The God-Emperor cometh

[dmcq]

Hi Peeps

Is it just me or does the Emperors divinity thing seem a little weird?

At the start of the crusade the hugely powerful emperor decrys that all religions are wrong and that under no circumstances is he a god. Now, accepted that he is a huge psychic might, but he is still alive and not on the Golden Throne when manifestations of his "Godly" power start to happen throughout the Galaxy, with visions, miracles and saints spontaneous popping up.

Is there TWO sides to the emperor, one a hugely powerful but earthly being and one a construct of faith in the warp? Or one superpower that comes into its own at a time when most needed?

Is it the reason that the Emperor became so withdrawn at the time??

Any thoughts welcome!!

[dmcq]

There must b somebody out there with a thought on this!!!!!!

[gcsmith]

He was wanting to be considered just a man, but with his tombing on the golden throne and enemies of mankind everywhere people kling to hope in him, and slowly he becomes a god.

[albertsevil]

Well if I remember correctly he had been around since the early days of man and only played his hand once the first galaxy-wide empire of humanity had fallen, which I always took to be a sign of either his slowly growing might (he wasn't powerful enough before the age of strife) or that the timing was not right before.

IIRC there is a short story called The Last Church where the Emperor decries religion but ironically was the inspiration for the religion in the first place.

I think that simply coming out and saying "I am a/the God" would have caused too many problems. Think of all those who would criticise this or, on the other end of the spectrum, expect him to cure the galaxy's woes in one fell swoop. You have the added problems of humanity wanting to know why it exists and who created it, which would surely piss of the Big E, and the fact that he would keep needing to show signs of his divinity (a hard task when psychers can do the same things but on a smaller scale).

If this fantasy world were real, then maybe he just simply knew that an autocratic machine was the greatest, strongest and most long lasting instrument for humanities rebirth. Lorgar would then have been created to spread the Word but was sanctioned because he did it too early and/or was leading people away from their Emperor-alloted tasks/uses and/or wasn't conquering the galaxy fast enough. Maybe the Emperor had been building a presence in the warp (within which he had walked with impunity) all along. Slowly manifesting and biding his time, when humanity no longer needed the warp (the webway was in use) then he could announce his divinity and wage the war of heaven for his own warp-throne, but would have to keep his divinty hidden so that he could achieve this / not alert the chaos gods

Anyway, apologies for the ramblings, just love the background.

My big question to go along with this is; why did the Emperor create Lorgar and then sanction him?
Lorgar's purpose it seems was to be the religious/philosphical primarch. Was he intended to be the Emperor's pope? And was he sanctioned because he imparted his religious mantra too early?

It always seems to me like the Emperor bided his time for 25-30,000 years and then made a relatively quick gamble. In all books it seems like he is rushing. It is possible that he allowed the Primarchs to be scattered (despite the danger of this) so that it would speed up conquering space, he certainly left the crusade before it had finished, was never in one place for or company for long it seems, and tried desperately to break into the webway.
Seems like he knew he had a short time to come out of hiding and do his best, maybe he knew the chaos gods would be onto him and would try and break him once his goal became clear. Maybe he knew all along that a battle would come in one form or other but just hoped he could complete his empire, free man and then fight the chaos 4 once he was safe and strong enough to do so. If this is the case, his actions seem a little less weird (He is a god but falliable. He is a god but decries religion. He is a god but human).

Weird ramble over

[Necron2.0]

Well, for me, WH40K is a game and that's all it is. The genre in general doesn't interest me, other than I like the whole notion of mankind falling so thoroughly into decay that a VW bug is worshipped as an aspect of a god because nobody understands the fundamental nature of technology. As someone who works with technology, I actually see that happening in real life.

However, I'll bite. The question you need to ask yourself is, "What is a god?" Is it really just a super powerful being? If so, then everyone is a god ... from some creature's perspective. Is a god simply something that is worshiped? Well, then I guess money is a god, isn't it? Can a god be mortal? If not, then the C'tan and the ruinous powers cannot be gods, because theoretically they can die ... even if it's just from starving to death. Whether or not the Emperor is a god depends entirely on your definition of god. Once you have the term defined, if the Emperor fits the bill, he is a god whether he likes it or not.

As for the "miracles," again that is a matter of perspective. Maybe the Emperor himself had absolutely nothing to do with it. Maybe mankind is simply more inherently psychic than anyone ever suspected ... or maybe man is becoming that way. The recipients of the miracles could have unknowingly cause the miracles themselves, and only ascribe it to the Emperor because they were using him as a mental avatar to unknowingly marshal their own powers. Perhaps mankind as a whole forms a gestalt psychic entity so vast that not even the ruinous powers can imagine it. Maybe ... and then again, maybe not.

