A Theory On The Emperor's Idiocy

[Unintentional Batman]

Hey! no alpha-omega bashing, we don't know how their story could pan out, but i personally think it will probably be the most convoluted of the lot.

 

I find it baffling how many seem to be completely unable to get the ending of Legion...

[Ring-around-the-roses]

How do we not get the ending of Legion? It basically tells us nothing, except that A&O looked at a alien prophecy, and factored it into their plans. What those plans are is the nut of the problem.

[Coryphaus 101]

Please. No more spoilers. I'm really looking forward to Legion (although I already knew about the whole 'help chaos to destroy chaos' thing and the Kabal).

[Scotladd]

You have read False Gods right? Cause in it the Emperor looks into the future and decides to let the Primarchs be taken away.

 

Is that corroborated elsewhere? If I am mistaken that isn't a fact, only what Erebus (in disguise) told Horus. That doesn't mean it is true. Especially since it happened to be something Erebus shared when trying to convince Horus to fall. Not really credible on his part in my opinion.

[Coryphaus 101]

I think the vision was truthful it just wasn't the whole truth.

 

Now then, I've been working on this theory for a while and I think I have perfected it.

PP/IQx1000=percentage of decisions made that are bad. PP= Psychic Potential out of 100(1=untouchable, 3=normal person, 6=normal psyker) and IQ=IQ. So a normal person would be: 30/120x100=25% (which is about the right number I think). The Emperor would be: 10/1000x1000=10% (which seems too high, perhaps I got his IQ wrong). I know it may seem weird that I made a theory about idiocy but I tend to think of most things in Maths equations.

[Son of Rawl]

The Emperor is not an idiot, he is just a parent who believed his children could do no wrong...

[TennisBall]

The Emperor is not an idiot, he is just a parent who believed his children could do no wrong...

Which makes him an idiot.

 

He's a powerful psyker who can see into the future. We know this for no other reason than he retreated to Terra at the height of the Crusade's success and had Dorn turn the palace into a fortress. He saw into the future but it was not clear to him, he obviously didn't understand the part his sons were to play or he'd done something to help them. His visions were probably why he was so harsh on Lorgar and Magnus, he saw a future of idol worship (himself as god) and the corrupting influences of chaos and panicked when he saw his sons apparently bringing this nightmare future (the Imperium as we know it) into being. Like a Greek Tragedy, his actions actually set things in motion that caused his visions to come true, just like Horus was shown similar visions to turn him away from his father.

 

We assume that the emperor is like a god and understands everything, maybe that's the real reason why that man in Legion was so afraid of what the emperor was, he saw a being with near unlimited psychic potential but without the humanity to wield it responsibly. A man of absolutes that doesn't understand compromise or empathy and has the force to back up his will makes him the greatest tyrant humanity has ever produced. If so then he would never yield to another opinion that went against what he believed to be true and so would never engage Magnus in a discussion of the dangers of the warp beyond commanding him to obedience. His sons were tools to use in his plans and their opinions weighed no more perhaps to the Emperor than that of a hammer.

 

Too harsh, what do you think?

[thade]

My theory has always been that the Emperor did what he did because he knew what happened to the Eldar.

 

The whole concept that humankind only truly reaches their potential when faced with conflict is what I believe the Emperor planned to do instead of following the path of the Eldar race, that when faced with zero conflict created Chaos.

 

So the Emperor, knowing Chaos, just orchestrated the continued survival of the human race by manufacturing a continuous conflict which does two things;

 

1. Allows humankind to see reach their full potential through the fires of conflict.

2. Prevents humankind from following the same path as the Eldar race in an unopposed utopian galaxy.

This, right here, is pretty compelling. Brother Ramses, your theory has a lot of merit.

[MCCCXXXVII]

I don't think we will ever truly be able to judge The Emperor until we know what is really going on in his head. Until we get a story (if we ever do) written from his perspective, we will never know his true motives. For all we know, he orchestrated the whole thing. I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but it IS possible due to the fact we've never been inside his head.

[Coryphaus 101]

Yeah but I don't think GW or BL will ever let us inside his head as it would pretty much end the hobby (because then everything would be put into crystal clear perspective bla bla bla etc etc etc).

