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What do you think would have happened if the Emperor told mankind about the Chaos gods. The Imperium has no capability anymore in 40k to hide the existence of chaos since the daemon invasion on Terra, though we have yet to see if there are serious implications due to that. If the Emperor did that at the beginning would the Primarchs have still gone Chaos or would the Horus Heresy even have happened at all, or would it have been a slam dunk for Chaos. I think that Chaos foresaw that the Emperor would betray them, as it would have been so much easier for the Horus Heresy to happen if the Emperor kept it a secret, but what if he didn't. I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think. I don't want to debate on whether or not the Emperor actually made a deal with chaos though as there is another thread about that at the moment, but its a free country.

The Imperium can very much hide the existence of Chaos still and the Emperor isn't a Chaos God of balance in any way.

imo: the heresy would have happened either way. Perhaps the emperor for-saw a betrayal manipulated by Chaos and was attempting to prevent his armies from coming into contact with them in the first place - waiting until his empire was secure before he dealt with the forces of chaos head-on.

Since we don't know what he promised we can't really guess.


It might have been the souls of half his and one. So chaos ended up collecting anyway.

And even if he had bothered tellng his primarchs it wouldn't have saved most of them. Angron would still have been angry, horus dissillisioned, Magnus overconfident etc..
Or it might have and Chaos would find another way in.

Whilst fanfic/ AU ideas we can't properly speculate.

pm713 wrote:
The Imperium can very much hide the existence of Chaos still and the Emperor isn't a Chaos God of balance in any way.

Didn't say he was. The Imperium can't anymore, its just an amount of time before every planet knows.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Earth127 wrote:
Since we don't know what he promised we can't really guess.


It might have been the souls of half his and one. So chaos ended up collecting anyway.

And even if he had bothered tellng his primarchs it wouldn't have saved most of them. Angron would still have been angry, horus dissillisioned, Magnus overconfident etc..
Or it might have and Chaos would find another way in.

Whilst fanfic/ AU ideas we can't properly speculate.

Chaos says that the Primarchs came from the warp and that they want them back. I'm not looking for answers just a discussion on what people think. I wonder if Angron would have turned without the butchers nails.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SirWeeble wrote:
imo: the heresy would have happened either way. Perhaps the emperor for-saw a betrayal manipulated by Chaos and was attempting to prevent his armies from coming into contact with them in the first place - waiting until his empire was secure before he dealt with the forces of chaos head-on.

I doubt that, it without doubt would have to have happened, well not at that same time at least. a chaos led civil war would probably happen regardless but not likely at the exact same time as the HH.

You brought up the idea of a Chaos god of balance.

It really isn't. Their plan of mind wipe/kill everyone has worked for 10k years and it's not like the Imperium has some great way of transferring knowledge between everyone.

pm713 wrote:
You brought up the idea of a Chaos god of balance.

It really isn't. Their plan of mind wipe/kill everyone has worked for 10k years and it's not like the Imperium has some great way of transferring knowledge between everyone.

No I said other people believe him to be a god of balance:

" I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think." I think its daft to think of him as a Chaos god as the chaos gods cannot stay in the materium, they can't even actually enter it, only parts of them can.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
You brought up the idea of a Chaos god of balance.

It really isn't. Their plan of mind wipe/kill everyone has worked for 10k years and it's not like the Imperium has some great way of transferring knowledge between everyone.

No I said other people believe him to be a god of balance:

" I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think." I think its daft to think of him as a Chaos god as the chaos gods cannot stay in the materium, they can't even actually enter it, only parts of them can.

Which is bringing it up.

That's basically what the Emperor does. A small part of his body is alive but most of his power/consciousness is in the Warp.

pm713 wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
You brought up the idea of a Chaos god of balance.

It really isn't. Their plan of mind wipe/kill everyone has worked for 10k years and it's not like the Imperium has some great way of transferring knowledge between everyone.

No I said other people believe him to be a god of balance:

" I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think." I think its daft to think of him as a Chaos god as the chaos gods cannot stay in the materium, they can't even actually enter it, only parts of them can.

