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Ynnead

2020-01-29T18:36:08Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* Phoenix Rising */

{{cleanup}}
{{heresy}}

[[File:Ynnead2.PNG|400px|thumb|right|Yncarne, the avatar of Ynnead about to wreck [[Slaanesh]]'s shit and devour souls ([[Skub|We will leave it at that, trust us its complicated]]). Also has an uncanny resemblance to late musician David Bowie in ''Labyrinth''.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"><span style='color:#32C6A6;font-size:100%'> I am Death and Resurrection born anew! - Ynnead's motto in the 41st Millennium'''</span></div>

{{topquote|What fool would plan to defeat their enemy by dying forever themselves?|Asdrubael Vect}}

'''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. Ha! [[Just as planned|Bet you can't unsee that now!!!!]] ([[Cegorach|Cegorach pls]])). He was previously more of a concept than an actual being, representative of what may be the last hope of the Eldar against their eternal enemy, [[Slaanesh]] - and possibly Chaos in its entirety.

== Overview ==
When Slaanesh was born, she devoured most of the Eldar race, and their souls, and most of their gods, and basically caused a lot of things to get badly screwed up, making a terrible mess in the toilet afterwards that the Eldar were forced to mop up. The crap on the wall that won't scrub off was that the surviving Eldar found Slaanesh was constantly hungering for their souls, laying in wait for the moment when any member of their race died to completely consume them. In the past the Eldar believed that when they died, their soul would be reincarnated - with Slaanesh's coming, the Eldar's ability to reincarnate disappeared. To save themselves from this fate, the Craftworld Eldar use [[spiritstone]]s to trap their souls upon death. The spiritstone is then used to intern the soul within the Infinity Circuit of a Craftworld, next to a carefully placed egg timer, where the soul is free to roam around and commingle with the other Eldar souls of the Craftworld.

As more souls over time have been added to the infinity circuits, the Eldar [[Farseer]]s perceived something stirring from this collection of souls; this was Ynnead, a god formed from untainted Eldar souls and the power of [[Asuryan]], the king of the Eldar gods, who passed on his power to the Farseers of the Eldar before he was devoured by Slaanesh. The Farseers believed that when the last Craftworld Eldar dies, Ynnead will be fully born and will rise up to cast down Slaanesh, destroying him/her/it forever. It's unknown whether this would have been feasible or not considering Slaanesh's immense power, but Ynnead represented the Eldar race's last, best hope for a better future, and so all their efforts went toward making him as strong as possible.

Worship of Ynnead was, and likely remains, pretty controversial among the Aeldari, as would be expected of xenos modeled on the "dying elder race" shtick. Death is literally his entire purpose and portfolio, and the species that alternately worships and reviles him is coming increasingly closer to extinction - about as permanent of a death as you can get in this universe. [[Grimdark|Their last and best hope is essentially a gamble involving the soul of every single Eldar, alive or dead, on the off chance that they ''might'' be rid of Slannesh forever, and if that fails...]]

Those who accept Ynnead have the following point of view: Ynnead is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead. Or at least he will be, as he is currently being created. He is in godly limbo at the moment while the Eldar try to amass enough pure souls, or at least souls that have overcome petty desires, in the various [[Craftworld]]s' [[Infinity Circuit]]s which are bonded together by the Eternal Matrix that links all the Infinity circuits and World Spirits together through the Webway, to give him enough mojo to become a proper god.

With the release of the Gathering Storm, it turns out that the Ynnead is [[Emprah|anathema]] to the Chaos Gods and they are actually afraid of it - yeah, and Khorne wears high heels. On the other hand, Slaanesh has already been put on a bus in Age of Sigmar (Never mind he's getting some new stuff already) and Ynnead is a pretty good way to put Slaanesh on a bus in 40k too.

Other Aeldari see the worshipers of Ynnead as a misguided [[Heresy|heretical]] death cult who are risking the souls of the Aeldari race on a gamble. It also doesn’t help that the Yncarne bears more than a passing resemblance to Slaanesh.[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/30/24th-sept-grim-dark-corners-the-aeldari-pantheongw-homepage-post-2-gw-homepage-post-3/ 1]

Basically, Ynnead is the Eldar's last hope against [[Slaanesh]]. '''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. He's alive (for a given value) and active now, but this is new fluff and as always in WH40k the Eldars' plan did [[Not As Planned|not survive]] contact with reality.

Slaanesh was born out of unbridled hedonism, giving them the theme of extreme pleasure. Ynnead is born out of the dead post-fall Eldar who are vengeful but still optimistic stuck-ups, so Ynnead would theoretically be born out of the Eldar's [[Khorne|vengeance]] and [[Tzeentch|hopes]] for a better tomorrow. Assuming it follows the same process as Slaanesh; Ynnead probably won't go rogue and will follow the main purpose of its creation. Probably.

Could the Eldar have simply had a bunch of Farseers, Warlocks, and Exarchs of each Path commit ritual suicide to reincarnate as an Eldar-Emperor being like the ancient human shaman did in outdated fluff? Probably, but these are Eldar. Their whole schtick is being cowardly pussy-tards. They would probably be too afraid of failing and being eaten to take such a chance. Or worse, it succeeds inside Slaanesh, further strengthening the abomination. That sounds about right for 40K.

Something to consider: Ynnead is a very different god than any other active entity in the setting. All of the other gods are immortal beings of perpetual nature. They are always focused on the concept of being endless, be it stagnation, warfare, evolution or excess. Only The Emperor shares a base concept with Ynnead, which is the concept of finality. Ynnead is the god of Death, and death is by its very concept a mortal thing, making it impossible for the Chaos gods to comprehend. So few demons are truly destroyed that the ruinous powers don’t actually view the concept beyond something mortals do in their spare time, and facing mortality would be such an alien concept that it would make them fear its existence. Ynnead was able to negate the position of Slaanesh, the disease of nurgle, the sorceries of Tzeench and stop the senseless conflict of Khorne. Its very existence is the possibility of ending them, and so they fear what they cannot understand. Ynnead may be small now, but if it ever gains enough power the Chaos gods will have major problems.

==The Gathering Storm==
Surprise! Instead of sucking up all the dead Eldar souls, Ynnead is prematurely "born" during the 13th Black Crusade following the fall of [[Cadia]]. [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] attempts to summon him early by stealing the fossilized bodies of all the dead Farseers from all the Craftworlds, and conducting an elaborate ritual on a crystal moon. It gets fucked up by the [[Deathwatch]], and only a tiny fraction of Ynnead enters the Materium.

After searching through space, this fragment discovers [[Yvraine]]. Due to her history, she was considered the ultimate expression of being Eldar because apparently the true Eldar are supposed to travel all the paths of life, even the dark ones. With her is the [[Visarch]], a former [[Exarch]] of the Dire Avengers who trained Yvraine and had his heart broken when she chose to leave rather than succeed him. He ended up sneaking into Comorragh, pretended to be an [[Incubi|Incubus]], and fought his way to Yvraine after she unlocked the power of '''The Sword of Sorrows''', one of the severed fingers of [[Morai-Heg]] forged into a sword by [[Vaul]]. The Visarch would later get his own sweet croneblade, '''The Sword of Silence''', when it was pulled from the heart of Craftworld Biel-Tan.

Together, Yvraine and the Visarch become the prophets of Ynnead, preaching that not ALL the Eldar have to die for Ynnead to be born. This ends up fracturing Eldar society at all levels, and Biel-Tan ends up tearing itself apart over whether or not this is actually Eldar [[heresy]]. The destruction of Biel-Tan causes all kinds of Warp holes to tear themselves into existence around the ruins, and Ynnead births an Avatar through them known as the Yncarne (get the pun?), the one-horned ghost-fire model that's been making the rounds in photos of the latest White Dwarf.

Yvraine, Visarch, and Yncarne are now gathering [[Ynnari|an army of all the branches of the Eldar race]] who believe they can fight Chaos without all having to hara-kiri, while those who don't believe in Ynnead are preparing to kill all the heretics for daring to alter the fate of the Eldar. Eldrad himself is imprisoned and placed on trial by the Eldar Inquisition, because he's not Eldar enough, and proposed, after his failure to birth Ynnead, allying with the [[Imperium of Man]] to defeat Chaos once and for all. Even if the other Eldar don't like the idea of becoming best buddies with the Imperium they still reluctantly agreed that they are still the best of a bad bunch, what with the other options being either the [[Orks]] or [[Tau]] both of who are either too "young" (translated as to naïve and inexperienced to face the forces of Chaos and lack the incredible power of any major faction) or simply too uncooperative and uncouth to be allied with (basically ever alien that isn’t a devoted Imperial citizen ordered to cooperate), that didn't stop Yvraine from helping to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]], so perhaps an actual alliance may be possible.

It may also be that Ynnead simply disagrees with the stupidity of not allying with the only faction both willing and able and actively doing something against chaos. It could also be possible that once Guilliman gets in charge the Imperium will stop killing everything that isn't human and start killing everything that is a demon with them. And then realize they should have been rushing to wipe out the non-protectorate aliens as quickly as possible as the Imperium fights aliens for survival. Killing daemons while aliens assrape the Imperium is a bad idea and the xenos can be killed off far more quickly and easily, best to get that out of the way first.

==Phoenix Rising==
The Ynnari still spend most of their efforts attempting to rally the disparate eldar factions to Ynnead's cause, but for the most part are still facing stiff resistance from most of the major Craftworlds. What remains of Biel-Tan and Ulthwe still staunchly oppose joining the Ynnari due to them being responsible for the Fracture and Eldrad stealing everyone's crystallized Farseers for his ritual to awaken Ynnead, respectively. Alaitoc, despite the massive insurgence of Chaos across the galaxy due to the Great Rift, still believe that the Necrons are the only real threat that matters and aren't interested in assisting the Ynnari while they remain. Saim-Hann remains highly skeptical of the Ynnari, with its various clans more or less deadlocked on whether or not to side with them or to keep to their own. Iyanden is the only major Craftworld to whole-heartedly ally with Yvraine and Ynnead, lead by Iyanna Arienal. Note that not joining the Ynnari is not the same as not allying with the Imperium and whether it’s Eldrad’s proposed permanent alliance or a temporary one varies regardless of Ynnari membership.

Iyanna, inspired by the death and subsequent resurrection of Prince Yriel, came up with the hypothesis that perhaps all eldar could escape Slannesh's grasp by killing themselves and empowering Ynnead (as the original prophecy stated), then once Slaanesh is defeated resurrect themselves using the same methods the Drukhari Haemonculi use for any Commorragh denizen able to afford their services (basically they create a clone body from any scraps of dead flesh and put the original soul in it). This theory has kind of caught on among the Ynnari recently, though there are a number of hurdles they need to be wary of if they want to successfully pull it off (like having sufficient Wraithguard on hand to protect the Craftworld Infinity Circuits else [[Not as Planned|Slaanesh gorges on their souls instead of Ynnead]]).

In the meantime, Slaanesh has been sicking his/her daemons on the Ynnari in his/her attempt to abort Ynnead before it becomes a true threat. This has been proving moderately successful, as Helbane wracked up a significant body count while trying to assassinate Yvraine and the prison-vaults contained on Agrimathea unleashed a horde of Slaaneshi daemons that slew roughly a third of the entire Ynnari army before they could re-seal the vaults.

==The Croneswords==
The five Croneswords are legendary shapeshifting blades said to have been formed from the five broken fingers of the severed hand of [[Morai-Heg]]. According to legend, the five blades are imbued with a connection to Ynnead, and will reveal themselves when the unborn god begins to stir, where the blades will find their way into the right hands and lead to the eventual salvation of the Eldar race.

The blades are as follows:
*'''Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows''' - The first awakened blade, appeared to [[Yvraine]] while in the fighting pits of Commoragh
*'''Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams''' - Was pulled out of the Biel-Tan Infinity Circuit before the craftworld broke apart, is now held by the [[Visarch]]
*'''Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls''' - Currently wielded by the [[Yncarne]], was recovered from Belial IV.
*'''The Spear of Twilight''' - Relic weapon of the [[Iyanden]] [[Craftworld]], said to drain the life of its wielder. Had been wielded by Prince [[Yriel]] since the invasion of [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], it's power awakened after Yriel fell to [[Nurgle]] daemons and resurrected him.
*The fifth blade has since fallen into Slaanesh's possession, which he/she loves to dangle between the legs, daring Yvraine to try and claim it.

==The Whisper of Ynnead==

All Ynnari are psionically linked to Ynnead through a connection referred to as "the Whisper". The primary function of the Whisper is to guide any and all Ynnari who die to Ynnead's care. Craftworlders no longer require Soulstones (indeed, their link to said spirit stones is actually severed once they fully join the Ynnari) while Dark Eldar are freed from the Soul Thirst that plagues the denizens of Commorragh. Additionally, after spending enough time connected to the Whisper, the atrophied psychic potential in the Dark Eldar awakens somewhat, enabling them to communicate psionically and interact with equipment and vehicles in a manner very similar to their Craftworlder kin.

It's not all sunshine and roses for the Ynnari, however. The Whisper, as a psionic connection, can be suppressed by Null Zones or similar effects. Any Ynnari cut off from the Whisper are vulnerable to having their souls stolen by Slaanesh, as they remain trapped in their deceased bodies while under the effects of the psychic suppression. Dark Eldar also relapse a bit regarding their soul thirst.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Ynnead-rebirth.PNG|
File:Harlequins-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Craftworlders-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Dark eldar-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Warhammer-Ynnead-what we know.jpeg|
File:Prophecy of the hidden path.jpg|

</gallery>

{{Template:Eldar-Gods}}

Ynnead

2020-01-29T18:32:54Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* The Gathering Storm */

{{cleanup}}
{{heresy}}

[[File:Ynnead2.PNG|400px|thumb|right|Yncarne, the avatar of Ynnead about to wreck [[Slaanesh]]'s shit and devour souls ([[Skub|We will leave it at that, trust us its complicated]]). Also has an uncanny resemblance to late musician David Bowie in ''Labyrinth''.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"><span style='color:#32C6A6;font-size:100%'> I am Death and Resurrection born anew! - Ynnead's motto in the 41st Millennium'''</span></div>

{{topquote|What fool would plan to defeat their enemy by dying forever themselves?|Asdrubael Vect}}

'''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. Ha! [[Just as planned|Bet you can't unsee that now!!!!]] ([[Cegorach|Cegorach pls]])). He was previously more of a concept than an actual being, representative of what may be the last hope of the Eldar against their eternal enemy, [[Slaanesh]] - and possibly Chaos in its entirety.

