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My friends at work and I have been discussing the 40k lore much to the disappointment of our none wargaming co-workers. We have come to the conclusion that the Emperor is secretly a Chaos God. Of course I'm going to explain myself, though we are all quite sure many people have actually thought about the lore that much. So our basis is, the Emperor is entombed in the Golden Throne in a never ending psychic battle with the Chaos Gods, who just so happen to also be a never ending battle with each other because they want to be the Chaos God. Not the Chaos God(S). Also, since the Emperor is supposedly the most powerful psyker in the Galaxy, one would think he could fairly easily defeat the other Chaos Gods.

Having the other Chaos Gods around though, is a good reason to want to conquest out into the Galaxy and conquer all others "in the defense of the Imperium". AND if the Emperor is the most powerful pysker in the Galaxy, and Eldar (without a doubt a Pysker based species) can see into the future, wouldn't the Emperor have known Horus was going to betray him, maybe he, himself turned Horus to Chaos to begin his complete take over of the Imperium. and how convenient is it that the Emperor is the only one who could stop the Chaos Gods from destroying Mankind. Again, I'm sure I'm not the only weirdo with no time that has thought about this, just wanted more opinions.

its possible but i doubt it

Pretty sure that Big E didn't forsee Horus falling. The fluff has him being in denial about how far his son has fallen when they fight, needing to watch his son kill a (relatively) innocent bystander to finally understand that his son had completely fallen. This would imply a lack of foreknowledge, since if he'd seen it in the future, then he would have probably known that Horus was beyond saving.

The Chaos Gods' power in the warp stems from coalescing emotion and feelings. What would the Emperor be a Chaos God*of*...?

the Chaos gods are basically personifications of emotional extremes, So if Slaanesh is the god of extreme pleasure, Nurge of the fear or love of disease, Tzeentch of Scheming and Khorne of Violence....

I guess the emperor would be of fanatism or ignorance

 Super Ready wrote:
The Chaos Gods' power in the warp stems from coalescing emotion and feelings. What would the Emperor be a Chaos God*of*...?

Paternal hatred. "My dad wasn't there for me when I was younger." etc. etc.

His get his power from belief! When you belief something you are strong, that defiantly translate into warp power as being the strongest and so his the most powerful psyker.

Just a theory

The Emperor already had complete and total command of the Imperium. Setting Horus up to fall to Chaos and incite the Heresy in order to then kill him as a rival to the throne is an awfully convoluted way of doing something you could have accomplished at a word, and been perfectly within your rights to do so.

What is more probable is that the body on the chair is a corpse. The seed of its psychic mind in the Immaterium, however, has coalesced with the power that the worship and veneration of uncountable quintillions of human souls have directed at it, and formed a new god-form in the Immaterium. This would make the God-Emperor a "Chaos God" only in the loosest of terms; it would be more accurate to say that this newly-spawned form is akin to the various Eldar gods of history. Existing in the Immaterium, but not part and parcel of the faction of "Chaos".

Well, he does grant miraculous benefits to his believers. Check Sisters of Battle fluff. And he even has his own versions of demon princes!

Oh, is that heresy?

The Emperor is basically a large Warp entity much like a Chaos God, in the same way Gork and Mork are too. He intervenes in the material world at times, grants visions, has mortal champions, etc.

I believe he is, represents hope in the warp

Based of the AMAZING fan fiction Warhammer 60k: Age of Dust where the emperor does become a chaos god, I'd say that he isn't. He isn't a chaos god because his soul is anchored in his body by the golden throne, but when cypher finally finished his quest to bring the lion sword to the emperor, he stabs him with it. This releases his soul and he THEN becomes a chaos god. He becomes the chaos god of order, of mindless subjugation. He appears as a golden human with a shining silver grilled mask, his daemons where known as Angyls who are like mini Saint Celesteins but with razorwings. He even has powerful champions such as Draigo and Celestein become REAL daemon princes. Its really a great setting, I can only recommend it.

 Troike wrote:
Pretty sure that Big E didn't forsee Horus falling. The fluff has him being in denial about how far his son has fallen when they fight, needing to watch his son kill a (relatively) innocent bystander to finally understand that his son had completely fallen. This would imply a lack of foreknowledge, since if he'd seen it in the future, then he would have probably known that Horus was beyond saving.

