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The God-Emperor of Mankind

2020-08-29T21:53:51Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:3565:AF32:66B6:CB2C: /* The Emprah Himself */

{{awesome}}
<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. <s>At least until the whole 'Horus' thing, anyway.</s> {{BLAM}}]]
{{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|Well, ze Emperor's just zis guy, you know?|Gag Halfrunt}}

'''{{Blam|ALL HAIL THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANKIND!!!}}'''

The '''God-Emperor of Mankind''', also known as '''The Emprah''', '''Emps''', '''Big Daddy Emps''', '''The Motherfucking Emperor''', '''Big E''', '''Mr. Xeno Destroyer''', '''Chaos Fister''', '''E-Money''', '''Augustus Imperator''', '''Deus-Imperator''', '''Him Upon the Throne, '''Primogenitor''', '''[[Salamanders|The Outlander]]''', '''[[Imperial Fists|Him on Earth]]''', '''[[Space Wolves|All-Father]]''', '''[[Space Sharks|Rangu]]''', '''Master of Mankind''', '''The Immortal Emperor''', '''The Golden King''', '''[[Adeptus Mechanicus|The Omnissiah]]''', '''The Cartomancer''', '''The Empinator''', '''The Fresh Emperor of Sacred Terra''','''That guy with the bigger gun than you''', '''Space Jesus''', '''[[/tg/|/tg/]]''', [[TTS|'''The Man-Emperor of Mankind''']], '''Glorious Overlord''', '''Lord of Bling''', [[TTS|'''My Manly Man-peror''']], '''Lord Sovereign of the Imperium''', [[TTS|'''Starman''']], ''' The King of Terra''' 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''', '''Space Hitler''',
'''[[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|That Loony Shaman-Chassis]]''', '''[[Tyranid|giant crunchy psychic sandwich]]''', '''[https://youtu.be/zlRbWLgLHg8?t=1338 Jimmy Space, creator of the Space Marines]''' or '''The Corpse on the Throne''' is the almost-but-not-entirely-figurehead ruler of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Warhammer 40k]] universe. He has been enthroned on (or rather in) a life-sustaining device known as the Golden Throne for the last ten millenia and is nigh-on unable to communicate or influence things directly, so day-to-day ruling is done without (and too often in spite of) Him. But on the other hand He 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]] (and on the [[Navigator|Paternova]]).

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 [[Commissar|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, thanks to a lot of retcons 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],[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ97TiFGGg 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 a powerful [[psyker]] and <strike>(heavily implied to be)</strike> (Confirmed by GW) a [[Perpetual]]; an immortal 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, possibly in [[wikipedia:Göbekli Tepe|Göbekli Tepe]]. 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, or as it's known on the street, a "fucking heart attack". 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. Considering that the Imperium's two-headed symbol was used by Hittites, Games Workshop, for all its flaws and pricing policies, can be given credit for doing his history homework. After that, he headed to the first cities of mankind in Sumeria to guide the start of human civilization.

[[File:Neoth-gigamesh-erda-siduri.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Neoth and [[Erda]] back in the ancient days of Chaldea, it all makes so much sense now.]]
According to Saturnine, one of the Emperor's earliest names was Neoth, in the time shortly after leaving His home and tribe. In the "time of the First Cities" Neoth had become a warlord and king. There He met [[Erda]], a perpetual like Himself, who become one of His closest companions throughout history, by His side up until she caused the Scattering of the Primarchs. Neoth and Erda, father and mother of Primarchs.

''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. On the other hand, they also wouldn't have had the memories and soul-stuff of all those shamans telling them what to do. (This theory would go a long way to explaining the seemingly contradictory behaviors of the Emperor - all those shamans have disagreements and Big E has to listen to it all.) That, and how Erda commented that while each Perpetual was immortal and had special abilities, everyone considered the Emperor's powers to be on a completely different scale. The Chaos Gods apparently view the Emperor as an equal/rival due to his acquisition of powers at a later point ''(see below)'' and name him Anathema. Yet other fluff tidbits (including a C'Tan who dismissively described him as a "weapon" rather than a God) imply that he is some sort of flesh-construct from the Dark Age of Technology run amok and aping human affectation (similar to the Eldar's Gods originating as warp constructed weapons made by the Eldar under the guidance of the Old Ones during the War in Heaven).

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 Written 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 of his supernatural God-like status and abilities and 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, 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===
{{Topquote|‘You…’ repeated Uriah, the pain in his bones no match for the pain in his heart. ‘You are the… the… Emperor…’ ‘I am, and it is time to go, Uriah,’ said the Emperor. Uriah looked around at his now gleaming and brightly lit church. ‘Go? Go where? [[Imperial Truth|There is nowhere else for me in this godless world of yours.’]]|[[The Last Church]]}}
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 the classic "join-me-or-die" strategy, 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 useful lie, 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 without molding the society towards abandoning religion willingly. He constructed this lie because he believed that belief in such things was feeding the Chaos Gods, [[Fail|but it turns out he had it backwards, and that such belief, being dedicated specifically to osmething other than said gods, was in fact starving them]].

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, <strike>[[Viking|right when Scandinavia was getting fun again]]</strike> [[The_End_Times|well well well, considering what they did]] [[Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle|to the other setting no one here is gonna miss them any time soon]]. 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===
Now that he was in control the Emperor had a relatively short to-do list, he wanted to: 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, and 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, and eliminate anyone who threatened his vision of humanity in any way.

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 supposedly ''acquired'' from the Chaos Gods (or so the treacherous space cancers claim) 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 (angelic?) soul, bound to a super awesomely tough material body.

Each of these 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.

It was a good plan for building an intergalactic empire, 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 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.

Unfortunately things went off to a rocky start before he even began: since the Primarch's power was ''apparently'' stolen, The Big Four would inevitably and continually be pissed at Him for using their power for His own ends, so they 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.]]

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 rebelled 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. Something seems to have gone wrong though, as the Golden Throne didn't manage to do its job and the Emperor managed to die sometime between the Horus Heresy and M41, although whatever's left of him still sticks around his corpse.

==="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".

In the last year of M41, tech-priests discovered that the Golden Throne is failing and if nothing was done... presumably the Emperor would be deader? In any case nobody wants to find out, 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.

==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. <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.

It is common knowledge, that the Emperor is the most powerful psyker <s>alive</s> around, humbling even the [[Eldar]]. 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 "The Anathema", as in the polar opposite to [[Chaos]]. Their fear of him cannot be overstated: during a discussion between Ku'Gath and Mortarion, you'd think Ku'Gath was referencing Morgoth. The idea his gathering strength terrified Ku'Gath to the point he feels they're dead if he's active and won't even say his name; whatever Emps is, Chaos is THAT scared of him. 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 (though seeing as how he's been dead for quite a while and that hasn't happened, their fears are likely unfounded).

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.

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, Tommy Wiseau, Keanu Reeves, and Jesus.

Overall the Emperor has always had a strong desire to protect and shepherd humanity, even if his methods are a bit... [[Blam|unorthodox]]. His desire to guide and protect humanity, in addition to his power and foresight 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 at the time he got the whole thing backwards, since said religions were starving the Chaos gods), planned to reunite humanity under His rule no matter what anyone else wanted/thought of that (again by force of arms if needed), originally loved the Primarchs as his sons (and then retconned into caring little for the Primarchs being His actual sons. But tools to be disposed of like in a game of Chess.. In "The Outcast dead" he even sort of says outright that he sacrificed Ferrus Manus because he knew he could not win the war and that the most he could hope for was a stalemate, i.e. prevent Chaos from winning), 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".

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 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 since his goal was for humanity to be governed by humanity (as he clearly said to Lorgar in "The First Heretic". "This is not my Imperium, it is humanitys". Primarchs like say, Guilliman, though perfect as an administrator, were better suited and needed as generals for the Great Crusade. Stil the whole theory that the Emperor wanted to dispose of the Primarchs once they ceased being useful is utter horseshit, for why would he have created living rooms for all of his sons in the Emperor's palace. And why create 20, functionally immortal tools if he had no plans for them following the crusade. Either way, 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 (no matter how bad that idea played out in practice).

After Big E was nearly killed by his favourite son / tool, He was placed upon the Golden Throne and hasn't moved for the past 10 millennia, presumably because he later died. Most of the fluff maintains that His mere existence since then has been 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 sit there and remain dead. Oh no, it's exactly the opposite and death's not the handicap it used to be, because it gives Him a fuckton of work to do. 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?).

That being said, his love of humanity doesn't exactly extend to his sons. In older lore it did, however, in the retconned lore 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. There must have been a reason why he prevented Vulkan from going completely batshit insane when he was killed over and over by his brother Konrad Kurze after all... but to say it in Guillimans own words (from memory) "our father never loved us, but he certainly does love humanity". Also Guilliman reflects that Big E could not have afforded deep affection for any of his sons, so lets see how the final confrontation between Horus on roid rage and Big E will play out in the end - as in older fluff Big E held back because he couldn't bring it upon himself to snuff out his most favoured son (and it did not read like in "my most favoured screw driver" kind of way). But in the end, despite being the most powerful psyker to have ever lived he may still have been "human" after all, and every living being has emotions. So maybe his biggest "flaw" (if you want to call it such) may have been that he might not have been able to separate himself from his sons (err I mean toolbox) as he would have hoped for.

*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. As noted in "Valdor: Birth of the Imperium" by Cris Wraight, it was noted by Valdor and Malcador that they were both surprised by the Emperor referring to the Primarchs, his planned generals, as sons. Valdor noted that the Emperor's emotions "are ebbing still" with Malcador saying all three predicted this and that victory had a price.
*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. This is confirmed in ''The Board Is Set'' short story by [[Gav Thorpe]], which 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 takes the role of "Warmaster" ''(symbolically representing [[Chaos]])'' whilst Big E played the position of the "Emperor". The two play out the entire events of the Horus Heresy and even hypothetical scenarios had they played each Primarch differently against the others, though they still get caught off guard from time to time as the rules change unexpectedly. Though Malcador only belated understands that considering this was a symbolic game of "what if?" rather than simply a means of devising strategy. So, while Emps and Mal were partly responsible for the current state of everything; if Malcador's "lie" was that it was all planned and that everything was under control, then the truth would be an acknowledgement that their opponents ''(the Chaos Gods)'' actually existed which was something they had been denying for centuries. Now they were backed into a corner and desperately scrambling to find a solution that didn't fuck everything.

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.

An interesting theory is that if Emps was born of a group of psykers combining their might and souls in one ritual act then maybe 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).

A question that remained unanswered for a long time is that, is the above thing the only thing he is capable of doing these days? Or can he communicate with others? In the past few supplicants were allowed an audience with the Emperor though the fluff's always been iffy on whether or not they talked, or if it was more a spiritual visit to a shrine. The recent advance in the timeline revealed that the newly revived Guilliman had an audience with him for a whole day in which they did talk (and he still seems to have some sort of connection to the Custodes), so 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 literally couldn't talk to anyone before that, considering that even Guilliman shuddered at the thought of the mental sand blasting that was speaking with the Emperor. It's possible the same communion might destroy a mortal, or kill the comatose Lion by accident. 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.

Speaking of talking to him, when Roboute was revived from stasis and finally got to Terra to talk to dad, Roboute noted the Emperor regarded him with the interest one would regard a tool. He also reflects on how he 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. However, following the Plague Wars Guilliman has considered the possibility that his ascension may have been a plan B for humanity following the failure of the Imperial Truth, and both [[Mortarion]] and [[Ku'Gath]] believe the Emperor is gathering energy to create what they call an "Unliving Legion".

{{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}}

In contrast to the above quote, the Emperor (and the Imperium as a byproduct) fucking hates aliens, though not without reason. 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, or <s>possessed a planet</s>, influenced human culture at all. Ever since His ascension, the Imperium mostly 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 was 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]].

===On His Pragmatism and Flaws===
The Emperor was a firm believer that the ends justified the means and was pragmatic in the extreme, 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]]? There are hints that he might have planned to fix that by arranging the Primarchs to come to blows with each other, [[Horus Heresy|but we all know exactly how well ''that'' turned out]]- which if anything makes him look even more foolish as a result.
*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 (granted what they did makes them partially responsible for the setting being so fucked) and were just as advanced as the Imperium (if not more so) meant nothing to him/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. Most likely the latter, the Khan recounts scrambling to even converse with the Emperor, Custodes have an internal study schools to try figure out out what ''exactly'' he meant in his orders and how it applies to the modern day. Yes, his Companions have what are basically rabbis Talmudically mulling over every syllable the Emperor ever uttered. 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 worshiping a belief only to have ol' Emps turn up and just say "No" without a word of explanation beyond "its bad".
*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:
**The humiliation of Lorgar was the ultimate catalyst for the Horus Heresy, and is probably the most colossal failure the Emperor has ever produced. This event is what showed the future "heretics" (and us) who the Emperor truly is behind his charisma and lofty dreams. Lorgar was so enthralled with his father that he not only worshipped him as a god but made it his life's goal to convince others to do so as well. He built gleaming monuments and cities in His name. He trained an entire legion to glorify their perfect and benevolent father. Suddenly, the Ultramarines descend and obliterate the greatest of Lorgar's cities and the Emperor himself forces Lorgar's entire legion to kneel before the invaders. The Emperor tells his most admiring son that he, alone of all his brothers, has failed. It would be as if God set Vatican City on fire, kicked the pope over, put out the fire by covering him in dog shit, and then told him to quit being such a fucking pussy. The main thing this incident says about Lorgar is that he's such a tough motherfucker that he didn't break down completely forever or kill himself upon the revelation that the most powerful and perfect being he can even imagine hates him, personally. The Emperor took the leader of the most powerful religious organization in the galaxy and kicked him straight into the claws of evil gods powered by belief. However, the biggest irony, considering that religion is the only power that can counterattack and fend off Chaos, is that the Ecclesiarchy used religion to battle Chaos for several millenia using very book that Lorgar wrote. The Emperor basically threw out the smartest and safest option to counter Chaos due to his stupidity and narrow-mindness. (Unless it really WAS a test as [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists#Known_Loyalist_Members_of_the_Traitor_Legions|the Anchorite]] believe).
**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. Instead he could have earned Angron's undying love, furious loyalty and the worst case, a martyr Primarch who'd die from the nails and gotten rid of: was one fucked up dusty planet's short term compliance worth the whole shit roller coaster, 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), and is traumatized to ETERNALLY HATE HIS LORD 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-possessed 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. Then again, Magnus wouldn't even comply to his demand to stop practising sorcery...
**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. Seriously, why can't the Big E act like a spiritual psychiatrist for ONE FUCKING MOMENT?
**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 Jaghatai), 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 the 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 <s>greater good</s> {{Blam|'''*BLAM!* HERESY!'''}}, common 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, so 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. If it is true that he had always intended the Primarchs' rivalries to grow to the point that they would begin fighting each other, all of the above is even more damning since it means he had made them flawed on purpose and yet failed to see how Chaos would gladly exploit said flaws at the first opportunity it got.

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 still well-meaning OCD workaholic with a "The needs of the many" outlook on life meaning he couldn't afford to show trust, love or compassion to anything but mankind as a whole, not even his "sons". Ultimately however even though his complete separation from the human condition helped him make the hard decisions, it was a decision he paid the ultimate price for and a large contributor to the Horus Heresy being as terrible as it was. If you have experience in pedagogy, he is your typical working dad who can't spare time to raise sons and makes *very* bad, fatigue influenced decisions, and after they grow up, wonders why they grow to hate him/be distant. Add the lack of a loving mother figure for the kids, and [[Horus Heresy|well...]]

====Planning for the Horus Heresy====

To throw a spanner into the works when considering whatever the Emperor's "goals" might have been: A very interesting claim was made by Malcador himself to his dying confidante Sibel Niasta that the Heresy was all [[Just as planned|part of the plan]], that the Primarchs were designed as "conquering tools and nothing more", set on course to fight for dominance and eventually turn on each other and challenge the Emperor directly. This is corroborated by what we already "knew" from ''Master of Mankind'' and the Emperor's own attitudes towards the Primarchs ''(which admittedly has constantly been shown to be shifting. As has been frequently pointed out the final confrontation between Horus and the Emperor - as we currently know it - would not make any sense if he merely considered them to be disposable tools anyway. Why "hold back" then to start out with?)''. The Primarchs were manipulated against each other with [[Rogal Dorn|unequal]] [[Perturabo|favour]], jealousies stoked in order to achieve this, and he also claims that those who [[Magnus|would not be manipulated]] [[Primarch#Two Missing Primarchs|never reach the end game.]] What is not certain is whether he was speaking the ''whole'' truth since he does later admit privately just after the conversation that he had to lie to mortals to spare their sorrow, so what parts he "lied" about are uncertain ''(he could've made the whole "just as planned" story up, it could've all been true and he was regretting manipulating the Primarchs and their legions, it could even refer to a single sentence where he implies that the Emperor will save her soul after death)''; he also admits that the outcome had been altered by the [[Chaos Gods|great enemy]] who had emboldened their champions and started the battle early so he did not know with absolute certainty how it was going to turn out.

However, as shown from ''"The Board is Set"'' or the novel "The Outcast dead" Malcador and the Emperor were certainly shown to have considerable amounts of foreknowledge regarding the Horus Heresy and certainly ''did'' play the Primarchs against each other in order to attempt to counter the manipulations of Chaos. However in the Board is Set, Malcador is shown that the Primarch's destinies were not necessarily fixed and could have been played in different ways; some [[Ferrus Manus|Primarchs]] were [[Sanguinius|sacrificed]] for greater goals like you would remove a figure from the board to give you a better edge. Whilst the Emperor had the knowledge that certain [[Roboute Guilliman|others]] were crucial to final victory. Malcador is also shown to not have been aware of the full plan or the flow of destinies; he is unaware of how certain seeming "winning" strategies are left unplayed because they have unexpected knock-on effects, or that certain moves played early or late could have had disastrous consequences.
*Such as why the [[Rogal Dorn|"Invincible Bastion"]] is not used to take the [[Horus|"Lord of Hearts"]] [[Battle of Phall|early on in the war]], since it would force both of the [[Alpharius|"Twin"]] pieces to switch sides to the Warmaster and be able move on the Emperor's home space and cause the game to be lost. This is also significant because it shows that whichever side the Primarch had joined could have been variable, and did not automatically mean that it was working towards the same goal as its leaders.
*Malcador was also surprised to find out that the game could be changed by factors they might be unaware of, such as the "Corruption" of the [[Mortarion|Lord of Clouds]] in the mid-game when they had expected him to resist like he had in their previous playthroughs. The Emperor appeared genuinely saddened by this change, hinting that he either still cared about them even when they had already turned against him, or that some Primarchs could have potentially been recovered and returned to the fold after the conflict had ended. Malcador was also shocked to think that the Emperor could be blind-sided by such an alteration; with Malcador only beginning to see the game for what it truly might have been, rather than simply a means of testing strategy.
*It is important to note that from the beginning of the game, the "Primarch" pieces were essentially blank slates, and only gained their unique shapes and identities as part of their first activations after the Scattering, possibly indicating that the Primarchs could have potentially switched roles with one another depending on the first few moves. ''(Perhaps Sanguinius could have become the Lord of Hearts? or Perturabo become the Invincible Bastion?)''
*Before the first move takes place, the pieces were arranged <u>ten per side</u>, which was more than available Primarchs at the time. The Emperor had his own golden piece but the "Lord of Hearts" began the game in blue and became switched in the first move ''(giving the Warmaster eleven pieces after the first move)'' while the "Twins" would not be divided until the second move, providing twenty-one pieces on the board. Ignoring the additional piece ''"the Fool"'' that Malcador had never seen before, means that there must have been one other significant player somewhere that we are not aware about. That and the division of units under the control of the "Emperor" and [[Chaos|"Warmaster"]] in the game would have been very different from the apparent division of Loyalist/Traitor Primarchs in the actual conflict, meaning that the roles they played and were expected to play '''did''' change drastically as the game progressed.

Taking several factors into account, it is absolutely certain that Malcador and the Emperor had enough foreknowledge to know that the Horus Heresy was going to happen from the point of the '''Scattering''' onward. To say that it was all part of his "Grand Plan" would be a stretch, that many of the Primarchs had municipal gifts ''(Perturabo's architectural mastery, Fulgrim's artistry etc)'', came with purposes suited to the Emperor's grand plan for a post-human society ''(Magnus' and the Webway, Mortarion as a witchseeker)'' and he definitely [[Vulkan|created one of them]] [[Perpetual|"different"]] from the rest with the explicit purpose of teaching the others how to settle down after a lifetime of war shows that the Emperor probably <u>did</u> have a plan for his Primarchs that didn't involve losing half of them and then chaining himself to the Golden Throne. Otherwise why make twenty Primarchs with gifts related to your post-battle plans in the first place if you knew you were going to lose half of them? People who claim that this outcome was all part of the Emperor's plan have either missed or forgotten the fact that his opponent in the "game" was Chaos, and not Malcador ''(Malcador and Emps switched places several times in their playthroughs which Malcador thought was just a means of testing strategy until it finally dawned on him that there was more to it)'' and that the Chaos Gods had their own plans for the Primarchs too and were fully capable of changing the rules whenever it suited them. Not to mention the [[Cabal]]s of alien psykers manipulating humanity for their own outcome, [[Perpetual|Immortal humans]] that interfere with predictions of the future, and [[Watchers in the Dark|extradimensional beings]] trying to stop the primordial annihilator from manifesting all by making their own moves and causing more complications.

If anything; ''The Board is Set'' goes a long way in explaining why the Emperor <u>couldn't</u> do any more with his advanced notice of impending conflict as any wrong move he made could have immediately spelled disaster for humanity. Plus the Emperor's foresight was not perfect and it did not necessarily marry up with his practical knowledge; even though the game he played with Malcador showed the "[[Lion El'Jonson|Double Edged Sword]], [[Roboute Guilliman|The Uncrowned Monarch]] and [[Sanguinius|The Angel]] spending most of the game off to the side, the Emperor had no idea [[Imperium Secundus|what they were <u>actually</u> doing]] until Malcador relayed the message from [[Leman Russ]]. His psychic foresight seems to have been shrouded in allegory and symbolism, rather than concrete certainty.

Also note that "destiny" is different from what the Primarchs were "designed" for ''(case in point: Magnus being designed to operate the Golden Throne, but also being destined to damage it)''. While Emperor had designed all of his Primarchs for specific tasks, he would not have been able to identify the destined role that each Primarch was meant to play until events had already been set into motion and pulled them onto certain paths. He might been able to guess that Magnus was "the Library" or that Dorn was the "Invincible Bastion" but could not have been certain until the first moves of the game had been made. So until then he could only treat the Primarchs according to their gifts; hailing them as heroes, building them statues and trying to steer them away from obvious sources of corruption such as [[Magnus|sorcery]] or [[Lorgar|religion]]. Even if the Emperor ''had'' suspected which ones would turn against him and tried to eliminate them before they became problems, their destinies could have unfolded in a completely different way, potentially causing a similar conflict to happen albeit with a different combination of playing pieces on the board, or alternatively sacrificing any control he might have actually had over the Primarchs and still have ended up with a disaster on his hands. Also bearing in mind that he still needed to complete the Great Crusade and his Webway project; to put those plans on hold until the issue with Primarchs had sorted themselves out would probably have done him no good either because like the Emperor himself, [[Chaos]] is capable of playing the long game.

[[Lorgar]] is an interesting issue: Malcador once claimed that if he could have saved just one of the traitor Primarchs, it should have been Lorgar. However, from the Board is Set, the Emperor points out that game doesn't start with any piece other than the "Chosen", strongly hinted to represent Lorgar with his initial swaying of Horus and thus beginning the Heresy. This implies that no matter what moves are planned for, or what Primarchs ended up on either side; Chaos will '''always''' have a "Chosen" piece to start the game with. If Horus had been protected, Lorgar might have simply started the conflict with someone else, making Chosen/Lorgar perhaps the more crucial piece. Though keep in mind that Malcador speaks with the benefit of hindsight, and as mentioned previously, the Emperor was not omniscient, it is possible that neither of them were to fully realise that Lorgar was the Chosen until the first move of the game had already been made. What is most tragic is that Lorgar ''really'' wanted the love and approval of his father and was probably the most fanatically loyal to him in the early days, so turning him into Chaos most pivotal piece is a cruel irony. If it were possible to have actually saved Lorgar before the conflict started, it would have probably unbalanced the game as Chaos would have been forced to find a different Primarch to fill the role of "Chosen", potentially upending the game altogether.

Until the end of the Heresy, Malcador was not actually aware of how the final conflict actually played out; having seen himself only as an advisor, he was ignorant of his own role. The Emperor showed him in the final days that his piece, "The Fool", would switch places with the Emperor to snatch victory and allow the [[Roboute Guilliman|"Uncrowned Monarch"]] to play his "Salvation" strategy and win the game against chaos by tearing the throat out of the serpent. Malcador's "lie" to his servant was most likely to provide the illusion of control; when in fact the Emperor and Malcador were desperately seeking to find an alternate solution that would not doom everyone. But pretty much like the Emperor stated in "The Outcast dead": "Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep [[Chaos|your opponent]] from winning.".

===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 repeatedly 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 least) 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)''. Perhaps he even saw that there would always be half the Primarchs turning to Chaos and all the Emperor could do was choose which ones and try to plan for them. Maybe the two missing Primarchs were dealt with just to try and reduce the number of Primarchs and Legions involved without crippling the Great Crusade. 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 realized what he taught them when he preached the Imperial Truth was complete bullshit. 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). Unfortunately this still made them targets and the Imperium was used by Chaos as a cats-paw to wipe them out.

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?

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. 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 shut down and died. 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 their 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|Traitors 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, 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]].

