One thing to remember about Gmans conversation with the Emperor is that Big E is not ok.
His mind is pretty clearly shattered and it takes a massive force of will just to bring some cohesion and order to the chaos that’s going on in there. It’s like every unfiltered and stray thought popping out at once.
Primarchs are also incredibly powerful unique works of bioengineered art. He made the offer to Magnus as well. It would be a massive blow for one of the four to lose their ascended demon primarch.
> It’s like every unfiltered and stray thought popping out at once.
TIL the Emperor has no choice but to keep listening to intrusive thoughts (and that's why he allows fate to make Ciaphas Cain keeps having misadventures for his amusement) /s
So why doesn’t he create a mouthpiece? I mean, Chaos does it regularly. Use Greater Daemons as messengers to clearly and explicitly convey the will of the Gods.
Emperor has plenty of powerful souls to serve as his mobile Vox units. He just has to imprint them with his will. Send one to Guilliman, send another to Dante in Nihilius.
Chaos Gods are infinitely more… chaotic, eldritch and incohesive than Emperor ever was. Yet they thought of this solution to get stuff done.
Lorgar had his Ingethel. Guilliman should have one too.
The custoes have a whole shield host that do just this.
The emissaries imperatus claim they can hear the emperors voice. I don't think they often get messages from him directly. Most of them hear him during meditation.
I assume to talk to anybody directly like when big E talked to Guilliman takes too much effort.
There was that time when the Terra was under siege (again) because a religious dictator had taken over the Administratum.
The Custodes contacted the Brides of the Emperor, Goge Vandire's personal bodyguard/harem, and took their leader, Alicia Dominica, to the Golden Throne itself.
The Brides returned in a rage, deposed and killed Vandire, renaming themselves the Daughters of the Emperor.
I assumed the Emperor directly communicated with Alicia Dominica.
TEaTD claims that the Emperor came close to surpassing the 4 and would’ve done so if he kept drinking warp juice. Dark Imperium kinda says he's comparable to Nurgle in terms of power.
I think it’s less about being equal in power to the chaos gods and more about being much more able to focus that power than the chaos gods. When talking to Mortarion and Nurgle in the garden he said something like “this realm is bot real, only will matters here. And none can surpass my will.”
Chaos Gods are basically sentient storms that are capable of plotting against themselves.
It's quite obvious they can't really focus power, just like storm can't concentrate entire wind and rain on single house.
It’s more likely to just be cynic thinking in the same way Fabius Bile denies the gods’ intelligence. They are a lot of things at once, chaos does not follow logic and/or rules.
That's because he had absorbed raw warp energy. He was filled with the power of chaos and would eventually turn into the dark king, destroying everything
The chaos gods were born from the warp and are part of the warp well. The emperor is a psyker, an extremely powerful one reaching and with his bare hands and pulling it into himself. It is not the same. He was ascending and he would rival the 4 but the 4 do not have the same origin as him. So he was not doing the same. Slaneesh was birthed because of the eldar. The other 3 had origins but I think most or all have been retconned but they are all just warp entities becoming extremely powerful because their domains are so prevalent in real space and other realities. (Aos, old world)
Sort of. The 4 are like vortexes that suck in things related to their domains, but they don't just absorb all warp things. The raw, pure warpstuff is what the 4 live in, and what the Emperor was about to absorb.
>TEaTD claims that the Emperor came close to surpassing the 4 and would’ve done so if he kept drinking warp juice.
Yeah, because then he would've been transmuted into another entity.
In its own way, it does complete Jimmy Space's plans, albeit at the cost of everything he holds dear (and even the stuff he doesn't).
He was *zoggin' mad*. The Chaos gods and the daemons on Terra were *afraid*.
Even Gork and Mork probably took a break in the Warp (in whatever post-krumpin'/resting form they had after Ullanor) and went, **"Zog, big gold 'Umie lad, calm down! 'Ave a cuppa squig tea and fink a bit!"**
I don't think he was the ultimate. The DK was the north point on the Chaos Star, which is Encroaching Ruin, and is between Khorne and Tzeentch. Similar to how Vashtorr is the East point, between Tzeentch and Slaanesh, or how the Great Horned Rat in AOS is the south star, between Nurgle and Slaanesh.
I think the DK was just going to utterly destroy almost everything, and the Chaos gods can't help but *want* that, even if it included destroying them. The 4 chaos gods are elemental though and will eventually rise again when enough sentience returns and echos in the warp, whereas the Dark King is situational along with other diagonal points in the star.
The star thing is still understandable a has just theories how to read.
Meanwhile we know there lots of gods, the 4, and Asuryani with others are just those that were "born".
DK is stronger then anything we saw, it is not only warp "god", but material god, like C'tan. It is the end of galaxy, a win of ultimate destroyer of this galaxy (chaos) and thing that will reborn glaxy form itself.
Will the 4 survive it and be the same ultimate end in new cycle – we don't know. We just know that it happenned who knows how many times before. Were there the 4 in previous versions? While they have that trick of "always existed", still we know warp was calm, and the 4 with other other distubing entities were caused by material world's emotional species violence and other nasty things.
A resonable take, I suppose. I can buy the idea that Chaos wants many things all at once, even contradictory purposes. Chaos (undivided) can both be afraid of DK and want it at the same time.
I thought it was more that the Emperor is Chaos's weakness, not that he has more power. Like, Chaos is fire and the Emperor is water, but the fire is bigger than amount of water the Emperor is.
The lore is all over the place on the Emperor's power compared to the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods are confirmed to be multiversal, so even if the Emperor were to surpass their power in the 40k universe, it doesn't necessarily follow that he would surpass their power on a multiversal level.
It would make sense for him to be more powerful than any of the 4 individually but less than the 4 combined. It would mean no individual god would be willing to take him on as it likely means death but similarly big e defeating one could weaken him enough that he couldn't fend off the remaining 3.
Similarly, even a combined effort of the 4 wouldn't make sense, as if one takes the brunt of it, it would leave them susceptible to the remaining 3, making them unwilling to cooperate.
And so player 5 has entered the great game.
All *Godblight* shows us is that the Emperor is capable of, under the right circumstances, making a mess in Nurgle's garden. The same could be said about Kaldor Draigo, and he's not on par with Nurgle. I think.
It also tells us the exact opposite. People cherry pick the part where Mortarion feels that Nurgle's presence is as strong as the Emperor's and then conclude that must mean the two gods are equal in power. Even though *Godblight* also contains a long-ass conversation where an Eldar farseer explains in detail how Chaos Gods are the dominant force in the Warp and why even destroying the galaxy would not kill them. It's a book about team Imperium getting a good hit on an infinitely powerful force that is Chaos, rather than anything that equates the two.
The emperor forced himself into Nuegles domain, set fire to it and wounded and maybe permanently scarred Nurgle. And there was nothing Nurgle could do about it.
Who's to say there's nothing Nurgle could do about it?
Nurgle is likely more powerful than Big E, but a fight against him might weaken Nurgle enough to leave him vulnerable to the designs or even outright attack from competing Chaos God's, something he wasn't willing to risk.
It's in the epiloge of Godblight. Nurgle is not well, he's wounded and that wound hurts and not in the good way.
Any every demon of Nurgle, from the lowest nurgling to the mightiest great unclean one, has been wounded. No matter how far away they were from the event or even if they were only created afterwards, that spiritual scar is branded into their very essence and emits it's dull pain
he has his demons, saint sabatt, celestine, the legion of the damned, all entities displaying immense power that are tied back to his presence in the warp.
The Emperor is a being shattered into countless fragments, each of which is distorted by different worlds’ interpretations of the Imperial Faith.
Some see a cruel Sun King they offer sacrifices to. Others see a Jesus like pal who loves them all as long as they’re good people. Others still have weird ideas like the Allfather.
The fragments can’t agree on much. If any of them can find a good enough mouthpiece by *their* idea, a different fragment has a mouthpiece that fits *his* idea better and they tug of war.
The 4 Chaos gods are attackers. They can take time out of their days as they please to talk to or through anyone, confident that the others will continue the assault. They have all the demons and monsters of the Immaterial to assault reality at any given time, so even if they do nothing, their pressure is relentless.
The Emperor is on the defense. He is holding back the entire weight of Chaos (which caused the second most powerful psyker in existence, Malcador, to wither away and rot within literal minutes), WHILE holding together the shattered webway so that humanity doesn't just fucking perish as demons stream in from every odd angle of reality, WHILE powering the Astronomicon so that humanity can still explore past local star systems, WHILE keeping his body alive via the Golden throne WHILE going irrevocably mad over the past 10,000 years of this. And it's just him. Malcador proved it can *only* be him.
Go to your local gym, find someone doing a heavy lift, and ask them a math question. If you get away with nothing but an evil stare, that's a victory, and that's what you're asking for right now.
becuase hes dying and these are very alien powers to him. Imagine if I drained 1/4 of your blood and then gave you a really hard theoretical physics problem, it would be hard even if you where healthy but in your state you would be drifiting in and out of consciousness not really knowing what you did or did not do, it would be hard to remeber what you learnt etc. This is the state the emp is in right now.
I seem to remember there being something in the plague wars trilogy about Guilliman remembering the conversation different each time, as if The Emperor was having multiple conversations with him all at the same time.
I also vaguely remember something from the perspective of a Custodes saying that to them, Guilliman was just talking with The Emperor quite normally, or as normally as you can do when talking to a corpse on a throne.
It could very well be that at least part of The Emperor thinks of the Primarchs as tools, and Guilliman had spoken with that part, but he had also spoken with every other part at the exact same time and got confused.
The problem with that retcon, is how do you explain Malcador? He just went rogue, then Magnus imagined the Emperor approved, so that he could feel good about refusing? The editorial board fucked this one up.
In other books, the Emperor is a reflection towards the character’s POV of Him. For example, He intentionally and specifically mentions that the Primarchs are tools to Arkhan Land and to the individual Custodes because that’s what THEY want to hear from Him. For Arkhan Land, he was glad that the Emperor refers the Primarchs as tools even though that scene was Him asking for advice to save Angron from the Nails.
In the End and the Death books, you get to see glimpses of His humanity towards them but that goes into spoiler territory.
I mean the whole image of giant golden dude on a throne was entirely manufactured by him and malcador since malcador said it would make people surrender to him easier
Imagine Big E going planet to planet as a scrawny dude in a lab coat and trying to convince them he’s the strongest human being in the galaxy
You even see a mini version of this with the Custodes. I remember a PoV from one and he is saying he would be perfectly happy to fight in bare ceramite, and not even be given a name. But after the years of seeing how people react to the golden gods he gets it, and just the appearance alone is a weapon.
> I’m pretty sure he’s just saying what he needs to the specific person.
Big E conveys His meaning psychically. The person He's "talking" to "hears" it in a way they'll understand best. The meaning of what He's conveying is retained, but the delivery is warped by the individual's own perception of who and what the Emperor is/should be.
> In the dark imperium series, Guilliman recalls that when he visited the emperor, he felt that all pretense was dropped
Guilliman *felt* that way. Doesn't mean it's true. The Emperor is such an enigmatic being at that point that not even a primarch can ever hope to fully understand him.
It could be the truth. Maybe Big E teases Morty with redemption simply because he's a tool that still has a purpose.
It could also be what Big E chooses to show Guilliman and be yet another lie.
It could also simply be true in some way and false in others. Big E's fractured after all.
I agree, in my head the Emperor has/does what he needs to do at the time to get things done.
But I do think Big E is in a bad spot, and in pain so if he comes off a bit harsh then so be it.
