Editing Star Child

The '''Star Child''' is a concept from the [[Rogue Trader (Sourcebook)|first edition]] of [[Warhammer 40,000]].

During that edition, the backstory of the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] was that he had been born some fifty thousand years before the game took place.  Back then, humanity was being led and advised by psychically-powerful individuals known as Shamans.  They noticed that, as they died, they weren't all reincarnating properly, because the [[Warp]] was getting fouled up by [[Chaos]] and the nascent [[Chaos Gods]] were trying to eat their souls.  They decided to pool their power by committing ritual suicide and reincarnating into one tremendously powerful individual, who eventually became the God-Emperor.

The Star Child hypothesis states that, like the Shamans, the Emperor is capable of reincarnation, but because he wasn't quite killed by [[Horus]], his soul is still anchored to his wrecked shell of a body.  Therefore, in order for the Emperor to be reborn, his body will have to die completely.

This would cause some serious trouble for the [[Imperium]], as they would be bereft of the [[Astronomican]] for however long it took for the Emperor to get used to his new body and make his way back to [[Terra]].  In fact, it was suggested in the Third Edition rulebook that at least one of the Star Child cults was actually being used by [[Tzeentch]] for this purpose.

== See Also ==

* [[Emperasque]], where the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] gets sick of the [[Imperium]]'s mucking around and reincarnates himself directly into a [[Tarrasque]].

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]