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At the point where he was wounded from his fight with Horus?

We know he’s a perpetual so would probably have come back to life. So is it now officially one of 40Ks tragic ironies that someone put him on the throne keeping him alive and stopping him reincarnating?

Doesn’t make total sense to me because without the webway project someone had to fuel the astronomicom. But then it does allow for cool stories like the high lords of terra trying to keep the throne working cos they don’t want the emperor waking up and telling them what to do

It was the Emperor's idea.

It is believed Magnus was originally the intended Throne sitter but the Emperor sat in it before the Webway project blew up. The Emperor's last command to Dorn was to place Him on the Throne, which Dorn did. Whether or not there was some grand plan with regards regeneration or whatnot is anyone's guess.

But is this a mess that GW have created and the emperor going on the throne and commanding form to don it predates the concept of perpetuals I believe. Because the emperor could power the astronomicon remotely so he could have just died and regenerated and gone back to doing that

Its never stated the Emperor is a Perpetual though. He had a few in key positions during the Unification Wars but I've not seen it anywhere that the Emperor was one of them.

 Gert wrote:
Its never stated the Emperor is a Perpetual though. He had a few in key positions during the Unification Wars but I've not seen it anywhere that the Emperor was one of them.

Oh right, “people” talk about the emperor being a perpetual as if it’s an proper canonical fact

Are perpetuals truly immortal, or simply incredibly tough? I feel like the concentrated Chaos might of Horus should be able to fatally wound a perpetual in the same way the Emperor was able to erase Horus' soul.

 Haighus wrote:
Are perpetuals truly immortal, or simply incredibly tough? I feel like the concentrated Chaos might of Horus should be able to fatally wound a perpetual in the same way the Emperor was able to erase Horus' soul.

Something must be able to end them but I think that night haunter tried killing vulkan at a molecular level and vulkan still survived

mrFickle wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Are perpetuals truly immortal, or simply incredibly tough? I feel like the concentrated Chaos might of Horus should be able to fatally wound a perpetual in the same way the Emperor was able to erase Horus' soul.

Something must be able to end them but I think that night haunter tried killing vulkan at a molecular level and vulkan still survived

My suspicion is that perpetuals have some kind of psychic ability that sustains them- it is the only explanation that makes sense with Vulkan being disassembled and surviving. I think the power is more in the vein of Navigators- a passive ability- rather than the active powers of most psykers that require conscious effort to invoke.

That would suggest sufficiently powerful warp powers should be able to truly kill perpetuals by severing their link to the warp, and perhaps nulls too.

I believe Vulkan Lives also suggests that dropping Vulkan into a star would be sufficient, but that may not be a true death but more of a functional one, as no one could get him out again. I wonder if entities like the C'tan are capable of killing perpetuals through similar means, unless they are also confounded by the warp link as strictly material beings.

 Gert wrote:
Its never stated the Emperor is a Perpetual though. He had a few in key positions during the Unification Wars but I've not seen it anywhere that the Emperor was one of them.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/19/20th-oct-500-facts-for-500-stores/

Control F perpetual. It's also stated in Mark of Calth apparently.

Ya'll know lexicanum exists right? It took me two minutes to fact-check this.

mrFickle wrote:
But is this a mess that GW have created and the emperor going on the throne and commanding form to don it predates the concept of perpetuals I believe. Because the emperor could power the astronomicon remotely so he could have just died and regenerated and gone back to doing that

It's a mess created because Abnett introduced the setting-screwing concept of a perpetual with Grammaticus in Legion and somehow that infected the rest of the series to the point where now there's dozens of them somehow and they helped invent marines?

This is one of my biggest peeves with Abnett - he just causally drops things into books that have huge ramifications and screw with established story. So later people have to try and marry up the story to his new crap and create hamfisted results.

Perptuals and Enuncia are two things he added that did nothing positive to the setting.

And then with that established we get to super perpetual vulkan growing from atoms, which is orders of magnitude more ridiculous than just healing from injuries.

This thread is just another example of how the story is damaged by the need for people to add their unique idea stamps to it...

^100% agree that perpetuals are very dumb.

^^^^3rded.

I thought the Emperor being put on the Golden Throne was not to keep him alive, but to get someone to keep the Webway gate under the Imperial Palace closed since Malcador was about to turn to dust.

The giant warp portal under the throne room is yet another dumb addition.

 Hellebore wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
But is this a mess that GW have created and the emperor going on the throne and commanding form to don it predates the concept of perpetuals I believe. Because the emperor could power the astronomicon remotely so he could have just died and regenerated and gone back to doing that

It's a mess created because Abnett introduced the setting-screwing concept of a perpetual with Grammaticus in Legion and somehow that infected the rest of the series to the point where now there's dozens of them somehow and they helped invent marines?

