Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A recent thread quoted Guilleman as believing the emperor was too callous to be worthy of worship.

Ok, from a lot of perspectives the imperium is a horrible thing that seems to thrive on sadism and cruelty for its own sake. The spyrers of necromunda hunting underhivers for sport, the masses of hundreds of billions working in slavery until they die, the willingness to sacrifice innocent because they might possibly someday do something, the indifference of the upper classes to the billions starving under them, etc.

But is the emperor cruel or at least callous or is he honestly dedicated to saving humanity the only way he can?

He knows what happened to the eldar, he knows the menaces facing mankind, he has at least some precognition even if he didn't see Horus' betrayal coming, etc.

Is he unfeeling or is he simply dedicated to humanity as a whole to the point he can't see the individual vs the species? Does he believe the oniy way to save humanity has om faces extinction is numbers, numbers and more numbers? As many peolle as possible on as many worlds as possible regardless of how many of them live in misery and squallor? To make it so numerous that even if only one in a million survive some great cataclysm the species will go on?

we know he planed much be there for humanity at first, his vision was a golden age of reason. He didn't want to be a god, he wanted to eliminate the idea of gods. He smacked down lorgar for deifying him, he wanted toe human webway to sace man from the warp. Then Horus blew it all to hell, literally.

Does he think sheer numbers is one way to ensure human survival now? Does he plan on something that will result in a really huge disaster but leave enough people alive to keep the human race going afterwards? Does he plan on maybe a mass sacrifice of humanity to let the chaos gods glut themselves in so many souls that he can carry out some master plan while they're distracted with their feeding frenzy and intercine fighting?

Possible. So is the emperor callous or caring about humanity?

I would go with "indifferent" rather than cruel.

Also, I haven't read the HH books, but my understanding is the Imperium in 40k is something the Emperor would have been horrified by, right?

 Ouze wrote:
I would go with "indifferent" rather than cruel.

Also, I haven't read the HH books, but my understanding is the Imperium in 40k is something the Emperor would have been horrified by, right?

Ooohh yeah. Biiig time.

The revived Guilliman in the Guy Haley books talks to somebody who asks him whether the Emperor loves every human. Guilliman tells a white lie that the Emperor loves them all. However his internal thoughts are that the Emperor loves his ideal of humanity, but that he loves no one, and would sacrifice anyone for the sake of that ideal.

The problem with being in love with your own idea is that it is inherently abstract and through it, all sorts of actions, cruelties, atrocities, can be justified "for the sake of humanity (or the greater good)".

While tyrants throughout history have all had their own ideals and thought what they were doing was for the best for their people, they were at least human individuals with at least some human ties to other individuals. The Emperor as an immortal has no such ties, no potential restraints as to what extremes of action he could take for the sake of abstract ideals.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
A recent thread quoted Guilleman as believing the emperor was too callous to be worthy of worship.

Ok, from a lot of perspectives the imperium is a horrible thing that seems to thrive on sadism and cruelty for its own sake. The spyrers of necromunda hunting underhivers for sport, the masses of hundreds of billions working in slavery until they die, the willingness to sacrifice innocent because they might possibly someday do something, the indifference of the upper classes to the billions starving under them, etc.

But is the emperor cruel or at least callous or is he honestly dedicated to saving humanity the only way he can?

He knows what happened to the eldar, he knows the menaces facing mankind, he has at least some precognition even if he didn't see Horus' betrayal coming, etc.

Is he unfeeling or is he simply dedicated to humanity as a whole to the point he can't see the individual vs the species? Does he believe the oniy way to save humanity has om faces extinction is numbers, numbers and more numbers? As many peolle as possible on as many worlds as possible regardless of how many of them live in misery and squallor? To make it so numerous that even if only one in a million survive some great cataclysm the species will go on?

we know he planed much be there for humanity at first, his vision was a golden age of reason. He didn't want to be a god, he wanted to eliminate the idea of gods. He smacked down lorgar for deifying him, he wanted toe human webway to sace man from the warp. Then Horus blew it all to hell, literally.

Does he think sheer numbers is one way to ensure human survival now? Does he plan on something that will result in a really huge disaster but leave enough people alive to keep the human race going afterwards? Does he plan on maybe a mass sacrifice of humanity to let the chaos gods glut themselves in so many souls that he can carry out some master plan while they're distracted with their feeding frenzy and intercine fighting?

Possible. So is the emperor callous or caring about humanity?

