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The God-Emperor of Mankind

2018-03-09T05:17:12Z

2600:1014:B10A:7898:91FB:2366:F84E:9380: /* "Modern" Day */

<div style="text-align:left;font-size:1.10em;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"><span style='color:#D4AF37;font-size:100%'> I have come to eradicate Religion as it is the bane of Man, warped in superstition, ignorance and fear! - The Emperor before the Treason of Horus'''</span> </div>
[[File:Lord of Mankind.jpg|400px|right|thumb|Conquering the galaxy is one thing, but He was so powerful He never once stopped looking ''fabulous'' while doing it. At least until the whole 'Horus' thing, anyway.]]

{{Topquote|Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.|Niccoló Machiavelli}}

{{Topquote|The Emperor loves no one man. He cannot afford affection - that is the honest practical for the impossible task that faces the Master of Mankind. He did not love His sons, He does not love men, but He does love mankind.|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}

{{Topquote|I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.|Isaiah 14:14-15}}

The '''God-Emperor of Mankind''', also known as '''The Emprah''', '''Emps''', '''Big E''', '''E-Money''', '''Augustus Imperator''', '''Deus-Imperator''', '''Primogenitor''', '''[[Salamanders|The Outlander]]''', '''[[Imperial Fists|Him on Earth]]''', '''[[Space Wolves|All-Father]]''', '''Master of Mankind''', '''The Immortal Emperor''', '''The Golden King''', '''The Omnissiah''', '''The Cartomancer''', '''The Empinator''', '''The Fresh Emperor of Humanity''', '''Space Jesus''', '''The Man-Emperor of Mankind''', '''Lord of Bling''', [[TTS|'''My Manly Man-peror''']] or if you are of [[Heresy|different inclinations]], called '''The Anathema''', '''The Carrion Lord''', '''The False Emperor''', '''The Corpse Emperor''', '''That Twat with the Chair''', '''[[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|That Loony Shaman-Chassis]]''', '''Space Lenin''', '''[[Tyranid|giant crunchy psychic sandwich]]''', or '''The Corpse on the Throne''' is the figurehead ruler of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Warhammer 40k]] universe and is the only sustaining [[Tzeentch|Hope]] for Humanity as faith in him is the only [[fluff]]-wise way humans can counter the insidious whispers of [[Chaos Gods|Ruin]], and the treacherous ways of the [[Xenos]].

Besides that, Faster than Light Travel is [[Astronomican|entirely dependent on Him]]. The [[Administratum]] He ordered to be established, continues to govern the [[Imperium]] in His name, but it is generally accepted that the absence of the Emperor's [[Malcador|proper guidance]] is what has turned the Imperium into the [[/b/|hellish mess]] that it is. In the [[Imperium]], questioning whatever your superior yells at you, is treason and [[heresy]], typically punished by [[blam|euthanasia]] (at least in the material realm). He created the 20 [[Primarchs]], who viewed him as their "father". However, he saw them more as tools, and instead of names, referred to them by numbers. It goes without saying that would The Emperor be up and about in the 41st millennium He would be very disappointed. Most fa/tg/uys expect Him to [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0191520/bio speak in a generic deep, stentorian voice]. Though [[/v/|many]] also would expect him to speak more like another [[Kane|immortal who wishes to guide humanity to the path of Ascension, who may as well be one of his past guises.]] Clearly the cult of the extragalactic alien self replicating space rock thing didn't work out in the end so he had to try [[Grimdark|another approach]]. It would explain why he's so fond of impractically large tanks, walkers, mecha, incredibly unaerodynamic VTOLs and bling though.

==The Entire History of the Emprah==
===Early life===
[[File:Majestica.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Big E gets all the bitches.]]
The Emperor is (heavily implied to be) a [[Perpetual]]; an immortal [[psyker]] with countless lifetimes' worth of knowledge and power and the ambition to use it. According to the fluff, the being that would eventually become known as The Emperor was born in 8000 BC in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) on the banks of the Sakarya river to a tribe of proto-[[Wikipedia:Hittites|Hittites]]. From his own account, his path towards greatness was spurred on when his uncle murdered his father; so kid-Emps did the responsible thing and gave his uncle a myocardial infarction. Kid-Emps then realised that humans needed laws, and good laws needed to be given by good leaders (which he defined to [[Slaanesh|refer to himself specifically]]): setting him on the (xeno/geno)cidal path of self-righteousness and conquest that would continue for the next 38,000 years.

''According to 1st & 2nd edition fluff'', his birth was the result of hundreds of human shamans committing ritual suicide to be reborn as a single individual capable of protecting humanity from the [[Chaos Gods]]. However, [[Skub|the validity of this fluff is frequently questioned]], given it hasn't been "official" since second edition. However, this theory seems unlikely, especially given that other Perpetuals are known to exist, [[Ollanius Pius|some of which]] may be even older than the Emperor, and they don't have godlike powers. The Chaos Gods apparently view the Emperor as an equal/rival due to his acquisition of powers at a later point ''(see below)''. Yet other fluff tidbits imply that he is some sort of flesh-construct from the Dark Age of Technology run amok and aping human affectation.

Lore also mentions that He guided humanity throughout history under a number of guises, and many of the probable identities of the Emperor in World History may include but are not limited to Hammurabi (the first man to invent the concept of Law), Alexander the Great (the most fabulous conqueror in all of History, with the philosopher Aristotle as his teacher), Julius Caesar (guess why the Imperium spoke Latin), Jesus (as demonstration that He will sacrifice Himself for the progress of Humanity; which is a symbolic idea, [[Skub|as pre-retcon the lore leaned towards the Emperor being one of Jesus' disciples]]), Napoleon Bonaparte (to dismantle the old stagnating monarchies of Europe and replace them with Revolutionary ideals), and Abraham Lincoln (to bitchslap some [[Dark Eldar|racist slaveowners]] into knowing that [[Salamanders|blacks are Humans too]]) And, it ''has'' to be assumed, [[Conan the Barbarian]] ([[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|Yup, he used to be an asshole. A handsome, musclebound asshole.]] At least before he got wiser) and HE-MAN.

Sometime around the 11th or 12th century, He battled a shard of the [[Void Dragon]] in modern-day Libya. He eventually defeated it and locked it on [[Mars]], allowing the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] to control machines... eventually. Of course, it's not entirely clear whether this is true or not -- it's entirely possible that ALL of the Emperor's history is a lazily-crafted lie He throws around because no one can debunk it. Although given how [[Awesome]] it sounds, we're going to say it is. Either that, or it's just another example of how [[Games Workshop|Geedubs]] can't be bothered to keep their stories consistent even about the most important parts of the setting. Just remember to take stuff with a grain of salt, since, [[Retcon|you know]].

Whatever his actual origins might have been, for the most part He more or less stayed out of the way of humanity's progress during the next 30,000 years of history, including the [[Dark Age of Technology]], though hot-off-the-press fluff indicates He might have been traversing outer space in old-style NASA rockets with the other Perpetuals, to eventually coming to find the planet [[Molech]], where he passed through a gateway that led ''directly'' to the fortresses of the four [[Chaos Gods]]. Here, he either challenged, bargained, or stole portions of power from a source claimed by the gods as their own. This would earn him the ire of the duped/defeated Ruinous Powers, who consider him as some sort of usurper or that he reneged on some kind of undisclosed deal we haven't been made aware of yet.

===Unification Wars===
He returned to Terra at the closing years of the [[Age of Strife]]. With Terra cut off from the rest of the Human empire and Terra itself ruled by warring "techno-barbarians", in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, E-money decided to reveal Himself, using His mastery of genetic engineering to create the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodians]] and cheaper, easier to make [[Thunder Warriors]] ''(the predecessors of the Space Marines)''. Using "join-me-or-die" tactics, He managed to conquer the entirety of Terra during the event called Unification Wars. Then, He made contact with Luna and the Mechanicum of Mars. When dealing with Mars, He called Himself the [[Omnissiah]], and convinced them to build Him weapons and space-ships. Around this time, He also created a doctrine, the [[Imperial Truth]], which states that religion, faith, and superstition must be all banned, because they have never succeeded in unifying the human race during all of Emp's lifetime. Simply put: the whole "Peace, Love, and Religion" mumbo-jumbo has never worked and now must be eradicated (ignoring or forgetting what happened to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union| real]-[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot| life] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea| societies] that tried to throw faith and religion under the bus).

Exception where's He's not a perfect badass? [[The Last Church]]. It is permissible to substitute the voice of whatever angry militant atheist appeals to you most/least for the duration of this one (short) story. Also, according to that same story, this asshole wiped out Scandinavia, [[Viking|right when Scandinavia was getting fun again]]. According to the Horus Heresy books that mention the Unification Wars, He burned down a lot of things on a partially recovering Terra.

===Great Crusade===
But, before He set out to conquer the stars with the newly-formed Imperial Army (which contained both [[Imperial Guard|ground forces]] and [[Imperial Navy|space-borne fleets]]), He decided to create the twenty [[Primarch]]s, using Himself as the genetic template, while splitting the additional power He ''acquired'' from the Chaos Gods into 20 portions, infusing each piece with a fragment of His own personality, to allow them, in turn, to congeal and gestate [[Heresy|(just like how daemons are born!)]] into the indomitable souls of His future Primarchs. Then, He bound each such vessel/soul to their godlike bodies/shells as they formed in their gestation capsules. Let this sink in: each primarch is basically a unique quasi-daemonic soul, bound to a super awesomely tough material body. Though with this power ''apparently'' stolen, The Big Four will inevitably and continually be pissed at Him for using their power for His own ends. So the Chaos Gods snatched the primarchs away (via time-travel-as-a-vision shenanigans, don't even try to explain it here, just read ''The First Heretic''), inside their incubator pods and all, from the secret lab underneath the Himalayas, to scatter them away across the galaxy. Luckily for the Emperor, some genetic samples were left over from each primarch, so from that He created 20 Legions to serve as the elites of His army: The [[Space Marine|SPEHSS MEHREENS]]. So, with His armies and space-ships complete (minus the Primarchs, which He hoped to find), He embarked upon the [[Great Crusade]], to restore mankind to its [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|rightful place as rulers of the galaxy.]]

However, the Emperor himself states to [[Arkhan Land]] ''(the guy who discovered '''Land's''' Speeders/Raiders)'' that he never considered the Primarchs to be his literal sons and saw them as well-crafted tools so he could get his work done. Likening himself to Geppetto ''(from 'Pinocchio')'' in that it is only natural for 20 wooden boys to think of their creator as "Father". Whether He felt any kinship between all of them or only some of them is not entirely known. But it seems like He was all like, "Yall think I'm a bad dad, but look, shit I just made these kids in a lab! I'm not really their dad!". Then again He puts on personas for every occasion (during the meeting, Land saw him as not as a gold armoured god, but as an utterly logical scientist and the Emperor had the whole shtick of people interpreting his words in the manner that made the most sense to them personally) who really knows when He's being genuine or not or how He feels.

*On that note, Aaron Demski-Bowden has insisted that nothing the Emperor says in Master of Mankind should be taken at face value. Moreover, the Emperor is inconsistent in how He describes the Primarchs. While He uses numbers and "it" when talking to Ra and Land, at the end of a book He's referring to Horus by name and as a "he", not an "it". AD-B has doggedly refused to clarify, because he enjoys watching the arguments he's kicked off.
*However, in [[Laurie Goulding]]'s audiobook: Malcador First Lord of the Imperium; Malcador pretty much spells out exactly the same thing, saying that the primarchs were designed to be ''"conqueror's tools and nothing more"'', and had been manipulated into conflict with each other from the very start so that they would eventually destroy each other and pave the way for a "human" civilisation, rather than a "transhuman" one and that the Horus Heresy was always [[Just as Planned|part of the plan]]. He does later have a minor breakdown and admit that he was forced to lie though, but is not clear on what elements. As a result, it is entirely possible (and in fact more likely) that there was no such plan to have the Primarchs destroy each other and that Malcador was merely trying to hide the fact that things had gone off the rails. Buuuuuut in The Board Is Set short story by [[Gav Thorpe]], it seemingly reconfirms Malcador's admission as the the Big E and His bestie play a game of cards with each Primarch represented (heavily implied). In such a game, Mal plays as the games "Warmaster" whilst Big E plays the played the position of the "emperor". The two seamlessly play out the entire events of the Horus Heresy and even hypothetical scenarios had they played each Primarch differently against the others. And this, so they admit, is a game they have played endlessly throughout the Great Crusade, knowing full well what was to happen (with exception to the end game). So, as of right now, the lore leans towards the Emps and Mal being responsible, at least in part, for the current state of everything by stirring each demi-god into patricidal and genocidal rage and losing complete control of it all right when it mattered most. [[Fail|Good job]].

As He found each Primarch, He assigned them command of their respective Legions and to act as His generals, warlords and pantheon of heroes that humanity were meant to emulate, in the quest to unify humanity in the Great Crusade ''(although, at some point, one of them may have been executed and the other disappeared, leaving only 18 Primarchs and Legions after 100 years of the Great Crusade).''

A military campaign of a grand scale, this is also when the SPESS MEHREENS were most awesome and at their peak. [[just as planned|Just when things seemed to be going well]], the [[Horus Heresy]] took place, where 8.5 of the Primarchs and their respective legions rebel against the Emprah. In the end, the Emperor fought and slew [[Horus]] (who was daddy's favourite) but at a great cost. The Emperor was mortally wounded to the point that He had to be put permanently on a life support system known as the [[Golden Throne]]. On that day, an untold amount of manly tears was shed.

==="Modern" Day===
Subsequently, 10 thousand years later, without the Emperor's leadership, the Imperium eventually degraded into the theocratic, [[grimdark]] empire we all know and love today, in the 41st millennium. In the 500th year of the 41st Millennium (the exact middle of the millennium), which is a few centuries before the Time of Ending began, visions and signs reach out to all walks of life and social status to the Imperium of the Emperor crying, whether it's to lowly denizens of an underhive having dreams about it, to respected sanctioned psykers reading it from the Imperial Tarot, to shamans on feral planets instinctively knowing that the extra rain pouring down lately are tears of sadness from their "sky god".

While interred on the Golden Throne, the Emperor's psychic-essence prevents [[daemon|daemon kind]] from directly assailing [[Terra]] through the broken remains of the Imperial Webway (in the form of a golden sun), while additionally sustaining and managing the psychic-beacon known as the [[Astronomican]], that makes warp travel within 50,000 light years around Terra possible.

A question remained unanswered is that, is the above thing the only thing he is capable of doing these days? Or can he communicate with others? It was said that the newly revived Guilliman had an audience with him for a whole day, so presumably he can. Yes, he can. But then, what is he [[Black_Crusade| waiting for]] [[Emperor%27s_To-Do_List| before]] waking the [[Lion_El%27Jonson| sleepy beauty ]] up? It could be that he literaly couldn't talk to anyone before that, considering that even Guilliman suddered at the thought of the mental sand blasting that was speaking with the emperor. It's possible the same communion might destroy a mortal.

Perhaps the only thing stopping the Emperor from direct governance of the Imperium is his psychic voice delivering the equivalent of an Ordinatus blast every time he uses it, so he cannot chastise the incompetence of the High Lords for fear of killing them outright.

It is common knowledge, that the Emperor is the most powerful psyker alive, humbling even the [[Eldar]]. It is also suggested that He has guided humanity in a guise of people like Julius Caesar, [[Conan the Barbarian]], [[meme|Chuck Norris]], Christopher Lee and Jesus. It is uncertain as to whether or not His internment on the Golden Throne is a good thing. Some believe that if He were to die, the [[Imperium]] would truly fall into darkness, whereas others believe that if allowed to finally die, He would reincarnate and return to unify the galaxy once more, stronger than ever. Whatever the truth, [[Games Workshop]] are probably never going to advance the story, so speculation has little worth. Unless you take Warhammer Fantasy as an example, where the time-line ended. Badly. In which case prepare for a new Galexy populated only by Ultramarine and Khorne Bezerker clones.

As the Golden Throne is breaking apart, the Mechanicus and certain elements at the top of the Imperium tries to contact the Dark Eldar for knowledge on how to repair the thing. ''The Carrion Throne'' reveals that a [[Haemonculus]] did make it to Terra, he is hunted down by the Inquisitor and the Custodes. The cheeky psycho doctor had absolutely no intention of repairing the thing but wanted to instead marvel upon the largest and greatest psychic pain machine ever constructed that made even a [[Haemonculus]] stand in utter awe, and look the cadaver buried within right in the eye sockets before both it and the machine ultimately died.

When Roboute was revived from stasis and finally got to Terra, he went into the throne room to have a chat with Big E. During their chat, Roboute noted the Emperor regarded him with the interest one would regard a tool. This leads Guilliman to believe that the ages of sitting on a gold throne had stripped away any vestige of humanity.

==The Emprah Himself==
[[File:Climax.jpg|250px|right|thumb|A typical father-and-son chat between Empy and Horus.]]
{{Topquote|1=The Emperor was a brilliant scientist, a powerful warrior, and great psyker, but he was a terrible [[Venus' Burn|father...]]|2=[[Roboute Guilliman]], giving a short, yet accurate biography of the Emperor. Though on the other hand, he would learn that the Emperor never saw himself as their father. <s>Interestingly, no leader, or warlord</s> HERESY!!!}}

After He shaved his goatee, His chin radiated [[Astronomican|a brilliant light]] through the [[Warp]]. The [[Imperial Navy]] uses this light as a beacon to guide them through that beautifully terrible place. He is sometimes referred to as the Emprah, a joke derived from the voice acting in the ''[[Dawn of War]]'' game, ''[[Dawn of War: Soulstorm|Soulstorm]]'', specifically [[Indrick Boreale]]'s final speeches.

The Emperor is said to be so powerful that He could [[C'tan|destroy suns with ease]], though He has never actually done so (he however, ''made'' a golden sun which he put in the middle of his broken [[Webway]] gate to prevent daemons from spilling through, albeit needing to concentrate on powering it for the next ten thousand years. This would indicate that the Emperor does indeed have the power to destroy stars.). The [[Chaos Gods]] are scared as fuck of the guy, calling him respectively "The Anathema", as in the polar opposite to [[Chaos]]. The [[Eldar]] fear that if the Emperor were to die, a new [[Eye of Terror]] would pop out with Terra at its center and possibly a new Chaos God would be born.

He was also capable of summoning what can only be called an army of human souls (including every soldier who had died for him, [[Ferrus Manus]] included) to fight for him; an ability utterly unseen in the 40k universe and suggesting that he has some fundamental connection to human souls in the afterlife - a comforting thought compared to dissolving into the Warp to be eaten by daemons and giving some credence to the 40k era theory that when the Time of Ending...ends..the Emperor and all loyal human souls will join in one final battle against Chaos.

After He was nearly killed by His son, He was placed upon the Golden Throne and hasn't moved for the past 10 millennia. Most of the fluff maintains that His existence on a day-to-day basis since then is a living hell (by comparison, the torture astropaths go through when becoming one, would be like a trip to the dentist). It's the mother/father/uncle/2nd Cousin of all mindfucks, so bad that even an Inquisitor would likely go insane as a result (or anybody else for that matter) and yet He carries on. Why? He may be the universe's most powerful vegetable, but that doesn't mean that He will just take a sit and die. Oh no, it's exactly the opposite. It gives Him a fuckton of work to do, and along with being THE lighthouse in the Warp, guiding the Imperial Navy, He also needs to make the aforementioned astropaths, as well as keeping all the [[daemon|nasties]] of the Warp where they're supposed to be (i.e. not invading realspace to make the lives of all living things miserable). He also does it for the good of humanity (sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?). In the last year of M41, tech-priests discovered that the Golden Throne is failing and the Emperor is dying. There is a chance of the Emperor returning to life, as well as the risk that He will die forever. If the latter would be the case, then everyone in the galaxy will become a Chaos sex toy/punching bag/plague vector/science experiment. Note that if the Emperor recovers, He'd be several hundred times more powerful. Emps was born of a group of psykers combining their might and souls in one ritual act. Maybe. Since then, Empy has gained all human souls since he got put on that Throne {see: leveling in Dark Souls), as he ''is'' the afterlife now, provided one excludes the veritable Hell that is the Warp. And all that [[Infinity Circuit|stuff]] the Eldar get up to.

(In the GRIM DARKNESS of the past 10 millenia, Empy had a NICE BUFFET)

{{Topquote|He's been up to all sorts of things, our beloved father. Consorting with Xenos, resurrecting ancient technology. Don't believe that he is blameless in this...|Magnus the Red}}

His desire to guide and protect humanity, in addition to His power, made the Emperor as close to a Farseer as humanity was ever going to get. He declared humanity to be superior to all Xenos which was fair enough considering the collapse of the Eldar, planned to destroy every shard of religion by force of arms if needed in order to protect them from the whispers of Chaos (though he got the whole thing backwards, since said religions were starving the Chaos gods)(then again, he got it '''right''' after enthronment), planned to reunite humanity under His rule no matter what anyone else wanted/thought of that (again by force of arms if needed), cared little for the Primarchs being His actual sons (thinking of them as generals and tools rather than biological offspring, and screwing over several of them in His efforts to recruit them / making them follow orders, hence causing some of their later betrayals)), carried out many unorthodox, morally questionable experiments and much much more... All because this was the only way He could foresee humanity surviving the threats to come. Also known as the "Golden Path". Any other action He ever partook in, no matter how unorthodox or morally questionable or just outright horrific was secondary to the one and only goal: survival. For a being that's lived millennia, having foreseen as much as is possible to do so whilst not being an actual god, His way was the only way lest we all face [[Chaos Spawn|extinction.]] Those were the options with the context of the universe He found Himself in. Time was against Him, and expediency was the order of the day; secure the physical safety of Mankind in the galaxy then safeguard their minds and souls. Everything else was a tool to be utilized in pursuit of that single purpose. It didn't matter how the [[Primarch|godlike princelings]] felt, or how they were raised; it only mattered that they performed their allocated tasks as swiftly and efficiently as possible so that He could move on to the next phase of [[Golden Throne|His Great Work.]]

His reign eventually [[Inquisition|killed more humans]] (not even counting those who were innocent) than the entire total of all of humanity's dictators in history (ironically that may have been [[A Game of Pretend|past personas]] of the Emperor). Even during the Unification Wars, several Terran cultures were wiped out completely (Orioc on Antarctica, for example, was razed to the ground for being religious, just to make a point, even after its forces were defeated and its people ready to surrender), while simultaneously being pretty terrible at incorporating non-Terran elements. Because THAT is just how damn important and dire the circumstances were. An entire galaxy spanning empire needed to be constructed in little under two centuries when the cataclysm was foreseen to occur and ain't no one got time to fart arse about with treating people the way they deserve if the species won't survive.

Contrary to popular belief, he really did think the post-Ullanor phase through to some degree, Horus was the right choice as Warmaster for no other could command the respect of nearly all his brothers better than Lupercal the First. And Dorn as Praetorian was as correct a decision as was possible to make considering that his talents were put to good use throughout the Heresy that followed. There was no need to put a Primarch in charge of the Council of Terra for the Primarchs were not made to rule, but to serve as generals in retaking the galaxy. Humanity was to be governed by humanity. Primarchs like say, Guilliman, though perfect as an administrator, was better suited and needed as a general for the Great Crusade. Honestly, it's bewildering that no one in the military saw the need for human administration. Having godlike Primarchs in charge at the top only serves to increase superstition in a secular galaxy when the idea was to rid humanity of religion and superstition in order to better protect it from warp predation.