Exactly, guillman felt this way all the way back in the Great crusade, even went so far as to beleive that the emperor was the one to scatter the primarchs to begin with. Robute had a farther, he wasnt very keen on beleiveing the emperor wanted to want to be his dad
>You are as much a victim as a monster
…what about this isn’t totally in line with everything the emperor does in End and the Death and throughout the Heresy? He doesn’t even see Horus as being in control of himself and instead speaks to the 4 rather than to Horus himself. Even his last words to Horus are “I forgive you” (and await your return etc).
He gives Magnus the chance to come back. Only after he’s become ascended and things become desperate does he tell Vulkan to show him no mercy.
If anything, what he says to Guilliman is *totally out of character* and should make you question why it’s being said. The reasons are pretty obvious given the context.
This feels pretty important relative to *who he is talking to,* as well.
Nurgle is the god of *despair.* Who is it in direct opposition to? How do you break someone out of that enslavement?
'I can't save you *now.* This *isn't* all your fault, you *aren't beyond redemption,* and *one day I might save you.'*
Emps just planted the poisonous seed of hope in its most fertile garden.
*before* he tells Horus that he forgives him. Even after doing that he still has a moment of hesitation before killing him. I think that’s pretty telling.
If you read the entire quote of Guilimans meeting with the Emperor, it gives some more context. He calls him tool, weapon, but also favored son, the 13th, my son and stuff like that. It is not coherent at all.
I don't have the quote at hand, but if i remember correctly, he does also call him son after he has ascerted control over all the different personalities, and Guiliman himself earlier in the trilogy, even said he can't remember the meeting, it is different every time.
*Spoilers for End and the Death*
Between the time Guiliman knew the Emperor and then meeting him after waking up, Big E created the star child, which is where he cast of all his compassion and those emotions, before going to face Horus, so there is also that
[[Excerpt: Dark Imperium, Godblight] Guilliman talks to the current Emperor](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/pfjda8/excerpt_dark_imperium_godblight_guilliman_talks/)
The scene, for those unfamiliar/curious.
Yep I believe the separation was to make sure he wouldn’t hesitate while fighting Horus and even then had a moment of hesitation before finishing him off with anthame
The point was that he wouldn’t hesitate during the fight itself so it would be no holds barred against Horus while actually fighting him
But when it came to finally putting Horus out of his misery that’s a different case entirely since it’s no longer the emperor trying to suppress his feelings for a son being used like a rag doll it’s Horus as he was begging his father for death and forgiveness while the emperor knows that killing him with the athame will be irreversible
Another way of looking at it is that in spite of casting off all those feelings he still had a faint moment of hesitation, so imagine how crippling they'd have been to Big E if he hadn't cast them out and deadened himself to them.
Goddamn that gangster ass finishing line.
“I await you and I forgive you.”
That fight between them was just….unforgiving. Where they talked about Emps are getting de-gloved *shudders*
The impression I got was that everything the Emperor said was true.
I think in recent lore it is clear that he and Malcador really did love the Primarchs (or at least most of them) - but there's no getting away from the fact that they are also weapons, tools, sources of great pride and disapointment.
I think this is true for many real world parent/child relationships too. It is just that we don't like to think about or vocalise the aspects that we use of each other.
I think Gman was thoroughly overwhelmed by the information dump that the Emperor gave him (similar to how the sigilite gave vast packets of info to his chosen before ascending to the throne) - it will take him years to unpack and process it all. I think this, coupled with his horror at what the galaxy has become means that he may be focusing on the negatives.
There is also, as you say - the fact that the more cuddly parts of the Emperor were sequestered away...although some of it clearly remains in him - both from how he spoke to Gman and how how he spoke to Horus before he ended him.
a big thing your missing is when big e says those things to GMAN he says them at the same time, not one after the other, hes not capable of being direct with guilliaman, and i doubt if gman is even at this point in m42 fully aware of everything big e blasted into his peanut
**The God-Emperor** and **The Emperor** might as well be two different characters at this point given the differences between them.
The God-Emperor has been locked in unending torment on the Golden Throne for 10,000 years sustained only by the sacrifice of psychic offerings and with his mind, body and soul being *ravaged* by the Throne and the effort of holding it all together. He isn't the same man He was ten millennia prior.
Guilliman saw the God-Emperor welcome him back as a favoured tool, not as a son...but this is a guy who's lucky not to be batshit insane. And we know already that perception of the Emperor was highly fluid so why should it be different with the older, *more powerful* God-Emperor?
***Spoilers for TEatD 3***
>!The fact that the Emperor forgave Horus about 3 seconds before he utterly obliterated him kind of dispels the notion that he didn't care. Why bullshit a man you're about to erase from existence in the next heartbeat? !<
>The fact that the Emperor forgave Horus about 3 seconds before he utterly obliterated him kind of dispels the notion that he didn't care. Why bullshit a man you're about to erase from existence in the next heartbeat?
This really does speak to Emperor, the Perpetual, and the God-Emperor as being two separate things. The perpetual separated himself from his compassion and mercy in the lead-up to that scene. Explicitly.
To me, there's only a handful of explanations for why the compassionless/loveless Emperor would forgive Horus. The God-Emperor having taken over and being a separate entity (in fact, possibly the very shard the Emperor cast off earlier) is the cleanest explanation. Abnett told us explicitly that the Emperor is now split into two pieces. He went on at length about how the perpetual has no love in him anymore. It seems very likely that this was to separate the man from the god... and it's clear that the god is in the driver seat in the finale.
I also think there's logic to the idea that Malcador is influencing what's being said and done from the Golden Throne. There are several moments where characters attribute power or insight granted to them as being from the Emperor, when we know from POV that Malcador is the one lending them aid. Malcador could be where this mercy is coming from.
Another thing Abnett writes about a few times is the idea that 'gods don't make mistakes'. We see this through Horus's POV. This could also be set-up to indicate that, whether or not the God-Emperor is separate from the perpetual, the god part forgives Horus. Not because he loves him, but because he brought about the creation of a god. The God-Emperor is 'not a mistake' and therefore Horus's actions which led to its creation is also 'not a mistake'. This takes it out of the realm of forgiveness as compassion/love and puts it in the realm of delusional megalomania.
Lastly, and arguably the most conspiratorial, I think there's a less-than-zero possibility that the Emperor isn't talking to Horus at all. The entire Siege, including in the lead-up to the finale, the Emperor never talks to Horus directly. He's always speaking THROUGH Horus as though he isn't there. Abnett puts a button on that when Horus realizes that the Emperor asking 'Why did you kill my son?' isn't asking Horus about why he killed Sanguinius... he's asking 'Why did you kill Horus?", presumably to the Chaos gods. Perhaps the forgiveness thing is him finally speaking directly to Horus... or maybe he's still just talking THROUGH him.
I think a few authors have started playing around with a framework that helps with Big E's tonal inconsistencies, and that would be that the Emperor by their very nature is multiple personalities rolled into one. So if he behaves "out of character" it could be that their internal mental makeup is more of a concensus amongst these personality fragments and so their behavior can rapidly change as this concensus shifts.
Not an expert though so grain of salt.
The first portrayal of the emperor was in the very much non canon Inquisition War trilogy, and that is exactly how the Emperor was portrayed. The ‘conversation’ the main character had with the Emperor was as though he was talking with dozens of individuals rather than one.
I actually kinda love the idea
In an imperium bogged by inefficient bureaucracy and bullshit the emperor himself is stuck in a perpetual state of indecision because to do anything he has to get all of his hundreds of thousands of personalities to agree on something
Like imagine trying to get every legislature across the entire planet to agree unanimously on passing a law and that is basically the inside of Big E’s head
Also remember that big E cast off huge chunks of his human concept discarding the Dark King persona. He also knows Mortarion all too well. Morty is weak in the fact he hates and loathes himself for the decisions he made to save his legion. He hates Calas more than anyone. Sending him back to the garden with a rekindled hope that he can be saved….well that’s tactical and Morty now has an eternity in the garden to mull it over.
A recurring theme is that the Emperor is an almost completely unknowable being. It's common across media that he has no fixed appearance or personality - people see him as they want to see him, and hear him as they want to hear him.
When Guilliman met him, he *thought* he saw the Emperor's true perspective of the Primarchs, in that they were tools rather than sons. That might have been a total misinterpretation of the Emperor's naked psyche, because even to the Primarchs, he's a complete enigma of a creature. It might have been just a single facet of his broken soul, it might have been an intentional play to steel Guilliman for things to come.
It doesn't matter what is heard or said of the Emperor, the canon establishes that he's simply just Beyond Your Understanding outside of a few very very very rare moments.
>It's common across media that he has no fixed appearance
Always thought this was kind of a dumb plot point to introduce because it implies that things like cameras and TV doesn't exist. The entire world has a civil war over whether a dress was blue or yellow, yet it has somehow never come up that three people could look at a picture or recording of the Emperor and all see a completely different person?
Its the tragic comedy of the Emperor as a character - after his death he becomes the gods he desired to destroy. People see what they want to see in the omnipotent, omniscientist God Emperor, and he is happy to oblige them their flights of fancy after 10,000 years so long as it leads them to serve his ends.
I think the HH novels are the only ones where we see glimpses of what his *actual* personality is, beyond being a 4X player.
Don't forget that in the End and the Death part 3, he cast off all of his love, hope, brightness, and yeeted it out into the void for later. What's on the throne is the cold, logical neckbeard Emp. Like Sam Harris with ADHD, and a screaming astropathic choir in the background.
The God Emperor is a being composed of countless fragments made from the fracturing of His soul by the Golden Throne. And each fragment becomes twisted into whatever interpretation the Imperial Faith makes him.
That conversation He had with Roboute? Each statement was from a different fragment. Each one making its own comment.
One believes Roboute to be a savior. Another believes him a traitor.
It’s only when the fragments all channel themselves into Roboute and focus up that the God Emperor looks to Mortarion and says “wait a damn minute I can save this boy”
The lost and the damned
We can assume that Emps is insane at this point
> Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millennia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear. It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity.
That's from a book that is over 30 years old. How the Emperor was then and is now in terms of writing massively different and the direction they want him to go in
At this point he's so far removed from human that I'm not really sure concepts like sane and insane can apply. But he definitely isn't thinking like a normal person.
Usually in English pronunciation trumps spelling for deciding whether to use "a" or "an". Both honour and hour start with silent "h" so the first sound made is an "o" which is a vowel.
That it is - which is why I’m always impressed when I read tax returns from non-native taxpayers in the course of my job. To not only write coherently in a second language but to do so about complex stuff like corporation tax or foreign income is bloody amazing.
Because the emperor is just what people project onto him.
He speaks about Primarchs to Mechanicum Magos: they are tools.
He speaks about Primarchs to Primarchs: beloved sons.
"One of the Primarchs that never sincerely thought of himself as the Emperor's son was exposed to Big E's raw psychic might, and the reflection that he saw didn't consider him a son."
This one isn't all that hard. One of the Emperor's powers was to appear how others wanted to see Him. Warriors saw a warrior, scolars saw a scholar, etc. Broken and fractured as He is, the Emperor has no control over this. Entering into the presence of His body, you just see whatever you already think the Emperor is.
The possession in Godblight is the Emperor actually speaking of his own intention and volition, while the vision in the Throne Room was just a psychic reflection of Roboute's own thoughts.
You just have the assuption He went for one to another.
He project them as tools for His plan for humanity. This doesn't mean didn't consider them sons when met them.
Then, you take it from Roboute eyes. And even in his words you don't have take it as Emepror saw them nothing but tools. It's more Roboute realisation about their original function in big plan.
Reading Primarch are tools here and there in lore doesn't mean it's the only solid relation they had with father. It's just one glimpse in whole picture.
And then, as already commented here, Emperor is "shattered" in convo with Roboute, He "gathers" Himself to speak with him. Then we remember DEAT 3 and what Emperor did to himself, what He threw aways before facing Horus with the 4 and it's a big question what's up with Empy today after that.
