The Emperor was wrong

[Scribe]

Sure Darth.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

Personally I could see the Emperor creating a false origin story to separate himself from the negative view of the Dark Age of Technology. The entire thing could have been some ploy to garner support that he might not have received had he admitted to being from the Dark Age of Technology do to the fear and superstition revolving around the time and it's aftermath.

 

This is of course just speculation on my part.

[jeffersonian000]

We know that the image most associated with the Emperor during his heyday is not what he actually looked like at the time, as Grammaticus saw through that illustration and was repulsed by what he saw. The implication being that at that moment on Earth during the Unification the Emperor most likely was the lich he appears to be on the golden throne. The desiccated, deathly husk still empowered by his tremendous psychic will is his actual form.

 

SJ

[choppyred]

Good call jeffersonian000, I think that Grammaticus saw the emperor for the blood soaked dictator that he is but that is just my interpretation. I have been thinking about this for days now and I've had an idea who and what is Malcador because I think that he and big E are the same. Tremendously powerfull psychic perpetuals, what if they came up with this whole idea between them to rule mankind. One of them needs to be the "face" of the organisation (E-money) and therefore only apears in public using psychic disguise as a massive golden war leader and the other takes a background role (malcador) and can just be himself or maybe they take turns. So when corax sees through the emperors glamour in deliverence lost he sees him as he truly is, an unremarkable (to look at) man. This is just me turning speculation up to 11 but it seems to make sense.

[Servant of Dante]

We know that the image most associated with the Emperor during his heyday is not what he actually looked like at the time, as Grammaticus saw through that illustration and was repulsed by what he saw. The implication being that at that moment on Earth during the Unification the Emperor most likely was the lich he appears to be on the golden throne. The desiccated, deathly husk still empowered by his tremendous psychic will is his actual form.

 

SJ

that would be wonderfully grimdark. I like it, and it's probably become part of my headcanon already :D

[Race Bannon]

:facepalm:

 

The heresy continues.

[Servant of Dante]

The heresy continues.

It's not heresy if the Emperor has always looked withered. Whatever he looks like, he is the Emperor, and the peak of humanity, as well as it's God :P

[Claws and Effect]

We know that the image most associated with the Emperor during his heyday is not what he actually looked like at the time, as Grammaticus saw through that illustration and was repulsed by what he saw. The implication being that at that moment on Earth during the Unification the Emperor most likely was the lich he appears to be on the golden throne. The desiccated, deathly husk still empowered by his tremendous psychic will is his actual form.

 

SJ

What if he actually needs to die and be reborn every now and then?

 

Pure speculation, but what if he needs a new body every couple millennia and just hadn't gotten a new one lately because he needed to be present instead of taking the 20 years or so a new body takes?

 

His early history came directly from him. I could easily see him mot wanting to mention needing a new body every few thousand years.

[Eddie Orlock]

I mean lets not forget, 2nd Edition had a Half Eldar Librarian of the Ultra Marines.

Citation needed.

 

We can show that Illiyan Nastase was referenced in Rogue Trader era materials, but I've never seen a reference to him in second edition materials.

[ViperS]

For all the argument back and forth about what is canon and what isn't, I'd like to input the old adage "Everything is canon. Nothing is true." Every story is being told by a narrator who has their own agenda. That's kinda the official GW stance. Nothing is definitive. You can discuss and debate what is likely to be true or have happened, but saying something is "definitive" is about the only thing definitively not true.

 

Also, I still see the setting as very grimdark, despite what others have said. Sure, some Imperial triumvirates have come back, but they haven't altered the oncoming Tyranid threat nor slowed down the reproduction of Orks, who are both constant and innumerable threats.

 

We also don't know what the Emp's backup plan after the Webway was. He very well could've had a Plan B and hasn't been able to enact it. A reborn Emperor (if you believe that theory) could lead humanity to victory via other means. Or he could stay permanently dead while Terra is consumed and the rest of the Imperium fractures into fiefdoms denied reliable warp travel that are destroyed piecemeal by the Imperium's enemies.

