What's your favorite headcanon?

[Aedilred]

"If the Emperor had a text-to-speech device" is my 40k Headcanon.

My headcanon: The Emperor is Cliff Richard.

This isn't entirely out of the blue. Back when the setting was much younger and less attention was paid to serious world-building as opposed to cramming in as many joke references as possible, some of them rather dubious (Ghazghull Thraka was apparently named after Margaret Thatcher, for instance), an early plan was to reveal, at some stage, that Cliff was the Emperor's secret identity. It never actually made it into any print media, and I suspect some of the people writing for the setting now aren't even aware of it, but I doubt it's ever been invalidated either, if only because it's so silly nobody would think to do it.

More seriously, I did consider the Emperor's "true identity" a bit more carefully back in the day. It's fairly well-established that the Warhammer settings exist in some kind of multiverse, hence why the Chaos Gods, (most of) the Elf/Eldar gods and Orc/k gods exist in both fantasy and 40K, as well as Blood Bowl (and, though I don't think that world was ever so well-developed, presumably Talisman too). There was for a while a third setting beyond the primary WHF/40K ones, Dark Future, the game itself a long-vanished Car Wars clone, but the accompanying novels retained their reputation and were re-released at least once.

Anyway, in that the existence of the multiverse is made explicit. And not just gods, but powerful characters have incarnations of sorts in each setting too. Nguyen Seth, the principal antagonist of the Dark Future novels, is revealed as the counterpart of Constant Drachenfels from WHF. Drachenfels, as written in that era, was a rather more potent figure than he appeared as in the End Times; the ur-wizard of the world, who'd been practising magic before the arrival of the Old Ones, who considered the Chaos Gods equals or even inferiors, someone who had conquered - though not fully mastered - death through the process of reincarnation. It doesn't take too much of a leap, I think, to see the Emperor as the 40K version of the same character (especially bearing in mind his published origin story with the shamans).

Though there is perhaps a more obvious parallel to the Emperor in the shape of Dark Future's Ancient Adversary and his servant-avatar Krokodil. But since the series stopped after four books, we hardly got to see any of the Ancient Adversary, and Krokodil's character arc was likewise left unfinished.

So again, there was a time when I liked to consider that the Emperor was the 40K version of Drachenfels. It's been a few years since I cared enough about either of the settings to give the topic any more thought, though.

[orbispelagium]

The physics of Star Wars' universe are such that most planets are just a few dozen miles in diameter. Coruscant has about the population of London.

[orbispelagium]

The Star Wars movies are not an exact depiction of the events therein. They are relayed to us by an unreliable narrator, and that narrator is R2-D2.

R2 may be a droid, but he was programed with creativity in order to find unexpected solutions to mechanical problems. This also makes him a subjective voice. Nevertheless, he is one of the only beings who witnessed firsthand the rise and fall of the Empire. Since we can see in the Force Awakens that records were lost during that time, it's reasonable to assume that at some point R2 was called in to tell the story, and the version we saw was that story.

It explains so many problems. First, it explains why R2 is prominently featured in all six movies. Other important things certainly happened, but R2 wasn't there for that. This is also why R2 is such a badass all the time. He fudges the story and inflates his importance. After all, anyone who could possibly argue with him is dead.

This also serves to explain the shoddy writing vis-a-vis the romance. R2 may have creativity, but he's still a robot incapable of understanding love, so his telling of the two main romances in the series are stale and almost clinical. This also helps explain the inexplicable Padme death. In reality, Padme died of regular complications (after all, there's plenty of evidence that the Star Wars universe has some rather awful medical science). However, after the fact, someone spoke metaphorically that she died of a broken heart, and R2 took that literally, being a robot and all.

It also helps explain C3PO's near-slapstick bumbling. The two are often at each other's throats like argumentative brothers, and this story is R2's passive-aggressive revenge.

Lastly, it explains the midichlorians. The Force is a mystical thing beyond scientific explanation, and as a droid, R2 cannot comprehend it. Perhaps at some point, someone tried to explain it to him as being like extra software that allows further capability, and R2, again, took things literally and decided that Force users must have extra cells or something. The midichlorians are a complete invention by R2 to help him explain the unexplainable.

This makes an alarming amount of sense, although I'm inclined towards anything that casts R2-D2 as a lovable prick.

