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I've got several theories about the heresy era, so here goes (if for some reason any of my ideas have been common knowledge for some time, and have already been discussed in a previous thread, I apologise beforehand).

1) It's said that the Emperor earned the ire of the chaos powers partly due to him 'stealing' something from them. It's also implied that part of the bargain He made was linked to the primarch's creation process. My theory is that the primarch's souls were twenty of the most powerful daemons whose minds were wiped clean. The Emperor then set about creating bodies from his own genecode for the twenty souls to grow into.

In Vengeful Spirit, there's a part where the daemon primarch Fulgrim greets Horus before saying how disappointed he was at how little Horus had changed. Horus replies by saying "Whereas you have changed beyond all recognition." Fulgrim then says "More than you know.." To this, Horus' cryptic response to that is..

"Less than you think."

2) The Emperor is THE original perpetual. The shamans who became the Emperor by sacrificing their collective souls into one vessel were all perpetuals. Individually, their souls were being devoured by the chaos gods which prevented them from 'coming back' hence the Emperor.

Basically, the Emperor is the biggest, baddest perpetual in all existence....that's where the Golden Throne comes in. As long as the Golden Throne prevents His death, He won't be able to 'come back'. The Dark Angel Cypher is working towards gaining access to the Imperial Palace so he can destroy the Golden Throne, which would lead to the Emperor's rebirth.

Again, all this could be well-known background, and I'm only just catching on like an idiot...

Hey, new theories to me! I've certainly never considered the "Emperor is a Perpetual so why not just let him die and come back?" slant, which makes a lot of sense to me.

And Cypher, huh? So you think he's a "good guy" in a sense? I don't know much about him at all.

There is already a belief in the Imperium that, yes, removing the Emperor from the Golden Throne will allow him to be reborn.

The problem is, they don't know when, where, or how long that will take. If he is reborn instantaneously at the spot he dies, and returns as a fully-powered psychic adult with all his memories, yadda yadda, great! They can immediately pick up right where they left off.

If he *doesn't*, however, and has to basically reincarnate as a baby, be born, grow up, develop his powers, etc.

Well... the Imperium can't wait that long.

I like you theory.

 Muhr wrote:
I've got several theories about the heresy era, so here goes (if for some reason any of my ideas have been common knowledge for some time, and have already been discussed in a previous thread, I apologise beforehand).

1) It's said that the Emperor earned the ire of the chaos powers partly due to him 'stealing' something from them. It's also implied that part of the bargain He made was linked to the primarch's creation process. My theory is that the primarch's souls were twenty of the most powerful daemons whose minds were wiped clean. The Emperor then set about creating bodies from his own genecode for the twenty souls to grow into.

In Vengeful Spirit, there's a part where the daemon primarch Fulgrim greets Horus before saying how disappointed he was at how little Horus had changed. Horus replies by saying "Whereas you have changed beyond all recognition." Fulgrim then says "More than you know.." To this, Horus' cryptic response to that is..

"Less than you think."

2) The Emperor is THE original perpetual. The shamans who became the Emperor by sacrificing their collective souls into one vessel were all perpetuals. Individually, their souls were being devoured by the chaos gods which prevented them from 'coming back' hence the Emperor.

Basically, the Emperor is the biggest, baddest perpetual in all existence....that's where the Golden Throne comes in. As long as the Golden Throne prevents His death, He won't be able to 'come back'. The Dark Angel Cypher is working towards gaining access to the Imperial Palace so he can destroy the Golden Throne, which would lead to the Emperor's rebirth.

Again, all this could be well-known background, and I'm only just catching on like an idiot...

It's not canon (in the sense that nobody knows for certain what's the whole deal with The Emperor and the Golden Throne), but it's a theory well known.

I personally like to think the High Lords of Terra are consciously preventing him from healing/reincarnating to keep the full power.

 Psienesis wrote:
There is already a belief in the Imperium that, yes, removing the Emperor from the Golden Throne will allow him to be reborn.

The problem is, they don't know when, where, or how long that will take. If he is reborn instantaneously at the spot he dies, and returns as a fully-powered psychic adult with all his memories, yadda yadda, great! They can immediately pick up right where they left off.

If he *doesn't*, however, and has to basically reincarnate as a baby, be born, grow up, develop his powers, etc.

Well... the Imperium can't wait that long.

No, the IoM probably wouldnt last a decade without the corpse on the throne

 Judge Dredd wrote:

It's not canon (in the sense that nobody knows for certain what's the whole deal with The Emperor and the Golden Throne), but it's a theory well known.

