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Vatsetis wrote:
Thats all very nice and informative. But if the Emp could have wipped 95% of Terra population with a couple of Psychyc Kamehamehas... Then mind control the survivors (mostly fertile young women) to quickly repopulate the planet ussing some reproductive techno magic... It would have been much more efficient that an actual military conquest.

Its absurd to pretend that a godlike creature with no hard counter on his powers is going to do things in a "humanly logic" manner.

So if the Emp really conquered Terra ussing mostly conventional human methods (like constructing an army and doing politics) probably he wasnt factually that powerfull.

The difference between a god an a very powerfull warlord is that the former dosent need human collaborators only worhispers... The HH Emp indeed need a host of human and post human help... Hence his powers are limited well below those of a godlike figure... Inspite bad writting, logic always wins.

Okay... So, he does what you suggest above. What does he do about the Great Crusade then? He absolutely cannot do all of that by himself, and will need an army, what's he going to do, raise one and send them out to the stars with absolutely zero experience of actual combat whatsoever against the Rangdans and Megarachnids to name just a few?

Also, if the big E is genuinely that powerful, why does he need Custodes bodyguards?

Oh god he used the term “fertile young women”.

Just….no.

One man cannot HOLD territory. period.

BrianDavion wrote:
One man cannot HOLD territory. period.

Gods dont need to hold territory.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:
Thats all very nice and informative. But if the Emp could have wipped 95% of Terra population with a couple of Psychyc Kamehamehas... Then mind control the survivors (mostly fertile young women) to quickly repopulate the planet ussing some reproductive techno magic... It would have been much more efficient that an actual military conquest.

Its absurd to pretend that a godlike creature with no hard counter on his powers is going to do things in a "humanly logic" manner.

So if the Emp really conquered Terra ussing mostly conventional human methods (like constructing an army and doing politics) probably he wasnt factually that powerfull.

The difference between a god an a very powerfull warlord is that the former dosent need human collaborators only worhispers... The HH Emp indeed need a host of human and post human help... Hence his powers are limited well below those of a godlike figure... Inspite bad writting, logic always wins.

Okay... So, he does what you suggest above. What does he do about the Great Crusade then? He absolutely cannot do all of that by himself, and will need an army, what's he going to do, raise one and send them out to the stars with absolutely zero experience of actual combat whatsoever against the Rangdans and Megarachnids to name just a few?

Also, if the big E is genuinely that powerful, why does he need Custodes bodyguards?

My point is precisely becouse EMP need custodes (amongst many others) he can have true effective godlike powers.

If he had them, but was limited to a single planet at a time to enforce his unhinged powers... Well, after cleansing the Earth he could have go with his supersoldier program and the combat experience be given through psico indoctrination... If it worked for Cawls Primaris it could have work for the godlike Emp.

Vatsetis wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
One man cannot HOLD territory. period.

Gods dont need to hold territory.

The Emperor is not a god, at least not during the time of the unification, the great crusade and during the heresy. A case could be made that in 40k he has ascended to some sort of warp entitiy due to ten thousand years of worship and millions of psykers sacrificed to him. But even in 40k most of his power goes towards the Astronomican and keeping the Webway Gate beneath the Golden Throne shut.

So yeah, one man cannot hold territory, like Brian Davion said.

One man cannot hold territory, a god-like figure that cannot be resisted but only feared and worshipped dosent need to hold territory or other mundane things like politics or logistics... he can undo social reality with its will alone if he dosent have any hard counter.

If people are arguing that indeed the EMP has the level of power of Doctor Manhattan on the pre unified Terra era... well, Custodes, Astartes and TW are just pointless at least to unify the planet.

Please read Superman Red Son... here Clark becomes Stalins succesor and in 20/30 years unified the whole world under his governmnet with little effort, the USA only survive because they are lead by Lex Luthor (who is a hard counter to Superman) and the Soviet Superman is only "defeated" on moral/ethical basis not at raw power level.

If thats not the tale of the unification of Terra, the potential of EMP must be much, much limited, in spite bad writting due to BL fanboy authors.

The only limit to oppresion is resistance.

I don't have the time to write an essay on just how wrong you are but just know that almost everything you've said is utter tripe and shows you have absolutely no knowledge of the 40k background.
Do everyone a favour and find another thread to troll.

 Gert wrote:
I don't have the time to write an essay on just how wrong you are but just know that almost everything you've said is utter tripe and shows you have absolutely no knowledge of the 40k background.
Do everyone a favour and find another thread to troll.

This basically.

That was very toxic on your part.

I was just trying to logically understand this part of the 30k/40k story.

I was making a simple thought experiment.

Its not like the lore, and people making interpretations on the lore, werent inconsistent sometimes.

Giving an opinion an asking question is not trolling, just because Gert feells pissed off by some half forgotten thread from 2021.

