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Basically, do any of the books actually describe what the Emperor was capable of doing with his powers?

So far, the best I can do to quantify his abilities is to list what he couldn't do: obviously he wasn't capable of mind-controlling the entire population of Terra or even half his enemies' troops, or he wouldn't have needed his armies. Likewise, we can infer that he probably wasn't capable of destroying whole armies for the same reason. That gives us an upper limit for what he could do. But what is the lower limit? What do we know he was capable of accomplishing?

Also, is there any indication of whether he used technology or other people to amplify his power before the construction of the golden throne?

Well there is that campaign against the Orks with Horus. Where Horus "saved" the Emperor from death, but then the Emperor obliterated the warboss with a psychic attack, then single handily wiped out all the Orks with another psychic attack (which means the entire battle was a pointless bonding session).

But on the other hand the Emperor was incapable of simply causing Gorro or the Ork Army to vanish from existence instead being forced into a direct military confrontation and even needing to tamper with the technological devices within Gorro to cause it to collapse in on itself.

The Emperor clearly couldn't, for example, annihilate planets or enemy star fleets on a whim. Additionally to save a large group of Primarchs and Space Marines from a Waaagh! (I believe it was the Waaagh! of Gharkul Blackfang but I am not sure, it is the Waaagh! which mostly exists in Fluff to justify the Custodes as being WAY more powerful than Space Marines) he was forced to deploy his Custodes, thus not capable of simply destroying the enemy army alone at a whim, and even engaged the Warboss in one-on-one combat atop a Gargant where he decapitated him with a sword.

To be honest though the Emperor's capabilities vary greatly depending on what the Plot Demands, quite likely more than even most 40k characters who do heavily suffer from this condition, however suffice to say his power had clear limits as to what it could do mostly by the fact that he couldn't win wars on Terra or anywhere else on his own and thus had to create and forge armies to support him. To be honest with the paucity of information available I don't know if it'll be very possible to create a clear understanding of his exact specifications. I know that's a rather useless answer but, unfortunately, it is the best I can come up with.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, consistently, certain technology stymied him. If I recall correctly, and I am no expert so I may be incorrect, on Terra there was a fortress protected by a Shield which he could not penetrate, nor could his army, and this a force was deployed in order to infiltrate and destroy the Shield from the inside (if I recall correctly the Shield is being maintained by an AI of sort which produce Drone enemies).

Additionally, to the above, concerning Gorro if I recall correctly the Emperor only launches his attack after freed, for all we know this was vital to allowing him to build up and direct the energy, and additionally I recall it killing all the Orks present. Not all the Orks in the battle. That was only achieved when the Emperor managed to fight his way into the centre of Gorro and collapse the self-sustaining Plasma Sphere which held Gorro together (it was a Scrap World). In particular here this was important since the Orks of Gorro were said to be ridiculously powerful because of bionic augmentation and plasma technology. So I wouldn't say it was a pointless exercise, the Emperor clearly felt he could not achieve the feat alone and was vindicated in his belief, hence why he was intelligent enough to bring along additional forces and, additionally, know that far easier than trying to destroy the enemy through force he could turn the technology against them. That being said I'm no expert on this Fluff, this is what I recall from a while ago and it held little interest to me, so I might be wrong about certain points.

He is mentioned in the mechanicum book to fix broken machinery ( a not optimal malfunctioning knight) with a tutch of his hand.

When he did the thing with the Orks after killing the warboss he proceeded to remove the reactor at the heart of world through some space-time shenanigans or something.

He also psychically forced Lorgar and his entire Legion to unwillingly kneel after destroying a city that had taken a great length of time and effort to build (and as such were pretty darn angry).

In theory anything another human psyker could do he should have been capable of doing as well.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
He also psychically forced Lorgar and his entire Legion to unwillingly kneel after destroying a city that had taken a great length of time and effort to build (and as such were pretty darn angry).

Forcing 100k Astartes to kneel with a mere thought was pretty badass.

I'm of the opinion that his powers are often well over exaggerated. Too powerful for the table top for sure, but not blinking cruisers out of existence on a whim. I'm looking forward to the upcoming trilogy on him though. Should answer all these questions (and no doubt raise plenty more).