I personally like to think the High Lords of Terra are consciously preventing him from healing/reincarnating to keep the full power.

A few things make that theory kinda implausible, I think.


"The Highlords" are not a singular entity. They disagree with each other all the time. To lethal extents, sometimes (like the time the Grandmaster of Assassins... well, assassinated the rest). "The Highlords" aren't even a particularly long-lived entity either. They're all normal humans and rejuvenate treatments only last for so long. New ones are constantly coming in, and the new ones are NOT always chosen by the old ones. This is NOT a case of Dark Angels saying "Oh, we trust you. So we'll let you know our secret." This is a case of "HEY GUYS! I'm the new merchant chartist leader and we're in an era where merchants rock and have tons of political sway, so I'm now a high lord whether you like it or not. Nice to meet you all for maybe the first time, ever!"


Also:

Sometimes the High Lords includes the grand abbess of the sisters of battle. Are they in on it too?

Sometimes the High Lords includes a Custode. Are they in on it too?

The Highlords include an Inquisitor that explicitly did NOT want the job. And was also elected by his peers. And also serves a maximum term of 5 years, and thus new inquisitors are constantly being shoved into the position. Are they ALL in on it too? (all THOUSANDS of them elected into the position over the years)

Likewise, the navigator is also elected (well, chosen by a council of navigators), and presumably those electing the navigator high lord would not include "Can be trusted with keeping up the secret of keeping the Emperor in camatose for the sake of his own power" amongst the reasons for their decision (unless all the top navigators are in on it too. Which I suppose is possible but still rather hard to swallow given that Emps needed navigators in the Imperium even while he was walking around and a living Emps won't magically repair his webway project). Ditto for the Inquisitors electing the Inquisitor representative.

It fits in well with the Grimdarkness of the 41st Millennium. The Imperium is preventing the man they worship from being reborn and actually leading them.

That only makes sense if the Imperium (or at least, the High Lords) are a singular entity that all want to do that. The fluff has explicitly pointed out in several occassions that not everyone within the Imperium, including individuals within the Inquisition (which has a seat on the Highlords) does.

In my mind it's more something started right after the Heresy and simply passed on without everybody knowing. Or maybe it's a secret lost between a generation of HL and another and the new ones are simply doing what the good sense of the time is suggesting them to do (keeping the Throne as it is).

There is no need to have every single one in it.
Nobody dares to touch it after all, right? Not only they lack the technology to do anything at all with the Throne but they also are incapacitated to do anything by laws, religion and so on.

Even if somebody gets suspects or what not, what you're gonna say? "Hey, it's all a conspiration, we totally need to shut off the Throne, The Emperor will revive and by the way who cares about the Astronomican and making Terra a ground for all kind of demons.. just do it, trust me!".

Don't think you'll find a lot of supporters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Harriticus wrote:
It fits in well with the Grimdarkness of the 41st Millennium. The Imperium is preventing the man they worship from being reborn and actually leading them.

Absolutely. That's why I love it.

It doesn't need to be something passed on until today from HL to HL. Just the original idea of some single greedy HL that screw everything up with his desire for power would be enough to me.

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. And, if you've read Fallen Angels (the book about the Heresy-Era Dark Angels) then you'll understand that Cypher was always governed by a code of honor and by his own skewed sense of right and wrong. So, naturally, if in his ten millenia of surviving, he found a way to do a great good (even at the expense of billions of lives-indeed, the Imperium itself) then he would do it. Because with the IoM falling apart, the Emperor would grow up after only a couple of years (like his sons) and (like his former life) decide to rebuild the IoM.

Question. If Emps is a perpetual, and assuming he even knows of their existence, would he know that he was one if he'd never died and been reborn before? If he didn't know then maybe he was worried about dying once and for all, otherwise why not let Horus kill him, then rise up like a zombie and kill Horus because we'll....lolz?

 Judge Dredd wrote:
In my mind it's more something started right after the Heresy and simply passed on without everybody knowing. Or maybe it's a secret lost between a generation of HL and another and the new ones are simply doing what the good sense of the time is suggesting them to do (keeping the Throne as it is).

There is no need to have every single one in it.
Nobody dares to touch it after all, right? Not only they lack the technology to do anything at all with the Throne but they also are incapacitated to do anything by laws, religion and so on.

Even if somebody gets suspects or what not, what you're gonna say? "Hey, it's all a conspiration, we totally need to shut off the Throne, The Emperor will revive and by the way who cares about the Astronomican and making Terra a ground for all kind of demons.. just do it, trust me!".

