The Emperor and the God-Emperor

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.

**Buttons**

Manchu wrote:Do you have a cite saying that "belief" does create Chaos Gods? At best, "emotions" rather than "beliefs" are what engender a Chaos God's interest in real space. The Eldar did not worship Slaanesh into existence.

Do you have a cite that the Eldar Gods are in fact warp entities?

Can you prove that the Eldar gods aren't warp entities? The Laughing God can protect the Harlequins from Slaanesh, and Khaine was able to be shattered to pieces, the former might be possible by extremely powerful psychic being (there is no fluff saying that the emperor actively protects humans or their souls, so it is by no means confirmed possible), and the latter doesn't really make sense for anything outside of a powerful psychic being. Your evidence is just as circumstantial as claims that worship does create warp entities, if worship meant nothing, than Slaanesh wouldn't care about humans actually doing perverse stuff, as long as they thought about it, Khorne wouldn't care about anyone taking skulls, and all of the various rituals that Chaos worshipers perform would exist just because.

Your argument essentially argues that "You can't prove your point" while not bothering to prove your own. Show me a page in a book where it says "worship does nothing in the warp." Also, if worship does nothing, what are Imperial Saints? Assuming they aren't some sort of Imperial Daemon (which is probably more likely than my theory) they still need someone to give them the random powers that they got, and it makes no real sense for the emperor to give miracles to the sisters of battle when they hold the exact opposite position as him regarding religion.

**Wrakkar**

Buttons wrote:I get where Tadashi is going. Pretty much it is like this...

1. The Emperor is an extremely powerful psyker, but is still fully human, he is not a God, he is strong enough to guide the astronomician, but still is only human.
2. The God Emperor is purely a warp entity (think of him/it like a minor chaos god (of law, order, and humanity)) that exists in a similar vain to the big four through direct worship (praying and whatnot) and indirect worship (doing what the Adeptus Ministorum believes the Emperor stands for like killing heretics and xenos).
3. The two are only related because humans automatically combine the latter with the former, besides that they have no real relation.

Am I on the right track?

Now, this is my addition to the theory

4. The God (emphasis on God instead of the regular emperor) Emperor is sentient like the big 4 and is responsible for miracles, living saints (daemon princes of the God Emperor), visions of him (just like chaos talking to people or giving them visions), whatever the hell the Sanguinor is (I imagine he is the equivalent of a greater daemon), and potentially stuff like the Legion of the Damned (lesser daemons perhaps).
5. The appearance of the only known (at least in this theory we will assume he is) greater daemon (Sanguinor) of the God Emperor is based off of what the Imperium would imagine such a savior would look like, which is one of, if not the most revered primarchs in the Imperium, Sanguinius. While what could potentially be called his lesser daemons (Legion of the Damned) appear as adeptus astartes because humanity reveres them.

So yeah, there are two emperors, one is a powerful psyker, the other is the Chaos God of law, order, and humanity. The daemon princ(esse)es of the God Emperor are living saints, his only known greater daemon is the Sanguinor, and his lesser daemons are the members of the Legion of the Damned.

I like it.
I wonder if Draigo tried to kill this one yet...?

**Tadashi**

Manchu wrote:

p_gray99 wrote:... this thread isn't here to set out cannon, it's simply here to set out some fannon and thus simply be a discussion of what could be the case.
Take it from a mod, this forum is not for fan fiction.

Its not fanon. Its one possible interpretation of fluff. If you have a problem, go to GW and ask why the fluff is so contradictory and multi-meaning.

**Manchu**

Buttons wrote:Your evidence is just as circumstantial as claims that worship does create warp entities,

Yes. The difference is that I acknowledge that my claims are circumstantial while you say yours are definitive. My position is that we don't know what the Eldar Gods really are. Your position is that we know exactly what they are.

Buttons wrote:Your argument essentially argues that "You can't prove your point" while not bothering to prove your own.

