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Hey Guys,

Sparked by another thread, I got thinking on the point of why the Emperor is actually dying at all. Unless this information is no longer considered cannon, The Emperor is supposed to be what's called a Perpetual, which means that his body is capable of continuous cellular regeneration. It was a attribute that Vulkan had/has as well. The only real mention I've seen of it so far is on wiki page for Vulkan when it says:

Warahammer 40K Wiki wrote:Vulkan had been revealed to be a "Perpetual", a being who was capable of continuous cellular regeneration and therefore was effectively immortal, much like their father, the Emperor of Mankind.

It essentially means he's immortal and effectively immune to death. Vulkan essentially was, and he supposedly survived a hell of a lot as the following exert will show:

Warhammer 40K Wiki wrote:The Night Haunter personally beheaded the Salamanders' Primarch, ripped out his throat with a piece of cutlery, stabbed him through the chest and virtually tore him limb from limb with his own wicked claws. When these attempts failed to kill Vulkan, Curze had him eviscerated, shot at close-range by hundreds of Bolters, put into a ventilation shaft of a starship's engine and even stripped naked and thrown out of an airlock into the airless void of space. But the Night Haunter's efforts proved all for naught.

That was a Primarch. The Emperor is a much more powerful being that - like Vulkan - is a Perpetual, so surely if Vulkan can survive all that, then why couldn't The Emeperor survive his battle with Horus without needed the Golden Throne to at least slow down his death? I honestly don't think it's because of his mind giving up or anything like. Also, if Vulkan was able to regenerate from being vaporised and thrown into space, then surely The Emperor could regenerate from an amputated part of his body or be resurrected using his genetic material in some other way.

What are your thoughts on this?

Because he wasn't "just" being stabbed. Horus was essentially a daemon primarch incarnate, and the wounds would have been psychic as well as physical.

There are ways to permenantly kill a perpetual - Damon Prytanis is given such a weapon to try and take out Vulkan in Unremembered Empire, and being both an assassin and a perpetual himself, could be expected to know if it had a chance of working - and if anything could, I think it pretty likely that the combined attentions of the four chaos gods, focused through a primarch, armed with weapons forged by the Emperor himself, has a pretty decent chance.

Without anyone to sit on the golden throne the Imperium was likely to crumble. The Emperor probably could regenerate but, if he got off the throne, countless billions would die just from ships getting lost in the warp alone. Quadrillions more would perish due to the Imperial buerocracy collapsing overnight.

locarno24 wrote:Because he wasn't "just" being stabbed. Horus was essentially a daemon primarch incarnate, and the wounds would have been psychic as well as physical.

There are ways to permenantly kill a perpetual - Damon Prytanis is given such a weapon to try and take out Vulkan in Unremembered Empire, and being both an assassin and a perpetual himself, could be expected to know if it had a chance of working - and if anything could, I think it pretty likely that the combined attentions of the four chaos gods, focused through a primarch, armed with weapons forged by the Emperor himself, has a pretty decent chance.

Well the psykic damage would have been severe, but not damning to the point of death (at least I wouldn't have thought). The reason I say this is that The Emperor is supposed to be the most powerful psykic entity alive (and one of the most powerful ever to exist). So even a Daemon Prince like Horus with all that power would still struggle a bit to deliver a mortal blow that way.

As for the weapon, fair point. I'm not familiar with the story, though I do intend to (eventually) read it. Without the weapon, The Emperor definitely had a sporting chance against Horus and - if it were a real fight - I still would have put money on The Emperor. To be honest, I don't know anything about these supposed weapons (assuming there's much to know at all), but does it work like the Anathame which poisons it targets? Or do you have to strike an otherwise (and undeniably) mortal blow like, for example, decapitation?

Without knowing more about the weapons, I simply can't say. So I will at least try to do some research on it.

TheCustomLime wrote:Without anyone to sit on the golden throne the Imperium was likely to crumble. The Emperor probably could regenerate but, if he got off the throne, countless billions would die just from ships getting lost in the warp alone. Quadrillions more would perish due to the Imperial buerocracy collapsing overnight.