 JamesY wrote:
I'm of the opinion that his powers are often well over exaggerated. Too powerful for the table top for sure, but not blinking cruisers out of existence on a whim. I'm looking forward to the upcoming trilogy on him though. Should answer all these questions (and no doubt raise plenty more).

Well the Emperor was a god in all but name so its only fitting that he has god-like powers:

"If a man gathers ten thousand suns in his hands... If a man seeds a hundred thousand worlds with his sons and daughters, granting them custody of the galaxy itself... If a man guides a million vessels between the infinite stars with a mere thought... Then I pray you tell me, if you are able, how such a man is anything less than a god." — Lorgar Aurelian, from The First Heretic.

I've always assumed the Emperor doesn't just level planets with a blink of his eyes was because more powerful psychic acts are tiring, and cab drain a person for x amount of time. Bringing a pen from the other side of the room would, I imagine take little effort, and need to recovery. But maybe turning a Warlord Titan inside out could require a lie down afterwards..

Anemone wrote:
Additionally, to the above, concerning Gorro if I recall correctly the Emperor only launches his attack after freed, for all we know this was vital to allowing him to build up and direct the energy, and additionally I recall it killing all the Orks present. Not all the Orks in the battle.

The Emperor's attack killed all the Orks present who were genetically related to the Warboss within a couple of generations - so his siblings, children and grandchildren, something like that. Because of how Orks reproduce, that was a significant amount of the population present, but it explains why they still needed a battle.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I've always assumed the Emperor doesn't just level planets with a blink of his eyes was because more powerful psychic acts are tiring, and cab drain a person for x amount of time. Bringing a pen from the other side of the room would, I imagine take little effort, and need to recovery. But maybe turning a Warlord Titan inside out could require a lie down afterwards..

Exactly. Its not that he can't do such things. He could definitely do it, its just going to take some mental effort.

"I have an army of fanatically loyal super soldiers, why should I blow up this planet with my mind? Especially when the planet is useful."

"I guess I could just insta-kill all these enemy soldiers, but that would be a pain. I'll let my super-soldiers do that for me, I have more important things to do."

@Furyou: An attack which kills all Orks in a geographic area one can see is not so impressive. Impressive for an individual but in 40k there are numerous weapons which destroy whole planets and stars. Not to mention both Dark Eldar and Tau have used genetic and virus based warfare to kill al related members of a species on a planet before. As I said, impressive, but clearly not impressive enough to carry the war on his own thus requiring Horus' help as the book explicitly states.

@Grey Templar: There are numerous times where the Emperor had 'nothing better to do' yet still displayed no such powers. During the Blackfang battle there was no need to gather and risk the lives of the whole Custodes and threw legions and their Primarchs if he could with a whim have annihilated all the Orks. There was no need to conclude a peace treaty with Mars giving it a great deal of autonomy if he could with a whim have caused them all to agree with him. There was no need to send his troops on a daring and dangerous underground attack to disable a shield if he could with a whim disable the shield (since we cannot claim disabling a shield would approach the psychic might necessary to destroy a fleet or a planet). There would have been no need for Thunder Warriors (who are all killed after the Unification War anyway) if he could have alone at a whim instantly subjugated or destroyed all his enemies on Terra. The Emperor makes clear to Horus in a speech that he will need Horus, and all the Marines help, to destroy Ullanor and that even with that he is skeptical of they will ever 'defeat' the Orks. Additionally the Emperor could not instantly obliterate the Daemon army which emerged from within Terra. Nor, apparently, could he obliterate the Traitor Legion forces besieging Terra on a whim. Arguing that the Emperor 'simply didn't feel like doing it' as a justification why he consistently displayed he as incapable of winning wars singlehandedly or defeating entire space fleets and planets has no evidence. It's based off omission. 'The Emperor didn't do those things, that doesn't mean he can't' means that I could just as easily say 'X didn't do those things but because it was not explicitly stated that X absolutely could not do those things maybe X can do those things'? This argument can then be used to justify all sorts of things so long as their is a lack of an explicit proviso counter to it.

The God Emperor suffers from the same syndrome than the Abrahamic God. In a chapter he creates the enitre universe out of nothing using words of power, level mountains and flood the world. In another book, he cheats to win a wrestling match, fear humans and is defeated by an army because they have Iron Chariots. Go figure...

