# The Power of the Emperor



## Zion (May 31, 2011)

So I was talking to some friends recently and a thought came to mind:

Tigirius is a powerful enough psyker to be able to in some way read the Tyranid hivemind without having his head explode.

The Emperor is powerful enough that he acts as a psychic lighthouse over most of the galaxy so strong that the Tyranids are attracted to it from outside the galaxy (like a moth to a flame?), he killed Horus' daemonicly possessed soul and is pretty much THE top level psyker in the galaxy, even in his near-dead state.

So the question then becomes could the Emperor conquer the Hive Mind in a psychic showdown if the Tyranids did get too close to Terra? I don't think there is a "right" answer but it'd be an interesting idea to discuss.


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## Archon Dan (Feb 6, 2012)

I think the vast majority of the Tyranids would have to be in the galaxy for the Hive Mind to be that exposed. It has no corporeal form and so long as the Tyranids exist, so does the Hive Mind. As you said, no right answer. But I believe that the easiest mode of attack would be through a Hive Tyrant's synaptic link to the Hive Mind. If it perceived a big enough threat, couldn't the Hive Mind withdraw from that Hive Tyrant? It would be in much the same fashion as the Chaos Gods withdrawing their power from Horus when the Emperor destroyed him. But hard to say.


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

Archon Dan said:


> I think the vast majority of the Tyranids would have to be in the galaxy for the Hive Mind to be that exposed. It has no corporeal form and so long as the Tyranids exist, so does the Hive Mind. As you said, no right answer. But I believe that the easiest mode of attack would be through a Hive Tyrant's synaptic link to the Hive Mind. If it perceived a big enough threat, couldn't the Hive Mind withdraw from that Hive Tyrant? It would be in much the same fashion as the Chaos Gods withdrawing their power from Horus when the Emperor destroyed him. But hard to say.


One of the thoughts we had was the Emperor might have enough oomph to override the synapse of a Hive Fleet itself and act much in the manner of a high level synaptic creature (as they have shown themselves to be highly intelligent and are basically in control of the lower level creatures). Of course this assumes there is a creature near the top somewhere he can force out of control.

Again, I got nothing concrete but it's fun to toss about ideas sometimes.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Exactly how powerful the Emperor is has not been clearly defined. Further, the Hive Mind is not a single entity. He would essentially have to contend with the majority of a Hive Fleet at the very least while fending off daemons in the Imperial webway. Personally I do not think it can be done. 

And if the Hive Mind is in fact a singular entity (which I doubt) then its power would measure comparable to almost a galaxy's worth of psykers. No easy feat, Emperor or not.


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## Ddraig Cymry (Dec 30, 2012)

It's pretty well established that the Hive Mind is the culmination of every Tyrannid creature, with bigger and smarter ones (Zoanthropes, Hive Tyrants, higher Warrior broods) acting as receivers for more sophisticated localized maneuvers. Then you have ones like Gene-Stealers who can essentially act completely independently from the Hive Mind, so long as a Broodlord commands them. If the connection to the overall Hive Mind is lost, I'm pretty sure Tyrannid's become feral, if I remember DOWII: Retribution correctly.


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## BlackGuard (Sep 10, 2010)

An interesting concept. Though the question in my opinion is not: Can the Emperor take control of or destroy the Hive Mind. The real question is: Can he destroy or control _part_ of it?

The Tyranids work like, well, a hive and they have basic troops commanded by intermediate troops, commanded by advanced ones, so forth and so forth. The Emperor may not be able to snuff out the Hive Mind, or break its link to a Hive Fleet. But I imagine it'd be a much easier task to turn part of the Hive Fleet against itself. 

If he could snuff out part of the Hive Mind by breaking the synapse link he could make portions of the Hive Fleet turns feral.

Also, while we have no displays from the Emperor on his power (except his galaxy-wide torch), I have to believe that with a thousand psykers being sacrificed a day for him, his presence in the warp must be much larger now than before. So, in my opinion, if anything the Emperor is stronger than he was against Horus.


