Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Your friends have some odd theories. He can't be a Chaos god, because he'd have died from exposure to the physical realm just like the other gods. That rules out the Chaos god theory immediately.

Malal/Malice has been axed I believe, as GW has ommited him from all recent fluff. Plus, he's a minor god, so this theory would fail for the same reason as the first.

I will post definite proof that the Emperor was not an old one but first some general debating:

So after reading mechanicum, which is a fantastic book, I have come to the conclusion the emperor is in fact an old one. What do i base this on well. If you havent read the book there is a bit of a spoiler here (but not a huge one). But in mechanicum it is shown that the emperor of Humanity fought and wounded the Dragon C'tan in the time of the crusades, (think I have my dating right there, might be out by a few hundread years or so). It was definatly the first millenium. The C'tan had arrived on earth, wounded from a great battle and had insisted the town it was near give it a virgin female each day to consume, the last one left was the kings daughter, she was being taken to the dragon when a great knight (the emperor) came across them, learnt the story of the dragon, fought it, wounded it, realised it couldnt be killed and so trapped it (on mars). where he knew it would foister the machine god myth which he could us to his advantage when he arrived on mars and was seen as being the machine god incarnate by the mechanicum. Now this is
A a long long long life, even for a genetically engineered human.

Interessting thought but I am far from convinced about his ties with the old ones.
Nothing points to that while canon fluff directly disproves this.
He IS the amalgamation of old human shamans.
He is a genious with powerful psychic abilities but everything else points to his human origins. He HAS all the failings of a normal human, pride, forgetfulness, naivity etc.

He beat the ctan yes but nowhere does it say he knew what it was on sight. He couldnt kill it so he imprisoned it, no doubt guided by his foresight abilities.

and B shows an ability to see into the future, so he is def not human. We also know he has tremendous psychic abilities, he also seems to have other strange powers, for instance he helas a palladin knights damaged leg at the very start of mechanicum, and just generally all who see him appear to be overwhelmed and just love him instantly when they see him.

Many "normal" human psychers have the ability to see into the future, be it by direct psychic means or by taro reading. Xenos races such as the eldar are even better at it and neither is the old one so there goes that theory about him definately not being a human.

Affecting metal (matter) is also a form of common in human psychers, telekinesis. Nothing abnormal there either. Canon fluff tells us of ghuman alpha psychers being able to snap a titan in two so why couldnt the emperor (even more powerful) not be able to bend some steel in a walkers chassis?
Nothing old one about that either.

Telepaths have the ability to affect peoples thoughts so him making people like him is nothing old one-ish.

Now on top of this, he genetically created the primarchs, unified a country then a galaxy and is the galaxies biggest athiest. All of this points to him being an old one, why. Well the old ones didnt believe in gods, they new how the universe was created, how it worked and trustyed in science and technology, much like the emperor.

Nothing about this points to him being an old one. He is a super psycher, the amalgamation of multiple souls that all knew about the future and chaos, nothing impossible about him then trying to shield humanity from said dangers.

The old ones created the races (eldar, ork, human) to help fight the C'tan, the by product was the chaos powers. The emperor above the ret of humanity seems to understand the nature of chaos already oin the horus books, long before the other primarchs do even. The eldar and the orks had old ones watching over them (mork and Gork where apparantly old ones, and the eldar "gods" where also old ones). Now the emperor may have seen that subtle manipulation of a species leads to failure (the eldar created slanesh, the orks, well, they became what they are now). It is possible that the emperor saw the tide was turning against them in the war against the necrons, and so decided to take a more active hand in the development of the only species left with a chance to fight the C'tan, humanity.

See above, the shamans accordign to canon fluff understood and saw the coming danger of chaos. Nothing to do with old ones at all.
It is ultimately the emperors own humanity and its inherited flaws that allowed the breaking up on his Imperium.

Also humanity is not the work of the old ones, fluff states specifically that humanity sprang up as a chance, an unguided race that in time surpassed the eldar themselves.
Fluff also hints that the old ones gave up on the psychic races as the ctan developed (and do) means to combat psychic races.
The old ones newest toys in the battle against the ctan are the Tau so it seems.
Read up on the creation of the tau empire and the coming of their etherals and strong hints point to a much deeper force guiding them.

When he realised how close humanity was getting to the warp he banned "Witch craft" (psykers) having learnt from the mistakes with the eldar. The great crusade was an atttempt to prepare Humanity for the coming war with the necrons. But again Chaos messed with his plans, and now he is in stasis unable to warn his children about the impending disaster.

Some fluff states he CAN communicate with people still, even canon fluff hints this or outright claims this as with the fluff on the daughters of the emperors.
Being in the throne though (and the throne is part of the definite proof that he is not an old one) made him loose control of the Imperium though so not its run wild and retordet do what he didnt want it to do (superstition, stagnation etc).



