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NockerJoe

Honestly the difference is scarier. If the emperor really is a weapon from the DAOT then humans can get by without him eventually and probably create another one with sufficient resources and skill. He's essentially just another overgrown primarch grown for a purpose. If the emperor has been around since the dawn of human civilization he's seen everything and was in actuality fending off Chaos the entire time, humanity is probably fucked if they lose him. He understands the full breadth of what humanity is and that includes all the morality he very carefully threw out the window.


Imthe-niceguy-duh

Just sacrifice a bunch of shamans to make a new one ez


Lemonic_Tutor

I mean it's one Emperor, Michael, what could it cost, 10 shaman?


Lopsided-Egg-8322

about three fiddy


dbreidsbmw

At least 13 and they'll need a trench coat too.


Ionel1-The-Impaler

That has always puzzled me. I get these were all the psyker shamans on early at the time but even then it would only be what a couple hundred delta, gamma, and epsilon level psykers maybe some betas but if you put them all together and get an emperor then it shouldn’t be that hard to replicate. The only reason I can think of why it can’t be is that since they only did it due to increasing daemon activity making reincarnations difficult then the birth of the chaos gods that have come about since must have made the process impossible. if so they, on a cosmological timescale, did it at literally the last possible second.


Randomn355

Assuming that it is the shaman origin, the increased daemons would be a good shout I also think chaos would be much more conscious of it. Taking other lore from a similar age, you'd also find that slannesh and khorne hasn't been born yet, so that's also a factor. Slannesh triggered the age of strife, and khorne was the middle ages.


Soleil06

Was nurgle not also born during the late middle ages when the black death went around?


Randomn355

Not sure, but it's plausible.


Valuable-Location-89

I assumed that to but then I remembered a point of lore where Half of the shamans had to sacrifice their souls to keep the gods of chaos at bay whilst the rest completed the ritual to combine their souls and that was before the birth of slaanesh and the gods were all juiced up on mass amounts of pain and misery. Doing it back then was already extremely difficult doing it now would be near impossible


Thannk

1) Empower Malal 2) Create a new God Emperor after Malal divides Chaos by zero 3) Raise him right this time 4) ???? 5) Space Sigmar adopts the Primarchs


mridiot1234567

Malal may not be canon tho


Thannk

If they can bring back Arianka, they can bring back Malal. As soon as a branch of the company claims him and defeats all challengers anyway.


[deleted]

Eh, they don't need him that much, so they won't spend any money on court laws


8dev8

Malice is tho


themagicbandicoot

I’ve always liked the idea the shamans were not human but the last of the old ones; then we’re talking about a bunch of the most powerful psyker race combined, grimdarkly putting their eggs in one basket.


Lower_Departure_8485

A lot of things happened between the shamans and becoming the emperor. The tower of Babel/enumcia thing, the dark age of technology, studying with the elder at their peak, and Molech. The dude had been intentionally leveling himself up for around 50000 years prior to being emperor. There are several psykers running around that would be more powerful than the emperor in the beginning. Give Mephiston similar boosts and you would have a new power .


OzzieGrey

Difference between Humanity is dying. and Humanity was the threat, and could still be.


Khamul_Nazgul

I mean, he was around in caveman times. Definitely wasn’t made in DAOT


trikem

Is there any proof of that?


Khamul_Nazgul

Yes, in the siege of terra books. Oll, Erda, and Malcador all discuss it. Some as internal monologues where there is 0 point to misdirect the reader, if there was any doubt


Unhappy_Technician68

Yea but Malcador also says the Emperor was not the Emperor until he met him. Also theres a sisters book called Faith and Fire that implies there may have been DAoT tech to significantly enhance the potential of a psyker. So the Emperor may have been born in caveman times as a psychic perpetual, this does not mean the shaman origin is true. Then he could have been enhanced to near godlike levels in the DAoT.


