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How is it that the emperor is powerful enough to destroy a planet by force of will alone, but not powerful enough to heal himself?
And why didn't he just squish the heretics during the seige of terra with his super awesome pyskic powers?

Joey wrote:How is it that the emperor is powerful enough to destroy a planet by force of will alone

Don't buy all the hype.

The Emperor may of been powerful in the Materium, but his true might only manifested in the Warp.

The Golden Throne may or may not be inhibiting him recovering.

As for the siege, he was busy keeping daemons from swarming through the man-made piece of the webway until he got Mally to sit in for him while he obliterated Horus.

Yeah, he's strong, but not that strong.

Void__Dragon wrote:
Don't buy all the hype.

The Emperor may of been powerful in the Materium, but his true might only manifested in the Warp.

Not sure what that means. Surely powerful pyskers do stuff all the time?

BrainDeleted wrote:The Golden Throne may or may not be inhibiting him recovering.

As for the siege, he was busy keeping daemons from swarming through the man-made piece of the webway until he got Mally to sit in for him while he obliterated Horus.

Yeah that makes sense.

Because clearly the Emperor doesnt want what is best for Humanity. He has proven this more than once in the fluff, he deliberately makes mistakes that he knows will cause unimaginable amounts of destruction and havoc over and over.

Joey wrote:How is it that the emperor is powerful enough to destroy a planet by force of will alone, but not powerful enough to heal himself?
And why didn't he just squish the heretics during the seige of terra with his super awesome pyskic powers?

Because he isn't as all powerful as you think he is.

Thatguy91 wrote:Because clearly the Emperor doesnt want what is best for Humanity. He has proven this more than once in the fluff, he deliberately makes mistakes that he knows will cause unimaginable amounts of destruction and havoc over and over.

What's his Raison d'être then? Personal power? This seems unlikely.

No, not at all. Im just saying that he doesnt always do what he knows to be best. Most Dieties dont, its just part of their "mystique".

I can only speak for the judeo-christian diety, but since that is what the emperor is based on it seems fitting.
God is based on "your father after a hard day's work". He's vengeful, sure. But it's rough justice. Destroying cities at will seems over the top, but he's doing it to, as God sees, protect his people from the wickedness of sin etc.
Point is, Gods might be asshats but there's a rationality to it.
Deliberately fething up the universe seems like a strange way of protecting his flock.

God works in mysterious ways lol. If you believe in that sorta thing. I think its just another way to get some flavour into the mix. No one likes a 100% goodie two shoes. Hence why 90% of all 40k players hate the Ultra marines.

Joey wrote:Not sure what that means. Surely powerful pyskers do stuff all the time?

They do "stuff," but not busting planets by willing it.

Also, the Emperor wasn't a god, he wasn't perfect, he made a lot of mistakes, and was kind of a dick.

He's practically a corpse and was probaly too far gone to heal himself. Perhaps the damage could have been worse if it hadn't been for his powers.

Mr Nobody wrote:He's practically a corpse and was probaly too far gone to heal himself. Perhaps the damage could have been worse if it hadn't been for his powers.

This would certainly gel with the grimdark atmosphere of the Imperium-- even with everyone doing their absolute best to fend off extinction, they're just barely making it. The Emperor is no exception.

You have to remember that the Emperor used the last of his power to kill Horus.

He couldn't heal himself because he was too weak to do so.

It was either the Golden Throne or death.

I think the best description of him would be the most powerful man you could possibly imagine but still a man. He was flesh and blood and the Horus Heresy books (some people do not like them but I think they fill in the gaps quite nicely) mention him fighting alongside Horus and during a famous battle Horus and the Emperor fought back to back on a world against Orks and if I recall correctly it mentions Horus saving the Emperor from an Ork (a really, really big ork mind you ).

So the Emperor possessed a mortal body and like Void Dragon mentioned that his power as a psyker was near unimaginable. The Emperor just may have been loathe to draw upon his power constantly due to the fact that he may not have been immune from the predations of the warp.

I'm lost. Where has the Emperor technically destroyed a planet by his psychic powers alone?

Connor MacLeod wrote:I'm lost. Where has the Emperor technically destroyed a planet by his psychic powers alone?

Never.

The closest to that anyone has come was Magnus the Red wreaking the surface of Prospero while fighting Russ.

That's not even close to obliterating the planet.

I think a lot of the beliefs about the Emperor's planet busting powah stem from the wording of his attack that destroyed Horus, described as "more focused than a laser and more destructive than a supernova." People tend to take that literally, rather than acknowledging it for what it is, fancy hyperbole.

Well supernovae tend to be a bit exaggerated, since a fair chunk of their energy is emitted in the form of neutrinos. Maybe the Emperor has neutrino-beam death ray eyes.