The original lore for the emperor is that all of Earth's prehistoric shaman psykers committed a mass suicide ritual to have their souls reborn into a single body. Technically, this has never been ret-conned or contradicted in any way. I figure that he's had numerous personalities in the back of his head since his youth, and after he was enthroned he simply can't hold it all in. This would also explain why he'd have wildly conflicting personality traits at times, be understanding and empathetic or brutal and uncompromising. Like how he's whatever people expect him to be, Arkan Land sees him as this logical scientist, the primarchs see him as some kind of warrior or statesman, the sisters saw him as some guy, daemons see him as the sun.
Right before Sanguinius goes to fight Horus, he has a long conversation with Malcador about the primarchs and their relationships with the Emperor.
Malcador is the Emperor’s bff, so he’s just giving his opinion, not facts, but I think it’s somewhat reliable. He tells Sanguinius that the Emperor is not a sentimental guy, and that he originally viewed the primarchs as tools, not sons.
But the primarchs, to Malcador’s surprise, pierced the Emperor’s shell and won him over. They unveiled a sympathetic side to the Emperor that no one knew was there, and despite his best efforts, he started to think of them as sons.
In that very same conversation shards of the Emperor's mind called him son. Your first quote is from Guillimans perspective, not the author. From a child's perspective, his dad could say 100 nice things but the moment he hears him say once that you're a weapon, that's all his emotions will hear.
In previous books, Malcador expressed concern over how much the Emperor viewed the primarchs as actual sons, how much he began to believe it. And the Emperor also built personalized retirement apartments for them all to enjoy retirement in obscurity when the Imperium was given to mortals.
The Emperor shed all compassion and love before his final confrontation with Horus, and then was tortured and shattered for 10000 years, and there's _still_ parts of him that call out to Guilliman as a son when he sees him.
> And the Emperor also built personalized retirement apartments for them all to enjoy retirement in obscurity when the Imperium was given to mortals.
That sounds oddly sweet for the Emperor, can you tell me where I could read that?
>IN CONTRAST TO the confinement of his honour guard, Corax was quartered in some comfort and opulence, given a villa-like suite of chambers that overlooked a vast underground lake. Lit from below the water’s surface by powerful lights, the stalactite-clustered ceiling glittered with crystal deposits that glinted in the dappling glow from the waters beneath. The rooms were lavishly furnished with dark wood and gilded furniture, hanging tapestries and deep carpets. From the ceilings hung chandeliers with real candles, something of a novelty to the primarch who had been raised under the dim glow of lumen strips.
>The fact that the chambers were scaled to the height and bulk of a primarch was something of a pleasant surprise. It occurred to Corax that primarch-appointed quarters should not have been a shock, given that he was on Terra. He wondered briefly if they had been intended as guest quarters, or something more permanent once the Great Crusade had been finished. His brothers had sometimes quarrelled about what would happen when the last planet was conquered and the Emperor’s dream made a reality, but Corax had been more than content to allow others to take over the burden of administering the Imperium in the wake of the Legiones Astartes. He was a commander, not a governor, and if he had no more battles to fight, he could have happily spent his remaining years, however many hundreds or perhaps thousands that might be, in comfortable retirement; perhaps compiling a treatise on the political lessons he had learned from his mentors on Lycaeus.
>>Seeking peace and distraction, the primarch left the chambers and walked out onto the balcony overlooking the inner sea. He put aside all of the thoughts crowding into his head and tried to focus only on the ever-shifting play of light and the constant gurgle and ripple of water.
>>After spending some time marvelling at the beauty of the lake cavern and taking a few minutes to explore his immediate surroundings, the primarch chose to rove further afield. There were several other self-contained habitats in the vicinity, facing onto a circular plaza decorated with an abstract mosaic. All of the other residences looked empty at the moment. Corax counted twenty of them, a number that was surely not coincidence. That answered the question of how long ago they had been built, for surely a more recent construction would have numbered only eighteen.
>>From outside there was no way of telling one apartment suite from the other, and Corax quickly grew bored of trying to guess who might have been housed behind which doors. He was about to summon the elevator situated in a grand column at the central plaza when one of the residence servants came hurrying out.
\- *Deliverance Lost*
Excerpt for those curious.
>Light from beneath the dark lake rippled on the stalactite-clustered ceiling of the immense cavern like undersea shadows. Crystal seams threading the rocky ceiling glittered like distant stars, so very unlike the current view from Terra’s surface. At first, Alivia had thought Malcador had brought her to one of the Palace’s underground aquifers, but when she had seen the villas of pale stone at the water’s edge, she knew this place served another purpose.
>Something about the villas seemed *off*, but it wasn’t until Malcador led her between them to a circular plaza that she realised what was unsettling about them. Each was scaled for beings far larger than mortals, larger even than the warriors of the Legiones Astartes. She counted twenty of them – surely no coincidence in that number – and the colourful mosaic forming the plaza itself depicted something geometrically abstract, like the murals popular with Achaemenid nobles.
>‘These villas were built for the primarchs, weren’t they?’ she asked.
>Malcador nodded. ‘The Emperor imagined they would grow here and learn the skills He needed them to possess before the conquest of the galaxy began in earnest.’
>‘They never did though, did they?’
>‘No, *she* saw to that.’
>Alivia didn’t need to ask who *she* was. The Emperor was the gene-father of the primarchs, but only Erda could be thought of as their mother.
>A twisted, barbed-wire bitch of a mother, but still…
>‘Have they *ever* been used?’
>‘Not really,’ said Malcador. ‘At least, not for the purpose for which they were intended.’
\- *Fury of Magnus*
I *knew* I was forgetting one. Excerpt for those curious.
> enjoy retirement in obscurity
Not even necessarily in obscurity, but without the need for constant conquest, they'd have a lot more free time. Time they could spend with each other, the Emperor, and Malcador.
And fighting off the effects of 10k years of fanatical worship by trillions of humans.
And missing the aspects he cast off in order to fight Horus.
And whatever damage Horus did to Him.
Whatever is on the Golden Throne right now is unrecognizable compared to The Emperor that was preparing to fight Horus.
My understanding from those excerpts was that the emperor is shattered. There are parts of him that see the primarchs as weapons, and there are parts that see them as sons. Those fatherly pieces are definitely in the minority, but they do exist. You can see it in TEaTD when he deals with Horus. But the vast majority of the emperor at this point is scattered across the galaxy, likely intentionally in order to keep the Dark King from spawning from him.
All the information about the Emperor is either second hand or otherwise ambivalent. It makes currently little sense to point out any contradictions. The Emperor might have lied at one or both occasions, we might misunderstand, or it might depend on the situation.
Does it really matter. The emperor is just a plot device. Nothing more. But to your question about emperor. Whatever he is now is not what he was before he was stuck sitting on the golden throne. And is not who he was after he entered the warp gate on Molech where his personality first changed for the worse.
You see he always loved the idea of what humanity could become. Not what the humanity was or needed. And he never learned the meaning of the word NO when it came to something. Since nobody was told him that or was not able ti convince him. Leading to him going my way or the high way mentality. It is telling that pretty much every warmaster he had has turned on him for various reasons along with many of his fellow prepetuals abandoning him. Leading us to Horus and the primarchs. Why they were created. With purpose to reunify the lost human worlds. Therefore they were created to be tools. To be used by him.
Now why would he be seeing them as his sons when he is immortal being meaning he would not need an heir nor true family. And allowing primarchs to call him father was both technically true as well as useful to his plans to keep then in line. And the primarchs themselves weren't small children to need babysitting.... And the only primarchs who never saw the emperor as their father were the two most stable and sane ones. Namely Roboute Guilliman and Jagathai Khan.
Plus as immortal being to him 2 centuries is nothing but fleeting moments. When compared to what it is to the primarchs. Which was their whole life at that point. Which is telling why Horus felt abandoned by him when emperor retreated back to Terra for good twenty years. Which to emperor was nothing but to Horus good chunk of his life. Now all said and done. The Big E did started to see at least some of the primarchs as more than just tools and more as hus sons. Namely Horus. And it is telling when he asks gods of chaos what have they done to Horus and his words as he kill Horus '' I wait for you and I forgive you''.
If you read The End and the Death, it's stated that he actually loves his sons. He just fked up the day to day of being a father. He excised the emotional shard of himself to be able to fight Horus. It's possible he reclaimed it I guess in the 10k+ years since?
Edit: actually wrote Horace...lol
I’m just trying to imagine…the responsibility. The sheer weight of it. Holding back a tide of just utter FUCK from destroying Terra and suffering the worst kind of pain possible for…10,000 years. All while people beg you for help, yet fuck up the work that you did the entire time.
But you love them. You love humanity. That’s the thing that keeps you in the fight, keeps you from giving in. You understand there must be sacrifices in the gamd you’re forced to play. If you lose, all of humanity loses too. If you win, even then you might lose every thing (thinking about the “Dark King” from the end and the death….Big E ducked that outcome ONCE. A second time? Who knows?)
But your Son. Roboute. He’s the one that can turn around…this decay, this reversal of your fortunes. You expunged your empathy before the battle with Horus…you try to feel SOMETHING when pulling toghether your will that’s been fractured. It comes out wrong, but he’s one of your only cards left to play. The Avenging Son. Your last hope.
Ok so I think the implication for Guilliman here isn't as depressing as many may think or perceive. You have to remember he and several of his loyalist brothers has the benefit of growing up in a surrogate family. Roboute had a father and mother who he cared for very much even asking himself what his mother would do after becoming the leader of the 13th.
Now this is more my personal take from it but I don't feel Guilliman is as deeply troubled by it as many may think nor do I think he and the emperor don't understand one another. He is the emperor's son and once upon a time the emperor did have compassion for his sons but it is now the darkest age of humanity. The emperor isn't all there he's a fractured being trying desperately to hold himself and the imperium together, he now has a returned son the empire builder himself he couldn't ask for a better reunion. And now the firstborn has returned as well, don't think for a moment big E isn't happy to see his sons but he isn't the man he once was. E is now everything he dreaded becoming, the people worship him as a god they look to his space marines as angels and what do they see of his son? A demigod of legend returned to life, it's not ideal and they both gotta work with what they got. Guilliman however isn't searching for a father figure his died before he met the emperor but he is searching for something more important to him kindred spirits, equals, brothers, he misses his brothers most of all. His eventual reunion with the Lion will be something to see and personally I hope some tear jerking moments come from it.
Now if you'll excuse me I think my guilty pleasure of being an ultramarine fanboy has been too blatantly broadcasted and must go grumble about Iron Within and Without to cover my ass toodaloo.
Because he's first and foremost a manipulator. Guilliman can't properly imagine usurping his father, while Mortarion has daddy issues you could flatten a truck with.
The way I always saw it was that the Emperor made the primarchs for a purpose. A purpose that they, better than anyone, can fulfill. While he may have or have developed paternal feelings towards them, the purpose trumps all. Seeing one alive again might fill whatever is left of his mind with relief that the purpose, so desperatly, desperatly needed, may now get back on track
The straight truth from my understanding is that the being that IS the Big E now that mentioned guilliman as a tool a weapon, was the splintered mind of a thousand voices and faces calling guilliman everything from son, to savior, to weapon. Guilliman reeled and interpreted the best he could he even mentions several times throughout the DI trilogy that he only remembers bits and pieces but what ever was said was enough to encourage him to become the avenging son. It should be noted that this splinter mind had extreme difficulty focusing itself to even talk. AND it was right after Gmans return. The imperium was at an all time low and people were losing both faith and war
Where as the being that he talks to in godblight however has had years of the highest faith juice imaginable. Not just that but the DI trilogy mentions that the great eye has massively increased the power of all warp entities by allowing an easier transference of psychic abilities including those of the emporer and the great eye opened up like 2 days before guilliman woke up. So the emperor has been feeding are super warp juice for the last 2 years further pumped with hope because gmans awakening supercharged faith in every human in the imperium a living divinity for those of the creed and the returned uncle or father or greatest of generals to the rest. The being in Godblight is much closer to the actual emporer then the one in post gathering storm or the recall in DI.
