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I think the Emperor intended to be a god, he destroyed all the churches and religions, I think he laid the groundwork for his apotheosis, he must of known religion would always exist, even the cult of the lectitio divinitatus had been about for most of the crusade, even one of his Primarchs with more capacity and potential than any human, believed that he was a god. he obviously knows the power of faith and he must have seen one future where he reigns as a god and how successful (and unsuccessful) it was. Without religion, he would be unable to keep alliances with the Mechanicum and purposely let them have their religion as it helped with the treaty of Mars and the source of their creative ingenuity came from the "Dragon" he placed on Mars. Its also helped with Terra's authority, as other planets across the universe see it as the holy land.

So why did he spend so long saying he wasn't a God?

I don't see why he didn't just conquer Mars. At the time he could have easily done it with his mega awesome psy powers.

The HH books mess up this aspect terribly. The Chaos Gods try to convince the traitor Primarchs that the Emperor is a militant atheist so that in the end he can institute himself as the sole god. But if that's the case then why did he censor the WB for their worship of him? It makes no sense that he went that far and had Monarchia destroyed if they were just being too slow in his mind. He could have approached it in so many different ways if his end goal was to really become a god.

He let Mars have its religion because he needed the awesome manufacturing capabilities for his GC. Besides, a lot of god worship in the HH turns out to be of aspects of Chaos Gods, that risk isn't really there for Mars and its colonies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
So why did he spend so long saying he wasn't a God?

I don't see why he didn't just conquer Mars. At the time he could have easily done it with his mega awesome psy powers.

He was just being pragmatic, plenty of human worlds were allowed to bend the knee as long as it furthered his overall goals. Mars being the most important one of those.

But Mars got a lot of independance rather than being one planet under Big E's control. There's just as much risk with the Martian Cult as other religions if not more and he could have just mind controlled them, instituted his athiestic rule and moved on. Humanity could have waited a bit longer for his Crusades.

Yes, because Mars believed Empy was a herald of the Omnissiah, their fath bound them to the Emperor as an extension of their god's power. That's much less risky than say the WB home planet where they worshipped an aspect of the Chaos Gods. The Martian Cult might be quirky, but it wasn't actively working against the Emperor's goal and easy to align with. They can have some more independence because they follow you out of conviction as opposed to following you because you beat their ass into compliance.

Going to war with Mars would have been a terrible idea, because Mars basically supplied everything the Emperor needed to hold his GC and his victory in a war with Mars was in no way certain with Mars having the overwhelming advantage in tech (and I assume troops, ships and defences considering Earth was technobarb land Mars raided). Plus even if he had won, would Mars in the aftermath still be able to have produced what he needed? Far too risky.

They also have a C'Tan sleeping on their planet that they think is the Omnissiah instead. I'm pretty sure other planets that complied didn't get the Mechanicus treatment.

There's the thing. It's not that hard. The lore bigs up the Emperors power so much that he could easily just paralyse or outright mind control the existing priests and then train up a next generation loyal to him from day one before killing off the old ones.
He'd have a planet with no risk of C'Tan worship, no questionable loyalties and wouldn't have so much as scratched the facilities he needed.

Without the psychic powers then his actions become far more reasonable and I'd agree it made sense. It's one of the common issues with Warhammer - The lore makes sense then they go back and add details that make it less sensible.
Like how Primarchs are supposedly military geniuses but don't really come across that way.

IIRC, there are quite a few hints, most obviously in The Last Church, that the Emperor has two problems with religion. Firstly, and most obviously, it's often just Chaos worship in disguise. More subtly, though, there seem to be suggestions that he Emperor doesn't understand religion on a fundamental level - not in the sense that an atheist might just decide they don't believe in a higher power but in a much more basic way. The Emperor has never had to answer certain fundamental questions about life and the universe because his intellect allows him to know the answers. He doesn't have to grapple with concepts like where humans fit into the universe, which are often the sort of things that spark religions into life. It's a bit like a 2-dimensional creature having no way of truly understanding a 3-dimensional world.

So I don't think he was trying to be a god, I just don't think he was properly equipped to steer humanity away from religion so ended up doing a bunch of things that were possibly counter-productive. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have understood why people worshipped him either.

He wanted thi mans to have faith in humanity, instead of inventing non-human constructs (such as gods).

Part of his effort to do this was to play up his own human side, instead of resorting to using his godlike powers at every chance.

He hoped through faith in humanity he could aid the human races evolution into a psychic race that was not vulnerable to the predations of daemons. This is much like how orks faith in orkiness and the ork ways tend to keep them safe from chaos.

pm713 wrote:
They also have a C'Tan sleeping on their planet that they think is the Omnissiah instead. I'm pretty sure other planets that complied didn't get the Mechanicus treatment.

There's the thing. It's not that hard. The lore bigs up the Emperors power so much that he could easily just paralyse or outright mind control the existing priests and then train up a next generation loyal to him from day one before killing off the old ones.
He'd have a planet with no risk of C'Tan worship, no questionable loyalties and wouldn't have so much as scratched the facilities he needed.

