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[Loud Whispers]

Alternatively, the lack of need for the Mechanicus' weapons production gives the Ecclesiarchy reason to suggest the Treaty of Olympus has expired and all this "Omnissiah" heresy should stop, at which point they rebel and we have another galaxy-spanning civil war.

External peace =/= Lack of need for the Mechanicus's weapons, both the administratum and ecclesiarchy would have great need of all the Mechanicus's forge worlds. The need for plasteel, adamantium, ferrocrete and so on would remain for all products and buildings, as would all things vital for security and communications, as well as tools and other bits and bobbins. Needless to say it'd be a conflict that I don't think the Adeptus Terra would start, considering how you don't provoke the people who give you your guns.
Plus, I want to imagine what the hell the Imperium would do if it didn't have to struggle just to survive. It is likely that war will find its way back to the Imperium after any moment of peace, but liken it to WWI and WWII - what happens in the peace in between? What does this moment of peace, in between only war, look like? How could they ever make it last?

[nenjin]

You turn from the enemy without to start identifying the enemies within.

[MrRoboto75]

Isn't surprising peace in a war universe how Blood Bowl was created?

[Teneb]

Since primaris marines were mentioned... how long do you guys think it'll take for chaos primaris marines?

[Egan_BW]

Chaos Double-Extra-Primaris Marines transported from the distant future via warp?

[Ghazkull]

This. The Imperium depends on war to keep its industrial base going and its populace occupied. Much like Oceania, it must fight to persist. If it cannot find heretics for the Guard and the Marines to die fighting, it will invent more as required.

Yeah but imagine all the things happening in between, and imagine the people who try making the first steps towards a post-war economic recovery, the kinds of people who stop melting down statues to make artillery shells, and start melting down artillery shells to make statues.

Space marines wandering, immortal, purposeless like ronin and errant knights.
Kriegers, happy, having lived to actually see forgiveness, trying to learn what it means to be human.
Catachanians become known as space australians, but otherwise very little else changes about their existence.
Ogryns become stars of Tallarn Rugby Roulette and household names of disreputable taverns.
The Adeptus Mechanics sends forth explorator fleets with renewed vigour, setting up new centers of documentation and archiving rediscovering all that humans lost on dead worlds, dead worlds now seeing colonization by a human population recovering from the endless war.
The Imperial Navy remains the same, as one of the very few institutions in the Imperium incapable of changing - but is bolstered by the addition of new capital ships, as the turtle's pace of Imperial ship production exceeds attrition.
The Inquisition, the Arbites, Deathwatch and the Sisters of Battle increasingly turn their eyes inwards to maintaining the political integrity of the Imperium. As mankind ceases to have common foes, the secret police ensure arguments do not become secession, and the scary face of the overt police in the Commissariat ensure any ambitious governors lodge complaints first with the Imperium (the complaints department is a bolt pistol).
The administratum attempts to sort out the Herculean effort of solving the Imperium's bloated bureaucracy and buried records, buried under millennia of more records, receipts and laws, but they actually manage to begin making progress - they set up a new department for managing the paperwork of paperwork managing. Nonetheless administratum morale is at an all time high, with request forms for reproduction pairing inspections through the roof.
Way in the upper echelons of society, governors, princes, admirals, administrators, dictators, captains, lords, inquisitors and fabricator generals begin the mad scramble for influence over their own private princedoms with which to call their domain, with an elaborate game of cosmic cloak and dagger from which few Imperials can survive for long. Business as usual more or less continues, but most planets find their Imperial tithe changing to knowledge, energy and humans - only now, the humans join the Imperial Guard to engage in elaborate civil engineering projects. Planetary defences are a high priority amongst such development, as old habits die hard, and men in fortifications die harder.
Hive worlds begin flooding with wealth and arts, like a neo-Shanghai in space now with more smooth jazz, as more and more of Hive society begins enjoying in the good life, free from starvation, xenos predation and culling missions, though the Ecclesiarchy, Mechanicus and Administratum still sends forth expeditions to "recruit" hivers when the staff lists are running a bit short. All the uncountable Imperial Guardsmen finally get to settle down on a world somewhere, some of them vowing to return to a home they once had, if it still exists, others just glad to get to die standing - this time, with a family. Leman Russes roll around farms with ploughs attached to the back, their tractor treads finding a place right at home on verdant agri-worlds.
Pilgrims travel throughout the Imperium, spreading with them ideas and fables, and no one dares scam them lest they fall into disrepute with the pilgrim's guards - great statues, that in a time long ago were called "Black Templars."
With the military necessity for Titan construction absent, a constitutional crisis occurs within the Adeptus Mechanicus as to whether the methods employed in constructing additional Titans is tech-heresy or a holy necessity.
The Ordo Malleus and the Ordo Ordinatus go around identifying, quarantining and clearing worlds that could become habitable, once all the unexploded doomsday weapons and screaming soul-foliage is cleared.
Imperial Death Cults and Khornate Death Cults begin a secret war that occasionally explodes into all-out murderfests, but no one else wants to step in and stop the disturbing murder goblins, as they otherwise stick to the shady undersides of urbanized Imperial worlds.
Remembrancers make a comeback, as the Imperium begins recording the time of restored tranquility, fully expecting war to return at any moment.

