Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How do!

Cleaving off from another thread where I first put forward this hypothesis. I felt it interesting enough to warrant its own thread.

Now, conventional background wisdom is whether by intent or not, The Emperor is becoming a God. Not a Chaos God. But a Racial God, like Isha, Khaine, Vaul, Gork and Mork. A god of the species of man. Which, given such an entity would be hoovering up the thoughts and prayers of billions, quite possibly trillions, maybe sneaking toward quadrillions of worshippers stands to become Exceptionally Powerful as a Warp Entity.

And clearly, something is going on. The Sisters of Battle trigger relatively minor miracles on the regular through their Faith alone. That they seem largely unaffected by the Pariah Nexus strongly suggest they as individuals aren’t simply minor psykers. So whilst the miracles are still almost certainly warp based powers? It’s being channeled in a new and interesting way.

But let me take you right back. Right back to just before the Heresy. The time of Euphrati Keeler. One time Remembrancer of the Great Crusade, latterly the first Saint of the Cult of the Emperor.

Long before Kyril Sindermann read from the Book of Lorgar, accidentally summoning a Daemon that would then be banished by Keeler’s faith? The Lectitio Divinitatus was in circulation among the Crusade Fleets. A heretical volume that declared The Emperor to be a God, its adherents kept it quiet, slowly and subtly recruiting other believers to their sermons.

And so the concept of The Emperor’s Divinity preceded Keeler’s seeming display of confirmation.

Yet….we’re repeatedly told The Emperor was ignorant of just how far down the rabbit hole Lorgar and his sons had gone. Indeed he wouldn’t listen to Magnus’ earnest pleas of the danger Horus was in.

So…if The Emperor didn’t know (and if he did, why wouldn’t he take action to nip it in the bud and arrange the eradication of the Word Bearers)….how could he lend anything to Keeler to banish the Daemon as she did?

Well, there’s an easy answer. Whatever it was acted through Keeler’s faith wasn’t The Emperor - but something shaped and channeled by the faith, thoughts and prayers of the early adherents to what would form the basis of the Cult Imperialis.

That leads me on to my next consideration. We know by this time mankind was beginning to emerge as a psychic species. And we know the other sentient psychic species have their own pantheons of Warp Gods. Oh the Orks and Eldar know of the Chaos Gods, that’s true. But they worship/follow their own racial Gods. So by their very existence, we know that sentient species can shape their own Gods within the Warp. The reflection of their faith, ego and hopes, formed and birthed in the Warp.

Unlike the Chaos Gods, which are emotions given form? Those species specific gods seem sane. Capable of considered action and invention, gifting their worshippers knowledge. In a way, they’re more evolved than the Chaos Gods. And like the Chaos Gods, began as small things, empowered over time to the point where they can in some way interact with real space, and ensure continued worship and so empowerment.

That is what I think is happening for humanity. So there is, after a fashion, a nascent god of humanity referred to by its flock as The Emperor. But for now? The Emperor, and this Warp Entity are not in fact the same being. Closely linked, yes. The Warp Emperor is after all a reflection of The Emperor. And so is trammeled by those that believe The Emperor is divine.

But it’s not yet fully born. I mean, it’s been a mere 10,000 years since it first began coalescing. And it may be that without The Emperor’s soul joining with it upon the death/destruction of His physical form it can’t achieve true apotheosis. Like the keystone of its potential remains currently out of reach.

One also wonders just how powerful that entity might be once it emerged into true Godhood. We know Gork and Mork are powerful enough to literally beat up the Chaos Gods. What might a monotheistic god of humanity, with the billions of souls joining with it every day in the warp be capable of?

I don’t think it could tear the Chaos Gods asunder. But I think it would be capable of smashing their toys up, and giving them something more to worry about that mucking around with real space. Going proper out there? Could it physically wrest the souls of the fallen Primarchs back into its fold?

It's hard to know how much of the Gods of the Orks and the Aeldari were of their own creation though, and a lot of this is built upon that assumption.

They were both created by the Old Ones to fight the War In Heaven, and we know that the Aeldari gods at least, did participate in that conflict. However, as the species was comparatively newly birthed at the time themselves, how would they have had the time, intentionally or not, to coalesce their own pantheon of deities?

While the timeline for The War In Heaven is pretty fuzzy, I posit that the more likely option is that the Old Ones also created the races pantheons to give them direction and aid in their required tasks.

Now, that doesn't take away from your other points, I think your assertion about Keeler is spot on, the power of her faith in The Emperor, doesn't actually come from Big E himself. That the power of belief has a tangible warp effect even without psychic powers. However, I'm not sure if that is directly tied to Big E's rise to functional godhood, warp related or not, of if they are just coincidental situations that feed off of each other.