Ollanius Paius, wasn't it? Or something like that.. Hero of the Imperium. Buy anyway, it's a very good theory, but why would the Emperor want to be entombed in the Golden Throne? And, Magnus was the only person to see into the future for Horus's betrayal, and that's only because he looked for it in the future. The Emperor never expected for Horus to betray him, so he didn't look into the future for information regarding it.
Just my point of view.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Emperor already had complete and total command of the Imperium. Setting Horus up to fall to Chaos and incite the Heresy in order to then kill him as a rival to the throne is an awfully convoluted way of doing something you could have accomplished at a word, and been perfectly within your rights to do so.

What is more probable is that the body on the chair is a corpse. The seed of its psychic mind in the Immaterium, however, has coalesced with the power that the worship and veneration of uncountable quintillions of human souls have directed at it, and formed a new god-form in the Immaterium. This would make the God-Emperor a "Chaos God" only in the loosest of terms; it would be more accurate to say that this newly-spawned form is akin to the various Eldar gods of history. Existing in the Immaterium, but not part and parcel of the faction of "Chaos".

This makes a lot of sense. While the Emperor was certainly a powerful individual, a lot of his new power and strength comes from the belief that vast numbers of individuals place in him. You gave the examples of the Eldar, but I also want to point to the Orks. I mean, a lot of their things work simply because the Orks believe them to work.

Plus, the Chaos Gods themselves formed from the actions and thoughts of living beings, and are so sustained. It wouldn't be outlandish to claim that the God-Emperor is an entity that was likely created around the time of the death of the Emperor. And if not created, he certainly gained more power after being placed on the Throne.

That said, and I'm basing this purely off the "Emperor of Mankind" page on the WH40k wikia, the Emperor was the result of the coalescing of the souls of ancient Human shamans. In some aspects, he already was a God, created to fight Chaos.

 CKO wrote:
I believe he is, represents hope in the warp

No, that would be Tzeentch.

SeabassMcGrath wrote:
My friends at work and I have been discussing the 40k lore much to the disappointment of our none wargaming co-workers.

This is very funny because I can just imagine non-40Kers listening to the ramblings posted in this thread and thinking you're all absolutely flying rodent gak crazy. Ha ha ha.

On topic, I don't think he's a Chaos God.

 Troike wrote:
Pretty sure that Big E didn't forsee Horus falling. The fluff has him being in denial about how far his son has fallen when they fight, needing to watch his son kill a (relatively) innocent bystander to finally understand that his son had completely fallen. This would imply a lack of foreknowledge, since if he'd seen it in the future, then he would have probably known that Horus was beyond saving.

If we accept Outcast Dead, he pretty much was told how the Heresy would play out.

I don't think that he is, but I think that the ecclesiarchy is a sort of gestalt warp god presence

 MWHistorian wrote:
Well, he does grant miraculous benefits to his believers. Check Sisters of Battle fluff. And he even has his own versions of demon princes!

Oh, is that heresy?

Heresy? Not at all! I'm very fond of this interpretation of Celestine myself. The idea that Sisters can faith so hard that they can be elevated into "Daemon Princes of the Emperor" is rather awesome.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

Ollanius Paius, wasn't it?

Only in the older fluff. These days it's some random Custode. Not really as good, IMO. It makes Horus look even more evil striking down a normal man who is effectively harmless to him rather than some generic super soldier.

 Omegus wrote:

 Troike wrote:
Pretty sure that Big E didn't forsee Horus falling. The fluff has him being in denial about how far his son has fallen when they fight, needing to watch his son kill a (relatively) innocent bystander to finally understand that his son had completely fallen. This would imply a lack of foreknowledge, since if he'd seen it in the future, then he would have probably known that Horus was beyond saving.

If we accept Outcast Dead, he pretty much was told how the Heresy would play out.

And how did he react to that? He didn't believe it, IIRC? Again, I'm still doubting that he let it happen like OP theorises he did. We do see him in geniune denial about Horus being totally corrupted.

gealgain wrote:
I don't think that he is, but I think that the ecclesiarchy is a sort of gestalt warp god presence

Quite plausible. There is a precedent for it in Slaanesh. If not Big E's warp presence itself, maybe some sort of "infant" Chaos god? Who knows.

 Super Ready wrote:
The Chaos Gods' power in the warp stems from coalescing emotion and feelings. What would the Emperor be a Chaos God*of*...?