[orbispelagium]

Airbenders in Avatar: The Last Airbender have the abilities and the skillset of highly trained fighters, assassins and killers. The pacifism is intentional aspect of their culture, meant to temper their capabilities with wisdom to use them only when they absolutely have to. Fire Nation suffered extremely heavy casualties when they first attacked, which is why the war dragged on for so long.
Reasoning: their element is available everywhere, it can't be restricted, limited or prohibited from any space where humans want to live in, it's silent and invisible, it can be used to cut, shield & redirect, airbenders are fast and can get to places normal humans can't even when most of them can't fly. It's based on the martial art of baguazhang, which has some wicked bladed weapons (see mandarin duck knife aka one-handed bat'leth). Plus the pile of skeletons in the first Air Temple visited in the original series, and certain things that happened in later seasons of Korra.

Building off of this: Air Nomad culture is by-and-large pacifistic, and their fighters are mostly held in reserve as a nuclear option. The Fire Nation called their bluff, but it's unknown if the Air Nomads lost their nerve or the Fire Nation just won with superior force.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The Force Awakens is a inaccurate historical drama written shortly before the Legacy comics.

The original EU, Star Wars Legends or whatever it's called now, ended after The Unifying Force, meaning that the entire Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi series did not happen. Neither did the Legacy Era comics. Or any of the comics, really, except maybe the old Tales of the Jedi stuff, those were okay.

Going straight from the Unifying Force to the Legacy comics also makes sense if you want to ignore the latter Del Ray novels.

But in my eyes having a 10 year dictatorship 100 years later is much less a betrayal of happy endings than The Force Awakens or the Legacy novels (FotJ's pointless drama is too dull to irritate me with its existence). A hundred years of peace is an actual achievement.

[Lord Raziere]

"If the Emperor had a text-to-speech device" is my 40k Headcanon.

My headcanon is that text-Emps eventually finds out about Ciaphas Cain and is just like "You do well. No matter what you think of yourself, you are a true hero of the Imperium. keep up the good work." just, the ONE person he approves of in all of 40k.

[runeghost]

My Star Wars headcanon :

Anakin is using the Force on Padme, to make her "love" him, all through Episodes 2 & 3. Their confrontation and assault at the end of Episode 3 plays out as it does because he believes she's broken free of his influence.

The Sith Temple on Malacor in Rebels is Treya's Sith Academy from KotoR II.

R2 and Chewie are obviously covert or semi-covert rebel agents the whole time. Han is a cover / front-man for Chewie (although the life debt is quite real, and Chewie is loyal to his friend), his successes as a smuggler are mostly due to the Rebellion quietly rigging things in his favor and providing assistance behind the scenes.

Hyperspace travel is stupidly fast - usually a matter of a couple hours or at most days for really distant systems. (This has a lot of weird knock-on effects on how the SW universe works.) Very little time normally passes during travel - it's like getting in your car for a drive to another city. (A really long hop, like Tatooine to Alderaan is more like a road trip.) The one exception is in Empire, where the Falcon has to comparatively crawl to Bespin outside of hyperspace. We don't know exactly how long it took, but Luke spent at least several months on Dagobah training with Yoda, possibly more.

[Hunter Noventa]

My headcanon is that text-Emps eventually finds out about Ciaphas Cain and is just like "You do well. No matter what you think of yourself, you are a true hero of the Imperium. keep up the good work." just, the ONE person he approves of in all of 40k.

I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been an episode about him yet. I'm sure it would be amazing though.

[Millstone85]

Ghaunadaur did not destroy the intellect of oozes, and thus their ability to empower him through worship, in a fit of mad rage. He actually made them fall into a slumber from which he will wake them at a time of his choosing. This was in part to make himself appear weaker than he really is and in part so oozes would focus entirely on their growth. The large abyssal ooze known as Juiblex will also leave its lazy routine when it hears the call of That Which Lurks No More.

Ghaunadaur again. He created the yochlols, or at least the ritual to turn other demons into them, as a gift to the only being in the Great Wheel he regards as worthy of his love and hate: Lolth.

The prophecy of the one who would bring balance to the Force was meant to be interpreted differently by the Jedi and the Sith. The former would expect the removal of the imbalance that is the Dark Side, while the latter would expect the Rule of Two to be imposed on the Light Side.

Death is in fact the skeleton of someone who died. This person(ification) was Life. The reason for Life's departure was that he was too grand a concept for the faith and magic of the Disc to sustain. During his relatively brief existence, Life found that everyone was really unappreciative of lemons.