To be fair, the whole reason humanity (and the Emperor) hates aliens is because during the Age of Strife numerous Xenos races exploited humanity's trust and either raided, lollygagged, [[loot]]ed or all of the above and were generally a nuisance the entire time. Then the Emperor comes along and decides that the best way to stop all that from happening again is to wipe out all Xenos that might even think to pose a threat to the fledgling Imperium. However, those few Xenos species that did not pose an immediate threat to humanity were usually made protectorates similar to the Tau government (unless they resisted, were in the way, possessed a planet, influenced human culture at all, or were intelligent at all, in which case [[Exterminatus|the results]] were predictable). Ever since His ascension, the Imperium forgot about the part where harmless aliens could be tolerated. But on the other hand, [[Orks|the]] [[Necron|most]] [[Tyranids|common]] [[Tau|xenos]] [[Dark Eldar|are]] [[Asdrubael Vect|massive]] [[Eldrad|dicks]] and aren't exactly willing to buddy up with the Imperium themselves. Plus, at least according to ''Horus Rising'', the idea of letting Xenos exist and then eventually grow stronger is wrong on every level to the Imperium (hence the whole mess with the [[Interex|Interex/Diasporex]].)

To be even more fair (and meta), the triumvirate of Horus Heresy authors tend to have their own interpretation of the Big E. [[Graham McNeill]] generally portrays Him as competent and benevolent (if flawed), [[Dan Abnett]] portrays Him as competent but bloodthirsty, while [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] portrays Him as a vicious, needlessly cruel imbecile (and even this is counterbalanced by his portrayal in Master of Mankind, where he's interestingly a mixture of all the previous portrayals at once - which is kinda of appropriate really). Chris Wraight, as far as he has portrayed Him, has done so through the eyes of Jaghatai Khan, showing Him as deeply flawed and distant from His own sons, but also countering that He was working towards goals even the Primarchs couldn't fully grasp. Even in Path of Heaven, where the Khan gets close to learning the secrets of the Webway project, he's shown to not have all the cards (the Emperor's knowledge that humanity is evolving into a psychic race, for example).

On another note, [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|long before the Horus Heresy novel series]], there were hidden gems Noobs are not aware of, such as a text describing the fight between Horus and the Emperor (although it wasn't written especially well), or Conspiracy Theories. One of them was actually the possibility that the Emperor was already dead when Rogal Dorn managed to reach him; however, in the aforementioned text, [[Luther|Horus had realised that he had been wronged and deceived]] by the [[Assholetep|Chaos Gods]], who immediately ceased to possessed the Warmaster and fled before the Emperor's final Force attack [[FATAL|bring woe to both of them]]. What if the Emperor had spared him or if the Warmaster survived somehow? In Olden Fluff, all Primarchs were Psykers and originally supposed to be [[Grey Knight|shining examplars of Human free from the taint of the Empyrean]] which they failed to bear true potential due to their early contact with the Warp, via the Dark Gods abducting them pedobear style.

This in turn was what caused their mutations and unique characteristics and diversity which was more of a metaphor that each Primarch was an image of humanity themselves; in fact, much of the powers of the Primarchs, like the Emperor, would have come from their psychic abilities. It is known that [[Sensei]]'s powers include health, regeneration, greater athletic prowess and [[God Stat|overpowering their Strength stat]] when they try to attack something, thus it would not be surprising if it was also the case for Primarchs (baby Sanguinius was super healthy and immune to Baal's radiations, Curze crawled out of his molten drop-pod and crater while screaming in pain and fled immediately, instinctively, into the darkness, and later his body was fully healed) prior to the new fluff messing everything up, 'cause BL writers have trouble getting their shit together.

But back to where we are; the notion that the Emperor is dead forebodes a terrible possibility, in which [[Pretend|the corpse that Rogal Dorn took back on Terra's Imperial Palace was not Big E but of Horus being passed as the Emperor... and was worshipped as such for Ten Thousand Years]]. While [[Retcon|this has become highly unlikely]], it would both be a great and GRIMDARK [[Just As Planned|plot twist]] and an immense source of [[Lulz]] especially when you mix in the events of Gathering Storm 3 with [[Roboute Guilliman]]. While this would explain why some Fluff versions mentions that no one save for the Adeptus Custodes' Companions have entered the Throne Room, and keep maximum security all the time (to be fair, other sources mentioned exceptions everywhere, such as the psykers being needed as sacrifice for the Golden Throne, Grey Knights companies granted audience or certain high ranked Inquisitors such as their [[Badasious|High Lord]] and [[Hector Rex]]), this theory has since been disproven.

The truth is outright revealed in Dark Imperium - the first novel set after the Gathering Storm. Roboute Guilliman reflects upon his meeting with the Emperor, saying that he entered the Throne Room expecting to find the Emperor dead. The Emperor was a wizened corpse surrounded by banks of groaning machinery... '''but the Emperor was still alive and talked to him'''. Guilliman feels that the Emperor's psychic might has grown since his death, but that his humanity has gone as well, to the point that Guilliman thinks that even if he is a god he doesn't deserve to be worshiped. Nonetheless, in some impossible fashion, something of the Emperor has survived to M42.

===His short CV - aka how I got my godhood===

(8000BC - M30k): Played different important people in human history, always manipulating from behind the scenes.

M30k: Created Custodes and Thunder Warriors to take over the Earth, and the Unification Wars are fought.

M30k: Made Primarchs and Space Marines. Thunder Warriors are wiped out.

c.798.M30k - 004.M31k: The Great Crusade.

c.005 - 014.M31k: Horus Heresy.

014.M31k - now: The Emperor is entombed on the Golden Throne. Powers the [[Astronomican]] to make space travel possible at all and keeps Daemons from invading Terra, but cannot communicate with his subjects any longer (except in [[Age of Apostasy|extremely]] [[Roboute Guilliman|exceptional]] circumstances). Eats psykers like candy to stay the tiny bit alive he is.

===His Goals and <s>Flaws</s>HERESY!===
*Lead and shape Mankind into a psychic race and surpass the Eldar by learning from their mistakes.
*Unite Humanity under one aegis and allow for instant communication and travel across all human inhabited worlds, thereby uniting the species in a way that it had never been before.
*Most importantly, prevent another calamity like the [[Age of Strife]] or [[Fall of the Eldar]].

In order to achieve this He had to:
*Shelter and protect Humanity from the fell hand of [[Chaos]];
*Reclaim every single human inhabited world, spacecraft or station;
*Purge,at least sterilize all humans that had deviated from the normal strain of humanity (because they would not evolve into the predicted psychic species and threatened the Plan with their deviancy);
*Remove alien influence or control from human worlds;
*Eliminate external Xenos threats throughout the galaxy that might challenge or become a threat to Mankind's supremacy.

To achieve those secondary goals He had to:
*Create [[Primarchs|superhuman generals]] to bestride the galaxy and lead men to innumerable victories;
*Create [[Space Marines|superhuman soldiers]] powerful enough to retake the galaxy beneath the banners of said generals from any enemy;
*Remove the influence of religion from the collective psyche of the human species in order to protect them from the insidious whispers of Chaos (often mistaken for something supernatural and hence a gateway to disaster).

So in the pursuit of those tertiary goals, the Emperor undertook the Great Crusade. Once it was over, all the Primarchs were to have their place: Lorgar was to be the Emperor's Herald and shelter mankind from superstition through enlightenment so that if ever they heard whispers in the dark, they knew it was not natural and to be feared by it, thus denying its embrace. Magnus was to assist the Emperor in sitting on the Golden Throne of earth, thus powering the human Webway shield(somehow), becoming a key figure in Humanity's ascension. Horus was to protect Mankind from [[Tyranids|external]] [[Necrons|physical]] [[Orks|threats]] throughout the Galaxy as Humanity's general. Konrad was to be the enforcer of the Emperor's Laws. Mortarion, His watchguard of wayward deviancy etc.

But the Imperium was only one half of the Plan. The other was the Webway, allowing nigh-instantaneous travel and communication, limiting Mankind's reliance on the warp to almost nothing in the form of Warp travel and thus protecting them against the influence of Chaos. Therefore allowing Mankind to evolve in relative safety and security under the direct guidance and control of the Emperor. When Mankind would be ready, we'd be protected from the warp naturally. That was the final crowning achievement that would bring all the Emperor's plans to fruition and pull all the wayward goals into one singular perfect Great Work. All the sacrifice, all the death, all the heartache, the glory, the battles, the trials and tribulation, 48,000 years of history was culminating into that one Plan. And it all would've been worth it because Mankind would've been saved for all time. Worth any price, where the ends justified the means, or so he claimed.

And yet at the same time, it was this very same pragmatism that ultimately led to his downfall:

*Though his pragmatism made him a superb ruler in wartime, the ultra-militarized society He had [[First Founding|created]] was entirely dependent on the Imperium being constantly at war. Even if the Great Crusade had [[Just as Planned|proceeded exactly as the Emperor expected]], it still would have run out of enemies eventually. And when you have a few trillion newly unemployed soldiers with no other skills beyond killing on your hands and no other purpose in life beyond said killing...well, they tend to get rowdy. He should have realized this already when he had to mop up the surviving [[Thunder Warriors]]. It remains unknown how the Imperium would have continued to look after the Great Crusade was completed and how the large military would be scaled down- or if such a feat could even be possible with a civilization he designed to work only in the presence of a steady stream of conquests. Sure, some of the primarchs and legions had other skills like Guilliman's political organization, but the rank-and-file? Or the likes of the [[World Eaters]]?
*The Emperor's concern for humanity as a whole belied his refusal to acknowledge that humanity was not just a species, but also a group of individuals with infinite variety and whose goals did not necessarily support His own. The fact that other human civilizations such as the Interex had already found ways to fight against Chaos on their own and were just as advanced as the Imperium (if not more so) meant nothing to him (or at least, to his Plan). In his mind, he alone knew what was good for humanity and anything short of total submission to the Imperium was grounds for destruction even (or ''especially'') if they were doing a better job than he was. In effect, all his efforts were performed in the name of an abstraction that arguably '''never existed in the first place'''.
*He made a critical mistake in that trying to erase religion without replacing it with secular ideals that had the same degree of universal appeal. Lacking the immortality and inhumanly grand perspective of the Emperor, it's a basic part of human nature to look for meaning and purpose in a cause greater than oneself, especially in the harsh and grimdark universe that was the [[Age of Strife|Old Night]]. The Imperial Truth tried to do this, but it didn't take into account that "reason", "logic", and "humanism" were by definition too mundane to be suited for the replacement of the old religions, as they were poor substitutes for finding individual meaning. The fact that the Imperial Cult took off so quickly after the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne (and is arguably the only thing keeping the Imperium a remotely unified entity in the present) is proof that the Emperor was once again either too stubborn for his own good or too divorced from the "normal" human condition to understand the value of belief. In either case, all it accomplished was giving all four of the Ruinous Powers a reason to get rid of him, while also giving them an invaluable tool to do so in the form of Lorgar. And all while he was telling the Primarchs that daemons were just another Xenos race in an ill-advised attempt to dispense with their mythological appearance and obvious possession of supernatural powers. This attempt left them vulnerable for Chaotic corruption among themselves or their Legions. Yes, He gave them incredibly vague warnings, but those were not even close to the amount of information He needed to give them. Or, for those of us who think this sounds just a little bit religious for our tastes and don't want to get into a philosophical debate over the importance of belief, imagine the trillions of citizens who had gone their whole lives worshipping a belief only to have ol' Emps turn up and just say "No".
*For a guy who says he's trying to avoid the same mistakes the Eldar made, his obsession with human supremacy and the supposed "purity" of the human form (as defined by what, his own opinion?) are almost indistinguishable from the pre-Fall Eldar's certainty that they were the rightful rulers of the galaxy. Even if humanity did become a purely psychic race, nothing would stop it from making ''another'' Chaos God by accident. It's not a stretch to hypothesize that this was itself a ploy for him to use the collective psychic power of humanity to elevate himself to the status of godhood, where he could truly rule with infinite power.
**The only beings who knew how to create new parts of the Webway were the [[Old Ones]], and they're all dead. At best, the Webway project would've delayed the inevitable before the fact that nobody can figure out how to keep it working became obvious. And since the Warp already bleeds into the Webway at the best of times...well, the whole thing would've been rendered pointless if or when the Warp completely breaks through into the Webway.
**The so-called mistakes and subsequent "Fall" of the Eldar [[Lileath|may have been foreseen]] and [[Morai-Heg|apparently planned for]]. By the close of the 41st Millennium, the psychic gestalt of the conscious-dead Eldar have formed the new god [[Ynnead]], quite probably proving that willpower eventually counters [[Slaanesh|desire]] and completing the Eldar's psychic ascension as a species. The Emperor may not have been aware of this and humanity's own psychic awakening may not have been as tragic, but to give him credit, his own endgame is somewhat similar in wanting to nurture mankind's psychic ascension but without the catastrophe. He is possibly positioning himself to become the focus for humanity's willpower rather than needing enough souls to die before they gestalt together, becoming a guiding will rather than a collective one.
*Most damningly of all, his total disregard for the possibility that the Primarchs might actually have their own thoughts and feelings ended up being one of the key reasons why so many of the Legions ended up falling to Chaos in the first place:
**Lorgar's case (and the entirety of the Horus Heresy, at that matter) would have been entirely avoidable if the Emperor acted like a genuine father figure for once in his lifetime and explained to Lorgar why his Emperor worship had to stop (which the Emperor, with all his undeniable charisma could have achieved). Instead, he had to act like a total dick and utterly humiliate his son by having his grandest city utterly ransacked and ruined, all to prove a point (and just to be an even bigger dick; he had one of Lorgar's own [[Roboute Guilliman|brothers]] do his dirty work.). Yes the point was VERY important to make to Lorgar, but when you say "THIS WORSHIP WILL DESTROY US" without actually going into depth how bad shit can actually get, you leave a fanatic with an excuse to continue being a fanatic and a very good reason to hate you on a personal level, especially considering that the EMPRAH had seen first-hand how the people of Colchis worshipped him as a God when he first met Lorgar. Yet he said nothing then but waited 100 years (as Lorgar himself rightfully points out to Magnus in the novel "The First Heretic") before he destroyed Monarchia and told Lorgar that all he had done thus far was shit. {{Blam|BLAM!.}}
**Angron's case is self-explanatory; honestly, if it weren't for Emps sending him into battle so often he would have rebelled sooner. Sure, he couldn't just let one of his Primarchs get himself killed in a slave revolt, but you'd think he'd send down some of the War Hounds or something instead of warping him away and earning Angron's undying hatred: was one compliant planet's short term stability worth the whole shit rollercoaster, we will never know. Why a <s>man</s> <s>superman</s> Primarch (god damn it!) who knew only killing (not even war, just murdering people with MURDER NAILS JAMMED IN HIS BRAIN) should be controlling 100,000+ Space Marines is something only the Emperor and his divine ass can fathom.
**[[Fulgrim]]'s road to damnation started because he decided to loot a Slaaneshi-possesed sword. Knowing nothing about Chaos, Fulgrim had no idea he was using an incredibly dangerous warp artifact that that would lead to untold consequences. It didn't help that his strict xenophobic teachings prevented Fulgrim from taking [[Eldrad]]'s advice about the Laer Blade into account.
**Even with the Webway fuck-up (which itself could have been prevented had the Emperor not kept it a secret from the most important people in his plans) Magnus might have remained a loyalist if the Emperor had brought Magnus to the Great Work earlier, or had him stationed on Terra along with Dorn, or even just listened to his warning that Horus had turned traitor. Instead, he totally disregarded Magnus's entirely correct warning in favor of allowing Russ (the one Primarch who most wanted Magnus dead) to arrest him because he didn't like the way said warning was delivered. And with the door already broken, he could have simply psy-phoned Magnus to clear it all up instead of jumping to conclusions.
**Similarly to Angron, [[Mortarion]] always resented the Emperor for not letting him get to kill his adoptive father, and when the Emperor refused to give him an answer about the obvious piece of Warp-tech that was the Golden Throne he concluded that the Emperor was a hypocrite and the Imperial Truth was bullshit.
**The Emperor, being the wisest and most powerful human psyker in the galaxy of all people, should have been able to see that [[Konrad Curze]] was an unstable psyker who was on the fast road to devolving into insanity due to his uncontrolled talents. And if he already was aware of it, then at best he was being incredibly careless. And what with the whole Night Lords comprise of criminals, one must really question his divine quality control. Or maybe he is just totally rely on his <s>large</s> huge brain capacity to manage things, and simply dismiss things that can't fit in.
**Completely ignoring that [[Perturabo]] needlessly had one in ten men in his legion killed by decimation under flimsy pretenses. Coupled with the fact that Perturabo was originally a peaceful, diplomatic soul; these two should have triggered some alarm bells about his mental stability. While it was said that the Emperor considers the Primarchs more of tools and less of his children, in retrospect it was obvious that there was plenty of [[Rogal Dorn|favoritism]] going on.
**Horus himself was only pushed to fall because the Chaos Gods played on his worries that he wasn't fit to be Warmaster combined with the unrealized, greater fear that the Emperor never cared for him as a person and that he, the other Primarchs, and the Astartes as a whole would have no place in the Imperium after the Great Crusade's conclusion. (Horus likely being aware of what happened to the [[Thunder Warriors]] when they outlived their usefulness at the end of the Unification Wars probably stoked that particular fire nicely.) You'd have thought the Emperor's most beloved 'son' would at least have been shown the special rooms in the Imperial Palace the Emperor made specifically for the Primarchs to live in after the Great Crusade ended, or at least discussed what he had planned for them when they weren't needed as generals any longer, but no.
**Perhaps the biggest kicker to this is that if we're going to take all of Black Library into account, the Emperor never truly cared for the Primarchs at all (loyalist and traitor included), viewing them as nothing more than powerful but ultimately expendable tools to further the ambitions of Humanity's survival and ascendancy. As determined by the Emperor, of course.
***Although one can always argue that the remaining Primarchs stayed loyal either because they believed in his vision for humanity or were too loyal to be turned, there's no telling exactly how long that might have gone on after the Great Crusade's end - some of them showed signs of disloyalty to the Emperor even during the Heresy, only staying on his side either out of loyalty to Mankind as a whole (Guilliman and his [[Imperium Secundus]] come to mind here), by recognizing the other side as an even greater evil (like Jagatai), or only because the Imperium is on the winning side (if Curze's trolling was true; The Lion, which probably isn't true considering he stabbed him in the next paragraph and told Curze that he didn't care and that he was balls-to-the-wall loyal).
***To clarify the above point, after Guilliman's meeting with the Emperor following the Primarch's revival, he noted that while he loved humanity as a whole, the Emperor was practically incapable of caring about individual people, even his own Primarchs. Everything and everyone was just a tool to him. While some might interpret this as the Emperor simply being a dick, you have to understand his situation; he's an immortal superhuman with a plan to uplift humanity. The fact he's immortal means he would be unable to form any meaningful relationships with mortals, because he'll always outlast them in one way or another. His plan also involved tons of sacrifices for the greater good, when you're forced to sacrifice anything to continue your plans; you can't afford to be too attached to someone you might have to throw into the fire in a split second. The Emprah is cursed to always looking forward to the endless road of the future, he can never live in nor understand the concept of the present. As a result his plans failed to account for the fact others might not just meekly go along with his plans without question and became further detached from the real human condition.
*Overall, and quite ironically, the main reason why the Emperor's plan was doomed to fail in time was because while the Emperor understood the path on what humanity must take for a brighter future, he himself was either unable or unwilling to understand humanity. Instead, he chose to remain distant from them and act like he was above their understanding, and that they should just simply follow him because he's the Emperor and he alone knows what's best for humanity, because shut up or be on the receiving end of a boltgun. (Even more ironically, this was how the majority of the gods that humanity originally believed in acted as well, and at least they had the excuse that they really were divine. For all his efforts to remove religion, the Emperor played the part of a god hilariously well.). Lastly maybe the Emperor understood that his Primarchs were unstable and unreliable. Given the issues with the Thunder Warrior's he had to know all of this was coming eventually just from past experience. But it's possible he just didn't expect it to be in the form of a team death match. He could see Kurze being unstable enough eventually that he and his Legion would need to be removed but expected it to be individual Legions and Primarchs that would need censure but couldn't foresee his own flaws causing enough gulfs with each of his Primarchs that they would have a reason to band together. If that was the case he was a poor father and a poor leader not to see his own arrogance as a flaw in his design.

On another note, the fact his ossified self has managed to shed tears and there was an incident where everyone across the Imperium saw statues of the Emperor weeping tears of blood due the incoming disasters of the End Times may mean that he has finally started to realize how horribly he fucked up on every possible level. Or maybe it's hurting even more than ever to stay sit at the Golden Throne.

The latter is far more likely; according to Roboute Guilliman, when he met with the Emperor after his revival, He treated Guilliman as a mere tool without showing even the faintest display of affection or care for him as a person. One can only assume that 10,000 years on the Golden Throne has done absolutely nothing to make the Emperor be less of an asshole; in fact, he's described as being human in name alone, and Guilliman believes that [[HERESY|even if he is a god he doesn't deserve to be worshipped.]]

tl;dr He was a horribly flawed but well intended asshole with a "The needs of the many" outlook on life meaning he couldn't afford to show love or compassion to anything but mankind as a whole, not even his "sons."

===But what does all that mean for The Duel?===
Yeah...about that. Regarding the Emperor's duel with Horus, we're all reasonably sure we know the old story. The Emperor faces down Horus, and had the power to roflstomp him, but his love for his favorite son prevented him from going all out, and Emps gets his ass kicked. It takes an extraordinarily callous killing by Horus to finally convince the Emperor that Horus is completely beyond saving, and Emps blasts him full power to put an end to the Horus Heresy. The rising problem here is that this version of events heavily relies on the Emperor's compassion (particularly towards his sons), compassion that the Horus Heresy books and Dark Imperium assert that he ''never had'', either then or in the 41st millennium. For example, the Emperor put down his Thunder Warriors as soon as they served their purpose, and he didn't even pretend to care about Angron and his Butchers nails, asserting that he would keep him as long as he had a use for him, and so on. Anyway, without compassion, the duel scene in its current form simply does not work. After all Horus had done in the years before, in a room with the maimed corpse of Sanguinius, a loyal and beloved (as far as it goes with Big E, at last) son of his, there is really no way he would have gone all fatherly love on Horus and not just blasted him, or at least tried to. (Maybe the current form is Imperial propaganda trying to conceal the fact that Horus simply kicked his shiny golden ass for some reason?) So what the hell actually happened? A very good question, at this point. [[Laurie Goulding]] has implied that when the Heresy books finally get to it, the final duel may play out ''very'' differently from how we think we know it. It certainly wouldn't be the [[Ollanius Pius|first time it's been retconned]].

One possible explanation for why Emps' couldn't immediately obliterate Horus is perhaps due to divided attention (and strength). During the fight, Malcador was being taxed to the core and maybe the Emps was lending his power to buy Malcador some more time and thus was not able to actually unleash his full strength on Horus. However, Malcador had already received the same speech about being used as a disposable pawn by the Emperor for the sake of the overall goal, and knew he was going to die anyway as the Throne-switcharoo had been planned before the traitors had even arrived at Terra, so the Emperor would have no reason to stall just to save one man, even if they were genuinely friends. The Emperor also knew in advance that the outcome would be his entombment on the Throne; when he found out about this he claimed that it was more than he expected but went so far as to tell his Custodians that his dream for the future of humanity was pretty much dead. Without the support of Magnus ''(who was always intended to sit on the Throne)'' unless someone came around with the knowledge to fix the Throne he would be trapped there until it it failed but according to his discussions with Malcador there was room for "[[Roboute Guilliman|Salvation]]" to come later. One other possible suggestion for why the Emperor might have stalled is perhaps his prescience glimpsed some preferable alternative to simply pasting Horus then and there, but until that gets resolved it can only be speculation.