==On the Death of the Emperor==
[[File:Emperor of mankind flaming sword armor.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Son, I am disappoint.]]
With the Golden Throne being consistently worn out, and the Tech-priests too power-armor-on-head rebooted to do anything about it (at least until they finish studying Malcador's staff, provided GW doesn't forget that plot point), it is certainly possible that the Golden Throne may stop working entirely, though what this might do is up for debate, since the Emperor has been dead for a very long time now.

Yes, yes, you read that right, the Emperor is dead. Now quit your shrieking and take a fecking chill pill, there's more to it than that. Being the single most powerful psyker in the history of the human race, the death of his physical body isn't the same "GAME OVER, MAN!" it would be for the rest of us mortals. The Emperor's mummified corpse is still inhabited by his spirit much the same way as [[Lord Kroak]], except he's powering the Astronomican (and possibly keeping the warp from swallowing Terra) instead of being hauled around on a golden anti-gravity palanquin to smite the enemies of the Imperium with golden fire.

Back to the matter at hand, with how arcane and ill-understood the Golden Throne's workings are all we have to go on are theories. It might be somehow enhancing his psychic abilities through its connection to his corpse and this would be lost when it gives out, or (rather more likely seeing as how parts keep failing and yet nothing changes) it might be something the AdMech keeps running since they think it's doing something that it isn't. No one knows, and no one really wants to find out.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">In any case, a lot of fa/tg/uys don't seem to know that the Emperor's dead, and so a lot of theories arise as to what might happen if something that already happened ends up happening. Click expand to view these theories and keep in mind, these are all kept with their fa/tg/uys speculation intact.

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===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. 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 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. Various Horus Heresy novels present the Emperor as 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.

This is supported by Path Of Heaven, when Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars use the Dark Glass device to boogie woogie back to Terra. Much like Malcador, the one who uses the Dark Glass device is reduced to ashes just using it for a couple of moments, and the Dark Glass also has a Throne unit to control it, though it is described as the Golden Throne’s lesser cousin. The Golden Throne is described by the Chief Librarian using Dark Glass as “far greater, immensely more powerful, ''older, fouler, set deeper in the fabric of both reality and unreality.''”So just what ''is'' the Golden Throne? From way above, we know it’s a pain engine powerful enough to make a Haemonculus blush, those using it need to be powerful Psykers to actually control it, it consumes the souls of those who use it, unless that person also has innate regenerative capabilities (which, oh, let’s see, leaves us with basically Emps or Magnus), and it exists both in reality and in the Warp. The Emperor himself in Master of Mankind is evasive on where he found the “core” of the Throne. Now imagine you’re Rogal Dorn on the Vengeful Spirit and you’ve just found the bodies of Sanguinius and Horus and a dying Emprah. You race back to the Palace because surely Malcador, the only person to even come close to knowing the Emperor should be able to help, only to find him strapped to a machine that is literally turning him to dust. You have no idea what the hell this thing is (because you’re a good kid and keep out of dad’s basement) but your Father tells you to strap him into the thing. You do it, even though Pops is weak and it just Gammorah’d the last guy to sit in it. Not a great situation but you do what dad says. Now he’s stuck there, unable to regenerate but also unable to get up lest demons invade/that sun dad left in the Webway blows up. Fast forward 10,000+ years, you’re dead, and everyone is too stupid to realize it’s a fucking PAIN ENGINE and not a life support system. The Emperor was literally slapped into the equivalent of an infinite soul shriver while at his absolute weakest. If he could just stop sealing the Webway gate while someone else (Magnus) took a pew, he could possibly stretch his legs out and be right as rain. So maybe, just maybe, the Golden Throne breaking down isn’t a bad thing? (fuck, Age of the Emprah here we come)

Or someone could slap a good-ol' Gellar Field over the Webway portal, completely solving the problem. Doh! I forgot! That wouldn't be Grimdark! Shit.

===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. Kinda like Schrödinger's Cat. Schrödinger's Space Dorf.
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===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. When Guilliman shows up, the Emperor is amazed that humanity has still managed to survive and the Imperium is still alive.

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 not outside the realm of possibility that some remnant of the Dark Age of Technology has continued unchanged from its original height, though it's very unlikely. For this to be the case it would somehow have to avoid nearly all xenos, chaos influence/worshipers, have its own way of dealing with latent psykers so that they don't be used be Daemons [[Enslavers|or worse]] and never have met any of the other traders, explorators and travelers in general that make up how the current Imperium discovers new planets.
* 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. But, he did nothing to build on that, the dumbass. 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 completely justified 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. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures and who knows what the future could bring? Well, at least the Eldar to have more or less accepted their empire will never return and that sticking with the Imperium is their best bet for survival and power in the universe from now on. Which broke the balance and caused plot progression.
*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.
* If the Emperor wasn't a god to begin with, millennia of worship and countless psyker souls empowering him means that he's almost certainly a god now- and he knows it. Even when wielded by a "mere" Primarch his sword alone is capable of permanently destroying Greater Daemons (keep in mind that during Great Crusade and before he seems not to be able to do that), and given enough time his power might eclipse that of Chaos itself. (Though one could argue that Chaos powers up much faster than the Emperor due to having more sources to feed one and possibly having more worshippers)
* 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.

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. At the very least, humanity accomplished more and survived longer than anyone expected, even the Emperor.

Indeed, this is [[Warhammer 40,000]], a cautionary tale about the End of Empires, but so was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and, although we may not 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.

'''Thought for the day:''' "The man who has nothing can still have faith."

== Gallery ==
{{SectionalPromotions}}
<center><gallery>
File:Emperor-Church windows.jpg|Put this everywhere to praise him, on your windows, the neighbours, just all your hive city.
Image:Horus and the Emperor.jpg|<s>Son, I am disappoint.</s> Empy's disappointment occurred well before this moment.
Image:E-Money_LowRes.gif|Now in animated ultra HD for your heresy needs.
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: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 some little bitch!
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:Emps&SigmarGenderBendBy Flick The Thief.jpg| The same situation, but improved! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Silence Heretic!'''}}
Image:Emprasque3.jpg|How do you kill what can not die?
Image:Slavegirl Emperor.jpg|Emperor [[Rule 63]]! NO EXCEPTIONS! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}} [[Extra Heresy]]!
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 [[lovedagger|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, and his theme tone!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZoyNzuWbQ&t=10s
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.
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 (Warhammer 40,000|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 start the Great Crusade 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!"
File:Strolling Emperor.jpeg|Having him look at you like this is a reliable indicator of how soon people are going to start referring to you in past-tense.
</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]], his [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] counterpart (especially in the latter).
* [[Emperor's To-Do List]]
[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25959559/ This thread] which makes the Emperor even cooler.
* [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]
* [[Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]]
{{Imperium}}

[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]][[Category:Awesome]]

The God-Emperor of Mankind

2020-08-29T21:44:01Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:3565:AF32:66B6:CB2C: /* Early life */

{{awesome}}
<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. <s>At least until the whole 'Horus' thing, anyway.</s> {{BLAM}}]]
{{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|Well, ze Emperor's just zis guy, you know?|Gag Halfrunt}}

'''{{Blam|ALL HAIL THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANKIND!!!}}'''

The '''God-Emperor of Mankind''', also known as '''The Emprah''', '''Emps''', '''Big Daddy Emps''', '''The Motherfucking Emperor''', '''Big E''', '''Mr. Xeno Destroyer''', '''Chaos Fister''', '''E-Money''', '''Augustus Imperator''', '''Deus-Imperator''', '''Him Upon the Throne, '''Primogenitor''', '''[[Salamanders|The Outlander]]''', '''[[Imperial Fists|Him on Earth]]''', '''[[Space Wolves|All-Father]]''', '''[[Space Sharks|Rangu]]''', '''Master of Mankind''', '''The Immortal Emperor''', '''The Golden King''', '''[[Adeptus Mechanicus|The Omnissiah]]''', '''The Cartomancer''', '''The Empinator''', '''The Fresh Emperor of Sacred Terra''','''That guy with the bigger gun than you''', '''Space Jesus''', '''[[/tg/|/tg/]]''', [[TTS|'''The Man-Emperor of Mankind''']], '''Glorious Overlord''', '''Lord of Bling''', [[TTS|'''My Manly Man-peror''']], '''Lord Sovereign of the Imperium''', [[TTS|'''Starman''']], ''' The King of Terra''' 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''', '''Space Hitler''',
'''[[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|That Loony Shaman-Chassis]]''', '''[[Tyranid|giant crunchy psychic sandwich]]''', '''[https://youtu.be/zlRbWLgLHg8?t=1338 Jimmy Space, creator of the Space Marines]''' or '''The Corpse on the Throne''' is the almost-but-not-entirely-figurehead ruler of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Warhammer 40k]] universe. He has been enthroned on (or rather in) a life-sustaining device known as the Golden Throne for the last ten millenia and is nigh-on unable to communicate or influence things directly, so day-to-day ruling is done without (and too often in spite of) Him. But on the other hand He 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]] (and on the [[Navigator|Paternova]]).

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 [[Commissar|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, thanks to a lot of retcons 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],[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ97TiFGGg 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 a powerful [[psyker]] and <strike>(heavily implied to be)</strike> (Confirmed by GW) a [[Perpetual]]; an immortal 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, possibly in [[wikipedia:Göbekli Tepe|Göbekli Tepe]]. 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, or as it's known on the street, a "fucking heart attack". 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. Considering that the Imperium's two-headed symbol was used by Hittites, Games Workshop, for all its flaws and pricing policies, can be given credit for doing his history homework. After that, he headed to the first cities of mankind in Sumeria to guide the start of human civilization.

[[File:Neoth-gigamesh-erda-siduri.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Neoth and [[Erda]] back in the ancient days of Chaldea, it all makes so much sense now.]]
According to Saturnine, one of the Emperor's earliest names was Neoth, in the time shortly after leaving His home and tribe. In the "time of the First Cities" Neoth had become a warlord and king. There He met [[Erda]], a perpetual like Himself, who become one of His closest companions throughout history, by His side up until she caused the Scattering of the Primarchs. Neoth and Erda, father and mother of Primarchs.

''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. On the other hand, they also wouldn't have had the memories and soul-stuff of all those shamans telling them what to do. (This theory would go a long way to explaining the seemingly contradictory behaviors of the Emperor - all those shamans have disagreements and Big E has to listen to it all.) That, and how Erda commented that while each Perpetual was immortal and had special abilities, everyone considered the Emperor's powers to be on a completely different scale. The Chaos Gods apparently view the Emperor as an equal/rival due to his acquisition of powers at a later point ''(see below)'' and name him Anathema. Yet other fluff tidbits (including a C'Tan who dismissively described him as a "weapon" rather than a God) imply that he is some sort of flesh-construct from the Dark Age of Technology run amok and aping human affectation (similar to the Eldar's Gods originating as warp constructed weapons made by the Eldar under the guidance of the Old Ones during the War in Heaven).

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 Written 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 of his supernatural God-like status and abilities and 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, 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===
{{Topquote|‘You…’ repeated Uriah, the pain in his bones no match for the pain in his heart. ‘You are the… the… Emperor…’ ‘I am, and it is time to go, Uriah,’ said the Emperor. Uriah looked around at his now gleaming and brightly lit church. ‘Go? Go where? [[Imperial Truth|There is nowhere else for me in this godless world of yours.’]]|[[The Last Church]]}}
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 the classic "join-me-or-die" strategy, 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 useful lie, 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 without molding the society towards abandoning religion willingly. He constructed this lie because he believed that belief in such things was feeding the Chaos Gods, [[Fail|but it turns out he had it backwards, and that such belief, being dedicated specifically to osmething other than said gods, was in fact starving them]].

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, <strike>[[Viking|right when Scandinavia was getting fun again]]</strike> [[The_End_Times|well well well, considering what they did]] [[Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle|to the other setting no one here is gonna miss them any time soon]]. 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===
Now that he was in control the Emperor had a relatively short to-do list, he wanted to: 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, and 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, and eliminate anyone who threatened his vision of humanity in any way.

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 supposedly ''acquired'' from the Chaos Gods (or so the treacherous space cancers claim) 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 (angelic?) soul, bound to a super awesomely tough material body.

Each of these 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.

It was a good plan for building an intergalactic empire, 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 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.

Unfortunately things went off to a rocky start before he even began: since the Primarch's power was ''apparently'' stolen, The Big Four would inevitably and continually be pissed at Him for using their power for His own ends, so they 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.]]

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 rebelled 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. Something seems to have gone wrong though, as the Golden Throne didn't manage to do its job and the Emperor managed to die sometime between the Horus Heresy and M41, although whatever's left of him still sticks around his corpse.

==="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".

In the last year of M41, tech-priests discovered that the Golden Throne is failing and if nothing was done... presumably the Emperor would be deader? In any case nobody wants to find out, 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.

==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. <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.

It is common knowledge, that the Emperor is the most powerful psyker <s>alive</s> around, humbling even the [[Eldar]]. 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 "The Anathema", as in the polar opposite to [[Chaos]]. Their fear of him cannot be overstated: during a discussion between Ku'Gath and Mortarion, you'd think Ku'Gath was referencing Morgoth. The idea his gathering strength terrified Ku'Gath to the point he feels they're dead if he's active and won't even say his name; whatever Emps is, Chaos is THAT scared of him. 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 (though seeing as how he's been dead for quite a while and that hasn't happened, their fears are likely unfounded).

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.

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, Tommy Wiseau, Keanu Reeves, and Jesus.

Overall the Emperor has always had a strong desire to protect and shepherd humanity, even if his methods are a bit... [[Blam|unorthodox]]. His desire to guide and protect humanity, in addition to his power and foresight 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 at the time he got the whole thing backwards, since said religions were starving the Chaos gods), planned to reunite humanity under His rule no matter what anyone else wanted/thought of that (again by force of arms if needed), originally loved the Primarchs as his sons (and then retconned into caring little for the Primarchs being His actual sons. But tools to be disposed of like in a game of Chess.. In "The Outcast dead" he even sort of says outright that he sacrificed Ferrus Manus because he knew he could not win the war and that the most he could hope for was a stalemate, i.e. prevent Chaos from winning), 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".

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 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 since his goal was for humanity to be governed by humanity (as he clearly said to Lorgar in "The First Heretic". "This is not my Imperium, it is humanitys". Primarchs like say, Guilliman, though perfect as an administrator, were better suited and needed as generals for the Great Crusade. Stil the whole theory that the Emperor wanted to dispose of the Primarchs once they ceased being useful is utter horseshit, for why would he have created living rooms for all of his sons in the Emperor's palace. And why create 20, functionally immortal tools if he had no plans for them following the crusade. Either way, 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 (no matter how bad that idea played out in practice).

After Big E was nearly killed by his favourite son / tool, He was placed upon the Golden Throne and hasn't moved for the past 10 millennia, presumably because he later died. Most of the fluff maintains that His mere existence since then has been 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 sit there and remain dead. Oh no, it's exactly the opposite and death's not the handicap it used to be, because it gives Him a fuckton of work to do. 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?).

That being said, his love of humanity doesn't exactly extend to his sons. In older lore it did, however, in the retconned lore 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. There must have been a reason why he prevented Vulkan from going completely batshit insane when he was killed over and over by his brother Konrad Kurze after all... but to say it in Guillimans own words (from memory) "our father never loved us, but he certainly does love humanity". Also Guilliman reflects that Big E could not have afforded deep affection for any of his sons, so lets see how the final confrontation between Horus on roid rage and Big E will play out in the end - as in older fluff Big E held back because he couldn't bring it upon himself to snuff out his most favoured son (and it did not read like in "my most favoured screw driver" kind of way). But in the end, despite being the most powerful psyker to have ever lived he may still have been "human" after all, and every living being has emotions. So maybe his biggest "flaw" (if you want to call it such) may have been that he might not have been able to separate himself from his sons (err I mean toolbox) as he would have hoped for.

*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. This is confirmed in ''The Board Is Set'' short story by [[Gav Thorpe]], which 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 takes the role of "Warmaster" ''(symbolically representing [[Chaos]])'' whilst Big E played the position of the "Emperor". The two play out the entire events of the Horus Heresy and even hypothetical scenarios had they played each Primarch differently against the others, though they still get caught off guard from time to time as the rules change unexpectedly. Though Malcador only belated understands that considering this was a symbolic game of "what if?" rather than simply a means of devising strategy. So, while Emps and Mal were partly responsible for the current state of everything; if Malcador's "lie" was that it was all planned and that everything was under control, then the truth would be an acknowledgement that their opponents ''(the Chaos Gods)'' actually existed which was something they had been denying for centuries. Now they were backed into a corner and desperately scrambling to find a solution that didn't fuck everything.

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.

An interesting theory is that if Emps was born of a group of psykers combining their might and souls in one ritual act then maybe 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).

A question that remained unanswered for a long time is that, is the above thing the only thing he is capable of doing these days? Or can he communicate with others? In the past few supplicants were allowed an audience with the Emperor though the fluff's always been iffy on whether or not they talked, or if it was more a spiritual visit to a shrine. The recent advance in the timeline revealed that the newly revived Guilliman had an audience with him for a whole day in which they did talk (and he still seems to have some sort of connection to the Custodes), so 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 literally couldn't talk to anyone before that, considering that even Guilliman shuddered at the thought of the mental sand blasting that was speaking with the Emperor. It's possible the same communion might destroy a mortal, or kill the comatose Lion by accident. 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.

Speaking of talking to him, when Roboute was revived from stasis and finally got to Terra to talk to dad, Roboute noted the Emperor regarded him with the interest one would regard a tool. He also reflects on how he 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. However, following the Plague Wars Guilliman has considered the possibility that his ascension may have been a plan B for humanity following the failure of the Imperial Truth, and both [[Mortarion]] and [[Ku'Gath]] believe the Emperor is gathering energy to create what they call an "Unliving Legion".

{{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}}

In contrast to the above quote, the Emperor (and the Imperium as a byproduct) fucking hates aliens, though not without reason. 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, or <s>possessed a planet</s>, influenced human culture at all. Ever since His ascension, the Imperium mostly 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 was 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]].

===On His Pragmatism and Flaws===
The Emperor was a firm believer that the ends justified the means and was pragmatic in the extreme, 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]]? There are hints that he might have planned to fix that by arranging the Primarchs to come to blows with each other, [[Horus Heresy|but we all know exactly how well ''that'' turned out]]- which if anything makes him look even more foolish as a result.
*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 (granted what they did makes them partially responsible for the setting being so fucked) and were just as advanced as the Imperium (if not more so) meant nothing to him/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. Most likely the latter, the Khan recounts scrambling to even converse with the Emperor, Custodes have an internal study schools to try figure out out what ''exactly'' he meant in his orders and how it applies to the modern day. Yes, his Companions have what are basically rabbis Talmudically mulling over every syllable the Emperor ever uttered. 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 worshiping a belief only to have ol' Emps turn up and just say "No" without a word of explanation beyond "its bad".
*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:
**The humiliation of Lorgar was the ultimate catalyst for the Horus Heresy, and is probably the most colossal failure the Emperor has ever produced. This event is what showed the future "heretics" (and us) who the Emperor truly is behind his charisma and lofty dreams. Lorgar was so enthralled with his father that he not only worshipped him as a god but made it his life's goal to convince others to do so as well. He built gleaming monuments and cities in His name. He trained an entire legion to glorify their perfect and benevolent father. Suddenly, the Ultramarines descend and obliterate the greatest of Lorgar's cities and the Emperor himself forces Lorgar's entire legion to kneel before the invaders. The Emperor tells his most admiring son that he, alone of all his brothers, has failed. It would be as if God set Vatican City on fire, kicked the pope over, put out the fire by covering him in dog shit, and then told him to quit being such a fucking pussy. The main thing this incident says about Lorgar is that he's such a tough motherfucker that he didn't break down completely forever or kill himself upon the revelation that the most powerful and perfect being he can even imagine hates him, personally. The Emperor took the leader of the most powerful religious organization in the galaxy and kicked him straight into the claws of evil gods powered by belief. However, the biggest irony, considering that religion is the only power that can counterattack and fend off Chaos, is that the Ecclesiarchy used religion to battle Chaos for several millenia using very book that Lorgar wrote. The Emperor basically threw out the smartest and safest option to counter Chaos due to his stupidity and narrow-mindness. (Unless it really WAS a test as [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists#Known_Loyalist_Members_of_the_Traitor_Legions|the Anchorite]] believe).
**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. Instead he could have earned Angron's undying love, furious loyalty and the worst case, a martyr Primarch who'd die from the nails and gotten rid of: was one fucked up dusty planet's short term compliance worth the whole shit roller coaster, 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), and is traumatized to ETERNALLY HATE HIS LORD 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-possessed 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. Then again, Magnus wouldn't even comply to his demand to stop practising sorcery...
**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. Seriously, why can't the Big E act like a spiritual psychiatrist for ONE FUCKING MOMENT?
**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 Jaghatai), 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 the 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 <s>greater good</s> {{Blam|'''*BLAM!* HERESY!'''}}, common 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, so 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. If it is true that he had always intended the Primarchs' rivalries to grow to the point that they would begin fighting each other, all of the above is even more damning since it means he had made them flawed on purpose and yet failed to see how Chaos would gladly exploit said flaws at the first opportunity it got.

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 still well-meaning OCD workaholic with a "The needs of the many" outlook on life meaning he couldn't afford to show trust, love or compassion to anything but mankind as a whole, not even his "sons". Ultimately however even though his complete separation from the human condition helped him make the hard decisions, it was a decision he paid the ultimate price for and a large contributor to the Horus Heresy being as terrible as it was. If you have experience in pedagogy, he is your typical working dad who can't spare time to raise sons and makes *very* bad, fatigue influenced decisions, and after they grow up, wonders why they grow to hate him/be distant. Add the lack of a loving mother figure for the kids, and [[Horus Heresy|well...]]

====Planning for the Horus Heresy====

To throw a spanner into the works when considering whatever the Emperor's "goals" might have been: A very interesting claim was made by Malcador himself to his dying confidante Sibel Niasta that the Heresy was all [[Just as planned|part of the plan]], that the Primarchs were designed as "conquering tools and nothing more", set on course to fight for dominance and eventually turn on each other and challenge the Emperor directly. This is corroborated by what we already "knew" from ''Master of Mankind'' and the Emperor's own attitudes towards the Primarchs ''(which admittedly has constantly been shown to be shifting. As has been frequently pointed out the final confrontation between Horus and the Emperor - as we currently know it - would not make any sense if he merely considered them to be disposable tools anyway. Why "hold back" then to start out with?)''. The Primarchs were manipulated against each other with [[Rogal Dorn|unequal]] [[Perturabo|favour]], jealousies stoked in order to achieve this, and he also claims that those who [[Magnus|would not be manipulated]] [[Primarch#Two Missing Primarchs|never reach the end game.]] What is not certain is whether he was speaking the ''whole'' truth since he does later admit privately just after the conversation that he had to lie to mortals to spare their sorrow, so what parts he "lied" about are uncertain ''(he could've made the whole "just as planned" story up, it could've all been true and he was regretting manipulating the Primarchs and their legions, it could even refer to a single sentence where he implies that the Emperor will save her soul after death)''; he also admits that the outcome had been altered by the [[Chaos Gods|great enemy]] who had emboldened their champions and started the battle early so he did not know with absolute certainty how it was going to turn out.

However, as shown from ''"The Board is Set"'' or the novel "The Outcast dead" Malcador and the Emperor were certainly shown to have considerable amounts of foreknowledge regarding the Horus Heresy and certainly ''did'' play the Primarchs against each other in order to attempt to counter the manipulations of Chaos. However in the Board is Set, Malcador is shown that the Primarch's destinies were not necessarily fixed and could have been played in different ways; some [[Ferrus Manus|Primarchs]] were [[Sanguinius|sacrificed]] for greater goals like you would remove a figure from the board to give you a better edge. Whilst the Emperor had the knowledge that certain [[Roboute Guilliman|others]] were crucial to final victory. Malcador is also shown to not have been aware of the full plan or the flow of destinies; he is unaware of how certain seeming "winning" strategies are left unplayed because they have unexpected knock-on effects, or that certain moves played early or late could have had disastrous consequences.
*Such as why the [[Rogal Dorn|"Invincible Bastion"]] is not used to take the [[Horus|"Lord of Hearts"]] [[Battle of Phall|early on in the war]], since it would force both of the [[Alpharius|"Twin"]] pieces to switch sides to the Warmaster and be able move on the Emperor's home space and cause the game to be lost. This is also significant because it shows that whichever side the Primarch had joined could have been variable, and did not automatically mean that it was working towards the same goal as its leaders.
*Malcador was also surprised to find out that the game could be changed by factors they might be unaware of, such as the "Corruption" of the [[Mortarion|Lord of Clouds]] in the mid-game when they had expected him to resist like he had in their previous playthroughs. The Emperor appeared genuinely saddened by this change, hinting that he either still cared about them even when they had already turned against him, or that some Primarchs could have potentially been recovered and returned to the fold after the conflict had ended. Malcador was also shocked to think that the Emperor could be blind-sided by such an alteration; with Malcador only beginning to see the game for what it truly might have been, rather than simply a means of testing strategy.
*It is important to note that from the beginning of the game, the "Primarch" pieces were essentially blank slates, and only gained their unique shapes and identities as part of their first activations after the Scattering, possibly indicating that the Primarchs could have potentially switched roles with one another depending on the first few moves. ''(Perhaps Sanguinius could have become the Lord of Hearts? or Perturabo become the Invincible Bastion?)''
*Before the first move takes place, the pieces were arranged <u>ten per side</u>, which was more than available Primarchs at the time. The Emperor had his own golden piece but the "Lord of Hearts" began the game in blue and became switched in the first move ''(giving the Warmaster eleven pieces after the first move)'' while the "Twins" would not be divided until the second move, providing twenty-one pieces on the board. Ignoring the additional piece ''"the Fool"'' that Malcador had never seen before, means that there must have been one other significant player somewhere that we are not aware about. That and the division of units under the control of the "Emperor" and [[Chaos|"Warmaster"]] in the game would have been very different from the apparent division of Loyalist/Traitor Primarchs in the actual conflict, meaning that the roles they played and were expected to play '''did''' change drastically as the game progressed.