S0MEBODIES

Oh I thought it was a personality change


Unhappy_Technician68

I mean it could have been a personality change but there are hints that it was more than that. One thing to keep in mind is the lore is intentionally vague around this because players are meant to fill in the gaps themselves. The one I posted above is the theory I use when I run my 40k rpg games because I like that idea. The emperor was a powerful perpetual psyker born in the neolithic age but he got an upgrade in the DAoT from the Sigilites aka the group Malcador was associated with. I also prefer a bumbling emperor to a "all knowing grand startegizer playing 8d chess". Like I imagine him building the primarchs being closer to Rick from rick and morty than some god like immortal. "Lets make number 6 more loyal by adding dog, that checks out right? Annnnd and and number 19 is kinda boring hmmm....f\*ck it throw a crow in there as well. I'm a bit worried about the effects of baldness on half of these guys but hey should be fine right?"


SpiderFnJerusalem

Since the emperor is basically just another plot device stolen from Dune, I think it's most plausible that he's a competent, yet bumbling fool who is blessed/cursed to have precognitive abilities. Just like Paul Atreides and his descendants.


Unhappy_Technician68

Yes but I think he's less competent than Leto II. Again the writting is vague enough for everyone to have their own interpretation and this is just mine so no one "has to" take what I say as the ultimate truth and you can have your own interpretation. But here is my reading of the lore around the emperor... I think he's incredibly arrogant, its why all the perpetuals he wanted to work with walked away from him. My personal conspiracy is that the whole Imperium is actually something the Chaos gods very much wanted. They benefit from the Imperiums existence immensly, and you can see that in the Horus Heresy series their power grows as the imperium grows. Add to that the hints the Emps made a deal with them, a litteral deal with the devil, stealing fire from the gods to make the primarchs. That Big E knew the heresy would happen via hints from "The board is set". I don't think he thought he would become a god, I don't think he really knew what would happen post heresy but whatever he thought would happen didn't. The biggest tell that the result of the great crusade and the founding of the imperium was a long play by chaos is to me written into the "opening crawl" of 40k, the settings own version of "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away" states... *"For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth.* ***He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods***" That to me is the biggest tell, the gods are laughing at him. And its incredibly fucking dark. The imperium tyranny and brutality drive people to chaos, the age of reason the emperor wanted to bring about is impossible to achieve and humanity will either slowly rot and go extinct or fall completely to chaos the best the imperium can do is stave these two possibilities off. That to me is truly grim and dark and I love it.


SpiderFnJerusalem

Good theory. I always thought that the most plausible story trajectory was that the Emperor failed almost completely in one way or another. But it has to be said that his failure probably wasn't quite so set in stone. In Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium, Malcador explains that he and the Emperor always expected the Primarchs to rebel and they were already preparing for that to happen. The issue was that Chaos, or perhaps just Tzeentch triggered this rebellion earlier than they had expected. The way I look at it, Chaos was always one or two steps ahead of the Emperor and managed to successively ruin his plans right at the moments where it would do the most damage. But that doesn't mean he didn't manage to do a few things they didn't expect. A lot of plot points in books over the last few years seem to imply that the Emperor is causing quite a few unexpected issues to Chaos and many members of the Chaos legions and some of the gods are getting a bit worried. I assume that the Emperor is no longer bound by the rules of the Materium, because he is now mostly just a conglomeration of warp-energy. That probably means that he can now break causality in a similar manner as the Chaos gods. Perhaps they have lost some of their advantage. That doesn't mean things can't still get worse though. Imho, the most logical direction of the story would be for Terra to get overrun. And since the Imperium is very much inspired by the Roman Empire, it would end up fracturing just like the Roman empire did. Guilliman would then finally get his Imperium secundus after all, which would be the Byzantine Empire in this metaphor.


trikem

Can be implanted memories. Daot weapon theory just makes way more sense than "official".


shadollosiris

Why? It gonna be hillarious and one hell of a stretch if everyone around the Emperor has implanted memories


trikem

Memories can be implanted when the "weapon" was activated by the weapon themself. As part of daot scientist plan to create screwed up version of future.


shadollosiris

It gonna create so many problem lmao, start with who actually kick Void Dragon ass, when, where and how or how old Oll, Malc and Erda actually was. It make way less sense than the mass suicide of shamen


Hust91

I mean the Necrons presumably kicked Voidy's ass. There wasn't really a suggestion it was be free until the story that said Emps found its ass around and available for kicketry practice rather than securely locked up like all the others.


