Master of Mankind...on the horizon?

[Marshal Rohr]

Darth, what theoretical lens are you viewing the Emperor through, because it sounds like you don't think he should be violent, and the whole reason he is Emperor is because he led a thousand year conquest of earth.

[MrDarth151]

Darth, what theoretical lens are you viewing the Emperor through, because it sounds like you don't think he should be violent, and the whole reason he is Emperor is because he led a thousand year conquest of earth.

 

I don't think he should not be violent. I think his acts should have reasoning behind it.

 

My problem, which I have explained time and time again, is not that he kills that woman for stealing water. That part, I believe, is entirely in line with my view of The Emperor. My problem is with him stating through Valdor that He does not care for her other treacheries in the slightest and He does not punish her for them. Which is bizzare, because there is no reason for him not to.

 

Even if He was completely amoral tyrant, it is only practical for him to kill people that kill His citizens. If for nothing else because they are His citizens, they are His resource, their lives are His to spend.

 

It is not practical, before we even start to consider moral implications. It is wasteful. There is no purpoes to it. It simply callousness for the sake of it, because it's not like any except her will hear his judgement.

 

There is no end. There is no way The Emperor benefits from murder of innocent people. He loses resources. The unrest amongst the populace rises, as it always does when people are allowed to kill others without punishment. One of the Four Gods of Chaos benefits from spilling of blood. By all accounts, allowing it to happen harms The Imperium of Man.

 

Why do it? Why care so little as to not even take into consideration adding it to the list of charges?

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

Darth, what theoretical lens are you viewing the Emperor through, because it sounds like you don't think he should be violent, and the whole reason he is Emperor is because he led a thousand year conquest of earth.

I don't think he should not be violent. I think his acts should have reasoning behind it.

 

My problem, which I have explained time and time again, is not that he kills that woman for stealing water. That part, I believe, is entirely in line with my view of The Emperor. My problem is with him stating through Valdor that He does not care for her other treacheries in the slightest and He does not punish her for them. Which is bizzare, because there is no reason for him not to.

 

Even if He was completely amoral tyrant, it is only practical for him to kill people that kill His citizens. If for nothing else because they are His citizens, they are His resource, their lives are His to spend.

 

It is not practical, before we even start to consider moral implications. It is wasteful. There is no purpoes to it. It simply callousness for the sake of it, because it's not like any except her will hear his judgement.

 

There is no end. There is no way The Emperor benefits from murder of innocent people. He loses resources. The unrest amongst the populace rises, as it always does when people are allowed to kill others without punishment. One of the Four Gods of Chaos benefits from spilling of blood. By all accounts, allowing it to happen harms The Imperium of Man.

 

Why do it? Why care so little as to not even take into consideration adding it to the list of charges?

The Imperium isn't like the Galactic Empire in Star Wars where he's at the top, and it's governed by a massive unified bureaucracy and military, it's almost feudal or a confederation. The emperor is sovereign of sovereigns, but those other rulers still control the monopoly of violence in their realm. This is illustrated in every novel about Terra and extrapolated in Betrayal. So this ladies pogroms were more than likely entirely sanctioned and legal by the laws of her own land. Coalitions have to allow for a little give and take on sovereignty or they fall apart.

[Scribe]

Perhaps it will be expanded upon, but perhaps it's the scale.

 

Perhaps her theft of water has damned 10s of thousands, and she's only killed hundreds?

[A D-B]

 

Darth, what theoretical lens are you viewing the Emperor through, because it sounds like you don't think he should be violent, and the whole reason he is Emperor is because he led a thousand year conquest of earth.

 

I don't think he should not be violent. I think his acts should have reasoning behind it.

 

My problem, which I have explained time and time again, is not that he kills that woman for stealing water. That part, I believe, is entirely in line with my view of The Emperor. My problem is with him stating through Valdor that He does not care for her other treacheries in the slightest and He does not punish her for them. Which is bizzare, because there is no reason for him not to.

 

Even if He was completely amoral tyrant, it is only practical for him to kill people that kill His citizens. If for nothing else because they are His citizens, they are His resource, their lives are His to spend.