:(

Well, remember BL did come up with various theories for who the Emperor was and Alan's favourite was he was a Dark Age of technology weapon...

They do occasionally touch on dark age gear, most notably when oli is jumping through time and space and encounter a world being fought over. The tech level seems to be Culture like towards the end of Ian M Banks series of novels. So matter annihilating weapons, casual destruction of planets, grid fire sort of stuff.

And yes - much of humanity had fallen under the sway of warp creatures like enslavers. Terra was ruled by techno barbarians - they likely had far higher tech levels than the Imperium. For a start they weren't worried by orbital bombardments from Luna or the plates. I would guess a lot of the strategy was to negate force multipliers to bring things down to an individual level where the enhanced humans would prove decisive. I imagine the Emp spent a lot of time ensuring things didn't result in rains of fusion bombs.

BrianDavion wrote:
One man cannot HOLD territory. period.

This. The old maxim is that a tank can take territory but infantry holds territory.

Unless you exterminatus everything to dust, you need boots on the ground to hold your gains and prevent recidivism. Even if you're powerful enough to do it alone, you may win the battle but either everyone is gone or you're going to have to constantly retread the same ground as new foes rise behind you.

That's why the IG/Administratum exist. Shock and awe SM to break the foe, IG to mop up resistance and retain gained ground, and administrators to reestablish rule under the new norms.

Sly Marbo can hold planets he's never even heard of. He actually held Cadia for two decades on a technicality, someone accidently drew a very good likeness of him with stray las fire, and that accounted for the first 3 failed black crusades.

He held the orks off Armageddon for two years with a rusty fishing hook, two Munitorum Primers, an old boot, and a discarded ration tin. This story is also mistakenly attributed to the efforts of a very minor Chaplain named Grimaldy or something.

Terra is actually on loan to the Emperor until Sly gets back.

 Emperors Grace wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
One man cannot HOLD territory. period.

This. The old maxim is that a tank can take territory but infantry holds territory.

Unless you exterminatus everything to dust, you need boots on the ground to hold your gains and prevent recidivism. Even if you're powerful enough to do it alone, you may win the battle but either everyone is gone or you're going to have to constantly retread the same ground as new foes rise behind you.

That's why the IG/Administratum exist. Shock and awe SM to break the foe, IG to mop up resistance and retain gained ground, and administrators to reestablish rule under the new norms.

This is very true for forces that work roughhly under mundane terms, if you are really a god with supernatural powers that cant be countered... Well you should work under different rules.

 Gert wrote:
I don't have the time to write an essay on just how wrong you are but just know that almost everything you've said is utter tripe and shows you have absolutely no knowledge of the 40k background.
Do everyone a favour and find another thread to troll.

Sounds like more of your insisting you won an argument when you can't really hold a candle to one.


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 Emperors Grace wrote:
This. The old maxim is that a tank can take territory but infantry holds territory.

Unless you exterminatus everything to dust, you need boots on the ground to hold your gains and prevent recidivism. Even if you're powerful enough to do it alone, you may win the battle but either everyone is gone or you're going to have to constantly retread the same ground as new foes rise behind you.

That's why the IG/Administratum exist. Shock and awe SM to break the foe, IG to mop up resistance and retain gained ground, and administrators to reestablish rule under the new norms.

Can't he just mind control key people with his psychic powers?

As misshapen as he goes about it, or shows it, the big E loves humanity, he wants humanity to thrive, and he also is going about this by enforcing a secular doctrine, e.g. he doesn't want to be perceived as a god and he loathes chaos in part due to the restricted will of its followers.

He may be all powerful, he may be able to do as you say and hold Terra just by himself, but he does not want to, because of his philosophy and (arguable) morals. He launches the great crusade to gift humanity the galaxy with theorised idea he would move back into the shadows of humanity, he's philosophy does not fall in line with your suggestions. So he uses an army.

So your argument is that out of "humanity" he creates an army of schock terror troops supersoldiers instead of ussing his argubly unlimited power to do the same in a shorter period and more efficiently by blasting a couple of hive cities and mind controlling key individuals... In such a sharp and brutal dispkay of power that 90% of Terran population will automatically worhisp him.

So the "hard counter" for Emp is just himself, just like in many superman storylines... Well its a possibility.

I disagree the Emperor is all powerful, and I personally don't think he had the power to take and hold Terra alone, at least not in a timely manner.

Psykers have real limits in 40k, even the immensely powerful ones.

Well thats what I also thought... But some "lore masters" are hellbent that the EMP power is almost limitless, I was just trying to make sense out of that.

Vatsetis wrote:
So your argument is that out of "humanity" he creates an army of schock terror troops supersoldiers instead of ussing his argubly unlimited power to do the same in a shorter period and more efficiently by blasting a couple of hive cities and mind controlling key individuals... In such a sharp and brutal dispkay of power that 90% of Terran population will automatically worhisp him.

So the "hard counter" for Emp is just himself, just like in many superman storylines... Well its a possibility.

