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HoundsofDemos wrote:
Guardsmen not knowing about chaos is something GW has been all over the place over the years. While I agree the IOM does it's best to hide the nature of chaos from most people, it's pretty clear that by the time they are down training, they know what a chaos space marine is, even if they don't fully understand what exactly the traitors really fight for. I've never read a story were guard were attack by a chaos space marine and they didn't know what it was.

Also, I recall several stories were Horus's name was used as a curse. While a good chunk of what happened was scrubbed or lost to time, I'd imagine that a good chunk of the IOM know the basics. IG even had a relic named The Deathmask of Ollanius. Some version of the story must be common enough for that to be a thing.

Best guess I can make, is that everyone knows about the heresy, but that certain facts are ommited.

they likely know that a powerful being named Horus, lead 8 other generals to war against the Emperor, they likely even know he betrayed the Emperor on some level. They know if was a conflict with Horus that entombed the emperor.

What they DO NOT know is that Horus and his generals where Primarchs, swayed to the cause of Chaos.

I agree they won’t know about chaos but they do know about the heresy I think. But in a legend kind of way. No hard facts just folk tales. Twisted to make you not want to rebel any. That’s why old pius worked well. It made people think the emperor cared about them. The BL version of events is just undoing decades of great vague background writing. It was vague because that was how it would be in the actual setting. 10000 years on.

Andykp wrote:
I agree they won’t know about chaos but they do know about the heresy I think. But in a legend kind of way. No hard facts just folk tales. Twisted to make you not want to rebel any. That’s why old pius worked well. It made people think the emperor cared about them. The BL version of events is just undoing decades of great vague background writing. It was vague because that was how it would be in the actual setting. 10000 years on.

sure, and in the end, what the HH books etc is revealing is, the emperor doesn't care about you but rather his concerns are more humanity as a whole. and he'll sacrifice you, everyone you care about all your hopes and dreams and your very soul if thats what it takes

BrianDavion wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I agree they won’t know about chaos but they do know about the heresy I think. But in a legend kind of way. No hard facts just folk tales. Twisted to make you not want to rebel any. That’s why old pius worked well. It made people think the emperor cared about them. The BL version of events is just undoing decades of great vague background writing. It was vague because that was how it would be in the actual setting. 10000 years on.

sure, and in the end, what the HH books etc is revealing is, the emperor doesn't care about you but rather his concerns are more humanity as a whole. and he'll sacrifice you, everyone you care about all your hopes and dreams and your very soul if thats what it takes

And I explained why the Emperor wasn't there during the Iron Wars. He came during the Age of Strife. Its all explained in the shaman origin from Realm of Chaos: The Lost and The Damned.


And for what you are talking about, Perpetual Oll Persson makes more sense than the first story.

I think the most amusing thing about how much the IoM knows about Old Earth is that probably huge amounts of data over the preceding 30,000/40,000 years are buried in data stacks hidden at the bottom of archives on Terra, Mars, and a thousand other worlds. Likely much of the information is corrupted and unreadable due to neglect, but I bet many Wikipedia's worths of data is hidden under the noses of humanity in the IoM, only to be dredged up by the occasional archaelogist expedition into the bowels of some dusty, forgottern library.

A further interesting point is how many of the pre-Unification states of Terra fairly closely match the nation-states and regions of Old Earth. Places like Hy Brasil, Old Albia, the Pan Pacific Empire, Atlan etc. Clearly these names associated with regions have persisted for a long time, which suggests some link to Old Earth.

 Haighus wrote:
I think the most amusing thing about how much the IoM knows about Old Earth is that probably huge amounts of data over the preceding 30,000/40,000 years are buried in data stacks hidden at the bottom of archives on Terra, Mars, and a thousand other worlds. Likely much of the information is corrupted and unreadable due to neglect, but I bet many Wikipedia's worths of data is hidden under the noses of humanity in the IoM, only to be dredged up by the occasional archaelogist expedition into the bowels of some dusty, forgottern library.

A further interesting point is how many of the pre-Unification states of Terra fairly closely match the nation-states and regions of Old Earth. Places like Hy Brasil, Old Albia, the Pan Pacific Empire, Atlan etc. Clearly these names associated with regions have persisted for a long time, which suggests some link to Old Earth.

I do not think they even have most of the knowledge stored anywhere.