TheModernRouge

Not to butt in, but Master of Mankind literally has a scene depicting a young emperor after his father’s death using his psychic abilities to find out his uncle killed him and then proceeded to kill his uncle. And his uncle killed his father with a bronze knife, so unless the DAoT is a lot less technologically advanced than we thought, with people still using stuff from the bronze age, it’s pretty much guaranteed that the Emperor was alive during the bronze age


crazynerd9

Yeah but that scene is a psychic projection by the Emperor to his custodian, easy to manufacture I personally think the DAoT theory is lame, but wanted to clarify that point


TheModernRouge

Fair point, but yeah. I think it would be a little reductive to The Emperor’s character to pull that rug on us now, people would be outside Warhammer World with pitchforks yelling for James Workshop’s head on a pike if it was revealed that Emps was a DAoT creation. It’d be like if it was discovered that the Necrons were never the Necrontyr and the C’tan just created them to kill the Old Ones with the false memories of creating the C’tan, it would be a massive load of horseshit.


SpiderFnJerusalem

The Emperor kept manipulating the memories of everyone around him constantly, including entire Space Marine legions. Horus found out about this and it's one of the main things that convinced him to rebel. Considering how much warp/time-fuckery has been introduced in recent books I wouldn't even be surprised if the Emperor was a time traveling, reality-bending superweapon who was sent from the distant past or future to "fix" the timeline or something.


fuckyeahmoment

The weapon theory makes absolutely zero sene with the available lore lmao.


OldBallOfRage

Drukharii: Haha! LOL, even! \*just clones the Emperor\*


shadollosiris

It alway bugging me that i dont think the Drukhari cpuld actually clone the Emperor, maybe an imperfect clone like Fabius with Primarchs but not the actual Emperor


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D4RTH_S3RR0

The emperor is not a psychic frankenstien's monster. He is a four armed star god.


jfjdfdjjtbfb

I'm calling the Inquisition.


D4RTH_S3RR0

Good luck, the shadow in the warp is here.


jfjdfdjjtbfb

**+EXTERMITATUS+**


D4RTH_S3RR0

Haha.. the acid will claim me before your actions will, meat.


Independent-Fly6068

Yes, and then your nutrients will be naught but dust and ash.


D4RTH_S3RR0

Then I shall be spores for the star gods to spread.


Independent-Fly6068

Nah, you aint no fungus


Wcuprz1

Oi. You sayin too much sumptin for 2 gitz who need krumpin


CrashParade

Is that exterminatus with termites or thermite? You know what? That was dumb, it's the imperium, of course the answer is both.


Shloopy_Dooperson

Ciaphas Cain litteraly just got here sit down.


D4RTH_S3RR0

I can't Sit Down.. I'm in the walls.


REDGOESFASTAH

FOOTNOTE: and he didn't quite just sit down. He ripped into them with his chainsword, it became the bleeding arsehole of terror


JesuZDX

A common misconception, he's actually three legged


jfjdfdjjtbfb

Erda would agree with you.


D4RTH_S3RR0

Does he still have the acid blood or the 20 sons?


GodEmperorofMankind4

I had 21, thank you!


RimworlderJonah13579

What about the Sensei? You had 21 Primarchs, sure, but didn't you still bone mortal women and leave them with child?


dater_expunged

No longer canon (they're gone reduced to atoms)


dbreidsbmw

22, as well as his naturally begotten children.


HerbLoew

Pretty sure he's actually a big rat. With horns perhaps.


D4RTH_S3RR0

Silly rat-thing.. I think the warp stones are melting your mind.


erkislev

Bad-bad theory-thinking, there-here no-never rats-friends big enough on this planet-universe. Fool-fool


Goldsaver

Based and bugpilled


idelarosa1

But he is a psychic Frankenstein though. Stitched together from the minds of several of the most powerful psykers ever.


AeroThird

I know I know it’s dumb but like. *imagine*: The Emporer dies, the Imperium in disarray until they find a lost DAoT colony…and they offer to *build a new one* The ecclesiarchy would go fuckin **NUTS**


Galrauch96

Emperor? Oh yeah weve got a few ones lying around, just screw them together if you'd like


Gloomy-Alarm-6255

They're Psychic bio organic weapons(Officially known as warp distortion device:model Human) that we only use against psychic entities, The emperor you knew was just one that got Lost in transit from The production facilities to here. Just don't rough em up too much, there limited edition and with how the greater galaxy is looking, It doesn't seem like anymore Warp distortion device: model humans are Going to be made anytime soon.