 

It is not practical, before we even start to consider moral implications. It is wasteful. There is no purpoes to it. It simply callousness for the sake of it, because it's not like any except her will hear his judgement.

 

There is no end. There is no way The Emperor benefits from murder of innocent people. He loses resources. The unrest amongst the populace rises, as it always does when people are allowed to kill others without punishment. One of the Four Gods of Chaos benefits from spilling of blood. By all accounts, allowing it to happen harms The Imperium of Man.

 

Why do it? Why care so little as to not even take into consideration adding it to the list of charges?

 

 

Almost none of this is in the extract. At this stage, I think the reason people aren't reconciling your repeated explanations with what they're reading is mostly down to that. And this isn't about 21st Century ethics against far future ones, either. It's simply that you read something very specific, and something very divergent, from the text. That's fine, but don't get riled when it's not taken as objective fact. (As a sidenote, if you don't dig this portrayal of the Emperor and the Custodians, which is pretty much entirely based on and in line with Horus Heresy Collected Visions, Blood Games by Dan Abnett, and several IP meetings, I'd recommend avoiding pretty much all published work to do with the Emperor.)

 

Maybe there are reasons the other charges aren't listed. Maybe they don't matter. Maybe warlords and politicians and conquerors and monarchs since time out of mind have always behaved this way, from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan, choosing the charges that matter in order to bring someone to justice depending on context. Maybe the theft of water from a planet with a water crisis was the worst by far, and all the others were meaningless relative to it (y'know, like Valdor says). 

 

The trick isn't to look at something and think "I don't understand this, so it's wrong." It's to look at a character's actions and think "Why would this be happening?" and go from there. You keep insisting that I and everyone else are missing some key point, which is your prerogative, but I read a wealth of history and historical fiction pertaining to various warlords and warleaders throughout history, and bundled a lot of that into the Emperor's actions given the weight of his burden and responsibility in the established canon. All of that matters to me. Your refutations match practically none of it, beyond pedantry on paper. 

 

Nothing in that extract speaks of poor leadership or killing innocents or any of the other assumptions and guesses you're repeating. It's taking an interesting topic to the pedantic ends of the Earth based on guesswork and misunderstanding.

[Marshal Loss]

Not sure what the issue with the big E ignoring her other crimes is. The guy unites a world that had been tearing itself apart for (how long?) a very long time, and now wants to conquer the galaxy - being magnanimous and forgiving many of the people that fought against him is something we've seen before in the novels and is perfectly in his best interests where possible. In a galaxy that large with such a tumultuous backdrop, this is a guy who looks at the big picture. If he spent his time killing treacherous people there'd be nobody left to rule on Terra. It's also perfectly reminiscent of historical figures like the original Caesar himself, exercising their ability to bestow clementia, or in the patronage of early Hellenistic rulers.

[MrDarth151]

 

(As a sidenote, if you don't dig this portrayal of the Emperor and the Custodians, which is pretty much entirely based on and in line with Horus Heresy Collected Visions, Blood Games by Dan Abnett, and several IP meetings, I'd recommend avoiding pretty much all published work to do with the Emperor.)

 

Too late for that, already read it all. We simply arrived at different conclusions.

 

 

Maybe there are reasons the other charges aren't listed. Maybe they don't matter. Maybe warlords and politicians and conquerors and monarchs since time out of mind have always behaved this way, from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan, choosing the charges that matter in order to bring someone to justice depending on context. Maybe the theft of water from a planet with a water crisis was the worst by far, and all the others were meaningless relative to it (y'know, like Valdor says).

 

Peculiar, I was not aware of it being a common practice. Care to bring some examples I could use for future study?

 

And my apologies, perhaps it is my fault for my insufficient skill at english language, but I've read it time and time again, and Valdor does not seem to be saying that they are meaningless in context, but rather that they are meaningless period. He does not state that they do not matter in comparison to it, but rather simply that they are meaningless and that they are nothing.

 

I do not presume to tell you what you've intended to write, but the dialogue, to me, does not feel relative, it feels definitive. Which is to say: it feels as if Valdor is stating that her other crimes do not matter at all, and by extent, would not be considered worthy of attention at all.

