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Let me just clear something up for you guys. Hitler's scientist's attempts at creating supersoldiers were retahded and failed utterly. Hitler could have conquered the entire world if he had wanted to, but instead of transporting his troops to the front lines, he decided to kill all the jews. HITLER WAS NOT NEARLY INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO BE THE EMPEROR.

@dusara217

The Emperor was a complete idiot and far, far worst then Hitler when it came to leading an army or an nation at war (and Hitler wasn't fortunatly really good at it). The Emperor gave the control of his Legion to a group of 20 super being that disapeared in supernatural circumstances without asking for their conscent, opinion or desire. Lorgar, Angron and Curze were all against the idea of leading an army. Other Primarchs didn't like the ideologie of the Imperial Truth and had conflict with the Emperor. He didn't keep them in the secret of the gods when he left it and gave the title of Warmaster in a very controversial way. He failed to rally them during that period of change. He openly rejected at least three Primarchs before the Heresy (the two unknown and Lorgar) and was mistrusted by Sanguinous who knew he was a careless and ruthless leader. He did the worst thing possibly imaginable which is to place people who were fundamentaly disloyal and unstable. How is that smart? It's a suprise that it went so well for two entire century. Good thing that he at least he seems to have learned a lesson when he picket the Companions has his next champions. I don't thonk he was any historical figure, but a murderous, insane dictator wouldn't be a bad guess.

epronovost wrote:
Let me just clear something up for you guys. Hitler's scientist's attempts at creating supersoldiers were retahded and failed utterly. Hitler could have conquered the entire world if he had wanted to, but instead of transporting his troops to the front lines, he decided to kill all the jews. HITLER WAS NOT NEARLY INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO BE THE EMPEROR.

@dusara217

The Emperor was a complete idiot and far, far worst then Hitler when it came to leading an army or an nation at war (and Hitler wasn't fortunatly really good at it). The Emperor gave the control of his Legion to a group of 20 super being that disapeared in supernatural circumstances without asking for their conscent, opinion or desire. Lorgar, Angron and Curze were all against the idea of leading an army. Other Primarchs didn't like the ideologie of the Imperial Truth and had conflict with the Emperor. He didn't keep them in the secret of the gods when he left it and gave the title of Warmaster in a very controversial way. He failed to rally them during that period of change. He openly rejected at least three Primarchs before the Heresy (the two unknown and Lorgar) and was mistrusted by Sanguinous who knew he was a careless and ruthless leader. He did the worst thing possibly imaginable which is to place people who were fundamentaly disloyal and unstable. How is that smart? It's a suprise that it went so well for two entire century. Good thing that he at least he seems to have learned a lesson when he picket the Companions has his next champions. I don't thonk he was any historical figure, but a murderous, insane dictator wouldn't be a bad guess.

This is why I wish they had never done the Horus Heresy series. How could a 40k-year-old ultra-powerful Psyker who conquered and entire planet and and genetically engineered God-like superwarriors have been so completely and utterly stupid? It makes zero sense and see me completely and utterly uncharacteristic of such a man.

So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of Destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!

On myself revenge I'll proudly wreak,
On that being, that enthroned Lord,
Make my strength a patchwork of what's weak,
Leave my better self without reward!

I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark-- superstitious dread,
For its Marshall--blackest agony.

Who looks on it with a healthy eye,
Shall turn back, struck deathly pale and dumb;
Clutched by blind and chill Mortality
May his happiness prepare its tomb.

And the Almighty's lightning shall rebound
From that massive iron giant.
If he bring my walls and towers down,
Eternity shall raise them up, defiant.

"Invocation of One in Despair", Karl Marx, 1837. Or perhaps the Emperor, prophetising the outcome of the Horus Heresy and showing the world that poetry is not his thing, all at the same time. One never knows

 ImAGeek wrote:

tgjensen wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
except the secularism of the Imperial truth was described as a new approuch. prior to the great crusade the emperor tried to work behind the scenes and set up religons that could protect humanity from the warp. problem is these religions almost always got sidetracked by corruption and "misinterpretation for political goals", as such the Emperor decided to see if hard secularism would work better.

When was this mentioned?

Yeah a source would be appreciated, because if that's true it makes the whole 'don't tell my sons anything about Chaos' a bit more understandable in my opinion, where as without that it just seems like a big mistake.