 Anemone wrote:
@Furyou: An attack which kills all Orks in a geographic area one can see is not so impressive. Impressive for an individual but in 40k there are numerous weapons which destroy whole planets and stars. Not to mention both Dark Eldar and Tau have used genetic and virus based warfare to kill al related members of a species on a planet before. As I said, impressive, but clearly not impressive enough to carry the war on his own thus requiring Horus' help as the book explicitly states.

I'm just sharing a more accurate version of the technical details, feel free to interpret them as you wish.

Personally, I think its a little unreasonable to expect the psychic equivalent of a Beowolf Cluster to spend its whole time handing out big-ticket smitings when it has a perfectly good army for that and a war against four supercomputers to deal with at the same time.

I think the best example is him imprisoning the Void Dragon on Mars. Maybe a expert of Necron fluff can tell us how impressive the C'tan is again.

A C'tan is a pure energy being with an instinctive grasp on the fundamental laws of physics, capable of directly interacting with matter on the subatomic level.

How intelligent the C'tan are in their native form is questionable, but once bound to a Necrodermis they certainly show high levels of intelligence and individual will. How much of that is derived from the knowledge of Necrontyr culture the Necrodermis was programmed with beforehand is unknown, however - it's entirely possible that the native C'tan were simply oversized microbes until they were imbued with a frame of reference by the Necrontyr.

Nothing with a high level of sapience, after all, would be content to literally just sit in solar orbit for millions of years doing nothing but eat. It would crave stimulation, interaction - every advanced life form on earth seeks, after all, social interaction in one form or another, from the smallest insect up to the largest sea creatures.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
A C'tan is a pure energy being with an instinctive grasp on the fundamental laws of physics, capable of directly interacting with matter on the subatomic level.

How intelligent the C'tan are in their native form is questionable, but once bound to a Necrodermis they certainly show high levels of intelligence and individual will. How much of that is derived from the knowledge of Necrontyr culture the Necrodermis was programmed with beforehand is unknown, however - it's entirely possible that the native C'tan were simply oversized microbes until they were imbued with a frame of reference by the Necrontyr.

Nothing with a high level of sapience, after all, would be content to literally just sit in solar orbit for millions of years doing nothing but eat. It would crave stimulation, interaction - every advanced life form on earth seeks, after all, social interaction in one form or another, from the smallest insect up to the largest sea creatures.

I'd agree with you but nope.
An intelligent being lacking the notion of pleasure wouldn't crave for stimulation at all. C'tans are just alien to us.

 LethalShade wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
A C'tan is a pure energy being with an instinctive grasp on the fundamental laws of physics, capable of directly interacting with matter on the subatomic level.

How intelligent the C'tan are in their native form is questionable, but once bound to a Necrodermis they certainly show high levels of intelligence and individual will. How much of that is derived from the knowledge of Necrontyr culture the Necrodermis was programmed with beforehand is unknown, however - it's entirely possible that the native C'tan were simply oversized microbes until they were imbued with a frame of reference by the Necrontyr.

Nothing with a high level of sapience, after all, would be content to literally just sit in solar orbit for millions of years doing nothing but eat. It would crave stimulation, interaction - every advanced life form on earth seeks, after all, social interaction in one form or another, from the smallest insect up to the largest sea creatures.

I'd agree with you but nope.
An intelligent being lacking the notion of pleasure wouldn't crave for stimulation at all. C'tans are just alien to us.

Cats. Cat's don't give a damn, and they are highly complex beings.Highly complex beings who are happy to spent 80% of their time sleeping, and the other 20% getting food.

Creatures on Earth evolved needs for social interaction because it helped them survive. The C'tan have no such need - if anything stands in their way they drop the power of a star onto it.

LethalShade wrote:

I'd agree with you but nope.
An intelligent being lacking the notion of pleasure wouldn't crave for stimulation at all. C'tans are just alien to us.

C'tan do have the notion of pleasure though - they find souls better tasting than solar energy.

Selym= wrote:Cats. Cat's don't give a damn, and they are highly complex beings.Highly complex beings who are happy to spent 80% of their time sleeping, and the other 20% getting food.

