The emperor, the warp, gods and religion

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Moving some discussion away from a different topic so as not to derail it.

 

i had some thoughts.

 

1. would the emperor want to be elevated to warp god status?

if no, what if it was the only way to secure mankind’s future?

 

2. can living being refuse it, if the emotion of faith in them is strong enough for long enough? So could big E have even had a say in the matter of his ascension to godhood?

 

3. are warp gods actually gods in our conventional sense, or is it the only word we have to describe the immense power they have?

 

4. Did the emperor abhor the religions of man because they were just superstitions holding the species back, and his distaste at the idea of being seen as a god himself to avoid that same fruitless superstition from taking root in his empire? But now he’s been elevated to the level of a ‘god’ would he actually be bothered by his status and the fact he is worshipped? I’m sure he’d have an issue with the way it’s done regardless.

[Karhedron]

1. The HH novels make very clear he did not want godhood. Various conversations from Malcador state this and the Dark King sequence shows why.

The Dark Imperium trilogy does imply that the current situation is the last resort that the Emperor tried to avoid at all costs. The only reason for persevering is that it is better than extinction and where there is life, there is hope.

 

2. This is unclear. We don't know if the God-Emperor in 40K is still truly the same being that led the Great Crusade. Has he been empowered by 10 millennia of worship and sacrifice or has all that faith created some sort of reflection in the warp that is separate from the original soul of Neoth?

 

3. I would say they are not gods in the abrahamic sense as they did not create the universe or life. In fact they are not really capable of creating, just corrupting that which already exists. They are made by emotions of their worshippers. The conventional view of gods does not see them as being dependent on their worshippers for sustenance (although that is a popular concept in fiction).

 

4. Banning religion was part of his plan weaken the chaos gods. By denying them worship, he would starve them. People would still get angry and it would still feed Khorne but far less so that someone going on a deliberate rampage screaming "Blood for the Blood God!".

 

We don't really know how the Emperor feels about his current status. We have had two brief flashbacks to Guilliman's audience with the Emperor and both were ambiguous. They were also told from Guilliman's POV and we know from books like Master of Mankind that people tend to see the Emperor in a way that mirrors their own preconceptions about him. This makes his memory of the encounter potentially unreliable.

 

We can deduce a couple of things though. The Emperor did not ask to be taken off the Golden Throne, whether he might ascend to a true warp deity, his perpetual regeneration would kick in or he might just die, we don't know. But the Emperor seems to think that staying where he is is better than the alternative. This might simply be because him leaving the Golden Throne would allow daemons to pour through the damaged webway gate beneath the Palace.

 

The other thing we know is that the Emperor has become much more active since the Great Rift opened. We are getting more living saints, he is smoothing the warp for the Indomitus Crusade Fleets and he attacked Nurgle's Garden directly. Even if godhood was not his plan, he seems to have decided to take advantage of his current state as best he can.

Edited February 1 by Karhedron

[Jscarlos18]

There's a couple of things of note in this discussion that seem relevant when talking about gods in 40k.

 

The Warp operates on abstract concepts, the emotions of the living beings on the material universe and faith. Its also atemporal so once something is manifested there, its always present.

For example:

• Slaanesh was "born" during the Fall but there's evidence of their daemons operating before then to make sure it happened (This is possible due to the Warp being outside linear time), just like Samus being the herald of the Dark King, this is what we could determine are "The Early Signs".
• Then once that happens, when they are finally born, the lore states the universe acts as if they always existed.
• There was on a piece of lore I don't remember where that said since TOW and 40k are interconnected by the warp, this means the aeldari creating him/her/them made them possible to appear on the other settings.

This is also how T'au'va is able to appear in Sahdowsun's past before the 4th SPhere Expansion disaster happens. Or how Ynnead was prophesized to exist ages earlier than the Ynnari's existence.

 

The event of the Emperor ascending to godhood seems to be tied with this. He was already powerful and of a nature anthisesis to Chaos (Thus being known to the Chaos Daemons as The Anathema). While he avoided becoming the Dark King, the fact remains he is getting more powerful and influential, especially since the Great Rift supercharged every psyker in the galaxy.

