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The Emperor and the Primarchs


Thelightnthedark

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It’s not true because of the Emperor’s conversations with Ra in the Master of Mankind. When he’s explaining how he sees the future. Also, I did listen to it.

In what way did the conversation with Ra say so?  No offense but you wouldn't have said it was conjecture, instead you would have said 'that was just Malcador trying to comfort a dying women.  You also would have said 'made the women feel better' rather than male the 'listener' feel better.

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Are you familiar with Moonreaper and his posts?

 

 

Edit: is English your second language? The listener is not gendered.

What do you mean?  English is my first language, that it wasn't gendered would tell me that you probably wouldn't have listened to the audiobook because, you would specify that it was a woman but if you didn't listen to the audiobook then you'd be forced to say listener, as you wouldn't know the gender of the astropath but it doesn't matter anyways if you say you read it, you read it, shouldn't have brought it up.

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I did listen to it, and again, you said I shouldn’t have said conjecture. Do you know who moonreaper is and what he posts?

I didn't say you shouldn't have said it, I said you wouldn't have.  No I don't know who he is or what he posts, how come?

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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He has a habit of posting really, really wild conspiracies that aren’t ‘in-universe’ conspiracies but conjecture. Like the founders of the grey knights, etc. if you search his name and bolter and chainswords on google you’ll find some wild ones. Edited by Marshal Rohr
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I think that’s intentional. Malcador saying the Emperor wasn’t the Emperor until he met her him, the Emperor being a Dark Age Weapon, he was so strong he can banish daemons with a thought, he can be strangled by an Ork, the Emperor being the Starchild, or what have you. What the Emperor *is* is interred on the throne guiding the astronomicon. That’s all we will ever know for sure.
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I'm not entirely convinced that anything we're told about the Emperor and of the Emperor in the Horus Heresy Novels is true.

I completely agree, the writers have always written the Emperor as a mysterious figure as well as not writing a lot about him especially from his perspective, which I like and is one of the last sacrosanct arcs in the HH.  Like the whole did he or didn't he or to what degree did he get powers from the Gods at the obsidian gate, or his creation story or his involvement during the DAOT.  

I think that’s intentional. Malcador saying the Emperor wasn’t the Emperor until he met her him, the Emperor being a Dark Age Weapon, he was so strong he can banish daemons with a thought, he can be strangled by an Ork, the Emperor being the Starchild, or what have you. What the Emperor *is* is interred on the throne guiding the astronomicon. That’s all we will ever know for sure.

Though he was only strangled by the ork warboss as he was being too taxed by powering and directing the astronomican while leading the Great Crusade.

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It’s been a long time since I read a Wolf of Ash and Fire, but I don’t remember that being mentioned.

Its not from that, can't remember the source but its not from Wolf of Ash and Fire.

 

 

Even though we disagree about stuff, its nice to have a good lore conversation that isn't sniping or bickering. :thumbsup:

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It’s been a long time since I read a Wolf of Ash and Fire, but I don’t remember that being mentioned.

Its not from that, can't remember the source but its not from Wolf of Ash and Fire.

 

 

Even though we disagree about stuff, its nice to have a good lore conversation that isn't sniping or bickering. :thumbsup:

 

Yeah, there is nothing worse than having arguments with people that are just rude and being asses, its not fun.

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Yeah I never meant he was a good father and that he didn't see them as tools. Of course he saw them as that and he is a horrible father. But to be fair he has more important things to do than go for the dad of the year. I had just seen so many posts about how he didn't love the primarchs and not so much the argument that he did (but I easily could have missed them) and how the cannon keeps changing it. But I'm glad so many people responded in very thoughtful posts. It gave me some new perspectives that I hadn't thought about/noticed Edited by Thelightnthedark
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Not much to add that hasn't already been said - this is a very interesting thread all round and I agree that the unreliable narrator is maybe missed by a lot of people who dislike ADB's portrayal of the Emperor.

 

 

Personally, I'm fascinated as to how the relationship to the Emperor and the Primarchs will be covered when it comes to the novels dealing with the end of the Siege and the final battle between Horus and the Emperor. It has been canon for as long as I can remember that the Emperor held back while fighting Horus, because he loved his firstborn son etc etc, and it was only when he realised how utterly lost Horus was that he unleashed his full power to destroy him.

 

 

That being said, the William King short story about the duel between Horus and the Emperor also has the Emperor refer to Dorn, Sanguinius and the Khan as 'my brothers' so a lot of the lore around the Siege really does come from another time...

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I think we need to see how the Emperor interact with the others, before he look a his sons.

There is no one description of his because most see him as they want to see him, it's a form of glamour.

 

Yet, it does not work on all and the lead to the wars that unified Terra.

 

So I think most of the interaction with the Emperor is affected by this glamour.

And sometimes the glamour is affected by the current mindset of the one talking with the Emperor.

So Guilliman's meeting with the Emperor could have affected by Guilliman's mindset.

 

Another interesting thing is how the Emperor enemy view him and his sons.

Ingethel call them "The Anathema and his spawn"

That sound a bit like a demon prince and its demon spawn.

 

Personally I think we can't really judge the Emperor's relationship with Primarchs just by his view of them as his sons or not.