Creatures on Earth evolved needs for social interaction because it helped them survive. The C'tan have no such need - if anything stands in their way they drop the power of a star onto it.

You have never owned a cat.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I'm of the opinion that his powers are often well over exaggerated. Too powerful for the table top for sure, but not blinking cruisers out of existence on a whim. I'm looking forward to the upcoming trilogy on him though. Should answer all these questions (and no doubt raise plenty more).

Well the Emperor was a god in all but name so its only fitting that he has god-like powers:

"If a man gathers ten thousand suns in his hands... If a man seeds a hundred thousand worlds with his sons and daughters, granting them custody of the galaxy itself... If a man guides a million vessels between the infinite stars with a mere thought... Then I pray you tell me, if you are able, how such a man is anything less than a god." — Lorgar Aurelian, from The First Heretic.

Yeah, but the whole point of that is that Lorgar missed the point. The Emperor is supposed to be the pinnacle of mankind. If he is actually a God, that is no longer true. He is what mankind is capable of being, not an example of godhood.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
A C'tan is a pure energy being with an instinctive grasp on the fundamental laws of physics, capable of directly interacting with matter on the subatomic level.

How intelligent the C'tan are in their native form is questionable, but once bound to a Necrodermis they certainly show high levels of intelligence and individual will. How much of that is derived from the knowledge of Necrontyr culture the Necrodermis was programmed with beforehand is unknown, however - it's entirely possible that the native C'tan were simply oversized microbes until they were imbued with a frame of reference by the Necrontyr.

Nothing with a high level of sapience, after all, would be content to literally just sit in solar orbit for millions of years doing nothing but eat. It would crave stimulation, interaction - every advanced life form on earth seeks, after all, social interaction in one form or another, from the smallest insect up to the largest sea creatures.

Hmm, depends. The Ctan frame of reference might make those millions of years seem to be nothing. We humans might consider a week to not be much time at all, but to a Mayfly who only lives for 24 hours it would be an eternity.

The Hive Mind also might be another good example. Its clearly a very advanced form of intelligence, yet it seems to lack some of the traits of other intelligences and instead seems to be driven by hunger alone.

A list of impressive feats.. okay.

1.) Emperor singlehandedly curbstomps an entire Ork army and roflstomps the single most powerful Ork of the age.
2.) Emperor singlehandedly roflstomps a C'tan Shard
3.) Emperor repairs a Knight Titan by poking it (this Knight also could not be fixed by any of the Tech Priests, so that's actually kind of impressive)
4.) Emperor singlehandedly forces 100k Astartes (and their Primarch) to bend the knee to him

For those of you claiming that he can't just mindcontrol an entire army into doing his bidding, number 4 proves you wrong. The reason that he makes all of these armies is so that he can conquer a galaxy. He used Terra as the basis for his Empire, but he needed a stable, atheistic basis to effectively starve the Chaos Gods of power (hence the not roflstomping the world when he needed to conquer; trying to not look like a deity here, after all).

Also, how could the Emperor disable a shield if he doesn't know much about it? He doesn't know where the power source is, he doesn't know the layout of the power source, or the projector, etc. The shield is obviously some sort of DAoT tech, or else the Emperor could have just poked it with his finger and shot enough energy into it to short circuit it (likely one of the shields designed to defend against orbital bombardment from magma warheads, and the like).

Actually, he needed Horus's help to land the uber-force* attack on the ork... And I don't think it was even the most powerful ork of the age; it was one of his mechboys that Big E killed.

*it was essentially a force weapon attack that permanently deleted the ork's mind, body and soul from both real and warp existence so it could never be reborn.

nareik wrote:
Actually, he needed Horus's help to land the uber-force* attack on the ork... And I don't think it was even the most powerful ork of the age; it was one of his mechboys that Big E killed.

*it was essentially a force weapon attack that permanently deleted the ork's mind, body and soul from both real and warp existence so it could never be reborn.

and yet the Emperor did that exact same thing when he was a second away from death on the vengeful Spirit...