== Overview ==
When Slaanesh was born, she devoured most of the Eldar race, and their souls, and most of their gods, and basically caused a lot of things to get badly screwed up, making a terrible mess in the toilet afterwards that the Eldar were forced to mop up. The crap on the wall that won't scrub off was that the surviving Eldar found Slaanesh was constantly hungering for their souls, laying in wait for the moment when any member of their race died to completely consume them. In the past the Eldar believed that when they died, their soul would be reincarnated - with Slaanesh's coming, the Eldar's ability to reincarnate disappeared. To save themselves from this fate, the Craftworld Eldar use [[spiritstone]]s to trap their souls upon death. The spiritstone is then used to intern the soul within the Infinity Circuit of a Craftworld, next to a carefully placed egg timer, where the soul is free to roam around and commingle with the other Eldar souls of the Craftworld.

As more souls over time have been added to the infinity circuits, the Eldar [[Farseer]]s perceived something stirring from this collection of souls; this was Ynnead, a god formed from untainted Eldar souls and the power of [[Asuryan]], the king of the Eldar gods, who passed on his power to the Farseers of the Eldar before he was devoured by Slaanesh. The Farseers believed that when the last Craftworld Eldar dies, Ynnead will be fully born and will rise up to cast down Slaanesh, destroying him/her/it forever. It's unknown whether this would have been feasible or not considering Slaanesh's immense power, but Ynnead represented the Eldar race's last, best hope for a better future, and so all their efforts went toward making him as strong as possible.

Worship of Ynnead was, and likely remains, pretty controversial among the Aeldari, as would be expected of xenos modeled on the "dying elder race" shtick. Death is literally his entire purpose and portfolio, and the species that alternately worships and reviles him is coming increasingly closer to extinction - about as permanent of a death as you can get in this universe. [[Grimdark|Their last and best hope is essentially a gamble involving the soul of every single Eldar, alive or dead, on the off chance that they ''might'' be rid of Slannesh forever, and if that fails...]]

Those who accept Ynnead have the following point of view: Ynnead is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead. Or at least he will be, as he is currently being created. He is in godly limbo at the moment while the Eldar try to amass enough pure souls, or at least souls that have overcome petty desires, in the various [[Craftworld]]s' [[Infinity Circuit]]s which are bonded together by the Eternal Matrix that links all the Infinity circuits and World Spirits together through the Webway, to give him enough mojo to become a proper god.

With the release of the Gathering Storm, it turns out that the Ynnead is [[Emprah|anathema]] to the Chaos Gods and they are actually afraid of it - yeah, and Khorne wears high heels. On the other hand, Slaanesh has already been put on a bus in Age of Sigmar (Never mind he's getting some new stuff already) and Ynnead is a pretty good way to put Slaanesh on a bus in 40k too.

Other Aeldari see the worshipers of Ynnead as a misguided [[Heresy|heretical]] death cult who are risking the souls of the Aeldari race on a gamble. It also doesn’t help that the Yncarne bears more than a passing resemblance to Slaanesh.[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/30/24th-sept-grim-dark-corners-the-aeldari-pantheongw-homepage-post-2-gw-homepage-post-3/ 1]

Basically, Ynnead is the Eldar's last hope against [[Slaanesh]]. '''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. He's alive (for a given value) and active now, but this is new fluff and as always in WH40k the Eldars' plan did [[Not As Planned|not survive]] contact with reality.

Slaanesh was born out of unbridled hedonism, giving them the theme of extreme pleasure. Ynnead is born out of the dead post-fall Eldar who are vengeful but still optimistic stuck-ups, so Ynnead would theoretically be born out of the Eldar's [[Khorne|vengeance]] and [[Tzeentch|hopes]] for a better tomorrow. Assuming it follows the same process as Slaanesh; Ynnead probably won't go rogue and will follow the main purpose of its creation. Probably.

Could the Eldar have simply had a bunch of Farseers, Warlocks, and Exarchs of each Path commit ritual suicide to reincarnate as an Eldar-Emperor being like the ancient human shaman did in outdated fluff? Probably, but these are Eldar. Their whole schtick is being cowardly pussy-tards. They would probably be too afraid of failing and being eaten to take such a chance. Or worse, it succeeds inside Slaanesh, further strengthening the abomination. That sounds about right for 40K.

Something to consider: Ynnead is a very different god than any other active entity in the setting. All of the other gods are immortal beings of perpetual nature. They are always focused on the concept of being endless, be it stagnation, warfare, evolution or excess. Only The Emperor shares a base concept with Ynnead, which is the concept of finality. Ynnead is the god of Death, and death is by its very concept a mortal thing, making it impossible for the Chaos gods to comprehend. So few demons are truly destroyed that the ruinous powers don’t actually view the concept beyond something mortals do in their spare time, and facing mortality would be such an alien concept that it would make them fear its existence. Ynnead was able to negate the position of Slaanesh, the disease of nurgle, the sorceries of Tzeench and stop the senseless conflict of Khorne. Its very existence is the possibility of ending them, and so they fear what they cannot understand. Ynnead may be small now, but if it ever gains enough power the Chaos gods will have major problems.

==The Gathering Storm==
Surprise! Instead of sucking up all the dead Eldar souls, Ynnead is prematurely "born" during the 13th Black Crusade following the fall of [[Cadia]]. [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] attempts to summon him early by stealing the fossilized bodies of all the dead Farseers from all the Craftworlds, and conducting an elaborate ritual on a crystal moon. It gets fucked up by the [[Deathwatch]], and only a tiny fraction of Ynnead enters the Materium.

After searching through space, this fragment discovers [[Yvraine]]. Due to her history, she was considered the ultimate expression of being Eldar because apparently the true Eldar are supposed to travel all the paths of life, even the dark ones. With her is the [[Visarch]], a former [[Exarch]] of the Dire Avengers who trained Yvraine and had his heart broken when she chose to leave rather than succeed him. He ended up sneaking into Comorragh, pretended to be an [[Incubi|Incubus]], and fought his way to Yvraine after she unlocked the power of '''The Sword of Sorrows''', one of the severed fingers of [[Morai-Heg]] forged into a sword by [[Vaul]]. The Visarch would later get his own sweet croneblade, '''The Sword of Silence''', when it was pulled from the heart of Craftworld Biel-Tan.

Together, Yvraine and the Visarch become the prophets of Ynnead, preaching that not ALL the Eldar have to die for Ynnead to be born. This ends up fracturing Eldar society at all levels, and Biel-Tan ends up tearing itself apart over whether or not this is actually Eldar [[heresy]]. The destruction of Biel-Tan causes all kinds of Warp holes to tear themselves into existence around the ruins, and Ynnead births an Avatar through them known as the Yncarne (get the pun?), the one-horned ghost-fire model that's been making the rounds in photos of the latest White Dwarf.

Yvraine, Visarch, and Yncarne are now gathering [[Ynnari|an army of all the branches of the Eldar race]] who believe they can fight Chaos without all having to hara-kiri, while those who don't believe in Ynnead are preparing to kill all the heretics for daring to alter the fate of the Eldar. Eldrad himself is imprisoned and placed on trial by the Eldar Inquisition, because he's not Eldar enough, and proposed, after his failure to birth Ynnead, allying with the [[Imperium of Man]] to defeat Chaos once and for all. Even if the other Eldar don't like the idea of becoming best buddies with the Imperium they still reluctantly agreed that they are still the best of a bad bunch, what with the other options being either the [[Orks]] or [[Tau]] both of who are either too "young" (translated as to naïve and inexperienced to face the forces of Chaos and lack the incredible power of any major faction) or simply too uncooperative and uncouth to be allied with (basically ever alien that isn’t a devoted Imperial citizen ordered to cooperate), that didn't stop Yvraine from helping to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]], so perhaps an actual alliance may be possible.

It may also be that Ynnead simply disagrees with the stupidity of not allying with the only faction both willing and able and actively doing something against chaos. It could also be possible that once Guilliman gets in charge the Imperium will stop killing everything that isn't human and start killing everything that is a demon with them. And then realize they should have been rushing to wipe out the non-protectorate aliens as quickly as possible as the Imperium fights aliens for survival. Killing daemons while aliens assrape the Imperium is a bad idea and the xenos can be killed off far more quickly and easily, best to get that out of the way first.

==Phoenix Rising==
The Ynnari still spend most of their efforts attempting to rally the disparate eldar factions to Ynnead's cause, but for the most part are still facing stiff resistance from most of the major Craftworlds. What remains of Biel-Tan and Ulthwe still staunchly oppose joining the Ynnari due to them being responsible for the Fracture and Eldrad stealing everyone's crystallized Farseers for his ritual to awaken Ynnead, respectively. Alaitoc, despite the massive insurgence of Chaos across the galaxy due to the Great Rift, still believe that the Necrons are the only real threat that matters and aren't interested in assisting the Ynnari while they remain. Saim-Hann remains highly skeptical of the Ynnari, with its various clans more or less deadlocked on whether or not to side with them or to keep to their own. Iyanden is the only major Craftworld to whole-heartedly ally with Yvraine and Ynnead, lead by Iyanna Arienal.

Iyanna, inspired by the death and subsequent resurrection of Prince Yriel, came up with the hypothesis that perhaps all eldar could escape Slannesh's grasp by killing themselves and empowering Ynnead (as the original prophecy stated), then once Slaanesh is defeated resurrect themselves using the same methods the Drukhari Haemonculi use for any Commorragh denizen able to afford their services (basically they create a clone body from any scraps of dead flesh and put the original soul in it). This theory has kind of caught on among the Ynnari recently, though there are a number of hurdles they need to be wary of if they want to successfully pull it off (like having sufficient Wraithguard on hand to protect the Craftworld Infinity Circuits else [[Not as Planned|Slaanesh gorges on their souls instead of Ynnead]]).

In the meantime, Slaanesh has been sicking his/her daemons on the Ynnari in his/her attempt to abort Ynnead before it becomes a true threat. This has been proving moderately successful, as Helbane wracked up a significant body count while trying to assassinate Yvraine and the prison-vaults contained on Agrimathea unleashed a horde of Slaaneshi daemons that slew roughly a third of the entire Ynnari army before they could re-seal the vaults.

==The Croneswords==
The five Croneswords are legendary shapeshifting blades said to have been formed from the five broken fingers of the severed hand of [[Morai-Heg]]. According to legend, the five blades are imbued with a connection to Ynnead, and will reveal themselves when the unborn god begins to stir, where the blades will find their way into the right hands and lead to the eventual salvation of the Eldar race.

The blades are as follows:
*'''Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows''' - The first awakened blade, appeared to [[Yvraine]] while in the fighting pits of Commoragh
*'''Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams''' - Was pulled out of the Biel-Tan Infinity Circuit before the craftworld broke apart, is now held by the [[Visarch]]
*'''Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls''' - Currently wielded by the [[Yncarne]], was recovered from Belial IV.
*'''The Spear of Twilight''' - Relic weapon of the [[Iyanden]] [[Craftworld]], said to drain the life of its wielder. Had been wielded by Prince [[Yriel]] since the invasion of [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], it's power awakened after Yriel fell to [[Nurgle]] daemons and resurrected him.
*The fifth blade has since fallen into Slaanesh's possession, which he/she loves to dangle between the legs, daring Yvraine to try and claim it.

==The Whisper of Ynnead==

All Ynnari are psionically linked to Ynnead through a connection referred to as "the Whisper". The primary function of the Whisper is to guide any and all Ynnari who die to Ynnead's care. Craftworlders no longer require Soulstones (indeed, their link to said spirit stones is actually severed once they fully join the Ynnari) while Dark Eldar are freed from the Soul Thirst that plagues the denizens of Commorragh. Additionally, after spending enough time connected to the Whisper, the atrophied psychic potential in the Dark Eldar awakens somewhat, enabling them to communicate psionically and interact with equipment and vehicles in a manner very similar to their Craftworlder kin.

It's not all sunshine and roses for the Ynnari, however. The Whisper, as a psionic connection, can be suppressed by Null Zones or similar effects. Any Ynnari cut off from the Whisper are vulnerable to having their souls stolen by Slaanesh, as they remain trapped in their deceased bodies while under the effects of the psychic suppression. Dark Eldar also relapse a bit regarding their soul thirst.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Ynnead-rebirth.PNG|
File:Harlequins-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Craftworlders-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Dark eldar-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Warhammer-Ynnead-what we know.jpeg|
File:Prophecy of the hidden path.jpg|

</gallery>

{{Template:Eldar-Gods}}

Ynnead

2020-01-29T18:23:25Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* Overview */

{{cleanup}}
{{heresy}}

[[File:Ynnead2.PNG|400px|thumb|right|Yncarne, the avatar of Ynnead about to wreck [[Slaanesh]]'s shit and devour souls ([[Skub|We will leave it at that, trust us its complicated]]). Also has an uncanny resemblance to late musician David Bowie in ''Labyrinth''.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"><span style='color:#32C6A6;font-size:100%'> I am Death and Resurrection born anew! - Ynnead's motto in the 41st Millennium'''</span></div>

{{topquote|What fool would plan to defeat their enemy by dying forever themselves?|Asdrubael Vect}}

'''Ynnead''' (known to Slaanesh as “dessert”) is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. Ha! [[Just as planned|Bet you can't unsee that now!!!!]] ([[Cegorach|Cegorach pls]])). He was previously more of a concept than an actual being, representative of what may be the last hope of the Eldar against their eternal enemy, [[Slaanesh]] - and possibly Chaos in its entirety.

== Overview ==
When Slaanesh was born, she devoured most of the Eldar race, and their souls, and most of their gods, and basically caused a lot of things to get badly screwed up, making a terrible mess in the toilet afterwards that the Eldar were forced to mop up. The crap on the wall that won't scrub off was that the surviving Eldar found Slaanesh was constantly hungering for their souls, laying in wait for the moment when any member of their race died to completely consume them. In the past the Eldar believed that when they died, their soul would be reincarnated - with Slaanesh's coming, the Eldar's ability to reincarnate disappeared. To save themselves from this fate, the Craftworld Eldar use [[spiritstone]]s to trap their souls upon death. The spiritstone is then used to intern the soul within the Infinity Circuit of a Craftworld, next to a carefully placed egg timer, where the soul is free to roam around and commingle with the other Eldar souls of the Craftworld.

As more souls over time have been added to the infinity circuits, the Eldar [[Farseer]]s perceived something stirring from this collection of souls; this was Ynnead, a god formed from untainted Eldar souls and the power of [[Asuryan]], the king of the Eldar gods, who passed on his power to the Farseers of the Eldar before he was devoured by Slaanesh. The Farseers believed that when the last Craftworld Eldar dies, Ynnead will be fully born and will rise up to cast down Slaanesh, destroying him/her/it forever. It's unknown whether this would have been feasible or not considering Slaanesh's immense power, but Ynnead represented the Eldar race's last, best hope for a better future, and so all their efforts went toward making him as strong as possible.