On a rather related note, one can assume E-Money knew the tragic cases of Magnus, Curze & Angron and all of his sons through premonitions. Given that the future can be changed (as in the case of the Lion who feared the future of Curze) though not necessarily changed for the better or come without consequences ''(such as knowing that Rogal Dorn could have defeated Horus early in the war, but Alpharius would have assaulted Terra and resulted in a Chaos win anyway)'' the only options available to E-Money were to salvage the best he could from a shit situation.

Anyway, he is now stuck on the Throne guiding his subjects in the few ways available to him in his current state as an all-powerful vegetable.

Perhaps, or perhaps not, to have hesitated out of love for a son, the final weakness during the last test to save mankind, that would have shown why the Emperor couldn't afford to love anyone, not even his own sons, and turned him into what he is now. Though more recent fluff shows him to have always been more pragmatic than that. While he did seemingly care for his "sons", his foresight had shown him that half of them would turn to Chaos and move against him ''(whether or not you believe Malcador's statement that it was planned from the start)''. Though even with this foreknowledge, the Emperor was on the back foot and many of the actions of the Horus Heresy involved playing the Primarchs against each other to prevent an overall Chaos victory rather than achieving an Imperial win.

== ADB on the Emperor in Master of Mankind ==

TL;DR: Everyone whom has the chance to be in the Emperor's presence perceives something different, based on their own experiences and expectations. Nothing He ever says should be taken at face value, since it is 'warped' by the narrator's interpretation.

In response to criticisms on his portrayal of the Emperor, ADB posted this detailed answer:

''That's true, and I definitely wanted to bring out a better understanding of his vision and what he was up against, but that's also lore I'd wager anyone with a deep knowledge of the setting already had a handle on to some degree, whether explicitly or not. What I wanted to avoid was too much "new" stuff. You have to put in something new, and thankfully what little newness I do introduce in my work is seemingly well-regarded, but I've always said our job (as I see it) is to illustrate the setting and show what it's like to live there, not to set it in stone. As much as the fandom adores "advancing the storyline", it's not something that interests me, by and large. I try my best to show things from the perspectives of characters on the ground level, bring a few perceptions of the setting through the lens of my own imagination and the insight I'm lucky enough to get endlessly talking about the setting with its creators and inheritors, and then get out. Most of my books are, to some extent, not definitive. They're about Some Guy, not the entire faction.

''Grimaldus in Helsreach has no bond to the wider war on Armageddon and hates that he's been left behind by the Black Templars, but he's (hopefully) a good example of what it feels like to be a Black Templar, and to think like one, and - crucially - what it feels like to be a human around them. Talos and the other characters of First Claw spend a trilogy unable to decide what the Night Lords Legion really was, and each of them remembers their glory days differently. I didn't want to speak for the whole Legion. Hyperion in The Emperor's Gift is a largely generic Grey Knight present in dire circumstances. HH-wise, I didn't want to show all of the Word Bearers and base a book around the expectations of Kor Phaeron, Lorgar, and Erebus, so I focused on the Serrated Sun in the middle of the changes taking place across the galaxy. Savage Weapons is largely about Corswain, not about Curze and the Lion. The Master of Mankind is about Ra, Zephon, Jaya, and Land in the heart of the Emperor's plans for the species, not about the Emperor himself. As much as I wrote about Angron and Lorgar, they get significantly less in-their-heads screen time than most other primarchs in most other books.''

''It's harder to do that with the Heresy, but - again - I do my best to present individual experiences and mindsets in characters like Khârn, Argel Tal, and Ra, rather than definitive looks at the entire Chapter/Legion/faction and setting its events in stone. I try to present a feel for how it is to live inside that culture and be part of the experiences they go through; it's about immersion into the Chapter or Legion, presenting them as believable and real, not definitively saying "All of Chapter X are like Y."
''
''So: I'm reluctant to talk about TMoM and the Emperor's perception in that book in any real detail, partly because the book is still new and there's a lot individual readers would do better discovering for themselves without my thoughts in public, and partly because everything I'd say is ultimately in the book. Anything I say will be taken out of context or weaponised one way or another somewhere, and used in a way that makes me sigh, cringe, or a dramatic melange of both that shall hereafter be called the sigh-cringe.
''
''(Plus, most of all, I have faith in readers. They don't need me defining anything, even if it might be interesting for a few peeps.)''

''So, I'll just say this. The Master of Mankind is entirely from the perspectives of people that meet the Emperor in pretty specific circumstances. There are, obviously, other circumstances to come. Nothing in it is definitive, even less so than my usual work. Any definitive statement you can make about how the Emperor sees something or does something is almost always contradicted in the book itself. That's not an escape clause or an excuse. It's the point. Writing him definitively would've been the easiest and most disappointing thing in the world.
''
''(And on that note, remember, everyone views 40K differently. What Person X is absolutely certain is the truth of the Emperor and the best way to present him would be laughed off by Persons A, B, and C. The flip side to that is that not every perspective is founded in fact or understanding. The earliest "I've not read this yet, but..." criticisms and misunderstandings of TMoM in, ah, certain reddit/chan-style locations was regarded by GW IP folks as, I quote: "These angry people seem to be beholden to a version of 40K that has never existed...")
''
''But in all seriousness, I don't want to delve too deeply into explaining the ways the Emperor's contradictions matter or don't matter. They're there, and they're definitely formative - totally agree - if not exactly definitive. With the Emperor, a lot of interaction is about getting out what you put in. You get what you give. Your perceptions and expectations are reflected back on you because that's how the human brain perceives everything (a fact that cannot be overstated; the science behind it is fascinating and all-important), especially when you're talking about someone who exists on that plane of power. At one point the Emperor makes mention of the notion that he's not even speaking, that being near to him allows the conveyance of meaning through psychic osmosis, and communication telepathically. He's not even talking. It's raw understanding filtering through a mind, or just the way the mortal mind comprehends the aura of what the Emperor intends, or, or, or...
''
''That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?
''
"''Magnus''."

''Like... that's a pretty strong indication that the interactions which follow are playing by different rules. Ra sees the Warlord of Humanity, just a man, but a great mean, weary and defiant, burdened by responsibility. Daemons see their annihilation, and go insane in his presence. One of the Knights, as they're marching through the Throne Room, is caught in religious rapture, unable to do anything but stare at the glorious halo of the Emperor of Mankind on the Golden Throne. One of the Sisters of Silence, in the same room, literally just sees a man in a chair. Another character, not Imperial, asks a Custodian if the Emperor even breathes. She believes he's a weapon left out of its box from the Dark Age of Technology. (With thanks to Alan Bligh for that one, he adores that theory.)
''
''So I don't think it's exactly a spoiler to say that if and when I get to write a character like Sanguinius in the Emperor's presence, or Malcador, they'd have entirely different experiences than Ra and Land. I'd loved to have had that in TMoM, but as much as it would've given wider context, these aren't rulebooks and essays; it would've been self-indulgent for the sake of 'hoping people get it', and cheapened the story being told, which was ultimately in a very narrow and confined set of circumstances. Breaking out of that narrative would be offering a sense of scope and freedom I was specifically trying to avoid in a claustrophobic siege story. Because theme and atmosphere is a thing.''
''

==Worship of the Emperor==
[[File:646545.jpg|thumb|300px|What the Emperor looked like before Horus decided to [[Rip and tear|bitchslap]] Him so hard he ended up spending the next 10,000 years on the Golden Throne as a rotting corpse. Notice the giant skull. How did that skull get so big? Is it a plastic faux-skull, or is it an mutant or even an alien skull? <s>(What He doesn't want you to know is that The E is actually a midget, the armor is a mech and that that's a regular-sized skull)</s> [[BLAM| '''*BLAM!*''']] Anyway, back to the topic at hand. You don't get to see the Emperor out of armor very often. But he still looks ''fabulous'' without his armor.]]

{{Topquote|We believe in one Lord, the Emperor, the Almighty, ruler of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.<br>We believe in one Lord, Emperor of Mankind, the only Lord of creation, eternally begotten of Humanity, Human from Human, Light from Light, true Lord from true Lord, begotten, not made, of one Being with Humanity; through him all things were made.<br>For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and came among us.<br>For our sake he has faced down Chaos; he withstood death and was enthroned.<br>To this day he lives on in accordance with the Scriptures; he resides upon Mother Terra and is seated upon the throne of Humanity.<br>He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.<br>We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Emperor, the giver of life, who proceeds from Humanity and from Terra, who with Humanity and upon Terra is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.<br>We believe in one holy true and divinely guided Ecclesiarchy.<br>We acknowledge one path for the defense against Chaos.<br>We look for the justice for our dead, and the life of the worlds to come.
<br>++ Ayhmen ++|the [[Imperial Cult|Creed]] of the Mankind's Council of Nicene of Holy Terra (Most Christian elegan/tg/entlemen will recognize it as a bastardized version of The Apostle's [[Creed]])}}

{{Topquote|Did Horus not say that you sought godhood? He built a [[Horus Heresy|rebellion]] upon that claim. How he would gloat, to see the Imperium now|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}

The Imperium advocates worship the Emperor as the one true God through the [[Imperial Creed]]. This creed is propagated and its adherence is enforced by the [[Ecclesiarchy|Adeptus Ministorum]] and the [[Inquisition]]. All citizens and fighters of the Imperium have little-to-no say about their choice in faith (or lack thereof); they ''must'' worship the Emperor through the various Ministorum-approved faiths throughout the galaxy (due to varying cultures, many planets have their own way of worshiping the Emperor. Although these are heavily regulated by the Ministorum to weed out any heretical influences.), there is no middle road or compromise that doesn't involve the apostate being on the receiving end of a state-sponsored public lynching. Anyone who defies or deviates from the teachings of the Imperial Creed (or even is just perceived to defy it), whether willingly or unwillingly (after all, incompetence is inexcusable in the eyes of the Emperor), is condemned as a heretic and is executed (whether its going to be fast or excruciatingly slow is dependent on the person judging the condemned). Even if someone hasn't disobeyed the Imperial Creed but is deemed to have will be treated as if they broke the Creed. Forgiveness for one's sins is possible, although these cases are exorbitantly rare (at least the ones that doesn't end with the accused being condemned to a glorious death, and it usually is extremely painful.). It doesn't help that some of the members of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition are so batshit insane that they are killing countless innocent followers of the Imperial Creed for no reason.

Now, the only reason the Imperium worships the Emperor is that after His fight with Horus and His internment into the Golden Throne, they pretty much forgot what the Emperor taught them when He preached the Imperial Truth. Ol' Empy did not actually tell anyone of the Chaos Gods, withholding the information even from the Primarchs in hopes of protecting them from corruption by hoping that ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, this became part of why the Horus Heresy happened in the first place. Some saw that the Emperor [[Mortarion|lied to them by holding the truth hidden]], some did [[Magnus|not know how to handle the temptation]] the Gods conveyed, some did [[Fulgrim|not even know that they were manipulated]] all this time and by whom, some would [[Lorgar|try to seek out something to place their faith upon]], not realizing what would needed to be done to become chosen in the eyes of the Gods. Plus, it's pretty damn hard to fight against something if you don't know that it exists. The Horus Heresy novels also mentioned the [[Interex]], another atheist empire who understood that threat of Chaos, but treated that information secularly and scientifically: they told every citizen everything that was known about "Kaos", and thus resisted the taint altogether (which basically shows how ineffective the Imperial Truth really was and how much the Emperor has screwed up.)

In the Emperor's long game, he knew that humanity was evolving into a psychic species with even more potential than the Eldar, and look what happened to them? E-money wanted mankind to be [[Star Trek|a utopia of science and reason]], by eliminating religion (and thus preventing the temptations of daemons), controlling psykers (and thus preventing random daemonic possessions), and eliminating warp travel by creating the Human Webway (and thus eliminating all human contact with Chaos when traveling through the Warp). He wanted to isolate humanity from the Chaos Gods, cause who gives a shit about the Ruinous Powers if they're stuck in the Warp with no way of getting out?

Regarding the religion angle: the Emperor very much realized that Chaos runs off emotion, all everyday emotion, and not ''just'' worship; the stronger the emotions, the stronger the Gods get, and the stronger the Gods get, the easier it is to corrupt others. The problem with religion is that it allows too many avenues for Daemons to exploit: a whisper here and a miracle there, then you get people praying to them without even realizing it, then shortly afterwards you get a planet turned inside out by daemons. His plan was not to starve the chaos gods of sustenance and ultimately defeat them, he knew it was impossible, his plan was just to prevent them from touching humanity ever again.

However, He made a critical mistake in disregarding the human need to believe in something greater than oneself, and despite His best efforts, nothing was enough to fill the place of religion in human society. Ironically, the best solution would be not to suppress faith but to redirect it towards something else, but because of his natural awesomeness, unmatched psychic powers and enigmatic nature, that "something else" ended up being the Emperor himself. After He went off being the most powerful psychic cucumber in the universe, and lost direct control of the Imperium, belief in Him sort of helped the Imperium stand together against all odds, even if it basically dropped 99.9% of humanity's IQ in the process. With the Warp being what it is, the act of worshiping the Emperor supercharged His power in the Immaterium to the point of being truly godlike, even while His body is still stuck in it's current physical state of near-death. The Imperium's faith in the Emperor is basically their biggest anchor of bravery and perseverance in a universe where humanity is constantly beset by:

*[[Tyranids|Unimaginably massive swarms of voracious space locust who exist only to feed and multiply it's biomass]]...
*[[Necron|Older-than-Chaos-itself zombie-terminator robots set on culling all life from the galaxy]]...
*[[C'Tan|Diabolical celestial beings literally as old as the stars, whose single desire is harvesting all living souls]]...
*[[Orks|A race of nigh-unkillable barbarians, genetically engineered to have pastimes, ambitions, job skills, and dreams only be about rip and tear]]...
*[[Tau|Technologically superior space communists wanting to assimilate everyone in their quasi heirarchical-Communist empire and who take after Billy Mays]]...
*[[Kroot|Humanoid wingless bird men cannibals who absorb traits from what they eat]]
*[[Vespid|Humanoid insects with claws capable of ripping through the toughest armour]]
*[[Eldar|Snooty and uncaring space elves that can read minds and who eat, sleep, and to have Heterosexual Sex in the Missionary Position in planet-sized battle cruisers]]...
*[[Dark Eldar|Psychotic, hedonistic space elves who routinely torture others to the point of death for sheer amusement before grinding their remains into refined cocaine]]...
*[[Chaos|Fanatical zealots that knowingly devote themselves to all that is insane]]...
*[[Daemon|Nightmare horrors made real who will rape and eat, usually simultaneously, any sentient being they get their goat-hooves on]]...
*[[Chaos Space Marines|Deformed, demented traitors clad in power armor and aided by the evilest forms of weaponry and sorcery ever conceived]]...
*[[Lost and the Damned|Tratiors who turn their backs on the Imperium and try to destroy it]]...
*[[Rak'gol|Homicidal alien, lizard, insect, cyborg type monster-pirates that horribly kill you for fun (and who may be the puppets of an older and even more malignant civilization)]]...
*[[Slaugth|Giant Swarms of Worms in cloaks who might be older than The Old Ones who are more sadistic that the Dark Eldar and More Manipulative than regular Eldar and Feed on Humans in the Most Disgusting and Painful way imaginable (Hint it Involves Maggots.)]]...
*[[Q'Orl|Massive insectoid hive mind filled to the brim with heavy firepower and has a slow but growing empire that is one of the largest in the galaxy, dwarfing the Tau several hundred times over and is seen as the next successor of galactic domination after humanity's potential fall]]...
*[[Hrud|Humanoid Rats that cause anything thing, living or not, to rapidly decay through touch]]...
*[[Games Workshop|Malignant, omnipotent intelligence from beyond the cosmos, exerting all the power at their disposal to prevent any faction from breaking the stalemate or upsetting the dreadful status quo]]...
*[[Sly Marbo|And fuck knows who the guy in the cardboard box is]]...

Without their faith in the Emperor after His internment into the Golden Throne, the fragments of the Imperium would have fought against each other again like in the pre-Great Crusade days and subsequently devolved into what they were before the Emperor revealed Himself. So yes, much like IRL religion, it gives them hope and courage to fight on and survive in a universe that leaves the [[grimdark]] faucet running everyday and night.

It's worth noting that good ol' Empy wouldn't have had nearly as much of a problem with all this unwanted worship if He hadn't, just as a quick example, insisted on wearing horrifyingly ornate solid gold armour and a big glowy halo at all times. Or on carrying a flaming sword of righteousness. Or on building continent-sized monuments to His vanity. Or on decking all His personal troops and favored genetic experiments in as much bling as they could possibly carry. Or on being eleven fucking feet tall. Or on creating a functional pantheon of genetically engineered demigods, one of whom looked like and was referred to as a literal Angel. If you look like space-Jesus and act like space-Jesus, people are going to take those observations to their extreme conclusions, like what Lorgar did when he wrote the ''Lectitio Divinitatus'', which can be summarized as "Ordinary men can't blow up suns and carry big glowy halos at all times, only a God can, therefore the Emprah is God." This is made even more relevant given that the fluff very strongly implies that the Emperor '''was''' Jesus.

That said, to Games Workshop's credit His being buttfucked by His own hubris and disregard for the humanity He claimed to be guiding in this manner was probably [[Grimdark|intentional as a classic tale of Greek Tragedy]].

==The possible death of the Emperor==
[[File:Emperor of mankind flaming sword armor.jpg|500px|right|thumb|Badass and glorious.]]
With the Golden Throne being consistently worn out, and the Tech-priests too power-armor-on-head rebooted to do anything about it, it is certainly possible that the Emperor may die one day, which will obviously result in all of the Imperial worlds and factions to cry tears of disappointment and subsequently devolve into chaos (maybe even with a capital "C"). There are however, 3 possible outcomes of what can happen if the Emperor eventually dies:

===[[Warhammer 50k|The new Eye of Terror]]===
Conventional wisdom and the [[Eldar]] says that in the event that the Emperor dies, a new Eye of Terror will be created with Terra at its center, plunging Holy Terra and all nearby planets/systems(?) into the Warp. The current main rulebook says that all of reality will be plunged into the warp if the Emperor dies. Even the [[Ecclesiarchy]] agrees that if the Emperor were ever to die, humanity would be FUCKED at the barest minimum.

This is supported by the fact that the '''Golden Throne''' ''(itself a portal to the Webway)'' was broken by [[Magnus]], causing a warp tear to open on Terra, which the Emperor has had to spend every second for the last 10,000 years concentrating on to keep from getting any bigger. Now the Throne is ''also'' beginning to show signs of irreversible breakdown, but what happens if(/when?) Big E dies is actually if which of the two fails first.

According to the Old Earth novel, the Golden Throne has a Vulkan-forged device called Talisman of Seven Hammers that acts as a dead man's switch: it supposedly will destroy all of Terra if the Throne finally kicks it. The Talisman has never been referred to in previous fluff, though the fullest implications of the Throne failing have never been explored either.

In any event, the death of the Emperor's physical body is theorized by some fans (and the Eldar in-universe) to have the potential to create a new Chaos God and a new Eye of Terror, assuming that the warp rift the Emperor was keeping closed doesn't create a new Eye of Terror first. The effect of Vulkan's talisman is a wildcard, as it was shown to have the capability to annihilate ''(not merely banish)'' a Greater Daemon even '''before''' it was connected to the Throne, and earlier in the same section the ''residual'' energy left over in the Emperor's fulgurite was sufficient to make an army of Bloodletters simply not be there any more. Connecting the talisman to the Throne magnifies its power to the point that the Emperor believes it would not merely deny Chaos their victory on Terra, but can strike a blow against them "the likes of which they will never recover from". Chaos may still get their warp rift, but may be burned <u>badly</u> by the Emperor's final "fuck you".

===Regeneration===
No, not the [[Doctor Who]] kind. The Horus Heresy novel 'Vulkan Lives' heavily implies that the Emperor is a [[Perpetual]], just like John Grammaticus, Vulkan, Oll Persson, [[Alivia Sureka]] and [[Anval Thawn]], all of who were able to survive multiple deaths that completely obliterated their bodies in the process. So all He simply needs to do is for his current material body to die normally, and wait a couple of hours/days and He'd be reborn again (in the "get up off the ground and dust Himself off" sense. As for the question of why he simply didn't wait to resurrect into a spanking new body before being interred in the Throne, refer to that giant warp tear in the webway project and the *urgent* need to keep it sealed at all times.

All of this is still speculation (duh). Vulkan, for instance, was driven mad by the torturous experiences he had endured thanks to Night Haunter, and they were child's play, compared to sitting in unthinkable agony, unable to move or speak for ten thousand years while feeling Himself rotting away. And don't you forget [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|that nose itch]]. However, a more commonly held belief is that He will get up, re-establish the [[Imperial Truth]], and [[Great Crusade|just be]] [[Commissar|a cool guy]]. Too bad the Warp rift and the Astronomican don't have time to wait for him to do so.

A whole faction of the [[Inquisition]], '''Thorianism''', exists to investigate the possibility of regeneration; looking for possible signs that the Emperor's consciousness can be transferred elsewhere, allowing Him to walk among his children once more. (That said, they don't know about the existence of Perpetuals and would rather look for a new body to place the Emperor's soul into.) That being said: This may be the best option if they can keep the Emperor powering the [[Astronomican]] with one body while having his mind in a different body wandering around.

Opponents to Thorianism generally see that encouraging this is a terrible idea, as having the Emperor rise in a physical form would only cause a schism in the Imperium, as many people would not believe it to be true, having been ruled and brainwashed by the Ecclesiarchy over thousands of years, which would lead to another major [[Horus Heresy|civil war]].

But think about it: when Malcador took up the Throne so that the Emperor could fight Horus, the device consumed his vitality; and Malcador was not as blessed as the Emps with regen abilities to recover. Now imagine a weakened, crippled being, whose top priority immediately after killing His son is to stop the Webway gate from spilling forth. You don't have time (and nor does the galaxy) to recover from your wounds. So you sit upon the Throne and it consumes you slowly from that point onwards. The chair is stopping any sort of healing factor.

===The Star Child===
Although years of GW-marketing and [[retcon|fluff "upgrades"]] have made the third claim rather dubious, many fa/tg/uys and optimists still hold out on the theory stating that when the Emperor screwed Horus's soul to the wall, part of the Emperor's soul was also cast into the Warp. This Soul Fragment is called the Star Child, a god waiting to be reborn, or perhaps be reincarnated back into a human body (anyone call for one scout Mkvenner). If the remains of the Emperor were ever to die, the tiny spark of soul left in his body would re-unite with the greater whole within the Warp, and according to [[fluff|prophecy]], force the four Chaos Gods into stalemate, while the races of the galaxy would be left to battle it out in one last great Ragnarök scenario (called the End Times).

This theory is tied closely to the Illuminati, a group of either supremely enlightened individuals or dangerous mutant heretics (depending on which side of the [[Inquisition]] you're on). The Illuminati plan to catch all of the Sensei and sacrifice them upon the Golden Throne at the moment of Emperor's death.

In a bizarre fusion of new and old fluff, it has been revealed that the Illuminati were a minor Tzeentch cult and the Sensei were effectively brainwashed soon-to-be sacrifices in an attempt to bring Tzeentch to the materium. Needless to say, they have been purged by the Inquisition. The fluff in the Jac Draco books revealed that the Ordo Hydra (a small splinter faction of the Illuminati who seek to turn humanity into a psychic hive-mind) is a Tzeentch cult, but that the general Illuminati population - including many Ordo Malleus Inquisitors and the Exorcists [[Chapter]] (as well as their unknown successor chapters) are genuinely incorruptible by Chaos and are freely permitted to access the Black Library along with Harlequin Solitaires. Ultimately, all this would be rendered irrelevant as the Inquisition Trilogy was retconned away. It's just like that frustrating moment you experience when you don't know if the Squats have been nommed by Tyranids or have never existed in the first place.