Defeating a Shard of the Void Dragon is fine, no one's trying to say he's weak, but it isn't comparable to blinking planets out of existence and wiping out entire enemy empires with a thought. It isn't even close to comparable to it. Considering all he thought was a Shard, and the newest Necron Codex pretty much states Nightbringer was the strongest of the C'tan (and we get stats for his Shards), and compounding that with the fact that Transcendent C'tan have been brought down through the efforts of Cato Sicarius and an Iron Hands Venerable Dreadnought and such defeating a Shard of the Void Dragon really doesn't mean in any way that he could wipe out entire planets/armies/fleets/empires/solo all his enemies if he wanted to.

As for the Orks he fought; said force, as has been said, which he destroyed still did not do sufficient damage to stop the fight raging all around them and across the planet against the Orks (that was only ended when he collapsed the Plasma Core by fighting to get there) thus though he did destroy an impressive amount of Orks (again no one is saying he's weak) it was not even all the Orks present for the battle. Additionally the Ork he killed was a nameless grunt distinguished only by being bigger than the other Orks about him at the moment. We are never told who the Orks ruling Gorro are nor who their Warboss was. In addition to this he did not roflstomp said Ork, indeed, according to the canon he required Horus to assist him in an action both the novel and Index Astartes called Horus 'saving' the Emperor. I have no reason to doubt canon and two canonical materials explicitly state that in that action Horus saved the Emperor. So it was actually the exact opposite of a roflstomp. Continuing on the matter of Gorro said Ork was almost certainly not the most powerful of the age since the Emperor in the aftermath refers to Gorro, and the Orks upon it, as a holding of the greater Orkish Empire of Ullanor (lead by Warboss Urrlak). The Emperor even indicates, to Horus's initially disconsolate reaction, that Gorro is minor compared to what is to come.

We've discussed the C'tan Shard so I won't readdress that point.

The repairing a Knight Titan, yeah, that's cool but...like it doesn't really in anyway imply he could solo planets/empires or such.

Forcing a group of loyal soldiers, amongst his most loyal (indeed the group who have problems with forming intensely blindly loyal bonds), many of whom have already deified him to kneel doesn't seem that impressive. They would have done it if he'd asked them too as well so its not like they were highly resistant entities. After all he clearly couldn't force the invaders on Terra (Daemon and Chaos Space Marine) to simply stop. It also still doesn't change that he had to make the Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra because he could not simply defeat his enemies single-handedly. Indeed he had to create the Thunder Warriors even though he was then forced to have them destroyed afterwards (hence their only point was to unify Terra for him).

Also the question concerning 'how could the Emperor disable a Shield he doesn't know about' seems odd. The Emperor does know about it. That's why he knows his men must go under it to locate the core and take it out for him. That's his entire plan since he does not have sufficient power to penetrate the Shield. The fact that the Shield is an old technology doesn't change anything. That's the core point. The Emperor's powers were in addition limited by the fact that certain forms of technology simply proved resilient or beyond his powers. That's the point.

I find it odd how important it is to many people that the Emperor has some sort of 'infinite godly power' as opposed to the idea that he is just an exceptional human being, as he claims, and not a God as he always informs others not to treat him. Part of his defining creed is that he is not a god unlike the Chaos Gods, Gork, Mork and the Eldar Gods and such. He is a human, an exceptional human, but by his own admission a human nonetheless with failings and limitations. As shown. The state of the Imperium is partly the story of those failings and limitations, of how we sow our own seeds of destruction and are often our own worst enemies. The Emperor is much more interesting as such than as another 'invincible-hero' archetype.

EDIT: As I've said before arguing that 'he could have but he didn't want too because X' even though we've never had him ever indicate that he felt a need to hold back his power conquering Terra or moderate himself (I cannot think of a time the Emperor has in canon material explained that he held back when fighting on Terra so as not to give people the impression he is a deity) is putting far to many things into the Emperor's mind and mouth which aren't canon. The facts of the matter, what we know and see, are that the Emperor did not conquer or destroy his enemies on Terra at a whim or alone, he built a great army, bio-engineered powerful warriors and even then at times had to rely on clever tactics because there simply were technological devices beyond him. Obviously new facts can change things, can add things and can retcon things, but until such things do occur the Emperor's power level has been clearly demonstrated by the things he could and could not achieve in Fluff. I don't like so much simply claiming that he 'could' have done all these impressive feats; wipe out entire fleets/planets/empires if the truth is that not once have I ever seen him demonstrate such power.