Worship of Ynnead was, and likely remains, pretty controversial among the Aeldari, as would be expected of xenos modeled on the "dying elder race" shtick. Death is literally his entire purpose and portfolio, and the species that alternately worships and reviles him is coming increasingly closer to extinction - about as permanent of a death as you can get in this universe. [[Grimdark|Their last and best hope is essentially a gamble involving the soul of every single Eldar, alive or dead, on the off chance that they ''might'' be rid of Slannesh forever, and if that fails...]]

Those who accept Ynnead have the following point of view: Ynnead is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead. Or at least he will be, as he is currently being created. He is in godly limbo at the moment while the Eldar try to amass enough pure souls, or at least souls that have overcome petty desires, in the various [[Craftworld]]s' [[Infinity Circuit]]s which are bonded together by the Eternal Matrix that links all the Infinity circuits and World Spirits together through the Webway, to give him enough mojo to become a proper god.

With the release of the Gathering Storm, it turns out that the Ynnead is [[Emprah|anathema]] to the Chaos Gods and they are actually afraid of it - yeah, and Khorne wears high heels. On the other hand, Slaanesh has already been put on a bus in Age of Sigmar (Never mind he's getting some new stuff already) and Ynnead is a pretty good way to put Slaanesh on a bus in 40k too. After all, sending the congealed souls of Eldar to fight a monster specializing in eat Eldar souls has no way at all of ending badly, right? Right? Uhh, guys?

Other Aeldari see the worshipers of Ynnead as a misguided [[Heresy|heretical]] death cult who are risking the souls of the Aeldari race on a gamble. It also doesn’t help that the Yncarne bears more than a passing resemblance to Slaanesh.[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/30/24th-sept-grim-dark-corners-the-aeldari-pantheongw-homepage-post-2-gw-homepage-post-3/ 1]

Basically, Ynnead is the Eldar's last hope against [[Slaanesh]]. '''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. He's alive (for a given value) and active now, but this is new fluff and as always in WH40k the Eldars' plan did [[Not As Planned|not survive]] contact with reality.

Slaanesh was born out of unbridled hedonism, giving them the theme of extreme pleasure. Ynnead is born out of the dead post-fall Eldar who are vengeful but still optimistic stuck-ups, so Ynnead would theoretically be born out of the Eldar's [[Khorne|vengeance]] and [[Tzeentch|hopes]] for a better tomorrow. Assuming it follows the same process as Slaanesh; Ynnead probably won't go rogue and will follow the main purpose of its creation. Probably.

Could the Eldar have simply had a bunch of Farseers, Warlocks, and Exarchs of each Path commit ritual suicide to reincarnate as an Eldar-Emperor being like the ancient human shaman did in outdated fluff? Probably, but these are Eldar. Their whole schtick is being cowardly pussy-tards. They would probably be too afraid of failing and being eaten to take such a chance. Or worse, it succeeds inside Slaanesh, further strengthening the abomination. That sounds about right for 40K.

Something to consider: Ynnead is a very different god than any other active entity in the setting. All of the other gods are immortal beings of perpetual nature. They are always focused on the concept of being endless, be it stagnation, warfare, evolution or excess. Only The Emperor shares a base concept with Ynnead, which is the concept of finality. Ynnead is the god of Death, and death is by its very concept a mortal thing, making it impossible for the Chaos gods to comprehend. So few demons are truly destroyed that the ruinous powers don’t actually view the concept beyond something mortals do in their spare time, and facing mortality would be such an alien concept that it would make them fear its existence. Ynnead was able to negate the position of Slaanesh, the disease of nurgle, the sorceries of Tzeench and stop the senseless conflict of Khorne. Its very existence is the possibility of ending them, and so they fear what they cannot understand. Ynnead may be small now, but if it ever gains enough power the Chaos gods will have major problems.

==The Gathering Storm==
Surprise! Instead of sucking up all the dead Eldar souls, Ynnead is prematurely "born" during the 13th Black Crusade following the fall of [[Cadia]]. [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] attempts to summon him early by stealing the fossilized bodies of all the dead Farseers from all the Craftworlds, and conducting an elaborate ritual on a crystal moon. It gets fucked up by the [[Deathwatch]], and only a tiny fraction of Ynnead enters the Materium.

After searching through space, this fragment discovers [[Yvraine]]. Due to her history, she was considered the ultimate expression of being Eldar because apparently the true Eldar are supposed to travel all the paths of life, even the dark ones. With her is the [[Visarch]], a former [[Exarch]] of the Dire Avengers who trained Yvraine and had his heart broken when she chose to leave rather than succeed him. He ended up sneaking into Comorragh, pretended to be an [[Incubi|Incubus]], and fought his way to Yvraine after she unlocked the power of '''The Sword of Sorrows''', one of the severed fingers of [[Morai-Heg]] forged into a sword by [[Vaul]]. The Visarch would later get his own sweet croneblade, '''The Sword of Silence''', when it was pulled from the heart of Craftworld Biel-Tan.

Together, Yvraine and the Visarch become the prophets of Ynnead, preaching that not ALL the Eldar have to die for Ynnead to be born. This ends up fracturing Eldar society at all levels, and Biel-Tan ends up tearing itself apart over whether or not this is actually Eldar [[heresy]]. The destruction of Biel-Tan causes all kinds of Warp holes to tear themselves into existence around the ruins, and Ynnead births an Avatar through them known as the Yncarne (get the pun?), the one-horned ghost-fire model that's been making the rounds in photos of the latest White Dwarf.

Yvraine, Visarch, and Yncarne are now gathering [[Ynnari|an army of all the branches of the Eldar race]] who believe they can fight Chaos without all having to hara-kiri, while those who don't believe in Ynnead are preparing to kill all the heretics for daring to alter the fate of the Eldar. Eldrad himself is imprisoned and placed on trial by the Eldar Inquisition, because he's not Eldar enough, and proposed, after his failure to birth Ynnead, allying with the [[Imperium of Man]] to defeat Chaos once and for all. Even if the other Eldar don't like the idea of becoming best buddies with the Imperium they still reluctantly agreed that they are still the best of a bad bunch, what with the other options being either the [[Orks]] or [[Tau]] both of who are either too "young" (translated as to naïve and inexperienced to face the forces of Chaos and lack the incredible power of any major faction) or simply too uncooperative and uncouth to be allied with (basically ever alien that isn’t a devoted Imperial citizen ordered to cooperate), that didn't stop Yvraine from helping to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]], so perhaps an actual alliance may be possible.

It may also be that Ynnead simply disagrees with the stupidity of not allying with the only faction both willing and able and actively doing something against chaos. It could also be possible that once Guilliman gets in charge the Imperium will stop killing everything that isn't human and start killing everything that is a demon with them.

==Phoenix Rising==
The Ynnari still spend most of their efforts attempting to rally the disparate eldar factions to Ynnead's cause, but for the most part are still facing stiff resistance from most of the major Craftworlds. What remains of Biel-Tan and Ulthwe still staunchly oppose joining the Ynnari due to them being responsible for the Fracture and Eldrad stealing everyone's crystallized Farseers for his ritual to awaken Ynnead, respectively. Alaitoc, despite the massive insurgence of Chaos across the galaxy due to the Great Rift, still believe that the Necrons are the only real threat that matters and aren't interested in assisting the Ynnari while they remain. Saim-Hann remains highly skeptical of the Ynnari, with its various clans more or less deadlocked on whether or not to side with them or to keep to their own. Iyanden is the only major Craftworld to whole-heartedly ally with Yvraine and Ynnead, lead by Iyanna Arienal.

Iyanna, inspired by the death and subsequent resurrection of Prince Yriel, came up with the hypothesis that perhaps all eldar could escape Slannesh's grasp by killing themselves and empowering Ynnead (as the original prophecy stated), then once Slaanesh is defeated resurrect themselves using the same methods the Drukhari Haemonculi use for any Commorragh denizen able to afford their services (basically they create a clone body from any scraps of dead flesh and put the original soul in it). This theory has kind of caught on among the Ynnari recently, though there are a number of hurdles they need to be wary of if they want to successfully pull it off (like having sufficient Wraithguard on hand to protect the Craftworld Infinity Circuits else [[Not as Planned|Slaanesh gorges on their souls instead of Ynnead]]).

In the meantime, Slaanesh has been sicking his/her daemons on the Ynnari in his/her attempt to abort Ynnead before it becomes a true threat. This has been proving moderately successful, as Helbane wracked up a significant body count while trying to assassinate Yvraine and the prison-vaults contained on Agrimathea unleashed a horde of Slaaneshi daemons that slew roughly a third of the entire Ynnari army before they could re-seal the vaults.

==The Croneswords==
The five Croneswords are legendary shapeshifting blades said to have been formed from the five broken fingers of the severed hand of [[Morai-Heg]]. According to legend, the five blades are imbued with a connection to Ynnead, and will reveal themselves when the unborn god begins to stir, where the blades will find their way into the right hands and lead to the eventual salvation of the Eldar race.

The blades are as follows:
*'''Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows''' - The first awakened blade, appeared to [[Yvraine]] while in the fighting pits of Commoragh
*'''Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams''' - Was pulled out of the Biel-Tan Infinity Circuit before the craftworld broke apart, is now held by the [[Visarch]]
*'''Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls''' - Currently wielded by the [[Yncarne]], was recovered from Belial IV.
*'''The Spear of Twilight''' - Relic weapon of the [[Iyanden]] [[Craftworld]], said to drain the life of its wielder. Had been wielded by Prince [[Yriel]] since the invasion of [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], it's power awakened after Yriel fell to [[Nurgle]] daemons and resurrected him.
*The fifth blade has since fallen into Slaanesh's possession, which he/she loves to dangle between the legs, daring Yvraine to try and claim it.

==The Whisper of Ynnead==

All Ynnari are psionically linked to Ynnead through a connection referred to as "the Whisper". The primary function of the Whisper is to guide any and all Ynnari who die to Ynnead's care. Craftworlders no longer require Soulstones (indeed, their link to said spirit stones is actually severed once they fully join the Ynnari) while Dark Eldar are freed from the Soul Thirst that plagues the denizens of Commorragh. Additionally, after spending enough time connected to the Whisper, the atrophied psychic potential in the Dark Eldar awakens somewhat, enabling them to communicate psionically and interact with equipment and vehicles in a manner very similar to their Craftworlder kin.

It's not all sunshine and roses for the Ynnari, however. The Whisper, as a psionic connection, can be suppressed by Null Zones or similar effects. Any Ynnari cut off from the Whisper are vulnerable to having their souls stolen by Slaanesh, as they remain trapped in their deceased bodies while under the effects of the psychic suppression. Dark Eldar also relapse a bit regarding their soul thirst.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Ynnead-rebirth.PNG|
File:Harlequins-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Craftworlders-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Dark eldar-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Warhammer-Ynnead-what we know.jpeg|
File:Prophecy of the hidden path.jpg|

</gallery>

{{Template:Eldar-Gods}}

Ynnead

2020-01-29T18:21:23Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC:

{{cleanup}}
{{heresy}}

[[File:Ynnead2.PNG|400px|thumb|right|Yncarne, the avatar of Ynnead about to wreck [[Slaanesh]]'s shit and devour souls ([[Skub|We will leave it at that, trust us its complicated]]). Also has an uncanny resemblance to late musician David Bowie in ''Labyrinth''.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"><span style='color:#32C6A6;font-size:100%'> I am Death and Resurrection born anew! - Ynnead's motto in the 41st Millennium'''</span></div>

{{topquote|What fool would plan to defeat their enemy by dying forever themselves?|Asdrubael Vect}}

'''Ynnead''' (known to Slaanesh as “dessert”) is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. Ha! [[Just as planned|Bet you can't unsee that now!!!!]] ([[Cegorach|Cegorach pls]])). He was previously more of a concept than an actual being, representative of what may be the last hope of the Eldar against their eternal enemy, [[Slaanesh]] - and possibly Chaos in its entirety.

== Overview ==
When Slaanesh was born, she devoured most of the Eldar race, and their souls, and most of their gods, and basically caused a lot of things to get badly screwed up, making a terrible mess in the toilet afterwards that the Eldar were forced to mop up. The crap on the wall that won't scrub off was that the surviving Eldar found Slaanesh was constantly hungering for their souls, laying in wait for the moment when any member of their race died to completely consume them. In the past the Eldar believed that when they died, their soul would be reincarnated - with Slaanesh's coming, the Eldar's ability to reincarnate disappeared. To save themselves from this fate, the Craftworld Eldar use [[spiritstone]]s to trap their souls upon death. The spiritstone is then used to intern the soul within the Infinity Circuit of a Craftworld, next to a carefully placed egg timer, where the soul is free to roam around and commingle with the other Eldar souls of the Craftworld.

As more souls over time have been added to the infinity circuits, the Eldar [[Farseer]]s perceived something stirring from this collection of souls; this was Ynnead, a god formed from untainted Eldar souls and the power of [[Asuryan]], the king of the Eldar gods, who passed on his power to the Farseers of the Eldar before he was devoured by Slaanesh. The Farseers believed that when the last Craftworld Eldar dies, Ynnead will be fully born and will rise up to cast down Slaanesh, destroying him/her/it forever. It's unknown whether this would have been feasible or not considering Slaanesh's immense power, but Ynnead represented the Eldar race's last, best hope for a better future, and so all their efforts went toward making him as strong as possible.

Worship of Ynnead was, and likely remains, pretty controversial among the Aeldari, as would be expected of xenos modeled on the "dying elder race" shtick. Death is literally his entire purpose and portfolio, and the species that alternately worships and reviles him is coming increasingly closer to extinction - about as permanent of a death as you can get in this universe. [[Grimdark|Their last and best hope is essentially a gamble involving the soul of every single Eldar, alive or dead, on the off chance that they ''might'' be rid of Slannesh forever, and if that fails...]]

Those who accept Ynnead have the following point of view: Ynnead is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead. Or at least he will be, as he is currently being created. He is in godly limbo at the moment while the Eldar try to amass enough pure souls, or at least souls that have overcome petty desires, in the various [[Craftworld]]s' [[Infinity Circuit]]s which are bonded together by the Eternal Matrix that links all the Infinity circuits and World Spirits together through the Webway, to give him enough mojo to become a proper god.

With the release of the Gathering Storm, it turns out that the Ynnead is [[Emprah|anathema]] to the Chaos Gods and they are actually afraid of it - yeah, and Khorne wears high heels. On the other hand, Slaanesh has already been put on a bus in Age of Sigmar (Never mind he's getting some new stuff already) and Ynnead is a pretty good way to put Slaanesh on a bus in 40k too.