Not that I'm disagreeing about the inevitable deaths that would result from a non-functioning Astronomicon, I'm more concerned about whether or not the Emperor can regenerate at all.

His wounds being dealt out by horuses weapon of chaos could have a chaos type of effect causing him to not be able to regeneratre maybe?

Horus was channelling the combined might of all 4 Chaos Gods at once, they likely struck the Emperor a Psychic blow sufficiently powerful to cripple him. Either this, or the Emperor didn't wanna flood Terra with Daemons, so he had himself interred on the Goldne Throne to keep the Astronomican from getting bloshed to bits by Daemonfire.

It was explained in the old Lost and the Damned codex that the Emperor was so badly wounded that his soul was separated from his body and he lost his immortality. The reason he had Dorn setup the Golden Throne as life support was because he could still use his body as a powerful conduit for his power to flow into the physical realm.

In that sense, he really has been dead this entire time as his soul had not been inside his body since the Siege of Terra.

i love the story but there are holes/grey areas. I always thought of it as a near fatal blow and that the golden throne was a way to allow him to live and continue to guide mankind. I don't think the golden throne was the tool he used to reach out with his psychic powers because then when he was alive how was he doing it then? I think it was constructed after the whole event anyway right? His minds intact correct? if thats the case surely some method of "living again" would be possible but that kinda ruins the story doesn't it?

TLDR the golden throne is only life support i thought

How do we know that he's not currently regenerating?

Orblivion wrote:It was explained in the old Lost and the Damned codex that the Emperor was so badly wounded that his soul was separated from his body and he lost his immortality. The reason he had Dorn setup the Golden Throne as life support was because he could still use his body as a powerful conduit for his power to flow into the physical realm.

In that sense, he really has been dead this entire time as his soul had not been inside his body since the Siege of Terra.

Delving deeper into the wiki has revealed the same conclusion, though that section of the page has come with a disclaimer that the content (and thus - by extension - this conclusion) may not be canon anymore. Sounds like a fair enough thing to me, though.

eosgreen wrote:i love the story but there are holes/grey areas. I always thought of it as a near fatal blow and that the golden throne was a way to allow him to live and continue to guide mankind. I don't think the golden throne was the tool he used to reach out with his psychic powers because then when he was alive how was he doing it then? I think it was constructed after the whole event anyway right? His minds intact correct? if thats the case surely some method of "living again" would be possible but that kinda ruins the story doesn't it?

TLDR the golden throne is only life support i thought

With this much fluff, there is always bound to be holes, especially when the stuff gets ret-conned or the canonicity of something becomes (relatively) questionable. If my understanding is correct, the Golden Throne amplifies his ability to project the Astronomican. As for its origins, I'm pretty sure that's murky at best, but it definitely wasn't built after. However, some changes were implemented at the time the Emperor was interred into it. As for his mind, I'm pretty sure that - at least for the most part, it's intact, but if the fluff Orblivion brought up is correct and canon, then him being revived seems impossible.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:How do we know that he's not currently regenerating?

Because all the fluff I've read (including that which I've read as a result of this thread) as well as pretty much everyone I seem to talk to gives me the strong indication that he isn't, but this general conception may be wrong and may not preclude the notion that he one day may regenerate.

Well, there's also the blurb at the start of the Inquisitor rulebook to consider.

In which the three surviving members of the Council of Terra decide not to use their medical technology to revive the Emperor, despite it being well within their capabilities to do so, because he is "more useful as an icon than he ever was as a man".

Or the emperor decided that the warp required his attentions more and he really cannot be bothered to attend to his physical form... plus if his people thought they could talk to him because he was all healed up, they would bother him unnecessarily.

Not healing out of convenience I think.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, there's also the blurb at the start of the Inquisitor rulebook to consider.

In which the three surviving members of the Council of Terra decide not to use their medical technology to revive the Emperor, despite it being well within their capabilities to do so, because he is "more useful as an icon than he ever was as a man".

