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I recently heard two different arguments about the emperor being a corpse so whats your view people of dakka ?

He is very very very close to death...
Not quite dead but very close...

yes but do you like the idea of him being a roting corpse or should he be like still alive and full flesh n blood in his old armour like when he fought horus

Dunno...
He is too powerful for game balance to be running about or fluff balance come to think about it...
Admittedly i think the whole "Golden throne is failing" thing is really annoying.
I think he is fine where he is. Just say there, doing his thing, chilling out watching over humanity.

The Emperor has always been described as a corpse so it really goes without saying. After the battle with Horus only a few cells remained alive and it is these which the Golden Throne keeps alive but to all intents and purposes the Emperor is a corpse or a 'shrivelled mummy-like thing' to quote the background. I think it's a pretty cool concept personally and I don't see any need for the Emperor to be anything other than a rotting corpse.

I've always been under the impression that the emperor's body is by now pretty much a non-factor. Like, his soul was bound to his body using the golden throne, but really, it was more that his soul was bound to the golden throne, wherein lies the remains of his body.

He's a corpse, physically dead really, its his psychic powers and mind that are kept alive with the "failing" golden throne.

I saw a few pics of Him,He is more or less a skelleton on the Throne.
With little bits of flesh and robes.

I like the way they leave him his sword just in case he wakes up and wants to kill someone...

cross_revert wrote:

that's a god I can worship

The Living Death

As the Emperor lay dying his psychic energy ebbed from his body. The immortality which had sustained him for so many centuries was no more, and the weight of age descended upon him. His body shrank and his bones cracked, his eyes sank into his skull and his skin darkened so all that remained inside his armour was a shrivelled mummy-like thing.

Released from his bosy, the Emperor's psychic power, his soul, was cast adrift upon the tides of the warp, to be carried on the random undercurrents and eddies of the Sea of Souls until such time as it was ready to be reborn. Although the Powers of Chaos hunted tirelessly through the warp for the Emperor's soul they could not find it. The warp is huge, and its energies dispersed and flowing. Like the human shamans of ancient times, the Emperor was at one with the whole warp, so his soul melted easily into it and so remained hidden from the Chaos Powers.

The Emperor's body was taken and placed in a life support machine. Although he was dead by any ordinary understanding of the word, while some of his cells still lived they provided a link through which his spirit could communicate with the material universe. While his body was relatively fresh it could be animated, and was even to speak a little. Thanks to this the Emperor was able to supervise the construction of a special life-support machine called the Golden Throne.

Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millennia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear.

It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity.

Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned

Gogsnik wrote:The Living Death

As the Emperor lay dying his psychic energy ebbed from his body. The immortality which had sustained him for so many centuries was no more, and the weight of age descended upon him. His body shrank and his bones cracked, his eyes sank into his skull and his skin darkened so all that remained inside his armour was a shrivelled mummy-like thing.

Released from his bosy, the Emperor's psychic power, his soul, was cast adrift upon the tides of the warp, to be carried on the random undercurrents and eddies of the Sea of Souls until such time as it was ready to be reborn. Although the Powers of Chaos hunted tirelessly through the warp for the Emperor's soul they could not find it. The warp is huge, and its energies dispersed and flowing. Like the human shamans of ancient times, the Emperor was at one with the whole warp, so his soul melted easily into it and so remained hidden from the Chaos Powers.

The Emperor's body was taken and placed in a life support machine. Although he was dead by any ordinary understanding of the word, while some of his cells still lived they provided a link through which his spirit could communicate with the material universe. While his body was relatively fresh it could be animated, and was even to speak a little. Thanks to this the Emperor was able to supervise the construction of a special life-support machine called the Golden Throne.

Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millennia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear.

It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity.

Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned

Where did this come from? You write it or did it come from an official source (i.e., GW) ?

Theres a picture of the Emperor on the first or second page of the 5th Edition rule book.. Look at it...does he look alive to you? I was always under the impression that the Golden Throne kept his mind (psychic will, whatever you want to call it) alive and able to watch over humanity.

On a side note, theres a cool picture of him while He was still alive and well in the original Battle for Armageddon board game rule book (wish I still had this, not sure where it went to.) if you are interested.