Other Aeldari see the worshipers of Ynnead as a misguided [[Heresy|heretical]] death cult who are risking the souls of the Aeldari race on a gamble. It also doesn’t help that the Yncarne bears more than a passing resemblance to Slaanesh.[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/30/24th-sept-grim-dark-corners-the-aeldari-pantheongw-homepage-post-2-gw-homepage-post-3/ 1]

Basically, Ynnead is the Eldar's last hope against [[Slaanesh]]. '''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. He's alive (for a given value) and active now, but this is new fluff and as always in WH40k the Eldars' plan did [[Not As Planned|not survive]] contact with reality.

Slaanesh was born out of unbridled hedonism, giving them the theme of extreme pleasure. Ynnead is born out of the dead post-fall Eldar who are vengeful but still optimistic stuck-ups, so Ynnead would theoretically be born out of the Eldar's [[Khorne|vengeance]] and [[Tzeentch|hopes]] for a better tomorrow. Assuming it follows the same process as Slaanesh; Ynnead probably won't go rogue and will follow the main purpose of its creation. Probably.

Could the Eldar have simply had a bunch of Farseers, Warlocks, and Exarchs of each Path commit ritual suicide to reincarnate as an Eldar-Emperor being like the ancient human shaman did in outdated fluff? Probably, but these are Eldar. Their whole schtick is being cowardly pussy-tards. They would probably be too afraid of failing and being eaten to take such a chance. Or worse, it succeeds inside Slaanesh, further strengthening the abomination. That sounds about right for 40K.

Something to consider: Ynnead is a very different god than any other active entity in the setting. All of the other gods are immortal beings of perpetual nature. They are always focused on the concept of being endless, be it stagnation, warfare, evolution or excess. Only The Emperor shares a base concept with Ynnead, which is the concept of finality. Ynnead is the god of Death, and death is by its very concept a mortal thing, making it impossible for the Chaos gods to comprehend. So few demons are truly destroyed that the ruinous powers don’t actually view the concept beyond something mortals do in their spare time, and facing mortality would be such an alien concept that it would make them fear its existence. Ynnead was able to negate the position of Slaanesh, the disease of nurgle, the sorceries of Tzeench and stop the senseless conflict of Khorne. Its very existence is the possibility of ending them, and so they fear what they cannot understand. Ynnead may be small now, but if it ever gains enough power the Chaos gods will have major problems.

==The Gathering Storm==
Surprise! Instead of sucking up all the dead Eldar souls, Ynnead is prematurely "born" during the 13th Black Crusade following the fall of [[Cadia]]. [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] attempts to summon him early by stealing the fossilized bodies of all the dead Farseers from all the Craftworlds, and conducting an elaborate ritual on a crystal moon. It gets fucked up by the [[Deathwatch]], and only a tiny fraction of Ynnead enters the Materium.

After searching through space, this fragment discovers [[Yvraine]]. Due to her history, she was considered the ultimate expression of being Eldar because apparently the true Eldar are supposed to travel all the paths of life, even the dark ones. With her is the [[Visarch]], a former [[Exarch]] of the Dire Avengers who trained Yvraine and had his heart broken when she chose to leave rather than succeed him. He ended up sneaking into Comorragh, pretended to be an [[Incubi|Incubus]], and fought his way to Yvraine after she unlocked the power of '''The Sword of Sorrows''', one of the severed fingers of [[Morai-Heg]] forged into a sword by [[Vaul]]. The Visarch would later get his own sweet croneblade, '''The Sword of Silence''', when it was pulled from the heart of Craftworld Biel-Tan.

Together, Yvraine and the Visarch become the prophets of Ynnead, preaching that not ALL the Eldar have to die for Ynnead to be born. This ends up fracturing Eldar society at all levels, and Biel-Tan ends up tearing itself apart over whether or not this is actually Eldar [[heresy]]. The destruction of Biel-Tan causes all kinds of Warp holes to tear themselves into existence around the ruins, and Ynnead births an Avatar through them known as the Yncarne (get the pun?), the one-horned ghost-fire model that's been making the rounds in photos of the latest White Dwarf.

Yvraine, Visarch, and Yncarne are now gathering [[Ynnari|an army of all the branches of the Eldar race]] who believe they can fight Chaos without all having to hara-kiri, while those who don't believe in Ynnead are preparing to kill all the heretics for daring to alter the fate of the Eldar. Eldrad himself is imprisoned and placed on trial by the Eldar Inquisition, because he's not Eldar enough, and proposed, after his failure to birth Ynnead, allying with the [[Imperium of Man]] to defeat Chaos once and for all. Even if the other Eldar don't like the idea of becoming best buddies with the Imperium they still reluctantly agreed that they are still the best of a bad bunch, what with the other options being either the [[Orks]] or [[Tau]] both of who are either too "young" (translated as to naïve and inexperienced to face the forces of Chaos and lack the incredible power of any major faction) or simply too uncooperative and uncouth to be allied with (basically ever alien that isn’t a devoted Imperial citizen ordered to cooperate), that didn't stop Yvraine from helping to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]], so perhaps an actual alliance may be possible.

It may also be that Ynnead simply disagrees with the stupidity of not allying with the only faction both willing and able and actively doing something against chaos. It could also be possible that once Guilliman gets in charge the Imperium will stop killing everything that isn't human and start killing everything that is a demon with them.

==Phoenix Rising==
The Ynnari still spend most of their efforts attempting to rally the disparate eldar factions to Ynnead's cause, but for the most part are still facing stiff resistance from most of the major Craftworlds. What remains of Biel-Tan and Ulthwe still staunchly oppose joining the Ynnari due to them being responsible for the Fracture and Eldrad stealing everyone's crystallized Farseers for his ritual to awaken Ynnead, respectively. Alaitoc, despite the massive insurgence of Chaos across the galaxy due to the Great Rift, still believe that the Necrons are the only real threat that matters and aren't interested in assisting the Ynnari while they remain. Saim-Hann remains highly skeptical of the Ynnari, with its various clans more or less deadlocked on whether or not to side with them or to keep to their own. Iyanden is the only major Craftworld to whole-heartedly ally with Yvraine and Ynnead, lead by Iyanna Arienal.

Iyanna, inspired by the death and subsequent resurrection of Prince Yriel, came up with the hypothesis that perhaps all eldar could escape Slannesh's grasp by killing themselves and empowering Ynnead (as the original prophecy stated), then once Slaanesh is defeated resurrect themselves using the same methods the Drukhari Haemonculi use for any Commorragh denizen able to afford their services (basically they create a clone body from any scraps of dead flesh and put the original soul in it). This theory has kind of caught on among the Ynnari recently, though there are a number of hurdles they need to be wary of if they want to successfully pull it off (like having sufficient Wraithguard on hand to protect the Craftworld Infinity Circuits else [[Not as Planned|Slaanesh gorges on their souls instead of Ynnead]]).

In the meantime, Slaanesh has been sicking his/her daemons on the Ynnari in his/her attempt to abort Ynnead before it becomes a true threat. This has been proving moderately successful, as Helbane wracked up a significant body count while trying to assassinate Yvraine and the prison-vaults contained on Agrimathea unleashed a horde of Slaaneshi daemons that slew roughly a third of the entire Ynnari army before they could re-seal the vaults.

==The Croneswords==
The five Croneswords are legendary shapeshifting blades said to have been formed from the five broken fingers of the severed hand of [[Morai-Heg]]. According to legend, the five blades are imbued with a connection to Ynnead, and will reveal themselves when the unborn god begins to stir, where the blades will find their way into the right hands and lead to the eventual salvation of the Eldar race.

The blades are as follows:
*'''Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows''' - The first awakened blade, appeared to [[Yvraine]] while in the fighting pits of Commoragh
*'''Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams''' - Was pulled out of the Biel-Tan Infinity Circuit before the craftworld broke apart, is now held by the [[Visarch]]
*'''Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls''' - Currently wielded by the [[Yncarne]], was recovered from Belial IV.
*'''The Spear of Twilight''' - Relic weapon of the [[Iyanden]] [[Craftworld]], said to drain the life of its wielder. Had been wielded by Prince [[Yriel]] since the invasion of [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], it's power awakened after Yriel fell to [[Nurgle]] daemons and resurrected him.
*The fifth blade has since fallen into Slaanesh's possession, which he/she loves to dangle between the legs, daring Yvraine to try and claim it.

==The Whisper of Ynnead==

All Ynnari are psionically linked to Ynnead through a connection referred to as "the Whisper". The primary function of the Whisper is to guide any and all Ynnari who die to Ynnead's care. Craftworlders no longer require Soulstones (indeed, their link to said spirit stones is actually severed once they fully join the Ynnari) while Dark Eldar are freed from the Soul Thirst that plagues the denizens of Commorragh. Additionally, after spending enough time connected to the Whisper, the atrophied psychic potential in the Dark Eldar awakens somewhat, enabling them to communicate psionically and interact with equipment and vehicles in a manner very similar to their Craftworlder kin.

It's not all sunshine and roses for the Ynnari, however. The Whisper, as a psionic connection, can be suppressed by Null Zones or similar effects. Any Ynnari cut off from the Whisper are vulnerable to having their souls stolen by Slaanesh, as they remain trapped in their deceased bodies while under the effects of the psychic suppression. Dark Eldar also relapse a bit regarding their soul thirst.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Ynnead-rebirth.PNG|
File:Harlequins-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Craftworlders-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Dark eldar-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Warhammer-Ynnead-what we know.jpeg|
File:Prophecy of the hidden path.jpg|

</gallery>

{{Template:Eldar-Gods}}

Imperial Truth

2020-01-29T18:19:27Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC:

{{Heresy}}
{{topquote|There can be daemons in a secular cosmos, [[Knights-Errant#Garviel Loken|Garviel]]. Just as long as we understand the use of the word.|Warmaster [[Horus]], ''Horus Rising''}}
{{topquote|If once we can produce our perfect work — the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits” — then the end of the war will be in sight.|[[Demon|Screwtape]], ''"The Screwtape Letters"'' by C.S Lewis}}
{{topquote|The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.|Tahar Ben Jelloun}}
{{topquote|I have seldom seen a more powerful argument for the fallen nature of man, and his inability to achieve perfection, than those countries in which man sets himself up to replace God with the State.|Peter Hitchens}}

The Imperial Truth is the atheist rationalist doctrine espoused by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] as part of the [[Great Crusade]]. According to the Imperial Truth, the Emperor believed that religion and superstition had divided mankind too much during its history. On one hand, the Emperor had reason to believe since he'd lived through most of [[Earth|Terra]]'s religious wars. On the other hand, these were motivated by secular reasons, defensive responses or fanatics who would have simply attached their obsession to something else if they had no religion at the time. In all seriousness, though, the Emperor had an EXTREME obsession with control and religion can’t really be controlled. Thus did the Emperor [[The Last Church|become an extreme militant atheist who violently purged the religions of Terra]]. His plan was for [[Imperium of Man]] to become a secular state [[Star Trek|espousing science and reason]] (based on the Emperor's conjectures linking religious worship to the powers of Chaos, as seen below). Although, the science and reason thing didn't shake the religious trappings and presence (such as angelic figures, demons, and various vernacular and art quirks of the Imperium). Unsurprising; it's easy to convince someone that there is no buff guy in the sky throwing lightning bolts when you can prove it, but when confronted with something like "everything exist because God says so, the end" you can't really disprove it since anything you use was "created by God" or religions focused on an afterlife because A) can't be dis-proven even in 40K and B) souls actually ''do'' go to ''the other side of the Warp'' assuming nothing catches them and so that would actually ''encourage'' afterlife religious belief. Following the [[Horus Heresy]] and the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne, the Imperial Truth collapsed, the Emperor's very own philosophy denounced as [[HERESY]] wherever it was not simply forgotten, and the Imperium of Man has become [[Grimdark|a theocratic dictatorship where questioning anything results in a painful death]]. Which, by the way is no different than when the Emperor ruled it except it has a State Religion that is actually incredibly tolerant instead of incredibly intolerant State Atheism (just like in real life history, the purging of heretics is almost entirely the government’s doing).

While the Emperor was viscerally against religion as a concept, attributing to it many of the woes that had plagued Mankind's history, he didn't just ban and purge religion simply because he disagreed with it. During his millennia of existence, the Emperor had come to partially determine the nature of the relationship sentient life had with the [[Warp]]. Knowing that the belief in gods would only serve to create them and empower the Warp creatures, the Emperor hoped to starve the [[Chaos Gods]] by denying them worshipers. Because creating and worshiping loving gods who protected humanity from the extremes Chaos represented would be a bad idea because...? Oh, right, da Emprah was also a control-freak to a degree.

This was doomed to failure from the get-go since the Emperor had failed to realize that the Chaos Gods were powered not only by faith, but also by raw emotions. People going about their daily lives experiencing their normal emotions would still empower the Chaos Gods. Also the same behaviors and traits some, such as the Emperor, hated and associated with religious people are also found among the non-religious. He also failed to realize that faith was actually the greatest weapon against the Chaos Gods, what was needed was an alternative to direct the belief at such as a God, a God-Emperor or the religions that existed at the time before Emps decided to go all [[Communism|Stalin]] on them. In fact, the Emperor may even have BEEN Stalin and Soviet Russia - the first nation in history with an avowed goal of purging religion and replacing it with atheism - might have been a precursor to the Imperial Truth. Faith enables a Guardsman to kill a daemon (sometimes) because that Guardsman believes so utterly that it becomes real for that daemon. Given the deeds of normal humans in the fluff which do not even involve daemons and still amount to things even a Space Marine would be impressed by, it is likely that faith and the Warp related to humanity goes beyond just fighting Chaos. Heck, look at the Acts of Faith for the Sisters of Battle as an example. Freaking Living Saints, even (potentially).

The final deathblow for his case came when proof was found during the Horus Heresy that faith in something else, and by extension other religions, actually hurts Chaos. While a non-religious creed against Chaos (like what the [[Interex]] had) can fend them off, at most this would achieve a stalemate until a controlled psyker decided to go outside the lines. But theistic religiosity proved superior since it gave the means to [[Ynnead|actually take the fight to Chaos, beat them back and, MAYBE... one day, even defeat the Chaos Gods]].

When [[Horus]] had a vision of the 41st millennium, part of his instant patricidal rage was that the Emperor was abandoning the Imperial Truth by seeking to become a real god (which made the Emperor a hypocrite if true). This in turn convinced him to renounce the Emperor. And then start worshiping the Chaos Gods. (Look, [[Horus]] was a dumbass).