 

 

The trick isn't to look at something and think "I don't understand this, so it's wrong." It's to look at a character's actions and think "Why would this be happening?" and go from there.

 

 

Which is... precisely what I tried to do. It is troubling to me, because I am usually pretty good at rationalisation. I've done years of argument analisis, and inability to find a rational explanation for what is done there is... annoying. Like a piece of a puzzle that does not fit.

 

It makes more sense in the light of what you have said, but I would have never guessed that from the text itself. It seems too logically rigid for it.

 

 

You keep insisting that I and everyone else are missing some key point, which is your prerogative, but I read a wealth of history and historical fiction pertaining to various warlords and warleaders throughout history, and bundled a lot of that into the Emperor's actions given the weight of his burden and responsibility in the established canon. All of that matters to me. Your refutations match practically none of it, beyond pedantry on paper.

 

 

Honestly, I do not believe myself to be inherently more right than anyone. Truth is... relative. And 40k lore is open to interpretations. My frustration does not stem from not being to convince others to my point of view, nor does it stem from being convinced that I am inherently right, but rather because I feel I do not communicate my own subjective view of the matter well enough, resulting in people not understanding from where my misgiving stem from.

 

Does that make sense?

[Scribe]

I think I (we?) understand you, but we come from a fundamentally different opinion on the Emperor so what we can accept as in character differs.

[mc warhammer]

"I don't understand this, so it's wrong."

 

 

i blame hollywood. or comic books. or competence porn. or ayn rand. or the 20th century.

 

stories and characters like the emperor are pretty much the basis of every great mythology of the past: king arthur, beowulf, illiad, the journey to the west (monkey king), silmarillion (less so lord of the rings). the most iconic characters made mistakes or poor choices or unfair choices or confounding choices constantly.  even jesus christ made some bad tactical decisions and he was the son of god. if you wanted to, you could poke plot holes in the biblical god's grand plans too. anything you could accuse the emp of, you could accuse jehovah of too.

 

practical (as we understand it today) doesn't even begin to come in to it.

 

that was kinda the point. and it also wasn't. people never used to listen to these stories purely to measure up a character's awesomeness rating- it was to live out the consequences of choices on a grand and frightening scale. so many people i know hated the battle of the bastards in "game of thrones" because people didn't make the perfect choices- what show had they been watching for the past six years? imperfect choices is one of the building blocks of a "song of fire and ice".

 

more, i'd say that perfect choices don't exist.

 

if you are trying to rationalise character choices through logic only, then you are immediately cutting off the majority of human experience. people make choices from emotion; in anger or love or fear or hate. they make choices on the fly. they make choices because of a cold or a head ache. sometimes they choose the best of two bad options. sometimes they want to see the world burn. sometimes they just don't know and flip a coin. sometimes they're just plain selfish. character logic is a different thing to...logic logic.

 

what a lot of people seem to miss is what makes the emperor such a fascinating and controversial figure isn't just "teh misstory" that surrounds him but the fact that we have to struggle, argue and debate that mystery in order to comprehend him. he's a big blood covered question mark, and once that question is answered, the fascination dissipates and 99% of fans are left unsatisfied. what is written on the page can never beat your imagination.

 

as for competence? the task of uniting humanity across the galaxy in the face of so much antagonism is so near impossible that it's almost ridiculous that someone even attempted it. let alone that he almost succeeded.

[b1soul]

Darth, you are certainly entitled to your opinion...

 

If I understand correctly, you think

 

1. The Emp orders or condones genocide when he believes such killings benefit the greater good of humanity

 

2. The Emp condemns or punishes genocide when he believes such killings harm the greater good.

 

That is logical...the Emp is against "detrimental" killing but for "beneficial" killing

 

Perhaps the harm caused by Zu's domestic pogroms is of such small scale that it doesn't even register on the Emp's radar...whereas the stealing of water is much more harmful in comparison? In principal, the Emp might be against it, but it's such a minor harm that he doesn't bother to add it to the charges. Water-theft is sufficient.