Without the psychic powers then his actions become far more reasonable and I'd agree it made sense. It's one of the common issues with Warhammer - The lore makes sense then they go back and add details that make it less sensible.
Like how Primarchs are supposedly military geniuses but don't really come across that way.

Because other planets don't have to offer what Mars and its colonies have to offer really. Most human worlds just have humans, that's it, meanwhile Mars and its colonies are vast planet wide factories and shipyards sustaining the Imperial. Fighting them would end up in a ton of both production as well as material losses that you can't recover without STC templates. Regular human planets just have some human lives being lost which the Imperium has in abundance.

While the Emperor is a genius arguably, he can't just mind control them. They have vast amounts of knowledge the Emperor doesn't possess. Killing them off means that most of it would get lost. For the most part the Cult of Mars is the only faction that has preserved tech from the Golden Age to any extent. Besides, we have no way of knowing if the Emperor could actually mind control to such an extent (or if he was even that technologically gifted beyond some niche projects), if he could why didn't he just turn the traitor legions to kill themselves? The Emperor is powerful, but he hasn't shown that amount of power.

I think the Primarchs suffer from being written by people who play war games with plastic puppets, not with any actual military knowledge/background, you don't have to be a tactical genius for that and tactical genius on the TT translates horribly into a 'real-life' story.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:
They also have a C'Tan sleeping on their planet that they think is the Omnissiah instead. I'm pretty sure other planets that complied didn't get the Mechanicus treatment.

There's the thing. It's not that hard. The lore bigs up the Emperors power so much that he could easily just paralyse or outright mind control the existing priests and then train up a next generation loyal to him from day one before killing off the old ones.
He'd have a planet with no risk of C'Tan worship, no questionable loyalties and wouldn't have so much as scratched the facilities he needed.

Without the psychic powers then his actions become far more reasonable and I'd agree it made sense. It's one of the common issues with Warhammer - The lore makes sense then they go back and add details that make it less sensible.
Like how Primarchs are supposedly military geniuses but don't really come across that way.

Because other planets don't have to offer what Mars and its colonies have to offer really. Most human worlds just have humans, that's it, meanwhile Mars and its colonies are vast planet wide factories and shipyards sustaining the Imperial. Fighting them would end up in a ton of both production as well as material losses that you can't recover without STC templates. Regular human planets just have some human lives being lost which the Imperium has in abundance.

While the Emperor is a genius arguably, he can't just mind control them. They have vast amounts of knowledge the Emperor doesn't possess. Killing them off means that most of it would get lost. For the most part the Cult of Mars is the only faction that has preserved tech from the Golden Age to any extent. Besides, we have no way of knowing if the Emperor could actually mind control to such an extent (or if he was even that technologically gifted beyond some niche projects), if he could why didn't he just turn the traitor legions to kill themselves? The Emperor is powerful, but he hasn't shown that amount of power.

I think the Primarchs suffer from being written by people who play war games with plastic puppets, not with any actual military knowledge/background, you don't have to be a tactical genius for that and tactical genius on the TT translates horribly into a 'real-life' story.

The man singlehandedly powered a beacon bright enough to be seen across the Galaxy while wandering around killing things with incredible psychic power. He can at least mind control some tech priests which skips around the knowledge issue. Mind control them, force them to pass on the knowledge then move on. He can't just do that to Traitor Legions because he was busy holding the Golden Throne together or trying to kill Horus the Chaos Avatar. Then he was holding himself together so he didn't die prior to going on the Throne again.

He doesn't need to do that much. Just mind control the senior priests and get them away from safety, abduct them, take their knowledge and give it to his side and then he can take out the rest. Which seems much more like the Emperor - killing everyone he sees as expendable and in the way.

Wandered around and had to kill things is entirely different from mind controlling and brain washing an entire planet (if he could then he is just wasting time on some sort of bloodsport instead of warping into orbit and turning on the suicide power). I'm not denying he is an incredibly powerful psyker, but that doesn't mean his powers can do anything or are limitless. We don't know if he can actually rip knowledge out of minds like that, if he could why didn't he do so to spread the manufacture of forgeworld material to other Imperial planets? Nothing he did demonstrates that he could just do everything by himself by mind ripping others.

You forget that the Emperor has a moment between him getting off the throne and fighting Horus. If he really is as powerful as you say he could have snapped his fingers once he got up and ended the siege of Terra then and there. Once we reach the kind of planetary level mind control powers the fact that he even had to get in harm's way is stupid.

Were talking about tens if not hundreds of thousands of tech priests, the most senior of which are barely human. The Emperor hasn't displayed power like you're describing now, the closest he has come is forcing the WB legion to kneel in the ruins of Monarchia. If he could actually see what swims arpund in people's minds he would have found about about the Chaos worshipping of the older WB members like Khor in no time.


The Cult of Mars isn't so dangerous that the Emperor had to go to such lengths to wipe it out, seeing as it isn't Chaos inspired like many others.