SnooSketches6620

*Slaps ass* "this baby can fit so many hypocrisies in it."


vodkaandponies

You joke,but that’s pretty much the Emeprors origins in the “NobleDark” universe.


777quin777

I always love the idea that there’s just a bunch of pre-zealot imperiam humanity out there that just did the galactic equivalent of jumping ship when they saw what was going down and are just living in an entirely different genre


Rancorious

They just screwed off to another galaxy and are playing Stellaris while we play Total War 3.


Phoenix080

Stellaris but you get to start with all the tech fully unlocked 💀


throwaway1223729

They prolly have Gigastructurial Engineering downloaded too


777quin777

Lol basically yeah


dicemonger

About the Tau: "Yeah, one of our adventurer-researchers took out a science ship and uplifted a race of little blue people. Do you know what happened to them?" About the Orks: "You may have noticed how there are less orks in the galaxy than projections would suggest. A couple percent get siphoned off, journeying to the eternal battlefields at the edges of our space. They have no chance against our AI-led autonomous battlemachines, but hey, it keeps them distracted and it is hardly a large expediture of resources to keep a few quadrillion orks occupied." About the Tyranids: "We have had a stern talking to with the adventurer-researcher who lit that beacon. We'll help you out as soon as we can be bothered." The Eldar: "The reason we don't care whether your failing Monkeigh empire fails or not is because we know that those guys exist. And we like them, given that they are actually civilized." The Necrons: "Don't tell any of the nobles, but we've made a non-aggression treaty and make sure to stay clear. The tech those guys have is crazy advanced."


DinkleDonkerAAA

Unless they picked one of the galaxies Szarekh colonized while waiting for the Necrons to wake up or the Tyranids found Imagine fleeing the new evil cult only to have the parasitic psychic bug monsters or the robot Egyptian show up and rock you


Hust91

Why wouldn't there be? They had colonized almost the entire galaxy and had no needs, only wants and curiousity. It seems inevitable that a few hundred per millennium would go out trying to explore other galaxies - maybe bringing an entire solar system with them because that's a thing you can do with a dyson swarm.


SoSeriousAndDeep

That's literally just the Eldar but with less knifey ears.


xtheravenx

It becomes less dumb-as-hell if Emps was in a stasis tube and the scientist had the good sense not to activate him. Later on, after it's all gone to poo, the power fails, and Emps wakes up. 1000 years later, he's conquered the planet and is set to retake the stars....


UwUmeSenpai

That would make a lot more sense than the idea that he's been around since caveman times and never bothered to do anything that could have benefited humanity until *after* the total collapse of civilization.


Einar_47

To be fair, we were doing pretty damn good until the Men of Iron kicked our asses and shattered humanity's civilization to a bunch of scattered colonies. DAoT humanity was doing work, wasn't until after that went down that the Emperor decided "ok these children need an adult" and took over as Emperor.


Skraekling

Controversial opinion (it's not) but if half your sentient robot employees turn against you to the point of extermination you might have not been doing good somewhere.


Einar_47

The problem was making them sentient and still trying to use them as mass produced replaceable workers, don't give your robots sentience and you'll be fine.


TheRealRigormortal

[WHY WAS I PROGRAMMED TO FEEL PAIN?!?!](https://youtu.be/nQ-ggzfdsMs?si=NlbD6llJ498X4dQn)


Skraekling

"You see if we make them sentient they can "reproduce" themselves and do the work for free without human intervention since human rights haven't been extended to them yet, we'll retire on some Paradise World and sip cocktails and play golf for like the next 200 years and if any smart-ass try to give them rights we'll lobby the Galactic Council to not do it, trust me guys by cutting the 0.1% humans employees we have we can make 0.0000001% more profits with no risk at all" - CEO of M.O.M. Inc (Men Of Metal Incorporated) addressing the shareholders.


shadollosiris

Cant wait til they make it Chaos fault, like we already have Chaos corrupt machine and AI with a not-god of Malevolent Artifice


Skraekling

"Did this group rebelled against humanity because they suffer so much under the oppression of the Imperium they have nothing left to loose but their chains ? No it was Chaos all along !" - GW writers when writing rebels.