 

Since the Warp reflects the material world, every act and intense emotion forms ripples that echo in the Sea of Souls. Thus, the tithe of 10.000 psykers is interpreted as a ritualistic act of sacrifice empowers the part of the Emperor that dwells in the Inmaterium, because its interpreted like an offering or sacrifice to appease/feed a diety.

 

Also don't forget the Aetheric Dominions that imply there's actually 8 Chaos Gods even if we only have 4 of them at the moment (5 in AoS).

Edited February 1 by Jscarlos18

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

22 minutes ago, Jscarlos18 said:

There's a couple of things of note in this discussion that seem relevant when talking about gods in 40k.

 

The Warp operates on abstract concepts, the emotions of the living beings on the material universe and faith. Its also atemporal so once something is manifested there, its always present.

For example:

• Slaanesh was "born" during the Fall but there's evidence of their daemons operating before then to make sure it happened (This is possible due to the Warp being outside linear time), just like Samus being the herald of the Dark King, this is what we could determine are "The Early Signs".
• Then once that happens, when they are finally born, the lore states the universe acts as if they always existed.
• There was on a piece of lore I don't remember where that said since TOW and 40k are interconnected by the warp, this means the aeldari creating him/her/them made them possible to appear on the other settings.

This is also how T'au'va is able to appear in Sahdowsun's past before the 4th SPhere Expansion disaster happens. Or how Ynnead was prophesized to exist ages earlier than the Ynnari's existence.

 

The event of the Emperor ascending to godhood seems to be tied with this. He was already powerful and of a nature anthisesis to Chaos (Thus being known to the as The Anathema). While he avoided becoming the Dark King, the fact remains he is getting more powerful and influential, especially since the Great Rift supercharged every psyker in the galaxy.

 

Since the Warp reflects the material world, every act and intense emotion forms ripples that echo in the Sea of Souls. Thus, the ritualistic act of sacrifice empowers the part of the Emperor that dwells in the Inmaterium, because its interpreted like an offering or sacrifice to appease/feed a diety.

 

Also don't forget the Aetheric Dominions that imply there's actually 8 Chaos Gods even if we only have 4 of them at the moment (5 in AoS).

No clue where, but I am pretty sure that it’s stated there are many minor warp gods, it’s just the big four are the most powerful 

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, Karhedron said:

2. This is unclear. We don't know if the God-Emperor in 40K is still truly the same being that led the Great Crusade. Has he been empowered by 100 millennia of worship and sacrifice or has all that faith created some sort of reflection in the warp that is separate from the original soul of Neoth?

 

100 millennia as in 100,000 years? Wasn't he born around 8000 BC in Central Anatolia? That would only make him like 50,000 years old, and he wasn't worshipped the whole time.

[Karhedron]

6 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

100 millennia as in 100,000 years? Wasn't he born around 8000 BC in Central Anatolia? That would only make him like 50,000 years old, and he wasn't worshipped the whole time.

 

Yup, I put in one too many zeroes. I have fixed the OP.

[gideon stargreave]

I think it’s important to consider this question with the following axiom.

30k and 40k are two different settings/ universes, meaning what is true in one, doesn’t have to be true in the other. 
40k lore is fundamentally different than that of the Horus heresy. 40k from the beginning has been ‘unreliable’. It is entirely possible that he is already dead, that there is no god emperor, that the god emperor is not the same being as the living emperor, that he is the same being, etc etc. the premise of the inquisitor game hinges on this, it is after all “the battle for the emperor’s soul”.

[Karhedron]

There is also the Starchild muddying the waters as it was a part of the Emperor but isn't anymore. For a long time the Starchild was old lore that didn't seem to fit any more. But the End and the Death specifically had the part where the Emperor psychically amputates the caring part of his soul and casts it into the Warp (hopefully for later recovery). This gives yey another possible source of the Emperor ad a warp entity. 