For me, the real question starts with "Is the Emperor even alive in any form at all." Sure, the Astronomicon exists, but is that due to the Emperor's will, or is that merely the result of the Golden Throne's arcane mechanism tearing the souls out of thousands of psykers daily and bleeding them raw straight out into the void. Is any portion of the Emperor's will still residing in his husk, or has his soul gone back to the warp millenia gone by.

Personally, I side with Bones: "He's dead, Jim." ;)

[AirHorse]

The emperor was biding his time until humanity could expand with relatively little resistance. With the colapse of the eldar empire it was his time. At this point I wouldnt call the emeperor a god, perhaps more like a father figure for humanity, leading his "family" to greatness when the oportunity presented itself.

In my opinion it was only in death, or at least his physical death, that he became a god. In the eyes of humanity he went from the greatest and most powerful of men, bordering on divinity(perhaps he was always a god, that is certainly debatable), to a being that has endured the death of his own body, effectively conquering death and more importantly enduring in the hearts and minds of mankind for as far as time has been told.

Regardless of your point of view on how far his divinity extends(does he really still exert his will of his own accord?) he has become a god by default, a symbol of immortality that has lasted ten thousand years and beyond and that has steeled mankind against many evils. In my book that makes him divine.

[Thornblood]

Back with the fathers of Fantasy and Science Fiction began to write the epic books that shaped our fantastic hobby, each book had a philosophical, theological, political, historical and social exploration within it, as a reflection of our world. it wasn't always considered the leisurely 'trash' that makes up comic books and the like. The themes are very evident especially within the greats like JRR Tolkien, Issac Asimov, C.S. Lewis, Philip K Dick and the like.

Games Workshop however has its own philosophies, theologies, sociology's and the like but written by a number of authors, none of which are quite up to the deep understanding that the previously mentioned writers have and each one writes from their own perspective, impressing their own world view and bringing their own personal and relatable experiences to the fluff. In my opinion, this is one of the great strengths of the Warhammer 40k universe- that anyone can pick up and write into it and make a corner, a planet, a system, a campaign their own. This does however lead to hole in the fluff, often left deliberately ambiguous that no one touches, and people only hint at (like Prince Harry's dad, or the TV series LOST). This means that as people edge closer and closer to the crux of the matter in fluff they create contradicting arguments.

The Emperor is a fictional being, who is fantastic in his role as he echoes things that we already know in the world around us. In particular he has a number of themes and he mimics other real-world individuals to create a super-individual.

One theme is a Jesus-theme. Saviour of Mankind, primarchs for disciples (each disciple represented one of the twelve tribes of Israel) but Horus was far more evil than Judas and more competent than satan. Jesus didn't start his public ministry until he is thirty, and then is crucified three years later. The Emperor keeps quiet and dosn't start his public 'career', and Great Crusade till he is ready. Then, at the end of his life (sort of) you get the final betrayal and the kind of Easter story that a science fiction world based on warfare needs; The Horus Heresy finishing with the blow that put The Emperor on the Golden Throne. With the Jesus theme you now have a parallel for the cross. In some ways you can see the Emperor teleporting to Horus' ship for the epic fight similar to Jesus visiting Hell to take on Lucifer. However- the genius twist is rather than coming back to life, conquering death and the Emperor being the second coming, he is put on life support. In Inquisitor it talks about different factions that believe the Emperor should remain, should be switched off to fulfill the Jesus-theme and come back from the dead, or just plain be switched off. Also, the prologue of litany in Mechanicum is copied almost word for word out of the Bibles book of revelation, revealing the second coming, the Apocalypse and the end days. In terms of divinity you have the Christian doctrine of Jesus being entirely man and entirely God. Jesus dosn't say that he is the Messiah straight until his trial before Pilate, until that point in the gospels its other people recognizing Him as the Christ/Messiah- God as man and them telling it. He does however keep pointing and hinting and saying in very complex ways that He is who He is, but, His first miracle is the wedding at Cana and he tells his Mum "My hour has not yet come"- Jesus hour came at the cross, similarly The Emperor reveals his godliness at the seige of Terra.

The Emperor also has a Julius Ceasar theme. This is clearly seen with his title 'Emperor', the organization of the Astartes, overuse of latin, the Imperial Eagle as a symbol, etc etc. In particular Julius Caesar was a normal man, who conquered a big chunk of Europe, became dictator (sort of) and after his death was proclaimed a god. Much simpler way of explaining why the Emporer was not a god before he was dead, however the Jesus theme its too strong to ignore. There is more Caesar stuff out there, but not much more relevant to this. The Emperor is a combination of both individuals.