I thought the presence of the C'Tan on Mars was what made Mars so technologically advanced and allowed the humans of the Dark Age of Technology to develop near parity with the hundred-million-year-old Eldar Empire. Plus, the C'Tan gave the Necrons a form of FTL travel that doesn't use the warp, and we all know how important the Emperor thought finding a way around warp travel was for the future of humanity.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The HH books mess up this aspect terribly. The Chaos Gods try to convince the traitor Primarchs that the Emperor is a militant atheist so that in the end he can institute himself as the sole god. But if that's the case then why did he censor the WB for their worship of him? It makes no sense that he went that far and had Monarchia destroyed if they were just being too slow in his mind. He could have approached it in so many different ways if his end goal was to really become a god.

He let Mars have its religion because he needed the awesome manufacturing capabilities for his GC. Besides, a lot of god worship in the HH turns out to be of aspects of Chaos Gods, that risk isn't really there for Mars and its colonies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
So why did he spend so long saying he wasn't a God?

I don't see why he didn't just conquer Mars. At the time he could have easily done it with his mega awesome psy powers.

He was just being pragmatic, plenty of human worlds were allowed to bend the knee as long as it furthered his overall goals. Mars being the most important one of those.

Because I think he needed to keep the world secular until he completed the Crusade or until his enthronement on the golden throne if he knew that would happen which I don't think he did because he intended Magnus to sit there. He would have to let it happen organically, if he destroyed the churches and religions and then just suddenly made himself a god, people wouldn't buy it. So I think he had to keep up appearances with secularism until everyone started to believe in him and the cult took off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I thought the presence of the C'Tan on Mars was what made Mars so technologically advanced and allowed the humans of the Dark Age of Technology to develop near parity with the hundred-million-year-old Eldar Empire. Plus, the C'Tan gave the Necrons a form of FTL travel that doesn't use the warp, and we all know how important the Emperor thought finding a way around warp travel was for the future of humanity.

It isn't a 100% fact that it is a C'tan shard.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
I think the Emperor intended to be a god, he destroyed all the churches and religions, I think he laid the groundwork for his apotheosis, he must of known religion would always exist, even the cult of the lectitio divinitatus had been about for most of the crusade, even one of his Primarchs with more capacity and potential than any human, believed that he was a god. he obviously knows the power of faith and he must have seen one future where he reigns as a god and how successful (and unsuccessful) it was. Without religion, he would be unable to keep alliances with the Mechanicum and purposely let them have their religion as it helped with the treaty of Mars and the source of their creative ingenuity came from the "Dragon" he placed on Mars. Its also helped with Terra's authority, as other planets across the universe see it as the holy land.

Why would he need to keep lying after the great crusade began? More importantly why would he have destroyed all of Lorgar's hopes and dreams if that were The Emperor's plan all along?

Yes, how the Emperor treated Lorgar and his actions on Monarchia really don't line up with making it happen organically. There is no reason why the Emperor would be actively surpressing it if it was meant to happen anyway. At least you would expect a god like being to habe gone about it in a less stupid manner then.

I don't think so, I can't recall which Heresy novel it was, but it said his intention was to ensure the safe evolution of man into a fully psychic race. Once the crusade was done and the webway in mans control, he intended to fade back into obscurity and anonymity. I see no reason to reject that idea, and would rather accept that as a motive than that he just had an ego larger than his empire.

 BigbyWolf wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
I think the Emperor intended to be a god, he destroyed all the churches and religions, I think he laid the groundwork for his apotheosis, he must of known religion would always exist, even the cult of the lectitio divinitatus had been about for most of the crusade, even one of his Primarchs with more capacity and potential than any human, believed that he was a god. he obviously knows the power of faith and he must have seen one future where he reigns as a god and how successful (and unsuccessful) it was. Without religion, he would be unable to keep alliances with the Mechanicum and purposely let them have their religion as it helped with the treaty of Mars and the source of their creative ingenuity came from the "Dragon" he placed on Mars. Its also helped with Terra's authority, as other planets across the universe see it as the holy land.

Why would he need to keep lying after the great crusade began? More importantly why would he have destroyed all of Lorgar's hopes and dreams if that were The Emperor's plan all along?

Because I think he needed to keep the world secular until he completed the Crusade or until his enthronement on the golden throne if he knew that would happen which I don't think he did because he intended Magnus to sit there. He would have to let it happen organically, if he destroyed the churches and religions and then just suddenly made himself a god, people wouldn't buy it. So I think he had to keep up appearances with secularism until everyone started to believe in him and the cult took off. I think Lorgars dreams were too soon, the Emperor doesn't care about destroying Lorgars hope if its in the best interests of the species. Censuring Lorgar would be what was expected of him, if he was pushing the Imperial truth.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes, how the Emperor treated Lorgar and his actions on Monarchia really don't line up with making it happen organically. There is no reason why the Emperor would be actively surpressing it if it was meant to happen anyway. At least you would expect a god like being to habe gone about it in a less stupid manner then.