Onething123456 wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I think the most amusing thing about how much the IoM knows about Old Earth is that probably huge amounts of data over the preceding 30,000/40,000 years are buried in data stacks hidden at the bottom of archives on Terra, Mars, and a thousand other worlds. Likely much of the information is corrupted and unreadable due to neglect, but I bet many Wikipedia's worths of data is hidden under the noses of humanity in the IoM, only to be dredged up by the occasional archaelogist expedition into the bowels of some dusty, forgottern library.

A further interesting point is how many of the pre-Unification states of Terra fairly closely match the nation-states and regions of Old Earth. Places like Hy Brasil, Old Albia, the Pan Pacific Empire, Atlan etc. Clearly these names associated with regions have persisted for a long time, which suggests some link to Old Earth.

I do not think they even have most of the knowledge stored anywhere.

Not most, fragments. But something like the entiriety of Wikipedia can be stored on a single datachip. So those fragments could easily account for huge volumes of data, for those who seek them out. It is a similar situation with the STC fragments- what the Mechanicus knows is huge- they've recovered massive amounts of data. It is still a drop in the ocean of what has been lost.

Of course, I am referring to the entire period between Old Earth and 30k. The bits pertaining to 2k will be a small part of that. But it fits that a lot of data is both preserved, but lost due to the stagnant immensity of the Imperium. They lose stuff they find within a few mere centuries within vast archives. I would think much of the data has never even been seen by an Imperial servant, but many Imperial structures have their foundations in far older pre-Imperial buildings.

 Haighus wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I think the most amusing thing about how much the IoM knows about Old Earth is that probably huge amounts of data over the preceding 30,000/40,000 years are buried in data stacks hidden at the bottom of archives on Terra, Mars, and a thousand other worlds. Likely much of the information is corrupted and unreadable due to neglect, but I bet many Wikipedia's worths of data is hidden under the noses of humanity in the IoM, only to be dredged up by the occasional archaelogist expedition into the bowels of some dusty, forgottern library.

A further interesting point is how many of the pre-Unification states of Terra fairly closely match the nation-states and regions of Old Earth. Places like Hy Brasil, Old Albia, the Pan Pacific Empire, Atlan etc. Clearly these names associated with regions have persisted for a long time, which suggests some link to Old Earth.

I do not think they even have most of the knowledge stored anywhere.

Not most, fragments. But something like the entiriety of Wikipedia can be stored on a single datachip. So those fragments could easily account for huge volumes of data, for those who seek them out. It is a similar situation with the STC fragments- what the Mechanicus knows is huge- they've recovered massive amounts of data. It is still a drop in the ocean of what has been lost.

Of course, I am referring to the entire period between Old Earth and 30k. The bits pertaining to 2k will be a small part of that. But it fits that a lot of data is both preserved, but lost due to the stagnant immensity of the Imperium. They lose stuff they find within a few mere centuries within vast archives. I would think much of the data has never even been seen by an Imperial servant, but many Imperial structures have their foundations in far older pre-Imperial buildings.

Do you have a source for this? The Imperium knows just about nothing about Old Earth, and they care about it just as much as they know about it.

Onething123456 wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I think the most amusing thing about how much the IoM knows about Old Earth is that probably huge amounts of data over the preceding 30,000/40,000 years are buried in data stacks hidden at the bottom of archives on Terra, Mars, and a thousand other worlds. Likely much of the information is corrupted and unreadable due to neglect, but I bet many Wikipedia's worths of data is hidden under the noses of humanity in the IoM, only to be dredged up by the occasional archaelogist expedition into the bowels of some dusty, forgottern library.

A further interesting point is how many of the pre-Unification states of Terra fairly closely match the nation-states and regions of Old Earth. Places like Hy Brasil, Old Albia, the Pan Pacific Empire, Atlan etc. Clearly these names associated with regions have persisted for a long time, which suggests some link to Old Earth.

I do not think they even have most of the knowledge stored anywhere.

Not most, fragments. But something like the entiriety of Wikipedia can be stored on a single datachip. So those fragments could easily account for huge volumes of data, for those who seek them out. It is a similar situation with the STC fragments- what the Mechanicus knows is huge- they've recovered massive amounts of data. It is still a drop in the ocean of what has been lost.