An alternative view is that the Emprah's plan wasn't to actually kill the Chaos Gods but to remove them from the Materium (in hindsight we know how hilariously ridiculous ''that'' idea is). The Emprah had a few major pet-peeves: religion, uncontrolled [[psyker]]s, [[unregulated xenos]] and [[Astronomican|warp travel]]. Without [[Cultist-chan]] and chaos-worshiping xenos, there would be no summoning of [[daemons]]. Without uncontrolled psykers, few possessions would occur. Without warp travel, there would be few opportunities for Chaos Gods to [[rape|fuck Man up]]. Thus, without religion, xenos, psykers and warp travel, the Chaos Gods and their minions wouldn't be able to access the Materium (for the most part). Who gives a shit if the Chaos Gods are powerful if they are unable to do shit with that power? Answer, Emprah knows BEST!!!! (Although the Emprah withholding this knowledge from nearly everyone, including his own [[Primarch|sons]] who are out on their own all over the galaxy, probably wasn't the best idea since knowing the enemy is the first step in fighting it.) However there was one big problem with this idea in the form of the [[Eye of Terror]], which would still be providing a connection between the Materium and the Immaterium even in Emps purged religion, uncontrolled psykers, warp travel and aliens (not to mention humans are fallible and entropy is a thing, so a controlled psyker can become an uncontrolled one).

Unfortunately, any doctrine based upon scientific materialism and skepticism doesn't work in practical terms in a universe where gods are real and active (whether you believe in real life or not, they are most definitely there in 40k) / eternal & ethereal souls exist / people come back from the dead / technology is animistic / prayer actually works / sorcery does not require being a psyker / failure to burn enough witches at the stake makes your world a putrid mess with rivers of pus / Red 'Unz do go Fasta! / and the second most advanced race in the settings is religious, works on prophecies and ghost powered mechanized support. Chaos in particular is especially irreconcilable with such things, as everything about it is contradictory and unpredictable. Not only will trying to observe it make you go insane, ''replicating'' it would almost certainly destroy all of reality even if it didn't work.

The Tau tried treating things scientifically on Kronus (Eldar weapons), Kaurava (Living Saints), and Medusa V (analyzing a warp rift). In the first two cases they could not understand a thing about how they worked, and on Medusa they basically made the scientific equivalent of "Here be dragons".

Magnus said that the Warp is just another type of knowledge to be used. The Warp, in turn, made him its bitch. Even ignoring that, there is nothing "possible, observable, and repeatable" when it comes to the Warp (before Mortarion fell to Chaos he believed this and attempted to put it into practice, which got him fucked up by a Daemon he wanted to interrogate), and many other things in 40k. It's well, chaotic, the hate, anger and madness of uncountable beings in the Galaxy. There is nothing rational about the emotional refuse of sentience, and trying to apply scientific principles to them is a waste of time at the absolute best.

Still, why wasn't the Emprah more straightforward? He could have said: "There are no gods, just alien dimension energy beings that are so fucked up, they think they are Gods. They are lying and will fuck you over." But he probably didn't do that since the whole idea of the Great Crusade was to eliminate such creatures, and telling everyone about them like that would only lead to overzealous idiots making contact with 'the monsters' in an attempt to cage or eliminate them (a trait [[Fulgrim|sadly]] [[Angron|common]] [[Jaghatai Khan|in]] [[Mortarion|his]] [[Konrad Curze|sons]]), and that would open its own can of worms. Another reason for him not to tell anyone is that what counts as a "god" is entirely up to each individual person. To the Greeks, Zeus and Poseidon were gods. To the Christians, Zeus and Poseidon either do not exist or do not count as gods because they are more limited than the Christian God. It's all subjective, which means telling people about Chaos and daemons would still cause huge numbers of people to decide they're gods which A) would make them stronger due to that belief even if the believers hated them and tried to fight against them and B) a lot of the people would start worshiping and following them like wet-rot under the carpet.

The Emprah's own biggest fuck up was not trusting Mankind or even his own Primarchs to be able to cope with the actual truth of the matter, the existence of eldritch entities in general without falling on our knees to worship them. Extra stupid points since the war against the Men of Iron happened after a ''daemonic invasion'' of human space, to say nothing of the Age of Strife's frequent wars against daemons. Humanity had more than proven that we weren't going to join the fuckers. The Emprah was like a manager that hides vital information from his employees because he doesn't think they can cope with the big picture, then the company falls apart when an engineer pisses off a major customer because of some unknown piece of said info. That is WH40K in a nutshell.

Perhaps it was more than anything the fact the Emperor knew in his heart of hearts too many people resented the Great Crusade, as in all wars there is a losing side, even if they became part of the Imperium there is still lots of people who saw their worlds shattered, they would be the first ones to give Chaos a try, not because they need to believe in something but as an attempt to escape their deplorable condition and take revenge upon those who enslaved them.

If the Imperial Truth is even known about by the time of 40k is uncertain, although more than likely the term is now used as pro-imperial propaganda by Imperial Missionaries trying to sell worship of the Emperor to disbelieving locals on your newly discovered savage world. In fact the novel Hammer & Anvil flat-out says that's what it is. Some [[Chaos Space Marine|Chaos Space Marines]] might remember it, but due to their worship of the [[Chaos Gods]] none of them follow it, with the exception of [[Fabius Bile]].

Most Space Marine chapter and the Adeptus Custodes as a whole also teaches their forces their own versions of the Imperial Truth. However because the Imperium needs the Emperor's elite creations and would not survive without them. The Inquisition officially considers their beliefs considered variants of the [[Imperial Cult]]. Well, that and the problem that if they called out the Astartes, the Astartes and their supporters would point out that the Astartes beliefs are what the Emperor told them to believe, so only a ''dirty '''heretic''''' would try to stop them. [[Guilliman]] himself completely abandoned it shortly after his return, and after being saved by a Living Saint during the Plague Wars he's seriously started to wonder if Lorgar and the Ecclesiarchy actually had it right all along.

<small>* Note the word "wasn't" is strictly past tense, which is kinda important.</small>

[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Unification Wars

2020-01-29T18:15:09Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* The Emperor of Mankind */

{{wh40k-stub}}
The '''Unification Wars''' were a series of conflicts focused on [[Terra]] and the rest of the Sol System at the end of the [[Age of Strife]], where the [[Emperor]] officially revealed himself to the general populace and began knocking heads to unite Terra and its home system. This is arguably one of if not ''the'' most pivotal series of events in the whole ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' setting, as it marks the Emperor's rise to power, the creation of the [[Primarchs]], the creation of the first [[Space Marines]], and the founding of a united [[Imperium of Man]].

==Age of Strife==
By M23, the human federation that had spread across the galaxy was on the brink of destruction after the war with the [[Men of Iron]]. It's infrastructure and economy ravaged by the war and the loss of it's entire specialized workforce. Already on it's last legs, Warp storms caused by the birth of [[Slaanesh]] separated systems from the larger federation. Cut off from the outside, falling into technological regression and vulnerable to xenos aggression, everything fell apart. This was the nail in the coffin for Terra, which was massively overpopulated and no longer had the resources of it's empire to rely on, as well as the depletion of it's own resources [[derp|including fucking water]].

What followed was about 5,000 years of anarchy, as Terra's once united world government quickly fragmented into dozens upon dozens of warring states. Think Mad Max and the Warring States period of China on an apocalyptic scale, where warlords and their warriors known as [[awesome|techno-barbarians]] warred against one another and subjugated and brutalized those under their domains. To add salt to the wound, chemical and nuclear wars turned the already overtaxed Terra into a barren, polluted wasteland.

==The Emperor of Mankind==
It's at this point where the Emperor decided to stop hiding in the shadows and get shit done for Mankind. Appearing as a brilliant strategist, warrior, scientist, leader, diplomat, (and all other professions you could give him)... he made himself known in the 29th millennium, out of nowhere, to challenge the rule of the technobarbarians and the warlords that ruled the remnants of Terra at this point. Possessing not only plenty of regular human followers that no doubt fought and kept his war industry going (remember, this is previously to the Emperor meeting with the [[Adeptus Mechanicus|cogheads]] at [[Mars]]) he also lead a massive army of [[Thunder Warriors]]. These mighty soldiers were the early prototype for Space Marines, being stronger and possibly bigger than them, but having very short and unstable lives as well as lacking the innate kinship and coordination which made a Legion so powerful.

With His armies, the Emperor slowly but steadily pushed back all other rivals, conquering them and adding them to Hisforces. He also had to deal with skirmishes with Martian and Lunar raiders, due to them also wanting to conquer Terra, [[Blood Ravens|and to steal some pieces of archeo-tech.]] His ''modus operandi'' was flexible enough to require both subtle diplomacy and propaganda to massive carnage and the slaughter of His enemies. It is during this times that the Emperor shows His hatred and rejection for anything religious (probably because of not being able to control either religion or his raging obsession with control), utterly destroying the Antartic civilization through nuclear warfare because they were a religious society (and shot down the Imperial Emissaries), and also burning [[The Last Church|the last catheric church]] when it posed no threat to him. After years of warfare, he conquered the whole planet, while the thunderwarriors supposedly died during the last great battle, though probably it was Big E purging them before bringing the newer kids on the block to play. Many talk about the Unification Wars ending after the Battle of Mount Ararat, though really it should end after the Pacification of Luna. Whichever you choose, the result is the same, with the Emperor controlling Terra and gearing towards his [[Great Crusade]] to unite Mankind and to find [[primarch|his sons]].

==See Also==
[[The Last Church]]

[[Thunder Warriors]]

{{40k-Timeline}}

The Last Church

2020-01-29T18:12:06Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* Trivia */

{{Awesome}}

[[File:The Last Church on Terra.jpg|200px|right|thumb|THE LAST CURIOUSLY DENOMINATIONAL CHURCH!]]
'''The Last Church''' by [[Graham McNeill]] is a short story describing the conversation between an old and lonely priest named Uriah Olathaire of the very last church on Terra (The Church of the Lightning Stone) during the [[Unification Wars]] (where the Emperor banned religion and the worship of gods) and a mysterious character named [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Revelation]], the story is pretty deep and thought provoking and shows you that you don't need '''XTREME GRIMDARK''' and violence to make a great 40k story (even though the story doesn't take place in the 41st millennium). As well as being the earliest complete story in the 40k canon, it deals with morals, religion, atheism and humility and the benefits and costs of each. And also, Uriah is probably running for 'most badass non-augmented human' in the setting at first place. What's more badass than [[Ollanius Pius| getting killed by Horus]]? Telling the Emperor, ''to his face'', why he sucks (note that the Emperor was never Jesus: at most, and in fairly old lore he was implied to be Jesus's 13th disciple, which in turn means not only that he knew Jesus, but purposely tried to do better than God at guiding humanity with [[Horus Heresy|predictable results]]. What is more, other than its being called a "church," there is not really anything specifically Christian about Uriah's religion explicitly described–rather it seems like a vague syncretic religion that venerates miracles, saints and nature.)

Moral of the story: if you look at some alien psychic/metaphysical entities that are not gods in the first place and not even related to any human religion and say “See? Magic aliens! Therefore, gods aren’t real!” your logic may be flawed.

==Plot Summary==
In the titular last church, the very last worshipper and priest on Earth, Uriah Olathaire, is visited by a mysterious figure. They talk about why the church is the last of its kind, and what happened to all of the faithful who once cherished it so much. This figure, "Revelation", argues about all of the harm that religious worship and organizations have inflicted on humanity throughout history, whilst the priest attempts to refute it. Finally, Revelation reveals himself as the Emperor of Mankind, and more specifically as the being who originally (unintentionally, more or less incidentally due to Uriah's experiences during a brief and dramatic encounter between the two during the Unification Wars) inspired the priest to believe in his religion. He then gives the priest a chance to recant his false beliefs and leave; the church will be destroyed, but he does not have to perish as well.

The priest refuses. Instead pointing out the Emperor's hypocrisy in the various things he has done and in doing that, makes him to be no different to the crusaders and fanatics of the past. Despite this, the Emperor disregards Uriah's words and escorts him outside before his troops start destroying the church. As his church is destroyed, Uriah gives the Emperor one last warning about the folly of his plan before calmly walking back in to the church, preferring to die with it, and prays while he waits for death before he is crushed beneath the rubble.

The Emperor dismisses him as a lost cause and moves on. As the rain lifts, and the morning sun rises over the smoldering remains of the last church on Terra; inside, a broken clock, prophesied to chime only when the world is at an end, begins to softly ring...

==Moral==

The moral of the story is a lot more complicated and relevant than most would think. The Emperor is a well-intentioned extremist fighting against four monstrously powerful daemonic gods and trying to starve them out by spreading the Imperial Truth. He made mistakes, yes, but his intentions were pure (sort of, his methods weren’t at all necessary, merely easier than worrying about people calling him out on immoral acts as proven when his ultimate rebuttal to Uriah calling him out was to eliminate him)). ([[Tolkien|Ah, but good intentions matter not. Only good deeds]].) In this he had the stereotypical view towards religion that some atheists have: that it is the cause of most of humanity's problems including much of the killing and/or all the wars in human history, ignoring any and everything else that was a factor in said problems/wars, the fact that those same negative behaviors and actions are also found in non-religious people and ignoring the fact that '''other''' modes of thought (such as his own) also cause untold suffering. It also ignores the fact that any time extremists act on their religion, their beliefs are almost always directly contradictory to their religion (any successful religion teaches tolerance, extremists are anything but). So, if anything, the Emperor should have made religions enforce their own teachings. The story also is about the Emperor's adamant refusal to accept that extremists are extremists, whether religious or secular. On top of that, the extremists who might have become religious extremists instead become secular extremists thanks to his own secularization of his Imperium and this comes back to bite humanity horribly for the next ten thousand years. The story is about why people really do what they do for their beliefs. The Emperor was prepared to do whatever it took for his beliefs because it appeared to him that he was undeniably correct, just like extremists. The moral is that any reason based on rejection is immoral reason. Case in point, the Emperor-lead Imperium purged so much and so often that it’s sheer scale of atrocity was part of the traitor Primarchs’ motivation to rebel. The religious Imperium purged only when proven truly necessary and tries to limit the damage unless the risk is just too great to contemplate. Just like in real life nations using State Atheism, the Emperor’s Imperium was extremely murder-happy far beyond even the grimdark Imperium.

