scary skeletons. Sending shivers down yo--BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!

I'm waiting for "The Year of Ghosts (Who Sit Around Playing Poker)" to occur in the All Guardsmen Party ;P

clones of any number of past warriors might also be interpreted as "the honored dead rising up", or people who were even mistakenly considered dead who then returned or came out of hiding to swoop in to the rescue might be considered "risen". necrons, too, might appear to the untrained eye as "the honored dead" if they were observed from a distance fighting demons. too many possibilities and too little information.

Laddie, They were no ghosts. A band of slayers wandered in from Warhammer Fantasy and kicked their wee asses back into the warp.

Another great one!

My 1st thought (and after watching still think it could be) is it refers to dreadnoughts. Perhaps all space marines took a vacation that year and the venerable battle-brothers had to take up the slack?

You missed the possibility of warp based shenanigans bringing people that should already be dead forward in time and then kicking them back to their proper time afterwards so they can die

The spoopy year!

Doot Doot said mr.skeltal and brought good bones.

Has there been evidence of the emperor not just sealing, but brute forcing his way through the Tarren webway access? Psychically it doesn’t seem like he’s ever gotten weaker just more agitated. Could see him using this to channel his power with precision in multiple areas.

Can you do a video that covers a broad view of magic? There are bits and pieces in a lot of your videos, and the wiki has a flawed explanation, but a more complete lore with the correlation between body, soul, warp and magic would be interesting to see.

In shorts stories about thunder warriors along with the “Outcast Dead” novel Thunder Warriors call dead members of the legion the “honored dead” and strive for an “honored death” for the emperor. This can be seen particularly in “Dreams of Unity” from the Heralds of the Seige HH anthology. As they fall to insanity they strive for death in combat rather than being put down like mad dogs in order to join the “honored dead.” Possibly the year of ghosts involved the large scale production of another legion of thunder warriors to fight these daemons. Or the thunder legion rose again in ghostly form to defend Terra? If the high lords had access to the tech creating thunder warriors to fight daemons would make sense. In “angels of Calliban” a surviving member of the original legion (before it was called the 1st legion) was described as having impenetrable psychic defenses by Cypher and Luthor. This legionnaire says that this defense was provided to all of the Thunder Warriors and Space Marine Legion fighting for unity because they fought so many daemons.

Love your videos

I could see the year of ghost relating to the 2 lost legions that were wiped from imperial archives with an event they did during this time being significant but would have to be erased do too the empowers wishes.

Hold on...'slaughtered legions'? Could this be a reference to the 2 unknown ones?

A very extremely great video as always 40k Theories.

While diving deeper into the lore, it seems more and more likely that the Emperor does not mind or otherwise might need the Imperium's veneration of him as a god. If he can intervene in such extensive ways, surely he could manifest in some ways to correct this mistake at least partially. (Might also be it would cause too much inwards conflict)

Wouldn't the honored dead be the imperial dreadnoughts ? So wouldn't this entail that a legion on dreadnoughts was created/ appeared to fight the enemy ?

A few other alternatives- an early encounter with necrons (an undead race) due to their hostile interactions with the warp or perhaps a group of Eldar wraith construct fighting to close a major Warp rift.

In universe the lack of information could be caused by the Inquisition classifying everything. Most of the possibilities you mentioned would fit with their MO (especially the final one). Hard to say for certain which is more probable Outside of the universe I dont thing GW will explore every small line they put so we might never know for certain what they intended

So as the Emperor's mind slowly fractures under the strain of the millennia spent in an undead state on the Golden Throne maybe part of his mind is sending out his daemons "The Legion of the Damned" to fight for his kingdom in the material realm. I wonder if they'll write books about the Emperor's battles in the warp during this time.

I could be wrong about the name but the Flame Hawks who could cover there entire bodies in flames would be my first guess to who the Legion of the Damned could possibly be. I know they were destroyed by a company of Great Knights but some did escape who maybe stayed loyal to the Emperor.

Busting makes my morale high.

Beware the foes of the imperium for the Legion of the damned fight for the imperium always

This puts into question the meaning of “only in death does duty end”. Define death. Is it simply physical or the extinguishing of a soul? In that case, are blanks living dead?