Of course, I am referring to the entire period between Old Earth and 30k. The bits pertaining to 2k will be a small part of that. But it fits that a lot of data is both preserved, but lost due to the stagnant immensity of the Imperium. They lose stuff they find within a few mere centuries within vast archives. I would think much of the data has never even been seen by an Imperial servant, but many Imperial structures have their foundations in far older pre-Imperial buildings.

Do you have a source for this? The Imperium knows just about nothing about Old Earth, and they care about it just as much as they know about it.

He doesn't need a source for it, he's speculating. Like you do in every thread you make.

Yeah, I'm not saying the Imperium knows much about Old Earth. I'm saying it is almost certainly sitting on hoards of data reaching all the way back to Old Earth that it doesn't know about, but could perhaps find pieces of if it put the effort in.

This is kinda the IoM's thing. Look how Arkhan Land found valuable STCs simply exploring the datastacks of Mars. He never left the homeworld of the Mechanicus to find the Land Raider, data they'd been sitting on top of for centuries, if not millennia, and didn't know about.

Imagine, onething, that they have millions of floppy discs but way of reading them. That what he’s suggesting. So they don’t know anything but with a bit of effort they could. It’s a nice theory and makes sense. I remember in one of the books I read, maybe titanicus where the ad mech were going through thousands of files and destroying them, and one found some information that could cause another schism, something that showed the emperor wasn’t the omnissiah and the info was suppressed. So it goes on.

The idea the information is all out there ties in with the crushing, monolithic bureaucracy of the Imperium too. There have been stories in previous rulebooks and Codices about scribes who spend their whole life writing out scripture or instructions, over and over, only to have their work put immediately into storage, and nobody knows why other than that's what they've always done. It would fit the theme of the setting for huge amounts of knowledge to be just sitting, waiting to be discovered by anyone inquisitive enough to look. But curiosity and free-thinking are not encouraged in the Imperium so such things remain forever hidden.

I seem to recall one of the BL authors (probably ADB) stating that there's lots of information on Mars in data repositories deep underground that nobody can access any more, because the civil war between loyalist and heretic Mechanicum factions during the HH left whole swathes of the planet's subterranean complexes full of traps and automated super-weapons, not to mention unbreakable doors that nobody has the codes for. Some of the lost data stores might even be infected with malicious scrapcode that could destroy every data repository on Mars if it ever got out, or might even be possessed by daemons who've been stuck there for the past ten millennia and are really annoyed about it.

let's use a lower tech comparison.Imagine if you would a library, this library is an old fashioned one, that doesn't have any electronics, the Librarian is a bit of a strange old sort. the book contains rows and rows and rows of books, of every imaginable type.. now, imagine there's a disaster, an earthquake that causes a fire during the middle of a hurricane (mental note, see if I can sell that idea to Hollywood, it's just stupid eneugh to be a good B movie) the librarian is dead, and his index got burned. the book shelves all collapses and fell to the ground, and to make matters worse some of the books got damaged and scattered about, and you're not sure if that page in your hand is from Lord of the Rings or Twilight! Now somewhere in this library is a book detailing an obscure war of history no one really knows much about, in fact you and everyone you know has never even HEARD of it. How do you know the books missing because someone whoi attempted to clean up the mess misfiled it in the teen romance section.

BrianDavion wrote:
let's use a lower tech comparison.Imagine if you would a library, this library is an old fashioned one, that doesn't have any electronics, the Librarian is a bit of a strange old sort. the book contains rows and rows and rows of books, of every imaginable type.. now, imagine there's a disaster, an earthquake that causes a fire during the middle of a hurricane (mental note, see if I can sell that idea to Hollywood, it's just stupid eneugh to be a good B movie) the librarian is dead, and his index got burned. the book shelves all collapses and fell to the ground, and to make matters worse some of the books got damaged and scattered about, and you're not sure if that page in your hand is from Lord of the Rings or Twilight! Now somewhere in this library is a book detailing an obscure war of history no one really knows much about, in fact you and everyone you know has never even HEARD of it. How do you know the books missing because someone whoi attempted to clean up the mess misfiled it in the teen romance section.