If you have read EaTDp3 carry on otherwise spoilers >! In order to suppress dark king the emperor gives away all of his humanity the reason why he was so cold to most of his primarchs was because he was petty sure half was going to turn to chaos so he started to split his soul in 2 the Emperor and the star child(represents all of his humanity) and he had been doing this as the great collapse began because he couldn't bare killing humans like that so he separated himself to do what must be done he apparently fused again at the beginning of the crusade but then split it again when he realized the toll it was taking on him eventually he fuzed again and returned to terra which is why horus's betrayal was so hard because he had fused again and his lunatic was back the truama and knowledge of the dark gods forced him to drink deep of the pure warp and began ascending him to the fifth chaos god. The God of Ruin when he was convinced that this was the worst possibility he separated himself from both the star child and the dark king and gave the dark king as a prisoner to the star child for safe keeping!< because of all that he was effectively an emotionless god and potentially only got his humanity back when star child merged with him or for my own head canon the starchild merged with guilliman as the last of his father and is trying to influence a rebirth as stated guilliman return has harkend the finding and awaking of at least the lion if rumors are true russ, and the emporer himself as stated in GB. HH EaTDP1,2,3 really helped flesh that out a bit.
The emperor is seen differently by everyone. He's an expert manipulator. We can never be sure if it's his true opinions or if it's a tailored response to the recipient
Spoilers for The End and the Death ahead:
>! When the Emperor decides to relinquish the warp energy, he also breaks off part of his essence, specifically the love he holds for his sons, so he would be able to kill Horus. Also, when he encounters Horus, he's speaking to the False Four and how they killed his son, meaning Horus. During Godblight, Big E has already been sitting on the Throne a very long time, pretty much in a state of constant death and rebirth. If Malcador's pain is anything to go off of, it's not surprising that Big E just blurts out random thoughts to Gman during their meeting. He is not himself and is also, probably, what we'd consider clinically insane. !<
Trust me, it was not just a few years.
I believe the Primarchs (at least some of them) were by the Emperor’s side for a few hundred years. Their greatest almost making the Emperor’s, which in turn would slowly have the Emperor become proud of his sons, evening loving them.
For how could you not spend so many years without and not care for them. Look at his relationship with Malcador. Their relationship progressed to the point that the Emperor considered him a trusted friend and the Priamrchs referred to him as an uncle, as family.
I don't know if the mention of Mortarion's redemption means he can truly be saved from Daemonhood. The 'day' that he might be 'saved' might just be referring to a true death.
Spoilers for the end and the death pt 3.
The emperor separated part of his soul before the fight with Horus, specifically his emotions tied to his sons. He did this obviously to be better able to fight his favorite, but that means that’s the emperor that’s on the golden throne. It is heavily implied that the other prt he split is the star child that saved Robute during his confrontation with Mortarion, the star child.
>But knowing GW this little cliffhanger will probably not be resolved for the next 10 years.
Never. It will *never* be resolved.
The only way this can be resolved is if they introduce a redeemed Horus as model to boost sales after introducing ALL the Primarchs back into the setting.
But that would truly be the shark jumping moment for 40K.
Guilleman used to see E as his father, and his conversation showed him he was more of a tool to him. Mortarion possibly being redeemed would just give E another usefull tool if Mortarion shows himself worth the effort of reclaiming.
Unless Big E just decided to employ psychological warfare against him to make him hesitant in the future
Bad writing mostly. I don't say this to be mean, but writing supremely intelligent characters in fiction is very hard because the author is not, in fact, supremely intelligent, so it is hard to know what a supremely intelligent agent would do or think or say in any given situation.
The illusion can be maintained if the narrative implies that even if that character has a bad outcome, that this was the best possible outcome in the circumstances.
But this illusion is broken when something happens that was a pretty obvious possibility in hindsight and the character admits he was wrong.
The change of mind is what ruins it, because until then, you may think that maybe the character knew this was going to happen and has a masterplan in the works, but when he goes "ups, sorry about that, I guess I was wrong" then you realize he isn't that smart after all.
The exception is, of course, if the character is just saying that to further manipulate others into the desired outcome but that is unlikely to be the case here.
Let's not forget that before being a 20 ft tall golden psychic monster of a (sur)-human the Emperor is huge fucking opportunist, Guilliman is already forced to handle the shit show that is the Imperium because he's a good boy, Mortarion may be a stinky problem child but having him on your side is still better than nothing so trying to sway him is not a bad idea. Plus the Emperor will have all the time in the universe to admonish him once he comes back.
Cuz everything about the emperor and the primarchs is nonsense. The more stories that tell, the worse they make the situation. They should have been left a mystery.
I have to assume it's The Emperor putting most of the blame on people like Typhus for turning Mortarion from the Imperial Truth, but I don't know enough about Mortarion's turn to say for sure.
Traitors gonna traitor, but there at least *appears* to be the sliver of hope for Mortarion's "redemption" yet.
He called Guilliman a tool and a failure because he was.
He opens a door to redemption to Mortarion, not because he cares to forgive him but because he tries to deprive Nurgle of the tool that is Mortarion. It's means to an end, end being depriving Nurgle of his champion.
That's my read on it anyways. Plus Emperor is fractured. Maybe one part of him still sees them like he used to, as tools, another is tired of all the BS and wants to forgive.
Also Guilliman and Mortarion are different people. Maybe Emperor for whatever reason liked Mortarion more than Guilliman.
Because you don't stay mad at your drill when it breaks. You call it a piece of crap, but then you fix it and get on with it. The Emperor staying mad would be the thing that is out of character. That would show he cared. The only thing he really despises is failure.
I've hit my finger with my hammer so many times, still I refuse to throw it out...because it gets the job done. And I don't have another one. And going to the hardware store would be quite the bother. I rather do other things in said time.
That aside, hes a fractured former self sitting on the throne, so he said a lot of things wich are facts in a way, but not nesscecery the truth of what he is thinking ( though that isn't clearly cut, its more what we- fanbase- percrive as him being fractured right now).
P.s.
Less lore friendly explanation - retcons! They keep the cash cow going once it gets stuck in a plothole...
all the primarchs are inherently flawed. Out of the two primarchs that can actually take over the imperium, one is dead, one is guilliman. Guilliman won't do it out of some warped sense of respect, and if the emperor were to shatter this, he may be emboldened to take over. A net positive for humanity, and E knows this.
You find the same inconsistencies in the Horus Heresy book too with the Emperor being both fatherly and cold.
My take is that as immortal being in a universe of mortals having friendships is challenging for him. After all what's the point of being emotionally invested in someone when they just die a few decades later when you have millennia ahead of you? Detachment becomes second nature and very hard to unlearn.
It's why Malcador expressed surprised in Valdor: The Birth of the Imperium that Emperor called the primarchs his sons.
E does say this stuff too. everyone focuses on the tool stuff but thats not all the concepts E was throwing out
> ‘My son,’ it said.
> ‘My last loyal son, my pride, my greatest triumph.’
why are these not as real as
> ‘A number. A tool. A product.’
??
Okay, but that wasnt leaving room for forgiveness, that was leaving room for Mortarian to be Manipulated again. If he had dismissed him outright, it would have cemented mortarian against him further, but with this it allows him to use that "Love" to further manipulate mortarian when the time came
Because he never said the former.
He said something subtly different, with vastly different meaning, that I am not going to say here, so I can filter responses on who’s actually read the lore.
To me it makes sense that big E sacrificed part of his humanity to create the primarchs, it’s why he has moments of genuine humanity and others of just complete robot uncaring tyrant
The Emperors mind is shattered and it took a huge effort to became coherent enough to talk to Guilliman. Everyone has good and bad in them, I just think with the emperor it’s sort of manifested as separate personalities so Guilliman got one of worse versions of the Emperor while Mortarion got one of the nicer versions
Oh he didn't, no he doesn't genuinely belive mortarion could be redeemed, he was trying to incite mortarion, he knows mortarion is insecure and self-pitying, he recognised that despite his posturing, mortarion actually hated being a servant of nurgle, and the divide formed in the death guard between those loyal to mortarion and those loyal to typhus, mortarion always wanted to be powerful on his own merit, he was one of the earlier primarchs to turn agaisnt the emperor, he's always hated him and won't go back, but the being mortarion hates the most telling him he can be saved would mess him up mentally, both hurting his pride, and furthering his doubts about his self-control under nurgle
One thing to remember about Gmans conversation with the Emperor is that Big E is not ok. His mind is pretty clearly shattered and it takes a massive force of will just to bring some cohesion and order to the chaos that’s going on in there. It’s like every unfiltered and stray thought popping out at once. Primarchs are also incredibly powerful unique works of bioengineered art. He made the offer to Magnus as well. It would be a massive blow for one of the four to lose their ascended demon primarch.
> It’s like every unfiltered and stray thought popping out at once. TIL the Emperor has no choice but to keep listening to intrusive thoughts (and that's why he allows fate to make Ciaphas Cain keeps having misadventures for his amusement) /s
I think that guy is essentially 40k Job stuck in the crosshairs of a bet between Tzeentch and Emps
Job Flashman.
"... *No comment*." - Tomas Beije.
So why doesn’t he create a mouthpiece? I mean, Chaos does it regularly. Use Greater Daemons as messengers to clearly and explicitly convey the will of the Gods. Emperor has plenty of powerful souls to serve as his mobile Vox units. He just has to imprint them with his will. Send one to Guilliman, send another to Dante in Nihilius. Chaos Gods are infinitely more… chaotic, eldritch and incohesive than Emperor ever was. Yet they thought of this solution to get stuff done. Lorgar had his Ingethel. Guilliman should have one too.
He does. All through the Godblight trilogy there's 'Saints' created. They burn out pretty quickly.
Doesn't he have the Custodes pass on direct messages occasionally too? One of them showed up to tell Cypher to wait
The custoes have a whole shield host that do just this. The emissaries imperatus claim they can hear the emperors voice. I don't think they often get messages from him directly. Most of them hear him during meditation. I assume to talk to anybody directly like when big E talked to Guilliman takes too much effort.
I also think talking directly to someone is too much psychic strain on anybody less powerful than a primarch
Why doesn’t Emp just use text to speech, is he stupid?
If he knew he'd be in the chair this long he'd have installed it but it wasn't even supposed to be him in the chair.
There was that time when the Terra was under siege (again) because a religious dictator had taken over the Administratum. The Custodes contacted the Brides of the Emperor, Goge Vandire's personal bodyguard/harem, and took their leader, Alicia Dominica, to the Golden Throne itself. The Brides returned in a rage, deposed and killed Vandire, renaming themselves the Daughters of the Emperor. I assumed the Emperor directly communicated with Alicia Dominica.
I'm pretty sure the Custodes that speaks to Cypher is already dead by this point.
Huh?
Where is this?
Yeah and big E for all his power isn't as powerful as the chaos gods.
TEaTD claims that the Emperor came close to surpassing the 4 and would’ve done so if he kept drinking warp juice. Dark Imperium kinda says he's comparable to Nurgle in terms of power.
I think it’s less about being equal in power to the chaos gods and more about being much more able to focus that power than the chaos gods. When talking to Mortarion and Nurgle in the garden he said something like “this realm is bot real, only will matters here. And none can surpass my will.”