===Beyond the Emperor===
As stated in ''The Master of Mankind'', the Emperor himself considers he already lost the game to save Mankind's from consuming itself into the Warp while attempting to give the evolutionary jump, with the loss of the Webway he seems to have concluded the only thing that remains is a long decline and there is nothing else to do but to wage an ever losing war. Or is it? The Emperor himself recognized He isn't omniscient, His foresight can't reach all.

During recent years the writers of Games Workshop have been hinting at a few facts, let us consider the following:
* The future is not absolutely written, and this comes from Chaos itself; even [[Tzeentch]] can't predict everything perfectly, requiring him to ask his [[Kairos Fateweaver|insane bird-oracle to clarify on these events]].
* The fall of the Imperium may be inevitable, but mankind may live on. Given the sheer scope of the human exodus, it's perfectly likely that some remnant of the Dark Age of Technology has continued unchanged from its original height.
* The [[Cadian Pylons]], while destroyed, were developed by beings that still exist. The fact the [[Necrons]] are still around opens the possibility that they may yet be capable of building replacements, and thanks to [[Trazyn the Infinite|Trazyn]] we know they are capable of closing of warp storms. Oh, and it seems like [[Belisarius_Cawl|Uncle Cawl]] is working on that.
* The Akashic Records truly exist and are somehow linked to [[STC|Ark Mechanicus ships such as Speranza]], this simple fact means all already existing knowledge is never lost forever, but merely incredibly hard to acquire.
* Creating humans immune to Chaos is a reality, both the [[Exorcists]] and the [[Grey Knights]] are evidence to this, and while the process is excruciatingly slow, highly prone to failure and prohibitive in resources it means Mankind can achieve through artificial means a sort of new evolutionary step.
* Not all Eldar died during the Fall, even if we are talking about 1 percent of the race it's still a great deal of individuals, and the fact they have managed to kick-start [[Ynnead|an anti-Chaos god]] is something no one, not even the Emperor managed to foresee (assuming he did not know that is what the Infinity Circuits were for, which he no doubt did considering how old he is). [[Eldrad]] has ultimately demonstrated there are other ways to fight Chaos (by being a dick).
* And thanks to Eldrad waking Ynnead up early (if only barely), Roboute Guilliman was awakened from stasis. Now he is preparing a [[Primaris Marines|new generation of Super Space Marines]] along with some awesome new gear to help take down chaos. Plus some of the other loyalist Primarchs are still out there, and there is a possibility that they could return to help lead the Imperium fight it's many enemies.
* And for that matter, Eldrad declared by the end of The [[War of The Beast]] that the futures of Mankind and the Eldar are irrevocably interlinked. Add to that the fact the necrons too have given the Imperium a hand a few times and you suddenly notice there are more parties than the Emperor interested in not letting the human race fall. Despite the Imperium's hatred of xenos, they may be mankind's best chance of survival. That said, we still do have to remember that both the Eldar and Necrons want the Imperium and each other out of the way eventually in order to rebuild their empires, and the Imperium isn't keen on relying too heavily on the entities who will turn on them in a tip of the hat.
*Nobody saw the Tyranids coming because they hadn't even noticed the Galaxy was inhabited until the whole mess with the Pharos device. Not the Chaos Gods, not the Emperor, not the Eldar (though [[Orikan the Diviner|Orikan]] saw them coming), and the Tyranids are both an outside context issue for the galaxy (being the only faction with galactic pull that is completely and unambiguously disconnected from the War in Heaven or the Horus Heresy that serves as everyone else's origin stories) ties and a wild card in the fate of the Galaxy.
* Finally, there is humanity itself. While He failed to take into account the fact that humanity is a mass of individuals rather than an abstraction, He also underestimated how this could work for good as well as evil. For every traitor and heretic, there is an equally devoted believer in the inherent goodness of mankind willing to stand against the Ruinous Powers, and it is on the individual level that the struggle between the Ruinous Powers and humanity is ultimately fought and decided upon.
* And one last thing, there is a chance that if the Emperor dies, he might just resurrect or incarnate (and Ynnead is still out there) so he might still have a second chance. This is further aided by the fact we don't know how quickly he would resurrect himself, being a perpetual. If it is quick enough (or if he remains potent while his soul is in the Warp until he revives), he can probably prevent or perhaps even close the Terran warp rift. Then he's back in the game ready to put his powered armor on and kick ass. But then again, that's a huge gamble; we're talking about regenerating over 10,000 years of wounds and trauma on a being more powerful than any human documented. If it took too long; Terra falls and the rest of the Imperium would be rendered effectively maimed and crippled with the loss of the Astronomican, dashing any hope the Emperor could have at salvaging the Imperium.

Yes, the Emperor failed to avoid mankind's inherent flaws to hinder His Great Work (ironically, because He was guilty of several of them as well), but He also failed to see a lot of the good things mankind can bring in. In yet another twist of irony, his incapability to predict us may even thwart his own prediction of humanity's doom.

Indeed, this is [[Warhammer 40,000]], a cautionary tale about the End of Empires, but so was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and, although we won't like the AoS-ification of the setting, there may still be more than [[Abaddon|just a complete failure]] for the future of Mankind and the Emperor.

== Gallery ==
<center><gallery>
File:Emperor-Church windows.jpg|Put this everywhere to praise him, on your windows, the neighbours, just all your hive city.
Image:Golden Throne-Imperial Webway.jpg|The Big E upon the Golden Throne (before the decay set in)
Image:Emperor of Mankind Classic Portrait face.jpg|The guiding light in the Imperium of Man shines forever bright. He's also Arnold Schwarzenegger. Try unseeing that now bitches.
Image:1220179589932.jpg|The Emperor protects man from all.
Image:Horus and the Emperor.jpg|<s>Son, I am disappoint.</s> Empy's disappointment occurred well before this moment.
Image:Wh40k-emperor.jpg| Yearbook photo.
Image:When you ruin his groove by Lutherniel.jpg| His groove, do not ruin it. Or you'll get schooled.
Image:Emperor_Decree.jpg| Emps laying down some rules, mid combat from the looks of it
Image:Go Ahead Make My day Emperor.jpg|That is EXACTLY the same look that's on Batman's face when he's about to put the beatdown on someone!
Image:Emperor of Mankind model action figure.jpg|He makes for one helluva action figure
Image:8.jpg|The Em-purr-or of all Catkind! Nyah!
Image:God-Emperor_Goldlich.jpg|Death is no excuse to stop bein' pimp.
Image:God_Emperor_Interred_On_Golden_Throne.jpg|Thinking to himself, "I really, REALLY hate Horus!" Then again he never liked Horus in the first place.
Image:The Immortal Emprah.jpg|The Emperor isn't looking good here.
Image:Emperor_miniature.jpg|Roll d6; stays on the field on seven or less
Image:emperor_old.jpg|A real man never dies, even when he's killed.
Image:emperor.png|Down but not out.
Image:Emperormini.jpg|In all His miniature glory
Image:Carrionlord.jpg|<strike>The Carrion Lord with his two left arms.</strike> {{BLAM}} how the fuck did that heretic get past the custodes?
Image:Painting.jpg|This painting sold for $900, that lucky ca/tg/url...
Image:Emperor_model.jpg|Probably the best model of him yet
Image:slowemperor.jpg|Oh God-emperor, how did this get here? I am not good with computers.
Image:Emperor_Sagan.jpg|Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Image:EmpsVSigmar.jpg| You all know you wanna see how this pans out!
Image:Emprasque3.jpg|How do you kill what can not die?
Image:Slavegirl Emperor.jpg|Emperor [[Rule 63]]! NO EXCEPTIONS!
Image:Femprah.jpg|Not actually the God-Emperor; besides it is Heresy to believe that The Immortal God Emperor looks like Cher. {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|'''HERESY!'''}}, no make that [[Extra Heresy|extra Hersey]]
Image:Femprah_by_Mr-Culexus.jpg|Oh, give it a fucking rest...
Image:GodEmpress.jpg|On second though... this one is... nice. - {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|'''Heresy!'''}}
File:Cultist-chan creating a distraction by flick.jpg
Image:Emperor_upon_his_other_throne.jpg|Yeah. We get it. The Emperor sits upon the Golden 'Throne'.
Image:1377291976783.jpg|Unbeknownst to many 40k fans, ol'Emps is actually fairly amicable when he meets an elf/eldar who isn't a complete and utter failure.
Image:Rainbow Emperor.gif| The Emperor in Rainbow Form
Image:Konya.jpg|The symbol of the town Konya in Turkey. In Central Anatolia. Emprah's birthplace. CONNECTION, BITCHES!
Image:Hittite eagle large.jpg|The symbol of ancient (1600BC) Hittite Empire from Anatolia, which, unknown to many, is Emperor's first try at conquering the world. CONNECTION, BITCHES!
Image:Emperor mao.jpg|In alternate universe 32-B, Mao Zedong rules the People's Republic of Mankind
Image:NotSureIfWant.jpg|The Emperor has just discovered [[Rule 34]].
Image:1393390057238.png|The Emperor is a man of simple tastes.
Image:Emperuh.jpg|The Emprah is watching you Masturbate!
Image:Emperor blackwhite.jpg|The very first image of the Emperor, dating back to Rogue Trader.
Image:God_Emperor_Numen_Kawai_Onii-chan.jpg|[[Drawfags|Kawaii]] [[End Times|Emprah teaching]] us about the evils of [[Heresy|heretics]], while displaying his mighty [[Pauldrons]].
Image:First_Founding_Problems.jpg|Perhaps with a better armor design (or if he actually cared about him), The Big E might not have been late for all of [[Horus]]'s after school soccer games and things might have turned out a lot differently.
Image:1271118030729.jpg|Just imagine what would had happened if the Chaos Gods didn't scatter the primarchs through out the galaxy and The Emperor didn't have to go and look for them... Wait a minute, where is that little scamp Omegon? (he's just off picture, sneaking up behind Guilliman)
File:Emperor of Mankind Contemplation.jpg|"Why IS IT that hot dogs come in packs of 8, and hot dog buns come in packs of 12? So people will have to buy 3 packs of hot dogs and 2 of hot dogs buns, hereby promoting imperial production of course! Ketchup sold separately!"
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* The [[Imperium]], for the empire he founded.
* [[Malcador the Sigillite]], the Emperors best bro.
* The [[Primarch|Primarchs]], the Emperors "sons".
* [[Sigmar]] Unbroken, his [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] counterpart.
* [[Emperor's To-Do List]]
* [http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25959559/ This thread] which makes the Emperor even cooler.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_2nM1GEllg/ A series on Youtube, it shows what would happen if the Emperor had a Text to Speech device.]
* [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]
* [[Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBpijRDDOxQ His reaction to the] [[Extra Heresy|"God Emperor Trump" forced meme"]]
{{Imperium}}

[[Category:Gods]][[Category:Awesome]]

Sigismund

2018-03-08T15:50:03Z

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[[File:Sigismund.jpg|200px|thumb|right|For stomping chaos, accept no substitutes.]]
{{topquote|He was, after all, the one guy who said "Sure, cool, this [[Codex Astartes|Chapter idea]] is brilliant. But [[Black Templars|mine]] [[Skub|will be six times the size of everyone else's]], [[Troll|just because I say so]]. [[Butthurt|Later, Terrans]]."|[[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]]}}
{{topquote|In the far future, there will be only war.|Sigismund to Garviel Loken, not knowing [[Warhammer 40k|how right he would be.]]}}

Sigismund (also known as Siggy-diggy, Sig of the Dump, the Great WIlson, and Swagismund) is an [[Imperial Fists|Imperial Fist]] from [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s backstory. He served as First Captain and equerry to his [[primarch]], [[Rogal Dorn]].

We don't know much about what he did, but during the [[Great Crusade]], he became known for his skill and hotheadedness- and his unparalleled asskickery. He is referred the best Astartes in a duel, though a few including [[Abaddon]], [[Khârn]], [[Sevatar]], [[Corswain]] of the [[Dark Angels]], [[Azkaellon]] and [[Amit]] (the original [[Flesh Tearers|Flesh Tearer]]) of the Blood Angels, and [[Argel Tal]] of the Word Bearers (but he had daemon powers, so that's kinda cheating) could probably give him a run for his money. He not only bested [[Khârn]] in a duel many, many times,(Kharn was never serious in these fights, and preferred losing, a trait that he shared with Argel Tal) but also during the Great Crusade, the Fists and the World Eaters crusaded together, which allowed Siggy to regularly fight in the World Eaters arenas against all of their best fighters. He never lost. Not once. This went on for around *10 years*. He also avoided lethal duels, viewing it as a sin to kill a cousin: the first Astartes he offed was during the Heresy. In the novel Betrayer and the novella Templar, Khârn and Sigismund then ended up becoming good friends until [[Horus Heresy|Horus fucked everything up]], and Sevatar mentioned dueling him for 20 hours before he got tired of no one winning and decided to cheat by headbutting Sigismund just to end the bout. And much like Ahmed Ibn Fadlan in the 13th Warrior, Sigismund lived among the World Eaters more than he did with his own legion and began to take on their ways, for example, chaining his weapons to his arms. Yep, the Black Templars got this tradition from a Traitor Legion.

However, when the Horus Heresy kicked off, he asked to accompany Dorn back to Terra rather than lead the Retribution Fleet to Isstvan. He then purged a monument full of Word Bearers, but an encounter with one of their Dark Apostles seems to have seriously shaken him. So he decided to explain his reasons to his [[Rogal Dorn|father]]. His reason for doing was because the first Imperial "Saint" Euphrati Keeler [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Euphrati_Keeler] told him he would die unremembered at Phall, [[Battle of Phall|then Captain Yonnad did instead]]. Unfortunately, Rogal Dorn flipped his shit; he was still totally going along with the Edict of Nikaea at this stage, so he accused Sigismund of arrogance and superstition, forgetting what it meant to be an Imperial Fist. When Sigismund begged Dorn to execute him then and there, Dorn disowned him from the Legion. Only the two of them would ever know, as Dorn didn't want Sigismund's "weakness" tainting the Legion. Ironically, Sigismund's absence at Phall would lead Perturabo to make the wrong assumptions about how the battle would go and result in the Fists nearly winning, and a large chunk of the Retribution Fleet escaping.

Prior to the Siege of Terra but before this confession, he also led a mission to [[Mars]] to retrieve as many weapons and suits of armour as was possible since Mars was by that time, [[Dark Mechanicum|FUCKED.]] Despite really, ''really'' wanting to kill everything standing between him and the traitor Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, Sigismund realized that the Imperial Fists couldn't retake the planet without reinforcements, ordering Imperial forces to retreat when the forges were surrounded by traitor Titans.

When Dorn joined the [[Emperor]] for the final attack of the [[Horus Heresy]], he ''(or the Emperor, since father and son were potentially not on good terms)'' chose Sigismund to be the Emperor's Champion and lead the Imperial Fists ground forces in his place. During this time he challenged <s>a single??</s> MORE THAN TWO DOZEN traitor champions to single combat and [[RAPE|buttfucked]] them all without taking any smoking breaks. BOSS.

After the Heresy and the Iron Cage business, what remained of the Imperial Fists Legion was divided into five Chapters, in accordance with the [[Codex Astartes]] reforms. Dorn placed those now ex-Imperial Fists that were still [[rage|burning with the need]] to [[rip and tear|tear traitors multiple new orifices, barehanded if necessary,]] under Sigismund's command. They became the [[Black Templars]] Chapter (The third and fourth Chapters, formed from the more conservative/level-headed Marines and those more accepting of the Codex Astartes, were the [[Crimson Fists]] and [[Fists Exemplar]]. Those Astartes who had fought on the walls of the Imperial Palace became the [[Excoriators]]). Considering that the Black Templars are a Chapter of Space Marines that wants nothing else than to purge traitors, aliens and heretics with [[Imperial Cult|religious fervor]], they promptly set out on their eternal Crusade vowing to never stop hunting down the enemies of the Imperium. And they are true to their word, too. Ten-thousand years, and they're still going strong, kicking heretic and xeno ass left, right and center!

Sigismund would fight in the First [[Black Crusade]], where by that point he was just shy of one thousand years old, having fought and killed everything the galaxy could throw at him (and given that it's ''40k'', that's a lot). Unlike most Imperials, he still believed the Traitor Legions would return, making the Black Templars the only Imperial force ready when the [[Black Legion]] invaded. Sigismund later faced [[Abaddon]] himself in battle during the First Black Crusade; the outcome was long unconfirmed, but as of the recent Black Legion books, we can finally say for certain that Abaddon killed Sigismund in single combat. The two were at a stalemate at first, with Abaddon being stronger and better armored, while Sigismund was more skilled. Over time though Siggy's age started catching up with him, and his body slowed. When he realized he couldn't win, Siggy did his best excalibur impression, except here Abaddon's torso was the stone the blade was plunged into, like that old Emperor's Champion art with the orc. You know the one. To match Siggy's final moment of badassery, Abaddon inflicted a mortal blow of his own, slaying the old warrior. Abaddon later conceded that he only even stood a chance due to Sigismund's advanced age that greatly reduced his fighting abilities and brought him down to a more level playing field. Even with this handicap Sigismund still put up a momentous fight, almost killing him outright. Though t ok be fair, Abaddon did have something of a handicap of his own, as he refused to use the Talon of Horus against Siggy, so he was metaphorically fighting with one hand tied behind his back. Best of all, the Black Legion high command treated him with the utmost respect in death. Abaddon cleaned him up as much as possible (he was kinda torn in two), and his corpse was sent back to Terra with the message that the Black Legion has arrived and declared its Long War against the God-Emperor. They didn't even [[Blood Ravens|steal]] the Black Sword.

It should be pointed out that in the HH Book: Templar, he is described as having never lost a duel. Ever. This means either:
*He's never duelled any Primarchs.
**However, Primarchs are [[Cheese|OP]] and therefore an unfair opponent for any Astartes and typically don't stoop so low as to demonstrate it. They occasionally say, in novels, maybe a dude could tangle with a primarch because they can't grasp just how OP those bastards are.
*Doesn't consider it a loss if his opponent cheats in the fight, as it did with Sevatar.
**Because he cheated, Jago is technically considered to have lost that sparring duel. Besides, if they had been trying to kill each other Sev would have been way dirtier way earlier, but Sig would have been expecting it as well. That duel was all around still a good indicator of their skill in regards to one another. Sev is regarded as one of the best Astartes close combatants and they basically tied. If the stats in the HH books are anything to go off of ''(admittedly not always, like the Primarchs being nerfed so they can still be balanced)'' then Sig, Sev and the Nemean are the overall best close "dueling" astartes period. 1-on-1 ruleswise: Sev has almost no chance due to lack of Eternal Warrior.
**It's worth noting that Khârn later tried copying the move. Sigismund dropped him face-down on the floor.
*Always ended in a draw. This option is possible, although the context didn't seem to suggest this at all.
*It doesn't mean anything at all, because a sparring bout ''(even amongst Astartes who are at real risk of being maimed)'' does not accurately represent the fighters' true potential.
**For example, Kharn actually disdained the fighting pits because it's not about killing your opponent, making it an entirely different situation. While Nathaniel Garro also beat a Custodian in a duel, but realised that he would not likely be able to take him in a real fight.
*<s>He had some really, REALLY crappy Marines training him how to fight, seriously, surely he would have lost as an initiate.</s> Sparing isn't the same as a duel ya git.

==Tabletop==
[[File:Sigismund05.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Sigismund protecting the Imperium from Hairesy]]
He received stats in the 3rd Horus Heresy book; Extermination. Showing him to be a close-combat monster:

With Eternal Warrior, Fearless, Adamantium Will, a +2S AP2 weapon, instant death and rerolls ones to hit when in challenges, 4 attacks at WS7, '''and''' forcing successful invulns to be rerolled. He's the nastiest duelist character so far in virtually any incarnation of the rules, barring the primarchs, Constantin Valdor, motherfucking [[Anacharis Scoria]] and the [[Shield-Captain|Cheestodes Tribune]], and one of the few that has a fighting chance against some of the weaker among said primarchs. Now that some legions, namely Sons of Horus, Salamanders, and Imperial Fists, have access to Eternal Warrior from relics that non-Primarchs can take, he's descended from being an "I win as soon as I wound" button to merely "75% likely to win."

This means, pretty much all legion characters barring Salamander Praetors and Eidolon are fucked as Sigismund is forced to challenge and most legions have nothing, bar their Primarchs, who could stand up to Sigismund and hope to win (excluding terrible rolls).

In fact, even against his [[Rogal Dorn|own Primarch]] (or any T6, 4++ Primarch barring Lorgar and Russ), Sigismund makes a good stab at it and causes just under 1 wound per turn mathematically during a challenge (what with IWND and all), which hilariously, is almost as much as [[Perturabo|Dorn's ''own'' brother]] can cause against him. While Sigismund receives 1.25 wounds/turn in return. Which is actually pretty good for Astartes vs Primarch combat.

Forgeworld have released a mini for "death's champion"... Twice... Failing both times at the attempt.

{{Marines-Characters}}

Primaris Space Marines

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[[File:New40KPrimarisArt1.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Look out Chaos, there's a new kid on the block.]]
{{Topquote|They were forged for Mankind's darkest hour, and that hour is upon us.|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}
{{Topquote|In a galaxy wreathed in darkness, we must be the light.|Unnamed Primaris Officer}}
{{Topquote|Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!|Marshal Stacker Pentecost, from the movie Pacific Rim}}

Primaris Space Marines (also known as Primaris Marines, Ultra-Ultramarines, Space Space Marines, Primarines, NuMarines, Chadmarines, [[Ultramarines: The Movie|The Greater-est of them all]], Adeptus Restartes, Gigglymarines, Super Space Marines, Biglymarines, Space-marine Space-marine Space-Marines, 8thmarines, Bigmars, [[Stormcast Eternals|Spacesigmarines]], Guillimarines, Special Snowflake Marines, [[Mary Sue|Primarysues]], Primacucks, Ultra-Ultrasmurfs, Marines II: Electric Boogaloo, the Replacements and the New Kids) are the next step forward in [[Space Marine]] evolution (not counting the [[Raptor]] supermarines by [[Corax]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] before [[Alpharius]] spiked the gene-tech with [[Daemon]] Blood). [[Roboute Guilliman|Big Bobby G]] got together with [[Belisarius Cawl]] and put together this next generation of Astartes. They are bigger, faster, stronger, and maybe smarter than all that have come before them. Buckle up boys, its about to get hot in here.

==History and Background==
Shortly after the conclusion of the Horus Heresy, Guilliman predicted that another major Chaos attack on the Imperium might come at some point in the future. Though the Space Marines had proven themselves worthy defenders of Mankind, the Primarch foresaw that there might be a time where even they would struggle against the onslaught of the Ruinous Powers - [[Derp|because Roboute himself broke Legions in chapters]], and those tend to have problems fighting Black Crusades against ''hundreds of thousands'' CSM (the reason why Dorn declined Codex Astartes at first, being one of the few after the Scouring to suppose the Traitor Legions may be back one day). But nowadays it turns out Guilliman knew about it as well - which makes the whole situation awkward to say the least.

Ahem, in a frankly extreme show of [[just as planned]], our [[Spiritual Liege]] gained the aid of Archmagos Belisarius Cawl and began a program to create a new, superior form of Space Marines in secret over the next ten millennia. To assist him, Guilliman gave Cawl a relic called the Sangprimus Portum- a device containing the purest samples of each Primarch's [[/d/|genetic material]] that outstripped even the gene-seed in its potency.

Even after he was poisoned by [[Fulgrim]], Guilliman's plan continued without anybody learning about it, and by the time of his revival, Primaris Marines were ready to be unveiled to the Imperium - the only thing needed was a sanction from the Primarch himself.