And if you look at the books you get burned alive.

 foostick wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I think the most amusing thing about how much the IoM knows about Old Earth is that probably huge amounts of data over the preceding 30,000/40,000 years are buried in data stacks hidden at the bottom of archives on Terra, Mars, and a thousand other worlds. Likely much of the information is corrupted and unreadable due to neglect, but I bet many Wikipedia's worths of data is hidden under the noses of humanity in the IoM, only to be dredged up by the occasional archaelogist expedition into the bowels of some dusty, forgottern library.

A further interesting point is how many of the pre-Unification states of Terra fairly closely match the nation-states and regions of Old Earth. Places like Hy Brasil, Old Albia, the Pan Pacific Empire, Atlan etc. Clearly these names associated with regions have persisted for a long time, which suggests some link to Old Earth.

I do not think they even have most of the knowledge stored anywhere.

Not most, fragments. But something like the entiriety of Wikipedia can be stored on a single datachip. So those fragments could easily account for huge volumes of data, for those who seek them out. It is a similar situation with the STC fragments- what the Mechanicus knows is huge- they've recovered massive amounts of data. It is still a drop in the ocean of what has been lost.

Of course, I am referring to the entire period between Old Earth and 30k. The bits pertaining to 2k will be a small part of that. But it fits that a lot of data is both preserved, but lost due to the stagnant immensity of the Imperium. They lose stuff they find within a few mere centuries within vast archives. I would think much of the data has never even been seen by an Imperial servant, but many Imperial structures have their foundations in far older pre-Imperial buildings.

Do you have a source for this? The Imperium knows just about nothing about Old Earth, and they care about it just as much as they know about it.

He doesn't need a source for it, he's speculating. Like you do in every thread you make.

That's hardly true for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
Imagine, onething, that they have millions of floppy discs but way of reading them. That what he’s suggesting. So they don’t know anything but with a bit of effort they could. It’s a nice theory and makes sense. I remember in one of the books I read, maybe titanicus where the ad mech were going through thousands of files and destroying them, and one found some information that could cause another schism, something that showed the emperor wasn’t the omnissiah and the info was suppressed. So it goes on.

Oh, I see.

 Stux wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Bear in mind how long a span of time 30,000 years is. 30,000 years ago, there were no (modern, at least) humans in America, and it was before the last ice sheets covered Europe. Two or three people actually lived through all the millennia between now and the future, but other than that, having any records is miraculous.

Flight of the Eisenstein implies that Albert Einstein has been confused with Sergei Eisenstein.

Bear in mind that for most of the last 30k years in real history digital data storage didn't exist. For the next 30k years (following the 40k timeline) it will.

Obviously there are plenty of events that disrupt it, and 30k years is a very long time, but with how easy it is to copy and move information for most of that time it probably doesn't really become an issue until either the Emperor starts messing about with recorded history or the ecclesiarchy starts declaring it heresy.

Speaking as an archivist, digital data storage is, uh... not particularly relevant for the long term (it's convenient for active documents right now, but isn't particularly conducive to long term records) . Digital media is proving to be even less resilient than paper media, even in short spans of time. Part of it is how fragile the storage devices and mediums are (tapes, CDs and even USBs don't hold up well over time, even in 'perfect' storage conditions), part of it is simply the rate of change both for hardware and software formats. It's trivially easy to end up with unreadable documents (and this happened this century (want to say 2005 or 2006) with the US Census. The National Archives lost the rights to the software they used that year, and now can't access that year's census data at all.

Most digital documents are tied to proprietary software and specifically not designed to be universal. That isn't going to interface at all with systems tens of thousands of years in the future.

As it happens, it also fits into the 40K take on the Dark Age of Technology, where over-reliance on tech (especially digital computer tech) is a Very Bad thing.

Voss wrote:
The National Archives lost the rights to the software they used that year, and now can't access that year's census data at all.

not to derail things too much but surely there are some sort of emergancy measures the US can use to access the files long eneugh to trasnfer the data to a more reliable format?!

Underneath London abandoned tube lines and tunnels are used as secure data storage sites for loads of big companies and most of the data is stored on tape I believe. Magnetic old school tape because old school works. Heard an amazing radio documentary on it. Too secret sites and tunnels miles and miles long all identical full of canisters of tape. Big tech companies and all sorts storing stuff like that.

Even the Crusade Imperium did not know much about Old Earth. And I read a lot of HH books, and have seen probably nothing proving what some people said about the Emperor being evil after reading many HH books myself.

