Emperor in Vengeful Spirit (SPOILERS)

[Millicant]

Instead of necromancing the old Vengeful Spirit thread I just have one issue I wanted to get some opinions on:

 

The old notion of "The Emperor stole from the Chaos gods to make the Primarchs/Astartes" comes up in the book.  I have always considered this to be one of the many possible truths (ie lies) spread by chaos to discredit the Emperor.  However, this book plainly states that is exactly what happened - from the perspective of one of the Emperor's servants, no less!

 

Please help me reconcile this.  I hate hate HATE that something so monumental would be explicitly defined, rather than remain a mystery for characters/fans to squabble about for eternity.  

[Adra'Melek]

Ditto. I've no problem with it being hinted at. But to outright state it? I thinks it's the reason why I didn't get very far into the book, dread.

[Kilofix]

Yeah, nobody listens to us Chaos folk until BAM!

But in all seriousness, the Emperor taking advantage of the Ruinous Powers is actually more of a realistic middle ground than the Emperor being totally perfect, and the Emperor really being an evil megalomaniac himself. Everyone has faults, everyone. Unless they are a god and make up the rules (of life). But even as the Emperor professes - he's no god.

[Kol Saresk]

This isn't actually a bad thing. Its a common trope that antiheros steal from the bad guys in order to beat said bad guys. So if the Emperor actually is an antihero, then he's just cracking eggs to make his Chaos-free omelet, not being a megalomaniac who has taken it upon himself to become the Savior-God of Humanity in order to remake it in his image so that his will would be spread throughout the galaxy to last for all time.

[Adra'Melek]

But the Emperor isn't the anti hero. He's the saviour of mankind. He's humanities only hope of survival in any meaningful form. And he's slowly rotting on a chair. THAT to me is the tragedy of the Heresy and 40k in general. I don't expect it to adhere to what I want (I'm not that egocentric) but I don't like it if it veers off it.

 

Also, the reason the Chaos powers want to take down the Emperor was because he could directly access 'clean' warp energy, by passing them and he would guide humanity into doing this...that was how humanity would bypass chaos (this is my interpretation not necessarily true). It's kind of like finding out Elliot Ness was a thug for Capone in his younger days.

 

As I said, I've got no problem with things being changed, I can ignore anything I don't like. But I still don't like it. I'd just prefer it if it was kept vague. Where he could be the traitors' despotic hypocrite while also potentially being the loyalists shining light of humanity. It almost feels like the entire Heresy project (BL part) is there to justify why the traitors turned...if you know what I mean. To give them a legitimacy above 'they were duped or possessed by the chaos gods' (which from a traitors point of view I'm sure is great, but they've made the Emperor out to be a tool from what I've seen).

 

I think this why I'm preferring the FW books. A historical account rather 1st person account. Easier bend to my own little world.

[Kol Saresk]

A savior who has no qualms about committing/ordering the deaths of men, women and children who did nothing wrong than refuse to bend the knee. A savior who also beat one of his sons into submission and let another's family be slaughtered just so he could gain two generals. This same savior also shamed one of his sons publicly for not conquering fast enough and spending too much time indoctrinating loyal subjects to be even more loyal to said savior.

 

Antihero fits a lot better than "hero". Because that's what 40K and 30K is; shades of grey. The tragedy is that at one time, they almost tipped the scales to being black and white. But Humanity had been stained with too much bloodshed and so it slipped from its lofty perch and now it is simply waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel to be extinguished as it can no longer reach for what might have been its salvation.

 

EDIT: This is just my take on it though and it should have no binding on anyone else.

[Adra'Melek]

Just to start, this is all opinion stuff and not meant to be attempt to show the 'truth' or anything like that. The 'truth' of 40k is GW view and we all have our own take on it :) Mine doesn't fit with GW at the moment so it's 'wrong'.