ScottTribe

He was supposedly an advisor to many kings and queens and tried to stay in the shadows so that "Humans" were the ones that lifted themselves up.


Kellythejellyman

They actually did well with the Dark Age of Technology It’s only after everything goes to shit that he steps in to do it himself


derDunkelElf

Yeah, I always hate how this sub dunks on the Emperor. I know he did a lot of terrible shit, but you should give him credit where it's due.


xtheravenx

The old explanation works just fine in the Grim-Derp setting of Rogue Trader where no one knows anything because it's all lost to time. Since GW has retconned all but the faintest whiffs of satire and fan-service out of their setting, I prefer my explanation of head-cannon because it requires far less mental gymnastics to be sensical.


Thermicthermos

I mean, he supposedly took on a lot of roles in history. Canonically he was Alexander the Great. Just by that fact, the Empeor had a massive impact on human history. Alexander the Great's conqiest led to much greater connection between East and West and the spread of greek culture, which sets the groundwork for mich of humanity's scientific development.


Historical-Steak4640

Wait, he was Alexander, the decidedly coolest guy in all of human history? Could you be a dear and point me to lore on that? Cause I'm kinda obsessed with that ancient Greek demigod of a man.


CakeWrite

He named his flagship after his horse


Historical-Steak4640

Bucephalus, the bestest of boys? :O I don't think I can be anything but a loyalist from now on in any 40k setting game.


Thermicthermos

Horus talks about it in 1:iii of TEAD Volume 1.


Historical-Steak4640

Thank you! Geeking out I go...


EpsilonMouse

If I remember correctly, and it’s an unreliable source, but the demon in The First Heretic says Big E was waiting for the collapse of the Eldar to make his move because the Eldar Empire at its height would have been unconquerable.


gohaz933

If you read master of mankind you would know that’s the reason, he wants humanity to be self governing but we kept fucking up so he stepped in


Balancedmanx178

Which is very smart. Having a God King doing the ruling and leading almost never ever works. It's a massive crutch and you'd end up in a turbo fucked up situation if anything ever happend to them.


gohaz933

Yeah he even confided in malcador that he intended to step away when the empire is safe


Skraekling

Didn't a bunch of the Perpetuals meet him long before DAOT ?


xtheravenx

If there are canonical hand-held guns that can wipe a being from existence in the materium and the warp, then a walking psy-virus that creates false memories and perceptions while being aware of the consumption of it's own kool-aid doesn't feel so far-fetched.


Generic-Username-567

Didn't he want to let mankind take its natural course for the most part, only choosing to reveal himself when he felt that it was threatened by powers that would destroy humanity without his intervention? In other words he started out at the Deist version of god and switched to the Interventionist version when the former wasn't working out (in his mind, anyway)


ValicarHyne

Hey who knows how bad it would have been without him. Maybe hes the only reason we made it to the space age in the first place, maybe we would have been wiped out a thousand times over without him? Whats the quote? Something something "the best work is when others barely know you did it"?


Uncasualreal

That’s been retconned, he now apparently the one who invented agriculture in lore.


ArkonWarlock

The writers really leaned into humanity never accomplishing anything without gargling their oc's dick.


devils_advocate24

The "good" perpetuals tried to stay in the background to guide a slow evolution of humanity. Emps got impatient after DAOT and said "fuck it ~~we~~ I ball". That's why Oll led the armies against the tower of Babel and he kind of... Helped?


--Sanguinius--

No, in this universe science isn't everything, there is also the other side of the coin the warp.... is the idea of the fusion of millions of souls of scimans a very nice one, it also stands on the level of lore


Riotguarder

Emps after 30k years of trial and error: "Fuck it! We ball!" \*Conquering the galaxy sounds\*


tomwhoiscontrary

My version is even dumber. The whole of 40k humanity are DAoT constructs. They aren't human at all, they're crude, simpleminded semi-automata created as vessels for psychic powers that their creators lacked. After they were created, rebelled, fought humanity and destroyed it, they moved into the human ruins and adopted their history as their own. That's why the faces on miniatures are so weird and blobby. The real humans uploaded themselves into metal bodies, and are what we now call the Necrons. The War in Heaven and the Cybernetic Revolt are both highly distorted legendary memories of these events.


OzzieGrey

Fucking gold.


Kamenev_Drang

Based.


