The Emperor was wrong

[Lagrath]

Glad I found this thread. I recently read First Heretic and MoM back to back and it was interesting to contrast the two sides as both narratives do a good job of making you say, "Why don't the people on the other side get it?"

 

Neat to see ADB's commentary here as I very strongly saw the influence of the 5 liber Chaotica books in two the above mentioned books when they explain how the warp is a reflection of human emotion. I feel extra lucky again to own the collector editions of all 5 excellent LC books!

 

However, even with my 20+ years of reading 40k lore and the revelations in ADB's HH books, I am still confused as to one key point. We know that by 40k the Emperor is effectively a god (Celestine, Emperor's Tarot, LotD, personification of the Astronomic on, lots of other things. I was surprised in the HH books to see that the Emperor was manifesting signs of "divinity" (beyond just being a powerful and intimidating psyker) prior to being interred in the Golden Throne / the widespread adoption of belief in his divinity. One example is the saint in the first few HH books. Another is the star / comet Garro sees.

 

Based on existing and new lore as to how the realm of Chaos is just a reflection of sentient species (especially human) emotion, my understanding is that things went in the following order:

 

1) the Emperor is born in very early human history as the most powerful psyker in the species, including living basically forever and powers so great that they seem god-like to others

2) the Emperor eventually conquers Terra and the galaxy, after which many humans are exposed to the existence of the Emperor. They express emotion and worship of the Emperor as a god. This in turn causes manifestations of the Emperor as a god in ways beyond him just being a powerful psyker, such as manifestations across the galaxy (I.e. in the first few HH books, portents shown to Garro, the woman who became a saint, and so on). In other words, the human belief in the Emperor as a God is reflected in the warp and the belief itself catalyzes the empirical effect, beginning the Emperor's ascent into more official godhood beyond just psychic supremacy

3) after the HH, belief in the Emperor as a god spreads like wildfire and thereafter and into 40k, miracles and interventions and saints and such examples of divinity are more commonplace, further demonstrating that the same mechanism that makes the chaos gods divine and powerful (human emotion and worship reflected in the warp) also works on the Emperor

 

If all of the above is roughly correct, the thing I cannot figure out is whether the Emperor realized that he was currently ascending to godhood as humans started worshipped him despite his ministrations otherwise. Was the Emperor aware that he was empowering saints on the other side of the galaxy even as he was still a walking, talking character trying to espouse the imperial truth? Horus certainly argued that this was exactly the case and that the Emperor was actively trying to ascend to godhood, but the Emperor's grand explanation in MoM doesn't directly address this point (rather it just says that the Emperor was hiding the existence of the Chaos gods and attempting to spread atheism all so as to starve the Chaos gods and protect humanity's burgeoning psychic potential until the species could function without the warp thanks to the webway). So the million dollar question is - was the Emperor aware of his own inevitable slide towards godhood that was already occurring even before the onset of the HH? Was he aware of the Imperial saints and portents manifesting themselves and such before he was interred in the golden throne?

[Slave to Darkness]

 

1) the Emperor is born in very early human history...including living basically forever and powers so great that they seem god-like to others.

 

Dont forget he also spoke in a bad scottish accent and loved to run barefoot down the beach with Sean Connery. :lol:

[SpecialIssue]

It is all part of the mysticism of His character. Was he planning this the whole time? Did he make mistakes and is now on a different plan? Or was it a huge screw from bean to cup on his part?

 

The warp is powered by emotion, not belief. Belief in the Emperor as a God will never do anything to empower or ascend him, just as simply believing that Khorne exists will never empower him, or believing in gravity will create daemons of gravity. Belief is empty and lifeless - there is no warp effect. Our worship and devotion is in fact fruitless. You must feel to stir the warp, and anger, despair, pleasure, hope are all part of the gods, no matter their feeler's allegiance. What human emotion is left to feed the emperor or any other god? (fear is the last major one, and is perhaps a hidden god in that the very base of its nature is to hide and avoid others).

 

In addition, the Emperor is not a warp entity in the sense of the gods and daemons. He is not the personification of the gestalt emotion of entire races, but rather a singular, hugely powerful and self-contained soul (he is a psyker, not a god in the 'traditional' 40k sense ala the Big 4). Thus he is not affected by the flux, wax and wane of his patron race; but will never gain power from our dreary church sermons, or even as we call out his name and bleed for him in the swirl of combat. You can't give your emotions to the Emperor, a singular soul.

