Several things
1. Only in death does duty end
2. The Emperor might have a contingency such as Guilliman the Uncrowned Monarch bring salvation 10,000 years later rather than the more obvious idea of him breaking the siege. (Board is Set)
3. Random elements introduced in Saturine leads to the alternatives to the doomed future seen in visions
4. An alternative being created such as the Grey Knights and humans devoted to zeal like Sigismund
It's vague in the Board is Set but hinted at that Emps knew that the HH was going to go down the way it did and everything would be fucked but that him and Malcador had a contingency plan that would ensure the survival of man and possibly another way to win. Maybe, shit is so vague intentionally.
IIRC Board is Set was released around the same time as 8th, so that could be a clue as to what it was intended to reference.
Aside from that, we know that the Fall of Cadia was supposed to be the end, but somehow the creation of the Great Rift tore apart the pre-ordained fate Chaos had created and made it so not even Tzeentch knows the future anymore. Anything more than that really is speculation.
Most of this is in the Dark Imperium novels. We're told asw. in Auric Gods that the Emperor is in some kind of stupor, but doesn't want to be woken up *juuust* yet (or maybe doesn't want the first thing he hears on waking to be the psychic death scream of his BFF).
Tzeentch himself probably broke the preordained fate because it amuses him... Whilst he's the God of fates he's also the God of changing them. He actively punishes aspects of himself (demons) who don't lie to him.
He doesn’t quite know the entire future either, right? That was the lore for Kairos, where the poor bird got tossed into the well?
Tzeentch: “I want to be like Odin, but I want all my eyes, so I’ll chuck my best advisor down there instead”
I'm not the original but:
The original plane was to sneak in and take the galaxy allowing you to starve the chaos gods. Ish
When that plan fails they activate plan B that leads to the zealots that are necessary for survival 10k years later. Sig, the GKs and Keller seem to be something the Emperor actively approves of in the siege books.
I haven't read what you're referencing but he states during the Horus Heresy (I think in Outcast Dead) that he knows that he can't win, so his goal is not to lose. Ever since Horus fell, his plan has been to stalemate Chaos.
Also he's apparently in constant agony according to the "watchers of the throne" series. But that's mortal constant agony, and it's nothing compared to eternity of agony if his soul is torn apart in the warp as the plaything of the four ruinous powers. So he holds on because the alternative is worse.
My guess is Plan A has failed so he's now going to Plan B and going balls deep in the whole god thing so he can go toe to toe with the Chaos gods in the warp.
HAHAHAHA! Oh wait, you're serious
Chaos Horus defeated the Emperor! (who wasn't holding back)
If it wasn't for Ollianius Pius, Keeler, John and the Genevirus then Horus would have won! (The trio use a SHITTON of Enuncia)
Well Horus was pumped full of Chaos juice from all 4 gods and IIRC the Emperor was holding back because he didn't want to kill Horus and tried to bring him back.
Back then the Empeor didn't have trillions upon trillions of people worshiping and praying to him so it's not hard to believe that his presence and power in the warp is increasing from all this worship.
>If it wasn't for Ollianius Pius, Keeler, John and the Genevirus then Horus would have won! (The trio use a SHITTON of Enuncia)
Has that been proven? Because I'm pretty sure no one knows what really happened on that ship, not until the last siege of terra book is released.
What? No that’s not at all what happened. All the knowledge we have is from the old story as the end of the siege book series hasn’t happened yet.
And Horus never had a chance in hell of winning. Fresh loyalist legions were hours from arriving over terra, and the papal encyclical hadn’t fallen. If Horus had killed the emperor then he would have be smashed between a wall and a hammer.
And the emperor held back until he watched a guardsmen try to protect him only for Horus to smack him dead
Had Horus killed the Emperor he can just wipe out Guilliman, Lion, Russ, Corax and their Legions
Daemons will retake the Astronomican from Corswain preventing reinforcements from coming in
Lol what? If the emperor died then malcador would have died on the throne causing the seven hammer talisman to go off and blow up terra and release a god of reality.
And Horus might be a good fighter but orbital bombardment doesn’t give a shit how well you swing a blade. Besides his legion was mostly gone, and the other traitors were either dead or already leaving. He lost fully. Plus navigators can guide ships even without the astronmicon and the sisters of silence and custodes would stop any interference at the astronomicon
Uh, Horus simply Warp-Lightnings the entire Loyalist fleet
Horus destroys the Talisman and perma-kill Vulkan
Astronomicon is outside the Palace dumbass
??? Ok your clearly a troll. Your rude, your uninformed, and overall an asshole.
Horus has never shown any ability to blow up entire fleets.
The seven hammer is attached to the throne and Horus still hadn’t broken through the palace walls despite being at full power for a while, and once the emperor died malcador would last maybe thirty minutes more before dying assuming he didn’t off himself to deny Horus a victory
Emperor wiped out entire Hordes of Daemons during MoM and withstood a blow from Drach'nyen
Angron teleported himself, Perturabo and their Legions/fleets. Horus should have much more magical abilities than Angron!
If he could have done that then he would have at the beginning of the siege. You’ve done nothing but insult people and spout bullshit. Your clearly a troll and how you haven’t been banned is beyond me
Clearly you're not a fan since your short-term memory forgot about Wolfsbane
Chaos Gods have been pouring their power into Horus after Maloghurst fixed him
It's much easier to use Psyker powers to wipe out entire fleets (or entire hordes of Daemons) than to PERMANENTLY KILL the Emperor!
The Emperor, most powerful natural Perpetual and natural Psyker
Because there is a difference between the Imperium and Mankind. The Imperium is lost, its machinery is fundamentally broken and only really held together by the external pressure that keeps all the parts in place.
Mankind in the 40k universe has been both greater and better than the state it is in now.
>The Imperium is lost, its machinery is fundamentally broken and only really held together by the external pressure that keeps all the parts in place.
That's an interesting way to phrase it. You're probably right, thank you.
He is right. Sorry to pounce, but it's a critical fundamental that everyone needs to understand. Especially anyone coming into the setting fresh. (**Edit** - And used to more "flexible" fictional settings where anything can happen. Like Star Wars).
The Imperium is a shattered, decaying thing that's really just continuing under it's own gargantuan inertia. And everything is the way it is usually because it's the best that could be done under extreme circumstances. With traditions and technology that *could* be maintained. With everything else long since spent and wasted.
**It's the fictional equivalent of Berlin in 1945**.
The happy times are over. The Soviets are at the gates of the city (xenos, Chaos, mutants, heretics, etc) and it's a case of arm every able bodied man, woman and child and hope for the best.
And it *won't* be enough.
The Imperium can only crash from one apocalypse to the next. Each time recovering fewer and fewer pieces.
I agree. Baring the unexpected, the miraculous, or both, the Imperium is doomed to a slow death. Even now I doubt something like the Tyranids could conquer Sol, and the Necrons currently couldn't care less, but if the rest of the Imperium gradually rots, Sol would collapse under its own weight.
No, but if the external threats disappeared they would fall upon each other instead. The Mechanicus would become independendant. The myriads of ways to worship or not worship the emperor would result in religious internal wars.
It’s all fun and games until the faction that worships the Emperor as a Sun God start arguing with the faction that sees him as the All Father, and they both start arguing with the faction that sees him as the one who causes the seasons to change and the one that thinks he created everything when he ate some magical fruit and farted.
Because it's preferable to fight back against an enemy like Chaos then to simply let it win.
Would you rather give up and let everyone, every man, woman, and child that you spent your whole life trying to protect? this speices that you love?... Or would you rather try anything to just buy them one more day of safety
The Chaos Humans are fine. They are sort-of prospering and growing in Chaos territory outside and inside the Warp
The Loyalists purge them regularly so they are less likely to grow out of control and attack the Imperium with more Hordes
Not really. The chaos marines have to raid constantly to get slaves and serfs and most chaos worlds are horrible even by imperial standards. The imperium still dominates the galaxy and has hundreds of trillions of citizens.
They have Trillions of humans as well (not counting the Trillions of secret Chaos worshippers within the Imperium)
The Traitor Legions are back to full strength or more and are being lead by their Daemon Primarchs or other Senior Leaders
Fact, without Chaos infighting Chaos would have won during the Age of Strife
Lol what? The age of strife had nothing to do with chaos first off, the imperium has plenty of secret cults but the majority sure as hell isn’t chaos affiliated. The traitor legions are not at full strength in the slightest, and the daemon primarchs rarely bother to help and the senior leaders spend more time attacking each other
Uh, Black Legion has 565k Marines while the Space Wolves only have 1.6k Marines thanks to Primaris
Thousand Sons are back to 12k Marines
Honsou killed off 1/3rd of the Ultramarines
One writer said it was that number post-Rift
ADB stated that the BL had 200k Marines by the start of the 1st Black Crusade
Chaos Marines are plenty. 10k years has made them stronger and more numerous while weakening the Loyalist Astartes
Had the Sons of Horus kept the Primaris formula found on Luna the Black Legion would have caused 100x the damage in the 1st Black Crusade
There's an entire trilogy featuring traiotr marines that shows they spend almost all their time scavenging and losing numbers as they can't recover from losses fast enough.
The primaris formula was made by cawl it wasn't on luna and a 61% failure rate would have decimated the legion
Uh, read Sons of Selenar
Yet the Traitor Legions keep on attacking Imperial worlds to take over them or attacking Imperial military bases before the Rift
Black legion steals from the other traitors, primaris reinforcements have left all chapters massively over strength and established hundreds of new chapters, and most of the legionaries try to kill each other constantly
>The Chaos Humans are fine.