Well seeing that he is in constant torment and still serving the Galaxy then yes, how could you ever deny it. As for Reboutes reaction to him on the throne, I doubt he can cling onto humanity while being in that torment. How you can be indifferent to humanity and do everything he did and endure everything he does, he's like a Primarch to a human, he can't relate to Primarchs just as Primarchs can't relate to humans, doesn't mean he is uncaring. I mean why would he suffer all that for humanity if he was like meh. The Emperor is misunderstood by most 40k fans, though I still want his skull for the throne 'Daddy was abrupt with me' grow up Guilliman lol I swear the Primarchs have so many daddy issues lol

Yeah, the emp is the primarchs daddy, but interestingly enough onky one primarchs seems to have had anything even vaguely likes momma.

Reading the background on guilleman he was adopted by a powerful family on Ultramar, and assigned a matron to help care for him and raise him.

Is the fact guilleman had at least some sort of maternal figure in his early days the reason he seems more human than most primarchs?

Leman Russ had a father figure after being raised by wolves, king leman. Some other primarchs are referred to a having father figures. Some spent their childhoods with no parents at all, like Kurze and El'Johnson.

But it seems that only guilleman had anything like a mother figure. Maybe that's why hecs more human than other orimarchs?

I think the emperor is a big picture guy. And that picture involves him and humans. Weather that is brcause he likes humanaty, he is human himself, he hates other species or it is just the easiest available tool we do not know.

While he could care about individual in theory, or in certain cases, he is willing to break a lott of eggs in order to make his omelet. It would be interesting to see how his plan would have paned out in the end.

Let us asume chaos did not overthrow him. He would concoure, master and exspand the webway. He would seal of or wipe out the eldar. He would find some way to shut down chaos. One way or another. Perhaps he shuts down with fineshing the necron pylons. He would kill the necrons. It would be difficult but possabil. At some point the tyranids might show up. Perhaps he cnb defeat them. After that, or before, he could start culling the orks.

What then. All xenos races and chaos are effectivly dead. Does he jump start human evolution? Does he cull unpure genstrains? Is the end goal psykick mastering humans, or perhaps post humans like the custodians? Who knwos.

Master of Mankind makes it clear that the purpose of creating the Imperium was to create a safe space for humanity to evolve its psychic potential. A psychically mature race would be supposedly immune to the perils of Chaos (not sure how as the Eldar could be described and psychically mature but they still Fell).

The Custodes were planned as his companions, statesmen and councilors. He didn't plan for any of his genehanced creations ot replace humanity. They were intended to serve humanity, not rule it. Something the Primarchs either failed to understand or lost sight of during the Great Crusade. Some like Guilliman and Vulkan understood their role but many of the others reveled in the glory of conquest.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Yeah, the emp is the primarchs daddy, but interestingly enough onky one primarchs seems to have had anything even vaguely likes momma.

Reading the background on guilleman he was adopted by a powerful family on Ultramar, and assigned a matron to help care for him and raise him.

Is the fact guilleman had at least some sort of maternal figure in his early days the reason he seems more human than most primarchs?

Leman Russ had a father figure after being raised by wolves, king leman. Some other primarchs are referred to a having father figures. Some spent their childhoods with no parents at all, like Kurze and El'Johnson.

But it seems that only guilleman had anything like a mother figure. Maybe that's why hecs more human than other orimarchs?

I'm not gaking on Guilliman, I'd expect the same from the other Primarchs, they all have ridiculous daddy issues.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:
I think the emperor is a big picture guy. And that picture involves him and humans. Weather that is brcause he likes humanaty, he is human himself, he hates other species or it is just the easiest available tool we do not know.

While he could care about individual in theory, or in certain cases, he is willing to break a lott of eggs in order to make his omelet. It would be interesting to see how his plan would have paned out in the end.

Let us asume chaos did not overthrow him. He would concoure, master and exspand the webway. He would seal of or wipe out the eldar. He would find some way to shut down chaos. One way or another. Perhaps he shuts down with fineshing the necron pylons. He would kill the necrons. It would be difficult but possabil. At some point the tyranids might show up. Perhaps he cnb defeat them. After that, or before, he could start culling the orks.

What then. All xenos races and chaos are effectivly dead. Does he jump start human evolution? Does he cull unpure genstrains? Is the end goal psykick mastering humans, or perhaps post humans like the custodians? Who knwos.

He's absolutely a big picture guy. The way I see the Emperor is 'I love you all but I'd kill 95% of every one of you to save the species."