Which is bringing it up.

That's basically what the Emperor does. A small part of his body is alive but most of his power/consciousness is in the Warp.

My bad, I thought you were saying that I believed that he was the Chaos god of balance. Before his internment on the golden throne he wan't though, he walked about the Earth like everyone else. But I suppose like Slaanesh his internment could have been his apotheosis.

A lot of people already know about the existence of the chaos gods.

Every single commissar, every SOB, every inquisitor, all of the inquisitors' retinue, high ranking military officers (IG and navy), and even some of the nobility are privy to the secret of the existence and the nature of chaos. It is only the common Imperial citizen that DOESN'T know and for good reason. The golden throne seems awfully distant compared to the nature of chaos and a lot of people would probably convert to chaos out of sheer fear. Not only that, chaos seems much more REAL upon consideration then worshipping the emperor, as the chaos gods actually bestow boons/powers and can manifest avatars of their will (daemons),

w1zard wrote:
A lot of people already know about the existence of the chaos gods.

Every single commissar, every SOB, every inquisitor, all of the inquisitors' retinue, high ranking military officers (IG and navy), and even some of the nobility are privy to the secret of the existence and the nature of chaos. It is only the common Imperial citizen that DOESN'T know and for good reason. The golden throne seems awfully distant compared to the nature of chaos and a lot of people would probably convert to chaos out of sheer fear. Not only that, chaos seems much more REAL upon consideration then worshipping the emperor, as the chaos gods actually bestow boons/powers and can manifest avatars of their will (daemons),

Yeah tonnes know, they have to but now that the average Terran knows, there is no possible way to keep it secret. Though at the time of the great crusade hardly anyone knew, not even most of the Primarchs knew in any great detail, plus at the time so many cultures and peoples where being introduced to the Imperium, it would have been so much easier for Chaos to turn the humans in these cultures as they were not yet indoctrinated with the Imperial Truth.

Why does the average Terran make a difference? They aren't important and they can vanish just as easily as anyone else who knows too much.

pm713 wrote:
Why does the average Terran make a difference? They aren't important and they can vanish just as easily as anyone else who knows too much.

Because its the hub of the Imperium, every cargo ship that goes there to drop off resources that are gathered throughout the galaxy, people travel there for business, dealings with the church, they take pilgrimages there (though pilgrims normally will never return) but the point is, there is always talk, the Terrans will talk of the daemons and all the space faring visitors will return will all those stories of daemons and it will propagate throughout the Imperium. If a daemon incursion happened on earth just now to some tribe in Africa, it wouldn't make much of a difference, but if it happened in New York, it would make a massive difference.

I don’t see why they can’t keep it quiet on the nice side of the rift. Don’t underestimate the power of authoritarian regimes to quieten things down. Armageddon was a very important planet with lots of traffic and they kept a full scale planetary incursion quiet by killing everyone who was anywhere near it. If anything all the pilgrimages and comings and goings would make it I easier. A transient population is easier to disappear without questions.

Also the authoritarian nature of the state would mean people who have seen a glimpse of chaos would know to gak up about it. Just check the end of the shadows word novel.

Not knowing about chaos protects most people but psychic people will always be at risk, but one things is evident in all the fluff, knowing about chaos and it’s temptations and not giving in takes a very well special type of person. All the hang ups the primarichs had it might have been worse if they’d known about chaos openly.

This thread isn’t very specific. The title is asking about what if He kept his side of the bargain. A bargain of which we have no details what so ever and the first line of the first post is asking what we think would have happened if the Emperor has told everyone about Chaos. They are two distinct things.

Also just because there is a Warp rift across the galaxy doesn’t mean “loads” of people know about Chaos. It just means they know that the Warp has spilled through and that the Warp is what people travel in to get to far distant places.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Why does the average Terran make a difference? They aren't important and they can vanish just as easily as anyone else who knows too much.

