# The God-Emperor is perfect!!!!



## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

I saw this picture and it all clicked for me, that the Emperor being perfect puts a whole new slant on everything. I have read all(or at least a bunch) of the threads on the Emperor here, but they all suffer from the same wrong basis as I once did. That somehow, somewhere the Emperor made a mistake, but "Nothing happens in God's world by mistake" as my mother would say when I was growing up. I forgot that the Emperor was created for a purpose, everything he has done for 50,000 years as gone towards that purpose.

The Emperor was created (yeah I know it's all old rogue trader but not de-canonized) to defeat Chaos, period. He wasn't trying to create some grand Imperium, but lay the foundation for his triumphant assault. He has worked towards this from the beginning. He seized an opportunity to trap the "Dragon" on Mars in the 12th century even though it wouldn't become relavent for millennium. It was all staged to work out the way it did; the dark age of technology, the long night, the Crusades, the heresy, the imperium as it currently is. All for a single goal, they were steps and stages not victories and defeats. The real conflict has yet to even begin.

The Emperor will truly become the God-Emperor of mankind upon his death. He will rejoin the Star-Child aspect of himself (again old rogue trader but he isn't talk about much anymore) and kill the 4 chaos gods like little bitches!!! Just imagine how much power he has gathered in the past 10,000 years of being worshipped as a God, the numberless amount of souls he has to fuel his apotheosis?!?!? The number of chaos worshippers in comparison with the number of God-Emperor fearing worshippers is minuscule. So if power in the immaterium is fueled by strong emotional feelings & actions in the materium, then the God-Emperor will be by far the most powerful God in the immaterium.




I will go into more detail has I respond to comments, this was meant to be a broad summary statement. I look forward to people trying to rip it apart 
Nathan


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Welcome to Heresy zuul.  On your topic... 

He bleeds. Therefore he is mortal and can die. 

He has a soul. Therefore he has a mortal origin unlike the Chaos Gods. 

Why do you believe he is anything more than a powerful psyker given this? His plans and scope were great to be sure, but ultimately they were fallible. As was he.


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## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

Serpion5 said:


> Welcome to Heresy zuul.  On your topic...
> 
> He bleeds. Therefore he is mortal and can die.
> 
> ...


He can die, that's when Apotheosis happens, Man into God is the Latin translation. But to say he is only a "powerful psyker" is a gross understatement. Melecor who hid the moon Titan in the warp to protect it during the heresy was the most powerful psyker excepting the emperor & magnus, right? He sat on the golden throne for 30 minutes, while the emperor killed horus, and he was burnt out & died from it. Obviously, the Emperor so far transcends what can be done by a "powerful psyker" its laughable.

The warp god Star-Child already exists as well. Now it is old material that talks about but some stuff that's along these lines has been reused. Mainly the cult devoted to collecting the "Sensei" (the emperor's natural children) to sacrifice to him at the moment of his death. There causing his rebirth but that defeats the purpose he was created for. The story was that all the psykers on earth(or at least almost all of them) got together after perceiveing the threat that chaos posed in 8k b.c., they all performed a mass ritual suicide. Using the binding ritual stayed together & coalesced in the warp for a year to be reborn as the Emperor. His purpose in life as well as of life is to become strong enough to defeat the chaos gods. If he wanted to make humans strong, smart, & wise he would have. It was shown that he has examples of every major technological achievement we had ever accomplished in Deliverence Lost. He had already preform that feat during the dark age of technology. That's when he had humans spread all over the galaxy, but they had achieved it themselves so would not worship him as a god. When he reunited people he was doing something they couldn't have done themselves. He created the primarchs with chaos help, knowing they would screw it up. That's a true chessplayer, turning your opponents strengths against them. He used chaos to hinder his avowed goals but was really helping his true goal. Pure Awesomeness!!!!!!!!! 

My friends I play DH & BC say that its crazy but then turn around and declare him the 5th chaos god in the next breath.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

What you said did nothing to deflate my argument. He has mortal origins. He will never be on the same level as the primeordial gods who have been growing since the dawn of Creation or even before. Ten thousand years of worship is nothing compared to the millions upon millions of years that the true powers have been feeding off the life forms of the galaxy, before mankind had even emerged. 

To claim that anyone, even the most powerful mortal psyker to have lived, can ever reach those levels is absurd. He may become a lesser god of sorts. He may transcend the boundaries of life and death. But he will never defeat the Chaos Gods. Time simply isn't a factor here. The stuff of psyche and the essence of life itself will not yield to the whims of one being, and even the true gods are forced to compete with each other as well as the energies of the living universe.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

To my knowledge emperor worship only started after he became unable to tell people not to. While he wasn't on the golden throne he was trying to get rid of worshiping things.