The thing about "Godlike" power in 40K is that while it may be true in the Warp, translating that power to real space has some definite constraints on it - which is why the Chaos Gods do not just mess up realspace arbitrarily at will. For lack of better phrasing, a "God" needs a powerful champion (or Champions) through which that power can be channeled, and the amount of power a god can safely manifest (unless it wants to destroy its focus) will be variable. That's why you can have all sorts of nigh omnipotent daemons that manifest in realspace end up getting beaten by the most mundane of enemies.

Edit: It can also depend on what sort of effect. I mean I suppose triggering a warp rift (think of an upscaled D-cannon, or the warp cannons on the Blackstone Forts) might be considered highyl destructive, but its a very indirect sort of destruction, because you're simply allowing the warp to do for oyu waht you cannot do. It would be like saying I am the god of fire because I can burn a house down by lighting a match on some very flammable materials or osmething.

Double edit: Also I'm not sure how destruction is supposed to correspond to something as nebulous and unquantified as healing anyhow - it could be something as obscure as "creation is always harder than destruction" or something. Or if you want to get really technical, the limits on "healing" could be purely biological or thermodynamic - organic processes like cell division and replication are all well and good, but there are going to be limits to biological processes without overheating your body or something. Which creates this bizarre mental image of Super Regenerating Emperor trying to heal himself so fast he spontaneously combusts.

Or the Emp could be dead, and the Golden throne just takes psykers in and spits Astronomican out. All a ploy by the bureaucratic Man, keeping the working stiffs down, using all those crazy zealots who think a dead guy is talking to them to kill anyone who oppose them.

Wow, that was a joke, but man that fits right in there with all the grimdark nicely.

Thatguy91 wrote:Because clearly the Emperor doesnt want what is best for Humanity. He has proven this more than once in the fluff, he deliberately makes mistakes that he knows will cause unimaginable amounts of destruction and havoc over and over.

Thatguy91 wrote:God works in mysterious ways lol. If you believe in that sorta thing. I think its just another way to get some flavour into the mix. No one likes a 100% goodie two shoes. Hence why 90% of all 40k players hate the Ultra marines.

I'd like to know where you've gotten this information.

Well, there was some fluff (mechanicum, towards the end) when..

So, from the outside he might've been an incredible bad, blind father who got on the bad side of his sons on more than one occassion.
But it might also be that he did all of it deliberately.
How that ties in with sentences like "magnus saw something break in his fathers eyes, hurt beyond measure from the betrayal" (or something like that) i don't know.
So i do think he wants the best for humanity. Maybe he doesn't see every option, but i think hes doin what he does because he at least thinks its the best.

Thatguy91 wrote:Because clearly the Emperor doesnt want what is best for Humanity. He has proven this more than once in the fluff, he deliberately makes mistakes that he knows will cause unimaginable amounts of destruction and havoc over and over.

What? No he didn't... He made mistakes because he is a Human like all of us, the most powerful Human ever maybe, but still just Human.
And Humans are making mistakes ( Global Warming anyone? ).

Yeah I'll go for a bit of Global Warming, too cold here anyway. To bad it's all lies perpetrated by some lame-o scientists to justify their jobs.

It's one of the franchises greatest mysterious.

Is the Emperor a twit? Or is it all part of his MASTER PLAN??????????

Or maybe there is no answer, and we are all just false philosophers?

Joey wrote:How is it that the emperor is powerful enough to destroy a planet by force of will alone,

It isn't. Never was.

The High Lords of Terra put the Emperor on life support to keep him "dead". If he had been healed right away, a second civil war would have erupted over weather or not this "healed" Emperor was infact the real thing.

See Inquisitor Rule Book... page 1, I think.

DeffDred wrote:The High Lords of Terra put the Emperor on life support to keep him "dead". If he had been healed right away, a second civil war would have erupted over weather or not this "healed" Emperor was infact the real thing.
See Inquisitor Rule Book... page 1, I think.

I would put my money on the side of the Healed Emperor. Cause, ya know, he wouldn't be dead, or busy pretending to do science, or whatever.

iproxtaco wrote:Yeah I'll go for a bit of Global Warming, too cold here anyway. To bad it's all lies perpetrated by some lame-o scientists to justify their jobs.

This is the most ignorant thing I have ever read on these boards. And that's saying a lot, because Brother Coa posts regularly.

I do hope it was sarcasm.

Omegus wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Yeah I'll go for a bit of Global Warming, too cold here anyway. To bad it's all lies perpetrated by some lame-o scientists to justify their jobs.

This is the most ignorant thing I have ever read on these boards. And that's saying a lot, because Brother Coa posts regularly.

I do hope it was sarcasm.

Does Global Warming exist? Yes, the global climate is changing. Is it because of human activity? Debatable, and frankly, I don't think it's us that's driving it forward.