In regards to the psychic thing, I think the assumption is that psykers can do the paranormal themselves, whilst prayers beseech a god to do things for you. In WH40k, the chaos gods seem to dwell and be made out of the very stuff that is raw psychic power, however the Emperor has an inconsistency in the fiction as to his psychic powers. The Eldar gods seem to be quite Empyrean based, but its the Battle Sisters faith that shows up the miracles being not psychic. It however dosnt have to make sense, and different authors put different ideas into it and different spins on it.

Well, that was alot longer than intended...

[spikeybitz]

How about this...

It seems that the answer might be more interesting. What is being put forth is that after he tdark night, the emporer created the primarchs to help him reunite humanity and keep the human race safe. However, he was not powerful enough on his own to do this, so he bargained with the chaos gods for assistance. Knowing that the chaos gods would be the ultimate ruin of mankind, however, he had to decry the existence of all gods, including himself, to humanity to limit the chaos gods' access to our worlds. Therfore his focus on science.

I think the tricky thing is that in 40k, the "gods" are not omniscient, omnipowerful beings. Super, SUPER powerful, yes, but not the end all be all. The Emporer is obviously on the level of the chaos gods, at least. So it appears that they plotted themselves and in an attempt to eventually get rid of the emporer, they took over Horus' body after successfully mortally wounding him, and then turned the Emporer's own super soldiers against him. Of course, being a "god", he's not dead, just "dead", maintained in some semblance of unlife on the Golden Throne.

[Count Fenring]

It was pointed out in one of the recent HH books that the Primarchs are each an aspect of the Emperor. I forget the title, but the recent HH books clarify quite a few of the things being spoken of here. Also anyone remember which HH novel had the Emperor in ancient Egypt beating one of the C'Tan, then putting it on mars?

So it seems he has been trying over the many long years to route humanity in the most likely avenue of success (brutal or not) for the long term of the species. His plans obviously cut short by the HH, leaving humanity in this slow decline and its terrible slide into ignorant religion once more.

I always liked the "Inquisition War" series by Ian Watson which covered much of this material and that scary chat with the emperor on the throne. Gut wrenching stuff.

It is canon that Humans were one of the last races built by the Old Ones and only partially finished. It always seemed to me, the Emperor was the last gasp attempt by the Old Ones to foster humanity before the Old Ones mostly died off.

Remember at that point in time, the warp was largely compromised, which greatly limited the OO (old ones). It seems to make sense to me for the Emperor to have a mandate to try to limit his humans tinkering in the warp for this very purpose.

He would also be a master of history and would know that religion (whatever its dirty flavor) begets nothing but violence and ignorance eternal. This seems a very good reason to try to stop his humans from that type of limited, dead-end understanding.

Anyway, enjoy rapture day today;)

[Alpha Omega Protocol]

The Emperor could have just used reverse psychology and said no religion, and then a religion was created around him. lol

Plus I think it could have been his backup plan if he couldn't finish his work that eventually he would get the power in the warp from all the members of the God Emperor's church. Thus giving him power he would need in the end to free mankind and rule all of humanity in person again.

[The Last Lamenter]

Thanks to Ser. Thornblood, who I quote in here...