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## warsmith7752 (Sep 12, 2009)

Serpion5 said:


> its power would measure comparable to almost a galaxy's worth of psykers.


Where you getting that from?

My two cents: The chaos gods are fed from the entire human race and the big E went pretty much toe to toe with them during the fight with horus. If the hive mind is stronger, or as strong as the chaos gods i don't see a way the emporor could defeat it while contending with daemons.

However due to Tzeentch being a tricksy bastard i reckon chaos would rather help mankind repel the xenos filth than see their food source go to waste.


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## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

I reckon the Big E would be able to do serious damage to the Hive Mind if it was in close proximity to him or projecting itself at him. The chaos gods abandoned Horus most likely because they saw the can of whoop ass coming their way and wanted out of the way so as not to get fucked up! The Emperors beacon is projected across the milky way as well continuing to do whatever needs doing in the webway and carrying out soul bindings etc, my 2 cents anyway.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Didn't we already discuss the theory that chaos never wanted horus to win? 

Since I can't remember I'll state it again. horus was a pawn and he was to do exactly what he did.


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## BlackGuard (Sep 10, 2010)

Oldman78 said:


> The chaos gods abandoned Horus most likely because they saw the can of whoop ass coming their way and wanted out of the way so as not to get fucked up!


Lol! Sigged.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

warsmith7752 said:


> Where you getting that from?


Their nature. The Hive Mind is described as the gestalt consciousness of the entire tyranid race. It follows that all tyranids contribute to its presence even if only the synapse creatures directly channel its power. Given that the tyranids have presumably consumed at least one galaxy before their arrival in the Milky Way I figured the numbers were about right. 



warsmith7752 said:


> The chaos gods are fed from the entire human race and the big E went pretty much toe to toe with them during the fight with horus.


Nope. The Chaos Gods are immeasurably powerful. What they gave Horus was not their full power. Not even close. 



Oldman78 said:


> The chaos gods abandoned Horus most likely because they saw the can of whoop ass coming their way and wanted out of the way so as not to get fucked up!


We have no way to know this for sure. What we do know is that the Chaos Gods never necessarily wanted Horus to win. All they wanted was the Emperor to fail. With the Emperor on the verge of fatal injuries and Horus lamenting his decisions, there was no reason for the gods not to withdraw their support. By that stage it was apparent that sufficient damage to the Emperor's plan had been dealt.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

Serpion5 said:


> Nope. The Chaos Gods are immeasurably powerful. What they gave Horus was not their full power. Not even close.
> 
> 
> 
> We have no way to know this for sure. What we do know is that the Chaos Gods never necessarily wanted Horus to win. All they wanted was the Emperor to fail. With the Emperor on the verge of fatal injuries and Horus lamenting his decisions, there was no reason for the gods not to withdraw their support. By that stage it was apparent that sufficient damage to the Emperor's plan had been dealt.


You're presenting conjecture as fact. 

We don't know how empowered Horus was and we don't know what the 'true plan' of the Ruinous Powers was. 

Perhaps it was a fraction of their power, perhaps it was a significant amount. Perhaps they do prefer the current state of the Imperium perhaps they don't, we don't know. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous when we can't even extrapolate like we can in other debates.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Rems said:


> You're presenting conjecture as fact.
> 
> We don't know how empowered Horus was and we don't know what the 'true plan' of the Ruinous Powers was.
> 
> Perhaps it was a fraction of their power, perhaps it was a significant amount. Perhaps they do prefer the current state of the Imperium perhaps they don't, we don't know. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous when we can't even extrapolate like we can in other debates.


I refuse to believe that four beings who existed since the dawn of life and became the doom of the most powerful race in history could condense all four of their essences into one being, primarch or not to any significant degree. 

The idea that they would have enough of themselves invested in one man to risk damage by the Emperor's attack just sounds ludicrous to me.