This is one of my biggest peeves with Abnett - he just causally drops things into books that have huge ramifications and screw with established story. So later people have to try and marry up the story to his new crap and create hamfisted results.

Perptuals and Enuncia are two things he added that did nothing positive to the setting.

And then with that established we get to super perpetual vulkan growing from atoms, which is orders of magnitude more ridiculous than just healing from injuries.

This thread is just another example of how the story is damaged by the need for people to add their unique idea stamps to it...

I doubt abnett did this wi the out consultation with GW, in fact I think at the end he writes a little bit about his consultation with GW where they say he can reveal some secrets about the AL.

I think legion added a much needed element of space opera for me and I really liked John grammaticus and the fact that he was a perpetual. I liked the idea that somehow someone like that existed in the universe and the question of how he came to be like that, was he just a series of clones or androids?

Taking that concept and applying it to vulkan and the emperor and a bunch of others wasn’t good and I don’t know that is on abnett

The explanation I heard anecdotally is that perpetuals have a destined death and thereby cannot die until that point by any means. Their death is an 'anchor' in fate which is immutable, so reality simply rewrites itself if there is a conflict. Could be crap though, I dunno.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The giant warp portal under the throne room is yet another dumb addition.

Yeah. . . I mean what's even the purpose of that?

The OG reasoning for the Golden Throne just being the life support system for the Emperor and the apparatus to use him for guiding the Atronomicon and keeping Chaos at bay in the warp seemed plenty good enough for me.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The giant warp portal under the throne room is yet another dumb addition.

Yeah. . . I mean what's even the purpose of that?

Terra was always hinted as where the Rhana Dandra finale would eventually occur, so it makes sense that there would be a webway entrance on Terra. It only became a warp portal when Magnus damaged the webway entrance.

Enuncia

What, you don't think that stupid magic language that literally does miracles and kills greater daemons without relying on warp while being usable by even littlest toddler, a language that can be discovered by pocket computer doing crossword puzzles in spare time, fits the setting?

That didn't start with Horus Heresy, though, but in the dumb Inquisition books by Abnett (along with the protagonist literally stealing a lightsaber from Star Wars because why the gak not). Abnett just copy pasted his lore breaking stuff into HH later. I feel the success of his books early on made him too big for GW editors and the rot started there...

 Gert wrote:
It is believed Magnus was originally the intended Throne sitter but the Emperor sat in it before the Webway project blew up. The Emperor's last command to Dorn was to place Him on the Throne, which Dorn did. Whether or not there was some grand plan with regards regeneration or whatnot is anyone's guess.

Iirc, to add onto this, not only was the intention for Magnus to do that, but he and his legion was going to basically be the "webway police" with the tsons specifically being the ones to help guard and monitor said web way.

"Ahzek Ahriman, Webway Police!"

As a sidenote about perpetuals, it's established lore that all Eldars were perpetuals during the War in Heaven until the Nightbringer actually cursed them to die forever. It's possible to kill perpetual when you are death itself and it's very probable you can kill them with magical means even though physical means are not enough. Dualism is firmly established in the setting.

epronovost wrote:
As a sidenote about perpetuals, it's established lore that all Eldars were perpetuals

Were they? Wasn't the old lore simply stating they reincarnated, similar concept but far weaker than stuff perpetuals do?

 Gert wrote:
"Ahzek Ahriman, Webway Police!"

He'd better hand in his badge and gun, as he's a loose cannon (in a looser canon).

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
^^^^3rded.

^^4th'd

(Although I did always like the Star Child lore)

mrFickle wrote:
At the point where he was wounded from his fight with Horus?

We know he’s a perpetual so would probably have come back to life. So is it now officially one of 40Ks tragic ironies that someone put him on the throne keeping him alive and stopping him reincarnating?

Doesn’t make total sense to me because without the webway project someone had to fuel the astronomicom. But then it does allow for cool stories like the high lords of terra trying to keep the throne working cos they don’t want the emperor waking up and telling them what to do

OK. Hot take. As in….one I can’t back up with even my loose “I read it that one time in a random WD” type referrals?

We’re told that frankly staggering levels of destructive powers were unleashed during that final, climatic “all or nothing” battle.

I suggest it’s entirely possible the sheer scale of that very personal conflict did damage even The Emperor doubted he could comeback from. And even if he could? Perhaps it wasn’t something even a Perpetual could Walk Off.

And so The Emperor needed The Golden Throne. Not only to support his shattered self, but to avoid far, far worse happening should it’s guiding light be snuffed out. Permanently or temporarily, He needed to get ensconced ASAP and take the chances from there, as it at least seemed the best, possibly only option, at that time, to stave off another Old Night falling?

Again this is purely and entirely speculative.