Taking several factors into account, it is absolutely certain that Malcador and the Emperor had enough foreknowledge to know that the Horus Heresy was going to happen from the point of the '''Scattering''' onward. To say that it was all part of his "Grand Plan" would be a stretch, that many of the Primarchs had municipal gifts ''(Perturabo's architectural mastery, Fulgrim's artistry etc)'', came with purposes suited to the Emperor's grand plan for a post-human society ''(Magnus' and the Webway, Mortarion as a witchseeker)'' and he definitely [[Vulkan|created one of them]] [[Perpetual|"different"]] from the rest with the explicit purpose of teaching the others how to settle down after a lifetime of war shows that the Emperor probably <u>did</u> have a plan for his Primarchs that didn't involve losing half of them and then chaining himself to the Golden Throne. Otherwise why make twenty Primarchs with gifts related to your post-battle plans in the first place if you knew you were going to lose half of them? People who claim that this outcome was all part of the Emperor's plan have either missed or forgotten the fact that his opponent in the "game" was Chaos, and not Malcador ''(Malcador and Emps switched places several times in their playthroughs which Malcador thought was just a means of testing strategy until it finally dawned on him that there was more to it)'' and that the Chaos Gods had their own plans for the Primarchs too and were fully capable of changing the rules whenever it suited them. Not to mention the [[Cabal]]s of alien psykers manipulating humanity for their own outcome, [[Perpetual|Immortal humans]] that interfere with predictions of the future, and [[Watchers in the Dark|extradimensional beings]] trying to stop the primordial annihilator from manifesting all by making their own moves and causing more complications.

If anything; ''The Board is Set'' goes a long way in explaining why the Emperor <u>couldn't</u> do any more with his advanced notice of impending conflict as any wrong move he made could have immediately spelled disaster for humanity. Plus the Emperor's foresight was not perfect and it did not necessarily marry up with his practical knowledge; even though the game he played with Malcador showed the "[[Lion El'Jonson|Double Edged Sword]], [[Roboute Guilliman|The Uncrowned Monarch]] and [[Sanguinius|The Angel]] spending most of the game off to the side, the Emperor had no idea [[Imperium Secundus|what they were <u>actually</u> doing]] until Malcador relayed the message from [[Leman Russ]]. His psychic foresight seems to have been shrouded in allegory and symbolism, rather than concrete certainty.

Also note that "destiny" is different from what the Primarchs were "designed" for ''(case in point: Magnus being designed to operate the Golden Throne, but also being destined to damage it)''. While Emperor had designed all of his Primarchs for specific tasks, he would not have been able to identify the destined role that each Primarch was meant to play until events had already been set into motion and pulled them onto certain paths. He might been able to guess that Magnus was "the Library" or that Dorn was the "Invincible Bastion" but could not have been certain until the first moves of the game had been made. So until then he could only treat the Primarchs according to their gifts; hailing them as heroes, building them statues and trying to steer them away from obvious sources of corruption such as [[Magnus|sorcery]] or [[Lorgar|religion]]. Even if the Emperor ''had'' suspected which ones would turn against him and tried to eliminate them before they became problems, their destinies could have unfolded in a completely different way, potentially causing a similar conflict to happen albeit with a different combination of playing pieces on the board, or alternatively sacrificing any control he might have actually had over the Primarchs and still have ended up with a disaster on his hands. Also bearing in mind that he still needed to complete the Great Crusade and his Webway project; to put those plans on hold until the issue with Primarchs had sorted themselves out would probably have done him no good either because like the Emperor himself, [[Chaos]] is capable of playing the long game.

[[Lorgar]] is an interesting issue: Malcador once claimed that if he could have saved just one of the traitor Primarchs, it should have been Lorgar. However, from the Board is Set, the Emperor points out that game doesn't start with any piece other than the "Chosen", strongly hinted to represent Lorgar with his initial swaying of Horus and thus beginning the Heresy. This implies that no matter what moves are planned for, or what Primarchs ended up on either side; Chaos will '''always''' have a "Chosen" piece to start the game with. If Horus had been protected, Lorgar might have simply started the conflict with someone else, making Chosen/Lorgar perhaps the more crucial piece. Though keep in mind that Malcador speaks with the benefit of hindsight, and as mentioned previously, the Emperor was not omniscient, it is possible that neither of them were to fully realise that Lorgar was the Chosen until the first move of the game had already been made. What is most tragic is that Lorgar ''really'' wanted the love and approval of his father and was probably the most fanatically loyal to him in the early days, so turning him into Chaos most pivotal piece is a cruel irony. If it were possible to have actually saved Lorgar before the conflict started, it would have probably unbalanced the game as Chaos would have been forced to find a different Primarch to fill the role of "Chosen", potentially upending the game altogether.

Until the end of the Heresy, Malcador was not actually aware of how the final conflict actually played out; having seen himself only as an advisor, he was ignorant of his own role. The Emperor showed him in the final days that his piece, "The Fool", would switch places with the Emperor to snatch victory and allow the [[Roboute Guilliman|"Uncrowned Monarch"]] to play his "Salvation" strategy and win the game against chaos by tearing the throat out of the serpent. Malcador's "lie" to his servant was most likely to provide the illusion of control; when in fact the Emperor and Malcador were desperately seeking to find an alternate solution that would not doom everyone. But pretty much like the Emperor stated in "The Outcast dead": "Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep [[Chaos|your opponent]] from winning.".

===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 repeatedly 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 least) 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)''. Perhaps he even saw that there would always be half the Primarchs turning to Chaos and all the Emperor could do was choose which ones and try to plan for them. Maybe the two missing Primarchs were dealt with just to try and reduce the number of Primarchs and Legions involved without crippling the Great Crusade. 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 realized what he taught them when he preached the Imperial Truth was complete bullshit. 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). Unfortunately this still made them targets and the Imperium was used by Chaos as a cats-paw to wipe them out.

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?

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. 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 shut down and died. 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 their 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|Traitors 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, 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]].

==On the Death of the Emperor==
[[File:Emperor of mankind flaming sword armor.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Son, I am disappoint.]]
With the Golden Throne being consistently worn out, and the Tech-priests too power-armor-on-head rebooted to do anything about it (at least until they finish studying Malcador's staff, provided GW doesn't forget that plot point), it is certainly possible that the Golden Throne may stop working entirely, though what this might do is up for debate, since the Emperor has been dead for a very long time now.

Yes, yes, you read that right, the Emperor is dead. Now quit your shrieking and take a fecking chill pill, there's more to it than that. Being the single most powerful psyker in the history of the human race, the death of his physical body isn't the same "GAME OVER, MAN!" it would be for the rest of us mortals. The Emperor's mummified corpse is still inhabited by his spirit much the same way as [[Lord Kroak]], except he's powering the Astronomican (and possibly keeping the warp from swallowing Terra) instead of being hauled around on a golden anti-gravity palanquin to smite the enemies of the Imperium with golden fire.

Back to the matter at hand, with how arcane and ill-understood the Golden Throne's workings are all we have to go on are theories. It might be somehow enhancing his psychic abilities through its connection to his corpse and this would be lost when it gives out, or (rather more likely seeing as how parts keep failing and yet nothing changes) it might be something the AdMech keeps running since they think it's doing something that it isn't. No one knows, and no one really wants to find out.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">In any case, a lot of fa/tg/uys don't seem to know that the Emperor's dead, and so a lot of theories arise as to what might happen if something that already happened ends up happening. Click expand to view these theories and keep in mind, these are all kept with their fa/tg/uys speculation intact.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
===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. 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 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. Various Horus Heresy novels present the Emperor as 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.

This is supported by Path Of Heaven, when Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars use the Dark Glass device to boogie woogie back to Terra. Much like Malcador, the one who uses the Dark Glass device is reduced to ashes just using it for a couple of moments, and the Dark Glass also has a Throne unit to control it, though it is described as the Golden Throne’s lesser cousin. The Golden Throne is described by the Chief Librarian using Dark Glass as “far greater, immensely more powerful, ''older, fouler, set deeper in the fabric of both reality and unreality.''”So just what ''is'' the Golden Throne? From way above, we know it’s a pain engine powerful enough to make a Haemonculus blush, those using it need to be powerful Psykers to actually control it, it consumes the souls of those who use it, unless that person also has innate regenerative capabilities (which, oh, let’s see, leaves us with basically Emps or Magnus), and it exists both in reality and in the Warp. The Emperor himself in Master of Mankind is evasive on where he found the “core” of the Throne. Now imagine you’re Rogal Dorn on the Vengeful Spirit and you’ve just found the bodies of Sanguinius and Horus and a dying Emprah. You race back to the Palace because surely Malcador, the only person to even come close to knowing the Emperor should be able to help, only to find him strapped to a machine that is literally turning him to dust. You have no idea what the hell this thing is (because you’re a good kid and keep out of dad’s basement) but your Father tells you to strap him into the thing. You do it, even though Pops is weak and it just Gammorah’d the last guy to sit in it. Not a great situation but you do what dad says. Now he’s stuck there, unable to regenerate but also unable to get up lest demons invade/that sun dad left in the Webway blows up. Fast forward 10,000+ years, you’re dead, and everyone is too stupid to realize it’s a fucking PAIN ENGINE and not a life support system. The Emperor was literally slapped into the equivalent of an infinite soul shriver while at his absolute weakest. If he could just stop sealing the Webway gate while someone else (Magnus) took a pew, he could possibly stretch his legs out and be right as rain. So maybe, just maybe, the Golden Throne breaking down isn’t a bad thing? (fuck, Age of the Emprah here we come)

Or someone could slap a good-ol' Gellar Field over the Webway portal, completely solving the problem. Doh! I forgot! That wouldn't be Grimdark! Shit.

===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. Kinda like Schrödinger's Cat. Schrödinger's Space Dorf.
</div>
</div>

===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. When Guilliman shows up, the Emperor is amazed that humanity has still managed to survive and the Imperium is still alive.

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 not outside the realm of possibility that some remnant of the Dark Age of Technology has continued unchanged from its original height, though it's very unlikely. For this to be the case it would somehow have to avoid nearly all xenos, chaos influence/worshipers, have its own way of dealing with latent psykers so that they don't be used be Daemons [[Enslavers|or worse]] and never have met any of the other traders, explorators and travelers in general that make up how the current Imperium discovers new planets.
* 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. But, he did nothing to build on that, the dumbass. 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 completely justified 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. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures and who knows what the future could bring? Well, at least the Eldar to have more or less accepted their empire will never return and that sticking with the Imperium is their best bet for survival and power in the universe from now on. Which broke the balance and caused plot progression.
*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.
* If the Emperor wasn't a god to begin with, millennia of worship and countless psyker souls empowering him means that he's almost certainly a god now- and he knows it. Even when wielded by a "mere" Primarch his sword alone is capable of permanently destroying Greater Daemons (keep in mind that during Great Crusade and before he seems not to be able to do that), and given enough time his power might eclipse that of Chaos itself. (Though one could argue that Chaos powers up much faster than the Emperor due to having more sources to feed one and possibly having more worshippers)
* 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.

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. At the very least, humanity accomplished more and survived longer than anyone expected, even the Emperor.

Indeed, this is [[Warhammer 40,000]], a cautionary tale about the End of Empires, but so was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and, although we may not 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.

'''Thought for the day:''' "The man who has nothing can still have faith."

== Gallery ==
{{SectionalPromotions}}
<center><gallery>
File:Emperor-Church windows.jpg|Put this everywhere to praise him, on your windows, the neighbours, just all your hive city.
Image:Horus and the Emperor.jpg|<s>Son, I am disappoint.</s> Empy's disappointment occurred well before this moment.
Image:E-Money_LowRes.gif|Now in animated ultra HD for your heresy needs.
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: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 some little bitch!
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:Emps&SigmarGenderBendBy Flick The Thief.jpg| The same situation, but improved! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Silence Heretic!'''}}
Image:Emprasque3.jpg|How do you kill what can not die?
Image:Slavegirl Emperor.jpg|Emperor [[Rule 63]]! NO EXCEPTIONS! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}} [[Extra Heresy]]!
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 [[lovedagger|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, and his theme tone!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZoyNzuWbQ&t=10s
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.
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 (Warhammer 40,000|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 start the Great Crusade 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!"
File:Strolling Emperor.jpeg|Having him look at you like this is a reliable indicator of how soon people are going to start referring to you in past-tense.
</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]], his [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] counterpart (especially in the latter).
* [[Emperor's To-Do List]]
[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25959559/ This thread] which makes the Emperor even cooler.
* [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]
* [[Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]]
{{Imperium}}

[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]][[Category:Awesome]]

The God-Emperor of Mankind

2020-08-29T21:42:52Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:3565:AF32:66B6:CB2C: /* Early life */

{{awesome}}
<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. <s>At least until the whole 'Horus' thing, anyway.</s> {{BLAM}}]]
{{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|Well, ze Emperor's just zis guy, you know?|Gag Halfrunt}}

'''{{Blam|ALL HAIL THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANKIND!!!}}'''

The '''God-Emperor of Mankind''', also known as '''The Emprah''', '''Emps''', '''Big Daddy Emps''', '''The Motherfucking Emperor''', '''Big E''', '''Mr. Xeno Destroyer''', '''Chaos Fister''', '''E-Money''', '''Augustus Imperator''', '''Deus-Imperator''', '''Him Upon the Throne, '''Primogenitor''', '''[[Salamanders|The Outlander]]''', '''[[Imperial Fists|Him on Earth]]''', '''[[Space Wolves|All-Father]]''', '''[[Space Sharks|Rangu]]''', '''Master of Mankind''', '''The Immortal Emperor''', '''The Golden King''', '''[[Adeptus Mechanicus|The Omnissiah]]''', '''The Cartomancer''', '''The Empinator''', '''The Fresh Emperor of Sacred Terra''','''That guy with the bigger gun than you''', '''Space Jesus''', '''[[/tg/|/tg/]]''', [[TTS|'''The Man-Emperor of Mankind''']], '''Glorious Overlord''', '''Lord of Bling''', [[TTS|'''My Manly Man-peror''']], '''Lord Sovereign of the Imperium''', [[TTS|'''Starman''']], ''' The King of Terra''' 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''', '''Space Hitler''',
'''[[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|That Loony Shaman-Chassis]]''', '''[[Tyranid|giant crunchy psychic sandwich]]''', '''[https://youtu.be/zlRbWLgLHg8?t=1338 Jimmy Space, creator of the Space Marines]''' or '''The Corpse on the Throne''' is the almost-but-not-entirely-figurehead ruler of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Warhammer 40k]] universe. He has been enthroned on (or rather in) a life-sustaining device known as the Golden Throne for the last ten millenia and is nigh-on unable to communicate or influence things directly, so day-to-day ruling is done without (and too often in spite of) Him. But on the other hand He 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]] (and on the [[Navigator|Paternova]]).

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 [[Commissar|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, thanks to a lot of retcons 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],[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ97TiFGGg 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 a powerful [[psyker]] and <strike>(heavily implied to be)</strike> (Confirmed by GW) a [[Perpetual]]; an immortal 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, possibly in [[wikipedia:Göbekli Tepe|Göbekli Tepe]]. 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, or as it's known on the street, a "fucking heart attack". 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. Considering that the Imperium's two-headed symbol was used by Hittites, Games Workshop, for all its flaws and pricing policies, can be given credit for doing his history homework. After that, he headed to the first cities of mankind in Sumeria to guide the start of human civilization.

[[File:Neoth-gigamesh-erda-siduri.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Neoth and [[Erda]] back in the ancient days of Chaldea, it all makes so much sense now.]]
According to Saturnine, one of the Emperor's earliest names was Neoth, in the time shortly after leaving His home and tribe. In the "time of the First Cities" Neoth had become a warlord and king. There He met [[Erda]], a perpetual like Himself, who become one of His closest companions throughout history, by His side up until she caused the Scattering of the Primarchs. Neoth and Erda, father and mother of Primarchs.

''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. On the other hand, they also wouldn't have had the memories and soul-stuff of all those shamans telling them what to do. (This theory would go a long way to explaining the seemingly contradictory behaviors of the Emperor - all those shamans have disagreements and Big E has to listen to it all.) That, and how Erda commented that while each Perpetual was immortal and had special abilities, everyone considered the Emperor's powers to be on a completely different scale. The Chaos Gods apparently view the Emperor as an equal/rival due to his acquisition of powers at a later point ''(see below)'' and name him Anathema. Yet other fluff tidbits (including a C'Tan who dismissively described him as a "weapon" rather than a God) 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 Written 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 of his supernatural God-like status and abilities and 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, 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===
{{Topquote|‘You…’ repeated Uriah, the pain in his bones no match for the pain in his heart. ‘You are the… the… Emperor…’ ‘I am, and it is time to go, Uriah,’ said the Emperor. Uriah looked around at his now gleaming and brightly lit church. ‘Go? Go where? [[Imperial Truth|There is nowhere else for me in this godless world of yours.’]]|[[The Last Church]]}}
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 the classic "join-me-or-die" strategy, 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 useful lie, 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 without molding the society towards abandoning religion willingly. He constructed this lie because he believed that belief in such things was feeding the Chaos Gods, [[Fail|but it turns out he had it backwards, and that such belief, being dedicated specifically to osmething other than said gods, was in fact starving them]].

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, <strike>[[Viking|right when Scandinavia was getting fun again]]</strike> [[The_End_Times|well well well, considering what they did]] [[Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle|to the other setting no one here is gonna miss them any time soon]]. 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===
Now that he was in control the Emperor had a relatively short to-do list, he wanted to: 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, and 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, and eliminate anyone who threatened his vision of humanity in any way.

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 supposedly ''acquired'' from the Chaos Gods (or so the treacherous space cancers claim) 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 (angelic?) soul, bound to a super awesomely tough material body.

Each of these 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.

It was a good plan for building an intergalactic empire, 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 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.

Unfortunately things went off to a rocky start before he even began: since the Primarch's power was ''apparently'' stolen, The Big Four would inevitably and continually be pissed at Him for using their power for His own ends, so they 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.]]

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 rebelled 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. Something seems to have gone wrong though, as the Golden Throne didn't manage to do its job and the Emperor managed to die sometime between the Horus Heresy and M41, although whatever's left of him still sticks around his corpse.

==="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".

In the last year of M41, tech-priests discovered that the Golden Throne is failing and if nothing was done... presumably the Emperor would be deader? In any case nobody wants to find out, 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.

==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. <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.

It is common knowledge, that the Emperor is the most powerful psyker <s>alive</s> around, humbling even the [[Eldar]]. 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 "The Anathema", as in the polar opposite to [[Chaos]]. Their fear of him cannot be overstated: during a discussion between Ku'Gath and Mortarion, you'd think Ku'Gath was referencing Morgoth. The idea his gathering strength terrified Ku'Gath to the point he feels they're dead if he's active and won't even say his name; whatever Emps is, Chaos is THAT scared of him. 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 (though seeing as how he's been dead for quite a while and that hasn't happened, their fears are likely unfounded).

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.

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, Tommy Wiseau, Keanu Reeves, and Jesus.

Overall the Emperor has always had a strong desire to protect and shepherd humanity, even if his methods are a bit... [[Blam|unorthodox]]. His desire to guide and protect humanity, in addition to his power and foresight 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 at the time he got the whole thing backwards, since said religions were starving the Chaos gods), planned to reunite humanity under His rule no matter what anyone else wanted/thought of that (again by force of arms if needed), originally loved the Primarchs as his sons (and then retconned into caring little for the Primarchs being His actual sons. But tools to be disposed of like in a game of Chess.. In "The Outcast dead" he even sort of says outright that he sacrificed Ferrus Manus because he knew he could not win the war and that the most he could hope for was a stalemate, i.e. prevent Chaos from winning), 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".

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 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 since his goal was for humanity to be governed by humanity (as he clearly said to Lorgar in "The First Heretic". "This is not my Imperium, it is humanitys". Primarchs like say, Guilliman, though perfect as an administrator, were better suited and needed as generals for the Great Crusade. Stil the whole theory that the Emperor wanted to dispose of the Primarchs once they ceased being useful is utter horseshit, for why would he have created living rooms for all of his sons in the Emperor's palace. And why create 20, functionally immortal tools if he had no plans for them following the crusade. Either way, 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 (no matter how bad that idea played out in practice).

After Big E was nearly killed by his favourite son / tool, He was placed upon the Golden Throne and hasn't moved for the past 10 millennia, presumably because he later died. Most of the fluff maintains that His mere existence since then has been 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 sit there and remain dead. Oh no, it's exactly the opposite and death's not the handicap it used to be, because it gives Him a fuckton of work to do. 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?).

That being said, his love of humanity doesn't exactly extend to his sons. In older lore it did, however, in the retconned lore 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. There must have been a reason why he prevented Vulkan from going completely batshit insane when he was killed over and over by his brother Konrad Kurze after all... but to say it in Guillimans own words (from memory) "our father never loved us, but he certainly does love humanity". Also Guilliman reflects that Big E could not have afforded deep affection for any of his sons, so lets see how the final confrontation between Horus on roid rage and Big E will play out in the end - as in older fluff Big E held back because he couldn't bring it upon himself to snuff out his most favoured son (and it did not read like in "my most favoured screw driver" kind of way). But in the end, despite being the most powerful psyker to have ever lived he may still have been "human" after all, and every living being has emotions. So maybe his biggest "flaw" (if you want to call it such) may have been that he might not have been able to separate himself from his sons (err I mean toolbox) as he would have hoped for.

*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. This is confirmed in ''The Board Is Set'' short story by [[Gav Thorpe]], which 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 takes the role of "Warmaster" ''(symbolically representing [[Chaos]])'' whilst Big E played the position of the "Emperor". The two play out the entire events of the Horus Heresy and even hypothetical scenarios had they played each Primarch differently against the others, though they still get caught off guard from time to time as the rules change unexpectedly. Though Malcador only belated understands that considering this was a symbolic game of "what if?" rather than simply a means of devising strategy. So, while Emps and Mal were partly responsible for the current state of everything; if Malcador's "lie" was that it was all planned and that everything was under control, then the truth would be an acknowledgement that their opponents ''(the Chaos Gods)'' actually existed which was something they had been denying for centuries. Now they were backed into a corner and desperately scrambling to find a solution that didn't fuck everything.

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.

An interesting theory is that if Emps was born of a group of psykers combining their might and souls in one ritual act then maybe 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).

A question that remained unanswered for a long time is that, is the above thing the only thing he is capable of doing these days? Or can he communicate with others? In the past few supplicants were allowed an audience with the Emperor though the fluff's always been iffy on whether or not they talked, or if it was more a spiritual visit to a shrine. The recent advance in the timeline revealed that the newly revived Guilliman had an audience with him for a whole day in which they did talk (and he still seems to have some sort of connection to the Custodes), so 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 literally couldn't talk to anyone before that, considering that even Guilliman shuddered at the thought of the mental sand blasting that was speaking with the Emperor. It's possible the same communion might destroy a mortal, or kill the comatose Lion by accident. 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.

Speaking of talking to him, when Roboute was revived from stasis and finally got to Terra to talk to dad, Roboute noted the Emperor regarded him with the interest one would regard a tool. He also reflects on how he 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. However, following the Plague Wars Guilliman has considered the possibility that his ascension may have been a plan B for humanity following the failure of the Imperial Truth, and both [[Mortarion]] and [[Ku'Gath]] believe the Emperor is gathering energy to create what they call an "Unliving Legion".

{{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}}

In contrast to the above quote, the Emperor (and the Imperium as a byproduct) fucking hates aliens, though not without reason. 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, or <s>possessed a planet</s>, influenced human culture at all. Ever since His ascension, the Imperium mostly 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 was 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]].

===On His Pragmatism and Flaws===
The Emperor was a firm believer that the ends justified the means and was pragmatic in the extreme, 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]]? There are hints that he might have planned to fix that by arranging the Primarchs to come to blows with each other, [[Horus Heresy|but we all know exactly how well ''that'' turned out]]- which if anything makes him look even more foolish as a result.
*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 (granted what they did makes them partially responsible for the setting being so fucked) and were just as advanced as the Imperium (if not more so) meant nothing to him/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. Most likely the latter, the Khan recounts scrambling to even converse with the Emperor, Custodes have an internal study schools to try figure out out what ''exactly'' he meant in his orders and how it applies to the modern day. Yes, his Companions have what are basically rabbis Talmudically mulling over every syllable the Emperor ever uttered. 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 worshiping a belief only to have ol' Emps turn up and just say "No" without a word of explanation beyond "its bad".
*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:
**The humiliation of Lorgar was the ultimate catalyst for the Horus Heresy, and is probably the most colossal failure the Emperor has ever produced. This event is what showed the future "heretics" (and us) who the Emperor truly is behind his charisma and lofty dreams. Lorgar was so enthralled with his father that he not only worshipped him as a god but made it his life's goal to convince others to do so as well. He built gleaming monuments and cities in His name. He trained an entire legion to glorify their perfect and benevolent father. Suddenly, the Ultramarines descend and obliterate the greatest of Lorgar's cities and the Emperor himself forces Lorgar's entire legion to kneel before the invaders. The Emperor tells his most admiring son that he, alone of all his brothers, has failed. It would be as if God set Vatican City on fire, kicked the pope over, put out the fire by covering him in dog shit, and then told him to quit being such a fucking pussy. The main thing this incident says about Lorgar is that he's such a tough motherfucker that he didn't break down completely forever or kill himself upon the revelation that the most powerful and perfect being he can even imagine hates him, personally. The Emperor took the leader of the most powerful religious organization in the galaxy and kicked him straight into the claws of evil gods powered by belief. However, the biggest irony, considering that religion is the only power that can counterattack and fend off Chaos, is that the Ecclesiarchy used religion to battle Chaos for several millenia using very book that Lorgar wrote. The Emperor basically threw out the smartest and safest option to counter Chaos due to his stupidity and narrow-mindness. (Unless it really WAS a test as [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists#Known_Loyalist_Members_of_the_Traitor_Legions|the Anchorite]] believe).
**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. Instead he could have earned Angron's undying love, furious loyalty and the worst case, a martyr Primarch who'd die from the nails and gotten rid of: was one fucked up dusty planet's short term compliance worth the whole shit roller coaster, 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), and is traumatized to ETERNALLY HATE HIS LORD 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-possessed 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. Then again, Magnus wouldn't even comply to his demand to stop practising sorcery...
**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. Seriously, why can't the Big E act like a spiritual psychiatrist for ONE FUCKING MOMENT?
**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 Jaghatai), 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 the 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 <s>greater good</s> {{Blam|'''*BLAM!* HERESY!'''}}, common 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, so 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. If it is true that he had always intended the Primarchs' rivalries to grow to the point that they would begin fighting each other, all of the above is even more damning since it means he had made them flawed on purpose and yet failed to see how Chaos would gladly exploit said flaws at the first opportunity it got.

