Wade Garrett Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Is Master of Mankind from his perspective or about him? Because those are two very different things. THAT'S where I remember the post from! ADB was discussing people asking him if MoM was about Horus, and he said that it would be about the Emperor, but: "The Emperor will not be a viewpoint character...I am not an idiot." If anyone can salvage Emp's character it's Mr. ADB (evidence cited: Lorgar, Angron), what I'm hoping for is that it will jump from various viewpoint characters who have been close to the Emperor throughout his life, maybe including a Custodian and a Thunder Warrior? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471762 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conn Eremon Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Major Tom during the space age would be cool. Because before he was the Emperor, he was Ground Control. Yeah, from what I have seen of A D-B and heard from him here, I am sure the glimpses into the Emperor's mind we will glean from that book will be by our interpretations of an external narrator's account. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471772 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerbero666 Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Is Master of Mankind from his perspective or about him? Because those are two very different things. THAT'S where I remember the post from! ADB was discussing people asking him if MoM was about Horus, and he said that it would be about the Emperor, but: "The Emperor will not be a viewpoint character...I am not an idiot." If anyone can salvage Emp's character it's Mr. ADB (evidence cited: Lorgar, Angron), what I'm hoping for is that it will jump from various viewpoint characters who have been close to the Emperor throughout his life, maybe including a Custodian and a Thunder Warrior? Malcador most likely. But won't be the novel too much reveal about the Big E? I thought BL didn't want to go that way. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471782 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Yeah. I would like to learn more about Malcador, especially how far the Emperor and him go back. Then again, it probably wasn't very hard for the Emperor to find Malcador. Malcador's like the most powerful psychic mortal human in history, and his warp presence must have stuck out like the London Eyesore when someone liked the Emperor used his witchsight. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471786 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I swear I remember ADB posting something about BL having a standing policy of NEVER having Big E as a viewpoint character. And frankly, the one time in a Heresy story we see him in the spotlight (The Last Church) he...um...I get that he was appearing as a normal dude and not just overwhelming the priest with his awesomeness, but you'd expect the Emperor to be more articulate. In that story he sounded like someone who read a Richard Dawkins book one time and only remembered about half of what was in it. Very underwhelming. Humility. The first Christian Apostles were uneducated men. That's why it was considered a miracle that they spoke so many different languages from Classical Greek to the then-current Latin to the various Gaelics and Proto-Germanics. Paul was actually the first recorded apostle who had had any kind of education and even Peter said "Paul's speech is hard to understand." If BL/FW/GW are truly drawing inspiration from Jesus Christianity, they will be drawing from that "supposed to be uneducated and yet know too much to be so" aspect. The Emperor would have at least acted humble rather than prancing around and going "Look at me! I am a beautiful butterfly! Ah-ha!" At least, that's my thought process behind the whole thing. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471789 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Garrett Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I've always pictured the Emperor as someone whose carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. This is a being whose been around for a very long time, he's seen friends, lovers, cites, kingdoms, entire continents die in almost every way imaginable. Malcador is the closest thing he has to a companion, and even the Sigilite isn't a true equal to him. I can imagine one of the pre Unity rulers on Terra confronting the Emperor and it playing out the like this: "Why? Why are you doing this? What god or devil spoke to you, and sanctioned you to destroy my people? If you are so superior, so above me, why can't you achieve your ends with noble actions, instead of death and destruction?" +You, with your mere five score years, dare to stand in judgment of my actions? I have tried to walk what men call "the righteous path". I have tried to unite and guide humanity with nobility, kindness, friendship, enlightenment.... I have tried it again, and again, and AGAIN. This is the ONLY WAY left to me. I do not relish it...but if I must bloody my hands to ensure that mankind will survive, then I will do so.+ Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471808 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I just went and read the Last Church. There is fundamental mistake in the Emperor's explanation of violence resulting from religion ( and it's something hinted at in the general 40K universe), but given that it is a common mistake, I'm not going to complain about it. Anyways, the ending to the Last Church made me dislike the Emperor even more, if that's possible. That line where he responded to Uriah asking him what was the difference between the zealots and him sealed the deal on my opinion of him as past redemption. I mean, seriously, what makes him different is that "I know that I am right." Every zealot has said the exact same thing, and in some ways, the justifications are not different. Most zealous leaders claim experience, as Uriah had, through a vision with their deities, i.e. personal experience. The Emperor claims implicitly that he knows that he is right because he has been long enough to make that call i.e. personal experience. If we've learned anything, it's that experience, no matter how much it is, is not something that proves rightness. It is a very good thing to make an educated judgment based on, but it is no basis for truth. Only something all-knowing (and not even Tzeentch is all-knowing) can make the claim that "I know that I am right" with 100% confidence of its rightness being grounded in something more than experience. At that point, that all-knowing being might as well be called a god. Hell, if I was Lorgar, I definitely would have told the Emperor that he was a hypocritical piece of garbage. Eh, but then again, we as readers are privy to information that Lorgar didn't have, so I guess if I was Lorgar, maybe not. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471865 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Garrett Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Yeah. The Emperor as I envision him might indeed say "I know that I am right" when asked to define the difference between himself and other conquerors, but he'd say in a manner that indicates he is indeed aware that phrase is the justification of every extremist anything ever. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471871 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother-Chaplain Kage Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Remember what John Grammaticus said about meeting the Big E? