My theory on why the Emperor didn't anticipate the Heresy

[randian]

My bit of supposition requires two two axioms:

 

1) The Emperor doesn't know he was reincarnated. That's not a huge stretch, it is a staple of reincarnation stories that you don't know.

2) The Emperor was reincarnated directly into adulthood, and was never a child.

 

Imagine if you had intense prophetic visions due to your psychic powers, but no memory of your parents (because you didn't have any) and no memory of your childhood (because you never had one). That could make for one screwed up individual. One of the complaints about the Emperor is how bad he appears to be as a "parent" to the Primarchs. That isn't difficult to explain: he was never raised from childhood so he has no parental model to draw upon, and his psychic powers make it almost inevitable he would never have an simple human interaction with others. Humans have a nasty habit of dropping to the floor in obeisance in his presence. By the time he brings the Primarchs into the fold, he no longer relies on human intuition and understanding to navigate interpersonal interactions, but on his psychic powers. He therefore completely misses underlying subtext which any ordinary human would have detected immediately. Thus is the Emperor's might the cause of his eventual downfall. He teleports Angron away from his planet when he could have teleported down and cemented Angron's loyalty by helping him defeat his enemies, not because he's an uncaring jerk, but because he's an uncomprehending one. The same goes when he tells Lorgar to suck it up and stop worshipping him, when he squashes Perturabo's pride by sticking him on guard duty, when he tries to rein in Magnus through public humiliation, and when he stops confiding in Horus. These are not different mistakes, but the same mistake made repeatedly. He fails to understand the centrality of anger, pride, and worship to human life. These are not the mistakes somebody who truly understands how to cultivate loyalty would make. He never had learn how to cultivate loyalty in humans, it was automatic due to his psychic presence, but the Primarchs aren't so vulnerable. They required actual skill which the Emperor didn't have. The loyal Primarchs were so in spite of the Emperor, not because of him. The Traitor Primarchs turned because though their loyalty appeared strong it was in truth weak and built on a foundation of sand, so when another offer came along they took it.

[increaso]

Whilst i don't agree with your theory it is nonetheless well thought out.

 

If the Primarchs each have a trait from the Emperor then what you describe is the Lion's trait.

[Tutteman]

Whilst i don't agree with your theory it is nonetheless well thought out.

 

If the Primarchs each have a trait from the Emperor then what you describe is the Lion's trait.

 

However I think the Lion's trait of not understanding people was more nuture then nature, in that he never dealt with people when he was young and out in the forest. But it is basically a sound theory. The Emperor didn't understand people to the degree that he needed. Not sure i agree, but its all academic.

[uhefter]

Is it so different, the Emperor, from a every day dad? The Emperor wanted all his children to be like him, but gave them very specific traits. And, as every dad does, isn't real sure as to how to deal with his kids when they take that trait and use it, based on their upbringing. Let's not forget that, paraphrasing from "Legion", "he's a cold harted bastard" (John Gramaticus), the Emperor seemed to have a singular view of things. So if the Big E didn't care for how his kids were using their "gifts", he'd try to squash them. But, as all dads know, it's a long wait for a train don't come if you think telling your kids no solves the problem....

[Pacific81]

An interesting theory, and personally I don't think an outlandish one at all.

 

And it leads to the question, could a being such as the Emperor actually be a human at all? As you say, is he so far removed from the normal social aspects of humanity that you and I take for granted, that he ignores the obvious blunders he has made? When you get down into the definitions of what it means to be 'human', do we rely solely on his physical form and of looking like a man (and after reading Legion, and other accounts of him, even that is brought into question). A being which has lived for tens of thousands of years, who has a psychic (and perhaps physical?) might which eclipses that of the Primachs - those beings which he created, and are so powerful that they seem almost divine in nature. Who has such a powerful psychic beacon in the warp, and who is capable of creating his own version of the eldar webway and even seeing into the future. That he seems to share little of the emotional or psychological connections to other human beings - all of these things combined makes me think he is 'human' only in the loosest possible sense of the term.

 

And this opens up a whole other can of worms as far as motivation is concerned - namely, why would he share the same vision for furthering humanity? The creatures with which he has such little in common?

[Algrim Whitefang]

My bit of supposition requires two axioms:

 

1) The Emperor doesn't know he was reincarnated. That's not a huge stretch, it is a staple of reincarnation stories that you don't know.

2) The Emperor was reincarnated directly into adulthood, and was never a child.

 

Imagine if you had intense prophetic visions due to your psychic powers, but no memory of your parents (because you didn't have any) and no memory of your childhood (because you never had one). That could make for one screwed up individual.

