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I thought the Eldar were trying to make a new god or something to kill Slaanta Claus.

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
I thought the Eldar were trying to make a new god or something to kill Slaanta Claus.

He doesn't exist. It's just what humans tell the Eldar to make them feel better at night. Or worse, depending on how you see it.

"Ho Ho Ho, I'm here for your souls!"

 urbanknight4 wrote:
Empy wouldn't become a Chaos God

If GW wanted him to he would.

If GW wanted a pink elephant to become Grand Waaagh Overlord, they would make it so.

Neither that nor the Emperor becoming a Chaos God is very plausible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
Fixing the hole within the Imperial Palace, he re-unites humanity, resuming his conquest of the galaxy in a second Great Crusade. Having lost faith in his Astartes, the Emperor relies instead solely on humanity and cechnology. Xeno races that agree to his demands are allowed a world or two each to subsist off of, so long as they do not threaten humanity. The Chaos Gods, fearing what the stability of a unified, properly led Imperium could do to their power, attempt a second Horus Heresy, but without primarchs to corrupt, they can only slow down the progress-- never stop it. The Tau and other minor xeno races, threatened by this new force, agree to ally with Chaos to fight it off. And with Slaanesh weakened enough, the Eldar find their reproductive systems working once more, and attempt to carve out a new empire of their own. Thus begins the Age of Gold.

Very, very dubious. The Emperor is no fool, and he created the first Astartes legions for a reason. More likely he would simply learn from his mistakes, and not put complete madmen in charge of his Space Marines unsupervised, and he would also keep a more close eye on its leadership overall. This would apply not only to the Astartes, of course - let's not forget what happened with the Mechanicum in the Heresy, or the Imperial Army, both of which fell prey to rampant corruption both in leadership and its ranks.

A second Great Crusade with improved Legions etc. seems more plausible.

I doubt he'll just fizzle out, though. He's the most OP thing in the galaxy; he's probably got a way out of this, but the Golden Throne is keeping him infuriatingly dead, which could actually be interesting. This is all completely theory, but since the Golden Throne is prolonging his time exposed to the warp, if he comes back he probably won't come back without some serious chaos-y issues. Wouldn't it be amazing if he came back and decided he wanted Terra to party it up with just a little bit of chaos?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Very, very dubious. The Emperor is no fool

That's debatable.

 Melissia wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Very, very dubious. The Emperor is no fool

That's debatable.

I don't think it is debatable at all. The evidence is pretty damning that he is a fool.

It depends. He made some poor judgments, indicating that he is flawed. However, he also managed some fairly amazing things.

He's incredibly smart and forward thinking, but terribly proud, I think. He's too convinced that he's always right and won't let anyone else have any sort of say in the matter. That's why I think it's not totally impossible for him to become a chaos god. Order can be chaos, if done wrong.

Tyranids, Orks, and Chaos thrive off the warfare. The other races, not so much. If one of those three were to come out in the end, I believe it would be some combination of the three. Chaos is fuelled by the Orks' violent nature, and the Tyranids feed off of Orks' biomass. The Orks themselves, grow and sort of breed through violence caused by infighting or wars against Tyranids or Chaos.

 Melissia wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Very, very dubious. The Emperor is no fool

That's debatable.

Arrogant, to be sure, but intelligence is almost definitely not one of the Emperor's shortcomings. In addition to his brain simply being of a superior construction, he won the Unification Wars, then led the Great Crusade, while beginning with almost nothing in terms of resources. Furthermore, was he not the designer of the Astartes and the Thunder Warriors? Isn't he the one that spearheaded the creation of a human webway?

The defeat that Big E did experience at the hands of chaos was more from an underestimating of the capabilities of Chaos, which is understandable as surveillance of the Immatetium when one's goals are hostile to it is not what may be called a leisurely endeavor, combined with the aforementioned arrogance. The Horus Heresy demonstrated of what the Ruinous Powers were truly capable, and 10,000 years of de facto imprisonment tends to deflate self-confidence by some degrees. Should Emps arise from the throne, I wouldn't expect him to make the same mistakes again.