Off topic but by any chance zuul do you play sword of the stars?


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## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

Serpion5 said:


> What you said did nothing to deflate my argument. He has mortal origins. He will never be on the same level as the primeordial gods who have been growing since the dawn of Creation or even before. Ten thousand years of worship is nothing compared to the millions upon millions of years that the true powers have been feeding off the life forms of the galaxy, before mankind had even emerged.
> 
> To claim that anyone, even the most powerful mortal psyker to have lived, can ever reach those levels is absurd. He may become a lesser god of sorts. He may transcend the boundaries of life and death. But he will never defeat the Chaos Gods. Time simply isn't a factor here. The stuff of psyche and the essence of life itself will not yield to the whims of one being, and even the true gods are forced to compete with each other as well as the energies of the living universe.


True, kinda..... Slaanesh is the youngest of the four but the second most powerful, hence the prince title. His birth was from a relatively short time of excess & the violent death of exsisting eldar souls, also not planned nor controlled. So it isn't that I'm discounting the
time they've been around but just not totally impressed by it. There are a "million million" worlds worshipping the Emperor, how many worship tzeench or Nurgle? A whole lot probably but no where the same scale. So while time is a factor the strength of Slaanesh proves it's not the most important one. It's souls & worship, the emperor has both in vastly greater quantities then the 4 ever have. The eldar make sure to deprive Slaanesh of both, so she had to turn to humans to get by. 

Also I'm not claiming 100% certainty in the outcome, but stating the true purpose of the Emperor. His plan didn't fail in the heresy, he planned for the heresy to happen. It succeeded, it was just one more stage in his 50,000 year plan.


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## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

Reaper45 said:


> To my knowledge emperor worship only started after he became unable to tell people not to. While he wasn't on the golden throne he was trying to get rid of worshiping things.
> 
> Off topic but by any chance zuul do you play sword of the stars?


Off topic first- nope, is it any good?

On topic- Anyone who was ever in his presence worshipped him. I always loved the story of the Emperor getting rid of the last church on earth. It was way up high in the Himalayans(I like to think it's where he put his throne room) The cleric was a man the Emperor Himself had healed in an uprising in France, before the unification wars were over. The Emperor in the guise of a human had a whole theological debate before He revealed Himself. The cleric told Him he knew it was Him the whole time and that He was the God he worshipped. The Emperor removed him from the church and had it set on fire. The cleric told the Emperor he loved Him and He was his God even if He didn't want to be. The cleric then walked into the burning church to pray to Him.

So people were worshipping the Emperor before the Unification of Earth. Technically if 40k is our future then the Emperor is currently cruising around right now. People are going to churches every Sunday, synagogues on Saturday, & praying at Mecca 5x a day as we have this discussion. All of it worship of the Emperor & all our souls going under his protection when we die. Otherwise deamons will be eating them in the warp.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Serpion5 said:


> What you said did nothing to deflate my argument. He has mortal origins. He will never be on the same level as the primeordial gods who have been growing since the dawn of Creation or even before. Ten thousand years of worship is nothing compared to the millions upon millions of years that the true powers have been feeding off the life forms of the galaxy, before mankind had even emerged.
> 
> To claim that anyone, even the most powerful mortal psyker to have lived, can ever reach those levels is absurd. He may become a lesser god of sorts. He may transcend the boundaries of life and death. But he will never defeat the Chaos Gods. Time simply isn't a factor here. The stuff of psyche and the essence of life itself will not yield to the whims of one being, and even the true gods are forced to compete with each other as well as the energies of the living universe.


Heretic.....find me my power sword..


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

Serpion5 said:


> What you said did nothing to deflate my argument. He has mortal origins. He will never be on the same level as the primeordial gods who have been growing since the dawn of Creation or even before. Ten thousand years of worship is nothing compared to the millions upon millions of years that the true powers have been feeding off the life forms of the galaxy, before mankind had even emerged.
> 
> To claim that anyone, even the most powerful mortal psyker to have lived, can ever reach those levels is absurd. He may become a lesser god of sorts. He may transcend the boundaries of life and death. But he will never defeat the Chaos Gods. Time simply isn't a factor here. The stuff of psyche and the essence of life itself will not yield to the whims of one being, and even the true gods are forced to compete with each other as well as the energies of the living universe.


:so_happy: Exactly. Plus the HH series shows alot of the Emperor ungodly acts and epic fails. Add in now certain Psykers that are as old (or possibly older) as the Emp himself. He just a Alpha Psyker who more likely (and hinted alot at) perform Gene Enhancement on himself and took power from the Chaos Gods themselves to be where he was at. Still the baddest Mortal Man but nothing more.


