Goge Vandire
"Oderint, dum metuant! (Let them hate me, so long as they fear me!)"
- – Caligula
"That name just screams 'I will take your eye sockets, and put my penis into them.'"
- – The Emprah
That's right, his name is Goge Vandire. G-O-G-E Vandire. How much eviler can a name get?
Goge Vandire is a jackass who took control of the Imperium during the Age of Apostasy, holding the positions of Ecclesiarch and Head of the Administratum which is the Imperium version of the pope, at the same time, starting the Reign of Blood. If the Imperium is space Rome, this guy is Caligula, Nero, and Commodus all in one nutty sci-fi package. He was paranoid even by Imperial standards, and his reign saw the murder of many, many civilians. Surveillance servo-skulls on every street corner, random purges for imagined slights, this guy makes Joseph Stalin look friendly and fair-minded. Took a shitload of spess muhreens to take on the dipshit, and even then he only died because his female bodyguards (who may or may not have been his sex slaves as well; some evil dictators in real-life have done that) finally realized he was an asshole and cut off his head, possibly by order of The Emperor himself.
At least he left behind some epic last words of "I don't have time to die; I'm too busy!" which probably was adapted into some nice comedy movies for the Imperial citizenry. A good example of how no matter how bad the Imperium gets, it could always be worse. What a cunt.
Speaking of cunts, the Captain-General has the Emperor’s level of authority when the Emperor is incapacitated or at least does not contradict him. Interesting how he didn’t do shit about this horrorfest until the very end. This may be because the Custodes had locked themselves away from all contact with the outside, in their despair at the Emperor's death. And also because Vandire went to great lengths to ostensibly defer to the Emperor and pretend to speak with His voice, no matter what he did or how absurd. Also the main reason why he managed to remain in power for so long.
Reign of Blood[edit]
Even before taking power (well, even more power), Vandire got his way to becoming Master of the Administratum by back-stabbing, bribery and assassination.
When the current Ecclesiarch died, he managed to wrangle his own choice of Ecclesiarch into the grimdark Vatican, who ended up being the weakest guy to ever serve in the role. Thus when confidence in the church started to plummet he actually had a case for storming the palace, where apparently the space-pope was involved in some sort of debauchery that would put even the Borgias to shame. So he pronounced the Ecclesiarch guilty and took the job himself - what a hero! What isn't explained is how he could become Ecclesiarch if he isn't a member of the Ministorum in the first place. Like usual GW just sort of brushes off the impossible details no one else in the Imperial Senate or the Ecclesiarchy would tolerate. Also something about *BLAM* (he was the Master of the Administratum, after all) and having a disgruntled high-rank Callidus assassin wanting to become Grandmaster on his side to do a lot of discreet dirty work for him in exchange of looking the other way when he organised his own coup.
Ruler of the Imperium[edit]
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially when the guy claiming the power was corrupt already.
Vandire went insane with power (sort of like some other dick), and started claiming that he spoke with the voice of the Emperor himself, basically a "whatever I say, goes" and started getting clerks to write down whatever he said at all times.
He got himself a holographic map of the galaxy and started pointing at it and issuing crazy edicts:
- Purging all gingers from some worlds populations (no, we're not kidding).
- People from some worlds were forbidden from looking at the sky.
- Virus Bombing some planets with gene-viruses to eliminate imagined mutations.
- Taking your eye sockets, and placing his d*ck in them
- Enslaving all female children below 12 years old.
- Setting up Servo-Skulls everywhere to record citizens movements and conversations.
- Deciding that some worlds need their ice caps melted.
- Building effigies of himself hundreds of metres tall. Some of which were bigger than the statues of the Emperor next to them.
Daughters of the Emperor[edit]
When he found the world of San Leor he found a convent of holy sisters called the "Daughters of the Emperor". On his arrival his retainers said to the population that they had to throw him the biggest party EVAR on pain of death. So when he paraded down the streets he was met by the flower petals, incense and crowds singing praises to him (at gunpoint) all caught on pictcast for the rest of the galaxy to see.
When he got to the gate of the convent, they said something along the lines of "No Man May Enter Here" and half the Imperium expected another dead world. But Vandire stayed calm for once and convinced the ladies to let him over the threshold where he would "prove" himself blessed by the Emperor; mostly by brandishing his Rosarius and saying "shoot me" since very few people on that backwater planet will have ever seen a Rosarius before.
Thus he got himself a fanatical army of sexy bolter babes and named them the "Brides of the Emperor".
He also used the Brides of the Emperor for "singing, dancing, and other more exotic skills". So in addition to dictator and space-pope, his job description becomes all the more venerable with the addition "Pimp of the Imperium."*BLAM* The Emprah is the only pimp of the Imperium!
The End[edit]
He ruled for 70 years, up until Sebastian Thor showed up. To make a long story short, everyone from the Space marines to the Custodes was seriously fed up with Vandire's shit and invaded Terra. Vandire quickly ducked into a bunker and left it to the Brides to defend him. To their credit, the Brides were damn good at what they did, dragging Thor's forces in a grueling stalemate, forcing Thor to go with Plan B. The Custodes used their knowledge of Terra's secret passages to sneak behind the Brides' lines, but rather than kill Vandire themselves they talked with the six leaders of the Brides, most famously Alicia Dominica, and convinced them to talk with the Emperor himself instead of the deluded so-called reincarnation. You can guess how that went, and Dominica ordered her sisters to throw down their arms and let Thor's forces in while she confronted Vandire herself.
In his final moments Vandire looked as pathetic on the outside as he had always been on the inside: a cranky twitchy old man frantically scrabbling inane orders on balled-up pieces of paper and not even paying attention to the people about to *BLAM* him. His last words were said to be: "I don't have time to die! I'm too busy!" In honor of finally killing this guy, the Brides were reformed into the Sisters of Battle.
He was a huge dick and got what he had coming. The end. Fuck him.