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I remember reading (on a wiki perhaps, but can't remember) that the Emperor basically was Jesus and several other major religious and political figures throughout human history.

Does anyone know where exactly that comes from? Especially the Jesus thing. Is there a book explaining it?

It's never explictly stated, (nor I susopect would GW ever want to, as that path courts a controversy that would have no winners) but the HH short story "the last church" HEAVILY implies it

IIRC the section from RoC:tL&tD talks about the Emperor being various historical leaders and religious figures but (probably sensibly) declines to name them.

There are implications of people that the Emperor was but the only one that's absolutely confirmed is Alexander the Great.

That was the Emperor's first attempt at world conquest.

As for others it's been implied that he was Jesus and the Greek mercenary/hero Xenophon.

He also might have been Saint George, and the Dragon he slew was the C'tan Mag'ladroth the Void Dragon (or a shard of...) which he then imprisoned on Mars.

Well…possibly?

Essentially the being now known as The Emperor may or may not have been any given historical or mythological figure.

He could have been David, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, even Gandhi. Or just some of them. Perhaps even [i]none[i] of them.

With his psychic powers, it’s possible he could even have been responsible for the Burning Bush and the Ten Commandments given to Moses.

The below is paraphrased from The End and the Death Volume 1:
"The Emperor took many forms during this time, both male and female. Some were brutal conquerors, some became meek to inherit the Earth."
Now obviously that is not explicitly Jesus but it is attributed to him in the Bible, Matthew 5:5, and although it is used elsewhere, that is the most commonly known place of origin.

yeah as I said the clues are there eneugh that the intent is IMHO pretty clear but they're not ever going to spell it out

Essentially, the way GW portrays it in setting- the Emperor has always been the guiding light of humanity. The Emperor takes on many forms and guises even when he is officially the Emperor, everyone sees them as a different thing. They are only explicitly the Emperor at the commencement of the Reunification.

The implications from the RT material is that he could have been anyone from Buddha, to Charlemagne, Hannibal, Hitler, Stalin, Jesus, Mohammed, Nebuchadnezzar II, Zeus, Odin, Ahkenaten, Winston Churchill, Marie Curie, Einstein, Sun Tzu, etc.

And just to prove the point - L. Ron Hubbard. He tried a lot of things each an evolution of a previous idea.

He was terrible people as well as 'good' people.

Humanity was his petri dish and he tried a thousand experiments on the species over the millennia in an attempt to find the special sauce that would succeed at saving us.

And after 30,000 years he still hadn't found the best means of preserving humanity. We can assume he tried enlightenment through the golden age of humanity. And it still failed.

Then the fall of the eldar calmed the warp and he saw an opportunity to exploit before anyone else did.

The Primarch project IMO was his last hail mary, an extreme answer to a problem he hadn't solved in 30,000 years. He would double down on his dictatorial authoritarian model and force humanity into compliance.

By the age of the great crusade, he had no interest in taking on the role of religious figurehead as he saw that divisiveness and strife it generated all the previous times he tried it.

 Gert wrote:
There are implications of people that the Emperor was but the only one that's absolutely confirmed is Alexander the Great.

No it was not. Not only it was said by Horus (who at the time was in really poor state of mind), but the quote that the Alexander then supposedly said is all wrong, which if we're generous to author was another hint the story was bogus. Plus, we know every minute of Alexander's life, from his childhood to death in early 30s, kind of hard for an adult man to pretend you're a child of completely different nationality/look (and why not pretend to be an heir to Persia instead to skip wasting time and resources on pointless conquest?). Also, would army refuse to follow Emperor midway into India when he can just influence minds of much bigger crowds into obeying his every whim?

BrianDavion wrote:It's never explictly stated, (nor I susopect would GW ever want to, as that path courts a controversy that would have no winners) but the HH short story "the last church" HEAVILY implies it

Lord Zarkov wrote:IIRC the section from RoC:tL&tD talks about the Emperor being various historical leaders and religious figures but (probably sensibly) declines to name them.

Gert wrote:The below is paraphrased from The End and the Death Volume 1:
"The Emperor took many forms during this time, both male and female. Some were brutal conquerors, some became meek to inherit the Earth."
Now obviously that is not explicitly Jesus but it is attributed to him in the Bible, Matthew 5:5, and although it is used elsewhere, that is the most commonly known place of origin.