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## Apfeljunge (May 1, 2011)

All fluff on the final Battle between Horus and the Emperor clearly says that the Emperor had no idea how it would end. Ok, Except TOD but 

he still learns it only some time after the dropsite massacre.

His ability to foresee the future failed. He made mistakes. He still struggled to believe Horus had betrayed him. He is not perfect.
And todays religions clearly do not all worship him. There is nothing that indicates they do. 
The priest in "The Last Church" saw the Emperor and believed him to be his god, but after the truth is revealed to him he chose to die with his church and his religion instead of following the Emperor. 

Besides all that, I think the idea of an infallible Emperor is incredible boring. I know that the most powerful human psyker ever, immortal and with foresight is still just a that, a human, who has his pride, hubris and who makes mistakes. Despite being "only" a very powerful human, he achieved so much, he spread humanity between the stars an united them. Isn't such an feat even more impressive if done by a human instead of being done by a god?

When he challenge the Chaos Gods, he gambled too high and the price he and humankind had to pay is clear for everyone here to see. It's the hellhole of Warhammer 40k.


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## cegorach (Nov 29, 2010)

You cannot say that chaos does not have as many worshippers as the Emperor. 

What you are forgetting is that the chaos gods are machinations of different energies of the warp, they are fuelled by their coresponding emotions in the warp, e.g. every time someone gets angry, that puts an impression in the warp, seeing as the warp is a reflection of emotions of mortals. khorne is the god of anger, so all the anger energy in the warp built up and made him, essentially every single time a mortal gets angry (which is a hell of a lot on the 40k universe) khorne grows slightly stronger as he feeds off that anger emotion coalescing in the warp. Does that make sense?

Secondly, the Emperor is not a god as he is not made of warpstuff but he shapes it. That is the difference, The primordial gods are powered by the warp whereas the Emperor borrows or steals that power and forges it into weapons e.g. the primarchs. He is a psyker by definition as he is a mortal with a connection to the warp, he shapes the warp into the material realm through this connection. All gods reside in the warp, ever since the Eldar gods created a barrier between the god realm and the mortal realm every god and daemon has resided in the warp and needs to be summoned to the mortal realm, even the Eldar avatar's of khaine require a sacrifice to tear them into reality from, the ether I guess it is. 

It is the subtle difference between being made of pure warpstuff and shaping it that is the difference between impossibly powerful psykers and gods/daemons. 

And yeah, 10,000 years of imperial worship making the Emperor more powerful than the gods? Slaanesh was not able to kill any other gods and he was made from thousands of years of Eldar worship. Besides, when he was born into godhood it destroyed countless trillion Eldar... So if history is anything to go by I hope to hell the Emperor does not turn into a purely warp machination.  Not that last sentence was not serious but the rest was.


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## bobss (May 18, 2008)

''Gods'' are not _necessarily_ immortal or perfect. Or even omnipotent. This tends to only occur in *Monotheistic* cultures, which I'm sure many of you are referrencing. Due to this being a mainly Western-orientated Forum.

In *Polytheistic* cultures, where there is a Pantheon of Gods, these Gods usually do make mistakes. These Gods are not always omnipotent. They even have their own hierachy in some cases. For example, the Greek Titans fought and (mainly) died against the Olympian Gods.

So to apply this to the context of the debate, then the Emperor's seemingly increasing ''imperfection'' and ''mortality'' does not and will _never_ denounce his status. But that brings up the bigger question. How to we define _God_? What makes a God-like being?

This isn't a Comic Book, where you have to be at a certain power-level to be classified as a God. In fact, the *definition* of ''God'' varies. As explained, the Christian God is hyped to be perfection. But Mathematically, the Christian God is imperfect.

That's a debate I don't want to go into. Because it's wank. But nonetheless, these ''flaws'' in the Emperor, doesn't necessarily take away from his Godhood. Which is partially dependant on your own *definition* of the noun God and what constitutes to this.

It's really a matter of personal preference. Just throwing this out there.


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## mob16151 (Oct 20, 2011)

The god emperor is neither perfect,or a god. That to me is one of the overarching themes of the Heresy novels.


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## bobss (May 18, 2008)

mob16151 said:


> The god emperor is neither perfect,or a god. That to me is one of the overarching themes of the Heresy novels.


No.

The Horus Heresy's more prominent theme is to question your _own_ perception of words like ''Gods'' and ''Perfection''. The Horus Heresy is not trying to denounce the Emperor, simply make you, yourself _question_ his ideals, his actions and even the Emperor himself (amongst many other things). The series is not outright saying anything is black or white, in relation to themes.

