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This is a document I wrote a while ago, about my pet theory about the Emperor.

Argument
It is argued that the God Emperor of Man was an old one who remained in hiding long after the war in heaven ended. During the great crusade he reunited fractured humanity and forged the Imperium using both tactical genius, scientific knowledge and raw psychic power. He also did work involving building a portal into the web way and extending existing sections.

The Emperor shunned all aspects of the warp and was opposed to psychic powers, worship of gods and any superstition. This is because he viewed the warp as something which was inherently dangerous as it contained entities like the Chaos Gods and Enslavers. Wanting to save at least one sentient race he chose humanity, although other aliens encountered were incorporated into the Imperium if they were peaceful.

Evidence
He did work on the Web way, since the Old ones built it he would be familiar with it.
He was an incredibly powerful psyker, something all Old Ones could attest to.
He saved at least one race made by the Old Ones (humanity), possibly in attempt to save his races legacy.
The Old Ones were described as being incredibly ancient and caring, two things the Emperor was.
It is possible the Emperor sensed the Necrons were reawakening and wanted a united galaxy to crush them, hence his motivation for forming the Imperium.

Then my theory was also correct: that Humanity is the Old Ones... What's left of them at least...

According to what I know/have heard and read the emperor himself was actually born a mortal, only he is extremely old being born many many many millennia before the 41st and since he had begun to explore his psychic powers beginning so from a young age (the powers being present perhaps by the speculation that he was an enhanced human created by the shaman psykers of his time committing suicide and allowing the power of all their souls to combine into one etc), this would explain his connection to the webway in that sense, instead of having helped in its construction he was able to familiarise himself with the warp and areas that connect to the warp (at least he did in part or for certain bits of information about it) due to his latent psychic connection to it. As to his motives behind saving humanity and building an imperium, one was for general safety, and the other of course would have been to fulfill the desire of leading ones own race in progress as well as to utilise his extraordinary powers for some kind of purpose.

The argument goes against established canon.

Isn't the Emperor a bit too xenocidal to be a member of a species known to have seeded the galaxy with sentient life?

Basically, a group of human shamans all sacrificed themselves to create a super-physcic human - the Emporer. He isn't an old one. He is just a psyker with a power level of over 9000...

Lets just go with no shall we.

Considering the Old Ones were exterminated by the Enslavers and the C'tan, and that the Emperor is mortal, just extremely gifted for his species and think it's a definate no. It is overruled by all existing canon.

It would be an interesting theory, if the possibilty was there, but it isn't possible.

Since when has The Emperor been mortal?

iproxtaco wrote:Since when has The Emperor been mortal?

Well, since his body is being kept alive by the universe's largest iron lung, I think it's safe to say that his body is mortal, at least.

iproxtaco wrote:Since when has The Emperor been mortal?

Since he took mortal wounds in the Horus Heresy, and the only thing keeping him alive is an over-glorified space pooper.

I think you may misunderstand the meaning of mortal in that context.

iproxtaco wrote:I think you may misunderstand the meaning of mortal in that context.

Mortal being capable of death?

If it wasnt for the Golden Throne he would be dead. IIRC only a few cells of the Emporer remain alive... He is dying and most of him is already dead.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:I think you may misunderstand the meaning of mortal in that context.

Mortal being capable of death?

If it wasnt for the Golden Throne he would be dead. IIRC only a few cells of the Emporer remain alive... He is dying and most of him is already dead.

Ah....no....
He is immortal in a way that he could never die by natural death. And Horus isn't quite natural Human.
And even if he die in body he will still be alive in soul, and that's immortality...

DeadlySquirrel wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:I think you may misunderstand the meaning of mortal in that context.

Mortal being capable of death?

If it wasnt for the Golden Throne he would be dead. IIRC only a few cells of the Emporer remain alive... He is dying and most of him is already dead.

Invulnerable and Immortal are different things.

He is as mortal as any psyker of the imperium. He is just a psyker, only stronger. He may have insane power because of the immaterium, but he is still mortal in body. He is just stronger than any human because of the fact he is enhanced by his warp powers, genetic enhancement; like astartes, and many millions of years training. Using the term IS may be the wrong tense. WAS I think would be better.

He's the Emperor, not a god.

zilegil wrote:He is as mortal as any psyker of the imperium. He is just a psyker, only stronger. He may have insane power because of the immaterium, but he is still mortal in body. He is just stronger than any human because of the fact he is enhanced by his warp powers, genetic enhancement; like astartes, and many millions of years training. Using the term IS may be the wrong tense. WAS I think would be better.

He's the Emperor, not a god.

He lived for several thousand years...
That sounds pretty immortal to me.
He can die since he isn't invulnrable but before he dusted he seemed to be immortal.

zilegil wrote:He is as mortal as any psyker of the imperium. He is just a psyker, only stronger. He may have insane power because of the immaterium, but he is still mortal in body. He is just stronger than any human because of the fact he is enhanced by his warp powers, genetic enhancement; like astartes, and many millions of years training. Using the term IS may be the wrong tense. WAS I think would be better.

He's the Emperor, not a god.

Still confusing Immortal and Invulnerable. The Emperor is not a normal Psyker, his powers transcend that of the mortal plane, he is not a normal human. He is effectively a God, before his internment on The Throne, he was Immortal, but not Invulnerable. He is currently living on borrowed time.

Looking at it, there are a couple of different definitions of 'immortal,' so he is both immortal and not immortal, depending on which particular definition you use. It's not a hard and fast term.

Yes, before his internment, he was Immortal in that he would never die of the human aging process. He was not invulnerable in that he was obviously able to be harmed in combat. The "mortal" wounds are wounds that will cause him death due to their severity.

He isnt immortal because he can die. Immortality means you can't die. And the Emporer can die.

The point went over your head. Again.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:He isnt immortal because he can die. Immortality means you can't die. And the Emporer can die.

Immortal means you can't die naturally, you can if you are killed by unnatural means.

The Emperor is no longer immortal, he may have been prior to the Heresy or just have had an unnatural lifespan, but his immortality has been compromised.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:He isnt immortal because he can die. Immortality means you can't die. And the Emporer can die.

His body, not his soul...

samrtk wrote:

DeadlySquirrel wrote:He isnt immortal because he can die. Immortality means you can't die. And the Emporer can die.

Immortal means you can't die naturally, you can if you are killed by unnatural means.

The Emperor is no longer immortal, he may have been prior to the Heresy or just have had an unnatural lifespan, but his immortality has been compromised.

Well he may still be immortal but he was so badly injured if he dies it'll be because of his wounds and not due to old age.

He's immortal the same way that Elves are in LOTR--- they can live forever, but if they are badly hurt or damaged they will die just like anything else.

nectarprime wrote:He's immortal the same way that Elves are in LOTR--- they can live forever, but if they are badly hurt or damaged they will die just like anything else.

This is my understanding of immortality.

I think he may be an Old One by technicality, but he wasn't born one.

But that's like saying he's a Chaos God by technicality as he is a powerful, immortal entity that is inexplicably tied to the warp and has god-like powers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Which is one of my pet theories.

purplefood wrote:

nectarprime wrote:He's immortal the same way that Elves are in LOTR--- they can live forever, but if they are badly hurt or damaged they will die just like anything else.

This is my understanding of immortality.

It's one of several valid definitions. Immortality can mean not being to subject to some, most, or all forms of death.

True, but in this case the definition specific to the Elves in LOTR applies, as The Emperor was eventually struck down.