It could also be a matter of them not fully understanding his situation. Perhaps they have the medical technology to restore his body but if the part from Lost and the Damned is also true, then that medical technology would no rebind his soul to that restored body. The overall situation would not change. His body would still be an empty husk confined to the Golden Throne, used as a conduit for his psychic power.

I'm not sure being a perpetual means you have constant cellular regeneration. The perpetual we currently know the most about is Vulkan. However, we only ever see Vulkan revive when he has been well and truly killed. For example, we don't see him suffer a grievous injury and it heals up before our very eyes (Faster than is normal for a Primarch I mean) whilst he is still living. The only time we actually see him reviving is during Unremembered Empire:



However, prior to this revival he is well and truly dead, not merely grievously wounded. So, my theory is that perhaps perpetuals, and by extension the Emperor, have to be completely lifeless, dead-as-a-doornail to begin the revivification process. If he is being sustained by the Golden Throne, then perhaps it is this that is preventing his full death and renewal. This then begs the question of why he asked to remain on the Throne - my bet is that he feels that powering the Astronomican is more crucial to the Imperium than his continued first person leadership.

Alternatively, perhaps it is the very act of powering the Astronomican that prevents him from allocating more 'power' to rebuilding his body.

That's just my ten-penneth.

Furyou Miko wrote:Well, there's also the blurb at the start of the Inquisitor rulebook to consider.

In which the three surviving members of the Council of Terra decide not to use their medical technology to revive the Emperor, despite it being well within their capabilities to do so, because he is "more useful as an icon than he ever was as a man".

Orblivion wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, there's also the blurb at the start of the Inquisitor rulebook to consider.

In which the three surviving members of the Council of Terra decide not to use their medical technology to revive the Emperor, despite it being well within their capabilities to do so, because he is "more useful as an icon than he ever was as a man".

It could also be a matter of them not fully understanding his situation. Perhaps they have the medical technology to restore his body but if the part from Lost and the Damned is also true, then that medical technology would no rebind his soul to that restored body. The overall situation would not change. His body would still be an empty husk confined to the Golden Throne, used as a conduit for his psychic power.

Well if his soul is not part of his body and has no clear path to return, then it's definitely a good thing they didn't go through with it haha.

Talizvar wrote:Or the emperor decided that the warp required his attentions more and he really cannot be bothered to attend to his physical form... plus if his people thought they could talk to him because he was all healed up, they would bother him unnecessarily.

Not healing out of convenience I think.

That sounds like pure arrogance on the part of the Emperor not to mention it would contradict his apparent attitudes (at least while he what "Alive") as well as fly in the face of everything he's tried to to. What I mean to say is that he's been fighting for and defending Humanity all this time, so it seems weird that he would just go "Screw It! See Ya!".

Warpig1815 wrote:I'm not sure being a perpetual means you have constant cellular regeneration. The perpetual we currently know the most about is Vulkan. However, we only ever see Vulkan revive when he has been well and truly killed. For example, we don't see him suffer a grievous injury and it heals up before our very eyes (Faster than is normal for a Primarch I mean) whilst he is still living. The only time we actually see him reviving is during Unremembered Empire:

Spoiler:

where his charred husk is brought in by the Ultramarines on Macragge. It lies dormant for a length of time, then begins to regenerate before Guilliman's eyes.

However, prior to this revival he is well and truly dead, not merely grievously wounded. So, my theory is that perhaps perpetuals, and by extension the Emperor, have to be completely lifeless, dead-as-a-doornail to begin the revivification process. If he is being sustained by the Golden Throne, then perhaps it is this that is preventing his full death and renewal. This then begs the question of why he asked to remain on the Throne - my bet is that he feels that powering the Astronomican is more crucial to the Imperium than his continued first person leadership.

Alternatively, perhaps it is the very act of powering the Astronomican that prevents him from allocating more 'power' to rebuilding his body.

That's just my ten-penneth.

Fair enough. Would definitely make for an interesting End Times event (or series of events) if he were actually to die and then begin to regenerate with his soul finally and fully returning.

Because the Emperor wasn't actually as powerful as he's made out to be.