Now this sounds like an awesome game universe all unto itself.

"Only Peace" - In which players either take control over the overall imperium, as the reawakened Imperator, who finds himself now without anything really to kill.

Or as Rogue Traders, Imperial Guardsmen, Space Marines and Inquisitors all out of Jobs.

The thing is how that universe came to be in the first place. I mean sure if you get some Necron and Eldar support i  can imagine that some way could be found to seal chaos out, (at least the big warp rifts), The Tyranids could be made to turn around with some good old Necron Shenanigans.
Even in a Imperium free of mortal enemies, there is still Orks, Genestealer Cults, Enslavers, Space Hulks and ten dozen other "minor" inconveniences bumbling about.

As for Necrons, im pretty sure with them now being free of c'tan chains they could be basically turned back to warring unto themselves, Khemri style as they fight over the decision as to what to do now or something. And the Eldar are probably content with hunting down the Dark Eldar and finding some measure of peace in their corner of the Galaxy, doing their thing.

Then again thinking about it, it would probably be better to keep it vague in that regard. Rumors of Xeno Empires at the Border of the Empire from which Humanity is strictly isolated (with the exemption of some sanctioned ports of course, Nanban Port Style)

Damn now i want to run an PnP or something of that. With a mixed feel of Post-War and Interbellum Germany, Post-Warring States Japan and Opium War China.

[GiglameshDespair]

The military arms of the Imperium would never be out of a job for the same reason nations today at peace and with no likelihood of invasion have militaries.

The IG would be a protective bulwark against future dangers, supply of labour in disaster relief, an easy way to ensure movement of genetic variance across the Imperium. They would fight rebels and successionists, hostile xenos (because it's impossible to get all of them, no matter what you try).

There's plenty of planets in the Inperium already not actively at war. For them, peace would change little,but perhaps more resouces would go towards development and the common man rather than military matters.

[Loud Whispers]

Now this sounds like an awesome game universe all unto itself.
"Only Peace" - In which players either take control over the overall imperium, as the reawakened Imperator, who finds himself now without anything really to kill.
Or as Rogue Traders, Imperial Guardsmen, Space Marines and Inquisitors all out of Jobs.
The thing is how that universe came to be in the first place. I mean sure if you get some Necron and Eldar support i  can imagine that some way could be found to seal chaos out, (at least the big warp rifts), The Tyranids could be made to turn around with some good old Necron Shenanigans.
Even in a Imperium free of mortal enemies, there is still Orks, Genestealer Cults, Enslavers, Space Hulks and ten dozen other "minor" inconveniences bumbling about.

It'd be interesting to have genestealer cults running autonomously having been left behind by the nids. Plus the idea of an Ork-Imperium alliance is pretty funny, reminds me of an idea - of what happened if the Orks managed to win 40k in totality. The idea went that having destroyed all other factions, the Orks would miss the good ol' days and split into different historical reenactment factions. So the Eldar-Orks would be brutal cunning and always go into long rants about how youz grots is zoggin up this world but iz won't tell you why, the Imperial Orks will drop from space or shoot big looted basilisks LARPing as guardsmen with commissar hats or spehss mahrines, the Ork Orks will be very Orky indeed e.t.c.

Then again thinking about it, it would probably be better to keep it vague in that regard. Rumors of Xeno Empires at the Border of the Empire from which Humanity is strictly isolated (with the exemption of some sanctioned ports of course, Nanban Port Style)
Damn now i want to run an PnP or something of that. With a mixed feel of Post-War and Interbellum Germany, Post-Warring States Japan and Opium War China.

