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@dusara: Apologies it does sometimes become difficult separating who said what when on the thread, that's why I didn't put your name before my points, they were more just general responses to the points that had been made already. So if you don't think he can blink planets out of existence then great, that is something we agree on.

As for the comment concerning Gorro, well, you can be as sarcastic about it as you wish, the canon has stated Horus saved him. I see no reason to doubt what was explicitly stated twice in two canonical works simply because you don't agree with it personally.

I'm sorry you can say what you wish of the Word Bearers but they have a fanatical loyalty and, literally many, worshipful devotion to the Emperor. Yes even the humiliation they suffered didn't stop many of them still being loyal to him for a long time, a minority even consistently loyal. Without a doubt it is far easier to imagine that Word Bearers and other Space Marines are, whilst loyal, far more easily controlled and manipulated by the Emperor. Their conditioning would not necessarily help them against an entity they do not recognize as a foe at all. That does not explain why, after leaving the Golden Throne, he does not instantly destroy or eliminate all the Traitor forces then. As you point out during those crucial moments Malcador has lifted a weight from him. If he had the power you are implying then he could have instantly ceased the conflict there and then.

But to be honest if, and this is a big if since I distinctly recall different things being said in posts literally above, the point is not say he can wink out of existence planets/fleets/empires then I don't see where there is a disagreement? From the start my point has been to emphasise that it is not his 'Godlike' might which makes him dangerous but his intellect. I said so in the post when I pointed out that since he could not destroy the Orks of Gorro alone he brought Horus and an army, since he could not conquer Terra alone he made Thunder Warriors and an army. I've from the beginning said so.

@Quickjager: The Void Dragon is a Shard. That's why its called a Shard. See the latest Necron Codex; 912.M41 The God Shadow: A Shard of the Void Dragon escapes captivity upon the world of the Arotepk Dynasty and they have a tough fight before the Crypteks enslave it again. The one on Mars is a Shard, hence why it is called a Shard. As for how you saw my post...I don't know. I didn't even know you had me on ignore.

EDIT: On the topic of bias then, Quickjager, are we to assume that bias is, of course, something you can see in other people but which certainly does not affect your judgement? It only features in the judgement of people who disagree with you?

Uh.. no the Word Bearers were not fanatically loyal to the emperor that is why they are the first legion to fall. When he forced all 100k to bow they were struggling against the order. In Aurellian the Word Bearers were quoted to have gnashed teeth and were sweating as their muscles refused the orders of their mind. Erebus and Kor Phaeron were both chaos worshipping scum and were pushing against the Emperor's mind control as was Lorgar.

Then I stand corrected on that point. I've never read that book. That being said I don't change that the Word Bearers were certainly fanatically loyal to the Emperor, so much is said repeatedly throughout the fluff, at a point. But I didn't know it was explicitly mentioned that they all fought against it with all their might. Thank you for informing me, on that one point I change my opinion then. To be clear I still believe it would definitely be easier for the Emperor to achieve such a feat from a still loyal legion than, for example, Orks or such. But I'll admit I had no idea they were explicitly mentioned to have fought back. I thought the gnashing of teeth was mentioned because they disliked it and felt ashamed, not because they were actively fighting back, does it say somewhere directly they were fighting back?

EDIT: For enrichment sake which book does it describe their tremendous resistance? I clearly haven't read it myself, which isn't surprising, so I'd like to know so I can correct my error.

 Quickjager wrote:
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.

No. We know from the most recent Necron Codex that the Void Dragon on Mars is merely the largest splinter.

The Emperor is exactly as powerful (or incredibly shortsighted) as the next story needs him to be.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The Emperor is exactly as powerful (or incredibly shortsighted) as the next story needs him to be.

/thread.

Well we know that Magnus had the ability to destroy the space Wolf fleet by using his psychic powers. One can only assume that his father is better at it than he is.

Furyou Miko wrote:

 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.

HOLY gak. THE EMPEROR IS A C'TAN IN DISGUISE!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! THE EMPEROR IS ALPHARIUS!!!
But, seriously, that's fething awesome. I can't believe that I forgot that after reading through Mechanicum

tbf, bias isn't really something you can just eliminate from an argument. Virtually every argument has it roots in bias, and logic is just there to support the bias. Of course, I only ever argue with people so that I can (hopefully) get proven wrong and learn something new (like the time that I got proven wrong regarding the nature of a God in 40k. Because of that, I got a pirated copy of the Lost and the Damned, and learned a fuckton). Yes, this is the only reason. The fun of it never factors in to the equation. Ever. Not once have I laughed during arguments on this site. Not even during Alpharius meme moments...

For argument's sake, I'll just point out that, at the First Siege of Terra, the Traitor Legions had the backing of every single Chaos God we know of, which means they likely had protection from the kind of Psychic assault that could incapacitate them all.

