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locarno24 wrote:

The Emperor was still actively and specifically adamant that he was 'was no god and would suffer no such belief in his realm', and 'The Last Church' makes clear he did have serious issues with religion.

"Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!"

When the Emperor walked the Earth, he was not a god. He was venerated, but not worshipped. Except, famously by the Word Bearers. Which led to the undoing of the Imperium. After he was "resurrected" and installed on the Golden Throne, after the Imperium nearly self-destructed, after mankind was beset on all sides by enemies, the Emperor was seen as both a god, and mankind's only salvation. That is not completely universal, and the Space Marines are seen as independent, having their own religion, with the Emperor at it's core. If chapters don't worship the Emperor as a god, they do worship him as their proginator. In any case, Marines are considered Warrior Monks. They fight and die for the Emperor. Kind of like Imperial Japan. The Japanese Emperor was a god because of his royal lineage. He was not all powerful, could not perform miracles, but was infallible, and a unifying figure in the corrupted Imperial creed. Sometimes, when men need a god, if they can't find one, they create one.

Iracundus wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

The Emperor was still actively and specifically adamant that he was 'was no god and would suffer no such belief in his realm', and 'The Last Church' makes clear he did have serious issues with religion.

"Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!"

Say it with me now,

"He's not the Messiah, He's a very naughty boy!"

locarno24 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

That they were building temples and monuments and such to the Emperor is coincidental

The Emperor was still actively and specifically adamant that he was 'was no god and would suffer no such belief in his realm', and 'The Last Church' makes clear he did have serious issues with religion.

To be honest, Lorgar was right; he expected the 'rights' of a God (immortality, essentially being a figure of near-worship reverence by the Mechanicus, the ability to fundamentally reshape the universe, the right to destroy ways of life and cultures of entire worlds based on the fact that 'he's right', absolute obedience based on threats he knew about but kept secret from you, and the right to determine what you could and couldn't know about the universe), but ultimately just didn't like people using the word 'God'.

I'd argue against most of these points by simply stating We do not know the Emperor's intentions or ideals. We can speculate based on what he said and we can make pretty good guesses, and its fun to demonise him, but the truth is unless it stated in black and white its as equally likely to be the complete opposite of the truth, same as with any religion's god.

For example;

Did he expect the right to Immortality, or was he "born" for lack of better word, was he born Immortal and just rolled with it because he can't change that fact?
Did he expect and demand reverence as the Omnissiah from Mars because he felt he deserved it, or because it was a practical need so the Mechanicum would build power armour and weapons for his armies
Did he consider himself a being with the right to fundamentally reshape the universe, or did he do it because he could and its necessary to save humanity (as he apparently "birthed" from shamans who suicided to make him to save humanity from Chaos)?
Did he feel he had the right to destroy Xenos races because "I'm right, you're wrong", or was it necessary because those Xenos were a threat to humanity? The Megarachnids and Laer were a threat, obviously.
Did he keep the truth from people because "I know best," or because he actually knew best and telling people the truth about Chaos might send them running to Chaos on false beliefs and promises of immortality, condemning the whole human race to slow death and eternal damnation in the very biblical sense?
Finally, did he not like the word God because he was just a tosser, or because he legitimately wasn't a "God" in the traditional sense, or because he seen that Gods in the 2nd and 3rd Millennium still had opposers and he NEEDED everyone united for the greater good, or for the practicality that he could stamp out ideas of there being "Gods" altogether, which would have stamped down hard on Chaos?


Every interpretation is valid, and many people seem to demonise him but the truth is anything could be true with the Emperor because we have absolutely Zero clue as to his motivations or perspectives but those told by other characters. And as we know, Horus, Lorgar, Angron, Perturabo, aren't exactly the most reliable narrators when it comes to the Emperor.

Did he expect the right to Immortality, or was he "born" for lack of better word, was he born Immortal and just rolled with it because he can't change that fact?

Yes. He's been immortal since the day, many thousands of years before the modern age, thousands of shamans committed ritual suicide and reincarnated themselves into the man who would be the Emperor.

Did he expect and demand reverence as the Omnissiah from Mars because he felt he deserved it, or because it was a practical need so the Mechanicum would build power armour and weapons for his armies

Yes. After all, there was versions of power armor already extant on Terra before he went to Mars. He knew what the AdMech had been, as he had been around through the Golden Age of the Imperium, and all the millennia before. He knew what they had been capable of. Shoot, given the amount of influence he had wielded throughout human history, it is likely that half the crap the AdMech used to build had been designed by him in the first place!

Did he consider himself a being with the right to fundamentally reshape the universe, or did he do it because he could and its necessary to save humanity (as he apparently "birthed" from shamans who suicided to make him to save humanity from Chaos)?

These are basically one and the same. He did it because he could, and because he alone has the ability to save humanity. "He who has the might has the right" as the saying goes.

Did he feel he had the right to destroy Xenos races because "I'm right, you're wrong", or was it necessary because those Xenos were a threat to humanity? The Megarachnids and Laer were a threat, obviously.

We need only look at what happened to humanity during the Age of Strife to find all the justification required for galactic genocide.

Did he keep the truth from people because "I know best," or because he actually knew best and telling people the truth about Chaos might send them running to Chaos on false beliefs and promises of immortality, condemning the whole human race to slow death and eternal damnation in the very biblical sense?

"Ignorance is strength". One cannot go running off to worship the Ruinous Powers if one doesn't even know they exist. When the extent of your knowledge includes only one possible deity, then everything springs from that deity, so all of the energy spent in religious devotion goes to that being, regardless of what your actual beliefs are.

Finally, did he not like the word God because he was just a tosser, or because he legitimately wasn't a "God" in the traditional sense, or because he seen that Gods in the 2nd and 3rd Millennium still had opposers and he NEEDED everyone united for the greater good, or for the practicality that he could stamp out ideas of there being "Gods" altogether, which would have stamped down hard on Chaos?

The Emperor as arch-atheist is a relatively new wrinkle to the character, based mostly around current events over the last 10 years or so. It has reshaped the events of the Heresy into a religion vs science debate, rather than the Biblical parallel it once was.

At the time, he had the ability to foretell the future. He knew what he was doing. Stamp out the idea that there are gods, and then let people assume you are one and venerate you as the one-and-only god of the galaxy. Drink in all that incoming psychic energy and profit.

If GW ever decides to move forward the 40K storyline, I would bet the Emperor will become a deity and give the Imperium an actual fighting chance. It would be very much a Deus Ex Machina, which can end up being good or bad depending on how they pull it off.

Honestly I really hope everything so far has been part of some "Just as Planned" scheme by the Emperor to rise to godhood so he can truly take on Chaos, otherwise it's very hard not to laugh and demonise the Emperor.