# The Emp, is he really what is on the Golden Throne?



## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

I do not have a lot of knowledge on the history of the system but this is something that I have always wondered. 
Is it really him strapped to the GT? 
Did he actually win in that final battle or did the RP just swap from Horus over to his body? 
The Emp/GT eats a massive pile of psykers every year, is it really keeping him alive or is it feeding an aspect of the RP?
The basics of the Imperium came from a cult doctrine written by someone currently on the side of the RP, could it be the Emp/GP is also part of this?

Just thoughts I have had since I started getting into the system and history behind it. If I am completely wrong or off base could someone point out what I need to read to learn more. I have no fluff to back what I have stated, I fully acknowledge that I could be way off on the matter, hence my presenting it here to be shot apart. If this is the wrong forum for this could someone tell me what the right one is so I can try and get it moved there.


----------



## andrei_dmitri (Apr 11, 2010)

So back in the good ole days of the Horus Heresy, the Emperor tried a sneak attack on Horus by teleporting into Horus's ship during the big battle for Terra. Horus and the Emperor faced off and eventually the Emperor killed Horus but not before Horus fatally wounded the Emperor. The good guys nabbed the Emperor's body, trucked him back to Terra, and threw him on the Golden Throne. 

Now the Throne is keeping the Emperor technically alive but his body is for all intents and purposes dead. However, with the "death" of his corporeal form, the Emperor's psychic might was freed to power the Astronomicon and do other God-Emperor things. Now in order for everything to work properly for the Throne and Emperor, a thousand psykers are sacrificed to keep the Emperor's psychic spirit strong and to keep the Astronomicon bright.

The fun thing about the Imperial Creed and all worship of the Emperor as a god was started by one of his sons, the Primach Lorgar of the Word Bearers. Lorgar always viewed his father as a deity worthy of worship and during the Great Crusade, the Emperor's war to reclaim the galaxy for mankind, every planet the Word Bearers conquered was also indoctrinated in the worship of the Emperor. When the Emperor found out, he sent the Ultramarines to punish the Word Bearers. At the time, the Emperor viewed all religions as bad for humanity and promoted Imperial Truth which was all science and logic and such. However, Lorgar's teachings had already been planted and were spreading through the various support peoples of the Great Crusade. Eventually, it grew into what would be the horrendously dogmatic Imperial faith.

If you want to know a lot about this sort of thing, check out the Horus Heresy book series currently being released by Black Libraries. I've lost track of how many books it has now but it's somewhere around ten. Also, this site http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/ has a lot of the fluff for Warhammer 40K. You can also find a lot of information in the various army codices. The Space Marines Codex and Chaos Marines Codex in particular have information about these events.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Forgive me, but what on Earth is RP?

And the psykers are used to guide the Astronomican. Not to sustain the Big E.


----------



## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

hailene said:


> And the psykers are used to guide the Astronomican. Not to sustain the Big E.


Thats not what I heard.

For all intensive purposes the Big E gets fed 1000 psykers a day.

Thats what the Black Ships do. Find unsanctioned psykers throughout the galaxy and drag them kicking and screaming back to Terra.

Now, maybe he doesn't 'eat them' per se, so maybe they help power the Astronomicon to help take some of the burden off the Big E.

But its such a big job that it takes a thousand and they only last a day.

That's how I always understood that fluff.


As for the original post. Yep, that's really the Big E strapped into that chair.

It was originally supposed to be Magnus who would sit on the chair for all eternity, but Chaos a through a spanner into that works, and all the other ideas the Emperor had.

His dying breaths to Dorn, who found him after his near death battle with Horus, were to explain how to strap him into the chair and make it work, if I remember correctly.


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

D-A-C said:


> It was originally supposed to be Magnus who would sit on the chair for all eternity, but Chaos a through a spanner into that works, and all the other ideas the Emperor had.


Pretty sure that wasn't the Emperor's plan but Chaos made it seem that way to Magnus for obvious reasons.

Magnus was meant to guide/lead the forces of the Imperium via the Golden Throne but that doesn't mean he would have been glued to the seat forever.

Right now, the Golden Throne is the only way of keeping the holes in the Webway plugged in due to Magnus's disastrous intervention but prior to this, the Emperor was working on a stable method of converting the Webway for man's use.


----------



## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Pretty sure that wasn't the Emperor's plan but Chaos made it seem that way to Magnus for obvious reasons.
> 
> Magnus was meant to guide/lead the forces of the Imperium via the Golden Throne but that doesn't mean he would have been glued to the seat forever.


I'm pretty sure it was. Maybe I've fallen for Chaos propaganda, but I genuinely believe he was supposed to sit on that chair for good.