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471875 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Yeah. I know right. When I first envisioned the Emperor (before I learned more about the details of the Lorgar thing), I envisioned him to be like, "The Imperial Truth is the way of the Imperium.. It is the way because I chose it since it will unify our belief system in a way that is not powerful for a religious-freedom type Imperium. Religions are vulnerable to different interpretations, even within a single religion, and that will cause friction. For the sake of the Imperium, we are sticking with the Imperial Truth." If he gave me that explanation, I would have went along with it. I don't know if I'd abandon my religion (if I still had any during the Great Crusade), but I definitely wouldn't mention it much other than in private. In my opinion, the "I am doing this because I say so" explanation is so much better than the "I am doing this because I know it is right" explanation. The first explanation squarely puts all responsibility on the Emperor, while the second explanation diverts responsibility partly onto the realm of "it is right" and away from the Emperor. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471879 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Remember what John Grammaticus said about meeting the Big E?That he was a blood thirsty tyrant? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471880 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMalone Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 But the emperor is right we don't have the lifetimes or experience to truly judge him. He obviously is the only way for humanity to survive. His sacrafice allows humanity to survive. Alas we can't thrive like once envisioned but he gave up everything to strike down horus. I personally would have waited for the DA SW and Ultras to arrive but he did what he thought best Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471886 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Right, we don't have the lifetime of experience to judge him, but he doesn't have the qualifications to say what is right. He merely has the qualifications to say what he thinks is right and why what he thinks is right should be given more weight than what we think is right. That's the fundamental difference. In the Last Church, the Emperor claimed he is right, not that he thinks he is right, nor that we are not in a position to judge what he thinks his right. That right there stinks of hypocritical thought that the gods of reason would have wept at. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471891 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Garrett Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 But the emperor is right we don't have the lifetimes or experience to truly judge him. He obviously is the only way for humanity to survive. If the Emperor truly is the only way for humanity to survive...what's up with all those people that keep sailing out of the Eye of Terror and attacking Cadia? Ghalmek, Sicarus, the Khornate world in "Hammer of Daemons" all those have fairly large human populations and actually don't come off that bad compared to many worlds in the Imperium (Krieg, Necromunda, Catachan, etc.). Heck, many of them don't look that terrible compared to the Petitoners's City on Terra back when Emps could still wipe his own nose. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471895 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMalone Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I understand that but as the soul of humanity the emperor was trying to build his utopia from the ruins of old night. Under 300 years to build humanities dream isn't that long. Look at civilised mankind 2000years since Jesus rose and were still animals in clothes ;) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471903 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Oh yeah, I'm not disputing his purpose or the nobility of his purpose. I'm just saying the way he goes about doing it is terrible, and in some areas that could have been foreseen by someone with as much life experience as him, utterly counterproductive and detrimental. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471908 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMalone Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 If I was as old as him I'd be like :cuss this I need to get :cuss done! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471911 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Right, that's what I'm saying. Honestly, I fail to understand how someone walking around Earth as long as him could have not realized that it wasn't so much religion giving people reasons to kill others but religion giving rationalizations for people to kill others. I mean, did he seriously think the Chaos gods were born from the relatively complex ideas of religion and not the base emotions or something? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471914 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMalone Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I think he understood perfectly the nature of chaos but you cant stop humanity from delving into our base nature ie chaos. so by setting up the great crusade mankind can do what they need to without placing gods name in to it. at the end of his vision it may have been spacemarine legions and titan legions and IA Battalions marching into the eye to forever crusade against chaos. it could have been the webway as an emergency material realm incursion device, to transport forces throughout the material realm, and legions pushing further in to fight chaos Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471929 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 The Imperial Truth honestly was irrelevant to the objective of defeating the Chaos Gods. Religion or no religion, mankind is still emanating those base emotions. It is right, though, that the Imperial Truth was helpful to building unity by dispensing of one particular cause of disunity, but at the same time, the Imperial Truth created unintended side effects, (see Lorgar) that would have far outweighed the benefits of defeating disunity. This is especially true when you see that the Imperial Truth was not the only way to defeat disunity. The opposite, embracing a state religion, would have had the same effect in uniting humanity behind a single banner, and in my opinion, it would have had little effect on fueling the Chaos Gods. The thing is, ideology is an essential aspect of human nature. We need ideology, whether it be religion or nationalism or some other form, because it reduces the unknowns of the universe. In fact, the quality that many people attack it for, it's need for nothing but faith is precisely the reason why it thrives among humankind. The Imperial Truth and absolute reason is not a satisfying ideology because it is not really an ideology. It teaches that what is not known can be explained through trial and error and empiricism, i.e. hard work. Humans simply don't work like that. What we don't know scares us, and we need what scares us to go away now. In fact, that's one of the reasons why we have such things like presumption of innocence (or guilt) or assumption of inexistence in the absence of proof. Strictly speaking, those things are not logical, but we incorporate them because it assuages our fear of the unknown. Had the Emperor appealed to a united, satisfying ideology, he more than easily could have guided mankind's psychic emanations along a route that minimized its capacity to empower the Chaos Gods. In a way, because the Emperor knew so much about the nature of the Warp, he was left unable to comprehend the basic needs of the supermajority of humanity that was bereft of this knowledge, Still, that doesn't justify him being a hypocrite. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471937 Share on other sites More sharing options...