[The_son_of_Dorn]

The Emperor was not a god, he was god like so thusly he was prone to mistakes..........after all he only 'human'

 

Brothers loyal now ripping each others heads of makes for good reading though :)

[Brother Immolator]

I don't think we will ever truly be able to judge The Emperor until we know what is really going on in his head. Until we get a story (if we ever do) written from his perspective, we will never know his true motives. For all we know, he orchestrated the whole thing. I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but it IS possible due to the fact we've never been inside his head.

 

So to partially awaken an almost dead thread but i cant hold my self:The only things going through his head right now are cables and perhaps maggots.

 

Ahem,the theory that he planed it all along is both credible and not.We know he didnt knew what will happen during the heresy after all. But that could also be a lie...

 

Also the idea the he wanted to be a god is plausible.Perhaps he planned all along so during the :P storm his worshiping will reach critical mass and awake him as a god-being.

[Heru2012]

I'm gonna go a bit contraversial here and "go biblical on your ass". And before we start I am neither promoting nor trying to discredit the bible, just using it as a point of reference.

 

Here's my interpretation and the references the story comes from, you can see how it mirrors the story, so maybe we can take the emperors reasoning from the point of the messiah.

 

40k: In the heresy we know the Emperor has the gift of foresight, he can see into the future, knowing what will become of him. He knows Horus would betray him and probably had a guess of what this would lead to. But he allowed it to go ahead anyway. Yes, it is stated his visions ceased to work after he saw himself going onto Horus barge but he was not a stupid man, he probably knew about the Lectitio Divinatus and his ascension to godhood and the corpse god-emperor. Horus was possessed by a daemon.

 

Bible: Jesus knew Judas would betray him, but still carried on and let it happen, even though he had 11 other guys he knew would shiv Judas at his behest. He made the sacrifice because he knew what it would mean for humanity and how it would, through his sacrifice, be saved. According to the gospel of Luke, Satan entered Judas to commit the betrayel....daemonic influence.

 

Kind of shows the same theme between stories, and who could blame GW, the Bible is still the best selling story of all time.

 

A few other similarities to back it up.

 

Emperor/Jesus:

 

Both born to natural parents.

Both said they weren't divine, but allowed people to continue their line of thinking.

Both able to perform amazing miracles.(I know galaxy spanning crusades with planet crushing psychic power is a bit more than Jesus turning water into wine, but lets just think of the Emperor as a Black Library Movie-Messiah.

In their deaths they became mankinds saviour and guiding light, in a literal sense for the Emperor with the astonomican.

Both carried on as normal, knowing they would be betrayed but knowing what that would mean for the future.

 

Now again, I am not stating the bible as fact, I believe it is a good story but cannot be taken as any kind of fact, though I accept any others rights to believe what the wish, and trust me, I am trying to cover my bottom so there can be no trolling of religious arguments, this is a purely literary comparison, along the lines of story, to set the perspective. You see, people claim the Emperor is an idiot/jerk/tool for letting the heresy happen, but if you take one of the stories that the background it taken from, you don't see people say, Jesus was a jerk/idiot/tool for allowing his own arrest and execution, you see people saying he is mankinds saviour because he is the sacrifice that lets mankind survive spiritually and/or physically. This is just to show that the idea that the Emperor knew what would happen could be credible, and to show how much of an amazing father of manking he was, knowing he'd wind up half dead with maggot crawling through his head but doing it to keep humanity going.

 

Oh and another comparison to the good book, its written from the perspective of others, you will never get an Emperors eye view, just like you never get a Gospel of Jesus. You should never get to see what an omni-whatever godbeing sees.

[Zincite]

"Wouldn't he know without being asked?" said Polly.

"I've no doubt he would," said the Horse (still with his mouth full). "But I've a sort of idea he likes to be asked."

Whilst it's not the same situation, it sums up how I'd look at it. He was just letting the play go as it would.

[Brother Tyler]

Quoting C.S. Lewis is tantamount to quoting the Bible, though. ;)

 

Drawing parallels between the story of the Horus Heresy and any other writings, even religious ones, is okay, but with limits. The discussion should steer away from any unnecessary discussion on religion, though. So be careful when pursuing this discussion.

[Zincite]

Quoting C.S. Lewis is tantamount to quoting the Bible, though. ;)

Ah, but I used the item as an example, rather than actually comparing the big E to Aslam/Bible.

 

... If that makes sense.

