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.

There are a few fiddly bits that I can't seem to wrap my brain around in the 40k 'verse. The main issues is with the man in the most badassed Throne in the history of chairs:

The God-Emperor.

What exactly is his ability to share his powers with others, or are those powers not real and just powerful delusions held by his followers.

The Black Templars. They have such faith in the Emperor that they can do amazing things, and believe they are granted visions from.the God-Emperor.

While these can be ignored as flights of fancy, it is harder to ignore the abilities of the Adeptus Sororitas.

The Sisters actually are granted powers. Saint Celestine, the quintessential bad penny that you can never truly be free of, is resurrected over and over by some force in the universe.

Where does this come from? Who actually performs these "miracles of faith?"

Is it the Psychic Will of the Emperor, remnants of the Dark King that Horus was afraid of the Emperor becoming or something else entirely?

So, originally (in 2nd edition, they didn't have any powers in RT) the Sister of Battle acts of faith were things that ambiguously could have been feats of willpower or determination, just like the Templars. Personally I preferred this interpretation

Now? There's no ambiguity, they have a lady with wings who can't die. It's full-on God power. We know there's something left on the Throne because it talks to Guilliman, but whether it's able to project tangible psychic manifestations across the galaxy is doubtful in my eyes.

Not that it makes much difference, it's either the Warp being manipulated to manifest effects in Realspace via psychic ability, or it's the Warp being manipulated to manifest effects in Realspace by a nascent God

Yet. The Sisters of Battle seem immune, or at least highly resistant to the effects of the Pariah Nexus, which normally cripples psykers and mucks up baseline humans.

So, whatever is going on Miracles Wise, it can’t be entirely psychic in nature.

And here’s the rub. Just because it may be Faith In The Emperor? Doesn’t mean he’s providing the effect. The Saint? She’s described as an experiment in Gathering Storm. But I don’t recall it being explicit she’s one of The Emperor’s fiddlin’s.

Friendship Faith being magic rather than warp-based was a retcon between Fall of Cadia, where Celestine's powers are turned off by the pylons, and Psychic Awakening: Pariah where a Necron lord lampshades the fact that Stern's powers not being negated by blackstone is absurd.

It's not a retcon, though. If the background for Fall of Cadia had been changed and Celestine herself was no longer affected at that time, then yes, it would be a retcon.

It's a change post-Rift. Stories aren't suddenly being rewritten to say, "Actually, all previous instances of X are now Y."

The power that is seemingly drawn from the Emperor has a real-space conduit that has only gotten more powerful over time.
Big E is like a dam that's been filling up for almost ten thousand years, suddenly the switch has been flipped, and all that power is rushing on out.

The modern background makes it pretty clear that the Emperor is not far off a Chaos god. He can influence realspace, grant power to his fanatics and even has daemon princes in the Living Saints.

I much preferred the older, more ambiguous background where the Living Saints might have been lookalikes or something with tech augmentations used as propaganda tools. But the switch to more explicit faith magic happened a long time ago now and it's pretty bedded into the background.

Funny, over time Humanity becomes more like Orks with a gestalt field and bigger forms denoting leadership and power - Human - Firstborn - Primaris - Custodes - Primarch matching Boy - Skarboy - Nob - Warboss - Megawarbosses like Ghaz.

 Da Boss wrote:
The modern background makes it pretty clear that the Emperor is not far off a Chaos god. He can influence realspace, grant power to his fanatics and even has daemon princes in the Living Saints.

I much preferred the older, more ambiguous background where the Living Saints might have been lookalikes or something with tech augmentations used as propaganda tools. But the switch to more explicit faith magic happened a long time ago now and it's pretty bedded into the background.

Funny, over time Humanity becomes more like Orks with a gestalt field and bigger forms denoting leadership and power - Human - Firstborn - Primaris - Custodes - Primarch matching Boy - Skarboy - Nob - Warboss - Megawarbosses like Ghaz.

Size matters, looks like Orks are rubbing off on the oomies more than they'd like to admit.

The powers of chaos in the warp and their translation to real space are quite well documented. I think you have to assume that it’s a similar system for humans, orks etc.

we know there is a 2 way system at play with chaos. Open your soul to the influence of the dark gods, let them in, serve them well and they will bestow some of their powers on you.

The question is does it work the same for the emperor and his faithful? Does the psycho indoctrination not really work that well? If it did then you would think that every astartes was a a candidate for apotheosis.

Probably the emperor does not have enough power to give to people in real space when compared to the chaos pantheon, who power seems limitless. But the. Why does he favour the SOB. Probably because they are actual humans, the emperor has always been trying to secure their future. Astartes are just something he made to help

I mean you're also looking at what are extremely useful pawns.

What's a better? A puppet that fully believes that what is happening is divine intervention and won't question it due to the intense conviction of their belief or a puppet that might fight because they have been indoctrinated into semi-atheism?

 Gert wrote:
I mean you're also looking at what are extremely useful pawns.

What's a better? A puppet that fully believes that what is happening is divine intervention and won't question it due to the intense conviction of their belief or a puppet that might fight because they have been indoctrinated into semi-atheism?

Would be interesting if Black Templars received something like SoB, since they're religious lunatics as well. I'm not into BT lore, though, so maybe there is something like that already? Their vows from 3rd edition might already be similar?

They do claim to receive visions from the Emperor.
But maybe with them being Astartes with all that indoctrination and brain scrambling, perhaps it's still a pain for the Emperor to do the more "physical" miracles compared to a more blank slate human.
There will also be a much greater number of Sororitas and regular fanatics to pick from as conduits of power.
It's an interesting point if a Chapter could make the legitimate claim that they have the Emperor's direct blessing.

Chapters kind of have the freedom of a Rogue Trader.

Whilst their duties are different (one defends The Imperium, the other attempts to expand The Imperium), both have significant leeway in how they go about this.

Not total freedom (circumstances exist where a Chapter is ordered to patrol a certain area, the command coming from the High Lords). But still once deployed, largely left to know best how to execute their duties.

And of course, those freedoms and duties originally came from The Emperor himself.

Sure but there's a significant difference in having a piece of paper that says your the Emperor's chosen instrument and a literal actual miracle.

Hard to deny God when a Scout is manifesting god-lasers from his hands and calling Guilliman "son".