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well guys i'm just here to wonder on this point:
after reading Heroes of the Space Marines i noticed one thing. in a chaos story (about the black legion, honour in *blank* (cannot remember name or author)) it seems the chaos Gods seem to have a direct power into the 'real world', like they can actually make circumstances happen and actually seem to be more 'real' (not just a phenomenom which has become a 'religion' because of what happens) (Please hope this makes sense to you ).

also in the story about the Sons of Malice,

now this begs me to ask: 'So the imperium has no otherworldly power-amabob?'. because it sort of looks like the imperium's religion/belief is false, as the emperor is not actually influencing anything besides sitting on a cobwebed throne. so he is just a corpse. while as you see chaos actually speaks to its followers (atleast the sane ones, the other cultist seem to just be slowed), and

there is also the whole eldar and necron thing with Avatars and those necron god people.

ofcourse with many of these stories, they just that: fictional stories. the 40k fiction can be different from all the different writers and researchers. for example in almost every SM story i read there are always different measurements. some say SMs are 3 metres tall, others 8 feet tall, others two heads above normal men.

so dakkaites, what do you think? is the Imperium just a bunch of mindless people who believe in a false god who does Sh*&-all? or will in the year 1 of the 42nd millenium bring the Emperor back to humanity as some armoured-jesus, with all(or most of) the primarchs back (please Lion El'Jonson please!"


P.S. no relation to present beliefs in your reply please. i don't like it when people are like "yeah imperium has false belief just like christianity/all religions blah blah blah atheism rules" etc, etc, etc.

Well the imperium worships the emperor as a god, when in fact he isn't a god, or at least not what a 40k god is. In 40k the gods are swirls in the warp which the Emperor isn't. However the imperium do get some miracles, they are just much less often and powerful. Most come from the Emperor psychic powers or other human psychics, but they believe it's the emperor.

So the answer is sort of yes and no. Their worship does some good (however small), but they aren't worshiping a god.

No, the emperor is both casting a psychic barrier over imperial space so that chaos can't just randomly pour out anywhere besides the Cadian gate and I think one other place? (forgot it's explained in the gothic war). Also he is projecting a beacon from the golden throne so that navigators have a reference point by which to guide ships, thus making long range warp travel possible and relatively safe.

Both these things keep the Imperium from collapsing thus he is far from doing nothing. In fact, he also shapes the "soul" of astropaths so they can do their job as he is the only psyker powerful enough to do this. In some of the older fluff, he would even speak to some of those who were in his presence (though I'm not sure whether this has been retconed or not).

i see, so he is like a psyker/beacon dude. shame, he would be awesome if he could stand up, smash up some enemies of the imperium AND do the stuff he already does. To be fair though, isn't he wired up with the golden throne and all that? don't you think the golden throne is doing all the super-duper stuff as it might be ancient technology which could be like a beacon and a resistor to the warp (if it makes sense). but yeah i guess you could be right.

p.s do you mean the maelstrom?

The golden throne is doing a lot of it. It's not even known if the emp is still even really alive. The imperium claims he is but very few people ever get anywhere near him. Since the heresy he has done less and less until he doesn't even make much contact with humans now.

He does help the imperium a lot but even when he was at full strength he wasn't a match for "real" gods. In the end he is just a very powerful mortal. Warp gods are on a completely different level of power.

The God-emperor of man is still alive; in fact the golden thrones current purpose is to keep him alive as well as act as a Psychic intensifier helping him to project the "force field" and the Astronomicon beacon. Now the Emperor is also creating for himself(possibly through his worship by the people of the imperium) a Warp entity of his very own(the Star-child) and may(possibly upon his death) become that entity(a "true" god).

The C'Tan are not, themselves truly gods. They were God-like energy beings that ate stars. The Necrontyr made bodies for them out of living Metal.

Most of the Eldar gods(and they were true gods) got eaten by Slaanesh at it's birth. The Eldar may be getting a new god(god of the dead) but that may require the death of every remaining Eldar to bring about his birth.

Gork and Mork(Ork gods) are also True gods and constantly fight with the entities in the Warp.

Tau Cosmology is unknown(they seem kinda Zen-Buddhist)

Tyranids have no gods, other than the Hive-mind itself(which is kinda god-like, ish).

If we consider that the Space Marines came from the Emporer, and Space Marines are awsome, then we can deduce that the Emperor is also awsome.

if Space Marines = Awsome and Emperor = Space Marines then Emperor = Awsome.

Its math and its on the interenet therefore it must be true.

Not to mention that its a widely belived fact that the next reincarnation of the Emporer will be a Star Child

dark6spectre wrote:in a chaos story (about the black legion, honour in *blank* (cannot remember name or author))

Honour Among Friends, by Dylan Owen.

dark6spectre wrote:now this begs me to ask: 'So the imperium has to otherworldly power-amabob?'. because it sort of looks like the imperium's religion/belief is false, as the emperor is not actually influencing anything besides sitting on a cobwebed throne. so he is just a corpse.

