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Yeah the Emperor has been around since the earliest days of human civilization, at least, I don't know where that other theory comes from. I think it IS pretty clear that he's not just a "powerful human psyker" or anything either, he seems to be on par with the Chaos gods (all of them, together, since he was able to bargain with them directly as an equal) in terms of power, at least when he was active, and that was without the widespread worship of him that would almost certainly increase his power even more, given how the warp works. He's a capital G God, but that doesn't mean he's omnipotent in the setting, and assuming the corporeal form he does probably has drawbacks (human fallibility, maybe).
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Nov 17, 2017 07:02
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hopterque posted:Yeah the Emperor has been around since the earliest days of human civilization, at least, I don't know where that other theory comes from. Master of Mankind drops a lot of little hints that the Emperor's backstory might not be true. The two examples I can remember off the top of my head are the scene at the beginning of the book where a Custodian is sent to kill someone and they quip that he's just a weapon from the dark age of technology; the second is when he's showing a 'flashback' to his past to another Custodian and the Custodian asks if this is actually true and the Emperor avoids answering.
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Nov 17, 2017 07:15
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So it's like the Legion TV show. The Big E is so powerful that no one, himself included, can accurately say when or where he's from because he might have changed our and his own memory about it.
Attack on Princess fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 08:48
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There’s an argument that the difference between a sufficiently powerful human and a Chaos God is zero. The Chaos ‘Gods’ are nothing but Daemons that are stupendously powerful due to being aspected to very common things, and with enough power, anything could oust/beat them. There’s nothing intrinsically divine about them.
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Nov 17, 2017 10:13
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Donnerberg posted:So it's like the Legion TV show. The Big E is so powerful that no one, himself included, can accurately say when or where he's from because he might have changed our and his own memory about it. I think that's precisely what ADB was going for. Personally, I like it a lot, and I hope they keep it as a subtle hint rather than expanding too far on it. Not knowing the answer is often a lot more interesting than ever figuring it out.
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Nov 17, 2017 10:19
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Considering the nature of the setting and of the warp, it could be a case where "The God-Emperor was created during the Dark Age of technology, while also existing since the dawn of human history," a human version of Slaanish's creation. Hell, I wouldn't put it past them to drop hints that he's actually the biblical Cain at this point.
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Nov 17, 2017 12:10
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No, Cain is bound up in Abbadon’s sword. For reals.
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Nov 17, 2017 12:41
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VanSandman posted:No, Cain is bound up in Abbadon’s sword. That's the 'End of Empires' daemon from Master of Mankind right?
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Nov 17, 2017 13:29
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Deckard Cain deserved better.
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Nov 17, 2017 13:45
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MariusLecter posted:That's the 'End of Empires' daemon from Master of Mankind right? Yup.
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Nov 17, 2017 13:47
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I like the bit in one of the Mechanicus books where the Emperor is like a 17th century knight who fights a dragon. Nefore capturing it and sticking it on mars, somehow.
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Nov 17, 2017 13:48
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Shockeh posted:There’s an argument that the difference between a sufficiently powerful human and a Chaos God is zero. The Chaos ‘Gods’ are nothing but Daemons that are stupendously powerful due to being aspected to very common things, and with enough power, anything could oust/beat them. One of the points Lorgar and others make is that divinity is basically having enough power that it becomes a qualitative difference between that being and others. Like, comparing consciousness in dogs to humans. You can say we're all basically just organisms that interact with our environment, we'd want to say that our greater intellectual capacity radically changes how we do it though. We have an understanding of future/past, objects have a significance for us, we have narratives, etc. A god's ability to understand and influence the universe is kind of another level of that. I think it's analogous to the whole 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. Lorgar recognised that the emperor and chaos gods are basically so far beyond us that they're basically gods to be worshipped. His god spurned his worship so he found some that wouldn't.