Intelligent people can be foolish, and often are.

He made some poor judgments, but then, everyone does. His massive power simply meant his mistakes had more disastrous consequences.

I'd still say he is not a foolish man overall.

Well, I don't care if the Emperor's a fool or not, I wouldn't want him back, ever, as sucky as the Imperium is to live in now. The dude was basically Serpentor with brain powers, chairman Mao spliced in, and a kick@$$ spacefleet. He abolished freedom of religion in a misguided attempt to starve Chaos, he forcibly absorbed functioning and perfectly, well, civilized civilizations into the Imperium, and pushed a policy of racist extermination instead of the sort of cooperation practiced without problem by civilizations like the Interex. I'm sorry, but the Emperor was bad news for the galaxy at large. Things may not have been great all around before he showed up, but he made things a lot worse.

I hope that the guy dies off and doesn't come back. Would it mess up the Astronomican? Yes, the Imperium would fall apart, which wouldn't necessarily be bad. There would be no more reason for the Tyranids to make a beeline towards Earth, and a good chunk of the Imperium could do fine on their own, as they did before the "Great Crusade". However, lots of people would be able to breathe free, and live better. Ultramar would certainly have no problem, plenty of folks could chill with the Tau, or go on with life as usual in the Koronus sector. The only ones who "need" the Emperor are the power hungry monsters who grow fat on the suffering of humanity and the Chaos mooks who need a common enemy so they don't fight each other. Other than the 'Nids, who the Emperor is attracting, smaller human factions had been doing great with all the galaxy's problems for thousands of years no problem. I say stop giving the Big E soul snacks, flip him a big ol' finger as he finally dies, and let the galaxy sort it out. Some worlds will suffer BIG TIME, but plenty will find a way to prosper, and the people who are left, who will be beyond count still, will have better lives for it.

As for the Eldar, it's implied that they don't *all* need to die to generate Ynnead. And the Eldar may be beyond recovering to their former glory, but it's not like they're an irredeemable, galactic, Miley Cyrus. Once the Emperor dies and humans have a couple generations to start getting reasonable, they can wait it out, sip some Space Elf beer, maybe follow the path of the Halo player for a while or something, and let Ynnead ROFLstomp Slaanesh when the time comes, while the Chaos fanatics rip each other apart without a common enemy.

Farsight can team up with some newly liberated humans, smack the crap out of the Ethereals, and maybe start a nifty space republic.

Orks won't have a major power to WAAAGH! against, and become scary alien invaders who are certainly beatable.

Well, that's my fanon happy ending. I'm sure it's got as many holes as a well used target, but it's serviceable and I like it. Unlike the Emperor, screw that guy.

Actually, the "Chaos Mooks" would be glad of the Emperor's death, since it's been explicitly stated within Chaos codices that the Emperor's efforts in the Immaterium is the only reason Chaos isn't any stronger than it is right now.

There was a thought experiment that was done once long ago. I believe it was the first person to ever use the term 'robot'. The thought experiment was about the most efficient (and not necessarily fastest) way of wiping out the Milky Way. It went something like this.
Build a space flying probe filled with nanorobots. Send it off in some direction of some planet in another star system. Program the nanorobots so that when the probe landed they would go about the process of eventually stripping down the planet of it's life and materials down to it's elemental parts and then use those resources to build more probes filled with nanobots that will fly off to other planets and repeat the same process. The calculated amount of time to completely cover the Milky Way was millions and millions of years which might seem long but is really just a tiny fraction of the Milky Way's life.
I believe Orks are essentially this very same thought experiment but of course given a narrative twist that fits the setting. This race has a way in which only a small ship of a few dozen lands on a planet and over a surprising fast period of time they have multiplied into hordes with an entirely new invasive ecosystem growing around them. They loot and scrap everything on the planet while more and more grow out of the ground making the planet a sea of green. Meks kobbling together all type of noisy stuff and before long Kroozers put together so Orks can continue migrating in all directions and repeat this on other planets. They've been at this for millions and millions of yrs. While the Warp in this setting complicates travel more then our conventional real world they have nonethless over time become the most prolific race in the Milky Way with the most amount of space in their control then any other race. The Galaxy is so heavily saturated with Orks now that it doesn't matter if you can destroy a planet into a barren rock, more Orks are coming in from all directions and they bring their ecology with them, reterraforming the planet and doing the same process all over again. I believe whether they unite or not they will eventually conquer the entire galaxy. They've outlived some impressively powerful races that use to run the galaxy and they continue to grow and thrive. It's inevitable. Uniting as one will only speed it up.

