God Emperor and Empress

[Slips]

We're getting off track from the original premise of this thread guys. Lets get back on track and keep it there.

[Petitioner's City]

Edit: a few distinct thoughts ahead that I hope address the topic at hand, as it's taken some time to write this and refine it.

 

In MoM, the emperor prsents his narratives about himself in ways that are subject to ambiguity, where the deliberate weaving of faslehoods or manipulative versions of the information he presents is pregnantly present - recalling the situation of the eidetic narrator who lies and manipulates, in a situation that recalls the postmodern manipulations found in the late, magnificent Gene Wolfe's work. We also face the situation that the emperor projects to those around him how he looks, appears, sounds, feels, etc. We do not know to what we really look. Finally, as a being many tens of thousands of years old, we do not know how many times the emperor has changed themselves. 

 

These three factors along mean that the emperor's gender or even their physical sex may have changed throughout their long life, with the opportunity for the emperor to have been many genders or sexes throughout. Indeed, although the emperor's physical sex may be male, their gender could be female, and vice versa, or they could exist in a liminal or even intersex place.

 

To put my academic hat on and reflect on this conversation in a constructive manner that hopes to address why we think a certain way about the Emperor, I find it intriguing the ideas of masculinity, creativity, fatherhood and procreativity that underwrite this discussion. The emperor is generally seen as male, and a god-like or indeed godly creator. He has a sex and/or gender for most of us that is male, even if he isn't sexed in certain ways - he does and does not procreate. This is intriguing, since it emulates ideas about the male, the creator, the artist that have existed throughout the modern period, to do with artistic genius or artistic ability to emulate Creation or God, which were mysognistically bound up with masculinity during the Renaissance. It may be worth checking out Fredrika Jacob's article on '(pro)creativity'; this is a highly influential piece of Renaissance scholarship about artistic genius and creativity in the Renaissance, which informed the emergence of the idea of the artist as emulating god's power to create life, but in a sexist discourse that gave male artists and more widely men the ability to create, but left mimetic art (portraiture, still life, etc) to women and removed from them creativity. That sexist discourse about procreation and creativity has been disrupted in the last century and a bit, but is also intriguing for influencing how male procreativity, creativity and genius are still tied together. And it plays a role subtextually in figures like the Emperor in fantasy and science fiction.

More pertinent to today and how GW will address these issues in the future as it has in the recent past, it is important to remember how gender and sex identity are legally and culturally conceived in the UK, and it is worth remembering this is the context in which GW has published its materials for the last decade. These are the values to which its employees and european-resident freelancers presumably subscribe, following the cultural shift in gender and sex identity understanding that has occurred not only due to the 2010 equality legislation but also the widespread rethinking of gender and sex in the UK that has solidified since the 90s, and which shapes cultural production, working conditions, etc.. This will have an impact - even if just by cultural osmosis rather than deliberate enaction (the best examples of which I can think of was Gav's recent Mechanicus text and Guy's treatment of the Machine God as maternal in Titandeath) - upon the fluff.

 

And I am sure many imperial citizens will worship the emperor as female, just as some worship the omnissiah as female too. Just as others will figure him as male. Some may worship him as both genders or as both-sexed. Others will surely worship the emperor without sex or gender, and others the Emperor as perhaps without any apparent humanity - like the sun-worshippers that open Xenos may do in their worship of the sun as the Emperor. 

Edited May 2, 2019 by Petitioner's City

[Vykes]

Well... this devolved into the usual screeching kinda quickly.

 

Aaaanyway. Going to the original topic*

 

I do think that the initial assumption is based on a reification fallacy: one that assumes that a male and female parent-based family unit is the unambiguously most perfect ideal that leads to the best possible child rearing outcome.

 

That said, given I'm part of other fandoms, the notion of a God Empress of Mankind isn't something new but a topic discussed for years. Personally, I think that it would led to a complex cascade effect in that we'd have to be making assumptions about the nature of the embryonic and formative Imperium as well as the position of human cultural evolution. If even for the notion that the Emperor would have had a secondary 'checks and balance source, which he didn't up until Malcador in the Age of Strife.

 

But assuming it's an equilibrium and not greatly subservient role, an Empress of Mankind may have had a very beneficial role even if it would be just allowing for an alternative rather than an absolute stance under the Emperor. By having created a secondary path of recourse, you can create space for alternative ideals and methods, leaving embittered individuals that have personal issues to cleave to a different and not inherently destructive path under another figurehead (Angron and even Horus being a prime example for this). It can create a second supportive polity rather than creating an antagonistic civil divide so long as both Emperor/Empress are in a mode of balance.

