What exactly is the Emperor? [SPOILERS]

[Spyros]

I first found a curious reference about the Emperor in the Horus Heresy book "The Master of Mankind" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. I kept it in mind but didn't think too much about it, semi-dismissed it as an open ended plot line that may or may not be used in the future.
Then, the same reference appeared again, on a contemporary book by a different writer, "Belisarius Cawl - The Great Work" by Guy Haley.
 
I don't know what it means, but it's interesting. Tread lightly...
 

 
THE MASTER OF MANKIND
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
 
‘So it seems. If you have any last words, I will ensure they reach the Emperor’s ears.’
Koja Zu’s lip curled. ‘Emperor. How I loathe that title.’
‘He is the ruler of this world and the master of our species. No title is more appropriate.’
She bared her teeth in an expression too ugly and defiant to be a smile. ‘Have you ever considered just what kind of creature you serve?’
‘Yes.’ The dark eyes stared on. ‘Have you?’
‘The “Master of Mankind”.’ She shook her head, feeling the welcome flare of righteousness. ‘He isn’t even human.’
‘Minister Zu.’ The golden warrior made a warning of her name. One she didn’t heed.
‘Does He even breathe?’ she demanded. ‘Tell me that, Custodian. Have you ever heard Him breathe? He is a relic left over from the Dark Age. A weapon left out of its box, now running rampant.’
Valdor blinked once. The first time she’d seen him blink so far. That rare human movement was unnerving – to her it felt false, like it had no right taking place upon his statuesque features.
 
-.-
 
BELISARIUS CAWL – THE GREAT WORK
Guy Haley
 
Zarhulash the Potentate, a C’tan:
"These are the gods of your time. God of Machines. Gods of Chaos. God of… men? Men."
It paused, evaluating the word.
"There is weakness in this era. You are a man. You are weak. Your species is weak, far removed from the original plan of our enemy. These are not gods you worship, this Machine-God, these entities in the warp, this Emperor. We will explain. The first is a lie. The second are emergent consciousnesses caused by etheric disturbance. The third is a weapon."
It paused at this.
"There is war. The… rift? A rift has opened. The purity of reality is polluted. The war continues. Our war. You fight it. But you are weak. You are echoes. Echoes of might. Blots on purity. Glory has left this galaxy."

[Donkey Kong]

Like most of Warhammer 40,000, in a word intentionally vague.

[Scribe]

He is a Human, the sum of the Shaman of ancient earth united in one soul, born in Anatolia.

[Marshal Loss]

I'm a big fan of the "weapon from Dark Age of Technology" theory. But in my mind there is no concrete answer to his origins, nor should there be

[Vermintide]

The Eternal Champion, Elric of Melniboné.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Vermintide

[Master Commander Ajax]

The really interesting thing about this theory for me is that it raises the question as to how self aware the Emperor is/was to his own origins.

[Scribe]

He existed prior to the Dark Age of Technology, its a cute theory for sure, but unless you want to say what came before was not The Emperor, but just 'He which became The Emperor' then it doesnt work out.

 

We have multiple pre-Imperium, pre-Dark Age, references to the same being.

[Panzer]

Just one more on a long list of origin/nature theories for the emperor. ^^

[m0nolith]

The Emperor is whatever you want him to be.

Here and there you will read about his past, but much of it is very vague and contradictory.

 

He’s written in this way on purpose.

 

You can view him as a monster, or a necessary evil, a weapon set loose from Old Night, an accident, an early proto-psyker, an amalgamation of hundreds or thousands of shamans. You can view him in almost whichever way you want...almost.

 

Because there is one truth about him that is indisputable;

He’s a terrible dad ;)

Edited April 29, 2020 by m0nolith

[point_Zer0]

The Emperor is whatever you want him to be.

Here and there you will read about his past, but much of it is very vague and contradictory.

 

He’s written in this way on purpose.

 

And that is also a lie ©

Hydra dominatus and all that

[Karhedron]

He existed prior to the Dark Age of Technology, its a cute theory for sure, but unless you want to say what came before was not The Emperor, but just 'He which became The Emperor' then it doesnt work out.

I agree. We have enough pre-DAOT references that I think we can ignore that bit.

 

The bit about him being a weapon is interesting. It is worth considering what the C'tan shard also says about humanity just before:

 

Your species is weak, far removed from the original plan of our enemy.

Both the Eldar and the (Kr)Orks were created as weapons to fight the Necrontyr and the C'tan. It has been hinted before that the Old Ones had started some work on Earth. If that is true, the C'tan could reasonably regard the Emperor as a weapon without contradicting the Shaman-synergy origin.

[The Neverborn]

As I recall, Orks, Eldar, Humans are all creations of the Old Ones. The initial reasons for the two foremost were to fight the Necrons in their organic form, allied with the C'tan. Humans would naturally follow suit. If one were to take a very literal interpretation of the word "Weapon", that which is created to do harm. This would make the Emperor a weapon. 

 

Not knowing the context of the original statement I'm not sure if the original quote would follow this, or is perhaps an author inserted meta.

 

But i'd say with almost certainty the speaker would not know of this, unless they've consulted with the Chaos Gods, The Kabal or possible the C'tan themselves?  Then again I'm not sure if even these would know the details of the 1st war in heaven?

[Panzer]

The necron is undoubtedly more intelligent, but it hasn't been around for a couple million years.

