Do we have any examples of what the Emperor was capable of pre-heresy?

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**dusara217**

A list of impressive feats.. okay.

1.) Emperor singlehandedly curbstomps an entire Ork army and roflstomps the single most powerful Ork of the age.
2.) Emperor singlehandedly roflstomps a C'tan Shard
3.) Emperor repairs a Knight Titan by poking it (this Knight also could not be fixed by any of the Tech Priests, so that's actually kind of impressive)
4.) Emperor singlehandedly forces 100k Astartes (and their Primarch) to bend the knee to him

For those of you claiming that he can't just mindcontrol an entire army into doing his bidding, number 4 proves you wrong. The reason that he makes all of these armies is so that he can conquer a galaxy. He used Terra as the basis for his Empire, but he needed a stable, atheistic basis to effectively starve the Chaos Gods of power (hence the not roflstomping the world when he needed to conquer; trying to not look like a deity here, after all).

Also, how could the Emperor disable a shield if he doesn't know much about it? He doesn't know where the power source is, he doesn't know the layout of the power source, or the projector, etc. The shield is obviously some sort of DAoT tech, or else the Emperor could have just poked it with his finger and shot enough energy into it to short circuit it (likely one of the shields designed to defend against orbital bombardment from magma warheads, and the like).

**dusara217**

nareik wrote:
Actually, he needed Horus's help to land the uber-force* attack on the ork... And I don't think it was even the most powerful ork of the age; it was one of his mechboys that Big E killed.

*it was essentially a force weapon attack that permanently deleted the ork's mind, body and soul from both real and warp existence so it could never be reborn.

and yet the Emperor did that exact same thing when he was a second away from death on the vengeful Spirit...

**dusara217**

Anemone wrote:Defeating a Shard of the Void Dragon is fine, no one's trying to say he's weak, but it isn't comparable to blinking planets out of existence and wiping out entire enemy empires with a thought. It isn't even close to comparable to it. Considering all he thought was a Shard, and the newest Necron Codex pretty much states Nightbringer was the strongest of the C'tan (and we get stats for his Shards), and compounding that with the fact that Transcendent C'tan have been brought down through the efforts of Cato Sicarius and an Iron Hands Venerable Dreadnought and such defeating a Shard of the Void Dragon really doesn't mean in any way that he could wipe out entire planets/armies/fleets/empires/solo all his enemies if he wanted to.
I never said that he could blink planets out of existence. If I did, and I am mistaken, midn pointing it out to me?
As for the Orks he fought; said force, as has been said, which he destroyed still did not do sufficient damage to stop the fight raging all around them and across the planet against the Orks (that was only ended when he collapsed the Plasma Core by fighting to get there) thus though he did destroy an impressive amount of Orks (again no one is saying he's weak) it was not even all the Orks present for the battle. Additionally the Ork he killed was a nameless grunt distinguished only by being bigger than the other Orks about him at the moment. We are never told who the Orks ruling Gorro are nor who their Warboss was. In addition to this he did not roflstomp said Ork, indeed, according to the canon he required Horus to assist him in an action both the novel and Index Astartes called Horus 'saving' the Emperor. I have no reason to doubt canon and two canonical materials explicitly state that in that action Horus saved the Emperor. So it was actually the exact opposite of a roflstomp. Continuing on the matter of Gorro said Ork was almost certainly not the most powerful of the age since the Emperor in the aftermath refers to Gorro, and the Orks upon it, as a holding of the greater Orkish Empire of Ullanor (lead by Warboss Urrlak). The Emperor even indicates, to Horus's initially disconsolate reaction, that Gorro is minor compared to what is to come.
riiiiight, so the Horus "saves" the Emperor, and the Emperor proceeds to literally erase the Ork from existence. Yeah, yeah, the Emperor definitely needed saving. Makes sense. Definitely isn't utter malarkey...
We've discussed the C'tan Shard so I won't readdress that point.