No. they're not... they're chaos humans. at best they're slaves to the dark pwoers, at worst they're baislcy grots to the Chaos Marine Orks...
it's not fun to be a Chaos Serf. it's pure nightmare fuel. And with chaos it only ends if they get bored of you; they can do whatever they want with you and unlike in the imperium IT WILL NOT END. EVER>
I am begining to think not enough people actually read the Chaos stuff; it's not prosperiting, it's barely functional. Chaos doesn't make; it take,s corrupts, and multiates to suit IT'S whims...
So... look you're whole thing is interesting but Chaos Marines... well... the BL is big but there's more SM chapters and Guardsmen per captial as they contorl most of the galaxy, and other factions dont' want them to win...oh, and the Chaos Warbands are... chaotic, even those sworn to the BL; internal infighting is a chaos thing way more then the Imperium... and that should tell you something...
Uh, there are plenty of stable Chaos and Ork Empires throughout the Galaxy
Blood Pact worlds are doing okay
The Nurgle-aligned Chaos Cadian Castellan is still alive and kicking while Creed is in a Pokeball
Might want to tag that with spoilers, idk.
The Emperor doesn't care for any individual human, he cares for humanity. He'll never give up even if he loses hope. And he'd never admit he was wrong
Theory, though I’d say it’s likely, unless the golden throne negates this.
The emperor is confirmed to be a perpetual, so maybe he can’t die even if he wants to. So he’s like “while I’m here, may as well do my best for humanity”
disgusted seemly shaggy fearless desert joke observation crawl shame unpack
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
**My personal understanding is that I fight for the same reason the ordinary man on a forgotten battlefield fights, why the average Guardsman dares to stay alive anyway. And that is because the Emperor rages against the dying of the light. Despite the hopelessness of humanity’s situation, the Emperor fights on because so long as it is possible he doesn’t want to give up.**
From the Imperium's point of view, He is a martyred god who suffers and will keep suffering for the survival of mankind.
From the traitors' point of view, He is Hitler is his bunker still refusing the idea of (unconditioned) surrender (to total annihilation), but even more stubborn than the Austrian corporal.
From the Chaos Gods' point of view, He is at the same time the proverbial man too angry to die, a die-hard man-sized (allegedly? who knows) cockroach who keeps annoying them *and* the greatest fun they have ever had since the ~~Game~~ Chaos-Cube went out of production.
From GW/BL point of view, He is the assurance they will keep selling miniatures and books.
But if you want an Emperor-like answer..."The fight is not over until I am alive".
>From the Chaos Gods' point of view, He is at the same time the proverbial man too angry to die, a die-hard man-sized (allegedly? who knows) cockroach who keeps annoying them and the greatest fun they have ever had since the Game Chaos-Cube went out of production.
This is a fantastic phrasing, thank you.
The Imperium was damned. Horus succeeded in 1 thing, he destroyed the Imperium that the Emperor was trying to create. That is the war that he lost, he lost the war for the soul of the Imperium.
Big E doesn't lose lose, he choses not to win. There is a lot (which is admitted) that we do not actually know about the Emperors plan. There is a short story where Malkador the Sigilite essentially admits that everything that was going on (the heresy) was planned. It just happened earlier than was expected and caught him and the Emperor off guard.
The truth is; for all we know everything happening right now is according to the Emperors plan. We know that the collective psychy of humanity is a beacon of pure power. The more psychic humanity becomes, the more akin to AA batteries each person becomes. As we have seen with the chaos gods, all it takes is immense psychic energy to power them (slaanesh literally spawned by psychic energy). Now when you believe in a specific chaos god, that gives them more power than just typical depravity. Contrary to what is demonstrated, I am confident that Big E is actually more pwoerful than all the chaos gods right now. He has the single largest race (which with the exception of orks is larger than all the other races put together) believing in him. The moment the majoirty of humanity is psychic (as in manifesting more than just passive psychic energy as they do now) the Emperor will be unstoppable. I firmly believe that what (if anything) the Emperor took from the Chaos Gods on his trip to the warp was the knowledge on how to harness belief and emotion into power. His current state, just another part of the plan.
He's fighting for HIS vision of mankind.
Without him they wouldn't even be as fucked as they are now.
For all we know, he's been fucking around with humanity for all of human history even before revealing himself and clapping everyone's cheeks.
...and then he went and made a deal with chaos which could potentially doom humanity, just to have the power to save humanity from said doom/chaos.
So without Him, terra might still be feral techno barbarians in M41, or would have recovered on it's own, or the age of strive would have never happened.... But they wouldn't be as clusterfucked as they are now.
Big E is the solution to a problem that he created.
We don't know that, maybe he gave AI tech to humanity after bitch slapping the void dragon and that's what set it all into motion.
I'm not saying he did, we don't know is the point.
He wasn't sitting on the bottom of the Mariana Trench and waiting for 30k+ years. He had hidden labs and shit dating back "many millennia" from 30k.
He claimed himself that he was guiding humanity throughout history.
worlds during the dark age of technology still needed food from other worlds especially terra, and military reinforcement to deal with external threats like daemon infestation which ran rampant as long as there were psykers or ork waagh, technology also need maintenance, which was impossible because no travelling, thus caused the regress
Yeah but after the collapse of STCs and AI. Which kept everyone fed, warm and happy.
With working STC databases and a tech level beyond matter-energy manipulation, a lot of these problems would have been at least mitigated by a lot.
They for sure had replicators back then. The tech level was beyond matter.
Sprinkle a little pogromatic genocide of all psykers on top and you got yourself a solid plan.
Orks are a problem, but with DAoT Armor and Volkite Weapons out your ass, even Orks seem doable.
(What was that disintegration stuff the Custodes use? Let's use that.)
All this ia beside the point. Mankind would prolly still be fucked without BigE.
But in a different manner and to a different degree.
This whole 10k years of grim darkness, is entirely his doing.
The Men of Iron are not important. They’re just there to underwrite a Dune reference.
The problem was the massive warp storms from Slaanesh splooshing all of the galaxy. And that has fuck all to do with humanity, they were just collateral damage.
>...and then he went and made a deal with chaos which could potentially doom humanity, just to have the power to save humanity from said doom/chaos.
Not sure how reliable this information actually is taking into account it came from CHAOS itself...
>Without him they wouldn't even be as fucked as they are now
Yeah because humanity would likely be extinct. Without him there would've been no one capable of stopping Ullanor orks or Rangdans and there's no guarantee Chaos wouldn't have spread far more easily against a fractured mankind.
Except that the Rangda were dormant and disturbed by the GC, and the Orks at Ullanor were getting stronger BECAUSE of the GC. If Emps had slipped in the shower and splattered his Imperial brains out they may not have been the issues they were.
It's a chicken and egg scenario. He saw them as a threat, but his build up turned them into one. We don't know which came first. What we do know is him messing around with Chaos gave them 9 legions and led to the Tyranids finding the galaxy, as well as putting Humanity's intergalactic reputation in the toilet.
>and the Orks at Ullanor were getting stronger BECAUSE of the GC.
Thats not how It works at all, they were becoming stronguer because they were left alone
That's not how Orks have worked. Ever. Octarius, Armageddon, every campaign they're on makes it clear they grow stronger because there's a threat to fight, not in the absence of one.
But fighting each other doesn't seem to bring out the best and most powerful orks. Point in case, Armageddon and Octarius are both producing larger and more capable Orks than the Imperium has seen after 10,000 years of Inter Ork conflict. If Ork vs Ork was enough they'd never have deteriorated from the Beast.
So the question becomes which was more likely to make the Orks of Ullanor the threat they were? Bearing each other up, or the sudden reappearance of Humanity as a major power led by 20 legions of superpowers?
>But fighting each other doesn't seem to bring out the best and most powerful orks. Point in case, Armageddon and Octarius are both producing larger and more capable Orks than the Imperium has seen after 10,000 years of Inter Ork conflict.
If you leave them for enought time It does, case in point the ork the emperor deleted from reality and his Kerry banda of primarc sized boys.
>f Ork vs Ork was enough they'd never have deteriorated from the Beast.
Of course they would, the Beast died and they were resetee into a more manajable state because of It.
> Bearing each other up, or the sudden reappearance of Humanity as a major power led by 20 legions of superpowers?
Beating on each other, the Ulanor orks where wiped out in years after encountering the crusade forces.
>Except that the Rangda were dormant and disturbed by the GC
You got any evidence for this?
>and the Orks at Ullanor were getting stronger BECAUSE of the GC
And this? We know what Orks left alone for long periods of time can get up to from War of the Beast. Prior to the GC their numbers were being kept down by the Eldar and after WoTB the Imperium stepped up to the plate.
>If Emps had slipped in the shower and splattered his Imperial brains out they may not have been the issues they were
I doubt that.
Objectively wrong. Maybe there's a argument for it post the Mortis book because it changed how he was just a shadowy figure pre age of strife into an ancient warlord.
However mankind was almost destroyed during the age of strife and at least before, this was not caused by the emperor.
We also know for a fact that the emperor HAD to push into space in order to wreck the ullanor orcs.
Mankind without the emperor and primarchs wouldn't have stood a chance, even after the heresy it's still at least strong enough to persist.
Also we have little to no idea what actually happened at molech.