That was what he was genetically created to do.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Whoops, I made a mistake. The psykers fuel the Astronomican. The Big E guides it. From the 5th edition rule book, page 104:

Tbe Astronomican is "[broadcasted] from Holy Terra by a choir of psykers and guided by the Emperor's will..."

And Magnus wasn't supposed to chill there indefinitely. Once the Emperor got the human webway working the Astronomican would go the way of the dinosaur. Why use incredibly risky warp travel when you have a webway?


----------



## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

hailene said:


> And Magnus wasn't supposed to chill there indefinitely. Once the Emperor got the human webway working the Astronomican would go the way of the dinosaur. Why use incredibly risky warp travel when you have a webway?


Oh, ok, that does make sense.

So he would just chill for a few hundred years will things got up and running?


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

D-A-C said:


> That was what he was genetically created to do.


No, all the Primarchs were born to wage war in the Emperor's name, not sit on a chair.

As I said, the Chaos powers made Magnus think otherwise for their own benefit. 

Destined to be entombed on a chair for eternity? What better way to help turn a loyal son against his father.



D-A-C said:


> So he would just chill for a few hundred years will things got up and running?


I wouldn't say he would have to sit on the chair for a long period of time, perhaps only during huge campaigns or what have you. No one can really say for sure but what we do know is that he would not have remained on the throne forever.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

We don't know how close the Emperor was. Centuries? Decades? Years? Weeks? Who knows. It was working well enough for all hell to break loose if the Emperor doesn't focus to keep it shut.


----------



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

Malus Darkblade said:


> No, all the Primarchs were born to wage war in the Emperor's name, not sit on a chair.
> 
> As I said, the Chaos powers made Magnus think otherwise for their own benefit.
> 
> Destined to be entombed on a chair for eternity? What better way to help turn a loyal son against his father.


_A Thousand Sons_ suggests that Magnus got that information directly from the Emperor's mind (when their minds meet in the Imperial Dungeon) rather than from any Chaos-related thingy-ma-bob. 

It should also be taken into account that Magnus would have welcomed such a destiny, he takes it as a honour that the Emperor intended him to sit on the Golden Throne to guide the armies of humanity across the galaxy. It seems from the text though that the Emperor certainly did intend for Magnus to sit on the Golden Throne (being the conduit to the Imperial Webway).



Malus Darkblade said:


> I wouldn't say he would have to sit on the chair for a long period of time, perhaps only during huge campaigns or what have you. No one can really say for sure but what we do know is that he would not have remained on the throne forever.


Its plausable that someone would have had to sit on the Golden Throne indefinitely in order to gain constant access to the Webway. Remember, the Emperor could not replicate the material used by the Old Ones/Eldar in the creation of the Webway therefore needed to project his psychic powers via the Golden Throne to create an artificial _"bridge"_ that was needed to bridge the gap between the Golden Throne and actual Webway tunnels. I can't have imagined this would have changed in time, therefore someone probably would have had to sit on the Golden Throne permanently.


----------



## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

RP = Ruinous powers

Hmmm there seems to be a lot more to the GT than I thought was released. I have read the first HH book, just have not had the time to do any others.

My original question and thoughts on the matter was just the possibility that all of this was a long term plan by Chaos to set up a constant feed of psykers. Sounds like there was more interaction between the emp and whatnot after the big battle with Horus than I thought though.


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> _A Thousand Sons_ suggests that Magnus got that information directly from the Emperor's mind (when their minds meet in the Imperial Dungeon) rather than from any Chaos-related thingy-ma-bob.


But by then Magnus was already being manipulated by the Chaos powers (arguably since before he was born) so his connection with the Emperor probably was altered or his paranoia/fear probably got in the way. Meh.



Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> It should also be taken into account that Magnus would have welcomed such a destiny, he takes it as a honour that the Emperor intended him to sit on the Golden Throne to guide the armies of humanity across the galaxy.


I sort of got the idea that he would have enjoyed the position but I didn't want to voice it because it was half opinion and half some distant bit of fluff I read ages ago.

Regardless, I don't think Magnus would have preferred to sit on the throne forever. He's a very curious Primarch, always hunting down new pieces of artifacts, lore, history, etc. from various planets he encounters.

And I'm sure the Emperor knew this so it kind of ties to my opinion that whatever he saw when he connected with the Emperor was altered or the Emperor really is an evil man who doesn't care at all about his sons (something I disagree with).



_Unspoken understanding flowed between Magnus and the Emperor. Everything Magnus had done was laid bare, and everything the Emperor planned flowed into him. He saw himself atop the Golden Throne, using his fearsome powers to guide humanity to its destiny as rulers of the galaxy. He was to be his father’s chosen instrument of ultimate victory. It broke him to know that his unthinking hubris had shattered that dream._ 


_A Thousand Sons
_
I suppose the part about the Emperor's plan being ruined breaking him hints that Magnus was ok with chilling on a chair for who knows how long but it's debatable I suppose.



Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> Its plausable that someone would have had to sit on the Golden Throne indefinitely in order to gain constant access to the Webway. Remember, the Emperor could not replicate the material used by the Old Ones/Eldar in the creation of the Webway therefore needed to project his psychic powers via the Golden Throne to create an artificial _"bridge"_ that was needed to bridge the gap between the Golden Throne and actual Webway tunnels. I can't have imagined this would have changed in time, therefore someone probably would have had to sit on the Golden Throne permanently.


But sitting on the Golden Throne was just a temporary fix to deal with the Webway, I'm sure the Emperor was thinking of various ways with finding a substitute for the Wraithbone or taking a different approach all together. 



"_He thought he had known better than his father how to wield the power of the Great Ocean. He believed he was its master, but in the ruins of his father’s great work, he had seen the truth. The Golden Throne was the key.*Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken deep beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage.*"
_


_A Thousand Sons
_

And he was coming up with all of this during the Great Crusade (the Webway/Golden Throne project was well underway before his retirement if I am not mistaken), and it's only when he returned to the palace where he rolled up his sleeves and really got to work before the whole heresy began.


----------



## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

This thread seems vary similar to the kinda of conspiracy's talked about by glenn beck.


----------



## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

You know I almost thought this was gonna be another goofy theory by Lux until I read the author, then realized this will actuall be a discussion and not a ridicoulus idea that made no sense!

As far as I can tell the big sits in his chair rotting awya day by day until he finally can take it anymore and if you ever read an old book called Inq. War there is a part where the main char. goes to the GT and actually has a conversation with the big E forgot what was said in all prolly something like Im so bored finally some one comes to actually talk to me.


----------



## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

LukeValantine said:


> This thread seems vary similar to the kinda of conspiracy's talked about by glenn beck.


Well let me just wheel out the old chalkboard here.

BIG E =

B - BIO-ENGINEERING!!!
I - IDIOTS!!!!
G - GGGG, I LOVE DEMOCRATS!!!!

E - ENERGY, CHINA STEALING IT!!!!


So you see, Bio-Engineered Idiots who love the Democratic Party are supporting China's superpower aspirations by stealing U.S Energy sources around the world.

(Starts crying)

Don't you see!!!! The idiot democrats are ruining this country and supporting China!!!! (More crying) I used to love America, now its all gone straight to hell!!!! (Even more crying) The founding Fathers are turning in their graves!!!!


That's having a thread discussion like Glenn Beck.


----------



## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

TheSpore said:


> You know I almost thought this was gonna be another goofy theory by Lux until I read the author, then realized this will actuall be a discussion and not a ridicoulus idea that made no sense!
> 
> As far as I can tell the big sits in his chair rotting awya day by day until he finally can take it anymore and if you ever read an old book called Inq. War there is a part where the main char. goes to the GT and actually has a conversation with the big E forgot what was said in all prolly something like Im so bored finally some one comes to actually talk to me.


It was Draco the Inquisitor who spoke with the Emperor.....the Emperor froze time and space around them to prevent the actions of the custodes.

The Emperor explained to Draco that he.....it......was no longer One personality, but that he had split his consciousness into...."many" pieces. The reason for this being "how else would we manage our vast empire" and "To winnow the warp"....

Additionally the Emperor makes a remark about how he had cast away his hope, love, joy the day he struck down Horus....


----------



## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

Lux said:


> It was Draco the Inquisitor who spoke with the Emperor.....the Emperor froze time and space around them to prevent the actions of the custodes.
> 
> The Emperor explained to Draco that he.....it......was no longer One personality, but that he had split his consciousness into...."many" pieces. The reason for this being "how else would we manage our vast empire" and "To winnow the warp"....
> 
> Additionally the Emperor makes a remark about how he had cast away his hope, love, joy the day he struck down Horus....


yeah thats what it was Its been years since ive read that book


----------



## locustgate (Dec 6, 2009)

LukeValantine said:


> This thread seems vary similar to the kinda of conspiracy's talked about by glenn beck.


God no there's not enough talk about how this is destroying MERICA!!!!!


----------



## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

So before he was stuck on the GT what was being the beacon? It takes all those psykers fueling/assisting him to do it now. Or was he just that bad ass when he was alive.