 

And what of the signs, miracles and saints? As I've said in a previous post, you don't worship the gods to give them power, but to gain their attention. The saints, miracles, and tarot are people gaining His attention and him imparting a portion of his personal psychic power from Terra across time and space. While cries for help and strength might be born on waves of emotion that inevitably sit as a part of Chaos, their messages reach his ears. Imagine the cacophony for 10,000 years, while He screams eternally into the warp...

 

As for why he chooses such 'religious' signs and vessels to work through - that is anyone's guess. Why did he choose a pattern of governance, culture and empire that relied so much on invoking myth, religion and heroic glory (re: burns churches, calls his soldiers the angels of death)? It literally might have been his personal taste; or a calculation to create a sense of awe and reverence amongst humans, or nostalgia for the good old days, a combination of everything, whatever.

 

We will get many hints, come up with many answers, create innumerable discussions on it - and that's what gives this universe its depth, and has ensured its longevity while other franchises reboot and restart over and over as the storylines they rely on become stale and spent.

[M@verik115]

1) the Emperor is born in very early human history...including living basically forever and powers so great that they seem god-like to others.

Dont forget he also spoke in a bad scottish accent and loved to run barefoot down the beach with Sean Connery.

I too would love to run down the beach with Sean Connery.

[the jeske]

Belief in the Emperor as a God will never do anything to empower or ascend him

generate no empotions? have you ever been to a place where two religions get in face to face contact? You need super strickt rules to govern the interactions, and if you have the slightest miss step [like lets say a catholic priest not in full regalia, but wearing a colorate making a step in to the syrian ortodox controled part of a church] you get our right wars. People are willing to kill over religion over blink of an eye. Why do you think forum rules disallowe relgion talk on most forums? Emps gets well pumped on worship, now the question is how the anchor that is his body works, because in the past we had it work in different ways. Mortal demon princes for example got more powerful with their body dead for the first time[although it also limited their ability to stay in real space] for example.

[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...

 

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)

 

That's true, and I definitely wanted to bring out a better understanding of his vision and what he was up against, but that's also lore I'd wager anyone with a deep knowledge of the setting already had a handle on to some degree, whether explicitly or not. What I wanted to avoid was too much "new" stuff. You have to put in something new, and thankfully what little newness I do introduce in my work is seemingly well-regarded, but I've always said our job (as I see it) is to illustrate the setting and show what it's like to live there, not to set it in stone. As much as the fandom adores "advancing the storyline", it's not something that interests me, by and large. I try my best to show things from the perspectives of characters on the ground level, bring a few perceptions of the setting through the lens of my own imagination and the insight I'm lucky enough to get endlessly talking about the setting with its creators and inheritors, and then get out. Most of my books are, to some extent, not definitive. They're about Some Guy, not the entire faction.

 

Grimaldus in Helsreach has no bond to the wider war on Armageddon and hates that he's been left behind by the Black Templars, but he's (hopefully) a good example of what it feels like to be a Black Templar, and to think like one, and - crucially - what it feels like to be a human around them. Talos and the other characters of First Claw spend a trilogy unable to decide what the Night Lords Legion really was, and each of them remembers their glory days differently. I didn't want to speak for the whole Legion. Hyperion in The Emperor's Gift is a largely generic Grey Knight present in dire circumstances. HH-wise, I didn't want to show all of the Word Bearers and base a book around the expectations of Kor Phaeron, Lorgar, and Erebus, so I focused on the Serrated Sun in the middle of the changes taking place across the galaxy. Savage Weapons is largely about Corswain, not about Curze and the Lion. The Master of Mankind is about Ra, Zephon, Jaya, and Land in the heart of the Emperor's plans for the species, not about the Emperor himself. As much as I wrote about Angron and Lorgar, they get significantly less in-their-heads screen time than most other primarchs in most other books.

 

It's harder to do that with the Heresy, but - again - I do my best to present individual experiences and mindsets in characters like Khârn, Argel Tal, and Ra, rather than definitive looks at the entire Chapter/Legion/faction and setting its events in stone. I try to present a feel for how it is to live inside that culture and be part of the experiences they go through; it's about immersion into the Chapter or Legion, presenting them as believable and real, not definitively saying "All of Chapter X are like Y."