[INKS]

He is still on the throne, why not unplug him?  He is a perpetual and should regenerate. Think of this. Vulkan is still MIA. Maybe the Emperor is not sure this would happen. Maybe it's not a given, considering how much power he had to use. Or it's also possible that by sending his caring part into the warp he doesn't want to come back as he is now. Without that part.

I would say there is a God Emperor still on the throne, he does talk to Gulliman... but not in a way that Gulliman knows him as. The Emperor that was and he knew is gone. That part seems clear enough. The left over residual power, the astronomicon and him as a symbol I think it what keeps him there, Gulliman even if he wanted to, could not get rid of the Emperor. They need his light, and just like you can't get rid of the church now, you can't afford to get rid of him.

 

I would love it if he woke up and just nuked the church though. lol He was very clear on not wanting to be a god or worshipped and yet this is where they are.

I guess I would also love it to see him react to who the heck are the Necron, or a Tyranid, or the Tau and so on.

I guess sitting there he probably is aware of them but still...

Edited February 2 by INKS

[One Paul Murray]

Only picked up the tail-end of the discussion, so apologies if this is off track.

 

On the question of whether belief / faith / worship can create a God or deify someone; isn't there a bit in War of Secrets where they realise that the humans and other allied races of the Tau that do have souls are leading to the creation of a Greater Good entity?

[INKS]

1 hour ago, One Paul Murray said:

Only picked up the tail-end of the discussion, so apologies if this is off track.

 

On the question of whether belief / faith / worship can create a God or deify someone; isn't there a bit in War of Secrets where they realise that the humans and other allied races of the Tau that do have souls are leading to the creation of a Greater Good entity?

it's a slowly developing story but there is a Tau God that seems to be coming about. yes.

[ZeroWolf]

Oh really? That's interesting. Not that I'd be expecting it to ever come to fruition knowing GW. Is it only mentioned in one book?

[INKS]

Its in the secret of war book,

 

Spoiler

the interrogator asks a tau of the 4th sphere what happened there. On the part of the tau minor god. It formed in front of the fleet. It had multiple arm and was on the shape of a tauva. It laughed at them then gave them all a psychic message of spreading the greater good and of that of its image across the galaxy. Then it smiled at the 4th sphere fleet then punched a hole in the warp and pushed all the ships toward the hole. The 4th sphere then ended up on the space called startide nexus.

 

[Xenith]

On 2/2/2025 at 4:55 AM, INKS said:

He is still on the throne, why not unplug him?  He is a perpetual and should regenerate. Think of this. Vulkan is still MIA. Maybe the Emperor is not sure this would happen. Maybe it's not a given, considering how much power he had to use. Or it's also possible that by sending his caring part into the warp he doesn't want to come back as he is now. Without that part.

 

This question or line of thinking is the whole background and reason for the Inquisitor 54mm game back in the day. A schism in thinking between Inquisitorial factions.

 

It's been explored more recently in the HH series: The Emperor can and would regenerate, however in his weakened, near death state, the Golden Throne is killing him as fast, if not marginally faster than he can regenerate, meanign he is in a state of perpetual torture. A bit like Vulkan was with Night Haunter, but for 10,000 years. 

 

There's also the fact that if he gets up off the throne, te astronomican blinks out, and the webway portal keeping all the daemons at bay opens up and Terra turns into another Eye of Terror.

[ZeroWolf]

Will be interesting where the new narrative leads will go with all this (i say new but one of them has been in the post for a year or two already).

[Karhedron]

43 minutes ago, Xenith said:

It's been explored more recently in the HH series: The Emperor can and would regenerate, however in his weakened, near death state, the Golden Throne is killing him as fast, if not marginally faster than he can regenerate, meanign he is in a state of perpetual torture. A bit like Vulkan was with Night Haunter, but for 10,000 years. 

 

There's also the fact that if he gets up off the throne, te astronomican blinks out, and the webway portal keeping all the daemons at bay opens up and Terra turns into another Eye of Terror.