Primarchs DO have daddy issues, but that is a true case that only Gulliman seems to have had a "mother figure" to balance it out

BrianDavion wrote:
Primarchs DO have daddy issues, but that is a true case that only Gulliman seems to have had a "mother figure" to balance it out

The two have nothing to do with one another.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Primarchs DO have daddy issues, but that is a true case that only Gulliman seems to have had a "mother figure" to balance it out

The two have nothing to do with one another.

I never said having a maternal influence had anything to do with guilleman having daddy issues or not, I said it made him more human.

Big picture through and through but still ultimately human and made very human mistakes,

Thing is when you step back and look at the Primarchs their home enviroment often had a big factor on them. Gulliman had a loving father, a caring mother figure, it seems this had a positive impact on him, meanwhile Konrad Cruz grew up basicly on the streets, and Lorgar was the abused student of a priest.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Primarchs DO have daddy issues, but that is a true case that only Gulliman seems to have had a "mother figure" to balance it out

The two have nothing to do with one another.

I never said having a maternal influence had anything to do with guilleman having daddy issues or not, I said it made him more human.

I wasn't replying to you mate.

It's often been suggested that the Primarchs were hardwired to have said daddy issues, to be intensely sensitive to Big E's favour or disfavour. Which makes a kind of sense, if you're creating a bunch of warrior demi-Gods to serve your interests, you'd want them to be keenly attuned to your whims and cues. The flipside is though, that if they go into a sulk it's the proportionately more extreme and intense.

Casualty wrote:
It's often been suggested that the Primarchs were hardwired to have said daddy issues, to be intensely sensitive to Big E's favour or disfavour. Which makes a kind of sense, if you're creating a bunch of warrior demi-Gods to serve your interests, you'd want them to be keenly attuned to your whims and cues. The flipside is though, that if they go into a sulk it's the proportionately more extreme and intense.

Can you quote that, I've never heard of them being hardwired to have daddy issues. That sounds like head cannon.

The Emperor is callous, cruel and dedicated to saving humanity but he's also colossally incompetent and probably does more harm than good in terms of humanities benefit.

I think the Emperor sees himself as a Philosopher King. He genuinely believes his way to be the Right Way for humanity; he's so much smarter and more powerful than everyone else after all. If everyone just did what he told them to do then humanity would be on the path to glory.

As with most good intentioned despots this leaves the Emperor as someone incapable of seeing the flaws in his glorious plan and even more incapable of accepting that one of these lesser beings that should be following his wisdom might be right when they question him.

pm713 wrote:
The Emperor is callous, cruel and dedicated to saving humanity but he's also colossally incompetent and probably does more harm than good in terms of humanities benefit.

I do not think that is true. He is very competent. Look at his achievemrnts. They are very good for an imortal psyker. I do not see anybody else conquiring an entier galaxy by armies he rallies under hos own banner.

He certanly has visions and ways to achieve them. That he strugles with psykick manifestations of inevetabilaty as his main opponent you can not sell him short just because he did not achieve it on the first or second try.

And how does he do more harm then good. I do not see himanaty in the extinct or endagered list in 40K universe.

 Niiai wrote:

pm713 wrote:
The Emperor is callous, cruel and dedicated to saving humanity but he's also colossally incompetent and probably does more harm than good in terms of humanities benefit.

I do not think that is true. He is very competent. Look at his achievemrnts. They are very good for an imortal psyker. I do not see anybody else conquiring an entier galaxy by armies he rallies under hos own banner.

He certanly has visions and ways to achieve them. That he strugles with psykick manifestations of inevetabilaty as his main opponent you can not sell him short just because he did not achieve it on the first or second try.

And how does he do more harm then good. I do not see himanaty in the extinct or endagered list in 40K universe.

He also lost all of that because he was too stupid to think that giving incredible power to insane, disloyal demigods was a bad idea. He didn't rally them under his own banner at all, he used the Primarchs, the Mechanicum and literal god strength to do it. The Emperor himself didn't do huge amounts by himself. He needed a huge amount of help from others, he's not very different from the other Terran warlords in most respects. Frankly, for an immortal psyker of his strength whose been around since ancient times he's pathetic.

I can sell him short because on his fifth try he failed again because he badly executed a pretty poor plan. Eldar manage to deal with guiding their people to the desired future all the time which is largely because they don't go out of their way to be dumb.

But, in fairness a lot of the Emperor's stupidity is a result of the fact that the Heresy books are written after the overall story was made. Certain things have to happen and a lot of them don't have any way to be triggered that aren't stupid e.g. Angron.