The repairing a Knight Titan, yeah, that's cool but...like it doesn't really in anyway imply he could solo planets/empires or such.
I never said that that meant that, but good for you, reaching for every implication you can possibly try to glean from my 4 sentences.
Forcing a group of loyal soldiers, amongst his most loyal (indeed the group who have problems with forming intensely blindly loyal bonds), many of whom have already deified him to kneel doesn't seem that impressive. They would have done it if he'd asked them too as well so its not like they were highly resistant entities. After all he clearly couldn't force the invaders on Terra (Daemon and Chaos Space Marine) to simply stop. It also still doesn't change that he had to make the Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra because he could not simply defeat his enemies single-handedly. Indeed he had to create the Thunder Warriors even though he was then forced to have them destroyed afterwards (hence their only point was to unify Terra for him).
Yes, because warriors who he just humiliated and destroyed everything they ahd spent the last century building, yeah, they seem real complacent to me. Not frustrated and pissed off at all. And the fact that they were psycho-indoctrinated superwarriors with a mental fortitude most men can only dream of, I'm sure that it made it easier for the Emperor to literally force one hundred thousand superwarriors to bend their knees to him without him even saying a thing. And you really can't say anything about Terra. The Emperor was busy keeping half the Warp from pouring into the Imperial Palace (the whole Magnus busted in the Imperial Webway, and all). While sitting on a Golden Throne. And then he leaves the Golden Throne with the most powerful mortal Psyker in existence, who can barely even keep it in check, and then proceeds to turn into ash.
Also the question concerning 'how could the Emperor disable a Shield he doesn't know about' seems odd. The Emperor does know about it. That's why he knows his men must go under it to locate the core and take it out for him. That's his entire plan since he does not have sufficient power to penetrate the Shield. The fact that the Shield is an old technology doesn't change anything. That's the core point. The Emperor's powers were in addition limited by the fact that certain forms of technology simply proved resilient or beyond his powers. That's the point.
Yes, I understand that. However, the fact that he couldn't bust open a shield that was likely designed to resist planet-killer level weaponry really only proves that he isn't at his strongest utilizing brute force
I find it odd how important it is to many people that the Emperor has some sort of 'infinite godly power' as opposed to the idea that he is just an exceptional human being, as he claims, and not a God as he always informs others not to treat him. Part of his defining creed is that he is not a god unlike the Chaos Gods, Gork, Mork and the Eldar Gods and such. He is a human, an exceptional human, but by his own admission a human nonetheless with failings and limitations. As shown. The state of the Imperium is partly the story of those failings and limitations, of how we sow our own seeds of destruction and are often our own worst enemies. The Emperor is much more interesting as such than as another 'invincible-hero' archetype.
The Emperor was a man. Then he died. And sextillions of people died; contributing their souls to a new gestalt God-Emperor. Whether or not this being is the same as the man-Emperor is not certain, but what is certain is that the God-Emperor is real, simply due to the nature of the Warp, and how Gods are created.
EDIT: As I've said before arguing that 'he could have but he didn't want too because X' even though we've never had him ever indicate that he felt a need to hold back his power conquering Terra or moderate himself (I cannot think of a time the Emperor has in canon material explained that he held back when fighting on Terra so as not to give people the impression he is a deity) is putting far to many things into the Emperor's mind and mouth which aren't canon. The facts of the matter, what we know and see, are that the Emperor did not conquer or destroy his enemies on Terra at a whim or alone, he built a great army, bio-engineered powerful warriors and even then at times had to rely on clever tactics because there simply were technological devices beyond him. Obviously new facts can change things, can add things and can retcon things, but until such things do occur the Emperor's power level has been clearly demonstrated by the things he could and could not achieve in Fluff. I don't like so much simply claiming that he 'could' have done all these impressive feats; wipe out entire fleets/planets/empires if the truth is that not once have I ever seen him demonstrate such power.
The Emperor has demonstrated the ability to incapacitate entire armies. He has demonstrated the ability to literally erase the focal point of all of Chaos Undivided's power. He has demonstrated the capability to erase an entire army's worth of Orks (though the actual Ork army was huge, so taking out a few million still left a fair amount to kill). He has demonstrated these abilities, and more. Nobody on this thread has stated that the Emperor has the capability to off an entire Battle Fleet signlehandedly. Nor that he could vaporize a planet, nor that he could destroy a Xenos Empire singlehandedly (though it's not like he couldn't, he has the lifetime necessary to destabilize one and then destroy the leadership, depending on the type of Empire we're talking about).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

JamesY wrote:
That's it, his power comes more from his intelligence than is ever given credit, genetically engineering man kind, setting a 25,000 year+ plan in motion to be accepted as the Emperor, negotiating with gods and nearly destroying them by changing a galaxy's cultural beliefs rather than through direct force, unifying Terra and nearly the galaxy... That's the Emperor's real power, but it gets lost behind speculation on his psychic ability as just a blunt weapon.