 

Personally, I think it would be positive. Looking at the way that Roboute Gulliman treated and thought of Tarasha Euten and you can see some very positive influences that comes from a diversity of thought and purpose and not absolute unity. Meaning that the Emperor could pursue his methods and an Empress could take a divergent but cooperative approach.

 

There's too many single factors to postulate a good 'what if' without a benchmark or basis to the entity itself. So I find it hard to extrapolate to any actual event without having theorized something as simple as their origins and following through fluidly on the most reasonable suppositions to an end result.

 

As for the Sisters of Battle: they're unrelated and based in word usage through the Age of Apostasy so that's kind of a moot point. But, the Primarchs being all male (don't judge, the Emperor made the primarchs male but Mal said 'you could have made sisters' and he was brushed off) isn't a guarantee under a second entity. It can lead to a change in the nature of the methodology employed in the Imperium circa the Great Crusade (As Horus said they now had breathing room and could engage in more risky and less orthodox dialogues with non humans). Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

 

The Emperor, for me, is a symbol of absolute authoritarianism with detractors claiming nihlistic tyranny and supporters stating it's enlightened despotism.  A secondary figure that negates any of that absolutism is likely to change and challenge the character of the entity that is the nascent Imperium. 

 

*Caveat: I'm a Horisian sympathizer, I don't exactly like the Emperor. I didn't particularly like Master of Mankind as a book and most of it being pretty unreliable comes from the fact I view the Emperor as inherently inhuman and unreliable by shifting opinions and perception to form forgone conclusions. Horus did it in Horus Rising and Loken caught it, it's a thing that they're good at doing. The Emperor and Malcador are just as capable, if not eminently more so than Horus.

[Sete]

Suckle upon the Emperor breast and give thy thanks for the nourishment of God.

Also chimps murder each other. They are pretty brutal.

[Robbienw]

The sisters in MoM see him as he is without any of the psychic effects. At his core, he really is a human man.

 

The level of his psychic powers, as they have become more powerful over the millennia and everything he knows have elevated him to a state of being way above any other humans.

 

He is still a human male though.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Robbienw

[Vykes]

The sisters in MoM see him as he is without any of the psychic effects. At his core, he really is a human man.

 

The level of his psychic powers, as they have become more powerful over the millennia and everything he knows have elevated him to a state of being way above any other humans.

 

He is still a human male though.

 

Alivia Sureka saw him without his glamours as he stumbled from the portal on Molech and needed her help to stand upright.  She saw the same thing, an old wizened man. 

 

Not to say that as a perpetual he hasn't been through (or is capable of) more than one gender or what not when he changed personalities over the ages, but that's completely unsupported conjecture.  The Emperor is anathema to the Chaos gods but mostly an enigma to us given just how little information we have, and the relative nature of the information that's presented. (Is it more accurate to trust an autobiography or a contemporary biography written by a rival?)

[Marshal Rohr]

The sisters in MoM see him as he is without any of the psychic effects. At his core, he really is a human man.

 

The level of his psychic powers, as they have become more powerful over the millennia and everything he knows have elevated him to a state of being way above any other humans.

 

He is still a human male though.

 

Even if his body has dangly bits he is so far beyond being Male. He's transhuman. Like was a Apollo or Zeus a male? No. The had male parts, but they were Gods and being a god makes you beyond biological reproductive organs having any influence on your personality. 

 

 

The underlying premise of this is 'does the Emperor's reproductive organ play a role in how he does things and would another figure with the opposite reproductive organ do somethings differently'

Edited May 2, 2019 by Marshal Rohr

[Sete]

Zeus is a male tho.He is depicted as a regal, mature man with a sturdy figure and dark beard. Edited May 2, 2019 by Sete

[Marshal Rohr]

Zeus is a male tho.

 

Zeus is a god with a penis. Massive difference. 

[Sete]

 

 

Zeus is a male tho.

Zeus is a god with a penis. Massive difference.

And a beard. A usually male trait. Edited May 2, 2019 by Sete

[Marshal Rohr]

In people, sure. 

[Panzer]

Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

Oh but we can. Somewhat. She wouldn't have been able to do so because that's not how GW wanted the 40k setting to be. Remember, the setting came first and the history of the setting came long afterwards. If GW wanted the Emperor could have saved all the Primarchs as well but they didn't because it would've been a whole different setting then. ;)

[Panzer]

 

The sisters in MoM see him as he is without any of the psychic effects. At his core, he really is a human man.

 

The level of his psychic powers, as they have become more powerful over the millennia and everything he knows have elevated him to a state of being way above any other humans.

 

He is still a human male though.