[daemonknight]

I think many people believe that the Emperor as this perfect almighty being that can do no wrong which in truth, he is as stated in the collected visions, a powerful human mutant mistaken for divinity who just want to save humanity by whatever means possible from becoming slaves to chaos.  I don't think he even wants to be leader unless needed consider he waited until the Age of Strife to see "Okay, humanity pretty much screw if I don't take charge and fix it" as he argue with Malcador that the goal of a leader is to help his people to the point they do not need him (pretty communist belief) and delegate leadership to Malcador while he works on the Imperial Webway as the Emperor believes humanity should be in charge not demigod Primarchs.

 

If the old fluff is to be still consider canon, the Emperor is the New Man, the ideal of which humanity should become: psykers whose power is unaffected by the Chaos Gods and stand above all other alien races.  In a sense, the Emperor is like a parent and the majority of humanity are just babies or toddlers or maybe puppies.  Like many people stated, the Emperor doesn't have time to deal out punishment for every little infraction (lie about doing their homework, doesn't clean up toys or steal a cookie) because he has billions and billions of children and so little time to act on his plan to save humanity from ending up like Eldar or worse. However, if puppy/kid is ripping the carpet and take out the big screen TV or set the house on fire (Looking at your Magnus), you can be damn sure any good parent isn't going let that go without punishment but that puppy/kid might not understand why it's a big problem.  Most interesting thing is he use a very tall big golden warrior (Valdor is bigger than a space marine and about the size of a Primarch) to go assassin people and kidnap a kid.  You would think it's more practical to be a bit more stealthy but maybe being the Emperor's elite, you get less questioned.

 

TL:DR - The Emperor is not perfect and is looking at the big picture to save humanity at all cost in the long run. His moral code and why he does stuff is different like most of us but unlike us, he commands an army to back him up.

[Carach]

not really understanding darth's points, tbh. Everyone's counters to his, and the multiple discussions about Emps in the novels themselves by primarchs, by random characters, by everyone, or in fact his own statements, pretty much shut down most of what Darth has to complain about.

 

And i don't get why one is getting so uppity about water-wars. A post-nuclear wasteland of a world where water is scarce.. how is it not execution-worthy to suck the remaining water supplies dry?

[Marshal Rohr]

It's certainly not a language barrier, he writes like an academic. I can't tell if he just doesn't like some narrative style choices, which I totally understand, or if he doesn't like the background at all. I love No Country for Old Men, but I had to read it twice to comprehend some parts because of the style and it took me three months of reading and one audiobook play through to understand Piketty.

 

Edit: More recently, I loved Praetorian of Dorn, and I mean loved. John French is a master and can do no wrong in my eyes. However, some narrative choices I felt were unrealistic and over complicated with the Alpha Legion and I thought Dorn was too specific in attacking Alpharius' style because I would've preferred a more difinitive refutatuon of alpha legion strategies. That doesn't mean the book was bad, John doesn't 'get it', or Black Library is ruining the hobby.

[Mellow]

I think it's great how people have different opinions and get so heated trying to make their points.

 

However I boil it down to a couple of points:

 

1) The Emperor wants Humanity to succeed. Humanity requires water to survive and on a water rationed Planet stealing it is bad mojo.

 

2) Valdor is doing as he is ordered. Whether he has any opinions on the other crimes or not is irrelevant. He has been ordered to kill her for the theft of water.

[Canadian_F_H]

Alright darth. At this point you are just here because you want a fight.

 

You straight up quoted ADB saying "IP meetings" which are meetings with the owners or owner representatives of the IP that is 40k with whichever writers they felt needed to be in that meeting... and said "you read it all"

 

Unless you were at that meeting, then no, you didnt. You are not privy to private in house meetings by a corporation that to date has very jealously guarded it's internal operations.

 

From here on out I can't see your input as constructive unless you first apologize, for blatantly being here for combative purposes.

[Marshal Rohr]

This is a lot of M2C-verse, so bear with me:

 

Basically, the Unification Wars were about building a Supra-national state, embodied in the Imperium. It was not about building a single state. The Emperor had no home nation that sought to dominate all others, like he wasn't based in Britain and the Imperium was a 'british' empire. The only reason the Imperium works is because it's led by a transhuman (who is also the Kurweillian Singularity) and doesn't have a nation that forms the core of its power. Because it doesn't have an agenda of nationalistic exceptionalism it is the only type of Imperium that can actually work, because it seeks to uplift all men and not uplift a nation over other nations. Essentially, being Imperial replaces national identity.