Don't think you'll find a lot of supporters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Harriticus wrote:
It fits in well with the Grimdarkness of the 41st Millennium. The Imperium is preventing the man they worship from being reborn and actually leading them.

Absolutely. That's why I love it.

It doesn't need to be something passed on until today from HL to HL. Just the original idea of some single greedy HL that screw everything up with his desire for power would be enough to me.

That's more plausible that the original High Lords (or SOMEONE. Doesn't have to be the Highlords) instituted measures to keep Emps locked in place for whatever reason, selfish-or-otherwise, and eventually the Imperium simply "forgot" (Forgetting is a pretty typical theme with the Imperium).

Hilariously, if that were the case, now the way to keep that going appears to have been forgotten too (I'm referring to how the Golden Throne is starting to break and the Mechanicus lost the technology/know-how/instruction manual to fix it)

... the Custodes would have to be in on it. And they are not. They are removed from the day-to-day politics of the Imperium, and maintain a seat on the High Lords of Terra, but are otherwise not into the politicking.

The great irony of the potential rebirth of the big E is he would just have to go sit on the throne anyway... Who else is going to keep the jacked up webway portal from pouring daemons onto terra whilst simultaneously guiding the astronmican.

The only problem with the rebirth after death idea is that the big E designed the golden throne... He put himself on it and thus prevented his own rebirth, which tends to lead to the idea that he can't be reborn, or isn't aware he can which would be just weird considering his knowledge.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The great irony of the potential rebirth of the big E is he would just have to go sit on the throne anyway... Who else is going to keep the jacked up webway portal from pouring daemons onto terror whilst simultaneously guiding the astronmican.

Maybe in the beginning.

But given the right time he'd just figure out something else.

It could take a very long time but he theoretically has eternity... and an individual of his kind would surely find a way to get out of it sooner or later.

I've always thought that Empy needed warp help to craft the Primarch's souls.

Perhaps some smaller scale version of the event that created him.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The great irony of the potential rebirth of the big E is he would just have to go sit on the throne anyway... Who else is going to keep the jacked up webway portal from pouring daemons onto terra whilst simultaneously guiding the astronmican.

The only problem with the rebirth after death idea is that the big E designed the golden throne... He put himself on it and thus prevented his own rebirth, which tends to lead to the idea that he can't be reborn, or isn't aware he can which would be just weird considering his knowledge.

The throne was made for Magnus, I believe. He never intended for himself to be upon it.

 Macharius. wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The great irony of the potential rebirth of the big E is he would just have to go sit on the throne anyway... Who else is going to keep the jacked up webway portal from pouring daemons onto terra whilst simultaneously guiding the astronmican.

The only problem with the rebirth after death idea is that the big E designed the golden throne... He put himself on it and thus prevented his own rebirth, which tends to lead to the idea that he can't be reborn, or isn't aware he can which would be just weird considering his knowledge.

The throne was made for Magnus, I believe. He never intended for himself to be upon it.

Did Magnus know this or did big E plan to just kidnap Magnus and strap him in?

 Muhr wrote:
I've got several theories about the heresy era, so here goes (if for some reason any of my ideas have been common knowledge for some time, and have already been discussed in a previous thread, I apologise beforehand).

1) It's said that the Emperor earned the ire of the chaos powers partly due to him 'stealing' something from them. It's also implied that part of the bargain He made was linked to the primarch's creation process. My theory is that the primarch's souls were twenty of the most powerful daemons whose minds were wiped clean. The Emperor then set about creating bodies from his own genecode for the twenty souls to grow into.

In Vengeful Spirit, there's a part where the daemon primarch Fulgrim greets Horus before saying how disappointed he was at how little Horus had changed. Horus replies by saying "Whereas you have changed beyond all recognition." Fulgrim then says "More than you know.." To this, Horus' cryptic response to that is..

"Less than you think."

It's possible that the quote of Horus is more related to the deamon that took over Fulgrim's body for a while. That said, I like your idea that the primarchs are deamons at the core. Magnus' real form in ('A Thousand Sons' novel?) or also was something far from human. That would make the loyal primarchs traitors to their real species, which would be a delicious irony.

That would make the loyal primarchs traitors to their real species, which would be a delicious irony.

Daemons exist in all forms, shapes, sizes and purposes. If it is possible, it exists in Chaos. There can even be "nice" Daemons that are not the bloodthirsty donkey-caves that are normally depicted as the pawns of Chaos.

So the Daemon is not a species. It is not born in the way any actually-living creature is born, it has no genetics, it does not pass on traits to progeny. They don't even really evolve so much as just flat-out change in the blink of an eye.

