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I've been re-reading Tales Of Heresy whilst I wait for Nemesis to arrive and whilst reading The Last Church (awesome) I came across the Emperor describing an organisation called the Inquisition. Admittedly, whilst not the same Inquisition we know today, this won't be a coincidence. Anyways, the Emperor said:


An interesting extract IMHO and one that strongly suggests the Emperor wouldn't agree with the current Imperium or the Inquisition.

Thoughts?

Except, in the 40K universe many people -do- engage in unnatural acts with daemons...

---Dreg

That's true, but very much less so pre-heresy and pre-Emperor.
Even so, doesn't exactly suggest the Emperor approves of their methods...

He was talking about the historical Inquistion in that story then?

The original founders of the Inquisition are decribed as 'trusted servants of the Emperor' but then that doesn't mean a whole lot in and of itself. However the founders were known as 'loyal servants' by the Promarchs and the Inquisition was founded with the full backing of the Primarchs shortly before the first two Inquisitors made themselves known to the High Lords.

That Inquisition was constructed upon the basis of protecting the Emperor and the Inquisition that we know did not come into existence fully until the 32nd Millennium.

It may well be that the Emperor would not fully approve but even so He is able to direct Inquisitors individually via the Imperial Tarot so who knows precisely how He feels about the organisation as a whole.

Of course in the older background the Inquisitorial Representative had direct access to the Emperor and recieved his orders directly so that's something to ponder as well.

Id have to say that the Emperor would be sickened with what the imperium has become. He never wanted to be a god and he despised religion. Though the question is now is he a hypocrite by denounceing religion for the very same crimes hes committed to rid the galaxy of it (war, genocide, terrorizm)? Also if the emperor wasnt worshipped as a god by untold trillions who would be there to hold back the power of the chaos gods in the warp? I think if he came back the inquesition would definetely be screwed.

Awesome exxcerpt. And I must say, good point.

I think, however, that the Emperor's statement didn't seem (to me) to indicate that he condemned their methods only their motives. The Emperor understood that sometimes, you have to do bad, terrible things to achieve your goals. While he would certainly not condone any kind of religious bent to the perception of the Warp, I think he would be bang alongside torturing and executing anyone who had trafficked with the denizens of it.

I think the Emperor didn't expect humanity to be able to achieve his grand vision without him, and I don't think the current Imperium is what he would have wanted. I think if he magically woke up off the Golden Throne, he would be disappointed that they had backslid. But he would be surprised that they have held together as well as they have. He never planned on being laid low (I believe) and so hadn't planned for humanity having to get along without him.

Just my personal opinion.

I thought the Inquisition were present at the Council of Corinth(?) arguing with Magnus the Red over the practices of sorcery. The Emperor seemed to weigh both sides of the argument equally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That said, I've never been attracted to the idea of novel recounts of the Horus Heresy, as they break the mystery and superstition around it.

Laughing God wrote:Id have to say that the Emperor would be sickened with what the imperium has become. He never wanted to be a god and he despised religion.

I doubt this. If the Emperor didn't want to eventually be worshiped as a god, he was an idiot. He appeared in effectively godlike forms and godlike ways (compare his many appearances in the search for the primarchs to mythology) all across the Imperium, so it makes it obvious that he did have designs on eventually having a cult following to help reinforce his rule as time goes by. Or that he was a fething moron who didn't understand the humanity he ruled over even after spending thirty thousand years watching and guiding them, including as a religious figure.

The Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus were, IIRC, formed at the Emperor's behest. Whether or not the Ordo Hereticus was formed at His behest would be rather heavily argued, as many people have the delusion that the Emperor has no conscious thought and does nothing but sit on his throne farting out the astronomican during the 35th millennium or later.

Melissia wrote:

Laughing God wrote:Id have to say that the Emperor would be sickened with what the imperium has become. He never wanted to be a god and he despised religion.

