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Hey guys, I was thinking of something today that became really pressing......where did the Emperor come from? Do we have ANY kind of information about his past? How was he able to create the Primarchs and lead man kind out of the age of darkness and start the Great Crusade?

The Lexicanum (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page) gives some information on the Great Crusade (during which he found all the lost Primarchs). Ads for his life before that? We know he became the dominant warlord on Terra and took over the planet.
Before that, he apparently has manifested as several significant figures in Earths history, including Jesus.

I don't particularly care for Lexicanum but it's a start - link

He was borrn 8000BC in Anatolia to human parents and until he became a young man thought he was an ordinary human too. In actual fact his soul is the reincarnation of thousands of shamans, early psykers who could reincarnate and guided humanity but the rise of the Chaos Powers made it too dangerous so they all committed suicide at the same tiem and reincarnated into a single body.

Using either telepathy or some other shape changing ability the Emperor, never named in the background, masqueraded as various figures in human history, advancing technology and civilisation and trying to guide humanity, often with disastrous results. When the nascent Slaanesh caught Earth off from all other human worlds the Emperor used that time to create the Primarchs and unite Earth. The Emperor envisioned a whole new race of super human, a race of Primarchs who would destroy Chaos but the first twenty were scattered and I assume you know the rest.

Most of that background is pretty old now but more recent material, albeit Black Library fiction, contends that the Emperor beat up the Dragon and emprisoned it on Mars sowing the seeds for the Mechanicum who He would then use to build His fleets and to equip His armies; seems a bit odd really though since you'd think that with the power to KO C'tan and move them from world to world He'd have been a bit more proactive.

Wow, would NEVER have expected that. Most interesting....

So its based on the myth/fact of reincarnation. The Emp. was once Jesus, Caesar, King William, Lincoln and other people, or something to that effect right?

Well, kinda. More like a bunch of Shamans and Physic-like beings.

The Odessey wrote:So its based on the myth/fact of reincarnation.

When the background was first created the Chaos Gods did not come into existence until around the Middle Ages so Earth tens of thousands of years BC was Chaos free meaning that the Warp was calm and safe, allowing the souls of the early human psykers to exist safely in the Warp and then choose to be reborn. The rise of humanity created the first three Chaos Gods and that is why the shamans had to come up with a plan and that was the Emperor. In so far as He is a living person the Emperor is really an anti-Chaos weapon with a gestalt soul which is what makes him so awesomely powerful and self-sacrificing. With the advent of the War in Heaven in Codex: Necrons that background is somewhat muddied but as it stands it is still current even if it is twenty years old.

The Emp. was once Jesus, Caesar, King William, Lincoln and other people, or something to that effect right?

It is never explicitly stated who the Emperor was but there is a section in Realm of Chaos The Lost and the Damned which tells us that the Emperor, or rather the New Man (He wasn't the Emperor until the Unification Wars) was various scientists, religious leaders, warlords, generals et cetera indicating that He could have been any or all of the most significant figures in History including Jesus, Richard I, Einstein, Hitler, Jethro Tull, Merlin and so on.

I don't think anything ever mentions where the emperor came from.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh but he created the primarchs with samples of his own flesh.

I actually just read something on Lexicantum, where Horus was told by the Emperor that he came from Anatoly (anatolia), which is like the area around Turkey.

I remember reading something like that to. That the Emperor was Persian!

Bear in mind that the majority of the fluff on the Emp's origins (most of what Grog said) are from 20 year old books and from Chaos books to boot. The stories of the Emp's past should be taken with a grain of salt. They could be legends or chaos lies, pure truth or fabricated mythos. That the Emp is from Anatolia, was born of mortal parents and is millenia old is pretty firm. Most else can be interpreted. Truthfully, the old stuff mentioned are the best sources of HIS origin myths though.

IMHO, that fact that 40k history is so convoluted is what makes the fluff so great. It has a sense like true history and leaves room for interpretation.

Still, the fact they acknowlege he's from Anatolia is pretty cool. You would totally expect GW to make him British or at least white. But he's a Turk? Crazy.

I know right! You'd think they would make him a Saxon, or something.

You know what the Emperor's throne needs now: An Ottoman! BWA HA HA!. Sorry that was bad.

