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Pretty much as it says on the tin. If the Emperor did to the Sisters what he did to the Word Bearers at Monarchia, how would they react?

I can't see all the sisters turning to chaos. Some of the orders might but I think the majority would just continue as they are, warranting further sanction from Big E.

On the other hand, I can't see them just disbanding either.

So a combination of all three? I wonder who'd be sent to deal with the mess/to deliver the Emperor's sanctions. Space Marines are a no go, seeing as Sisters can go toe-to-toe with Astartes if they needed to, and a certain degree of discretion will be needed, so that precludes a large-scale response by either the Guard or the Navy.

Honestly I don't know. I am not sure if the Emperor would make that same mistake twice. He would maybe accept that he is a God, if not a God like figure and continue to allow them to worship him as such.

It would have a much greater effect on the Imperium as a whole I believe. It is more or less turning on the whole of the Ecclesiarchy, and is the glue that holds it together.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
Honestly I don't know. I am not sure if the Emperor would make that same mistake twice. He would maybe accept that he is a God, if not a God like figure and continue to allow them to worship him as such.

It would have a much greater effect on the Imperium as a whole I believe. It is more or less turning on the whole of the Ecclesiarchy, and is the glue that holds it together.

To be fair, the Word Bearers were given leeway for a long while before Monarchia. The Emperor could probably let go on for a while, all the while slowly but subtly changing the Ecclesiarchy from within and turning it from the Imperial Creed back to the Imperial Truth, but while he could do that to the bureaucratic Ecclesiarchy (a few papers here, a few papers there), eventually the more single-minded Sororitas would eventually have to be dealt with once/if they become the last bulwark of the Imperial Creed (i.e. the Ecclesiarchy has become the Imperial Iterator Corps 2.0).

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
So a combination of all three? I wonder who'd be sent to deal with the mess/to deliver the Emperor's sanctions. Space Marines are a no go, seeing as Sisters can go toe-to-toe with Astartes if they needed to, and a certain degree of discretion will be needed, so that precludes a large-scale response by either the Guard or the Navy.

Grey knights.

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
So a combination of all three? I wonder who'd be sent to deal with the mess/to deliver the Emperor's sanctions. Space Marines are a no go, seeing as Sisters can go toe-to-toe with Astartes if they needed to, and a certain degree of discretion will be needed, so that precludes a large-scale response by either the Guard or the Navy.

Grey knights.

They're Space Marines too.

The Sisters are post Golden Throne, so He's always been a "God" to them. Are you assuming that the Emperor somehow got off the potty? I'm pretty sure that if the Emperor started walking about again. The Sisters would follow Him no matter what. They'd have proof of the Resurrection!

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Pilau Rice wrote:
Honestly I don't know. I am not sure if the Emperor would make that same mistake twice. He would maybe accept that he is a God, if not a God like figure and continue to allow them to worship him as such.

It would have a much greater effect on the Imperium as a whole I believe. It is more or less turning on the whole of the Ecclesiarchy, and is the glue that holds it together.

To be fair, the Word Bearers were given leeway for a long while before Monarchia. The Emperor could probably let go on for a while, all the while slowly but subtly changing the Ecclesiarchy from within and turning it from the Imperial Creed back to the Imperial Truth, but while he could do that to the bureaucratic Ecclesiarchy (a few papers here, a few papers there), eventually the more single-minded Sororitas would eventually have to be dealt with once/if they become the last bulwark of the Imperial Creed (i.e. the Ecclesiarchy has become the Imperial Iterator Corps 2.0).

To be fair, the sisters and the Word Bearers are entirely different.

The Word Bearers were battling in the Emperors name when he was still walking around. The sisters on the other hand know no different to him being incarcerated on the Golden Throne unable to deny his Godhood. The Word Bearers knew from the offset that the Emperor did not wish to be venerated as a God and they chose to ignore his commands, the Sisters haven't had the same guidance and their whole being is built up on the notion that the Emperor is a God.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
So a combination of all three? I wonder who'd be sent to deal with the mess/to deliver the Emperor's sanctions. Space Marines are a no go, seeing as Sisters can go toe-to-toe with Astartes if they needed to, and a certain degree of discretion will be needed, so that precludes a large-scale response by either the Guard or the Navy.

Not to mention that the Sisters are taught to actively hate Chaos, whereas the Word Bearers were not.

The Sisters would either accept the rejection, or they would go on, in which case the GK or SM would have to cull them. Yes, it would work. Whether they are roughly equal to Marines thanks to their powers or not is something I won't debate, but Marines can beat them, and Marines would beat them.

It does not matter how much of a mary sue you are, how much of a special snowflake you are, or how much plot armour you have. You can only take so many better equipped more experienced superhumans coming for you.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
So a combination of all three? I wonder who'd be sent to deal with the mess/to deliver the Emperor's sanctions. Space Marines are a no go, seeing as Sisters can go toe-to-toe with Astartes if they needed to, and a certain degree of discretion will be needed, so that precludes a large-scale response by either the Guard or the Navy.

Not to mention that the Sisters are taught to actively hate Chaos, whereas the Word Bearers were not.

The Sisters would either accept the rejection, or they would go on, in which case the GK or SM would have to cull them. Yes, it would work. Whether they are roughly equal to Marines thanks to their powers or not is something I won't debate, but Marines can beat them, and Marines would beat them.