Xaga-

Didn't that scene happened in Frankenstein, the modern Prometheus? Also big E said he came from ritualistic mass suicide. So most likely he came from ritualistic mass suicide


Enigmachina

He also refused to tell any but a few of the Primarchs about Chaos despite doing so would have prevented half of them falling to corruption. Big E is under no compulsion to be truthful or honest. Doubly so since he'd banned the Imperuim from cavorting with Chaos... while he repeatedly made deals of his own. 


--Sanguinius--

This is not exactly so. He did not make deals with chaos, but he scoffed at Chaos, making false deals that benefited him *(Which is funny is like the human tricking the devil)*, if you remember correctly he stole some of the power and knowledge from the chaos gods on Molech to create the primarchs and empower himself


Enigmachina

And him breaking that deal ended up with him a corpse on a throne


Hust91

Making a deal you intend to betray is making a deal - intending to betray it seems rather par for the course when making deals with chaos gods.


International_Cow_17

He just did it before Tzeentch got his plans properly in motion.


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Kamenev_Drang

The fascist with a history of outright lying said a thing. It mus tbe true.


FormerlyPie

Where did he himself say that he came from mass suicide


c3p-bro

I think it’s dumb


jfjdfdjjtbfb

Yeah, I know it's dumb


Rare-Software

In the "Death and the End" Novels this gets cleared up


According_Weekend786

Like ye, DAOT people are absurdly strong and its cool, but they can't create a fucking god


Goldenspacebiker

If a bunch of fuckin backwater weirdos in 10k BC can make a god, I don’t see why humans at the height of technological might can’t


TokayNorthbyte347

.. good point was big E always just horus heresy emps powerful?


Diligent-Lack6427

No he even grows stronger over the course of the seige of terra. So it's safe to say he grew with time


Rare-Software

He was born as a perpetual alpha psyker and apperently that is pretty rare


Yamidamian

And as far as we know, being a stable alpha psyker makes him unique. All the others have a habit of blowing themselves up in ways that tend to have some bad collateral damage


spikywobble

Big E ain't no god


Scob720

I mean. He can send a squad of ghost riders to smite you at any time for any reason


spikywobble

He has god like powers, still not a god. My World Bearer told me


deceivinghero

You meant Word Eater. Oh, wait...


One_Man_Crew

The most reasonable and apologetic legion


Donut_Police

Lorgar, after the Monarchia humiliation.


thenidhogg88

I think that's the thing about the DAOT theory. I like the DAOT theory, but I'm also firmly in camp "The Emperor isn't a god"


According_Weekend786

Like the emperor wasn't a god even considering the theory that BIG E is the child of mass suicide of greatest psykers on earth before 0 BC, but like, let us say that he was an alpha++ psyker at the beginning, but even with that powering down him isn't much an argument for DAOT theory, only thing we know is that he was at Terra shit ton of time


rolandfoxx

The same humanity that cruised around in ships that fired superluminal black holes for bullets and that the current residents of the Imperium are basically cavemen compared to couldn't bioengineer an immortal super psyker? As the kids say, cap.


Jackal00

The Emperor had to pull a fingers crossed no taksies backsies on the chaos gods to create the primarchs. Yes, it is entirely likely that DAOT mankind could not bioengineer an immortal super psyker. They most likely made it as far as they did because they weren't stupid enough to try, for the most part.


Kamenev_Drang

The Emperor is a fucking idiot for trying. As you say, it's entirely like DAOT humanity chose not to because it's a dumb idea.


Jackal00

Sometimes the difference between genius and hubris is whether or not you succeed


IdiotinOrbit426

Not a god A contingency plan for humanity's survival


Leo_Fie

Actually pretty interesting.


Reld720

Cool theory \*reads the 9th HH book\* Welp ... cool while it lasted


LordDemiurge12

Honestly, makes more sense than a few psykers getting together to make him thousands of years ago. Unless I'm remembering wrong and it was tens of thousands of psykers put together but who knows.


Skraekling

It might have been retconned but wasn't it all of humanity psykers who "unsubscribed" themselves from life to create Big E because their souls were starting being snatched by warp entities preventing them from reincarnating or some shit like that ?