In conjunction with the [[Ultima Founding]], there are now going to be entirely new chapters composed just of Primaris Marines as well, with some taking over the [[Fortress-Monastery|fortress-monasteries]] of extinct chapters.

However, in the Black Library novel "Dark Imperium", Guilliman calls Primarises "Cawl's blasphemous hordes". So much for daddy's love, eh?

==New Stuff==
*The basic Primaris Marine is encased in [[Power Armour#Mark X: Tacticus Armour|Mark X Tacticus Armour]]. Basically, it's the best of all the suits that came before it, wrapped up into one convenient package; no [[Beakie]] schnozz, but it's got that sweet Maximus style vox grill. As usual, mechanically this is entirely cosmetic.
**[[Primarch#Two_Missing_Primarchs|We don't talk about Mark IX Power Armour]].
**Bigger, tougher Primaris Marines wear [[Power_Armour#Mark_X:_Gravis_Armour|Mark X Gravis Armour]]. As of 8E, this translates to +1T. Shiny.
**Reivers wear [[Power Armour#Mark X: Phobos Armour|Mark X Phobos Armour]], sleeker-looking, with <strike>crocs, capris, and</strike> skull-faced helmets.
*They wield the [[Bolt#Bolt Rifle|Mark II Cawl-pattern Bolt rifle]] as their standard firearm. Apparently a "perfected" version of the ubiquitous bolter, it does have an improved statline - 30" Rapid Fire 1 S4 AP-1 D1 - which appears to be a boltgun with an extended barrel.
**Its statline is one AP worse than the new "Special Issue Boltgun" Sternguard carry, but their big selling point is some combination of being cheaper/easier to manufacture and using more readily available/cheaper/easier to manufacture ammunition, reflected in their points cost - bolt rifles are the same gun for 3 points cheaper in 8E.
**At least two variants of Bolt Rifle exist- the Auto Bolt Rifle, which has lower AP but is better suited for longer ranges due to being Assault 2, and the Stalker Bolt Rifle, a Heavy 1 sniper variant with superior range and one extra point of AP.
*An enhanced [[gene-seed]], which was created by combining the purified genetic material of the Loyalist Primarchs with parts of the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] creation process (as they don't have gene-seed) that adds 3 more organs to the existing 20. It's also worth noting that Cawl did something to make the Primaris Marines physically incapable of turning traitor. Guilliman's internal monologue in Dark Imperium reveals that he considers it an impossibility for Primarines to turn, unlike "the old breed". This has interesting implications about whether or not the Primaris marines truly have free will.
**The new organs are:
***'''Sinew Coils''', which turn the Primaris Marines into [[Wat|Inspector Gadget]]....okay, we may be joking here, but it's basically metallic coils wrapped around the Marine's tendons and ligaments that can contract with extreme force.
****This is particularly interesting, as it's not actually a living organ, and hence is presumably not developed from gene-seed at all.
***'''The Magnificat''', which just sets the rest of the superhuman organs into overdrive (and is itself part of a super-organ dubbed the '''Immortis Gland''' intended for Primarchs, though the information needed to complete it is lost), as well as producing additional growth hormone.
***'''Belisarian Furnace''' (because Cawl gets a robo-boner for naming things after himself), essentially a 'last-stand' organ, which gives a Primaris Marine a supercharged adrenaline rush near death while triggering rapid tissue and bone regeneration. This presumably explains the additional Wound they have.

==Potential Problems==
*While Primaris Marines are created from the gene-seed of all the Loyalist Primarchs, it is unknown how some of the more extreme genetic quirks of each bloodline will manifest in them. We could see anything from [[Blood Angels]] with cute little Cupid wings, to [[Flesh Tearers]] with terrifying vampire fangs, to transparent [[Raven Guard]], to even blacker [[Salamanders]], to [[Lamenters]] with greying temples and bags under their eyes (for a true "too old for this shit" attitude), to [[Black Dragons]] that look like a metal hedgehog with giant, adamantium coated bone spines and [[Space Wolves]] [[Fur Heresy|with fluffy little tails]]. But then again there's NO reason to actually expect the new modifications to worsen their genetic quirks. They're marines with new enhancements, not marines with a double dose of gene-seed or anything. It's probably somewhat more likely to strengthen their resistance to their quirks if anything. It's all up to whatever GeeDubs wants to do though, [[just as planned|so anything is possible]].
**According to Cawl, the Primaris gene-seed is actually even more stable than the standard version, with an estimated deviancy of .001% per generation. So far, it's at least been stable enough to create a Space Wolves successor that hasn't immediately devolved into Wulfen.
***It's unknown how stable normal marines who have been "upgraded" are, however.
*** The new Blood Angels codex confirms that they do suffer from the Red Thirst, but have more control over it than their counterparts. No Primaris Blood Angel has succumbed to the Black Rage...but whether they're actually immune to it is unknown.
**Robbie MacNiven, writer of the Carcharodons novel Red Tithe, has revealed that everyone's favorite space sharks WILL be receiving their own Primaris Marines, adding to the above interest in Chapter-specific quirks among Primaris. PRAISE THE FORGOTTEN ONE.
*In terms of actual combat experience, these guys are jumping into the deep end as green as an ork's asscrack. They may be bigger, stronger, faster, and have better armor and weapons, but that doesn’t change the fact that the marines they are reinforcing are their seniors by centuries, not even mentioning the battle experience of Chaos Marines. Well maybe yes/no: [[skub|The Dark Imperium novel says that the first batch of Primaris Marines are actually augmented space marines from the days after the Horus Heresy put into stasis and are constantly pestering the whippersnappers with tales of what the Imperium was like 10,000 years ago]].
**Later it's stated that they mainly consist of Neophytes from various chapters who were drafted into the program, so they are <s>utterly green</s> ONLY harshly trained and have little true combat experience compared to most Marines. Think scouts on steroids.
**Rather than making interesting fluff out of this idea, the writers are trying to jump the plot forward from year 41,001 to 41,113 via the Indominus Crusade, a 112 year crusade where [[Great Crusade|an entire Legion of (mixed ancestry) Primaris marines]] called the Unnumbered Sons of the Primarchs (or Greyshields, after their shared heraldry) got enough experience that the writers can just treat Primaris Marines as normal Space Marines. Which sucks, because there could've been a great story in that.
***We get little hints of this having to prove themselves goodness in, the Dark Angels codex. A group of Hellblasters are half put off, half inspired by the strictness of their primogenitor. After the squad gets trapped in a hive city for days fighting off enemies, they rack up so many kills even Belial can't help but smile.
*The Dark Angel example above illustrates another problem: how well will the new Primaris Marines get along with their chapter? The Dark Angels are an extreme example given their <s>issues</s> UNSWERVING LOYALTY TO THE IMPERIUM, but other chapters may have their own problems getting the first couple batches of Primaris marines to get with the traditions and cultures of their chapters.
**As the Primaris have no Terminators ([[skub|Aggressors are debatable]]) or Biker units or any real equivalents. (Yet, if GW thought that far ahead.) I.e. Hellblasters and Inceptors can be deployed in place of Sternguard and Vanguard Veterans in other chapters. With the exception of Primaris Librarians, induction into the Inner Circle or the lower ranks of the Ravenwing is unlikely.
*Chaos will be interested in the Primaris Marines. The [[Chaos Gods]] are not happy with the existence of the Primaris Marines, and are creating some warp charged warriors to counter them (enhanced Chosen, perhaps). [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] became obsessed with "perfecting" the Primaris Marines from the moment he first encountered them and has already begun trying to kidnap Primaris Marines for dissection. They've supposedly been made resistant to Chaos influence, but "resistant" doesn't mean "immune" by a long shot, since they still have a soul. In fact a [[Noxious Blightbringer]] is able to effect them in Dark Imperium, successfully hurting and trying to get them to turn. And come to think of it, the cover image of 8th Edition does seem to partially show a [[Plague Marine]] in Tacitus armor...
**The discovery that Cawl wanted to use Traitor Legion gene-seed as well as the gene-seed of the missing legions to make Primaris Marines doesn't help the matter; Guilliman refused to let him do so, but he has a feeling Cawl will try it anyway with predictable results.
***Cawl claims that it was only due to the influence of the traitorous Primarchs that their Legions fell to Chaos. While this may be true, attempting to test that theory would almost certainly be a bad idea.
***The reasons as to why the the Lost Legions were purged so thoroughly were apparently so unthinkably horrible (so much that even after his rebellion had begun, Horus was still unwilling to break the vow he made to never speak of the Missing Primarchs) that Cawl trying to use their DNA might bite him in the ass even harder than for using gene-seed from the Traitor Primarchs.
*While barely explored in-universe so far, the various alien races in the setting may also take exception to or dangerous interest in the Primaris Marines. Orks would likely find them entertaining to fight, and Tyranids would just see them as more biomass to consume, with some extra chewy bits from the Sinew Coils. Given Fabulous Bill's interest in them, it's likely [[Haemonculus|Fabius' Commorite mentors]] will also find interest in them, as will [[Illuminor Szeras|a certain spider-legged robot scientist]]. Fortunately, this could only benefit the Ynnari-Imperium alliance, who will most likely be the most accepting of it. There's no reason the Tau will see any problems, though if a kroot managed to eat a dead Primaris. that could lead to some "developments".

==Forces of the Primaris Marines==
[[File:Blood Raven 1.JPG|300px|thumb|right|"[[Roboute Guilliman|Lord Commander]], the batch 3789-Alpha is missing! Just after the visit of..." "[[Just as Planned|I know.]]"]]
Primaris Marines don't get to select from a variety of equipment loadouts, but the equipment they do carry is designed by [[Cawl]], who is shockingly competent, so they usually outgun their non-Primaris equivalents who tried to choose an otherwise identical loadout; this forces them to depend on other units to support them to fill in any gaps (much like Eldar Aspect Warriors). They enjoy, as of 8E, +1W and +1A relative to a regular marine, making them more durable and a lot more dangerous in melee combat. Some of them wear [[Power_Armour#Mark_X:_Gravis_Armour|Mark X Gravis Armour]], for another +1T.
*'''[[Primaris Captain|Primaris Captain:]]''' Primaris Captains are the analogues of [[Space Marine]] Captains. They are decked out in the new Gravis Armor which somehow manages to be even ''MOAR'' egg-shaped than a [[Squat]] [[Hearthguard]]. They're armed with a mini-Gauntlet of Ultramar/Hand of Dominion (I.E. a three-shot bolt pistol built into a power fist) and a master-crafted power sword. Others use the Mark X Tacitus power armor and wield a power sword and their choice of Stalker Boltgun or Auto Bolt Rifle. There's also a plasma pistol and power fist model exclusive to Games Workshop stores celebrating their anniversaries.
*'''[[Primaris Librarian|Primaris Librarian:]]''' Just what it sounds like. Has a fancy-looking Force Sword.
*'''[[Primaris Chaplain|Primaris Chaplain:]]''' Self-explanatory; they wear black robes as though they're aping on the [[Interrogator-Chaplain]]s. In battle, they wear an Iron Halo and carry a Crozius Arcanum alongside a specialized Absolver Bolt Pistol. To double down on the skull motif, their breastplate looks like a ribcage.
*'''[[Primaris Lieutenant|Primaris Lieutenants:]]''' The Primaris Lieutenants are somewhere between a Captain and a Sergeant in rank, and are often the most experienced of a Primaris Squad. Their role is to take command of demi-companies when the Captain is absent, freeing Chaplains and Librarians to focus on their own specialties. Lieutenants are differentiated from their fellow marines by a red-on-white stripe on their helms. Some of them can be helmetless which often showcase an extreme amount of Hair-esy. They can either use a power sword or a master-crafted automatic version of the Bolt Rifle (shorter range and worse ap, but better rate of fire at long range, fireable after Advancing, and more damage per shot from being master-crafted).
*'''[[Primaris Ancient|Primaris Ancients:]]''' Primaris Marines dubbed honorable enough to have the privilege of carrying the Standard's Banner. Identifiable by their white helmets (although that could change depending on the Chapter), they are in no way related to another [[Tarkus|dude-clad-in-power-armor-wearing-a-white-helmet-that-also-comes-with-the-same-name-from-a-certain-WH40K-game]]. At least until he's been upgraded. In case you were wondering, "Ancient" is a corruption of the rank of "Ensign" which was a term for an army's flagbearer in the Middle Ages, so it has nothing to do with how old the Marine in question actually is.
*'''[[Primaris Apothecary|Primaris Apothecary:]]''' A specialization of Primaris Marine first seen in artwork and promo photos, and now has rules and a model. Their left bracer appears to have a screen on it for monitoring lifesigns, and they have a pistol with a reductor built into it for geneseed removal (and the occasional puncturing of enemy skulls). The Narthecium attached to a <s>cyberdong</s> mechadendrite on the Apothecary's back.
*'''Primaris Techmarine:''' One of them acts as the pintle gunner for the Repulsor Tank. That's about all we know.
*'''[[Reiver|Reivers:]]''' Reivers are Space Marines created from the gene-seed of [[Sly Marbo]]. Think [[Catachan Jungle Fighters]] in [[Power Armor]]. It's time to piss yourselves, [[Chaos Space Marines|traitorous scum.]] Reivers are the only true close-combat specialist Infantry for the Primaris and are pretty good at it overall. Compared to Intercessors they have a Combat Knife for another attack and an improved Bolt Pistol with greater Armour Penetration, and the ability to negatively effect enemy morale. They can be equipped for more ranged combat but that is not why you take them. They have Deep-Strike option like everyone else, but also a new grappling hook that allows them to both outflank and jump-up ruins like they're nothing. But arguably their biggest trump-card is their special grenade that causes effected units to lose both their overwatch and minus one to shooting. While not the most devastating CC unit in the game they make excellent back-field harassers and synergize wonderfully with the rest of your army with their ability to cripple enemy gun-lines.
*'''[[Aggressor|Aggressors:]]''' Aggressors are basically Primaris [[Terminators]] mixed in with [[Centurion Squad|Centurions]], but with a 3+ save. They have an even more specialized Gravis armor, and either an automatic version of the Primaris Captain's Boltstorm Gauntlet paired with shoulder-mounted grenade launchers or a flamer-equipped version of said gauntlet dubbed the Flamestorm gauntlet. Regardless of what they're equipped with, they specialize in close-range firepower that obliterates light infantry.
*'''[[Intercessor|Intercessors:]]''' Intercessors are the <s>standard</s> SUPER bolter Marines, having most in common with a bare-bones tactical squad as they're armed with Primaris versions of the same things (such as their super bolters and Mk X armour). Compared to tacticals, they perform better in melee and have greater armour penetration on their basic weapons along with being more survivable, making them effective in a wider variety of situations. This is both a strength and a weakness, as while they may be bigger Jacks of all trades, they're even worse masters of nothing. Compared to Tacticals they have fewer weapon and transport options and only one type of heavy weapon choice. This might be part of the reason that other Primaris Marines are more specialized: to compensate/synergize. As Primaris specialists may be more vulnerable to heavy firepower and be fire-magnets, Intercessors with their flexibility they can more reliably protect other more valuable units and plug any holes that arise from specialist losses, or make themselves useful against any foe until the hard-hitting second wave arrives (being the most versatile as far as Primaris Marines go).
*'''[[Inceptor|Inceptors:]]''' Inceptors are the <strike>[[Assault Marines]] equivalent</strike> drop troops of the Primaris Marines and are equipped with a new pattern of Jump Packs, two Assault Bolters, which are basically sawn off Heavy Bolters, a pair of hand-portable Plasma Cannons, and a pair of [[Derp|absolutely ridiculous-looking shoe-shovels.]] Unlike Assault Squads, the Inceptors' focus is on firepower and a pseudo Hammer of Wrath. This makes them closer in role to Assault Bikes as a fast moving strafing unit and harasser. They lack melee weapons of any kind; this doesn't mean they can't fight in melee, as their sheer weight allows them to crush their enemies to death, and they still have the statline of "normal" Primaris marines along with being even tougher to hurt, making them not completely useless in a scrap. Don't get it in your head that their melee ability is "good", though, or even decent, and only engage in melee if you have to; they do far better blowing things into tiny pieces.
*'''[[Hellblaster|Hellblasters:]]''' Hellblasters are Primaris Marines who make Flash Gitz green(er) with envy. They use [[Plasma#Plasma Incinerator|Plasma Incinerators]], enhanced Plasma Guns with longer range and armor piercing ability. Aside from that, there's nothing special about them as compared to "regular" Primaris marines. Very expensive and vulnerable to strong weapons, but they fuck up TEQs and can pose a threat to vehicles if they can get into Rapid Fire range, though outside of said range it's not as suicidal to unload a charged volley, so they can threaten vehicles there, too. Also, with the changes to how cover works, they are terrifying against cover campers. With how big a fire magnet these guys are, if you get these guys close to an expensive or dangerous vehicle or multiwound TEQs feel free to HELLBLAST them into oblivion in a suicide barrage. (That is, IF they're at risk of being wiped out or swarmed.)
*'''[[Redemptor Dreadnought|Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought:]]''' For no matter how great and glorious they may be, [[Grimdark|in the grim future even they are not immortal]]. Though how enough of these brand spanking-new Space Marines were curbstomped just enough to warrant Dreadnought status, we'll (probably) never know (hundreds of thousands of Primaris fighting in the over a century long indomitus crusade may be the answer). Times be desperate, yo. Probably because they're so hard to kill that just about all of them that couldn't be saved are made dread-ful.
*'''[[Repulsor_Tank|Repulsor]]:''' The Repulsor is the standard transport and/or tank (nobody's entirely sure yet) of the Primaris Marines. Which is good for them, because they can't go inside standard Space Marine transports, including ones that can hold Terminators, Centurions, and (in 30k) even fucking ''Primarchs.'' There must be [[Profit|some mysterious force surpassing even the Emperor]] blocking the door - which also blocks the door on this thing if you try to convince a ''non''-Primaris to go inside. Being a floating [[METAL BOXES|Metal Box]], it might be considered the spiritual successor to the [[Grav-Rhino]], if you covered said Grav-Rhino with missile pods everywhere, including on its rear and sides, put twin-linked lascannon in the front hull, and gave it what looks like a [[Fail|heavy stubber]] as a coaxial gun to go with the turret lascannon and pintle-mounted Gatling gun.
*'''Overlord:''' The Overlord is the Primaris-exclusive dropship used to support the bigger frames of the Primaris Marines. You would think the [[Thunderhawk]] would be big enough for them, but it seems they are ''too'' [[Mary Sue|special]] to share the same vehicle with their smaller brothers. Anyways, the Overlord is noticeable for one thing. It is '''ECKS BAWKS HUEG''', making a Thunderhawk look like a [[Stormtalon]] in comparison. In terms of specs, it is the [[Corvus Blackstar]] on steroids. Seriously, it has powerful quintuple engines and twinned hulls thick enough to permit insertion from orbit, like Thunderhawks or Stormbirds, and like Blackstars, Overlords possess twin transport bays with their own assault doors, but they're considerably bigger (they can carry up to 40 of your Chadmarines) and even more blessed with advanced technologies like fucking [[AWESOME|energy shields]] ([[Heresy|Guess Cawl kind of]] [[Blood Ravens|'borrowed']] [[Extra Heresy|some of that sweet ass energy shields from the]] [[Eldar|pointy-eared gitz]]). Additionally, the Overlord is equipped with anti-munitions cannons, wing-mounted Desolator Lascannons, nose-mounted Melta Cannons and Heavy Bolters fixed on its lower wing surfaces. This thing is pretty much a flying [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]] or an Imperial [[Manta]].
*'''[[Astraeus|Astraeus Super-Heavy Tank]]:''' Surely the result of a grudging 3-way between a Mastodon, a Sicaran, and a somewhat reluctant Repulsor, the Astraeus is the first Primaris super-heavy tank (implying there will be more variants on the way) and looking to be an utter beast on the tabletop - it's armed with Land Raider style frontal Heavy Bolter mount, two front angled sponsons for Las-Rippers or Plasma Eradicators, topped with a turret mounted dual Macro-Accelerator Cannon. Given how expensive it is to field a decently kitted repulsor, it remains to be seen how viable it will be to concentrate so many points into one vehicle.

==On the Tabletop==
Crunch wise, Primaris Space Marines are about as physically dangerous as Space Marines are already supposed to be fluff-wise, so they get an additional Attack and an additional Wound; weapons which deal additional Wounds seem to be fairly common now, so while it might not be a big improvement it can still be helpful. However, they also have exclusive access to shiny new toys from Cawl, including a "basically Kraken" Bolter with +6" range and -1 AP, a Plasma gun with +6" range and -4 AP, and half-range [[AWESOME|one-handed Assault Heavy Bolters and Plasma Cannons. That they dual-wield. With jump packs.]] Defensively, so far only they have access to Gravis armor, which grants +1 Toughness (and even then only the Captain, Aggressors, and Inceptors can use it). Finally, their squads don't mix weapon types, with all members carrying the same loadout; whether this will be a benefit or a downside relative to "standard" marines being able to carry a mixed loadout remains to be seen with the other new rules in 8th, such as the ability of any squad to split its fire across multiple targets.

Most of the Primaris units so far also cost nearly twice as many points as their older counterparts and have unit sizes no larger than a <del>5</del> 10 model maximum (including the Serge). This strongly suggests they will be more useful as a supplement to standard Marine forces than they might be as outright replacements; they're far too inflexible and expensive to be fielded effectively on their own, and their lack of melee specialists and access to weaponry with a range greater than 36" is a glaring flaw (for now) as well. And while their movement is no worse than any other Marine, for reasons that totally aren't financial in origin they can't take '''any''' transports usable by standard Marines. Not [[Rhino|Rhinos]], not [[Drop Pods]], not [[Land Raider|Land Raiders]], not even the motherfucking [[Mastodon]]. They can use the Thunderhawk, but odds are you're not going to have room for it in your standard 2000 points game, and even then, it has to be carrying only Primaris Marines (and in that case, it still can't carry too many). They have a special transport called a Repulsor (which is a [[Awesome|grav tank]]), which somehow can't carry non-Primaris, but besides that they have no choice but to go footslogging.

However, single-model units can be astonishingly efficient - the most extreme case is the Primaris Librarian, who has a static, unchangeable loadout, but costs the exact same as a non-Primaris Librarian with the same loadout (a bolt pistol and Force Sword).