Well…I’ve a hypothesis on that.

If there’s anything to my above claim? Whatever it is that’s coalescing in the Warp is the benefactor of The Emperor’s veneration. And so, whilst not originally the same being? They are intrinsically linked. Without The Emperor being what he is and doing what’s he done, the Warp Entity wouldn’t have been gobbling up the veneration and dedicated souls. And because the Warp Entity is now somewhat empowered, it’s able to do things which increase the veneration and worship of The Physical Emperor, ensuring ever more faith and souls for its own table.

And the same could be true of the original Eldar Champions. Those among them held up exemplars of a given discipline, and the same for Gork & Mork.

Then, once those original Champions/Heroes, in whom their race placed so much faith and hope inevitably pass on? They joined with the Warp Shadow/Echo - and so Asuryan, once simply an incredibly skilled Mortal Eldar, completed Asuryan The Warp God. The two merging together to become A Single Warp Entity. Almost like a Mech Suit finally receiving its Perfect Pilot.

Orks being pretty damned straight forward only generate the two nascent Gods. One Brutal but Kunnin’, the other Kunnin’ but Brutal. And once a Warboss which were seen to fully embody those archetypes got perished? Perfect Pilot In To Mech Suit.

But until some critical juncture occurred? The Physical Being and Warp Entity were otherwise separate, but benefit from one another’s existence.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Yet….we’re repeatedly told The Emperor was ignorant of just how far down the rabbit hole Lorgar and his sons had gone. Indeed he wouldn’t listen to Magnus’ earnest pleas of the danger Horus was in.

So…if The Emperor didn’t know (and if he did, why wouldn’t he take action to nip it in the bud and arrange the eradication of the Word Bearers)….how could he lend anything to Keeler to banish the Daemon as she did?

Interesting points. I think the source of miracle power could be explored more, even though it would then detract from its miracle-ness somewhat by moving from the realm of divine magic into "simple" metaphysics within the rules of the universe

My main scratched-record thing though is that "why wouldn't he take action..." is an impossible thing to reconcile. The entirety of the HH series is in-fill between a series of fixed points that were set decades before. The Emperor is like Captain Janeway - At the mercy of whatever writer holds the narrative reins at any point in time.

We don't actualy know how long war in Heaven are took. I mean it can be 30-40k years. So they can give a birth to it's own gods easily and so for orks.
Ad for Big E there is also unknown how long he was behind the Gate at Molech and what he got in result.
As always i can't remember exact novel where E answer som marine that not Him but his part hekping that marine right now. So part of TGEoM is on throne and part already do his godhood things in warp.

I wouldn't assume that only ONE god is being formed from the gathering of faith in the Emperor.

The lore already contains the Dark King and Star Child as potential divine aspects of the Emperor. There may be more.

Arguably the Imperial Saints are already minor gods in and of themselves as faith the Emperor is refusing has to go somewhere.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well…I’ve a hypothesis on that.

If there’s anything to my above claim? Whatever it is that’s coalescing in the Warp is the benefactor of The Emperor’s veneration. And so, whilst not originally the same being? They are intrinsically linked. Without The Emperor being what he is and doing what’s he done, the Warp Entity wouldn’t have been gobbling up the veneration and dedicated souls. And because the Warp Entity is now somewhat empowered, it’s able to do things which increase the veneration and worship of The Physical Emperor, ensuring ever more faith and souls for its own table.

And the same could be true of the original Eldar Champions. Those among them held up exemplars of a given discipline, and the same for Gork & Mork.

Then, once those original Champions/Heroes, in whom their race placed so much faith and hope inevitably pass on? They joined with the Warp Shadow/Echo - and so Asurmen, once simply an incredibly skilled Mortal Eldar, completed Asurmen The Warp God. The two merging together to become A Single Warp Entity. Almost like a Mech Suit finally receiving its Perfect Pilot.

Orks being pretty damned straight forward only generate the two nascent Gods. One Brutal but Kunnin’, the other Kunnin’ but Brutal. And once a Warboss which were seen to fully embody those archetypes got perished? Perfect Pilot In To Mech Suit.

But until some critical juncture occurred? The Physical Being and Warp Entity were otherwise separate, but benefit from one another’s existence.

Hmm.. excellent points. Makes me wonder if Slaanesh was once an Eldar who fit the suit as well...