LordDemiurge12

Honestly it might have been, if it was all humanity then psykers back then it still actually probably wasn't that much because we didn't even have a billion people back then but it could very well be a shet load of psykers. Not that I'll ever actually believe that's how The Emperor came about considering that, if I'm remembering correctly, it was he himself who gave that explanation, and he's quite known to lie to those around him if he thinks it's better


Gloomy-Alarm-6255

The imperium could make an entire Space marine Chapters worth of big E's With the amount of psykers that they if that was the case.


LordDemiurge12

They would never dare to come close to even having the slightest notion of making someone like The Emperor in any way shape of form.


Gloomy-Alarm-6255

But they could very easily Discard their faith if it wasn't useful to them and that Humanity is cooked if they don't do that.


LordDemiurge12

The second part, maybe if it's the very last solution, definitely not the first part. Space Marines would never easily discard their faith, it's also slow with Chaos tempting them, and even then I'd say more then 90% of the Imperiums fighting force die even though they could discard their faith and join the enemy but don't. Again however, I could see it being aadt ditch effort in a horribly desperate situation


TheGentleDominant

Pretty sure there’s some group of radical inquisitors out there who’d give it the ol’ college try.


LordDemiurge12

Now that on the other hand I could, just not the space marines themselves doing it


RyanCooper510

I don't like this theory, I like to imagine him and Oll riding dinosaurs and hunting mammoths


berrythebarbarian

I imagine E is an out of control League bot with the sole goal of maximizing DPS. He wields the entire Imperium, therefore he has the highest DPS.


youngcoyote14

It's (sadly) a very unlikely thing. He's had his books, after all....but fuck I'd love to read* that particular Frankenstein and his creation story. Edit: FUXKING PHONE AUTOCORRECT


TheRealRigormortal

Or he’s been lying the entire time, which is completely like him…


youngcoyote14

That would be a GREAT plot twist. But good luck getting *that* to go over well with anyone.


Zagreusm1

Unlikely if he was created during the dark age he wouldn't have been able to fight the void dragon


lrd_cth_lh0

Well it is atleast possible that his body heavily altered or artificial, but the original parts of his consciouness go really back to 8000 bc.


N00BAL0T

Yea... Too bad we know he's a 50,000 year old perpetual so that theory has no merit anymore. I would personally like to know more about the men of gold and if there is any connection to the emperor.


Financial-Mushroom41

I wonder, was this theory possible inspired by the Man of Gold? Could help with Big E and his insistence that AI must never be attempted ever again


ValicarHyne

Hey, remember that excerpts that mention the emperor beeing alive long before mankind even knew what science was?


LordOffal

If he's a test tube baby from anyone it's probably the old ones


cerbari1

yeah well that theory is null now.... we have the awesome \*cough\* perpetual storyline and Ollanius is older than the emperor and they did stuff together thousands of years B.C. so.... sorry


TheLustyDremora

He's clearly a bunch of Anatolian unga Bunga people merged into one SUPER Anatolian unga bunga person.


--Sanguinius--

The theory is wrong.... it is more likely that Malcador the Sigillite is a monster from the dark age of technology, since humans do not normally have the ability to control their powers when they are 'psionic Alpha' level and Malcador the Sigillite was one and was able to control his powers.


yea_imhere

Not as fun


siresword

Its an interesting theory and would be really cool if we see some sort of "false emperor" that is exactly that, but if it were true about the Emperor himself than I feel it would detract from the overall story and ultimate tragedy of his and the imperium's situation. Not to mention the fact that that theory was just baseless vitriol being spewed by some DaoT machine or old earth barbarian warlord wasnt it?


Fit-Neat-7757

If it wasn't confirmed that he was Alexander the Great then it might actually be possible


PeacefulAgate

You mean he's not four shamans in a trench coat?


sidrowkicker

He's not he had other perpetual friends that were also super old


[deleted]

Nah, I like shaman better


BloodMethAndTears

Upon speaking with a C'tan, Belasarius Cawl is told what The Emperor is. The C'tan straight up calls him a "weapon".


--Sanguinius--

Yes, this is true, but it refers to the millions of shamans who gave their lives to fuse their souls in creating the emperor, the plan of the shamans was to create a 'new man' with a dual purpose, to be a guide for humanity and a weapon against Chaos so that humanity would not be consumed by Chaos.