The intelligence/sentience that would, assuming this theory is true, be going into a Primarch, that would be shaping his intellect and physicality... is not a traitor to its own kind, because Daemons are singular creatures. They don't have a "kind". While the emotion-energy that creates a Bloodletter is different from that which creates a Daemonette, they are both still just Warp-stuff given a shape. They don't share bonds of family or history or cultural identity with others of their ilk, they are simply similar to them because they only possess a limited range of thoughts.

Deamon and general w40k follows the acient-greek idea that are both good and evil deamons, for exaple the legion of damned , the sanqunior(maybe) ect. .Remeber that chaos gods are from emotions
also i think that to summon a deamon in w40k you need to sacrifice,so if E dies howhe can re-summoned?but maybe when warprift opens he comes from there whith all primachs (that been said if their soul is warp manifated), but that means also horus,fulgrim,traitor legions(the sell their souls to chaos so they are like deamons for this purpuse) ect back...too risky

He's not being 're-summoned'. He's a perpetual not a deamon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw - i like the deamon soul primarch idea.

Also have the same idea concerning cypher.

Poly Ranger wrote:
He's not being 're-summoned'. He's a perpetual not a deamon.

well arent deamons perpetual ?

But not all perpetuals are deamons.

All Labradors are dogs but not all dogs are Labradors.

so E is realy a God? then why he denied it?

 Pada wrote:
so E is realy a God? then why he denied it?

Good question. Tbf that's been debatable, not just the emperor in the wh40K universe, but the idea of godhood at all in modern society. What makes a god? Something with such vast powers that we cannot comprehend it at our stage of evolution? A creator of the world/galaxy/universe? Something all knowing? Something that cannot die? Is it some of these? Or all of these?

Some of these apply to the Emperor. But not all. It depends on your interpretation of the definition of a god.

As to why he didn't, he understood his vast powers, he didn't consider himself a god. He didn't want the Imperium to become bound to a religion, if mankind could banish worship and belief in gods then it would have weakened chaos. The chaos gods after all are not gods (by my definition - but im an atheist) but things of such vast power that they are seen as god like. If he could wipe out worship from the Human race like the Interex had, then he could then begin to slowly educate the human race about chaos and demonstrate that chaos and chaos gods were simply raw power and not actual gods. Never got to though - Damn you Erebus!

Poly Ranger wrote:
. The chaos gods after all are not gods

Chaos gods are aliens from other dimension , but strong enought to be thought as gods ,the are born , so they can die by age one day
also are theonly ones, C'tans, khaine ,void dragon, all gods not by chirstian, jewish,islam definision by "god is everything" but as the idea thay a way to strong compeared a "mortal" being aka humns elar ect. So in a way even hive mind is a God, or the Greater Good (maybe near plato atheist idea that God is all mortals working together)

A funny thing (and a realistic) is that evey faction has a difent god that believes and denies the others

There are several more examples throughout the HH series that lend more weight to my theory about primarchs' having daemon souls. In the short story The Reflection Crack'd, Fulgrim is being subjected to torture by his captains in order to liberate him from whatever possesses him when Fulgrim says:

Kaesoron: "We KNOW you are not Fulgrim.

Fulgrim: "Then what do you believe me to be?"

Kaesoron: "A creature of the immaterial."

Fulgrim: "A daemon? And how else would you describe a primarch? Are you so naive as to believe that all things named daemon are evil? Daemon or primarch, both are creatures fashioned from immaterial energies, hybrids of flesh and spirit brought into this world by unnatural means. If you knew anything of my creation then you would not bandy such words so carelessly."

BobNT wrote:

 Macharius. wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The great irony of the potential rebirth of the big E is he would just have to go sit on the throne anyway... Who else is going to keep the jacked up webway portal from pouring daemons onto terra whilst simultaneously guiding the astronmican.

The only problem with the rebirth after death idea is that the big E designed the golden throne... He put himself on it and thus prevented his own rebirth, which tends to lead to the idea that he can't be reborn, or isn't aware he can which would be just weird considering his knowledge.

The throne was made for Magnus, I believe. He never intended for himself to be upon it.

He Magnus know this or did big E plan to just kidnap Magnus and strap him in?

In the course of A Thousand Sons, Magnus was shown this little fragment of truth.

As for the nature of the primarchs, Scars strongly pushes the idea that the primarchs are so much more than just extremely powerful vat-grown killing machines. It heavily suggests that all 20 are heavily infused with the power of the warp and that Big E bargained with the chaos gods to do so.