Order and chaos are both metaphysical concepts that must be manifested into the real world. The warp is the realm of the metaphysical as it hosts emotions, ideas, concepts, etc. Even what we call real space exists as a metaphysical concept and thus is at its heart also bound by its relationship with the metaphysical. The conceptual, by cosmological necessity, must also become manifest into the physical just as the physical must also be conceptualized. One cannot exist without the other, and thus through the paradoxical and opposed relationships that they share with one another, they exist within a stasis as neither Chaos nor Order is stronger than the other; it is through this stasis that we have unending war.

There can be no good without evil, or up without down. In conclusion order needs chaos and chaos needs order, otherwise neither would exist.

Here is some unity of opposites

Dialecticians claim that unity or identity of opposites can exist in reality or in thought. If the opposites were completely balanced, the result would be stasis, but often it is implied that one of the pairs of opposites is larger, stronger or more powerful than the other, such that over time, one of the opposed conditions prevails over the other. Yet rather than 'stasis' the identity of opposites, there being unity within their duality, is taken to be the instance of their very manifestation, the unity between them being the essential principle of making any particular opposite in question extant as either opposing force. For example 'upward' cannot exist unless there is a 'downward', they are opposites but they co-substantiate one another, their unity is that either one exists because the opposite is necessary for the existence of the other, one manifests immediately with the other. Hot would not be hot without cold, due to there being no contrast by which to define it as 'hot' relative to any other condition, it would not and could not have identity whatsoever if not for its very opposite that makes the necessary prerequisite existence for the opposing condition to be. This is the oneness, unity, principle to the very existence of any opposite. Either one's identity is the contra-posing principle itself, necessitating the other. The criteria for what is opposite is therefore something a priori."

I wonder, could 'Chaos God' simply be a name we have given them and nothing more then that... a name?

Take Tzeentch for example, there is a reason why the fan-base has given him the catch phrase of 'Just as Planned.' While he does embody wide spread change, it is change that occurs through dedication to some sort of plan by a large group of people instead of random chance. This guy would easily fall into the 'lawful' category if this was D&D, at the very least all that dedication to a plan so complicated we can not imagine it would bump him into 'neutral' territory even if he was also embodying change. That is the only thing that seems to make him chaotic, that he feeds on this 'desire for change' and I don't know if that is enough to be considered a being of pure chaos. This is further complicated by titles such as The Architect of Fate, a title that suggests he is a key figure in preventing chaos from interrupt the way things are meant to play out.

With that thought in mind, why shouldn't the Emperor be considered the sixth Chaos God if he became a pure being of the Warp?

I don't think doing so would be correct only because the other four Chaos Gods have one big thing going for them: They can feed off of any Race. The Emperor is one of the biggest xenophobes out there, viewing every non-human as a threat to the conquest of the galaxy at the very least, and something to be wiped from the galaxy for the crime of simply existing at the very worse. Even if he was capable of consuming energy from a non-human source, I don't think it is very likely that he would actually do so. Instead, he would be feeding off just the energy of Humans while still encouraging them to destroy every other race and take their worlds for themselves. As being limited to just one Race would make it far easier for him to be categorized as something different, the same way we separate the Elder Pantheon because as their gods where Elder centric, he would simply be named 'God of Man' or keep the title of 'Emperor of Mankind' regardless of the whole 'is he or is he not a Chaos God' debate.