No, lets not make the Emperor american... I would have.

LORDEATSALOT wrote:No, lets not make the Emperor american... I would have.

What, like every other superhero? I like the idea of the Emperor being Persian. It's unusual, which makes it rather cool.

Gogsnik wrote:I don't particularly care for Lexicanum but it's a start - link

He was borrn 8000BC in Anatolia to human parents and until he became a young man thought he was an ordinary human too. In actual fact his soul is the reincarnation of thousands of shamans, early psykers who could reincarnate and guided humanity but the rise of the Chaos Powers made it too dangerous so they all committed suicide at the same tiem and reincarnated into a single body.

Using either telepathy or some other shape changing ability the Emperor, never named in the background, masqueraded as various figures in human history, advancing technology and civilisation and trying to guide humanity, often with disastrous results. When the nascent Slaanesh caught Earth off from all other human worlds the Emperor used that time to create the Primarchs and unite Earth. The Emperor envisioned a whole new race of super human, a race of Primarchs who would destroy Chaos but the first twenty were scattered and I assume you know the rest.

Most of that background is pretty old now but more recent material, albeit Black Library fiction, contends that the Emperor beat up the Dragon and emprisoned it on Mars sowing the seeds for the Mechanicum who He would then use to build His fleets and to equip His armies; seems a bit odd really though since you'd think that with the power to KO C'tan and move them from world to world He'd have been a bit more proactive.

This. Plus the turks only came to anatolia in the middle ages. Theres been several different major ethnic populations having popualted that area over the last 10000 years. If anything hed be from people who would become greeks/persians.

I think that's why they picked it. He could be Turk, Ottoman, Greek, Persian. Anything really. Except American!

Yeah theres GW Racism.
Americans=Guardsmen Cadia
British People= Space Marines
Administratium =United Nations
Eldar= Native Peoples
Orcs= Irishmen and Scots "Yee gitz!"
Chaos= Germans
Tau=Asians
Daemons= (DELETED BY ORDO HERETICS!)
Inquisition= (DELETED BY ORDO HERETICS!)
Witch Hunters= (DELETED BY ORDO HERETICS!)
Commissars= (DELETED BY ORDO HERETICS!)
Necrons= Nothing. -.- no being on this planet matches them
Khorne= Football player
Slaneesh= Popular Chick
Nurgle=Fat Guy
Tzeench= Nerdy Wierd guy
Emperor=Chuck Norris if he was from Persia.
Commissar Yarrick= (DELETED BY ORDO HERETICS!)
Inqusitor= (DELETED BY ORDO HERETICS!)
Ultramarines=Smurfs
Tyranids=Rabid insects that can kill you (Africa).

That is not racism.

It is steryotyping.

You can not be racist towards 'Popular Chicks'

And that you would say ultramarines = smurfs shows that there is little thought in your arguement.

The ultramarines are Romans. Ordered, have roman names, wear roman style crests etc, etc.

At least try to put down GW with a coherent arguement.

Asherian Command wrote:Yeah theres GW Racism.
<Blah blah blah failing at being funny by sounding like a terrible 1d4chan article blah blah blah>.

Actually, I think the 'racism' in 40k is found in the banter between the other races, the Ethnic cleansing and Genocides done by the Imperium during the Great Crusades (and even to curret 40k time) and all the actual racist actions that occur in the '40k Background' (now where have I seen that term before... oh yeah! Its the name of the forum!)

The emperor gas been stated as being from Anatolia, and quite honestly, he has nothing in common with Chuck Norris, GB2Barrens.

~DAR

KamikazeCanuck wrote:You know what the Emperor's throne needs now: An Ottoman! BWA HA HA!. Sorry that was bad.

Ok, it was bad, but still

@Asherian: I don't know where you pulled those ideas from but you really stretched it. I don't agree at all. Besides, the separate marine legions/chapters represented different types of cultures.

Also, the Emperor couldn't be American (as we are today) if he was born 8,000 BC. He'd have been a native to america, a Native American as it were. Interesting, humans had only been in the Americas for a few thousand years at that point. For that matter, whatever location he was born at, the ethnicities there would be vastly different from how we know them today.