We know that time in the warp makes no sense. Slaanesh was born in M30 yet he/she was always there.
I see the Emperor as a Chaos god in the making, the god of mindless religious fanaticism if you will. So, at some point in the future he will be truly born - and from that point on he'll be able to do all the things in the past that have already happened (and even help to create his godhood). Why is he not doing more obvious things? We don't know. Might be he'll be part of the Great Game and Tzeentch throws rocks at him when he tries to, say, help Guilliman build his not as terrible little Imperium. Also, the gods in 40K don't really intervene that active, that is, in person. They have Daemons for that, we were shown during the Gathering storm that Living Saints and the Legion of the Damned are Chaos Daemons, as they reacted the same way to Blackstone as the "actual" chaos Daemons did. It is possible though that SOB acts of faith are powered either by the rotten emprah on his throne or by his full on chaotic future self.
The special thing about the Emperor really is his sitting on his throne for 10K years singing: "Ohhh, I'm halfway theeere, oooho, kill another prayer!"
The throne prevents him from becoming a full on Chaos god, but it also allows him to actively power the astronomicon and even talk to Guilliman who doesn't believe in his religion. He probably couldn't have direct control like that when he enters the warp completely or would need believers to talk to, like Gork and Mork can only talk to Ghazghkull or Weirdboyz.

Good point about time have no meaning in warp. There is my favorite twist in HH when Lokens death give birth to Samus who he fight before. But at same time for real world Samus exists for millennia. What's stop Big E to be god way way before he actually got his Godhood.

 John Prins wrote:
I wouldn't assume that only ONE god is being formed from the gathering of faith in the Emperor.

The lore already contains the Dark King and Star Child as potential divine aspects of the Emperor. There may be more.

Arguably the Imperial Saints are already minor gods in and of themselves as faith the Emperor is refusing has to go somewhere.

We have examples of racial pantheons, even just the binary Gork/Mork.

What if humanity has a yin/yang set up. The aggressive outward force (which is very Big E) and an inward protecting force. So it’s not the Emperor who protects, but the “other” human diety. Who is not ego driven, so doesn’t have a name/avatar like Emps. Let him take the glory, she’s just in the background protecting her people, helping them grow and thrive. Providing miracles.

Nothing to back up this idea, just a thought over coffee...

Given that the Emperor has split his soul, it's entirely possible that if there are two or even more they would all be aspects of the Emperor.

On time and the warp?

I think it’s a bit more esoteric. In a sense, there was a time when Slaanesh didn’t exist - and so had little no ability to influence real space.

But, once Slaanesh was born? Slaanesh had always existed.

So I think whatever/whomever is hoovering up the worship and pious souls hasn’t yet been fully born. It exists in potential but isn’t Real yet.

Hence in the early days (Keeler) we see rare, but critical interventions to keep its new source of power ticking over, and hopefully ensure it will come into full Godhood down the line.

I don’t think that choas gods are simple manifestations of emotions. The warp is full of entities that re trying to find ways to become more powerful and I think ones we know about were the ones that were able to collect all the rage or obsession and the power of the emotions and use them over time to ascend and become more powerful.

Gork and mork, I think are different, becuase the Orks have always believed in them specifically as part of their programming. So there was no choice about it.

I don’t know about the eldar.

It with Big E I wonder if all that time in the golden throne and existence in the warp is when he as learned that he can acquire the force of faith and use it to manifest in the real world. And then more he does it the more faith he creates.

There are trillions of humans in the galaxy but how many of them truly have an emotional faith that is visible to creature like the emperor in the warp? Most of them I suspect either don’t believe but just go along with it so they don’t get in trouble. And even the ones in the church are more interested in power than faith.

Either that or this was the plan all along, that’s why he ignored Magnus that’s why was cruel to some of the primarchs (to turn them to Horus) and he built the golden throne to be a device that would allow his reflection in the warp to elevate and become a god.

On Gork & Mork?

Remember we’re told it was the Old Ones rapidly creating psychic species which is said to have thrown The Warp out of balance in the first place.

If that’s accurate, then it does seem Orks first, Ork Gods second makes the most sense. Essentially the Orky psyche provided sustenance to the Warp Entities which would eventually become Gork & Mork, shaping and defining them as they consumed Orky souls. You Are What You Eat type thing.

And so I argue it’s the same with The Emperor. The worship of the nascent Imperial Cult devoured by Random Warp Entity, which was, over time, shaped and redefined by the specific psychic spoor it had claimed as its own.

Likely starting off entirely neutral, eventually becoming “good” due to its diet. I guess “benevolent toward humanity” is probably a better term than good for that.

If that’s how the Orks came into being then I would agree gork and mork were around first. Orks are rapidly proliferating and they have a very specific purpose built into each of them they do not question or try to change. The same would go for their religion and they would all have unwavering belief in Gork and Mork from day one.