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 still well-meaning OCD workaholic with a "The needs of the many" outlook on life meaning he couldn't afford to show trust, love or compassion to anything but mankind as a whole, not even his "sons". Ultimately however even though his complete separation from the human condition helped him make the hard decisions, it was a decision he paid the ultimate price for and a large contributor to the Horus Heresy being as terrible as it was. If you have experience in pedagogy, he is your typical working dad who can't spare time to raise sons and makes *very* bad, fatigue influenced decisions, and after they grow up, wonders why they grow to hate him/be distant. Add the lack of a loving mother figure for the kids, and [[Horus Heresy|well...]]

====Planning for the Horus Heresy====

To throw a spanner into the works when considering whatever the Emperor's "goals" might have been: A very interesting claim was made by Malcador himself to his dying confidante Sibel Niasta that the Heresy was all [[Just as planned|part of the plan]], that the Primarchs were designed as "conquering tools and nothing more", set on course to fight for dominance and eventually turn on each other and challenge the Emperor directly. This is corroborated by what we already "knew" from ''Master of Mankind'' and the Emperor's own attitudes towards the Primarchs ''(which admittedly has constantly been shown to be shifting. As has been frequently pointed out the final confrontation between Horus and the Emperor - as we currently know it - would not make any sense if he merely considered them to be disposable tools anyway. Why "hold back" then to start out with?)''. The Primarchs were manipulated against each other with [[Rogal Dorn|unequal]] [[Perturabo|favour]], jealousies stoked in order to achieve this, and he also claims that those who [[Magnus|would not be manipulated]] [[Primarch#Two Missing Primarchs|never reach the end game.]] What is not certain is whether he was speaking the ''whole'' truth since he does later admit privately just after the conversation that he had to lie to mortals to spare their sorrow, so what parts he "lied" about are uncertain ''(he could've made the whole "just as planned" story up, it could've all been true and he was regretting manipulating the Primarchs and their legions, it could even refer to a single sentence where he implies that the Emperor will save her soul after death)''; he also admits that the outcome had been altered by the [[Chaos Gods|great enemy]] who had emboldened their champions and started the battle early so he did not know with absolute certainty how it was going to turn out.

However, as shown from ''"The Board is Set"'' or the novel "The Outcast dead" Malcador and the Emperor were certainly shown to have considerable amounts of foreknowledge regarding the Horus Heresy and certainly ''did'' play the Primarchs against each other in order to attempt to counter the manipulations of Chaos. However in the Board is Set, Malcador is shown that the Primarch's destinies were not necessarily fixed and could have been played in different ways; some [[Ferrus Manus|Primarchs]] were [[Sanguinius|sacrificed]] for greater goals like you would remove a figure from the board to give you a better edge. Whilst the Emperor had the knowledge that certain [[Roboute Guilliman|others]] were crucial to final victory. Malcador is also shown to not have been aware of the full plan or the flow of destinies; he is unaware of how certain seeming "winning" strategies are left unplayed because they have unexpected knock-on effects, or that certain moves played early or late could have had disastrous consequences.
*Such as why the [[Rogal Dorn|"Invincible Bastion"]] is not used to take the [[Horus|"Lord of Hearts"]] [[Battle of Phall|early on in the war]], since it would force both of the [[Alpharius|"Twin"]] pieces to switch sides to the Warmaster and be able move on the Emperor's home space and cause the game to be lost. This is also significant because it shows that whichever side the Primarch had joined could have been variable, and did not automatically mean that it was working towards the same goal as its leaders.
*Malcador was also surprised to find out that the game could be changed by factors they might be unaware of, such as the "Corruption" of the [[Mortarion|Lord of Clouds]] in the mid-game when they had expected him to resist like he had in their previous playthroughs. The Emperor appeared genuinely saddened by this change, hinting that he either still cared about them even when they had already turned against him, or that some Primarchs could have potentially been recovered and returned to the fold after the conflict had ended. Malcador was also shocked to think that the Emperor could be blind-sided by such an alteration; with Malcador only beginning to see the game for what it truly might have been, rather than simply a means of testing strategy.
*It is important to note that from the beginning of the game, the "Primarch" pieces were essentially blank slates, and only gained their unique shapes and identities as part of their first activations after the Scattering, possibly indicating that the Primarchs could have potentially switched roles with one another depending on the first few moves. ''(Perhaps Sanguinius could have become the Lord of Hearts? or Perturabo become the Invincible Bastion?)''
*Before the first move takes place, the pieces were arranged <u>ten per side</u>, which was more than available Primarchs at the time. The Emperor had his own golden piece but the "Lord of Hearts" began the game in blue and became switched in the first move ''(giving the Warmaster eleven pieces after the first move)'' while the "Twins" would not be divided until the second move, providing twenty-one pieces on the board. Ignoring the additional piece ''"the Fool"'' that Malcador had never seen before, means that there must have been one other significant player somewhere that we are not aware about. That and the division of units under the control of the "Emperor" and [[Chaos|"Warmaster"]] in the game would have been very different from the apparent division of Loyalist/Traitor Primarchs in the actual conflict, meaning that the roles they played and were expected to play '''did''' change drastically as the game progressed.

Taking several factors into account, it is absolutely certain that Malcador and the Emperor had enough foreknowledge to know that the Horus Heresy was going to happen from the point of the '''Scattering''' onward. To say that it was all part of his "Grand Plan" would be a stretch, that many of the Primarchs had municipal gifts ''(Perturabo's architectural mastery, Fulgrim's artistry etc)'', came with purposes suited to the Emperor's grand plan for a post-human society ''(Magnus' and the Webway, Mortarion as a witchseeker)'' and he definitely [[Vulkan|created one of them]] [[Perpetual|"different"]] from the rest with the explicit purpose of teaching the others how to settle down after a lifetime of war shows that the Emperor probably <u>did</u> have a plan for his Primarchs that didn't involve losing half of them and then chaining himself to the Golden Throne. Otherwise why make twenty Primarchs with gifts related to your post-battle plans in the first place if you knew you were going to lose half of them? People who claim that this outcome was all part of the Emperor's plan have either missed or forgotten the fact that his opponent in the "game" was Chaos, and not Malcador ''(Malcador and Emps switched places several times in their playthroughs which Malcador thought was just a means of testing strategy until it finally dawned on him that there was more to it)'' and that the Chaos Gods had their own plans for the Primarchs too and were fully capable of changing the rules whenever it suited them. Not to mention the [[Cabal]]s of alien psykers manipulating humanity for their own outcome, [[Perpetual|Immortal humans]] that interfere with predictions of the future, and [[Watchers in the Dark|extradimensional beings]] trying to stop the primordial annihilator from manifesting all by making their own moves and causing more complications.

If anything; ''The Board is Set'' goes a long way in explaining why the Emperor <u>couldn't</u> do any more with his advanced notice of impending conflict as any wrong move he made could have immediately spelled disaster for humanity. Plus the Emperor's foresight was not perfect and it did not necessarily marry up with his practical knowledge; even though the game he played with Malcador showed the "[[Lion El'Jonson|Double Edged Sword]], [[Roboute Guilliman|The Uncrowned Monarch]] and [[Sanguinius|The Angel]] spending most of the game off to the side, the Emperor had no idea [[Imperium Secundus|what they were <u>actually</u> doing]] until Malcador relayed the message from [[Leman Russ]]. His psychic foresight seems to have been shrouded in allegory and symbolism, rather than concrete certainty.

Also note that "destiny" is different from what the Primarchs were "designed" for ''(case in point: Magnus being designed to operate the Golden Throne, but also being destined to damage it)''. While Emperor had designed all of his Primarchs for specific tasks, he would not have been able to identify the destined role that each Primarch was meant to play until events had already been set into motion and pulled them onto certain paths. He might been able to guess that Magnus was "the Library" or that Dorn was the "Invincible Bastion" but could not have been certain until the first moves of the game had been made. So until then he could only treat the Primarchs according to their gifts; hailing them as heroes, building them statues and trying to steer them away from obvious sources of corruption such as [[Magnus|sorcery]] or [[Lorgar|religion]]. Even if the Emperor ''had'' suspected which ones would turn against him and tried to eliminate them before they became problems, their destinies could have unfolded in a completely different way, potentially causing a similar conflict to happen albeit with a different combination of playing pieces on the board, or alternatively sacrificing any control he might have actually had over the Primarchs and still have ended up with a disaster on his hands. Also bearing in mind that he still needed to complete the Great Crusade and his Webway project; to put those plans on hold until the issue with Primarchs had sorted themselves out would probably have done him no good either because like the Emperor himself, [[Chaos]] is capable of playing the long game.

[[Lorgar]] is an interesting issue: Malcador once claimed that if he could have saved just one of the traitor Primarchs, it should have been Lorgar. However, from the Board is Set, the Emperor points out that game doesn't start with any piece other than the "Chosen", strongly hinted to represent Lorgar with his initial swaying of Horus and thus beginning the Heresy. This implies that no matter what moves are planned for, or what Primarchs ended up on either side; Chaos will '''always''' have a "Chosen" piece to start the game with. If Horus had been protected, Lorgar might have simply started the conflict with someone else, making Chosen/Lorgar perhaps the more crucial piece. Though keep in mind that Malcador speaks with the benefit of hindsight, and as mentioned previously, the Emperor was not omniscient, it is possible that neither of them were to fully realise that Lorgar was the Chosen until the first move of the game had already been made. What is most tragic is that Lorgar ''really'' wanted the love and approval of his father and was probably the most fanatically loyal to him in the early days, so turning him into Chaos most pivotal piece is a cruel irony. If it were possible to have actually saved Lorgar before the conflict started, it would have probably unbalanced the game as Chaos would have been forced to find a different Primarch to fill the role of "Chosen", potentially upending the game altogether.

Until the end of the Heresy, Malcador was not actually aware of how the final conflict actually played out; having seen himself only as an advisor, he was ignorant of his own role. The Emperor showed him in the final days that his piece, "The Fool", would switch places with the Emperor to snatch victory and allow the [[Roboute Guilliman|"Uncrowned Monarch"]] to play his "Salvation" strategy and win the game against chaos by tearing the throat out of the serpent. Malcador's "lie" to his servant was most likely to provide the illusion of control; when in fact the Emperor and Malcador were desperately seeking to find an alternate solution that would not doom everyone. But pretty much like the Emperor stated in "The Outcast dead": "Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep [[Chaos|your opponent]] from winning.".

===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 repeatedly 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 least) 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)''. Perhaps he even saw that there would always be half the Primarchs turning to Chaos and all the Emperor could do was choose which ones and try to plan for them. Maybe the two missing Primarchs were dealt with just to try and reduce the number of Primarchs and Legions involved without crippling the Great Crusade. 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 realized what he taught them when he preached the Imperial Truth was complete bullshit. 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). Unfortunately this still made them targets and the Imperium was used by Chaos as a cats-paw to wipe them out.

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?

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. 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 shut down and died. 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 their 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|Traitors 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, 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]].

==On the Death of the Emperor==
[[File:Emperor of mankind flaming sword armor.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Son, I am disappoint.]]
With the Golden Throne being consistently worn out, and the Tech-priests too power-armor-on-head rebooted to do anything about it (at least until they finish studying Malcador's staff, provided GW doesn't forget that plot point), it is certainly possible that the Golden Throne may stop working entirely, though what this might do is up for debate, since the Emperor has been dead for a very long time now.

Yes, yes, you read that right, the Emperor is dead. Now quit your shrieking and take a fecking chill pill, there's more to it than that. Being the single most powerful psyker in the history of the human race, the death of his physical body isn't the same "GAME OVER, MAN!" it would be for the rest of us mortals. The Emperor's mummified corpse is still inhabited by his spirit much the same way as [[Lord Kroak]], except he's powering the Astronomican (and possibly keeping the warp from swallowing Terra) instead of being hauled around on a golden anti-gravity palanquin to smite the enemies of the Imperium with golden fire.

Back to the matter at hand, with how arcane and ill-understood the Golden Throne's workings are all we have to go on are theories. It might be somehow enhancing his psychic abilities through its connection to his corpse and this would be lost when it gives out, or (rather more likely seeing as how parts keep failing and yet nothing changes) it might be something the AdMech keeps running since they think it's doing something that it isn't. No one knows, and no one really wants to find out.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">In any case, a lot of fa/tg/uys don't seem to know that the Emperor's dead, and so a lot of theories arise as to what might happen if something that already happened ends up happening. Click expand to view these theories and keep in mind, these are all kept with their fa/tg/uys speculation intact.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
===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. 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 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. Various Horus Heresy novels present the Emperor as 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.

This is supported by Path Of Heaven, when Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars use the Dark Glass device to boogie woogie back to Terra. Much like Malcador, the one who uses the Dark Glass device is reduced to ashes just using it for a couple of moments, and the Dark Glass also has a Throne unit to control it, though it is described as the Golden Throne’s lesser cousin. The Golden Throne is described by the Chief Librarian using Dark Glass as “far greater, immensely more powerful, ''older, fouler, set deeper in the fabric of both reality and unreality.''”So just what ''is'' the Golden Throne? From way above, we know it’s a pain engine powerful enough to make a Haemonculus blush, those using it need to be powerful Psykers to actually control it, it consumes the souls of those who use it, unless that person also has innate regenerative capabilities (which, oh, let’s see, leaves us with basically Emps or Magnus), and it exists both in reality and in the Warp. The Emperor himself in Master of Mankind is evasive on where he found the “core” of the Throne. Now imagine you’re Rogal Dorn on the Vengeful Spirit and you’ve just found the bodies of Sanguinius and Horus and a dying Emprah. You race back to the Palace because surely Malcador, the only person to even come close to knowing the Emperor should be able to help, only to find him strapped to a machine that is literally turning him to dust. You have no idea what the hell this thing is (because you’re a good kid and keep out of dad’s basement) but your Father tells you to strap him into the thing. You do it, even though Pops is weak and it just Gammorah’d the last guy to sit in it. Not a great situation but you do what dad says. Now he’s stuck there, unable to regenerate but also unable to get up lest demons invade/that sun dad left in the Webway blows up. Fast forward 10,000+ years, you’re dead, and everyone is too stupid to realize it’s a fucking PAIN ENGINE and not a life support system. The Emperor was literally slapped into the equivalent of an infinite soul shriver while at his absolute weakest. If he could just stop sealing the Webway gate while someone else (Magnus) took a pew, he could possibly stretch his legs out and be right as rain. So maybe, just maybe, the Golden Throne breaking down isn’t a bad thing? (fuck, Age of the Emprah here we come)

Or someone could slap a good-ol' Gellar Field over the Webway portal, completely solving the problem. Doh! I forgot! That wouldn't be Grimdark! Shit.

===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. Kinda like Schrödinger's Cat. Schrödinger's Space Dorf.
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</div>

===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. When Guilliman shows up, the Emperor is amazed that humanity has still managed to survive and the Imperium is still alive.

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 not outside the realm of possibility that some remnant of the Dark Age of Technology has continued unchanged from its original height, though it's very unlikely. For this to be the case it would somehow have to avoid nearly all xenos, chaos influence/worshipers, have its own way of dealing with latent psykers so that they don't be used be Daemons [[Enslavers|or worse]] and never have met any of the other traders, explorators and travelers in general that make up how the current Imperium discovers new planets.
* 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. But, he did nothing to build on that, the dumbass. 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 completely justified 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. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures and who knows what the future could bring? Well, at least the Eldar to have more or less accepted their empire will never return and that sticking with the Imperium is their best bet for survival and power in the universe from now on. Which broke the balance and caused plot progression.
*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.
* If the Emperor wasn't a god to begin with, millennia of worship and countless psyker souls empowering him means that he's almost certainly a god now- and he knows it. Even when wielded by a "mere" Primarch his sword alone is capable of permanently destroying Greater Daemons (keep in mind that during Great Crusade and before he seems not to be able to do that), and given enough time his power might eclipse that of Chaos itself. (Though one could argue that Chaos powers up much faster than the Emperor due to having more sources to feed one and possibly having more worshippers)
* 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.

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. At the very least, humanity accomplished more and survived longer than anyone expected, even the Emperor.

Indeed, this is [[Warhammer 40,000]], a cautionary tale about the End of Empires, but so was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and, although we may not 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.

'''Thought for the day:''' "The man who has nothing can still have faith."

== Gallery ==
{{SectionalPromotions}}
<center><gallery>
File:Emperor-Church windows.jpg|Put this everywhere to praise him, on your windows, the neighbours, just all your hive city.
Image:Horus and the Emperor.jpg|<s>Son, I am disappoint.</s> Empy's disappointment occurred well before this moment.
Image:E-Money_LowRes.gif|Now in animated ultra HD for your heresy needs.
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: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 some little bitch!
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:Emps&SigmarGenderBendBy Flick The Thief.jpg| The same situation, but improved! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Silence Heretic!'''}}
Image:Emprasque3.jpg|How do you kill what can not die?
Image:Slavegirl Emperor.jpg|Emperor [[Rule 63]]! NO EXCEPTIONS! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}} [[Extra Heresy]]!
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 [[lovedagger|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, and his theme tone!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZoyNzuWbQ&t=10s
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.
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 (Warhammer 40,000|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 start the Great Crusade 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!"
File:Strolling Emperor.jpeg|Having him look at you like this is a reliable indicator of how soon people are going to start referring to you in past-tense.
</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]], his [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] counterpart (especially in the latter).
* [[Emperor's To-Do List]]
[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25959559/ This thread] which makes the Emperor even cooler.
* [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]
* [[Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]]
{{Imperium}}

[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]][[Category:Awesome]]

Malcador the Sigillite

2020-08-29T21:40:50Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:3565:AF32:66B6:CB2C: /* Credits */

[[File:The Sigillite clean.jpg|thumb|300px|The [[Administratum]] of the 41st millennium wishes it could be half as competent as Malcador. On second thought, [[Grimdark|no they don't]]. [[Primarch#Two_Missing_Primarchs_.7C_The_Forgotten_.26_The_Purged|Interesting armrests...]]]]
{{topquote|No one records something they wish to forget.|Anonymous, though often quoted by Malcador the Sigillite, ''The Last Council}}
{{topquote|I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.|''The Lord of the Rings'', [[J.R.R. Tolkien]]}}
{{topquote|I am here because when all else fails, when all the other [[Primarchs|mighty gods]] have [[Horus Heresy|gone off to war]], I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the last Olympian.|Hestia, to Percy Jackson, in ''The Last Olympian''}}

'''Malcador the Sigillite''' (also known as Malcador the Hero or Malcador the Laundryman Of Teh Emprah or Malcador the Mammy) was Regent of Terra, Master of the [[Administratum]], first Grand Master of the [[Officio Assassinorum]], the founder of the [[Inquisition]], and all around bestest bud of the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] during the [[Great Crusade]] and the [[Horus Heresy]]. The real life equivalent of Malcador's position in the Imperium is that of Prime Minister/Chancellor, who acted as de facto head of government in the name of the sovereign (the Emperor). He was also originally known as Brahm al-Khadour (Brah, Malkhadour '''WUT?'''), last of the Sigillites, the cursed wanderer, the perpetual.

In some respects, Malcador represents something of the Emprah's final dream for mankind as well as something of the nightmare that the Imperium became. In every sense he is just a man. Not a super augmented warrior monk, just a clever old bugger. Like Big E, he understood that the Imperium needed taxes and administration as well as generals and he entrusted those duties to other normal humans. Perhaps because of his belief that humanity would not outgrow the Emperor's influence, many of the organisations he created lacked adequate oversight, and descended into corruption in the wake of the Horus Heresy. Even so, this was at least humans being [[dick]]s to each other not [[Primarch|demigods]] lording it over the rest.

==History==
Having served the Emprah during the Unification of [[Terra]] ''(by his own reckoning he was 6718 years old by the close of the Heresy)'', he was present during the creation of the [[Primarchs]] and advised the Emperor during the early stages of the [[Great Crusade]]. Interestingly, the very first Space Marines (as in pre-legion Dark Angels) were noted to have fought with the Emperor against a psychic group called the '''Sigillites''' (even being mentally shielded against psychic assault by the Emperor himself for the campaign; warriors from said campaign had a base d+10 on psychic defense rolls), implying that Malcador may have been one of their number. ''The Last Council'' confirms this, in addition to revealing that he is a [[Perpetual]]. According to at least one source, it was Malcador that convinced the Emperor to call Himself "The Emperor"; when they met, the "emperor" was just the greatest of Terran warlords and little else.

Malcador himself explains that he is the last of the Sigillite order, and further goes on to explain that they were a group which existed to preserve the memories of the past; it was Malcador's duty to remind the Emperor of the lessons of the past and to guide Him in the future. One can surmise that Emps discovered his Perpetual nature and figured he may as well put him to use in studying Terra's history and using it as a foundation for the further expansion of what would become the Imperium. That said, the Emperor killed the rest of the Sigillites and used their base as the core of the Imperial Palace. It has been implies that the Sigillites were also violent warlords that did their fair share of oppressing.

When the Primarchs started getting collected and the new Imperium spread outwards, Malcador served as the Regent of Terra, acting as a prime minister who kept the day-to-day activities of the [[Imperium of Man]] running, sponsoring various agencies (like the [[Remembrancer|Remembrancer Order]]), appointing the [[High Lords of Terra|Council of Terra]] and building the [[Administratum]] from the ground up. He also was behind the creation of the [[Officio Assassinorum]], because he realised that not all problems could be solved with either [[Iterator|diplomacy]] or a [[Space Marines|public power boot]] to the arse. He also established the Conservator Order to preserve history and the Order Elucidatum to burn any historical texts deemed religious or inconvenient, so the "modern" Inquisitorial infighting is nothing new.

After the Emperor returned to Terra and set up the Council of Terra, the Emperor appointed Malcador to the position of First Lord of the Council (essentially the Prime Minister of the Imperium at that point, where the [[Horus|Warmaster]] was the overall military commander), while the Emperor descended into the Imperial palace and set to work on gaining access to the [[Webway]]. Though he tried to be some kind of cool uncle/granddad to the Primarchs, most of them seem to have gotten jealous of his closeness to the Emperor; all of them made threatening displays of physical oomph in front of him, and at least two of them straight-up assaulted him (with Mortarion strangling him and Lorgar backhanding him around like a ragdoll). At the time, Mortarion was the most recent Primarch to be discovered, so we don't know if [[Jaghatai Khan]], [[Alpharius]] and the rest decided to lay the smackdown on grandpa. Suffice to say, the Emperor only had to deal with the Primarchs at their best on the weekend whereas Malcador had to deal with the behemoth brats for the rest of the week, meaning he got the shit end of the stick. Weirdly, the Primarch that had the best relationship with 'ol Malcy was shown to be [[Leman Russ]], who actually did treat him like a beloved old grandad that he could chill and play hrafnkel with.

His reputation with the Primarchs, especially Horus and [[Alpharius#But_Wait.21|"Alpharius"]], was not helped by the fact that it was him who ultimately made the decision to commit damnatio memoriae on the [[Primarch#Two_Missing_Primarchs_.7C_The_Forgotten_.26_The_Purged|2nd and 11th]], this prompted Horus to confronte Malcador about this, then proceeded to throw a pre-heresy [[Butthurt|hissyfit]] so Malcador made sure to force choke him until he calmed his demihuman tits meanwhile [[Jaghatai Khan]] & [[Alpharius]] watched like children while their drunk dad beat their older brother. Which may have played a part in forming Horus' opinions on humans and not only their ability to, but what right they had, to self-govern.

When the [[Horus Heresy]] broke out, Malcador worked closely but-not-always-that-closely with [[Rogal Dorn]] (there were [[skub|some divergences of opinions]] between the loyal-to-the-point-of-naivety Dorn and the pragmatic-to-the-point-of-cynicism Malcador) in preparing the defenses of Terra and coordinating the logistics of the war effort, as well as overseeing a formation of special projects such as the [[Astronomican|Adeptus Astronomican]] and, towards the end of the Horus Heresy, the [[Grey Knights]].