I doubt this. If the Emperor didn't want to eventually be worshiped as a god, he was an idiot. He appeared in effectively godlike forms and godlike ways (compare his many appearances in the search for the primarchs to mythology) all across the Imperium, so it makes it obvious that he did have designs on eventually having a cult following to help reinforce his rule as time goes by. Or that he was a fething moron who didn't understand the humanity he ruled over even after spending thirty thousand years watching and guiding them, including as a religious figure.

The Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus were, IIRC, formed at the Emperor's behest. Whether or not the Ordo Hereticus was formed at His behest would be rather heavily argued, as many people have the delusion that the Emperor has no conscious thought and does nothing but sit on his throne farting out the astronomican during the 35th millennium or later.

This 'delusion' is certainly reinforced by much of the recent background in 40K...

Alpharius wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Laughing God wrote:Id have to say that the Emperor would be sickened with what the imperium has become. He never wanted to be a god and he despised religion.

I doubt this. If the Emperor didn't want to eventually be worshiped as a god, he was an idiot. He appeared in effectively godlike forms and godlike ways (compare his many appearances in the search for the primarchs to mythology) all across the Imperium, so it makes it obvious that he did have designs on eventually having a cult following to help reinforce his rule as time goes by. Or that he was a fething moron who didn't understand the humanity he ruled over even after spending thirty thousand years watching and guiding them, including as a religious figure.

The Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus were, IIRC, formed at the Emperor's behest. Whether or not the Ordo Hereticus was formed at His behest would be rather heavily argued, as many people have the delusion that the Emperor has no conscious thought and does nothing but sit on his throne farting out the astronomican during the 35th millennium or later.

This 'delusion' is certainly reinforced by much of the recent background in 40K...

I was reading about that delusion in Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, in 1990, 20 years ago.

Lets hope something happens with 6th edition to move the story along. How long can they go on with saying 'the golden throne is failing, and the Mechanicus doesn't know how to fix it' before it actually fails.

If the Golden Throne is all that is holding that door shut to the Warp, its going to be bad news for Terra.

daedalus-templarius wrote:Lets hope something happens with 6th edition to move the story along. How long can they go on with saying 'the golden throne is failing, and the Mechanicus doesn't know how to fix it' before it actually fails.

Oh, definitely for one more edition, and maybe two! So that's about 10 more years!

daedalus-templarius wrote:
If the Golden Throne is all that is holding that door shut to the Warp, its going to be bad news for Terra.

Yes, it would be.

But:

1) Who cares, provided the Emperor is reborn somewhere else. Ultramar is where its at these days anyway.

2) That whole "Golden Wine Cork" thing is... meh. I know the Emperor had to be doing something back on Terra as this was always the big 'unexplained' part of the Heresy, but this is just... weak. Why couldn't it have been something, I don't know... Like creating the next group of Primarchs...

Alpharius wrote:... back on Terra as this was always the big 'unexplained' part of the Heresy, but this is just... weak. Why couldn't it have been something, I don't know... Like creating the next group of Primarchs...

In the book A Thousand Sons, it says something of the emperor getting a webway portal going he found during the crusades. The most psychically gifted primarch was going to be the "navigator" of this labrynth, and unfortunately he is no longer available. I'd like to think he's been going ohm nom nomm'ing all these psykers so he can try to re-make a super psycher to give him a viable map of the old one's magic space tunnel. We all know the emperor actually ate a bunch of super-gifted persons from earth's history then had a long sit on the golden throne to pop out the incubation tubes for the primarchs. I'd imagine a few trillion trillion psyckers would be able to make a giant three-eyed superbrain.

Then if the toilet fails, there will still be a way to get all the STC and geneseeds off mars and to somewhere slightly further away from the eye of terror (not magcraggre, as nids eating all the space marine juju would be worse than... well... worse.) This opens up a fun new time in 40k where the imperium is fighting to re-take terra from the forces of chaos, and failbaddon is finally replaced as the grand champion of chaos, probably by Huron Blackheart, as his 1 mini-crusade was quasi-successful, compared to 12 (soon to be 13) megafails run by abaddon trying to be as cool as his daddy.

Yeah, The Emperor was working on access to the Webway, which - although slightly underwhelming - makes sense as it would allow super-fast, super-accurate travel anywhere and (more importantly) reduces the need for the warp and therefore exposure to the Chaos Gods.

