The Great Sleep is the sixty-million-year hibernation the Necrons endured inside their Tomb Worlds, ordered by the Silent King after the wars against the Old Ones and the C’tan left their race too weak to face the rising Eldar and Krork.
Why the Necrons went to sleep
Szarekh, the Silent King, looked at what was left of his people after two back-to-back wars and didn’t like what he saw. The Old Ones were gone, the C’tan had been broken, but the Necrons were spent, and younger races like the Eldar and the Krork were already on the rise.
His answer was patience. The surviving Necron cities were rebuilt as vast tomb complexes laced with stasis-crypts, and the entire race was laid down to rest for sixty million years with orders to rise again and reclaim everything they’d lost.
The Silent King leaves
Szarekh didn’t sleep with his subjects. He destroyed the command protocols that let him control the Necrons, then left the galaxy entirely, apparently looking for some kind of solace or penance for what he’d done.
That decision matters. Without the protocols, no single figure could command the whole race when they woke, which is a big part of why the Necrons came back as rival dynasties instead of one empire.
What went wrong in the tombs
Sixty million years is a long time, and plenty of Tomb Worlds didn’t survive it. Some failed through simple malfunction or bad luck. Others were destroyed by Eldar raiders or natural disasters like solar flares.
There’s a worse fate too. A Necron Lord might wake early, go slowly mad in the silence, and then activate his world’s population without the proper Cryptek protocols, leaving everyone, nobles included, as little more than mindless automatons.
The scale of the losses was enormous, with millions or possibly billions of dormant Necrons destroyed before they ever opened their eyes. Even those who did wake often came back with some degree of cognitive damage.
Known Tomb Worlds and the Awakened Council
A few worlds have specific stories attached to the Great Sleep. Zapennec was forced into slumber with battle debris still stuck in orbit. The Webway around Trantis was sundered, cutting it off from the worlds it used to supply. Seidon’s master program was corrupted, and it started flinging Necron ships into space at random. Mandragora, by contrast, came through relatively intact.
Some Necrons woke early and banded together as the Awakened Council, which imposed strict rules on premature awakenings. Doing it at all was a last resort, and even then only under Cryptek supervision.
- Zapennec: slept with orbital debris still in place
- Trantis: Webway severed, world isolated
- Seidon: corrupted master program, random ship launches
- Mandragora: survived largely unscathed
Key facts
- Ordered by Szarekh, the Silent King, after the War in Heaven and the C’tan rebellion
- Lasted sixty million years inside stasis-crypts in the Tomb Worlds
- The Silent King destroyed his command protocols and left the galaxy rather than sleep
- Many Tomb Worlds were destroyed or corrupted, killing millions or billions of dormant Necrons
- Most survivors woke with some degree of cognitive decay
- Early risers formed the Awakened Council to police premature awakenings
FAQ
How long was the Great Sleep?
Sixty million years, the period the Silent King ordered his race to slumber before reawakening to rebuild.
Why did the Necrons go into the Great Sleep?
They were too weakened after the wars against the Old Ones and C’tan to fight the emerging Eldar and Krork, so hibernation was their way to wait out the danger.
Did every Necron survive the Great Sleep?
No. Many Tomb Worlds failed through malfunction, Eldar attacks, or disasters, and most who did wake suffered some form of cognitive damage.