It does not matter how much of a mary sue you are, how much of a special snowflake you are, or how much plot armour you have. You can only take so many better equipped more experienced superhumans coming for you.

I think the clincher here would be when the Sisters call on their Living Saints, and they either fail to respond or simply fizzle out due the Emperor withholding his power from them.

Interesting question. I doubt they'd go the way of the Word Bearers, since the Sisters have been raised to actively despise Chaos. They'd likely try to adapt their beliefs to more secular ones if they were sure it was the Emperor himself who was commanding them to. If not, they'd likely go rogue and try to uphold Emperor worship, which would cause some trouble for the Imperium. And, if they accepted it, why disband them? They're highly dedicated and skilled warriors, those are useful to have around in a time where the barbarians are pounding at the gates.

I think a related question is would the Emperor do this, in 40K's present? Worship of Him as a god is one of the main things holding the Imperium together. Meanwhile there's more threats than ever coming at the Imperium, three of them being game over tier,. If Big E actively tried to get rid of religion as things currently are, it could cause quite a lot of disruption within the Imperium, which its enemies would eagerly pounce upon. Chaos especially would probably gain a lot of ground from a move like that.

Meanwhile, letting religion continue for the time being has some major advantages. The Imperium retains a higher cause to rally around, gets a huge morale boost from their god returning and the Emperor gets hordes of immensely loyal zealous nutters to fight for him. Sure, he could well move to get rid of it all at a later date, but I'd say that the current situation makes it a fairly bad idea.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
I think the clincher here would be when the Sisters call on their Living Saints, and they either fail to respond or simply fizzle out due the Emperor withholding his power from them.

Actually, as far as we're aware, the Sisters just have one Living Saint right now, Celestine. Well, one Living Saint who's a magical angel woman who assists in battles. The title of Living Saint doesn't have to apply to just a Celestine-like entity, they just need to be declared as such by the Ecclesiarchy. Sebestian Thor was declared a Living Saint, IIRC.

Also, we don't really know if Celestine is necessarily getting her power from the Emperor anyway. She might be some sort of warp manifestation of the faith of the SoB. We don't know for sure.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
The Sisters would either accept the rejection, or they would go on, in which case the GK or SM would have to cull them. Yes, it would work. Whether they are roughly equal to Marines thanks to their powers or not is something I won't debate, but Marines can beat them, and Marines would beat them.

It does not matter how much of a mary sue you are, how much of a special snowflake you are, or how much plot armour you have. You can only take so many better equipped more experienced superhumans coming for you.

Ah, but the Sisters likely wouldn't be alone in this. The Ecclesiarchy, or at least large swathes of it, would probably react similarly, so the Sisters would have plenty of friends in this scenario. There may also be similarly faithful IG and citizens willing to side with them. Then it's a case of the Marines having to wage war against the Ecclesiarchy (or parts of it) as well as the SoB, which is a far harder and more time-consuming task than fighting the SoB alone, and would cause a lot of damage to the Imperium itself. As I said above, a move like this could cause a potentailly fatal amount of strife within the Imperium.

Go mad and most turn to Chaos.

Or they assume it's a daemon posing as the Emperor, so they try to kill him. Or maybe they declare the Emperor is a heretic. Everything is possible with these over zealous freaks.

Sisters wouldn't react to that situation the same way the Word Bearers did simply because they do not have the independence to do so. If the Emperor ever talked to the Sisters, and commanded them to, say, slit their own throats, every single one of them would do it, because they've been raised to basically be robots (which can be good or bad, depending on your viewpoint). So if the Emperor slapped them down for worshipping him, they would just continue to worship him, just not as a God.

By comparison Lorgar, like all the Primarchs, has an innate resistance to the Emperor's mega-swag. So when the Emperor shut down Lorgar, rather than go in to robo-sycophant mode, he just got butthurt and wandered off to find someone else to validate his feelings.

Hypothetically speaking, if such a situation were to occur - which I do not believe in for the reasons already mentioned by Pilau Rice - I'd guess option #3. Or perhaps what Lord Spartacus proposed, given that his suggestion also seems somewhat likely in that it'd represent a way out of the dilemma by allowing them to remain both faithful to their religion as well as loyal to the Emperor. In a true fanatic's mind, the Emperor being a god is an irrevocable fact that has been "proven" time and time again by numerous miracles, and a supposed "Emperor" who denies this must obviously be a fake. Heed the trickery of the Ruinous Powers!

That being said, there's also multiple interpretations of how anti-religious the Emperor actually is, with only the Black Library HH novel series painting him in this light, whereas in the original studio material he simply chastised the Word Bearers for wasting valuable time building temples, and that they rather ought to go crusading.
If approached in this light, the Sisters would surely be confused, but now poll option 3 becomes more likely than Lord Spartacus' alternative.

dracpanzer wrote:I'm pretty sure that if the Emperor started walking about again. The Sisters would follow Him no matter what. They'd have proof of the Resurrection!

"Only the true Messiah denies His divinity!"

We all know what would happen really. Every Sister in the galaxy would shout 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU' at the same time, so loudly so that they would rip open a massive Warp Rift called the Eye of Mild Discomfort, destroying the Imperium and birthing a fifth Chaos God, FUUU, god of disappointment and frustration.