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.

This thread is meant to be a discussion of what it means when someone screams "For the Emperor!" or "For the Imperium!" as they hurtle into battle.

Think of it this way, Imperial Citizen's are not necessarily screaming "For the Corpse God!", when they praise their leader, and are not hailing him directly. Rather, they are hailing him as an idea, just the same as the Imperium is an idea as well as real things. These battle cry's are closer to an ardent "For William Wallace!" and "For Freedom!" - both are very tangible things, but as idea's they are much more.

Freedom as an idea is not only the absence of tyranny and oppression, but the knowledge and efficacy to act upon that virtue to live a life of fulfillment. (One can be labeled as free and as much a slave within their own mind as one in physical chains.)

William Wallace is the Scottish symbol for freedom, and as an idea, galvanized a people to rise up, take arms for their freedom, and act upon it. When his name became a battle cry however, it was not he the Scotts were really interested, but his memory that had become the idea of Freedom. (So they just may as well have been screaming "Freedom!")

I then ask you, what is the Emperor as an idea, the Imperium, and finally what does it truly mean for virtually all loyalists to praise them?

I think that the emperor was not a symbol of freedom. but instead a symbol of strength. The emperor was a force in the galaxy, a force that gave people the strength to defend themselves from all the crazy aliens/chaos and the strength to survive hardships.

in the grimdark times of 40k, life sucks. it's hard, youre most likely poor as hell, and might die at any moment. unless you worship the emperor. with him you are strong. you are resilient, and you are a member of the imperium of man as a whole.

One human may be weak, but all of them united are strong.

More or less humans put all their hope, faith and dreams to ride on a dead guy in a chair and pray his psyker candle doesn't burn out too soon. They definately do not cry out for freedom, Icculus is right that he is more of a symbol of strength and will to conquer than anything else.

Actually the average Joe citizen of the Imperium probably doesn't care all that much about the Emperor. Sure most will tell you he exists and that he is a god or something along those lines but I very much doubt that every guardsman is so fanatic about the Imperial Cult that they scream "For the Emperor!" whilst happily charging a machine gun nest.

Said guardsman probably gets that order from an officer standing next to the comissar that is known for his itchy trigger finger and mutters something like "feth me..." then grudgingly storms the gun emplacememt as fast as he can while chanting "please don't die. please don't die..." to himself because he knows that he does have a chance, albeit small, to survive that, bit if he doesn't run up that hill then he has a 100% chance of death from the comissar's bolt pistol.