 

The Imperium, as I mentioned earlier, very much functions as some kind of confederation, like the early United States or Holy Roman Empire (more like the latter, because of the royal form of government). That means future Russia and future China may be antagonistic towards one another, and may even fight, as long as the war is legal and the Emperor has the ability to stop it, this was how the Holy Roman Empire functioned. Prussia fought Wars with Austria, even though technically the Prussian King was only the King in Prussia and subservient to the Hapsburgs. This dynamic played out as recently as World War One before the monarchies collapsed in the aftermath.

 

ADBs point that the Emperor is at his most basic level a warlord also has some important effects on the way the Imperium works. Warlords aren't tied to states, and operate independently of them. Their power is entirely in the realm of military capability. This applies to the Emperor because his army of genetically modified Thunder Warriors was the base of his power, the administrative and technological arms of his Imperium followed his military might. A warlord has options a state does not because it isn't tied to geographic area. Imagine if instead of being confined to North Korea, Kim Jong Un and his nukes were just roaming around Africa. He'd be a much bigger problem than he is now (hopefully that can not be deleted since it isn't particularly incindiery). Imagine further Kim Jong Un was also a powerful psychic and the NK army was comprised of Thunder warriors. He wouldn't just be a threat, he'd be a threat we have to actively listen too.

 

That's why I'm not particularly upset when pogroms fly beneath the emperor's radar. Purges, pogroms, and genocides are all indecent in our modern context, but we have to remember that they are fundamental parts of human state building and come directly from evolutionary biology. Lions kill all the males when they become alphas. Humans just hold trials for them first.

[WarriorFish]

I think there is little merit in discussing a book in such fine detail when it's not out yet. Let's save it for when the book has more than an excerpt to delve into please. Thanks.

[Marshal Rohr]

My point is more towards the nature of the imperium and emperor than the book itself.

[deathspectersgt7]

Pre-ordered my copy. And want to thank you all for the enjoyable banter .

[Astropate]

I read the extract and I just want to say I loved it, Aaron. Every word of it, Laurie was probably right when he described TMoM on Twitter.

[MrDarth151]

It's certainly not a language barrier, he writes like an academic. I can't tell if he just doesn't like some narrative style choices, which I totally understand, or if he doesn't like the background at all. I love No Country for Old Men, but I had to read it twice to comprehend some parts because of the style and it took me three months of reading and one audiobook play through to understand Piketty.

 

Edit: More recently, I loved Praetorian of Dorn, and I mean loved. John French is a master and can do no wrong in my eyes. However, some narrative choices I felt were unrealistic and over complicated with the Alpha Legion and I thought Dorn was too specific in attacking Alpharius' style because I would've preferred a more difinitive refutatuon of alpha legion strategies. That doesn't mean the book was bad, John doesn't 'get it', or Black Library is ruining the hobby.

 

The former. It is also clear, however, that ADB and I perceive the scene differently.

 

That is to say: The intent is to show that the crime of stealing the last ocean on Terra is grave enough to make her other crimes meaningless in the context of it. Like, let us say, you would not care much that a tyrant that send thousands of people to death also happened to steal a wallet from one of his subordinates yesterday. You would not even find it worth mentioning; the magnitude of the major crime renders the smaller one insignificant and thus, easily overlooked.

 

However, when I read the scene, that is not the impression I personally got. By bringing her other crimes to the fore and dismissing them as meaningless, the impression I got was that the crimes were dismissed as insignificant out of hand. That is to say that the crimes are meaningless period. That if the crime of stealing water did not appear, The Emperor would allow the purges and planning a rebellion to continue unabated, evem though he possessed knowledge of them.

 

Which is something I do find inconsistent, because this is Terra. Blood Games showed us that Custodes monitor suspicious activity on the planet. Terrorist organisitions are eliminated, opposition to Imperial directives results in house arrest, or execution for treason. Which is good, The Emperor, for all intents and purpoeses, work towards saving of Humanity, if some morons want to hinder Him, let them die. My problem is that what I got from the scene was the implication that purges and planning treason are something that The Emperor would allow to go unabated, which is both stupid, and inconsistent with, for example, the aformentioned Blood Games.