[Scribe]

 

I mean lets not forget, 2nd Edition had a Half Eldar Librarian of the Ultra Marines.

Citation needed.

 

We can show that Illiyan Nastase was referenced in Rogue Trader era materials, but I've never seen a reference to him in second edition materials.

 

 

My mistake. ;)

[Scribe]

For all the argument back and forth about what is canon and what isn't, I'd like to input the old adage "Everything is canon. Nothing is true." Every story is being told by a narrator who has their own agenda. That's kinda the official GW stance. Nothing is definitive. You can discuss and debate what is likely to be true or have happened, but saying something is "definitive" is about the only thing definitively not true.

 

I dont buy that either, and for a time at any rate there certainly was 'official canon' and not.

[Eddie Orlock]

My mistake.

While I'm not sure if there ever was a true canon, I do recall it being established at one point that there was gradients in canonicity between sources. The star child and sensei, despite being largely deprecated is still derived from a book with Priestley's name on it and thus as holy word of the Rick is likely a higher canon than anything by a later author.

The real problem with commenting on the Imperator's plans is that one of the earliest and deepest canons was that he was incomprehensibly intelligent. It'd be like the ants in your back yard trying to write about how you think. You might have a smart ant, but it's just not on your level.

The Emperor was better viewed through the soft focus of ten thousand years of myth and legend.

Given recent trends in GW's fluff releases of late, I anticipate neo-star-child fluff within the next five years.

[A D-B]

While I'm not sure if there ever was a true canon, I do recall it being established at one point that there was gradients in canonicity between sources. The star child and sensei, despite being largely deprecated is still derived from a book with Priestley's name on it and thus as holy word of the Rick is likely a higher canon than anything by a later author.

That's never been true, but I wouldn't object to it if it was.

(Apart from, well, the times I would object, like a lot of the sillier stuff that Andy Chambers tempered into awesomeness in 2nd Edition.)

[A D-B]

The Emperor was better viewed through the soft focus of ten thousand years of myth and legend.

Given recent trends in GW's fluff releases of late, I anticipate neo-star-child fluff within the next five years.

 

I'd argue that the entire Horus Heresy was best viewed that way, no matter how many high points the series and FW's books have given us. The Emperor, at least, is still undefined. Everything else being so established now arguably depletes a lot of the mystery, but - again - it is what it is. 

 

It's hard to picture the Imperium's staggering (and actual, canonical vastness and ignorance) now when you're getting more and more Imperial characters that were actually there in the HH, who can say "What do you mean you've forgotten all this stuff, I totally remember it."

 

Think of worlds that view the Emperor as a sun god. Or Space Marine Chapters that aren't sure of their gene-seed's origins. Or the many fragments of the Codex Astartes that Chapters will cling to and interpret wildly differently, even to the point of fighting each other. The Emperor's Custodians, the finest fighting souls in the Imperium, swearing to abandon war and guard his private sanctum in shame for all time. All part of the grotesque, baroque, impractical, beautiful mind-breaking scale of Warhammer 40,000. The sense of how so much has been lost, never to be recovered. 

 

Fans saying "Why don't the Custodians go out and fight?" and "Why don't they just have a record of the actual Codex Astartes?" have always been missing the point and attacking the low hanging fruit of the setting's illogical immersion. But the more you reveal, and the more you have things like the Custodians, the Sisters of Silence, and the Primarchs active in the Imperium - and the more familiar the fan base is with the absolute details of why the Heresy happened and what everyone was thinking at the time - the more those things begin not to make sense any more. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because plenty of stuff in 40K has never made sense, but there's always a cost for diminishing the mystery, even if it makes maximum bank and we get great models and novels and game books.

 

With great power, comes...

[M@verik115]

It could be worse. 
It could be revealed that the Emperor is actually Sigmar...

[Sete]

An awesome barbarian king that rose to godhood?

How can that be worse? ;)

Rethorical question.