It's a very _thought-provokin_g series.


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## cegorach (Nov 29, 2010)

bobss said:


> ''Gods'' are not _necessarily_ immortal or perfect. Or even omnipotent. This tends to only occur in *Monotheistic* cultures, which I'm sure many of you are referrencing. Due to this being a mainly Western-orientated Forum.
> 
> In *Polytheistic* cultures, where there is a Pantheon of Gods, these Gods usually do make mistakes. These Gods are not always omnipotent. They even have their own hierachy in some cases. For example, the Greek Titans fought and (mainly) died against the Olympian Gods.
> 
> ...


I cannot speak for the definition of gods in this universe, but in the world of 40,000 there are a few types of gods, there are the chaos gods whom feed off emotion of every single mortal, there are the Eldar gods whom still reside in the warp and require a sacrifice to summon their daemons (avatar of khaine) into the mortal realm. There are also the star gods but I think these are more just incredibly powerful beings and not gods. 

Basically to my mind, to be a god, you must be in the god realm, not in the mortal one, it depends on which takes effort to get you into, the Emperor is truly of the mortal realm and it takes effot, however insignificant, for him to cast his body of light into the warp, for daemons and gods, they reside in the warp and it takes a substantially enormous amount of effort to tear them into the mortal world. The Eldar gods long ago seperated the god realm from the mortal realm, depending on which side you are on is a good indicator in my book as to if you are a god or not. 

Besides, the thread clearly states "the god emperor is perfect" so this god talk is all irrelevant anyways  .


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## oiad (Feb 10, 2011)

Hmm, bobss had me agreeing at every point other than the confusing "Mathematically, the Christian God is imperfect" comment, which he'll have to explain sometime, despite his hesitance to do so.

I especially understand what he means about the use of god within the Heresy novels. To me these characters aren't gods on par with the judeo-christian sense of the word but based on its use in other classical cultures, particularly those with a polytheistic pantheon the phrase becomes more viable. I'm sure some of us have already heard the notion of comic-book superheroes being compared to gods too. Applying the same concept within the 40k universe doesn't seem so far-fetched.

*EDIT* - Edited out a typo.


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## bobss (May 18, 2008)

cegorach said:


> I cannot speak for the definition of gods in this universe, but in the world of 40,000 there are a few types of gods, there are the chaos gods whom feed off emotion of every single mortal, there are the Eldar gods whom still reside in the warp and require a sacrifice to summon their daemons (avatar of khaine) into the mortal realm. There are also the star gods but I think these are more just incredibly powerful beings and not gods.


Firstly, there is no mutual definition. That was my point. Definition of the term ''God'' and what _is_ a God and what _isn't_, vary throughout cultures even to this day. Therefore, us individuals can have different preferences as to what constitutes to being a God. Their is no Universal law regarding this subject.

40k lore is 40k lore. But it doesn't throw Real World Logic, Philosophy or Ethics out of the window. Those are still applicable to the basis of 40k lore. The Chaos *God*s, Eldar *God*s and Star *God*s, we regard unanimously as *God*s, simply because the canon says so.

But does the canon say the Emperor is a *God*? Yes _and_ no. It is this purposefully grey area that gives us the power to decide for ourselves. And it is this, that leads to people claiming the Emperor is _not_ a God, because he is _not_ perfect or omnipotent. Which links back to the purpose of my original post: Gods do _not_ need to be perfect or omnipotent to be classified as Gods. For example, the Greek Gods and many other Polytheistic cultures and even the Christian God does not wield omnipotent power, if we take a Mathematical point of view (which is very complicated).



cegorach said:


> Basically to my mind, to be a god, you must be in the god realm, not in the mortal one, it depends on which takes effort to get you into, the Emperor is truly of the mortal realm and it takes effot, however insignificant, for him to cast his body of light into the warp, for daemons and gods, they reside in the warp and it takes a substantially enormous amount of effort to tear them into the mortal world. The Eldar gods long ago seperated the god realm from the mortal realm, depending on which side you are on is a good indicator in my book as to if you are a god or not.


I've underlined the important part. You've totally right - to _your_ mind. To _my_ mind. To the _OP_'s mind. The Emperor's Godhood is subjective. Some claim that because he is not perfect, he is therefore not a God. I call that bullshit, because nothing says Gods must be X, Y or Z.



cegorach said:


> Besides, the thread clearly states "the god emperor is perfect" so this god talk is all irrelevant anyways  .


