Thoughts on the Afterlive in 40k

[Lepaca]

So, when it comes to 40k I'm a big proponent of Chaos.

There is basically one reason for this: It seems to me like the quality of living for the ordinary population of the Empire and of civilizations which worship the Chaos Gods is about the same. Both regimes can be incredibly cruel, degrading and hopeless for individuals who do not hold positions of power. Both religious cults can be completely crazy and inhumane and demand unwavering and unquestioning loyalty.

However, Chaos to me seems to at least have some truth to it. The Chaos Gods exist. They are primordial psychic entities too vast for most mortals to comprehend. They demand worship and sacrifice. Sometimes they even reward it.They regularly influence dimensions outside of the warp.

The Emperor one the other hand isn't a god, a immensely powerful psyker perhaps, but not a god. Before (basically) dying and being trapped on the Golden Throne he actively discouraged his own worship. And he would most likely despise the  corrupt system the Empire has become since then.

Therefore, the cruelty in the Empire seems to be the less "justified" than that in Chaos worshiping societies.

 

There is however one thing, I have been wondering about  for some time: The concept of the afterlive. What does happen to the souls of the deceased in the 40k setting? I have often read that those of Chaos worshipers are devoured by the Gods or Daemons (which is basically the same thing because daemons are just extensions of the Gods?) But have always wondered what that actually means. Is a devoured soul simply gone, its psychic energy entirely absorbed? Or does it retain its consciousness and get to enjoy an afterlife / suffer for eternity?

And what happens to the souls of Imperial worshipers? Someone told me once, that they had read a 40k novel in which deceased Imperial soldiers awakened to find themselves "inside" of the Emperor's light, a paradise of boundless comfort and safety. 

 

I'd really like to know if anyone has any quotes from some licensed 40k source which would clarify whether Chaos worshipers truly do suffer for eternity and Imperials go to paradise.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I can't think of any sources that *I* have ever read that answer your question about an Imperial afterlife -- except perhaps one Gaunt's Ghosts short story about Gaunt meeting the souls of departed Ghosts while the medics were trying to revive him; The Iron Circle, I think it was called?  Something like that -- but I would challenge your assertion that the Emperor is not a god.

 

The Emperor's power can raise pious beings from the grave and protect them as saints, a la Saint Celestine.  He also provides his faithful followers with the ability to repel the daemonic, as Euphrati Keeler did with a Tzeentchian Horror in one of the early Horus Heresy novels.  These are not psychic powers, these are abilities powered by a god who is an antithesis to the Chaos Gods.  I suppose you could say that where Chaos has four gods, Order has just one, and that's the Big E.

[A D-B]

So, when it comes to 40k I'm a big proponent of Chaos.

There is basically one reason for this: It seems to me like the quality of living for the ordinary population of the Empire and of civilizations which worship the Chaos Gods is about the same. Both regimes can be incredibly cruel, degrading and hopeless for individuals who do not hold positions of power. Both religious cults can be completely crazy and inhumane and demand unwavering and unquestioning loyalty.

However, Chaos to me seems to at least have some truth to it. The Chaos Gods exist. They are primordial psychic entities too vast for most mortals to comprehend. They demand worship and sacrifice. Sometimes they even reward it.They regularly influence dimensions outside of the warp.

The Emperor one the other hand isn't a god, a immensely powerful psyker perhaps, but not a god. Before (basically) dying and being trapped on the Golden Throne he actively discouraged his own worship. And he would most likely despise the  corrupt system the Empire has become since then.

Therefore, the cruelty in the Empire seems to be the less "justified" than that in Chaos worshiping societies.

 

There is however one thing, I have been wondering about  for some time: The concept of the afterlive. What does happen to the souls of the deceased in the 40k setting?

 

Most human souls are fragile, weak things in a cosmic sense (say, compared to the eldar). They wink out of existence when the person dies, vanishing forever into nothingness or becoming part of the "stuff" of the Warp. Souls don't go to the Warp, exactly. They are the Warp. The Warp is made of souls in the same way water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The Warp is souls.

 

Everything has a reflection in the Warp. Every weapon has a faint spiritual echo of all the pain it's inflicted, and every place of death and catastrophe filters through the "stuff" behind the veil. The Warp reacts to emotion, torment, and so on, when the corporeal universe influences the endless reality of boiling, roiling, churning ectoplasma unseen by mankind. Negative emotion and horrific events shape the "stuff" into malicious forces that the human mind interprets as daemons and Dark Gods. These, in turn, reshape the Warp around them, and affect the material universe according to their natures. 

 

Very strong souls can maintain their... theirness... in the Warp, usually attracting daemonic attention. So when you die, your soul becomes part of the Great Ocean, or if you're an immensely rare sort of creature, you get to burn bright enough to draw daemons to you.

[Chaeron]

I can't think of any sources that *I* have ever read that answer your question about an Imperial afterlife -- except perhaps one Gaunt's Ghosts short story about Gaunt meeting the souls of departed Ghosts while the medics were trying to revive him; The Iron Circle, I think it was called?  Something like that -- but I would challenge your assertion that the Emperor is not a god.

 

The Iron Star - an absolutely superb piece. One of my favourite bits of the Ghost's series.