He's made out to be more powerful than he was ever shown to be in the Imperium's own propaganda, which is what most of the background material is. And apparently that propaganda is strong enough to influence people in the real world to believing it's fact. GW writers should form a government with their powers of persuasion.

We have many points of view of what the Emperor was actually capable of, and unlimited power isn't it.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Because the Emperor wasn't actually as powerful as he's made out to be.

He's made out to be more powerful than he was ever shown to be in the Imperium's own propaganda, which is what most of the background material is. And apparently that propaganda is strong enough to influence people in the real world to believing it's fact. GW writers should form a government with their powers of persuasion.

We have many points of view of what the Emperor was actually capable of, and unlimited power isn't it.

Spot on. 100% this.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Because the Emperor wasn't actually as powerful as he's made out to be.

He's made out to be more powerful than he was ever shown to be in the Imperium's own propaganda, which is what most of the background material is. And apparently that propaganda is strong enough to influence people in the real world to believing it's fact. GW writers should form a government with their powers of persuasion.

We have many points of view of what the Emperor was actually capable of, and unlimited power isn't it.

I think you've (slightly) missed what I'm getting at. I'm not claiming ultimate power or any crap like that. I'm just saying that because of a trait that he possess, theoretically he should be able to (at least physically) regenerate. Just because he isn't necessarily as powerful as he was made out to be doesn't mean he didn't possess the trait. And regardless of whether or not he lived up to the hype, it's been made relatively clear to me that it's more about the fact that by the time the ultimate battle came round, Horus was at least as powerful as his father (maybe in different ways s well as regardless of whether or not The Emperor live up to the hype).

So I really don't think propaganda has anything to do with this issue.

It's entirely possible that the Talon of Horus, like the Spear of Destiny, is one of the very few weapons that can take down a Perpetual. If so, that would explain while they Emperor was pretty much screwed after the duel with Horus.

It's also possible horus was a perpetual himself?
The Anathame merely kept horus in a near death state since it was not another perpetual that struck horus with it and wasnt actually going to kill him as the chaos gods knew it wouldn't which may of been the "window of time" they had to convince horus to turn.
That would give them their own perpetual to strike the emperor down in the same manner as what happened to vulkan thereby giving up horus's own perpetual'ness allowing the emperor to kill him in turn.
As its hinted at vulkan may actually not of been killed but both perpetuals lost their immortality, hence the golden throne needed to keep him alive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for how powerful the emperor is you can also look at what he chose not to do in order for events to proceed as they did to keep humanity along the fine line of survival.
He could of stopped the 20primarchs from being stolen from his gene labs but chose not to..... the butterfly effect.

oldravenman3025 wrote:It's entirely possible that the Talon of Horus, like the Spear of Destiny, is one of the very few weapons that can take down a Perpetual. If so, that would explain while they Emperor was pretty much screwed after the duel with Horus.

The Spear of Destiny exists in 40K? o.0 Righteo...

It also comes down to how the weapon works. Its seems that only another perpetual can kill the emperor with such a weapon, and even then, I can't seem to find anything on how exactly that weapon is supposed to work. All I've been able to find is the weapon used was crafted psykically by the Emperor using fulgurite and is said to still contain some of the Emperor's power (which is why it can kill perpetuals). Not only does it not mention how it works, but the only thing we do know is that another perpetual needs to wield it.

But assuming all the requirements (whatever they are) for the weapon to kill the Emperor, then sure, the Emperor is definitely screwed.

On a side note, the fact that a weapon imbued with part of the Emperor's power to the point where it's able to kill a perpetual is a testament to how powerful he actually his.

Blitzen the Solitaire wrote:It's also possible horus was a perpetual himself?
The Anathame merely kept horus in a near death state since it was not another perpetual that struck horus with it and wasnt actually going to kill him as the chaos gods knew it wouldn't which may of been the "window of time" they had to convince horus to turn.
That would give them their own perpetual to strike the emperor down in the same manner as what happened to vulkan thereby giving up horus's own perpetual'ness allowing the emperor to kill him in turn.
As its hinted at vulkan may actually not of been killed but both perpetuals lost their immortality, hence the golden throne needed to keep him alive.

