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There's one part in particular about the Imperial Creed that confuses me. I've never come across any creation myths preached by the Ecclisiarchy. Do they believe the God-Emperor created the universe, some other deity, or do they subscribe to a more scientific theory?

*Please keep all theological debate in universe.*

I did'n read nothing about it.... but i have read in novels and more stuff, they refer some things as Pre-Imperial, so, that means they know clearly it wasn't Big E creation..

Varies from planet to planet I imagine, but when your society has been going on for 10,000 years, and there were 30,000 years of other types of societies before that, I wonder if you'd HAVE a creation myth, or just remnants of everyone else's.

Melissia wrote:Varies from planet to planet I imagine, but when your society has been going on for 10,000 years, and there were 30,000 years of other types of societies before that, I wonder if you'd HAVE a creation myth, or just remnants of everyone else's.

yes, but remember how is Imperium society, time can twist everything, a missunderstood myth can change entirely after so much time. Apart, think about that most literature and culture in its various expressions about old things are more an privilege for most wealthy characters in society, i think that yes, maybe they know some myth about creation, but commom citizen does not take care about it, in this way, its easily forgotten..

... which is exactly what I said, yes?

Non-Ecclesiarchal myths in 40k words societies are usually passed down orally, effectively being merely remnants of someone else's myths. That's assuming they had any at all.

Melissia wrote:... which is exactly what I said, yes?

Non-Ecclesiarchal myths in 40k words societies are usually passed down orally, effectively being merely remnants of someone else's myths. That's assuming they had any at all.

mmmm okay... anyway, what about the Official Creed (Ecclesiarchy)? it has something about? a remnant of today's beliefs? or are the "white pages" of Big E's book?

The emperor lay down the 'imperial truth' at some point during his rein. which explained the universe scientifically and logically, so I guess they believe in something along the big bang theory. They don't like religion too, according to one of the horus heresy books (who knows though, things might have changed in the past ten thousand years though).

They might not even have one too, considering the end of the universe to them may be on it's way, they seem to be more occupied with that.

Err, yeah, that's changed dramatically. The Emperor supports the Ecclesiarchy (IE, the Imperial Church) in "modern" 40k timelines.

Really? I believe you but how does he do that?

Through "miracles" and so on. For example, at the tail-end of the Age of Apostasy, a man named Sebastian Thor was peacefully attempting to root out corruption in the Ecclesiarchy. At the time, the Imperium was rampant with warp turbulence and even warp storms making travel dangerous, yet everywhere Thor went the storms were pacified, and travel was unbelievably peaceful and swift. And when the current Ecclesiarch (head of the church, basically the pope), Goge Vandire, sent an army after Thor, the army was suddenly encompassed in a powerful localized warp storm, referred to as the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath.

Similarly, when the armies of the Black Templar and Imperial Guard laid siege to the Imperial Palace to try and get rid of Vandire, the Emperor sent the leader of the Adeptus Custodes to summon Alicia Dominica, leader of the Daughters of the Emperor, and her closest companions to his throne. He communicated with Dominica and granted her a vision which eventually led her to kill Vandire and form the Sisters of Battle.

Other examples would be any of the Living Saints, especially Saint Sabbat. This is also the lore's explanation for the Sisters' Acts of Faith.

Okay I see. Doesn't help that much with creation myths though.

I feel as though they still use parts of the Imperial truth but then feel as though the emp rose to godhood so the big bang thing sounds about right. Also I like how the emp chose to support the Ecclesiarchy is quite funny with how much he hated the idea of people thinking of him as a god.

My theory is that he always had intended to become one, but Horus kinda sped his plans up a bit.

Source for this?

As everything we've read of the Emperor's intentions to date from the HH series runs counter to that supposition.

The way he appeared to the various people when he was finding his primarchs comes to mind. Such as when he recruited Vulkan-- everything he did in that particular story was near-identical to the actions of various parts of Greek mythology I'm familiar with. Especially the great reveal when Vulkan knelt before the Emperor, and the Emperor cast aside his disguise and showed himself in the true glory of who he was.

Actions like these make me think the Emperor was either stupid when it comes to dealing with humans, or he was secretly grooming humanity to make himself into a reluctant deity.

That's a heck of a leap to make, based on that.

I think that the BL writers are in fact going for "hammer over the head irony" with the HH series.

The Emperor despised religion and superstition, but went about things the wrong way and he ended up with an Imperium rife with both.

It is a bit of a leap... which is why I said that in the form of an either-or statement.

Still, keep in mind... he was purported to be a highly intelligent being with tens of thousands of years in manipulating human culture, history, and yes, even religion. He HAD to have known the effects of what he was doing when he did the m. Either he was an idiot and simply didn't pay attention to his ~35 thousand years of experience with humans, or it was a part of his plan that Horus unfortunately forced him to activate early.

