Editing Star Child

{{Topquote|Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!|Ecclesiastes 10:16}}
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, which makes the entire theory all the more doubtful.

The Star Child has also been depicted as, essentially, the "Good" half of the Emperor's soul, with the portion still bound to the Golden Throne as his "Lawful" half. In this take, the Star Child is the Emperor's manifest compassion, kindness, decency, hope, love and other positive emotions, which he cast from himself as "weakness" when he slew [[Horus]]. For this reason, the Star Child taking over from the Emperor would also be a net step up from the Imperium, since it would by its nature bring a force of active goodness back to the [[grimdark]] universe. Even in its nascent state, it still seeks to try and push back against the evil of the 40K universe, operating through the [[Sensei]], which are kind of like [[Chaos Champion]]s of the Star Child and the Chaotic Good to the ''actual'' Chaos Champions being Chaotic Evil.

Currently, it's uncertain if the original origin story is even real, given a large amount of inconsistencies with the Horus Heresy novels and the introduction of the [[Perpetual]]s [[retcon]]ning the original backstory of the Emperor entirely. As of 8e, it can be safely assumed that it was just another piece of Rogue Trader weirdness that didn't survive the changing editions.

The concept is not entirely gone, however. [[Xenology]] references an Eldar artfifact depicting a child enveloped in sunlight, which, considering its origins, is most likely [[Ynnead]]. Unlike the Star Child, Ynnead is born of Eldar souls, but can still be considered to be descended from the original idea. Additionally the idea of the Emperor being able to reincarnate may have been reused for the concept of [[Perpetual]]s. 

This said, the most recent fluff from the Dawn of Fire series suggests that something similar to the Star Child may be coming round again, even mentioning the prior fluff in context. Both Imperium and Chaos are alarmed by the possibility occurring again. Given the Dawn of Fire series' minor tendency for recontextualizing much older fluff into a form that better fits the current 40k canon (Illiyan Nastase, for instance), it remains to be seen if it will end up resembling the original idea at all. 

== See Also ==

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

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]