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We are all (at least most of us) are aware that the Big Emp Man was lurking around in the history of mankind long before 30-40k stuff happened... is there a complete list of names/titles for the figures that the Emperor MIGHT have been? Like I've heard that King Arthur (sources anyone?) is a big contender for being in this list. If not, which historical figure do you imagine is the Emperor is disguise?

Chris-Chan.

George W. Bush

I'm probably going to guess the Big Emp was probably Jesus. Anatolia is remarkably close to Jerusalem.

Merlin maybe, not Arthur. You could then wonder if Arthur wasn't an early experiment at creating a superior human.

Hitler

Genghis Khan. Sets out to unite humanity, gets bogged down, fakes his own death and retreats to get some better tech working.

He famously slew a dragon, so st George.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
He famously slew a dragon, so st George.

not only did he famously slay a dragon, but the scene in Mechanius where we see it happen is pretty much a word for word retelling of the story of George and the dragon, so St. George is the one "definate confirmed"

Stalin seems like a great match, crazy dictators throwing men's lives away & trying people not to worship them aren't exactly super common. Right? :-P

3dog wrote:
Stalin seems like a great match, crazy dictators throwing men's lives away & trying people not to worship them aren't exactly super common. Right? :-P

except the secularism of the Imperial truth was described as a new approuch. prior to the great crusade the emperor tried to work behind the scenes and set up religons that could protect humanity from the warp. problem is these religions almost always got sidetracked by corruption and "misinterpretation for political goals", as such the Emperor decided to see if hard secularism would work better.

Honestly I imagine the emperor sitting back, watching the various religous wars in Europe whose battle cries tended to be "god is with us!" and just facepalming hard while muttering about "whats so hard to grasp about thou shalt not kill?"

Wasn't he meant to be Alexander the Great?

Chuck Norris.










'Nuff said...

Leon Trotsky.

The Dalai Lama (all of them).

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Leon Trotsky.

The Dalai Lama (all of them).

Being somewhat familiar with what ideology Trotsky was touting, I'd doubt he'd be Emperor material.

Morgan Freeman.

 Norn King wrote:
Hitler

Worryingly I think you're actually very close. It matches up with the hatred of other peoples, the idea that humanity is superior, the creation of 'super soldiers' and many other worrying concepts.

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Norn King wrote:
Hitler

Worryingly I think you're actually very close. It matches up with the hatred of other peoples, the idea that humanity is superior, the creation of 'super soldiers' and many other worrying concepts.

Uh, the Emperor holds a burning hatred of alien species. Not other humans- Hitler would be one of those he would hold the utmost disdain for.

BrianDavion wrote:
except the secularism of the Imperial truth was described as a new approuch. prior to the great crusade the emperor tried to work behind the scenes and set up religons that could protect humanity from the warp. problem is these religions almost always got sidetracked by corruption and "misinterpretation for political goals", as such the Emperor decided to see if hard secularism would work better.

When was this mentioned?

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Norn King wrote:
Hitler

Worryingly I think you're actually very close. It matches up with the hatred of other peoples, the idea that humanity is superior, the creation of 'super soldiers' and many other worrying concepts.

Uh, the Emperor holds a burning hatred of alien species. Not other humans- Hitler would be one of those he would hold the utmost disdain for.

Didn't he basically kill religious people during the Unification? I could be wrong, but the Emperors worry is humanity as a whole, it's not like he's opposed to the killing of any humans.

I don't think he was Hitler though, because Hitlers qualifications of who lived and died seem altogether too arbitrary to actually be furthering humanity, and the Emperor wouldn't do anything to hinder humanity.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Norn King wrote:
Hitler

Worryingly I think you're actually very close. It matches up with the hatred of other peoples, the idea that humanity is superior, the creation of 'super soldiers' and many other worrying concepts.

Uh, the Emperor holds a burning hatred of alien species. Not other humans- Hitler would be one of those he would hold the utmost disdain for.

It's drawing a parallel, just as the Khan isn't literally Ghengis Khan with horsemen in space, or the Ultramarines literally Romans in space wearing Lorica segmentata and tunics. Same with Tau not literally being North America in Brave New World but using the principles of it.

As humanity is considered a race in this universe (and because it would be un-pc to pick on human racial groups) they are killing alien races that as seen as inferior to the superior human race.

tgjensen wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
except the secularism of the Imperial truth was described as a new approuch. prior to the great crusade the emperor tried to work behind the scenes and set up religons that could protect humanity from the warp. problem is these religions almost always got sidetracked by corruption and "misinterpretation for political goals", as such the Emperor decided to see if hard secularism would work better.

When was this mentioned?

Yeah a source would be appreciated, because if that's true it makes the whole 'don't tell my sons anything about Chaos' a bit more understandable in my opinion, where as without that it just seems like a big mistake.