While he globally did a pretty decent job of keeping the Imperium running, there was one decision that in hindsight came to bite them in the ass spectacularly. With the worlds directly around Terra exsanguinated by the demands of the [[Great Crusade]], Malcador and the Council decided to implement supplementary taxes on top of the already existing [[Imperial Tithe]] to pay for support for the now-widespread and far-flung Expeditionary Fleets. While this was a good idea in theory, in practice it proved to be a source of discontent and rebellion. Where those worlds that had been visited by the [[Salamanders]] or [[Raven Guard]] (whose ''modus operandi'' was to limit casualties) or the [[Ultramarines]] (who wrecked things but rebuilt afterwards) could and did contribute relatively easily, those that had gotten rekt by the likes of the [[Death Guard]] or [[Iron Hands]] '''really''' weren't inclined to pay even more to the Imperium that devastated their planet.

==Malcador's Fate==
Malcador is dead. Very, very dead. During the Siege of Terra, the only chance that the Emperor could get to join the battle would be if someone took his place sitting on the Golden Throne, since [[Magnus]]'s interference broke it and threatened Terra with a new [[Eye of Terror]]. Malcador's psychic power meant he was the only potential candidate to do so while the Emperor fought off the [[Chaos Space Marines]]. However, since he was really not on the same psychic level as Big E, the process of painfully shutting the door in the daemon's faces each time they tried to open it burned him out (literally) in a matter of hours. He crumbled to dust after the Emperor was returned to the seat by Rogal Dorn and Jaghatai Khan. Keeping in mind that Malcador is a [[perpetual]], that's some pretty hardcore currents flowing through and goes even further to show how ridiculously OP the Emperor is. With his last ounce of strength, he allowed the Emperor to communicate with his mortal servants one last time. Truly, Malcador was an all around awesome bureaucrat and manipulator to the very end.

Though, the fact he disintegrated after being taken off of the golden throne sort of defies the claim made in ''The Last Council'' that he's a perpetual. One could argue that he sacrificed his perpetual power to marginally restore the Emperor back to consciousness, what can't be waived away is the fact that unlike any other perpetual, he's a decrepit old man by the time of the Horus Heresy, and it's known he used his psyker powers to mask his age whenever it suited him and he's been subject to rejuvenation treatments to extend his life; both are things that shouldn't be necessary for a perpetual, impossible in the former's case ([[derp|unless it happens he was faking being old this whole time]]). The idea that he self-immolated on the atomic level just so the Emperor could speak without having to use his own psyker powers is also monumentally stupid considering how much more good he could've done had he not, unless it happened there was no chance he couldn't regenerate anyway and was just making some last ditch effort to save the Imperium before the inevitable.

It might be that he was doing more than just sacrificing his perpetual status so the Emperor could open his eyes slightly and slur out some orders like an alcoholic on a binge struggling to stay awake. The going fan-theory is that the Emperor might himself be a perpetual, but the message being sent by this revelation is that while the Emperor is indeed a perpetual himself as of the time he was interred to the Golden Throne, he wasn't always, and it took Malcador giving it to him at the expense of his own life to make it happen, which would make better sense considering that while ordinarily being turned into a rotting corpse means you're not a perpetual as they heal like [[fail|Wolverine in X-Men 3]].

==Malcador's Insights==
There was much more to Malcador than meets the eye. He was the last of the Sigillites, a secret order of chroniclers and history-keepers that guided humanity from the very beginning through their knowledge of the past, and that the '''=][=''' symbol often associated with the later [[Inquisition]] was actually the symbol of his order, therefore he was probably one of the old-school [[Illuminati (40k)|Illuminati]].

As a former enemy of the Emperor, he still acted as a devil's advocate to some degree, disagreeing with the Emperor on some very fundamental points:

*Malcador worried about the Emperor being so far above humanity, [[The Last Church|so inspirational in his efforts to squeeze out superstition and false religion]] that it would eventually cause [[Imperial Cult|religious cults]] to form around himself and his sons instead, which is [[Derp|exactly what happened.]]
*He also warned that humanity would be so invested in the Emperor that if he were to ever leave or die, humanity would not be able to handle the shock and would be left paralysed and without direction. The Emperor himself dismissed this as nonsense, since his intention was to raise humanity and allow it to think for itself, but again it is exactly what happened in the end - another [[Not as Planned|miscalculation]] on his part. To be fair, the Emperor’s plan for human independence was not completed by the time things went to hell.
**When looked at from a different point of view: the Emperor's plan to invade and conquer the Webway ''(which Magnus was supposed to assist with if he had not broken it)'', then lead humanity into enlightenment away from the dangers of unrestrained psychic potential ''(which Mortarion was supposed to be the poster boy for if he hadn't switched sides)'' was so utterly dependent on the Emperor being the center of it all that he was was practically setting himself up for failure. While the Emperor was betting the future of the species on the outcome of his own plan, Malcador was thankfully setting up contingencies just in case everything went tits up.

Therefore it could be said that all of Malcador's efforts to create the agencies that the Imperium would need later were all part of an insurance policy that humanity could deploy if it ever turned out that the Emperor and his Primarchs could [[Horus Heresy|not be relied upon]] to carry humanity on their [[Pauldron|shoulders]]. Needless to say, if Malcador were the Emperor, [[noblebright|things might have turned out better for the Imperium]].

One of his more amusing requests was that [[Fabius Bile|the Primarchs be made female instead of male, or at the very least, add female Primarchs into the mix.]] His primary reasoning was that it would largely deter conflicts within his children, as boys tended to have a competitive "dick-measuring attitude" towards each other, preventing them all from cohesively working with each other. The apparent idea was that girls are generally more level-headed than boys and act more as the voice of reason in a family ([[Derp|according to people who don't have more than one daughter or sister]]), which would probably have eased some of the tensions that led to the Primarchs despising each other. The Emperor eventually dismissed this, both as a joke and as an impossibility, since the Space Marine gene-seed was keyed towards male subjects. He'd apparently tried to create [[female Space Marines]] at one point but it didn't work out; [[Skub|his refusal makes sense]] as the changes to physiology would effectively change supplicants into hyper-competitive dick-measurers anyway in terms of muscle mass, endurance, stamina, and aggression, what with the sheer amounts of testosterone needed for the rapid growth process. So, males it was; it's worth taking this in particular, with a ''healthy dose'' of salt, considering previous paragraphs.

The Emperor expected his sons to be of one mind as he planned to train them under his [[Imperial Truth|unified guidance]], ensuring they would work [[Krieg|utterly objectively with no personal feelings to get in the way]] (much like him). This expectation went to shit when the Chaos Gods spirited the Primarchs away from Terra and they landed on different planets and being raised with different backgrounds and beliefs, causing friction between those whose home culture did not really mesh with each other. To make matters worse, they tended to have complete faith in their own rectitude, [[Thunder Warriors|with utter intolerance of anyone who got in the way]] (much like him). This undiluted brotherly rivalry wasn't helped by the Emperor not bothering to ease the tensions between his sons, which as mentioned above may or may not have been intentional on His part, and it would all eventually royally bite him back in his golden buttplate when the Horus Heresy erupted. As previously indicated, it also caused Malcador quite a lot of physical pain.

==Credits==
He was the second or third most powerful human [[psyker]] of his time (after Big E and possibly [[Magnus the Red]]), being able to do things such as plunging the entire moon of [[Solar System#Saturn|Titan]] in the Warp to protect what would become the Grey Knights from the attacking Traitor Legions. He was also able to prevent a volkite gun from firing even while [[What|surrounded by a squad]] of [[Sisters of Silence]], who were there to keep the psyker [[Knights-Errant|Sevarian]]'s powers in check, without showing any sort of discomfort or loss of concentration.

His powers were strong enough to casually FORCECHOKE (well, he kinda prepped himself up for the confrontation, even went to pickup his power staff to help focus his powers) [[Horus]] almost to death, when the latter grew angry about one of the missing Primarch's legacies being erased and tries to say their name. Malcador says he can "unmake" Horus there and then, but relents when the Khan begs. Hard to tell if this was a bluff or not. This is before Horus gets blessed by Chaos, but it is still an incredible feat (especially considering that [[Forge World]] gave Horus ''Adamantium Will'' and a terminator armour that makes him near invulnerable to psychic powers regardless of the psykers' might), though Horus could resist to the point that it tired out the old man quite a lot. Also led to Horus being obsessed with Malcadors private history for a few decades, which he shared with the Khan before the Heresy.

Though it has never been seen, he must have been one badass warrior too, since he was the Grand Master of the Assassins. Says something that he took a bone-crunching backhand from Lorgar on the chin. This, in addition to his above-mentioned prodigious psychic power, shows what sort of man Malcador was. With his power - and considering only a few Primarchs are psychic or have psychic defenses (actually they all had psychic potential but most didn't realise, or at least understand, their full potential) - he probably could've put Lorgar on a time out. On the moon. With his mind. Because Lorgar's powers hadn't come into their own yet, Malcador could've put him down for the count quite easily back then. It's also worth mentioning that he was more or less able to withstand the strain of the Golden Throne [[Awesome|''all by himself'']] (and even managed to save some psychic strength for the Emperor) before he died, a feat which in the current era requires the strength of over a thousand trained psykers and the dead Emperor himself to pull off effectively. What a hero.

He proposed the [[Chaplain]] edict, ironically taking the idea from [[Lorgar]] and [[Sanguinius]] though back then they were more like [[Commissar]]s, keeping order and looking for <s>[[heresy]]</s> non-compliance, instead of the modern day warrior-priests.

There is also [[Malcador Heavy Tank|a tank named after him]], though nowadays another tank named after [[Leman Russ|an important hero and leader]] of the Imperium is used more often, the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]], passing over yet another [[Macharius Heavy Tank|perfectly servicable vehicle]]. Russ is a [[Galactic Partridges|glory hog]] like that.

He was also potentially the busiest man in existence, having founded the [[Adeptus Terra|administration]] of pretty much the ENTIRE Imperium single-handedly. The organizations he founded - the [[Administratum]], the [[Officio Assassinorum]], the [[Astronomican|Adeptus Astronomica]] and the [[Inquisition]] - have been borderline fucking up everything else (and each other) ever since without his guidance. So far, however, humans still exist; a testament to Malcador's administrative foresight. After all, a stable government gets the job done even with the worst sort.

His force staff was originally thought to have passed to the [[Matt Ward|Ultramarines]], but it turned out it was lost instead and was later found by the AdMech.

What's the best part? He is just a normal dude. A race of potential Malcador's doesn't sound too bad, does it?

As a trivia note, his true name and title, Brahm Al-Khadour the cursed wanderer, is based off of two immortal figures in the real world's cultural legends. One is Al Khadir, an immortal figure in Middle Eastern mythology that acts as a guide. The other is the Wandering Jew, who was cursed, like Cain in the Old Testament, to wander but unlike Cain, his journey would last until the end of time.

== See also ==
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdAN0o3oqB8 Malcador's opinion on Grimdark.]

{{Imperium}}

Leman Russ

2020-08-29T21:36:07Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:3565:AF32:66B6:CB2C: /* The Next Step */

[[Image:LEMAN_RUSS.jpg|frame|My hand is fire, my hair is rage, my pauldrons are justice and my cock is wolf. Prepare to die!]]
{{Topquote|I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.|[[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Genghis Khan]]}}
{{Topquote|When he is nearly ten, his mother submits him to a first ordeal: she sews his shirt to his arms through the skin. Siggeir's sons, submitted to the same ordeal, [[Anal circumference|had howled with pain]], but Sinfjotli remains imperturbable. His mother then pulls off his shirt, tearing away the skin, and asks him if he feels anything. The boy answers that a [[Badasious|Volsung is not troubled by such a trifle]] (...) After this proof of courage Sigmund takes the boy into the forest with him. One day they find two wolfskins hanging from the wall of a hut. [[Horus|The two sons]] [[Emperor|of a king]] had been transformed into wolves and could only come out of the skins every tenth day. Sigmund and Sinfjotli put on the skins, but cannot get them off. They howl like wolves and understand the wolves' language.|Volsung Saga, summarized and commented by Mircea Eliade, ''Birth and Rebirth'' (New York: Harper & Row, 1958)}}
{{Topquote|It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.|Virgil}}
{{Topquote|Wrestle me arm and your spine shall implode.|Russ plays a 'Small Baby Game' with the Dark Eldar}}

'''Leman Russ''', '''The Great Wolf''', '''The Lord of Winter and Ruin''', and '''Wolf King of Fenris''', also known as '''Lemon Russ''', '''Lemon Rust''', and '''[[Magnus the Red|That Fucking Furry]]''', not to be confused with the [[Leman Russ (tank)|tank bearing his name]], is the primarch of the [[Space Wolves]] legion. A superhuman nordic king with a warrior's crude humor and a stubborn streak a mile wide. He was such a hard headed son of a bitch, that he's survived extended fights with [[Angron]], [[Magnus]], [[Lion El'Jonson|The Lion]], [[Horus]] and even the Emperor himself. General all-around badass deserving of much respect, but superstitious and flawed, with a serious problem valuing others' points of view, even if he understood them. He's blond underneath [[Rip and Tear|all the blood.]] There appears to be no specific way to pronounce his surename as both the wider Imperium and the Wolves themselves commonly alternate between "R-UH-ss" and "Rh-OOs", when speaking about him or the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|battle tank named after him]].

==Origins==
When the Primarchs were lost, Leman's capsule landed on [[Fenris]], a harsh planet of insane violence that the Norse gods shit out after a three day meth fueled orgy with a tyranid hive fleet. The locals there enjoy a life of fishing, drinking, sailing, fucking, pillaging, and conquering other tribes of people for the modest little islands they all have to live on. Granted, it's also usually a very short life, because they're sharing the world with trolls, yetis, wolves the size of horses, wolves the size of battle tanks, bears the size of a house, whales that kill for fun, and krakens, which are to a squid as a [[Hierophant]] is to a [[Hormagaunt]].

So it was that little baby Russ left his capsule in the polar mountain region of Asaheim. There, some monstrous female wolf found him and said to herself "I WANT!". So Russ was raised by a dire wolf In Spess (google "Romolo and Remo" for a "real life" version). A few years pass, Russ growing up big and strong and hairy, having a grand old time running around the mountains and killing the sheep and such of the humans there with his wolf brothers. Eventually a king named Thengir heard of the Wolf-man, and decreed he be captured and brought to his hall. The mist of ages (and retcons) have hidden the details of Thengir's first meeting with Russ. Some stories would say that Russ was bound and gagged and dragged into the hall of the King Thengir after his Wolf family was slain, others claim a hunting party stumbled across his cave and kicked off a bloody melee in which a dozen hunters were killed, along with Russ's mother, after which the hunters realized they weren't fighting a wolf (they were probably drunk and kind of retarded) and somehow convinced Russ to stand down and come with them, a conversation that may or may not have included copious amounts of alcohol and whores. Thengir took a wondrous interest in Russ and ordered he be educated. In a short time, Russ was trash-talking every short bastard who dared look at him the wrong way, and had become insanely good with weaponry. When Thengir finally died, all declared that Leman of the Russ become the new high King.

Also, remember that Volsung Saga quote regarding Warrior Initiations for [[Angron|Berserks]]? Considering that (according to old Fluff) Sanguinius looked like a young teen adult at 1 year old, Leman Russ passed this trial that when he was around 7-10 months old or so. No wonder he went on to be a [[Eldrad|dick]] [[Primarch#Douchebagginess|with]] [[Magnus|some]] [[Unknown Primarchs|of]] [[Lion El'Jonson|his brothers]] and his new recruits (first, the Space Wolves feed them like they arrived to Valhalla and [[Assholetep|then, throw em in a thunderhawk and kick em into them in the cold wilderness of Fenris until they transform into Wulfen or return home by themselves]]...) and was easily manipulated by the Luna Wolf Primarch in tearing a new asshole to Magnus.

==GW origins==
He was just an ordinary commander who came with two wolves, Freki and Geri. This is them.

[[Image:russ_original.jpg|300px|thumb|frame|left|This is the very first canonical portrayal of Leman Russ. I shit you not (In Rogue Trader; before primarchs were a thing, but still.)]]

http://www.solegends.com/citrt2/rt070121LemanRuss/Wd117p80070121SWCommanderLemanRussx-01.htm

==The Next Step==
Russ conquered and took. He bartered and traded. He united the people of Asaheim under his rule. Somehow, the Emprah heard of it and realized it all had to be the work of a Primarch. So then he attended a royal banquet in the Hall of the Mountain Ki- I mean Leman Russ. The Emprah, taking a leaf out of Odin's book, disguised himself as some old geezer, then waited until the right moment to reveal his true identity. When he did Russ refused to bow down and challenged him to several contests, he ate so much the Emprah was forced to back down. Russ drank so much the Emprah was forced to back down. By now, the Emprah was fairly surprised at finally being out-done by someone else, Russ gazed upon the Emperor and challenged him in combat, and so did the Emprah raise his Power Glove into the air for all to see, and so did he then bring it down on Leman Russ's head, knocking him the fuck out in one solid hit.

[[Image:russ_furry_original.jpg|300px|thumb|frame|right|...and this is the first portrayal getting ready for a furry con.]]

Of course fluff changes and a 1-hit KO wasn't very fulfilling, so the new lore arrived: After the Emperor revealed himself Leman Russ skipped the eating and drinking contests and just challenged the Emperor to a fight. It is unknown whether the Emperor was in his full armour and actually had his Power Fist at the time, or whether he used his psychic powers; but the duel lasted for hours. (Presumably Russ did a lot better this time by virtue of not being drunk.) In the end, though the Emperor, presumably pissy that Leman was waving his cock in his face by just straight up fighting him, punched him square in the face and dropped him. When Russ awoke, he laughed it off and swore loyalty to the one who managed to beat him. Afterwards he ended up in command of the one Space Marine legion that knows how to eat, drink, brawl and make war upon any asshole that mocks their Thunderwolf.

Rumour has it that the Emp was so pleased with Russ' prowess, that he tasked him and the Space Wolves to be his executioners and it seems Russ is the reason the 2nd and 11th Legions no longer exist. So he has experience fucking up a Primarch, which is pretty goddamn manly. (Not confirmed by any sources and is not more than passing conversation in one Black Library novel, other than that, yeah totally definitely didn't kill the other legions. Also if you take how he acted with Angron and Magnus, he totally hated his job of being the executioner... and apparently thought Lorgar was a pretty cool guy).

(The novel "Betrayer" give's Angron's version of their run-in, where he tells to Lorgar what happened. Russ had taken it upon himself to school the World Eaters as he was disgusted by their behavior. Angron was having none of Russ's babbling and picked a fight with him by insulting the Big.E. Angron eventually defeats Russ in single combat, but because only he was fighting to kill while Russ was trying to teach. It then ends with the Space Wolves entirely outmaneuvering the Eaters and winning a tactical victory by surrounding Angron, some more hissing vitriol between the two Primarchs and Angron leaving. The World Eaters believed they won due to a higher kill count and the Wolves leave disappointed that their legion brothers were too retarded to see the lesson Russ was teaching. It is pretty telling that even <u>Lorgar</u> replies to Angron that he was a complete tool on that night and would have been killed after hearing him boast of how he won against Russ. With that said, Lorgar was able to get Angron to learn the lesson Russ was trying to teach him by just talking to him ''for two minutes'', and he did it without getting a shit load of his own men killed or getting his ass kicked in a duel. Not only does it show just how badly Russ failed at what he had set out to do on the Night of the Wolf, but also how his own hot headedness and fundamental inability to understand his brothers can royally bite him in the ass.)

Apart from that, Russ and his Space Wolves had a goddamn good time during the Great Crusade, although it hasn't been written about so this is all we can guess. Until ''Inferno'' dropped. It turns out that Russ became the Emperor's executioner in the process of fighting the Rangdan Xenocides, which saw entire Army regiments, Titan Legions and [REDACTED] Space Marine Legions (could be Chapters, could actually be entire Legions) wiped out. With the Luna Woves up to the eyes in glorious warfare in the Galactic East, Russ and the VI headed north along with the I Legion - this is the war that ended the I's time as the largest Legion. The end of the Xenocides entailed a series of bio-pogroms which left the Wolves with a very ugly reputation, and from then on Russ' role was the doer of necessary dirty deeds.

When that bitch-ass [[Horus]] started whining and crying, Leman Russ and his Legion were on their way to Prospero to bring Magnus the Red to Terra for questioning. Horus intercepted the message and re-worded it to order Russ to destroy Magnus and his Thousand Sons, and interestingly Russ found when they arrived at Prospero he didn't want to do that. He decided to go against the orders he thought were legit, and instead detain him and his legion so that they could be transported to Terra (ironically doing exactly what his legit orders were by going against what he thought they were), but when Magnus refused to answer the phone and the Thousand Sons' calls were all being blocked by he Primarch he became more and more annoyed, and eventually he was pissed off enough that he and the Space Wolves carried out a class-10 clusterfucking on Prospero (aided along a bit by Magnus himself lowering his planet's defenses because he wanted to atone for his wrongdoings in the dumbest fucking way possible). It should have ended with the glorious finale where Leman Russ himself lifted Magnus the Red over his shoulders and broke the sorcerer's back over his knee (rumour has it that Russ could be heard shouting “Ah yes. I was wondering what would break first: your spirit… or your body!”...turns out it was both at the same time!). But even so, the red bastard managed to utter one single word of power and escaped through the fucking ground. Russ was so enraged that he ordered the 13th company of Space Wolves to pursue the fleeing Thousand Sons through their pansy-ass portals.

This said, winning the Battle of Prospero left a bitter taste in Russ' mouth and complicated things for the Wolves in the long run. First of all, despite his reputation as the Emperor's Executioner, fighting Magnus took a serious toll on Russ. Rumour has it, that during the battle between those two demigods Magnus, by psychic means, laid his heart and mind bare to Russ, revealing that he knew not only every blow that was coming from his brother, but everything that he had come to know, accepting his failure and his fate, which was defeat. In the recently published Horus Heresy novel Wolfsbane Magnus' last words to Russ are finally revealed "You are a sword in the wrong hands. You have severed an innocent neck." In other words: Magnus was even aware that the wolves had been manipulated into wiping the Thousand Sons out, instead of detaining them and bringing them back to Terra (but not aware he wasn't actually innocent), and the idiot just let it happen instead of talking to Russ who wanted to ignore his orders and detain the Sons, in order to bring them back to Terra.

It will be interesting to see how GW tries to fill the logic gap regarding the hatred of Magnus towards the wolves now, considering he obviously *knew* that Russ had been manipulated into killing Magnus and the entirety of the Burning of Prospero is directly his fault. One easy way out would be the loss of the shard of Magnus that held his nobility which was absorbed by Ianus (first grandmaster of the Grey Knights, a former Thousand Son that was in the process of succumbing to the flesh change when this little "accident" occurred), but most fans would prefer a more convincing explanation. Seeing a hypergenius like Magnus hating the Space Wolves for destroying his legion - irrespective of the fact that he *knew* that they had been manipulated into doing so and the fact that he intentionally chose for his legion to be destroyed - makes less sense with Magnus' added layer of remorse and self-awareness. Then again, said hypergenius, even at his best and most complete, had a monumental know-it-all complex, a lot of pride in his life's work, and a long history of mutual scorn with Russ. That, plus the fact that Primarchs are not known for [[Konrad Curze|making]] [[Rogal Dorn|rational]] and [[Perturabo|empathic]] [[Angron|decisions]] [[Horus Heresy|with one another]], might help explain some of it.

Either way, the events of Prospero shook the Wolf King deeply, but Russ decided to carry on and try to make the best of a real clusterfuck of a situation. (An Inquisitor once called it an "emo phase" in front of a Rune Priest, and was fed balls-first to a Thunderwolf.) Not long after that, the news of the Drop Site Massacre reached the Wolves; which was another blow for the Wolf King. In his own words, Russ felt he'd been "in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing", wasting his time and men fighting an eventually futile battle instead of standing with his brother Primarchs against the real threat. Just to make things worse, the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula|Alpha Legion turned up to batter the Wolves]] and prevent them from heading to Terra and helping Big E. As the rotten cherry on top of an already really bad cake, the White Scars, who'd been bros with the Thousand Sons and had no idea why Russ had just decided to fuck them up royally seemingly out of the blue, weren't going to help them after Prospero. But the [[Dark Angels]] of all people aided [[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Only room for one wolf pelt wearing Primarch in this universe.]] the Wolves in fighting off the Alpha Legion, letting the Wolves damage their fleet to an impressive degree. A plus here was that [[Bjorn the Fell-Handed]] came to his attention, setting the young warrior on the path to ironclad badassness. This said, when he went to Yarant to fight the main Traitor advance, Russ was badly injured, entering a coma and giving Bjorn temporary command of the Legion. He bought Dorn and the Emperor more time, but didn't make it back to Terra until it was too late.

Oh and Empy totally gave him a spear after most of the Terran members of his original legion died fighting various gribbly xenos. Including Tyranids. Yup. Said spear was tossed into a certain Daemon Primarchs single eye, thereby preventing him from manifesting in reality AND resurrecting his legion. Russ totally hated this spear btw. At one point Russ tried to hit a moon orbiting some planet (he was drunk, don't judge) and the spear was lost for months [[troll|but since it had been a gift from Big.E the Wolves did spend said months searching for it]]. In the novel "Wolfsbane" and the short story "Two Metaphysical Blades," it's revealed he was secretly fearful of the spear and purposefully avoided using it while claiming he was a short range fighter that preferred swords and axes; "forgetting" it at conferences before people brought it back. He later uses it and became fond of it as a weapon after a trip into the Warp revealed its intended purpose in parallel with his role. Later he uses said spear to [[Battle of Trisolian|fight]] chaos-empowered Horus, after another try to get rid of it. He manages to stop the Warmaster with it, but then he acts like a fucking idiot, instead of just killing Horus and ending the rebellion then and there, he tries to reach out to Horus' good side and gets fucked up because of it.