Because its the hub of the Imperium, every cargo ship that goes there to drop off resources that are gathered throughout the galaxy, people travel there for business, dealings with the church, they take pilgrimages there (though pilgrims normally will never return) but the point is, there is always talk, the Terrans will talk of the daemons and all the space faring visitors will return will all those stories of daemons and it will propagate throughout the Imperium. If a daemon incursion happened on earth just now to some tribe in Africa, it wouldn't make much of a difference, but if it happened in New York, it would make a massive difference.

Lol. Every Forge World, Hive World and Agri World ships to a lot of other planets, lots of shrine worlds have pilgrims. People would always talk. They don't because anyone who saw too much gets turned to liquid. That applies to Terra as much as anywhere else. Terran citizens are as worthless as everyone else who isn't a high up.

What it's really like is a town in England sees Daemons and are liquidised vs a city in England having the same treatment, it's harder but it still happens.

Mellow wrote:
This thread isn’t very specific. The title is asking about what if He kept his side of the bargain. A bargain of which we have no details what so ever and the first line of the first post is asking what we think would have happened if the Emperor has told everyone about Chaos. They are two distinct things.

Also just because there is a Warp rift across the galaxy doesn’t mean “loads” of people know about Chaos. It just means they know that the Warp has spilled through and that the Warp is what people travel in to get to far distant places.

Him keeping his bargain would be telling everyone of Chaos. We do know of the bargain, Ingathel the ascended spoke about it, The Emperor was given powers to create the Primarchs and in return he was supposed to show humanity the existence of chaos. Its in first heretic

"You have been raised with tales of the primarchs that lead your Legions, but you have been fed centuries of lies. In a matter of moments, you will witness the truth. The Anathema dealt with the Powers of the warp long before he left Earth on the Great Crusade.The Anathema desired mighty sons, and the gods granted him the lore to forge them with a union of divine genetics and psychic sorcery. He came to my masters, hungry for answers, beseeching the gods for power. With the lore they gave him, he shaped his twenty sons. But treacheries have occurred. Oaths – sworn in blood and paid in soul – have been broken. The Anathema now refuses to show humanity the Primordial Truth, and the gods of the warp grow wrathful. The Anathema is keeping its twenty primarch sons and paying no price to the Powers that gifted him with the knowledge to shape them. Xaphen gripped the handrail to keep from going to his knees." - whether you want to believe Chaos is another matter, but this thread is assuming this deal is a fact.

It has nothing to do with the warp rift it has everything to do with the Daemon invasion on Terra.

So you are assuming that He had no idea how to make the Primarchs before He went to the Chaos Gods and asked for the knowledge?

Regarding the Daemon invasion of Terra ... only a very small number of people even know about it’s possibility. No one else probably outside of the Throne room knows I would imagine.

Mellow wrote:
So you are assuming that He had no idea how to make the Primarchs before He went to the Chaos Gods and asked for the knowledge?

He had the genetics but we know from multiple sources that the Primarchs are more than just flesh and blood. Their powers derive from the warp, even if most of them are not consciously psykers like Magnus. Sanguinius and Kurze are both precogs, Corax can turn invisible and Alpharius/Omegon seem to have strange split soul thing going on. All of these abiltiies are strongly implied to be more than just genetics. The Primarchs bodies are physical vessels for bottling warp juice.

Why should he told them and how would he told them?

I just dont see any sense in telling people "hey there are chaos gods" and the next sentence is "but you should only believe in science".

I mean if you could sell chaos gods and chaos demons as Interdimensional aliens, then you should do it.

Otherwise people would try to summon demons just for the fun.
Like the "bloodymary game" but much weirder.

Because they're the biggest threat to him and they're incredibly powerful? Chaos destroyed what was the strongest empire around and turned the survivors into refugees.

I don't see why anyone would ever summon demons for fun ever outside some dumb 40k comedy.