 

So: I'm reluctant to talk about TMoM and the Emperor's perception in that book in any real detail, partly because the book is still new and there's a lot individual readers would do better discovering for themselves without my thoughts in public, and partly because everything I'd say is ultimately in the book. Anything I say will be taken out of context or weaponised one way or another somewhere, and used in a way that makes me sigh, cringe, or a dramatic melange of both that shall hereafter be called the sigh-cringe. 

 

(Plus, most of all, I have faith in readers. They don't need me defining anything, even if it might be interesting for a few peeps.)

 

So, I'll just say this. The Master of Mankind is entirely from the perspectives of people that meet the Emperor in pretty specific circumstances. There are, obviously, other circumstances to come. Nothing in it is definitive, even less so than my usual work. Any definitive statement you can make about how the Emperor sees something or does something is almost always contradicted in the book itself. That's not an escape clause or an excuse. It's the point. Writing him definitively would've been the easiest and most disappointing thing in the world.

 

(And on that note, remember, everyone views 40K differently. What Person X is absolutely certain is the truth of the Emperor and the best way to present him would be laughed off by Persons A, B, and C. The flip side to that is that not every perspective is founded in fact or understanding. The earliest "I've not read this yet, but..." criticisms and misunderstandings of TMoM in, ah, certain reddit/chan-style locations was regarded by GW IP folks as, I quote: "These angry people seem to be beholden to a version of 40K that has never existed...")

 

But in all seriousness, I don't want to delve too deeply into explaining the ways the Emperor's contradictions matter or don't matter. They're there, and they're definitely formative - totally agree - if not exactly definitive. With the Emperor, a lot of interaction is about getting out what you put in. You get what you give. Your perceptions and expectations are reflected back on you because that's how the human brain perceives everything (a fact that cannot be overstated; the science behind it is fascinating and all-important), especially when you're talking about someone who exists on that plane of power. At one point the Emperor makes mention of the notion that he's not even speaking, that being near to him allows the conveyance of meaning through psychic osmosis, and communication telepathically. He's not even talking. It's raw understanding filtering through a mind, or just the way the mortal mind comprehends the aura of what the Emperor intends, or, or, or...

 

That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?

 

"Magnus."

 

Like... that's a pretty strong indication that the interactions which follow are playing by different rules. Ra sees the Warlord of Humanity, just a man, but a great mean, weary and defiant, burdened by responsibility. Daemons see their annihilation, and go insane in his presence. One of the Knights, as they're marching through the Throne Room, is caught in religious rapture, unable to do anything but stare at the glorious halo of the Emperor of Mankind on the Golden Throne. One of the Sisters of Silence, in the same room, literally just sees a man in a chair. Another character, not Imperial, asks a Custodian if the Emperor even breathes. She believes he's a weapon left out of its box from the Dark Age of Technology. (With thanks to Alan Bligh for that one, he adores that theory.)

 

So I don't think it's exactly a spoiler to say that if and when I get to write a character like Sanguinius in the Emperor's presence, or Malcador, they'd have entirely different experiences than Ra and Land. I'd loved to have had that in TMoM, but as much as it would've given wider context, these aren't rulebooks and essays; it would've been self-indulgent for the sake of 'hoping people get it', and cheapened the story being told, which was ultimately in a very narrow and confined set of circumstances. Breaking out of that narrative would be offering a sense of scope and freedom I was specifically trying to avoid in a claustrophobic siege story. Because theme and atmosphere is a thing.

[Race Bannon]

Ok.  A-D-B just closed the thread.

 

:lol:

[Arkaniss]

Someone rename this thread "The A D-B was right." :lol:

 

I've not read a HH book in a long time (think Nemesis was my last?) and now I need to go get MoM to read... sounds like a treat.

[Memento Of Prospero]

I would like to echo those thoughts on MoM. From my understanding of the novel, it's purpose was two fold:

 

First and foremost, the novel makes CHOOOOM canon. I feel this is the something that many fail to mention as their main argument.

 

-As a distant second, it advances the overall story arc of the Horus Heresy series, which was at that point stuck waiting for the events to unfold on Terra (and had done some serious stagnation in the last few books including collections of shorts we had already read...), and give us glimpses of the Emperor's grand scheme and how they can never come to be.

 

Neither of these define or gives us true insight what makes Humanity's Savior thick.