Funny thing, that spear. It's actually the twin of another spear, the Apollonian Spear, wielded by the commander of the Custodes, Constantin Valdor. Russ's spear is known by many names, including Gungnir (the spear of Odin), simply the Spear of Russ, and others. But, this spear and its twin were both crafted by Big E and infused with parts of His psychic insight, so before any of those other names it was called the Dionysian spear. Now, this is a bit of a deep cut on GWs part, but the Apollonian and Dionysian actually refers to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (feeling lost yet?), who was in turn writing about the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. In Nietzsche's philosophy, the Apollonian is representative of everything bright and individual, meaning life and the person living it, as well as order and stability. The Dionysian, however, is representative of the primordial state from which all things originally emerge, the CHAOTIC nothingness from which the individual Apollonian springs forth. So, bringing it back to 40k, the Apollonian spear of Constantin Valdor can impart the memories of the person it kills to its wielder, capturing that individual and orderly moment. When inquired by Valdor, the Emperor intended it to be a tool to make Valdor understand his foes and as a check to keeping from getting too arrogant. What does Russ's spear, the Dionysian spear do? Well, we really don't know, but if the novel Wolfsbane is anything to go by, it seems that at least a couple people believe it's the weapon best suited for killing a Primarch. As seen with how the spear stabbed Russ and showed him how horrifying the truth of the Primarchs' origins were and how it erased all the corruption temporarily from Horus' mind, it's certainly a potent and terrifying weapon. And since the Primarchs are essentially the Emperor's Own Daemonkin, it stands to reason that the Dionysian Spear was designed by the Emperor to destroy the soul of the Primarchs and return them to the primal Chaos from which they originated. This in turn jives with Russ's wyrd of being the Emperor's "executioner".

== Russ and his Brothers ==

In many ways Russ can be best understood by looking at the clashes between him and his brothers, butting heads with [[Angron]], [[Magnus]], and [[Lion El'Jonson]] over the years. All three of them had much in common with Russ, and there was potential for great brotherhood there, but in large part his lack of tact or understanding crushed whatever relationship might have been.

His fight with Angron was an attempt to teach his brother a lesson. Both of them were consummate warriors, both relied on their amazing athleticism and berzerker rages to triumph in battle, both were known for losing their temper when challenged, but Russ saw weakness in his brother's lack of strategy. Leman tried to just talk to the World Eater's primarch, but Angron was so uncontrollably, incredibly, "calm down son", angry that he just attacked Russ. While Russ and Angron were dueling, their retinues kicked off an open war, and in the battle that followed Russ found himself defeated by Angron, but Angron was in turn outmaneuvered and surrounded by the Space Wolves, thus proving Russ's lesson that warrior prowess isn't enough. That said, no one learned '''anything'''. Angron thought himself the victor because he'd won the duel and his sons had inflicted greater casualties than the Wolves, but Russ thought himself the victor because he'd proven his point and "educated" his brother. On the flip side, arguments that Russ should have been more tactful ignore that he was trying to deal with a Space Marine Legion of questionable loyalty that could and had caused massive amounts of collateral damage. There's a time for caution; it's not when rampaging supersoldiers are threatening the Imperium and its people. Which is indeed a good point, but then he should have gone all the way and gotten Big.E's approval to deal with this shit once and for all if it came down to that instead of trying to do things on his own on the sly. No matter how you look at it, Russ' idea to "educate" his brother was one of good intent (no really, it's a genuine bro' move that the Primarchs rarely extended to another) but of poor execution. If Russ had paid more attention and thought things through rather than sticking to do things his way, he'd have used subtler methods of persuasion to calm Angron, as Fulgrim and especially Lorgar had done in the past. Russ would have had an easier time of persuading Angron than either of them, given that he and Angron had a similar sense of brutal honor and a great lust for war. But, ultimately, it didn't occur to Russ to slow down and think his idea though, so he failed that day..... Well, that last statement is a bit in the grey zone. It was rightfully pointed out above that Russ was not exactly cool-headed either. And it was only when Angron said that without the Nails he might have been a more honourable man (like Russ claimed to be); but that if this were so he might have decided at some point to storm the Emperor's palace and "chop the slavering bastards head off". That was the final straw for Russ who couldn't take more of that shit, hissed "Heretic" as he lost his temper and things went downhill from there until both legions clashed. It is also noteworthy (and of course grimdark/tragic) that Angron made some pretty valid and surprisingly logical arguments including showing genuine regret for having been pressed into a role he had never wanted ("I died on Nuceria") , especially considering what a berzerk killer he was even then already. Several years/brain hemorrhages later only the berzerk killer with the attention span of a two year old was left but that's a story for another day (as in: when he was [[troll]]ing Ultramar with Lorgar, which ultimately culminated in his ascension to daemon(prince)hood).

Russ really, ''really'' didn't get along with Magnus, even before the burning of Prospero. He hated that his brother used sorcery and warpcraft so extensively. The Rune Priests of the Space Wolves use their psychic abilities in a much more limited and controlled way than the Thousand Sons, and the Rout never used Chaos familiars (which the Thousand Sons - to be fair - were totally unaware of using. They thought them to be benevolent spirits or "tutelaries"... until the Burning of Prospero of course when these spirits showed their true colours and turned on Magnus' sons). The Wolves also use the spirits of Fenris, hence all the totems and runes. Nearly all fluff indicates that this is utter horseshit, until the Spirit of Fenris was revealed to be real. Russ' convictions led him to feud with Magnus, but so did his concerns over the threat the XVth Legion posed to the Imperium and his frustration with Magnus' tendency to abandon his allies in favor of investigating some psychic artifact or slow down a conquest to avoid damaging some books. Russ never stopped to consider that Magnus' understanding of the Warp might have been better than his, or that the things Magnus preserved might have value for the humans Russ wanted to make the Galaxy safe for. Ridiculous theories that Russ was a psyker aside, another significant source of the feud between Magnus and Russ was The Crimson King's sheer arrogance. Leman Russ was rightly proud of his cunning battle tactics and personal ferocity, and was fully aware that he grew up on a savage death world where everything is constantly trying to kill you, while Magnus had it comparatively easy on Prospero. The Wolf King and his Legion, from the Wheel of Fire to the Rangdan Xenocides, had proved its mettle, cunning, and devotion to the Emperor many times over, yet Magnus treated him like a dumb hick and acted as though his psychic powers made him the greatest primarch. It couldn't have helped matters that some of the threats the VIth had bested were psychic in nature. Yet Magnus knew none of this; only the Emperor and the Space Wolves understood the extent of the threats they had faced down. Russ never considered that Magnus had no knowledge of the terrible secrets that only he had been entrusted with; he expected Magnus to take the word of an "ignorant savage" that the abilities he defined himself by couldn't be trusted. Whether Magnus would have listened if he did explain all that on the other hand, is another story - recall that he didn't listen the first time the Emperor told him to stop.

Perhaps most famous and most tragic of Russ's feuds was his strife with [[Lion El'Jonson]]. Both men had very similar origins, but slight differences in their upbringings drove a wedge between them. The Wolf and the Lion were both raised by the wild: both of their pods had crashed in areas with no humans, and they had to learn to survive with no lessons from other men. Both were eventually taken in when they were discovered by the men of their world, but that's where their stories differ. Where Russ was raised in the friendly, bawdy brotherhood of Thengir's men, the Lion was trained and educated in the somber fraternity of the knightly Order. While Russ had been brawling and singing with his friends, leading great hunts to destroy monsters and enemy tribes, the Lion was mastering discipline and embarking on solemn quests to destroy the Great Beasts of the forest. The battle between the two came on the world of Dulan, where the VIth and Ist legion were fighting together to slay a tyrant who'd insulted Russ's honor. At the beginning of the conflict the two brothers had promised to work together, but as time went on the Lion grew tired of his brother's insistence on utterly smashing every pocket of resistance rather than taking a more efficient, direct method of ending the war. Eventually he just launched an assault on the tyrant's palace, and beheaded the man before Russ could reach them. In the heat of the moment, Russ was ''furious'' to hear that and immediately confronted his brother. Russ was an angry dickhead, the Lion was a snarky bastard, and before long blades were drawn and the two were trying to kill each other in a violent battle. After a long and bloody fight in which the two of them beat one another senseless and finally fell over the ramparts of the fortress to the ground below, Russ started laughing, the ridiculousness of what they were doing finally apparent. Here they were, two Primarchs of the Legiones Astartes, brawling like children instead of leading their men. The Lion, however, didn't laugh. Like, at all. He coldly asked if his brother would yield, a question that just confused Russ. ''His brother thought this was a real duel?'' Russ had thought of the fight as a brawl between angry brothers like would happen on Fenris: a quick spat that would end with both of them beaten and bloodied, a spur-of-the-moment thing to vent their anger they'd laugh about over a tankard of Mjod years later. The Lion however was taking it deadly seriously and while Russ was laughing he struck a final blow, shattering Russ's skull and ending the fight. Had Russ stopped to consider his brother's mentality, or listened more closely to the Lion's words, he would have realized that the Lion saw the conflict as something profoundly different from what Russ thought it was, taking the matter of honour as something deadly serious. Again, Russ's lack of consideration was his failing.

However, while certainly abrasive, arrogant, and brutal, Russ was also every bit as loyal as Sanguinius or Dorn. The other thing Magnus, Angron, and the Lion had in common? All three of them behaved like assholes in their way. The Lion had zero people skills, arrogantly considered himself the best of all Primarchs, acted like he was some prince-in-waiting and lorded it over his brothers, him turning a small brawl into a duel of honour case in point. Magnus was much more enjoyable to be around but he arrogantly assumed he knew best because of his powers and blatantly favored psykers in his Legion. Angron's case is... [[Rage|self-explanatory]]. Bottom line, his brothers all put their own feelings/goals before those of the Emperor. Not to say that Russ was tactful, diplomatic, or understanding with these three - he certainly could have handled all of these conflicts better - but Russ was never a dick just for the sake of being a dick - he was a dick because someone had to keep his brothers in line.

His relationships with his brothers also highlight another one of his traits. Fans LOVE to call him a hypocrite, and this isn't far off the mark. However, it's not quite on target either. To elaborate, Russ did indeed criticize (and at times even physically attacked) his brothers for traits he or his Legion also had. On closer inspection, though, the way Russ dealt with his flaws was different from his brothers - and that's the best justification for his behavior:

*Russ and Angron both led Legions that were extremely violent, especially towards the defenseless. But Russ made a point from the very beginning to rein himself in and taught his Legion to temper their bloodlust and fight to make the galaxy safe for humans by example. Angron didn't care about either his Legion or the people of the Imperium, the only leadership and example he gave the World Eaters was to slaughter anything that dared stand in his way. Even worse, Angron jammed the Butcher's Nails in the brains of his War Hounds, taking their discipline and brotherhood away from them and leaving them to degenerate into blood-crazed psychopathic supersoldiers living only to kill without rhyme or reason. Russ gave massacres of friendly units as his main reason for intervening.

*As for Jonson, both Primarchs had an element of glory-seeking in their nature. Both were also very stubborn and combative, with an animalistic side. However, Russ wasn't ruled by his pride but his drive to serve the Emperor came from a different place: the Lion lectured Russ about wasting time destroying the Emperor's enemies, when winning wars is all that matters. ''(ironically a similar lesson that Russ tried to teach Angron)'', while Russ couldn't countenance leaving any enemies alive. During a dispute between the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels over a friendly fire incident, Russ personally apologized to the Lion in spite of the Dark Angels being the ones who knowingly fired on the Rout. Russ put aside his lust for glory and victory to save the lives of his men, then privately made it clear [[Rip and Tear|what would happen should the Dark Angels do something similar again.]] By contrast, the Lion's honour was everything to him, that the Dark Angels fired on the Rout because they had been fired on first ''(even after warnings were given)'' and that the Lion seemed fully prepared to kill his brother in the brawl over kill stealing, because Russ laid hands on him first. This distinction justifies Russ' initial hatred of Jonson though the two did come to an understanding later; that the reason for the Lion breaking his promise on Dulan was because Russ was putting off the final blow and allowing the battle to drag out, costing lives, which was pretty much the lesson Jonson was trying to point out earlier. All because Russ had wandered off the battle-plan to sort out the Wulfen issue within the 13th Company, something that Russ later realised that the Lion <u>already knew</u> and had quietly disposed of the evidence for his brother, even though he could have used the knowledge to break the Space Wolves Legion.

*With Magnus, the accusations of hypocrisy carry little weight. Russ' attempts to cover up the Curse of the Wulfen are somewhat similar to Magnus' treatment of the flesh change (the Wulfen curse was not exacerbated by rampant sorcerous power use like the flesh change was), and both Legions did use psykers. The real difference here is how they dealt with the situation. However, the Rune Priests were much more cautious than the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons in their dealings with the Empyrean and only ''"taking a sip of the cup when needed instead of drinking deep each time"'' as the Khan would put it. More importantly, the Space Wolves treat the degeneration of their gene-seed and the transformation into Wulfen as a curse, a failing to be contained and if possible eradicated. The Thousand Sons treat their psyker powers as a badge of superiority, taking any excuse to use them and revelling in what made them unique without considering its links with the flesh change. Russ did his best to control his secrets, he didn't glorify them or thought it made him and his Wolves better than the other Legions. Magnus was controlled by his secrets and saw them as strengths. It's also worth noting that as per ''Prospero Burns'' Tzeentchian dickery had led Russ and others to believe Magnus' equerry had planted a spy among the Wolves, with Amon apparently attacking Bjorn and a Custodian at Nikaea. It is a tragic turn of events in its own right that this "Amon" was in truth a daemon masquerading as the Amon (who had - matter of factly - faithfully stayed at Magnus' side which was generously entirely disregarded by both the Wolves and the Custodians for plot reasons), playing a pivotal role in tipping the balance towards the dissolution of the Librarius (which - ironically - would have been one of the greatest assets the Imperium/the Emperor would have been able to field against Chaos during the Heresy.. [[Just as planned]]!!!!).

TL;DR: Russ shared many flaws with his brothers, but he was defined by being in control rather than being thrall to his flaws. His bloodlust never overtook his discipline like it would Angron. His glory-seeking never overrode his sense of responsibility like it would Lion El'Jonson. He made sure his sons worked against their curse rather than have them embrace it like Magnus did. It comes to no surprise that someone who worked so hard for control resented people who thought they didn't need it, hence the accusations of hypocrisy, however ([[Lion El'Jonson|in]] [[Ferrus Manus|fairness]] [[Rogal Dorn|like]] [[Roboute Guilliman|many]] [[Angron|of]] [[Perturabo|his]] [[Mortarion|brothers]] [[Night Haunter|Primarchs]]), interpersonal skills weren't exactly his forte. Russ' real failing was not that he accused others for things he had to deal with himself, but rather that he was in an unique position where he could have been an example to his brothers ''because he shared and knew how to deal with said flaws'' but his brashness and agressivity drove them apart instead.

On a somewhat amusing tangent. Russ considered [[Roboute Guilliman]] a good choice for Warmaster, and in return Guilliman considered Russ and his legion part of his "Dauntless Few", meaning that Bobby G sincerely believed that alongside Russ and his Wolves, the Ultramarines could defeat any opponent. Rather amusingly, when he was struck down by Fulgrim, Guilliman's last thoughts were, in order, of his sons, of the Imperium, and then for his brothers, the first being Russ. While they weren't exactly [[Fulgrim|best]] of [[Ferrus Manus|buds]], Russ actually believed Guilliman and [[Perturabo]] were the most boring among his brothers after [[Rogal Dorn]], they had a sincere respect for each other as warriors. The only thing they [[skub|had a bit of a pickle with]] was Rob's [[Codex Astartes]] thing; and Russ eventually [[Council of Nikaea|ostensibly acquiesced]] only to [[Thousand Sons|ignore it]] when G-man stopped breathing down his neck, kinda. The Space Wolves did try to form a successor Chapter, the [[Wolf Brothers]], but those very quickly devolved into Wulfen for whatever reason (it is suspected the planet Fenris has something to do with it).

== Post-Heresy ==
Although unable to return to aid the Imperium in the Battle for Terra, Russ and the Space Wolves threw themselves headfirst into the post-Heresy war efforts. Aside from spanking the traitors into the Eye of Terror, he came up with the concept for the Adeptus Praeses. Though he'd told Guilliman where he could shove his Codex, Russ liked the idea of successor chapters for the Wolves. To him (or the little reformist movement within the Legion later, the fluff isn't totally clear), they were a way of maintaining the Wolves' influence alongside that of Girlyman, Dorn and the rest. Unfortunately the Wolves' gene-seed proved too unstable to set up any viable successor chapters, and as a result while the Ultramarines, Imperial Fists and Dark Angels have shitloads of descendants to call on in a crisis, the Wolves are the sole embodiment of Russ' strength and drive. This hasn't helped their situation with Imperial institutions such as the Inquisition.

One-hundred years to the day after the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne, during a feast in the halls of the Space Wolves fortress, Russ climbed upon a table to give a speech. He was stricken with a vision, and after standing there speechless for a few minutes, he fell to one knee, issued hushed orders to his retinue, and left. He left his sons with their first Wolf Lord; [[Bjorn the Fell Handed]], and a message.

"In the end, I will be there. For the final battle. For <s>the wolf</s> dinner time."

And then the winds of change blew over the fluff once again. In the audio play Parting of Ways we get a slightly different version of events. There was still an annual feast, though it wasn't just to celebrate the day the Emperor got the snot beaten out of him by Horus, but also to commemorate the Wolves that had died during the spring cleaning that followed the Heresy, plus the completion of the Aett - the giant [[fortress-monastery|fortress]] of the Space Wolves. Also instead of a hundred years, it was two hundred years since the siege of Terra, so unless Dorn was a really slow learner and not very bright and it took him over a hundred years to assemble the Golden Throne, that is a clear lore change. Then again, given how Perturabo thoroughly kicked Dorn's ass in the iron Cage, forcing Bobby.G and the Ultrasmurfs to come and save Dorn's sorry ass, it's a possibility that Dorn just wasn't very bright. It's also a possibility that the Emperor got the Golden Throne from an old IKEA warehouse, which would explain why even a Primarch would have had trouble in figuring out how to put it together in less than a hundred years.

Also Russ wasn't about to hold a speech, instead he had at first partaken in the festivities but as the party grew sullen, Russ retreated, sensing, as Bjorn put it, "a fell wind from beyond the mountains, bleeding through the cracks of the Fang". After clenching the table for a while, Russ clambered to his feet on the table, screaming ''“No More!”'' The shout silenced the Space Wolves in their brawling and made the flags of the smoke filled halls tremble, so Russ apparently also had a gift for speech, plus he had a gift for getting instantly sober as Bjorn described his face going from being ruddy flushed with Mjod to looking like an ice spectre. Russ then held the following [[awesome|kickass]] speech:

''“We come here to celebrate the All-father, we come here to remember his sacrifice and his ascension from the world of the senses and his victory over my brother the traitor.”
''“We remember the dead, who even now gather in the oververse, their blade sharp, their aim keen.”''
''“They are better than we are for they perished in the war to end all wars and their souls have been purified! And what of us those left behind, wallowing in the drinks the fallen gods have left us?”''
''“We have grown fat, we have the beast within us, but is has never yet been mastered.”''

Then Russ paused to grab his drinking horn and held it aloft and continued:
''“So let us celebrate my father's ascension, let us remember what he was able to accomplish, let us remember what he built and what he foresaw and then what he lost and how he failed.”''
''“Do not mourn the fact that he no longer walks among us, for the galaxy was too small to accommodate such a soul, he was of an age of '''gods!''' And we are slumped in an age of mortals.”''
''“The lights of the stars will fade, this place will grow old and the ice will crack it.”''
''“We will forget no matter how much the skalds tell the old tales, what battles are left for us like the ones before?”''
''“My fallen brothers are gone, Malcador is gone, the leeches cluster around the Golden Throne and whisper of deeds done before they were born as if it were '''they''' who achieved them.”''

At this point Russ looked unsteady on his feet and his eyes went glassy:
''“A doubt of all of this, one thing remains true we were not on Terra, we were not there when the palace fell and that shame will pursue us for eternity.”''

Then Russ dropped his drinking horn on the board and then started to speak not to his warriors, but to himself or to some presence that was unseen.
''“It remains unfinished… I have waited for too long, building this mountain, squabbling with Guilliman. I will not grow old, feeble, limping around a crumbling inheritance. I have an Oath to keep, there are beasts left to slay.”''

At this point Russ was fully immersed in his premonitions and he looked around the room, a smile dancing on his fanged face, seeing things from either long ago or yet to come.
''“Listen closely my brothers, there shall come a time far from now, when the chapter itself is dying and our foes shall gather to destroy us.”''
''“Then, my sons, I shall listen for your call, in whatever realm holds me and come I shall, no matter what the laws of life and death forbid.”''
''“At the end, I will be there. For the final battle. FOR THE WOLF TIME!”''

Then Russ gave the mustering signal and he and his retinue left, though as Bjorn made to follow only to have Russ turn towards him saying a single sentence: ''“Not you.”'' When Bjorn asked for an explanation all Russ did was repeat the words: ''“Not you.”'' [[Eldrad|Then he left.]]

It is theorized that Russ like Magnus had the gift of premonition and knew that Bjorn would be needed in the years to come as the first Great Wolf, as it is heavily implied that if Bjorn hadn't been persuaded to take the mantle of great wolf, the Chapter itself would have fallen apart in the absence of Russ.

More likely Russ just didn't want Bjorn's moodiness to poison what ever adventure he was on. His helmet eventually came to be in the possession of [[Ulrik the Slayer]].

As to where Russ went and what happened to him there's a few theories given:
*Russ sought the Lion out to make amends of their old feuding (if so they both forgot to tell both their chapters about it).
*That he fought in eternal combat with the resurrected cadaver of Horus (no that would be Abaddon's task and he completely owned that clone of Horus).
*That he searched for the tree of life to heal the Emperor's soul.
*That he is trapped within a hollow star and tormented by his old adversary Magnus (Since Tzeentch was able to trap Sigmar in another dimension, trapping Russ in a hollow star and have his star pupil Magnus use him as a punching bag makes as much sense as anything).
*That he is actually searching for Magnus, to finish the last task given to him by the Emperor and "arrest" his wayward brother.
*That he passed beyond the bounds of space and time and now roams among the gods, ready to return when needed accompanied by the fallen of his legion sundered in a paradise of warriors (so basically he's in the Age of Sigmar at this point? somebody put him out of his misery, that's not a paradise that's hell on earth).
*That he's simply lost in the galactic fjord known as the Warp and has been playing drunken pranks on daemonic villagers for 10,000 years.

/tg/ theorizes that Leman Russ may return as [[Horo]] (Implying Horo isn't just one of Leman's many, many bastard children growing up on some shithole Feudal world).

Magnus actually know where Russ is now, but he don't tell it even to his trusted sorcerer lords.

The 13th company, and a figure bearing the likeness of Russ, was spotted during the 13th crusade and the siege of the capital of Cadia.

==On The Tabletop==
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Leman Russ:''' || 455 || 9 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 6 || 10 || 2+/4++
|}

An impressive stat-line, even by the insane standards of Primarchs, is coupled with unbelievably powerful wargear:
*The '''Armour Elavagar''' starts as your bog-standard 2+/4++ which is increased to a 3++ against flamer (in case you meet an AP2 flamer or something), melta, and plasma weapons, but the truly <strike>awesome</strike> severely-overpowered-bullshit part is that it imposes -1 to hit on anyone in BtB with him. Do note however that it ''only'' works in BtB contact, so the models not directly in contact with Russ would still hit him as usual (likely on 5+ due to his insane WS). Basically, he's insanely tanky in a fight.
*The '''Axe of Helwinter''' is a ''+2 S master-crafted power axe with sunder and without unwieldy'' for your vehicle-wrecking needs and putting some more guaranteed wounds on high toughness opponents. Also useful for inflicting Instant Death on anything T4 or lower.
*The '''Sword of Balenight''' is a Shredding AP2 power sword; oh wait, it also has '''Sever Life'''. If Russ' prey suffers one or more wounds from the sword, roll a 2d6. If this result beats your target's toughness, add 1d3 additional wounds at ap2, so you can still use your inv save against these additional wounds.
**Thanks to vague wording, when you must make the test for Sever Life is a subject of debate. Some say "suffering one or more wounds" means that the rule applies immediately before saves are made. HOWEVER, the rule clearly states that Sever Life is used only if the model "is not slain" by the initial attacks, and you HAVE to make your save rolls in order to know if they are slain or not, so one can lawfully argue that ''unsaved'' wounds are the real trigger. Keep calm and make it clear with your opponent until a FAQ is released. Besides, the times Russ isn't going to be able to get at least one wound in with this sword are going to be pretty rare.
**As mentioned in the description, the extra attack that would normally be added when using two close combat weapons is already included in his profile of 6.
*For ranged fights he has the [[Vulkan]]-remade bolter (mentioned to be regular one until Xzibit got his hands on it) turned into a pistol for Primarch's hand, called '''Scornspitter''' which is assault 3 AP3 rending, but with pitiful 12" range. Of course if you aren't within 12", then you can't charge, and if you can't charge you're running therefore even if it did have a greater than 12" range it wouldn't be used anyway.

His Wolf-Kin are deployed separately and he can't join them, but they're great harassing units and surprisingly brutal fighters.

Meanwhile, his Sire of the Space Wolves gives him Night Vision, Counter-Attack, Preternatural Senses, and Hunter's Gait: all Wolves get +1Ld and Russ gets to Howl once per game (letting everyone in his detachment reroll run and charge for said turn). Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin gives weapon mastery (like Horus and Calgar). If he's Warlord, you can take Veteran Tacticals (who may run/shoot bolters then charge instead of regular Vet tactics) and Varagyr Terminators as troops.