[Brother Tyler]

Actually, I thought your example was pretty good. It provided a parallel example of the comparison that Heru2012 made. However, the Chronicles of Narnia have long been recognized as intentionally re-packaging Christian belief into a parallel fictional form, so it's not quite perfect. If the intent was merely to show that the concept Heru2012 mentioned had other examples in religion and literature, it would have been better to find an parallel that wasn't itself based on the example that Heru2012 provided. One might look to the Dune books or other stories for similar representations.

 

My later comments were directed more at where Heru2012 was taking us, though.

[Zincite]

Ah, okay. Sorry for misguiding this honorable topic away. I will shut up now.

[Heru2012]

Actually, I thought your example was pretty good. It provided a parallel example of the comparison that Heru2012 made. However, the Chronicles of Narnia have long been recognized as intentionally re-packaging Christian belief into a parallel fictional form, so it's not quite perfect. If the intent was merely to show that the concept Heru2012 mentioned had other examples in religion and literature, it would have been better to find an parallel that wasn't itself based on the example that Heru2012 provided. One might look to the Dune books or other stories for similar representations.

 

My later comments were directed more at where Heru2012 was taking us, though.

 

I don't quite understand, after all the emphasis I put on it being a base of literature that my example would be a problem. And where am I leading us exactly? By saying that I could have used other books as an example to say what I needed to say, even when you admit yourself that they are based off of my example, you have made it look like I'm trying to cause some sort of religious debate, which if you read the beginning and end of my post, you can see I was vehemently trying to avoid. I'm not going to tip toe round the subject and talk about Dune, because as you said, that is based on the same thing, so I went straight for the source. I could have gone more oldschool and gone for God and Lucifer, probably a more accurate reflection of the HH story.

 

If people take offense that I compare their religion to the HH story, then tbh honest, I have no time for them. After all, impersonation is the greatest form of flattery.

 

My point was to show that the Emperor was not an idiot, he carried on regardless of the fact that he knew what was coming. That was the reason I quoted the bible, not to stir the hornets nest as you imply. Infact, just by doing what the Emperor did, he showed a quality that people see as being something that is almost uniquely human, he wasn't an idiot, he was a true altruist.

[eyeslikethunder]

My theory has always been that the Emperor did what he did because he knew what happened to the Eldar.

 

The whole concept that humankind only truly reaches their potential when faced with conflict is what I believe the Emperor planned to do instead of following the path of the Eldar race, that when faced with zero conflict created Chaos.

 

So the Emperor, knowing Chaos, just orchestrated the continued survival of the human race by manufacturing a continuous conflict which does two things;

 

1. Allows humankind to see reach their full potential through the fires of conflict.

2. Prevents humankind from following the same path as the Eldar race in an unopposed utopian galaxy.

 

Exactly the plans of chaos and the emperor are complementary for a while. It is Easier to swim with the stream than against it. The Emperor states in Mechanicum that his plans are not for the Glorious golden future he has telling people but for a desperate struggle for tens of thousands of years.

 

So the Emperor is gambling the future of the galaxy for the future of humanity so of course the other races dont want to take that path.

[Brother Dakath]

I don't quite understand, after all the emphasis I put on it being a base of literature that my example would be a problem. And where am I leading us exactly? By saying that I could have used other books as an example to say what I needed to say, even when you admit yourself that they are based off of my example, you have made it look like I'm trying to cause some sort of religious debate, which if you read the beginning and end of my post, you can see I was vehemently trying to avoid. altruist.

 

I think mostly what Brother Tyler was trying to make a point of is that your post wasn't starting a debate but other people could have turned it into one easily. The post wasn't deleted so I don't believe he found it offensive or over the line, he was just giving us a friendly reminder to not bring too much religion into the topic as people can be very touchy on the subject. That being said I do agree with your point, the two do somewhat match up.

 

But, back on topic. I believe that the Emperor was as human as the rest of us, the difference being that he had lived for so long that he had a unique view on the human race and the universe in a way that none of us could seeing as how none of us know of or know a person that has been alive for that long. I know that as a race our thinking evolves as we grow older, even a physically full-grown human adult around the age of 20-25 years will think differently when they are older, even just 10 years older. How would our thinking change if we lived as long as the Emperor did? He lived through most of human history and had seen countless wonders and horrors.