Well it's the only option that would make sense in terms of the weapon (as opposed to psykic damage or something like that) killing the Emperor. He would have to be a perpetual, though I am unaware of any source which suggests this.

The alternative could be that Horus was not a perpetual, but the method by which the weapon was crafted meant that it was a powerful and thus suitable weapon for Horus to use in such a duel even though he wouldn't be getting the full benefits from it (i.e. unable to permanently kill his father using the weapon).

I don't think GW or Black Library put enough thought into their writing or story telling, or even rules writing etc... to explain why the emperer can not regenerate. There is so much that has been retconned and so much that needs to be FAQed.

 IllumiNini wrote:

oldravenman3025 wrote:It's entirely possible that the Talon of Horus, like the Spear of Destiny, is one of the very few weapons that can take down a Perpetual. If so, that would explain while they Emperor was pretty much screwed after the duel with Horus.

The Spear of Destiny exists in 40K? o.0 Righteo...

It also comes down to how the weapon works. Its seems that only another perpetual can kill the emperor with such a weapon, and even then, I can't seem to find anything on how exactly that weapon is supposed to work. All I've been able to find is the weapon used was crafted psykically by the Emperor using fulgurite and is said to still contain some of the Emperor's power (which is why it can kill perpetuals). Not only does it not mention how it works, but the only thing we do know is that another perpetual needs to wield it.

But assuming all the requirements (whatever they are) for the weapon to kill the Emperor, then sure, the Emperor is definitely screwed.

On a side note, the fact that a weapon imbued with part of the Emperor's power to the point where it's able to kill a perpetual is a testament to how powerful he actually his.


[

It isn't the actual Spear of Destiny. I've heard the fulgurite "spear" that John Grammaticus stabbed Vulkan with referred to as such by fans in the past. Because of that, it's become a bad habit of mine to refer to it by that name. Sorry, my bad.


In 40k, the "Spear of Destiny" was Solomon Haarlock's ship during the early days of that cursed dynasty of Rogue Traders.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
It isn't the actual Spear of Destiny. I've heard the fulgurite "spear" that John Grammaticus stabbed Vulkan with referred to as such by fans in the past. Because of that, it's become a bad habit of mine to refer to it by that name. Sorry, my bad.

In 40k, the "Spear of Destiny" was Solomon Haarlock's ship during the early days of that cursed dynasty of Rogue Traders.

Ah fair enough. I was gonna say: Didn't Christianity get dismantled by the Emperor? haha. It's a good nickname for it, though.

Yeah, he hates all religions. He smashed all of them. Too bad, Lorgar didn`t care.

I always thought that the time that it would take for him to come back from dead would have been enough for the daemons to break through his defences (webway/throne shenanigans) and he'd be coming back to a situation where terra is ruined by daemons.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, there's also the blurb at the start of the Inquisitor rulebook to consider.

In which the three surviving members of the Council of Terra decide not to use their medical technology to revive the Emperor, despite it being well within their capabilities to do so, because he is "more useful as an icon than he ever was as a man".

Yeah, that bit of writing was awesome.
It showed just how screwed up and divided the IoM really was, and that there were conflicting factions within the inquisition.

The Emperor was an amalgamated conciousness made from hundreds of Shamanic suiciders. When Vulkan died he went a little bit more insane each time. The Emperor built up his power over 28,000 years. If he died and reincarnated he might be back at square 1.

Maybe the question isn't "Why can't he," but "Why doesn't he want to."

Maybe the whole plan behind sitting on the Golden Throne for 10,000+ years was to see if things would go to gak while he was gone and to see if humans would resort to what they had been before he came about.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Maybe the question isn't "Why can't he," but "Why doesn't he want to."

Maybe the whole plan behind sitting on the Golden Throne for 10,000+ years was to see if things would go to gak while he was gone and to see if humans would resort to what they had been before he came about.

I can just imagine the mixture of uproar and praise when the Emperor just starts rapidly regenerating, then stands up from the Golden Thrones and just goes "Surprise Mofos! Experiment's over. Let's fix up my Imperium!" haha