 

Randian, the only problem with your theory here is that it has been a long established fact (going way back to the RT Era in the Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness book) that the Emperor is the collective reincarnation of the extinct shamans, sorcerers and wisemen who had guided primitive humanity since prehistoric times. It has also been established that the Emperor was born of mortal parents and that he had brothers and sisters whom were mortals. The Emperor, much later in his life revealed that he was born in the eighth millennium B.C., and his birthplace as Central Anatolia (modern day Turkey). For thousands of years (before becoming the Emperor), this 'New Man' (the first and greatest of the race of human psykers) guided and watched humanity develop over the course of its history, assuming the guise of a large number of historical personages. He was aware that the extremes of human nature were feeding the growth of the Chaos Gods in the Warp, and so he sought to promote peace and harmony on Earth and thereby curb the growth of the Ruinous Powers' strength.

 

Now, imagine having the prescience that the Emperor possessed. The foreknowledge of future events that would occur (ie various World Wars, Age of Technology, Age of Strife, Unification Wars, ect.). Is it any wonder he never had the chance to have a 'normal' life? The pressure of foreknowledge of what tragic events would eventually unfold must have placed a staggering amount of burden upon the Emperor's shoulders. In his position he had to learn to take the long view of things; looking forward to the outcome of the tribulations that humanity would have to endure, to one day achieve the greater good of unifying all of humanity and protecting it from the manifest predations of the Warp. If you think about it, it's a miracle that he didn't crack under this monumental burden.

 

One of the complaints about the Emperor is how bad he appears to be as a "parent" to the Primarchs. That isn't difficult to explain: he was never raised from childhood so he has no parental model to draw upon, and his psychic powers make it almost inevitable he would never have an simple human interaction with others. Humans have a nasty habit of dropping to the floor in obeisance in his presence. By the time he brings the Primarchs into the fold, he no longer relies on human intuition and understanding to navigate interpersonal interactions, but on his psychic powers. He therefore completely misses underlying subtext which any ordinary human would have detected immediately. Thus is the Emperor's might the cause of his eventual downfall.

 

I definitely agree with your views on these points, for the most part. After living thousands of lives as an immortal being, so far removed from the kith and kin of humanity, the Emperor had become a nearly omnipotent being whom no longer thought nor (sometimes) acted as a normal human being is wont to do. Now, as far as him being a "parent" to the Primarchs - the Primarch Project was part of the Emperor's plan to create an army of super-human warriors. This greatest attempt was to create Generals to lead these warriors, second only to himself in skill, ability, and sheer power. If you think about it logically, he was creating powerful warriors to lead his vast armies, not children for him to be a paternal parent to. Though, inevitably he did come to love (after a fashion) his genetically created "children". Since he never experienced a normal upbringing like most ordinary humans, and the fact that he was no longer considered human by the normal definition, it's no wonder that he was blinded to the underlying subtext of his genetic 'sons'.

 

Just my thoughts! :ermm:

[randian]

Randian, the only problem with your theory here is that it has been a long established fact (going way back to the RT Era in the Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness book) that the Emperor is the collective reincarnation of the extinct shamans, sorcerers and wisemen who had guided primitive humanity since prehistoric times.

Still doesn't mean he remembers that. You might not even know you can reincarnate until your spirit is stuck in the warp and you need to get the heck out before warp predators eat you. Then you get reborn and forget everything, like every other newborn. The spirit remains, which is why your psychic powers are retained through every cycle, but the personality is destroyed. Perhaps a baby's brain is unable to contain an adult's personality.

It has also been established that the Emperor was born of mortal parents and that he had brothers and sisters whom were mortals. The Emperor, much later in his life revealed that he was born in the eighth millennium B.C., and his birthplace as Central Anatolia (modern day Turkey).

I must have missed the bit about having mortal parents and siblings. That just makes his reincarnation "standard": replacing a baby's spontaneously generated warp sprit with his own.

 

Revealed to whom? I thought his approximate birth century and place were known only by us, the omnipotent viewer, and the Emperor himself.

Now, as far as him being a "parent" to the Primarchs - the Primarch Project was part of the Emperor's plan to create an army of super-human warriors. This greatest attempt was to create Generals to lead these warriors, second only to himself in skill, ability, and sheer power. If you think about it logically, he was creating powerful warriors to lead his vast armies, not children for him to be a paternal parent to.

That's true, but it shows the gap between intentions and reality. The Emperor didn't intend to be a parent, but that's how the Primarchs viewed him. I don't think calling him Father was a mere honorific. Over the long run, treating your sons as mere soldiers means some of them will eventually reject you as a father figure. Nasty consequences are sometimes the result. A prime example is the Emperor keeping Horus in the dark about the webway project. That's an entirely appropriate military action, compartmented knowledge is a backbone of military security. I'm sure had the project succeeded Horus would have been the first to know. In contrast, keeping that kind of secret is a terrible thing for a father to do. Horus' resentments were those of a son to his father, not a soldier to his commander. In the end, Horus found some replacement father figures, ones who nursed his resentments into thoughts of revenge.

