Perpetual [Spoilers]

[Revelation]

After reading Vulcan Lives, which by the way was a great read itself, it is stated that the Emperor of Mankind, Vulcan, John Grammaticus and it can also be assumed that Oll Persson from the novel Knows Know Fear are essentially immortal, perpetuals. In the novel Vulcan is killed many times and in many different forms and suddenly generates himself (revives). John Grammaticus and Oll Persson claim to have many different lifetimes (meaning that they had been killed and reborned again). If this is the case with Vulcan, John Grammaticus and Oll Persson (I hope that some of you are starting to understand where this is going to) why does the Emperor want to be entombed in the Golden Throne? After the battle with Horus, he was near death and the only way he has been kept alive is through the Golden Throne (which itself has recently ran through some problems).

 

Instead of being interned in to the Golden Throne, the Emperor could of instead decided to just die and be reborn with all his vigor, might, power and strength to fight of the chaos forces on terra (Give or take that it will problably take a few days or weeks for him to be reborn) and leaving the Space Marine legions and the surviving Primarchs on Terrra (Dorn and Khan, Sanguinius is already dead; The Chaos Gods retreated and took with them their deamons leaving the chaos traitor marines alone to fend of for themselves who also started retreating) to fight of the Chaos forces left on Terra (and also the deamons pouring through the Web Way gate the Emperor was trying to reconstruct to use which got damaged by Magnus trying to communicate with the Emperor, releasing deamons in to the Web Way portal who are only being kept at bay by a being of very powerful physchic mite to keep the doors closed). Since Malcador the Sigillite turned to mear ashes when the Emperor was intern in to the Golden Throne, and if the emperor decided to just pass away and die to be reborn again, the deamons will pour through the doors of the web way portal. It wil be a very bloody battle for the surviving legionaires, custodian, mortal soldiers and the two Primarchs still alive (Dorn and Khan) still left on terra to fight of the forces of evil. But with the reinforcement of Gulliman, Russ and The Lion, the legionaires would probably be able to fend of the onslaught of demons and chaos forces arrayed against them. Once the Emperor reborns he will be able to lead them with all his powers and reclose the gate and annihalate all opposing chaos forces left on Terra.

 

Its just a thought, long story short, if the Emperor is a perpetual, he should just allow himself to die, the imperium of man will be under a cloak of darkness for a little while, just long enough for the Emperor to be reborn again and lead his warriors for battle (which i am assuming is what is going to happen anyways that he will die while sitting on the Golden Chair which is damaged, all the deamons will pour out through the gate, and age of darkness will cloack the entire imperium since the astronomican will stop working, and suddenly when all seems lost, the Emperor resurfaces new and ready to kick a** and blow off some steam on those who betrayed him).

 

What do you guys think about the Emperor being a Perpetual and him dying and being reborned again? What do you guys think it means for the Imperium as a whole if the Big E just lets go to finally be reborned/regenerate within a certain amount of time.

[Conn Eremon]

We know that the energy or what have you that makes a Perpetual a Perpetual can be expended. Unremembered Empire clarified that quite well.

 

So I really don't see why it's a stretch to say that the battle that enthroned him also had the potential of expending that energy, effectively costing the Emperor his immortality.

[Stercus]

Or perhaps the emperor has lost. As long as he's kept alive but crippled on his big shiny toilet he can't reincarnate, leaving humanity doomed to suffer the predations of chas and the xenos. In trying to save him, the loyalists may just be dooming mankind.

[[TA]Typher]

If I remember correctly they state in Unremembered Empire that all Perpetuals are different. So the Emperor could have a different set of governing rules on how he works. Or he might not be a perpetual at all, some would only call him that because it's their only point of reference.

 

I think a more realistic explanation is why he would want to encase himself in this state of half-death, stuck in the warp and in the material plane in the same time, is to evolve. I've had a theory for a while that the Emperor is in the process of Godhood. Worshiped by billions of people across the Galaxy and being deeply connected to the warp, the process should be similar to take that caused the Chaos Gods to be birthed.

 

Knowing what will happen (at least the broad strokes) could have given the Big E the time to build methods of architecture to finish the end game. If you consolidate all the people of the vast, expansive galaxy to know who you are, make them revere you, by either deed or by stagnating their education, then you can in substance produce a huge pool of warp influence. We know this has happened with the Chaos gods, being fed by act and worship of material beings, human and Alien. This happened over possible millennium. The Emperor obviously doesn't have that long as Chaos seems to be slowly winning, but he does have a much larger pool (basically all of humanity). If he can ascend then he can protect humanity in a way that he could never before do. Being in both the material AND immaterial he would possibly be stronger than the Denizens of Chaos.