Because if he forced himself into being a god there would be resistance, like the priest in the last church of terra. If he didn't destroy all the churches and religions, people wouldn't freely start to believe in the Emperor, there'd be resistance and wars even, which always happens with religion, if he destroyed religion in place of secularism, maybe he'd keep doing that, so hundreds of years past and everyone would forget about the past religions as the new generations came. If he just said 'I am your god worship me' it wouldn't have worked, in his time people thought he was a god but most people didn't.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes, how the Emperor treated Lorgar and his actions on Monarchia really don't line up with making it happen organically. There is no reason why the Emperor would be actively surpressing it if it was meant to happen anyway. At least you would expect a god like being to habe gone about it in a less stupid manner then.

Because if he forced himself into being a god there would be resistance, like the priest in the last church of terra. If he didn't destroy all the churches and religions, people wouldn't freely start to believe in the Emperor, there'd be resistance and wars even, which always happens with religion, if he destroyed religion in place of secularism, maybe he'd keep doing that, so hundreds of years past and everyone would forget about the past religions as the new generations came. If he just said 'I am your god worship me' it wouldn't have worked, in his time people thought he was a god but most people didn't.

But the Emperor wasn't forcing anyone, the WB were converting and preaching, not forcing people to worship at the end of a bolter. The Emperor came down incredibly harshly, not just against the WB but also those that worshipped him. How does that work? He was already eradicating whole religions and worlds to achieve compliance and could have easily installed himself as a god from the beginning of the GC. People fought against the Emperor regardless of that.

People were already freely worshipping him and he punished them for it. Also most people do believe he is a god of some sort, his cult was already actively spreading during the GC which is a significant part of the start of the HH series, which is why he has to so vehemently deny it (as well as the whole AdMech thinking he is their Jesus basically). He would have never had to deny he was a god if that was his final goal. He just would have not actively promoted it if he wanted to avoid appearances.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes, how the Emperor treated Lorgar and his actions on Monarchia really don't line up with making it happen organically. There is no reason why the Emperor would be actively surpressing it if it was meant to happen anyway. At least you would expect a god like being to habe gone about it in a less stupid manner then.

Because if he forced himself into being a god there would be resistance, like the priest in the last church of terra. If he didn't destroy all the churches and religions, people wouldn't freely start to believe in the Emperor, there'd be resistance and wars even, which always happens with religion, if he destroyed religion in place of secularism, maybe he'd keep doing that, so hundreds of years past and everyone would forget about the past religions as the new generations came. If he just said 'I am your god worship me' it wouldn't have worked, in his time people thought he was a god but most people didn't.

But the Emperor wasn't forcing anyone, the WB were converting and preaching, not forcing people to worship at the end of a bolter. The Emperor came down incredibly harshly, not just against the WB but also those that worshipped him. How does that work? He was already eradicating whole religions and worlds to achieve compliance and could have easily installed himself as a god from the beginning of the GC. People fought against the Emperor regardless of that.

People were already freely worshipping him and he punished them for it. Also most people do believe he is a god of some sort, his cult was already actively spreading during the GC which is a significant part of the start of the HH series, which is why he has to so vehemently deny it (as well as the whole AdMech thinking he is their Jesus basically). He would have never had to deny he was a god if that was his final goal. He just would have not actively promoted it if he wanted to avoid appearances.

You don't understand what I'm saying. Doesn't matter though, It's just my opinion that he intended to be a god. The lectitio divinitatus was written on the basis that only a god can deny his own divinity, If he didn't destroy religions he would have blow back in making himself a god, the Imperial cult at the time was small, and they believe that he was a god because he denied being a god, so the Emperor would logically continue on that basis, and also he would continue to promote the Imperial truth because the longer humanity were left without religion the less they would fight against the Emperor being a god as time went on. So if he is making it look like he is for secularism then he would censure people believing in him as being a god. The emperor works on timelines far in advance than humans. I just think he was laying the groundworks.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Wandered around and had to kill things is entirely different from mind controlling and brain washing an entire planet (if he could then he is just wasting time on some sort of bloodsport instead of warping into orbit and turning on the suicide power). I'm not denying he is an incredibly powerful psyker, but that doesn't mean his powers can do anything or are limitless. We don't know if he can actually rip knowledge out of minds like that, if he could why didn't he do so to spread the manufacture of forgeworld material to other Imperial planets? Nothing he did demonstrates that he could just do everything by himself by mind ripping others.

You forget that the Emperor has a moment between him getting off the throne and fighting Horus. If he really is as powerful as you say he could have snapped his fingers once he got up and ended the siege of Terra then and there. Once we reach the kind of planetary level mind control powers the fact that he even had to get in harm's way is stupid.

Were talking about tens if not hundreds of thousands of tech priests, the most senior of which are barely human. The Emperor hasn't displayed power like you're describing now, the closest he has come is forcing the WB legion to kneel in the ruins of Monarchia. If he could actually see what swims arpund in people's minds he would have found about about the Chaos worshipping of the older WB members like Khor in no time.


The Cult of Mars isn't so dangerous that the Emperor had to go to such lengths to wipe it out, seeing as it isn't Chaos inspired like many others.

He's powerful enough to create what's effectively a ball of energy so powerful it's seen across the Galaxy, while also obliterating some of the most powerful Orks to ever exist or forcing an entire Legion to kneel. Mind control is very much within his power. I'm not saying he needs to rip knowledge out of someones head just mind control them and get them to teach people or record it.

The reasons to not do it are either mind control is just not a thing in Warhammer which I think is incorrect although I can't source it. Or much more simply it didn't occur to him which is very plausible given his other actions like not caring a fair few Primarchs pretty clearly had 0 loyalty to him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I thought the presence of the C'Tan on Mars was what made Mars so technologically advanced and allowed the humans of the Dark Age of Technology to develop near parity with the hundred-million-year-old Eldar Empire. Plus, the C'Tan gave the Necrons a form of FTL travel that doesn't use the warp, and we all know how important the Emperor thought finding a way around warp travel was for the future of humanity.

They in no way had near parity with the Eldar. Plus the non Warp FTL is a grey issue now as they've not been mentioned since newcrons AFAIK.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes, how the Emperor treated Lorgar and his actions on Monarchia really don't line up with making it happen organically. There is no reason why the Emperor would be actively surpressing it if it was meant to happen anyway. At least you would expect a god like being to habe gone about it in a less stupid manner then.

Because if he forced himself into being a god there would be resistance, like the priest in the last church of terra. If he didn't destroy all the churches and religions, people wouldn't freely start to believe in the Emperor, there'd be resistance and wars even, which always happens with religion, if he destroyed religion in place of secularism, maybe he'd keep doing that, so hundreds of years past and everyone would forget about the past religions as the new generations came. If he just said 'I am your god worship me' it wouldn't have worked, in his time people thought he was a god but most people didn't.

But the Emperor wasn't forcing anyone, the WB were converting and preaching, not forcing people to worship at the end of a bolter. The Emperor came down incredibly harshly, not just against the WB but also those that worshipped him. How does that work? He was already eradicating whole religions and worlds to achieve compliance and could have easily installed himself as a god from the beginning of the GC. People fought against the Emperor regardless of that.

People were already freely worshipping him and he punished them for it. Also most people do believe he is a god of some sort, his cult was already actively spreading during the GC which is a significant part of the start of the HH series, which is why he has to so vehemently deny it (as well as the whole AdMech thinking he is their Jesus basically). He would have never had to deny he was a god if that was his final goal. He just would have not actively promoted it if he wanted to avoid appearances.

You don't understand what I'm saying. Doesn't matter though, It's just my opinion that he intended to be a god. The lectitio divinitatus was written on the basis that only a god can deny his own divinity, If he didn't destroy religions he would have blow back in making himself a god, the Imperial cult at the time was small, and they believe that he was a god because he denied being a god, so the Emperor would logically continue on that basis, and also he would continue to promote the Imperial truth because the longer humanity were left without religion the less they would fight against the Emperor being a god as time went on. So if he is making it look like he is for secularism then he would censure people believing in him as being a god. The emperor works on timelines far in advance than humans. I just think he was laying the groundworks.

I do understand what you're saying, the issue is that the Emperor commits to actions that not only contradict your opinion but actively tried to undermine it for no logical reasons.

The LD was written by Lorgar who was convinced the Emperor was a god untill the Emperor destroyed Lorgar's faith. That directly contradicts your opinion that the Emperor wanted to become a god freely, Lorgar freely believed it and got punished over it. That action directly contradicts your opinion.

Again, he didn't destroy religions because he wanted to become a god, he destroyed religions because more often than not the Chaos Gods were behind them. The WB are the best example of this, Chaos worshiping homeworld, they freely convert to the Emperor and the Emperor drives them right back into the arms of Chaos. He didn't get blow back from them, he was the one doing the blow back. The WB already weren't fighting the belief of the Emperor's divinity and he crushed them and the faithful over it, how do you rhyme that with "the less they would fight against the Emperor being a god as time went on"?

If he was laying the groundwork he wouldn't have acted so harshly against Lorgar, who was the primary driver of the grassroots movement that turned the Emperor into a god later on through the LD. That was an incredibly short sighted action for someone who
"works on timelines far in advance".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Wandered around and had to kill things is entirely different from mind controlling and brain washing an entire planet (if he could then he is just wasting time on some sort of bloodsport instead of warping into orbit and turning on the suicide power). I'm not denying he is an incredibly powerful psyker, but that doesn't mean his powers can do anything or are limitless. We don't know if he can actually rip knowledge out of minds like that, if he could why didn't he do so to spread the manufacture of forgeworld material to other Imperial planets? Nothing he did demonstrates that he could just do everything by himself by mind ripping others.

You forget that the Emperor has a moment between him getting off the throne and fighting Horus. If he really is as powerful as you say he could have snapped his fingers once he got up and ended the siege of Terra then and there. Once we reach the kind of planetary level mind control powers the fact that he even had to get in harm's way is stupid.

Were talking about tens if not hundreds of thousands of tech priests, the most senior of which are barely human. The Emperor hasn't displayed power like you're describing now, the closest he has come is forcing the WB legion to kneel in the ruins of Monarchia. If he could actually see what swims arpund in people's minds he would have found about about the Chaos worshipping of the older WB members like Khor in no time.