Well, it been fun but the definite proof that the Man himself was just a man and not an old one lie in the webways themselves.
The old ones created them and knew about them as a means to travel without having to use the dangerous warp. This was the biggest legacy of the old ones and the Emperor should he be one of them or even be guided by them did N O T know about this!!!!
He discovered the webways by accident around the 30eth millenia, just around the time horus went awol.
He had no idea about what it was other then some super hi-tech dimensional tunnel system and his secret work consisted of scouting the webways and suiting them for human travel and thereby finally be able to skip the reliance of warp travel and its dangers and warp storms and their final say in humanities isolation and ultimate fate.

Te throne itself is a machine that allows him to keep the gate on earth closed as well as keep him "alive" since Magnus ruined his plans and released daemons into the webway close to terra.

An old one would have known all about this, even a person "just" guided by the old ones would have been tought to exploit the webways far sooner then happened instead of fumbling with the warp and risking humanitys fate until it was to late...as it happened.

Pyriel- wrote:so there goes that theory about him definately not being a human.

Or rather, the theory of him being an Old One.

I agree with everything in your post, -but- this bit. We know he isn't technically human, as his birth and life are not truly natural. But he's not some member or creation of a long-extinct Alien race. Being that he was first concieved as a conciousness in the Warp thanks to the Shamans' ritual, he's not a 'true-to-definition' human. Even though that is his phsyical form.

Completely true i have heard many things about the emperor the one where he is a chaos god is complete BS.
The Emperor is a minor god? what? no.
he can't use his powers agianst humanity. Thats why he didn't blow them up.
The emperor is stronger than all of the chaos gods combined. (Except the fifth one who is dead)

I agree with everything in your post, -but- this bit. We know he isn't technically human, as his birth and life are not truly natural. But he's not some member or creation of a long-extinct Alien race. Being that he was first concieved as a conciousness in the Warp thanks to the Shamans' ritual, he's not a 'true-to-definition' human. Even though that is his phsyical form.

You are right.
By human I meant he is born as a human and has experienced childhood and all the assorted things that make us humans human.

The emperor is stronger than all of the chaos gods combined. (Except the fifth one who is dead)

Well, it would be more sensible if he was just as strong as the chaos gods actually as he embodies all the positive aspects contrary from the negative ones the chaos gods stand for and those ought to balance themselves out.

Imagine, if hate and deceit can spawn chaos gods then positive feeling are able to manifest just as powerfully in the warp. It would be like water and oil, two equally strong forces being "born" in the warp.
Well, that is not entirely true, no chaos god is 100% evil and negative, ALL aspects of chaos simultaneously give birth to or grant power to positive and light sides.
The same goes with say, the emperor, all positive sides of the warp also give birth to the negative aspects as well. It is impossible to have only "evil" or only "good" aspects in the warp.


And what fifth chaos god who is dead?
You mean the fifth god that was discontinues due to a copyright issue with GW and the author? Lol
And what about the 6:th and 7:th chaos gods? I certainly use those in my RPG gaming group and its a success with everyone.

Pyriel- wrote:
And what fifth chaos god who is dead?

Careful, you never know when GW's listening. The fifth god never existed. Remember? Just like Squats.

Exactlly just like how i am a opitical illusssion.

There's one basic flaw in the reasoning behind the Emperor needing to be an old one in order to be that powerful...

the 40k universe has already left the realm of logic that we exist in.... therefore, there's nothing to say that a human can't be that powerful and while one event would seem to suggest it's more likely for him to be an old one, the weight of evidence would suggest otherwise... it's just never happened other than the emperor... there are no other examples of a psyker with that much power and therefore no way to tell what effects it would have on a person, like potentially limitless lifespan barring injury...

The lack of incredibly extended foresight on the emperors part seems to suggest that he's more human than other, the fact that while capable of wounding a c'tan he's still vulnerable to Horus would suggest that he's human, however his ability to simply destroy horus when he fully realised the extent of his corruption once again corroborates the idea that he is immensely more powerful than any other human psyker the universe has seen, also the fact that his psychic power is enough to sustain his life force separate from a body for the length of time that it has whilst still needing to be sustained, ie if he was left alone he would die seems to suggest once again that he is not an old one...

so it would seem that the emperor isn't an intervention from one of the other great forces in the 40k universe but rather he's a case study of what humanity could be given the right moral guidance, force of will and correct use of immense power...

metallifan wrote:

Pyriel- wrote:
And what fifth chaos god who is dead?