----------



## Moonschwine (Jun 13, 2011)

> I sort of got the idea that he would have enjoyed the position but I didn't want to voice it because it was half opinion and half some distant bit of fluff I read ages ago.
> 
> Regardless, I don't think Magnus would have preferred to sit on the throne forever. He's a very curious Primarch, always hunting down new pieces of artifacts, lore, history, etc. from various planets he encounters.
> 
> And I'm sure the Emperor knew this so it kind of ties to my opinion that whatever he saw when he connected with the Emperor was altered or the Emperor really is an evil man who doesn't care at all about his sons (something I disagree with).


I agree with you that the Emperor doesn't seem like the kind of guy to use his own Son's in the way described. I think that the current Golden Throne no longer functions as it originally did since from the Heresy Books - considering it had to be rebuilt after Magnus messed up. Further more It just doesn't seem like the Emperor returned to Earth to just sit on the throne and wait out the great crusade suggesting that this function was a temporary measure. 

What I do find interesting is that part of the Golden Thrones function was to defend the human-built portion of the web-way from warp entities, which later Magnus inadvertently destroyed. As I understand it, this was just for the human-portion that the Emperor built between the webway and real-space - which makes me wonder how such "defenses" could be maintained in those sections without having to have someone or something on the throne - as surely someone would have to sit on the throne in order to keep the Webway / Realspace gate guarded at all times? Or was the warp expected to "calm down" once mankind had claimed the galaxy for itself?


----------



## soonergold (Mar 9, 2011)

Moonschwine said:


> What I do find interesting is that part of the Golden Thrones function was to defend the human-built portion of the web-way from warp entities, which later Magnus inadvertently destroyed. As I understand it, this was just for the human-portion that the Emperor built between the webway and real-space - which makes me wonder how such "defenses" could be maintained in those sections without having to have someone or something on the throne - as surely someone would have to sit on the throne in order to keep the Webway / Realspace gate guarded at all times? Or was the warp expected to "calm down" once mankind had claimed the galaxy for itself?


Which is interesting, if the webway was truly shattered and Terra in danger but recoverable. Why send Valdor to retrieve Magnus? Wouldn't Valdor be more valuable defending the breach or did the emperor know it was so far gone that only he or Magnus on the throne could save Terra? I would suspect Magnus saw the truth, it was so bad that Valdor was sent to validate Russ' siege and retrieve Magnus to sit on the throne for the long haul.


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Moonschwine said:


> What I do find interesting is that part of the Golden Thrones function was to defend the human-built portion of the web-way from warp entities, which later Magnus inadvertently destroyed. As I understand it, this was just for the human-portion that the Emperor built between the webway and real-space - which makes me wonder how such "defenses" could be maintained in those sections without having to have someone or something on the throne - as surely someone would have to sit on the throne in order to keep the Webway / Realspace gate guarded at all times? Or was the warp expected to "calm down" once mankind had claimed the galaxy for itself?


From the way the Golden Throne is described in the novel, I don't believe it wasn't intended to patch up holes in the Webway but the Emperor, due to his psychic might, used in a way it wasn't intended to be used.

It's purpose was to unlock the secrets of the Webway and by that I assume how to make it usable without needing Wraithbone, an Eldar only resource.

Magnus probably was meant to use the Golden Throne while the Emperor worked inside the Webway itself.

Prior to Magnus's warning, the Webway if I am not mistaken was fully intact and had no entrances for Daemons to spill into.

And once the Emperor unlocked the secrets of the webway, the use of the Warp would have been a thing of the past.


----------



## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

All this about magnus and what not, I am assuming is a later part of the HH books?


----------



## DeceivedRadek (Jun 4, 2011)

TheSpore said:


> You know I almost thought this was gonna be another goofy theory by Lux until I read the author, then realized this will actuall be a discussion and not a ridicoulus idea that made no sense!
> 
> As far as I can tell the big sits in his chair rotting awya day by day until he finally can take it anymore and if you ever read an old book called Inq. War there is a part where the main char. goes to the GT and actually has a conversation with the big E forgot what was said in all prolly something like Im so bored finally some one comes to actually talk to me.


I read that book. The emperor had like multiple personalities that worked with/against each other. The implication was that he was going mad and loosing his grip on the imperium.


----------



## DeceivedRadek (Jun 4, 2011)

scscofield said:


> So before he was stuck on the GT what was being the beacon? It takes all those psykers fueling/assisting him to do it now. Or was he just that bad ass when he was alive.


In 1000 sons it says that the glowing light could be seen from Nikea. This implies{ i think} that the astronomicon moved with the emporer, he was always the beacon for star travel but he didn't eat psykers.


----------



## Daemon Child (Apr 12, 2011)

The emperer is the one on the golden throne but he is long dead his warp presence is holdind back the warp from flooding the galaxy with Daemons but if he fails then the entire galaxy dies or become slaves to the dark gods


----------