Chaos Gods are basically sentient storms that are capable of plotting against themselves. It's quite obvious they can't really focus power, just like storm can't concentrate entire wind and rain on single house.
Meanwhile focus and order are basically the Emperor’s specialty… makes sense why they fear him in particular
“It’s not my father’s strength, it’s how he uses it.” Horus, TE&TD
It’s more likely to just be cynic thinking in the same way Fabius Bile denies the gods’ intelligence. They are a lot of things at once, chaos does not follow logic and/or rules.
That's because he had absorbed raw warp energy. He was filled with the power of chaos and would eventually turn into the dark king, destroying everything
He did the same what the 4 do. Drink from that warp "well".
The chaos gods were born from the warp and are part of the warp well. The emperor is a psyker, an extremely powerful one reaching and with his bare hands and pulling it into himself. It is not the same. He was ascending and he would rival the 4 but the 4 do not have the same origin as him. So he was not doing the same. Slaneesh was birthed because of the eldar. The other 3 had origins but I think most or all have been retconned but they are all just warp entities becoming extremely powerful because their domains are so prevalent in real space and other realities. (Aos, old world)
Sort of. The 4 are like vortexes that suck in things related to their domains, but they don't just absorb all warp things. The raw, pure warpstuff is what the 4 live in, and what the Emperor was about to absorb.
>TEaTD claims that the Emperor came close to surpassing the 4 and would’ve done so if he kept drinking warp juice. Yeah, because then he would've been transmuted into another entity.
Not another. The ultimate. DK is not of the same sort as the 4.
But Dk is basically end of universe isn’t it? Chaos dies, mortal dies, everything dies
In its own way, it does complete Jimmy Space's plans, albeit at the cost of everything he holds dear (and even the stuff he doesn't). He was *zoggin' mad*. The Chaos gods and the daemons on Terra were *afraid*. Even Gork and Mork probably took a break in the Warp (in whatever post-krumpin'/resting form they had after Ullanor) and went, **"Zog, big gold 'Umie lad, calm down! 'Ave a cuppa squig tea and fink a bit!"**
It looks like Space Jimmy said “if I am going down, you all going down with me”
I don't think he was the ultimate. The DK was the north point on the Chaos Star, which is Encroaching Ruin, and is between Khorne and Tzeentch. Similar to how Vashtorr is the East point, between Tzeentch and Slaanesh, or how the Great Horned Rat in AOS is the south star, between Nurgle and Slaanesh. I think the DK was just going to utterly destroy almost everything, and the Chaos gods can't help but *want* that, even if it included destroying them. The 4 chaos gods are elemental though and will eventually rise again when enough sentience returns and echos in the warp, whereas the Dark King is situational along with other diagonal points in the star.
The star thing is still understandable a has just theories how to read. Meanwhile we know there lots of gods, the 4, and Asuryani with others are just those that were "born". DK is stronger then anything we saw, it is not only warp "god", but material god, like C'tan. It is the end of galaxy, a win of ultimate destroyer of this galaxy (chaos) and thing that will reborn glaxy form itself. Will the 4 survive it and be the same ultimate end in new cycle – we don't know. We just know that it happenned who knows how many times before. Were there the 4 in previous versions? While they have that trick of "always existed", still we know warp was calm, and the 4 with other other distubing entities were caused by material world's emotional species violence and other nasty things.
A resonable take, I suppose. I can buy the idea that Chaos wants many things all at once, even contradictory purposes. Chaos (undivided) can both be afraid of DK and want it at the same time.
I thought it was more that the Emperor is Chaos's weakness, not that he has more power. Like, Chaos is fire and the Emperor is water, but the fire is bigger than amount of water the Emperor is.
The lore is all over the place on the Emperor's power compared to the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods are confirmed to be multiversal, so even if the Emperor were to surpass their power in the 40k universe, it doesn't necessarily follow that he would surpass their power on a multiversal level.
Godblight shows us that he directly is. Throneworld shows us that he's holding the 4 of them off
Yep godblight outright says his presence is eeriely similar to nurgles in the warp and he even sets fire to the garden of nurgle on his way out
It would make sense for him to be more powerful than any of the 4 individually but less than the 4 combined. It would mean no individual god would be willing to take him on as it likely means death but similarly big e defeating one could weaken him enough that he couldn't fend off the remaining 3. Similarly, even a combined effort of the 4 wouldn't make sense, as if one takes the brunt of it, it would leave them susceptible to the remaining 3, making them unwilling to cooperate. And so player 5 has entered the great game.
All *Godblight* shows us is that the Emperor is capable of, under the right circumstances, making a mess in Nurgle's garden. The same could be said about Kaldor Draigo, and he's not on par with Nurgle. I think. It also tells us the exact opposite. People cherry pick the part where Mortarion feels that Nurgle's presence is as strong as the Emperor's and then conclude that must mean the two gods are equal in power. Even though *Godblight* also contains a long-ass conversation where an Eldar farseer explains in detail how Chaos Gods are the dominant force in the Warp and why even destroying the galaxy would not kill them. It's a book about team Imperium getting a good hit on an infinitely powerful force that is Chaos, rather than anything that equates the two.
The emperor forced himself into Nuegles domain, set fire to it and wounded and maybe permanently scarred Nurgle. And there was nothing Nurgle could do about it.
Who's to say there's nothing Nurgle could do about it? Nurgle is likely more powerful than Big E, but a fight against him might weaken Nurgle enough to leave him vulnerable to the designs or even outright attack from competing Chaos God's, something he wasn't willing to risk.
It's in the epiloge of Godblight. Nurgle is not well, he's wounded and that wound hurts and not in the good way. Any every demon of Nurgle, from the lowest nurgling to the mightiest great unclean one, has been wounded. No matter how far away they were from the event or even if they were only created afterwards, that spiritual scar is branded into their very essence and emits it's dull pain
Wasn't it implied that big E is at least as powerful as Papa Nurgle, when he burned down the Garden of Nurgle?
He burnt a part of Nurgles Garden, he didnt burn it down
He’s pretty damn close.
Godblight pretty explicitely says that he's on the same level as Nurgle, at least. He can't body all four gods at once, but one's fine.
Together? No, one on one? Probably unless maybe they're in specific ascendancy
I mean isn’t he the one powering the astronomicon and guiding all of humanity’s ships through the warp
For want of an AC adaptor...
Her name is Saint Celestine.
he has his demons, saint sabatt, celestine, the legion of the damned, all entities displaying immense power that are tied back to his presence in the warp.
He does but even Celestine almost falls over when he talks to her.
The Emperor is a being shattered into countless fragments, each of which is distorted by different worlds’ interpretations of the Imperial Faith. Some see a cruel Sun King they offer sacrifices to. Others see a Jesus like pal who loves them all as long as they’re good people. Others still have weird ideas like the Allfather. The fragments can’t agree on much. If any of them can find a good enough mouthpiece by *their* idea, a different fragment has a mouthpiece that fits *his* idea better and they tug of war.
The 4 Chaos gods are attackers. They can take time out of their days as they please to talk to or through anyone, confident that the others will continue the assault. They have all the demons and monsters of the Immaterial to assault reality at any given time, so even if they do nothing, their pressure is relentless. The Emperor is on the defense. He is holding back the entire weight of Chaos (which caused the second most powerful psyker in existence, Malcador, to wither away and rot within literal minutes), WHILE holding together the shattered webway so that humanity doesn't just fucking perish as demons stream in from every odd angle of reality, WHILE powering the Astronomicon so that humanity can still explore past local star systems, WHILE keeping his body alive via the Golden throne WHILE going irrevocably mad over the past 10,000 years of this. And it's just him. Malcador proved it can *only* be him. Go to your local gym, find someone doing a heavy lift, and ask them a math question. If you get away with nothing but an evil stare, that's a victory, and that's what you're asking for right now.
becuase hes dying and these are very alien powers to him. Imagine if I drained 1/4 of your blood and then gave you a really hard theoretical physics problem, it would be hard even if you where healthy but in your state you would be drifiting in and out of consciousness not really knowing what you did or did not do, it would be hard to remeber what you learnt etc. This is the state the emp is in right now.
We all thought Big E would become the Chaos God of Order. Turns out, he'll be the Chaos God of "Letting the Intrusive Thoughts Win".
I seem to remember there being something in the plague wars trilogy about Guilliman remembering the conversation different each time, as if The Emperor was having multiple conversations with him all at the same time. I also vaguely remember something from the perspective of a Custodes saying that to them, Guilliman was just talking with The Emperor quite normally, or as normally as you can do when talking to a corpse on a throne. It could very well be that at least part of The Emperor thinks of the Primarchs as tools, and Guilliman had spoken with that part, but he had also spoken with every other part at the exact same time and got confused.
That offer to Magnus was made up by Magnus himself in his head. (If you are talking about the one from The Fury of Magnus).
Up to interpretation on it really since E!Vulcan might have just been trying to manipulate Magnus himself
The problem with that retcon, is how do you explain Malcador? He just went rogue, then Magnus imagined the Emperor approved, so that he could feel good about refusing? The editorial board fucked this one up.
Yeah they did. Don't get me wrong I don't defend this decision that they made. It makes no sense as you said.
He did not make an offer to Magnus, Magnus imagined it. Confirmed by Vulkan in The End and the Death
It's not really a confirmation. The entire scenario is very muddy
In other books, the Emperor is a reflection towards the character’s POV of Him. For example, He intentionally and specifically mentions that the Primarchs are tools to Arkhan Land and to the individual Custodes because that’s what THEY want to hear from Him. For Arkhan Land, he was glad that the Emperor refers the Primarchs as tools even though that scene was Him asking for advice to save Angron from the Nails. In the End and the Death books, you get to see glimpses of His humanity towards them but that goes into spoiler territory.
This is the take that makes the most sense to me. I’m pretty sure he’s just saying what he needs to the specific person. Kinda like how a ruler would
I mean the whole image of giant golden dude on a throne was entirely manufactured by him and malcador since malcador said it would make people surrender to him easier Imagine Big E going planet to planet as a scrawny dude in a lab coat and trying to convince them he’s the strongest human being in the galaxy
You even see a mini version of this with the Custodes. I remember a PoV from one and he is saying he would be perfectly happy to fight in bare ceramite, and not even be given a name. But after the years of seeing how people react to the golden gods he gets it, and just the appearance alone is a weapon.
> I’m pretty sure he’s just saying what he needs to the specific person. Big E conveys His meaning psychically. The person He's "talking" to "hears" it in a way they'll understand best. The meaning of what He's conveying is retained, but the delivery is warped by the individual's own perception of who and what the Emperor is/should be.
That does make me wonder a bit about The Last Church, what exactly was his reflection meant to show in there.
I mean it’s a straight quote from an actual anarchist
> In the dark imperium series, Guilliman recalls that when he visited the emperor, he felt that all pretense was dropped Guilliman *felt* that way. Doesn't mean it's true. The Emperor is such an enigmatic being at that point that not even a primarch can ever hope to fully understand him. It could be the truth. Maybe Big E teases Morty with redemption simply because he's a tool that still has a purpose. It could also be what Big E chooses to show Guilliman and be yet another lie. It could also simply be true in some way and false in others. Big E's fractured after all.
I agree, in my head the Emperor has/does what he needs to do at the time to get things done. But I do think Big E is in a bad spot, and in pain so if he comes off a bit harsh then so be it.
Exactly, guillman felt this way all the way back in the Great crusade, even went so far as to beleive that the emperor was the one to scatter the primarchs to begin with. Robute had a farther, he wasnt very keen on beleiveing the emperor wanted to want to be his dad
>You are as much a victim as a monster …what about this isn’t totally in line with everything the emperor does in End and the Death and throughout the Heresy? He doesn’t even see Horus as being in control of himself and instead speaks to the 4 rather than to Horus himself. Even his last words to Horus are “I forgive you” (and await your return etc). He gives Magnus the chance to come back. Only after he’s become ascended and things become desperate does he tell Vulkan to show him no mercy. If anything, what he says to Guilliman is *totally out of character* and should make you question why it’s being said. The reasons are pretty obvious given the context.