 

 

Now in Prior Cannon it's stated that Chaos made efforts to blind the Emperor's divination of the future. With new cannon like, Vulcan being a perpetual we see this plan might have failed. Why would the Emperor make Vulkan this way but not the others? Why would he leave a spear that had the ability to safe Vulkan just in the spot it needed to be? He had to know that Vulkan would be killed AND that he would be needed later. If the series has Vulkan succeed in a pivotal point in the epic, then this theory is closer to proven.

 

It's just a thought, but it would explain why he wanted to be interred.

[Conn Eremon]

That is a good point that not all Perpetuals are the same.

 

Why was the Emperor born? Because dying and being reborn was too dangerous. So all the Shamans, the first Perpetuals I suppose, coalesced into one entity, the Emperor. Which means the Emperor might not die and be reborn, as that was a fate his constituents were against. Maybe he only has one life. Bog standard immortality.

[Wade Garrett]

The only flaw with the idea that the Emperor has a big plan to save humanity by ascending to godhood is that the last time a race birthed a god it tore a hole in reality, sucked most of their souls out, and came close to making them extinct.

 

In short, humanity as a whole would be BETTER served by letting Abaddon stride through Eternity Gate and put Drach'yen through the "god embryo's" withered throat.

[Demus Ragnok]

Why put the Emperor on the Golden Throne? Because anything less would not be grimdark enough.

[Noctus Cornix]

Also, recall that it was the Emperor's instruction that he be connected to the Golden Throne.

[[TA]Typher]

The birth of slaneesh isn't necessarily that of the Emperors. As a creature of the Materium instead of something wholy of the warp things should be different.

 

 

Anyway.... It doesn't really matter. We'll never know as GW will never progress the the storyline. Bringing the endtimes only kills the franchise.

[spu00sed]

Also, recall that it was the Emperor's instruction that he be connected to the Golden Throne.

Maybe Dorn misheard him.

 

The Emperor was dying, I'm sure his speech was a bit slurred and broken.

 

Dorn heard something about the golden throne and throught that was where the Emperor wanted and needed to go, effectively dooming humanity for the next 10,000 years.

[Chaplain ChonkE]

If I recall one of the caveats of the old fluff (LatD?) was that it was becoming more difficult for shaman to reincarnate for some reason I cannot remember; it was like some disturbance in the warp (Slaanesh?) was making it harder and harder for them to reincarnate so they ganged up, formed like Voltron and the Big E was made. It would make sense that perhaps the Emperor cannot reincarnate because the shaman's pathways were denied a "perpetual" state so to speak but other perpetuals/sensei/whatever dont seem to have that problem in 30k times. Hard to keep track of all this crap; too many versions, too many beers.

 

As stated earlier about UE; the immortals seem to have a finite number of lives so maybe the Emperor is riding on 1 in the life column? Totally a good reason not to lose that last life.

 

Hehe, Dorn mishearing the Emperor's dying words is delicious heresy for a Templar ;)  Bob: "Dorn, take me to my home so I can be reborn again..." Dorn (unhearing in his grief)" "Put you on the throne to guide the beacon? OK Pop! You and your empire will live FOREVER!!!!!!" Bob: "nooo......"

[Daemon2027]

I think its to do with the Golden Tbrone and the Astronomican. Terra is a plant teaming with billions of people with all their emotions, and a long history of chaos worship and use of warp magic. Something has to stop the plant from bursting into a ball of chaos teeming energy. My theory is that the Golden Throne and the Astronomicon protects the planet from such an incursion. During the GC, when the chaos gods were weak and the emps strong he could stroll around the universe his power enough to fuel it from afar.

 

But Magnus fethed it all up, first by messing up the webway giving all the nasties a way in, and then by dying leaving the emperor the only being able to work the machine, and unable to go off and die and be reborn or whatever he does.

[Kol Saresk]

Or the Emperor lost his ability to reincarnate and being strapped to the Golden Throne was the only chance of surviving.

[Adra'Melek]

If I recall one of the caveats of the old fluff (LatD?) was that it was becoming more difficult for shaman to reincarnate for some reason I cannot remember; it was like some disturbance in the warp (Slaanesh?) was making it harder and harder for them to reincarnate so they ganged up, formed like Voltron and the Big E was made. It would make sense that perhaps the Emperor cannot reincarnate because the shaman's pathways were denied a "perpetual" state so to speak but other perpetuals/sensei/whatever dont seem to have that problem in 30k times. Hard to keep track of all this crap; too many versions, too many beers.