[TA]Typher Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Right, that's what I'm saying. Honestly, I fail to understand how someone walking around Earth as long as him could have not realized that it wasn't so much religion giving people reasons to kill others but religion giving rationalizations for people to kill others. I mean, did he seriously think the Chaos gods were born from the relatively complex ideas of religion and not the base emotions or something? I think there is more to the story that we are not privy too. For example, what is the relationship between the Emperor and the chaos Gods/realm of Chaos itself? What is the relationship with the Primarch's creation and Chaos? If you've been following the HH books it's heavily hinted that there is a connection. Perhaps that the Emp's plan changed with the corruption of Horus. Maybe he saw that mankind would slowly dwindle, unable to stem the growth of Chaos. Perhaps he chose to have himself interred into the golden throne and thus let the Imperium slide into the state it is in now, while also allowing himself ascend into "Godhood" in the same manor that the chaos gods themselves were born with people worshiping him. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471945 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMalone Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 the thing with the emperor everything he did was contradictory, he is not simply a single being he is made up of millions of lives and experiences. iirc there was a passage from years ago about the emperor being reborn and as he gazed out he had memories of his previous lives and memories and even though he knew he was reborn that each life still resided within him. every aspect that humanity has even those that contradict seem to be duking it out within this shell. the last church was by far a better novel then people give credit for, the fact is that yes he contradicts himself but he also justifies that religion is not the right course as by attaching the premise of in the name of god you then have unspeakable acts being done in the name of an entity, therefore making the darkness more prevelant then if its done in the name of the imperial truth. the great crusade wasn't just enslaving the human race, many planets came willingly and acceptingly as they maintained connections through the generations of stories of terra. most planets came willingly into the imperial fold, those that were allied with xenos witchery or corruption were met with force. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471947 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyMonkey Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I'm saying that what I took from the Last Church is that there is no reason to believe that slaughtering people in the name of the Imperial Truth and slaughtering people in the name of a god has different effects. We must remain agnostic about it. It doesn't even have to be a god. Slaughtering people in the name of the Imperium would have the same effect as slaughtering people in the name of the Imperial Truth, which would have the same effect as slaughtering people in the name of a god. All acts are of slaughtering, and all acts cause suffering. At this point, the motivation doesn't really matter, because for most people, motivation only gets you to the battlefield and up close to the person you are about to kill. Actually swinging the blade is something that is all on you, and regardless of the motivation, Khorne's going to be pleased (unless of course you get pleasure from killing, in which case he'd be displeased). Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471953 Share on other sites More sharing options...
depthcharge12 Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 I kinda scratch my head when I come across the Last Church because when I read about Ol Pious and I think someone else too, they say they are Catheric by devotion (which Im pretty sure is just a verbal twisting of Catholic, which I am a part of and can see subtle hints that they are) Are the Catherics exterminated? It seems like theyve popped up once or twice and I guess I can justify that by saying some cults and sects of modern day religions might have survived in secrecy or been flung to the stars. It is odd how Ol is Catheric and prays to his God for protection (when he is a perpetual and from Jason and the Argonauts time) goes to help the Emperor on the Vengeful Spirit.... Slight deviation from the thread but just something that popped out of curiosity Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471957 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMalone Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 that's a great point as a perpetual who has seen the face of the emperor still believes in a god of sorts. I think that is the case with ol he would have witnessed much and who knows maybe jesus was a perpetual like himself? and he just misses his buddy Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280627-hh-emperor/page/4/#findComment-3471959 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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