 

Can the remember which book it was, but the Emperor said if you can't win, make sure the other guys does not win either.

Think that's his plan B.

 

Humanity won't get rid of the warp influence. But he sure as hell won't give them psyker snacks. He will have them all :D

[Eddie Orlock]

(Apart from, well, the times I would object, like a lot of the sillier stuff that Andy Chambers tempered into awesomeness in 2nd Edition.)

It may have been a perspective born in the community of a darker age with less communication from GW that contrived to compartmentalize things like Grey Knight Multilasers. I'd also contort to reconcile it that 'The Overfiend' was a direct acolyte of the Rick and much of the tempering occurred while the Rick was still somewhat part of the studio and thus under his oversight. Word of Rick by proxy, if you will and the later word can overrule the earlier word.

 

Yes, I agree with you that Second Ed. contained much awesomeness.

 

... Fans saying ... "Why don't they just have a record of the actual Codex Astartes?" have always been missing the point and attacking the low hanging fruit of the setting's illogical immersion. ...

See, I'd long presumed that it's not that they don't have a copy, it's that they have a few hundred different versions that are substantially similar and each chapter believes it's own is the truth. This helped to reconcile so many of the Marine vs. Marine games I played as megalomaniacal skirmishing over bizarrely fine points found divergent between the chapter I was playing and my opponents.

[Race Bannon]

See, I'd long presumed that it's not that they don't have a copy, it's that they have a few hundred different versions that are substantially similar and each chapter believes it's own is the truth.

There is something very ... biblically ... real about that line.

[Dagoth Ur]

 

See, I'd long presumed that it's not that they don't have a copy, it's that they have a few hundred different versions that are substantially similar and each chapter believes it's own is the truth.

There is something very ... biblically ... real about that line.

The big G while explaining the Codex:"Alright, y'all better listen carefully, 'cause I don't want to end up with 12 versions of this! "

[Slave to Darkness]

 

See, I'd long presumed that it's not that they don't have a copy, it's that they have a few hundred different versions that are substantially similar and each chapter believes it's own is the truth.

There is something very ... biblically ... real about that line.

*Bites lip and says nothing* :lol:

 

I nearly went off topic there, shame I had to delete everything as it would have been the first intelligent thing I'd have said since I was born. :D

 

Its so hard to not compare to real world stuff. I think everyones done a good job of not getting this thread locked.

 

Anyhoo back on topic... Ish.

 

If GW do end up keeping the Starchild/Sensi/Emperor reborn fluff stuff and he does come back do you think he will drop the ball a second time?

[karden00]

I still dunno. 

The Big E thought he shouldn't let his sons know about the true nature of the warp, or at least his version of it. In that respect, yeah, he was Totally wrong. If he had coached people like Magnus and Lorgar (goddamn :cuss! golly gee is wrong with you, XVII?!?!?!) about how it would try to tempt them in exactly the way it ended up doing, much less Horus, maybe it would've played out differently. 

 

But the fact that he didnt really address it, and let them figure it out on their own.......Yeah in hindsight, not something any of us would likely do, given how we know it all turned out... but aren't the individual primarchs, the most gifted collective group in the galaxy also "wrong"? 

 

To say it was all The Big E's fault kinda absolves All of the primarchs, Heretic (you know who you are) and Loyalist (Here's looking at you, Leman and Lion....) alike. 

These are beings who ought not have been so susceptible to human faults. Sure, the Big E made them but....eventually they have to own some culpability, if not the *lions* share.  

[karden00]

 

The Emperor was better viewed through the soft focus of ten thousand years of myth and legend.

Given recent trends in GW's fluff releases of late, I anticipate neo-star-child fluff within the next five years.

 

I'd argue that the entire Horus Heresy was best viewed that way, no matter how many high points the series and FW's books have given us. The Emperor, at least, is still undefined. Everything else being so established now arguably depletes a lot of the mystery, but - again - it is what it is. 