 Zaki66 wrote:
We are all (at least most of us) are aware that the Big Emp Man was lurking around in the history of mankind long before 30-40k stuff happened... is there a complete list of names/titles for the figures that the Emperor MIGHT have been? Like I've heard that King Arthur (sources anyone?) is a big contender for being in this list. If not, which historical figure do you imagine is the Emperor is disguise?

I don't think that the Emperor was a historical figure, I just think he was lurking in the shadows.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Norn King wrote:
Hitler

Worryingly I think you're actually very close. It matches up with the hatred of other peoples, the idea that humanity is superior, the creation of 'super soldiers' and many other worrying concepts.

Uh, the Emperor holds a burning hatred of alien species. Not other humans- Hitler would be one of those he would hold the utmost disdain for.

The theme fits, though. I think it's likely that the Emperor of the 30th millennium is a very different guy than the Emperor of the late 2nd millennium. Despite being acutely aware of the warp, and maybe having a vague sense of there probably being worlds beyond earth, he was still stuck on earth and limited by the thinking of contemporary human civilization.

In 1900AD, the Emperor would have been about 10 millenia old - less than a third of his age during the Great Crusade, and only just emerging from the extremely ancient times in 40k (the times we live in right now are basically the Late Stone Age of the 40k timeline). I gotta think that he might have been a bit less enlightened, and more receptive to trying out the Hitler thing.

natpri771 wrote:
I don't think that the Emperor was a historical figure, I just think he was lurking in the shadows.

Probably. He seems like more of a puppet-master, manipulating behind the curtain. Who knows what he was doing during the Dark Age of Technology. But that's not as interesting as "The Emperor was Jesus AND Hitler!". And given his ability to psychically disguise himself, it's totally plausible for him to do things like that.

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Norn King wrote:
Hitler

Worryingly I think you're actually very close. It matches up with the hatred of other peoples, the idea that humanity is superior, the creation of 'super soldiers' and many other worrying concepts.

Uh, the Emperor holds a burning hatred of alien species. Not other humans- Hitler would be one of those he would hold the utmost disdain for.

It's drawing a parallel, just as the Khan isn't literally Ghengis Khan with horsemen in space, or the Ultramarines literally Romans in space wearing Lorica segmentata and tunics. Same with Tau not literally being North America in Brave New World but using the principles of it.

As humanity is considered a race in this universe (and because it would be un-pc to pick on human racial groups) they are killing alien races that as seen as inferior to the superior human race.

They're not other races as you cannot successfully breed with Eldar or Orks. Xenos evolved on other worlds in completely different environments, they're competition for the same niche.

After all, Neandertals probably had some helping hands pushing them into extinction. Humans as a species are notorious for wanton slaughter of anything that has the misfortune of being near them.

Let me just clear something up for you guys. Hitler's scientist's attempts at creating supersoldiers were retahded and failed utterly. Hitler could have conquered the entire world if he had wanted to, but instead of transporting his troops to the front lines, he decided to kill all the jews. HITLER WAS NOT NEARLY INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO BE THE EMPEROR.

 Wulfmar wrote:

As humanity is considered a race in this universe (and because it would be un-pc to pick on human racial groups) they are killing alien races that as seen as inferior to the superior human race.

No, they're killing aliens because aliens are threats, not because aliens are lesser beings.

Lesser aliens get adapted as livestock (for example, grox).

 Wyzilla wrote:


They're not other races as you cannot successfully breed with Eldar or Orks. Xenos evolved on other worlds in completely different environments, they're competition for the same niche.
After all, Neandertals probably had some helping hands pushing them into extinction. Humans as a species are notorious for wanton slaughter of anything that has the misfortune of being near them.

Ah. I think we should probably make clear here something very important.

The difference between race and species.

The use of 'race' to describe non-human humanoids dates back to DnD, ultimately, and for the most part is incorrect. While you can argue that Elves and Humans are different races, there's no possible argument that humans and halflings are different races - humans and halflings are different species.

Caucasians and Hispanics are different races.

Humans and Orks are different species (although not humans and orcs, by DnD standards).

Races are divergent branches of the same species. They can interbreed with each other.

Hitler supported racial purity. He posited that one race was inherently superior to the other races.

The Emperor supports racial unity. He posits that all races are ultimately human and superior to other species.

The key difference between the two is that Hitler did not have Orks, Eldar or other species to set his armies against.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Genghis Khan. Sets out to unite humanity, gets bogged down, fakes his own death and retreats to get some better tech working.

Ghengis Khan is alluded to have become Uraka Az'baramael, the Khorne Daemon Prince that was at Vraks.

Also, I'm pretty sure that there are allusions to the story of St. George and the Dragon being based on the Emperor defeating/imprisoning the Void Dragon.

 ImAGeek wrote:
Wasn't he meant to be Alexander the Great?

Lord Solar Macharius was Alexander the Great

Barack Obama