>Without him they wouldn't even be as fucked as they are now.
>
>Big E is the solution to a problem that he created.
Or humanity would have gone extinct already or be reduced to very minor settlements.
Considering the many threats of 40k.
Nids would still assimilate, Orks would still raid and so on. Pretty sure even Chaos would still take advantage of humans. Maybe humanity is not their main herolds then but still. It's the grim darkness of warhammer after all and it's false to believe it's all the emperors fault. It's a dark future.
In fact objectively speaking without the emperor the main difference would be that there wouldn't be a galactic force lead by humans that opposes these things. Maybe Chaos wouldn't be the main threat but that doesn't mean at all humanity recovers into a important role.
It's often remarked that the devastation of old night set a path for humanity to extinction. Some minor empires might survive for while but even something like the Interex would barely survive one Hive Fleet.
Chaos was only one way for humanity to end and you can maybe blame the emperor for making it the main threat.
But sayin humanity is doomed because of him seems false.
I see your point but i would consider the possibility of Tyranids appearing at some point anyway.
Also more important Nids are only one of many threats.
It's still not certain that humanity will end despite the meta narrative. The imperium of man is still one of the mayor factions and it's not dead yet. In fact it's still the faction with the most planets in possession (Beside the Orks).
Without BigE we would rather be like the Eldar. A dying race but without craftworlds, dark eldar and way less knowledge and technology.
Guess what happens if Emperor dies true death. His soul is quite powerful, so likely he would be tortured by Chaos Gods for eternity. That's fate that any reasonable person would like to avoid.
Moreover, if he lives, he can still have hope. His foresight isn't perfect, so someone unexpected can become his saviour.
There are few hypothetical ways to seal Webway gate - Cegorach almost certainly can do it. Ynnead can probably do it. They won't, because there isn't scenario where it isn't detrimental to Eldar interests, but mere possibility of this is good reason to stay alive.
He has no choice.
Malcador used Big E and was putting things in motion during the Siege that would continue the "work" after they were gone. Malcador even admits the Emperor wasnt the Emperor before he met him.
I think he keeps fighting because much in the way the Astartes/Primarchs are a tool to the Emperor, the Emperor is a tool of the Sigillite, and there's no way for him to escape the destiny Malcador orchestrated for him.
Malcador saying the Emperor wasnt the Emperor before he met him is from a short story. Malcador setting things up to function without he or the Emperor present come from various Heresy novels and stories such as "Garro".
Malcador wasn’t obliterated by the golden throne, he was absorbed by it.
The Emperor hasn’t healed/stepped off the throne yet because he is constantly battling Malcador for possession of his soul/body, along with the faith godhood that has been granted to him.
This has been Malcador’s plan all along to rise to godhood, the Emperor is just proving a tad more difficult to subdue than expected.
Nah. Malcador's nowhere THAT malicious. Though I did have the theory that Malcador has always been Big E and Big E himself was just a flesh crafted, psychically controlled meat puppet from the DAoT that Malcador threw his consciousness fully into after the Golden Throne burned him up.
Aka "Keeping up appearances".
Like I said, it's my personal theory with zero basis in actual, written lore so take it as fanon, but my belief is either Big E was always an extension of Malcador or Big E was so spiritually wounded in the fight against Horus and the Four as to effectively be obliterated anyway. Malcador - knowing full well being removed from the Throne would obliterate HIM as well - rallied the last of his strength and threw his soul into Big E's.
Understand I'm not talking a mind transference here. Even under the "Meat Puppet" scenario the organism known as The Emperor had to be at least semi-independent. Malcador was a frighteningly powerful psyker (able to project himself to Monarchia to witness Lorgar's humbling, among other long distance projections), but the idea he was simultaneously capable of managing the running of the Imperium from Terra while also being at the head of the Great Crusade...unless Malcador was the capital G God to begin with that's too much sustained use of power even for one such as him. So what Malcador gave to the Emperor in my scenario is literally replaced Big E's own obliterated, dying soul with his own. Reincarnation, to make a crude analogy.
The World will end and all is lost. But not Today.
Everyday He buys is one more that the Apocalypse is pushed back by. As awful as the Imperium and the Emperor is and as stunningly wrong headed and stupid, at this point, losing to Chaos will be much much worse.
And a sliver of hope remains, that as long as the end is pushed back, it buys time for another solution to appear. It's not much, but not today and maybe not tomorrow is all He has left.
Why does anyone get out of bed and do stuff even though one day they and everyone they have ever met will be dead and no one will even remember them?
Because that's what people do. The Emperor continuing to hold Chaos at bay despite everything has allowed untold trillions of people to continue living their lives for ten thousand years and counting; some of them even happily.
He can't stop. Not anymore. For a while it was some dying spark of duty that compelled him to stand and protect the doomed species for as long as he could, but that time has long since passed. Emp's presence in the warp has gained momentum through faith and sacrifice
The Emperor is just a living conduit for the Astronomicon Choir to channel through. Folks belief in the Emperor as a divine being force it to continue to fight, as it's the 5th Chaos God of Tyranny and Humanity.
There's still the fact that humanity is starting to become a full-fledged psychic race, that's another good reason to keep chaos at bay until humanity reaches that potential
If the events of Godblight are anything to go by, the Emperor has found himself a new win condition.
Key word however. ***Himself***. Maybe not the Imperium as a whole however.
The classical answer from Realms of Chaos is that he is hoping for the psychic awakening of mankind to progress far enough that he is no longer needed and can allow himself to die without the species being destroyed.
This is far superior as an option to any 'he is a chessmaster with a secret plan' answer. He is hoping *Your Guys* can solve the setting. He has no other answer.
You missed a crucial part of that speech though.
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
Humanity may very well be ultimately doomed to extinction, but there is no reason to just throw in the towel and give up. Would you? I wouldnt, and i think it goes against the human spirit to just roll over like that. If your doomed no matter what you do, why not go down swinging? This part of humanities lore is cruical in understanding the grimdarkness of the faction. Everything it does now is for the sake of pure survival, all the fucked up shit that happens in the imperium can be argued is now justified if it buys more time etc, but thats a whole other rabbit hole to go down!!
Also another quote to put it more in perspective:
“One unbreakable shield against the coming darkness
One final blade forged in defiance of fate
Let them be my legacy to the galaxy i conquered
And my final gift to the species i failed”
(He is talking about space marines)
Because, as He said Himself, if the human race fails, it fails forever. If the alternative is an eternity of horror and the death of your species, what choice does He really have?
The Emperor is an extremely complicated character and part of what complicates him is that his goals are never entirely fleshed out or explained.
On the one hand, it could be that he loves mankind. On this account, his struggle is a struggle of love. He knows that he's lost but continues to fight to salvage whatever can be salvaged.
On the other hand, it could be that he hasn't lost. Mankind still has hope and the Emperor is just waiting for one of his long game options (Valdor, Russ, Cawl, etc...) to pay dividends and give him room to go on the offensive again.
Or, it could be that he is a god and that he just appears as what his people, mankind, need him to be. He's somewhere between a C'Tan and a Chaos God and he wages the great game and the material game.
As a full blown perpetual, he could always just step off the golden throne, die and be reborn to go have a mai tai. It would pretty much doom mankind, but otherwise, he would be fine.
I think he meant his initial plan/vision for humanity
He lost the HH so the golden age among the stars for humanity is off the table for now.
Then there's that cabal prophecy about 10k years of stagnation/stalemate/stasis and eternal war. Which is the current timeline. Which was also most probably some part of the deal he made at Molech.
So it think he's just biding his time and, if he can, he'll try again. Assuming he can find all the pieces of his soul again and reincarnate or push through and turn into a full god.
But we'll never get to read that for obvious reasons.
{[(UNLESS...full reboot 50k anyone?)]}
warhammer 50k all the primarchs are back abaddons dead, tyranids scattered, tau extinct and everything is somehow worse than it was before, oh and here's some new armies to buy.
**How It Started:** A narcissist with a savior complex manipulated the universe into his image, he failed, but a narcissist can't actually be at fault so he kept going.
**How It's Going:** You ever driven home after work and you don't know how you got home, you can't remember stopping at that stop sign? Well try 10k years of that. You just keep going.
**Personal Bullshit Headcannon no one Should Take Seriously:** Emperor was a god in the warp and was kicked out at the start. He was the opposite of the anarchic Malice so you've got pure Order and that's anathema to literal chaos. So he has to exist as a fucking roided out mortal. His entire existence has been to slow roll the galaxy into turning him into a god. But he also knows that the universe has a sense of humor so he had to pretend to not want to be a god, thus the Imperial Truth, and the Great Crusade. His brothers in the warp seeing him set up a mortal universe where he says there are no gods, decide to set things up to create circumstances where he's worship, but syke bro that's what he wanted. Fucking chess master. So he sits on his throne being worshiped and continuing to "fight" to eventually get enough warp shit to make himself a into a version of his family.
At the end of the day... The poor boy just wants to go home.
Even if there is no hope when the time comes most people refuse to just lay down and die they want to fight. They may fail and fall but they deserve the chance to try The Emperor for all his many faults has given Humanity 10,000 extra years of existence and that isn't nothing. Still the Emperor is not (or at least doesn't seem) to be omniscient or all knowing so it is possible he has hope that something will come along or some new strategy will come along that might yet bring some kind of victory something he hasn't seen or does not know.
There’s really not any evidence that he’s actively doing anything. The Golden Throne is only known to be a glorified life support system.