 

I would have preferred it if the Emperor was either the savour of mankind (and this would require the rejection of A LOT of written stuff) and the Great Crusade was a war on chaos incursions, destroying the cults that had formed, along with xenos invaders. Effectively the Emperor is humanities weapon against chaos, that's his purpose when he was created in 8000BC Turkey (or whenever it was). He was freeing humanity from the terror of the Old Night.

 

Or he was just the most powerful of the warlords on Terra. A relatively decent guy (doesn't eat babies or stuff like that) but just a man. A powerful Psyker, a great thinker and warrior, but just a man. No weeping when they came into his glorious presence, no shining light blinding everyone who tries to gaze on his wonderous form, or anything like that. Just a badass that created the Thunder Warriors and the Legions. Kind of like the Bernad Cornwell take on Auther, Alfred (and Merlin I suppose). His legend then grew after 10000 years.

 

But it feels like it's somewhere in between these and it doesn't really fit.

 

From reading the FW stuff the second actually fits with everything they've done, that I've seen. In fact, bam, that's my knew Truth :)

[Kol Saresk]

That is because in a way, they have written both. When the Emperor was first being made, he was made to be a beacon, a guiding light who would lead Humanity onwards to an Age of Enlightenment in which it would never have to fear the predations of Chaos.

 

But after spending 40,000+ years amongst Humanity, he realized Humanity isn't an infant, its a hobo. A leech. A mooch. It doesn't walk on its own two feet because its lazy and its always found ways to hitch rides, but it still never manages to get there.

 

So when we hit the Unification Wars, we get a savior who is sick of having to deal with a people that refuse to be Enlightened. And then begin the Unification Wars; the Emperor's decision to no longer be a backseat driver. He will drive Humanity to Enlightenment regardless of the cost. He's made up his mind that the fat will be burned, the chafe cut, the weak purged, etc. But he can't do it alone.

 

So he creates 20 beings like himself, but this comes at a cost. He doesn't have access to 200,000 reincarnating shamans. So instead he steals the power he needs to literally create life.

 

After he gets the power, it is then a matter of conquering Terra so that he will have the necessary biological and technological capabilities and resources to begin his grand vision.

 

Basically the Emperor is a massive story of someone who gets sick of being good because being good gets you nowhere with a species that spends most of its time preying on itself in one fashion or another. People from once taboo walks of life saying all walks of life should be okay, but persecuting any walks of life that disagree. Intellectuals who are supposed to be open-minded and considering all possibilities that have yet to be proven false attacking certain possibilities about life's existence just because it is "old", "decrepit" or "just plain wonky". Constant, constant, contant persecution against anything that is different, lying, stealing an preying on itself for no reason other than it can, essentially that is a harsh, exaggerated view of current Humanity. But by 30K, it has been magnified to the exponent of 10 every several thousand years, to the point that our "savior" has said "screw it, we're doing i my way."

[Millicant]

But the Emperor isn't the anti hero. He's the saviour of mankind. He's humanities only hope of survival in any meaningful form. And he's slowly rotting on a chair. THAT to me is the tragedy of the Heresy and 40k in general. I don't expect it to adhere to what I want (I'm not that egocentric) but I don't like it if it veers off it.

 

Also, the reason the Chaos powers want to take down the Emperor was because he could directly access 'clean' warp energy, by passing them and he would guide humanity into doing this...that was how humanity would bypass chaos (this is my interpretation not necessarily true). It's kind of like finding out Elliot Ness was a thug for Capone in his younger days.

 

As I said, I've got no problem with things being changed, I can ignore anything I don't like. But I still don't like it. I'd just prefer it if it was kept vague. Where he could be the traitors' despotic hypocrite while also potentially being the loyalists shining light of humanity. It almost feels like the entire Heresy project (BL part) is there to justify why the traitors turned...if you know what I mean. To give them a legitimacy above 'they were duped or possessed by the chaos gods' (which from a traitors point of view I'm sure is great, but they've made the Emperor out to be a tool from what I've seen).