If Horus plays like everything a Space Marine Chapter Master ought to be, Russ is best compared to an Ork Warboss. He isn't exactly "tactical" in the traditional sense of reserve dickery, but Howl of the Death Wolf combined with Warrior's Mettle Veterans can make your army a strong hunter-killer force, able to get in your enemy's face and fuck up his battle plans. This is an unpredictable force, able to catch most armies by surprise and keep them off balance. Freki and Geri are practically auto-takes, and Russ himself can and will fuck up everything from Leviathans to Thanatars to Land Raiders. Due to high strength, high initiative, and high weapon skill, even Imperial Knights aren't out of the question. Worth it.

==Leman Russ VS other Primarchs:==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Inferno is finally released and you came here to see how your favorite/most hated superhuman demi-god fares against the other Primarchs, because you love delicious Mathhammer trolling and cautious planning before battle.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
'''<big>[[RIP AND TEAR|THEY ALL DIE. EVERY. LAST. ONE. OF. THEM.]]</big>'''

Sever Life on The Sword of Balenight is the real kicker here. Allowing him to potentially pile on more wounds than what would normally be possible for the amount of attacks he has. And since most primarchs only have a 4++, they tend to die in short order (with even the tougher ones eventually going down from sheer wound output). So if you want to add the damage for Sever Life, here's the results:

*Against T6 Sever Life will cause an additional 1.091 Wounds on average.
*Against T7 Sever Life will cause an additional 0.909 Wounds on average.
::Note that these are Wounds that can still be saved via Invulnerable saves.

This is made even crazier with his ability to split his attacks between his axe of awesome and his sword of cheese (Yes just like Horus). Since all it takes is one wound going through to trigger Sever Life thus he can lay on the hurt with his high strength axe while still getting some good jabs in with his sword. When combined with the additional wounds from sever life (assuming it goes off, which against most Primarchs it should since they are mostly in the T6 range) this guy can lay on more wounds on a single target than just about any other Primarch (except a fully buffed Angron, though to be fair that is really all Angron has got going in a fight).

Possibly worse than Sever Life (which probably is intended to trigger after saves, hence the "Is not slain" part) is his armor, which cripples almost every Primarch's ability to damage him with the negatives to hit. Since thanks to his insane weapon skill almost all will be needing 6's or 5's at best to even hit him, and after taking wound rolls and saves into account he is basically taking almost no damage. Which really hurts alot of his opponents since most of their special rules in CC rely on doing damage (e.g. Horus disabling strike and Perturabo's fancy hammer with basically every CC special rule). Even the uber-tanks are left flailing at him, barely doing any damage, while he grinds them out.

The only ones who can even stand a snowball's chance are heavy-hitters in the range of Horus, Fulgrim, Angron with maximum attacks, Ferrus Manus, Perturabo and a fully buffed Magnus. In addition a Transfigured Lorgar might be able to tar pit him for awhile (though don't expect him to actually win). But I do mean snowball, even these guys barring some amazing rolls will probably lose virtually every fight (including Horus).

Vulkan holds out pretty well but only if Russ is just using the sword... against the axe... well lets hope the dice are on your side!

Do note too that if Russ brings his wolves along (as he should) then they can challenge and take challenges in his place, as they are both characters. Thanks to how the rules work, this means that Russ essentially has 8 wounds, and in the case of Primarchs who can't ID the wolves 14 wounds. In effect he can use this to prevent Horus from using his talon to drop his stats or Perturabo smacking him to many times with his hammer while making the combat last even longer, since for example if Horus uses Worldbreaker to kill the first wolf Russ can just tank the wounds before his other wolf challenges in round 2, all the while Russ is beating the shit out of Horus completely unharmed. Statistically if Leman Russ brings his wolves along it is near impossible for any single other Primarch to kill Russ before he grinds them down if in a challenge.

HOWEVER if you or your opponent plays him in a list he can potentially be tar pitted with terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields. Russ is not immune to concussion and the invuln save is superior than Russ. This will bring him down to an equal playing field since while they will not be doing much damage to him (since needing 6s to hit), he will probably not be able to rip throw them before the game ends (he is more a challenge monster than infantry wrecker, again that is Angrons job). Though don't rely on this as like all primarchs he is perfectly capable of wiping them out.
Such is the fickleness of the dice. And again this is not even taking into account his two wolves. With either of them tanking a shot or two and preventing Concussion from setting in Leman Russ again has a very good chance of ripping through them. So don't expect this to be a consistent solution to dealing with him.

Bottom line, Horus is lucky that Russ didn't get there first.

</div>
</div>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:russ_original.jpg|First portrayal of Leman Russ in canon (Rogue Trader)
File:russ_furry_original.jpg|First retcon of Leman Russ, now approximately 215% furrier, in 1st. Ed compilation
File:Leman russ by alexboca-d7930sk.jpg
File:Russ_Behind.jpg| RUN <s> FORREST </s> LEMAN, RUN!
File:Russ_Front.jpg| He's running so [[White Scars|fast]] because he saw someone throw a stick.
File:Russ_Side.jpg
File:Horus vs Leman.jpg|
File:Horus-Primarchs-Warhammer-Russ.jpeg|
</gallery>

{{Primarchs}}

[[Category:Space Wolves]]

==See Also==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Q8uymv0vw&index=2&list=PLdPq6mYy-DRdA9aTRJghfDsQiyR5WLs7y/ Admit it, this is the only song that truly befits the glory of the Sons of Russ.]
* [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzkqA4-4jIM/ Not so fast.]

Leman Russ

2020-08-29T21:35:14Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:3565:AF32:66B6:CB2C: /* The Next Step */

[[Image:LEMAN_RUSS.jpg|frame|My hand is fire, my hair is rage, my pauldrons are justice and my cock is wolf. Prepare to die!]]
{{Topquote|I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.|[[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Genghis Khan]]}}
{{Topquote|When he is nearly ten, his mother submits him to a first ordeal: she sews his shirt to his arms through the skin. Siggeir's sons, submitted to the same ordeal, [[Anal circumference|had howled with pain]], but Sinfjotli remains imperturbable. His mother then pulls off his shirt, tearing away the skin, and asks him if he feels anything. The boy answers that a [[Badasious|Volsung is not troubled by such a trifle]] (...) After this proof of courage Sigmund takes the boy into the forest with him. One day they find two wolfskins hanging from the wall of a hut. [[Horus|The two sons]] [[Emperor|of a king]] had been transformed into wolves and could only come out of the skins every tenth day. Sigmund and Sinfjotli put on the skins, but cannot get them off. They howl like wolves and understand the wolves' language.|Volsung Saga, summarized and commented by Mircea Eliade, ''Birth and Rebirth'' (New York: Harper & Row, 1958)}}
{{Topquote|It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.|Virgil}}
{{Topquote|Wrestle me arm and your spine shall implode.|Russ plays a 'Small Baby Game' with the Dark Eldar}}

'''Leman Russ''', '''The Great Wolf''', '''The Lord of Winter and Ruin''', and '''Wolf King of Fenris''', also known as '''Lemon Russ''', '''Lemon Rust''', and '''[[Magnus the Red|That Fucking Furry]]''', not to be confused with the [[Leman Russ (tank)|tank bearing his name]], is the primarch of the [[Space Wolves]] legion. A superhuman nordic king with a warrior's crude humor and a stubborn streak a mile wide. He was such a hard headed son of a bitch, that he's survived extended fights with [[Angron]], [[Magnus]], [[Lion El'Jonson|The Lion]], [[Horus]] and even the Emperor himself. General all-around badass deserving of much respect, but superstitious and flawed, with a serious problem valuing others' points of view, even if he understood them. He's blond underneath [[Rip and Tear|all the blood.]] There appears to be no specific way to pronounce his surename as both the wider Imperium and the Wolves themselves commonly alternate between "R-UH-ss" and "Rh-OOs", when speaking about him or the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|battle tank named after him]].

==Origins==
When the Primarchs were lost, Leman's capsule landed on [[Fenris]], a harsh planet of insane violence that the Norse gods shit out after a three day meth fueled orgy with a tyranid hive fleet. The locals there enjoy a life of fishing, drinking, sailing, fucking, pillaging, and conquering other tribes of people for the modest little islands they all have to live on. Granted, it's also usually a very short life, because they're sharing the world with trolls, yetis, wolves the size of horses, wolves the size of battle tanks, bears the size of a house, whales that kill for fun, and krakens, which are to a squid as a [[Hierophant]] is to a [[Hormagaunt]].

So it was that little baby Russ left his capsule in the polar mountain region of Asaheim. There, some monstrous female wolf found him and said to herself "I WANT!". So Russ was raised by a dire wolf In Spess (google "Romolo and Remo" for a "real life" version). A few years pass, Russ growing up big and strong and hairy, having a grand old time running around the mountains and killing the sheep and such of the humans there with his wolf brothers. Eventually a king named Thengir heard of the Wolf-man, and decreed he be captured and brought to his hall. The mist of ages (and retcons) have hidden the details of Thengir's first meeting with Russ. Some stories would say that Russ was bound and gagged and dragged into the hall of the King Thengir after his Wolf family was slain, others claim a hunting party stumbled across his cave and kicked off a bloody melee in which a dozen hunters were killed, along with Russ's mother, after which the hunters realized they weren't fighting a wolf (they were probably drunk and kind of retarded) and somehow convinced Russ to stand down and come with them, a conversation that may or may not have included copious amounts of alcohol and whores. Thengir took a wondrous interest in Russ and ordered he be educated. In a short time, Russ was trash-talking every short bastard who dared look at him the wrong way, and had become insanely good with weaponry. When Thengir finally died, all declared that Leman of the Russ become the new high King.

Also, remember that Volsung Saga quote regarding Warrior Initiations for [[Angron|Berserks]]? Considering that (according to old Fluff) Sanguinius looked like a young teen adult at 1 year old, Leman Russ passed this trial that when he was around 7-10 months old or so. No wonder he went on to be a [[Eldrad|dick]] [[Primarch#Douchebagginess|with]] [[Magnus|some]] [[Unknown Primarchs|of]] [[Lion El'Jonson|his brothers]] and his new recruits (first, the Space Wolves feed them like they arrived to Valhalla and [[Assholetep|then, throw em in a thunderhawk and kick em into them in the cold wilderness of Fenris until they transform into Wulfen or return home by themselves]]...) and was easily manipulated by the Luna Wolf Primarch in tearing a new asshole to Magnus.

==GW origins==
He was just an ordinary commander who came with two wolves, Freki and Geri. This is them.

[[Image:russ_original.jpg|300px|thumb|frame|left|This is the very first canonical portrayal of Leman Russ. I shit you not (In Rogue Trader; before primarchs were a thing, but still.)]]

http://www.solegends.com/citrt2/rt070121LemanRuss/Wd117p80070121SWCommanderLemanRussx-01.htm

==The Next Step==
Russ conquered and took. He bartered and traded. He united the people of Asaheim under his rule. Somehow, the Emprah heard of it and realized it all had to be the work of a Primarch. So then he attended a royal banquet in the Hall of the Mountain Ki- I mean Leman Russ. The Emprah, taking a leaf out of Odin's book, disguised himself as some old geezer, then waited until the right moment to reveal his true identity. When he did Russ refused to bow down and challenged him to several contests, he ate so much the Emprah was forced to back down. Russ drank so much the Emprah was forced to back down. By now, the Emprah was fairly surprised at finally being out-done by someone else, Russ gazed upon the Emperor and challenged him in combat, and so did the Emprah raise his Power Glove into the air for all to see, and so did he then bring it down on Leman Russ's head, knocking him the fuck out in one solid hit.

[[Image:russ_furry_original.jpg|300px|thumb|frame|right|...and this is the first portrayal getting ready for a furry con.]]

Of course fluff changes and a 1-hit KO wasn't very fulfilling, so the new lore arrived: After the Emperor revealed himself Leman Russ skipped the eating and drinking contests and just challenged the Emperor to a fight. It is unknown whether the Emperor was in his full armour and actually had his Power Fist at the time, or whether he used his psychic powers; but the duel lasted for hours. (Presumably Russ did a lot better this time by virtue of not being drunk.) In the end, though the Emperor, presumably pissy that Leman was waving his cock in his face by just straight up fighting him, punched him square in the face and dropped him. When Russ awoke, he laughed it off and swore loyalty to the one who managed to beat him. Afterwards he ended up in command of the one Space Marine legion that knows how to eat, drink, brawl and make war upon any asshole that mocks their Thunderwolf.

Rumour has it that the Emp was so pleased with Russ' prowess, that he tasked him and the Space Wolves to be his executioners and it seems Russ is the reason the 2nd and 11th Legions no longer exist. So he has experience fucking up a Primarch, which is pretty goddamn manly. (Not confirmed by any sources and is not more than passing conversation in one Black Library novel, other than that, yeah totally definitely didn't kill the other legions. Also if you take how he acted with Angron and Magnus, he totally hated his job of being the executioner... and apparently thought Lorgar was a pretty cool guy).

(The novel "Betrayer" give's Angron's version of their run-in, where he tells to Lorgar what happened. Russ had taken it upon himself to school the World Eaters as he was disgusted by their behavior. Angron was having none of Russ's babbling and picked a fight with him by insulting the Big.E. Angron eventually defeats Russ in single combat, but because only he was fighting to kill while Russ was trying to teach. It then ends with the Space Wolves entirely outmaneuvering the Eaters and winning a tactical victory by surrounding Angron, some more hissing vitriol between the two Primarchs and Angron leaving. The World Eaters believed they won due to a higher kill count and the Wolves leave disappointed that their legion brothers were too retarded to see the lesson Russ was teaching. It is pretty telling that even <u>Lorgar</u> replies to Angron that he was a complete tool on that night and would have been killed after hearing him boast of how he won against Russ. With that said, Lorgar was able to get Angron to learn the lesson Russ was trying to teach him by just talking to him ''for two minutes'', and he did it without getting a shit load of his own men killed or getting his ass kicked in a duel. Not only does it show just how badly Russ failed at what he had set out to do on the Night of the Wolf, but also how his own hot headedness and fundamental inability to understand his brothers can royally bite him in the ass.)

Apart from that, Russ and his Space Wolves had a goddamn good time during the Great Crusade, although it hasn't been written about so this is all we can guess. Until ''Inferno'' dropped. It turns out that Russ became the Emperor's executioner in the process of fighting the Rangdan Xenocides, which saw entire Army regiments, Titan Legions and [REDACTED] Space Marine Legions (could be Chapters, could actually be entire Legions) wiped out. With the Luna Woves up to the eyes in glorious warfare in the Galactic East, Russ and the VI headed north along with the I Legion - this is the war that ended the I's time as the largest Legion. The end of the Xenocides entailed a series of bio-pogroms which left the Wolves with a very ugly reputation, and from then on Russ' role was the doer of necessary dirty deeds.

When that bitch-ass [[Horus]] started whining and crying, Leman Russ and his Legion were on their way to Prospero to bring Magnus the Red to Terra for questioning. Horus intercepted the message and re-worded it to order Russ to destroy Magnus and his Thousand Sons, and interestingly Russ found when they arrived at Prospero he didn't want to do that. He decided to go against the orders he thought were legit, and instead detain him and his legion so that they could be transported to Terra (ironically doing exactly what his legit orders were by going against what he thought they were), but when Magnus refused to answer the phone and the Thousand Sons' calls were all being blocked by he Primarch he became more and more annoyed, and eventually he was pissed off enough that he and the Space Wolves carried out a class-10 clusterfucking on Prospero (aided along a bit by Magnus himself lowering his planet's defenses because he wanted to atone for his wrongdoings in the dumbest fucking way possible). It should have ended with the glorious finale where Leman Russ himself lifted Magnus the Red over his shoulders and broke the sorcerer's back over his knee (rumour has it that Russ could be heard shouting “Ah yes. I was wondering what would break first: your spirit… or your body!”...turns out it was both at the same time!). But even so, the red bastard managed to utter one single word of power and escaped through the fucking ground. Russ was so enraged that he ordered the 13th company of Space Wolves to pursue the fleeing Thousand Sons through their pansy-ass portals.

This said, winning the Battle of Prospero left a bitter taste in Russ' mouth and complicated things for the Wolves in the long run. First of all, despite his reputation as the Emperor's Executioner, fighting Magnus took a serious toll on Russ. Rumour has it, that during the battle between those two demigods Magnus, by psychic means, laid his heart and mind bare to Russ, revealing that he knew not only every blow that was coming from his brother, but everything that he had come to know, accepting his failure and his fate, which was defeat. In the recently published Horus Heresy novel Wolfsbane Magnus' last words to Russ are finally revealed "You are a sword in the wrong hands. You have severed an innocent neck." In other words: Magnus was even aware that the wolves had been manipulated into wiping the Thousand Sons out, instead of detaining them and bringing them back to Terra (but not aware he wasn't actually innocent), and the idiot just let it happen instead of talking to Russ who wanted to ignore his orders and detain the Sons, in order to bring them back to Terra.

It will be interesting to see how GW tries to fill the logic gap regarding the hatred of Magnus towards the wolves now, considering he obviously *knew* that Russ had been manipulated into killing Magnus and the entirety of the Burning of Prospero is directly his fault. One easy way out would be the loss of the shard of Magnus that held his nobility which was absorbed by Ianus (first grandmaster of the Grey Knights, a former Thousand Son that was in the process of succumbing to the flesh change when this little "accident" occurred), but most fans would prefer a more convincing explanation. Seeing a hypergenius like Magnus hating the Space Wolves for destroying his legion - irrespective of the fact that he *knew* that they had been manipulated into doing so and the fact that he intentionally chose for his legion to be destroyed - makes less sense with Magnus' added layer of remorse and self-awareness. Then again, said hypergenius, even at his best and most complete, had a monumental know-it-all complex, a lot of pride in his life's work, and a long history of mutual scorn with Russ. That, plus the fact that Primarchs are not known for [[Konrad Curze|making]] [[Rogal Dorn|rational]] and [[Perturabo|empathic]] [[Angron|decisions]] [[Horus Heresy|with one another]], might help explain some of it.

Either way, the events of Prospero shook the Wolf King deeply, but Russ decided to carry on and try to make the best of a real clusterfuck of a situation. (An Inquisitor once called it an "emo phase" in front of a Rune Priest, and was fed balls-first to a Thunderwolf.) Not long after that, the news of the Drop Site Massacre reached the Wolves; which was another blow for the Wolf King. In his own words, Russ felt he'd been "in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing", wasting his time and men fighting an eventually futile battle instead of standing with his brother Primarchs against the real threat. Just to make things worse, the [[Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula|Alpha Legion turned up to batter the Wolves]] and prevent them from heading to Terra and helping Big E. As the rotten cherry on top of an already really bad cake, the White Scars, who'd been bros with the Thousand Sons and had no idea why Russ had just decided to fuck them up royally seemingly out of the blue, weren't going to help them after Prospero. But the [[Dark Angels]] of all people aided [[File:Battle_of_Trisolian.jpg|280px|thumb|right|Only room for one wolf pelt wearing Primarch in this universe.]] the Wolves in fighting off the Alpha Legion, letting the Wolves damage their fleet to an impressive degree. A plus here was that [[Bjorn the Fell-Handed]] came to his attention, setting the young warrior on the path to ironclad badassness. This said, when he went to Yarant to fight the main Traitor advance, Russ was badly injured, entering a coma and giving Bjorn temporary command of the Legion. He bought Dorn and the Emperor more time, but didn't make it back to Terra until it was too late.

Oh and Empy totally gave him a spear after most of the Terran members of his original legion died fighting various gribbly xenos. Including Tyranids. Yup. Said spear was tossed into a certain Daemon Primarchs single eye, thereby preventing him from manifesting in reality AND resurrecting his legion. Russ totally hated this spear btw. At one point Russ tried to hit a moon orbiting some planet (he was drunk, don't judge) and the spear was lost for months [[troll|but since it had been a gift from Big.E the Wolves did spend said months searching for it]]. In the novel "Wolfsbane" and the short story "Two Metaphysical Blades," it's revealed he was secretly fearful of the spear and purposefully avoided using it while claiming he was a short range fighter that preferred swords and axes; "forgetting" it at conferences before people brought it back. He later uses it and became fond of it as a weapon after a trip into the Warp revealed its intended purpose in parallel with his role. Later he uses said spear to [[Battle of Trisolian|fight]] chaos-empowered Horus, after another try to get rid of it. He manages to stop the Warmaster with it, but then he acts like a fucking idiot, instead of just killing Horus and ending the rebellion then and there, he tries to reach out to Horus' good side and gets fucked up because of it.

Funny thing, that spear. It's actually the twin of another spear, the Apollonian Spear, wielded by the commander of the Custodes, Constantin Valdor. Russ's spear is known by many names, including Gungnir (the spear of Odin), simply the Spear of Russ, and others. But, this spear and its twin were both crafted by Big E, so before any of those other names it was called the Dionysian spear. Now, this is a bit of a deep cut on GWs part, but the Apollonian and Dionysian actually refers to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (feeling lost yet?), who was in turn writing about the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. In Nietzsche's philosophy, the Apollonian is representative of everything bright and individual, meaning life and the person living it, as well as order and stability. The Dionysian, however, is representative of the primordial state from which all things originally emerge, the CHAOTIC nothingness from which the individual Apollonian springs forth. So, bringing it back to 40k, the Apollonian spear of Constantin Valdor can impart the memories of the person it kills to its wielder, capturing that individual and orderly moment. When inquired by Valdor, the Emperor intended it to be a tool to make Valdor understand his foes and as a check to keeping from getting too arrogant. What does Russ's spear, the Dionysian spear do? Well, we really don't know, but if the novel Wolfsbane is anything to go by, it seems that at least a couple people believe it's the weapon best suited for killing a Primarch. As seen with how the spear stabbed Russ and showed him how horrifying the truth of the Primarchs' origins were and how it erased all the corruption temporarily from Horus' mind, it's certainly a potent and terrifying weapon. And since the Primarchs are essentially the Emperor's Own Daemonkin, it stands to reason that the Dionysian Spear was designed by the Emperor to destroy the soul of the Primarchs and return them to the primal Chaos from which they originated. This in turn jives with Russ's wyrd of being the Emperor's "executioner".

== Russ and his Brothers ==

In many ways Russ can be best understood by looking at the clashes between him and his brothers, butting heads with [[Angron]], [[Magnus]], and [[Lion El'Jonson]] over the years. All three of them had much in common with Russ, and there was potential for great brotherhood there, but in large part his lack of tact or understanding crushed whatever relationship might have been.

His fight with Angron was an attempt to teach his brother a lesson. Both of them were consummate warriors, both relied on their amazing athleticism and berzerker rages to triumph in battle, both were known for losing their temper when challenged, but Russ saw weakness in his brother's lack of strategy. Leman tried to just talk to the World Eater's primarch, but Angron was so uncontrollably, incredibly, "calm down son", angry that he just attacked Russ. While Russ and Angron were dueling, their retinues kicked off an open war, and in the battle that followed Russ found himself defeated by Angron, but Angron was in turn outmaneuvered and surrounded by the Space Wolves, thus proving Russ's lesson that warrior prowess isn't enough. That said, no one learned '''anything'''. Angron thought himself the victor because he'd won the duel and his sons had inflicted greater casualties than the Wolves, but Russ thought himself the victor because he'd proven his point and "educated" his brother. On the flip side, arguments that Russ should have been more tactful ignore that he was trying to deal with a Space Marine Legion of questionable loyalty that could and had caused massive amounts of collateral damage. There's a time for caution; it's not when rampaging supersoldiers are threatening the Imperium and its people. Which is indeed a good point, but then he should have gone all the way and gotten Big.E's approval to deal with this shit once and for all if it came down to that instead of trying to do things on his own on the sly. No matter how you look at it, Russ' idea to "educate" his brother was one of good intent (no really, it's a genuine bro' move that the Primarchs rarely extended to another) but of poor execution. If Russ had paid more attention and thought things through rather than sticking to do things his way, he'd have used subtler methods of persuasion to calm Angron, as Fulgrim and especially Lorgar had done in the past. Russ would have had an easier time of persuading Angron than either of them, given that he and Angron had a similar sense of brutal honor and a great lust for war. But, ultimately, it didn't occur to Russ to slow down and think his idea though, so he failed that day..... Well, that last statement is a bit in the grey zone. It was rightfully pointed out above that Russ was not exactly cool-headed either. And it was only when Angron said that without the Nails he might have been a more honourable man (like Russ claimed to be); but that if this were so he might have decided at some point to storm the Emperor's palace and "chop the slavering bastards head off". That was the final straw for Russ who couldn't take more of that shit, hissed "Heretic" as he lost his temper and things went downhill from there until both legions clashed. It is also noteworthy (and of course grimdark/tragic) that Angron made some pretty valid and surprisingly logical arguments including showing genuine regret for having been pressed into a role he had never wanted ("I died on Nuceria") , especially considering what a berzerk killer he was even then already. Several years/brain hemorrhages later only the berzerk killer with the attention span of a two year old was left but that's a story for another day (as in: when he was [[troll]]ing Ultramar with Lorgar, which ultimately culminated in his ascension to daemon(prince)hood).