I don't need to prove anything because all I am claiming is that you cannot prove what you are saying. There is absolutely no evidence that worshiping something makes a god in 40k.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tadashi wrote:If you have a problem, go to GW and ask why the fluff is so contradictory and multi-meaning.

That sounds more like a problem you must have since you are determined to make stuff up rather than take the sources for what they actually do and do not say.

**Tadashi**

Wrakkar wrote:
Buttons wrote:I get where Tadashi is going. Pretty much it is like this...

1. The Emperor is an extremely powerful psyker, but is still fully human, he is not a God, he is strong enough to guide the astronomician, but still is only human.
2. The God Emperor is purely a warp entity (think of him/it like a minor chaos god (of law, order, and humanity)) that exists in a similar vain to the big four through direct worship (praying and whatnot) and indirect worship (doing what the Adeptus Ministorum believes the Emperor stands for like killing heretics and xenos).
3. The two are only related because humans automatically combine the latter with the former, besides that they have no real relation.

Am I on the right track?

Now, this is my addition to the theory

4. The God (emphasis on God instead of the regular emperor) Emperor is sentient like the big 4 and is responsible for miracles, living saints (daemon princes of the God Emperor), visions of him (just like chaos talking to people or giving them visions), whatever the hell the Sanguinor is (I imagine he is the equivalent of a greater daemon), and potentially stuff like the Legion of the Damned (lesser daemons perhaps).
5. The appearance of the only known (at least in this theory we will assume he is) greater daemon (Sanguinor) of the God Emperor is based off of what the Imperium would imagine such a savior would look like, which is one of, if not the most revered primarchs in the Imperium, Sanguinius. While what could potentially be called his lesser daemons (Legion of the Damned) appear as adeptus astartes because humanity reveres them.

So yeah, there are two emperors, one is a powerful psyker, the other is the Chaos God of law, order, and humanity. The daemon princ(esse)es of the God Emperor are living saints, his only known greater daemon is the Sanguinor, and his lesser daemons are the members of the Legion of the Damned.

I like it.
I wonder if Draigo tried to kill this one yet...?

Unlikely...seeing as the Knight's faith feeds the God-Emperor as well, he probably wouldn't notice it since its around him.

Manchu wrote:There is absolutely no evidence that worshiping something makes a god in 40k.

Gork and Mork. Orks don't exactly worship them, but they do believe the two exist. 'nuff said.

**Pilau Rice**

Doing some picking about and I have some quotes for you, bare in mind, this is OLD stuff from the OLD 1st Ed dex on Eldar.

The warp is an alternative universe inhabited entirely by psychic energy generated by the thoughts, emotions and mental life of the inhabitants of the material universe including the Eldar. These thoughts and emotions cannot die, they are eternal, so that over the ages they accrue and become stronger as they are reinforced by the similar thoughts and experiences of others. Eventually, a single idea or emotion can become so powerful within the warp that it attains a consciousness of its own and becomes a daemon or a god.

So thought, emotions and mental life(?) form in the warp, creating an entity. Does this give credence to Tadashi's theory, I don't believe so. The thoughts created something that hadn't been about before, the Emperor though, is an existing figure that has a presence in the warp.

As the Eldar pursued their road to destruction so their emotional life degenerated into the reckless pursuit of pleasure, exotic experience and intellectual indulgence. The mental energies released into the warp as a result coagulated into an entity, an entity which was potentially very powerful but which was not yet fully conscious. This was, of course, the entity called Slaanesh. Although Slaanesh was not yet fully conscious some Eldar had already begun to worship the god's sleeping form.For centuries the Eldar had predicted the Coming of the Lord of Pleasure, so that many had come to disbelieve the prophets and their endless tales of doom. As the disturbed dreams of Slaanesh began to infiltrate the psychic minds of the Eldar, so their degeneration accelerated apace, further feeding Slaanesh in the warp, and creating an unbreakable cycle of doom. While there were Eldar sane enough to be appalled by the degeneration of their race, their horror kept Slaanesh from achieving full consciousness.