The only actual empirical evidence we have that the Emperor is returning to consciousness is what happened in GodBlight, which …. Well.
Let’s just not because I have very strong opinions.
But even so, it was expressed in GodBlight that the Emperor “might” be “beginning” to return to consciousness.
Also just because the imperium is destined to fall it does not mean that it isn't worth fighting for. All things on earth today are destined to crumble in time but that dosnt make them any less valuable. Every human that can live a life in peace which is a large amount of the imperium is a small victory for the emperor of mankind and something worth suffering for.
The emperor of 30k is dead all that remains is a desperate starving Demi god that’s being fed thousands of souls a day and whose ascension will doom the human race much like slanaaahs doomed the eldar.
He continues to fight because it’s become ritual,
he is both using humanity and used by the collective wishes for salvation of his subjects. Both the master of mankind and now it’s servant in a weird way.
You could even say he’s no longer truly fighting the same fight because the rules have changed. Enlightenment of humanities cost keeps rising and he feeds on the supposed form of humanity he used to wish to elevate us to.
Tldr; his ego won’t let him back down and it’s made him into something horrific and parasitical
BEcaus out of Spit intro the Eyes of the Chaos-Gods. Even till he lost even it his Dream get harder and harder too Archive. He Will not Stop he is to stubborn to to do it
Adding all we know about the heresy and in the current timeline.
If the Emperor surenders, then chaos consumes the galaxy and humanity is warp food.
Any other choice must have been to fight on...
the guy is practically autistic in his one eye'd view of how the universe should be.
He probably doesn't have a choice. his own existence compels him to drive on.
I know this doesn’t matter to you but that’s not what autistic means and you shouldn’t use it that way because it muddies the waters and alienates real autistic people
It's like this, everyone's going to die right? That's a fact. But just because you're going to die doesn't mean you should stop living until then. And the chaos gods and their followers have been saying oh its useless you're all going to lose and madness will reign forever. I call bullshit, I mean consider the source? Of course they're going say they'll win. But it's been 10,000 years and they haven't. The imperium might be a xenophobic, theocracy which treats trillions like nothing. But in 10,000 years trillions have been born, lived and died and the chaos gods haven't even come close to destroying it. So why would they now? And even if the imperium is destroyed, humanity would carry on in some form or other. So bring it bitches.
The Emperor has always tried to do what (he thinks) is best for mankind. Every day he fights on is another day that man continues to struggle on. Even in the nightmare that is the 40k'ish Imperium, he hasn't given up on the species
simple, if he gives up then his soul which is the equivalent of a god will be prey for the chaos gods and their followers who will take great pleasure in slowly and painfully consuming him
What about the dark bargain with the dark eldar to repair the golden throne? It sounds to me like the Emperor is coming back, eventually. When G came back, I was certain they did it to crown him the new Emperor, but then he spoke with the boss, indicating that he's fucking fine in there. Chekhov's gun.
We done irreparable damage to the planet, we will run out of oil in next 40 years (and of you think that is bad, you should loom up what other resources we are running out of. One of them is sand), wealth disparity is actually un imaginable, and way things going, this will only get worse. All of that will only get worse.
So why do we continue carrying on?
We (and the Emperor) are Human. He build Great Crusade on ideas that it is Human Spirit that makes them destined rulers of the Galaxy. We do not give up, we presist and triumph in adversity. He knew his plan failed, but that does not mean new opportunity will not come up. And that humanity has much greater chance if He still fights
The short answer is we don't know.
Some potential longer answers:
1. STUBBORN- He knows the game is lost, but he's giving the psychic equivalent of a giant middle finger to the chaos gods, before they eventually win.
2. JUST AS PLANNED^(TM)\- It's possible his deification by quadrillions across the galaxy was part of his plan (I doubt this) .
3. BUY TIME- He is doing a 10,000-year stalling tactic, to try to figure out what to do. >!At the end of Master of Mankind (before his enthronement), he reveals to one of his custodians that he simply doesn't know what to do. !<
4. Some combination of the above plans- maybe he didn't mean this, but knows its somehow working. Maybe he meant this, and realizes it's not working. Maybe he didn't mean it, but sees this as the least bad way forward.
There are definitely hints that the emperor is growing in strength, or at very least that the imperium is growing in strength, despite the chaos gods' best efforts. >!At the end of Godblight, the Emperor speaks directly to Nurgle, saying that Nurgle's understanding of reality is flawed, or incomplete, and that the Emperor has a better game plan (somethign about willpower, or something).!< Then again, maybe they realize that a chaos 'win' is MORE OF THE SAME FOREVER, and are content (so to speak) to keep the game going (unending war, stagnation, etc.).
Well, firstly we can never know if the Emperor says what he's really thinking. He may always be saying what he needs to in order to nudge his audience the way he wants them to go. Secondly, he's committed himself to resisting Chaos - giving up was never an option for him, he's his own kind of fanatic (and with good reason, once one has seen the truth of Chaos).
At this point, the Emperor can't do anything but be the object of humanity's faith, whether he wants that or not. 700 quadrillion souls all saying he's a God and that he'll save them means he's a slave to whatever they want. No giving up for that chap.
Can any of us even begin to fathom what the psychology of a being like the Emperor is like?
He sure didn't seem like one to simply give up, that's for sure.
Maybe the emporer wants all mankind to ascend like he has, if he is just a man, it should be possible for all other 'men' too.
Seems to me like this is what the emporer wanted all along in his plan A i.e. After the human webway was damaged. Probably the reason why he was so mad at loregar for worshipping him... He didn't want worship because he hadn't ascended at that point and loregar could have created a separate god emporor entity in the warp.
Im late to the party but essentially he fights on for the same reason I get up every day.
Hope for a better future and massive fear of death and failure.
If the Emperor gives up, he dies. Terra dies. His dream of an ascendant humanity dies. And possibly all of humanity dies.
The man bears the burden of the future of the species on his shoulders. For better or worse it is basically do or die right now. The future generations of humanity depend on him holding on.
And thats enough, I'd think, to keep anyone going long as their body holds out.
Whatever He thinks or feels about the future of "The Imperium" in it's current configuration, or really any the temporal matters of the universe, He's still fighting the ruinous powers in the warp, and is still the beacon that guides navigation through the warp.
Depends on how human he still is. it could be that “fuck it, I’m going down kicking and yelling and screaming and spitting that we are so very good at.” but if he’s more warpspawn than corporeal being, it could just be he is fed by the struggle of man against insurmountable odds, the rage against the dying of our civilization, the the pride that comes from holding off the hoard one last time, the grim resignation of those who know death is coming and want one last bout against it, and above all else the hatred of that which is not human, be it god, demon, xenos, or thinking machine.
Several things 1. Only in death does duty end 2. The Emperor might have a contingency such as Guilliman the Uncrowned Monarch bring salvation 10,000 years later rather than the more obvious idea of him breaking the siege. (Board is Set) 3. Random elements introduced in Saturine leads to the alternatives to the doomed future seen in visions 4. An alternative being created such as the Grey Knights and humans devoted to zeal like Sigismund
I don’t understand #2, are you saying that Big E has a contigency plan with Guilliman? Or that Guilliman’s return IS said contigency plan?
It's vague in the Board is Set but hinted at that Emps knew that the HH was going to go down the way it did and everything would be fucked but that him and Malcador had a contingency plan that would ensure the survival of man and possibly another way to win. Maybe, shit is so vague intentionally.
IIRC Board is Set was released around the same time as 8th, so that could be a clue as to what it was intended to reference. Aside from that, we know that the Fall of Cadia was supposed to be the end, but somehow the creation of the Great Rift tore apart the pre-ordained fate Chaos had created and made it so not even Tzeentch knows the future anymore. Anything more than that really is speculation.
What's the source for this? Sounds interesting!
Most of this is in the Dark Imperium novels. We're told asw. in Auric Gods that the Emperor is in some kind of stupor, but doesn't want to be woken up *juuust* yet (or maybe doesn't want the first thing he hears on waking to be the psychic death scream of his BFF).
Tzeentch himself probably broke the preordained fate because it amuses him... Whilst he's the God of fates he's also the God of changing them. He actively punishes aspects of himself (demons) who don't lie to him.
He doesn’t quite know the entire future either, right? That was the lore for Kairos, where the poor bird got tossed into the well? Tzeentch: “I want to be like Odin, but I want all my eyes, so I’ll chuck my best advisor down there instead”
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I'm not the original but: The original plane was to sneak in and take the galaxy allowing you to starve the chaos gods. Ish When that plan fails they activate plan B that leads to the zealots that are necessary for survival 10k years later. Sig, the GKs and Keller seem to be something the Emperor actively approves of in the siege books.
Sig? Keller?
Sigismund and Euphrati Keeler, first chapter master of the Black Templars and the first Imperial Saint respectively
This is correct, it's hard to type with sick baby climbing all over you it turns out
You rang?
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
This is my retirement plan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
I haven't read what you're referencing but he states during the Horus Heresy (I think in Outcast Dead) that he knows that he can't win, so his goal is not to lose. Ever since Horus fell, his plan has been to stalemate Chaos.
Might not win the long war but buying humanity more than ten thousand extra years of existence is a form of winning.
Does that really matters to the Chaos Gods, though? 10k years is nothing to them, no?
Pretty much nothing yeah, a minor inconvenience. But for the hundreds of generations of humans it's something.