Cortez667 wrote:Where did this come from?

I quoted the source at the bottom - Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned.

On a side note, theres a cool picture of him while He was still alive and well in the original Battle for Armageddon board game rule book...

Gogsnik wrote:

Cortez667 wrote:Where did this come from?

I quoted the source at the bottom - Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned.

On a side note, theres a cool picture of him while He was still alive and well in the original Battle for Armageddon board game rule book...

Oops, my mistake. Must have missed that part at the bottom.

Yep, thats the picture! Gosh, where did you find that?!?

And it IS the Emperor, right? Looks like Blood Angels around him, but hes got the aquila on his armour. Which means hes a Emperors Children marine with a bunch of BAs, or ....its HIM.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...just noticed this. There are Space wolves, Ultramarines in the picture as well. Yeah, definatly the Big Man Himself.

The more recent fluff says that the Golden throne primary role wasn't as a life support machine, it's designed to access the webway in the warp.

It was around before the Crusade. When magnus entered the web way and popped out at terra, that's when the damage was done.

Cortez667 wrote:where did you find that?!?

It's in various publications.

obsidianaura wrote:The more recent fluff says that the Golden throne primary role wasn't as a life support machine, it's designed to access the webway in the warp.

That's true but it is still a life support machine for the Emperor:-

The Emperor was trapped on his Golden Throne, its arcane engineering barely able to keep his physical being from simply rotting away, communicating only through psychic mysteries, a thousand psykers a day sacrificed to keep his spirit charged.

The Horus Heresy Vol. IV: Visions of Death

I'ml of the opinion that the Golden Throne redesign wasn't as a life support machine, but is basically a way for the Emperor to do what the old Shamans did to create him. They pooled all of their psychic energy to reincarnate as one, powerful immortal, who was the Emperor, as they could not reincarnate anymore due to Chaos growing in power.

Thousands of psychic souls are 'sacrificed' to the Golden throne every week. Wether they're powerful psykers or not, it doesn't matter. The idea of it being a machine pooling psychic souls until they reach a critical mass powerful enough to let the Emperor reincarnate again isn't too far fetched even by 40k's 'science' standards.

However, the great irony is he never revealed that wrinkle of the plan when he had the Golden Throne 'converted into a life support machine', so he's stuck in this machine in his current state. It's taken far longer than he originally planned to reincarnate again, and now his Imperium is a shambles.

It gives a futher story arc if they decide to advance the storyline. When he 'dies', he'll reincarnate. But he's going to have a lot of work to do. There will still ne Space Marine chapters and Imperial Guard and navy, but they'll be united behind one figure and a new Great Crusade will begin.

-Loki- wrote:I'ml of the opinion that the Golden Throne redesign wasn't as a life support machine, but is basically a way for the Emperor to do what the old Shamans did to create him. They pooled all of their psychic energy to reincarnate as one, powerful immortal, who was the Emperor, as they could not reincarnate anymore due to Chaos growing in power.

Thousands of psychic souls are 'sacrificed' to the Golden throne every week. Wether they're powerful psykers or not, it doesn't matter. The idea of it being a machine pooling psychic souls until they reach a critical mass powerful enough to let the Emperor reincarnate again isn't too far fetched even by 40k's 'science' standards.

However, the great irony is he never revealed that wrinkle of the plan when he had the Golden Throne 'converted into a life support machine', so he's stuck in this machine in his current state. It's taken far longer than he originally planned to reincarnate again, and now his Imperium is a shambles.

It gives a futher story arc if they decide to advance the storyline. When he 'dies', he'll reincarnate. But he's going to have a lot of work to do. There will still ne Space Marine chapters and Imperial Guard and navy, but they'll be united behind one figure and a new Great Crusade will begin.

As the fluff develops further, I believe this is somewhat the direction it will take but I also don't think even GW has it all pieced together yet.

Well we already know from the Inquisitor background that the Emperor could have been brought back any time but since the Emperor was very quickly deified across the Imperium it was believed by two of the first four Inquisitors that the resultant schism should the Emperor reincarnate would destroy the Imperium, hence the Inquisition's original goal to keep the Emperor on the Golden Throne.