Onething123456 wrote:
Even the Crusade Imperium did not know much about Old Earth. And I read a lot of HH books, and have seen probably nothing proving what some people said about the Emperor being evil after reading many HH books myself.

Good and evil is subjective and more of a sliding scale than a hard yes or no. By modern standards, the Emperor would be on trial for a litany of war crimes. By 40k standards, in universe he clearly wants humanity to survive a brutal universe. To do that he had to make a lot of hard decisions, be incredibly cold at times, and generally was pretty bad at actually getting why individual humans behave like humans.

He also really underestimated/ seems to have a flawed idea about what makes the chaos gods actually work. That combined with his in ability to see that most people want to believe in something greater than themselves kinda screwed all his grand plans.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:
Even the Crusade Imperium did not know much about Old Earth. And I read a lot of HH books, and have seen probably nothing proving what some people said about the Emperor being evil after reading many HH books myself.

Good and evil is subjective and more of a sliding scale than a hard yes or no. By modern standards, the Emperor would be on trial for a litany of war crimes. By 40k standards, in universe he clearly wants humanity to survive a brutal universe. To do that he had to make a lot of hard decisions, be incredibly cold at times, and generally was pretty bad at actually getting why individual humans behave like humans.

He also really underestimated/ seems to have a flawed idea about what makes the chaos gods actually work. That combined with his in ability to see that most people want to believe in something greater than themselves kinda screwed all his grand plans.

And I have seen no proof for any of what you said about him. Prove it if you have proof. Because I think most of the bad things I heard about him are bs after reading the Horus Heresy books myself.



Basically, put up or shut up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Out of all the links I was given here to the Emperor being "evil", I only saw one that in anyway, shape or form was proof. And that link was from the Forgeworld books.



EDIT: I am not being hostile, I want proof and am convinced most of what I heard is bs.


And look, ADB in my talk with him on Reddit said that we can safely say the Emperor is not DAOT tech.


https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8zkgxp/just_grabbed_my_first_ever_aaron_dembskibowden/e2tpt6h/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8zkgxp/just_grabbed_my_first_ever_aaron_dembskibowden/e2tpt6h/?context=3

All your link there does is show your trying to tell a friggen WRITER what he said.

as for the emperor's evilness or not, evil is as evil does. Yes the Emperor had justifications for what he did, but real life isn't disney, evil people in real life don't go running around twirling their mustaches, cackling maniacly and being evil for it's own sake. At least not people who use the power of the state to commit evil. They JUSTIFY IT.

Let's use a modern day comparison, Joesph Stalin. Stalin today is widely considered an evil man often compared with Hitler (many have argued he was even WORSE then Hitler) BUT, much of what he did, it is also argued, may have been nesscary, his purges, his various harsh programs, where all needed to turn the soviet union from a backwards barely industrialized nation, into a modern nation in a short period of time, because Stalin was of the opinion that if he didn't the west would inevitably invade, and sure eneugh... Germany invaded. everything Stalin did he had a justification and a reason for... that does not mean that his actions are not seen as, by modern standards, evil.

the emperor is by any modern definition evil, but... and this is what makes 40k what is it.... he's a NESSCARY EVIL. 40k is basicly the ying to Star Trek's Yang, Star Trek presents us a future where humanity is able to, with technolgical advances and access to the stars, able to over come it's worst impulses and allow our better natures to guide us. 40k meanwhile presents us a future that is horrific, where for the survival of the human race, we must abandon many of our more enlightned aspects and embrace some of the worst elements of humanity. (for the record I find both settings can make for compelling stories.)

Thanks for the links Onething, quite funny watching someone tell an author they're wrong about something they had a hand in writing, while randomly quoting semi-related fluff to them. It does illustrate a bit of a problem with your reading of the background though. If you're trying to argue the Emperor isn't a hypocrite over the Mechanicus it kind of shows you may not have really understood a lot of the stuff going on in the HH background. That level of hypocrisy is one of the little lies that allows Chaos to gain a foothold in the Traitor Legions. If the Emperor is willing to lie on such a grand scale to further his goals, what else will he lie about?