If you're gonna use it as a setting and not a thought experiment, keeping it vague adds in the extra anxiety that it's possible there doesn't actually exist any peace, everyone's just become convinced there is. You could even have some plausible grim dark breakdown of the astropath post service or something, so the Imperials are convinced the nids are gone, that chaos is contained, that the Imperium is recovering, but in reality everything's getting worse and this is just the last millennium of the Imperium - bit like one of the last Emperors of the Han, stuck in an information bubble convinced the Empire was in a state of harmony, when in reality everything was in total pandemonium with cannibalism and warlords being the norm outside the palace walls.
Or rather, there is peace, but as others have said ITT, something will upset the peace eventually. All the wandering supersoldiers and veterans. All the political intrigue. The two heads of Adeptus Terra and Adeptus Mechanicus. The various religious causes and heretic hunters of different creeds. The peace potentially causing Slaanesh II Weimar boogaloo. The story of the Inquisition trying to cope with peace would be pretty hilarious, and pretty tragic.
Then of course the third option in all this ambiguity, is that there is lasting peace. That leads to the most difficult question, in that in 40k the Imperium's goal is survival, all of its ambitions revolve around survival. Thus what happens when all immediate mortal threats are neutralized? What direction does humanity ultimately decide to take, what sort of values would each branch of the Imperium choose to uphold? What sort of human evolution would they take, and what sort of lives would all the normal people choose to live, now that peace would grant even more the freedom to choose? If the question was not whether the Imperium survives, but what it lives for, what would the Imperium's citizenry live for?
I like your idea of a mixed feel of Germany, Japan and China. Gives the impression of a once proud Imperial system caught in changing times, makes the old system feel old, and the Imperium already makes itself feel old

[Dorsidwarf]

Would an Imperium that unshackled itself from the chains of eternal war for survival have transitioned from grimdark to grimbright?

[GiglameshDespair]

Depends how much changes.
If they keep making tanks and rifles instead of cars and butter, just to go in armouries for the next few millenia, it's grimdark.
If they do start progressing, relearning lost technology, spending their resources now on improving people's lives - that, I suppose, would be grimbright.

[Rolan7]

There's plenty of planets in the Inperium already not actively at war. For them, peace would change little,but perhaps more resouces would go towards development and the common man rather than military matters.

Yeah, I was thinking this too.
I'm not sure why peace would be a problem for the Imperium, really.  It's the Imperium.  If nothing else, they could just throw guardsmen and tanks into a black hole to simulator the Only War.  Or they could enforce limits on family size, and the Mechanicus could retool.  It's not like the Mechanicus is a corporation which only makes weapons, and so has a powerful interest in continued warfare.  They hold all technology sacred.

Fakedit:  Yeah, I think it'd go somewhat grimbright.  Lots of intrigue, though.  Hive worlds, never directly touched by the wars, are pretty violent places.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm not sure why peace would be a problem for the Imperium, really.  It's the Imperium.  If nothing else, they could just throw guardsmen and tanks into a black hole to simulator the Only War.

I think you just explained this

Spoiler: I'd go around it too (click to show/hide)

[Rolan7]

I love that image so damn much.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It is the 52nd Millennium. For nearly a hundred centuries The Emperor has lain silent within the Golden Tomb of Earth. Mankind now travels lost from his vision, our fate cut free by bloody agony. He was our savior, who lifted us from the Old Night. Our oppressor, who bound the destiny of humankind to his will. Our father, who showed us the potential of our kind and warned us of doors better unanswered. And he was our doom, who brought forth the storm of ages by his own hand. Should we be faithful or faithless, his age has come to an end.

Even now, when all others have fallen, we are yet unsatisfied. Grand warships resigned to trade and supply cross the death-stilled Realm of Souls, the place once feared and worshiped as a place of Power, its masters fallen quiet and their names forgotten. Decrepit armies consumed by malaise and the watch, always this Final Vigil, the scars of a universe proven hateful by the tales of our ancestors. Most lost among these are the immortal Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, who learned by degrees that there was a deeper suffering than fear. Their once-comrades linger still: the Imperial Guard that fights against the ambition of men's hearts, the bickering guides of the Inquisition and the questing-techs of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. And it is the weight of these, the fist of mankind still gripped hard enough to dent steel that forms a threat far greater than any aliens, heretics, or mutants - if indeed such things are truly to be hated now.

To be human in such times is to be one amongst the awaiting trillions. It is to live in an empire without a purpose that any can remember, who survived beyond rage, beyond hope, beyond apocalypse to see a dawn unbelieved. These are the tales of those times. Forget the will to sacrifice, for there is nothing left to surrender, only to forge anew. Forget the pleasure of zeal and the thrill of fire, for in the shadow of the far future, if just for this one impossible moment, there is only peace. Between the stars there are no gods, there are no hidden evils, there is...silence.

[Egan_BW]

Did- did you just make Only Peace grimdark?!