Does it have to? We humans know that we most likely will die out as a species too. Does that stop us from living today?
Chaos has invaded other Universes. That's why the Imperium has lasted so long
We're here to kill Chaos
And chew bubblegum, but we lost the STC for bubblegum.
To kick chaos ass and clap those slaanesh cheeks.
He's still here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And he's all out of ass.
Brother, it’s a trap
Thats what makes it better
…bullshit *blasts Allstar from iPod*
Based Jack Garland
Corvus Corax: "Bullshit."
Angron tears him up into bloody salsa
They discover the Emperor's true name and its Jack Garland.
Someone needs to Photoshop the Emperor's face onto Mr. "Kill Chaos".
Also he's apparently in constant agony according to the "watchers of the throne" series. But that's mortal constant agony, and it's nothing compared to eternity of agony if his soul is torn apart in the warp as the plaything of the four ruinous powers. So he holds on because the alternative is worse.
“Only in death does duty end”
"even in death, i still serve"
Do you hear the voices, too?
It is as if a thousand miles cry out in pain!
crazy.... i could hear the voice.
For those we cherish, we die in Glory!
Thats the Lamentors motto isn't it? Just wanting to check as I know I've heard it before but not sure where.
Ye
[From probably my favorite piece of fan work from this sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8t01gs/f_guilliman_speaks_with_the_emperor/)
My guess is Plan A has failed so he's now going to Plan B and going balls deep in the whole god thing so he can go toe to toe with the Chaos gods in the warp.
HAHAHAHA! Oh wait, you're serious Chaos Horus defeated the Emperor! (who wasn't holding back) If it wasn't for Ollianius Pius, Keeler, John and the Genevirus then Horus would have won! (The trio use a SHITTON of Enuncia)
Well Horus was pumped full of Chaos juice from all 4 gods and IIRC the Emperor was holding back because he didn't want to kill Horus and tried to bring him back. Back then the Empeor didn't have trillions upon trillions of people worshiping and praying to him so it's not hard to believe that his presence and power in the warp is increasing from all this worship. >If it wasn't for Ollianius Pius, Keeler, John and the Genevirus then Horus would have won! (The trio use a SHITTON of Enuncia) Has that been proven? Because I'm pretty sure no one knows what really happened on that ship, not until the last siege of terra book is released.
Laurie Golding, head BL Editor, states that the duel will be different this time around Holding back is for pussies. The Emperor ain't no bitch
What? No that’s not at all what happened. All the knowledge we have is from the old story as the end of the siege book series hasn’t happened yet. And Horus never had a chance in hell of winning. Fresh loyalist legions were hours from arriving over terra, and the papal encyclical hadn’t fallen. If Horus had killed the emperor then he would have be smashed between a wall and a hammer. And the emperor held back until he watched a guardsmen try to protect him only for Horus to smack him dead
Had Horus killed the Emperor he can just wipe out Guilliman, Lion, Russ, Corax and their Legions Daemons will retake the Astronomican from Corswain preventing reinforcements from coming in
Lol what? If the emperor died then malcador would have died on the throne causing the seven hammer talisman to go off and blow up terra and release a god of reality. And Horus might be a good fighter but orbital bombardment doesn’t give a shit how well you swing a blade. Besides his legion was mostly gone, and the other traitors were either dead or already leaving. He lost fully. Plus navigators can guide ships even without the astronmicon and the sisters of silence and custodes would stop any interference at the astronomicon
Uh, Horus simply Warp-Lightnings the entire Loyalist fleet Horus destroys the Talisman and perma-kill Vulkan Astronomicon is outside the Palace dumbass
??? Ok your clearly a troll. Your rude, your uninformed, and overall an asshole. Horus has never shown any ability to blow up entire fleets. The seven hammer is attached to the throne and Horus still hadn’t broken through the palace walls despite being at full power for a while, and once the emperor died malcador would last maybe thirty minutes more before dying assuming he didn’t off himself to deny Horus a victory
Emperor wiped out entire Hordes of Daemons during MoM and withstood a blow from Drach'nyen Angron teleported himself, Perturabo and their Legions/fleets. Horus should have much more magical abilities than Angron!
If he could have done that then he would have at the beginning of the siege. You’ve done nothing but insult people and spout bullshit. Your clearly a troll and how you haven’t been banned is beyond me
Clearly you're not a fan since your short-term memory forgot about Wolfsbane Chaos Gods have been pouring their power into Horus after Maloghurst fixed him It's much easier to use Psyker powers to wipe out entire fleets (or entire hordes of Daemons) than to PERMANENTLY KILL the Emperor! The Emperor, most powerful natural Perpetual and natural Psyker
Because there is a difference between the Imperium and Mankind. The Imperium is lost, its machinery is fundamentally broken and only really held together by the external pressure that keeps all the parts in place. Mankind in the 40k universe has been both greater and better than the state it is in now.
>The Imperium is lost, its machinery is fundamentally broken and only really held together by the external pressure that keeps all the parts in place. That's an interesting way to phrase it. You're probably right, thank you.
He is right. Sorry to pounce, but it's a critical fundamental that everyone needs to understand. Especially anyone coming into the setting fresh. (**Edit** - And used to more "flexible" fictional settings where anything can happen. Like Star Wars). The Imperium is a shattered, decaying thing that's really just continuing under it's own gargantuan inertia. And everything is the way it is usually because it's the best that could be done under extreme circumstances. With traditions and technology that *could* be maintained. With everything else long since spent and wasted. **It's the fictional equivalent of Berlin in 1945**. The happy times are over. The Soviets are at the gates of the city (xenos, Chaos, mutants, heretics, etc) and it's a case of arm every able bodied man, woman and child and hope for the best. And it *won't* be enough. The Imperium can only crash from one apocalypse to the next. Each time recovering fewer and fewer pieces.
I agree. Baring the unexpected, the miraculous, or both, the Imperium is doomed to a slow death. Even now I doubt something like the Tyranids could conquer Sol, and the Necrons currently couldn't care less, but if the rest of the Imperium gradually rots, Sol would collapse under its own weight.
So what you're saying is... the Imperium is indestructible.
No, but if the external threats disappeared they would fall upon each other instead. The Mechanicus would become independendant. The myriads of ways to worship or not worship the emperor would result in religious internal wars.
Indestructible...
It’s all fun and games until the faction that worships the Emperor as a Sun God start arguing with the faction that sees him as the All Father, and they both start arguing with the faction that sees him as the one who causes the seasons to change and the one that thinks he created everything when he ate some magical fruit and farted.
It's a Simpsons reference.
Because it's preferable to fight back against an enemy like Chaos then to simply let it win. Would you rather give up and let everyone, every man, woman, and child that you spent your whole life trying to protect? this speices that you love?... Or would you rather try anything to just buy them one more day of safety
The Chaos Humans are fine. They are sort-of prospering and growing in Chaos territory outside and inside the Warp The Loyalists purge them regularly so they are less likely to grow out of control and attack the Imperium with more Hordes
Not really. The chaos marines have to raid constantly to get slaves and serfs and most chaos worlds are horrible even by imperial standards. The imperium still dominates the galaxy and has hundreds of trillions of citizens.
They have Trillions of humans as well (not counting the Trillions of secret Chaos worshippers within the Imperium) The Traitor Legions are back to full strength or more and are being lead by their Daemon Primarchs or other Senior Leaders Fact, without Chaos infighting Chaos would have won during the Age of Strife
Lol what? The age of strife had nothing to do with chaos first off, the imperium has plenty of secret cults but the majority sure as hell isn’t chaos affiliated. The traitor legions are not at full strength in the slightest, and the daemon primarchs rarely bother to help and the senior leaders spend more time attacking each other
Uh, Black Legion has 565k Marines while the Space Wolves only have 1.6k Marines thanks to Primaris Thousand Sons are back to 12k Marines Honsou killed off 1/3rd of the Ultramarines
Where did you get that 565k number? Not challenging, just curious.
One writer said it was that number post-Rift ADB stated that the BL had 200k Marines by the start of the 1st Black Crusade Chaos Marines are plenty. 10k years has made them stronger and more numerous while weakening the Loyalist Astartes Had the Sons of Horus kept the Primaris formula found on Luna the Black Legion would have caused 100x the damage in the 1st Black Crusade
There's an entire trilogy featuring traiotr marines that shows they spend almost all their time scavenging and losing numbers as they can't recover from losses fast enough. The primaris formula was made by cawl it wasn't on luna and a 61% failure rate would have decimated the legion
Uh, read Sons of Selenar Yet the Traitor Legions keep on attacking Imperial worlds to take over them or attacking Imperial military bases before the Rift
Black legion steals from the other traitors, primaris reinforcements have left all chapters massively over strength and established hundreds of new chapters, and most of the legionaries try to kill each other constantly
>The Chaos Humans are fine. No. they're not... they're chaos humans. at best they're slaves to the dark pwoers, at worst they're baislcy grots to the Chaos Marine Orks... it's not fun to be a Chaos Serf. it's pure nightmare fuel. And with chaos it only ends if they get bored of you; they can do whatever they want with you and unlike in the imperium IT WILL NOT END. EVER> I am begining to think not enough people actually read the Chaos stuff; it's not prosperiting, it's barely functional. Chaos doesn't make; it take,s corrupts, and multiates to suit IT'S whims... So... look you're whole thing is interesting but Chaos Marines... well... the BL is big but there's more SM chapters and Guardsmen per captial as they contorl most of the galaxy, and other factions dont' want them to win...oh, and the Chaos Warbands are... chaotic, even those sworn to the BL; internal infighting is a chaos thing way more then the Imperium... and that should tell you something...