[/spoiler] It's in First Heretic, right around the beginning of the book. And, yes, up to that point, the Word Bearers were fanatically loyal to the Emperor. After that, a huge portion of them hated him, and slowly subverted the rest of the Legion to worshiping Chaos (though a portion of them remained loyal and were purged as punishment). The gnashing of teeth was, in fact, literal. A number of Marines probably had mental breakdowns trying to keep themselves from kneeling (why is that image making me laugh?)

 dusara217 wrote:

HOLY gak. THE EMPEROR IS A C'TAN IN DISGUISE!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! THE EMPEROR IS ALPHARIUS!!!
But, seriously, that's fething awesome. I can't believe that I forgot that after reading through Mechanicum

Yep. The Emperor is Kirby. No, not that Kirby, that one.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

HOLY gak. THE EMPEROR IS A C'TAN IN DISGUISE!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! THE EMPEROR IS ALPHARIUS!!!
But, seriously, that's fething awesome. I can't believe that I forgot that after reading through Mechanicum

Yep. The Emperor is Kirby. No, not that Kirby, that one.

Are you sure he isn't rubick?

I am not familiar with Rubick, and he does not have a conveniently humorous name.

 Quickjager wrote:
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.

No, the Void Dragon is definitely sharded, you can buy shards of it as a C'Tan in your Necron army.

The fact that the Void Dragon is sharded after all actually has some terrifying implications;

Think about it. The Emperor fought and sealed it, right? But it was an epic battle that took many days... All of the Emperor's lauded psychic might, and he nearly died defeating just a single piece of a C'tan.

The Emperor has gone from being able to go mano-a-mano with the strongest creatures to have ever existed in material space, to being curbstomped by them.

Considering that he's fighting all four of the Great Powers and an unknown number of Lesser Powers, directing the Astronomican, speaking through the Tarot, occasionally speaking to people in his physical presence, and possibly reincarnating himself as mortals in Realspace as the whim strikes him, throwing Warp Storms at people who piss him off, and is still alive and kicking in the Warp?

I really don't think "curbstomped" is the right description.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

HOLY gak. THE EMPEROR IS A C'TAN IN DISGUISE!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! THE EMPEROR IS ALPHARIUS!!!
But, seriously, that's fething awesome. I can't believe that I forgot that after reading through Mechanicum

Yep. The Emperor is Kirby. No, not that Kirby, that one.

Are you sure he isn't rubick?

Poor Void Dragon, Empy stole his ult.

 Psienesis wrote:
Considering that he's fighting all four of the Great Powers and an unknown number of Lesser Powers, directing the Astronomican, speaking through the Tarot, occasionally speaking to people in his physical presence, and possibly reincarnating himself as mortals in Realspace as the whim strikes him, throwing Warp Storms at people who piss him off, and is still alive and kicking in the Warp?

I really don't think "curbstomped" is the right description.

Also by the life of Telemenus of the Dark Angels, it's implied the Emperor comes before Astartes suffering a crisis of faith.

 Psienesis wrote:
Considering that he's fighting all four of the Great Powers and an unknown number of Lesser Powers, directing the Astronomican, speaking through the Tarot, occasionally speaking to people in his physical presence, and possibly reincarnating himself as mortals in Realspace as the whim strikes him, throwing Warp Storms at people who piss him off, and is still alive and kicking in the Warp?

I really don't think "curbstomped" is the right description.

I do. All that means is that the C'tan could handle all of those tasks even better than the Emperor can.

When A is demonstrably more powerful than B, proving that B is very powerful without actually making him stronger just makes A even stronger by comparison.

I thought the latest stuff on the Emperor suggests he 'upgraded' his power by cutting a deal with the ruinous powers long after he threw down the dragon?

At the very least, he's learned a lot more about sorcery and has a lot more technology to amplify his powers by the start of the great crusade.

The only Empy/Ruin deal I know about was the Primarch Project. In any case, any boons they dealt with him over would have been retracted as soon as he declared war against them, if not before - the Chaos Gods are not faeries, to be dealt with in knowledge that they will hold to their deals, they are demons who will betray a deal on a whim.

My explanation for why the Emperor is not using his powers to just kill every opposing force:

1. He tried very hard to free humanity from the belief that we need gods. That we don't need to pray to a greater being to win a battle, that everything we need to conquer the galaxy is willpower, guns and a big army.
How would you feel if you encountered a person who could shape reality with the blink of an eye? I'm not talking about bending a metal spoon, but teleporting stuff around, killing entire armies and making planets go boom?
A person who's power is so overwhelmingly defying logic and everything you thought you knew about physical laws?

You would have no other explanation but to call this being a god. And this would undermine everything the Emperor worked for.

2. Sure it would be easier to use your powers and many many lives could be saved. It would speed up the conquest. Your sons and men would not need to go through all this hardship.
But if humanity never learns to stand on its own, if we never learn to fight our own battles and always rely on some divine intervention, how would we fare after the Emperor is gone?

In my opinion he is preparing us to face the bitter truth. That in a galaxy that knows only war for countless millennia, everyone and everything out there wants to kill us.

3. Why isn't he using his powers during the siege of Terra? Well, could be that the Chaos gods are protecting their own.

Furyou Miko wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Considering that he's fighting all four of the Great Powers and an unknown number of Lesser Powers, directing the Astronomican, speaking through the Tarot, occasionally speaking to people in his physical presence, and possibly reincarnating himself as mortals in Realspace as the whim strikes him, throwing Warp Storms at people who piss him off, and is still alive and kicking in the Warp?