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Nov 17, 2017 14:22
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VanSandman posted:No, Cain is bound up in Abbadon’s sword. Not Cain specifically, the distillation of Cain's urge and action to murder his brother. The whole opening passage of MoM is stupendously well done in capturing that. The essence of the First Murder is what caught the attention of the Chaos gods in the first place, and the fact that it's just been fed non-stop throughout the rise of Humanity makes it a complete "Oh, poo poo" moment when the Emperor senses it coming for him. I think there was mention of Cain being some miserable permanent fixture in the warp after that, but Drach'nyen wasn't specifically him if I read that correctly. This was a daemon that the Emperor couldn't just blot out like the millions of others he did during the escape from the webway sequence, that's a HUGE setup for something on down the fluff, and I expect the Warhammer 41,000 novels to begin addressing that before too long.
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Nov 17, 2017 15:00
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Moose-Alini posted:Where does this idea come from? Is it backed anywhere in the fluff, or just a cool theory. From what I’ve seen all the fluff suggests he’s from the Stone Age. There's a bit where in a flashback a custodian is assassinating one of the terran leader leaders who had been around since before the unification and she laughs when the custodian references the emperor reverently and she basically just says "you have no idea what that thing really is do you" or something along those lines. Then the emperor gives one of his custodians a flashback of the emperor living as a child in some stone age village and when the custodian asks if this vision is real the emperor just ends the vision and gives a non answer about the lesson in the vision being real. There's also some really old fluff that talked about the dark age of technology giving birth to three splinters of humanity the men of stone, iron and gold with the men of iron being the robots that rebelled. The prevailing theory is that the men of stone are normal humans and the men of gold were either primarchs or primarch tier creations who were psykers. Zasze fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 16:20
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Endman posted:I think that's precisely what ADB was going for.
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Nov 17, 2017 16:44
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I like how MoM gave context while still leaving things vague. The Emperor could be a creation of the Dark Age of Tech able to tap into mankind's history and 'build' his identity and past, for all we know, like the twins do in Children of Dune. Has any BL book of note addressed the return of Guilliman, the sundering of the Imperium, the Bigmarines and such? Black Legion has a mention of Abaddon finally wrecking Cadia, but that's it as far as i know.
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Nov 17, 2017 17:44
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Immanentized posted:Not Cain specifically, the distillation of Cain's urge and action to murder his brother. The whole opening passage of MoM is stupendously well done in capturing that. The essence of the First Murder is what caught the attention of the Chaos gods in the first place, and the fact that it's just been fed non-stop throughout the rise of Humanity makes it a complete "Oh, poo poo" moment when the Emperor senses it coming for him. Vaguely recalling the emperor's statements on the end of empires he knows even back then that it's the daemon that finally ends him. Which may we'll come to pass it Abaddon finally gets to the throne room. Sephyr posted:I like how MoM gave context while still leaving things vague. The Emperor could be a creation of the Dark Age of Tech able to tap into mankind's history and 'build' his identity and past, for all we know, like the twins do in Children of Dune. The emperor's legion by Chris Wraight sort of covers the return of guilliman and the destruction of cadia, but from the view of the chancellor of the imperial Senate so while you get a bit of conversation from Robert you don't get the full view of what he thinks of the imperium he has returned to. Although it does mention how guilliman tries to hide his disgust of one of the palaces various churches he visits. rocket_Magnet fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 17:46
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Sephyr posted:I like how MoM gave context while still leaving things vague. The Emperor could be a creation of the Dark Age of Tech able to tap into mankind's history and 'build' his identity and past, for all we know, like the twins do in Children of Dune. Yeah been a few new ones. Dark Imperium is all about that, from Guilliman’s point of view, and Watchers of the Throne is the same stuff but from Earths point of view. Dark Imperium is fun and Watchers is great. Edit: Watchers of the Throne and Emperors Legion rocket_magnet mentioned are the same book. Moose-Alini fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 20:19
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Zasze posted:There's a bit where in a flashback a custodian is assassinating one of the terran leader leaders who had been around since before the unification and she laughs when the custodian references the emperor reverently and she basically just says "you have no idea what that thing really is do you" or something along those lines. TBF that's coming from a no good ocean thief.