 

I think this why I'm preferring the FW books. A historical account rather 1st person account. Easier bend to my own little world.

 

Thunor that is EXACTLY what I was getting at!  I detest that there is canonical evidence of the Emperor doing shady deals with the devil(s) - literally.  Regardless of what he has actually done, we as the fans are supposed to be able to believe that he is Paragon of Humanity.  His actions in Vengeful spirit fly directly in the face of that and rob me of the mystery of how the Legiones Astartes were created.  I wanted to be able to believe that the Emperor did it through science and his own prodigious psychic abilities, while simultaneously allowing my traitorous brethren to believe he did it with knowledge stolen from the chaos gods.  Both have a claim to the truth because neither side actually knew the truth!  That, to me, is the essence of the 40k setting!  Strife and struggle, wrapped in the grimmest of darkness, where truth is a myth and lies almost preferable.  But despite all that, the loyal servants of the Imperium fight on while their erstwhile brothers crave nothing but their destruction.  What a story.  

 

A savior who has no qualms about committing/ordering the deaths of men, women and children who did nothing wrong than refuse to bend the knee. A savior who also beat one of his sons into submission and let another's family be slaughtered just so he could gain two generals. This same savior also shamed one of his sons publicly for not conquering fast enough and spending too much time indoctrinating loyal subjects to be even more loyal to said savior.

 

Antihero fits a lot better than "hero". Because that's what 40K and 30K is; shades of grey. The tragedy is that at one time, they almost tipped the scales to being black and white. But Humanity had been stained with too much bloodshed and so it slipped from its lofty perch and now it is simply waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel to be extinguished as it can no longer reach for what might have been its salvation.

 

EDIT: This is just my take on it though and it should have no binding on anyone else.

 

Yes, Kol, but that's the point isn't it?  To me, there is a huge gap between the Emperor riding out and saving humanity through conquest and the Emperor bargaining with the ultimate evil of the galaxy.  There may be shades of grey but this example isn't a shade of grey - it's black.  Your whole first paragraph is great - that's the discourse between traitors and loyalists!  The greatness of the Emperor is in doubt constantly, and his sons are the vessels through which we, the readers, experience the varying degrees of his greatness.  

 

You call it a tragedy that it almost became black and white.  This cementing of the Emperor's deals with Chaos is exactly that - black and white where only grey used to exist.  And I hate it.  

[Adra'Melek]

Kol, yeah I get it. That's what it is. That interpretation fits the evidence really well. That is the 'truth' of the 40k/30k galaxy...I just don't like it. It just doesn't...fit for me. Difficult to explain I think. Just as the series has gone on something gone wrong for me. It's just doesn't fit together...almost as though it was the product of multiple people putting their own spin on things ;)

[Kol Saresk]

Actually, using the darkness to urge humanity into the light wouldn't really be black. It'd be accepting an ends justify the means, which in fiction, especially dystopian fiction, is a shade of grey. Sometimes it is a very dark shade of grey, but it is still grey. And it is often used to create a good, white light. Usually after it has set the stage and then purged itself from existence. And in a way, I believe that was the Emperor's goal; Do what must be done. And then afterwards, make sure it could never be done again.

[Kilofix]

I think I'm more with Kol (but then I'm a Renegade so big surprise....).

 

I think if you can accept that the Emperor ordered the deaths of many innocents through conquest / saving humanity through conquest - is 'Grey'.

 

Then making a bargain with Chaos to create beings that were supposed to save humanity - could maybe also be considered 'Grey'.

 

But who knows? When it comes down to it, the Emperor never actually said the latter himself. Its was only his agent that said it in Vengeful Spirit, and it was the daemon in First Heretic / Aurelian that said it.

[Theis]

How can we, as fans, ever be expected to believe in the emperor as a paragon of humanity? Were he such, then wouldn't the reunification of earth and the subsequent expansion through the galaxy have been orchestrated quite differently?