The Cult of Mars isn't so dangerous that the Emperor had to go to such lengths to wipe it out, seeing as it isn't Chaos inspired like many others.

He's powerful enough to create what's effectively a ball of energy so powerful it's seen across the Galaxy, while also obliterating some of the most powerful Orks to ever exist or forcing an entire Legion to kneel. Mind control is very much within his power. I'm not saying he needs to rip knowledge out of someones head just mind control them and get them to teach people or record it.

The reasons to not do it are either mind control is just not a thing in Warhammer which I think is incorrect although I can't source it. Or much more simply it didn't occur to him which is very plausible given his other actions like not caring a fair few Primarchs pretty clearly had 0 loyalty to him.

But the Emperor needed the Astronomicon to focus through to be able to do that, he couldn't do it unaided. Yes he could fight or force a legion to kneel, but that is on a different level from mind controlling an entire planet. If the Emperor had that power he would never had to leave his ship. He could have saved Angron from his fate by snapping his fingers and not let his comrades get butchered. The Emperor didn't have that power and if he really did the whole HH endgame becomes even more stupid.

And if he mind controls someone how can he force them to teach something if he can't access the information? Mind control is basically puppeting, it doesn't enable you to live through them or know what they know, because then how did he not immediatly see through Kor on Monarchia?

I'm pretty sure mind control was a psyker power in the TT. But again, if the Emperor could mind control on such a scale as to wipe out the Cult of Mars then nothing and no one should have been able to challenge him, certainly not some measily Space Marines in the siege of Terra.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yes, how the Emperor treated Lorgar and his actions on Monarchia really don't line up with making it happen organically. There is no reason why the Emperor would be actively surpressing it if it was meant to happen anyway. At least you would expect a god like being to habe gone about it in a less stupid manner then.

Because if he forced himself into being a god there would be resistance, like the priest in the last church of terra. If he didn't destroy all the churches and religions, people wouldn't freely start to believe in the Emperor, there'd be resistance and wars even, which always happens with religion, if he destroyed religion in place of secularism, maybe he'd keep doing that, so hundreds of years past and everyone would forget about the past religions as the new generations came. If he just said 'I am your god worship me' it wouldn't have worked, in his time people thought he was a god but most people didn't.

But the Emperor wasn't forcing anyone, the WB were converting and preaching, not forcing people to worship at the end of a bolter. The Emperor came down incredibly harshly, not just against the WB but also those that worshipped him. How does that work? He was already eradicating whole religions and worlds to achieve compliance and could have easily installed himself as a god from the beginning of the GC. People fought against the Emperor regardless of that.

People were already freely worshipping him and he punished them for it. Also most people do believe he is a god of some sort, his cult was already actively spreading during the GC which is a significant part of the start of the HH series, which is why he has to so vehemently deny it (as well as the whole AdMech thinking he is their Jesus basically). He would have never had to deny he was a god if that was his final goal. He just would have not actively promoted it if he wanted to avoid appearances.

You don't understand what I'm saying. Doesn't matter though, It's just my opinion that he intended to be a god. The lectitio divinitatus was written on the basis that only a god can deny his own divinity, If he didn't destroy religions he would have blow back in making himself a god, the Imperial cult at the time was small, and they believe that he was a god because he denied being a god, so the Emperor would logically continue on that basis, and also he would continue to promote the Imperial truth because the longer humanity were left without religion the less they would fight against the Emperor being a god as time went on. So if he is making it look like he is for secularism then he would censure people believing in him as being a god. The emperor works on timelines far in advance than humans. I just think he was laying the groundworks.

I do understand what you're saying, the issue is that the Emperor commits to actions that not only contradict your opinion but actively tried to undermine it for no logical reasons.

The LD was written by Lorgar who was convinced the Emperor was a god untill the Emperor destroyed Lorgar's faith. That directly contradicts your opinion that the Emperor wanted to become a god freely, Lorgar freely believed it and got punished over it. That action directly contradicts your opinion.

Again, he didn't destroy religions because he wanted to become a god, he destroyed religions because more often than not the Chaos Gods were behind them. The WB are the best example of this, Chaos worshiping homeworld, they freely convert to the Emperor and the Emperor drives them right back into the arms of Chaos. He didn't get blow back from them, he was the one doing the blow back. The WB already weren't fighting the belief of the Emperor's divinity and he crushed them and the faithful over it, how do you rhyme that with "the less they would fight against the Emperor being a god as time went on"?

If he was laying the groundwork he wouldn't have acted so harshly against Lorgar, who was the primary driver of the grassroots movement that turned the Emperor into a god later on through the LD. That was an incredibly short sighted action for someone who
"works on timelines far in advance".