As for the Emperor not being a war criminal by modern standards, how can you possibly claim he isn't if you've been paying any sort of attention? He had the Thunder Warriors wiped out after they had outlived their usefulness and has absolutely no problem slaughtering entire systems of humans if they refuse to accept the Imperial Truth. That's genocide on a scale literally impossible to accomplish in today's world. It makes him the most prolific butcher of his own kind in history. You can try to justify it by saying he was trying to accomplish something greater and save humanity in the end but very few, if any, truly evil people believe themselves to be evil. All will find justification for what they do.

Interesting that ADB confirms that Alan Bligh was a fan of the Emperor being DAOT theory given he was the father of the Heresy lore essentially.

The Emperor was quite clearly evil as far as the Eldar, Tau, Orks would perceive him and doubtless large swathes of humanity would have thought the same as their planet burnt around him by his command.

Surely that's one of the best parts of 40k anyway, you're literally in a "best of a bad bunch" situation rather than good guys v bad guys.

 foostick wrote:
Interesting that ADB confirms that Alan Bligh was a fan of the Emperor being DAOT theory given he was the father of the Heresy lore essentially.

I think it's VERY intreasting, especially as Bligh would have formed that theory well after the whole rogue trader shaman theory, which suggests the HH writers are NOT constrained by that lore.

I just take the Emperor/HH/Primarch stuff with an everything's true "from a certain point of view" to quote an old Jedi.

Part of the charm of the setting and it's enduring appeal.

BrianDavion wrote:

 foostick wrote:
Interesting that ADB confirms that Alan Bligh was a fan of the Emperor being DAOT theory given he was the father of the Heresy lore essentially.

I think it's VERY intreasting, especially as Bligh would have formed that theory well after the whole rogue trader shaman theory, which suggests the HH writers are NOT constrained by that lore.

Kind of makes me think about Star Trek and the whole eugenics wars/post-human takeover that’s part of their past. Basically what might of happened if one of those trans humans had god like psychic powers and remained undiscovered for ages while civilization collapsed around it? When they re-emerge of course most people will simply assume that they are a new player at the table.

 foostick wrote:
Interesting that ADB confirms that Alan Bligh was a fan of the Emperor being DAOT theory given he was the father of the Heresy lore essentially.

The Emperor was quite clearly evil as far as the Eldar, Tau, Orks would perceive him and doubtless large swathes of humanity would have thought the same as their planet burnt around him by his command.

Surely that's one of the best parts of 40k anyway, you're literally in a "best of a bad bunch" situation rather than good guys v bad guys.

Yes, ADB's friend was a fan of it. But ADB said in his talk with me on Reddit that we can safely say the Emperor is not DAOT.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:
Thanks for the links Onething, quite funny watching someone tell an author they're wrong about something they had a hand in writing, while randomly quoting semi-related fluff to them. It does illustrate a bit of a problem with your reading of the background though. If you're trying to argue the Emperor isn't a hypocrite over the Mechanicus it kind of shows you may not have really understood a lot of the stuff going on in the HH background. That level of hypocrisy is one of the little lies that allows Chaos to gain a foothold in the Traitor Legions. If the Emperor is willing to lie on such a grand scale to further his goals, what else will he lie about?

As for the Emperor not being a war criminal by modern standards, how can you possibly claim he isn't if you've been paying any sort of attention? He had the Thunder Warriors wiped out after they had outlived their usefulness and has absolutely no problem slaughtering entire systems of humans if they refuse to accept the Imperial Truth. That's genocide on a scale literally impossible to accomplish in today's world. It makes him the most prolific butcher of his own kind in history. You can try to justify it by saying he was trying to accomplish something greater and save humanity in the end but very few, if any, truly evil people believe themselves to be evil. All will find justification for what they do.

The Emperor is not a hypocrite for dealing with the Mechanicus in the sense he secretly had a god complex or approved of religion.

The Emperor is both a hypocrite and a liar. He lied to his sons about the nature of chaos and enforced a fairly strict no religious policy to the point of humiliating one of his sons and left him open to corruption and manipulation. He hid a ton of information about what his end game was and that caused all kinds of problems.

Despite that he had no problem with Mars keeping their religion because he needed them to make tech for his crusade and didn't have time or resources to put them down and strip them of their worship. He was pragmatic in some regards but mind blowingly dense in other contexts, like actually realizing that most people need more than Do it cause I told you, stop thinking about it or asking questions. I find it a humorous irony that the God of Mankind is really bad at basic people skills.