 

I would think, being a paragon of humanity has nothing of genocide, xenophobia, xenocide, or forced integration to a new and burgeoning empire, in it. I believe they were originally part of his character to indicate that, indeed, there was no "good guy" in the game. 

 

There is no point in any of the emperor's history where there hasn't been some element of him forcing something to adhere to his will. Usually with a staggering bodycount attached to it. That this was done for his vision of humanity free from the nature of the universe as it is in 30 and 40k, or that ultimately he would sacrifice himself in order to preserve the species, may, to some of us, excuse his actions and make him part of the "good guys." It does not make him a paragon of humanity, I believe.

 

That he is the distilled gestalt of the sacrificed total of humanity's shamans from ancient times may simply mean that he is the embodiment of our entire essence as a species. Our species' soul, if you will, but paragon usually denotes something that perfectly exemplifies some quality. Our more base side doesn't seem, to me, a quality. More something to be overcome.

 

So, personally, I have little issue with the emperor as he is portrayed in Vengeful Spirit. One thing we have been told, repeatedly, is that the Horus Heresy books are all told from the viewpoint of the characters. It is up to us to decide how accurate we believe that character's source for his, "facts," is. 

 

Who's to say the source of this particular character's facts wasn't biased, or deliberately misleading?

[Praetor of Calth]

Tbh you can't really define the Emperor as a hero or anti hero, he's neither. He's an enigma, a completely unique individual that makes decisions beyond the understanding of anyone besides perhaps Malcador to an extent. You can't view the Emperor as the paragon of humanity as he is undefineable figurehead that makes decisions we will never understand.

For all we know the ways in which he dealt with his sons were the best options available too him at that given time. Or alternatively in the words of the man himself; "You can either be all powerful or all knowing. But not both." In any leadership role you have to command respect, follow through with your decisions and do what you believe to be the right decision. If you falter even once your followers loose respect for you and then your whole posistion of power becomes comprised. The Emperor can't be this all knowing individual that gets everything right when he has the fate of a species on his shoulders. The mans plan may not have gone how he wanted it, but damn he covered his ass at the end of it all like a boss. 10k yrs of suffering, decaying into a corpse.

The whole, all powerful/all knowing idea is actually why I believe why the Big E has so much trust in Malcador. If the Emperor is the power behind the throne than Malcador is it eyes and ears. Malcador enables the Emperor to be as all knowing as he able to be. If the Emperor is the man that stands between Horus and the Imperium then Malcador is the man that stands between Jorus and the Emperor. A man that prepares for all eventualities that the Emperor cannot for whatever forsee.

Malcador prepared a weapon against chaos for humanity's future while Big E kept the back door shut.

It was Malcador that sanctioned the Watch-Packs as a safety net.

And bets on Malcador had something to do with the Nikea Eddict. Those two men just watched a xenos empire get torn apart by it's arrogance. You really think they're going to make the same mistake? Nuh uh.

And.. I'm waffling so let's wrap this up here.

[DarKnight]

Would it make the Emperor a "bad guy" or a fraud if this was indeed the truth? I definitely thought it "tainted" him in the earlier books when the idea was first posed, but I'm willing to accept that the Emperor did what he thought was necessary for all mankind even if that does include lying to his kids and all of humanity.

[Kol Saresk]

Actually I'd bet that Malcador was for the Librarius program as the Khan and Sanguinius presented it.

[Wade Garrett]

IMO, the Forge World stuff goes farther in painting the Emperor as an utter :cuss head than even

The Last Church, The First Heretic, or taking everything Sahaal claimed in Lord Of The Night as gosphel truth.

 

Genesis of the Night Lords? Children, taken from the lightless hell of Terra's underground political prisons so that their skills at stalking and control thru fear may be further refined.

 

The Word Bearers/Imperial Heralds? Children of the Emperor's beaten enemies, torn from the arms of their parents's cooling corpses and brainwashed until their zeal was noteworthy even among twenty legions of indoctrinated slave soldiers.