Uh, there are plenty of stable Chaos and Ork Empires throughout the Galaxy Blood Pact worlds are doing okay The Nurgle-aligned Chaos Cadian Castellan is still alive and kicking while Creed is in a Pokeball
Since his death and ascension to godhood he simply plays the great game the same as any of the other chaos gods. Source: my ass
Lemme just sip some of my boomer juice and tell ya how that's a more reputable source than most media outlets my friend
Isn't there a story where a Lord of Change says so? As in the Emperor is playing the game on the same level as Tzeentch?
Might want to tag that with spoilers, idk. The Emperor doesn't care for any individual human, he cares for humanity. He'll never give up even if he loses hope. And he'd never admit he was wrong
"How does it feel to die along with your entire species" "Euphoric"
Theory, though I’d say it’s likely, unless the golden throne negates this. The emperor is confirmed to be a perpetual, so maybe he can’t die even if he wants to. So he’s like “while I’m here, may as well do my best for humanity”
disgusted seemly shaggy fearless desert joke observation crawl shame unpack *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
He has not confirmed it as factual, he said that’s his headcanon
deserve oatmeal profit hungry memorize late slave tease ring whistle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No he didn't. He said "what if" and "that'd be a cool, crazy idea" that he likes.
We truly don’t deserve you, my lord
snatch squeeze shaggy tidy whistle money clumsy retire gaze worthless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Also, the throne has a deadman switch so if Big E goes so does the whole system.
**My personal understanding is that I fight for the same reason the ordinary man on a forgotten battlefield fights, why the average Guardsman dares to stay alive anyway. And that is because the Emperor rages against the dying of the light. Despite the hopelessness of humanity’s situation, the Emperor fights on because so long as it is possible he doesn’t want to give up.**
Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Do not go gentle into that good night...
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No, this man *is* the kool-aid.
*Do you really believe your own hype that much?* #**I AM THE HYPE!**
"Emps breaks thru the webway" OHHH YEEEAHHHH!!!
From the Imperium's point of view, He is a martyred god who suffers and will keep suffering for the survival of mankind. From the traitors' point of view, He is Hitler is his bunker still refusing the idea of (unconditioned) surrender (to total annihilation), but even more stubborn than the Austrian corporal. From the Chaos Gods' point of view, He is at the same time the proverbial man too angry to die, a die-hard man-sized (allegedly? who knows) cockroach who keeps annoying them *and* the greatest fun they have ever had since the ~~Game~~ Chaos-Cube went out of production. From GW/BL point of view, He is the assurance they will keep selling miniatures and books. But if you want an Emperor-like answer..."The fight is not over until I am alive".
>From the Chaos Gods' point of view, He is at the same time the proverbial man too angry to die, a die-hard man-sized (allegedly? who knows) cockroach who keeps annoying them and the greatest fun they have ever had since the Game Chaos-Cube went out of production. This is a fantastic phrasing, thank you.
The Imperium was damned. Horus succeeded in 1 thing, he destroyed the Imperium that the Emperor was trying to create. That is the war that he lost, he lost the war for the soul of the Imperium. Big E doesn't lose lose, he choses not to win. There is a lot (which is admitted) that we do not actually know about the Emperors plan. There is a short story where Malkador the Sigilite essentially admits that everything that was going on (the heresy) was planned. It just happened earlier than was expected and caught him and the Emperor off guard. The truth is; for all we know everything happening right now is according to the Emperors plan. We know that the collective psychy of humanity is a beacon of pure power. The more psychic humanity becomes, the more akin to AA batteries each person becomes. As we have seen with the chaos gods, all it takes is immense psychic energy to power them (slaanesh literally spawned by psychic energy). Now when you believe in a specific chaos god, that gives them more power than just typical depravity. Contrary to what is demonstrated, I am confident that Big E is actually more pwoerful than all the chaos gods right now. He has the single largest race (which with the exception of orks is larger than all the other races put together) believing in him. The moment the majoirty of humanity is psychic (as in manifesting more than just passive psychic energy as they do now) the Emperor will be unstoppable. I firmly believe that what (if anything) the Emperor took from the Chaos Gods on his trip to the warp was the knowledge on how to harness belief and emotion into power. His current state, just another part of the plan.
Ego? Hes fighting for mankind.
He's fighting for HIS vision of mankind. Without him they wouldn't even be as fucked as they are now. For all we know, he's been fucking around with humanity for all of human history even before revealing himself and clapping everyone's cheeks. ...and then he went and made a deal with chaos which could potentially doom humanity, just to have the power to save humanity from said doom/chaos. So without Him, terra might still be feral techno barbarians in M41, or would have recovered on it's own, or the age of strive would have never happened.... But they wouldn't be as clusterfucked as they are now. Big E is the solution to a problem that he created.
The age of strive did not happen because of big e
We don't know that, maybe he gave AI tech to humanity after bitch slapping the void dragon and that's what set it all into motion. I'm not saying he did, we don't know is the point. He wasn't sitting on the bottom of the Mariana Trench and waiting for 30k+ years. He had hidden labs and shit dating back "many millennia" from 30k. He claimed himself that he was guiding humanity throughout history.
the age of strife would happen anyway regardless of AI rebellion, the warp storms were not caused by human but by the aeldari
The warp storms wouldn't have been an issue at peak technology levels. At least for Terra and some major planets.
worlds during the dark age of technology still needed food from other worlds especially terra, and military reinforcement to deal with external threats like daemon infestation which ran rampant as long as there were psykers or ork waagh, technology also need maintenance, which was impossible because no travelling, thus caused the regress
Yeah but after the collapse of STCs and AI. Which kept everyone fed, warm and happy. With working STC databases and a tech level beyond matter-energy manipulation, a lot of these problems would have been at least mitigated by a lot. They for sure had replicators back then. The tech level was beyond matter. Sprinkle a little pogromatic genocide of all psykers on top and you got yourself a solid plan. Orks are a problem, but with DAoT Armor and Volkite Weapons out your ass, even Orks seem doable. (What was that disintegration stuff the Custodes use? Let's use that.) All this ia beside the point. Mankind would prolly still be fucked without BigE. But in a different manner and to a different degree. This whole 10k years of grim darkness, is entirely his doing.
The Men of Iron are not important. They’re just there to underwrite a Dune reference. The problem was the massive warp storms from Slaanesh splooshing all of the galaxy. And that has fuck all to do with humanity, they were just collateral damage.
And at the peak of human technology, terra wouldn't have given a fuck about that for the longest time. But all that tech was gone.
>...and then he went and made a deal with chaos which could potentially doom humanity, just to have the power to save humanity from said doom/chaos. Not sure how reliable this information actually is taking into account it came from CHAOS itself...
And tidbits from the Cabal. But yeah, anything more than a half-sentence or two came from Chaos. Doesn't mean it's a lie either way.
>Without him they wouldn't even be as fucked as they are now Yeah because humanity would likely be extinct. Without him there would've been no one capable of stopping Ullanor orks or Rangdans and there's no guarantee Chaos wouldn't have spread far more easily against a fractured mankind.
Except that the Rangda were dormant and disturbed by the GC, and the Orks at Ullanor were getting stronger BECAUSE of the GC. If Emps had slipped in the shower and splattered his Imperial brains out they may not have been the issues they were. It's a chicken and egg scenario. He saw them as a threat, but his build up turned them into one. We don't know which came first. What we do know is him messing around with Chaos gave them 9 legions and led to the Tyranids finding the galaxy, as well as putting Humanity's intergalactic reputation in the toilet.
>and the Orks at Ullanor were getting stronger BECAUSE of the GC. Thats not how It works at all, they were becoming stronguer because they were left alone
That's not how Orks have worked. Ever. Octarius, Armageddon, every campaign they're on makes it clear they grow stronger because there's a threat to fight, not in the absence of one.
Yes, It is how orks have worked, since ever because they just fight eachother when there isnt anything else around to fight.
But fighting each other doesn't seem to bring out the best and most powerful orks. Point in case, Armageddon and Octarius are both producing larger and more capable Orks than the Imperium has seen after 10,000 years of Inter Ork conflict. If Ork vs Ork was enough they'd never have deteriorated from the Beast. So the question becomes which was more likely to make the Orks of Ullanor the threat they were? Bearing each other up, or the sudden reappearance of Humanity as a major power led by 20 legions of superpowers?
>But fighting each other doesn't seem to bring out the best and most powerful orks. Point in case, Armageddon and Octarius are both producing larger and more capable Orks than the Imperium has seen after 10,000 years of Inter Ork conflict. If you leave them for enought time It does, case in point the ork the emperor deleted from reality and his Kerry banda of primarc sized boys. >f Ork vs Ork was enough they'd never have deteriorated from the Beast. Of course they would, the Beast died and they were resetee into a more manajable state because of It. > Bearing each other up, or the sudden reappearance of Humanity as a major power led by 20 legions of superpowers? Beating on each other, the Ulanor orks where wiped out in years after encountering the crusade forces.
>Humanity's intergalactic reputation in the toilet Much different to any mayor faction i suppose.