 

If you choose to follow the Star-Child and shaman theory, yes he was the reincarnation of who knows how many shamans but it didn't change the fact that he was human, (Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not terribly familiar with that line of fluff.), and as such he had human faults and characteristics.

 

We know he had pride or arrogance as seen in Tales of Heresy: The Last Church when he told Uriah that the difference between him and the people who had embarked on crusades before was that he was right. A very prideful or arrogant statement in my humble opinion.

 

We know that he had a fatherly love (or a pride in his creation if you want to me technical) for Horus because in the short story about the duel between Horus and the Emperor written by William King, (Again, I might not be correct on the author), that he still couldn't accept the fact that Horus betrayed him and wasn't truly able to deal with it. What parent can easily accept the fact that his child, especially his most favored one, has spat on everything the parent believed in and now hates their guts? I am a father and it would be very very hard on me if one of my children truly hated me.

 

He had impatience with a child, as we can see from his dealing with Angron. He teleported Angron from the planet to his ship and when Angron demanded an explanation (or went raging B)) because he was pulled from his oath-sworn brothers and sisters, the Emperor pretty much said "I don't have time for this, you deal with it War Hounds, he's YOUR primarch." and then teleported Angron over to the War Hound's flagship.

 

We know that he liked to have certain things not be known and has actually gone and wiped out people's memories to keep things hidden, even from someone who was trying to save his life as seen in Descent of Angels

when the main character (forget his exact name at the moment, Zakriel or something) is attempting to stop the assassin from killing the Emperor when he goes to address Caliban as a whole. He orders Zakriel's memory wiped so as not to have dissension in the legion and when Zakriel recovers from the memory wiping in Fallen Angels that Zakriel feels betrayed and wonders why the Emperor simply couldn't trust him.

 

 

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the Emperor did great things and was intelligent but that he did make some mistakes along the way.

 

On the line of thought that the Emperor saw all this and let it happen anyway, I don't really agree but that is simply due to the fact that even through strife and adversity we as human being grow stronger I don't see how fighting unending war could help us as a species reach our potential. I mean what potential are we trying to reach? Utopia? Full psychic mastery and the destruction of the Chaos Gods? The Imperium is slowly dying. From what I've read that is an almost undisputable fact but it is still my opinion. They're losing ground to the Tyranids and the Tau. Chaos is popping up everywhere and they keep losing military organizations as they declare for Chaos, it happens all the time but due to the vastness of the Imperium the percentage of it is small right now but I think it will keep growing. So if the Emperor saw the Heresy and let it happen I can't imagine why. I don't think even if the Emperor were to be healed and walk off the Throne, that even he could save the Imperium without having to launch another Great Crusade. I honestly don't see a "bright future" for humanity in the 40k universe.

 

Anyway, I think I've exhausted my brain doing this block of text so I'll draw it to a close and say that's my two bars of latinum.

[DIDM]

I get the feeling he is the ultimate troll, and wanted the whole thing to happen.

 

 

he will get off his throne and ascend to Godhood, with the help of his lapdogs

[NemFX]

I interpret the Emperor to be like the Aquila; he can look back but not foreward.

 

I also think it's kinda like the Force from Star Wars, the harder that humanity succeeds, the harder the badguys get to wreck stuff.

[Brother Immolator]

Both said they weren't divine, but allowed people to continue their line of thinking.

 

 

Correction:The emperor only said he wasnt divine.Jesus never denied the fact and he openly refereed himself the son of God.If that is not divine then what was it?

 

Not intended to start a religious debate but to set this into place.

[DIDM]

Actually, I thought your example was pretty good. It provided a parallel example of the comparison that Heru2012 made. However, the Chronicles of Narnia have long been recognized as intentionally re-packaging Christian belief into a parallel fictional form, so it's not quite perfect. If the intent was merely to show that the concept Heru2012 mentioned had other examples in religion and literature, it would have been better to find an parallel that wasn't itself based on the example that Heru2012 provided. One might look to the Dune books or other stories for similar representations.

 

My later comments were directed more at where Heru2012 was taking us, though.

 

 

yes, actual thinkers know this, but my Catholic parents wouldn't let my little brother watch the movies because my Dad heard they were anti church on a radio show, probably Rush Limbaugh.

 

 

it is quite obvious that one of the major stories that were used as reference in the whole 40K story is the Bible. There really isn't much of it that is original. Maybe a few characters, but most all of it can be found in other stories, much, much older stories.