 

Perturabo orders a tenth of his Legion killed because they didn't become the best of the best before he was reunited with them? "Shut up and let the boy lead his armies the way he wants too."

 

What the...I mean, how does this...that's...yeah. That's the lore now.

[Marshal Rohr]

You're first two instances are orphans, which in any society, are mouths to feed from state coffers. They are a burden. Better to let them earn their keep. Your final instance is a general imposing discipline on his army. No different than when decimation was used before.

[carpediem]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Specifically I'm talking about the word 'paragon': the next bit is ripped straight from the OED:-
 
paragon, n. and adj.: A person of outstanding merit; a person who serves as a model of some quality.
 
The Emperor is a paragon of humanity, not a paragon of good, and the last time I checked the human has race consisted, by and large, of bastards (jaded, me?). Further to that point, no one who conquers an empire, especially an interstellar one, is going to be a good person by the standards of 21st Century western morals. Even from the most charitable viewpoint possible the Emperor is a despotic multiple genocide; an unholy mix of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung, served with a generous side order of Victor von Doom. 
 
On the other hand, He's also the best hope for humanity to see out the 40th Millennium, and arguably the most competent ruler Terra has ever produced (scary thought that, given how badly He screws up, but I don't think the Ruinous Powers, beings who loathe each other almost by definition, would present a united front for anything less than an extinction level threat). Speaking of the Chaos Gods, can anyone here say that they would honestly expect the incarnate manifestations of rage, lust, manipulation, and decay to keep their end of any bargain? Pulling a fast one was probably the best thing the Emperor could have done under the circumstances; sure, the four are as pissed off as all hell, but He isn't bound into any sort of contract either. Remember that this is a man (arguably; I'm not sure to what extent someone who is a deity by local standards can be counted as human), who has one job, and one job only; ensure human survival. It's a reasonable bet that as far as He's concerned any action that furthers that end is not only necessary and justified, but objectively moral, albeit accompanied by a regrettable volume of collateral damage. 

 

TL:DR The Emperor is necessary, not nice. 

[spu00sed]

It's been a while since I read vengeful spirit, however I can't remember being told that he bargained with/stole from the big four. We know I he went through the warp breach, cam back and had it sealed.

 

Maybe he was in a fact finding mission about chaos/life. Or he could have tried to use the breach to defeat the chaos gods but didn't quite make it.

[Adra'Melek]

IMO, the Forge World stuff goes farther in painting the Emperor as an utter :cuss head than even

The Last Church, The First Heretic, or taking everything Sahaal claimed in Lord Of The Night as gosphel truth.

Genesis of the Night Lords? Children, taken from the lightless hell of Terra's underground political prisons so that their skills at stalking and control thru fear may be further refined.

The Word Bearers/Imperial Heralds? Children of the Emperor's beaten enemies, torn from the arms of their parents's cooling corpses and brainwashed until their zeal was noteworthy even among twenty legions of indoctrinated slave soldiers.

Perturabo orders a tenth of his Legion killed because they didn't become the best of the best before he was reunited with them? "Shut up and let the boy lead his armies the way he wants too."

What the...I mean, how does this...that's...yeah. That's the lore now.

Aye. That's my new world view. The Emperor wasn't 38000 years old. He wasn't some Star Child made up of hundreds of shamans' souls. He was a powerful Psyker, a great warrior with some knowledge (or access to people with the knowledge) to make the Thunder Warriors. He was Warlord, like any other Warlord on Terra, except he won. He wasn't THAT bad, but he knew humanity would only survive if they kicked the living...daylights out everyone (including themselves).

 

And then he got 'killed' and the legend began to grow.

[Kol Saresk]

 

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Specifically I'm talking about the word 'paragon': the next bit is ripped straight from the OED:-

 

paragon, n. and adj.: A person of outstanding merit; a person who serves as a model of some quality.