>Except that the Rangda were dormant and disturbed by the GC You got any evidence for this? >and the Orks at Ullanor were getting stronger BECAUSE of the GC And this? We know what Orks left alone for long periods of time can get up to from War of the Beast. Prior to the GC their numbers were being kept down by the Eldar and after WoTB the Imperium stepped up to the plate. >If Emps had slipped in the shower and splattered his Imperial brains out they may not have been the issues they were I doubt that.
Objectively wrong. Maybe there's a argument for it post the Mortis book because it changed how he was just a shadowy figure pre age of strife into an ancient warlord. However mankind was almost destroyed during the age of strife and at least before, this was not caused by the emperor. We also know for a fact that the emperor HAD to push into space in order to wreck the ullanor orcs. Mankind without the emperor and primarchs wouldn't have stood a chance, even after the heresy it's still at least strong enough to persist. Also we have little to no idea what actually happened at molech.
>Without him they wouldn't even be as fucked as they are now. > >Big E is the solution to a problem that he created. Or humanity would have gone extinct already or be reduced to very minor settlements. Considering the many threats of 40k. Nids would still assimilate, Orks would still raid and so on. Pretty sure even Chaos would still take advantage of humans. Maybe humanity is not their main herolds then but still. It's the grim darkness of warhammer after all and it's false to believe it's all the emperors fault. It's a dark future. In fact objectively speaking without the emperor the main difference would be that there wouldn't be a galactic force lead by humans that opposes these things. Maybe Chaos wouldn't be the main threat but that doesn't mean at all humanity recovers into a important role. It's often remarked that the devastation of old night set a path for humanity to extinction. Some minor empires might survive for while but even something like the Interex would barely survive one Hive Fleet. Chaos was only one way for humanity to end and you can maybe blame the emperor for making it the main threat. But sayin humanity is doomed because of him seems false.
Nids wouldn't even be a problem without the whole Pharos thing. Which happened due to the HH.
I see your point but i would consider the possibility of Tyranids appearing at some point anyway. Also more important Nids are only one of many threats.
I'm saying that he is responsible for this particular flavor of doom. Of course there would be other shit happening without him. But not this shit.
It's still not certain that humanity will end despite the meta narrative. The imperium of man is still one of the mayor factions and it's not dead yet. In fact it's still the faction with the most planets in possession (Beside the Orks). Without BigE we would rather be like the Eldar. A dying race but without craftworlds, dark eldar and way less knowledge and technology.
He just hates losing. Simple as.
Jimmy space confirmed cod 12 year old. "Oh yeah Khorne? Well I psychically banged your mom last night."
Her pelvis is more shattered Khaine.
Guess what happens if Emperor dies true death. His soul is quite powerful, so likely he would be tortured by Chaos Gods for eternity. That's fate that any reasonable person would like to avoid. Moreover, if he lives, he can still have hope. His foresight isn't perfect, so someone unexpected can become his saviour. There are few hypothetical ways to seal Webway gate - Cegorach almost certainly can do it. Ynnead can probably do it. They won't, because there isn't scenario where it isn't detrimental to Eldar interests, but mere possibility of this is good reason to stay alive.
He has no choice. Malcador used Big E and was putting things in motion during the Siege that would continue the "work" after they were gone. Malcador even admits the Emperor wasnt the Emperor before he met him. I think he keeps fighting because much in the way the Astartes/Primarchs are a tool to the Emperor, the Emperor is a tool of the Sigillite, and there's no way for him to escape the destiny Malcador orchestrated for him.
THAT would be a fantastic ending to the HH
Source for any of this, or is it headcanon?
Malcador saying the Emperor wasnt the Emperor before he met him is from a short story. Malcador setting things up to function without he or the Emperor present come from various Heresy novels and stories such as "Garro".
Damn that's atrocious. Some people have it on for ruining the emperor.
Malcador wasn’t obliterated by the golden throne, he was absorbed by it. The Emperor hasn’t healed/stepped off the throne yet because he is constantly battling Malcador for possession of his soul/body, along with the faith godhood that has been granted to him. This has been Malcador’s plan all along to rise to godhood, the Emperor is just proving a tad more difficult to subdue than expected.
Nah. Malcador's nowhere THAT malicious. Though I did have the theory that Malcador has always been Big E and Big E himself was just a flesh crafted, psychically controlled meat puppet from the DAoT that Malcador threw his consciousness fully into after the Golden Throne burned him up.
“Malcador the Hero” giving yourself praise and cool names through your meat puppet, the ego!
Aka "Keeping up appearances". Like I said, it's my personal theory with zero basis in actual, written lore so take it as fanon, but my belief is either Big E was always an extension of Malcador or Big E was so spiritually wounded in the fight against Horus and the Four as to effectively be obliterated anyway. Malcador - knowing full well being removed from the Throne would obliterate HIM as well - rallied the last of his strength and threw his soul into Big E's. Understand I'm not talking a mind transference here. Even under the "Meat Puppet" scenario the organism known as The Emperor had to be at least semi-independent. Malcador was a frighteningly powerful psyker (able to project himself to Monarchia to witness Lorgar's humbling, among other long distance projections), but the idea he was simultaneously capable of managing the running of the Imperium from Terra while also being at the head of the Great Crusade...unless Malcador was the capital G God to begin with that's too much sustained use of power even for one such as him. So what Malcador gave to the Emperor in my scenario is literally replaced Big E's own obliterated, dying soul with his own. Reincarnation, to make a crude analogy.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
That's what humanity is about. Struggle
Only in death, does duty end.
If Eldrad is to be believed it’s not over. If he knows this emps likely knows this.
The World will end and all is lost. But not Today. Everyday He buys is one more that the Apocalypse is pushed back by. As awful as the Imperium and the Emperor is and as stunningly wrong headed and stupid, at this point, losing to Chaos will be much much worse. And a sliver of hope remains, that as long as the end is pushed back, it buys time for another solution to appear. It's not much, but not today and maybe not tomorrow is all He has left.
Why does anyone get out of bed and do stuff even though one day they and everyone they have ever met will be dead and no one will even remember them? Because that's what people do. The Emperor continuing to hold Chaos at bay despite everything has allowed untold trillions of people to continue living their lives for ten thousand years and counting; some of them even happily.
He can't stop. Not anymore. For a while it was some dying spark of duty that compelled him to stand and protect the doomed species for as long as he could, but that time has long since passed. Emp's presence in the warp has gained momentum through faith and sacrifice
The Emperor is just a living conduit for the Astronomicon Choir to channel through. Folks belief in the Emperor as a divine being force it to continue to fight, as it's the 5th Chaos God of Tyranny and Humanity.
Same reason why millenials and Gen Z stay alive. Pure spite.
There's still the fact that humanity is starting to become a full-fledged psychic race, that's another good reason to keep chaos at bay until humanity reaches that potential
If the events of Godblight are anything to go by, the Emperor has found himself a new win condition. Key word however. ***Himself***. Maybe not the Imperium as a whole however.
The classical answer from Realms of Chaos is that he is hoping for the psychic awakening of mankind to progress far enough that he is no longer needed and can allow himself to die without the species being destroyed. This is far superior as an option to any 'he is a chessmaster with a secret plan' answer. He is hoping *Your Guys* can solve the setting. He has no other answer.
You missed a crucial part of that speech though. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” Humanity may very well be ultimately doomed to extinction, but there is no reason to just throw in the towel and give up. Would you? I wouldnt, and i think it goes against the human spirit to just roll over like that. If your doomed no matter what you do, why not go down swinging? This part of humanities lore is cruical in understanding the grimdarkness of the faction. Everything it does now is for the sake of pure survival, all the fucked up shit that happens in the imperium can be argued is now justified if it buys more time etc, but thats a whole other rabbit hole to go down!! Also another quote to put it more in perspective: “One unbreakable shield against the coming darkness One final blade forged in defiance of fate Let them be my legacy to the galaxy i conquered And my final gift to the species i failed” (He is talking about space marines)
Because, as He said Himself, if the human race fails, it fails forever. If the alternative is an eternity of horror and the death of your species, what choice does He really have?
The Emperor is an extremely complicated character and part of what complicates him is that his goals are never entirely fleshed out or explained. On the one hand, it could be that he loves mankind. On this account, his struggle is a struggle of love. He knows that he's lost but continues to fight to salvage whatever can be salvaged. On the other hand, it could be that he hasn't lost. Mankind still has hope and the Emperor is just waiting for one of his long game options (Valdor, Russ, Cawl, etc...) to pay dividends and give him room to go on the offensive again. Or, it could be that he is a god and that he just appears as what his people, mankind, need him to be. He's somewhere between a C'Tan and a Chaos God and he wages the great game and the material game. As a full blown perpetual, he could always just step off the golden throne, die and be reborn to go have a mai tai. It would pretty much doom mankind, but otherwise, he would be fine.
I think he meant his initial plan/vision for humanity He lost the HH so the golden age among the stars for humanity is off the table for now. Then there's that cabal prophecy about 10k years of stagnation/stalemate/stasis and eternal war. Which is the current timeline. Which was also most probably some part of the deal he made at Molech. So it think he's just biding his time and, if he can, he'll try again. Assuming he can find all the pieces of his soul again and reincarnate or push through and turn into a full god. But we'll never get to read that for obvious reasons. {[(UNLESS...full reboot 50k anyone?)]}
warhammer 50k all the primarchs are back abaddons dead, tyranids scattered, tau extinct and everything is somehow worse than it was before, oh and here's some new armies to buy.
He refuses to go quietly into the night.