There is a 5th Chaos God....Malal who suddenly was not written about around the same time the Emperor gained all this crazy strong power...Malal was the God of Chaos..he becomes more Powerful as more Chaos occurs (i.e. the Chaos Gods fighting each other) forgot to add that in my original post

SeabassMcGrath wrote:
There is a 5th Chaos God....Malal who suddenly was not written about around the same time the Emperor gained all this crazy strong power...Malal was the God of Chaos..he becomes more Powerful as more Chaos occurs (i.e. the Chaos Gods fighting each other) forgot to add that in my original post

Malal actually stopped showing in the fluff up for legal reasons. GW lost the rights to the name. But the Chaos god "Malice" is generally considered to be a new iteration of Malal.

Though he does fit in with Malal's/Malice's "Chaos fighting against itsefl" thing, given that Big E was a hardcore atheist, I could see him reacting to becoming a Chaos god like that. Not that I personally think that he became Malice, though. Why would a god turn on his own devoted worshipers and the very Empire he built?

Possibly the Chaos God of Awesome, Purity, Faith, Masculinity, or Order.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Emperor already had complete and total command of the Imperium. Setting Horus up to fall to Chaos and incite the Heresy in order to then kill him as a rival to the throne is an awfully convoluted way of doing something you could have accomplished at a word, and been perfectly within your rights to do so.

What is more probable is that the body on the chair is a corpse. The seed of its psychic mind in the Immaterium, however, has coalesced with the power that the worship and veneration of uncountable quintillions of human souls have directed at it, and formed a new god-form in the Immaterium. This would make the God-Emperor a "Chaos God" only in the loosest of terms; it would be more accurate to say that this newly-spawned form is akin to the various Eldar gods of history. Existing in the Immaterium, but not part and parcel of the faction of "Chaos".

I agree with your opinion on the emporer knowing about the outcome of the heresy (before Outcast Dead) and the theory about his state is plausible, although af few others are, too

the emperor did believe the prediction of his death, he even seemed to have suspected it beforehand. Necessary sacrifice is af major theme in that novel, think of how many of the protagonists sacrificed something essential to them to overcome a foe or advance their plan. astropaths sacrifice their eye-sight during the soul-bonding, etc.

Edit: clarification

Slightly off topic, but similiar nonetheless, was the theory that the Emperor is not the one that sits on the Golden Throne, but rather it's Horus. Since no one ever goes into the throne room and the utterly blind faith the Imperium has, it wouldn't be a hard lie to pull off. Interesting to think about, too.

SeabassMcGrath wrote:
My friends at work and I have been discussing the 40k lore much to the disappointment of our none wargaming co-workers. We have come to the conclusion that the Emperor is secretly a Chaos God. Of course I'm going to explain myself, though we are all quite sure many people have actually thought about the lore that much. So our basis is, the Emperor is entombed in the Golden Throne in a never ending psychic battle with the Chaos Gods, who just so happen to also be a never ending battle with each other because they want to be the Chaos God. Not the Chaos God(S). Also, since the Emperor is supposedly the most powerful psyker in the Galaxy, one would think he could fairly easily defeat the other Chaos Gods.

Having the other Chaos Gods around though, is a good reason to want to conquest out into the Galaxy and conquer all others "in the defense of the Imperium". AND if the Emperor is the most powerful pysker in the Galaxy, and Eldar (without a doubt a Pysker based species) can see into the future, wouldn't the Emperor have known Horus was going to betray him, maybe he, himself turned Horus to Chaos to begin his complete take over of the Imperium. and how convenient is it that the Emperor is the only one who could stop the Chaos Gods from destroying Mankind. Again, I'm sure I'm not the only weirdo with no time that has thought about this, just wanted more opinions.

I'm sorry but there are multiple false presumptions for this theory to be possible.

Emperor was one of the strongest psykers in the universe, when all "human shamans/monks...." gave their lives to create him in first place.

Chaos attacked the Imperium and Emperor, cause they "could" see the future where Humans used Webways to travel, meaning they would not go into Warp (from where chaos draws their power).
Emperor was actualy building the human Webway before Horus heresy, when he was mortaly wounded, he told Dorn how to use those parts to make the Golden throne.

So he could be described as god, but absolutely not as chaos god.

Lexicanum is not the most accurate source, but still most of these facts.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor#.UgUb1z96V_4

so read it once, and then retink your theory once more please!

 OIF Knight wrote:
Since no one ever goes into the throne room and the utterly blind faith the Imperium has, it wouldn't be a hard lie to pull off. Interesting to think about, too.

GK go and pick his poo, then they are making some psychic ammo ...