He was also under the belief that it was faith in general that makes the Chaos Gods stronger and the [[Imperial Truth]] was an attempt to stop them. What the Emperor failed to understand was that the Chaos Gods were powered not only by faith, but by emotions as well as aspects of reality itself such as change (which also means wiping out all life probably would fail to destroy Chaos). People going about their daily lives experiencing their normal emotions would still empower the Chaos Gods. It has been argued that if the Emperor had not destroyed the other religions and actually WARNED people about Chaos ([[Interex|like some other people]]), Chaos would have been less powerful because people would have directed their belief to religions (such as the Abrahamic faiths) or outright have nothing to do with it at all (which is still better than falling to it). If anything, belief and faith grant power in this setting and even [[Ork|make gods real if they weren't before]], so while [[Interex|an atheistic approach guarding against Chaos]] could help, at most it would just result in a stalemate; theistic religiosity in the 40k verse not only defends but allows adherents to [[Ynnead|take the fight to Chaos and provides the only possibility of defeating them]]. Therefore, by abolishing religion (especially purging the theistic ones) [[FAIL|the Emperor HELPED the Chaos Gods]], albeit [[Tzeentch|unintentionally]]. As such the Emperor's own ignorance in this regard led to the [[Horus Heresy]], bringing about his own downfall. The Emperor may have been tens of thousands of years old, vastly intelligent and unbelievably powerful, but even he could not predict everything. Perhaps that was his greatest failing: he attempted to ''predict'' how to defeat Chaos instead of applying the scientific method. From his words throughout 40k it is clear he saw Warpcraft and science as completely separate and distinct fields. Had he applied the scientific method to studying Chaos, he would have learned the above information about Chaos's strengths and combating it with faith. As with most genii, he outsmarted himself. Even so, his reaction to anything but blind-obedience was “kill them with fire.” When you’re claiming there must be no religion and kill anyone who wants a reason to believe you’re claim that religion is bad, you set yourself up for self-destruction at best.

===Alternative view===

Makes you think though - The Emperor knew about the Chaos Gods (even if he didn't refer to them as such), since he talked to Horus about them, who then passed it on the Garviel Loken to soothe his mind (not strictly true - Horus and Loken only learned about Daemons - Loken is totally mystified when an Interex soldier explains the nature of Chaos/Kaos to him). The Emperor also might have had an inkling that it wasn't just belief that powered them, what with him being in such close contact with the Warp 24/7. This begs the question - was he, in fact, out-Just As Planning Tzeentch and, as [[Erebus]]' false(?) memories showed Horus, did he ALLOW the Primarchs to be taken, just so Lorgar would land on Colchis, be raised by Kor Phaeron, learn about Chaos, fall to Chaos, turn Horus, allow the Horus Heresy to happen, teleport to Horus' Battle-Barge, kill his son while being mortally wounded himself, and be installed on the Golden Throne just so the billions upon billions of humans would have someone to worship other than the Chaos Gods, as a God that can be seen, touched and interacted which is nowhere near as powerful as a God that must be believed in purely through faith. Probably the only hiccup that The Emperor didn't foresee was Magnus ripping through his psychic shields and wrecking the Golden Throne/Webway Gate, which could've been avoided if The Emperor had fucking told his sons what he was doing.

In other words... did the Emperor plan to be worshiped all along? Probably not, but it makes you think

===Author's Opinion===
[http://graham-mcneill.com/ McNeill's website] has an explanation for his thought processes when writing the story as well as his opinion of it on [http://graham-mcneill.com/last-church/ its own page], but it's been copypasted here for convenience. Strangely, Graham states that "he didn't want to preach", but then states he wanted Uriah to be "wrong" and the Emperor to be "right" (see below).

<blockquote>I came late to this anthology, as I was finishing a novel while the bulk of writers were thrashing away at their keyboards. So when it came time to start developing a story, I asked the editors to send me a one-line pitch for each of the other stories so I didn’t waste time replicating a story that had already been written. When I got them, they were mostly bolters blazing, chainswords hacking stories, which is great, but I felt needed balancing by one that had a more thoughtful pace, with less fighting. One of the aspects of the Heresy I’ve liked the most has been the dichotomy between a growing secular empire butting heads with humanity’s urge to worship things in the sky. I saw this story as a challenge to myself, the readers and to BL. Would I be able to write a story like this that was exciting and engaging? Would the readers buy into it or would they be bored without the action? Would BL publish a story like this? Turns out that it seems all three were answered with a resounding yes. There’s a lot of me in this story, though I’m certainly not preaching to anyone with it. It’s more like I wanted people to talk about the story, to ask themselves questions and look at things in a different light. Some folk have said that Uriah is a straw man, and that the arguments made on both sides of his and Revelation’s debate are simplistic. Part of me agrees with that, as I’m not a theologian (and, crucially, neither was Uriah. He was a drunken rake, called to be a priest by a personal experience. No years of training in a seminary for him…) and I wasn’t trying to write a treatise on religion or belief, but rather a story that got people talking and entertained them. It’s also the first time the Big E turns up in a Heresy story in any real form. He’s appeared a few times to deliver the odd line of dialogue, but this was the first time we’d seen him talk, interact and appear for any length of time (even though most of it is in another guise) so I needed to be careful. In the end, to really stir the pot, I wanted to end the story in a way that, while Uriah might have been wrong, he was the one you liked better and who came out with the apparent moral high ground. The Emperor was right, yet he came across as the arrogant, short-sighted tyrant – the very kind he rails against in the story. Now go back and read it again and see if you agree!</blockquote>

==Trivia==
*Isandula Verona's paintings depict 3 events of old earth (both factual and presumably fictional), one painting depicts "nude figures disporting in a magical garden", likely the Garden of Eden. The second is a painting of "a battle between a golden knight and a silver dragon", undoubtedly based of the battle between the Emperor and the Void Dragon in ancient Libia. But the third painting is by far the strangest, it depicts a "wondrous being of light surrounded by a halo of golden machinery" (couldn't possibly be foreshadowing the Emperor on the Golden Throne) ... Also, there is the description of an "explosion of stars", possibly referring to the creation of the Eye of Terror.
**However, if it is a Christian or quasi-Christian church (it is almost certainly not contiguous with Christianity as we know it today, though) it's more likely that these scenes (along with many other undescribed panels) depicts scenes of Christian mythos - Eden, St. George (except this is not the first time the Emperor has been described fighting a dragon. It's implied that He IS St. George) and resurrection/second coming of Jesus (the machinery part may seem strange, but Christian Renaissance art tended toward anachronisms, as in "XVI century Italians doing Biblical cos-play," seen in just about every Biblically based piece of art; i.e. why does Mary dress like a contemporary nun instead of a pious Jewess of the 1st century? Because visual historicity wasn't the point but rather devotional artwork that people could relate to!) The explosion of stars could represent the Creation (unknown to most people, the Bit Bang Theory is actually a pro-creationism argument atheists created in the Church as it makes the question “where did that energy, matter, and the laws of physics come from in the first place for there to be a Big Bang) or possibly events of the End Times. Big E is the centerpiece of 40K, but there is no need to stuff him in every single piece mentioned. Especially when it makes more sense not to. The paintings and church itself is foreshadowing, no doubt, but also look what examples The Emperor chooses to trash religion - crusades (the first few were to re-take Byzantine land conquered by Muslims, the middle ones were fought beside Muslims not against, and the last few were epic bromance against basically medieval ISIS), witch-hunts (actually witch trials was entirely a Protestant thing, Catholicism has always denied the existence of witches and any Catholic who participated in the hunts was excommunicated), the Inquisition (which is blamed for the punishments of the secular governments, and, in fact, some people who were being persecuted by the latter would actually take it upon themselves to blaspheme in court so they would get the Inquisition instead of the royal courts because if the Inquisition found you innocent you were simply forgiven and released), the purging of Cathars and other heretics all both inspired certain elements and aesthetics of the 40K universe and presumably transpired as "ancient history" in-universe.
**The Last Church, the building itself, is a physical manifestation of what the Imperium will become (and it makes sense as the setting is '''strongly''' based on Christianity). Uriah represents the part of religion that is not killing the infidels (of which Islam is the only religion to ever do that, not Christianity), but love and turn other cheek (which in Roman times actually meant positioning yourself such that attackers must recognize you as an equal, not taking shit), etc. And the Grimdark part is that The Emperor sees this - he does not consider Uriah to be an enemy or bad in general, and he admires Isandula's work. But he is ready to destroy all this to prevent the Crusades (which were not religious wars nor conquests) and the Inquisition (which were actually the good guys the politicians blamed so as not to look like Stalin and Hitler and other historic psychos), [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralMyopia EXACTLY what the Emperor did to try and destroy religion] and EXACTLY the things that go to the top of the "Imperium of Man's most popular things" chart the very moment The Emperor (almost) dies. And as he himself was more like Stalin than Jesus, the new Church has all the zealous "burn the heretics" of the old one (which never had a “burn the heretics” mentality in the first place, the governments did and just look whose burning the heretics in 40k, the government), but none of its compassion or "turn the other cheek". Also, The Emperor had political reasons to destroy religions (most likely they would've disapproved of the Emperor's brutal dictatorship/had more influence over people than he liked; making the Emperor part-Hitler in addition to part-Stalin), but they are touched very little in this story, so its not important.
*The church in question appears to be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne Lindisfarne]: perched on "a rocky promontory jutting from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain an island] that was said to have [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_empire once ruled the world]". Uriah even references it being raided by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne#Vikings Scandi].
*Many of our currently existing countries and continents are mentioned in the story, however they are spelled and pronounced differently.
*The Mariana Canyon where the giant stone figures are carved in is most likely the remnants of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the Earth's present-day oceans -- given that this place is now exposed, you can grasp just how much the Earth has changed... For example, the oceans boiled away due to various factors. Some of the new land that became exposed became known as the "Panpacific".
*Given Uriah's knowledge of (and ability to travel to) other countries, and his reaction to the Emperor's plans to conquer the galaxy, it seems likely that the Age of Strife on Terra was less of a complete societal breakdown and more of a regression to the dark ages in which knowledge of the past remained largely intact but functionally useless. Ironic, considering the state of the Imperium ushered in to save humanity from that. So, the inverse of the 40k Imperium.
*The Emperor's theological quibbles with religion in the story are very sophomoric. Most of them are refuted in the writings of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, two writers any Catholic priest is overwhelmingly familiar with, but Uriah's refutations of the Emperor are quite amateur as well (although, he's not Catholic, and doesn't seem to be highly educated himself regardless. His religion is vague but implied to be a highly syncretized quasi-Abrahamic faith. Jesus doesn't warrant a mention, somehow, although the excesses (i.e. the stuff Hollywood made up for entertainment and public stupidity took for fact) of the Catholic church are front and center in the Emperor's arguments (and historically untrue to the point of being the OPPOSITE of what actually happened), just as they are among many edgy athiests of our day. Many people just cannot accept an organization that doesn’t have blood on its hands and is genuinely compassionate. Folks are so desperate to resist “the man” they just *have* to have some “darkside” to everything even if they have to imagine it.) Graham McNeill, not being a philosopher or theologian, and not, as far as we know, even religious (his own statement on his story has him mentioning humanity worshipping things in the sky, which other than celestial bodies has never been done in any religion), is probably unaware of the counter arguments a real priest would realistically have used (or the counterarguments to those counters, which are just as old (no they aren’t, no atheist has ever argued against the theological teachings, only random parishioners. Just because there is an argument against something does not mean a counter-argument has been created or is old.)), and evidently didn't do a lot of research in that arena, or want to.
*The fact that attempts to abolish religion in real-life have proven harmful rather than good isn't addressed in the story either; as in Uriah doesn't mention any of those cases to refute the Emperor (look at Soviet Russia, North Korea and Cambodia under Pol Pot for three examples - it's even possible the Emperor was Stalin in this universe). Again, Uriah is most probably simply ignorant of those things happening in the past.
*Lastly, The Emperor's claim that "humanity will not be free until the last stone of the last church falls on the head of the last priest" is a quote of [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/122284-civilization-will-not-attain-to-its-perfection-until-the-last Émile Zola]. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to have a reason for believing this. Religion does not hold humanity back technologically and most social advancement came from religion preaching love and tolerance and fairness. The only thing religion holds humanity back from is running around exterminatusing anyone you disagree with or executing portions of an entire population or mass torture and mutilation. [[Imperium of Man|Oh, right.]]
{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

The Last Church

2020-01-29T17:51:08Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* Trivia */

{{Awesome}}

[[File:The Last Church on Terra.jpg|200px|right|thumb|THE LAST CURIOUSLY DENOMINATIONAL CHURCH!]]
'''The Last Church''' by [[Graham McNeill]] is a short story describing the conversation between an old and lonely priest named Uriah Olathaire of the very last church on Terra (The Church of the Lightning Stone) during the [[Unification Wars]] (where the Emperor banned religion and the worship of gods) and a mysterious character named [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Revelation]], the story is pretty deep and thought provoking and shows you that you don't need '''XTREME GRIMDARK''' and violence to make a great 40k story (even though the story doesn't take place in the 41st millennium). As well as being the earliest complete story in the 40k canon, it deals with morals, religion, atheism and humility and the benefits and costs of each. And also, Uriah is probably running for 'most badass non-augmented human' in the setting at first place. What's more badass than [[Ollanius Pius| getting killed by Horus]]? Telling the Emperor, ''to his face'', why he sucks (note that the Emperor was never Jesus: at most, and in fairly old lore he was implied to be Jesus's 13th disciple, which in turn means not only that he knew Jesus, but purposely tried to do better than God at guiding humanity with [[Horus Heresy|predictable results]]. What is more, other than its being called a "church," there is not really anything specifically Christian about Uriah's religion explicitly described–rather it seems like a vague syncretic religion that venerates miracles, saints and nature.)

Moral of the story: if you look at some alien psychic/metaphysical entities that are not gods in the first place and not even related to any human religion and say “See? Magic aliens! Therefore, gods aren’t real!” your logic may be flawed.

==Plot Summary==
In the titular last church, the very last worshipper and priest on Earth, Uriah Olathaire, is visited by a mysterious figure. They talk about why the church is the last of its kind, and what happened to all of the faithful who once cherished it so much. This figure, "Revelation", argues about all of the harm that religious worship and organizations have inflicted on humanity throughout history, whilst the priest attempts to refute it. Finally, Revelation reveals himself as the Emperor of Mankind, and more specifically as the being who originally (unintentionally, more or less incidentally due to Uriah's experiences during a brief and dramatic encounter between the two during the Unification Wars) inspired the priest to believe in his religion. He then gives the priest a chance to recant his false beliefs and leave; the church will be destroyed, but he does not have to perish as well.