Careful, you never know when GW's listening. The fifth god never existed. Remember? Just like Squats.

what are squads? oh what? oh god nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
*BLAM!*

I always thought the star child fluff got discounted in i think it was the 3rd ed rule book when it was stated that it was the dellusional ramblings of a tzeetchian cult

Star Child was discarded. Pretty much all the old fluff has been discarded. Right now, he's just sitting on the Throne forever. There are two groups of Inquisitors - one that believes that the Emperor must remain bound to the throne for the Imperium to survive, and another side that thinks that disconnecting him and letting him die will make him reincarnate, and that keeping him in the Throne is only holding him back from returning.

This thread is as reincarnated as the emperor is theorized to be!

For what its worth, I like the logic and reasoning behind your theory, but I don't see anything compelling enough to change my notions about the emperor.

A few questions:

If the Orks have Gork and Mork, and the Eldar have their equivalents, then why don't humans have their own versions of these dieties?

How would he be able to make the primarchs from his own seed if he was an old one? Wouldn't this mean all the primarchs are old ones (or descendants of them at least)? It would kind of explain why Horus was able to wound the emperor.

Why did the emperor always warn about the Warp being mankind's greatest peril, and not the Necrons?

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:This thread is as reincarnated as the emperor is theorized to be!

For what its worth, I like the logic and reasoning behind your theory, but I don't see anything compelling enough to change my notions about the emperor.

A few questions:

If the Orks have Gork and Mork, and the Eldar have their equivalents, then why don't humans have their own versions of these dieties?

How would he be able to make the primarchs from his own seed if he was an old one? Wouldn't this mean all the primarchs are old ones (or descendants of them at least)? It would kind of explain why Horus was able to wound the emperor.

Why did the emperor always warn about the Warp being mankind's greatest peril, and not the Necrons?

The Ork and Eldar gods are warp manifestations of their unique conscious and unconscious traits (they are not Old Ones). Humans have thier own gods too, they're called Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle.

All of this is established in the RoC books and contrary to what most people think Codex: Necrons says, it does not say that the Chaos Gods were born during the War in Heaven, it merely says that it was at this point that the hitherto nice creatures of the warp became corrupted by all the bloodshed and horror. It's possible to go even further and it could be that whilst their have always been 'Chaos Gods' those gods were not always Khorne, Nurgle et cetera, they are merely the current dominant personalities for the warp entities thought of as the Chaos Gods.

Just as Slaanesh took many thousands of years to be fully born so too did the other three Chaos Powers. Since the Chaos Powers have existed forever and also do not exist yet due to the timeless nature of the warp they can be both forming and formed at the same time, there is no need to suppose that Codex:Necrons even alters the earlier background at all.

Currently the Star Child (that is, the Emperor's soul) is adrift on the currents of the warp and waiting for re-birth much like the Chaos Gods when they were in their nascent forms. Eventually He will be re-born and then you'll have your truly human god.

Also, the Emperor is human. It is possible for psykers in general to reincarnate their souls into new bodies. Human psykers were able to do it and so could the Eldar once. The Chaos Gods put paid to that though and whilst psykers do potentially have the ability to reincarnate it is much more likely that their souls will be devoured by daemons.

The Shamans chose to reincarnate once more into a single human body rather that one each. The New Man (or Emperor) is a human, only His soul is a gestalt of all the souls of the Shamen, this is why He was born in the usual fasion after being conceived in the usual fasion. The New Man was not even aware that He was anything other than an ordinary man until later life when He slowly began to recall the lives of the shamen.

None of this background has been discared, merely omitted. The Sensei are thought to be a Tzeentchian plot and were/are persecuted by the Inquisition althought that was always the case anyway. If you want to have a living descendant of the Emperor as a character you still can. In the more recent background the position filled by the Illuminati is now filled by Thorians and the like so the older background has been discared or altered just duplicated and the clone has been given a facelift and a new name. From a background perspective you could easily say that Promeus and Moriana were Illuminati, which agrees and gels the older and newer background information together perfectly.

ok assuming that the emperor is reincarnated from all the dead shamens whats not to say the shamens weren't old ones?

Where did the "star child" story come from? Is it a book, white dwarf, or just kind of a known myth?

DerangdFlamingo wrote:ok assuming that the emperor is reincarnated from all the dead shamens whats not to say the shamens weren't old ones?

Seriously? Because they were human, as stated by the fluff. Blindly shooting out questions is bad format.

DerangdFlamingo wrote:ok assuming that the emperor is reincarnated from all the dead shamens whats not to say the shamens weren't old ones?

This:

Since the first primitive humans evolved the species had/ developed a special relationship with the warp... ...Some of these/ early humans were more sensitive than others... ...these humans assumed the role of shaman or tribal witch...