Jimsolo wrote:Awesome excerpt. And I must say, good point.

I think, however, that the Emperor's statement didn't seem (to me) to indicate that he condemned their methods only their motives. The Emperor understood that sometimes, you have to do bad, terrible things to achieve your goals. While he would certainly not condone any kind of religious bent to the perception of the Warp, I think he would be bang alongside torturing and executing anyone who had trafficked with the denizens of it.

I think the Emperor didn't expect humanity to be able to achieve his grand vision without him, and I don't think the current Imperium is what he would have wanted. I think if he magically woke up off the Golden Throne, he would be disappointed that they had backslid. But he would be surprised that they have held together as well as they have. He never planned on being laid low (I believe) and so hadn't planned for humanity having to get along without him.

Just my personal opinion.

I agree, I think the Emperor is an utterly ruthless man who does whatever he needs to for the good of humanity (note, not the Universe), this has been said many a time, not least in Legion, where both the Cabal and Grammaticus see the Emperor as an incredibly destructive and brutal being, however, he does strive for good things.
I think he would disagree with vast amounts of the modern Imperium and the Inquisition of today.

Although, yes, he is talking about a ye ol' Inquisition, being a novel, this won't be coincidence IMO. I simply don't think he'd approve of their motives and behaviour caused by it.

I believe the Emperor, much like our modern day Jesus idea, was the one who didn't really want himself to be god, essentially making him god by his rejection of the concept. The Inquisition and their acts are as deplorable and inhumane in the name of someone who's point was entirely missed, Inquisitors torturing jews, or the Salem trials. The difference is that in 40k universe, belief actually manifests itself, so heresy is an actual physical threat, not just a superstition. Our own psychic input to the whole creates the daemons that plague us. I think the Emperor-as-savior idea is that he was the first one that understood this and tried to quench it, calling all of man to come together and be benevolent.... causing his own demise (gee.. Jesus turns the other cheek and ends up being betrayed... followed by purges and excruciations and whatnot of anyone who didnt agree with the 'official' versions of the events... the parallels aren't that hard to draw)

Just Dave wrote:

I agree, I think the Emperor is an utterly ruthless man who does whatever he needs to for the good of humanity (note, not the Universe), this has been said many a time, not least in Legion, where both the Cabal and Grammaticus see the Emperor as an incredibly destructive and brutal being, however, he does strive for good things.
I think he would disagree with vast amounts of the modern Imperium and the Inquisition of today.

Although, yes, he is talking about a ye ol' Inquisition, being a novel, this won't be coincidence IMO. I simply don't think he'd approve of their motives and behaviour caused by it.

I believe it was in Legion, where the gifted psyker in the group described his meeting with the Big E. He stated, and I'm heavily paraphrasing;

All I can say is read False Gods to see what Horus thought the Emperor's plans were.

I believe the emperor is the embodiement of "Neccissary Evil". He knows what must be done for humanity to rule the stars and will do it at any cost.

I believe he is a myth. Long dead, and preserved for the sake of the psykic energy of the thousand daily psykers that make the warp cork with their last screams of their demise. The ideal keeps the ecclesiarchy going though, and feeds the high lords ambitions and coffers by keeping everyone in the dark.

Guitardian wrote:I believe he is a myth. Long dead, and preserved for the sake of the psykic energy of the thousand daily psykers that make the warp cork with their last screams of their demise. The ideal keeps the ecclesiarchy going though, and feeds the high lords ambitions and coffers by keeping everyone in the dark.

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Just Dave wrote:

I agree, I think the Emperor is an utterly ruthless man who does whatever he needs to for the good of humanity (note, not the Universe), this has been said many a time, not least in Legion, where both the Cabal and Grammaticus see the Emperor as an incredibly destructive and brutal being, however, he does strive for good things.
I think he would disagree with vast amounts of the modern Imperium and the Inquisition of today.

Although, yes, he is talking about a ye ol' Inquisition, being a novel, this won't be coincidence IMO. I simply don't think he'd approve of their motives and behaviour caused by it.