The priest refuses. Instead pointing out the Emperor's hypocrisy in the various things he has done and in doing that, makes him to be no different to the crusaders and fanatics of the past. Despite this, the Emperor disregards Uriah's words and escorts him outside before his troops start destroying the church. As his church is destroyed, Uriah gives the Emperor one last warning about the folly of his plan before calmly walking back in to the church, preferring to die with it, and prays while he waits for death before he is crushed beneath the rubble.

The Emperor dismisses him as a lost cause and moves on. As the rain lifts, and the morning sun rises over the smoldering remains of the last church on Terra; inside, a broken clock, prophesied to chime only when the world is at an end, begins to softly ring...

==Moral==

The moral of the story is a lot more complicated and relevant than most would think. The Emperor is a well-intentioned extremist fighting against four monstrously powerful daemonic gods and trying to starve them out by spreading the Imperial Truth. He made mistakes, yes, but his intentions were pure (sort of, his methods weren’t at all necessary, merely easier than worrying about people calling him out on immoral acts as proven when his ultimate rebuttal to Uriah calling him out was to eliminate him)). ([[Tolkien|Ah, but good intentions matter not. Only good deeds]].) In this he had the stereotypical view towards religion that some atheists have: that it is the cause of most of humanity's problems including much of the killing and/or all the wars in human history, ignoring any and everything else that was a factor in said problems/wars, the fact that those same negative behaviors and actions are also found in non-religious people and ignoring the fact that '''other''' modes of thought (such as his own) also cause untold suffering. It also ignores the fact that any time extremists act on their religion, their beliefs are almost always directly contradictory to their religion (any successful religion teaches tolerance, extremists are anything but). So, if anything, the Emperor should have made religions enforce their own teachings. The story also is about the Emperor's adamant refusal to accept that extremists are extremists, whether religious or secular. On top of that, the extremists who might have become religious extremists instead become secular extremists thanks to his own secularization of his Imperium and this comes back to bite humanity horribly for the next ten thousand years. The story is about why people really do what they do for their beliefs. The Emperor was prepared to do whatever it took for his beliefs because it appeared to him that he was undeniably correct, just like extremists. The moral is that any reason based on rejection is immoral reason. Case in point, the Emperor-lead Imperium purged so much and so often that it’s sheer scale of atrocity was part of the traitor Primarchs’ motivation to rebel. The religious Imperium purged only when proven truly necessary and tries to limit the damage unless the risk is just too great to contemplate. Just like in real life nations using State Atheism, the Emperor’s Imperium was extremely murder-happy far beyond even the grimdark Imperium.

He was also under the belief that it was faith in general that makes the Chaos Gods stronger and the [[Imperial Truth]] was an attempt to stop them. What the Emperor failed to understand was that the Chaos Gods were powered not only by faith, but by emotions as well as aspects of reality itself such as change (which also means wiping out all life probably would fail to destroy Chaos). People going about their daily lives experiencing their normal emotions would still empower the Chaos Gods. It has been argued that if the Emperor had not destroyed the other religions and actually WARNED people about Chaos ([[Interex|like some other people]]), Chaos would have been less powerful because people would have directed their belief to religions (such as the Abrahamic faiths) or outright have nothing to do with it at all (which is still better than falling to it). If anything, belief and faith grant power in this setting and even [[Ork|make gods real if they weren't before]], so while [[Interex|an atheistic approach guarding against Chaos]] could help, at most it would just result in a stalemate; theistic religiosity in the 40k verse not only defends but allows adherents to [[Ynnead|take the fight to Chaos and provides the only possibility of defeating them]]. Therefore, by abolishing religion (especially purging the theistic ones) [[FAIL|the Emperor HELPED the Chaos Gods]], albeit [[Tzeentch|unintentionally]]. As such the Emperor's own ignorance in this regard led to the [[Horus Heresy]], bringing about his own downfall. The Emperor may have been tens of thousands of years old, vastly intelligent and unbelievably powerful, but even he could not predict everything. Perhaps that was his greatest failing: he attempted to ''predict'' how to defeat Chaos instead of applying the scientific method. From his words throughout 40k it is clear he saw Warpcraft and science as completely separate and distinct fields. Had he applied the scientific method to studying Chaos, he would have learned the above information about Chaos's strengths and combating it with faith. As with most genii, he outsmarted himself. Even so, his reaction to anything but blind-obedience was “kill them with fire.” When you’re claiming there must be no religion and kill anyone who wants a reason to believe you’re claim that religion is bad, you set yourself up for self-destruction at best.

===Alternative view===

Makes you think though - The Emperor knew about the Chaos Gods (even if he didn't refer to them as such), since he talked to Horus about them, who then passed it on the Garviel Loken to soothe his mind (not strictly true - Horus and Loken only learned about Daemons - Loken is totally mystified when an Interex soldier explains the nature of Chaos/Kaos to him). The Emperor also might have had an inkling that it wasn't just belief that powered them, what with him being in such close contact with the Warp 24/7. This begs the question - was he, in fact, out-Just As Planning Tzeentch and, as [[Erebus]]' false(?) memories showed Horus, did he ALLOW the Primarchs to be taken, just so Lorgar would land on Colchis, be raised by Kor Phaeron, learn about Chaos, fall to Chaos, turn Horus, allow the Horus Heresy to happen, teleport to Horus' Battle-Barge, kill his son while being mortally wounded himself, and be installed on the Golden Throne just so the billions upon billions of humans would have someone to worship other than the Chaos Gods, as a God that can be seen, touched and interacted which is nowhere near as powerful as a God that must be believed in purely through faith. Probably the only hiccup that The Emperor didn't foresee was Magnus ripping through his psychic shields and wrecking the Golden Throne/Webway Gate, which could've been avoided if The Emperor had fucking told his sons what he was doing.

In other words... did the Emperor plan to be worshiped all along? Probably not, but it makes you think

===Author's Opinion===
[http://graham-mcneill.com/ McNeill's website] has an explanation for his thought processes when writing the story as well as his opinion of it on [http://graham-mcneill.com/last-church/ its own page], but it's been copypasted here for convenience. Strangely, Graham states that "he didn't want to preach", but then states he wanted Uriah to be "wrong" and the Emperor to be "right" (see below).

<blockquote>I came late to this anthology, as I was finishing a novel while the bulk of writers were thrashing away at their keyboards. So when it came time to start developing a story, I asked the editors to send me a one-line pitch for each of the other stories so I didn’t waste time replicating a story that had already been written. When I got them, they were mostly bolters blazing, chainswords hacking stories, which is great, but I felt needed balancing by one that had a more thoughtful pace, with less fighting. One of the aspects of the Heresy I’ve liked the most has been the dichotomy between a growing secular empire butting heads with humanity’s urge to worship things in the sky. I saw this story as a challenge to myself, the readers and to BL. Would I be able to write a story like this that was exciting and engaging? Would the readers buy into it or would they be bored without the action? Would BL publish a story like this? Turns out that it seems all three were answered with a resounding yes. There’s a lot of me in this story, though I’m certainly not preaching to anyone with it. It’s more like I wanted people to talk about the story, to ask themselves questions and look at things in a different light. Some folk have said that Uriah is a straw man, and that the arguments made on both sides of his and Revelation’s debate are simplistic. Part of me agrees with that, as I’m not a theologian (and, crucially, neither was Uriah. He was a drunken rake, called to be a priest by a personal experience. No years of training in a seminary for him…) and I wasn’t trying to write a treatise on religion or belief, but rather a story that got people talking and entertained them. It’s also the first time the Big E turns up in a Heresy story in any real form. He’s appeared a few times to deliver the odd line of dialogue, but this was the first time we’d seen him talk, interact and appear for any length of time (even though most of it is in another guise) so I needed to be careful. In the end, to really stir the pot, I wanted to end the story in a way that, while Uriah might have been wrong, he was the one you liked better and who came out with the apparent moral high ground. The Emperor was right, yet he came across as the arrogant, short-sighted tyrant – the very kind he rails against in the story. Now go back and read it again and see if you agree!</blockquote>

==Trivia==
*Isandula Verona's paintings depict 3 events of old earth (both factual and presumably fictional), one painting depicts "nude figures disporting in a magical garden", likely the Garden of Eden. The second is a painting of "a battle between a golden knight and a silver dragon", undoubtedly based of the battle between the Emperor and the Void Dragon in ancient Libia. But the third painting is by far the strangest, it depicts a "wondrous being of light surrounded by a halo of golden machinery" (couldn't possibly be foreshadowing the Emperor on the Golden Throne) ... Also, there is the description of an "explosion of stars", possibly referring to the creation of the Eye of Terror.
**However, if it is a Christian or quasi-Christian church (it is almost certainly not contiguous with Christianity as we know it today, though) it's more likely that these scenes (along with many other undescribed panels) depicts scenes of Christian mythos - Eden, St. George (except this is not the first time the Emperor has been described fighting a dragon. It's implied that He IS St. George) and resurrection/second coming of Jesus (the machinery part may seem strange, but Christian Renaissance art tended toward anachronisms, as in "XVI century Italians doing Biblical cos-play," seen in just about every Biblically based piece of art; i.e. why does Mary dress like a contemporary nun instead of a pious Jewess of the 1st century? Because visual historicity wasn't the point but rather devotional artwork that people could relate to!) The explosion of stars could represent the Creation (unknown to most people, the Bit Bang Theory is actually a pro-creationism argument atheists created in the Church as it makes the question “where did that energy, matter, and the laws of physics come from in the first place for there to be a Big Bang) or possibly events of the End Times. Big E is the centerpiece of 40K, but there is no need to stuff him in every single piece mentioned. Especially when it makes more sense not to. The paintings and church itself is foreshadowing, no doubt, but also look what examples The Emperor chooses to trash religion - crusades (the first few were to re-take Byzantine land conquered by Muslims, the middle ones were fought beside Muslims not against, and the last few were epic bromance against basically medieval ISIS), witch-hunts (actually witch trials was entirely a Protestant thing, Catholicism has always denied the existence of witches and any Catholic who participated in the hunts was excommunicated), the Inquisition (which is blamed for the punishments of the secular governments, and, in fact, some people who were being persecuted by the latter would actually take it upon themselves to blaspheme in court so they would get the Inquisition instead of the royal courts because if the Inquisition found you innocent you were simply forgiven and released), the purging of Cathars and other heretics all both inspired certain elements and aesthetics of the 40K universe and presumably transpired as "ancient history" in-universe.
**The Last Church, the building itself, is a physical manifestation of what the Imperium will become (and it makes sense as the setting is '''strongly''' based on Christianity). Uriah represents the part of religion that is not killing the infidels, but love and turn other cheek, etc. And the Grimdark part is that The Emperor sees this - he does not consider Uriah to be an enemy or bad in general, and he admires Isandula's work. But he is ready to destroy all this to prevent the Crusades and the Inquisition, [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralMyopia EXACTLY what the Emperor did to try and destroy religion] and EXACTLY the things that go to the top of the "Imperium of Man's most popular things" chart the very moment The Emperor (almost) dies. And as he himself was more like Stalin than Jesus, the new Church has all the zealous "burn the heretics" of the old one, but none of its compassion or "turn the other cheek". Also, The Emperor had political reasons to destroy religions (most likely they would've disapproved of the Emperor's brutal dictatorship/had more influence over people than he liked; making the Emperor part-Hitler in addition to part-Stalin), but they are touched very little in this story, so its not important.
*The church in question appears to be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne Lindisfarne]: perched on "a rocky promontory jutting from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain an island] that was said to have [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_empire once ruled the world]". Uriah even references it being raided by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne#Vikings Scandi].
*Many of our currently existing countries and continents are mentioned in the story, however they are spelled and pronounced differently.
*The Mariana Canyon where the giant stone figures are carved in is most likely the remnants of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the Earth's present-day oceans -- given that this place is now exposed, you can grasp just how much the Earth has changed... For example, the oceans boiled away due to various factors. Some of the new land that became exposed became known as the "Panpacific".
*Given Uriah's knowledge of (and ability to travel to) other countries, and his reaction to the Emperor's plans to conquer the galaxy, it seems likely that the Age of Strife on Terra was less of a complete societal breakdown and more of a regression to the dark ages in which knowledge of the past remained largely intact but functionally useless. Ironic, considering the state of the Imperium ushered in to save humanity from that.
*The Emperor's theological quibbles with religion in the story are very sophomoric. Most of them are refuted in the writings of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, two writers any Catholic priest is overwhelmingly familiar with, but Uriah's refutations of the Emperor are quite amateur as well (although, he's not Catholic, and doesn't seem to be highly educated himself regardless. His religion is vague but implied to be a highly syncretized quasi-Abrahamic faith. Jesus doesn't warrant a mention, somehow, although the excesses of the Catholic church are front and center in the Emperor's arguments, just as they are among many edgy athiests of our day.) Graham McNeill, not being a philosopher or theologian, and not, as far as we know, even religious, is probably unaware of the counter arguments a real priest would realistically have used (or the counterarguments to those counters, which are just as old), and evidently didn't do a lot of research in that arena, or want to.
*The fact that attempts to abolish religion in real-life have proven harmful rather than good isn't addressed in the story either; as in Uriah doesn't mention any of those cases to refute the Emperor (look at Soviet Russia, North Korea and Cambodia under Pol Pot for three examples - it's even possible the Emperor was Stalin in this universe). Again, Uriah is most probably simply ignorant of those things happening in the past.
*Lastly, The Emperor's claim that "humanity will not be free until the last stone of the last church falls on the head of the last priest" is a quote of [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/122284-civilization-will-not-attain-to-its-perfection-until-the-last Émile Zola].
{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

The Last Church

2020-01-29T17:48:47Z

2600:1006:B10C:CEDE:ACE4:D512:ACE9:75CC: /* Trivia */

{{Awesome}}

[[File:The Last Church on Terra.jpg|200px|right|thumb|THE LAST CURIOUSLY DENOMINATIONAL CHURCH!]]
'''The Last Church''' by [[Graham McNeill]] is a short story describing the conversation between an old and lonely priest named Uriah Olathaire of the very last church on Terra (The Church of the Lightning Stone) during the [[Unification Wars]] (where the Emperor banned religion and the worship of gods) and a mysterious character named [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Revelation]], the story is pretty deep and thought provoking and shows you that you don't need '''XTREME GRIMDARK''' and violence to make a great 40k story (even though the story doesn't take place in the 41st millennium). As well as being the earliest complete story in the 40k canon, it deals with morals, religion, atheism and humility and the benefits and costs of each. And also, Uriah is probably running for 'most badass non-augmented human' in the setting at first place. What's more badass than [[Ollanius Pius| getting killed by Horus]]? Telling the Emperor, ''to his face'', why he sucks (note that the Emperor was never Jesus: at most, and in fairly old lore he was implied to be Jesus's 13th disciple, which in turn means not only that he knew Jesus, but purposely tried to do better than God at guiding humanity with [[Horus Heresy|predictable results]]. What is more, other than its being called a "church," there is not really anything specifically Christian about Uriah's religion explicitly described–rather it seems like a vague syncretic religion that venerates miracles, saints and nature.)