That's it, his power comes more from his intelligence than is ever given credit, genetically engineering man kind, setting a 25,000 year+ plan in motion to be accepted as the Emperor, negotiating with gods and nearly destroying them by changing a galaxy's cultural beliefs rather than through direct force, unifying Terra and nearly the galaxy... That's the Emperor's real power, but it gets lost behind speculation on his psychic ability as just a blunt weapon.

Anemone wrote:Defeating a Shard of the Void Dragon is fine, no one's trying to say he's weak, but it isn't comparable to blinking planets out of existence and wiping out entire enemy empires with a thought. It isn't even close to comparable to it. Considering all he thought was a Shard, and the newest Necron Codex pretty much states Nightbringer was the strongest of the C'tan (and we get stats for his Shards), and compounding that with the fact that Transcendent C'tan have been brought down through the efforts of Cato Sicarius and an Iron Hands Venerable Dreadnought and such defeating a Shard of the Void Dragon really doesn't mean in any way that he could wipe out entire planets/armies/fleets/empires/solo all his enemies if he wanted to.
I never said that he could blink planets out of existence. If I did, and I am mistaken, midn pointing it out to me?
As for the Orks he fought; said force, as has been said, which he destroyed still did not do sufficient damage to stop the fight raging all around them and across the planet against the Orks (that was only ended when he collapsed the Plasma Core by fighting to get there) thus though he did destroy an impressive amount of Orks (again no one is saying he's weak) it was not even all the Orks present for the battle. Additionally the Ork he killed was a nameless grunt distinguished only by being bigger than the other Orks about him at the moment. We are never told who the Orks ruling Gorro are nor who their Warboss was. In addition to this he did not roflstomp said Ork, indeed, according to the canon he required Horus to assist him in an action both the novel and Index Astartes called Horus 'saving' the Emperor. I have no reason to doubt canon and two canonical materials explicitly state that in that action Horus saved the Emperor. So it was actually the exact opposite of a roflstomp. Continuing on the matter of Gorro said Ork was almost certainly not the most powerful of the age since the Emperor in the aftermath refers to Gorro, and the Orks upon it, as a holding of the greater Orkish Empire of Ullanor (lead by Warboss Urrlak). The Emperor even indicates, to Horus's initially disconsolate reaction, that Gorro is minor compared to what is to come.
riiiiight, so the Horus "saves" the Emperor, and the Emperor proceeds to literally erase the Ork from existence. Yeah, yeah, the Emperor definitely needed saving. Makes sense. Definitely isn't utter malarkey...
We've discussed the C'tan Shard so I won't readdress that point.