Though, personally, I second 3AcresAndATau as the Emperors continued survival in any form would only empower the Ecclesiarchy further... screw those guys as well!

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Order and chaos are both metaphysical concepts that must be manifested into the real world. The warp is the realm of the metaphysical as it hosts emotions, ideas, concepts, etc. Even what we call real space exists as a metaphysical concept and thus is at its heart also bound by its relationship with the metaphysical. The conceptual, by cosmological necessity, must also become manifest into the physical just as the physical must also be conceptualized. One cannot exist without the other, and thus through the paradoxical and opposed relationships that they share with one another, they exist within a stasis as neither Chaos nor Order is stronger than the other; it is through this stasis that we have unending war.

There can be no good without evil, or up without down. In conclusion order needs chaos and chaos needs order, otherwise neither would exist.

Here is some unity of opposites

Dialecticians claim that unity or identity of opposites can exist in reality or in thought. If the opposites were completely balanced, the result would be stasis, but often it is implied that one of the pairs of opposites is larger, stronger or more powerful than the other, such that over time, one of the opposed conditions prevails over the other. Yet rather than 'stasis' the identity of opposites, there being unity within their duality, is taken to be the instance of their very manifestation, the unity between them being the essential principle of making any particular opposite in question extant as either opposing force. For example 'upward' cannot exist unless there is a 'downward', they are opposites but they co-substantiate one another, their unity is that either one exists because the opposite is necessary for the existence of the other, one manifests immediately with the other. Hot would not be hot without cold, due to there being no contrast by which to define it as 'hot' relative to any other condition, it would not and could not have identity whatsoever if not for its very opposite that makes the necessary prerequisite existence for the opposing condition to be. This is the oneness, unity, principle to the very existence of any opposite. Either one's identity is the contra-posing principle itself, necessitating the other. The criteria for what is opposite is therefore something a priori."

The Warp will probably represent more then just mere Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. There's more and the authors of 40k have provided it in the form of Orks. Someone posted this link previously in a discussion about standard of living in defence of how some of us believe Orks have the highest of the races. Blue and Orange Morality. Orks fit into this alternate set of morales perfectly and they have a representation or two in the Warp.

 3AcresAndATau wrote:
Well, I don't care if the Emperor's a fool or not, I wouldn't want him back, ever, as sucky as the Imperium is to live in now. The dude was basically Serpentor with brain powers, chairman Mao spliced in, and a kick@$$ spacefleet. He abolished freedom of religion in a misguided attempt to starve Chaos, he forcibly absorbed functioning and perfectly, well, civilized civilizations into the Imperium, and pushed a policy of racist extermination instead of the sort of cooperation practiced without problem by civilizations like the Interex. I'm sorry, but the Emperor was bad news for the galaxy at large. Things may not have been great all around before he showed up, but he made things a lot worse.

I hope that the guy dies off and doesn't come back. Would it mess up the Astronomican? Yes, the Imperium would fall apart, which wouldn't necessarily be bad. There would be no more reason for the Tyranids to make a beeline towards Earth, and a good chunk of the Imperium could do fine on their own, as they did before the "Great Crusade". However, lots of people would be able to breathe free, and live better. Ultramar would certainly have no problem, plenty of folks could chill with the Tau, or go on with life as usual in the Koronus sector. The only ones who "need" the Emperor are the power hungry monsters who grow fat on the suffering of humanity and the Chaos mooks who need a common enemy so they don't fight each other. Other than the 'Nids, who the Emperor is attracting, smaller human factions had been doing great with all the galaxy's problems for thousands of years no problem. I say stop giving the Big E soul snacks, flip him a big ol' finger as he finally dies, and let the galaxy sort it out. Some worlds will suffer BIG TIME, but plenty will find a way to prosper, and the people who are left, who will be beyond count still, will have better lives for it.