2:35 - (monotone) All hail Big Papa Ultrasmurf. | The barrier between the material universe and the Immaterium must've been particularly weak that year. | 3:47 - Ah...the Daemons of the Emperor...as the Emperor protects. | 5:20 - They're the followers of that which the Aeldari would call "She Who Thirsts" and they're not Fulgrim's boys. | 7:12 - (monotone) All hail the Ultrasmurfs. | 8:50 - Oh yeah, that one. | Zombies are mostly due to Nurgle.

I guess all the spirits of every intelligent life Souls just fought against chaos or just the Legion of the Damned doing all the work. Really doe now

Could have been something involving dreadnoughts. They are basically a coffin mixed with a weapons platform.

the first thing that came to mind for me was dreadnaughts, maybe a whole army of them. I mean imagine how many there must have been in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. Maybe too many even for the newly formed chapters so a bunch were locked away and then in this emergency, unleashed.

Happy 40k Spooktober everyone!

Sooo even in death duty never ends...

I think the Rule of Cool determines the truth.

That some messed up Nic Cage logic using unearthly supernatural powers to bring someone back to life just to kill them again.

Was the Skost of Ferrus Manus the Not Friend present at all during the year going around telling everyone that they are weak?

Love the new intro!

"Honored dead" - maybe, just maybe it was somehow related to dreadnoughts? Like a lots of Venerable Dreadnoughts fighting with deamons?

Perhaps it was a large amount of Imperial Saints coming from the warp along with and Incredibly high amount of sightings of Legion of the Damned in a long-forgotten Black Crusade

Emperor damn it, I can't believe we missed the skeleton war.

So lemme get this straight, there was, potentially, a zombie apocalypse that was BENEFICIAL to mankind? An army of Bubs?!

That sounds really spooky yeah what are terrifying frames and 40K we only talked about a lot

Okay, so... one WarSmurf officer aside... could at least some of the Legion of the Damned... be the remains of The Damned Legion?

SPOOKY SCARY LEGIONARY

Astra militarum regiments that lay dead on the fields pick up their arms and stand against baffled traitors on a planet close to the eye of terror

Isn't it, like, 3 and a half weeks early for a Halloween video?

"So let's say someone blew this "Horn of Winter" and the dead rose from the crypts to defeat the forces of Chaos." "Sounds heretical. How about the truth?" "That Khorne got stabbed to death by a little girl?" "OK, warrior ghosts it is."

Not even in death does duty end!

Perhaps the Emperor engineered the geneseed for another purpose: a psychic connection between an astartes warrior and the Emperor that lets Him store the souls of His fallen warriors away from the Ruinous Powers. Considering that the Emperor exists across the materium, the webway, and the warp, he could be building a "space" or "existence" where the souls of loyal humans can still benefit the Imperium.

I remember reading a story, but can't for the life of me remember any other details, about something similar where an Imperial city was under siege and every night the ghosts of the dead would rise and attack the living. I remember the tolling of a bell being involved. Can anyone enlighten me about it so I can elaborate further because its REALLY bugging me.

When spooky month becomes a spooky year

Spoopy.

Anyone else see that the Aquila is the 30k one not the 40k one on 40k theories title card

1 of the lost primarchs being the dammed legion primarch?

Any thought to the idea that the legion of the damned could be one of the two lost legions, or a combination of both? Attempting to regain the honor lost for whatever transgressions they may have made to cause their purging from imperial record?

honored dead fighting? sounds like VALHALLA

Zombies of the emperor? That is kinda cool.

And yet nobody called Emps out when he summoned those warriors

I swear to god if they try to make all of the Legion of the Damned Ultramarines I'm going to be pissed. I'll allow an amalgam group, but I'm sick of those smurfs getting handed everything cool.

Cybermen from another dimension. Someone needs to get to Canary Wharf sharpish... 😉

9:16 - wasn't aware of this (sadly kind of behind on the lore). What was Ahriman's response to this?

You know what’s a scary thought for traitors Yes there’s the legion of the damned But what if long dead guardsmen regiments rise as well,so many of hundreds of billions men and women died for the imperium so the idea of a bunch of ghost guardsmen who’s weapons have a similar ability to legion demand is scary. Not even in death does duty end

Maybe the Legion of the Damned are the actual sentient soul shards of the 1000 Sons Rubric Marines, still loyal to the Emperor?!, when the Rubric Happened they were still technically not fallen to chaos.

Dont ever get discouraged