Thanks!

This very much reminds me of old Star Trek where Flint claimed to be several notable historical people- Soloman, Socrates, Alexander, Leanardo, etc, etc. And as we know GW would NEEEEEVER "borrow heavily" from other popular media (*Cough* JUDGE DREDD *Cough*) so that may have been the inception of this idea. I still prefer Emps TTS where he claimed he spent most of early history scaring small children.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
This very much reminds me of old Star Trek where Flint claimed to be several notable historical people- Soloman, Socrates, Alexander, Leanardo, etc, etc. And as we know GW would NEEEEEVER "borrow heavily" from other popular media (*Cough* JUDGE DREDD *Cough*) so that may have been the inception of this idea. I still prefer Emps TTS where he claimed he spent most of early history scaring small children.

This idea pre-dates star trek considerably, I'd argue it has it's roots in ancient polytheism where people would often understand that the gods of another people where "simply differant aspects of our gods"

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
This very much reminds me of old Star Trek where Flint claimed to be several notable historical people- Soloman, Socrates, Alexander, Leanardo, etc, etc. And as we know GW would NEEEEEVER "borrow heavily" from other popular media (*Cough* JUDGE DREDD *Cough*) so that may have been the inception of this idea. I still prefer Emps TTS where he claimed he spent most of early history scaring small children.

Which episode? I must have missed it.

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:

Which episode? I must have missed it.

"Requiem for Methuselah" Original Series, 1969

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:

Which episode? I must have missed it.

"Requiem for Methuselah" Original Series, 1969

Thanks, but I was actually asking about TTS.

Oh- it's #17, mentioned really quick as to what Emps was doing as Terra grew.

TTS? What is that?

I doubt GW would ever do it, but it would be neat to see the Emperor during the Dark Age of Technology when humans were whizzing around Star Trek style ships, genetically engineering whole spin off races, and colonizing the galaxy the first time only to have be brought down by the Eldar and their Epic Frat Party.

It would have been the ruination of all his dreams, making the Space Marines, the Gold Armor and all that his comeback plan.

I doubt they would ever do something with Emps during the pre-unification days, but my HeadCanon is this:
Big E wasn't always big, giant and super-charged genes. He had the psyker powers of all the Shamen, but besides being a Perpetual, he was still just a guy. When humans had figured out gene manipulation he went "Huh- that's cool!" and sequestered himself to 1) make the perfect genetic blue print and 2) re-edit his DNA piece by piece using the Alpha Plus abilities he has. This would explain his seeming absence during the Men of Iron and age of strife, as well as why his gene-craft was superior. But, he hadn't made the space marines when he made the thunder warriors because he was used to manipulating genes by his mind, not tech. It'd be like trying to sculpt greenstuff with just a ballpoint pen after you're used to a full sculpting tool set. The whole trip to Molech seems to add to the gene-psyker theory, as he had to make a deal with Chaos to get super powered souls for primarchs, as just cloning himself would be like the perfect thermal mug with no hot coffee inside it. (If my analogies confuse you, then my Tzeentchian tendancies are working.) He made his body the best vessel for psyker energies, and he needed equally powerful souls to put into primarchs. This is why I wonder if geneseed rejection can be due to the spiritual aspect of it. If it were simple genetics, then find a world that has the lowest rejection rate and pump all the boys full of seed! (Wait- that came out wrong..)
Anyhoo, long story short that's my theroy. Feel free to pick it apart.

Except emperor isn't physically all that impressive. The giant body is more of psychic illusion. Lookwise he's pretty regular looking guy already.

I like the idea he can body swap with the current body being a gene-engineered super body created for his mission.

IIRC there was something in Lost and Damned (original) to the effect that the Emperor could and would be reborn if he wasn't shackled to the Golden Throne. But no one knows that.

The Sensei were bits of his good soul leaking back into reality, but again, no one knows that, so they're hunted by the Inquisition.