I specified how I was ''_throwing this out there_'' to begin with. That's clear implication that I wasn't dealing with the matter at hand completely. However, there are posts in this thread that claim grey areas to be black and white. That's just short-sighed and silly.

In other words, people are using established *subjective* concepts in an *objective* way. I've discussed something beyond the scope of this thread, to help people transition from this backwards-assed logic of Gods adhering to *one* definition. And this definition means they _must_ be *immortal* and they _must_ be *omnipotent *, and anything that does _not_ fit this critique is therefore _not_ a God. Which is plain wrong. As History dictates, Gods don't need to adhere to these factors at all.


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## bobss (May 18, 2008)

oiad said:


> Hmm, bobss had me agreeing at every point other than the confusing "Mathematically, the Christian God is imperfect" comment, which he'll have to explain sometime, despite his hesitance to do so.


I'll dig some stuff out. It's been a while since I opened this can of worms. :biggrin:


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## SoulGazer (Jun 14, 2009)

Ehh, I'm fairly certain the Emperor is not mortal. Let's not forget that the Emperor is actually older than the manifestations of the Chaos gods, though not necessarily Chaos itself. He's probably just Chaos fighting itself, another aspect of the warp to rise to godhood. It's happened 4 times already, why not 5? Chaos takes any and all forms, including a being of pure awesome. It doesn't have to look like crazy and evil daemons and whatnot. I don't remember the quote from the 3rd Grey Knights book exactly, but it was something like "As soon as we think we know all the forms of the enemy, they'll show us another we don't know." Something like that.

And as for the "he can bleed and die" thing, the Emperor burned Horus's soul from the warp, and could probably do that to anything he wanted. Having a physical body destroyed has nothing to do with being permanently killed, since all souls go to the warp anyways and would need to be killed there to really die.


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## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

bobss said:


> No.
> 
> The Horus Heresy's more prominent theme is to question your _own_ perception of words like ''Gods'' and ''Perfection''. The Horus Heresy is not trying to denounce the Emperor, simply make you, yourself _question_ his ideals, his actions and even the Emperor himself (amongst many other things). The series is not outright saying anything is black or white, in relation to themes.
> 
> It's a very _thought-provokin_g series.


The heresy is a story about the imperfections of the primarchs, SMs, and people. But to call the Emperor a failure because it happened is overlooking the entire basis of my opening statement in this thread. That being, the heresy was supposed to happen by design. That it is only one stage in a giant game of chess. Any perceived failures or imperfections are just that, "perceptions." They are told from the point of view of those who believe the Emperor is trying to build the Imperium as he claimed he was. 

The whole "only a powerful psyker" concept is totally flawed n completely unusable. The difference between the Emperor & the Sigillite proves that. One has sat on the golden throne for ten millennium, the other 30 minutes and was reduced to dust. Even when saying the Emperor & Sigillite had bad/faulty perception of the future is false. The box with the instructions to the Grey Knight chapter master in his tomb disproves that. He had to have written those instructions before he sat the golden throne, maybe even before he hid Titan in the first place. That's showing immense foresight that goes well beyond just how the heresy would end. But what would happen after it ended and the state it would resolve itself in.

My understanding of the eldar says that there were never as prolific as humans. If the same thing happened to us then most of the galaxy would go not just the isolated area of the eye of terror. So trillions, is no where the same as 500 trillion. Theres a few magnitude of difference in that. Slaanesh wasn't worshipped nor did she have a pre-existing warp net to capture eldar souls with. Its the difference between solar power & oil, solar only uses the energy of the sun today(all the existing eldar souls that were alive & near) & oil which uses the condensed energy of the sun across a span of time(all the human souls caught in the Emperors warp net to protect them from the other chaos. Gods) Slaanesh still shot up to become the 2nd most powerful. 

Work the numbers 5 generations per century, that comes to a total of 500 generations(again the eldar don't breed as fast or young) while the Emperor has sat the golden throne. 500generations x300,000,000,000,000people=150,000,000,000,000,000 souls to power his Apotheosis. 150 quadrillion souls in comparison to Slaanesh getting "trillions & trillions" during his ascension. The scale difference is astronomical. So that where the power comes from, that's only a rough estimate to 40k, I only used 300 trillion as a average overall. If we keep extrapolating then the Emperor will get 1.5 quadrillion souls per century that the golden throne continues to function. 
Nathan


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## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

bobss said:


> I'll dig some stuff out. It's been a while since I opened this can of worms. :biggrin:


On the side note- I don't know the imperfection math, but I do know the proof created in the 13th-14th century disproving omnipotence. That is "God cannot create a rock so big He can't move it" since omnipotence requires the ability to do anything, a double negative action prevents that being possible. By doing either action you prevent the second action from being a possibility, thereby preventing omnipotence from existence.