The Merovingian and his crew follow Chess motifs. He himself is one of the weakest sapient programs to exist in the Matrix, but others would be left without direction or purpose if it weren't for him. Persephone is on the contrary one of the strongest there is, but only finds herself at her place by his side and fears to see another being promoted as her equal. The Twins were their knights, with the ability to pass through obstacles.

[Celestia]

Batman is not a hero. He does what he does not to protect others but because he is an immature child. He never moved on from his tragedy, and he never learned to accept it. After all these years, he is the same angry kid he was back then. He beats up criminals out of sheer bloodlust and rage. If he wanted to stop crime, he'd use his fame and money as Bruce Wayne to fund social change and welfare. Instead, he perpetuates the cycle of violence which drives Gotham further into ruin. His vow against murder is not about morality; it's to keep his victims alive for more torment.

[Deepbluediver]

Batman is not a hero. He does what he does not to protect others but because he is an immature child. He never moved on from his tragedy, and he never learned to accept it. After all these years, he is the same angry kid he was back then. He beats up criminals out of sheer bloodlust and rage. If he wanted to stop crime, he'd use his fame and money as Bruce Wayne to fund social change and welfare. Instead, he perpetuates the cycle of violence which drives Gotham further into ruin. His vow against murder is not about morality; it's to keep his victims alive for more torment.

I'm not sure that's headcannon so much as just an alternative character interpretation. You could say similar things about other rich superheroes (Oliver Queen, Tony Stark) or even just superheroes in general. SMBC did that comic about the best use of Superman's time and powers was turning a crank to produce clean, cheap energy.

[Lord Raziere]

My headcanon is that Batman is a Tzeentch plant. Think about it: he is always prepared, he keeps the status quo of Gotham dark just like Tzeentch does 40k, he always wants to be in control, and its only a matter of time until he builds up enough contingency plans to kill every threat in existence.

Then Tzeentch possesses him, executes all of these plans at once, and thus does the DC Universe end in infinite chaos pleasing Tzeentch forever.

[Millstone85]

Zion is just another level of the Matrix

As I believe the Architect explained between all the ergo's, the existence of redpills is necessary for bluepills to accept the Matrix. If the few are allowed to escape and rebel, the many will happily stay in their boxes. And so every time the Matrix has been rebooted, the city of Zion has been destroyed and rebuilt.

In a sense, Zion is very much another level of the Matrix. The fact that it is not a virtual reality but a more old school forgery, probably with newly-produced "century-old" hovercrafts and such, only makes the twist better in my opinion.

Equestria's atmosphere has an extremely high index of refraction. The sonic rainboom is Cherenkov radiation

My theory is that Equestria's ambient magic slows down light somewhere near the speed of sound, much like on the Discworld. Thus, it is possible for a pegasus to break the light barrier and produce the rainboom.

Heck, that there is some sort of linear connection is even alluded to IN THE GAMES THEMSELVES. See - OoT/MM, WW/PH/ST, and Windwaker's opening.

My take on the Zelda timeline is such:
* Yes, there is a fork at the end of Ocarina of Time.
* Yes, Majora's Mask clearly takes place after Ocarina of Time, in the version of history created by the Hero of Time returning to his childhood. You even still play as this specific Link.
* Yes, Wind Waker clearly takes place centuries after Ocarina of Time, in the other version of history.
* Other Zelda games can similarly be connected.
* However... Piecing together a grand unified timeline with branches for all the games... That can't be done convincingly, not even by Nintendo themselves.

[Traab]

As I believe the Architect explained between all the ergo's, the existence of redpills is necessary for bluepills to accept the Matrix. If the few are allowed to escape and rebel, the many will happily stay in their boxes. And so every time the Matrix has been rebooted, the city of Zion has been destroyed and rebuilt.

In a sense, Zion is very much another level of the Matrix. The fact that it is not a virtual reality but a more old school forgery, probably with newly-produced "century-old" hovercrafts and such, only makes the twist better in my opinion.

Nah, Zion is actually another Matrix. See, the machines learned quickly that humans are an incredibly contrary lot. Give them a perfect world and they will reject it utterly, knowing deep down its fake. Even the simulation of the real world there will be those who subconsciously seek to escape it. But give those few an extra simulation where they were right, there was something out to get them, and now they can fight back? And they will happily accept their new "reality" never knowing its just another facet of the matrix. They remain imprisoned in their own minds, convinced they are fighting to free everyone.