I don't see a need for fancy body SWAPPING, I mean.... biomancy's a thing

BrianDavion wrote:
I don't see a need for fancy body SWAPPING, I mean.... biomancy's a thing

Obviously arguing body swapping vs biomancy is like arguing whether Hyperspace is faster than Warp Drive, but here we are.

I'd argue that body swapping is better for the Emp since it allows him to work on the new body while living in his current, presumably satisfactory body. Biomancy on his own body, while he's living in it, would require taking himself out of action and relying on others to guard him while the work is being done.

Even low level psykers can use biomancy on themselves instantly.

The emperor's psychic might being what it is, he can effectively have super biomancy active at all times indefinitely.

Literally just regenerating and juicing his form forever. The body he was born in to was perfectly capable of carrying his gestalt psychic might for tens of thousands of years before he ever got to the golden age of tech.

tneva82 wrote:
Except emperor isn't physically all that impressive. The giant body is more of psychic illusion. Lookwise he's pretty regular looking guy already.

Trouble there is, when we know he can use psychic trickery to appear as he wishes? We can’t ever know what his true form is. Whilst it is oddly pleasing to think of him as Just A Dude? There’s now way to say for certain if that was another appearance for affect only.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
IIRC there was something in Lost and Damned (original) to the effect that the Emperor could and would be reborn if he wasn't shackled to the Golden Throne. But no one knows that..

Though we also have GW fluff that states Emp gave the instructions to put him to golden throne which begs question why if he is reborn.

(one explanation. Without his protection during the time it takes to reborn humanity is fetted anyway)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Except emperor isn't physically all that impressive. The giant body is more of psychic illusion. Lookwise he's pretty regular looking guy already.

Trouble there is, when we know he can use psychic trickery to appear as he wishes? We can’t ever know what his true form is. Whilst it is oddly pleasing to think of him as Just A Dude? There’s now way to say for certain if that was another appearance for affect only.

Except he was seen by people IMMUNE to psychic powers ;-) That's how they saw him as quite plain looking guy. The powers didn't affect them.

tneva82 wrote:


Though we also have GW fluff that states Emp gave the instructions to put him to golden throne which begs question why if he is reborn.

(one explanation. Without his protection during the time it takes to reborn humanity is fetted anyway)

That's what I always figured, maybe it was true at the time, he could not stop for even a second or the warp would break through the devour Earth.

It adds a bit more pathos to him, he could quit and probably his soul escape to be reborn before Earth was all gulped up, but he won't.

So all that stuff in the Imperium about the Emperor's divine suffering and duty would actually be... true.

tneva82 wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
IIRC there was something in Lost and Damned (original) to the effect that the Emperor could and would be reborn if he wasn't shackled to the Golden Throne. But no one knows that..

Though we also have GW fluff that states Emp gave the instructions to put him to golden throne which begs question why if he is reborn.

(one explanation. Without his protection during the time it takes to reborn humanity is fetted anyway)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Except emperor isn't physically all that impressive. The giant body is more of psychic illusion. Lookwise he's pretty regular looking guy already.

Trouble there is, when we know he can use psychic trickery to appear as he wishes? We can’t ever know what his true form is. Whilst it is oddly pleasing to think of him as Just A Dude? There’s now way to say for certain if that was another appearance for affect only.

Except he was seen by people IMMUNE to psychic powers ;-) That's how they saw him as quite plain looking guy. The powers didn't affect them.

If he can't trick your mind/eyes into seeing what he wants them to see then surely he could directly modify his actual body to be whatever he wants it to be, all the while keeping up the "I'm a giant!" illusion for the rest. The end result is that everyone sees him only as he wants them to see him, true form or not.

It could be
- maybe he decided the psyker immune people really could see his true form in an epic case of cba
- maybe the external illusion is his true form and the "regular dude" look is a trick, meant to give psyker-immune opponents the idea he's vulnerable
- maybe both looks are fake; he actually looked like a spooky skeleton the whole time and merely dropped the ruse upon getting on the throne
- whatever you want it to be

Maybe he's like a Vorlon from B5. Just glowing warp energy naturally and not really a form the human mind can comprehend without an overlay made by him or their cognitive dissonance. Think old school bible angels.

That might be why when his willed facade falters a moment and people get a flash of his "grandeur" they tend to freak a little.