The LD was written by Lorgar but the Emperor could have seen that as the foundation of the religion, he didn't have to write it himself, I never said he destroyed religion because he wanted to be a god, I said that I think that's what he did. I never said the WB would give him blow-back, you don't understand anything that I'm saying. I said he censured the WB because if he was pretending to show that he was a secular leader against religion, then he would have to act like it, and someone that is a secularist would censure one of their generals for going against their commands etc. i.e. the Imperial truth. The blowback I was talking about was not from the WB it was from any religion from the human population, if they still had their religions they would fight the Emperor if he commanded that they worship him, it would take generations for them to forget about the gods they worshipped and in that time a belief in him could grow naturally and if it grew naturally people would be more inclined to follow him rather than being forced to by him dictating that he was a god. Being a secularist would be the only way he could destroy religions, him saying I'm a god and you will now worship me would be met with extreme resistance.

Why the focus on mind controlling planets? All you need is to mind control the knowledgeable people and tell them to write their knowledge down.
As for not knowing about Chaos marines that's very easy to explain. He didn't check. The Emperor doesn't check things. That's why he has dumb plans like the Webway project and galactic genocide.

pm713 wrote:
Why the focus on mind controlling planets? All you need is to mind control the knowledgeable people and tell them to write their knowledge down.
As for not knowing about Chaos marines that's very easy to explain. He didn't check. The Emperor doesn't check things. That's why he has dumb plans like the Webway project and galactic genocide.

How is the webway project dumb, galactic genocide ensures the survival of the species. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean its dumb.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

The LD was written by Lorgar but the Emperor could have seen that as the foundation of the religion, he didn't have to write it himself, I never said he destroyed religion because he wanted to be a god, I said that I think that's what he did. I never said the WB would give him blow-back, you don't understand anything that I'm saying. I said he censured the WB because if he was pretending to show that he was a secular leader against religion, then he would have to act like it, and someone that is a secularist would censure one of their generals for going against their commands etc. i.e. the Imperial truth. The blowback I was talking about was not from the WB it was from any religion from the human population, if they still had their religions they would fight the Emperor if he commanded that they worship him, it would take generations for them to forget about the gods they worshipped and in that time a belief in him could grow naturally and if it grew naturally people would be more inclined to follow him rather than being forced to by him dictating that he was a god. Being a secularist would be the only way he could destroy religions, him saying I'm a god and you will now worship me would be met with extreme resistance.

Repeating over and over that I understand doesn't make it true. What the Emperor did directly contradicts your opinion by going far into the other direction. If he wanted to just make a public show against the WB he didn't have tk humiliate them in the ruins of their achievements brought down by their most hated rivals. There is pretending with a long term plan and downright sabotaging the primary driver between what he was in your opinion trying to achieve. Besides the Emperor still ran a quasi dictatorship, regular joe wouldn't have heard the details of the Emperor punishing the WB down to the detail if they heard it at all.

I understand you were talking about general pop blow back. My point was that the WB were converting said general pop without that blow back because they were so good at it. If the Emperor really had that plan he would have just used the WB as his missionaries. The whole destroy you religious grassroots movement now so they might worship you as a god later makes no sense. You forget that the GC took decades, he didn't have to destroy religions overnight and institute his worship immediatly.

And even if he did, would it really matter? If he had indoctrinated his crusade forces from the start then no resistance would have mattered as no human empire was strong enough to oppose them. Again, his actions during the GC don't back up your long term plan opinion regardless of force or not.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Why the focus on mind controlling planets? All you need is to mind control the knowledgeable people and tell them to write their knowledge down.
As for not knowing about Chaos marines that's very easy to explain. He didn't check. The Emperor doesn't check things. That's why he has dumb plans like the Webway project and galactic genocide.

How is the webway project dumb, galactic genocide ensures the survival of the species. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean its dumb.

Because his whole plan was to break into the Webway which negated the Imperiums best advantage, gave the Eldar a reason to unify against him and was pretty risky because there's no guarantee that there wasn't some nutter Eldar with a distortion bomb who'd kill everyone. The Webway is just a big list of ways that millions of humans will die while the Eldar have every advantage which is assuming they can't just lock out the Emperor.

Galactic GENOCIDE did nothing but endanger humanity. Killing off races that threatened humanity is fair enough but by attacking everyone even if they would have been allies or wanted to be left alone ensures that every single race that exists or would exist became their enemy. It's insane and done just for a nutcases ego.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

The LD was written by Lorgar but the Emperor could have seen that as the foundation of the religion, he didn't have to write it himself, I never said he destroyed religion because he wanted to be a god, I said that I think that's what he did. I never said the WB would give him blow-back, you don't understand anything that I'm saying. I said he censured the WB because if he was pretending to show that he was a secular leader against religion, then he would have to act like it, and someone that is a secularist would censure one of their generals for going against their commands etc. i.e. the Imperial truth. The blowback I was talking about was not from the WB it was from any religion from the human population, if they still had their religions they would fight the Emperor if he commanded that they worship him, it would take generations for them to forget about the gods they worshipped and in that time a belief in him could grow naturally and if it grew naturally people would be more inclined to follow him rather than being forced to by him dictating that he was a god. Being a secularist would be the only way he could destroy religions, him saying I'm a god and you will now worship me would be met with extreme resistance.