 

It's hard to picture the Imperium's staggering (and actual, canonical vastness and ignorance) now when you're getting more and more Imperial characters that were actually there in the HH, who can say "What do you mean you've forgotten all this stuff, I totally remember it."

 

Think of worlds that view the Emperor as a sun god. Or Space Marine Chapters that aren't sure of their gene-seed's origins. Or the many fragments of the Codex Astartes that Chapters will cling to and interpret wildly differently, even to the point of fighting each other. The Emperor's Custodians, the finest fighting souls in the Imperium, swearing to abandon war and guard his private sanctum in shame for all time. All part of the grotesque, baroque, impractical, beautiful mind-breaking scale of Warhammer 40,000. The sense of how so much has been lost, never to be recovered. 

 

Fans saying "Why don't the Custodians go out and fight?" and "Why don't they just have a record of the actual Codex Astartes?" have always been missing the point and attacking the low hanging fruit of the setting's illogical immersion. But the more you reveal, and the more you have things like the Custodians, the Sisters of Silence, and the Primarchs active in the Imperium - and the more familiar the fan base is with the absolute details of why the Heresy happened and what everyone was thinking at the time - the more those things begin not to make sense any more. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because plenty of stuff in 40K has never made sense, but there's always a cost for diminishing the mystery, even if it makes maximum bank and we get great models and novels and game books.

 

With great power, comes...

 

Bold, underlined, and italicized. 

Ahem. (not the sarcastic kind, I assure you). But did your MoM novel not seek to define the Emperor? Define may be a strong word, but I doubt you would/could deny that your take in that novel did something huge to at least in part define him? Sure, that may not be the definitive take on such a complex character, but I doubt you meant to write what you did and yet didn't mean to in some way offer a formative take on him, given how little treatment he has had so far? 

 

(tried not to have any spoilers, though I doubt many people here have not read this wonderful book)

[Kristoff]

I still dunno.

The Big E thought he shouldn't let his sons know about the true nature of the warp, or at least his version of it. In that respect, yeah, he was Totally wrong. If he had coached people like Magnus and Lorgar (goddamn :cuss! is wrong with you, XVII?!?!?!) about how it would try to tempt them in exactly the way it ended up doing, much less Horus, maybe it would've played out differently.

But the fact that he didnt really address it, and let them figure it out on their own.......Yeah in hindsight, not something any of us would likely do, given how we know it all turned out... but aren't the individual primarchs, the most gifted collective group in the galaxy also "wrong"?

To say it was all The Big E's fault kinda absolves All of the primarchs, Heretic (you know who you are) and Loyalist (Here's looking at you, Leman and Lion....) alike.

These are beings who ought not have been so susceptible to human faults. Sure, the Big E made them but....eventually they have to own some culpability, if not the *lions* share.

I don't think anyone is saying it was all Big E's fault, but it is being said that he is not guiltless. In the storyline, we don't know how Horus would have received the Big 4's message if general knowledge of Warp Xenos was available, or even if he would have even been put in that position in the first place!

But then the other side of the coin is, is there any actual guilt to be had on the part of the Big E? Would it be better for humanity over all to put some of his sons in a position to betray him, or would the Big E been truly guilty of worse crimes if he had done all to prevent the Fall of the Primarchs?

[Xenith]

 

 

I'd argue that the entire Horus Heresy was best viewed that way, no matter how many high points the series and FW's books have given us. The Emperor, at least, is still undefined. Everything else being so established now arguably depletes a lot of the mystery, but - again - it is what it is. 

Bold, underlined, and italicized. 

Ahem. (not the sarcastic kind, I assure you). But did your MoM novel not seek to define the Emperor? 

 

Seeing as the subtitle is: "The war in the webway" and not "Emperors secrets revealed", it's not about defining the Emperor.

 

Actually reading the book, it's very clearly not about who or what the Emperor is, and the afterword says this explicitly. The book is more about the Emperor's uncertainty in how to proceed next, all the while showing the horror of the daemon and the hopelessness of the war.