===Rules Datasheets===
<gallery>
File:New40kPrimarisCaptainAgainFull.jpg|Stats for the Captain. GW is being awfully generous with these datasheets.
File:New40kIntercessorDatasheet.jpg|Behold the Intercessor Datasheet (thanks GW!).
File:New40kPrimarisInceptorVersion2Full.jpg|The Inceptor rules, sadly the shoe-shovels have no stats.
File:Hellblaster stats.jpeg|Hellblaster stats, because leaks are great for those on the outside. Note how when their guns explode they die, rather than take damage.
</gallery>

==Gallery==
===Miniatures===
<gallery>
File:Captain1.jpg|A Primaris Captain channeling the Juggernaut BITCH!
File:Lieutenant1.jpg|Primaris Lieutenants, not quite butter bars, not quite seasoned
File:Ancient1.jpg|I am NOT [[Tarkus]]!
File:40kPrimarisLibReveal1.jpg|Being a Librarian ain't easy.
File:40kPreviewJuly23_Chaplain8h-500x466.jpg|The Chaplain. Totally not [[Blizzard|Reaper from Overwatch]].
File:40kPreviewJuly23_Apothecary2n-500x461.jpg|The Apothecary.
File:Intercessor2.jpg|Super Smurfs!
File:Reivers.jpg|Boo, assholes!
File:Helblaster1.jpg|An entire ''squad'' of Super-Smurfs with upgraded Plasma Guns.
File:Inceptor1.jpg|Inceptors! Now capable of flying and skiing! Inspired by Youjo Senki?
File:IMG-20171123-WA0005.jpg|Lieutenant Tolmeron inspecting his sword with no option to change the pose of his miniature. Thanks, GW
File:IMG-20171123-WA0002.jpg|Lieutenant Zakariah. Look at how sly his face is, like he has just <s>apprehended the Fallen </s> CLEARED ALL HERETICS FROM THE SECTOR
</gallery>

===Pictures===
<gallery>
File:Space_Marine_Squared.png|A Squad of Intercessors about to go to town on some greenskins. Aren't they beautiful?
File:Redemptor_Dreadnought.PNG|I HAVE LEGS! I HAVE FULLY ARTICULATED LEGS!
File:Chad marine hover tank.png|Guilliman and Cawl have figured out how to build hover tanks once more!
File:Aggressors.jpg|The Aggressors box.
File:PassiveAgressors.jpg|Passive Aggressors, ready to make catty remarks at the enemy
File:Chap&apoc.png|Grainy sighting of a Primaris Apothecary and Chaplain.
</gallery>

===Assorted===
<gallery>
File:PrimarisBigBoy.png
File:Adeptus Astronimus.jpg
File:PrimarisLightyear.jpg|Primaris Marine of the Galactic Rangers chapter
File:Primaris_comparison.png|Numarine, the carefree playboy, and Oldmarine, the grizzled vigilante. [[Batman|Have you ever seen them in the same art together?]]
</gallery>

{{Primaris Marine-Forces}}

Gene-seed

2018-03-07T17:35:00Z

2600:1014:B10A:7898:91FB:2366:F84E:9380: /* Primaris Organs */

In [[Warhammer 40,000]], [[humans]] are transformed into [[Space Marines]] by, among other things, implanting them with a series of 19 organs that dramatically alter and enhance their biology. The organs' DNA strings, from which they are vat-grown, are collectively known as "gene-seed."

== Origins ==

Gene-seed is a vital part of the [[Space Marine]] program, and is as old as the Astartes themselves. When the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] was still conquering [[Terra]], many of the techno-barbarians' armies had augmented human warriors. The Emperor then realized that he would need vast armies of super-soldiers for his coming [[Great Crusade]], so he embarked on a project to create a mass-producible means of enhancing humans. This project resulted in the twenty [[Primarchs]], and from their genes, he created the gene-seed organs to be implanted into each Space Marine. These organs are usually produced in vats from extracted progenoids, but [[Daemonculaba|other methods]] can be used in a pinch, and, of course, the Sinew Coils aren't an actual organ, so they can be produced much more readily, like any other cybernetic implant.

== The Organs ==

Oddly, most 40K fluff never refers to most of these organs, if any, especially when situations come up where these organs might have been especially useful. The worst offenders are usually the sensory ones; the Occulobe, Lyman's Ear, and Neuroglottis, taken together, ''ought'' to make them notice things normal humans can't, especially under low-light conditions, but the fluff usually has them only picking up the standard level of detail.

# The '''Secondary Heart''' is pretty self-explanatory. It lets a Space Marine get his blood flowing at a faster rate through his body and probably to the more critical bits, which lets his muscles work harder and longer, and it gives him a backup just in case one fails (i.e. gets shot, stabbed, [[Kor Phaeron|ripped out by Guilliman]], or what have you). The Secondary Heart is not beating at all times. It only activates during times of stress (bear in mind that a twenty mile run is not considered stressful to an Astartes); otherwise, it just sits there awaiting activation.
# The '''Ossmodula''' makes a Space Marine's skeleton grow and incorporate some ceramic dietary supplements into itself and fuses his ribs together into a solid structure. The Tyrant guard's fused ribcage hints that the Hive mind has incorporated Space marine DNA into-{{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Heresy!}} Ironically, the fusing of the rib cage would be considered a bad thing, as the Space Marine would not be able to breathe properly, but since this is 40K, little things like biology can and will be ignored if the end result sounds sufficiently cool, then again the Multi lung (see bellow) may help with this. A (decidedly) secondary effect of a fused rib cage would be a loss of flexibility. This bit sounds like it was tailor-made for Ultramarines since the vast majority of them walk around like they've got a broom handle shoved up their collective asses anyway.
# The '''Biscopea''' triggers muscle growth. These first three organs are often implanted together, as they collectively prepare the Initiate's body for further augmentation. Around this time, the Initiate gets put on a diet containing extra nutrients to fuel his new growth.
# The '''Haemastamen''' enhances a Space Marine's blood to better accommodate the Space Marine's nifty set of new organs by improving its ability to carry oxygen. It also turns it [[Orks|bright red]].
# The '''Larraman's Organ''' creates Larraman's Cells, which are like super-platelets: they make wounds rapidly scab over. This also can work against them, sealing poisoned wounds with poison still within, before the bloodstream wash most of it out, like is the case with normal humans. Yes, marines have in-built anti-toxin organs, but Dark Eldar and Tyranid poisons don't give a fuck about that, and can usually bypass that.
# The '''Catalepsean Node''' messes with the body's sleep cycle, letting Space Marines get away with four hours of sleep every day, or even less, and making it possible for them not lose awareness, even after like 2 weeks without sleep. It also makes the brain susceptible to hypno-therapy, which is a fancy word for "brainwashing" the Initiates while they are asleep. As a nasty side effect, it allows Chaos marines to re-brainwash loyalists they captured alive (or better: in suspended animation). Unsurprisingly to anyone familiar with Chaos, this trick doesn't work in reverse, which might just go to show that the Chaos Marines might be [[Heresy|closer to the true human nature than the loyal Marines...]] or more likely that Chaos is corrupting as fuck.
# The '''Preomnor''' is like a bird's crop, in that it stores food before passing it to the stomach, except that the Preomnor also decontaminates its contents as well. In Ian Watson's Space Marine novel, Initiates celebrated getting this organ by eating the most disgusting things they could until they finally provoked a vomit reflex.
# The '''Omophagea''' is one of the odder organs. It connects to the stomach and the spinal cord, and somehow takes knowledge from the brain tissue that a Space Marine can eat. Interestingly, Space Marines are pretty reluctant to actually eat brains, as the process is physically extremely unpleasant, leaves them in a vulnerable torpor whilst they process the information, and is one of the very few things that will make a Space Marine vomit afterwards. In fact, it is not just the brain, since some Astartes rituals, if not chapter names, originated from this; the Blood Angels and their descendants are especially famous for blood drinking and [[rip and tear]] in general; this is actually because they receive knowledge and visions from it. What? You thought the Blood Angels had visions of Sanguinius only to have a [[grimdark]], [[Machine spirit|mystical aura]]? Additionally, the memories they absorb become very hard to forget (brain washing technologies can help). Now just add some chaos to that mix and you've got heresy brewing...
# The '''Multi-Lung'''... do I have to spell it out? It's an additional lung! It also has a lot of filters and the like, and can function underwater and in low-oxygen atmospheres. In other words, it allows the Space Marine without a helmet to breathe under water and in toxic air. Just how does this third lung fit in with the other two Marines are born with and all the other organs implanted later? Very carefully, that's how.
# The '''Occulobe''' gives Space Marines super-vision, and allows their eyes to adjust to changes in light almost instantly, or at least in the fluff.
# The '''Lyman's Ear''' gives them super-hearing and makes them immune to motion sickness and concussion. However, in-game, they have no particular immunity or even resistance to concussion, probably because it's often delivered by a hammer to the head.
# The '''Sus-an Membrane''' lets them enter a state of ''Sus''pended ''an''imation when they are critically hurt or starving. This serves the purpose of conserving a mortally wounded marine until his body is recovered and healed by apothecaries. So each time you remove a marine model on the tabletop, chances are (fluff-wise) it has entered sus-an, rather than died. In fact, on most campaigns that's what happens to your characters. It should be noted, marines cannot leave suspended animation state at will, and can only be "awakened" through the use of specific drugs. Basically, the 40k version of LSD.
# The '''Melanochrome''' implants into the lymph nodes, and makes Space Marine skin like transition lenses: it darkens in response to radiation, rapidly producing reinforced melanin that protects against both UV and gamma. On the plus side, they tan really fast, but the fact that they pale right back up once they're inside armour (unless they are [[Salamanders]]) is not that great.
# The '''Oolitic Kidney''' detoxifies their blood, like their regular kidneys, but this one does it really fast. Also, it controls some of the other organs' hormones. As a result, Space Marines are unaffected by most poisons short of what the [[Dark Eldar]] or [[Tyranids]] can produce. It also means they can't get drunk, though the Space Wolves found a way around that by creating Mjöd, an extremely toxic drink made of local plants of Fenris, that temporarily neutralizes the Oolitic kidney's ability to filter toxins. Another organ which ceases to work on the tabletop, as Space Marines have absolutely identical reactions to Poison as ratlings, ogryn, and standard humans. Of course, considering that the poisons you find on the tabletop are Tyranid, Dark Eldar, and Nurgelitle shit, we can probably write this one off.
# The '''Neuroglottis''' implants into the upper nasal passage, drastically improving both smell and taste; lets a Space Marine identify chemicals and track adversaries by taste. Blood-hound much?
# The '''Mucranoid''' gives Space Marines super-sweat that protects them from heat and cold, and can even be hardened into a vacuum-proof shell. Remember that awesome scene where Guilliman boxes Word Bearers in space? Yep, he did it while covered in that thing.
# The '''Betcher's Gland''' gives them acid spit, which is probably the only bonus for going to combat [[Helmet#Helmets_and_Faces|without a helmet]]. The acid within varies depending on the source, from simply reacting only to organic tissue to fully dissolving ceramite. Some Chapters, such as the [[Blood Angels]] and the [[Iron Snakes]], consider using the Betcher's Gland in combat to be [[DERP|dishonourable]]. In any event, Space Marines on the table-top do not have access to acidic spit, unlike e.g. Tyranids. (Or maybe they do; space marine ancients get a lot of attacks for someone with their hands full.)
# The '''Progenoids''' provide no benefit to the Space Marine, but are universally considered the most important organs, as they are the keys to making more of the organs above. Each Space Marine starts with two, one in the neck and one in the chest, and they are removed after their death. The neck-based progenoid is ready for harvesting five years after implantation, while the chest-based progenoid is ready after ten. Each harvested progenoid is a bunch of DNA and chemical stuff, that, when implanted in a suitable environment, grows into more organs. Chapters that took severe losses and could not reclaim the gene-seed of their brothers basically take random people with an affinity to the Astartes gene-seed (or vat-grown bodies similar to the ones they use for Servitors), implant them with all space marine organs, wait ten years, and slaughter them to harvest the gene-seed. Sometimes, the term "gene-seed" is taken to refer to these glands specifically.
# The '''Black Carapace''' interfaces a Space Marine with his [[Power Armour|armour]], making them effectively one being. It also serves as back-up armour, providing a level of protection similar to a flak jacket, in case a marine somehow ends up [[Adeptus Custodes|running around naked]]. [[Scout|Space Marine Scouts]] don't have this yet, because of the [[Codex Astartes]]. They don't get it (and thus an expensive suit of power armor) until they've spent a decade or more in a Scout Company. Tyranids nicked this for their tyrant guard, which makes you think how did the foot-slogging hive tyrants survive anything beforehand. As clearly established by how humans perform in Power Armor, this organ does nothing on the table-top; Sisters of Battle, for example, get just as much (or more - they can lift a lascannon by themselves, unlike humans in mere carapace armour) benefit from Power Armor as Space Marines do.
#The '''Canis Helix''' is not an organ, but considered nonetheless to be part of the gene-seed; it appears to be a genetic cocktail brewed by the Wolf Priests of the Space Wolves, and while it induces a level of mutation beyond that seen in any other chapter, Russ' gene-seed organs appear to have a 100% rejection rate in humans who do not first take the cocktail.

===Primaris Organs===

{{Main|Primaris Marines}}
After [[Roboute Guilliman]] told [[Belisarius Cawl]] to make a next generation Space Marine, he ended up creating Marines that had an enhanced version of the Astartes Gene-Seed, which contained an extra three organs (possibly due to taking elements of the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] or even the Primarch creation process). While some have expressed concern of the project, some due to worries about how some of the mutations of some of Chapters with more exotic mutations and some due to the belief that the Emperor's work shouldn't be tampered with, Cawl claims that the Primaris Gene-seed is more stable than the regular Astartes gene-seed, with an estimated deviancy of .001% per generation. How true this claim might be is up for debate, but Cawl has created Space Wolves successor chapters that haven't immediately turned into Wulfen so it may have some truth in it. It's also worth noting that Cawl did ''something'' to make the Primaris Marines physically incapable of turning traitor. Guilliman's internal monologue in Dark Imperium reveals that he considers it an impossibility for Primarines to turn, unlike "the old breed". This has interesting implications about whether or not the Primaris marines truly have free will.

As of recent fluff updates/leaks, the new organs are as follows.

# The '''Sinew Coils''' essentially modify the muscle strands and makeup of the Primaris Marines, buffing their pecs and biceps to the 10th degree. Whilst one would assume it would resemble something from [[Wat|Inspector Gadget's coil legs]], the truth is....[[Derp|it is pretty much like that in function.]] These are reinforced coil-cables made of durable supermetals that are capable of contracting with incredible strength, making Primaris stronger and tougher than others. Even outside of their power armor, swinging a sword at a Primaris might just bounce off his hot and sweaty muscles because of these coil cables, and it amplifies his strength to the point where he can crush a human skull with his bare hands or bite through metal cable like it were jerky.
# The '''Magnificat''' may sound a [[Derp|bit lame,]] but its function is actually what makes the Primaris 'bigger, better, faster and stronger' then regular Astartes. It produces a mix of hormones that greatly enhance the effects of all of the other genetically engineered organs that float around in the Primaris. So every Primaris gets more bang for his genetic buck. Intriguingly, it's stated to be only half of another super-organ dubbed the '''Immortis Gland''' originally made for the Primarchs, but Cawl was only able to find the materials and genetic blueprints needed to make the right half; the information needed to make the left half had seemingly been erased. The function of the complete Immortis Gland is unknown, but given that its other name is "The God-Maker" and the fact that only the Primarchs are known to have the organ, it stands to follow that it is likely what amplifies their abilities to the level of demigods.
# The '''Belisarian Furnace''' is an organ that is named after [[Belisarius Cawl|the Galaxy's least humble Archmagos.]] This one is a last-chance fail-safe kind of thing. The Belisarian Furnace is an organ that activates when a Primaris is on death’s door, giving them a great burst of super-adrenaline (not the actual term), but helping to keep them alive even at great cost, so that a Primaris can take out as many of the enemy as possible even as his flesh and bone rapidly regrow themselves. This allows fan-fic writers to create Hollywood-esque 'final pushes' without making it look stupid, which should make for some amazing last stands.

===Implantation===
Not everyone is compatible with implantation; potential candidates are screened for tissue compatibility, and kept young, as being post-pubescent has a marked increase in the tissue rejection rate (and being actually ''elderly'' makes it even worse); even so, not all candidates survive the implantation process. One of the most obvious limits of thier design is that the Emperor never solved the problem of making them compatible with female hosts (although some argue that this was deliberate, nobody can be entirely sure), so the very first screening step is usually by gender. Furthermore, not all organs can be implanted at once, as some prepare the body for others, and the body needs time to adapt to and accept the implants. The maximum speed process (assuming the soon-to-be Marine will be a Primaris) is:

# If you are the Space Wolves, the Canis Helix.
# Secondary Heart, Ossmodula (bone growth), and Biscopea (muscle growth).
# Sinew Coils (tendon/ligament reinforcement), Magnificat (enhances Ossmodula and Biscopea), and Belisarean Furnace (combat stimms, attaches to hearts).
# Haemastamen (improved red blood cells) and Larraman's Organ (improved platelets).
# Catalepsean Node (brain implant: sleep like a dolphin).
#*If this is an actual Space Marine, begin hypnotherapy/brainwashing only ''after'' this implant.
# Preomnor (gullet), Omophagea (flatworm stomach), and Multi-lung (third lung).
# Occulobe (improved visual cortex).
# Lyman's Ear (replacement outer, middle, and inner ear).
# Sus-an Membrane (brain implant: self-induce coma).
# Melanochrome (lymph implant for radiation resistance).
# Oolitic Kidney (enhanced liver/kidney) and Neuroglottis (improved inner nose).
# Mucranoid (secretable space suit).
# Betcher's Gland (extremely acidic saliva).
# Both Progenoids (for reproduction).
# Black Carapace (for improved power armour compatibility).

That being said, it is possible for the Primaris organs to be implanted later in an existing Space Marine, functionally converting them into a Primaris Marine.

===Tabletop Effect===
Most of the organs have no visible effect in the game, at least if the in-game rules are an indication; here are how the organs seemingly manifest (or not). For some reason, Space Marines aren't any faster at running than an unaugmented human and are slower than fast humans, such as Sisters of Silence. Most likely, this lack of impact is either for balance purposes or because it can't be properly represented using in-game means.

*Has an effect, at least in aggregate:
**Secondary Heart, Ossmodula, Biscopea, Haemastamen, Larraman's Organ, Multi-Lung, Oolitic Kidney, Mucranoid: +1 Strength and Toughness, relative to a normal human.
**Sinew Coils, Magnificat, Belisarean Furnace: +1 Wound and Attacks.
**Catalepsean Node + Hypnotherapy: And They Shall Know No Fear, +1 Ld.
**Progenoids: These are given as the reason an Apothecary loses his turn if he fails a resurrection roll, as he is busy collecting them.
*Effects limited to fluff:
**Occulobe: Demonstrably ignored; with or without his helmet on, a Space Marine's vision is never considered any better than an unaugmented humans, even when distance or lack of light are explicitly causing vision problems.
**Lyman's Ear: Demonstrably ignored under the 8th edition rules; Space Marines behave exactly like unaugmented humans when exposed to sonic weaponry, when needing to notice things they can't see, or when in need of balance. In previous editions, this would presumably have contributed to a higher Initiative stat.
**Neuroglottis: Demonstrably ignored, as noted above with the Lyman's Ear, as this would predominantly serve to supplement that, given some tabletop rule for Space Marines actually having improved senses.
**Melanochrome: Demonstrably ignored; Space Marines respond to photonic radiation (usually provided by the Adeptus Mechanicus) exactly like unaugmented humans do.
**Black Carapace: Demonstrably ignored; many human factions have access to Power Armour, particularly Sisters of Battle, and none have ever been shown to be even slightly more encumbered by Power Armour than Space Marines are.
**Preomnor, Omophagea, Sus-an Membrane, Mucranoid, Betcher's Gland: These have no in-game effect, but would typically not be expected to, as a Space Marine with his suit on and participating in a battle would not have call to use them, although the Betcher's Gland could be implemented as a very, very short range weapon, in principle.
*Alternate Take: The Occulobe, Lyman's Ear, and Neuroglottis could grant the +1 Initiative marines enjoy(ed prior to 8th). The Melanchrome also likely adds to toughness.

== Gene-seed vs. Genetic Engineering ==

A lot of people (including, it must be admitted, Games Workshop itself) often think of gene-seed as a genetic modification program, but this is inaccurate. Gene-seed does fall under the blanket of "bio-enhancement" or "bio-engineering" - that is, the augmentation of the physical form. However, gene-seed is based on the physical implantation of artificially designed and engineered organs, whereas genetic engineering would modify the DNA of the aspirants to naturally develop the various traits. In essence, Space Marines are what [[Rifts]] would call "bio-borgs" - organisms biologically modified by artificial biological implants. Fleshy cyborgs, essentially. This is an important difference, as it allows the Space Marines to wriggle around that pesky "thou shalt not modify the holy human form" law of the Imperium. From a genetic standpoint, a Space Marine is probably closer to human than most [[abhuman]]s are, and so they fulfill the letter of the law (if not its spirit - but hey, the Emperor made the rules, so he can break them as much as he wants, 'cause he's the motherfucking Emperor).

*'''Note:''' Like Mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell), the implanted organs carry ''their own DNA'', cloned from the Primarchs, thus turning the marines into [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)#Humans chimeric humans]. So yes indeed, bio-borgs, but ones that show characteristics of DNA foreign to the host's body. Example: is there a specific organ that gave Sigismund "a patrician face that echoed the same austere lines as his liege lord, Rogal Dorn"? Let us be reminded, Sig was terran, and Dorn grew up on another planet (he was made by the Emperor in a Petri dish, does that count as being born on Terra too?). Who knows what he looked like when he was mortal, he now looks like a son of Dorn. In fact, most Astartes end up looking similar to their parent Primarchs, like Horus "little Horus" Aximand looking like Horus "fucking Horus" Lupercal. Of course, this is because GW thinks it is bioengineering, but at least it's "Human Chimeras" instead of "Humans with [[Space Wolves|furry creatures]]", that'd be Heresy, right Emps?
**<span style='color:gold;font-size:300%'>'''RIGHT'''</span>
**As it happens, for Sigismund, the answer is yes - the Ossmodula would alter the shape of his skull, and the Biscopea the arrangement of his facial muscles - but the fact remains that GW routinely treats gene-seed as if it were gene therapy, rather than implants.

== The Tithe and New Foundings ==

As part of the deal in Guilliman's [[Codex Astartes]], the Astartes were afforded almost complete autonomy from the [[Administratum]], which means they don't have to pay Imperial Taxes '''except''' for a tithe of 5% of their gene-seed which they must send to Mars.

This has a few important purposes:
# To monitor the genetic purity of the Space Marine Chapter as a whole and make certain a chapter is not suffering heretical mutations.
# To create new foundings of Space Marines whenever the High Lords of Terra deem it appropriate to do so.
# To act as an emergency reserve of gene-seed in the unlikely event that the Chapter's existing gene-seed stocks are lost or tainted.

Note that even though the Adeptus Mechanicum will have stockpiles of a chapter's genetic material, it is not frequently used as a contingency for a space marine chapter if things get a bit hairy. Several times in the fluff a Chapter has faced extinction due to high losses ''(see [[Black Consuls]], [[Celestial Lions]], [[Lamenters]], [[Marines Errant]], [[Scythes of the Emperor]] yadda yadda yadda)'' but they'd never thought to ask Mars for their gene-seed back. The only known instance of it happening is in the 8th Edition Death Guard Codex, where the [[Minotaurs]] were forced to undergo a mission to Mars when a Death Guard assault on their fortress-monastery resulted in the poisoning of their gene-seed stocks.

It's also a bit uncertain how chapters with particularly negative defects manage to keep their genetic condition concealed, if the government has access to their core materials. [[Black Dragons|Some chapters]] get around it by sending only the "purest" gene-seed to Mars and so come out of the inspection smelling of roses, but when the condition is widespread (as it is with the [[Blood Angels]]) it probably only highlights how little the Mechanicus actually understand about biology.

It's also important to note that each chapter's gene-seed is kept in isolation. i.e: Just because a chapter claims ''descent'' from the [[Ultramarines]] does not actually make their gene-seed the same as their forefather. It's basic evolutionary biology that when a population splits and develops elsewhere it starts forming its own traits advantageous to its circumstances and environment. Hence the [[Mortifactors]] gene-seed will largely be very different from the [[Howling Griffons]], despite sharing a common ancestor. So rather than being genetic "brothers" as they would be ''within'' a chapter, different space marine chapters sharing a lineage would be more like nephews or cousins.

When the time comes around to found new chapters, the adepts will look for favourable traits that they want to replicate, although the Ultramarines are cited as being the most utilised source for new foundings, thus any new chapter of Ultramarine descendants would likely be second generation Ultramarines and be quite close to their forefather genetically at least until the chapter adapted to its founding homeworld or particular circumstances. But that doesn't prevent those descendants themselves from being used as templates in later foundings, so after several generations you could end up with something completely different from the original baseline stock.