As for the Eldar, it's implied that they don't *all* need to die to generate Ynnead. And the Eldar may be beyond recovering to their former glory, but it's not like they're an irredeemable, galactic, Miley Cyrus. Once the Emperor dies and humans have a couple generations to start getting reasonable, they can wait it out, sip some Space Elf beer, maybe follow the path of the Halo player for a while or something, and let Ynnead ROFLstomp Slaanesh when the time comes, while the Chaos fanatics rip each other apart without a common enemy.

Farsight can team up with some newly liberated humans, smack the crap out of the Ethereals, and maybe start a nifty space republic.

Orks won't have a major power to WAAAGH! against, and become scary alien invaders who are certainly beatable.

Well, that's my fanon happy ending. I'm sure it's got as many holes as a well used target, but it's serviceable and I like it. Unlike the Emperor, screw that guy.

If you want literally the only thing keeping humanity alive to die, then that's your prerogative, bro. But listen up. We don't love Empy because he's a huge racist and alien killer. We don't love him because he eats brains daily simply to live. We don't love him because he wiped out religion.

We love him because he loves us.

This is a tough world, it's grimdark. That means that things are never "going to get worse before they get better". Things are just gonna get continually worse until all your sacrifice and effort becomes so violent and senseless you begin to wonder if perhaps... it might not have been better to die in the first place. Its a dehumanizing era. Sacrifice and selflessness is the bread and butter of the day, and anything less means absolute destruction.

You say those isolated humans would have been ok if the Emperor had left them alone. Alright... sure. Do you know what happened on the first planet the Tyrannids landed on? They gobbled it up. It may seem standard, but to the inhabitants of Tyran (or whatever it's called) it must have seemed like chaos. Reports of mutant aliens must have terrified the day lights out of them, but guess what? There's nothing they could have done. There is nothing a single planet can do against a Tyrannid invasion. Those guys are little Death Stars. Its all ogre when they land.

Using that same logic, let's assume the Imperium of Man didn't exist like you so wish. Very well. Multiply the fate of that planet by the millions of other planets that would have been part of the Imperium, but no more. Every single planet- gone. Only the Emperor keeps the Astronomical alive, which you seem to devalue a lot. But simple communication and travel is crucial to survival here. Not only do supplies get shipped, including soldiers and fortifications, but even a simple word of warning. "Yo, the nids are coming!" would help out a little, wouldn't you think? But hey, the Emperor is dead. No interstellar communication for you.

There's a reason mankind hasn't been utterly wiped out like countless other xeno races before them. Do you think the Eldar would have still been around if they hadn't united? Same goes for humans. Only if we stand together will we be able to survive. Our days of conquering are over with our most capable leaders dead or incapacitated. We must simply hold out now. If every planet within the Imperium didn't count on the resources provided, it would die. Trade, the IG, the Inquisition, the Grey Knights. All these things wouldn't be possible, but they are.

Lets talk about xenos. Out of the millions of races we have encountered, how many were good? And I don't meant just good, I meant actually nonhostile. Let me tell you about the last time the Imperium trusted xeno scum. Lion El'Johnson invited a boarding party of xenos to parley with him and talk diplomacy in his personal cruiser, and what do they do? They try to assassinate him, and then it was revealed they snuck a nuclear device withing their spacecraft. Some xenos may be good guys, but the Imperium can't afford to sit down and truly make sure they're good guys- they don't have the time. They could be Chaos worshippers of the Architect, keeping their true purpose expertly hidden. They could be crawling with disease dangerous not to them, but deadly to humans. They could all go into a rage and get violent at mankind over misunderstandings. Nobody cares to deal with that. I wish we could be more tolerant, but this is a grimdark universe. Deal with it.

Lastly, the Emperor is not a fool. He has lapses in judgement, but inwardly he's not a fool. The stupidest thing he ever did was fight Horus. It was stated in various sources that he could have easily crushed his son with a powerful psychic blast and ended the war then and there. There was no need for physical fighting. But even then, he's the Emperor. He could have taken him. The reason he lost was because he felt compassion for his son. Before delivering the killing blow, he abstained with doubt, sealing his doom.