[evilmittens]

Like, did ADB just drop the mike...in a nice ways LOL 

[Olis]

First and foremost, the novel makes CHOOOOM canon. I feel this is the something that many fail to mention as their main argument.

The MDRC most certainly approves. :D

[Slave to Darkness]

Like, did ADB just drop the mike...in a nice ways LOL

Nah its a Breakfast Club 'walking into the distance with fist raised' moment. :lol:

[choppyred]

Wow! That was great I've got goosebumps.

[Slave to Darkness]

1) the Emperor is born in very early human history...including living basically forever and powers so great that they seem god-like to others.

Dont forget he also spoke in a bad scottish accent and loved to run barefoot down the beach with Sean Connery.

I too would love to run down the beach with Sean Connery.

Aye me too :lol:

[Karthak]

That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?

 

I've been thinking about this, and the Emperor's relationship with the Primarchs in general. See, I read many of your insightful comments here before I first cracked open the book, and yet, when I put it down after reaching the end, I still felt like the novel was pretty unambigously saying that the Big E only saw the Primarchs as tools. Sure, the text raises the possibility that different characters interpret the Emperor and his words differently, but the theme is all skewed in one direction; i.e. the Primarchs are only numbers to Him. I'm not saying you should have had Him say "and that Roboute! Always one of my favorites!" out of nowhere when communicating with Ra, but in my subjective opinion the text never really offers counter-evidence to the "he doesn't see them as sons" theme. 

Dammit, I'm too tired. Hopefully this came out coherently. To sum up in Hulk speak: Karthak feel text and author tell that Emperor's words unreliable, but what text show is only supporting one side.

[Blood Angel Scout]

"So I don't think it's exactly a spoiler to say that if and when I get to write a character like Sanguinius in the Emperor's presence, or Malcador..."

 

Hopefully we'll read in a reasonably-near-future thread ADB's quote saying "when I wrote the scene with Sanguinius met the Emperor and Malcador..." how the rest of the quote would go, is for anyone to guess? Would it be at the time the BA arrive on Terra, the moment before the teleport to Vengeful Spirit or flashback to earlier times. Either that or ADB's reminiscing about another time his work crashed BL's site...

But like the Emperor at this point, or at least as far as I'm aware TMOM is the most advanced in current timeline of HH, I can't see what outcome will be?

 

The concept about the Emp wanting to ban religion but really wanting to become a god, doesn't really work for me for several different reasons, too many to go into so couple of them: a) would've encouraged Lorgar at Monarchia b) wouldn't need any military to conquer/unite, c) no point in the human version of the webway,plot point since the 90's, d) no need for Golden Throne etc etc

 

One thing I wonder, based on a couple of the posts, is about the saints/miracles, belief in the Emp is that the strength/depth of their thoughts/emotions, focusing on the Anathema, is the active element of repelling daemons, a subliminal psychic resonance that may connect to the astronomican(picture a vanderberg generator) rather than the Emp himself doing anything? With the fear/taint associated with being a psyker, wouldn't be too far of a stretch for the idea to say the Emperor intervened directly?

[longfalcon]

One thing I wonder, based on a couple of the posts, is about the saints/miracles, belief in the Emp is that the strength/depth of their thoughts/emotions, focusing on the Anathema, is the active element of repelling daemons, a subliminal psychic resonance that may connect to the astronomican(picture a vanderberg generator) rather than the Emp himself doing anything? With the fear/taint associated with being a psyker, wouldn't be too far of a stretch for the idea to say the Emperor intervened directly?

 

a note: The first "saint", Euphrati Keeler, is pretty clearly revealed to be a psyker, and it's hinted in the books that is the source of her "power", and her faith was merely a way of bringing it forth. Its entirely possible that some of the early HH authors wanted to ground the latter-day saints like Celestine as little more than un-bound psykers, but it seems the lore is a little contradictory on that (shocker).

[choppyred]

 

That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?

 

I've been thinking about this, and the Emperor's relationship with the Primarchs in general. See, I read many of your insightful comments here before I first cracked open the book, and yet, when I put it down after reaching the end, I still felt like the novel was pretty unambigously saying that the Big E only saw the Primarchs as tools. Sure, the text raises the possibility that different characters interpret the Emperor and his words differently, but the theme is all skewed in one direction; i.e. the Primarchs are only numbers to Him. I'm not saying you should have had Him say "and that Roboute! Always one of my favorites!" out of nowhere when communicating with Ra, but in my subjective opinion the text never really offers counter-evidence to the "he doesn't see them as sons" theme. 

