[Chompy Bits]

I was wondering, does anyone else feel that the Emperor's skills/abilities fluctuate horribly in the fluff. I mean, in one instance he is shown to have the wisdom, foresight and knowledge of human nature to plan the creation of the Mechanicum THOUSANDS of years in advance but during the end of the Great Crusade/beginning of the Horus Heresy he's too dense to see how negatively his decisions are affecting those closest to him.
Then, while he's still relatively young (well, for the Emperor) we see him facing and beating the Void Dragon (supposedly the most powerful of all the C'Tan) but during the Great Crusade (when you'd think he'd be more skilled and powerful) he nearly gets his ass chocked out by an ork. Now, I'm always a bit biased when it comes to orks but even I gotta admit that unless the ork is so old and powerful that it's the size of a freaking gargant i can't see it standing a snowballs chance in hell in taking on a C'Tan.
Also, what was with the dumbass decision of creating the Thousand Sons during a bunch of major warp storms. I mean, its strongly implied that this was the cause of their unstable geneseed/fleshchange. What was he thinking "Hmmm... these storms nearly wiped out humanity, but hey, what's the worst that could happen?"
I don't know. Am I being a bit harsh? What do you guys think?

 

[gen.ahab]

It's GWs fluff department.... they would forget what their own face looked like if it weren't for mirrors.

 

[ckcrawford]

Back when I thought he was wiser and a more God-like character I actually thought he was being inconsistant for a reason. The emperor really daemonized or ignored a lot of the legions that turned to chaos while praising others. Fully half the legions turned which I guess one can say was just for Warhammer 40k fluff. But every loyal legion had an extreme version of itself in the traitor's legions. So thats also a very weird coincidence.

What the reason for the emperor in sort of planning something this redicolous, I think would be along the same lines the Alpha Legion turned chaos upon listening to the Cabal. It seemed that in the long terms of things it would have been more dangerous to have chaos hidden within the Imperium and take shape of something more deep and a lot more destructive than to create a shape or form of chaos strong enough which can actually be fought. But hey, thats the only reason I have with how the emperor let something like the Heresy get so out of hand. Totally something I made up so don't take it serious.

Horus really shouldn't have had the support he did. Peturabo and Angron were the two primarchs written about in the Heresy that really dispised his rising to Warmaster. But some how they hated the emperor even more. Peturabo we don't yet know fully about yet, but we have some clue as to why Angron did; which was basically because the Emperor let his bretheren die and felt the emperor took the one thing from his life. Peturabo we could say probably felt neglected as he watched his competition brother Dorn get all the glory as he did all the shitty work. Night Haunter was basically banished from the empyream and told to face the emperor for his deeds. Logar was daemonized for his fanatic praising of the Emperor and basically told that he sucked by the emperor. Magnus was forced to join chaos by the reaction he got from the emperor. Mortarrion had a similar reason along the lines of Angron I read somewhere. Though someone can elaborate a little more. Thats 7 primarchs out of 9 that if were treated the same as the other primarchs would have been loyal to the Emperor.

 

[gen.ahab]

In all honesty, Magnus was forced to chaos by choices he made.

 

[Chompy Bits]

If it's GW's fluff department then I really think that they need to get their writers to collaborate more with their ideas. I mean they're all writing about the same freakin events and characters (Horus Heresy) so a little cohesion would make sense. As it is, it makes it really hard to get a solid picture of the Emperor when he's all great and powerful in one instance and then horribly incompetent in the next. Then again, maybe GW is deliberately trying to make you confused and make him seem more mysterious though I honestly can't see how the Emperor occasionally acting like a dumbass will make people more interested in him.
Then again, I have another possible (though probably very far fetched) theory about his abilities (the psychic ones at least). In A Thousand Sons, Ahriman mentions that a psyker's powers are affected by the current state of the warp. Maybe more powerful psykers are affected more harshly due to their stronger connection to the warp. Then the Emperor, being the most powerful psyker in existence, would suffer the greatest fluctuations in powers and abilities. Just a thought.
After reading ckcrawford's post I'm also actually thinking now and wondering why did the Emperor only teleport Angron up to his ship when, in all likelyhood, he could have teleported the rest of the gladiators with him (teleportation of multiple individuals wasn't that uncommon and the Emperor also has that big ass Golden City ship that should have been superior in tech to any other human vessels). Angron would probably have been a lot happier with him. It just seems to me like the Emperor was being a bit of an asshole.
Also, would Magnus have resorted to bargaining with chaos if his legion wasn't on the brink of extinction? Maybe or maybe not? Unfortunately we don't really know the answer.

 

[gen.ahab]

He only needed Angron. If he has the lion in him he wouldn't consider taking all of them because they wouldn’t be useful.