I wish I could remember my source there, but I'm pretty sure it's the case. and as you said it fits pretty nicely with the story.

The Emperor was never a historical figure.Everyone was Alpharius.

 Squidmanlolz wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Wasn't he meant to be Alexander the Great?

Lord Solar Macharius was Alexander the Great

No, he was based on Alexander the Great. I thought I read somewhere (probably just speculation like this though) that the Emperor was literally Alexander.

 dusara217 wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Let me just clear something up for you guys. Hitler's scientist's attempts at creating supersoldiers were retahded and failed utterly. Hitler could have conquered the entire world if he had wanted to, but instead of transporting his troops to the front lines, he decided to kill all the jews. HITLER WAS NOT NEARLY INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO BE THE EMPEROR.

@dusara217

The Emperor was a complete idiot and far, far worst then Hitler when it came to leading an army or an nation at war (and Hitler wasn't fortunatly really good at it). The Emperor gave the control of his Legion to a group of 20 super being that disapeared in supernatural circumstances without asking for their conscent, opinion or desire. Lorgar, Angron and Curze were all against the idea of leading an army. Other Primarchs didn't like the ideologie of the Imperial Truth and had conflict with the Emperor. He didn't keep them in the secret of the gods when he left it and gave the title of Warmaster in a very controversial way. He failed to rally them during that period of change. He openly rejected at least three Primarchs before the Heresy (the two unknown and Lorgar) and was mistrusted by Sanguinous who knew he was a careless and ruthless leader. He did the worst thing possibly imaginable which is to place people who were fundamentaly disloyal and unstable. How is that smart? It's a suprise that it went so well for two entire century. Good thing that he at least he seems to have learned a lesson when he picket the Companions has his next champions. I don't thonk he was any historical figure, but a murderous, insane dictator wouldn't be a bad guess.

This is why I wish they had never done the Horus Heresy series. How could a 40k-year-old ultra-powerful Psyker who conquered and entire planet and and genetically engineered God-like superwarriors have been so completely and utterly stupid? It makes zero sense and see me completely and utterly uncharacteristic of such a man.

Noone ever understands the pressures of fatherhood until they have done it themselves.

Yeah, the fact that he is a 40000 year old ultra powerful Psyker et cetera would mean he's probably quite detached from humanity, and probably doesn't know all that much about raising kids... Add the fact that they were all whisked away and raised by different people for half their lives, yes the Emperor made some mistakes with the Primarchs but I wouldn't say they're uncharacteristic, if anything I'd say they're a symptom of his power.

 Great White wrote:
Barack Obama

(sarcastic)Thanks, Emperor! - Most primarchs at one time or another.

 ImAGeek wrote:
Yeah, the fact that he is a 40000 year old ultra powerful Psyker et cetera would mean he's probably quite detached from humanity, and probably doesn't know all that much about raising kids... Add the fact that they were all whisked away and raised by different people for half their lives, yes the Emperor made some mistakes with the Primarchs but I wouldn't say they're uncharacteristic, if anything I'd say they're a symptom of his power.

But the Emperor HAS been a father before. Back when he was born, he was just an ordinary human to everyone around, no matter how great he was. He undoubtedly was a father before he realized that he was a Perpetual, and undoubtedly at least TRIED to raise and teach a few of the Sensei. It's just basic human instinct to feth and have children and raise them. Also, with age comes wisdom. If he was that old, he would have had the wisdom to at least teach each of his sons personally so that they knew how to lead Legions, and he also wouldn't have done things like not save Angron's fellow Gladiators or humiliate the Word Bearers.

 dusara217 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Yeah, the fact that he is a 40000 year old ultra powerful Psyker et cetera would mean he's probably quite detached from humanity, and probably doesn't know all that much about raising kids... Add the fact that they were all whisked away and raised by different people for half their lives, yes the Emperor made some mistakes with the Primarchs but I wouldn't say they're uncharacteristic, if anything I'd say they're a symptom of his power.

But the Emperor HAS been a father before. Back when he was born, he was just an ordinary human to everyone around, no matter how great he was. He undoubtedly was a father before he realized that he was a Perpetual, and undoubtedly at least TRIED to raise and teach a few of the Sensei. It's just basic human instinct to feth and have children and raise them. Also, with age comes wisdom. If he was that old, he would have had the wisdom to at least teach each of his sons personally so that they knew how to lead Legions, and he also wouldn't have done things like not save Angron's fellow Gladiators or humiliate the Word Bearers.