When the cataclysm finally came there were few sane Eldar left on their home planets, only millions of millions of squawking, insane creatures crying and squealing with self-inflicted torment. The quickly-accelerating decline of the Eldar had fed the energy of Slaanesh until the god was ready to burst into consciousness, like a mighty dam about to break and release immeasurable flood waters.

To me this suggests that it's not worship that bought about Slaanesh, but the actions of the Eldar that bought the Dark Prince(hail) into being. Worship is easy, it's actions that matter. It doesn't just apply to Slaanesh, but all Gods in the warp.

**Tadashi**

Pilau Rice wrote:

To me this suggests that it's not worship that bought about Slaanesh, but the actions of the Eldar that bought the Dark Prince(hail) into being. Worship is easy, it's actions that matter. It doesn't just apply to Slaanesh, but all Gods in the warp.

*snorts*Slaanesh? Tzeentch FTW!

**htj**

Pilau Rice wrote:To me this suggests that it's not worship that bought about Slaanesh, but the actions of the Eldar that bought the Dark Prince(hail) into being. Worship is easy, it's actions that matter. It doesn't just apply to Slaanesh, but all Gods in the warp.

I strongly agree with this. The Eldar were not worshiping a haemaphrodite god of pride and hedonism, nor were they conceptualising one, but one sprang into being as a response to their decadence. Seems fairly cut and dried to me.

**Manchu**

As far as I can tell, the Emperor is a human being. (The whole shaman suicide pact thing is up in the air at this point.) He is first and foremost a denizen of the Materium. Of course, he's quite a special human being.

The question can be summed up in how "miracles" work: do the Sisters receive "blessings" from the Emperor that he actively "sends" or does their faith in him (as a psychological state, plain and simple, no warp magic involved) simply rebuff the daemonic?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Agreed except for one point:

htj wrote:but one ~~sprang into being~~ took notice of them as a response to their decadence.

**htj**

Manchu wrote:Agreed except for one point:
htj wrote:but one ~~sprang into being~~ took notice of them as a response to their decadence.

Hmm, coalesced into the form that is generally recognised as Slaanesh? There was definitely a moment of 'birth' as it had consequences that were felt in the warp and the physical plane. Rather than coming from nowhere it was more a... change of state, would you say?

**Lord Rogukiel**

Manchu wrote:[Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lord Rogukiel wrote:... if belief is strong enough, it can create some pretty strong emotions.

You'd do well if you just kept that statement in mind. Belief is not an emotion.

I know, I'm just saying that their intense belief would lead to emotions therefore leading to a warp entity based on the emperor.

And the publish fluff is open to a load of interpretation. As whether this belongs in Fiction or not, well, I'm not a mod... but I believe that we are discussing it as a possible interpretation of the background, not as somebody's established fannon.

**Manchu**

htj wrote:Rather than coming from nowhere it was more a... change of state, would you say?

Sort of.

So let's go back to that statement from the OldCron dex, about pre-existing warp entities becoming predators of real space psykers. Army ants are not a predator of humans. But if a human poked at an army ant bivouac, stripped naked, covered himself in honey, and laid down in the path of a billion angry ants -- well, the ants would eat him up. Same thing, regarding the demise of the Old Ones and the "birth" of Slaanesh. The decadance of the Eldar was a like a dinner bell. I think the key word is "inform" rather than "create." Chaos was informed by the decadence of the Eldar such that it responded by tearing into real space and "consuming" their "souls." By "inform" I am thinking of something like how when you jump on a trampoline, the trampoline bends downward under your weight. Your weight does not "create" the force that correspondingly pushes back upwards and yet without exerting your weight downwards, that force would not "go into action." Sorry for all the quotation marks but I want to make sure that anyone reading this knows we're firmly in the realm of metaphor here.

**Backspacehacker**

Ready for me to blow your mind?