 

 

But i'd say with almost certainty the speaker would not know of this, unless they've consulted with the Chaos Gods, The Kabal or possible the C'tan themselves?  Then again I'm not sure if even these would know the details of the 1st war in heaven?

 

The second one IS a C'Tan speaking, not a Necron.

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

I have always considered humanity to have been either an abandoned or an interrupted project by the Old Ones. They started meddling with our development (maybe they even started it prior to the War in Heaven starting, because IIRC the Old Ones are noted to have interfered with the development of species just on their own even prior to having their war with the Necrontyr) and then had to abandon the project (maybe the Krorks and the Eldar proved to be better soldier races?) or they were interrupted by the C'tan. It is worth noting that in the 3rd edition Necron codex it was heavily implied that either the necrons or the C'tan were behind the introduction of the pariah gene into the genepool of humanity, which if they did it, must have happened at the closing of the War in Heaven so millions of years before the first modern humans appeared.

 

As to the Emperor being a weapon, it brings out a lovely parallel with the Lion who notes: “We are as the Emperor made us – weapons, created for this bloody time, and as weapons we can ask nothing more of Him than that." Seeing as I subscribe to the reading where the Lion is essentially a mini-me of the Emperor (betrayed by half his sons, put in a coma when he was fixing the betrayal, constantly fails at communicating with his sons causing huge issues by accident, aloof and separate from humanity as a being so far removed from it), thinking of the Emperor as a weapon created by the Old Ones and then of the Lion as a weapon created by the Emperor is a funny thought experiment.

[Tyriks]

The C'tan were overthrown 60 million years ago, which is about 54 million years before the first known hominids existed on Terra.  The Necrons overthrew the C'tan after the Old Ones were defeated, so the timing doesn't come close to working for the Old Ones to have had a hand in creating humanity.  Even if it was just one lone survivor of the Old Ones, creating humanity to fight an enemy that's been gone for 54 million years seems pretty pointless, especially when their earlier creations were still going strong.  

 

I love the DAoT theory, not so much because I think it is true but because it would be so extremely 40k to have the one person that kept humanity from going extinct turn out to be something like a stolen Man of Iron reprogrammed to think it is human, or something along those lines.  

[Marshal Loss]

He existed prior to the Dark Age of Technology, its a cute theory for sure, but unless you want to say what came before was not The Emperor, but just 'He which became The Emperor' then it doesnt work out.

 

We have multiple pre-Imperium, pre-Dark Age, references to the same being.

It worked for Alan Bligh, it works for me

[Lord_Caerolion]

I'll just throw out there the fact that memories of prior meetings with a character aren't a reliable indicator of truth when discussing the most powerful telepath, capable of rewriting memories, that the galaxy has ever known.

[Scribe]

Realm of Chaos. :p

[Marshal Rohr]

The Emperor is the God and Ruler of Mankind and once walked among them as their greatest general and scientific mind.

 

 

That’s it.

[RikuEru]

I like the interpretation that the C'tan doesn't just look at the Emperor himself.

 

After all he is sitting on the Golden Throne, a relic of pre-Imperial history, with which he has become one now, one might argue.

The Astronomicon is a huge Bonfire in the warp - and we don't factually know what it's capable off additionally.

 

We have seen Blessings of the Emperor, Saints and Miracles, far far away from Terra manifest itself and slay Daemons with ease - because even those minor manifestations of the Emperor's will are absolutely Anathema to the Daemons, like He was/is.

(Dark Imperium 2 has a beautiful, bone-chilling example of this - that puts fear even into the named Greater Unclean Ones)

 

Which is why the C'tan - who are also vastly more powerful beings compared to the Necrons, that were still captured/bound/imprisoned and used as weapons by the Necron(tyr) - sees the Emperor as a Weapon, in a way.

 

Equals recognizing equals and all that.

 

Obviously this doesn't work out for the MoM Quote.

 

Still, as all the others have said, both are viewpoints of characters IN universe - and even a C'tan's knowledge and opinion, despite its age and power, might be flawed and biased.

[DuskRaider]

A withering husk of a mutant whose ego got the best of him. The false Emperor.

[Quantum]

Another thought: after ten millennia being the focal point of worship for quadrillions of humans, has the Emperor actually become the warp-based godlike entity that he always claimed he was not?

[Panzer]

Another thought: after ten millennia being the focal point of worship for quadrillions of humans, has the Emperor actually become the warp-based godlike entity that he always claimed he was not?

 

That development is pretty heavily implied, so not exactly a huge revelation or wild theory at this point anymore. :sweat:

[Brother-Captain Gilead]

 

Another thought: after ten millennia being the focal point of worship for quadrillions of humans, has the Emperor actually become the warp-based godlike entity that he always claimed he was not?

 

That development is pretty heavily implied, so not exactly a huge revelation or wild theory at this point anymore.

 

 

Yeah, with what we know of how the other Chaos Gods were created, ten millenia of worship should have resulted in something off-kilter happening in the Warp, albeit not probably on the same scale as tens of millions of years of violence, bloodshed and murder that power Khorne. Still it is worth noting that even by the time of the Istvaan atrocities when worship of the Emperor was suppressed by the Imperial Truth, we already had an Imperial Saint banishing a demon by the power of her faith in the Emperor and His protection.

[sarabando]

i dunno i quite like the idea that he is some sort of DAOT weapon that has misled the Imperium. They do mention Men of Gold in the old DAOT fluff.