That isn't foolishness. It's love of the purest and most benevolent kind. He loves humans. He loves us. Yes, even you, heretic.

The Emperor protects.

Feel free to contest any point of my theory, it's optimistic and misses a lot. However, the Emperor is certainly not all that's keeping humanity around. I'd go so far as to say he's holding humans back.

Let's look at the Astononmican first. It allows long distance warp navigation. Short jumps were already possible, so, it's not as if no Emperor=No Warp Travel. The other thing is does is attract Tyranids. I believe it's even in the codex that the 'nids are heading for Earth because they're drawn to the light of the Astrononimican same way a moth gets drawn to a high powered camping lamp. Without that beacon, tyranid efforts would be minimal, uncoordinated, and on less of a intersection course with Terra.

The Imperium's trade isn't really doing anything for common humans. It's basically keeping overpopulated worlds that aren't really great environments for humanity around, a bunch of space Californias, so they can manufacture weapons for the Imperium so the Guard can meet new and exotic life forms and blow them to hell and not ask questions. The Imperium may be crumbling, in lore, but it's also constantly taking in new worlds. Worlds that are of strategic value for even further expansion. World that it doesn't need. It's not as if the Imperium is scattering the population of it's hives to offer decent living conditions. It's becoming more and more bloated by the day, and only this unnecessary link between so many worlds that have been built up in such a way they aren't capable of being self sufficient necessitates interstellar trade. Reasonably, a livable planet would have a decent amount of all the important resources you can find on earth. Exchange of ideas would constitute trade in such a scenario as one would have if Imperial worlds weren't given over in their entirety to a single industry. The Imperium isn't exactly brimming with those.

Let's turn our eyes to xenos for a moment. Yes, the orks are barbarians without any humanity or such, nids are monster (who again, only want the big glowy thing on terra). The Necrons aren't good news, nor are the Dark Eldar. They are all, however, beatable. And not just by some grand crusade, by the PDFs and Guard regiments we don't hear about every day. There are only a million space marines, less than one per planet, so they're obviously not doing all the heavy lifting. Regular humans have held the tide back for a long time, with little in the way of help from the reich on Terra. As to the Eldar, they will fight, but they can be reasoned with, even when it comes to their Maiden Worlds. Are they tricksy? Yeah. There is mention of peaceful cooperation before the Emperor came along, if I'm recalling correctly. The Tau? They've got tinges of the USSR in their blood, but they can be plenty reasonable too, if not more so. Plus there's plenty of minor xenos species around. And in the RPG material, every day humans trade with these guys, work with them with no problem. The Interex got along pretty nicely with those centaurs. It could be the reason that xenos are hesitant to have a sit down with the Imperium is because it's official policy is to wipe them off the face of the galaxy. That's like asking Israel to go have a nice little conference with Iran and Hamas, you're not going to get a lot done because one side is dead set on wiping out the other.

Finally, let's look at the Emperor's "love". A bunch of psychic cave men decide that they and only they know best for humanity. They commit mass suicide to become, Emps, the EMPRAH, the Big E. The Emperor guide the creation of gunpowder, the space shuttle, and the unicycle, allegedly. Then, humanity launches iteself into a Butlerian Jihad that they barely win, which is kinda a bummer, since they had a big old interstellar empire by now. However, having beat the robots, a bunch of smaller human factions spring up. Some cooperate with aliens, some get enslaved, and some do A-OK on their own. For examples of civilizations that did pretty great, see the Brotherhood, the Interex, the Empire from Horus Rising, and that's just for starters. Point is, your life could suck, but there's an equal or greater chance it could be
pretty awesome at this point. The Emperor decides that Chaos has to be destroyed, allegedly due to the threat they pose, more likely because he wants to take the Chaos pantheon's place at some point. To this end, he wages a brutal war of conquest across Earth just as it is starting to recover from its past wars. He abolishes religion, claiming there having been religious wars as a reason, then launches a galaxy spanning crusade in the name of making everyone think the same as him. He also proceeds to hand science over to a cult that does not recognize innovation as morally acceptable, and that basically abolished the scientific method. Now, the Emperor begins to build his Imperium, killing anyone who stands in the way of unity under HIS ABSOLUTE control. Then, the Horus Heresy happens, and we all know the story pretty well from there.