I think your awnser is very little reflected. In order to do something big you have to delegate a lot of responsabilaty to others. It worked very well for some 25 000 years. (I do not know when he cane to power.) You compare him to other Terran warlords? That is not compreball at all. How much of the universe did he rule before the house of cards startdd crumbling down. Also, he is not done yet as far as we know. It is an ongoing process.

There are very few things in the warhammer universe you can comprare him to. The two closest are the Old Ones, who failed. The Eldar who fell to Chaos, although they are still inn the game if the Inary thing pans out. Although the Rahna Dandra would indicate it does not go so well for them in the end. So far the Emperor has done better then the Old Ones, Eldar and Necrons. He is not flawless, but we are for the most part counting hits, not misses.

Arcumentably, the hive mind has the emperor beat.

Other fictional comparisons would be Leo Atradies. He is doing far worse the Leo. Bit then Leo had perfect future vision and no Chaos in his fictional universe. Your hero is only as good as his foyl.

He's a vainglorious totalitarian tyrant, even in the histories written by his most sycophantic supporters.

I would like to point out that the emperor's plan for the galaxy was to unify mankind through a crusade spearheaded by fascist, xenophobic and emotionally stunted super soldiers. That seems rather ruthless and bloody minded. A few of the books have alluded to this being a choice of expediency, with perhaps a less authoritarian structure in the future. But still, this strikes me as the choices of someone who cares little for individual human lives.

Yeah. The 40K Universe is a self justefying facist setting. The only reason you see this as a negative is because you do not suscribe to that ideology. (And good for you.)

 Niiai wrote:
Yeah. The 40K Universe is a self justefying facist setting.

Only if you view it through the narrow POV of the Imperium; a fascist state.

 Niiai wrote:
Yeah. The 40K Universe is a self justefying facist setting. The only reason you see this as a negative is because you do not suscribe to that ideology. (And good for you.)

This. Grimdark is facism if facism was correct. IE all aliens really are trying to kill you. Knowledge really is dangerous. Disobeying superiors really will get people killed and so on.

The Emperor's actions should be viewed in this context. In this setting, the ends really do justify the means. The Emperor will do anything to keep humanity alive and at the top of the pyramid and, messed up as it all is, he is right to do so.

Now, there is a very, very, good reason facism and its tenants and followers in the real world are evil beyond argument. But that's what makes the 40k setting so messed up.

Subject: Is the emperor callous, cruel or truly dedicated to saving humanity?

"Yes".

 buddha wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Yeah. The 40K Universe is a self justefying facist setting. The only reason you see this as a negative is because you do not suscribe to that ideology. (And good for you.)

This. Grimdark is facism if facism was correct. IE all aliens really are trying to kill you. Knowledge really is dangerous. Disobeying superiors really will get people killed and so on.

The Emperor's actions should be viewed in this context. In this setting, the ends really do justify the means. The Emperor will do anything to keep humanity alive and at the top of the pyramid and, messed up as it all is, he is right to do so.

Now, there is a very, very, good reason facism and its tenants and followers in the real world are evil beyond argument. But that's what makes the 40k setting so messed up.

The finding of human worlds and pocket empires, some dating as far back as the Age of Strife or Dark Age of Technology, shows the Imperium is not the only way. If other societies have survived just as long or even longer, then their ways of survival are just as valid.

Iracundus wrote:

 buddha wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Yeah. The 40K Universe is a self justefying fascist setting. The only reason you see this as a negative is because you do not subscribe to that ideology. (And good for you.)

This. Grimdark is fascism if fascism was correct. IE all aliens really are trying to kill you. Knowledge really is dangerous. Disobeying superiors really will get people killed and so on.

The Emperor's actions should be viewed in this context. In this setting, the ends really do justify the means. The Emperor will do anything to keep humanity alive and at the top of the pyramid and, messed up as it all is, he is right to do so.

Now, there is a very, very, good reason fascism and its tenants and followers in the real world are evil beyond argument. But that's what makes the 40k setting so messed up.

The finding of human worlds and pocket empires, some dating as far back as the Age of Strife or Dark Age of Technology, shows the Imperium is not the only way. If other societies have survived just as long or even longer, then their ways of survival are just as valid.

The problem with the Grmdark setting is that no, there are no other ways. Those small pockets are survival pockets, they cannot take over and ensure humanity's survival or dominance in the galaxy. They might have escaped but they cannot ultimately stop the tyranids, or the orks, or the necrons, or, most dangerously the powers of chaos. Plus, any argument the imperium, beats them every time (and did during the great crusade) so the argument they are a better way isn't supported by the fluff. At best they are a relic of a hope that there was a different way which the dark age obliterated as an option.