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## Rhino 88 (Jan 1, 2012)

Ding Ding, love to lurk.....


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## Deadeye776 (May 26, 2011)

Wow. Well let's see this through.(takes deep breath) Besides being a border line schizophrenic who trusted almost no one while commanding an intergalactic empire with generals created from the very fabric of a universe so lethal aliens literally (see Deliverance) screem at the top of their lungs to pronounce it as well as imprisoning a primordial star god on the planet NEXT to yours so it could inspire your engineers to build industrial works that if freed will all be under his control as well as opening a webway portal ON YOUR OWN homeworld in you palace no less that is now compromised one of the greatest threats to your own throne world. A bit of a run on but that's enough for an indictment I believe. 

For a perfect being he made a lot of moves commons sense would have dictated he do otherwise. He knew the portals were more than one. Why not try and discover another and if things go south, destroy the planet. The mechanicum problem I don't know where to even begin with that. His sons,well being a real father might have helped.


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## jonileth (Feb 1, 2012)

There is a huge difference, I think, between arguing omnipotence and omniscience. To say that the Emperor was omnipotent is a misnomer in and of itself. He was by no means able to bend the universe around him in any manner and fashion consistent with the classical perception of an omnipotent creature. To say that he has some master plan that transcends his physical manifestation in the materium would imply that he is gifted with omniscience.

Even pointing out that the Emperor has been alive for any protracted period of time doesn't mean to say that he is immortal in the classic sense. All creatures, if you want to be technical about it, could live forever if given the perfect conditions with which to exist. The fact that something comes along and kills an organism after 10 or 100 or 1000 years doesn't negate the fact that in theory they could have lived forever. The only obstacle is, outside factors prevented it from doing so.

It's like what I tell people when they say to me 'be careful going home' or some other such. I'm not worried about being careful, I'm not going out of my way to do anything that would shorten my immortality. It's those people that I might encounter who are NOT being careful that are the issue. So to argue that beings that are supposedly 'gods' have to be immortal is in error. These beings simply haven't run aground of anything that has ended them.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, if the Emperor were to be classified as a deity, then the only thing that is actually required for him to remain so is to have people believe in his existence. You can take gods from ancient Earth for example. There have been more divine beings on Earth since the dawn of man than we will ever know. Each time a culture reached a certain developmental stage, they started to deify the natural world to explain things that were happening to them. To those people, those gods existed and were as real as the Emperor is to the Imperium. But the fact that they no longer have worshipers, they are no longer remembered in any way by those that created them negates their divinity. They have no essence, no spirit, no power anymore because they have no one who feeds them.

So regardless of whether or not the Emperor truly is or is not a divine being is actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The fact that people view him as such, and continue to impart upon him a piece of their collective will gives him the divine spark. It is somewhat like the chicken and the egg dilemma in a way. While men created the concept of the divine, they did so to explain their own creation. And when they cease to believe in this creator being, that being ceases to be, but they still endure. A loop in logic if I ever saw one.


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

_@zuul88_: Your argument suffers from a false premise regarding Chaos.



zuul88 said:


> True, kinda..... Slaanesh is the youngest of the four but the second most powerful, hence the prince title.


Here is the problem: Slaanesh is *not* the youngest of the Four, claiming such would result in a paradox. The Chaos Gods are timeless entites, they exist wholly outside of the concept of time. 

Equally, Slaanesh is not the second most powerful Chaos God. There is no _"strongest"_ or _"weakest"_ Chaos God, for all intents and purposes they are all equal. The Great Game results in a constant fluctuation of the warp energy that makes up the gods, meaning that at different times each of the Four can be termed the most powerful.



zuul88 said:


> There are a "million million" worlds worshipping the Emperor, how many worship tzeench or Nurgle? A whole lot probably but no where the same scale. So while time is a factor the strength of Slaanesh proves it's not the most important one. It's souls & worship, the emperor has both in vastly greater quantities then the 4 ever have. The eldar make sure to deprive Slaanesh of both, so she had to turn to humans to get by.


It doesn't matter how many worlds directly worship the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods feed off the emotional imprint left by all mortal species, as well as the worship and souls of those who directly worship them. They have grown to such a calamitous extent that they are essentially now the warp itself, not just an element of it. They exist outside the limits of time and space, potentially they have been empowered by all the mortals of the past, present and even future - perhaps of all potential futures. I realise that this element of the argument is essentially undiscussable given it's inconceivable nature, but it's still worth noting.

