Emperor based thinking...

[Thornblood]

So had a few thoughts knocking around my head and wondering if anyone could shed some light.

Is the Emperor, essentially Jesus if He was an Atheist? Is he just misusing all his messianic super-holy power for war?

Furthermore is the Emperor in the 31st millennium deliberately allowing the rise of chaos because it means that he becomes a god himself?

If the Emperor is something like Jesus, but brings war and death and aethism which causes the rise of chaos and himself to become a god and get all the attention like a glory-hog, is the Emperor essentially the anti-christ?

Pretty massive generalisations, but Im not claiming this is the actual truth, would just like to explore this possibility and find where it falls down/ expands my understanding.

[dzer0]

These are just my ideas so if my opinion is wrong please excuse me :)

I like to think of the emperor in less moral terms, maybe more of a great unifier with quasi good intentions as it relates to the propagation and protection of civilization. Something more like the Roman empire thinking they are more just and moral than say the less civilized tribes surrounding them.

I think without the betrayal things may have gone pretty well for humanity, especially in the conquered galaxies where "righteousness" was forced onto the "unknowing" civilizations. It seems that most of the political corruption started towards the end of the great unification; taxes, tariffs, and tithes began to pull on all human colonies while the emperor was distracted, but it didn't seem to be getting out of hand (abuse of power) until after he was stuck on the golden throne.

I think ultimately the goal was to gather all of humanity under one umbrella, purge all of the chaos manifestation and mutations, and find a way to protect civilization from xenos and chaos.

Interesting stuff to think about either way

[Vior'la Mont'yon]

In a way you can think of the Emperor as purified and amplified humanity. Capable of great deeds, amazing ideas, and the determination too see it through. However he was also flawed. Susceptible to arrogance, being distracted, and the fact he was not a real omnipotent god. His projects switched to granting humanity the web way and the chaos gods used this to target his sons. He was successfully defeating chaos by removing the worship of chaos gods. After all the four do not like working together

[Maleclypse]

My only problem with the Emperor fluff is what did he do during the dark age of technology and what did he play during that?

[The Last Lamenter]

Okay Thornblood,

I dig where you're going with this but, as a fan of 40k, the Bible, and other English publications I must diverge on a few things: In the Bible, if we're going for the Emperor as Messiah, Jesus says "I came not to bring peace but a sword" Even in the 40k universe a popular quote is that "innocence proves nothing" He sets up a universe where life is given meaning through duty. the favored of the Emperor measure their success in blood and it counts for something. As far as the emperor being a glory hog. this is accurate even of a flawless messiah figure. He considers this his right, and it may be. It even hearkens back to Christian theology, as does much of 40k, especially Mechanicum, where the sacrificial lamb is worshiped as the most high, the living avatar of God Himself. And the last thing. The chaos gods being created to turn humanity towards him. Even those of the Christian faith, with a little thought, must admit that Lucifer had to come from somewhere and if we acknowledge omniscience than the creator had to know where it would lead. We know we are in a fixed game, as do the citizens of the Imperium if your theory holds water, but they must deal with it, deal with the horrible fact that the chaos gods may have been created to put humanity to the test and make them worthy of the Emperor's salvation. Do they serve him in spite of this?

[Thornblood]

You all make good points.

Im left scratching my head and going hmmm though rather than have anything helpful to add.

I think the clincher is the original divinity in the Warhammer Universe and perspective. The Eldar gods are true to the Eldar. Whether they are similar, or related to the chaos gods is not clear. Its a pluralistic universe where mutually exclusives co-exist (beyond all possibility, but then the proportions of space marines and catachans broke that along time ago). Whether the C'tan or the Old Ones have any divinity or are just powerful beings is still up for debate.

Which pretty much brings my line of thought to the begginning of the universe- who was there then to be the parents of everyone claiming to be god? Is there a greek/roman style family tree where Kronos vomits his babies out and then they assume the roles of the emperor, the chaos gods, the c'tan etc etc. Are the old ones semi-divine??? Is Mars/Ares Khorne?

And I think that brings my mind to a satisfactory 'We don't really know and nor do GW'.

But yeah Lamenter I have loved the Christian theology and, to me at least it seems evident that Graham Mcneil is the only writer who can really handle the theological side with any sophistication, whilst the others can simply expand corners or copy things straight.