Repeating over and over that I understand doesn't make it true. What the Emperor did directly contradicts your opinion by going far into the other direction. If he wanted to just make a public show against the WB he didn't have tk humiliate them in the ruins of their achievements brought down by their most hated rivals. There is pretending with a long term plan and downright sabotaging the primary driver between what he was in your opinion trying to achieve. Besides the Emperor still ran a quasi dictatorship, regular joe wouldn't have heard the details of the Emperor punishing the WB down to the detail if they heard it at all.

I understand you were talking about general pop blow back. My point was that the WB were converting said general pop without that blow back because they were so good at it. If the Emperor really had that plan he would have just used the WB as his missionaries. The whole destroy you religious grassroots movement now so they might worship you as a god later makes no sense. You forget that the GC took decades, he didn't have to destroy religions overnight and institute his worship immediatly.

And even if he did, would it really matter? If he had indoctrinated his crusade forces from the start then no resistance would have mattered as no human empire was strong enough to oppose them. Again, his actions during the GC don't back up your long term plan opinion regardless of force or not.

The Emperor knew how important symbolism was and everyone found out about the humiliation, just because it was harsh doesn't mean that the Emperor wouldn't do that. The WB were not good at it, they had a handful of planets, which took them up until Mornarchia to build them into perfect religious planets. Those worlds worked because Lorgar really thought the Emperor was a god, if the Emperor dictated that all the Primarchs did that to all the worlds they took it would be common place knowledge and it would show the emperor dictating that people believe in him as a god.So what if the great crusade took ages. It doesn't matter that Astartes meant no one could appose them, its not about apposing, military might is not going to force people to believe in the Emperor as a god. If someone dictated you worship them as a god, no one would do it, they'd just see a tyrant, not a god.

Sybolism doesn't mean destroying an incredibly promising opportunity to pave the way to godhood. What the WB were doing was effective without much blow back. They were converting loyal populations. The Emperor censored them because he only cared about speed, hence his use of the Ultramarines to cast down their works. The Word Bearers were amazing at it, they converted whole worlds that were very loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium. After Empy censored the WB they highly effectively converted the other worlds they conquered to Chaos worship as well as spreading it to other legions. Again, he didn't have to impose it on other Primarchs, he could have just let the WB work and slowly convert the population. He actively undermined said peaceful efforts and destroyed a world of his faithful, what does that show to your future worshippers?

And again, plenty of worlds saw the Emperor as a tyrant violently bringing them into compliance and casting down their religions. Imposing his worship on them wouldn't have exactly made it any worse, he could have just indocrinated the populations if he really wanted (which he technically already did with his opposition against religion seeing as in 40K gods are real).


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pm713 wrote:
Why the focus on mind controlling planets? All you need is to mind control the knowledgeable people and tell them to write their knowledge down.
As for not knowing about Chaos marines that's very easy to explain. He didn't check. The Emperor doesn't check things. That's why he has dumb plans like the Webway project and galactic genocide.

Because you started off talking about the Emperor killing of the Cult of Mars, in which the whole planet is indoctrinated. You were talking about the Emperor just casually mind controlling all the tech priests on Mars. To kill off that belief you would have to be able to control everyone spreading/active in that faith to stop it from spreading to the next generation. And again, we have no idea if mind control which is akin to puppeting can make you force people to write down knowledge, that seemingly isn't how it works, you control their bodies, not their minds.

Also those plans aren't dumb, he has very sound reasoning in universe for both, the webway for reliable troop transportation and the genocide because he believed that as the long night showed it was either the aliens or humans. He had no interest in the surivival or Eldar or any other race.

Not a big reader of Horus heresy books. I’ve always quite like the mysteries and contradictions and don’t want too much explained but you could answer this as it seems you lot know a lot more about this eras canon than I do. Is it possible that some of the empowered anti worship and anti religious stance was because he knew the real tangible gods were the chaos ones and was trying to stop inadvertent chaos worship? Just an idea that came to me while reading this thread. Could be absolute rubbish. I always believed he was against being a god himself and would be unhappy with the way he is seen now but has no basis in any text I know of.

Andykp wrote:
Not a big reader of Horus heresy books. I’ve always quite like the mysteries and contradictions and don’t want too much explained but you could answer this as it seems you lot know a lot more about this eras canon than I do. Is it possible that some of the empowered anti worship and anti religious stance was because he knew the real tangible gods were the chaos ones and was trying to stop inadvertent chaos worship? Just an idea that came to me while reading this thread. Could be absolute rubbish. I always believed he was against being a god himself and would be unhappy with the way he is seen now but has no basis in any text I know of.

That is exactly why the Emperor tried to eradicate religion. He thought if he would eradicate religion to a sufficient extent that the Chaos Gods would be weakened beyond recovery. The Chaos Gods actually present themselves as victims to Horus iirc because of the Emperor trying to usurp their power and eliminate them, to achieve godhood. I think one of the visions shown is that in the future the Emperor has a huge personality cult and the Chaos Gods use it to argue that Horus is going to be abandoned by the Emperor and that Empy is a hypocrit. Of course this actually happens but only because of Horus kinda killing him.

As demonstrated, him wanting to actually be a god or not is debatable, the HH series seems to contradict it so far at least.