With the current amount of background information made available by the introduction of the Horus Heresy series, and the often contradictory views of its many authors, there is a lack of unified theology concerning the Imperium. While this clearly reflects the divisive denominations of the Imperial Cult by the 41st Millennium, it does little for those of us who have struggled with one question more than any other in the grim darkness of the far future: “Is the Emperor a god? Or has man made him a god?” Whether or not the Emperor is a divine being or not, the irony of his actual or implied divinity provides the basis for the tragedy that is Warhammer. There are three possibilities to the nature of the Emperor’s divinity.
The first idea is that, during The Great Crusade, the emperor denies the notion of his divinity under false pretenses in order to shield his people from the warp, which feeds on such non-secular sentiments. For example, if his divinity is unveiled, then how long before supernatural thinking leads to disastrous contact with the ruinous powers. Secular Humanism directly weakens the influence of the Warp, but is still a lie, though told for a righteous purpose.
The second possibility, the one that I embrace, is that the emperor is unaware of his own divinity as the physical manifestation of the Anathema Force in the Warp (God). He has yet to fully grasp his own divinity as the savior of not only the Imperium but mankind’s souls. The emperor represents not only the Messiah Archetype, or the sacrificial lamb, but specifically Author Pendragon, who will eventually return from Avalon, that place of half-death, to save his people in their time of greatest need. This time is yet to come, as humanity has so far and with tremendous struggle defeated every threat, showing its dogged determination to survive amidst unspeakable horrors. The Arthurian subtext is only fitting since so many of the Black Library’s authors are British and, try as they might, cannot steer clear of Camelot’s archetypes, which have always been the most elegant in their reflections of the human condition. What is most intriguing is that if the emperor does not recognize his divinity then he does not assume his resurrection, in keeping with the Christ figure archetype, and may thereby delay both his ascension and humanity’s salvation by prolonging his death with interment upon the Golden Throne. This state of half-death produces a god operating under limited powers. If the rules of the archetype apply within the 40k universe, then Lorgar was right when he wrote the Lectio Divinatus. I only wonder if secretly, the emperor mourned his chastisement of his son, knowing that it would lead to his embrace of chaos, but knowing that it was what was best for humanity at the time. The reason the galaxy is in such a horrible mess by the 41st millennium is due to the chief irony that provides the basis for the tragedy of the Imperium of Man and of contemporary science fiction. We have crippled the power of a god with fallen technologies. We do not have the faith needed (Perhaps not even the emperor himself) to believe that the emperor is stronger than death and so we must preserve him with the wonders of his technology and that of the Mechanicum.
There is also an allegorical school of thought which greatly simplifies the Emperor’s story-arch as a reference to Julius Caesar. This interpretation would explain the organization of the Astartes into legions, the imperial eagle icon, and , in particular, as Thorn Blood said earlier, “Julius Caesar was a normal man, who conquered the known world, became a dictator, and was proclaimed a god after his death.” The miraculous manifestations, the rise of saints, and other divine incidents are, therefore, evidence of mankind's being more latently psychic than previously thought and the ability of faith in emperor to banish warp spawn or protect against chaos exists merely because people believe it can, generating a rudimentary psychic field similar to the Ork’s “Waaagh!” This view maintains the secular nature of 40k, but greatly inflates the depth of the tragedy to the point of grotesque satire, for all the faith in the 41st millennium loses any notion of meaning. I believe the writers do not clarify the ambiguous nature of the Emperor’s divinity so as to not alienate the secular humanist SF fans who would be loath to live in any universe where technology was not the only god. Once the mechanisms in the Golden Throne fail, the Black Library will be forced into an awkward position when the Astronomicon is snuffed out, for then humanity will either be saved by the emperor’s divinity, or the story will end and Old Night will reclaim the Imperium of Man.

[Wildcard]

If i am not completely mistaken, entities in the warp are born from the normal space 'emotions'. Wasn't that the way Eldar gave birth to Slaanesh? (Lust, excess, etc..)

While worshipping god is not an emotion in itself, worship in general generates lots of emotions, others being 'positive', like the driving will to do good, or 'love' etc, but it also brings forth destructive emotions like hate and despise.

Given the fact that 40k in general has references to "our time" (and our known history), an assumption can rather safely be made that in 40k christian crusades and holy wars of islam have taken place, atleast to a some extent, or equivalent horrors in the name of gods. It just is in the nature of human kind.

Now, Emperor being with humanity "from the start" must certainly know this. And He must have a deeper understanding of how the 'warp works'. Thus, to choose from two bad options, he chooses to ban the religions, to minimize the possibility of 'extremes of emotions'...



My big question to go along with this is; why did the Emperor create Lorgar and then sanction him?

...Now, we all know that positive emotions are much less formidable than negative ones ;) ,so to achieve the 'creation' (or anchoring) of positive, good willed creature in the warp, it would require a huge huge amount of like-minded positive thinkers - a religion with certain commandments, and here is where Lorgars role sets in..

However, no matter how well things would go, if there was a possibility to wage war, religious holy zealots would eventually go for the crusade. And thus, no God for the religion could be 'crowned' before there was no enemies left for the imperium of man.

It was also stated in one of the HH books that the Emperor made a pact with the warp gods to get the primarch project going, and then created the imperiums most potent geller field to keep the chaos at bay from his gene-lab. This would suggest that the Emperor was not as powerfull or all knowing since he a) had to ask for help to create his primarchs and b) he had to hide and not just straight forward go wage war in the warp against the gods, be that one at a time, or all at once..

It is worth noting though, that the chaos gods (or more specifically their lackeys) ofter refer emperor as "Anathema".


Anathema: A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, often accompanied by excommunication; denunciation of anything as accursed.