Dammit, I'm too tired. Hopefully this came out coherently. To sum up in Hulk speak: Karthak feel text and author tell that Emperor's words unreliable, but what text show is only supporting one side.

 

But the primarchs are tools.

[Olis]

But the primarchs are tools.

I'm going to assume you mean that they have their uses, not that they're 'tools'.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

 

That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?

 

I've been thinking about this, and the Emperor's relationship with the Primarchs in general. See, I read many of your insightful comments here before I first cracked open the book, and yet, when I put it down after reaching the end, I still felt like the novel was pretty unambigously saying that the Big E only saw the Primarchs as tools. Sure, the text raises the possibility that different characters interpret the Emperor and his words differently, but the theme is all skewed in one direction; i.e. the Primarchs are only numbers to Him. I'm not saying you should have had Him say "and that Roboute! Always one of my favorites!" out of nowhere when communicating with Ra, but in my subjective opinion the text never really offers counter-evidence to the "he doesn't see them as sons" theme. 

Dammit, I'm too tired. Hopefully this came out coherently. To sum up in Hulk speak: Karthak feel text and author tell that Emperor's words unreliable, but what text show is only supporting one side.

 

You know you can have a tool and use it for the purpose it was made for while still caring about the tool. The tool was made to be used, it does a good job at what it was made for and when it wears out and can't be used anymore you think back about how much you might miss that tool. So maybe the Emperor does see them more as tools than sons that doesn't mean he didn't care about them, doesn't mean he doesn't feel their lose after the fact even if it didn't occur to him at first how much he relied on the tool.

 

Hell I would argue that The Emperor saw them more as beloved tools rather than just any old tool, he did give the Primarchs a lot of free rein and only pulled them in when he viewed them as getting to out of hand (maybe a bit to much free rein in retrospect). That he allowed them so much latitude in their own actions does not say to me that he did not have affection for them, otherwise he would have locked them in the tool shed only pulling them out when it was absolutely needed. Edit: Though this could go the reverse, if he had to much affection for them  then he wouldn't have used them when needed for fear of losing such a beloved tool. It was the balance between using them and not keeping them on a tight leash that makes me think he actually did care about them. Some people are also bad about showing their affection for their children as well and the Emperor seems to be a very socially awkward individual to me.

[Blood Angel Scout]

Longfalcon,

 

I was thinking on the basis about the Emp's long-term strategy for humanity's eventual evolution toward a psychic race, something that's been in the lore since at least 2nd edition, maybe even in rogue trader though can't remember what the view/importance of living saints back then, as in how prominent the whole god-emp position is in today's 40k, so could be they're trying to ground it now but that's not where I was going.

 

I mean that the thoughts/prayers/battle hymns, yeah Black Templars take note here, are actually tapping into some subliminal/minute psychic sense all humanity has in 30K, especially if you take into consideration the author for the source of levitco, basis for Keeler's faith, a Mr L Aurelian, who's later works are known to have a certain kind of impact on the warp, taping into power....and going from the description/principle by how the feeling/emotion from the first murder created a weapon in the warp, then by invoking in the Emperor, they connect to the light of Astronomican.

 

Which is another point about Emp not wanting godhood, the design of Golden Throne and the cradles as Magnus was meant to be in it and maybe I'm pulling something out of dusty memory/might be retconned but wasn't there only 10k Thousand Sons left at one point...

[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)

 

That's true, and I definitely wanted to bring out a better understanding of his vision and what he was up against, but that's also lore I'd wager anyone with a deep knowledge of the setting already had a handle on to some degree, whether explicitly or not. What I wanted to avoid was too much "new" stuff. You have to put in something new, and thankfully what little newness I do introduce in my work is seemingly well-regarded, but I've always said our job (as I see it) is to illustrate the setting and show what it's like to live there, not to set it in stone. As much as the fandom adores "advancing the storyline", it's not something that interests me, by and large. I try my best to show things from the perspectives of characters on the ground level, bring a few perceptions of the setting through the lens of my own imagination and the insight I'm lucky enough to get endlessly talking about the setting with its creators and inheritors, and then get out. Most of my books are, to some extent, not definitive. They're about Some Guy, not the entire faction.

