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I don't subscribe to the emperor being directly affected by worship. The chaos gods aren't real world entities that absorbed warp power. They are warp entities first and foremost.

Even in 40k worshipping a person doesn't power them it just coalesces power in the warp.

Just because you say the name emperor when you pray hard doesn't mean the warp knows where to send it. No one has a true image of the emperor in their mind to find him in the warp anyway.

The reason chaos gods are empowered by worship is because they are emergent properties of emotions in the warp. A person can't directly send worship to khorne, but rage and aggression manifest in the warp and stick to other rage and aggression. That khorne is powered by it is actually beside the point. It would coalesce whether an emergent intelligence appeared or not.

You can't snort drugs 'for khorne'. That excess won't go to him because it doesn't stick.

The emperor isn't an emotion. So the metaphysics of 40k would imply that a warp entity that is an emergent intelligence from say blind faith or authoritarianism might be forming.

The half living emperor could then by retro association actually become basically a daemon Prince of his own warp mirror, given the similarities.

But it wouldn't literally turn him the person into a god, because that's no how warp gods work.

Eh, after the "Greater Good" warp entity incident with that one Tau expansion wave, I think we have to accept that there could be a warp entity of the Worshiped Emperor - though I agree it may not be linked to the Golden Throne Emperor at all.

It's well documented that worship of something has the potential to create a Chaos being that lives off that worship directly.

The concept of a "Chaos God" isn't really a type of chaos entity its simply a really really powerful entity within the warp with a vast following and amount of power.


I recall that at least Khorne and Nurgle were supposed to be birthed from human worship/emotions during history. Slaanesh was birthed by the Eldar and their hedonistic ways.
We have the more recent Greater Good entity.


So the idea that either an existing or new Chaos entity has arisen based off the belief of the Emperor makes perfect sense. What that entity might be and what its goals and intent are is up for debate and impossible to truly know.
We know the Emperor tried to snuff out belief as a concept, most likely because he knew what it would do in the warp.

The big question is if the actual Emperor is connected to the Warp entity or indeed if there's only one. There's potential that there could be two - one the True Emperor and another the twisted form of Emperor that's been created in the minds of people over 10K years.

If that latter idea was true it might explain why the Sisters of Battle gain belief powers whilst many others don't. That they've tapped into belief in one of the entities which is more powerful in warp energies and thus able to feed it back to them in the phyiscal world.

 Overread wrote:
It's well documented that worship of something has the potential to create a Chaos being that lives off that worship directly.

The concept of a "Chaos God" isn't really a type of chaos entity its simply a really really powerful entity within the warp with a vast following and amount of power.


I recall that at least Khorne and Nurgle were supposed to be birthed from human worship/emotions during history. Slaanesh was birthed by the Eldar and their hedonistic ways.
We have the more recent Greater Good entity.


So the idea that either an existing or new Chaos entity has arisen based off the belief of the Emperor makes perfect sense. What that entity might be and what its goals and intent are is up for debate and impossible to truly know.
We know the Emperor tried to snuff out belief as a concept, most likely because he knew what it would do in the warp.

The big question is if the actual Emperor is connected to the Warp entity or indeed if there's only one. There's potential that there could be two - one the True Emperor and another the twisted form of Emperor that's been created in the minds of people over 10K years.

If that latter idea was true it might explain why the Sisters of Battle gain belief powers whilst many others don't. That they've tapped into belief in one of the entities which is more powerful in warp energies and thus able to feed it back to them in the phyiscal world.

In the Dark Imperium novels, the Ulthwe Farseer Illiyanne Natasé has a discussion with Guilliman about what gods might be. Admittedly it is an in-universe discussion so it could be fallible, but one of the theories advanced was whether a being could become a god. The original soul might gather to itself the power from worship, but possibly be changed by this. That could be be what happened to the entity that was the Emperor of 30K. Over thousands of years of worship, the Imperium's faith in the Emperor and the dying souls of the faithful have coalesced into a god that also calls itself the Emperor, except it is the Emperor as imagined by the faithful so it is xenophobic and tyrannical. The original Emperor and this warp Emperor could have willingly or unwilling merged together and now the Emperor has more warp power than ever before even while being physically still nearly dead and shackled to the Golden Throne. The influence of the warp Emperor might also have changed the original Emperor's mind and views. We know Guilliman's experience of communicating with the Emperor was confusing and that the Emperor's mind was very fragmented so that might explain the seemingly illogical or inconsistent actions such as why SoB get miracles at a far higher frequency (enough to be reflected in-game) whereas even faithful Guardsmen and Space Marine Chapters that worship the Emperor as a god don't (outside of rare incidents in novels).