This was one definition of a word "Anathema". And based from the description, it could even hint, that Emperor indeed was a god, possibly younger and less powerfull than the other warp gods, yet with one significant difference: Where chaos gods were given birth by dark emotions, The Emperor would have been given a form by lighter emotions. Possibly by early era humanity. An event in the history of human kind, where sh*t has really hit the fan, and they have just had to kling to some hope and wait for deliverance...

Thus being such a stark contrast to the previous inhabitants of the warp, the chaos gods would have banished this "light being"..

I am not sure if the "Shaman"-fluff is well incorporated into the actual fluff, but if i remember right, there were multiple shamans who were guardians of mankind.. yet, at some point they felt darkness gaining foothold, and their own powers diminishing (less and less shamans were reborn or something like that). So, they decided to ritually take their own lives to create a vessel strong enough to survive..

Now, if this would have happened at the time of Warp-Emperors banishment, the super-body generated by the mass suicide of the shamans would have been the only body possible to contain the force of the Emperor entirely.. And at the same time, it would have granted the Emperor the escape route from the darker entities..

Long post again, but i just find this speculation to be so much entertaining, so my apologies :)

[The Last Lamenter]

I hear you. And You bring up a good point. The death of the Shamans was surely reflected within the warp, because psychers burn brightest among men within the warp. But the death of the shamans is not the same as the birth pangs of Slanaash because he was created only within the warp, whereas the Emperor represents a dual-entity. He exists both in the physical realm and within the warp. It is possible that, before his "undeath" the physical Omnissiah was not aware of his warp-self. This would work because the gods in 40k are not omniscient or all-knowing. But don't you think the fathers of 40k purposely leave the emperor's divinity ambiguous so as not to turn off any of the fans who might be offended by a world governed by higher beings? It's science fiction after all... Science is God in most sci-fi.

[Wildcard]

What i was after, was that what if emperor was first "born" in the warp, and with the united effort of 4 chaos gods was banished and as so would have been destoyed / killed, if there was no body to manifest in (kinda similar setting that is written in some of the books that a warp entity needs a host to manifest). This time however, the entity (Emperor) was completely transferred into the only body capable of holding its essence (since all that would have been left in the warp would had been consumed by the chaos gods..)

This could (atleast partly) explain it aswell, how do they (Emperor and chaos gods) know each other so well, and why the endless hate towards him..

Again, i am not 100% sure, but wasn't part of the pact to create primarchs (where the chaos gods helped) that the emperor would stay out of the warp?

[mjasghar]

Remember that stuff about Slaanesh having always existed yet not existed bfore the Fall of the Eldar?
There is a GodEmp in the future, in the warp.
As the warp is outside of time, this future emp can do miracles in the past/present - in effect it is echoes of these being doing it. The nearer the creation of the godemp approaches, the more powerful those echoes are.
As for the nature of those miracles, it is established that untouchables can't use faith powers, so they are psyhcic - but in a very limited way and effectively external. Thus, unlike Chaos, the Emp's saints and sisiters of battle don't become psykers.
However.
Reading Horus Rising, it seems clear that Keeler was a latent psyker - she could hear Samus.
Finally.
The bargaining with the Choas gods is how THEY described it. It is possible that it's their take on the Emp summoning aspects of humanity's consciousness into incarnate flesh - aspects partly taken from the chaos gods, in the way Khaine was part of Khorne. When Ferrus Manus dies, a bunch of faces erupt in the air, similar to the idea that greater daemons have cpative souls inside. When Magnus appears in spirit form to the Emp, he has a similar appearance.
Of course, they could have been truthful. It is established that Space marines are the best servants of chaos. Why? Because they can handle the power of chaos inside for 100s of years without becoming spawn. So, maybe the chaos 4 saw that this plan would give them servants and with along with it, ignoring the equal possibility that uncorrupted marines could be their undoing.
My take on the Emp is this - in his Human form he has foresight - he sees the one path that will let humanity survive and all the necessary stuff in the short term to get there. He CAN'T see the medium term consequences, even for himself.
A VERY VERY interesting point : in the black llibrary blog where the HH authors met recently, one of them said the Emp exists simultaneously in the warp and realspace, so is impossible to write His perspective. Now, that is interesting

[Thornblood]

The Last Lamenter; You are clearly a scholar and a gent.

I am actually now beginning to explore another Emperor theme. That is that maybe intentionally, maybe unintentionally, maybe unknowingly, The Emperor has placed the galaxy in perpetual universal warfare, has caused the awakening of the Chaos Gods and their worship and set them up as his antagonists. Maybe the Emperor was always an agent of chaos.

I've set up another thread with some other thoughts I have because this thread seems to be quite deep and engaging and dont want this train of thought to be lost.