I believe it was in Legion, where the gifted psyker in the group described his meeting with the Big E. He stated, and I'm heavily paraphrasing;

Spoiler:

"I felt as though a bug before a mountain, my power compared to his. I also saw past his glamor for a brief moment and the ruthlessness and utter dedication I saw to his own cause shook me to my core."

Yep, that's pretty much the one I meant! Thank you, it's kind of like Stalin and the eggs/omelet thing if that's not too brutal a comparison...

Klawz wrote:All I can say is read False Gods to see what Horus thought the Emperor's plans were.

Admittedly though, Horus had kind of been misled. Personally, I'd taken anything the Chaos Gods/Erebus say with a pinch of salt. Nay, a whole friggin' lot of salt!

If the Emperor rejected his own divinity, he spoke as a fallible man. But I believe he was correct, he has not yet ascended to godhood. Being anchored in the flesh keeps him enchained to his mortality.

Actually, we don't know that in the 40K universe the Salem Witch Trials and the Medieval Inquisitions were uncalled for. Remember, before the Emperor was even birthed from the souls of the mystics, wizards, and witches of the world, Warp Entities were already active, consuming souls and corrupting the world.

I think whoever wrote the bit about the Emperor condemning the Inquisitions of old was talking out of modern atheist attempts to defame Christianity, rather than from a position as a fluff master. But that's my opinion. I've often heard that some of the fiction writers contradict the game fluff, but do not know this first hand. I have not read much 40K fiction.

Were the great crusades without atrocities? I wonder. With the Emperor leading them, did the primarchs reconquer the galaxy without committing a single sin? Not one rape, not one civilian unnecessarily killed, all pretty and perfect?

I think not. The important thing is that Slaanesh is outside of linear time and brought about the destruction of the Eldar even before he was born! Neato huh? How I love my pretty, pretty Slaanesh...!

Whoops, thread hijacking, sorry. This has been a fun thread about the Emperor and his early feelings about medieval history!

--- Dreg

Dreg Warpspawn wrote:

I think whoever wrote the bit about the Emperor condemning the Inquisitions of old was talking out of modern atheist attempts to defame Christianity, rather than from a position as a fluff master. But that's my opinion. I've often heard that some of the fiction writers contradict the game fluff, but do not know this first hand. I have not read much 40K fiction.

--- Dreg

You should read Tales of the Heresy---The Last Church. The dialogue is a bit redundant at times, with McNeil repeating the same arguments that's been put forth since the first Greek skeptics....but since McNeil is likely the 2nd best author BL has...it might give us a clue on how they plan to frame the Big E. Which in my humble opinion, I think they are trying to state his motivation is;

The warp is eternal
Chaos Gods feed off sentient emotions/fervor, mostly humanities
The more secular humanity, the lesser the Chaos Gods power

This would also explain why the Chaos Gods are so dedicated to stopping him....

amen! oh damnit... i just fed the chaos gods again!

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Dreg Warpspawn wrote:

I think whoever wrote the bit about the Emperor condemning the Inquisitions of old was talking out of modern atheist attempts to defame Christianity, rather than from a position as a fluff master. But that's my opinion. I've often heard that some of the fiction writers contradict the game fluff, but do not know this first hand. I have not read much 40K fiction.

--- Dreg

You should read Tales of the Heresy---The Last Church. The dialogue is a bit redundant at times, with McNeil repeating the same arguments that's been put forth since the first Greek skeptics....but since McNeil is likely the 2nd best author BL has...it might give us a clue on how they plan to frame the Big E. Which in my humble opinion, I think they are trying to state his motivation is;

The warp is eternal
Chaos Gods feed off sentient emotions/fervor, mostly humanities
The more secular humanity, the lesser the Chaos Gods power

This would also explain why the Chaos Gods are so dedicated to stopping him....

Good points here - and probably very close to the mark indeed - sadly, the 'ignorance is bliss' approach didn't work out so well...

Guitardian wrote:amen! oh damnit... i just fed the chaos gods again!

You're going to go blind!