Point is, the Emperor is obviously power hungry more than anything else. He want to control people and use them up before tossing them out like yesterday's trash, and he has no respect for basic self determination or human rights. I'm pretty sure the Emperor doesn't love me. First off, he's a fictional character . Joking aside though, I believe he said that humanity wouldn't be free until "the last stone of the last church is thrown on the head of the last priest". This means I, as a student of theology, have no place in his Fascist Federation. I love to say the Emperor is Mao x1000, but the dude's definitely more Nazi than Commie. He takes a minimal threat or non threat, Xenos and a Chaos a little low on juice in this case, and turns it into horrendous, unbearable foe to be utterly destroyed, so that the people willingly give up more and more of their rights to an increasingly brutal police state in the name of security from the boogeyman the state has created. Right out of the fascist playbook. The Emperor also permitted the creation of servitors, yet another way of robbing humans of their free will entirely. If the Emperor truly loved humans, he would let them live their own lives without taking the role of "Philosopher-Dictator". I never said he was a fool though, I said "I don't care if he's a fool or not". The guy obviously had enough cunning to build a huge empire. But he was Evil. Powerful as he was, the Emperor was just a man, and he had no right to tear down humane, functioning civilizations and replace them with his uncaring and oppressive rule. And even if that's all somehow done for a perverse love of humanity, we can look to the words of C.S Lewis "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive ... They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

The only thing the emperor truly protects are his own interests. Yes, that last non capitalization was intentional. "The Emperor" can't really be his name, and he;s certainly no God. He's a man. A powerful, twisted man who causes trillions to suffer every day "for their own good".

Guess what really sparked this essay of a response was the "deal with it." No, I won't "deal with it". You don't have to interpret the fluff the same as me, it's pretty ambiguous. That being said, I'm very much an optimist about humanity, about the individual, and about capabilities. It might just be a story, but I refuse to accept that things can't get better, and that 40k's future holds nothing but war and extinction. Lying down and taking that is the only path that would lead straight to the extinction of the human race. I don't know about you, looks like you're stateside as well, but I don't just come from a place. I'm part of the United States of America. That's a massive portion of my identity. And that means nobility, and compassion, and knowing that there can be a better tomorrow if only we'll make it happen. And that's entirely possible for the humans of 40k, but not under the Emperor or his Imperium. The Imperium is as unnecessary and uncaring as the man who created it. Things can be better.

 3AcresAndATau wrote:
Feel free to contest any point of my theory,

Codex: Chaos Daemons, which says that the Emperor is the only thing holding Chaos back from overwhelming the Galaxy.

Guys. I was reading through the wiki last night, and I found something out.

Turns out the Harlequins are up to something- their god has a "Last Prank" or something, and if they do it correctly, it will not only kill Slaanesh, it will drive him to actually protect the galaxy somehow.

Every single prophecy, from the Space Wolves' Wolftime to the Eldar whatever you call it, says that Chaos will defeat the sentient races of the galaxy and win a la Fantasy.

If there's even the slightest chance of not getting taken over by that traitor scum Abaddon, I'd do it. I didn't realize how bad Chaos is, I mean... they have gods on their side.

What do you guys think? Are there any other factions with a plan B that doesn't involve dying horribly? So far only the Harlequins have a tangible thing.

Which wiki? Because WH40k Wiki is fanfic material.

 Melissia wrote:
Which wiki? Because WH40k Wiki is fanfic material.

Here's the passage:

Always, the strands of fate have pointed toward the victory of Chaos during the last, mythic battle known to the Eldar as the Rhana Dandra. Yet within the pages of the crystal tome is recorded Cegorach's ultimate jest, a way to trick Slaanesh into expending all her power not to destroy the Eldar, but to save them. How such an impossibility could come to pass is unclear, for on this matter the final act is infuriatingly vague. Yet the Harlequins take their god's words on faith alone, for their devotion to Cegorach is total and his methods beyond question or reproach. Thus they have begun the steps of this final dance, and will see it completed, or else face absolute destruction in the attempt.

What do you mean it's fanfic? Isn't it supposed to be a collection of all the canon WH40K material?

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Which wiki? Because WH40k Wiki is fanfic material.

Here's the passage:

Always, the strands of fate have pointed toward the victory of Chaos during the last, mythic battle known to the Eldar as the Rhana Dandra. Yet within the pages of the crystal tome is recorded Cegorach's ultimate jest, a way to trick Slaanesh into expending all her power not to destroy the Eldar, but to save them. How such an impossibility could come to pass is unclear, for on this matter the final act is infuriatingly vague. Yet the Harlequins take their god's words on faith alone, for their devotion to Cegorach is total and his methods beyond question or reproach. Thus they have begun the steps of this final dance, and will see it completed, or else face absolute destruction in the attempt.

What do you mean it's fanfic? Isn't it supposed to be a collection of all the canon WH40K material?

If it's wh40k.wikia, then no. No it is not.

They put tons of fanfic crap into there blended with the actual canon stuff.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:

If it's wh40k.wikia, then no. No it is not.

They put tons of fanfic crap into there blended with the actual canon stuff.

What. That's absolute bull. How the heck do they get away with that?

What site can I use, then?

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:

If it's wh40k.wikia, then no. No it is not.

They put tons of fanfic crap into there blended with the actual canon stuff.

What. That's absolute bull. How the heck do they get away with that?

What site can I use, then?

Generally 1d4chan is more blatant with the differences between canon and fanfic - and it does have some pretty good tactics articles.
But yes, the Harlequins do have something like that (I believe that the idea is to trick Slaanesh into destroying/imprisoning himself).

 Talon of Anathrax wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:

If it's wh40k.wikia, then no. No it is not.

They put tons of fanfic crap into there blended with the actual canon stuff.

What. That's absolute bull. How the heck do they get away with that?

What site can I use, then?

Generally 1d4chan is more blatant with the differences between canon and fanfic - and it does have some pretty good tactics articles.
But yes, the Harlequins do have something like that (I believe that the idea is to trick Slaanesh into destroying/imprisoning himself).

Thank the gods. I was beginning to fear that nobody had a plan B. I'm really rooting for the space elves now, I hope they at least get rid of Mr BDSM before the End times come. We could use all the help we can get to kill Chaos, and 3 gods are better than 4.

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Talon of Anathrax wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:

If it's wh40k.wikia, then no. No it is not.

They put tons of fanfic crap into there blended with the actual canon stuff.

What. That's absolute bull. How the heck do they get away with that?

What site can I use, then?

Generally 1d4chan is more blatant with the differences between canon and fanfic - and it does have some pretty good tactics articles.
But yes, the Harlequins do have something like that (I believe that the idea is to trick Slaanesh into destroying/imprisoning himself).

Thank the gods. I was beginning to fear that nobody had a plan B. I'm really rooting for the space elves now, I hope they at least get rid of Mr BDSM before the End times come. We could use all the help we can get to kill Chaos, and 3 gods are better than 4.

Somehow, I can't bring myself to root for the Harlies...
No matter how much I dislike Slaanesh, I still can't trust a bunch of crazy space clowns.
If they manage it, fine! But they'd better not expect my help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A word of warning: 1d4chan is written trying to be humorous - pay attention! It does include fanfics and fan theories, but usually they're much more spottable than on the 40k wiki.
For basic information there's always lexicanum...