 

We don't know for sure how his Perpetual immortality works. As shown in the HH series, different Perpetuals have different rules. Some regenerate like Vulkan, some can even respawn in different locations like Alivia Sureka. Some like Oll Person don't seem to regenerate at all, just a single incredibly long life. Remember that when Horus kills Oll, he is dead and gone. It is not some super-psychic attack, he just swats him with his claw. We don't know if the Emperor will regenerate or not. As far as we can tell, there are there possibilities:

1. He will regenerate (how long this will take and where he will respawn are unknown)
2. He will fully ascend to become some sort of Warp deity
3. He will just die as the damage Horus inflicted went beyond the purely physical

But you are right, unless he instantly regenerates, whatever the outcome, the Astronomicon would go out (just look at what is happening in Imperium Nihilus) and the Terra would become a daemon world. One of the BL writers (I can't remember which one) mentioned that the Emperor retaining a link to the physical world was actually an advantage as it anchored his consciousness in linear time. If he become a Warp god, he would become a timeless being, consumed by the Great Game and would lose his connection with the here-and-now.

[Chaplain Killmer]

Wouldn't the Emperor ascending to godhood be a big loss for the lore of 40k?

 

As it would basically change the "Imperium" to just another bunch of followers to some god same as the Slaves to Darkness or the Eldar. Bad enough that they hint some Tau and even some Adeptus Mechanicus that have something gehind the scenes.

 

To me the interaction of the different factions of the Imperium like the Eccliarchy and the Sisters, clashing with the old factions like the Adeptus Astardes and the Adeptus Custodes make the Imperium key word interesting to me.

 

Over the years were sidestories like the Origins of the Legion of the Damed, the Starchild with the Sensei adding to the muddiness that keeps both truths possible. So i hope we will never get to see a change of the Emperors current state.

[ZeroWolf]

20 minutes ago, Chaplain Killmer said:

Wouldn't the Emperor ascending to godhood be a big loss for the lore of 40k?

 

As it would basically change the "Imperium" to just another bunch of followers to some god same as the Slaves to Darkness or the Eldar. Bad enough that they hint some Tau and even some Adeptus Mechanicus that have something gehind the scenes.

 

To me the interaction of the different factions of the Imperium like the Eccliarchy and the Sisters, clashing with the old factions like the Adeptus Astardes and the Adeptus Custodes make the Imperium key word interesting to me.

 

Over the years were sidestories like the Origins of the Legion of the Damed, the Starchild with the Sensei adding to the muddiness that keeps both truths possible. So i hope we will never get to see a change of the Emperors current state.

Only time we'll see it is if GW see sales drop significantly and decide to mix it up with a end times scenario. So yeah, it might happen on a long enough time line, but probably not within our hobbyist lifetime unless there's a drastic change somewhere.

[INKS]

Perpetuals are interesting in that even with Vulkan it isn't consistent on how it works. Which I guess is good for writing. Curze had him locked up and kept killing him, only for him to regenerate over and over. At other times he dies and then reappears somewhere else. And in the latest case, they are hoping he appears somewhere else. So depending on how he dies it seems it takes longer and longer. In other cases, like mentioned above they do not regenerate at all.

 

So who knows with the Emperor and he himself might not know. Has he died before? We assume not, but we don't know.

He is stuck in a catch 22. He can't get off the throne because they need the light. And he needs to keep the webway shut.

 

-- Was the webway always open? Or did he open it? That part is unclear to me. Him, the Custodes and the Sisters of Silence fought to keep it shut pre Horus but all of that seemed to happen at the same time, meaning they weren't always fighting to keep them out. While I understand Chaos was trying to force it open at that time by sending more and more deamons through, I would assume they could always randomly try to get in via that way. But it's never really mentioned. In the meantime and since he's been on the throne all he does is keep the door shut and the light on. Which I guess he was passively doing? And then Magnus ripped it open? But does that mean he's been keeping it shut since? forever? In the dark age? before that? how long?