 

Even if his body has dangly bits he is so far beyond being Male. He's transhuman. Like was a Apollo or Zeus a male? No. The had male parts, but they were Gods and being a god makes you beyond biological reproductive organs having any influence on your personality. 

 

 

The underlying premise of this is 'does the Emperor's reproductive organ play a role in how he does things and would another figure with the opposite reproductive organ do somethings differently'

 

 Bad example. Considering how many stories of ancient greek gods are about Zeus screwing some women and his children. :D

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

The sisters in MoM see him as he is without any of the psychic effects. At his core, he really is a human man.

 

The level of his psychic powers, as they have become more powerful over the millennia and everything he knows have elevated him to a state of being way above any other humans.

 

He is still a human male though.

 

Even if his body has dangly bits he is so far beyond being Male. He's transhuman. Like was a Apollo or Zeus a male? No. The had male parts, but they were Gods and being a god makes you beyond biological reproductive organs having any influence on your personality. 

 

 

The underlying premise of this is 'does the Emperor's reproductive organ play a role in how he does things and would another figure with the opposite reproductive organ do somethings differently'

 

 Bad example. Considering how many stories of ancient greek gods are about Zeus screwing some women and his children.

 

 

But he does it as a God ;)

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

 

Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

 

Oh but we can. Somewhat. She wouldn't have been able to do so because that's not how GW wanted the 40k setting to be. Remember, the setting came first and the history of the setting came long afterwards. If GW wanted the Emperor could have saved all the Primarchs as well but they didn't because it would've been a whole different setting then. ;)

The beauty of 40k is that you can interpret anyway you choose to.

[Vykes]

 

Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

Oh but we can. Somewhat. She wouldn't have been able to do so because that's not how GW wanted the 40k setting to be. Remember, the setting came first and the history of the setting came long afterwards. If GW wanted the Emperor could have saved all the Primarchs as well but they didn't because it would've been a whole different setting then.

 

 

You and your future talk with Ordo Chronos 

 

That's what I do find interesting about some of the developing fluff, it's really more interpretive (as God Empress rightly said).  Especially when it comes to altenratives and motivation.  I mean, we don't really know a ton, very little of it is concrete, so it's approached much in the same fashion as say The Elder Scrolls or Warhammer Fantasy was back in 6th edition: biased and subject to in-universe failings of reliability and importance :P 

 

Makes it fun. And makes it spawn pages after pages of screaming disputes!  That's less fun at times (alt history, still fun). 

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

Well... this devolved into the usual screeching kinda quickly.

 

Aaaanyway. Going to the original topic*

 

I do think that the initial assumption is based on a reification fallacy: one that assumes that a male and female parent-based family unit is the unambiguously most perfect ideal that leads to the best possible child rearing outcome.

 

That said, given I'm part of other fandoms, the notion of a God Empress of Mankind isn't something new but a topic discussed for years. Personally, I think that it would led to a complex cascade effect in that we'd have to be making assumptions about the nature of the embryonic and formative Imperium as well as the position of human cultural evolution. If even for the notion that the Emperor would have had a secondary 'checks and balance source, which he didn't up until Malcador in the Age of Strife.

 

But assuming it's an equilibrium and not greatly subservient role, an Empress of Mankind may have had a very beneficial role even if it would be just allowing for an alternative rather than an absolute stance under the Emperor. By having created a secondary path of recourse, you can create space for alternative ideals and methods, leaving embittered individuals that have personal issues to cleave to a different and not inherently destructive path under another figurehead (Angron and even Horus being a prime example for this). It can create a second supportive polity rather than creating an antagonistic civil divide so long as both Emperor/Empress are in a mode of balance.

 

Personally, I think it would be positive. Looking at the way that Roboute Gulliman treated and thought of Tarasha Euten and you can see some very positive influences that comes from a diversity of thought and purpose and not absolute unity. Meaning that the Emperor could pursue his methods and an Empress could take a divergent but cooperative approach.

 

There's too many single factors to postulate a good 'what if' without a benchmark or basis to the entity itself. So I find it hard to extrapolate to any actual event without having theorized something as simple as their origins and following through fluidly on the most reasonable suppositions to an end result.

 

As for the Sisters of Battle: they're unrelated and based in word usage through the Age of Apostasy so that's kind of a moot point. But, the Primarchs being all male (don't judge, the Emperor made the primarchs male but Mal said 'you could have made sisters' and he was brushed off) isn't a guarantee under a second entity. It can lead to a change in the nature of the methodology employed in the Imperium circa the Great Crusade (As Horus said they now had breathing room and could engage in more risky and less orthodox dialogues with non humans). Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

 

The Emperor, for me, is a symbol of absolute authoritarianism with detractors claiming nihlistic tyranny and supporters stating it's enlightened despotism.  A secondary figure that negates any of that absolutism is likely to change and challenge the character of the entity that is the nascent Imperium. 