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## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

Okidoke, lets steer this back towards the Big E versus Nids, again my two cents so here we go. The Emperors massive power is manifested in him a single entity, the Hive Minds huge power seems to work as a network almost like a power grid, so think of the Emperor as a solar flare, he would completely mess up the grid but not necessarily take out the power station.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Oldman78 said:


> Okidoke, lets steer this back towards the Big E versus Nids, again my two cents so here we go. The Emperors massive power is manifested in him a single entity, the Hive Minds huge power seems to work as a network almost like a power grid, so think of the Emperor as a solar flare, he would completely mess up the grid but not necessarily take out the power station.


We don't know the extent of the Emperors power and I doubt we ever will. It's not easy to gauge like in Dragon Ball Z and power levels.

But:

1) He is referred to by all Daemons as the Anathema which speaks volumes about how much he is feared by what is essentially fear incarnate.

2) Mere portions of his flesh/blood has created an entire chapter of incorruptible super-soldiers.

3) Pariahs have no effect on him as seen in the Secret War (capturing the Webway).

4) Has spoken to/dealt with the Chaos powers directly.

5) He defeated and moved a C'tan from Earth to Mars without the use of technology (albeit a shard which apparently is as strong as a whole C'tan only without any recollection of its full memory).

6) As a corpse, he is able to single-handedly hold off an infinite amount of daemons in the Webway beneath his feet.

7) As a corpse, he powers an entire guidance system for a million million worlds and countless trillions of souls.

8) As a corpse, he is capable of conjuring warp storms to protect the faithful (if you believe the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath was caused by his will)

9) Near a state of death, he utterly wiped out the Chaos-empowered soul of a Primarch thus indicating the hold he has even in the normally unbreakable cycle of souls departing the materium and entering the Warp to be devoured.

10) He could predict the future for the majority of his life.

I am sure there are many more examples of his power.


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## Lost&Damned (Mar 25, 2012)

Malus Darkblade said:


> We don't know the extent of the Emperors power and I doubt we ever will. It's not easy to gauge like in Dragon Ball Z and power levels.
> 
> But he is referred to by all Daemons as the Anathema which speaks volumes about how much he is feared by what is essentially fear incarnate, has spoken to/dealt with the Chaos powers directly, defeated and moved a C'tan from Earth to Mars (albeit a shard which apparently is as strong as a whole C'tan only without any recollection of its full memory) is able to single-handedly hold off an infinite amount of daemons in the Webway beneath his feet, power an entire guiding system for a million million worlds and countless trillions of souls, conjuring warp storms to protect the faithful (if you believe the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath was caused by his will) and who knows what else.
> 
> I am sure there are many more examples of his power.


I'd like to add that in the novel "Brotherhood of the storm" the Emperor is shown to instill fear within the 4 Gods of chaos.
the power exhibited by his sons also speaks volumes about his own Power.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

Zion said:


> So the question then becomes could the Emperor conquer the Hive Mind in a psychic showdown if the Tyranids did get too close to Terra? I don't think there is a "right" answer but it'd be an interesting idea to discuss.


(Not necessarily directing this at you, but) there seems to be some confusion over the actual nature of the Hive Mind. 

The Hive Mind is not an entity in and of itself, it exists as the collective consciousness of the entire Tyranid species which holds the entire species into a single, coordinating psychic bond. The Hive Mind essentially _is_ the Tyranid species. It exists solely to direct the constituent parts of the species (the Hive Fleets) towards the collective goal of the Tyranids: to quench its unquenchable hunger. As a result it is not something which can be destroyed, though it can be accessed by external sources to predict the movements of Hive Fleets and certain connections between individual creatures/ships can be severed from the overall consciousness.

If there were only a few thousand Tyranid creatures in existence, the Hive Mind would be a pathetic thing; easily dominated and accessed. The reason why it is perceived as so powerful is because the sheer vastness of the Tyranid race makes it a near-impenetrable blanket that single-mindedly directs the entire species towards devouring - what it sees as - it's prey. 