He wasn't born like a normal human. He's the amalgamation of a bunch of shamans or something. And even if he had had kids, it was 40000 years ago. Yes with age comes wisdom, his just happened to come in he form of being awesome with genetics and psychic stuff. Just because your old doesn't mean you're gonna be a good dad. And again, he's so far removed from humanity at this point he probably doesn't understand humans, how they think, especially when they're young. It's like us trying to raise a fly baby to be a leader of men.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Yeah, the fact that he is a 40000 year old ultra powerful Psyker et cetera would mean he's probably quite detached from humanity, and probably doesn't know all that much about raising kids... Add the fact that they were all whisked away and raised by different people for half their lives, yes the Emperor made some mistakes with the Primarchs but I wouldn't say they're uncharacteristic, if anything I'd say they're a symptom of his power.

But the Emperor HAS been a father before. Back when he was born, he was just an ordinary human to everyone around, no matter how great he was. He undoubtedly was a father before he realized that he was a Perpetual, and undoubtedly at least TRIED to raise and teach a few of the Sensei. It's just basic human instinct to feth and have children and raise them. Also, with age comes wisdom. If he was that old, he would have had the wisdom to at least teach each of his sons personally so that they knew how to lead Legions, and he also wouldn't have done things like not save Angron's fellow Gladiators or humiliate the Word Bearers.

He wasn't born like a normal human. He's the amalgamation of a bunch of shamans or something. And even if he had had kids, it was 40000 years ago. Yes with age comes wisdom, his just happened to come in he form of being awesome with genetics and psychic stuff. Just because your old doesn't mean you're gonna be a good dad. And again, he's so far removed from humanity at this point he probably doesn't understand humans, how they think, especially when they're young. It's like us trying to raise a fly baby to be a leader of men.

Except the Primarchs are just the Emperor, only really young. This is actually a theory of mine that the Primarchs acted so immature and childish because they actually were immature children in comparison to what they were meant to be. They were meant to live for millennia, and potentially replace the Emperor if need be, so it only makes sense that they wouldn't be fully matured in the few decades/centuries they had before the Heresy.

No they aren't. They're genetically created super humans. Like space marines but one up. We don't even have a clue what the Emperor is.

I mean your theory is all well and good, and I could get behind it, but it is just a theory.

Its possible the emperor has had children before, but it would have been a long time ago. He since went to great lengths to get children who were functionally immortal. Noone wants to outlive thirty children.

But in essence, even brilliant people can be terrible parents. And the chaos gods play hardball.

ImAGeek wrote:No they aren't. They're genetically created super humans. Like space marines but one up. We don't even have a clue what the Emperor is.

I mean your theory is all well and good, and I could get behind it, but it is just a theory.

These are biologically immortal, insanely powerful Psychics with the physical might of an Avatar of Khaine. The Emperor is an amalgam of thousands of Shaman Psykers who sacrificed themselves all at the same time in order to overwhelm the Daemons that were consuming their souls and be reincarnated into one being that could continue to guide humanity as they had done for centuries/millennia - essentially he's Super Man in Psyker form.

Captyn_Bob wrote:Its possible the emperor has had children before, but it would have been a long time ago. He since went to great lengths to get children who were functionally immortal. Noone wants to outlive thirty children.

But in essence, even brilliant people can be terrible parents. And the chaos gods play hardball.

The Sensei are biologically immortal, uber-powerful Psychers. They are supposed to be the physical sons and daughters of the Emperor. The Primarchs were designed by the Emperor to be insanely powerful beings, and when you look at them, they act like infants and a few of them lived for thousands of years - which means that they were meant to lead the Imperium for thousands of years, and that is the only logical explanation (aside from bad writing) for why the Primarchs acted like such hormonal teenagers.

A minute ago he was born as a normal human and had kids, now he's an amalgam of shamans... I don't think you're reading what I write because you don't adress things that I say.

Okay. The problem here is the blending of old and new fluff. The sensei are no longer a thing. There are perpetuals, who are far from super powerful psychers, and not confirmed to be literal children of the emperor. (Some might be, but we dont know)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I kindof like the primarchs as hormonal teenagers thing, it seems right. But then you look at real world warlords, and they do the same stupid things and are fully grown adults.
The primarchs are just humans in exaggerated proportions.