[Dienekes]

Batman is not a hero. He does what he does not to protect others but because he is an immature child. He never moved on from his tragedy, and he never learned to accept it. After all these years, he is the same angry kid he was back then. He beats up criminals out of sheer bloodlust and rage. If he wanted to stop crime, he'd use his fame and money as Bruce Wayne to fund social change and welfare. Instead, he perpetuates the cycle of violence which drives Gotham further into ruin. His vow against murder is not about morality; it's to keep his victims alive for more torment.

Eh, fair enough I suppose. Though I will say a lot of the more modern comics do show him try to use his fortune and influence to create systemic changes.

Only usually it's done in a quick "This is the thing I'm funding and creating business deals to promote social change today, Alfred.

What's that? Quilt Man has returned and is causing cross knit chaos in downtown Gotham? I must away to bring justice!"

Which makes sense, since the writers are trying to update the character into modern understandings of social and economic problems, while still allowing him to function as a action adventurer (and occasional investigator) that is at the core of audience engagement.

[Bohandas]

Warhammer 40K- The emperor is flat out dead. The ecclesiarchy has spend the past 10000 years doing an elaborate rehash of Weekend at Bernie's

The Prisoner - The #6 lookalike under #1's mask is indeed some aspect of #6 (perhaps a Fight Club style alternate personality). #2 has told him this in every episode of the show ("Who is #1?" "You are, #6.")

Star Trek- The vulcans display a great deal of cultural chauvinism, which they seem to be blind to. What actions are or aren't logical depends very much upon one's choice of axioms, yet they act as if there were only one possible choice.

Ghostbusters- Answer the Call is every bit as much a completely unrelated franchise as the filmation sitcom is

[Bohandas]

Nah, Zion is actually another Matrix. See, the machines learned quickly that humans are an incredibly contrary lot. Give them a perfect world and they will reject it utterly, knowing deep down its fake. Even the simulation of the real world there will be those who subconsciously seek to escape it. But give those few an extra simulation where they were right, there was something out to get them, and now they can fight back? And they will happily accept their new "reality" never knowing its just another facet of the matrix. They remain imprisoned in their own minds, convinced they are fighting to free everyone.

Exactly. Take the red pill and your mind is enslaved by a different but equally pernicious illusion.

[Eldan]

Nah, Zion is actually another Matrix. See, the machines learned quickly that humans are an incredibly contrary lot. Give them a perfect world and they will reject it utterly, knowing deep down its fake. Even the simulation of the real world there will be those who subconsciously seek to escape it. But give those few an extra simulation where they were right, there was something out to get them, and now they can fight back? And they will happily accept their new "reality" never knowing its just another facet of the matrix. They remain imprisoned in their own minds, convinced they are fighting to free everyone.

It also works nicely around most of the inconsistencies and physics problems if you can just assume that nothing in the "real world" is actually as it seems.

[Celestia]

Rick's heretofore unnamed ex-wife was Ms. Frizzle. They're both intelligent with a particular interest in science and adventuring to strange places, so it's understandable that they'd come together out of mutual interest. However, their personalities are different enough to explain the breakup. Perhaps a central part of the breakup was the disagreement over education, or Rick's hatred of school came about because of the divorce. It would also lend an explanation towards Summer's red hair since no one else in the family has it.

[Thrudd]

My Star Wars headcanon :

Anakin is using the Force on Padme, to make her "love" him, all through Episodes 2 & 3. Their confrontation and assault at the end of Episode 3 plays out as it does because he believes she's broken free of his influence.

The Sith Temple on Malacor in Rebels is Treya's Sith Academy from KotoR II.

R2 and Chewie are obviously covert or semi-covert rebel agents the whole time. Han is a cover / front-man for Chewie (although the life debt is quite real, and Chewie is loyal to his friend), his successes as a smuggler are mostly due to the Rebellion quietly rigging things in his favor and providing assistance behind the scenes.

Hyperspace travel is stupidly fast - usually a matter of a couple hours or at most days for really distant systems. (This has a lot of weird knock-on effects on how the SW universe works.) Very little time normally passes during travel - it's like getting in your car for a drive to another city. (A really long hop, like Tatooine to Alderaan is more like a road trip.) The one exception is in Empire, where the Falcon has to comparatively crawl to Bespin outside of hyperspace. We don't know exactly how long it took, but Luke spent at least several months on Dagobah training with Yoda, possibly more.

