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After reading a couple comments on another thread, I started having a couple questions about the Emperor and his Imperium. Why did he make the Imperium? Did he truly care about mankind, just want to seize ultimate power over them, or for some other reason? I would like to believe that the Emperor truly cared about humanity and was determined to save them from extinction. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't.

However, when I read the HH books Legion and Tales of Heresy (specifically the Last Church story in Tales of Heresy), I started questioning the Emperor's motives even more. In Legion, it tells how John Grammaticus was able to see into the mind of the Emperor for a brief moment. And when he did, he sensed something about him that was awful, violent, almost evil. And in The Last Church from Tales of Heresy, it talks about the priest realizing the true motives of the Emperor and that they were just as bad as the tyrants on Terra pre-Unification.

Now, to get to the point: what was the motives of the Emperor creating the Imperium of Man? I want to hear what your theories are.

Boredom?

The Emperor is very much all about Ends Justifying The Means (intended).

He is willing to do anything he has to to safeguard mankind.

Also, keep in mind that both JG and the priest filtered the Emperor through their own beliefs and structures.

Well remember that in 40ks history the Emperor has supposedly been manipulating mankinds advancement throughout its history ( such as beating up the void dragon for example) . Ultimately leading to mankinds rise and near fall. He only made himself known once he decided it was time to do so. I guess theres a certain Machiavellian edge to him if you consider all the background influence he had in mankinds development throughout the ages and the dirty work he must have done to get things where they were. The unification wars was just him deciding it was time to take a more direct and visible approach.

All for the good of mankind of course .

That's just it. I don't think he did it for the good of mankind. I think he did it just so he could be one step closer to godhood. Or in order to defeat something that was threatening him (ex. Chaos, Necrons, or even Tyranids)

Haha shealyr, you took the words right out of my internets.
OP: quit falling into Lorgar's trap! He just wants you to think the Emperor wanted godhood so you would turn against him!!

Aaaanyway, I think the Emperor's true motives have been left slightly in the dark on purpose. I'd much rather be left with my own ideas and theories about it than with a "THIS IS HOW AND WHY IT HAPPENED SO SHUT THE FETH UP!" sort of thing.
Besides, I'm guessing that GW/BL wouldn't actually let any published material that far into the mind of the Emperor.

Maybe he just did it for the space babes?

That's why I'd do it!

Except that in the grim darkness of the future there is only war...so...FAIL!

Just kidding Emporer, you're still awesome!

...Grimdark Warbabes?

Lord_Inquisitor wrote:...Grimdark Warbabes?

Sounds good, if you're into whips, chains, leather and ball gags!

I figured you'd hafta be more into chainblades, xenos-hating, ridiculously large shoulder pads, and huge starships.
=D

Have you been looking in my window?

*checks drapes fearfully*

Naturally, Sir.
Your new carpeting looks wonderful.
*double entendre*

...How badly did I spell that?

Actually, I meant the comic Jonathon Drapes, I have him chained in the corner!

Hahaha oh! Well, I have no idea who he is.
But I am sure that he is now dead.
Anyway!
Back on topic: The Emperor probably hates you and the rest of us for discussing this.

Yeah, that's on topic!

Ours is not to question! Only to obey!
A being of his intellect knows that mankind, if left to it's own devices, will destroy itself eventually. So he must take charge and you MUST NOT QUESTION HIM! After all, you have to be a tyrannical despot if you want to actually effect anything.

You will follow your Emperor into death, Imperial fanboys!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And for the record, I have not fallen into Lorgar's trap. I can't turn AGAINST the Emperor when I never served him in the first place. ANd I do not follow the Dark Gods either. My forces and I serve our homeworld of Adumar!

The Emperor has hated me since I first started 40k! And I hate him too! So you Emperor!

I think it all comes down to the Black Library, and their need to put their own spin on the Horus Heresy.

WAY back in the early days, the Emperor was the sum of all of the good and noble aspects of thousands of shaman and mystic's souls. He was the good guy, and even his children were good. In fact, many of them were incapable of doing anything "evil".