-Loki- wrote:I'ml of the opinion that the Golden Throne redesign wasn't as a life support machine, but is basically a way for the Emperor to do what the old Shamans did to create him. They pooled all of their psychic energy to reincarnate as one, powerful immortal, who was the Emperor, as they could not reincarnate anymore due to Chaos growing in power.

Thousands of psychic souls are 'sacrificed' to the Golden throne every week. Wether they're powerful psykers or not, it doesn't matter. The idea of it being a machine pooling psychic souls until they reach a critical mass powerful enough to let the Emperor reincarnate again isn't too far fetched even by 40k's 'science' standards.

However, the great irony is he never revealed that wrinkle of the plan when he had the Golden Throne 'converted into a life support machine', so he's stuck in this machine in his current state. It's taken far longer than he originally planned to reincarnate again, and now his Imperium is a shambles.

It gives a futher story arc if they decide to advance the storyline. When he 'dies', he'll reincarnate. But he's going to have a lot of work to do. There will still ne Space Marine chapters and Imperial Guard and navy, but they'll be united behind one figure and a new Great Crusade will begin.

Where the hell did you....?????


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This doesn't even make sense!!!

Ditto. Don't know where you're getting this from. Even if the shaman thing is still canon, I doubt that the golden throne is doing that all over again. It's really just keeping what's left of the Big E alive, in the most grimdark way possible.

Gogsnik wrote:The Living Death

Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millennia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear.

It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity.

Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned

Um, am I the only one who thinks that part about chaos slowly beginning to corrupt Him is just heretical propaganda and should not be considered fact?

Guildsman wrote: Ditto. Don't know where you're getting this from. Even if the shaman thing is still canon, I doubt that the golden throne is doing that all over again. It's really just keeping what's left of the Big E alive, in the most grimdark way possible.

Just guesswork.

The Shaman thing is still canon, because it hasn't been refuted by more recent fluff. Considering what the machine does, it would be an easy leap for GW to say 'it was a secret all along and he was going to reincarnate himself'.

It also makes sense from a business standpoint. If the playerbase starts waning, they can advance the storyline to introduce new things. However, they've set up fluff with the golden throne starting to fail. If they advance it the Emperor dying, speculation basically has the Galaxy becoming a huge Eye of Terror centered on Terra. Not a great thing to do to the fluff when it basically wipes out the biggest selling armies they have (Guard and Space marines). At best, the Imperium fractures and separates into empires, but that kind of kills the Imperial Guard as an army, with the fluff needing to be entirely rewritten, not to mention there being no astronimican for humans to travel the warp, limiting their activity in the fluff, making them less exciting an army.

However, if they have the Emperor reincarnate and begin a new Crusade, suddenly your biggest selling armies get even more popular. Space marines are again at the forefront, exciting new models because of jumps in technology, and more money to be made. The Golden Throne basically being a big machine to facilitate his reincarnation simply makes a lot of business sense. Not telling people does as well - it keeps people guessing, and discussing it, and keeping 40k at the front of their minds.

Be kinda nice for the next world campaign to be the next great crusade led by the reincarnate empire. Because you know 13+ fail black crusades. Kinda are time for payback ^-^

He's more useful than American presidents have been for quite some time.

Some societies will take anything as a leader I suppose.

Yes he is a corpse, and near death. But even near death his psychic powers hold Chaos Gods at bay, he even caused warp storms to help his loyal servants cleanse the Imperium of all filth (Storm of Emperor's Wrath). I personally believe that after his body fails him, his spirit will just make another one and he will be whole again.

jonolikespie wrote:

Gogsnik wrote:The Living Death

Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millennia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear.

It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity.

Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned

Um, am I the only one who thinks that part about chaos slowly beginning to corrupt Him is just heretical propaganda and should not be considered fact?

definatly chaos propaganda. All true servants of the G-D Emperor will see it for what it is.

purplefood wrote:I like the way they leave him his sword just in case he wakes up and wants to kill someone...

HAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!

Miracle Max would say he's mostly dead.