Russ really, ''really'' didn't get along with Magnus, even before the burning of Prospero. He hated that his brother used sorcery and warpcraft so extensively. The Rune Priests of the Space Wolves use their psychic abilities in a much more limited and controlled way than the Thousand Sons, and the Rout never used Chaos familiars (which the Thousand Sons - to be fair - were totally unaware of using. They thought them to be benevolent spirits or "tutelaries"... until the Burning of Prospero of course when these spirits showed their true colours and turned on Magnus' sons). The Wolves also use the spirits of Fenris, hence all the totems and runes. Nearly all fluff indicates that this is utter horseshit, until the Spirit of Fenris was revealed to be real. Russ' convictions led him to feud with Magnus, but so did his concerns over the threat the XVth Legion posed to the Imperium and his frustration with Magnus' tendency to abandon his allies in favor of investigating some psychic artifact or slow down a conquest to avoid damaging some books. Russ never stopped to consider that Magnus' understanding of the Warp might have been better than his, or that the things Magnus preserved might have value for the humans Russ wanted to make the Galaxy safe for. Ridiculous theories that Russ was a psyker aside, another significant source of the feud between Magnus and Russ was The Crimson King's sheer arrogance. Leman Russ was rightly proud of his cunning battle tactics and personal ferocity, and was fully aware that he grew up on a savage death world where everything is constantly trying to kill you, while Magnus had it comparatively easy on Prospero. The Wolf King and his Legion, from the Wheel of Fire to the Rangdan Xenocides, had proved its mettle, cunning, and devotion to the Emperor many times over, yet Magnus treated him like a dumb hick and acted as though his psychic powers made him the greatest primarch. It couldn't have helped matters that some of the threats the VIth had bested were psychic in nature. Yet Magnus knew none of this; only the Emperor and the Space Wolves understood the extent of the threats they had faced down. Russ never considered that Magnus had no knowledge of the terrible secrets that only he had been entrusted with; he expected Magnus to take the word of an "ignorant savage" that the abilities he defined himself by couldn't be trusted. Whether Magnus would have listened if he did explain all that on the other hand, is another story - recall that he didn't listen the first time the Emperor told him to stop.

Perhaps most famous and most tragic of Russ's feuds was his strife with [[Lion El'Jonson]]. Both men had very similar origins, but slight differences in their upbringings drove a wedge between them. The Wolf and the Lion were both raised by the wild: both of their pods had crashed in areas with no humans, and they had to learn to survive with no lessons from other men. Both were eventually taken in when they were discovered by the men of their world, but that's where their stories differ. Where Russ was raised in the friendly, bawdy brotherhood of Thengir's men, the Lion was trained and educated in the somber fraternity of the knightly Order. While Russ had been brawling and singing with his friends, leading great hunts to destroy monsters and enemy tribes, the Lion was mastering discipline and embarking on solemn quests to destroy the Great Beasts of the forest. The battle between the two came on the world of Dulan, where the VIth and Ist legion were fighting together to slay a tyrant who'd insulted Russ's honor. At the beginning of the conflict the two brothers had promised to work together, but as time went on the Lion grew tired of his brother's insistence on utterly smashing every pocket of resistance rather than taking a more efficient, direct method of ending the war. Eventually he just launched an assault on the tyrant's palace, and beheaded the man before Russ could reach them. In the heat of the moment, Russ was ''furious'' to hear that and immediately confronted his brother. Russ was an angry dickhead, the Lion was a snarky bastard, and before long blades were drawn and the two were trying to kill each other in a violent battle. After a long and bloody fight in which the two of them beat one another senseless and finally fell over the ramparts of the fortress to the ground below, Russ started laughing, the ridiculousness of what they were doing finally apparent. Here they were, two Primarchs of the Legiones Astartes, brawling like children instead of leading their men. The Lion, however, didn't laugh. Like, at all. He coldly asked if his brother would yield, a question that just confused Russ. ''His brother thought this was a real duel?'' Russ had thought of the fight as a brawl between angry brothers like would happen on Fenris: a quick spat that would end with both of them beaten and bloodied, a spur-of-the-moment thing to vent their anger they'd laugh about over a tankard of Mjod years later. The Lion however was taking it deadly seriously and while Russ was laughing he struck a final blow, shattering Russ's skull and ending the fight. Had Russ stopped to consider his brother's mentality, or listened more closely to the Lion's words, he would have realized that the Lion saw the conflict as something profoundly different from what Russ thought it was, taking the matter of honour as something deadly serious. Again, Russ's lack of consideration was his failing.

However, while certainly abrasive, arrogant, and brutal, Russ was also every bit as loyal as Sanguinius or Dorn. The other thing Magnus, Angron, and the Lion had in common? All three of them behaved like assholes in their way. The Lion had zero people skills, arrogantly considered himself the best of all Primarchs, acted like he was some prince-in-waiting and lorded it over his brothers, him turning a small brawl into a duel of honour case in point. Magnus was much more enjoyable to be around but he arrogantly assumed he knew best because of his powers and blatantly favored psykers in his Legion. Angron's case is... [[Rage|self-explanatory]]. Bottom line, his brothers all put their own feelings/goals before those of the Emperor. Not to say that Russ was tactful, diplomatic, or understanding with these three - he certainly could have handled all of these conflicts better - but Russ was never a dick just for the sake of being a dick - he was a dick because someone had to keep his brothers in line.

His relationships with his brothers also highlight another one of his traits. Fans LOVE to call him a hypocrite, and this isn't far off the mark. However, it's not quite on target either. To elaborate, Russ did indeed criticize (and at times even physically attacked) his brothers for traits he or his Legion also had. On closer inspection, though, the way Russ dealt with his flaws was different from his brothers - and that's the best justification for his behavior:

*Russ and Angron both led Legions that were extremely violent, especially towards the defenseless. But Russ made a point from the very beginning to rein himself in and taught his Legion to temper their bloodlust and fight to make the galaxy safe for humans by example. Angron didn't care about either his Legion or the people of the Imperium, the only leadership and example he gave the World Eaters was to slaughter anything that dared stand in his way. Even worse, Angron jammed the Butcher's Nails in the brains of his War Hounds, taking their discipline and brotherhood away from them and leaving them to degenerate into blood-crazed psychopathic supersoldiers living only to kill without rhyme or reason. Russ gave massacres of friendly units as his main reason for intervening.

*As for Jonson, both Primarchs had an element of glory-seeking in their nature. Both were also very stubborn and combative, with an animalistic side. However, Russ wasn't ruled by his pride but his drive to serve the Emperor came from a different place: the Lion lectured Russ about wasting time destroying the Emperor's enemies, when winning wars is all that matters. ''(ironically a similar lesson that Russ tried to teach Angron)'', while Russ couldn't countenance leaving any enemies alive. During a dispute between the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels over a friendly fire incident, Russ personally apologized to the Lion in spite of the Dark Angels being the ones who knowingly fired on the Rout. Russ put aside his lust for glory and victory to save the lives of his men, then privately made it clear [[Rip and Tear|what would happen should the Dark Angels do something similar again.]] By contrast, the Lion's honour was everything to him, that the Dark Angels fired on the Rout because they had been fired on first ''(even after warnings were given)'' and that the Lion seemed fully prepared to kill his brother in the brawl over kill stealing, because Russ laid hands on him first. This distinction justifies Russ' initial hatred of Jonson though the two did come to an understanding later; that the reason for the Lion breaking his promise on Dulan was because Russ was putting off the final blow and allowing the battle to drag out, costing lives, which was pretty much the lesson Jonson was trying to point out earlier. All because Russ had wandered off the battle-plan to sort out the Wulfen issue within the 13th Company, something that Russ later realised that the Lion <u>already knew</u> and had quietly disposed of the evidence for his brother, even though he could have used the knowledge to break the Space Wolves Legion.

*With Magnus, the accusations of hypocrisy carry little weight. Russ' attempts to cover up the Curse of the Wulfen are somewhat similar to Magnus' treatment of the flesh change (the Wulfen curse was not exacerbated by rampant sorcerous power use like the flesh change was), and both Legions did use psykers. The real difference here is how they dealt with the situation. However, the Rune Priests were much more cautious than the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons in their dealings with the Empyrean and only ''"taking a sip of the cup when needed instead of drinking deep each time"'' as the Khan would put it. More importantly, the Space Wolves treat the degeneration of their gene-seed and the transformation into Wulfen as a curse, a failing to be contained and if possible eradicated. The Thousand Sons treat their psyker powers as a badge of superiority, taking any excuse to use them and revelling in what made them unique without considering its links with the flesh change. Russ did his best to control his secrets, he didn't glorify them or thought it made him and his Wolves better than the other Legions. Magnus was controlled by his secrets and saw them as strengths. It's also worth noting that as per ''Prospero Burns'' Tzeentchian dickery had led Russ and others to believe Magnus' equerry had planted a spy among the Wolves, with Amon apparently attacking Bjorn and a Custodian at Nikaea. It is a tragic turn of events in its own right that this "Amon" was in truth a daemon masquerading as the Amon (who had - matter of factly - faithfully stayed at Magnus' side which was generously entirely disregarded by both the Wolves and the Custodians for plot reasons), playing a pivotal role in tipping the balance towards the dissolution of the Librarius (which - ironically - would have been one of the greatest assets the Imperium/the Emperor would have been able to field against Chaos during the Heresy.. [[Just as planned]]!!!!).

TL;DR: Russ shared many flaws with his brothers, but he was defined by being in control rather than being thrall to his flaws. His bloodlust never overtook his discipline like it would Angron. His glory-seeking never overrode his sense of responsibility like it would Lion El'Jonson. He made sure his sons worked against their curse rather than have them embrace it like Magnus did. It comes to no surprise that someone who worked so hard for control resented people who thought they didn't need it, hence the accusations of hypocrisy, however ([[Lion El'Jonson|in]] [[Ferrus Manus|fairness]] [[Rogal Dorn|like]] [[Roboute Guilliman|many]] [[Angron|of]] [[Perturabo|his]] [[Mortarion|brothers]] [[Night Haunter|Primarchs]]), interpersonal skills weren't exactly his forte. Russ' real failing was not that he accused others for things he had to deal with himself, but rather that he was in an unique position where he could have been an example to his brothers ''because he shared and knew how to deal with said flaws'' but his brashness and agressivity drove them apart instead.

On a somewhat amusing tangent. Russ considered [[Roboute Guilliman]] a good choice for Warmaster, and in return Guilliman considered Russ and his legion part of his "Dauntless Few", meaning that Bobby G sincerely believed that alongside Russ and his Wolves, the Ultramarines could defeat any opponent. Rather amusingly, when he was struck down by Fulgrim, Guilliman's last thoughts were, in order, of his sons, of the Imperium, and then for his brothers, the first being Russ. While they weren't exactly [[Fulgrim|best]] of [[Ferrus Manus|buds]], Russ actually believed Guilliman and [[Perturabo]] were the most boring among his brothers after [[Rogal Dorn]], they had a sincere respect for each other as warriors. The only thing they [[skub|had a bit of a pickle with]] was Rob's [[Codex Astartes]] thing; and Russ eventually [[Council of Nikaea|ostensibly acquiesced]] only to [[Thousand Sons|ignore it]] when G-man stopped breathing down his neck, kinda. The Space Wolves did try to form a successor Chapter, the [[Wolf Brothers]], but those very quickly devolved into Wulfen for whatever reason (it is suspected the planet Fenris has something to do with it).

== Post-Heresy ==
Although unable to return to aid the Imperium in the Battle for Terra, Russ and the Space Wolves threw themselves headfirst into the post-Heresy war efforts. Aside from spanking the traitors into the Eye of Terror, he came up with the concept for the Adeptus Praeses. Though he'd told Guilliman where he could shove his Codex, Russ liked the idea of successor chapters for the Wolves. To him (or the little reformist movement within the Legion later, the fluff isn't totally clear), they were a way of maintaining the Wolves' influence alongside that of Girlyman, Dorn and the rest. Unfortunately the Wolves' gene-seed proved too unstable to set up any viable successor chapters, and as a result while the Ultramarines, Imperial Fists and Dark Angels have shitloads of descendants to call on in a crisis, the Wolves are the sole embodiment of Russ' strength and drive. This hasn't helped their situation with Imperial institutions such as the Inquisition.

One-hundred years to the day after the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne, during a feast in the halls of the Space Wolves fortress, Russ climbed upon a table to give a speech. He was stricken with a vision, and after standing there speechless for a few minutes, he fell to one knee, issued hushed orders to his retinue, and left. He left his sons with their first Wolf Lord; [[Bjorn the Fell Handed]], and a message.

"In the end, I will be there. For the final battle. For <s>the wolf</s> dinner time."

And then the winds of change blew over the fluff once again. In the audio play Parting of Ways we get a slightly different version of events. There was still an annual feast, though it wasn't just to celebrate the day the Emperor got the snot beaten out of him by Horus, but also to commemorate the Wolves that had died during the spring cleaning that followed the Heresy, plus the completion of the Aett - the giant [[fortress-monastery|fortress]] of the Space Wolves. Also instead of a hundred years, it was two hundred years since the siege of Terra, so unless Dorn was a really slow learner and not very bright and it took him over a hundred years to assemble the Golden Throne, that is a clear lore change. Then again, given how Perturabo thoroughly kicked Dorn's ass in the iron Cage, forcing Bobby.G and the Ultrasmurfs to come and save Dorn's sorry ass, it's a possibility that Dorn just wasn't very bright. It's also a possibility that the Emperor got the Golden Throne from an old IKEA warehouse, which would explain why even a Primarch would have had trouble in figuring out how to put it together in less than a hundred years.

Also Russ wasn't about to hold a speech, instead he had at first partaken in the festivities but as the party grew sullen, Russ retreated, sensing, as Bjorn put it, "a fell wind from beyond the mountains, bleeding through the cracks of the Fang". After clenching the table for a while, Russ clambered to his feet on the table, screaming ''“No More!”'' The shout silenced the Space Wolves in their brawling and made the flags of the smoke filled halls tremble, so Russ apparently also had a gift for speech, plus he had a gift for getting instantly sober as Bjorn described his face going from being ruddy flushed with Mjod to looking like an ice spectre. Russ then held the following [[awesome|kickass]] speech:

''“We come here to celebrate the All-father, we come here to remember his sacrifice and his ascension from the world of the senses and his victory over my brother the traitor.”
''“We remember the dead, who even now gather in the oververse, their blade sharp, their aim keen.”''
''“They are better than we are for they perished in the war to end all wars and their souls have been purified! And what of us those left behind, wallowing in the drinks the fallen gods have left us?”''
''“We have grown fat, we have the beast within us, but is has never yet been mastered.”''

Then Russ paused to grab his drinking horn and held it aloft and continued:
''“So let us celebrate my father's ascension, let us remember what he was able to accomplish, let us remember what he built and what he foresaw and then what he lost and how he failed.”''
''“Do not mourn the fact that he no longer walks among us, for the galaxy was too small to accommodate such a soul, he was of an age of '''gods!''' And we are slumped in an age of mortals.”''
''“The lights of the stars will fade, this place will grow old and the ice will crack it.”''
''“We will forget no matter how much the skalds tell the old tales, what battles are left for us like the ones before?”''
''“My fallen brothers are gone, Malcador is gone, the leeches cluster around the Golden Throne and whisper of deeds done before they were born as if it were '''they''' who achieved them.”''

At this point Russ looked unsteady on his feet and his eyes went glassy:
''“A doubt of all of this, one thing remains true we were not on Terra, we were not there when the palace fell and that shame will pursue us for eternity.”''

Then Russ dropped his drinking horn on the board and then started to speak not to his warriors, but to himself or to some presence that was unseen.
''“It remains unfinished… I have waited for too long, building this mountain, squabbling with Guilliman. I will not grow old, feeble, limping around a crumbling inheritance. I have an Oath to keep, there are beasts left to slay.”''

At this point Russ was fully immersed in his premonitions and he looked around the room, a smile dancing on his fanged face, seeing things from either long ago or yet to come.
''“Listen closely my brothers, there shall come a time far from now, when the chapter itself is dying and our foes shall gather to destroy us.”''
''“Then, my sons, I shall listen for your call, in whatever realm holds me and come I shall, no matter what the laws of life and death forbid.”''
''“At the end, I will be there. For the final battle. FOR THE WOLF TIME!”''

Then Russ gave the mustering signal and he and his retinue left, though as Bjorn made to follow only to have Russ turn towards him saying a single sentence: ''“Not you.”'' When Bjorn asked for an explanation all Russ did was repeat the words: ''“Not you.”'' [[Eldrad|Then he left.]]

It is theorized that Russ like Magnus had the gift of premonition and knew that Bjorn would be needed in the years to come as the first Great Wolf, as it is heavily implied that if Bjorn hadn't been persuaded to take the mantle of great wolf, the Chapter itself would have fallen apart in the absence of Russ.

More likely Russ just didn't want Bjorn's moodiness to poison what ever adventure he was on. His helmet eventually came to be in the possession of [[Ulrik the Slayer]].

As to where Russ went and what happened to him there's a few theories given:
*Russ sought the Lion out to make amends of their old feuding (if so they both forgot to tell both their chapters about it).
*That he fought in eternal combat with the resurrected cadaver of Horus (no that would be Abaddon's task and he completely owned that clone of Horus).
*That he searched for the tree of life to heal the Emperor's soul.
*That he is trapped within a hollow star and tormented by his old adversary Magnus (Since Tzeentch was able to trap Sigmar in another dimension, trapping Russ in a hollow star and have his star pupil Magnus use him as a punching bag makes as much sense as anything).
*That he is actually searching for Magnus, to finish the last task given to him by the Emperor and "arrest" his wayward brother.
*That he passed beyond the bounds of space and time and now roams among the gods, ready to return when needed accompanied by the fallen of his legion sundered in a paradise of warriors (so basically he's in the Age of Sigmar at this point? somebody put him out of his misery, that's not a paradise that's hell on earth).
*That he's simply lost in the galactic fjord known as the Warp and has been playing drunken pranks on daemonic villagers for 10,000 years.

/tg/ theorizes that Leman Russ may return as [[Horo]] (Implying Horo isn't just one of Leman's many, many bastard children growing up on some shithole Feudal world).

Magnus actually know where Russ is now, but he don't tell it even to his trusted sorcerer lords.

The 13th company, and a figure bearing the likeness of Russ, was spotted during the 13th crusade and the siege of the capital of Cadia.

==On The Tabletop==
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Leman Russ:''' || 455 || 9 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 7 || 6 || 10 || 2+/4++
|}

An impressive stat-line, even by the insane standards of Primarchs, is coupled with unbelievably powerful wargear:
*The '''Armour Elavagar''' starts as your bog-standard 2+/4++ which is increased to a 3++ against flamer (in case you meet an AP2 flamer or something), melta, and plasma weapons, but the truly <strike>awesome</strike> severely-overpowered-bullshit part is that it imposes -1 to hit on anyone in BtB with him. Do note however that it ''only'' works in BtB contact, so the models not directly in contact with Russ would still hit him as usual (likely on 5+ due to his insane WS). Basically, he's insanely tanky in a fight.
*The '''Axe of Helwinter''' is a ''+2 S master-crafted power axe with sunder and without unwieldy'' for your vehicle-wrecking needs and putting some more guaranteed wounds on high toughness opponents. Also useful for inflicting Instant Death on anything T4 or lower.
*The '''Sword of Balenight''' is a Shredding AP2 power sword; oh wait, it also has '''Sever Life'''. If Russ' prey suffers one or more wounds from the sword, roll a 2d6. If this result beats your target's toughness, add 1d3 additional wounds at ap2, so you can still use your inv save against these additional wounds.
**Thanks to vague wording, when you must make the test for Sever Life is a subject of debate. Some say "suffering one or more wounds" means that the rule applies immediately before saves are made. HOWEVER, the rule clearly states that Sever Life is used only if the model "is not slain" by the initial attacks, and you HAVE to make your save rolls in order to know if they are slain or not, so one can lawfully argue that ''unsaved'' wounds are the real trigger. Keep calm and make it clear with your opponent until a FAQ is released. Besides, the times Russ isn't going to be able to get at least one wound in with this sword are going to be pretty rare.
**As mentioned in the description, the extra attack that would normally be added when using two close combat weapons is already included in his profile of 6.
*For ranged fights he has the [[Vulkan]]-remade bolter (mentioned to be regular one until Xzibit got his hands on it) turned into a pistol for Primarch's hand, called '''Scornspitter''' which is assault 3 AP3 rending, but with pitiful 12" range. Of course if you aren't within 12", then you can't charge, and if you can't charge you're running therefore even if it did have a greater than 12" range it wouldn't be used anyway.

His Wolf-Kin are deployed separately and he can't join them, but they're great harassing units and surprisingly brutal fighters.

Meanwhile, his Sire of the Space Wolves gives him Night Vision, Counter-Attack, Preternatural Senses, and Hunter's Gait: all Wolves get +1Ld and Russ gets to Howl once per game (letting everyone in his detachment reroll run and charge for said turn). Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin gives weapon mastery (like Horus and Calgar). If he's Warlord, you can take Veteran Tacticals (who may run/shoot bolters then charge instead of regular Vet tactics) and Varagyr Terminators as troops.

If Horus plays like everything a Space Marine Chapter Master ought to be, Russ is best compared to an Ork Warboss. He isn't exactly "tactical" in the traditional sense of reserve dickery, but Howl of the Death Wolf combined with Warrior's Mettle Veterans can make your army a strong hunter-killer force, able to get in your enemy's face and fuck up his battle plans. This is an unpredictable force, able to catch most armies by surprise and keep them off balance. Freki and Geri are practically auto-takes, and Russ himself can and will fuck up everything from Leviathans to Thanatars to Land Raiders. Due to high strength, high initiative, and high weapon skill, even Imperial Knights aren't out of the question. Worth it.

==Leman Russ VS other Primarchs:==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Inferno is finally released and you came here to see how your favorite/most hated superhuman demi-god fares against the other Primarchs, because you love delicious Mathhammer trolling and cautious planning before battle.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
'''<big>[[RIP AND TEAR|THEY ALL DIE. EVERY. LAST. ONE. OF. THEM.]]</big>'''

Sever Life on The Sword of Balenight is the real kicker here. Allowing him to potentially pile on more wounds than what would normally be possible for the amount of attacks he has. And since most primarchs only have a 4++, they tend to die in short order (with even the tougher ones eventually going down from sheer wound output). So if you want to add the damage for Sever Life, here's the results:

*Against T6 Sever Life will cause an additional 1.091 Wounds on average.
*Against T7 Sever Life will cause an additional 0.909 Wounds on average.
::Note that these are Wounds that can still be saved via Invulnerable saves.

This is made even crazier with his ability to split his attacks between his axe of awesome and his sword of cheese (Yes just like Horus). Since all it takes is one wound going through to trigger Sever Life thus he can lay on the hurt with his high strength axe while still getting some good jabs in with his sword. When combined with the additional wounds from sever life (assuming it goes off, which against most Primarchs it should since they are mostly in the T6 range) this guy can lay on more wounds on a single target than just about any other Primarch (except a fully buffed Angron, though to be fair that is really all Angron has got going in a fight).

Possibly worse than Sever Life (which probably is intended to trigger after saves, hence the "Is not slain" part) is his armor, which cripples almost every Primarch's ability to damage him with the negatives to hit. Since thanks to his insane weapon skill almost all will be needing 6's or 5's at best to even hit him, and after taking wound rolls and saves into account he is basically taking almost no damage. Which really hurts alot of his opponents since most of their special rules in CC rely on doing damage (e.g. Horus disabling strike and Perturabo's fancy hammer with basically every CC special rule). Even the uber-tanks are left flailing at him, barely doing any damage, while he grinds them out.

The only ones who can even stand a snowball's chance are heavy-hitters in the range of Horus, Fulgrim, Angron with maximum attacks, Ferrus Manus, Perturabo and a fully buffed Magnus. In addition a Transfigured Lorgar might be able to tar pit him for awhile (though don't expect him to actually win). But I do mean snowball, even these guys barring some amazing rolls will probably lose virtually every fight (including Horus).

Vulkan holds out pretty well but only if Russ is just using the sword... against the axe... well lets hope the dice are on your side!

Do note too that if Russ brings his wolves along (as he should) then they can challenge and take challenges in his place, as they are both characters. Thanks to how the rules work, this means that Russ essentially has 8 wounds, and in the case of Primarchs who can't ID the wolves 14 wounds. In effect he can use this to prevent Horus from using his talon to drop his stats or Perturabo smacking him to many times with his hammer while making the combat last even longer, since for example if Horus uses Worldbreaker to kill the first wolf Russ can just tank the wounds before his other wolf challenges in round 2, all the while Russ is beating the shit out of Horus completely unharmed. Statistically if Leman Russ brings his wolves along it is near impossible for any single other Primarch to kill Russ before he grinds them down if in a challenge.

HOWEVER if you or your opponent plays him in a list he can potentially be tar pitted with terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields. Russ is not immune to concussion and the invuln save is superior than Russ. This will bring him down to an equal playing field since while they will not be doing much damage to him (since needing 6s to hit), he will probably not be able to rip throw them before the game ends (he is more a challenge monster than infantry wrecker, again that is Angrons job). Though don't rely on this as like all primarchs he is perfectly capable of wiping them out.
Such is the fickleness of the dice. And again this is not even taking into account his two wolves. With either of them tanking a shot or two and preventing Concussion from setting in Leman Russ again has a very good chance of ripping through them. So don't expect this to be a consistent solution to dealing with him.

Bottom line, Horus is lucky that Russ didn't get there first.

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</div>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:russ_original.jpg|First portrayal of Leman Russ in canon (Rogue Trader)
File:russ_furry_original.jpg|First retcon of Leman Russ, now approximately 215% furrier, in 1st. Ed compilation
File:Leman russ by alexboca-d7930sk.jpg
File:Russ_Behind.jpg| RUN <s> FORREST </s> LEMAN, RUN!
File:Russ_Front.jpg| He's running so [[White Scars|fast]] because he saw someone throw a stick.
File:Russ_Side.jpg
File:Horus vs Leman.jpg|
File:Horus-Primarchs-Warhammer-Russ.jpeg|
</gallery>

{{Primarchs}}

[[Category:Space Wolves]]

==See Also==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Q8uymv0vw&index=2&list=PLdPq6mYy-DRdA9aTRJghfDsQiyR5WLs7y/ Admit it, this is the only song that truly befits the glory of the Sons of Russ.]
* [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzkqA4-4jIM/ Not so fast.]