As for the Emperor, trillions of humans worship him. But trillions of humans (who individually have a very limited reflection in the warp) over ten millennia isn't actually that many given a galactic history of star-spanning empires and civilisations across millions (if not more) years. As an example of ancient 'achievements' - conflicts such as the War in Heaven occured sixty million years ago and vastly eclipsed the scope of those much more recent conflicts, even the Horus Heresy. Although having said that, it is evident that the widespread worship of the Imperial Cult would have had some effect on the warp, but that does not necessarily suggest that it would empower the Emperor to Chaos' detriment.

Aside from that the Emperor is not a _"god"_ in the same sense as the Chaos Gods. I am not challenging that he deserves such a title, the term _"god"_ in 40k is so ambiguous as to become near irrelevant. But what is certain is that he is of the physical universe and is not eternal - he is finite and fallible. The Emperor was a man of prodigious power and ability. But he was not infallible, and certainly not perfect.


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## zuul88 (Feb 13, 2012)

Deadeye776 said:


> Wow. Well let's see this through.(takes deep breath) Besides being a border line schizophrenic who trusted almost no one while commanding an intergalactic empire with generals created from the very fabric of a universe so lethal aliens literally (see Deliverance) screem at the top of their lungs to pronounce it as well as imprisoning a primordial star god on the planet NEXT to yours so it could inspire your engineers to build industrial works that if freed will all be under his control as well as opening a webway portal ON YOUR OWN homeworld in you palace no less that is now compromised one of the greatest threats to your own throne world. A bit of a run on but that's enough for an indictment I believe.
> 
> For a perfect being he made a lot of moves commons sense would have dictated he do otherwise. He knew the portals were more than one. Why not try and discover another and if things go south, destroy the planet. The mechanicum problem I don't know where to even begin with that. His sons,well being a real father might have helped.



Lets break it down, 1st The Dragon. I agree, kinda, but it's the difference between the best possible result & the best result possible. When a wounded C'tan appears on your planet, you make do the best you can. I doubt the Emperor even knew who or what the Dragon was originally. That being said the Dragon is still no closer to escaping the maze in 40k then he was when he was first put there in 1.2k, so it might be safe to say that his "eternal imprisonment" is irrelevant to the Emperors grand scheme. Either the Emperor will transcend & defeat the chaos gods or he will fail, dealing with the Dragon is a secondary concern that can be dealt with afterwards or becomes irrelevant.

2nd- The webway. You are still operating on the assumption that it was all supposed to succeed as told. If you are planning for the heresy then earth is the perfect place to do it. It brings Magnus to him, but allows for the total decimation of the imperium as it was known. Anywhere else but the sol system allows Horus to win with the support he had. Any less support on Horus's side means the Imperium puts in down without catastrophic cost. The webway will be cleared in a fraction of an instant after His death. He will attain apotheosis & brush aside all those deamons & warp monsters with a thought like moths. So the overall strategic value of earth & the sol system was worth the small risk that came during the resealing of the gate after Magnus burned it open.

3rd- Bad Dad. That's previously my belief about the Emperor, as well. If He had been a better parental role model after finding His sons, they might not have been such basketcases. Which is precisely why He didn't, He loved them but needed them to play the parts He created them for. Just as He has to play the part He was created for.

Nathan


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## Shadow Stalkers (Jan 21, 2012)

Here the daemon gods also have their minions and other races that praise destruction and chaos to feed off of. And I dont know much about the daemons but aren't there unlimited number of them and don't there "votes" count when the whole praying thing comes together? Won't the daemons have the most by far? Even more than the Imperium? Still the daemons have the weakness of not having their gods venture into the mortal realm (to my knowledge) and the emperor is probably one of the strongest being in the mortal realm, but still can't do anything off of the golden throne.

Could you please make more of an effort to punctuate your posts and use correct grammar? People have to read these things you know? 

- Serpa.


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## Deadeye776 (May 26, 2011)

zuul88 said:


> Lets break it down, 1st The Dragon. I agree, kinda, but it's the difference between the best possible result & the best result possible. When a wounded C'tan appears on your planet, you make do the best you can. I doubt the Emperor even knew who or what the Dragon was originally. That being said the Dragon is still no closer to escaping the maze in 40k then he was when he was first put there in 1.2k, so it might be safe to say that his "eternal imprisonment" is irrelevant to the Emperors grand scheme. Either the Emperor will transcend & defeat the chaos gods or he will fail, dealing with the Dragon is a secondary concern that can be dealt with afterwards or becomes irrelevant.
> 
> A secondary concern? Originally the Dragon was written as a being who could make godlike machines,titans for example, that he could also control. If he awakens everything but a knife might be unrealiable against him. At least the Gods minions can be fought with nemesis weapons. If the Void Dragon is free, any mechanicus based tech may be a weapon he can utitlize. Sorry but what's the best option? Eternal imprisonment in a distant sector of space.
> 
> ...