 

Grimaldus in Helsreach has no bond to the wider war on Armageddon and hates that he's been left behind by the Black Templars, but he's (hopefully) a good example of what it feels like to be a Black Templar, and to think like one, and - crucially - what it feels like to be a human around them. Talos and the other characters of First Claw spend a trilogy unable to decide what the Night Lords Legion really was, and each of them remembers their glory days differently. I didn't want to speak for the whole Legion. Hyperion in The Emperor's Gift is a largely generic Grey Knight present in dire circumstances. HH-wise, I didn't want to show all of the Word Bearers and base a book around the expectations of Kor Phaeron, Lorgar, and Erebus, so I focused on the Serrated Sun in the middle of the changes taking place across the galaxy. Savage Weapons is largely about Corswain, not about Curze and the Lion. The Master of Mankind is about Ra, Zephon, Jaya, and Land in the heart of the Emperor's plans for the species, not about the Emperor himself. As much as I wrote about Angron and Lorgar, they get significantly less in-their-heads screen time than most other primarchs in most other books.

 

It's harder to do that with the Heresy, but - again - I do my best to present individual experiences and mindsets in characters like Khârn, Argel Tal, and Ra, rather than definitive looks at the entire Chapter/Legion/faction and setting its events in stone. I try to present a feel for how it is to live inside that culture and be part of the experiences they go through; it's about immersion into the Chapter or Legion, presenting them as believable and real, not definitively saying "All of Chapter X are like Y."

 

So: I'm reluctant to talk about TMoM and the Emperor's perception in that book in any real detail, partly because the book is still new and there's a lot individual readers would do better discovering for themselves without my thoughts in public, and partly because everything I'd say is ultimately in the book. Anything I say will be taken out of context or weaponised one way or another somewhere, and used in a way that makes me sigh, cringe, or a dramatic melange of both that shall hereafter be called the sigh-cringe. 

 

(Plus, most of all, I have faith in readers. They don't need me defining anything, even if it might be interesting for a few peeps.)

 

So, I'll just say this. The Master of Mankind is entirely from the perspectives of people that meet the Emperor in pretty specific circumstances. There are, obviously, other circumstances to come. Nothing in it is definitive, even less so than my usual work. Any definitive statement you can make about how the Emperor sees something or does something is almost always contradicted in the book itself. That's not an escape clause or an excuse. It's the point. Writing him definitively would've been the easiest and most disappointing thing in the world.

 

(And on that note, remember, everyone views 40K differently. What Person X is absolutely certain is the truth of the Emperor and the best way to present him would be laughed off by Persons A, B, and C. The flip side to that is that not every perspective is founded in fact or understanding. The earliest "I've not read this yet, but..." criticisms and misunderstandings of TMoM in, ah, certain reddit/chan-style locations was regarded by GW IP folks as, I quote: "These angry people seem to be beholden to a version of 40K that has never existed...")

 

But in all seriousness, I don't want to delve too deeply into explaining the ways the Emperor's contradictions matter or don't matter. They're there, and they're definitely formative - totally agree - if not exactly definitive. With the Emperor, a lot of interaction is about getting out what you put in. You get what you give. Your perceptions and expectations are reflected back on you because that's how the human brain perceives everything (a fact that cannot be overstated; the science behind it is fascinating and all-important), especially when you're talking about someone who exists on that plane of power. At one point the Emperor makes mention of the notion that he's not even speaking, that being near to him allows the conveyance of meaning through psychic osmosis, and communication telepathically. He's not even talking. It's raw understanding filtering through a mind, or just the way the mortal mind comprehends the aura of what the Emperor intends, or, or, or...

 

That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?

 

"Magnus."

 

Like... that's a pretty strong indication that the interactions which follow are playing by different rules. Ra sees the Warlord of Humanity, just a man, but a great mean, weary and defiant, burdened by responsibility. Daemons see their annihilation, and go insane in his presence. One of the Knights, as they're marching through the Throne Room, is caught in religious rapture, unable to do anything but stare at the glorious halo of the Emperor of Mankind on the Golden Throne. One of the Sisters of Silence, in the same room, literally just sees a man in a chair. Another character, not Imperial, asks a Custodian if the Emperor even breathes. She believes he's a weapon left out of its box from the Dark Age of Technology. (With thanks to Alan Bligh for that one, he adores that theory.)