 

[ckcrawford]

Well in all fairness, you could say that about virtually all other primarchs. All you need is their primarchs. You don't need to all the others as they can all be replaced by others worthy of the geneseed. I think like all human beings, in order for one to be sane one must feel connected to the world. Not only did those things put into his head not help but killing the one brotherhood that raised him up and made him who he was, was whipped off the face of the earth. In my opinion, it might have been alot easier to take them all up into his ship instead of selecting only Angron in the huge crowd. Its almost as though the Emperor purposely went out of his way to select Angron through a cloud of gladiators. Would the Lion have been the same had the Emperor pulled him from the planet and destroyed his brotherly knighthood? Would Guilleman have been so great had he been removed from a rich and very successful system with all the man power he needed? Would have Leman Russ been so loyal if had been taken by the emperor and had his people die from the harshness of Fenris? Would proud Vulkan have been so humble had the emperor rejected the contest, taken Vulkan from his planet, and let his people die from the Volcanic storms? Virtually any other primarch had a close bond to their homes and people. And as some of the stories suggest, the Emperor had to sometimes play along with some of the primarchs to gain their respect. Of course I am mainly talking about his contests with Leman Russ and Vulkan.

I care very little for Magnus, but out of all fairness the Emperor was very inconsistant on what he taught Magnus. He taught Magnus things we would never let him use. Thats something a scientist or psychologist would do predict the outcome of someone's behavior.

 

[Warlock in Training]

I think the Consistancy your looking for can never happen. A book series like Tolkens Lord of the Rings, Stephen Kings Black Tower, or Robert Jordans Wheel of Time, have a single writer who knows what he wants and where hes generaly going with a story.

BL has different writers for different books/series about the same universe. BL more like a Comic company. Marvel Comics is base in the Marvel Universe, but it hardly flows together in harmony, you can have uber powerful characters being beaten by lower lvl beings. Sometimes characters are just out of character thanks to different writers and the dreaded RETCONs thats done in any large unfolding fluff work.

So its just expected with so many writers dabbling in the fluff to make it their own and RETCON (shiver, poor Ghost Rider) to keep it suppose fresh/new. Suks but thats how it is. As the Reader you have the power to decide that.... A) The Emperor held back when he was getting own, and looking dumb. B) Most of the godly awsome stuff the Emperor did was exagerated BS. I perfer the latter.

 

[gen.ahab]

There were probably to many for them to take.

 

[Tel Asra Nejoar]

I think the Consistancy your looking for can never happen. A book series like Tolkens Lord of the Rings, Stephen Kings Black Tower, or Robert Jordans Wheel of Time, have a single writer who knows what he wants and where hes generaly going with a story.

BL has different writers for different books/series about the same universe. BL more like a Comic company. Marvel Comics is base in the Marvel Universe, but it hardly flows together in harmony, you can have uber powerful characters being beaten by lower lvl beings. Sometimes characters are just out of character thanks to different writers and the dreaded RETCONs thats done in any large unfolding fluff work.

So its just expected with so many writers dabbling in the fluff to make it their own and RETCON (shiver, poor Ghost Rider) to keep it suppose fresh/new. Suks but thats how it is. As the Reader you have the power to decide that.... A) The Emperor held back when he was getting own, and looking dumb. B) Most of the godly awsome stuff the Emperor did was exagerated BS. I perfer the latter.

as a long time wheel of time reader i can safely say that what we percieve as readers as inconsistency usually turns out to be part of the very fabric of the story(SPOILER ALERT FOR WHEEL OF TIME: an aes sedai told a lie in book 2, something we are told cannot happen unless theyre evil, but for 10 books she goes on to be the most consistently good character in the series, but ends up having been working for the bad guys all along for good reasons). i think the big E's shortsightedness about the heresy was probably due to having his forsight clouded by the chaos gods, after all, they wouldnt want that info to reach him prematurely. so my answer to the emperor being inconsistent is Tzeentch.

 

[calon]

With so many writers dealing with the 30k events (I believe there was 7 separate authors for the Horus Heresy series) it would be virtually impossible for the story to be totally consistent. They will follow the set guidelines to ensure the Emperor doesn't turn into a two foot munchkin. But, over all, the smoothness you'd expect to see can only comes from a single author. Sadly.

 

[LordRaith]

I've always taken the inconsistencies to be part of the mystery surrounding the Emperor. It might be more likely that it's just GW's fluff getting out of their control, but I think it's more fun to believe that it's all part of a vast, incredibly diverse society's attempt to describe their god. After all, real world religions can often seem confusing or inconsistent, and the theocracy that is the Imperium is impossibly larger.

On the other hand, I can give you the answer I'm always given when I question a plot hole: if that hole wasn't there, there wouldn't be a conflict. If the Emperor hadn't made mistakes, we'd be playing a game where humanity is in control and everyone gets along.