I think Anatolia is an interesting choice because it is near the birthplace of civilization, Mesopotamia. Perhaps the Emperor had a hand in creating the first cities and agriculture? Holy crap, why hadn't I thought of that before?!

Thats interesting, I never thought of that before!

The Emperor is more or less a physical manifestation of the Hero With a Thousand Faces. As mentioned, the older fluff has him being all sorts of great men throughout human history, and Mechanicum (Hey, I liked it!) treats his battle with the Void Dragon as the factual foundation on which all myths of heroes fighting dragons are based. He is the heroic archetype made flesh, or rather the flesh responsible for the heroic archetype.

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:Yeah theres GW Racism.
<Blah blah blah failing at being funny by sounding like a terrible 1d4chan article blah blah blah>.

Actually, I think the 'racism' in 40k is found in the banter between the other races, the Ethnic cleansing and Genocides done by the Imperium during the Great Crusades (and even to curret 40k time) and all the actual racist actions that occur in the '40k Background' (now where have I seen that term before... oh yeah! Its the name of the forum!)

The emperor gas been stated as being from Anatolia, and quite honestly, he has nothing in common with Chuck Norris, GB2Barrens.

~DAR

Well I wasn't trying to sound like anyone Just saying the Stereotyping is kinda of there in 40k's races. Except of all the other crap thats going on.
In the 40k racism is key to the 40k Background/fluff. Its there.

Asherian Command wrote:

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:Yeah theres GW Racism.
<Blah blah blah failing at being funny by sounding like a terrible 1d4chan article blah blah blah>.

Actually, I think the 'racism' in 40k is found in the banter between the other races, the Ethnic cleansing and Genocides done by the Imperium during the Great Crusades (and even to curret 40k time) and all the actual racist actions that occur in the '40k Background' (now where have I seen that term before... oh yeah! Its the name of the forum!)

The emperor gas been stated as being from Anatolia, and quite honestly, he has nothing in common with Chuck Norris, GB2Barrens.

~DAR

Well I wasn't trying to sound like anyone Just saying the Stereotyping is kinda of there in 40k's races. Except of all the other crap thats going on.
In the 40k racism is key to the 40k Background/fluff. Its there.

It's not that you were intentionally sounding like anyone, it's just what you posted sounds a lot like something on 1d4chan which is apparently considered fail (even though it is mostly a joke and I personally find it funny) possibly because of its connections to 4chan, which is fail. But yeah, the "racism" is more or less the sever xenophobia that the IoM has and I fail to see any of those stereotypes. I mean GW based stuff off of things who knew? Valhallans = Soviet Russian soldiers. Vostroyans = Czarist Russian soldiers. Catachans = US Vietnam soldiers, etc.

1d4chan. Never heard of them. :/
I'm more of a stand-up comedian with intentions to make everyone chuckle once in a while its my job to make people feel better about themselves and also show a good point that helps everyone understand that its suppose to have humor life is a sitcom. But anyway. The Main thing I dislike about 40k is it's racism. And not only that but the influx of noobs.

Asherian Command wrote:1d4chan. Never heard of them. :/
I'm more of a stand-up comedian with intentions to make everyone chuckle once in a while its my job to make people feel better about themselves and also show a good point that helps everyone understand that its suppose to have humor life is a sitcom. But anyway. The Main thing I dislike about 40k is it's racism. And not only that but the influx of noobs.

I'm just trying to understand what you mean by racism. Do you mean how humans basically hate everything (and usually everything else hates everything too -.- ) or do you mean how the guard units (for example) are based off of real life militaries and that white seems to be the dominant race in 40k (of course each planet can have vastly different people)?

White seems to be dominant because we paint the majority of our figures Caucasian. Does it really ever tell us the skin color of the guardsmen in the background?

Also: USA! USA! USA! USA!

In all honesty, I kind of see Cadians as basically the generic sci-fi soldier....if you threw a Cadian into almost any other universe they'd be considered a space marine of some kind......
I kind of like the examples provided in the Dark Heresy rule book as far as racism goes (I read it for the fluff, I swear!!) where it says that since planets are so far apart that the people on each planet looks different from everyone else. This tends to be bad, as if you visit a planet different from the one you're from you have a good chance of seeing a mob coming at you chanting 'KILL THE MUTANT! PURGE ITS FILTH!' because you look different.