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do you think humanity would be in a better state... if the Emperor just stayed behind the scenes as more of a watcher..

should he of let humanity carve its own destiny?

He tried that for over 30,000 years. It really didn't work!

No, because it wouldn't have created as interesting a setting IMO.

He kind of did just that for 98% of his life.

Then again, had he not done what he did, humanity would have died.

One thing the Emperor should not have done was agree to appear in a series of poor-to-middling novels about the last few centuries of his life.

Things probably would have turned out much better than they actually did. Primarily because that would mean no Traitor Legions, no unified Chaos, humanity still surviving (through things like the Auretian Technocracy and Diasporex), and aliens actually working together, instead of just massacring eachother.

Everything was going fine until magnus messed it up.

 n0t_u wrote:
Everything was going fine until magnus messed it up.

you're funny

 dusara217 wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
Everything was going fine until magnus messed it up.

you're funny

Oh so you watch If the Emperor Had a Text to Speech Device too?

The Age of Strife probably changed his mind regarding that. In new fluff the Age of Strife messed up his worldview so bad he decided to gain god-like powers during it so he could steer humanity from then on.

I would argue that the Emperor never did overcome his original Purpose or programming as a reincarnation of all the old shamans. All his attempts through the ages to try and encourage "harmony" for humanity failed because humanity had developed and advanced beyond the simple paleolithic or neolithic society of the shamans. Humanity was not so easily controlled and the Emperor's attempts at just influencing either did not have enough effect, or grew out of his control into things he did not want.

I see the Great Crusade and the Emperor coming out as a warlord and leader as an act of desperation or impatience. With the collapse of the Dark Age of Technology and then the Age of Strife, events and humanity were spiraling out of control and with humanity spread across the galaxy, things were slipping further and faster beyond the Emperor's grasp and ability to influence on any large scale. The Crusade was one drastic attempt to control all of humanity. However part of the reason for its failure was the fact it was an externally imposed form of political control on the masses, with little change on their internal natures.

Possibly the stunning speed and success of the Great Crusade also got to the Emperor. After so many fruitless centuries of trying to nudge and steer humanity behind the scenes, the Emperor may have let success go to his head and let it blind him to the cracks and fault lines in his new Imperium. These cracks may be all too apparent with hindsight, but maybe the Emperor thought he could handle them in due time. Certainly his withdrawal to Terra and sequestration in his laboratories may be seen as the Emperor being impatient to start his next grand project, and neglectful of the mundane details of transitioning an Imperium of conquest, run by Primarch warlords, to an Imperium run by and for the normal human.