 

[Warlock in Training]

as a long time wheel of time reader i can safely say that what we percieve as readers as inconsistency usually turns out to be part of the very fabric of the story(SPOILER ALERT FOR WHEEL OF TIME: an aes sedai told a lie in book 2, something we are told cannot happen unless theyre evil, but for 10 books she goes on to be the most consistently good character in the series, but ends up having been working for the bad guys all along for good reasons.

(SPOILER ALERT FOR WHEEL OF TIME:
If I remember right any Aies Sedai can tell a lie if they are of the a) Black Ajah or b) been stilled and return to power. The Sedai all use that Ter'angeal (however its spelled) that binds the cant tell a lie thing to them. The Black Sisters have shown to undo that and Stilling undos it as well. Also many seem to lie but they use sly of tongue, double meanings, and all that.

 

[Belthazor Aurellius]

I find it interesting how some say the Emperor is inconsistent simply because his actions clash with their own ideal of how he should have acted.

Consider:

-The Emperor was 38,000 years old when Horus' heresy occurred, yet he looks not a day older than 40 in any of the depictions of him. Most likely by choice, as some fluff suggests he maintains the age of whatever he desires to be, and in The Last Church, he takes the form of a younger man, with more simplistic features.

-The Emperor, time and again through his own life, proves his foresight stretches for tens of thousands of years down the span of human life. Farther than any farseer could have seen. Placing the C'tan Void Dragon within the surface of Mars, in a maze of crevasses. Founding the Mechanicum before anyone ever thought of an Imperium. Putting in place all the chess pieces for the conquest of an entire galaxy.

-The Emperor was aging. He knew it. It's why an Ork brought him low, when a C'tan could not (though the Emperor's psychic might could account for the C'tan's defeat, as well). He knew the day would come that he would be too weak to fight, and had to prepare for that eventuality.

-The Emperor had begun construction on the Golden Throne and the Astronomican long before his mortal wounding by Horus, and, while there is contention he was going to use Magnus to power the Astronomican, I think he was aware it would be him, not Magnus, who would power the beacon. The Golden Throne would not have been completed if the Emperor had not built it in anticipation of his death.

-The Emperor made a pact with Chaos. Chaos told Horus one thing, but Chaos also lies. Did the Emperor make a pact with Chaos for them to take half his Imperium? Did the gods of Chaos merely twist the truth to gain their end of the bargain?

The Emperor was smart, experienced and could see the future. Who is to say he did not anticipate that his own death would be the foundation of his own religion? The Cult Imperialis. I know it seems a hard idea for some to grasp, that the Emperor would allow such things to come to pass, but considering all we know about him, all that he is capable of, perhaps the only conclusion left is to say that the Emperor could find no better long-term solution for the survival of mankind than to build it up to full power, then divide the Empire in half, give half to the devil and become god to the other half, in hopes that both sides (which both fight aliens on a regular basis) will be able to ensure the survival of mankind, albeit in a sick and twisted way. But then again. It is the Grimdark of the 41st M, and... (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Warhammer40000) you will not be missed.

Mods: I appologize for linking to a non-heresy site. It's relevant info, and I don't think it will keep people from coming back here, so, don't delete this or banhammer me, please.

 

[calon]

If the Emperor forsaw the state of the Imperium in M41, then, he would've understood the probable self-destruction. As a shell of the former population, the Imperium of Man is still stretched to it's limits. Without the fracture of Chaos, by now, all would have been long since lost.

 

[Chompy Bits]

Belthazor Aurellius, Im just curious, where is it mentioned that the Emperor was aging? Maybe I missed something somewhere but as far as I know the Emperor was supposed to be immortal. I thought the whole reason for the shaman sacrifice thing was so that they would no longer have to reincarnate because the Emperor would never need to.
Also, I still find him planning for the Imperium to be in this state a little dubious, cause lets be honest, the Imperium is cracking and starting to crumble and it's only a matter of time before it'll be overwhelmed by some other race (unless something REALLY drastic happens). Lets also not forget about the Golden Throne that has failures in it. Why would the Emperor plan having himself put into a machine that was destined to break?

 

[Kettu]

Placing the C'tan Void Dragon within the surface of Mars, in a maze of crevasses.

That I have personal problems with as he wasn't even born till after the war in heaven, wasn't he?
So now we have a time travelling immortal rounding up C'Tan and herding them across the galaxy whilst humanity was still cavemen?

And then, I thought the Void Dragon in Mars was fan wank taken from the vague hints left in the Necron Codex. Not official canon, just hinted at.