== Mutation ==

As each new set of gene-seed comes from a Space Marine, requires many years to mature, and many more to be used, there is a lot of room for things to go wrong. This is especially true when desperate circumstances (the impending [[Great Crusade]], or a Chapter being dangerously under-strength) cause Space Marines to skimp on the safety checks and wait periods in order to accelerate Chapter growth. Over the millennia, many flaws have found their way into into the gene-seeds of each Legion, and some of their successors have even more - mutations typically get worse as you make copies of copies. Further mutations have been introduced, of course, in foundings featuring heavy tampering by the Adeptus Mechanicus (see the discussion of the 21st founding, below).
<div style="margin-left:1em;">
===No Known Mutations===
<div style="margin-left:1em;">
==== Alpha Legion ====
{{Main|Alpha Legion}}
<s>No such Legion exists, therefore no such gene-seed exists.</s>
*Were you really expecting ''known'' mutations, or anything else, from this Legion???

In all seriousness; like much of the Alpha Legion, we don't know all that much about their gene-seed. Whatever idiosyncrasies or flaws they have are kept under very tight lock and key. And with their nature of running as individual operatives in and out of the [[Eye of Terror]], to what degree their gene-seed is tainted by the Warp or other means varies from Marine to Marine. Though their knack for secrecy, paranoia, and tendency to subvert the enemy instead of direct combat is probably a notable trait. Outside of occasional Warp-corruption, we ''assume'' it's possibly one of the most stable gene-seeds, probably as much as the Imperial Fists or Night Lords. Something of note; they often use any mutations that they have as a scare tactic, hiding them and then revealing them on the battlefield in order to shock the opponent.
They also use hypnosis and deep-indoctrination more than other chapters, so they may have an altered sus-an and/or catelapsean.

==== Dark Angels ====
{{Main|Dark Angels}}
No defects, unless you consider their <s>rampant paranoia and secrecy</s> STAUNCH LOYALTY AND HONOUR as such. Ties with Ultramarines for "most stable source", so the limited number of Dark Angels successors is usually put down the [[Inquisition]]'s limited knowledge of the [[Fallen Angels]]. That and the fact that due to successor chapters often working with/take orders from the Dark Angels has lead to the Inquisition to fear the Angels and successors to be <s>"[[Astral Claws|legion building]]"</s> THE MOST LOYAL CHAPTERS DUE TO THE PURITY OF THEIR GENE SEED. Although that would be more credible if they had ever been anything less than a Legion.

==== Death Guard ====
{{Main|Death Guard}}
*Emphasis here is on ''known'' mutations - there's no actual evidence of Death Guard gene-seed having any problems at all, because we've never gotten any fluff covering any attempts to use the gene-seed from a Death Guard, even though one would assume they'd have the most deeply fucked up Progenoids of any Legion.

Pre-heresy, the Death Guard had a much stronger constitution than most Legions, leading to their role as the toxic environment specialists. Post-heresy, however, the Death Guard are so diseased that implanting Aspirants seems more or less impossible - however, there have been new Death Guard legionaries who are not defectors from other Legions or renegade Chapters, apparently made with the gene-seed reclaimed by the [[Plague Surgeon]]s. How it functions still, no one knows, though we suspect it has something to do with [[Nurgle]] and that he has necromantic powers of sorts, who can raise his fallen disciples back from the dead.

Another possibility is that they're creating new marines using another chapter's/legion's gene seed and working their Nurgle magics on them to turn them into full-fledged Plague Marines. Not a complete impossibility given how the Black Legion is still able to do it.

==== Iron Hands ====
{{Main|Iron Hands}}
* ''No defects.''
* Noted predilection towards machinery and a disdain towards flesh.

And just to make sure, if there are any, they follow the Bible's advice on offending organs and replace them with holy machinery instead. Would probably be a very desirable source for new chapters if not for the absolute devastation they suffered in the [[Drop Site Massacre]] leaving them barely recovered millennia later and needing all the gene-seed they can get for themselves. Because, you know, even though there has been more than enough time for more than twenty other foundings of whole, brand new chapters, and some of those foundings likely making new foundings of their own, the Iron Hands still haven't had enough time. It also doesn't help how they tend to be total pricks at times.

==== Night Lords ====
{{Main|Night Lords}}
The Night Lords are officially the most stable of the Traitor Legions, a trait often put down to the fact that they rarely dwell in the [[Eye of Terror]]. That, and they don't even like Chaos or the gods. What little mutations there are are usually upon their Sorcerers...what ones have survived do not have them anymore either. There is one defect on Curze's Geneseed, and that is the Occulobe defect, causing them to have black pupils&sclera, and astonishing sight in the dark, even more than a normal space marine. Although, there is a bad side of this effect; Light hurts their eyes like helL, and blinds them for a short time.
Also, Curze's gene-seed may have passed onto psykers within his Legion his "gift" of seeing the future in the worst way possible, and as scenarios that become self-fulfilling prophecies. In one case, it was found out that the Primarch's "gift" was actually the side effect of a marine's body slowly rejecting the gene-seed. Prior to receiving this gift, he never demonstrated '''any''' psychic capability. Even so, this situation is rare.

==== Ultramarines ====
{{Main|Ultramarines}}
*''No official defects.'' Considered the most stable and preferred source of gene-seed for new Foundings.
**Due to a lack of any real interesting or identifying traits in and of itself, discussions for reclassifying the Ultramarine gene-seed from the most stable source to the most generic source were in the works. These talks were surreptitiously shut down by [[Who Watches Them|Inquisitor Warden]] for offending his sensibilities.
**Also worth noting is that the Ultramarines, in one of their bro-iest moves, "adopted" a fair number of loyalists from traitor legions after the heresy. There is no real way of telling if an Ultramarines "successor" might be from the relatively stable stock of World Eaters or Iron Warriors. In most cases only a single high-ranking archmagos knows the truth, so even the chapter itself is in the dark about its history.

==== White Scars ====
{{Main|White Scars}}
* ''No noted defects.''
** Tendency to do whatever they fancy.
** Mongolians, but this just makes them better.

Possibly corrupted slightly, due to them fighting the [[Dark Eldar]] for so long, that there HAS to be some sex/hybrids in there SOMEWHERE. Don't even ask about the White Scars prisoners in [[Commorragh]].

==== World Eaters ====
{{Main|World Eaters}}
I know what you're thinking, but it's caused by an additional cybernetic implant - the ''Butcher's Nails'' - rather than anything in the gene-seed itself. While not ''technically'' part of their gene-seed, it has been carried on as a tradition by all the "successors" that resulted from the Legion's fracturing after the [[Battle of Skalathrax]]. Hell, they were known to be total bros before all the trouble with nails. And now they are little more than [[Kharn|Teamkilling Fucktards]].
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</div>
<div style="margin-left:1em;">

===Minor Mutations===
These chapters may have cosmetic or easily-fixed mutations.
<div style="margin-left:1em;">
==== Emperor's Children ====
{{Main|Emperor's Children}}
*Implicitly defective and/or enhanced Lyman's Ear, and possibly Occulobe and Neuroglottis.
**An accident during the early days of the raising the Legions resulted in only two hundred Space Marines of the III Legion by the time the Emperor found [[Fulgrim]] and Chemos, forcing the Emperor's Children to work alongside the [[Black Legion|Luna Wolves]] for the early decades of the Great Crusade; due to Fulgrim's high standards of perfection being passed on the Legion's [[Apothecary|apothecaries]], Emperor's Children Aspirants had to be nothing less than physically perfect, resulting a largely stable gene-seed, including forbidding psykers to join the ranks. By the 41st millennium, however, the Emperor's Children's gene-seed is fucked up beyond all reason. Millennia of drugs from both inside and outside the Warp have damaged it greatly. While the relatively few sane [[tech-priests]] left and [[Dark Mechanicus]] working with them can and do make new Marines (thus proving their Marines can and do make new gene-seed), the chemical and other material abuse render each generation even crazier. Even before the Heresy, they were more sensitive to external stimuli, like sound, implying a defective Lyman's Ear with reduced ability to filter out sounds the Marine doesn't want to hear, and potentially similarly defective Occulobe and Neuroglottis.

==== Iron Warriors====
{{Main|Iron Warriors}}
* Implicitly defective Ossmodula, but implicitly enhanced Progenoids:
** They have the lowest gene-seed rejection rate, which enabled them to replenish their huge number of casualties with an even higher number of recruits.
** Minor Ossmodula mutation ''sometimes'' causes limbs to twist and deform as the marine grows really old (we're talking hundreds of years to millennia) - this is usually dealt with by replacing limbs with bionics, or cutting them off and placing the cripple into a Dreadnought, Helbrute, or some weird custom made dreadnought-esque walker, since due to their specialty and organization only high-ranking officers can survive for so long, and they surely ain't going to suffer from the "Crazed" rule.

Especially noteworthy for the Iron Warriors considering they reside in the Eye Of Terror, there has been little mutation in their gene-seed as well. Those that do suffer mutation simply replace their mutated limbs with cybernetics. However, there may be some unknown issue which caused them to be afflicted with the [[Obliterators|Obliterator Virus]] (or was it they who made it? It's been confirmed Perturabo and Mortarion worked together on the obliterator virus) More easily - the first ones originated from them.

However, this is rendered null by the fact they are the [[/d/|sick]] [[Honsou|fucks]] behind the [[Daemonculaba]]. Due to its nature, the women themselves may have the gene-seed organs implanted (among other things), or at least the DNA required to be able to quickly grow the organs into a child stuck in their wombs. While the poor, innocent, scared kid inside can become a skinless abomination/mutant, they will normally emerge a genetically stable, gene-seed uncorrupted [[grimdark|skinless adult SPHESS MAHREEN with the mind of that same scared child]]. Suffice to say, this is a sick way of getting to [[Female Space Marines|FEMALE SPHESS MAHREENS]], and is [[Extra Heresy|DOUBLE HERESY]].

==== Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus/Black Legion ====
{{Main|Black Legion}}
* Implicitly defective Ossmodula/Biscopea, causing cosmetic similarity.

No real defects, but the tendency for members to look more like their [[Horus|Primarch]] is more pronounced (and possibly more frequent) than it is for members of other legions to resemble their own respective Primarchs. "Little Horus" Aximand was the most notable example of this, but by no means the only one. This gives extra meaning to the "Sons of Horus" thing. In fact, before the Luna Wolves were renamed the Sons of Horus, Luna Wolves that resembled Horus in appearance were known as "Sons of Horus". Ten thousand years in the Eye of Terror has left the Legion's gene-seed more unstable. However, we do know that new Black Legionaries are inducted constantly (seeing as they are the primary generic Chaos Space Marines faction), so its a good bet a large part of theirs is still usable [[grimdark|and that generations of children for millennia to come will be torn away from their parents and families, unfortunate enough to live in the Eye Of Terror, to be inducted into the Legion.]] Furthermore, given that they frequently "recruit" from other chapters and legions with the only real requirement being loyalty to Abbadon, it's not always easy to tell which Black Legionnaires are descended from Horus and which are from other Primarchs.

==== Salamanders ====
{{Main|Salamanders}}
* Unique Melanchromic Organ, causing their skin to simply always be black instead of waiting for radiation to happen to fix it, and glowing red eyes.
* Possibly altered Mucranoid - high degree of heat resistance.
* Possibly altered Biscopea or Lyman's Ear - tend to be somewhat slower than other marines, although sometimes it's blamed on the somewhat high gravity on Nocturne, since they can still run at the same level as any other chapter. (Way back when, they had -1 Initiative.)

While slightly dysfunctional, their gene-seed is pretty stable. Would probably be, like the [[Iron Hands]], a common source of new chapters if not for, again, their extreme decimation during the [[Drop Site Massacre]]. They've since recovered, perhaps a little quicker than the Iron Hands (possibly due to being a little closer to the center and being able to evacuate more marines), and while they claim no official kinship with any successors, there are at least a couple of examples with similar unit markings and tactical dogma.

==== Word Bearers ====
{{Main|Word Bearers}}
* Implicitly defective Catalepsian Node.

The Word Bearers suffer a unique "quirk" in their gene-seed, resulting in a psychologically obsessive loyalty to something, be it a man, a religion, or even an ideal. The Word Bearers in turn thus have a much stronger sense of loyalty to their battle-brothers and Primarch than other Chaos Space Marines, helping them to maintain cohesion and avoid treachery, but this loyalty also borders on fanaticism. Otherwise, while given to some instabilities, they have been able to maintain strength.
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<div style="margin-left:1em;">
===Major Mutations===
These Chapters feature at least one problem as least as bad as missing an entire organ, scaling up to the worst issue, where they go World Eaters-level crazy without needing any implants to get there (Blood Angels and Space Wolves).
<div style="margin-left:1em;">
==== Blood Angels ====
{{Main|Blood Angels}}
* Occasional bouts of temporary [[Rip and tear|bloodthirsty, genocidal rage]], otherwise known as the [[Red Thirst]].
** Occasional bouts of ''permanent'', [[Rip and tear|bloodthirsty, hallucinatory, genocidal rage]], better known as the [[Black Rage]].
* Extreme longevity.
Stable, but flawed. Prior to the [[Horus Heresy]], [[Sanguinius]] discovered that some of his sons were beginning to suffer the [[Red Thirst]], where they would descend into a thirst for blood, whether [[human]] or [[xenos]], in a blind rage. If that wasn't bad enough, as a result of Sanguinius's death at the hands of [[Horus]] imprinting itself on their genetic memory (or something), all Blood Angels and their successors have the [[Black Rage]]; a berserk rage where they [[Derp|believe themselves to be Sanguinius during his final battle]]. Meaning that he quite literally hit Sanguinius so hard that his grandchildren's-grandchildren's-ad-infinitum-children still feel it.

==== Imperial Fists ====
{{Main|Imperial Fists}}
* Missing Betcher's Gland (no acid spit).
* Missing Sus-an Membrane (no suspended animation).
* Possibly increased pain tolerance and/or a tendency towards masochism.

Despite missing two organs, the Imperial Fists gene-seed is considered to be amongst the most stable and most manly sources. It is the second most desirable source of gene-seed for Foundings. ''Second'' to the Ultramarines, of course.

==== Raven Guard ====
{{Main|Raven Guard}}
* Malfunctioning Melanchromic Organ (their skin is always pale and their eyes are always dark. Anti-Salamanders, basically.)
* Missing Mucranoid (no super-sweat).
* Missing Betcher's Gland (no acid spit).
* Occasional bouts of suicidal rage (Luckily for them this is not permanent unlike a certain other chapter.)

While their primary gene-seed is decently stable, when under extreme stress a percentage Raven Guard warriors will lapse into bouts of suicidal rage known as Ash Blindness or Sable Brand. This is rarely permanent, but occurred with enough frequency that [[Corax]] would organize these warriors into the Moritat. Their missing and malfunctioning geneseed organs is a result of [[Corax]], out of desperation following the [[Drop Site Massacre]], delving into use of forbidden lore and archeo-tech from days long past to accelerate gene-seed maturation, and try to boost his Legion's numbers after their losses during the [[Horus Heresy]]. He was successful, until the [[Alpha Legion]] decided to make the whole project go FUBAR. The subsequent 'Marines', if they can be called that, were numerous, but were barely controllable monsters and/or would simply die off as a result of the extreme imbalances in their dispositions. Presumably, a few of them would even have functioning Progenoids, let alone usable gene-seed. Due to the law of averages though, at least a FEW would have had to been stable enough, and is being worked on secretly by the Raven Guard Apothecaries and associated [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Mechanicus]] Biologicans.
Otherwise, despite being pretty fucked up by the [[Drop Site Massacre]], they've mostly recovered (thanks in no small part to having the ''only'' loyalist Primarch to get away from the Massacre in one piece) and do still contribute to successors here and there.

==== Space Wolves ====
{{Main|Space Wolves}}
They actually have two different implanted DNA sources: the second is the [[Canis Helix]], which makes them viking werewolves (long canines, tough skin, awesome sense of smell, animalistic [[RAEG]] in combat) or, if one is really unfortunate, into an ordinary werewolf ([[Furry|the ones they ride at that]]), and their super-unstable geneseed, which can't function without pre-implanted Canis Helix and has been found incompatible with any populace outside of Fenris. For the most part, they get around this by just founding tons and tons more Space Wolves than the [[Codex Astartes]] would normally permit, meaning that they ''still'' tend to have tons of chapters' worth of marines on call. Of particular note are the [[Wulfen]], who are Space Wolves who happened to be in the Warp for over ten thousand years. Instead of being mutated into [[Chaos Spawn|unmentionable gribbly beasts]], they managed to turn into literal werewolves with savage strength, meaning there's a possibility the gene-seed has a factor that lets them resist the influence of Chaos.

While many factions within the chapter are proud of how "potent" their gene-seed is, plenty of Space Wolves have constantly labored to stabilize their genome in order to found successors to cordon off the [[Eye of Terror]], and crusade against the [[Thousand Sons]], a plan called "the Sons of Russ." Once, [[Wolf Brothers|they got really close]], which [[Magnus the Red]] didn't like, so he took his Marines and bumped off the Wolf Priest in charge (and generally wrecked things for the Space Wolves), using some [[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian]] trickery to get an opening. In short, he [[gets shit done|got shit done!]].

==== Thousand Sons ====
{{Main|Thousand Sons}}
* Increased chance of bringing out psychic powers, as well as amplified psychic power.
* Recipients subject to a high rate of mutation, called The Flesh Change; unstable.
The most unstable genome in the Space Marine legions, the Thousand Sons suffer from the Flesh-Change, a problem that caused Thousand Sons to mutate spontaneously. [[Magnus the Red]] fixed it, with some "[[Just as Planned|help]]" from [[Tzeentch]]. After the [[Horus Heresy]], the flesh-change came back with a vengeance. [[Ahzek Ahriman]] tried to fix it with his Rubric, and he did end up stopping the flesh-change... by turning all non-[[psyker]] Thousand Sons into dust; sorcerers also had their powers enhanced in addition to no longer suffering ill-effects from the Flesh-Change. So while theoretically, the Sorcerers of the long suffering Legion can provide gene-seed, in practice, it's corrupted so often that few will ever make new Marines. Thousand Sons specifically hunt for healthy and stable psyker boys to implant them with their oh-so-rare gene-seed to ensure the recipient would become a sorcerer. If "Masters, bidding!" TS character words to be trusted, Thousands Sons found a way to implant their progenoids into grown up men (so they can teach and test them for longer before implantation), and perform a scaled down Rubric on them to prevent the Flesh Change. It is known that Magnus the Red used his knowledge of Biomancy to turn his mentor Amon into an Astartes despite his old age, so its possible this technique was passed down to his Legion.

==== Blood Ravens ====
{{Main|Blood Ravens}}
* A mutated Catalepsean Node - gives them perfect memory recall, but unable to enter REM (deep) sleep.
* Unknown mutation that increases psychic ability and occurrences.
* Small tendency towards mutations (hurr sounds like [[Thousand Sons|any other Legions]] we know of?).
* Horrendously massive tendency to develop kleptomania.
* The pores in their scalps secrete a substance not all too dissimilar to hair gel, often resulting in a higher tendency to develop hair-etical hair compared to other chapters.
** Alternatively, the pores on their scalps may prevent hair from growing altogether, giving the marine Astartes-pattern baldness. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZfvIg_M5yE It has been long thought to be a terrible weapon to behold.]
* Unknown mutation referred to as "unavailable voice actor syndrome" that results in their voices changing every few years.
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<div style="margin-left:1em;">

=== A Note On That Sick Fuck Fabius Bile ===

[[Fabius Bile]] is fucking insane. I mean shit, his labcoat is made of human skin - normally only [[Space Wolves]] and [[Night Lords]] wear clothing made of that stuff. While originally the Chief Apothecary of the Emperor's Children, he is now a freelancer. His goal even before the Heresy was to find and unlock the secret to the creation of the Space Marines. In the [[Warp]], he provides a valuable service to the Chaos Legion warbands and their auxiliaries of billions more regular Chaos humans - while often millions strong even now, the warbands still need to replenish their numbers. Considering how many die and how often they are away from any place where they can produce more, that's a lot. Even with slave raiding into the Imperium, child abduction both in and out, breeding centers (stop touching yourself), and many [[Daemonculaba|other creative ideas]], it's still not enough. Fabius provides services of human cloning, along with gene-seed production, among his many skills. As he is not a super-devotee of Chaos, the gene-seed he has and makes is some of the least corrupted found within the [[Eye Of Terror]]. Of course, he fucks this all up by hopping up his own warband's clones with the same psycho drugs and shit that make monsters out of men. Lore hints that his genetic tinkering is far more than we have been lead to believe - much of his 'changes' to even the standard human genome are genetic and now passable by both men and [[Female Space Marines|women]]. Even now, the Imperium is trying to hunt and eradicate what they call his '[[Twilight|New Men]]'. He also has access to a small quantity of what is alleged to be the blood of the Primarch Sanguinius. Why did he get that last part? To clone the Emperor. Never let it be said that this fuck, sick as he may be, lacks ambition.
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===21st Founding ===
{{Main|21st Founding}}
Over the millennia, further mutations have afflicted the many Successor Chapters, but the 21st or "Cursed" Founding deserves a special mention, because a bunch of [[Adeptus Mechanicus|tech-priests]] decided that they wanted to try and fix the flaws, but failed so hard they actually created some new ones.

* Bursting into Flames: Yes, the [[Flame Falcons]] really were covered in fire. The Flame Falcons thought it was a blessing from the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], but the [[Inquisition]] disagreed, and sent the [[Grey Knights]] to wipe them out.
* Bone Growths: Due to a malfunctioning Ossmudula, the [[Black Dragons]] suffer a bone solid growth to harden and extend from their forehead and forearms during times of stress. The ones on the forearm can be used as weapons against unarmored opponents, so they decided to coat them in adamantium. So in essence, they're space-Wolverine-after-the-bone-claws kind of guys. Issue is that this is a very visible mutation, and as this is the [[Grimdark|grim]][[Derp|derp]] Imperium, mutations from the sacred human form are EVUL, even if they are fucking awesome.
* Indestructibility: The [[Sons of Antaeus]] are much tougher than normal marines, and nobody knows why. Some speculate something about a super-reinforced skeleton, some say it's [[Nurgle]]'s doing, etc. The only real truth to it is that there's some sort of mutation present in the gene-seed.
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<div style="margin-left:1em;">
=== A Note On Implant Organs/DNA Elsewhere ===

While the SPHESS MAHREENS are the most widespread users of artificial glands, organs, and such, they are not the only ones. [[Inquisitor]]s likely have access to organs or other artificial mutations they require thanks to their influence in the Imperium. Depending on what world they hail from and its beliefs, Imperial Guard regiments and PDF may also have artificial organs, or even whole new ones derived from millennia of mutations, which of course has certain advantages. Furthermore, Warp Exposure can result in a change of the functions of organs - a simple example of this is the [[Cadia]]ns, who nearly universally have powerful, violet colored eyes. [[Gland War Veteran|Gland Warriors]] were an [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] project to help legions of Guardsmen heading into battle against a [[Tyranid]] hive fleet. They were to do battle in an incredibly toxic and hard environment, and a variety of experimental organs and DNA strands were utilized - including organs that would secrete stims, painkillers, and various medical drugs, more powerful natural air filters, and the like. While only [[grimdark|three survived]] the whole campaign in the end, the AdMech was pleased and took the three to be debriefed.

It is also noted that Gene-seed can be decoded, but it requires eons of knowledge about biology, medicine, and so on. Only the Emperor or AdMech, with their advanced equipment, is able to do so (and even the AdMech couldn't fully work it out). The hard part is to decode the "impossibly complex" amino acid chains of the gene-seed and extract the necessary information encoded within the Gland's stored zygotes. [[Thunder_Warriors|Arik Taranis]] was able to decode it using the knowledge gleaned by just watching the Emperor work, and remade it to fit in his Thunder Warrior body.
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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Space Marines]]

Wolfspear

2018-03-07T17:30:05Z

2600:1014:B10A:7898:91FB:2366:F84E:9380: Grammer from Dark Imperium makes me think the chapter should be referred to in the singular. "The Wolfspear".