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Nov 17, 2017 21:14
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I’m reading The Return of Nagash by Josh Reynolds, the first novel in The End Times books, and I just realized one of Mannfred’s lieutenants is meant to be Count von Count from Sesame Street
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Nov 17, 2017 22:59
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MariusLecter posted:TBF that's coming from a no good ocean thief. Given that one of the greatest W40k expansions post Emperor came across a single planet teched out like it was straight from the Dark Age and the full might of a colonial military fleet was stopped to a standstill, its entirely likely that the Emperor was just the first Human 2.0 and the only success in the Dark age attempt to evolve humanity to immortal psychic gods.
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Nov 18, 2017 01:17
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pentyne posted:Given that one of the greatest W40k expansions post Emperor came across a single planet teched out like it was straight from the Dark Age and the full might of a colonial military fleet was stopped to a standstill, its entirely likely that the Emperor was just the first Human 2.0 and the only success in the Dark age attempt to evolve humanity to immortal psychic gods. What are you referring to here? Something with Macharius?
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Nov 18, 2017 03:23
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I thought Chaos Gods worked on the same logic as Discworld gods. In that their power is directly related to the number of worshipers or even just people who are aware of and dread them. That the emperor kept them secret to keep them from gaining power. And that the Horus Heresy served to bring them to light for all of humanity and so increasing their power greatly as billions of humans spends their living days worrying about them.
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Nov 18, 2017 09:03
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Endman posted:Master of Mankind drops a lot of little hints that the Emperor's backstory might not be true. As I recall, one of those flashbacks featured the Emperor covering a skull of a deceased relative with clay, and using sea shells to replicate eyes. This practice was common (look up the Jericho skull, for an example) in the eastern Mediterranean several thousand years before the common era, which is supposedly when the Big E was born/created. My suspicion is that the allegation that the Emperor is a Dark Age weapon gone wild is simply a theory from observers to explain a being that really just doesn't make sense any other way. Katt posted:I thought Chaos Gods worked on the same logic as Discworld gods. In that their power is directly related to the number of worshipers or even just people who are aware of and dread them. It's more that they are empowered by specific emotions and activities reflecting them-- rage, lust, ambition and despair. Worshipful followers are great and all, but the gods themselves achieved sentience through psychically active species doing and feeling things that riled up the warp in particular ways so they don't necessarily need an organized religion. Fearless fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Nov 18, 2017 |
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Nov 18, 2017 10:00
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Katt posted:I thought Chaos Gods worked on the same logic as Discworld gods. In that their power is directly related to the number of worshipers or even just people who are aware of and dread them. I think they don't really need faith, just people acting on whatever emotions feed them. There's always been wars and plagues and poo poo, so they've always been there. Faith might boost their power simply because believers are willing to embrace the emotions that feed the gods and act on them in the most excessive ways possible, not because of belief itself.
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Nov 18, 2017 10:10
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bloom posted:I think they don't really need faith, just people acting on whatever emotions feed them. There's always been wars and plagues and poo poo, so they've always been there. Faith might boost their power simply because believers are willing to embrace the emotions that feed the gods and act on them in the most excessive ways possible, not because of belief itself. They very explicitly have not always been there.
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Nov 18, 2017 11:48
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Telsa Cola posted:They very explicitly have not always been there. They have also very explicitly always been there. When Slaanesh was born they were already always a part of the pantheon. Chaos is weird.
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Nov 18, 2017 12:17
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Finished Prospero Burns and enjoyed it much more than A Thousand Sons. I think the human having his own story, while the Hersey happens as a backdrop, made it way easier to get through. That said. "wet leopard growl" may be the most overused phrase in all of English literature. And it's just in this one book. How did the editor not resolve that before release?