 

*Caveat: I'm a Horisian sympathizer, I don't exactly like the Emperor. I didn't particularly like Master of Mankind as a book and most of it being pretty unreliable comes from the fact I view the Emperor as inherently inhuman and unreliable by shifting opinions and perception to form forgone conclusions. Horus did it in Horus Rising and Loken caught it, it's a thing that they're good at doing. The Emperor and Malcador are just as capable, if not eminently more so than Horus.

What you said extemely well put basically what I was trying to say. In the choice between the Emperor and extinction I choose the Emperor yes he was falliable, but the gods of chaos are infinitely worse.

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

 

 

One thing I just noticed it said his father was murdered with a piece of sharpened bronze this may seem insignificant, but by the time we could make bronze, civilization was well established, so the Emperor is a lot younger then first though, I always assumed he was born like 50,000 years ago etc to some hunter gatherer tribe in the ice age. I think this might have been an oversight by GW, it should have been a knapped flint knife or axe, hell make it the 1st Athame & his uncle the 1st chaos cultist!!

No it’s not an oversight. You’re just wrong about when he was born. What the is your problem? This isn’t a discussion. It’s not the same murder. Frankly this whole thread reeks of trolling.

 

Mate it says Egypt in the book, you are beginning to annoy me, don't like the thread then don't post or read it.  Everyone else is being civil, if anyone is trolling it's you.  And you should be happy there is a chick so mad about 40k, after this bull:cuss about 40k being sexist.  I said I assumed as I am not overly familiar with that old lore, as I have only known about 40k when I was 12 in 2007, I am yet to get to the REALLY old stuff.

 

I was wrong sorry, you were right, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakarya_River

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

The Emperors uncle killing his father was explicitly not the 'first murder' which created drach'nyen, this is stated in the book.  The first murder happened long before that.

 

Well that sucks, I liked the idea of Drach'nyen being spawned by the death of the emperors father at the hands of his uncle, he would have to been born far earlier if that was the case though.

[Panzer]

 

 

Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

Oh but we can. Somewhat. She wouldn't have been able to do so because that's not how GW wanted the 40k setting to be. Remember, the setting came first and the history of the setting came long afterwards. If GW wanted the Emperor could have saved all the Primarchs as well but they didn't because it would've been a whole different setting then.

The beauty of 40k is that you can interpret anyway you choose to.

 

 

 

 

 

Who's to say that an Empress wouldn't have been able to redirect Horus, protect Magnus, appeal to Gulliman, mollify Angron, and create Imperium Nihilus/Secundus to avoid or even enflame the Heresy? We can't, there's too many factors.

Oh but we can. Somewhat. She wouldn't have been able to do so because that's not how GW wanted the 40k setting to be. Remember, the setting came first and the history of the setting came long afterwards. If GW wanted the Emperor could have saved all the Primarchs as well but they didn't because it would've been a whole different setting then.

 

 

You and your future talk with Ordo Chronos 

 

That's what I do find interesting about some of the developing fluff, it's really more interpretive (as God Empress rightly said).  Especially when it comes to altenratives and motivation.  I mean, we don't really know a ton, very little of it is concrete, so it's approached much in the same fashion as say The Elder Scrolls or Warhammer Fantasy was back in 6th edition: biased and subject to in-universe failings of reliability and importance

 

Makes it fun. And makes it spawn pages after pages of screaming disputes!  That's less fun at times (alt history, still fun). 

 

 

 

Yeah, no. I disagree. Nothing about that has anything to do with interpretation.

[Vykes]

Yeah, no. I disagree. Nothing about that has anything to do with interpretation.

 

 

Oh hey, lemme try that.  "Pssh, yah brah.  That's, like, what interpretation means." Hey looket dat, we're even. 

 

MoM isn't an absolute source, lots of the ones we're peddling here aren't.  That's what does make that kinda interesting.  "It is true that it is said, what is said is not necessarily true." There's not a lot of unbiased and completely solid stuff around what the Emperor is, who the Emperor is, what he is capable of, and really much in the way of that little bit of time between the modern here-and-now and his emergence.  

 

And that's what makes it interesting (least it makes it fun from my point of view.  This isn't some Kirkbridian or absolutist mumbo-jumbo or solidified far-flung metaphysics, there's a lot of wonky stuff that we have to deduce or ascribe meaning and importance to.  Like the Emperor's flaming psychic golem trap card 'thing' at the Molech font... what was THAT all about?!).  What could have been, wasn't, but could it have been?  -shrugs- 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Vykes

[Panzer]

 

Yeah, no. I disagree. Nothing about that has anything to do with interpretation.

