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"Frivolous messages" as in personal messages to Mom back home. Astropaths do not do that, at least not for the average person. For the Imperium even things like routine planetary news could be considered too frivolous to send.

The difficulty of communicating over interstellar distances mean direct democracy for a multi-system state is impossible. Any attempt at a representative democracy runs into the problem and risk of it turning into an oligarchy.

Also, it's because his title is "God-Emperor of Mankind" not "God-Duly-Elected-Figurehead-Official of Mankind".

To be fair at some point humanity decided to give him that title. Just glorious god emperor is god emperor for eternity.

LightKing wrote:
you know Guilliman is suppose to be a genius so why didn't he transition the Empire after The Emperor was wounded and he took charge of the Imperium....why didn't he transition to a democracy

I guess 'cause he didn't believe in democracy. The Imperium aren't the "good guys". They're a satire of all the bad guys in human history.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LightKing wrote:
can someone tell me why the imperium could not be an efficient democracy and still fight the xenos and chaos threat?

As Paul Verhoeven said when trying to help critics get Starship Troopers, "War makes fascists of us all."

Historically democracy as a form of government was criticized as mob rule, leading to rule by either the foolish, the ignorant, or the self interested. Given the situation in 40K where the Imperium is a society that prizes ignorance, blind faith, and obedience as a virtue, any form of democratic rule might very well lead to mob rule. If it is only democracy for the elite of a society then what you are really talking about is an oligarchy.