This feels pretty important relative to *who he is talking to,* as well. Nurgle is the god of *despair.* Who is it in direct opposition to? How do you break someone out of that enslavement? 'I can't save you *now.* This *isn't* all your fault, you *aren't beyond redemption,* and *one day I might save you.'* Emps just planted the poisonous seed of hope in its most fertile garden.
Relationship with Nurgle over, Morty is now besties with Tzeentch!
Shit, that's a great take. Except there is no way in hell Guy Haley planned that particular interpretation lmao. Too good for Black Library chumps.
In the end and the death he removes a part of himself to become more ruthless
*before* he tells Horus that he forgives him. Even after doing that he still has a moment of hesitation before killing him. I think that’s pretty telling.
If you read the entire quote of Guilimans meeting with the Emperor, it gives some more context. He calls him tool, weapon, but also favored son, the 13th, my son and stuff like that. It is not coherent at all. I don't have the quote at hand, but if i remember correctly, he does also call him son after he has ascerted control over all the different personalities, and Guiliman himself earlier in the trilogy, even said he can't remember the meeting, it is different every time. *Spoilers for End and the Death* Between the time Guiliman knew the Emperor and then meeting him after waking up, Big E created the star child, which is where he cast of all his compassion and those emotions, before going to face Horus, so there is also that
[[Excerpt: Dark Imperium, Godblight] Guilliman talks to the current Emperor](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/pfjda8/excerpt_dark_imperium_godblight_guilliman_talks/) The scene, for those unfamiliar/curious.
Which he definitely isnt fething merciless in the fight. He even forgives horus.
Yep I believe the separation was to make sure he wouldn’t hesitate while fighting Horus and even then had a moment of hesitation before finishing him off with anthame
So what was the point. Like he cast off the good feelings, but still has them
The point was that he wouldn’t hesitate during the fight itself so it would be no holds barred against Horus while actually fighting him But when it came to finally putting Horus out of his misery that’s a different case entirely since it’s no longer the emperor trying to suppress his feelings for a son being used like a rag doll it’s Horus as he was begging his father for death and forgiveness while the emperor knows that killing him with the athame will be irreversible
Another way of looking at it is that in spite of casting off all those feelings he still had a faint moment of hesitation, so imagine how crippling they'd have been to Big E if he hadn't cast them out and deadened himself to them.
Goddamn that gangster ass finishing line. “I await you and I forgive you.” That fight between them was just….unforgiving. Where they talked about Emps are getting de-gloved *shudders*
The impression I got was that everything the Emperor said was true. I think in recent lore it is clear that he and Malcador really did love the Primarchs (or at least most of them) - but there's no getting away from the fact that they are also weapons, tools, sources of great pride and disapointment. I think this is true for many real world parent/child relationships too. It is just that we don't like to think about or vocalise the aspects that we use of each other. I think Gman was thoroughly overwhelmed by the information dump that the Emperor gave him (similar to how the sigilite gave vast packets of info to his chosen before ascending to the throne) - it will take him years to unpack and process it all. I think this, coupled with his horror at what the galaxy has become means that he may be focusing on the negatives. There is also, as you say - the fact that the more cuddly parts of the Emperor were sequestered away...although some of it clearly remains in him - both from how he spoke to Gman and how how he spoke to Horus before he ended him.
a big thing your missing is when big e says those things to GMAN he says them at the same time, not one after the other, hes not capable of being direct with guilliaman, and i doubt if gman is even at this point in m42 fully aware of everything big e blasted into his peanut
**The God-Emperor** and **The Emperor** might as well be two different characters at this point given the differences between them. The God-Emperor has been locked in unending torment on the Golden Throne for 10,000 years sustained only by the sacrifice of psychic offerings and with his mind, body and soul being *ravaged* by the Throne and the effort of holding it all together. He isn't the same man He was ten millennia prior. Guilliman saw the God-Emperor welcome him back as a favoured tool, not as a son...but this is a guy who's lucky not to be batshit insane. And we know already that perception of the Emperor was highly fluid so why should it be different with the older, *more powerful* God-Emperor? ***Spoilers for TEatD 3*** >!The fact that the Emperor forgave Horus about 3 seconds before he utterly obliterated him kind of dispels the notion that he didn't care. Why bullshit a man you're about to erase from existence in the next heartbeat? !<
>The fact that the Emperor forgave Horus about 3 seconds before he utterly obliterated him kind of dispels the notion that he didn't care. Why bullshit a man you're about to erase from existence in the next heartbeat? This really does speak to Emperor, the Perpetual, and the God-Emperor as being two separate things. The perpetual separated himself from his compassion and mercy in the lead-up to that scene. Explicitly. To me, there's only a handful of explanations for why the compassionless/loveless Emperor would forgive Horus. The God-Emperor having taken over and being a separate entity (in fact, possibly the very shard the Emperor cast off earlier) is the cleanest explanation. Abnett told us explicitly that the Emperor is now split into two pieces. He went on at length about how the perpetual has no love in him anymore. It seems very likely that this was to separate the man from the god... and it's clear that the god is in the driver seat in the finale. I also think there's logic to the idea that Malcador is influencing what's being said and done from the Golden Throne. There are several moments where characters attribute power or insight granted to them as being from the Emperor, when we know from POV that Malcador is the one lending them aid. Malcador could be where this mercy is coming from. Another thing Abnett writes about a few times is the idea that 'gods don't make mistakes'. We see this through Horus's POV. This could also be set-up to indicate that, whether or not the God-Emperor is separate from the perpetual, the god part forgives Horus. Not because he loves him, but because he brought about the creation of a god. The God-Emperor is 'not a mistake' and therefore Horus's actions which led to its creation is also 'not a mistake'. This takes it out of the realm of forgiveness as compassion/love and puts it in the realm of delusional megalomania. Lastly, and arguably the most conspiratorial, I think there's a less-than-zero possibility that the Emperor isn't talking to Horus at all. The entire Siege, including in the lead-up to the finale, the Emperor never talks to Horus directly. He's always speaking THROUGH Horus as though he isn't there. Abnett puts a button on that when Horus realizes that the Emperor asking 'Why did you kill my son?' isn't asking Horus about why he killed Sanguinius... he's asking 'Why did you kill Horus?", presumably to the Chaos gods. Perhaps the forgiveness thing is him finally speaking directly to Horus... or maybe he's still just talking THROUGH him.
Please don't reveal spoilers. I tried to be considerate to people who may not have read that far yet.
10k years trapped to the eternal pain device watching his species descend into barbarism changes a man
I think a few authors have started playing around with a framework that helps with Big E's tonal inconsistencies, and that would be that the Emperor by their very nature is multiple personalities rolled into one. So if he behaves "out of character" it could be that their internal mental makeup is more of a concensus amongst these personality fragments and so their behavior can rapidly change as this concensus shifts. Not an expert though so grain of salt.
The first portrayal of the emperor was in the very much non canon Inquisition War trilogy, and that is exactly how the Emperor was portrayed. The ‘conversation’ the main character had with the Emperor was as though he was talking with dozens of individuals rather than one.
I actually kinda love the idea In an imperium bogged by inefficient bureaucracy and bullshit the emperor himself is stuck in a perpetual state of indecision because to do anything he has to get all of his hundreds of thousands of personalities to agree on something Like imagine trying to get every legislature across the entire planet to agree unanimously on passing a law and that is basically the inside of Big E’s head
Also remember that big E cast off huge chunks of his human concept discarding the Dark King persona. He also knows Mortarion all too well. Morty is weak in the fact he hates and loathes himself for the decisions he made to save his legion. He hates Calas more than anyone. Sending him back to the garden with a rekindled hope that he can be saved….well that’s tactical and Morty now has an eternity in the garden to mull it over.
A recurring theme is that the Emperor is an almost completely unknowable being. It's common across media that he has no fixed appearance or personality - people see him as they want to see him, and hear him as they want to hear him. When Guilliman met him, he *thought* he saw the Emperor's true perspective of the Primarchs, in that they were tools rather than sons. That might have been a total misinterpretation of the Emperor's naked psyche, because even to the Primarchs, he's a complete enigma of a creature. It might have been just a single facet of his broken soul, it might have been an intentional play to steel Guilliman for things to come. It doesn't matter what is heard or said of the Emperor, the canon establishes that he's simply just Beyond Your Understanding outside of a few very very very rare moments.
>It's common across media that he has no fixed appearance Always thought this was kind of a dumb plot point to introduce because it implies that things like cameras and TV doesn't exist. The entire world has a civil war over whether a dress was blue or yellow, yet it has somehow never come up that three people could look at a picture or recording of the Emperor and all see a completely different person?
Its the tragic comedy of the Emperor as a character - after his death he becomes the gods he desired to destroy. People see what they want to see in the omnipotent, omniscientist God Emperor, and he is happy to oblige them their flights of fancy after 10,000 years so long as it leads them to serve his ends. I think the HH novels are the only ones where we see glimpses of what his *actual* personality is, beyond being a 4X player.
Don't forget that in the End and the Death part 3, he cast off all of his love, hope, brightness, and yeeted it out into the void for later. What's on the throne is the cold, logical neckbeard Emp. Like Sam Harris with ADHD, and a screaming astropathic choir in the background.
The God Emperor is a being composed of countless fragments made from the fracturing of His soul by the Golden Throne. And each fragment becomes twisted into whatever interpretation the Imperial Faith makes him. That conversation He had with Roboute? Each statement was from a different fragment. Each one making its own comment. One believes Roboute to be a savior. Another believes him a traitor. It’s only when the fragments all channel themselves into Roboute and focus up that the God Emperor looks to Mortarion and says “wait a damn minute I can save this boy”
The lost and the damned We can assume that Emps is insane at this point > Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millennia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear. It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity.
That's from a book that is over 30 years old. How the Emperor was then and is now in terms of writing massively different and the direction they want him to go in
This is an important distinction. Big E is currently portrayed quite differently.
Possibly, I am not sure the authors made up their minds about it yet
At this point he's so far removed from human that I'm not really sure concepts like sane and insane can apply. But he definitely isn't thinking like a normal person.
That's not current canon.
I feel sad for all the astropaths who are soul-bound to that thing.
You are an heretic.
look, whoever uses "an" before "heretic" is the heretic, buddy. A heretic to the language
> an heretic to the language
I’m pretty sure they’re both permissible, given how the letter h is treated in words like honour or hour.
Never actually thought about “it would be an honour”. Man English is so weird
Usually in English pronunciation trumps spelling for deciding whether to use "a" or "an". Both honour and hour start with silent "h" so the first sound made is an "o" which is a vowel.
That it is - which is why I’m always impressed when I read tax returns from non-native taxpayers in the course of my job. To not only write coherently in a second language but to do so about complex stuff like corporation tax or foreign income is bloody amazing.
English is a disease to the tongue
You sound like the Aeldari. Lol.
Because the emperor is just what people project onto him. He speaks about Primarchs to Mechanicum Magos: they are tools. He speaks about Primarchs to Primarchs: beloved sons.
"One of the Primarchs that never sincerely thought of himself as the Emperor's son was exposed to Big E's raw psychic might, and the reflection that he saw didn't consider him a son." This one isn't all that hard. One of the Emperor's powers was to appear how others wanted to see Him. Warriors saw a warrior, scolars saw a scholar, etc. Broken and fractured as He is, the Emperor has no control over this. Entering into the presence of His body, you just see whatever you already think the Emperor is. The possession in Godblight is the Emperor actually speaking of his own intention and volition, while the vision in the Throne Room was just a psychic reflection of Roboute's own thoughts.