Now, you have the Horus Heresy, which is AMAZING, but is painting the Emperor in a different light. Why they feel the need to "change things up" is beyond me, as there is SO much that can be explored in the Horus Heresy without changing the Emperor.

The problem is, the Emperor's desire for a secular empire, as well as not telling his most trusted soldiers about the Warp. I can see him doing this in order to keep Humanity away from the Warp and the Chaos Powers, but that is folly, as it is the emotions and thoughts of Humanity that FUELS Chaos. Oh well.

I kind of see him now as the God Emperor from Dune. He's doing what he's doing so that Humanity will survive their own limitations, but it seems like he is a monster because of his actions. If he didn't do all of the things that he did, Humanity would be lost. However, saving Humanity was brutal and ugly.

Which would you rather have? A dark and grim existance, or no existance at all?

This is my theory......
I believe that the Emperor is a great scientist that saw that he was intellgent and had a very huge gift of pyschic powers.
I only believe he was a scientist who was a very very good man. Nothing like a god. come on! The only gods are the 4 chaos gods and the eldar gods.

You have to remember Lorgar was a Very pious man(Primarch); and when the Emperor found him Lorgar believed that with all his power he , the Eperor, was a god(or at least very God-like). The Emperor refuted his(Lorgars) claims, and even admonished him for trying to set up churches to venerate the Emperor as a God on worlds they had conquered.

Now this could have been a Calculated attempt to gain more worshipers and trust amongst the people: Claiming yourself not to be terribly special while proving yourself to be is a fantastic way to get followers as it at least shows humility and deep caring about your subjects.

Most of the (sanctioned) worship of the Emperor as a God came after the heresy and his internment within the Golden throne; with his body wrecked and only his psychic might keeping Chaos at bay, he basically did ascend to god-hood(or at least to demi-godhood).

I think the Emperor wanted to ensure the continued existence of his race, and knew that he would have to unify all of man-kind across the stars in order to complete that end; unfortunately I think he also played his hand too early, and cast too many "blind-eyes" to truly complete that goal. The current state of the Imperium basically proves that. He set out to build a utopic galactic empire of man, bulwarked against the predations of alien races, and returning a great level of technology to man; but in the end we have an oppressive bureaucracy that is essentially anathema to everything the emperor fought(and effectively died) for.

@ Kommissar Kel, well said. And to add a little onto your claims, I believe you are right when you said he cast his hand too early... when reaching out across the galaxy to make the actual Imperium.

The Unification Wars, no matter what he did, were going to happen. And he already had the soldiers to win it (Thunder Warriors), so why not just get that part of the plan out of the way? So for that, I think he was smart to just conquer it and be done with that. But when he actually set out to claim the galaxy, he moved too fast. Basically, his armies conquered a planet, gave them a governor and left. That's it.

The Ultramarines had the right idea. They took it somewhat slowly. They came, they conquered, they rebuilt the world and made it prosper, THEN they left. Legions like the World Eaters, Luna Wolves, etc., they came, conquered, killed a lot of people and left the governor behind to rule.

I also believe (like you said Kel) that he played his cards too soon. Instead of just conquering Terra and heading out on the Great Crusade AS SOON AS Old Night was over, he should have built up Terra first, 100% solidified his power, crushed resistence, THEN move out and conquer the Sol System. Solidify power, crush resistence, move out. Slow, steady, and remain at peak performance and power.

The Emperor probably knew this. Maybe he even believed that that was what he should have done. So why didn't he? Why did he conquer as soon as he could and as fast as he could instead of slowly building up so he could build his power and Imperium to a true golden age?

ShadowAngel159 wrote:@ Kommissar Kel, well said. And to add a little onto your claims, I believe you are right when you said he cast his hand too early... when reaching out across the galaxy to make the actual Imperium.

The Unification Wars, no matter what he did, were going to happen. And he already had the soldiers to win it (Thunder Warriors), so why not just get that part of the plan out of the way? So for that, I think he was smart to just conquer it and be done with that. But when he actually set out to claim the galaxy, he moved too fast. Basically, his armies conquered a planet, gave them a governor and left. That's it.

The Ultramarines had the right idea. They took it somewhat slowly. They came, they conquered, they rebuilt the world and made it prosper, THEN they left. Legions like the World Eaters, Luna Wolves, etc., they came, conquered, killed a lot of people and left the governor behind to rule.