Could the Emperor destroy the Hive Mind? No, it's not something that can be destroyed. The only plausability would be the aforementioned possibility of accessing the psychic bond in order to predict it's movements, or to severe the psychic bond that links the Tyranids to the gesalt consciousness. Considering the Emperor is failing in his current duties of holding back the tides of Chaos and guiding the Astronomican, I doubt he would be able to also challenge the Hive Fleets when they eventually converge on Sol.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

An aspect of the argument might then be, given the proximity of a Hive Fleet to Terra, could the Emperor then block the psychic connection between the Hive Fleet to the greater Hive Mind? I would be interested to see what would happen if the Tyranid fleet went feral while it was still in space and didn't have a habitable planet to land on... I assume that Nid's aren't biologically able to survive the gravities inside a gas giant or generally within vacuum.

So far, however, most of the descriptions of feral Tyranids do originate in their being severed from the most highly functioning Nid, a synapse creature(?). So if you have an entire fleet and you crushed one of the main ships, then voila... the rest go flying around without purpose until they run out of juice and die, a la Uriel Ventris and the Deathwatch.

While the Big E is preoccupied with a lot there on his Golden Throne, throne-sores being the least of his worries, I imagine he would see a Tyranid hive fleet using his carcass as beef jerky to be a significant enough threat to even abandon the Astronomican if he needed to redirect his juice to address the threat.


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## jdb200 (Apr 1, 2011)

There's a lot of great points, but I would think that the Emperor would be able to direct some of his energies and efforts to deal with a large Hive mind may have effects in other areas. While he's been known to deal with Chaos directly it's still takes the sacrifice of 1,000 Psykers to continue to power everything. I agree that the Hive mind is like a network, so my guess is that he would infect part of the Hive mind with what I would describe as a virus. You don't have to sever the synapse connection, just alter it so that it feeds on itself or breaks into separate entities. However, doing so may unless some hell somewhere else as the effort to do so would be rather large.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Regarding the Astronomican, he doesnt power it anymore. He used to tho. Up to about after Magnus' ill fated sorcerous message that breached the warding of Terra. With his power increasingly shifted towards plugging the Imperial Webway breach, the Astronomican started to wane. So the Sigilite began to gather mortal psykers to fuel it, leaving the Emperor only to direct it, what ever only was meant to become a stopgap measure have turned permanent.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

Brother Lucian said:


> Regarding the Astronomican, he doesnt power it anymore. He used to tho. Up to about after Magnus' ill fated sorcerous message that breached the warding of Terra. With his power increasingly shifted towards plugging the Imperial Webway breach, the Astronomican started to wane. So the Sigilite began to gather mortal psykers to fuel it, leaving the Emperor only to direct it, what ever only was meant to become a stopgap measure have turned permanent.


Based on the HH novels, the Astronomican has always been fueled by the Astropathic Choir, which is fed psykers through the Black Ships. Magnus's breach of the Webway portal under the Himalayas required the Emperor's attention to seal, but I don't remember seeing anything indicating it requires more now than in M31. Since the Emperor was forced into permanent residency on the Golden Throne, he's now supposed to 'direct' the Astronomican, by which it seems to mean he gives his mystical Emperoree advantage to Imperial do-gooders in desperate straits.

I imagine if Super Horus didn't kick the crap out of the Emperor in their final showdown, he probably could have found a solution to repairing the human portal to the webway, but otherwise he's just stuck where he's at and doin' his thing.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Over Two Meters Tall! said:


> Based on the HH novels, the Astronomican has always been fueled by the Astropathic Choir, which is fed psykers through the Black Ships. Magnus's breach of the Webway portal under the Himalayas required the Emperor's attention to seal, but I don't remember seeing anything indicating it requires more now than in M31. Since the Emperor was forced into permanent residency on the Golden Throne, he's now supposed to 'direct' the Astronomican, by which it seems to mean he gives his mystical Emperoree advantage to Imperial do-gooders in desperate straits.
> 
> I imagine if Super Horus didn't kick the crap out of the Emperor in their final showdown, he probably could have found a solution to repairing the human portal to the webway, but otherwise he's just stuck where he's at and doin' his thing.



Look at page 88, Visions of Darkness. The Astromonican crisis, which is when the Astronomican goes from being fueled and directed entirely by the Emperor, to be powered by mortal psykers.


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