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Nov 18, 2017 16:27
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Telsa Cola posted:They very explicitly have not always been there. My theory is that slaanesh wasnt so much born as the billions of hyper psyker hedonistic elves raised the baseline of the emotion that empowered slaanesh to the point where she became active/woke up and took on their characteristics. so i guess what im trying to say is that there has always been a slaanesh but there hasn't always been THIS incarnation of slaanesh.
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Nov 18, 2017 18:12
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DARPA posted:Finished Prospero Burns and enjoyed it much more than A Thousand Sons. I think the human having his own story, while the Hersey happens as a backdrop, made it way easier to get through. Editor?!?
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Nov 18, 2017 19:48
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So uh... there's a warp rift across half the galaxy, what happen?
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Nov 18, 2017 21:08
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victrix posted:So uh... there's a warp rift across half the galaxy, what happen? Turns out the mysterious pylons on Cadia were part of a system holding the warp at bay galaxy wide, Abbaddon finally won the fight at Cadia by blowing up the planet, and then a warp rift tears the galaxy more or less in half.
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Nov 18, 2017 21:13
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The Black Crusades that people used to moan about him being a failure for were all targeted at destroying pylon worlds.
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Nov 18, 2017 21:21
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Did nobody figure that out before, or how are they selling it? I mean was this some rpg-esque "disable/destroy x number of generic mission triggers before final portal/progression trigger is available" deal, and the imperium never figured out which worlds were pylon worlds? Relatedly, I thought you had to get past Cadia if you even wanted to exit the Eye from where Abaddon was shacked up, were all those pylon worlds on the path to Cadia, and the black crusades just never got any further, or am I completely off here?
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Nov 18, 2017 21:29
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Duzzy Funlop posted:Did nobody figure that out before, or how are they selling it? I mean was this some rpg-esque "disable/destroy x number of generic mission triggers before final portal/progression trigger is available" deal, and the imperium never figured out which worlds were pylon worlds? Sounds like Cadia had the only visible ones. Some of the character background for the Cawl dude has him excavating pylons on other worlds that sound pretty deeply underground. Could be that no one was even aware they existed. Cadia was just the most stable exit point, you could get out, just at a unfavorable odds at surviving.
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Nov 18, 2017 21:33
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Duzzy Funlop posted:Did nobody figure that out before, or how are they selling it? I mean was this some rpg-esque "disable/destroy x number of generic mission triggers before final portal/progression trigger is available" deal, and the imperium never figured out which worlds were pylon worlds? Yeah a big thing is that no one knew what the pylons were, where they came from, or what they were for. They been studying them for millennia and really had no idea behind the vaguest suggestion. Turns out they hold the galaxy together, who knew?
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Nov 18, 2017 22:52
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I finished Legion by Abnett and it sure was something. Unfortunately I was spoiled on the major stuff by this thread but it was a good read with a lot of stuff going on. I would have liked more from the space marine pov but eh. Do the Alpha Legion and the Cabal return in any of the later books?
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Nov 18, 2017 23:33
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Moose-Alini posted:Yeah a big thing is that no one knew what the pylons were, where they came from, or what they were for. They been studying them for millennia and really had no idea behind the vaguest suggestion. Well didn't Inquistor Quixos know? Well before Eisenhorn killed him that is.
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Nov 18, 2017 23:56
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Do the black library ebooks ever go on sale during Black Friday or.... Boxing Day or Guy Fawkes Day whatever it is those brits celebrate?
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Nov 19, 2017 00:05
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:The Black Crusades that people used to moan about him being a failure for were all targeted at destroying pylon worlds. And now obviously, once Cadia has fallen, the Black Legion has taken the blow to the Imperium as a chance to blast through and start a conquest towards Terra. Or not, since immediately following the Gate's destruction we have to deal with a few years of Rowboat Girlyman making a pilgrimage to Terra and then a century long counterattack by the Imperium, reestablishing a sort of status quo that blunted the Chaos advance. Way to drop the ball again Abby.
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Nov 19, 2017 00:14
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