I also believe (like you said Kel) that he played his cards too soon. Instead of just conquering Terra and heading out on the Great Crusade AS SOON AS Old Night was over, he should have built up Terra first, 100% solidified his power, crushed resistence, THEN move out and conquer the Sol System. Solidify power, crush resistence, move out. Slow, steady, and remain at peak performance and power.

The Emperor probably knew this. Maybe he even believed that that was what he should have done. So why didn't he? Why did he conquer as soon as he could and as fast as he could instead of slowly building up so he could build his power and Imperium to a true golden age?

Because GW didn't think to write that down... And they probably didn't know any types of military tactics.

Asherian Command wrote:Because GW didn't think to write that down... And they probably didn't know any types of military tactics.

Then GW should never have even tried making stories for a wargame if they knew nothing about military tactics.

ShadowAngel159 wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:Because GW didn't think to write that down... And they probably didn't know any types of military tactics.

Then GW should never have even tried making stories for a war-game if they knew nothing about military tactics.

Give me one good reason why i can't insult a company that doesn't know good tactics? I mean they don't know any types of military tactics of today's world. Alot can change in 20 years.
Flanking and blitzkrieg is all good and fun. But when it comes down to it. Where is the lore that shows the Imperail Tactics? Its all full headed assualt or just flanking!

The Emperor punished Lorgar for taking too long to unite the galaxy, as well as his faith. In fact, He basically told Lorgar that, "I need soldiers, not followers. While you are wasting time building shrines in my honor, humans are being killed by xenos." That is why Lorgar was so crushed. That's why he turned to Chaos. Because Erebus showed him gods that WANTED to be worshipped.

I think that the Fluff is really changing due to our modern culture, and how we view our world. 20 years ago, going on a Crusade was cool, and sounded like an epic thing.

Today, with all of the problems that faith is causing in our world (I'm not trying to point my finger at any one religion, as ALL religions have fanatics that cause problems), can you imagine that type of zealous behavior in the scale of 40K? Whole worlds devoted to nothing but worship. Entire worlds destroyed because they do not pray the way that the Imperium thinks that you shoudl pray...I could go on and on.

I think that the Emperor knew this possible future, and saw how stagnant and futile this possible future was, so He tried to direct Humanity away from this outcome.

That's how Chaos got to Horus, remember? They showed him a "possible" future, which is exactly what the Horus Heresy brought about!!!

Now, this leaves the question about whether or not the Emperor is a "god"...well, let's see. Even on the verge of death, with only a handful of living cells to anchor his will to the material universe, He is able to direct the Astronomican AND grant miracles to millions of people throughout the galaxy. Sounds pretty "godlike" to me...

Shadowangel: He could have gone for the swift expansionist model(even knowing it was the wrong way to do it) be cause he had a vision of the Horus Heresy(although not who started it, nor that it was Horus himself that was his enemy). The thing about Vast Psychic powers and Chaos gods messing around with those powers is that you might get half glimpses of a possible future and decide to take a course of action to prevent that future, but wind up causing that scenario to begin with(ask any Eldar Farseer, they know this all too well, but still cause their "nightmare scenarios" anyways)

Alternately the Emperor may have noticed the impending "shadow in the Warp" that is the tyranids, and believing the only way to stop them was by consolidating humanity as fast as possible; then the Chaos gods stepped in and disrupted his plans.

Either of the above scenarios would easily explain such a tactical blunder as the swift expansionist model(especially as the Emperor was alive since about 8000 BC)

I'd also like to say that GW probably don't worry too much about getting bogged down with stuff like tactics because it is fiction, at the end of the day. As Captain Loken said, 20 years ago it was enough to be on a Crusade with a laser cannon. That was cool. Now, we're spoilt in that respect.
As for why he moved when he did... Consider the stories of the Primarchs. All of them responsible for great changes in the societies they grew up in. And in all of their cases, if I recall correctly, the Emperor arrived just in time to reign things in before they went too far. At least with the more volatile Primarchs that have been covered in the HH books, like The Lion and Magnus.