I really don't think "curbstomped" is the right description.

I do. All that means is that the C'tan could handle all of those tasks even better than the Emperor can.

When A is demonstrably more powerful than B, proving that B is very powerful without actually making him stronger just makes A even stronger by comparison.

Except that virtually evyerthing that Psienesis just cited was the Emperor post-Ascension (ie after he died), that doesn't quite track.

a_typical_hero wrote:
My explanation for why the Emperor is not using his powers to just kill every opposing force:

1. He tried very hard to free humanity from the belief that we need gods. That we don't need to pray to a greater being to win a battle, that everything we need to conquer the galaxy is willpower, guns and a big army.
How would you feel if you encountered a person who could shape reality with the blink of an eye? I'm not talking about bending a metal spoon, but teleporting stuff around, killing entire armies and making planets go boom?
A person who's power is so overwhelmingly defying logic and everything you thought you knew about physical laws?

You would have no other explanation but to call this being a god. And this would undermine everything the Emperor worked for.

The total erasure from existence of the mek/warlord discussed previously was Horus's first step to Heresy. The story mentions how on witnessing this, Horus fell to his knees in awe, a veil having been lifted, realised that despite all his preaching The Emperor was indeed nothing less than a godlike being.

The follow on effects of this were two-fold; first: it opened his mind to the possibility of other gods. Second: it made Horus question Emperor's reliability as a narrator; if the Emperor would lie and conceal his powers, what else might he be concealing (further reinforcing the expectancy o fexistence of alternative gods)!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The fact that the Void Dragon is sharded after all actually has some terrifying implications;

Think about it. The Emperor fought and sealed it, right? But it was an epic battle that took many days... All of the Emperor's lauded psychic might, and he nearly died defeating just a single piece of a C'tan.

The Emperor has gone from being able to go mano-a-mano with the strongest creatures to have ever existed in material space, to being curbstomped by them.

Where is this battle between the Emp and the Void Dragon detailed?

I've only seen it mentioned in Mechanicum, but it's not detailed.

SideSwipe wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The fact that the Void Dragon is sharded after all actually has some terrifying implications;

Think about it. The Emperor fought and sealed it, right? But it was an epic battle that took many days... All of the Emperor's lauded psychic might, and he nearly died defeating just a single piece of a C'tan.

The Emperor has gone from being able to go mano-a-mano with the strongest creatures to have ever existed in material space, to being curbstomped by them.

Where is this battle between the Emp and the Void Dragon detailed?

I've only seen it mentioned in Mechanicum, but it's not detailed.

In Mechanicum, it shows him basically starting to get pushed back, before he spots a weak spot and uses his Force Sword to cripple it.

The implications arise from the fact that a Shard of the Void Dragon has a fraction of the whole Void Dragon's strength. If the Emperor fought a Shard and only won by luckily spotting that weak point, then the whole C'tan, being more powerful than any shard by a significant amount, must therefore be much stronger than the Emperor, who fought it to a standstill.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The implications arise from the fact that a Shard of the Void Dragon has a fraction of the whole Void Dragon's strength. If the Emperor fought a Shard and only won by luckily spotting that weak point, then the whole C'tan, being more powerful than any shard by a significant amount, must therefore be much stronger than the Emperor, who fought it to a standstill.

It's too much of an assumption though especially since we don't know if a whole C'tan would have a similar weakness (C'tan shards are stated as having the same raw power just not the memory\knowledge to use it after all), if strongest Void Dragon shard was that much weaker than the whole would be or how much the Emperor was actually struggling.

I don't think it's enough to say a whole C'tan is definitely stronger than the Emperor or vice versa.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The implications arise from the fact that a Shard of the Void Dragon has a fraction of the whole Void Dragon's strength. If the Emperor fought a Shard and only won by luckily spotting that weak point, then the whole C'tan, being more powerful than any shard by a significant amount, must therefore be much stronger than the Emperor, who fought it to a standstill.

It's too much of an assumption though especially since we don't know if a whole C'tan would have a similar weakness (C'tan shards are stated as having the same raw power just not the memory\knowledge to use it after all), if strongest Void Dragon shard was that much weaker than the whole would be or how much the Emperor was actually struggling.

I don't think it's enough to say a whole C'tan is definitely stronger than the Emperor or vice versa.

Considering the fact that this C'tan Shard was so powerful that people literally go insane just from looking at it, I'd say that it's safe to assume that the C'tan are more powerful.

And the Emp still made it his bitch, and dragged it to mars. pranced on his horse. slapped it upside the head and said what.

It's the fact that he rode a horse to Mars and back in less than a million years that makes it a tale of truly epic proportions.

He got on his horse, and went around the universe, and all the other places, too.

 Psienesis wrote:
It's the fact that he rode a horse to Mars and back in less than a million years that makes it a tale of truly epic proportions.

He got on his horse, and went around the universe, and all the other places, too.

I think that it's safe to assume that he kept the Void Dragon imprisoned somewhere on Earth prior to taking it to Mars on a Void Ships (I know that it's just a joke, but it's really getting old)