The repairing a Knight Titan, yeah, that's cool but...like it doesn't really in anyway imply he could solo planets/empires or such.
I never said that that meant that, but good for you, reaching for every implication you can possibly try to glean from my 4 sentences.
Forcing a group of loyal soldiers, amongst his most loyal (indeed the group who have problems with forming intensely blindly loyal bonds), many of whom have already deified him to kneel doesn't seem that impressive. They would have done it if he'd asked them too as well so its not like they were highly resistant entities. After all he clearly couldn't force the invaders on Terra (Daemon and Chaos Space Marine) to simply stop. It also still doesn't change that he had to make the Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra because he could not simply defeat his enemies single-handedly. Indeed he had to create the Thunder Warriors even though he was then forced to have them destroyed afterwards (hence their only point was to unify Terra for him).
Yes, because warriors who he just humiliated and destroyed everything they ahd spent the last century building, yeah, they seem real complacent to me. Not frustrated and pissed off at all. And the fact that they were psycho-indoctrinated superwarriors with a mental fortitude most men can only dream of, I'm sure that it made it easier for the Emperor to literally force one hundred thousand superwarriors to bend their knees to him without him even saying a thing. And you really can't say anything about Terra. The Emperor was busy keeping half the Warp from pouring into the Imperial Palace (the whole Magnus busted in the Imperial Webway, and all). While sitting on a Golden Throne. And then he leaves the Golden Throne with the most powerful mortal Psyker in existence, who can barely even keep it in check, and then proceeds to turn into ash.
Also the question concerning 'how could the Emperor disable a Shield he doesn't know about' seems odd. The Emperor does know about it. That's why he knows his men must go under it to locate the core and take it out for him. That's his entire plan since he does not have sufficient power to penetrate the Shield. The fact that the Shield is an old technology doesn't change anything. That's the core point. The Emperor's powers were in addition limited by the fact that certain forms of technology simply proved resilient or beyond his powers. That's the point.
Yes, I understand that. However, the fact that he couldn't bust open a shield that was likely designed to resist planet-killer level weaponry really only proves that he isn't at his strongest utilizing brute force
I find it odd how important it is to many people that the Emperor has some sort of 'infinite godly power' as opposed to the idea that he is just an exceptional human being, as he claims, and not a God as he always informs others not to treat him. Part of his defining creed is that he is not a god unlike the Chaos Gods, Gork, Mork and the Eldar Gods and such. He is a human, an exceptional human, but by his own admission a human nonetheless with failings and limitations. As shown. The state of the Imperium is partly the story of those failings and limitations, of how we sow our own seeds of destruction and are often our own worst enemies. The Emperor is much more interesting as such than as another 'invincible-hero' archetype.
The Emperor was a man. Then he died. And sextillions of people died; contributing their souls to a new gestalt God-Emperor. Whether or not this being is the same as the man-Emperor is not certain, but what is certain is that the God-Emperor is real, simply due to the nature of the Warp, and how Gods are created.
EDIT: As I've said before arguing that 'he could have but he didn't want too because X' even though we've never had him ever indicate that he felt a need to hold back his power conquering Terra or moderate himself (I cannot think of a time the Emperor has in canon material explained that he held back when fighting on Terra so as not to give people the impression he is a deity) is putting far to many things into the Emperor's mind and mouth which aren't canon. The facts of the matter, what we know and see, are that the Emperor did not conquer or destroy his enemies on Terra at a whim or alone, he built a great army, bio-engineered powerful warriors and even then at times had to rely on clever tactics because there simply were technological devices beyond him. Obviously new facts can change things, can add things and can retcon things, but until such things do occur the Emperor's power level has been clearly demonstrated by the things he could and could not achieve in Fluff. I don't like so much simply claiming that he 'could' have done all these impressive feats; wipe out entire fleets/planets/empires if the truth is that not once have I ever seen him demonstrate such power.
The Emperor has demonstrated the ability to incapacitate entire armies. He has demonstrated the ability to literally erase the focal point of all of Chaos Undivided's power. He has demonstrated the capability to erase an entire army's worth of Orks (though the actual Ork army was huge, so taking out a few million still left a fair amount to kill). He has demonstrated these abilities, and more. Nobody on this thread has stated that the Emperor has the capability to off an entire Battle Fleet signlehandedly. Nor that he could vaporize a planet, nor that he could destroy a Xenos Empire singlehandedly (though it's not like he couldn't, he has the lifetime necessary to destabilize one and then destroy the leadership, depending on the type of Empire we're talking about).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JamesY wrote:
That's it, his power comes more from his intelligence than is ever given credit, genetically engineering man kind, setting a 25,000 year+ plan in motion to be accepted as the Emperor, negotiating with gods and nearly destroying them by changing a galaxy's cultural beliefs rather than through direct force, unifying Terra and nearly the galaxy... That's the Emperor's real power, but it gets lost behind speculation on his psychic ability as just a blunt weapon.

Anemone you're showing your bias again... Void Dragon is one of the few C'tan who are whole. He has not been captured by the Necrons, he is full power, that is why I referenced it.

So now the wrong have been corrected...

The Big E's power has been his intellect as JamesY has said. Hubris is his downfall.

EDIT: Waitaminute I have you on ignore how did I see your post.

 dusara217 wrote:

3.) Emperor repairs a Knight Titan by poking it (this Knight also could not be fixed by any of the Tech Priests, so that's actually kind of impressive)
.

Actually, this one is quite important - Dalia Cythera performs the same feat at the end of Mechanicus, which means that it's actually the Void Dragon's power, not a trick of the Emperor - which means that the Emperor is capable of co-opting the powers of a C'tan, not just defeating it.

Not killing horus ovbioulsy whcih turned out to be a problem.