 

And that is my problem with the scene. And all I have to say on the subject.

 

Alright darth. At this point you are just here because you want a fight.

 

You straight up quoted ADB saying "IP meetings" which are meetings with the owners or owner representatives of the IP that is 40k with whichever writers they felt needed to be in that meeting... and said "you read it all"

 

Unless you were at that meeting, then no, you didnt. You are not privy to private in house meetings by a corporation that to date has very jealously guarded it's internal operations.

 

From here on out I can't see your input as constructive unless you first apologize, for blatantly being here for combative purposes.

 

Really? I tried to be to polite and nonconfrontional... to the degree that having a dissenting opinion from majority allows. Especially when people continue to misconstruct my argument. Like here.

 

 

And i don't get why one is getting so uppity about water-wars. A post-nuclear wasteland of a world where water is scarce.. how is it not execution-worthy to suck the remaining water supplies dry?

 

Because I have stated no such thing. Mostly because it would be silly, since it totally is execution worthy offense.

 

Mind, one would think that he would simply order creation of new oceans on Terra, since he commands fleets totalling hundreds of thousands of ships, if not millions, many of which must be capable of transporting vast quantities of liquids, because logistical chains for armor divisions demand it... but that's beside the point.

 

My remark was aimed at ADB suggesting that I should not read other sources featuring The Emperor, since I would find them contradictory... to which I responded that I already did read them, to point that the warning was somewhat ill-timed.

 

But for what is worth, if I offended in any way what so ever, I do apologise. It was not my intention.

 

Back to waiting for the book to come out.

[Mellow]

 

 

And i don't get why one is getting so uppity about water-wars. A post-nuclear wasteland of a world where water is scarce.. how is it not execution-worthy to suck the remaining water supplies dry?

 

Because I have stated no such thing. Mostly because it would be silly, since it totally is execution worthy offense.

 

Mind, one would think that he would simply order creation of new oceans on Terra, since he commands fleets totalling hundreds of thousands of ships, if not millions, many of which must be capable of transporting vast quantities of liquids, because logistical chains for armor divisions demand it... but that's beside the point.

 

 

You appear to think it odd that The Emperor would punish someone for the "minor" act of stealing water (when water is literally required for Human life. However when questioned on this point as above you flat out deny it stating its "totally execution worthy".

 

Seems like you're only point is to disagree with everyone elses points. Whilst at the same time trying a little too obviously to make out like you're just being "misunderstood" and that you're just trying to put your point across constructively. Simultaneously disagreeing with the author about various points when the author is the creator of the Novel and ultimately has more information on the topic than you.

 

Not cool.

[Scribe]

His point, if I may be bold, is that water shouldn't be the tipping point, and that the other crimes should matter.

 

There is nothing wrong with that position.

[Carach]

but the crimes did matter. it is simply that the one that our minister friend is being executed for specifically is the crime of stealing water.

 

way too much emphasis being put on this tbfh. And i'm finding it pretty ridiculous that darth has so much to pointlessly trample out of so little an extract. 

 

Very much of the opinion as a silent observer of this thread up to now that he is simply trolling. He may put things across in a 'smart' way but it is still needlessly antagonistic to so many people here as well as the author himself (which is startling considering its the author. and the most respected one at that) - Trolling or possesses some unfortunate ailment of the mind.

[MrDarth151]

but the crimes did matter. it is simply that the one that our minister friend is being executed for specifically is the crime of stealing water.

 

way too much emphasis being put on this tbfh. And i'm finding it pretty ridiculous that darth has so much to pointlessly trample out of so little an extract. 

 

Very much of the opinion as a silent observer of this thread up to now that he is simply trolling. He may put things across in a 'smart' way but it is still needlessly antagonistic to so many people here as well as the author himself (which is startling considering its the author. and the most respected one at that) - Trolling or possesses some unfortunate ailment of the mind.

 

...

 

If this is considered to be pointlessly antagonistic trolling, then I am simply not suited to this board.