[Tycho6]

How far into the future can E actually see? Does it depend on the magnitude of the event or on how much else he has on his plate at the time - does he get a bit blinkered when inspired with a new project? Could he have been so focussed on creating the Primarchs and conducting the Great Crusade to look beyond that and, once it was underway, he shifted his focus onto the next project without possibly 'checking' where the current project would end up. Could it simply be arrogance on his part after having so much success for so long? Which leads me on to another question which I know is at a tangent to this (but it seems like a good place to bring it up) does the Emperor's knowledge increase over time or was he aware of space travel and alien races in, what to us now is, the past? Did he know about the combustion engine and flight in 2000BC?

 

Also, if he is that old and desired peace so much, wouldn't there have been easier times for him to unify the planet than tens of thousands of years in the future? Possibly before organised religion took such a hold of the world?

[randian]

Also, if he is that old and desired peace so much, wouldn't there have been easier times for him to unify the planet than tens of thousands of years in the future? Possibly before organised religion took such a hold of the world?

Because he would have failed. The Communists tried to make an officially atheist state. It collapsed. The only way to force an atheist state is to erase the past. Erasing the past is, by the way, one of the major themes of 1984.

 

If there was ever a time to do it, you'd think that right after Terra was cut off from the warp would be it. Why wait 5,000 years? Countless lives, not to mention precious historical, cultural, and technological knowledge, were lost in the interregnum. Unless, that is, the whole point of waiting was to ensure humanity was sufficiently ignorant of its past. Old Night erased humanity's collective memory, making it possible for the Emperor to pounce. In that light, the Emperor wasn't humanity's savior so much as an opportunistic tyrant.

[Pacific81]

I think he had to wait because the prevalence of warp-storms made travelling from Sol impossible.

 

It was only when the death of the Eldar civilization gave birth to Slaanesh that warp travel became possible again, and the Emperor could unify earth and begin the Great Crusade.

[ICHD?]

Even if The Emperor COULD See the future, surely that'd only be a POSSIBLE future? The Eldar have to work pretty hard to See even possible futures, so what The Emperor must have Seen was a "probably maybe the future. I guess. Maybe?" future.

 

Besides surely if he

wanted to become a god

surely he would have had to die at the hands of Horus? Maybe he was so damned cocky he thought "Favoured Son Of The Dark Gods? PAH! I can take him!"?

[shatter]

I think dumbing down the Emperor to make a theory work isn't right.

 

I reckon He has enough experience reading individual people to know what they'd had for breakfast the previous month by the shine on their eyebrows. And that's without needing to stare into time and know.

 

Martyrdom, self-sacrifice and eternal service for souls was His bag, baby. It's the messianic myth made a literal and unequivocal truth. His disciples/sons/(prime)archetypes were a necessary supporting cast in His story: He had to allow the flaws or they'd be too perfect to be tempted... and He had to let them seem temptable or Chaos wouldn't take the bait and instinctively play their predictable part.

 

He didn't enjoy it... like all draconian decisions must be to fundamentally benevolent dictators.

 

Will there ever be a book containing His personal narrative? No... Judge not lest ye be judged. Actions speak louder than words.

 

In my opinion, His prescience allowed him to completely stack the deck and then he invited the players to sit down and play. He knew these players, he knew their flaws and their hungers and knew what they'd bet.

 

He played to appear to go all-in. All He asked of us was faith in His truth and mankind will survive and thrive.

[DarKnight]

I think dumbing down the Emperor to make a theory work isn't right.

 

I reckon He has enough experience reading individual people to know what they'd had for breakfast the previous month by the shine on their eyebrows. And that's without needing to stare into time and know.

 

Martyrdom, self-sacrifice and eternal service for souls was His bag, baby. It's the messianic myth made a literal and unequivocal truth. His disciples/sons/(prime)archetypes were a necessary supporting cast in His story: He had to allow the flaws or they'd be too perfect to be tempted... and He had to let them seem temptable or Chaos wouldn't take the bait and instinctively play their predictable part.

 

He didn't enjoy it... like all draconian decisions must be to fundamentally benevolent dictators.

 

Will there ever be a book containing His personal narrative? No... Judge not lest ye be judged. Actions speak louder than words.

 

In my opinion, His prescience allowed him to completely stack the deck and then he invited the players to sit down and play. He knew these players, he knew their flaws and their hungers and knew what they'd bet.

 

He played to appear to go all-in. All He asked of us was faith in His truth and mankind will survive and thrive.

my favorite out of a group of great theories

[vonny]

Wouldn't it be nice that at the end of the Horus Heresy we get an 'epilogue' from the Emperor himself? Learning what he knew, what he predicted, what he had planned for, how he had stacked the decks, and where (and if) any of his plans went awry.

 

Hmm... maybe that wouldn't be nice... dispelling the mystery