 

It does seem like his end goal was to sit Magnus on the throne and it was his job to keep the light on and the door shut... a pretty grim fate for one of his sons. For which he didn't seem to prepare him for very well. Knowing he'll need to use his special power and not making any sort of back up system just doesn't seem overly smart. To top it off you tell your only one "hey, you can't use your abilities any longer or daddy will be mad" and then send our your dogs to punish him...

 

Sadly I don't think we'll ever get those answers, and if we did... well it might not be that satisfying. sometimes not knowing is better. Even though we want to know.

 

As for God hood. The Emperor doesn't want this, never has. He could have been on his own and then was offered to become the dark king later and rejects it over and over. On top of this he does his best to destroy and prohibit all worship. Constantly tells everyone "I am not a god" (probably shouldn't walk around as a 12 foot tall man in golden armor who emits light and talks in cryptic code - but I digress). Now part of that is because he doesn't want to feed Chaos. But a big part of it is he really does believe that religion is dangerous and does no good for humanity. He has watched the different phases of humanity and how they worship this and that and how much damage that does for the species. However he doesn't have the will power to fight off the mechanicum and he needs them. So he lets them think or some of them think he is their machine god... which doesn't make a ton of sense. It makes me think that if he did wake up, at this point he would not be able to stop the church at this point. They, like the Mechanicum are too ingrained and he would likely need them to rebuild...

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, INKS said:

-- Was the webway always open? Or did he open it? That part is unclear to me. Him, the Custodes and the Sisters of Silence fought to keep it shut pre Horus but all of that seemed to happen at the same time, meaning they weren't always fighting to keep them out. While I understand Chaos was trying to force it open at that time by sending more and more deamons through, I would assume they could always randomly try to get in via that way. But it's never really mentioned. In the meantime and since he's been on the throne all he does is keep the door shut and the light on. Which I guess he was passively doing? And then Magnus ripped it open? But does that mean he's been keeping it shut since? forever? In the dark age? before that? how long?

 

It is a good question and not really clear. The Emperor found the Golden throne and moved it to the site of the Imperial Palace. This suggests that he did not construct it himself, merely repurposed it. Whether it is a piece of leftover DAOT tech or a xenos artefact has not been clarified. Was it built to be a webway portal or repurposed to function as one? It does not resemble Eldar tech so possibly it is either of Old One origin or a Necron Dolmen Gate.

 

The impression I get is that part of the damage Magnus did was to stop it being able to shut properly. Prior to that, the Gate could be fully closed and then the throne deactivated. The other damage was to rip a hole in the webway allowing daemons to pour into the human-constructed extension that led to the Throne Room. Either damage on its own would be bad but not catastrophic. Now however the gate cannot be properly closed and there is a horde of daemons on the other side trying to break through. The only solution is for the Emperor to sit there and hold it shut. Prior to the damage, the impression I got was that the Throne could close the portal and then be deactivated. The Eldar frequently make use of temporary portals into the webway which can be opened or closed as needed so this is consistent.

 

1 hour ago, INKS said:

It does seem like his end goal was to sit Magnus on the throne and it was his job to keep the light on and the door shut... a pretty grim fate for one of his sons. For which he didn't seem to prepare him for very well. Knowing he'll need to use his special power and not making any sort of back up system just doesn't seem overly smart. To top it off you tell your only one "hey, you can't use your abilities any longer or daddy will be mad" and then send our your dogs to punish him...

 

While Magnus was intended to sit on the Throne, presumably he would only have needed to do so when the gate was actually in use (assuming that in the original plan, the gate could be fully closed when not in use). Secondly, Magnus was designed to be able to detach his soul from his physical body and go swanning about in the warp. The Siege novella, Fury of Magnus implies that sitting on the throne would not have been unpleasant for him. He could simply have detached his soul while operating the gate and used the unique opportunity to explore the warp.

 

I agree that the Emperor did not handle Magnus well, especially after Nikea. If he was so central to the Emperor's plans, he should have been kept close. But then again, you could argue that the Emperor handled several of the Primarchs poorly. This part of the HH story does not make much sense but the lore about the Wolves destroying Prospero at the start of the Heresy goes all the way back to 2nd edition and could not easily be retconned.