The Emperor continues to have an influence on the 40K universe. He directs the light of the Astronomicon, contains the warp gate that is the Golden Throne, and allows divination via the Emperor's Tarot. He is credited with creating the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath, which swallowed a fleet controlled by High Lord Vandire and allowed Sebastian Thor to end Vandire's Reign of Blood. He actively manifests on the tabletop with the Acts of Faith Sisters of Battle have access to, and one of the best descriptions of Living Saints that I've heard is that they are effectively Daemon Princes of the Emperor.

dark6spectre wrote:shame, he would be awesome if he could stand up, smash up some enemies of the imperium AND do the stuff he already does.

That's what he did during the Unification Wars and much of the Great Crusade. But then Horus went and messed everything up, and now it's only the Throne that's keeping the Big E alive at all.

dark6spectre wrote:To be fair though, isn't he wired up with the golden throne and all that? don't you think the golden throne is doing all the super-duper stuff as it might be ancient technology which could be like a beacon and a resistor to the warp (if it makes sense).

The Golden Throne is a webway gate-cum-life support system. It was disrupted my Magnus when he contacted the Emperor in an attempt to warn of Horus's treachery, and the portal, large enough for a titan to walk through unbowed, is held shut by the Emperor's psychic might. (Malcador the Sigilite took over the arduous duty while the Emperor fought Horus.) This additional drain necessitated using lesser psykers to power the Astronomicon, which is a separate structure, however the Emperor is still the one directing the beam.

Catyrpelius wrote:Its math and its on the interenet therefore it must be true.

A truer statement has ne'er been uttered.

Of course speculation abound is that the imperium is actually hindering the emperor by keeping him alive on the throne. Limiting daemon manifestation and regulating the astronomican is just what he can do now in present circumstances. Just because the chaos gods take a more proactive role doesn't mean their more "real". They're just vulgar and showy with their power. If non evil warp entities were the same they'd be no better than the chaos gods.

Well, when the Emperor was leading the Great Crusade he actualy told people not to worship him as a god. at any-rate he was god-like so we can probably call him a demi-god. and as for the other gods out there:

C'tan are star Vampires

Eldar gods are "the old ones"

Ork gods are also "the old ones" and roughly correspond to Khaine (as Gork) and Vaul (as Mork)

the Chaos gods are basicaly Uber Daemons

Tau have no prescence n the Warp and were not created by the old ones, thus any religeous belifes they might have would be subservient to the greater good

humanity's "God-Emperor" is basicaly an immortal, and the most powerful psychic being since the old-ones. when he was running arround on the Great Crusade he was kicking ass, directing the entire Imperium and powering the astronomicon simultaneously, when he killed Horus with a Psy-lance thingy he terrified the shizen out of the Chaos gods and sent them scurrying back to the eye of terror with their collective tails, tenticles and other unmentionable apendages between their lower limbs.

So, the Imperium's belifes arent exactly false, but no the emperor is not a 'real' god, but he's so damn close it makes no difference.

i'm also going to argue that there is no such thing as a flase belife, if you truely belive in something.

I could truely belive that my left foot is a reincarnation of the Emporer, if I really belive it, it is then my belife and therefore true. Just because you belive something, doesnt make it true, and vice versa, something doesnt need to be true for you to belive in it.

When talking about things in the 40k universe, you need to bare in mind that we are removed from the universe itself and are therefore privy to information that people in the universe are not...

Eldar and ork gods are not the old ones. Chaos gods aren't just big daemons.

In 40k gods are not the same as we see gods. In 40k gods are creatured formed of warp energy. Eldar, Ork and chaos gods are all creatures of the warp.

They differ from daemons in that the Gods are created by emotions. As they gain power they can take their own power and turn it into a daemon. This means that daemons can't become chaos gods because they are already part of one. By gaining power they also strengthen their god.

C'tan aren't gods by that definition. They are just very power xenos, however it's not hard to see why other mortals worship them. What is it that makes something a god instead of just another creature? If we didn't understand what they really were we would call them gods. In the fluff they are the most power creatures (yes the emp locked one inside mars but that goes against all the other fluff saying how powerful they are) currently active, and are almost immortal. If the emp deserves to be called a god they definately do.

C'tan aren't referred to as gods per se, but "stargods", which makes them distinct from "chaos gods".

I think we need a workable definition of "god" before this debate can progress.

I can barely even read the original post...

I think that the Emperor, or at least the Throne, as a supermassive psychic presence is close enough to what can be defined as a god in the background we're talking about. The Chaos 'gods' are essentially little more than aspects of the Warp, and the Emperor as the 'eternal light of mankind' seems to fit right in with the club.

So as DEUS has suggested, makes a god anyway? Worship?

In 40K, probably worship and some form of massive power.
I guess that means the Emperor can in theory be classed as a God.

ok, the Chaos gods are described as great coalescense (sp?) of emotion in the warp, in this they are like daemons except daemons are more specific in that they are smaller coalescences of souls or even just one very powerful soul, i will agree that my description may be a little vaugue but the chaos gods are very, very different from the eldar gods, whichare the same as the ork gods since both races were created by the old ones to fight the necrontyr. this is also why these two races are the strongest in regards to psychic power (besides daemons of course)

and just on a general note, the different 'gods' take many forms, weather or not they are is objective at best. all that we can say is that certain entities are worshiped as gods or something very close to.