Moral of the story: if you look at some alien psychic/metaphysical entities that are not gods in the first place and not even related to any human religion and say “See? Magic aliens! Therefore, gods aren’t real!” your logic may be flawed.

==Plot Summary==
In the titular last church, the very last worshipper and priest on Earth, Uriah Olathaire, is visited by a mysterious figure. They talk about why the church is the last of its kind, and what happened to all of the faithful who once cherished it so much. This figure, "Revelation", argues about all of the harm that religious worship and organizations have inflicted on humanity throughout history, whilst the priest attempts to refute it. Finally, Revelation reveals himself as the Emperor of Mankind, and more specifically as the being who originally (unintentionally, more or less incidentally due to Uriah's experiences during a brief and dramatic encounter between the two during the Unification Wars) inspired the priest to believe in his religion. He then gives the priest a chance to recant his false beliefs and leave; the church will be destroyed, but he does not have to perish as well.

The priest refuses. Instead pointing out the Emperor's hypocrisy in the various things he has done and in doing that, makes him to be no different to the crusaders and fanatics of the past. Despite this, the Emperor disregards Uriah's words and escorts him outside before his troops start destroying the church. As his church is destroyed, Uriah gives the Emperor one last warning about the folly of his plan before calmly walking back in to the church, preferring to die with it, and prays while he waits for death before he is crushed beneath the rubble.

The Emperor dismisses him as a lost cause and moves on. As the rain lifts, and the morning sun rises over the smoldering remains of the last church on Terra; inside, a broken clock, prophesied to chime only when the world is at an end, begins to softly ring...

==Moral==

The moral of the story is a lot more complicated and relevant than most would think. The Emperor is a well-intentioned extremist fighting against four monstrously powerful daemonic gods and trying to starve them out by spreading the Imperial Truth. He made mistakes, yes, but his intentions were pure (sort of, his methods weren’t at all necessary, merely easier than worrying about people calling him out on immoral acts as proven when his ultimate rebuttal to Uriah calling him out was to eliminate him)). ([[Tolkien|Ah, but good intentions matter not. Only good deeds]].) In this he had the stereotypical view towards religion that some atheists have: that it is the cause of most of humanity's problems including much of the killing and/or all the wars in human history, ignoring any and everything else that was a factor in said problems/wars, the fact that those same negative behaviors and actions are also found in non-religious people and ignoring the fact that '''other''' modes of thought (such as his own) also cause untold suffering. It also ignores the fact that any time extremists act on their religion, their beliefs are almost always directly contradictory to their religion (any successful religion teaches tolerance, extremists are anything but). So, if anything, the Emperor should have made religions enforce their own teachings. The story also is about the Emperor's adamant refusal to accept that extremists are extremists, whether religious or secular. On top of that, the extremists who might have become religious extremists instead become secular extremists thanks to his own secularization of his Imperium and this comes back to bite humanity horribly for the next ten thousand years. The story is about why people really do what they do for their beliefs. The Emperor was prepared to do whatever it took for his beliefs because it appeared to him that he was undeniably correct, just like extremists. The moral is that any reason based on rejection is immoral reason. Case in point, the Emperor-lead Imperium purged so much and so often that it’s sheer scale of atrocity was part of the traitor Primarchs’ motivation to rebel. The religious Imperium purged only when proven truly necessary and tries to limit the damage unless the risk is just too great to contemplate. Just like in real life nations using State Atheism, the Emperor’s Imperium was extremely murder-happy far beyond even the grimdark Imperium.

He was also under the belief that it was faith in general that makes the Chaos Gods stronger and the [[Imperial Truth]] was an attempt to stop them. What the Emperor failed to understand was that the Chaos Gods were powered not only by faith, but by emotions as well as aspects of reality itself such as change (which also means wiping out all life probably would fail to destroy Chaos). People going about their daily lives experiencing their normal emotions would still empower the Chaos Gods. It has been argued that if the Emperor had not destroyed the other religions and actually WARNED people about Chaos ([[Interex|like some other people]]), Chaos would have been less powerful because people would have directed their belief to religions (such as the Abrahamic faiths) or outright have nothing to do with it at all (which is still better than falling to it). If anything, belief and faith grant power in this setting and even [[Ork|make gods real if they weren't before]], so while [[Interex|an atheistic approach guarding against Chaos]] could help, at most it would just result in a stalemate; theistic religiosity in the 40k verse not only defends but allows adherents to [[Ynnead|take the fight to Chaos and provides the only possibility of defeating them]]. Therefore, by abolishing religion (especially purging the theistic ones) [[FAIL|the Emperor HELPED the Chaos Gods]], albeit [[Tzeentch|unintentionally]]. As such the Emperor's own ignorance in this regard led to the [[Horus Heresy]], bringing about his own downfall. The Emperor may have been tens of thousands of years old, vastly intelligent and unbelievably powerful, but even he could not predict everything. Perhaps that was his greatest failing: he attempted to ''predict'' how to defeat Chaos instead of applying the scientific method. From his words throughout 40k it is clear he saw Warpcraft and science as completely separate and distinct fields. Had he applied the scientific method to studying Chaos, he would have learned the above information about Chaos's strengths and combating it with faith. As with most genii, he outsmarted himself. Even so, his reaction to anything but blind-obedience was “kill them with fire.” When you’re claiming there must be no religion and kill anyone who wants a reason to believe you’re claim that religion is bad, you set yourself up for self-destruction at best.

===Alternative view===

Makes you think though - The Emperor knew about the Chaos Gods (even if he didn't refer to them as such), since he talked to Horus about them, who then passed it on the Garviel Loken to soothe his mind (not strictly true - Horus and Loken only learned about Daemons - Loken is totally mystified when an Interex soldier explains the nature of Chaos/Kaos to him). The Emperor also might have had an inkling that it wasn't just belief that powered them, what with him being in such close contact with the Warp 24/7. This begs the question - was he, in fact, out-Just As Planning Tzeentch and, as [[Erebus]]' false(?) memories showed Horus, did he ALLOW the Primarchs to be taken, just so Lorgar would land on Colchis, be raised by Kor Phaeron, learn about Chaos, fall to Chaos, turn Horus, allow the Horus Heresy to happen, teleport to Horus' Battle-Barge, kill his son while being mortally wounded himself, and be installed on the Golden Throne just so the billions upon billions of humans would have someone to worship other than the Chaos Gods, as a God that can be seen, touched and interacted which is nowhere near as powerful as a God that must be believed in purely through faith. Probably the only hiccup that The Emperor didn't foresee was Magnus ripping through his psychic shields and wrecking the Golden Throne/Webway Gate, which could've been avoided if The Emperor had fucking told his sons what he was doing.

In other words... did the Emperor plan to be worshiped all along? Probably not, but it makes you think

===Author's Opinion===
[http://graham-mcneill.com/ McNeill's website] has an explanation for his thought processes when writing the story as well as his opinion of it on [http://graham-mcneill.com/last-church/ its own page], but it's been copypasted here for convenience. Strangely, Graham states that "he didn't want to preach", but then states he wanted Uriah to be "wrong" and the Emperor to be "right" (see below).

<blockquote>I came late to this anthology, as I was finishing a novel while the bulk of writers were thrashing away at their keyboards. So when it came time to start developing a story, I asked the editors to send me a one-line pitch for each of the other stories so I didn’t waste time replicating a story that had already been written. When I got them, they were mostly bolters blazing, chainswords hacking stories, which is great, but I felt needed balancing by one that had a more thoughtful pace, with less fighting. One of the aspects of the Heresy I’ve liked the most has been the dichotomy between a growing secular empire butting heads with humanity’s urge to worship things in the sky. I saw this story as a challenge to myself, the readers and to BL. Would I be able to write a story like this that was exciting and engaging? Would the readers buy into it or would they be bored without the action? Would BL publish a story like this? Turns out that it seems all three were answered with a resounding yes. There’s a lot of me in this story, though I’m certainly not preaching to anyone with it. It’s more like I wanted people to talk about the story, to ask themselves questions and look at things in a different light. Some folk have said that Uriah is a straw man, and that the arguments made on both sides of his and Revelation’s debate are simplistic. Part of me agrees with that, as I’m not a theologian (and, crucially, neither was Uriah. He was a drunken rake, called to be a priest by a personal experience. No years of training in a seminary for him…) and I wasn’t trying to write a treatise on religion or belief, but rather a story that got people talking and entertained them. It’s also the first time the Big E turns up in a Heresy story in any real form. He’s appeared a few times to deliver the odd line of dialogue, but this was the first time we’d seen him talk, interact and appear for any length of time (even though most of it is in another guise) so I needed to be careful. In the end, to really stir the pot, I wanted to end the story in a way that, while Uriah might have been wrong, he was the one you liked better and who came out with the apparent moral high ground. The Emperor was right, yet he came across as the arrogant, short-sighted tyrant – the very kind he rails against in the story. Now go back and read it again and see if you agree!</blockquote>

==Trivia==
*Isandula Verona's paintings depict 3 events of old earth (both factual and presumably fictional), one painting depicts "nude figures disporting in a magical garden", likely the Garden of Eden. The second is a painting of "a battle between a golden knight and a silver dragon", undoubtedly based of the battle between the Emperor and the Void Dragon in ancient Libia. But the third painting is by far the strangest, it depicts a "wondrous being of light surrounded by a halo of golden machinery" (couldn't possibly be foreshadowing the Emperor on the Golden Throne) ... Also, there is the description of an "explosion of stars", possibly referring to the creation of the Eye of Terror.
**However, if it is a Christian or quasi-Christian church (it is almost certainly not contiguous with Christianity as we know it today, though) it's more likely that these scenes (along with many other undescribed panels) depicts scenes of Christian mythos - Eden, St. George (except this is not the first time the Emperor has been described fighting a dragon. It's implied that He IS St. George) and resurrection/second coming of Jesus (the machinery part may seem strange, but Christian Renaissance art tended toward anachronisms, as in "XVI century Italians doing Biblical cos-play," seen in just about every Biblically based piece of art; i.e. why does Mary dress like a contemporary nun instead of a pious Jewess of the 1st century? Because visual historicity wasn't the point but rather devotional artwork that people could relate to!) The explosion of stars could represent the Creation or possibly events of the End Times. Big E is the centerpiece of 40K, but there is no need to stuff him in every single piece mentioned. Especially when it makes more sense not to. The paintings and church itself is foreshadowing, no doubt, but also look what examples The Emperor chooses to trash religion - crusades (the first few were to re-take Byzantine land conquered by Muslims, the middle ones were fought beside Muslims not against, and the last few were epic bromance against basically medieval ISIS), witch-hunts (actually witch trials was entirely a Protestant thing, Catholicism has always denied the existence of witches and any Catholic who participated in the hunts was excommunicated), the Inquisition (which is blamed for the punishments of the secular governments, and, in fact, some people who were being persecuted by the latter would actually take it upon themselves to blaspheme in court so they would get the Inquisition instead of the royal courts because if the Inquisition found you innocent you were simply forgiven and released), the purging of Cathars and other heretics all both inspired certain elements and aesthetics of the 40K universe and presumably transpired as "ancient history" in-universe.
**The Last Church, the building itself, is a physical manifestation of what the Imperium will become (and it makes sense as the setting is '''strongly''' based on Christianity). Uriah represents the part of religion that is not killing the infidels, but love and turn other cheek, etc. And the Grimdark part is that The Emperor sees this - he does not consider Uriah to be an enemy or bad in general, and he admires Isandula's work. But he is ready to destroy all this to prevent the Crusades and the Inquisition, [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralMyopia EXACTLY what the Emperor did to try and destroy religion] and EXACTLY the things that go to the top of the "Imperium of Man's most popular things" chart the very moment The Emperor (almost) dies. And as he himself was more like Stalin than Jesus, the new Church has all the zealous "burn the heretics" of the old one, but none of its compassion or "turn the other cheek". Also, The Emperor had political reasons to destroy religions (most likely they would've disapproved of the Emperor's brutal dictatorship/had more influence over people than he liked; making the Emperor part-Hitler in addition to part-Stalin), but they are touched very little in this story, so its not important.
*The church in question appears to be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne Lindisfarne]: perched on "a rocky promontory jutting from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain an island] that was said to have [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_empire once ruled the world]". Uriah even references it being raided by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne#Vikings Scandi].
*Many of our currently existing countries and continents are mentioned in the story, however they are spelled and pronounced differently.
*The Mariana Canyon where the giant stone figures are carved in is most likely the remnants of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the Earth's present-day oceans -- given that this place is now exposed, you can grasp just how much the Earth has changed... For example, the oceans boiled away due to various factors. Some of the new land that became exposed became known as the "Panpacific".
*Given Uriah's knowledge of (and ability to travel to) other countries, and his reaction to the Emperor's plans to conquer the galaxy, it seems likely that the Age of Strife on Terra was less of a complete societal breakdown and more of a regression to the dark ages in which knowledge of the past remained largely intact but functionally useless. Ironic, considering the state of the Imperium ushered in to save humanity from that.
*The Emperor's theological quibbles with religion in the story are very sophomoric. Most of them are refuted in the writings of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, two writers any Catholic priest is overwhelmingly familiar with, but Uriah's refutations of the Emperor are quite amateur as well (although, he's not Catholic, and doesn't seem to be highly educated himself regardless. His religion is vague but implied to be a highly syncretized quasi-Abrahamic faith. Jesus doesn't warrant a mention, somehow, although the excesses of the Catholic church are front and center in the Emperor's arguments, just as they are among many edgy athiests of our day.) Graham McNeill, not being a philosopher or theologian, and not, as far as we know, even religious, is probably unaware of the counter arguments a real priest would realistically have used (or the counterarguments to those counters, which are just as old), and evidently didn't do a lot of research in that arena, or want to.
*The fact that attempts to abolish religion in real-life have proven harmful rather than good isn't addressed in the story either; as in Uriah doesn't mention any of those cases to refute the Emperor (look at Soviet Russia, North Korea and Cambodia under Pol Pot for three examples - it's even possible the Emperor was Stalin in this universe). Again, Uriah is most probably simply ignorant of those things happening in the past.
*Lastly, The Emperor's claim that "humanity will not be free until the last stone of the last church falls on the head of the last priest" is a quote of [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/122284-civilization-will-not-attain-to-its-perfection-until-the-last Émile Zola].
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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]