I like that take on Anakin and Padme, although the entire prequel trilogy needs to be retconned and replaced. Sorry, clone wars cartoons- some of you were awesome, but you will be sacrificed for the greater good.

I agree about Empire and the passage of time. Without hyperdrive, it definitely took months to get anywhere (and even that is probably generously fast). Han and Leia needed time to fall in love, and Luke got in some significant training time.

[GloatingSwine]

Everything that happens in Marvel comics is subconsciously controlled by Franklin Richards.

[khadgar567]

Everything that happens in Marvel comics is subconsciously controlled by Franklin Richards.

that will make some funny sense.

[Amaril]

Warhammer 40K- The emperor is flat out dead. The ecclesiarchy has spend the past 10000 years doing an elaborate rehash of Weekend at Bernie's.

This makes sense to me. I'm not that deep into 40k's fiction, but from everything I have seen, I've always assumed that most of the stuff we're told about the setting is Imperial propaganda, and not necessarily to be trusted. I mean, all the core material I've read was written in an in-character Imperial voice, so I think it makes sense.

Star Trek- The vulcans display a great deal of cultural chauvinism, which they seem to be blind to. What actions are or aren't logical depends very much upon one's choice of axioms, yet they act as if there were only one possible choice.

Is this even headcanon? I thought it was often acknowledged in-setting.

[Bohandas]

Is this even headcanon? I thought it was often acknowledged in-setting.

It might be. I haven't seen anything in the franchise newer than Voyager.

I know in TOS their logic was depicted as flawed, but this not due to a fundamental flaw in their logic like I described but rather due to the idea that human intuition has 1960's new-age woo-woo capabilities that logic is unable to account for.

[Pex]

I mean, it was the Dominion that occupied Bajor, but sure.

Oh also going back to the first page

The Romulans liberated Betazed off screen in a later episode.

I thought this was confirmed by the graffiti at the end.

Always.

[Morty]

My headcanon is that text-Emps eventually finds out about Ciaphas Cain and is just like "You do well. No matter what you think of yourself, you are a true hero of the Imperium. keep up the good work." just, the ONE person he approves of in all of 40k.

I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been an episode about him yet. I'm sure it would be amazing though.

Ciaphas Cain is mentioned in one of the Q&A sessions. The Emperor says that he's one of the few individuals in the galaxy who have enough common sense to deal with what the Chaos Gods throw at them, which is more than he can say for most of his servants.

Also, TTS Big E does approve of three people: Sanguinius, Malcador and Ollanius Pius. All of whom are deader than dead.

[Sapphire Guard]

Batman is not a hero. He does what he does not to protect others but because he is an immature child. He never moved on from his tragedy, and he never learned to accept it. After all these years, he is the same angry kid he was back then. He beats up criminals out of sheer bloodlust and rage. If he wanted to stop crime, he'd use his fame and money as Bruce Wayne to fund social change and welfare. Instead, he perpetuates the cycle of violence which drives Gotham further into ruin. His vow against murder is not about morality; it's to keep his victims alive for more torment.

Y'know, it's funny that the Bat is so often criticised for this kind of thing, when he is one of the few that actually does do exactly that kind of thing.

[TurboGhast]

Y'know, it's funny that the Bat is so often criticised for this kind of thing, when he is one of the few that actually does do exactly that kind of thing.

Being Batman has an opportunity cost, as it takes a lot of time and money that could have gone towards social change instead of directly fighting criminals.

[Deepbluediver]

Being Batman has an opportunity cost, as it takes a lot of time and money that could have gone towards social change instead of directly fighting criminals.

I dunnoh, to me that kinda feels like an argument that everyone who spends any portion of their disposable income on themselves (a new TV, a nice dinner out, a vacation, etc) is somehow evil for not donating it to something related to social services. Since we all know that Gotham has no therapists, at least ones that aren't psychotic wackjob super-villians, being Batman is sort of like therapy for Bruce Wayne. If he couldn't be Batman, there's no telling how it would have turned out. I mean, look at Harvey Dent. If not for Batman, maybe Bruce Wayne would have been Lex Luthor 2.0.


Edit: I guess this theory counts as headcannon, too.

[Keltest]

Being Batman has an opportunity cost, as it takes a lot of time and money that could have gone towards social change instead of directly fighting criminals.

One wonders how much of that social change would actually go into effect with people like the Joker running around