 Hellebore wrote:
Maybe driving humanity through apocalypse after apocalypse until humanity is back to his caveman origins is the intent all along. Not to uplift, but to degenerate back to an Eloi- like existence. One that deprives the chaos gods power by its very simplicity.

Which is basically what the exodites did.

There is some implication that Doombreed is Genghis Khan ascended to Daemonhood, so Chaos was definitely around even in tribal times.

 Overread wrote:
It's well documented that worship of something has the potential to create a Chaos being that lives off that worship directly.

The concept of a "Chaos God" isn't really a type of chaos entity its simply a really really powerful entity within the warp with a vast following and amount of power.


I recall that at least Khorne and Nurgle were supposed to be birthed from human worship/emotions during history. Slaanesh was birthed by the Eldar and their hedonistic ways.
We have the more recent Greater Good entity.

The original fluff from realms of chaos had the modern khorne tzeentch and nurgle awaken during the human mediaeval period.

But again it wasn't due to worshipping them as they didn't exist. It wasn't even due to the worshipping of the concepts that compose them. It was because of the sheer amount of murder, despair and deceit that was occuring at the time.

Similarly slannesh wasn't worshipped into existence, it was emoted into existence. The chaos gods are intelligences that emerge from concentrations of emotions in the warp. If there was no intelligence formed those emotions would still congeal together in the warp.

Khorne is rage given animus through sheer concentration of rage. Its analogous to human consciousness forming when you get a critical mass of neurones interconnecting.

And those that worship khorne only do so through khornate emotions. A khorne worshipper isn't fuelling khorne with deception. So worship as a concept can't do anything, it has no presence in the warp. If it did it would fuel a chaos god of faith, not somehow act as a metaphysical emotion divvying machine.

The worship happens alongside the active ingredient, it isn't itself the active ingredient. If it were then only rage performed in a khornate worshipful manner would fuel khorne, despite it being a fact of 40k that all rage and murder fuels him which is why you can never get rid of chaos. Sentience begets it as a dark mirror.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Maybe driving humanity through apocalypse after apocalypse until humanity is back to his caveman origins is the intent all along. Not to uplift, but to degenerate back to an Eloi- like existence. One that deprives the chaos gods power by its very simplicity.

Which is basically what the exodites did.

There is some implication that Doombreed is Genghis Khan ascended to Daemonhood, so Chaos was definitely around even in tribal times.

His original entry in 2nd Ed said a great human warlord and a lot people would theory hammer he was Hitler, khan, xerxes, or any number of historical warlords.

Ghengis khan was from the 1200s.

The reincarnating shamans all died in 8000 BC, right when civilisation was ramping up in humanity. They chose that date on purpose as it's just before the oldest cities we have from the archaeological record. Lost and the damned said they felt chaos getting more dangerous as humanity moved away from it's hunter gatherer roots. So the original fluff makes it clear that the shamans wanted to prevent civilisation corrupting humanity.

There used to be a chaos god called Malal, now called malice due to copyright reasons.it was chaos turned against choas.

Perhaps when the emperor went to molech Malice saw him as a power agent of order a weapon against the other choas gods and the bound themselves to each other. This granted th emperor Malice’s warp power and Malice the power of the worship of trillions of human souls

mrFickle wrote:
There used to be a chaos god called Malal, now called malice due to copyright reasons.it was chaos turned against choas.

Perhaps when the emperor went to molech Malice saw him as a power agent of order a weapon against the other choas gods and the bound themselves to each other. This granted th emperor Malice’s warp power and Malice the power of the worship of trillions of human souls

That would be dumb.

 RaptorusRex wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
There used to be a chaos god called Malal, now called malice due to copyright reasons.it was chaos turned against choas.