The invasion of terra bad warp beasties is no reason for everyone to know about chaos and imperial rules on it change. Just keep covering it up. The fact it’s on terra makes it easier to cover up not harder. It’s not 21st century with twitter and Facebook it’s the 41st meillenium witha Stalinist style government and weird psychic communication over the vast distance. Anyone getting off a freighter telling people he had heard about these weird creatures from the immaterium attacking the palace on holy terra ( and they only would’ve heard 2nd hand, mind wipe or death??) would just be picked up the imperial Stasi and disappeared. And anyone they knew.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
What do you think would have happened if the Emperor told mankind about the Chaos gods. The Imperium has no capability anymore in 40k to hide the existence of chaos since the daemon invasion on Terra, though we have yet to see if there are serious implications due to that. If the Emperor did that at the beginning would the Primarchs have still gone Chaos or would the Horus Heresy even have happened at all, or would it have been a slam dunk for Chaos. I think that Chaos foresaw that the Emperor would betray them, as it would have been so much easier for the Horus Heresy to happen if the Emperor kept it a secret, but what if he didn't. I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think. I don't want to debate on whether or not the Emperor actually made a deal with chaos though as there is another thread about that at the moment, but its a free country.

Well this is a mess to read.

Here are my answers to the many questions and statements you have asked:

in regards to everyone knowing about chaos, isn't it mentioned in the book about Khornes attack on the palace (watchers of the throne i think?) how everyone on Terra essentially now knows of the existence of chaos and daemons and that it was decided that there were too many people and too many important people to be able to mind wipe them all and so just essentially said F it people know now?

I don't have the book to hand a the moment and has been a while since i read it but that's essentially how I remember it going?

Maybe he did keep the deal.
Yes Mr Khorn. We do have some nutters that just like shedding blood.
Look at this beauty mr. Um miss? Slaanesh. Sexy,depraved human souls.
Hello Tzeentch. You want convoluted plots that dont go anywhere.
Have I got a deal for you. All this could be yours for the low low price 10K years worth of souls for some of that good warp stuff.
The stuff before you got your scratchers into it.

Thumbs up Emperor guy.

Mellow wrote:
So you are assuming that He had no idea how to make the Primarchs before He went to the Chaos Gods and asked for the knowledge?

Regarding the Daemon invasion of Terra ... only a very small number of people even know about it’s possibility. No one else probably outside of the Throne room knows I would imagine.

Not true, so many people saw it that they realised they could no longer keep it a secret. Yeah the citizens didn't realise a massive daemon incursion.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Mellow wrote:
So you are assuming that He had no idea how to make the Primarchs before He went to the Chaos Gods and asked for the knowledge?

Regarding the Daemon invasion of Terra ... only a very small number of people even know about it’s possibility. No one else probably outside of the Throne room knows I would imagine.

Not true, so many people saw it that they realised they could no longer keep it a secret.

Because every other invasion was only seen by a few people. Terra had like 15 people see, no keeping all them quiet.

pm713 wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Mellow wrote:
So you are assuming that He had no idea how to make the Primarchs before He went to the Chaos Gods and asked for the knowledge?

Regarding the Daemon invasion of Terra ... only a very small number of people even know about it’s possibility. No one else probably outside of the Throne room knows I would imagine.

Not true, so many people saw it that they realised they could no longer keep it a secret.

Because every other invasion was only seen by a few people. Terra had like 15 people see, no keeping all them quiet.

It was on Terra, on Luna and in the Sol System. The skies on terra were on fire the arbites were over run and anarchy ensued by people in the hab towers, The Lions Gate invasion was massive, something like 8 bloodthirsters, I'm sure no one saw it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bananarama wrote:
in regards to everyone knowing about chaos, isn't it mentioned in the book about Khornes attack on the palace (watchers of the throne i think?) how everyone on Terra essentially now knows of the existence of chaos and daemons and that it was decided that there were too many people and too many important people to be able to mind wipe them all and so just essentially said F it people know now?

I don't have the book to hand a the moment and has been a while since i read it but that's essentially how I remember it going?