The emperor is really another chaos god that took the form of a human and mankind belives that he is "good"

The point of chaos is to never have a single powe in control and insted of useing demons to do his work this chaos god took over mankind and uses them as his army.

This why the emperor was so powerful and could stay in the warp after his moral form died and how he impowered all the other psykers

Since all chaos gods are playing the eternal game this move would insure that there would always be a challeger to fight.

Mind =

**Buttons**

Manchu wrote:
Buttons wrote:Your evidence is just as circumstantial as claims that worship does create warp entities,
Yes. The difference is that I acknowledge that my claims are circumstantial while you say yours are definitive. My position is that we don't know what the Eldar Gods really are. Your position is that we know exactly what they are.

You were stating your position as though it is definitive.

Manchu wrote:No no no.

"Belief" (whatever that means) does NOT create Chaos Gods.

You didn't say "There is no proof that belief creates or empowers chaos gods", you didn't say "I don't personally believe that belief can create chaos Gods." Yes, my statement was definitive, perhaps I worded it poorly since it shouldn't have been definitive, but don't claim you stated your claims were circumstantial when you stated them as though they were fact.

**Manchu**

Yeah. I'd also say that the Emperor is definitely NOT a unicorn. I guess you want a cite for that? How about all the pages.

**Buttons**

Manchu wrote:Yeah. I'd also say that the Emperor is definitely NOT a unicorn. I guess you want a cite for that? How about all the pages.

Okay, find anything that says he is human and you have done your job. How about doing the same level of work for proving that worship means nothing to chaos gods. You know, like find a single reference, or even circumstantial evidence beyond just saying "no, you are wrong."

**Manchu**

You know, you and I were actually talking about something different: my statement that we don't know whether the Eldar Gods are Warp entities. Also, I have no burden to prove with a citation that the Emperor is not a unicorn or any other ridiculous comment that has no support anywhere in the published fluff.

**Buttons**

Manchu wrote:You know, you and I were actually talking about something different: my statement that we don't know whether the Eldar Gods are Warp entities. Also, I have no burden to prove with a citation that the Emperor is not a unicorn or any other ridiculous comment that has no support anywhere in the published fluff.

Except believing that worship empowers warp entities isn't ridiculous by any stretch of the imagination. Also, you could use circumstantial evidence to quickly prove that the emperor is not a unicorn in the fluff. The emperor is frequently called the emperor of man, he is pro-human, and in all artwork he is portrayed as a human or at least looks like a human. Done. If someone didn't think that that was enough proof you could dig something else up, or ask them for any proof to the contrary. I provided proof to the contrary regarding worship doing nothing by bringing up that many individual directly worship chaos, which would be a waste of time if it did nothing, and that the Gods have stupid rituals that do nothing, like Khorne collecting skulls just because.

**Manchu**

People who put forth ridiculous notions should be ignored not indulged via argument. That's the ideal. Unfortunately, the ridiculous notions that are not exposed as ridiculous are promulgated by being raised. And then others who don't know any better will adopt them. In this way, ignorance is promoted rather than circumscribed. So the best strategy is to waste as little time as possible: you say no and you go on with productive conversation. The initial point here, about belief generating Warp gods, had already been discussed at length in a slightly different way in other threads with OP and others over the last week or more. I found citations and posted them. Seeing a slightly rephrased but equally silly position posted yet again here, promulgated further, does not merit a rehearing.

**Lord Rogukiel**

And I suppose insulting others' ideas and opinions by calling them ridiculous notions is ok though?

**Tadashi**

Lord Rogukiel wrote:And I suppose insulting others' ideas and opinions by calling them ridiculous notions is ok though?

Manchu believes that anything that isn't written down in the codexes shouldn't be considered at all, and we shouldn't waste our time trying to interpret the fluff or read between the lines and be creative about it all.

**htj**

Tadashi wrote:
Lord Rogukiel wrote:And I suppose insulting others' ideas and opinions by calling them ridiculous notions is ok though?