Personally, I believe the latter.

Basically, the Emperor did just about everything he could to make people think of him as a god, and then went around saying he wasn't one. I prefer to look at his actions rather than his words.

Melissia wrote:
Basically, the Emperor did just about everything he could to make people think of him as a god, and then went around saying he wasn't one. I prefer to look at his actions rather than his words.

WIN Fluff tells about what he did and what he said.... but what about he thought???

Is there ANY instance of a human 'ascending' in the 40K universe with out an already existing "God" helping out?

I don't think there is.

The Emperor, from what we've seen to date, was NOT planning this at all.

To quote Kane from Command and Conquer 3:

Of course I could not have planned for an ambush BY MY OWN FORCES!

I don't think it was suggested that he planned everything. But I did suggest he likely planned to eventually be worshipped.

Just not like this.

I asked this same question when I was new to Dakka and got this answer:

It's not within the Ecclesiarchy's jurisdiction, so long as it's not heretical you're probably left to have whatever opinion of it you want...

Perhaps it's just inconsequential? That's what I believe today after all

My guess is that the Emperor's original plan was to set up a galaxy that didn't believe in any gods, magic, or demons because of Imperial Truth and use the Sisters of Silence and similar means to keep weak psychics under control. That would probably weaken the Chaos powers greatly, since no one would believe in them and easy hosts would get black shipped. Some of the weird devices like the Golden Throne might also have done something to the powers, or even taken care of them entirely. Then once they were either weak or defeated, he would announce that he really is a god and take advantage of that belief that people want to have for a big surge of power, to either destroy the chaos powers once and for all or start whatever plan he had for new humanity. Magnus screwed some things up, and Horus's betrayal completely hosed things, releasing widespread knowledge of demons and shaking people's faith in the Imperium enough that they started worshipping the Emperor before everything was ready.

It is interesting, the hypocrisy on display as times...



Anyway, to repeat, the latest background does not in ANY way suggest that this was the Emperor's plan.

If anything, he was trying to remove the influence of the warp as much as possible - the goofy Imperial Webway project.

That he ended up worshiped as a God despite his best intentions is the BL writers being clever with irony...

Did I say the Emperor intended to be stuck on life support worshipped by masses of people as his body died bit by bit over tens of thousands of years?

I don't remember saying that Only that either he was an idiot or he likely intended to be worshiped eventually, because he acted in a way that would cause humans to think he was something far more than just human himself. In fact, I quite clearly remember saying that things did not go as planned... a few times in fact

The Emperor was a being many tens of thousands of years, and he had masqueraded as religious figures plenty of times in the past. I think he would not have been so stupid as to realize his actions wouldn't lead people to see the Emperor as "god", and his Primarchs as his "angels". Certainly his appearance, actions, and demeanor befitted a deity rather than a more human Emperor-- if he didn't want himself to be so worshiped eventually, he would (or should, if it really wasn't intentional as you claim) have acted in a less dramatic manner.

Personally I find it likely that he has since come to the conclusion that if he failed to extinguish religion, then the most effective way for the Imperium to fight Chaos would be through faith in him, not only because it allows them faith-based methods of attack against Daemons but also because it bolsters the Emperor's prowess directly.

Henners91 wrote:Personally I find it likely that he has since come to the conclusion that if he failed to extinguish religion, then the most effective way for the Imperium to fight Chaos would be through faith in him, not only because it allows them faith-based methods of attack against Daemons but also because it bolsters the Emperor's prowess directly.

Hmmm... maybe?

Still not seeing that though.

The Emperor is a right thorough bastard in terms of what he will do in order to go where he want to go, and he will either take humanity with him willingly, or screaming and kicking.

The latest version of the background though does not really support this at all.

In fact, the only place it comes up is in the highly suspect 'vision' that Chaos shows Horus, isn't it?

Ah! this is a teeny reference.

but the LR redeemer refers to a man who originally named it the prometheus, a god from OLD TERRAN LORE. this means that they'd probably have the same creation beliefs as us, or something not to dissimilar to 'the emperor made your world.'

I would like to add somthing that happened in Mechanicum.

If that doesn't show the emperor trying to act as a god I don't know what would aside from him being worshiped like a god.

This is a good example actually, but it is also a point in showing the other side of the equation - he willingly decided to deceive the Mechanicus in order to secure their support and services.

Alpharius wrote:This is a good example actually, but it is also a point in showing the other side of the equation - he willingly decided to deceive the Mechanicus in order to secure their support and services.

Thats very true but it still has the feel of him trying to be worshipped by them it may have been a way for ends to meet but why act as a god when he could have beat them in to loyalty instead. Also the whole stealing the dragons power to gain godly powers it just all seems to fall in step.