**dusara217**

Furyou Miko wrote:
dusara217 wrote:

3.) Emperor repairs a Knight Titan by poking it (this Knight also could not be fixed by any of the Tech Priests, so that's actually kind of impressive)
.

Actually, this one is quite important - Dalia Cythera performs the same feat at the end of Mechanicus, which means that it's actually the Void Dragon's power, not a trick of the Emperor - which means that the Emperor is capable of co-opting the powers of a C'tan, not just defeating it.

HOLY gak. THE EMPEROR IS A C'TAN IN DISGUISE!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! THE EMPEROR IS ALPHARIUS!!!
But, seriously, that's fething awesome. I can't believe that I forgot that after reading through Mechanicum

Spoiler:

Anemone wrote:@dusara: Apologies it does sometimes become difficult separating who said what when on the thread, that's why I didn't put your name before my points, they were more just general responses to the points that had been made already. So if you don't think he can blink planets out of existence then great, that is something we agree on.

As for the comment concerning Gorro, well, you can be as sarcastic about it as you wish, the canon has stated Horus saved him. I see no reason to doubt what was explicitly stated twice in two canonical works simply because you don't agree with it personally.

I'm sorry you can say what you wish of the Word Bearers but they have a fanatical loyalty and, literally many, worshipful devotion to the Emperor. Yes even the humiliation they suffered didn't stop many of them still being loyal to him for a long time, a minority even consistently loyal. Without a doubt it is far easier to imagine that Word Bearers and other Space Marines are, whilst loyal, far more easily controlled and manipulated by the Emperor. Their conditioning would not necessarily help them against an entity they do not recognize as a foe at all. That does not explain why, after leaving the Golden Throne, he does not instantly destroy or eliminate all the Traitor forces then. As you point out during those crucial moments Malcador has lifted a weight from him. If he had the power you are implying then he could have instantly ceased the conflict there and then.

But to be honest if, and this is a big if since I distinctly recall different things being said in posts literally above, the point is not say he can wink out of existence planets/fleets/empires then I don't see where there is a disagreement? From the start my point has been to emphasise that it is not his 'Godlike' might which makes him dangerous but his intellect. I said so in the post when I pointed out that since he could not destroy the Orks of Gorro alone he brought Horus and an army, since he could not conquer Terra alone he made Thunder Warriors and an army. I've from the beginning said so.

@Quickjager: The Void Dragon is a Shard. That's why its called a Shard. See the latest Necron Codex; 912.M41 The God Shadow: A Shard of the Void Dragon escapes captivity upon the world of the Arotepk Dynasty and they have a tough fight before the Crypteks enslave it again. The one on Mars is a Shard, hence why it is called a Shard. As for how you saw my post...I don't know. I didn't even know you had me on ignore.

EDIT: On the topic of bias then, Quickjager, are we to assume that bias is, of course, something you can see in other people but which certainly does not affect your judgement? It only features in the judgement of people who disagree with you?

tbf, bias isn't really something you can just eliminate from an argument. Virtually every argument has it roots in bias, and logic is just there to support the bias. Of course, I only ever argue with people so that I can (hopefully) get proven wrong and learn something new (like the time that I got proven wrong regarding the nature of a God in 40k. Because of that, I got a pirated copy of the Lost and the Damned, and learned a fuckton). Yes, this is the only reason. The fun of it never factors in to the equation. Ever. Not once have I laughed during arguments on this site. Not even during Alpharius meme moments...

For argument's sake, I'll just point out that, at the First Siege of Terra, the Traitor Legions had the backing of every single Chaos God we know of, which means they likely had protection from the kind of Psychic assault that could incapacitate them all.

Spoiler:

[/spoiler] It's in First Heretic, right around the beginning of the book. And, yes, up to that point, the Word Bearers were fanatically loyal to the Emperor. After that, a huge portion of them hated him, and slowly subverted the rest of the Legion to worshiping Chaos (though a portion of them remained loyal and were purged as punishment). The gnashing of teeth was, in fact, literal. A number of Marines probably had mental breakdowns trying to keep themselves from kneeling (why is that image making me laugh?)