{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter
|Name = Wolfspear
|Heraldry =
|Battle Cry =
|Number =
|Founding = [[Ultima Founding]]
|Successors of = [[Space Wolves]]
|Chapter Master =
|Primarch = [[Leman Russ]]
|Homeworld = [[108/Beta-Kalapus-9.2]]
|Allegiance = [[Imperium of Man]]
|Colours = Unknown
}}

The '''Wolfspear''' is the first successor chapter the [[Space Wolves]] have had since the ill-fated [[Wolf Brothers]]. They seem to have serious daddy issues as they are [[Primaris Marines]], rather than standard space marines, and are worried about their acceptance by their fellow Sons of Russ (despite the fact that the very same book they originate from acknowledges that the actual Space Wolves themselves have taken on Primaris Marines to improve their numbers...). Owing to the alleged 0% mutation rate of the Primaris Marines, they presumably do not have any Wulfen.

They fear that the Space Wolves will see them as not 'true Sons of Russ' and reject them. To further this issue, Gulliman saw fit to toss them on guard duty, guarding the [[Pit of Raukos]], a back door that Chaos has been using to fuck over the [[Imperium]]. As a result, the Wolfspears fear that being kept off the front lines alongside their Primaris status will always keep them from getting the approval of their progenitors.

Hopefully the Space Wolves see their assignment as a point of pride. That only Sons of Leman Russ could be trusted with guarding the Imperium's exposed back.

{{Template:Marines-Official}}

Horus

2018-03-07T17:20:50Z

2600:1014:B10A:7898:91FB:2366:F84E:9380:

{{heresy}}
{{stub}}
[[File:Horus vs The Emperor.jpg|600px|thumb|right|If this reminds you of every Baroque and/or Christianity-related painting from the Renaissance up until the 19th Century, good. You're paying attention. Also note how the Custodes are Dark Sliver and wearing Pickelhauben.]]

{{Topquote|'''Let the galaxy burn.'''|Horus Lupercal}}
{{Topquote|Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.|Satan in John Milton's ''Paradise Lost''.}}

'''Horus Lupercal, The Breaker of Tyrants, The Jabo, The Warmaster, The Arch-Traitor, or [[If_the_Emperor_had_a_Text-to-Speech_Device|FUCKING HORUS!]]''' was the [[Primarch]] of the [[Black Legion|Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus/Black Legion]], and the main figure in the event known as the [[Horus Heresy|Horus]] [[Heresy]] (this is NOT a dead giveaway. Oh no). Once the most favoured son of his father the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], he began to resent his father's treatment of him and other Primarchs, and believing that the Emperor's secret plan was to become a god using his own Primarch sons as a tool (when in fact all this is [[Just as planned|due to the lies]] of a [[Lorgar|certain religious zealot]]), eventually turned to [[Chaos]]. If you really need to be told any of this, what the fuck are you doing on /tg/ in the first place? This is such common knowledge, that the outlines of the Horus Heresy and every bad ass taking part in it, are more or less [[Dwarf Fortress|engraved]] in the mind of every /tg/ reader. Much like the Emperor being crippled and the Imperium devolving into a bureaucratic [[grimdark]] empire, the death of Horus and the placement of [[Abaddon]] as the most influential Chaos champion ever, turned the Chaos legions from a genocidal force bent on utter domination for the glory of Chaos into a Saturday-morning cartoon villain organization. Also his armour made him look like an egg.

It is argued that Horus was not actually evil but possessed by the Chaos Gods or that he was a victim of [[Lorgar]], who is officially labeled as "The First Heretic." However, he was still [[Eldrad|a massive dick]]. Hence the common saying in the post-Heresy Imperium: ''"Of all the mighty Primarchs, Horus sure was a dick."''

But long story short, the Imperium got into this fucked up state because this guy had daddy issues (honestly, who didn't?), he got scammed by [[Erebus|religious nutjobs]], and [[Grimdark|because the Chaos Gods showed him horrific visions of the future, supposedly under the Emperor's rule]], all while conveniently leaving out the fact that it would be his own efforts to avert said future that would cause it in the first place. Lol-irony. They did show him that the Emperor was planning to discard him and the other rest of the Space Marines when their usefulness ended, and in fairness, ''that'' was actually completely true as Master of Mankind shows and which totally contradicts previous Horus Heresy novels where the chambers the primarchs were supposed to live in once the Crusade ended were depicted. Why would you build large apartments for your "sons" if you really did not give a rat's ass about them? Or was the EMPRA intending on luring them into their respective apartment and then choke them to death? Why go through all the effort when his psychic might was enough to force Lorgar to kneel (causing a small brain hemorrhage as evidenced by blood tricking out of his nose. See "The First Heretic)? He could have just BLAMMED them all with all his psychic prowess and shit. Either way, you know what they say- the best lies contain a grain of truth in them for the Chaos God did show Horus the future he would create which seemed to prove that the EMPRA had planned his own ascension all along (so he obviously must enjoy to be chilling on the couch as a decomposing corpse these days).

==New fluff==
Recent fluff from the book ''Vengeful Spirit'' has Horus visiting the same gate to the Warp on Molech that the [[Emperor]] used to get some of his powers. While only seconds pass in the Materium, Horus spends what is basically implied to be an eternity inside the Warp battling rival Daemon Princes, amassing billions of warp-creature minions, and wrecking shit. In the end he somehow gains the same powers that the Emperor received to create the Primarchs, but Horus gets them in a "legit" way (as far as the Ruinous Powers are concerned) by passing their near constant tests through sheer force of will, where the Emperor just took what he wanted. Refusing to become a slave to the Ruinous Powers (or perhaps that's what the Chaos Gods wanted him to think) he leaves his Warp-empire to return to his rebellion in the Materium. Horus' time inside the Warp was so long that he, a fully grown Primarch, had visibly aged. However with his new psychic hack abilities he disguises his over-the-hill face and still maintains his youthful appearance. Apparently the Emperor does the same trick. This was basically a big retcon by Black Library who previously explained Horus being able to fight toe-to-toe with the Big E as having all four Chaos Gods channel their powers into him at once.
[[File:Horus Portrait.png|300px|thumb|right|<s>Yul Brynner</s> <s>Lex Luther</s> Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster. Here shown prior to getting his Chaos on.]]
It's important to explore this clusterfuck of nonsense to make sense of the lore before one comes to the rubbish conclusion that the Emperor only became god-like after Molech. This is balls-deep nonsense. This is what Horus (who is himself not in any way whatsoever a good source for reliable information regarding Chaos) thinks he knows from his own narrow/skewed/manipulated point of view. The more commonly held belief is that, as with the vision he received from the [[Erebus|Great Fuck Head Himself]], he was misled. That the Emperor, a being capable of trapping and fighting a C'Tan during the Middle Ages, was always as powerful as He has been portrayed. It is described that the Primarchs are more than just flesh and bone, and that each of them has a fraction of His personality in them that they themselves embody. [[Ferrus Manus]]' rather dramatic death highlights that inside Primarchs lies a great deal of energy. Now to the heart of it and Molech. Why would a being as powerful as the Emperor, who has to combat 4 monstrously powerful otherworldly entities whilst maintaining a beacon anywhere he goes, soul bound psykers and fight throughout the Great Crusade, split His formidable power 20 times into 20 beings? You wouldn't. You'd grab extra power to do so. That was Molech. A source and gateway to a wellsource of power guarded by Chaos. A source the Emperor broke into and stole/took/tricked for His Primarch Project. Using the additional power, He crafted, with His scientific mastery, 20 genetically engineered super hosts, and (in the same way that god-aligned daemons are formed by splitting a portion off the God itself) used each portion of power as a blank mould, investing them with a slither of His personality and allowing the power to coalesce around it to form a soul/Emperor-Greater Daemon. That daemon (let's be honest, that's what it'd be) is then implanted in a host that can never die or degrade, perfectly tailored to hold it. Explaining why each Primarch radiates an aura of awe and magnificence. Horus didn't become as powerful as the Emperor, he retrieved the power that made himself and all his brothers and has it suffused into himself. He can take on the Emperor toe-to-toe when the Emperor holds back like we all know He does; but is not His equal in might. Following that train of thought this would basically mean that the Emperor was / is more powerful than all four Chaos Gods combined (a theory which is further cemented by the Chaos Gods calling the EMPRA the "Anathema". Also see "The First Heretic")

Master of Mankind says OTHERWISE. It is canon that the God-Emperor thinks of all the Primarchs as mere tools (Even during the 41st Millenium, he still thinks of Guilliman as a puppet to give orders to).

The Penultimate duel of the Siege of Terra, nay the entire Horus Heresy is going to be a NO-HOLD fight to the death!

During the clusterfuck on Molech, Horus also kills his former Luna Wolves soldier Iacton Qruze without a second thought, which is meant to symbolize him becoming even more evil or something.

In Path of Heaven he appears in all his pomp and Chaotic corruption to assign Mortarion to kill Jaghatai Khan, explain that all his other generals have gone doolally and wax lyrical about killing the Emperor, as well as make the point that being 'roided up by the raw stuff of the Empyrean doesn't get you out of having to manage the logistics of a galactic civil war. Soon after, Mortarion kills his Navigators in a fit of rage and makes the dumbass decision to go into the warp anyway. In other words, he was the only one of his brothers who had his shit together, which was why the Horus Heresy fell apart so quickly after his death.

Newest fluff heavily suggests that Chaos Gods plan from the very beginning was for Horus to lose only barely. Apparently the Gods knew about the [[Cabal]]'s plans and made sure they would get the outcome of a fucked up Imperium that lasts for millennia, feeding them with all the negative emotions they needed, rather than Imperium of Chaos that would go to shit in a few centuries of in-fighting, taking humanity and gods themselves with it to its grave. One daemon even referred to Horus as "sacrificial lamb" needed to stop Imperium from turning into prosperous empire of reason, and kickstart the [[Long War]]. The Emperor may have developed a counter-plan that causes the Chaos Gods to scream in frustration in ''The Outcast Dead'' but that book is fairly trippy.

Thing is that a lot of these twists and turns are good (at least in the sense we never saw it coming) but very little of this really make sense with what we already know. It certainly makes absolutely no sense that the Imperium of today was somehow a goal for Chaos even if they did make it all grimdark. An on-going millennia-long war just ensures that Chaos is always seen as evil and everyone is super paranoid about stopping them so that seems very counter productive for a force who only really works through secrecy and sedition. While disabling the Emperor is a good goal it's stupid to suggest that they are happy to kill him and not bring down the Imperium. The idea that Horus will (or at least could) murder-rape the galaxy so hard the Chaos gods disappear is actually kinda clever in that (presumably) the Chaos gods wouldn't see the potential danger until it's too late but if they can just see it coming anyway then why are they even bothering with Horus? It's just... There's all kinds of problems here.

Though both the Chaos Gods and Cabal were right that Horus' victory WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING!

It seems that Vulkan manages to get himself (but not his Legion) to Terra and manages to TRULY KILL a Daemon with his special talisman

Said Talisman is a device THAT WOULD DESTROY HOLY TERRA should Horus ever capture it!

(So the Chaos Gods probably thought that a VERY Pyrrhic-Victory for the Imperium is good enough in their eyes)

Long after the Scouring, Fabius Bile succeeded in creating a stable clone of a pre-Molech Horus, who utterly wrecked a huge boarding party of traitor marines before being impaled through the chest with his own talon by Abbadon. The clone was capable of speech and seemed to possess a semblance of memory from its twin brother's past (calling Abbadon its "son", just before being kebabed). It's unknown why it was so hostile to other Astartes or what degree of control Fabius had over it. Several prominent marines were adamant that such an abomination (cloned Astartes apparently being the closest thing to taboo you can get for even a traitor marine) would not be Horus in any way, because his soul was annihilated by the Emperor.

==Good Guy Horus==
It's often forgotten by fans that before he was corrupted and decieved by [[Erebus]] and [[Lorgar]], Horus was a genuinely nice guy. Fans are quick to joke about "that dick horus," but before [[Heresy|Things Went Wrong]] he was one of the most personable, down to earth primarchs. Yeah, part of the reason people fell for him so easily was that he shared the Emperor's psychic magnetism, but he also went out of his way to be friendly and considerate of custom, if not necessarily polite. Granted, at times he had arrogance to match [[Magnus]] and choler to match [[Angron]], but despite that he always made effort to honor those under his command, mortal and astartes alike. [[Konrad Curze|While]] [[Angron|many]] [[Mortarion|other]] [[Perturabo|primarchs]] saw their warriors as little more than tools, or [[Fulgrim|were]] [[Sanguinius|aloof]] and [[Corvus Corax|unnapproachable]], Horus was a true father to his sons, guiding and shaping them personally. To most legions it would be unimaginable for the primarch to personally seek out and comfort a legionary during a time of crisis, but for the Luna Wolves, it was obvious. He was no saint or coddler, as we see him encourage rivalries within and between his legion and others, but in doing so he brought strength and glory. Even when dealing with outsiders, he always attempted diplomacy before making war, something even his gentler brothers cannot say. Horus was a cunning, brutal, supremely confident warlord who nonetheless took great pains to make sure his warriors and mortal retainers were treated well, and furthermore, from the very few pre-Davin POV scenes we get, we know he ''actually believed'' others deserved to be treated well, it wasn't simply [[Fulgrim|feigned politeness]] or [[Roboute Guilliman|a calculated display of regard]]. Then fucking [[Erebus]] happened.

==On the Tabletop==
[[File:Horus.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Horus Lupercal, in all his miniature [[Awesome|glory]].]]
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Horus:''' || 500 || 8 || 5 || 7 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 5+1 || 10 || 2+/3++
|}

Horus is everything you love about an HQ wrapped up in one man. He is a very good tactical HQ allowing reserves to outflank, giving every Son of Horus +1 to Leadership and seizing the initiative on a 4+. He and any Terminator unit he has joined may elect which turn they arrive in and they will not scatter if they choose to Deep Strike (and he bestows the rule to the entire unit). He also makes veteran-tactical squads and Justaerin Terminators troops choices (if he is the Warlord... but then again when are you not going to make him your Warlord?).

He is good at shooting with a BS of 5, night vision, a thing that gives - if he chooses to not fire during his turn - a single unit within 6" (other than super-heavy or Independent Characters) +1 BS, a twin-linked super-bolter, and an orbital bombardment using his BS (also twin-linked). And, finally, he is a monster in close combat, being able to take down full terminator squads in 1 turn if you roll well for his 6 attacks plus +D3 attacks if he is fighting a unit or character of weapon skill 4 or lower. He can rape blobs, MEQ's, TEQ's and HQ's.

His weapons are the Warmaster's Talon (an AP2 lightning claw which saddles whoever survives it with a -1 penalty to WS and S for every wound it inflicts that in theory can stack, ensuring that even if he doesn't kill what he's fighting, his target will be completely unable to harm him or anybody else in close combat, and a S10 AP1 master-crafted thunderhammer called Worldbreaker. Combine this with an initiative of 6, and he will strike first most of the time. He's also pretty durable with a toughness and wounds of 6, 2+ armor save, 3+ invulnerable save, 5+ deny the witch, and an additional 3+ save against any psychic attack or adverse profile modifications, which comes to play more often then you may think, given most other Primarchs are bristling with Concussive, Strikedown, Blind or some weirder stat-lowering shit. As in 30k destroyer weapons don't have a "deathblow" result, titan-killer weapons cannot one-shot him, but they still hurt a lot, and while Shadowsword cannot spam D-strength, Magnus definitely can, and the horrible abomination of cheese that is a Warlord-class battle titan could vomit out enough D to kill three Horuses in one turn, so don't get too cocky.

Horus is an absolute motherfucker, and can be thought of as everything a Chapter Master should be between his Orbital Bombardment and army buffs. Letting reserves Outflank makes crossing the board much easier. His Justaerinstar will make anything shit its pants. The Ld bonus patches his Legion's weak morale, and 4+ seize can make a huge difference. His Orbital Bombardment is also awesome. The multi-wound EWless models one finds in 30k will die, and you're likely to put vehicles out of commission. Unfortunately this comes at a really steep fucking price (500 points!) so use him wisely.

As this is said to represent him as he was during the Great Crusade and the start of the Horus Heresy, it is possible he may get an updated profile to represent him as he was when he got all Chaos'd up. When that'll happen is anyone's guess, however.

==Horus VS other Primarchs:==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Horus wins against any other Primarch except Leman Russ and super-charged Magnus. That's it. He beats ALMOST any other opponent he gets pitted against.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
No seriously, what did you expect? With WS 8, 6 Attacks with a S7 AP2 lightning claw that cripples whoever survives his onslaught or a MC S10 Thunder Hammer and 2+/3++ he can destroy any other Primarch relatively safely. He's clearly built to be the hardest dude around and his gear is borderline unfair. Disabling Strike is just disgusting and it's directly intended to make sure he stays the top dog no matter how [[Angron|angry]], [[Fulgrim|pretty]] or [[Perturabo|well]] [[Ferrus Manus|equipped]] anyone else is. The only one who could really be a threat is Lorgar with Precognition, but even he will go down with the Talon as in just 3 rounds he will mathematically be brought to WS and S 4, wich means that even with Precognition he will struggle to wound Horus, while Horus will gain +d3 attacks for his Sire of the Sons of Horus rule. Also, by the end of Round 4 he should be WS and S 3, meaning he will hit and wounds Horus on 5s. At least Lorgy could tie him down till the end of the game - other primarchs could not do even that. Ouch, that Talon really hurts. So, yeah, no one can actually fight 1 on 1 with the Warmaster, barring some incredibly lucky rolls. Better hope for Sanguinius to come fast...

As of Inferno two challengers have emerged. Leman Russ with his negative modifiers to hit and both his sword and axe of awesome can fight Horus on pretty much even footing. Magnus without magical buffs get slaughtered but Magnus without magic is like the Imperium without crippling levels of stupidity and when he casts Iron Arm, Warp Speed and Endurance on himself he makes a very good fist of this fight. Just for fun, here's the numbers on Leman Russ:

*Horus vs. Leman Russ
**Horus, Round 1: Hits 2 times, wounds 1.777 times with his Claw, 0.888 wounds after saves, and IWND brings it down 0.555
**Horus Round 2 and on: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.111
**Leman Russ, full Wounds + charge/Counter-Attack (Balenight): hits 4.667 times, wounds 3.502, 1.167 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.834 at the start of the next turn.
**Leman Russ, full Wounds + charge/Counter-Attack (Helwinter): hits 4.861 times, wounds 4.051 times, 1.350 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 1.017 at the start of the next turn.
**Leman Russ, full Wounds (Balenight): hits 4 times, wounds 3 times, 1 wound after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.667
**Leman Russ, full Wounds (Helwinter): hits 4.190 times, wounds 3.492, 1.164 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.831 at the start of the next turn.
**Sever Life: Being a pain in the ass to calculate, Sever Life will go off most of the time against Horus, but for the purposes of this mathhammer Sever Life's chance to not go off will be included in its average Wounds roll:
***Every time Leman Russ Attacks Horus (as he'll always manage to Wound him and it doesn't say it's triggered via unsaved Wounds) Horus takes an additional 1.091 Wounds, only 0.364 of which will make it through Horus' save.
**Keeping Sever Life in mind and the fact that Leman Russ can split his attacks, the ideal way to split them (for round one and two anyway) would be: 2 Attacks with Balenight, 4/5 Attacks with Helfrost. Here's what that looks like:
***Leman Russ, full Wounds + charge/Counter-Attack: hits 4.851 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 3.518 times with Helwinter), wounds 5.023 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.932 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.674 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 1.341 wounds at the start of the next turn.
***Leman Russ, full Wounds: hits 4.177 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 2.844 times with Helwinter), wounds 4.461 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.370 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.487 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 1.154 wounds at the start of the next turn.
Leman's negative to hit modifier is brutal, basically negating Horus' ability to do any damage, while Leman is still pounding him over the head. As stated, this includes Sever Life and Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin. The theoretical breakdown of the match would be:
*Round 1:
** Leman Russ, 6 Wounds, WS9, S6 + charge/Counter-Attack (2 attacks on Balenight, 5 attacks on Helwinter): hits 4.851 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 3.518 times with Helwinter), wounds 5.023 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.932 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.674 wounds after saves.
** Horus, 4.326 Wounds: Hits 2 times, wounds 1.777 times with his Claw, 0.888 wounds after saves.
*Round 2:
** Leman Russ, 5.112 Wounds, WS9, S6 (2 attacks on Balenight, 4 attacks on Helwinter): hits 4.177 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 2.844 times with Helwinter), wounds 4.461 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.370 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.487 wounds after saves.
** Horus, 2.839 Wounds: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
*Round 3:
** Leman Russ, 5.001 Wounds (IWND puts him slightly above 5, but it can't regenerate his damaged characteristics), WS8, S5 (3 attacks on Balenight, 3 attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.188 times (1.5 times with Balenight, 1.688 times with Helwinter), wounds 3.498 times (1 time with Balenight, 1.407 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.166 wounds after saves.
** Horus, 2.006 Wounds (IWND): Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
*Round 4:
** Leman Russ, 4.557 Wounds, WS8, S5 (3 attacks on Balenight, 3 attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.188 times (1.5 times with Balenight, 1.688 times with Helwinter), wounds 3.498 times (1 time with Balenight, 1.407 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.166 wounds after saves.
** Horus, 0.84 Wounds: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
*Round 5:
** Leman Russ, 4.446 Wounds (IWND), WS7, S4 (The Talon of Horus technically causes another unsaved wound here) (all attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.214 times, wounds 1.607 times, 0.536 wounds after saves.
** Horus, 0.637 Wounds (IWND): Hits 2 time, wounds 1.778 times with his Claw, 0.888 wounds after saves.
*Round 6:
** Leman Russ, 3.558 Wounds, WS6, S3 (all attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.214 times, wounds 1.071 times, 0.357 wounds after saves.
** Horus, 0.28 Wounds: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
*Round 7:
** Leman Russ, 2.67 Wounds, WS6, S3 (all attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.214 times, wounds 1.071 times, 0.357 wounds after saves.
** Horus is dead before IWND kicks in for him and so cannot strike back.
Mathematically, if Russ takes full advantage of Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin then Horus loses the fight in 7 rounds (4 game turns!) while Russ still has 2.67 Wounds left. Whoah.
*Do note that IWND messes up the math a little at face value for Talon of Horus. Since Russ does not gain characteristics back that he lost because of Severing Strike, he'll appear to have fewer unsaved Wounds than he actually does.

Thanks to HH6: Retribution, the Mechanicum has its primarch-like character. [[Anacharis Scoria]], lord of Xana and the first of the Dark Mechanicum, boasts a brutal statline with T6 and 5W. He's an eternal warrior with FNP and IWND and a 2+/3++. But the key of his possible victory is the Vodian Sceptre, [[Ghal-Maraz|a weapon that auto-deals d3 wounds]], ignoring the FNP and forbidding IWND against them.
All hangs on whether or not he's able to tank the first round (Horus will be using the talon as there's no benefit in using world breaker)

If that tanking happens, Scoria wins. If not, well, Horus is down to its last wound due to fighting a model worth 200 points less than him. Same goes for Scoria, he will take 4 wounds if he wins.
AVE OMNISSIAH!
</div>
</div>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Horus vs Leman.jpg| True Wolf vs Emperor Lapdog. This is the second time Leman got an ass whopping from one of his Terminator claded brothers. The first was Alpharius.
</gallery>

{{Primarchs}}

[[Category:Chaos]]