Perhaps when the emperor went to molech Malice saw him as a power agent of order a weapon against the other choas gods and the bound themselves to each other. This granted th emperor Malice’s warp power and Malice the power of the worship of trillions of human souls

That would be dumb.

Why?

mrFickle wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
There used to be a chaos god called Malal, now called malice due to copyright reasons.it was chaos turned against choas.

Perhaps when the emperor went to molech Malice saw him as a power agent of order a weapon against the other choas gods and the bound themselves to each other. This granted th emperor Malice’s warp power and Malice the power of the worship of trillions of human souls

That would be dumb.

Why?

Because Malal/Malice/who gives a cuss was never that important or integral to the setting. Whenever he's referenced, it's a wink and nudge thing.

Because we know the Emperor made a deal with the Four and Malal doesn't exist and cannot exist outside of vague references about Chaos hating everything including itself.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It's well documented that worship of something has the potential to create a Chaos being that lives off that worship directly.

The concept of a "Chaos God" isn't really a type of chaos entity its simply a really really powerful entity within the warp with a vast following and amount of power.


I recall that at least Khorne and Nurgle were supposed to be birthed from human worship/emotions during history. Slaanesh was birthed by the Eldar and their hedonistic ways.
We have the more recent Greater Good entity.

The original fluff from realms of chaos had the modern khorne tzeentch and nurgle awaken during the human mediaeval period.

But again it wasn't due to worshipping them as they didn't exist. It wasn't even due to the worshipping of the concepts that compose them. It was because of the sheer amount of murder, despair and deceit that was occuring at the time.

Similarly slannesh wasn't worshipped into existence, it was emoted into existence. The chaos gods are intelligences that emerge from concentrations of emotions in the warp. If there was no intelligence formed those emotions would still congeal together in the warp.

Khorne is rage given animus through sheer concentration of rage. Its analogous to human consciousness forming when you get a critical mass of neurones interconnecting.

And those that worship khorne only do so through khornate emotions. A khorne worshipper isn't fuelling khorne with deception. So worship as a concept can't do anything, it has no presence in the warp. If it did it would fuel a chaos god of faith, not somehow act as a metaphysical emotion divvying machine.

The worship happens alongside the active ingredient, it isn't itself the active ingredient. If it were then only rage performed in a khornate worshipful manner would fuel khorne, despite it being a fact of 40k that all rage and murder fuels him which is why you can never get rid of chaos. Sentience begets it as a dark mirror.

The original RoC describes how some cults can engage in suicide pacts and their souls would coalesce into the warp as a very minor entity. This shows that focused belief and worship can affect how the worshippers' souls behave after death, and shape what forms in the warp. That would also explain why for example the belief in the Greater Good by Tau auxiliaries can form the Greater God warp god, in line with their beliefs. This is as opposed to unfocused emotion and souls just coalescing without clear defined beliefs in which case you get whatever the warp gives you in the end.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

We’re told they’d masquerade as different historical figures, nudging mankind’s development along, using its skills and abilities of precognition to do so.

So….why didn’t he take control much longer?

It is strongly hinted that the Emperor was Alexander the Great (which is stupid), and also that humanity has had lots of other empires before the Imperium. Who's to say that the Imperium of 30k/40k is not just the last in a long series of empires built by the Emperor, which all collapse because he is a powerful but incompetent tool? Maybe the Dark Age of Technology ended in a way not too dissimilar from how 40k is fated to end, and with the same fool at its head? Maybe this has happened many times, and the Long Night just obscures all the previous incidents? Last time, it fell due to a machine rebellion, and this time due to Chaos interference. Every Imperium of his falls to some oversight, but eventually he'll have made all the mistakes one can possible make, and it'll finally last.

Hell, make the Emperor all the big historical conquerors - Alexander, Julius Caesar, the Yellow Emperor, Ghenghis Khan, etc., and say that the "official" histories are just coverups of the Emperor's fundamental incompetence as a leader.

(Yes, I do think the habit of making the Emperor retroactively important is detrimental to the setting - it lessens the tragedy if he was always there and planning it all along, rather than being a single big mistake arising from the natural tendencies of humanity.)