 

The Emperor is a paragon of humanity, not a paragon of good, and the last time I checked the human has race consisted, by and large, of bastards (jaded, me?). Further to that point, no one who conquers an empire, especially an interstellar one, is going to be a good person by the standards of 21st Century western morals. Even from the most charitable viewpoint possible the Emperor is a despotic multiple genocide; an unholy mix of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung, served with a generous side order of Victor von Doom.

 

On the other hand, He's also the best hope for humanity to see out the 40th Millennium, and arguably the most competent ruler Terra has ever produced (scary thought that, given how badly He screws up, but I don't think the Ruinous Powers, beings who loathe each other almost by definition, would present a united front for anything less than an extinction level threat). Speaking of the Chaos Gods, can anyone here say that they would honestly expect the incarnate manifestations of rage, lust, manipulation, and decay to keep their end of any bargain? Pulling a fast one was probably the best thing the Emperor could have done under the circumstances; sure, the four are as pissed off as all hell, but He isn't bound into any sort of contract either. Remember that this is a man (arguably; I'm not sure to what extent someone who is a deity by local standards can be counted as human), who has one job, and one job only; ensure human survival. It's a reasonable bet that as far as He's concerned any action that furthers that end is not only necessary and justified, but objectively moral, albeit accompanied by a regrettable volume of collateral damage.

 

TL:DR The Emperor is necessary, not nice.

 

I think you are close, but still off. As your provided definition says, paragon as a noun, is a person of "merit" or "the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward".

 

And that's where he is right, the Emperor is not a paragon of Humanity as he is not created from solely the good parts.

 

He is the literal personification of it. How that post go Demus wears for a signature? "He is our love and our hate. He is our mercy and our ruthlessness. He is our sadism and our compassion. He is the perfect embodiment of Humanity. But because he is perfect, he is also imperfect, just as Humanity is imperfect."

 

Severely paraphrased as I'm going by memory, but pretty sure I got the same message.

 

But essentially, that is the Emperor. He was created from Humanity. The good and bad. And because both are magnified, he cannot be a paragon as he is not a person of merit, but is simply a human being whose Humanity has become so concentrated that everything we do is tiny in comparison.

 

That's why it took a Primarch to make him feel defeat. A being of his own creation who could be elevated to his level.

 

And there in lies the dichotomy. It is not "necessary good vs unnecessary evil". It is simply the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. Mutual annihilation.

[Kol Saresk]

It's been a while since I read vengeful spirit, however I can't remember being told that he bargained with/stole from the big four. We know I he went through the warp breach, cam back and had it sealed.

 

Maybe he was in a fact finding mission about chaos/life. Or he could have tried to use the breach to defeat the chaos gods but didn't quite make it.

It was in the bit where Horus was on the one planet with all the dead people. Now, it should be noted at this point 1.)Horus, 2.)dead people who were rigged to act as a single consciousness in the belief death provides all answers.

 

The gist is that as Horus recounts it, Molech remembers the Stormlord(Emperor) coming to them on a ship. He carved the Fulgurite Path to the warp portal. He went in. When he came out, he left the planet without the use of a spaceship. Various theories could be used to explain what happened.

 

Horus' theory was that the Emperor used a spaceship to get there because he had to. Afterwards, he had obtained some power in the portal and used that to leave without the spaceship so he could begin the Unification Wars.

[spu00sed]

So it is still possible that he went there to kick chaos god ass.

 

He Failed, but as he ran away he stole something that made him more powerful.

 

Or he could have gone there to stand in the untempered schism, absorb the power of the vortex and used that to become more powerful. The chaos gods then lied (breaking a habit of a life time) and told everyone that he had stolen from them.

 

The only people who were actually there were the emperor and the chaos gods and getting the truth from any of them is on the wrong side of impossible.

[Kol Saresk]

I don't think he pulled a Dr. Who.....