He allows for diplomacy and compliance, Malcador is said to be one of those Terran warlords.

Mindcontrolling humanity is again not in line with his philosophy, he evidently doesn't want to do it if he is capable of doing it. I actually don't think he can btw, if he could do it, Malcador and other Alpha++ psykers could do this, and whilst they are rare, it would have happened. Chaos gods cannot enforce their will fully on daemon worlds in the Eye of Terror, they are the main players, but they do not automatically enslave any who touch down on such planets... So if they cannot, the big E cannot.

Anyway, the E needed to be on the great crusade to unite his primarchs, so as soon as he leaves Terra then what? All those souls he mind enslaved carry on following his orders? Terra rises up...

And finally he doesn't want to be worshipped as a god... He was so against the idea he inadvertently started the heresy!

I do hate a lot of modern lore and especially that the Horus Heresy removed so much mystery that I can now ask someone the name of the Sanguinor and probably get an answer, and the fact that the Primarchs are now definitely giant gods and not Space Marines with legends written about them.

However, the idea of the Emperor needing an army is the last thing to complain about, as even if he didn't need it to control Terra, he still needed it for the galaxy at large.

The emperor has the ability to manifest Miracles in FRONT of Blanks like the SoS. Think about that.

He could manifest Psychic powers in front of blanks. Not miracles. The Emperor at that time was very much still a man and not whatever He has become 10k years later.

The Chaos gods don't get to control the galaxy. If the Emperor wants to go all unity by himself, the setting has multiple ways of explaining why he can't. Otherwise its a very poor setting. So currently no mater how good he was, he couldn't see a way of getting his 100,000 year Reich without being the head of a system of a galactic conquering government.

For all we know the unification wars were about bumping off all the powers that could either individually or united destroy him. If he is a dark age weapon, that is the power level of hardware and software back then. He has clearly been learning from humans, maybe his own ability to innovate is rubbish and he recognised he needed scientists and innovators driving humanity forward in a way he couldn't do.

Can we really define Miracles as non-warp/psychic phenomena?

We aren't defining them as miracles because there wasn't a state-wide religion based around the Emperor when He was alive and kicking. We can also not define them as by their very nature they are only miracles to those who believe the Emperor is a god, which at this point in time is nobody.

Custodes
Thunder warrriors
Astartes

And no the Emperor can't conquer and control a planet on his own regardless of his power .

He can't be everywhere at once and unless he where to kill everyone he would be dealing with multiple uprisings at the same time that he has to deal with

Personally i think the emperor was wrong to wipe out the thunder warriors once they served their purpose on Terra He should have wittled them down untill only the most stable survive and used the knowledge that he got from the creation of the Astartes to stabilize them and keep them as an extra tool/army deployed in the solar system

godking wrote:
Personally i think the emperor was wrong to wipe out the thunder warriors once they served their purpose on Terra He should have wittled them down untill only the most stable survive and used the knowledge that he got from the creation of the Astartes to stabilize them and keep them as an extra tool/army deployed in the solar system

He couldn't control them as he wanted to - some had started rebelling against him during the Unification Wars.

 Gert wrote:
We aren't defining them as miracles because there wasn't a state-wide religion based around the Emperor when He was alive and kicking. We can also not define them as by their very nature they are only miracles to those who believe the Emperor is a god, which at this point in time is nobody.

Miracles are literally defined as a suspension of the natural order. Websters defines it as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of the body of a small female child, making her immune to demonic plague and influence, and by her touch, banishing a nurgle demon back to the warp, is a suspension of the natural order, and a divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of Bobby and beating up Mortarion is another example. The Astronomicon is a good third. Saying he's not a god, or that his acts are not miracles is willful head in sand at this point. Hell, even Bobby G has begun to believe in him. Even the Eldar farseer believes he is a god. How many more authorities need to declare him a god?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Miracles are literally defined as a suspension of the natural order. Websters defines it as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of the body of a small female child, making her immune to demonic plague and influence, and by her touch, banishing a nurgle demon back to the warp, is a suspension of the natural order, and a divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of Bobby and beating up Mortarion is another example. The Astronomicon is a good third. Saying he's not a god, or that his acts are not miracles is willful head in sand at this point. Hell, even Bobby G has begun to believe in him. Even the Eldar farseer believes he is a god. How many more authorities need to declare him a god?

Except we aren't talking about post-Throne Emperor Fezz. We are talking about the pre-Great Crusade Emperor.
Maybe you should pay attention to the conversation. All the Emperor was during the time where He wasn't on the Golden Throne was an exceptionally powerful Psyker and I'm not denying that. I am denying He had enough power to single-handedly conquer Terra in a way that would make it a good base to reunite Humanity under the Imperium's banner.

Those are 40k times feats... Was the EMP previously to him being fuelled by / chained to the Golden Throne so powerfull as too be considered divine??