**dusara217**

Furyou Miko wrote:
dusara217 wrote:

HOLY gak. THE EMPEROR IS A C'TAN IN DISGUISE!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! THE EMPEROR IS ALPHARIUS!!!
But, seriously, that's fething awesome. I can't believe that I forgot that after reading through Mechanicum

Yep. The Emperor is Kirby. No, not that Kirby, that one.

Are you sure he isn't rubick?

**dusara217**

Furyou Miko wrote:
Psienesis wrote:
Considering that he's fighting all four of the Great Powers and an unknown number of Lesser Powers, directing the Astronomican, speaking through the Tarot, occasionally speaking to people in his physical presence, and possibly reincarnating himself as mortals in Realspace as the whim strikes him, throwing Warp Storms at people who piss him off, and is still alive and kicking in the Warp?

I really don't think "curbstomped" is the right description.

I do. All that means is that the C'tan could handle all of those tasks even better than the Emperor can.

When A is demonstrably more powerful than B, proving that B is very powerful without actually making him stronger just makes A even stronger by comparison.

Except that virtually evyerthing that Psienesis just cited was the Emperor post-Ascension (ie after he died), that doesn't quite track.

**dusara217**

SideSwipe wrote:
Furyou Miko wrote:
The fact that the Void Dragon is sharded after all actually has some terrifying implications;

Think about it. The Emperor fought and sealed it, right? But it was an epic battle that took many days... All of the Emperor's lauded psychic might, and he nearly died defeating just a single piece of a C'tan.

The Emperor has gone from being able to go mano-a-mano with the strongest creatures to have ever existed in material space, to being curbstomped by them.

Where is this battle between the Emp and the Void Dragon detailed?

I've only seen it mentioned in Mechanicum, but it's not detailed.

In Mechanicum, it shows him basically starting to get pushed back, before he spots a weak spot and uses his Force Sword to cripple it.

**dusara217**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Furyou Miko wrote:
The implications arise from the fact that a Shard of the Void Dragon has a fraction of the whole Void Dragon's strength. If the Emperor fought a Shard and only won by luckily spotting that weak point, then the whole C'tan, being more powerful than any shard by a significant amount, must therefore be much stronger than the Emperor, who fought it to a standstill.

It's too much of an assumption though especially since we don't know if a whole C'tan would have a similar weakness (C'tan shards are stated as having the same raw power just not the memory\knowledge to use it after all), if strongest Void Dragon shard was that much weaker than the whole would be or how much the Emperor was actually struggling.

I don't think it's enough to say a whole C'tan is definitely stronger than the Emperor or vice versa.

Considering the fact that this C'tan Shard was so powerful that people literally go insane just from looking at it, I'd say that it's safe to assume that the C'tan are more powerful.

**dusara217**

Psienesis wrote:
It's the fact that he rode a horse to Mars and back in less than a million years that makes it a tale of truly epic proportions.

He got on his horse, and went around the universe, and all the other places, too.

I think that it's safe to assume that he kept the Void Dragon imprisoned somewhere on Earth prior to taking it to Mars on a Void Ships (I know that it's just a joke, but it's really getting old)

**dusara217**

KingDeath wrote:
This thread is a fine example of why 40k's fluff is getting ever worse. From highly potent psyker with a genius intelect to mary sue in just one (mostly) badly written book series. Yay Horus Heresy.

sad, but true

**dusara217**

Well, this hasn't gone OT at all...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

mace_ace wrote:
He was capable of standing before the Heresy.

This is way funnier than it should be.

**dusara217**

Blitzen the Solitaire wrote:From what I've gathered the emperor is the reincarnation of 6? Of humanities most powerful psychic shamans killing themselves at the same time and combining in reincarnation into 1 being.
He was able to foresee thousands of years into the future.
He could nullify warp power.
Stop time.
Teleport at will
As for what he could or could not do that falls prey to "what he chose not to do" in order to keep humanity on the very small path to survival. He has obviously lied/withheld information but each time that made people act exactly the way they did to achieve those results.
You can also refer to magnus's powers as the emperor taught him as well.(not all of it obviously)

According to Lost and the Damned, it was all the Shamans in Anatolia; a mass suicide.

**dusara217**

The idea of the thousands of suicides at once was to overwhelm the Daemons that had been consuming the Shamans' souls one by one, and create a Super-Shaman who didn't need to worry about Daemons NOMing his soul.

**dusara217**

I"m just going to reread the Emps portion of the Lost and the Damned...