 

 

Oh hey, lemme try that.  "Pssh, yah brah.  That's, like, what interpretation means." Hey looket dat, we're even. 

 

MoM isn't an absolute source, lots of the ones we're peddling here aren't.  That's what does make that kinda interesting.  "It is true that it is said, what is said is not necessarily true." 

 

Not sure why you think that's helpful. I don't talk like that at all and it doesn't even make any sense.

 

Also my comment you replied to wasn't just about MoM. Actually it wasn't about MoM even a little bit. I agree though that lots in MoM is interpretation simply for the fact that the Emperor is designed as mysterious being which affects how you perceive it at will unless you are a Sister of Silence etc.

 

So uh I suggest you take your snark and stick it somewhere the sun doesn't shine "brah".

[Vykes]

-sighs- sfPanzer dude, look taking a step back: I'm sorry if it came off as wrong or aggressive*, I apologize. 

 

The point I was trying to make is that it is open to a lot more wiggle room because so much of this isn't catalogued in absolute terms of what the Emperor could have done or how he thinks.  He's a god, and not one that readily gives insight into his plans or motivations so many of them are just deductions by the reader or left unstated.  What the minutia is, what he's fully capable or not-capable of, and his reasons for it are never really given. 

 

The path he chose and the reasons for it are more readily explained by Malcador than the Emperor himself, and that big lapse leads to a lot of questions.  In the context of this discussion of a second entity, that leaves the question of 'what is the Emperor not that could contribute to something in a meaningful way?'  What's his failings, why? 

 

Sisters of Silence see him without his glamours, as did Saruka when the Emperor was weakened.  What he is now takes the form of an old man.  But he's also an unparalleled psyker, a perpetual, one that's been alive for tens of thousands of years (more than likely).  The more we learn, the more our understanding and perception changes.  Hence, our interpretation of the importance of that, changes as well.  

 

*I'll refer you to your own disclaimer. Seems appropriate. 

[Lord_Caerolion]

-sighs- sfPanzer dude, look taking a step back: I'm sorry if it came off as wrong or aggressive*, I apologize. 

 

The point I was trying to make is that it is open to a lot more wiggle room because so much of this isn't catalogued in absolute terms of what the Emperor could have done or how he thinks.  He's a god, and not one that readily gives insight into his plans or motivations so many of them are just deductions by the reader or left unstated.  What the minutia is, what he's fully capable or not-capable of, and his reasons for it are never really given. 

 

The path he chose and the reasons for it are more readily explained by Malcador than the Emperor himself, and that big lapse leads to a lot of questions.  In the context of this discussion of a second entity, that leaves the question of 'what is the Emperor not that could contribute to something in a meaningful way?'  What's his failings, why? 

 

Sisters of Silence see him without his glamours, as did Saruka when the Emperor was weakened.  What he is now takes the form of an old man.  But he's also an unparalleled psyker, a perpetual, one that's been alive for tens of thousands of years (more than likely).  The more we learn, the more our understanding and perception changes.  Hence, our interpretation of the importance of that, changes as well.  

 

*I'll refer you to your own disclaimer. Seems appropriate. 

 

What he's saying, Vykes, is that the setting of 40k was created long before the Horus Heresy was. Primarchs weren't a thing, way back when. They had the Emperor on the Golden Throne on Earth, with the Space Marine Chapters, and then I believe it was Titanicus that first had a blurb about the Horus Heresy in the 31st Millenium, in which Warmaster Horus (still not a Primarch) turned on the Imperium, and took half the Imperial forces with him. Hell, the first time Leman Russ was mentioned, he was just an ordinary (albeit successful) Imperial Guard commander.

 

If 40k had been created with an Empress beside the Emperor, it would have been the same end result, because they made the end result, then gradually filled in the blanks over the decades until we have the story of the Heresy that we do now. The story of the Heresy occurred as it has because they started with an endpoint of a decaying Imperium worshiping a corpse on a throne of gold, then had a vague mention of a Warmaster named Horus and his Heresy, then the Space Marines having once had these beings named Primarchs, etc. The stories of all the Primarchs and what they did during the Crusade is incredibly new fluff.

[Jarl Caldersson]

=][=

Seeing as the thread has seemingly reached its conclusion and frater are unable to maintain

a respectful tone while participating in this discussion, we're closing this down.

=][=

Edited May 5, 2019 by Jarl Caldersson