As stated earlier about UE; the immortals seem to have a finite number of lives so maybe the Emperor is riding on 1 in the life column? Totally a good reason not to lose that last life.

Hehe, Dorn mishearing the Emperor's dying words is delicious heresy for a Templar Bob: "Dorn, take me to my home so I can be reborn again..." Dorn (unhearing in his grief)" "Put you on the throne to guide the beacon? OK Pop! You and your empire will live FOREVER!!!!!!" Bob: "nooo......"

I think the old fluff was that their souls went into the warp and were then waited to being reborn. As the warp became more hostile they were attacked and consumed. So they forged the Emperor and he no longer needed to be reborn and just existed.

Unremembered Empire suggests it's possible for a Perpetual to give up his 'energy' and lose the ability the reincarnate.

[Wade Garrett]

Other possible theory:

Emps gave up all his Perpetual energy when he blasted Horus with that "No reincarnation for you, ever" beam.

 

That's....huh. A father sacrifices his own immortal life and endures ten thousand years of torture to save his beloved son from an infinity of being a puppet to the Dark Gods. By flaying said son's soul into oblivion.

 

I can't decide if that makes the Heresy more or less grimdark.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Great point, Wade, but I also don't think it matters where on the scale of grimdark that ends up.  All that matters is that it is grimdark.

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

Perhaps he'd rather not have died and returned to a Daemon Planet formally called Terra?

[Verity]

Wasn't there a thing about Daemons being able to permanently finish Perpetuals? And with Horus being as empowered by Chaos as he was, could he have sort of done something similar? Might be misremembering that one...

[Dumah]

Wasn't there a thing about Daemons being able to permanently finish Perpetuals? And with Horus being as empowered by Chaos as he was, could he have sort of done something similar? Might be misremembering that one...

Or do you mean, "unremembering that one"?

Sorry... I couldn't help myself. I don't recall anything like that, though my memory is foggy. Wasn't it more that they could sense them and vice versa?

[Kagarre Havariss]

I don't see that the shamen's ritual would prevent reincarnation. The ritual iirc was a mass suicide that bound the souls of all participating Shamen together into 1 soul strong enough to guide mankind to the future. All this soul had to do was have the strength to send any daemon packing during the reincarnation period ( the Shamen souls had been getting eaten by daemons during their rebirth.). All the souls form facets of the emperors personality but I wonder if all those souls were pure?

 

I think the expenditure of perpetual energy in defeating Horus is a valid point as this blast, enough to make the combined power of the 4 gods of chaos retreat, was something well above your average mind bullet. However we know the emp is still psychicly powerful, miracles still happen within the imperium in the 41st millennium, and the astronomicon is still working just about. It is my theory that the emp has been recharging his batteries for the past 10 millennia, this explains the consumption of psychic souls to power the astronomicon and golden throne. The current fluctuations in power of the astronomicon and golden throne may well be a result of the increasing threats to the imperium causing the Emperor to withhold more power to hasten his rebirth. The theory that the emperor would only reincarnate when the throne fails theory is full of holes purely because if the emperor wanted the throne to break he would find a way to make it happen!

 

It is entirely possible that the emperor simply does not know what will happen after all he is hardly an ordinary individual.

[Augustus]

What if Horus was a perpetual?

[Kol Saresk]

 

What if Horus was a perpetual?

Might explain why it would take two "obliteraions" to erase him from existence. One to strip away his(Horus) reincarnations and then another to actually destroy his(Horus) soul.

[Knight of the Raven]

I think it's something as simple as GW putting the Emperor on the Golden Throne decades before the idea of perpetuals was a gleam in Dan Abnett's eye.

[Kol Saresk]

Yeah, but now it all gets to be explained.

[Brother Captain Kezef]

It's been strongly suggested (piecing various sources together here) that the Golden throne is essentialy the control device for a webway portal in the heart of terra and/or a method for Magnus to take over powering the astronomicon.

 

Now magnus broke the whole damn thing and it requires a psyker of immense power to keep it going and avoid a massive real world/warp space convergence in the heart of the Imperial palace. I believe it was in vision's of heresy in which Malcador gets into the hotseat when the Emperor head's off to smite Horus (being the only pysker powerful enough to hold it long enough for the big E to do his thing).

 

After killing Horus, the Emperor has to get back into the throne before Malcador completely burns out and unleashes hell.