So Gork and Mork are as inevitable as the shokk attack gun.

For humans belief is a choice and if the emperor wants to become a god he has to make humans believe and what I was saying is bet a lot of them don’t really beleive

Even if only 10% (to pluck a number from an undisclosed crevice) of humanity are True Believers? That’s still magnitudes greater than are Chaos Worshippers.

Especially in a combat situation, where one can easily imagine a normally “lip service” Guardsman might suddenly find their faith a good deal more fervent.

Why would there be so many more fervent Imperial humans than Chaos worshippers? Chaos has pocket empires, Warp-isolated domains, weird Warp time/space fractures that can maintain who knows how many worlds, alien species, fanatical cults shot through the underbellies of the Imperium's most populous worlds...

It feels a bit like a speculative topic for the sake of speculation and leaning a bit hard into 'the setting runs entirely on Belief Fields', but...there's a passage in the Black Company series where the Lady, the wife of a sorcerous dark lord in the setting's distant past, is asked what her husband was like. In answer, she clenches her hand into a claw-like fist.

I think any entity formed by the faith of the Imperium, and especially by its most hard-line believers, would be something closer to that than anything approaching benevolent.

Yes the numbers are massive but chaos gods don’t draw power from belief they take of from emotions of every living thing that has a presence in the warp.

It’s just an idea. I doubt we will ever know. But if the emperor does transcend I bet there will be an event where the narrative will say in a single split movement all citizens of the imperium suddenly believed in the emperor and asked for salvation causing a birth of slaneesh type even that closes a lot of the open warp rifts

Being in an emotional state might feed a God, but acts dedicated to them specifically provide greater sustenance - otherwise there’d be little reason to fiddle around trying to get more mortal worshippers.

So…both are true, which is what makes Slaanesh so dangerous to its fellow Gods. Every pleasure feeds Slaanesh. Every act of excess feeds Slaanesh.

Say Kharn and/or Angron are having a whale of a time, murdering everyone that comes with reach of their weapons. Whilst the Skulls and Blood are dedicated to Khorne? The sheer excess of their actions still provides Slaanesh with power. It may only be relative crumbs to a doggy bag. But it’s still sustenance.

The reverse is also true. Every act of anger, assault, murder, rage, execution, martial prowess provides at least a sliver to Khorne.

Where Slaanesh has an edge is that it’s any act of excess and pleasure. Any at all.

Example? Last night I had a fat old Curry for my dinner. Garlic Chilli Naan, Chicken Madras, Sag Aloo, Garlic Sag Mushrooms, Poppadom. That was an excess of food for a dinner. And so Slaanesh would get not just the sliver of pleasure I had from eating it (and it was amazing. My local curry house is truly superb), but also from the excess, however small.

If someone fervently worships another God? That excess feeds Slaanesh. Every piece of art someone put their heart and soul into? Feeds Slaanesh.

The other Gods tend toward sustenance from destructive acts, whether deliberate or not. But Slaanesh’s table extends to most of life.

Sorry, I’ve gone off at a slight tangent.

To bring it back? The same is likely true of whatever it is in the Warp benefitting from the religious veneration of The Emperor. Even if someone isn’t a true believer, every prayer feeds it, even if it’s the merest crumb.

When humanity is quite possibly measured well into the trillions? That’s…that’s a lot of crumbs. And of those trillions? If even a small percentage are Swivel Eyed Loony Believers? That again is a lot of power.

Now, something possibly without answer, but worth throwing into melting pot.

We know that ritualised sacrifices dedicated to a given god sends that soul straight down its gullet, granting a boon to the supplicants.

Who’s to say that can’t be done retrospectively with Imperial Creed Funerary Rites? I dare say it’s not as effective, given by the time those are done the soul has crossed over. But by dedicating those souls to The Emperor? Maybe that’s another source of power.

The more I think about this, the more I’m convincing myself of it. Specifically that because the two are now intrinsically linked, it won’t be until The Emperor passes into the Warp and melds with The Warp Emperor that the nascent God will truly awaken.

Which is potentially horrifying. Because it won’t be a god influenced by The Emperor and whatever high ideals he might’ve had for humanity. Rather a god shaped and defined by The Imperial Creed. And all the petty nastiness that comes along with it.

As for there potentially being multiple Warp Emperors, each reflecting a given aspect? That’s possible. But, if the original Realm of Chaos Books are still any form of reliable source? We know that Gods can consume one another, adding the power of the lesser to that of the greater.

The Emperor’s soul merging/melding/being consumed by a single Warp Entity may be enough to tip that balance of power, allowing that one god to subsume the others into it?