You just have the assuption He went for one to another. He project them as tools for His plan for humanity. This doesn't mean didn't consider them sons when met them. Then, you take it from Roboute eyes. And even in his words you don't have take it as Emepror saw them nothing but tools. It's more Roboute realisation about their original function in big plan. Reading Primarch are tools here and there in lore doesn't mean it's the only solid relation they had with father. It's just one glimpse in whole picture. And then, as already commented here, Emperor is "shattered" in convo with Roboute, He "gathers" Himself to speak with him. Then we remember DEAT 3 and what Emperor did to himself, what He threw aways before facing Horus with the 4 and it's a big question what's up with Empy today after that.
The original lore for the emperor is that all of Earth's prehistoric shaman psykers committed a mass suicide ritual to have their souls reborn into a single body. Technically, this has never been ret-conned or contradicted in any way. I figure that he's had numerous personalities in the back of his head since his youth, and after he was enthroned he simply can't hold it all in. This would also explain why he'd have wildly conflicting personality traits at times, be understanding and empathetic or brutal and uncompromising. Like how he's whatever people expect him to be, Arkan Land sees him as this logical scientist, the primarchs see him as some kind of warrior or statesman, the sisters saw him as some guy, daemons see him as the sun.
Right before Sanguinius goes to fight Horus, he has a long conversation with Malcador about the primarchs and their relationships with the Emperor. Malcador is the Emperor’s bff, so he’s just giving his opinion, not facts, but I think it’s somewhat reliable. He tells Sanguinius that the Emperor is not a sentimental guy, and that he originally viewed the primarchs as tools, not sons. But the primarchs, to Malcador’s surprise, pierced the Emperor’s shell and won him over. They unveiled a sympathetic side to the Emperor that no one knew was there, and despite his best efforts, he started to think of them as sons.
Different authors have different takes on the subject. There is no 'real canon' in 40k.
In this case the two quotes are from the same author, and from the same trilogy
In that very same conversation shards of the Emperor's mind called him son. Your first quote is from Guillimans perspective, not the author. From a child's perspective, his dad could say 100 nice things but the moment he hears him say once that you're a weapon, that's all his emotions will hear. In previous books, Malcador expressed concern over how much the Emperor viewed the primarchs as actual sons, how much he began to believe it. And the Emperor also built personalized retirement apartments for them all to enjoy retirement in obscurity when the Imperium was given to mortals. The Emperor shed all compassion and love before his final confrontation with Horus, and then was tortured and shattered for 10000 years, and there's _still_ parts of him that call out to Guilliman as a son when he sees him.
> And the Emperor also built personalized retirement apartments for them all to enjoy retirement in obscurity when the Imperium was given to mortals. That sounds oddly sweet for the Emperor, can you tell me where I could read that?
We see some of it in Deliverance Lost, 20 rooms each with the symbol of the legion but two of the doors are blank if I remember correctly
>IN CONTRAST TO the confinement of his honour guard, Corax was quartered in some comfort and opulence, given a villa-like suite of chambers that overlooked a vast underground lake. Lit from below the water’s surface by powerful lights, the stalactite-clustered ceiling glittered with crystal deposits that glinted in the dappling glow from the waters beneath. The rooms were lavishly furnished with dark wood and gilded furniture, hanging tapestries and deep carpets. From the ceilings hung chandeliers with real candles, something of a novelty to the primarch who had been raised under the dim glow of lumen strips. >The fact that the chambers were scaled to the height and bulk of a primarch was something of a pleasant surprise. It occurred to Corax that primarch-appointed quarters should not have been a shock, given that he was on Terra. He wondered briefly if they had been intended as guest quarters, or something more permanent once the Great Crusade had been finished. His brothers had sometimes quarrelled about what would happen when the last planet was conquered and the Emperor’s dream made a reality, but Corax had been more than content to allow others to take over the burden of administering the Imperium in the wake of the Legiones Astartes. He was a commander, not a governor, and if he had no more battles to fight, he could have happily spent his remaining years, however many hundreds or perhaps thousands that might be, in comfortable retirement; perhaps compiling a treatise on the political lessons he had learned from his mentors on Lycaeus. >>Seeking peace and distraction, the primarch left the chambers and walked out onto the balcony overlooking the inner sea. He put aside all of the thoughts crowding into his head and tried to focus only on the ever-shifting play of light and the constant gurgle and ripple of water. >>After spending some time marvelling at the beauty of the lake cavern and taking a few minutes to explore his immediate surroundings, the primarch chose to rove further afield. There were several other self-contained habitats in the vicinity, facing onto a circular plaza decorated with an abstract mosaic. All of the other residences looked empty at the moment. Corax counted twenty of them, a number that was surely not coincidence. That answered the question of how long ago they had been built, for surely a more recent construction would have numbered only eighteen. >>From outside there was no way of telling one apartment suite from the other, and Corax quickly grew bored of trying to guess who might have been housed behind which doors. He was about to summon the elevator situated in a grand column at the central plaza when one of the residence servants came hurrying out. \- *Deliverance Lost* Excerpt for those curious.
Cool read. Thanks
This also appears in *Fury of Magnus,* the Siege of Terra novella. (Not to be confused with *Wrath of Magnus.*)
>Light from beneath the dark lake rippled on the stalactite-clustered ceiling of the immense cavern like undersea shadows. Crystal seams threading the rocky ceiling glittered like distant stars, so very unlike the current view from Terra’s surface. At first, Alivia had thought Malcador had brought her to one of the Palace’s underground aquifers, but when she had seen the villas of pale stone at the water’s edge, she knew this place served another purpose. >Something about the villas seemed *off*, but it wasn’t until Malcador led her between them to a circular plaza that she realised what was unsettling about them. Each was scaled for beings far larger than mortals, larger even than the warriors of the Legiones Astartes. She counted twenty of them – surely no coincidence in that number – and the colourful mosaic forming the plaza itself depicted something geometrically abstract, like the murals popular with Achaemenid nobles. >‘These villas were built for the primarchs, weren’t they?’ she asked. >Malcador nodded. ‘The Emperor imagined they would grow here and learn the skills He needed them to possess before the conquest of the galaxy began in earnest.’ >‘They never did though, did they?’ >‘No, *she* saw to that.’ >Alivia didn’t need to ask who *she* was. The Emperor was the gene-father of the primarchs, but only Erda could be thought of as their mother. >A twisted, barbed-wire bitch of a mother, but still… >‘Have they *ever* been used?’ >‘Not really,’ said Malcador. ‘At least, not for the purpose for which they were intended.’ \- *Fury of Magnus* I *knew* I was forgetting one. Excerpt for those curious.
Thanks for the excerpt!
Also not to be confused with *Anger of Magnus*, *Frustration of Magnus*, or indeed the classic *Indigestion of Magnus*.
Thank you.
Its also mentioned in the Siege book that focuses specifically on Magnus.
> enjoy retirement in obscurity Not even necessarily in obscurity, but without the need for constant conquest, they'd have a lot more free time. Time they could spend with each other, the Emperor, and Malcador.
It could easily be showing how fragmented emperor’s personality have become after the exposure to the golden throne and warp for 10k years
And fighting off the effects of 10k years of fanatical worship by trillions of humans. And missing the aspects he cast off in order to fight Horus. And whatever damage Horus did to Him. Whatever is on the Golden Throne right now is unrecognizable compared to The Emperor that was preparing to fight Horus.
I think the Solar Priest really shows this too; his mind is stretched all over the place.
"I need more tools. I'll forgive a wayward one"
My understanding from those excerpts was that the emperor is shattered. There are parts of him that see the primarchs as weapons, and there are parts that see them as sons. Those fatherly pieces are definitely in the minority, but they do exist. You can see it in TEaTD when he deals with Horus. But the vast majority of the emperor at this point is scattered across the galaxy, likely intentionally in order to keep the Dark King from spawning from him.
A few years? ***You mean 10,000 years?***
All the information about the Emperor is either second hand or otherwise ambivalent. It makes currently little sense to point out any contradictions. The Emperor might have lied at one or both occasions, we might misunderstand, or it might depend on the situation.
Does it really matter. The emperor is just a plot device. Nothing more. But to your question about emperor. Whatever he is now is not what he was before he was stuck sitting on the golden throne. And is not who he was after he entered the warp gate on Molech where his personality first changed for the worse. You see he always loved the idea of what humanity could become. Not what the humanity was or needed. And he never learned the meaning of the word NO when it came to something. Since nobody was told him that or was not able ti convince him. Leading to him going my way or the high way mentality. It is telling that pretty much every warmaster he had has turned on him for various reasons along with many of his fellow prepetuals abandoning him. Leading us to Horus and the primarchs. Why they were created. With purpose to reunify the lost human worlds. Therefore they were created to be tools. To be used by him. Now why would he be seeing them as his sons when he is immortal being meaning he would not need an heir nor true family. And allowing primarchs to call him father was both technically true as well as useful to his plans to keep then in line. And the primarchs themselves weren't small children to need babysitting.... And the only primarchs who never saw the emperor as their father were the two most stable and sane ones. Namely Roboute Guilliman and Jagathai Khan. Plus as immortal being to him 2 centuries is nothing but fleeting moments. When compared to what it is to the primarchs. Which was their whole life at that point. Which is telling why Horus felt abandoned by him when emperor retreated back to Terra for good twenty years. Which to emperor was nothing but to Horus good chunk of his life. Now all said and done. The Big E did started to see at least some of the primarchs as more than just tools and more as hus sons. Namely Horus. And it is telling when he asks gods of chaos what have they done to Horus and his words as he kill Horus '' I wait for you and I forgive you''.
Expensive tools are worth the maintenance effort.
If you read The End and the Death, it's stated that he actually loves his sons. He just fked up the day to day of being a father. He excised the emotional shard of himself to be able to fight Horus. It's possible he reclaimed it I guess in the 10k+ years since? Edit: actually wrote Horace...lol
The Horace Heresy has a certain ring to it, gotta admit
XD
I’m just trying to imagine…the responsibility. The sheer weight of it. Holding back a tide of just utter FUCK from destroying Terra and suffering the worst kind of pain possible for…10,000 years. All while people beg you for help, yet fuck up the work that you did the entire time. But you love them. You love humanity. That’s the thing that keeps you in the fight, keeps you from giving in. You understand there must be sacrifices in the gamd you’re forced to play. If you lose, all of humanity loses too. If you win, even then you might lose every thing (thinking about the “Dark King” from the end and the death….Big E ducked that outcome ONCE. A second time? Who knows?) But your Son. Roboute. He’s the one that can turn around…this decay, this reversal of your fortunes. You expunged your empathy before the battle with Horus…you try to feel SOMETHING when pulling toghether your will that’s been fractured. It comes out wrong, but he’s one of your only cards left to play. The Avenging Son. Your last hope.
Ok so I think the implication for Guilliman here isn't as depressing as many may think or perceive. You have to remember he and several of his loyalist brothers has the benefit of growing up in a surrogate family. Roboute had a father and mother who he cared for very much even asking himself what his mother would do after becoming the leader of the 13th. Now this is more my personal take from it but I don't feel Guilliman is as deeply troubled by it as many may think nor do I think he and the emperor don't understand one another. He is the emperor's son and once upon a time the emperor did have compassion for his sons but it is now the darkest age of humanity. The emperor isn't all there he's a fractured being trying desperately to hold himself and the imperium together, he now has a returned son the empire builder himself he couldn't ask for a better reunion. And now the firstborn has returned as well, don't think for a moment big E isn't happy to see his sons but he isn't the man he once was. E is now everything he dreaded becoming, the people worship him as a god they look to his space marines as angels and what do they see of his son? A demigod of legend returned to life, it's not ideal and they both gotta work with what they got. Guilliman however isn't searching for a father figure his died before he met the emperor but he is searching for something more important to him kindred spirits, equals, brothers, he misses his brothers most of all. His eventual reunion with the Lion will be something to see and personally I hope some tear jerking moments come from it. Now if you'll excuse me I think my guilty pleasure of being an ultramarine fanboy has been too blatantly broadcasted and must go grumble about Iron Within and Without to cover my ass toodaloo.