Manchu believes that anything that isn't written down in the codexes shouldn't be considered at all, and we shouldn't waste our time trying to interpret the fluff or read between the lines and be creative about it all.

To be fair, you've yet to cite a source for the basis of the theory. Even inference and speculation should be sourced on materials that support or gave birth to the theory.

**Psienesis**

The act of worship itself does not feed the Chaos Gods. The act of worship coupled with the beliefs that support said acts, though, do. You can also feed a Chaos God by doing things in accordance with their portfolios, without actually being a worshiper of the Chaos God in question. This is why Khorne is currently the most powerful of the Chaos Gods, because just about everyone, everywhere, is fighting on extremely large scales. Being the Chaos God of War, Bloodlust, Battle and all that sort of stuff, Khorne gets a cut of that.

Of course, for Khorne, the acts of warfare are religious in nature, so in a sense, everyone on a battlefield is worshiping the Blood God.

As to the original topic.... eh... no. The God-Emperor is/was the most powerful human psyker to ever exist. He is so far beyond the alpha-plus end of the scale as to defy categorization and beggar belief and credulity. We cannot say "Well, no, he was just a human psyker, he couldn't do that!" because we have no basis for any real limits on his psychic might. Now that his psychic mind is freed from its mortal shell, he's become even more powerful and, existing as it does in a dimension that is composed entirely of mood-slime, the devotions and worship and fundamental belief of Humanity in his divinity is like fifty jazillion Powerthirst energy drinks going right into your bloodstream ALL THE TIME for his psychic mind.

The Chaos Gods may have struck him down, through Horus, but in so doing, they allowed him to become more powerful than they could possibly imagine.

**Manchu**

First the C-3P0 reference and now this. You've been watching Star Wars recently.

**Baldsmug**

this theory kind of explains why the black ships are constantly gathering psykers to martyr. The Emperor seems like the seed with the warp as the dirt and the souls of psykers and the devotion of billions as the fertilizer.

**Psienesis**

Not recently, no, though it is a good turn of phrase for the topic.

The Black Ships just gather psykers. Not every psyker that boards those ships is fed to the Emperor. Some of them are strong enough to become Astropaths, and a few of them are strong enough to become regular Psykers, of the kind you see attached to IG units, the Inquisition and all sorts of other Imperial organizations.

It's only the really weak ones, those who aren't fit to become even Astropaths, that are fed to the Throne.

**Inquisitor Ehrenstein**

Sounds good, though I would have to call that speculation, but a lot of fluff is vague, so speculation is alright, as long as it's based on existing canon. We should also be mindful that speculation is not canon, but GW left things vague so that people can interpret things how they want.

**DOOMBREAD**

Probably not. If the Emperor became a warp entity on the level of the Chaos Gods some sort of major psychic shockwave would have occurred, like the birth of Slaanesh, but less destructive. Also, if a fifth Chaos God-type entity came into being, the warp would fall out of balance and warp disturbances would become far more common.

**Wrakkar**

DOOMBREAD wrote:Probably not. If the Emperor became a warp entity on the level of the Chaos Gods some sort of major psychic shockwave would have occurred, like the birth of Slaanesh, but less destructive. Also, if a fifth Chaos God-type entity came into being, the warp would fall out of balance and warp disturbances would become far more common.

You have no way to prove that.

**Psienesis**

DOOMBREAD wrote:Probably not. If the Emperor became a warp entity on the level of the Chaos Gods some sort of major psychic shockwave would have occurred, like the birth of Slaanesh, but less destructive. Also, if a fifth Chaos God-type entity came into being, the warp would fall out of balance and warp disturbances would become far more common.

Eh, except the Warp wasn't falling apart 11,000 years ago before Slaanesh emerged, and Malal was never a powerful enough Chaos God to rival the other three to make it "balanced". That theory.... just doesn't hold in keeping with what else we know.