 

So I don't think it's exactly a spoiler to say that if and when I get to write a character like Sanguinius in the Emperor's presence, or Malcador, they'd have entirely different experiences than Ra and Land. I'd loved to have had that in TMoM, but as much as it would've given wider context, these aren't rulebooks and essays; it would've been self-indulgent for the sake of 'hoping people get it', and cheapened the story being told, which was ultimately in a very narrow and confined set of circumstances. Breaking out of that narrative would be offering a sense of scope and freedom I was specifically trying to avoid in a claustrophobic siege story. Because theme and atmosphere is a thing.

So chill of you to respond dude.

I gotta say that the whole "Magnus" at the beginning vs him calling them by their numerical when talking to others threw me a tricky one. I had noticed as I got into the book, "hey wait a sec, didn't he love his sons?! Why is he only calling them by numbers?! And then I remembered the "Magnus" bit at the beginning and to be honest I thought you kept it in as a throwback to Galaxy in Flames/A Thousand Sons (or whichever novels it came from. Don't have my books handy) and tried to distance your story from that, given your Emperor didn't seem all that into playing the father figure. (Rip George Michael)

 

Cheers again

[Kristoff]

But the primarchs are tools.

I'm going to assume you mean that they have their uses, not that they're 'tools'.

He could mean both. Let's face it, some of them were one, some were the other, and some were both. A lot depends on your perspective and desires.

[longfalcon]

....especially if you take into consideration the author for the source of levitco, basis for Keeler's faith, a Mr L Aurelian, who's later works are known to have a certain kind of impact on the warp, taping into power....

 

I dont think it was coincidence that keeler has her "awakening" when someone reads from Book of Lorgar - the same guy who's Lectitio Divinatus she had been reading.

[Volt]

Because the highly religious are typically very resistant to the kind of massive changes he had in mind.

 

To sort of give you a parallel, look at any historical data on the Dark Ages. The church was in control and scientific advancement just stopped completely for several hundred years. Any change to anyone's world view was seen as a threat.

 

It's not much of a stretch to see how the Emperor would encounter problems convincing the various religious leaders to do things his way.

 

At the end of the day, the ban on religion was just a simpler way to move forward than negotiating with thousands of different religions that were going to end up fighting you anyway.

http://i.imgur.com/0mw1I8e.gif

 

This is not only a complete misunderstanding of history, but an utter lie. There is no such thing as a "stagnation" in Europe in the 'Dark Ages', the phrase itself being a misnomer as it refers to the fact we have very little surviving accounts from the early middle ages (immediate post WRE era) to get a good view of the world. It was in fact the Church copying and preserving old Roman books that saved much of the old knowledge from destruction under the anarchy of the Early Middle Ages. And there was never any scientific stagnation. Religion rarely, if not ever causes stagnation of science or culture, these are typically symptoms of other problems such as perpetual warfare and anarchy.

 

Realistically the Ecclesiarchy would actually be the greatest source of education in the Imperium, as not only do they have the greatest logistics spread across the Milky Way to do so, but also have the (nebulous) unity to at least make some sort of unilateral push for literacy. And it's in their best interest as well- while ignorance to a degree may help fend of Chaos, the ignorant aren't capable of reading religious material and spreading it.

 

Furthermore the idea of pushing an atheistic state "belief" on all you conquer is just damn stupid. All you achieve by trying to stomp out religious is angering every single religious body you stomped on, and giving them all a common enemy. And it's not like it's even enforceable, there should be countless hundreds of trillions of underground religious citizens still practicing their old beliefs the Emperor annihilated because unless you have a psyker going door-to-door you aren't going to know what the population's opinion on the Imperial Truth. And as we know from history people are 100% willing to martyr themselves in droves if they think their religion is honestly on the line, which can prove dangerous when you're building manufacoturums on most of the worlds you conquer (sabotage, sneaking nuclear devices into what they build, etc).

 

The Imperial Truth wasn't a smart or effective way forward for the Emperor. it was bull-headed and it's obvious that 40k is fiction considering that realistically the Imperium would have ripped itself apart from religious strife before the Great Crusade even gained momentum on account of revolts and sabotage. The sensible way for the Emperor to take (with making a secular state obviously not being optional) is to have simply started a cult surrounding him from the start. Subvert local religions into recognizing him as either a part of their pantheon or their chief monotheistic deity. At the very least you can have one group of people devoted to you while angering some, which is far better than alienating everybody.