[Wolfshade]

There certainly are some similarities between the two and the emperor certainly follows that same self-sacrifice for the betterment of all.
And as with all good story telling there are archetypes borrowed from various mythology/history.
When trying to figure out how these were created and if they were really born gods or became gods is hard. I always imagined the warp to be filled with an echo of the minds of the sentient and just like the people they were echos of had different personalities, so the more violent ones started to consume others and grow in strength until you had 4 entities that had grown in so much power that they are virtually limitless.
The issue is the eldar gods as they clearly do not confirm to this, nor do we know if there mythos has their gods living in the same plane as the warp

[trjames]

So had a few thoughts knocking around my head and wondering if anyone could shed some light.

Is the Emperor, essentially Jesus if He was an Atheist? Is he just misusing all his messianic super-holy power for war?

Furthermore is the Emperor in the 31st millennium deliberately allowing the rise of chaos because it means that he becomes a god himself?

If the Emperor is something like Jesus, but brings war and death and aethism which causes the rise of chaos and himself to become a god and get all the attention like a glory-hog, is the Emperor essentially the anti-christ?

Pretty massive generalisations, but Im not claiming this is the actual truth, would just like to explore this possibility and find where it falls down/ expands my understanding.

Part of the background in 40K is that the Emperor WAS ACTUALLY Jesus. And also the Buddah, Mohammed, and so on. He was born in 8000 BC, and played a huge part in the development of human culture and thought - pretty much every major player in history was either the Emperor in one of his many guises, or being controlled / manipulated by the Emperor.

[doom-kitten]

I generally picture the Emperor as Humanity given form much like the Chaos gods are the extremes given form, basically his a collection of the best and worst of us all, not really a good guy but not really an evil one either. To me this explains why in 40k humanity is basically dependant upon him, his death equals mankinds end, much in the same why that you kill Nurgle and pestilence, disease and corruption will end (impossible to do I know), I take this to mean as long as the Emperor lives mankind lives and vice versa. I also feel he's is much like the gods in being immortal, you can dstroy his body but so long as humanity believes in him and holds his truth he can never truly die.

[DarkLink]

On that note, I've always seen the Grey Knights as the Emperor's Cult Marines.



It's also worth keeping in mind that may of the Emperor's worst traits weren't really his intention or fault. He never intended the Imperium to become a religiously driven, stagnant culture, for example.

[Brusilov]

While the 40k fluff certainly has Christian inspiration thrown into it, if I were to compare the Emperor with a figure from the Bible, it would certainly not be Jesus.

I'd rather think of him as the Almighty Father (or the Allfather as the Space Wolves call Him), not Jesus Christ. And the Heresy certainly takes from the confrontation between God and Lucifer, portrayed as Horus. I'd even point to the fact that in several pictures the Emperor is seen wrestling with a snake (an obvious Genesis reference to the Devil, aka Lucifer), such as a picture at the beginning of the 3rd Ed rulebook or the cover of the current Ed rulebook.

IMHO, the Emperor hid the Primordial Truth (aka Chaos) in the hopes that it would weaken the Chaos Powers long enough for him to complete his Great Work. If you read through the Visions of Heresy books, you'll learn that the Emperor had a Webway portal hidden under the Imperial Palace and intended to conquer the Webway for Mankind.

With safe means of travel, psykers under control (thanks to the Edict of Nikea) and knowledge of Chaos suppressed, the Chaos Gods would definitely weaken and this would ensure the survival of humanity, which has always been the Emperor's Goal.

Indeed, back in very old fluff (we're talking about the 80's and Realms of Chaos here), the Emperor's sole purpose, for which the Shaman of Old sacrificed themselves, was to protect mankind from the predation of Chaos.

I would also add, that in the 40k universe, belief has the ability to reshape reality thanks to its resonance in the warp. The idea that "man created god in his own image" has never been truer. The emotions of all sentients (Humans, Orks, Eldar etc...) resonate in the warp, with various strength depending on their respective psychic potential.

Emotions tend to coalesce and when they reach a critical mass, they give birth to powerful warp entities, some of which are known as the Chaos Gods. But this is also true for the Eldar gods or the Orks gods. Indeed, I believe it to be true for the Emperor as well.

Tying back to the old Star Child idea, I believe that a warp entity is coalescing around the soul of the Emperor cast adrift in the warp since his battle with Horus. Eventually, like Slaanesh, thanks to the worship of countless billions, it will reach a critical mass and achieve sentience.

It's really too bad GW removed the fluff on the War in Heaven from the Necron Codex, that fluff tied together the whole universe.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the subject here, so I'll stop rambling :rolleyes: