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As far as I'm aware, even the second mightiest human psyker (most likely Malcador, if we're excluding the Emperor's own creations like Magnus the Red) has but a fraction of the Emperor's psychic ability. And I'm pretty sure Eldar farseers are also dwarfed by His power, so it's as if the world's tallest man came from a tribe of pygmies.

Interestingly, the Emperor also long predates the Eye of Terror and other realspace manifestations of Chaos that may have favored the birth of psykers.

Is the Emperor just a fluke, or is there some explanation provided for this?

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It….depends. If the Realm of Chaos origin story remains? The Emperor is a unique being, comprised of the souls of Shamas.

The tale goes the Shaman could once reincarnate after bathing in the powers of the warp. Once the Warp started going wonky, they realised it was too dangerous.

So they all took their own life, met in the warp, and were reborn as a single entity - The Emperor.

If that holds? His power level comes from his gestalt nature. Ahem…the power of one, the power of two….the power of many.

The Emperor also had thousands of years to hone his abilities and gain esoteric knowledge to increase his power.

One of his first campaigns was to take the Tower of Babel to try and master Enuncia, a language that directly channels the power of the Warp (which, personally, I hate as a stupid Dan Abnett insertion).

Given they have never retconned the shaman creation, that's still canon.

He's a walking eldar infinity circuit.

The shamans were all proto hominids with seemingly a pure connection to the warp. They died out by making the emperor, putting that power in a single entity.

The eldar warlock titans have seer choirs and infinity circuits of dead seers and are able to turn back time and manipulate reality. They are pretty insane.

Now imagine that 1000x time quantity of psykers and you get the emperor's soul gestalt.



If however they decide that the best more interesting idea they can go with for the emperor is that he's just a random highlander immortal that was born just because conveniently humanity has a race of gods randomly born amongst them and he became powerful, because Abnett decided that the concept of a perpetual needed to crammed into 40k. Well there's your answer.

On Perpetuals? That may simply be a side effect (intended or not, we don’t know) of the Old One’s Fiddling.

Certainly we’re told the Eldar of old were all Perpetuals, doing the same as the Shaman of Old Earth. And that their gods appear to have had mortal origins, only later achieving godhood.

The mechanism I’m not sure of. Is it celebration turned adulation turned worship that empowers them? Or is it an inevitable consequence of a race designed to be psychic, and sooner or later notably powerful individuals will arise from the general population, in the same way some are born with a greater capacity for learning, greater physical strength limits etc.

Regrowing from atoms is a lot different from just not being able to die of old age or disease.

The shamans shared the reincarnation that the eldar had which doesn't seem very similar to the abnett perpetual.

Reincarnation is that the soul remained cohesive after death and attached to a newly forming life, being reborn to live again. That's got a lot more narrative consequence and long story compared to the wolverine esque growing back your body as it was previously.

The reincarnation concept slots neatly into 40k metaphysics and how most souls dissolve after death while powerful ones retain coherence.

Atom regeneration is just comic book kitsch and it has very little narrative value, except to make your character look cooler

Yeah, Perpetuals as a basic concept aren't terrible. It's the execution that's dumb. Being unable to die of old age, disease, etc and being able to heal from otherwise fatal wounds all seems kind of fine. It's stuff like people being atomised and then getting better that is monumentally stupid.

It kind of fits though if you consider living beings in the 40K setting to be living in two realms at once. The Physical and the Chaos.

Whilst for the most part you're in one or the other its clear that beings can exist in both at once.

Eg Chaos demons from the big four chaos Gods are simply splinters of that God itself. Thus existing in part in both the physical and Chaos realm

Tyranids do the same, there's clearly a Warp Entity/manifestation of them in the Warp itself plus the countless numbers outside of the Warp in the regular universe.


So you could argue that Perpetuals are simply creatures that exist across both thus being able to repair their form in either realm so long as their form persists in the other.

There have been a number of origin stories for the emperor and I don’t think any of them are true in typical 40K fashion.

Do we see the emperor, in any novels, before his trip to molech? I strongly suspect that the emperor wasn’t particularly empowered before his deal with chaos. I also suspect that malcadore was given a portion of the emperors power to function as a proxy emperor.

I like the gestalt idea because it also allows for the idea that the Emperor has different personalities 'in charge' at different times. This allows for inconsistent writing and very obviously stupid decisions made by him to be explained by different personalities, some of whom are crazy or damaged. I prefer to think he was a Dark Age weapon though maybe with implanted memories.

I believe the shaman thing is even further teased in newer books like Siege of Terra, so yeah, seems canon.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I believe the shaman thing is even further teased in newer books like Siege of Terra, so yeah, seems canon.

Then the other question is where did the other perpetual come from?? Perhaps they are the emperor’s children (not those). Biological children I mean. It would explain why they are less super than him if they are half human

mrFickle wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I believe the shaman thing is even further teased in newer books like Siege of Terra, so yeah, seems canon.

Then the other question is where did the other perpetual come from?? Perhaps they are the emperor’s children (not those). Biological children I mean. It would explain why they are less super than him if they are half human

It could be that the remaining perpetuals we see throughout the Heresy are those that chose not to join the rest in gestalting themselves into what became the Emperor, as that could be one way to link the newer perpetual lore to the older "shaman gestalt" lore.

 Da Boss wrote:
I prefer to think he was a Dark Age weapon though maybe with implanted memories.

Yes him being a rogue Dark Age weapon is for me a far better 'hidden truth'.

mrFickle wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I believe the shaman thing is even further teased in newer books like Siege of Terra, so yeah, seems canon.

Then the other question is where did the other perpetual come from?? Perhaps they are the emperor’s children (not those). Biological children I mean. It would explain why they are less super than him if they are half human

Ollanius claims to be older than the Emperor, so it's possible at least he was "naturally" formed (a psychic fluke, perhaps).

We know some other perpetuals are engineered, like Vulkan and John Grammaticus.

Technically, all these things could be true at once.

Imagine, if you will, one of the first perpetuals born many thousands of year ago. He's also a psyker. Not an especially powerful one, but just a man.

At some point a bunch of other psykers (or shamans), some of the earliest of humanity, choose to club together to make one of their number the biggest baddest psykers around. Perhaps to defend their clan/organisation from another, or to deal with a bunch of drukhari who stopped by for the week, whatever. Point is, they all feed their souls into the Emperor. He gets stronger. Not crazy God-like power, but his power is now above the average psyker level. Beta or Alpha level.

Roll on to the Dark Ages of Technology. Our future Emperor is very powerful, but not absolutely unique or all-omnipotent. That's why he hasn't ruled all of humanity yet. But oh no!Humans are fighting [insert Xenos, enslavers, AI, Iron men, whatever] and the decision is taken to try and soup up some of their psykers to deal with the problem. We've seen in the Cain novels how it is possible to augment a psyker's native power with technology. Our future Emperor is chosen for the upgrade treatment. But where the other candidates all go mad, the fact our lad got his power from a combination of shamans back in the day allows him to hang onto his mind. He's pushed up to Zeta Plus or the like. He's now the most powerful human psyker ever. What a guy. He helps to end the machine rebellion or whatever it is.

Unfortunately, Slaanesh gets born and the galaxy blows up. Human government disintegrates. Our boy is now alone in the world, but extremely powerful. He pulls in as many perpetuals as he can do, knowing them all from the previous 25,000 years of human history. And goes off on his little jolly around the galaxy as he formulates his plan. En-route, he wanders through the portal at Molech - and like Horus, emerges empowered even further still. His body has bathed in the pure liquid oceans of the warp, and his very being is now suffused with it.

Our Emperor is now absurdly powerful. He didn't start that way. It's a unique confluence of circumstances that led him here. He's a basic perpetual and psyker, but he got sufficient power ups along the way that he's become a walking warp God in the flesh. He's a shonen character several training arcs in.

But even a walking warp God can't be everywhere at once. And the other powers of the warp now fear him. Enter the Heresy.

Neat write up

Definitely some interesting ideas. But, we can also view it in other ways.

Again, we’ll start with the best starting point we have, that of the Shamans of ancient Earth choosing to collectively reincarnate as a single entity.

This entity was The Emperor. Or would become The Emperor.

We’re told they’d masquerade as different historical figures, nudging mankind’s development along, using its skills and abilities of precognition to do so.

So….why didn’t he take control much longer?

Well….we can’t rule out that he never wanted to fully dominate mankind as a species. His prior actions were nips and tucks to keep us on what we have to assume was The Best Path, however rutted and knackered and full of potholes it might’ve been. So long as that path has fewer than the other possible paths? It’s still the Best Path. Best not equating to Perfect.

We also need to mature as a species, alongside our technological development. To get to the stage where, to paraphrase Dr Ian Malcolm? To get to the stage where we can reckon with Could and Should regarding technology.

Real world example? Eugenics. Purely as a concept, it has merit. We could use it to greatly reduce the instance of genetic diseases. But there’s currently No Way To Ethically Implement It. Because it infringes on free will and that.

It could easily be implemented. But we shouldn’t. Not only are there a range of implementations of varying moral quality? You’re also opening the door to some douche nozzle deciding and enforcing what is and isn’t desirable.

Could a truly ethical version exist in the future? Possibly. Through say, active gene editing. You let people have children with whomever they want, then use currently sci-fi level gene mucking about to remove deleterious genes from the resultant offspring. And only the deleterious genes. But that’s way, way off. And honestly given the potential for horrors on the way to that, I hope we never see it.

Anyways.

If The Emperor simply imposed himself and his authority from the get go? You risk Humans turning out lesser. Always looking to a higher authority. Never taking risks, calculated or not, which might lead to massive success. Technologically you could turn us into the Pakled of Star Trek. Able to use the advanced tech, but never really understanding it. A species of stunted understanding.

And so, it’s not until mankind has Really Buggered Things Right Up (Age of Strife) that he perhaps decides “I really didn’t want to become Dictator for Life. But, it seems this is the Only Way Now”. The last resort. Once last roll of the species survival dice.

There is of course a far more sinister explanation. He needed to nudge and gently guide mankind to the Golden Age, then the Age of Strife, so that when he made his big play for Galactic Dominance? We’d spread among the stars, had at least a toehold on as many resources as possible, but were now in a position That A Massively Powerful Benevolent Dictator With Massively Powerful Armies Was Indeed Exactly What People Needed.

Like disaster capitalism on a species wide scale.

Maybe there’s a way the emperor can force other perpetuals or psykers to do what the shaman did, dying and merging their power into his. That’s why he became so much more powerful eventually.

And it would add something to the need to kill psychers to keep the golden thrown powered and the emperor alive.

And highlander is the only 90s movie GW haven’t ripped off for 40k

Well….that depends.

The Shaman were perpetual because once their physical body died, their souls could bathe in the then stable energies of The Warp, and regenerate. Then be reborn in a new body.

The whole amalgam thing came about because the Warp was becoming unstable. And so what was once presumably a pretty small chance you wouldn’t survive to reincarnate grew to be a much greater risk.

So, whilst the going was good? Everyone Off, have your bath, then everyone into the same body.

Presumably, The Warp has only become worse and worse since then. And importantly? The gestalt that is The Emperor hasn’t had the bath for millennia so far as we know*.

Whilst I don’t want to rule out The Emperor’s mere existence being able to act as a lodestone to attract the souls of fallen Perpetuals? The fact he hasn’t had to reincarnate may suggest that’s off the table.

*I mean, it could’ve happened. Just that the resulting soul is strong enough to recharged regardless. But we’re not directly told that happened, so can only speculate.

Malcador did it with the Perpetual from Molech, Alivia Sureka.

It was part of a ritual during the gambit to bring Magnus the Red back into the Imperial fold.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well….that depends.

The Shaman were perpetual because once their physical body died, their souls could bathe in the then stable energies of The Warp, and regenerate. Then be reborn in a new body.

The whole amalgam thing came about because the Warp was becoming unstable. And so what was once presumably a pretty small chance you wouldn’t survive to reincarnate grew to be a much greater risk.

So, whilst the going was good? Everyone Off, have your bath, then everyone into the same body.

Presumably, The Warp has only become worse and worse since then. And importantly? The gestalt that is The Emperor hasn’t had the bath for millennia so far as we know*.

Whilst I don’t want to rule out The Emperor’s mere existence being able to act as a lodestone to attract the souls of fallen Perpetuals? The fact he hasn’t had to reincarnate may suggest that’s off the table.

*I mean, it could’ve happened. Just that the resulting soul is strong enough to recharged regardless. But we’re not directly told that happened, so can only speculate.

I think you're stretching the definition of perpetual.

The Abnett perpetual was a biological invention, their bodies just don't die. Ollanius Pious is dead when his body finally died. his soul didn't survive death. Having souls that stay coherent after death is a bit different to that. Soul metaphysics is old 40k and tied to the warp and chaos.

I think its important that the distinction is kept, reincarnation of a coherent soul and a biological body that can't be destroyed aren't the same and have different consequences.




The shaman gestalt is actually why I don't think the emperor's plans were as Dune-ishly perfect as they imply. The shamans were neolithic and effectively one with nature. Their goals and desires for humanity are wildly different from industrialised society. In fact the formation of civilisation was one of the reasons they decided to form voltron in the first place. so the shamans' goals were at odds with what society was doing. They might have wanted everyone to go back to being one with nature to avoid the heightened emotional waves created by the greed and jealousy of civilisation.

Maybe driving humanity through apocalypse after apocalypse until humanity is back to his caveman origins is the intent all along. Not to uplift, but to degenerate back to an Eloi- like existence. One that deprives the chaos gods power by its very simplicity.

Which is basically what the exodites did.

In addition to being an amalgam of, at minimum, thousands of psykers together, it is implied that the Emperor has been absorbing the souls of the psykers fed to him while he sits on the Golden Throne. ~1k psykers a day for 10k years. IIRC when Gulliman speaks to him some of what the Emperor says is confirming that some of his personality has been gained since he was interred from the psykers he has been absorbing.

I don't think the original Shamen psykers were perpetuals. They were just doing what was presumably natural for human psykers, and maybe all psykers in general, prior to the Warp becoming what it is in the modern day. If the warp was calm, a psyker's soul could basically do what it wanted to in there. And finding its way back to reality and possessing a new body wouldn't be much of a hurdle.

I doubt also that the Emperor's original plans are really valid anymore. He seems to be more concerned with adapting to the current situation than continuing a previous plan or trying to undo what has happened. His conversation with Gulliman seemed to imply he is different than he used to be or has resigned himself to the changed situation.

Can we also rule out that the worship directed toward The Emperor is changing him?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can we also rule out that the worship directed toward The Emperor is changing him?

I don’t think so. The more I think about it the more I’m convinced that the the emperor came back from molech a perpetual/warp entity hybrid. Drawing down on warp power was essential for him to be able to reunite humanity but he still needed to be a material human in real space. I’ve just been reading about Erda and how her genetics were required to make the primarchs becuase they were old stable perpetual genes and the emperors genetics were now full of crazy warp energies that were unstable.

Also if GW are lining him up to be a warp god of order or humanity, the clumsy way Erda was introduced might be to stop people saying it doesnt make sense that he could make the primatchs using his own genetic material if he was a warp being all along.

There is basically zero chance that it isn't. The unified beliefs of mortals has a direct effect on the warp and gods. Quadrillions of people worshipping the Emperor is going to do something.

It's already implied that that is the source of the magical-blessings that the Sisters of Battle are blessed with in combat.

Even if its not the "Emperor" there's certainly some Warp entity taking all that belief power and spitting it out again

Yeah, I’ve my own pet theory that there are in fact two The Emperors.

The physical, “real” one. We know where he is, he’s on the Golden Throne still sulking.

The second one is a Warp Entity, which began gaining power during the Great Crusade, possibly during Reunification.

This is tenuous, but not entirely unsupported. My main claim of evidence is in the original HH Trilogy, where something is channeling power through Euphrate Keeler. She’s no Psyker, or so we’re told. But is able to cast out a Daemon using golden light, and perform other outright miracles.

At that time of course, The Emperor was still denying divinity. But surely if it was Him channeling power through Keeler, he’d have known something was rotten at the heart of the Sons of Horus.

But. If it was a reflection of him in the warp, empowered by and responding to prayers of the nascent faithful? It explains how the help arrived, and how The Emperor remained unaware.

Of course, these are not the only possible explanations. So feel free to add your own.

But if I’m right? I’d argue The Emperor as a fully fledged Warp God won’t fully awaken until the physical Emperor’s soul fully passes over. The two will then merge, and bingo, God Of Humanity. Possibly strong enough to do to the Chaos Gods what Slaanesh did to the Eldar Pantheon. After all, The Emperor has untold trillions of daily worshippers, a percentage of which are absolute true believers. That’s….thats a lot of Warpy Go Juice, no?

Whether it would be sane entity is entirely open to debate of course.

It could indeed be a bit like Gork and Mork in that the line between when its one or two becomes very confusing in the Warp.

There's also potential that they are two fully separate entities that will never combine and that they will have huge differences between them. One created by its own ideas and thoughts then sealed on a Throne for 10K years and the other birthed from belief in an idealised Emperor which has had its vision of who that is twisted over those same 10K years. Imagine how much Chaos would laugh if the Imperium abandoned the true emperor upon his throne (save for his 1K psycher meal a day) and instead embraced a powerful regular Chaos God that, whilst it might opposed the Great 4, is just another one of them at the end of the day. With its own twisted form of morality and understanding of the mortal realm.

Gork and Mork are an interesting one. Certainly it could be we end up with more than one God of Humanity.

But their power is of interest. We’re shown in the original Rogue Trader books that the brothers are more than a match for other warp powers. But as reflections of their mortal charges? They’re kinda lazy until the mood for a Waaagh! takes them. But once they’re rolling? All but unstoppable.

Probably the most interesting bit of storytelling around this is the creation of a Gargant.

Very potted version? Mekboy sees and survives an Imperial Titan’s attack. Orks being Orks, he wonder if that Da Emprah the Humies are always going on about, come to give the Orks a kicking. And so he gets it into his head to build bodies for Gork and Mork, so they can gang up on Da Emprah and given him a kicking.

This created a chain reaction of attracting Gork & Morks attention, and a Waaagh! begins to form around the Mek’s efforts.

So from that? We can see the world realities clearly influencing each other. Mekyboyz stroke of inspiration draws the eyes of Gork and Mork, who suitably enthused begin to influence other Orks to help being the Mek’s vision to fruit. And of course, the more excited the Boyz get? The more excited Gork & Mork get.