Realms of Chaos The Lost and The Damned page 174

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:Where did the "star child" story come from? Is it a book, white dwarf, or just kind of a known myth?

All of this history for the Emperor comes from the 1990 book Realm of Chaos The Lost and The Damned which detailed the life of the New Man before He took on the title of Emperor, His plans to create a new super race, the Horus Heresy and the beginnings of the Star Child. It also tells us about the Sensei, the living descendants of the Emperor.

The "Star Child" theory is also expounded in The Inquisition War, a trilogy from way back that started out cool then went downhill pretty quickly. Inquisitor Draco actually got to talk to the emprah at one point, but for the life of me I can't remember that anything useful came out of the conversation. They also called it the Chaos Child, even more blasphemous!

There's a similar nod to the Star Child in the novel Eye of Terror where a Changer of Ways ruminates on the fact that if the Emperor was killed and fully released from His mortal body He would be able to combine with the Chaos Gods and create a single cohesive being that would calm the warp.

Intresting never heard that before.

I like that idea. It could explain the whole "No-one knows how he came to power" thing

Well, at danger of resurrecting this thread, surprised how long it ran for . Having read peoples comments, and also knowing much of the fluff (I actually own a copy of realms of chaos) I still stick by my theory, Why do I think games workshop could move away from the shamen idea, Partially because other parts of realms of chaos have since been quietly discounted by more modern ideas, but also because in introducing the necrons, c'tan e.t.c. they have automatically re written the original Fluff idea concerning the old ones and chaos, which again makes me wonder how much of the old history GW take as unchangable cannon. maybe someone from the blacklibrary has clarified that, I havent seen it anywhere.

It is possible I am wrong, it is possible that GW will throw us all a curveball at some point in the future, I mean none of us saw the c'tan coming till it was sprung on us. It appears that GW may now have an overiding vision of the 40K universe and where it is going. Or maybe I am being naive . Anyway my intention was to get a disscussion going, and that was achieved, thankyou.

I don't know where I heard it from, but somewhere I came across the theory that the Emperor is actually the Chaos God of Order.

I have to admit, I like the Chaos God Idea because it's grim and dark and makes a twisted sort of sense. When you take something random and completely chaotic there is invariably something orderly to be picked out. I kind of seems to fit with the idea that the chaos gods only stop fighting each other when they're fighting the Imperium.

It also seems to give a reason for why the Imperium is such a hole. It's kind or like a physical hell where you re trapped by rules regulations and and an inept tyrannical bureaucracy.

Despite liking the Chaos God idea better, the Old One seems to make more sense, and seems more likely to be accepted as cannon by GW.

Anyway, I think the Shaman theory is the "official" story, so I go by that.

Ork and Eldar gods as Old Ones? Well, the Warp reflects the emotions of all beings right? Well that explains them.

Also, the Emperor knew of the existence of Gods, thats why he tried to get everyone not to worship or even believe in them, because he didn't want them to turn to Chaos.

I think:

The Emperor is human, just really powerful. His Psychic powers give him the godly power he has.

Old ones are extinct. If they still exist, they're very far away.

The humans, eldar, and orks were all created by the Old Ones.

The game was very heavily involved with the Warp until Necrons showed up and then the Old Ones and C'tan became far more prevelant. Honestly, I don't really care for them, I like the Warp gods better.

Maybe GW will clear this up in the new Necron codex whenever it comes out. I hope so.

He may be descended from an old one, but he is not an old one in any sense at all when it comes to age. Fluff states he is descended from the shamans which have guarded and guided humanity for thousands of generations. Those shamans may be descendants of old ones, thus making the Emperor a descendant of old ones.

Hail the IMMORTAL(old one trait) Emperor! Who defeated a C'tan(a god) in battle! Who saved humanity(we clearly dont know how to, or have the capacity to)! And brought infinte wisdom(something no human could ever have)! The omnipotent(self explainitory) ruler! Who even as a living corpse, fights for humanity(somthing only a god could do)! Hail the GOD Emperor!

I am a convert to this theory if you couldn't tell.

IggyEssEmManlyMan wrote:He may be descended from an old one, but he is not an old one in any sense at all when it comes to age. Fluff states he is descended from the shamans which have guarded and guided humanity for thousands of generations. Those shamans may be descendants of old ones, thus making the Emperor a descendant of old ones.

I think I like that one the best. Besides, just because the Emperor is as powerful as a God, doesn't mean he's an Old One.

i like the old one idea, but i dont think it holds enough of a foundation.

the psyker idea seem really lame to me, and i would rather the emperor be an old one than a man gifted from the death of many psykers.

Wait a minute wait. Was this thread necro'd THREE times?!

No, maybe.... no. Wait... yes.