Then we also have the fact that the Emperor wasn't even fully aware of his power for a very long time (Can't remember where but an old fluff piece had that he had long since forgotten his family and life till he even noticed he was doing more then not ageing.)
Whilst C'tan on the other hand, are more than a match for a warp god and Emps is short in that power level as of yet.

Then, if he was aware of the Necrontyr (Spelling?) all the ways back then, why was no attempt made at destroying them whilst they slept?
If he did place Void Dragon at the heart of Mars then he hasn't set up humans for galactic conquest, he has sowed the seeds for our own destruction.

 

[Chompy Bits]

He wasn't time traveling. The Void Dragon was hiding on Earth for some reason (that in itself I feel warrants a WTF) and the Emperor confronted him when humans were already further along than cavemen. Though a completely accurate date isn't given (it's believed to be roughly the eleventh or twelfth century) it seems they were in a medievalish kind of faze as the Emperor was dressed as a knight and riding a horse when he faced the C'Tan.

 

[Belthazor Aurellius]

Kettu. Read Mechanicum. The book gives a lot of history on the Emperor-C'tan thing, and explains that even the Emperor would not have the power to destroy a C'tan. The Void Dragon was in a weakened state thanks to the Eldar. The Emperor wasn't aware of how many others were out there, he simply recognized evil when he saw it, smote said evil as best he could and then imprisoned it within a maze of canyon-like crevasses on Mars, placing a single human (with a habitable laboratory/library including oxygen and such) with a very decent sized shard of the Emperor's own psychic power imbued in their being. The Emperor pretty much set a ward that would confuse auspex scanners in the area, confound explorators and ultimately make the canyon maze impossible to navigate. I don't know if he set an enchantment to lure in a certain kind of psyker (as no guardian has proven immortal yet, they just last a few thousand years before passing on the Emperor's power to the next psyker guardian)... but I'm guessing he put something in place.

Chompy Bits. I have yet to see any definitive claim from a canon fluff source state that the Emperor is aging. However, let's review the issue for a second. The Emperor was born from a council of hundreds, or perhaps hundreds of thousands (I don't remember) of shamans, the original race of psykers man was meant to have to guide them towards prosperity. Each shaman was mortal, but had extended life as well as an ability to be reborn.

The Emperor was able to mask his age through psychic masking techniques, sort of projecting an aura of young, charismatic, benevolent kinda guy (it's why primarchs and gruntlings instantly fell in love, almost every time). I know this is more a personal interpretation of the fluff, but I think the shaman sacrifice was simply to give the Emperor excessive longevity and psychic power, so that he could do what they could not. Survive a trip through the warp and not get devoured by Chaos.

The Illuminati/Sensei plots both kind of reflect the idea that the Emperor was meant to die. Yes, the GW fluff department says the Inquisition hunted both parties down, but it's possible the Emperor could still survive the warp, he'd just need a lot more psykers to die to bring him back...

That said, I know I kinda jumped to a foregone conclusion of the idea that the Emperor was always meant to die, but honestly, why else was he building a life support machine and planning to die in battle? I think he was afraid to die, unable to see past his physical death, because it was a shadowpoint in his own farsight, and he was afraid that it was a shadowpoint not because there was too many choices and variables to see past, but that it was a shadowpoint because he wouldn't come back.

That said, I know saying he's aging is a jump to a pretty huge conclusion, but it's the one thing that makes sense. If he wasn't aging, why die in the first place? Why set up the whole civil war anyways? Unless he knew that corruption would creep into an un-contested Imperium and wanted to prevent that.

 

[Chompy Bits]

Belthazor Aurellius, you make quite a convincing argument, though I'm still wondering about the Golden Throne's failures. Then again, maybe the Emperor knows something we don't and maybe he will be reincarnated before the throne breaks or maybe when the throne breaks he can finally fully ascend to godhood, no longer bound to a smelly old corpse. Also, I thought that the Golden Throne was originally meant to stabilise the imperial part of the webway and only became a life support machine after Magnus blundered in and broke the Emperor's psychic shield. Which makes me wonder, maybe the failures in the Golden Throne were risidual effects of Magnus's mistake. If so, Magnus must be sitting in his tower laughing his ass of cause he might have accidentally accomplished something that Abbadon couldn't manage with no less than thirteen Black Crusades (by that I mean bringing the Imperium to its knees, cause if the astronomicum blinks out the Imperium's gonna be in big trouble). Of course this is purely speculation.
I'm also wondering, if the Emperor is the most powerful psyker of all, shoudn't he have been able to use biomancy to control his aging. I mean, look at the Apex twins. They've supposedly been around for a couple of thousand years yet both of them still have the bodies of children.
On a side note, I think the Inquisition claiming to have wiped out all the Illuminati is BS as a bunch of them were themselves important and influential members of the inquisition.