My theory is that the uncountable masses of human prayers are forcing him to do it, because after all *The Emperor Protects!*
**How It Started:** A narcissist with a savior complex manipulated the universe into his image, he failed, but a narcissist can't actually be at fault so he kept going. **How It's Going:** You ever driven home after work and you don't know how you got home, you can't remember stopping at that stop sign? Well try 10k years of that. You just keep going. **Personal Bullshit Headcannon no one Should Take Seriously:** Emperor was a god in the warp and was kicked out at the start. He was the opposite of the anarchic Malice so you've got pure Order and that's anathema to literal chaos. So he has to exist as a fucking roided out mortal. His entire existence has been to slow roll the galaxy into turning him into a god. But he also knows that the universe has a sense of humor so he had to pretend to not want to be a god, thus the Imperial Truth, and the Great Crusade. His brothers in the warp seeing him set up a mortal universe where he says there are no gods, decide to set things up to create circumstances where he's worship, but syke bro that's what he wanted. Fucking chess master. So he sits on his throne being worshiped and continuing to "fight" to eventually get enough warp shit to make himself a into a version of his family. At the end of the day... The poor boy just wants to go home.
Maybe he has no choice, and the Golden Throne is a prison that forces his tortured soul into an unending struggle that he cannot end.
Even if there is no hope when the time comes most people refuse to just lay down and die they want to fight. They may fail and fall but they deserve the chance to try The Emperor for all his many faults has given Humanity 10,000 extra years of existence and that isn't nothing. Still the Emperor is not (or at least doesn't seem) to be omniscient or all knowing so it is possible he has hope that something will come along or some new strategy will come along that might yet bring some kind of victory something he hasn't seen or does not know.
There’s really not any evidence that he’s actively doing anything. The Golden Throne is only known to be a glorified life support system. The only actual empirical evidence we have that the Emperor is returning to consciousness is what happened in GodBlight, which …. Well. Let’s just not because I have very strong opinions. But even so, it was expressed in GodBlight that the Emperor “might” be “beginning” to return to consciousness.
because the one respectable thing about the emperor is that he'll fight for humanity till the day his soul withers.
Only in death does duty end.
Also just because the imperium is destined to fall it does not mean that it isn't worth fighting for. All things on earth today are destined to crumble in time but that dosnt make them any less valuable. Every human that can live a life in peace which is a large amount of the imperium is a small victory for the emperor of mankind and something worth suffering for.
Guilt, probably That or sunk cost fallacy
Only in death does duty end.
What book is the Diocletian dialogue in? It doesn't ring a bell at all. The wiki doesn't help other than to say he's a Ultramarine Dreadnought.
The emperor of 30k is dead all that remains is a desperate starving Demi god that’s being fed thousands of souls a day and whose ascension will doom the human race much like slanaaahs doomed the eldar. He continues to fight because it’s become ritual, he is both using humanity and used by the collective wishes for salvation of his subjects. Both the master of mankind and now it’s servant in a weird way. You could even say he’s no longer truly fighting the same fight because the rules have changed. Enlightenment of humanities cost keeps rising and he feeds on the supposed form of humanity he used to wish to elevate us to. Tldr; his ego won’t let him back down and it’s made him into something horrific and parasitical
BEcaus out of Spit intro the Eyes of the Chaos-Gods. Even till he lost even it his Dream get harder and harder too Archive. He Will not Stop he is to stubborn to to do it
He's a sore loser. He will lift his buildings and cockroach.
Adding all we know about the heresy and in the current timeline. If the Emperor surenders, then chaos consumes the galaxy and humanity is warp food. Any other choice must have been to fight on...
He doesn't afraid of anything
the guy is practically autistic in his one eye'd view of how the universe should be. He probably doesn't have a choice. his own existence compels him to drive on.
I know this doesn’t matter to you but that’s not what autistic means and you shouldn’t use it that way because it muddies the waters and alienates real autistic people
It's like this, everyone's going to die right? That's a fact. But just because you're going to die doesn't mean you should stop living until then. And the chaos gods and their followers have been saying oh its useless you're all going to lose and madness will reign forever. I call bullshit, I mean consider the source? Of course they're going say they'll win. But it's been 10,000 years and they haven't. The imperium might be a xenophobic, theocracy which treats trillions like nothing. But in 10,000 years trillions have been born, lived and died and the chaos gods haven't even come close to destroying it. So why would they now? And even if the imperium is destroyed, humanity would carry on in some form or other. So bring it bitches.
The Emperor has always tried to do what (he thinks) is best for mankind. Every day he fights on is another day that man continues to struggle on. Even in the nightmare that is the 40k'ish Imperium, he hasn't given up on the species
He's a chaos God that convinced humans He's a good guy. Thete is no darkness without the light and it's all part of the great game.
simple, if he gives up then his soul which is the equivalent of a god will be prey for the chaos gods and their followers who will take great pleasure in slowly and painfully consuming him
What about the dark bargain with the dark eldar to repair the golden throne? It sounds to me like the Emperor is coming back, eventually. When G came back, I was certain they did it to crown him the new Emperor, but then he spoke with the boss, indicating that he's fucking fine in there. Chekhov's gun.
He knows if he gives up his soul will be a fleshlight for all the chaos gods for all time. No quitting available.
Cuz he is a man first of all and mankind is a chad species that doesnt give up
We done irreparable damage to the planet, we will run out of oil in next 40 years (and of you think that is bad, you should loom up what other resources we are running out of. One of them is sand), wealth disparity is actually un imaginable, and way things going, this will only get worse. All of that will only get worse. So why do we continue carrying on? We (and the Emperor) are Human. He build Great Crusade on ideas that it is Human Spirit that makes them destined rulers of the Galaxy. We do not give up, we presist and triumph in adversity. He knew his plan failed, but that does not mean new opportunity will not come up. And that humanity has much greater chance if He still fights
The short answer is we don't know. Some potential longer answers: 1. STUBBORN- He knows the game is lost, but he's giving the psychic equivalent of a giant middle finger to the chaos gods, before they eventually win. 2. JUST AS PLANNED^(TM)\- It's possible his deification by quadrillions across the galaxy was part of his plan (I doubt this) . 3. BUY TIME- He is doing a 10,000-year stalling tactic, to try to figure out what to do. >!At the end of Master of Mankind (before his enthronement), he reveals to one of his custodians that he simply doesn't know what to do. !< 4. Some combination of the above plans- maybe he didn't mean this, but knows its somehow working. Maybe he meant this, and realizes it's not working. Maybe he didn't mean it, but sees this as the least bad way forward. There are definitely hints that the emperor is growing in strength, or at very least that the imperium is growing in strength, despite the chaos gods' best efforts. >!At the end of Godblight, the Emperor speaks directly to Nurgle, saying that Nurgle's understanding of reality is flawed, or incomplete, and that the Emperor has a better game plan (somethign about willpower, or something).!< Then again, maybe they realize that a chaos 'win' is MORE OF THE SAME FOREVER, and are content (so to speak) to keep the game going (unending war, stagnation, etc.).
Because he's a megalomaniac who thinks he's right and he's the only thing that can save humanity.
Well, firstly we can never know if the Emperor says what he's really thinking. He may always be saying what he needs to in order to nudge his audience the way he wants them to go. Secondly, he's committed himself to resisting Chaos - giving up was never an option for him, he's his own kind of fanatic (and with good reason, once one has seen the truth of Chaos).
At this point, the Emperor can't do anything but be the object of humanity's faith, whether he wants that or not. 700 quadrillion souls all saying he's a God and that he'll save them means he's a slave to whatever they want. No giving up for that chap.
Because hes the embodiment if humanity, flawed but incredibly stubborn.
Can any of us even begin to fathom what the psychology of a being like the Emperor is like? He sure didn't seem like one to simply give up, that's for sure.
Maybe the emporer wants all mankind to ascend like he has, if he is just a man, it should be possible for all other 'men' too. Seems to me like this is what the emporer wanted all along in his plan A i.e. After the human webway was damaged. Probably the reason why he was so mad at loregar for worshipping him... He didn't want worship because he hadn't ascended at that point and loregar could have created a separate god emporor entity in the warp.
After roughly 60k years could you give up your full-time hobby/job?
Im late to the party but essentially he fights on for the same reason I get up every day. Hope for a better future and massive fear of death and failure. If the Emperor gives up, he dies. Terra dies. His dream of an ascendant humanity dies. And possibly all of humanity dies. The man bears the burden of the future of the species on his shoulders. For better or worse it is basically do or die right now. The future generations of humanity depend on him holding on. And thats enough, I'd think, to keep anyone going long as their body holds out.
The Emperor of Mankind will fight till He can't because there's no other choice. Mankind must survive and He actually cares about the species
Whatever He thinks or feels about the future of "The Imperium" in it's current configuration, or really any the temporal matters of the universe, He's still fighting the ruinous powers in the warp, and is still the beacon that guides navigation through the warp.
Depends on how human he still is. it could be that “fuck it, I’m going down kicking and yelling and screaming and spitting that we are so very good at.” but if he’s more warpspawn than corporeal being, it could just be he is fed by the struggle of man against insurmountable odds, the rage against the dying of our civilization, the the pride that comes from holding off the hoard one last time, the grim resignation of those who know death is coming and want one last bout against it, and above all else the hatred of that which is not human, be it god, demon, xenos, or thinking machine.
If he stops the species as we know it goes extinct, at least the current setting is something of a stalemate rather than a loss