Alpharius wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Dreg Warpspawn wrote:

I think whoever wrote the bit about the Emperor condemning the Inquisitions of old was talking out of modern atheist attempts to defame Christianity, rather than from a position as a fluff master. But that's my opinion. I've often heard that some of the fiction writers contradict the game fluff, but do not know this first hand. I have not read much 40K fiction.

--- Dreg

You should read Tales of the Heresy---The Last Church. The dialogue is a bit redundant at times, with McNeil repeating the same arguments that's been put forth since the first Greek skeptics....but since McNeil is likely the 2nd best author BL has...it might give us a clue on how they plan to frame the Big E. Which in my humble opinion, I think they are trying to state his motivation is;

The warp is eternal
Chaos Gods feed off sentient emotions/fervor, mostly humanities
The more secular humanity, the lesser the Chaos Gods power

This would also explain why the Chaos Gods are so dedicated to stopping him....

Good points here - and probably very close to the mark indeed - sadly, the 'ignorance is bliss' approach didn't work out so well...

Guitardian wrote:amen! oh damnit... i just fed the chaos gods again!

You're going to go blind!

Agreed, good points.

Also, the blindness may also occur as a result or vast amounts of ______.

Kind of off topic but if yr wondering how BL are going to frame the emperor you need to read the excerpt from The First Heretic which is on the BL site now. They give the big E a pretty cool description. He's kind of a humble peasant type while simultaneously been a towering, beautiful superhuman. Alsmost like he's designed to represent all of humanity to some extent.

Read it anyway it's quite an exciting taster.

Actually, so far the Black Library are generally staying away from describing the Emperor in too much detail other than his godly aura and presence, which I think is good for maintaining an element of mystery...

I believe that has been deliberate ever since the Bill King days writing the origional fluff. Some things are left intentionally vague specifically so that people like us can muse over what the real story might be, since its so shrouded in myth and religious ambiguity.

If they just came out and said "The Emperor did this and that", or "The Emperor is true" or "The Emperor is a tool of the High Lords" or "The Emperor is just a myth of the ecclisarchy" and so on... they would take the veil off and we wouldn't have any fun wondering any more.

As it is now, Black Library books are all very narrow in scope usually centered around a single perspective (or a few perhaps, like Gaunt's Ghosts for instance) caught in a much larger galaxy than they can really fathom. leaving everything a bit ambiguous on the larger scale lets them write pretty much whatever they want. The day they write the official truth of what really happened on a grand scale is the day the writers all get fired because there's no room left to work with.

40k fluff... very open to possibilities... but aside from that, "it's the best work of non-fiction since the bible"
(old Mark Twain quote)

Melissia wrote:

Laughing God wrote:Id have to say that the Emperor would be sickened with what the imperium has become. He never wanted to be a god and he despised religion.

I doubt this. If the Emperor didn't want to eventually be worshiped as a god, he was an idiot. He appeared in effectively godlike forms and godlike ways (compare his many appearances in the search for the primarchs to mythology) all across the Imperium, so it makes it obvious that he did have designs on eventually having a cult following to help reinforce his rule as time goes by. Or that he was a fething moron who didn't understand the humanity he ruled over even after spending thirty thousand years watching and guiding them, including as a religious figure.

The Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus were, IIRC, formed at the Emperor's behest. Whether or not the Ordo Hereticus was formed at His behest would be rather heavily argued, as many people have the delusion that the Emperor has no conscious thought and does nothing but sit on his throne farting out the astronomican during the 35th millennium or later.

You're making logical assumptions about a being that doesn't actually exist. Thusly is it impossible to rationalize it's behavior, because that behavior is solely up to the authors of the Black Library/Codexes/etc.

The emperor flat out refused to be worshiped as a god in the fluff many times. He openly condemns religion in all forms and that refusal to be worshiped is specifically cited as the reason why the Word Bearers turned to the chaos gods, and why the "Cult Of the Emperor" was just that during his reign: a secretive and forbidden religious sect. Why would he secretly want to be worshiped but forbid it if his followers were practically pleading with him to proclaim himself a god. He even went so far as to insult and condemn people who tried to worship him.