 ImAGeek wrote:

tgjensen wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
except the secularism of the Imperial truth was described as a new approuch. prior to the great crusade the emperor tried to work behind the scenes and set up religons that could protect humanity from the warp. problem is these religions almost always got sidetracked by corruption and "misinterpretation for political goals", as such the Emperor decided to see if hard secularism would work better.

When was this mentioned?

Yeah a source would be appreciated, because if that's true it makes the whole 'don't tell my sons anything about Chaos' a bit more understandable in my opinion, where as without that it just seems like a big mistake.

IIRC, it's from The Last Church (google it, I guess? Some sites might still have it. TG no longer does). One of the earliest short stories in the Horus Heresy series written, IIRC (probably one of the reasons you don't see the issue addressed in later Horus Heresy books. It's always been addressed and shown in a really amazing IMHO work)

Assuming the protagonist/Point of view character is correct (and the way the narrative is, he probably is), it pretty much spells out all of the Emperor's flaws.

The reason the Emperor was so "stupid" was because he was so far above humanity that he completely lost touch with it. Knowing everything made him miss... well, everything.

The Emperor wasn't so advance he lost touch with humanity. That's a nice dodge we give to being of absolute incompetence with awsome powers. The Emperor was othing more than an immensly powerful and fonctionaly immortal psyker who's greatest dream and ambition was to rule humanity has it's undisputed master and conquer the galaxy. He thought humanity needed him to survive the galaxy (something false). That they needed its guidance to survive against xenos (another falsehood). That the Chaos Gods could only be defeated by him through his plan (another falsehood). That humanity was weak and needed superhumen fighters to protect it (again completly false, yet it's his most usefull one so far). That cultural diversity was a cancer to humen peace and unity (false too). That trying to skrew the Chaos Gods would give him the power to destroy them (boy that was a stupid idea) and that all those who oppose him oppose humanity itself. The Emperor was just another mad scientist with awesome powers with delusion of grandeur and yet another petty tyrant in human history. I don't think you can get more grimdark than praying a beeing like the Emperor. It's a bit like of the God of the Old Testament was a reality.

Emperor never said anything about cultural diversity, either for or against it. He was only interested in riding humans of superstitions such as religion.
You can look at the only accepted religion as that which surrounded the mechanicum, and at a guess I'd think that religion was allowed to prevent mankind getting to the technological heights it once had - a deliberate retardation of progress to prevent another Dark age of Technology where the machines rose against humans.
The fact that the Emperor didn't interfere in the crushing of the slave revolt when he collected Angron suggests that he had no interest in the day to day doings of people, he was only interested in the larger picture.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If the Emperor had been around 10,000 years ago, then any children he had would have contributed greatly to the human gene pool due to the lack of people back then meaning that even today most humans would be descended from him.

I think the Emperor let the Martian religion stand because when he was unifying terra, and Mars, he needed the Mechanicum. So he probably wasn't in a position to get them to abandon their religion. I dunno though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples
The Emprah was obviously the leader of the Sea Peoples.
Also, what if the Emprah travelled around the world, leading different groups of people to get the ideas for the original 20 legions. For example, he could have gone to Mongolia, and become Genghis Khan to work with the White Scars. Also, what if Christianity was just the Emprah's experiments to help with his ideas for the Word Bearers? I would like BL or GW to make a book about the Emprah's travels pre-unity, and in the present/past eras.

 ImAGeek wrote:
A minute ago he was born as a normal human and had kids, now he's an amalgam of shamans... I don't think you're reading what I write because you don't adress things that I say.

Here, let me explain it, I'll try to keep it brief, if you want the whole story look to the wiki.

This is the gist: In Anatolia around 5-10k BC, the humans were guided and protected by the Psychic, perpetually reincarnating Shamans. But, the Shamans eventually were noticed by Daemons who nommed them every time a Shan died, so the Shaman population slowly began decreasing, the Shamns noticed this and held a meeting. They decided to commit mass suicide because they somehow knew that their souls would overwhelm the Daemons and be reincarnated into Super Shaman who would be able to guide humanity forever. Super Shaman was born to a woman, and proceeded to live the next 40k years secretly guiding humanity until he came out of the closet and got iced by Horus.