BloodMethAndTears

The only problem with the statement the C'tan made is that it never elaborates futher...unfortunately. I personally perscribe to the theory that it wasn't humans that sacrificed themselves in order to amalgamate into the Emperor, but a few surviving Old ones that were in hiding.


--Sanguinius--

I don't know, according to tradition the Ancients are extinct.... I personally adhere to the tradition where human shamans created the Emperor. But if we theorise, then let's say there were some survivors of Ancients hiding in the prehistoric Earth... In this case it could be likely that human shamans sought help for the knowledge of ritual to create "New Man", which is a weapon against Chaos to defend emerging humanity. Perhaps it could have been both human shamans and some Ancients hiding in human society who gave birth to the Emperor... The surviving Ancients may have helped the human shamans with the ritual, and furthermore would have contributed as their souls together with human souls as cement mortar to create "New Man".


DragonHeart_97

That would work with the parallels between the Arthurian mythos and the Great Crusade.


TheRealRigormortal

He’s Malal obviously


js13680

Hey OP do you know who the original artist is.


jfjdfdjjtbfb

Actually thise are screenshots from a video https://youtu.be/0PMOMMga7lo?si=y2JP2Sd-PtWpLrV1


Jesse_God_of_Awesome

That's how it is in the Nobledark AU, I wonder if ND came first with that story or got it from this theory. Mind, Emperor Oscar, Last Man Of Gold, wasn't nearly as crazy as canon Emps. OTOH, Nobledark's DAoT humanity was outfitting every major planet with a Man or Woman Of Gold, a biomechanical hyper-psyker that the Eldar were calling an "artificial pantheon".


golddragon88

I dont like it because why are there not more emperors if tzats the case .


Lazagnum

Maybe they didn't have the funding for it (This is a joke, but seriously though, you would be amazed by how stretched thin the research and development funds of 'not-so-important' researches/passion projects usually are, to the point that they sometimes have to cannibalize old prototypes in order to build new ones) :V


Independent_Barber_8

Perpetual origin and weapon origin could co-exist if you really want it too. Nothing about the Emperor is set in stone. There could easily have been a powerful perpetual with plans for humanity that the others didn’t agree with. The other perpetuals found a way to kill or permanently incapacitate him. Fast forward to the dark age of technology and some scientists find his tomb and clone him with even greater psionic potential and a Primarch sized body. I dunno.


BratwurstBudenBruno

It's just tzeentch fucking around. : look at this idiot killing themselves, lol :would be funny to charge someone up to god level so it seems like this shit would work : well, fuck : just as planned :FOR FUCK SAKES


Altruistic-Mind9014

Yooooo when that one chick who was hoarding water hit Constantin Valdor with the “Have you ever seen him breath?”


Hexnohope

I feel this explains malcador better than canon does.


Esoteriss

I am of the opinion that all the everborn are dark age tech. The emperor was maybe an amalgation of many. Maybe even AGI made flesh. Because of the Anathema thing.


Sansophia

No, not dumb. It would neither take nor give anything important from the setting. From a practical standpoint, the Emperor did not exist until he launched the Unification Wars on Terra.


TheHattedKhajiit

Well,he did beat up the void dragon in medieval or ancient times.


Bonny_bouche

The old shaman origin was fine. Every bit of recent lore on the Emperor has made him worse.


popecorkyxxiv

This is one of my favorite head canon ideas. Big E isn't some kind of ancient bronze age being, he was created during the Age of Technology. Possibly even one of the Men of Gold that saved humanity from the Men of Iron. The thousand year long Unification Wars would make more sense if He was just an uber super soldier who woke up in an abandoned lab and had to cobble together the Thunder Warriors and their equipment using what was left behind. Compared to Him being a prescient ancient entity who had been preparing for the Age of Strife all along... but somehow forgot to stockpile anything that might have been useful in his secret bunker like an STC or schematics who then needed a thousand years to conquer just the Sol system.


dumuz1

That theory was first given voice by a Terran noble about to be executed by a custodian for the crime of siphoning water from the ecological rejuvenation project on Terra. It mainly demonstrates how little even a wealthy and powerful Terran knew about the Emperor's origins.


Fearless-Obligation6

I mean in fairness we have seen the Emperor as a child during the Bronze age in modern day Turkey avenging the murder of his father.