Yup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

redbeast001 wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
What do you think would have happened if the Emperor told mankind about the Chaos gods. The Imperium has no capability anymore in 40k to hide the existence of chaos since the daemon invasion on Terra, though we have yet to see if there are serious implications due to that. If the Emperor did that at the beginning would the Primarchs have still gone Chaos or would the Horus Heresy even have happened at all, or would it have been a slam dunk for Chaos. I think that Chaos foresaw that the Emperor would betray them, as it would have been so much easier for the Horus Heresy to happen if the Emperor kept it a secret, but what if he didn't. I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think. I don't want to debate on whether or not the Emperor actually made a deal with chaos though as there is another thread about that at the moment, but its a free country.

Well this is a mess to read.

Here are my answers to the many questions and statements you have asked:

Spoiler:

What do you think would have happened if the Emperor told mankind about the Chaos gods

Humanity would've necked themselves like the several other times it and already did.

The Imperium has no capability anymore in 40k to hide the existence of chaos since the daemon invasion on Terra, though we have yet to see if there are serious implications due to that.

The Imperium has the capacity to control the flow of information to the general population of Imperial Worlds. With Warp Dreams being the main form of system to system communication, news can and will be heavily sensored and regulated. Plus the Inquisiton will mind wipe, purge or do any number of things to stop the spread of Chaos in the Imperium.

If the Emperor did that at the beginning would the Primarchs have still gone Chaos or would the Horus Heresy even have happened at all, or would it have been a slam dunk for Chaos.

The Emperor chose to use the Primarchs to unite the lost human worlds then eliminate some of them at the end of the great crusade. The Heresy would've still happened, expect the Emperor would've been the one to initiate the civil war. Would it have been a Slam Dunk for Chaos if he told them? I don't believe so, but they had been stolen and scattered across the universe by the Dark Gods so we will never find out.

I think that Chaos foresaw that the Emperor would betray them, as it would have been so much easier for the Horus Heresy to happen if the Emperor kept it a secret, but what if he didn't.

The Emperor never betrayed Chaos... I don't know why you would think that. Like i said above, it still would've happened since Chaos already stepped in and stole the Primarchs.

I don't think that the Emperor is working for chaos as he is thought of by many as being the chaos god of balance but still interesting to think. I don't want to debate on whether or not the Emperor actually made a deal with chaos though as there is another thread about that at the moment, but its a free country.

The Emperor isn't a god, he's a manufactured warp entity with the collective knowledge of all those that died to create him. There is no evidence that the Emperor made any deal with Chaos.

They don't have that ability anymore especially with the warp rift.

There are many instances where its said that the Emperor made a deal with chaos and he betrayed them. Where would I think that... really? First Heretic and Vengeful spirit, the whole novel vengeful spirit is about that lol

"He’d taken the power his father had taken, but he’d done so without deception. He’d taken it by force of arms and by virtue of his self-belief. There was no bargain made, no promise to honour. The power was his and his alone. Finally, after everything, Horus was a god." - VS

"Lupercal walked in a circle, jabbing a fist into his palm with every sentence. ‘At the dawn of the great diaspora, the Emperor travelled here in humble guise and found the gateway to
a realm of immortal gods. He offered them things only a god-in-waiting could offer, and they trusted Him. They gave Him a measure of their power, and with that power He wrought the science to unlock the mysteries of creation." - VS

"You have been raised with tales of the primarchs that lead your Legions, but you have been fed centuries of lies. In a matter of moments, you will witness the truth. The Anathema dealt with the Powers of the warp long before he left Earth on the Great Crusade. The Anathema desired mighty sons, and the gods granted him the lore to forge them with a union of divine genetics and psychic sorcery. He came to my masters, hungry for answers, beseeching the gods for power. With the lore they gave him, he shaped his twenty sons. But treacheries have occurred. Oaths – sworn in blood and paid in soul – have been broken. The Anathema now refuses to show humanity the Primordial Truth, and the gods of the warp grow wrathful. The Anathema is keeping its twenty primarch sons and paying no price to the Powers that gifted him with the knowledge to shape them. Xaphen gripped the handrail to keep from going to his knees." - first heretic

Sarcasm went overhead I see. Armageddon was invaded by a motherfething PRIMARCH and you they covered that up. Terra isn't special. You're just describing a demon invasion with more big demons than average.