The big E was Jesus before Jesus was born. His mother was a virgin pollinated by the collected will of ancient shamans, given birth to a king of men. That didn't work out so well so the big E willed a Jewish woman from ancient judae into pregnancy, giving birth to himself. Having realized his flesh is a mere conduit of his power he dicked a bunch of Romen into a massive guilt trip by tricking a bunch of people into killing him. After he rose from death he went and walked his feet upon England's mountains green.

Computron wrote:
You can look at the only accepted religion as that which surrounded the mechanicum, and at a guess I'd think that religion was allowed to prevent mankind getting to the technological heights it once had - a deliberate retardation of progress to prevent another Dark age of Technology where the machines rose against humans.

On the contrary, it's quite the opposite.

The Mechanicus religion developed organically as a direct result of the Dark Age of Technology because, in the wake of the DAoT, the Guild Mechanicus (which retained that name until the Horus Heresy) turned all of its instruction manuals and histories into chants that could be taught as an oral tradition. This was done specifically to prevent further loss of knowledge as databases were corrupted and libraries destroyed.

The problem is that singing about things and teaching them to your children tends to increase the mystique around them in those childrens' minds. They becomes less 'wrote instructions' and more 'bedtime stories'.

As time goes on, the mnemonic chants become the cornerstone of knowledge, and the chants themselves degrade and are changed for political reasons, with the end result being that the history is lost and the manuals become religious worship. Mnemonics become prayers. Instructions become laws. History becomes faith.

Then you come to the Great Crusade. More and more divergent sects of the Guild rejoin the collective, bringing their own interpretations with them. Then the Horus Heresy happens and all of it is lost. Mars falls to the Dark Mechanicum relatively early in the Heresy, with only three loyalist Magos-Adepts escaping to Terra in the wake of the Fabricator General unleashing the Scrapcode virus on the surviving and reconstructed databanks. Everything the Guild has rediscovered since the DAoT is lost again. In the wake of the Horus Heresy, those three Magos-Adepts are charged with refounding the Guild under the new title of Adeptus Mechanicus, or The Mechanicum for short.

Now, they haven't lost everything: The first order of business is to reconnect with the surviving loyal Forge Worlds and rebuild the databases... but the history of the Guild Mechanicus is gone Lost completely, and you have a new, increasingly religious Imperium staking its claim on the non-Mechanicum worlds. Either you lose your identity and merge with the new Ecclesiastical Church of the Saviour Emperor, or you dogmatise, cling to what you can remember of your cultural Omnissian beliefs, having lost almost all of the actual data... it's like trying to rebuild Christianity if all you have is a few scraps from Romans and the Gospel of St. John, and the entire Vatican has been razed, every book replaced with ogham translation notes.

 dusara217 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
A minute ago he was born as a normal human and had kids, now he's an amalgam of shamans... I don't think you're reading what I write because you don't adress things that I say.

Here, let me explain it, I'll try to keep it brief, if you want the whole story look to the wiki.

This is the gist: In Anatolia around 5-10k BC, the humans were guided and protected by the Psychic, perpetually reincarnating Shamans. But, the Shamans eventually were noticed by Daemons who nommed them every time a Shan died, so the Shaman population slowly began decreasing, the Shamns noticed this and held a meeting. They decided to commit mass suicide because they somehow knew that their souls would overwhelm the Daemons and be reincarnated into Super Shaman who would be able to guide humanity forever. Super Shaman was born to a woman, and proceeded to live the next 40k years secretly guiding humanity until he came out of the closet and got iced by Horus.

Yeah, but the first time you were acting like he was just born a normal human who happened to be a perpetual. But I may have misread, because they don't actually contradict eachother.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I think the Emperor let the Martian religion stand because when he was unifying terra, and Mars, he needed the Mechanicum. So he probably wasn't in a position to get them to abandon their religion. I dunno though.

I agree with that, but the way no one else is allowed to tamper with machines is something else. Maybe it's part of respecting the martian cult, maybe it's a good way to ensure that people don't develop advanced technology that could turn on people again. AI type systems are superior but if the AI gets too advanced it becomes a threat.

Just a minor example, but the America's Cup Yacht race was won by Oracle due to its boat having an AI type ability to tack more efficiently, to automate a lot of the functions of the boat during the race which gave them an edge. They were losing badly at one point until a computer expert was flown out to fine-tune the system and then they pretty much won every race other that and took the cup.

Left to ourselves we constantly improve technology to make things easier, the restrictions on doing this from 30K onwards meant that progress could be controlled, no nasty skynet type enemies being created. That's my take on it anyway.