 


I'm sure that you think he loved his sons and in his own way he may have cared for them but it was more like an Emperor to his generals. When they get out of line he sanctions them like out of control generals (see lost primarchs,Curze,and Magnus). He obviously didn't trust any of his sons with shit since to get the truth from him on anything required you losing almost all of your legion (see Corax). That was the first time I've seen him let go of a secret to help one of his sons. He's sacrifced them to gain advantage (see Ferrus). So I don't think the word love really fits this. He's fond of his genetic clones,but they are like anyone in the miltary knows are completely expendable.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

oiad said:


> Hmm, bobss had me agreeing at every point other than the confusing "Mathematically, the Christian God is imperfect" comment, which he'll have to explain sometime, despite his hesitance to do so.





bobss said:


> I'll dig some stuff out. It's been a while since I opened this can of worms. :biggrin:


When you open this can bobss, I assume you'll do so in the relevant section of the forum? :wink:


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## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Actually we really don't know whether the Emperor failed 

Perhaps being worshiped as a god while strapped to the golden throne was the ultimate gambit, which might still pay off some day (the Starchild theory) 

My point is that it's deliberately left ambiguous


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## oiad (Feb 10, 2011)

Serpion5 said:


> When you open this can bobss, I assume you'll do so in the relevant section of the forum? :wink:


Well he can link it if he likes or PM me. I'm not looking to debate the issue on a whole new thread, I'm just curious as to what bobss is getting at.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

oiad said:


> Well he can link it if he likes or PM me. I'm not looking to debate the issue on a whole new thread, I'm just curious as to what bobss is getting at.


No, you're missing the point. Religion, News and Current affairs belong in the World news and Current Events section, not here. Links or not. 

PM'ing is fine.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

The Emperor is probably the most powerful man ever, and certainly the most powerful psyker of the last ten millennia or more in this milieu. He has a titanic intellect, and a moral compass that cannot easily be reconciled by normal human beings with normal human concerns.

He is not perfect, is not omniscient, and is certainly not omnipotent, though.

Perfection and omniscience are eliminated outright by the Emperor's own professed ignorance of the future (once the Ruinous Powers begin clouding the Warp). His plans are not going perfectly; they have been compromised and this is stated outright.

Omniscience is eliminated because the Emperor's plans are not along the lines of *defeating* Chaos, but minimizing its influence on Humanity (its fuel, if you will). The Webway experiments, the suppression of religion, the iron-fisted control of psykers, etc., are all means by which the Emperor hopes to prevent another Old Night from happening and developing a course by which Humaity can evolve successfully and independently.

It is, however, a process that involves militarization, warfare, and tyranny on an unparalleled scale. In the dystopian universe of 40k, though, this is still better than the alternative (the Old Night).


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

Chaos is not something that can be defeated without the utter destruction of sentient life. The four gods of chaos are aspects of the mortal personality, they thrive from the emotions of mortals. Therefore, if the emperor were to truly defeat chaos, he would have to destroy all sentient life. What the emperor was aiming to do was to shield mankind from chaos. 

In fact, the only race that ever came close to destroying chaos were the Necrons (pre-fluff change) Their aim was to wipe out sentient life and seal off the warp. This would have caused the power of chaos to dwindle, as there were no emotions to fuel their needs.


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## SoulGazer (Jun 14, 2009)

mcmuffin said:


> In fact, the only race that ever came close to destroying chaos were the Necrons (pre-fluff change) Their aim was to wipe out sentient life and seal off the warp. This would have caused the power of chaos to dwindle, as there were no emotions to fuel their needs.


They could still do that with the Celestial Orrery technically, but that was just a bone thrown by GW to the Oldcron fans by saying "See? They still have cool galaxy-destroying stuff, no really guys!"


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## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

bobss said:


> This isn't a Comic Book, where you have to be at a certain power-level to be classified as a God. In fact, the *definition* of ''God'' varies. As explained, the Christian God is hyped to be perfection. But Mathematically, the Christian God is imperfect.





bobss said:


> Firstly, there is no mutual definition. That was my point. Definition of the term ''God'' and what _is_ a God and what _isn't_, vary throughout cultures even to this day. Therefore, us individuals can have different preferences as to what constitutes to being a God. Their is no Universal law regarding this subject.


But isn't the one similar component of a "god" across all cultures that he/she/it/they is some type of extremely powerful being(s), capable of ability and power that goes far above and beyond normal mortals?


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