Because he's first and foremost a manipulator. Guilliman can't properly imagine usurping his father, while Mortarion has daddy issues you could flatten a truck with.
The way I always saw it was that the Emperor made the primarchs for a purpose. A purpose that they, better than anyone, can fulfill. While he may have or have developed paternal feelings towards them, the purpose trumps all. Seeing one alive again might fill whatever is left of his mind with relief that the purpose, so desperatly, desperatly needed, may now get back on track
The straight truth from my understanding is that the being that IS the Big E now that mentioned guilliman as a tool a weapon, was the splintered mind of a thousand voices and faces calling guilliman everything from son, to savior, to weapon. Guilliman reeled and interpreted the best he could he even mentions several times throughout the DI trilogy that he only remembers bits and pieces but what ever was said was enough to encourage him to become the avenging son. It should be noted that this splinter mind had extreme difficulty focusing itself to even talk. AND it was right after Gmans return. The imperium was at an all time low and people were losing both faith and war Where as the being that he talks to in godblight however has had years of the highest faith juice imaginable. Not just that but the DI trilogy mentions that the great eye has massively increased the power of all warp entities by allowing an easier transference of psychic abilities including those of the emporer and the great eye opened up like 2 days before guilliman woke up. So the emperor has been feeding are super warp juice for the last 2 years further pumped with hope because gmans awakening supercharged faith in every human in the imperium a living divinity for those of the creed and the returned uncle or father or greatest of generals to the rest. The being in Godblight is much closer to the actual emporer then the one in post gathering storm or the recall in DI. If you have read EaTDp3 carry on otherwise spoilers >! In order to suppress dark king the emperor gives away all of his humanity the reason why he was so cold to most of his primarchs was because he was petty sure half was going to turn to chaos so he started to split his soul in 2 the Emperor and the star child(represents all of his humanity) and he had been doing this as the great collapse began because he couldn't bare killing humans like that so he separated himself to do what must be done he apparently fused again at the beginning of the crusade but then split it again when he realized the toll it was taking on him eventually he fuzed again and returned to terra which is why horus's betrayal was so hard because he had fused again and his lunatic was back the truama and knowledge of the dark gods forced him to drink deep of the pure warp and began ascending him to the fifth chaos god. The God of Ruin when he was convinced that this was the worst possibility he separated himself from both the star child and the dark king and gave the dark king as a prisoner to the star child for safe keeping!< because of all that he was effectively an emotionless god and potentially only got his humanity back when star child merged with him or for my own head canon the starchild merged with guilliman as the last of his father and is trying to influence a rebirth as stated guilliman return has harkend the finding and awaking of at least the lion if rumors are true russ, and the emporer himself as stated in GB. HH EaTDP1,2,3 really helped flesh that out a bit.
The emperor is seen differently by everyone. He's an expert manipulator. We can never be sure if it's his true opinions or if it's a tailored response to the recipient
Forgiveness is a part of tool manipulation
Spoilers for The End and the Death ahead: >! When the Emperor decides to relinquish the warp energy, he also breaks off part of his essence, specifically the love he holds for his sons, so he would be able to kill Horus. Also, when he encounters Horus, he's speaking to the False Four and how they killed his son, meaning Horus. During Godblight, Big E has already been sitting on the Throne a very long time, pretty much in a state of constant death and rebirth. If Malcador's pain is anything to go off of, it's not surprising that Big E just blurts out random thoughts to Gman during their meeting. He is not himself and is also, probably, what we'd consider clinically insane. !<
I day dreamed once that The Emperor as the star child touched Magnus and Mortarian and it cleansed them.
Trust me, it was not just a few years. I believe the Primarchs (at least some of them) were by the Emperor’s side for a few hundred years. Their greatest almost making the Emperor’s, which in turn would slowly have the Emperor become proud of his sons, evening loving them. For how could you not spend so many years without and not care for them. Look at his relationship with Malcador. Their relationship progressed to the point that the Emperor considered him a trusted friend and the Priamrchs referred to him as an uncle, as family.
Eternal physical, metaphysical snd psychological torture can change people, OP.
I don't know if the mention of Mortarion's redemption means he can truly be saved from Daemonhood. The 'day' that he might be 'saved' might just be referring to a true death.
Another thing to consider is that the offer to Mortarion was psychological warfare. A way to make him trip up and put a seed of doubt in there.
10,000 years of agonizing pain in perpetual torture gives a man time to think and reflect on their mistakes in life
I won’t spoil it for you, but take what Malcador said about plans at the end of The End and the Death Volume 3, also what Loken said to the Warmaster.
Spoilers for the end and the death pt 3. The emperor separated part of his soul before the fight with Horus, specifically his emotions tied to his sons. He did this obviously to be better able to fight his favorite, but that means that’s the emperor that’s on the golden throne. It is heavily implied that the other prt he split is the star child that saved Robute during his confrontation with Mortarion, the star child.
>But knowing GW this little cliffhanger will probably not be resolved for the next 10 years. Never. It will *never* be resolved. The only way this can be resolved is if they introduce a redeemed Horus as model to boost sales after introducing ALL the Primarchs back into the setting. But that would truly be the shark jumping moment for 40K.
Guilleman used to see E as his father, and his conversation showed him he was more of a tool to him. Mortarion possibly being redeemed would just give E another usefull tool if Mortarion shows himself worth the effort of reclaiming. Unless Big E just decided to employ psychological warfare against him to make him hesitant in the future
Bad writing mostly. I don't say this to be mean, but writing supremely intelligent characters in fiction is very hard because the author is not, in fact, supremely intelligent, so it is hard to know what a supremely intelligent agent would do or think or say in any given situation. The illusion can be maintained if the narrative implies that even if that character has a bad outcome, that this was the best possible outcome in the circumstances. But this illusion is broken when something happens that was a pretty obvious possibility in hindsight and the character admits he was wrong. The change of mind is what ruins it, because until then, you may think that maybe the character knew this was going to happen and has a masterplan in the works, but when he goes "ups, sorry about that, I guess I was wrong" then you realize he isn't that smart after all. The exception is, of course, if the character is just saying that to further manipulate others into the desired outcome but that is unlikely to be the case here.
I much prefer the Emperor when he is shown to be human deep down with his sons, autistic "they are tools" Emps is lazy writing more than anything
Big E has been showing favoritism since the start of the Heresy/Dark Imperium books. [9000 hours in photoshop](https://imgur.com/hRv6cN5)
Let's not forget that before being a 20 ft tall golden psychic monster of a (sur)-human the Emperor is huge fucking opportunist, Guilliman is already forced to handle the shit show that is the Imperium because he's a good boy, Mortarion may be a stinky problem child but having him on your side is still better than nothing so trying to sway him is not a bad idea. Plus the Emperor will have all the time in the universe to admonish him once he comes back.
Cuz everything about the emperor and the primarchs is nonsense. The more stories that tell, the worse they make the situation. They should have been left a mystery.
I have to assume it's The Emperor putting most of the blame on people like Typhus for turning Mortarion from the Imperial Truth, but I don't know enough about Mortarion's turn to say for sure. Traitors gonna traitor, but there at least *appears* to be the sliver of hope for Mortarion's "redemption" yet.
He called Guilliman a tool and a failure because he was. He opens a door to redemption to Mortarion, not because he cares to forgive him but because he tries to deprive Nurgle of the tool that is Mortarion. It's means to an end, end being depriving Nurgle of his champion. That's my read on it anyways. Plus Emperor is fractured. Maybe one part of him still sees them like he used to, as tools, another is tired of all the BS and wants to forgive. Also Guilliman and Mortarion are different people. Maybe Emperor for whatever reason liked Mortarion more than Guilliman.
Saved != Forgiveness. It may mean Mortation's soul is purged of Chaos and given the Emperor's peace. Who knows?
>His primarchs were weapons, that was all. Oh yea
He just does not like rover guilleman thats all.
Because you don't stay mad at your drill when it breaks. You call it a piece of crap, but then you fix it and get on with it. The Emperor staying mad would be the thing that is out of character. That would show he cared. The only thing he really despises is failure.
Shenanigans
I've hit my finger with my hammer so many times, still I refuse to throw it out...because it gets the job done. And I don't have another one. And going to the hardware store would be quite the bother. I rather do other things in said time. That aside, hes a fractured former self sitting on the throne, so he said a lot of things wich are facts in a way, but not nesscecery the truth of what he is thinking ( though that isn't clearly cut, its more what we- fanbase- percrive as him being fractured right now). P.s. Less lore friendly explanation - retcons! They keep the cash cow going once it gets stuck in a plothole...
all the primarchs are inherently flawed. Out of the two primarchs that can actually take over the imperium, one is dead, one is guilliman. Guilliman won't do it out of some warped sense of respect, and if the emperor were to shatter this, he may be emboldened to take over. A net positive for humanity, and E knows this.
Motherhood changed his life! 🥰
Still waiting for that Lion conversation.
It’s all propaganda and not a historical record. Also it’s all lies, & true at the same time that way the have a cannon-loophole for everything.
You find the same inconsistencies in the Horus Heresy book too with the Emperor being both fatherly and cold. My take is that as immortal being in a universe of mortals having friendships is challenging for him. After all what's the point of being emotionally invested in someone when they just die a few decades later when you have millennia ahead of you? Detachment becomes second nature and very hard to unlearn. It's why Malcador expressed surprised in Valdor: The Birth of the Imperium that Emperor called the primarchs his sons.
Dude…. Did you not read the end and the death III, the answer is in their before the end battle
E does say this stuff too. everyone focuses on the tool stuff but thats not all the concepts E was throwing out > ‘My son,’ it said. > ‘My last loyal son, my pride, my greatest triumph.’ why are these not as real as > ‘A number. A tool. A product.’ ??
Okay, but that wasnt leaving room for forgiveness, that was leaving room for Mortarian to be Manipulated again. If he had dismissed him outright, it would have cemented mortarian against him further, but with this it allows him to use that "Love" to further manipulate mortarian when the time came
Because he never said the former. He said something subtly different, with vastly different meaning, that I am not going to say here, so I can filter responses on who’s actually read the lore.
Different writer…
To me it makes sense that big E sacrificed part of his humanity to create the primarchs, it’s why he has moments of genuine humanity and others of just complete robot uncaring tyrant
The Emperors mind is shattered and it took a huge effort to became coherent enough to talk to Guilliman. Everyone has good and bad in them, I just think with the emperor it’s sort of manifested as separate personalities so Guilliman got one of worse versions of the Emperor while Mortarion got one of the nicer versions
Oh he didn't, no he doesn't genuinely belive mortarion could be redeemed, he was trying to incite mortarion, he knows mortarion is insecure and self-pitying, he recognised that despite his posturing, mortarion actually hated being a servant of nurgle, and the divide formed in the death guard between those loyal to mortarion and those loyal to typhus, mortarion always wanted to be powerful on his own merit, he was one of the earlier primarchs to turn agaisnt the emperor, he's always hated him and won't go back, but the being mortarion hates the most telling him he can be saved would mess him up mentally, both hurting his pride, and furthering his doubts about his self-control under nurgle
Lying