To an uncaring father as son can be worthless and everything else can be of value

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When the Emperor arrived at Deliverance, Corax saw both the powerful psychic glamour of a shining being floating through the air that the Emperor projected to everyone else and a relatively normal man walking on the ground, overlapping like a film camera double exposure. The Emperor expresses surprise that Corax can see through the glamour, and even suggests that it's not really his choice for normal humans to see him that way.

 

Like the kitchen scene in The Matrix where Neo breaks the mug by turning to look after the Oracle tells him not to worry about the mug, what's really going to bake your noodle is the question of whether or not the Emperor deliberately showed Corax this double face.

 

Likewise, does the Emperor really simply appear as people expect to see him, or does he appear as he wishes them to see him? It's useful to the Emperor for adepts of the Mechanicum to view him as the Omnissiah, logic incarnate. It's useful for the Custodes to see him as a king to whom they are the only true companions. Et cetera.

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Can I quickly point out the beauty in how we are talking about the Emperor and we are all having to come to terms and acceptance of his cold nature in stark contrast to how we believe he should be (that being a warm, caring and thoughtful person). Kind of how it seems like Gulliman has had to deal with. 

 

The Emperor by all accounts seems like a fairly typical Villain by all accounts but a far more successful one. "Our species will rule the stars" is basically his motto as he was clearly aggressive against other xenos.

 

What causes the fall of an empire? In the universe of 40k; Pride, Arrogance and Blind Ambition. Old Ones were dismissive of the necrontyr, resulting in their destruction. The Necrontyr became greedy and gluttons of their own power, having to go into sleep, thus losing their empire. Eldar became too self-absorbed and in turn, made their greatest enemy. All of these races had ambition that ultimately killed their dreams at their height. Only Orks have yet to succumb to this for their highest ambition is to fight, and die fighting!

 

The Emperor is just in the death throes of his ambition. He was too caught up in his own greatness, his own perceived "perfection" that like a fool, he was doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past done by many before.

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He was too caught up in his own greatness, his own perceived "perfection" that like a fool, he was doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past done by many before.

I don't think I agree with this. I believe it's quite the opposite actually. He never sought greatness or perfection for himself or humanity. All he ever cared about was saving humanity from Chaos. In Master of Mankind he says that humanity is developing into a powerfull psyker race and they eventually will share same fate as the Eldar, so his highest goal is to save them from that with the help of the Webway. He perfectly knew of the mistakes that were done before, and he wanted to avoid them.

 

Excerpt from Master of Mankind: 

(Sorry, it's a long one, but it's a good one)

Context: Emperor is talking to Ra, his Custodian.

The eldar fall, damned by their own vices eating into the wards around their psychic souls. Warp storms that had wracked every world bleed away, focusing in final clusters: the Maelstrom, the Ocularis Malifica, and others far lesser besides. The human race rises, Old Night giving way to the dawn as the eternal storms recede.

 

 

 

 

Ships begin to sail. Stellar empires form. One of those empires will become the only empire: the Imperium of Man, the twin kingdoms of Terra and Mars binding together to conquer the now-serene night sky.

 

A crusade, then an empire, all beneath one man’s banner.

 

 

+Everything that has happened, will happen again. It is the way of things. Yet humanity’s death will eclipse the eldar’s annihilation tenfold, for we are evolving into a far more psychically powerful race. Uncontrolled psychic energy will tear reality apart. The warp’s entities will feed on the carcass of the galaxy. There must be control, and control must be maintained.+

 

 

 

 

‘Control…’ Ra repeated. The scale of such ambition…

 

+The necessity of it. Lest mankind face a far harsher extinction than the eldar. Their souls shine bright within the warp, drawing the predations of the beasts within its tides. Soon, every human soul will become a beacon of fire.+

 

How, Ra wondered. How can you know? What other unbelievable futures have you foreseen? How can evolution itself be conquered and controlled?

 

+Through vision, Ra. We see the warp as an alternate reality, and this is so. It is a mirror, reflecting our every thought and action. Every hate, every death, every nightmare and dream, echoing into eternity. We break into this place, into a realm that harbours the pain and suffering of every man and woman and child to ever live, and we use it to sail between the stars. Because we must. Because until now there has been no other choice.+

 

‘The webway,’ Ra murmured into the silent night.

+The webway. Mankind is ascending, Ra. Humanity is taking a great developmental step, evolving into a psychic race. Uncontrolled psykers are lodestones for the warp’s touch. A species comprising them would suffer as the eldar suffered. And for the eldar, this evolutionary juncture was their final step before destruction. I will not let humanity be destroyed by the same fate. The eldar had the answers within their grasp but were too naive and too proud to save themselves. They had the webway, which could have been their salvation. But they never fully severed their connection to the warp. Their soulfires drew damnation upon their entire species.’

 

Ra knew this, yet never had it been related to him in these exact words, flavoured as they were by the promise of prophecy. With the webway, humanity would need no Navigators. They would never need to rely on the unreliable warp-whispers of astropaths. Vessels would never enter the warp to be lost or torn apart by the entities that dwelt within it. But the eldar had done the same, had they not?

+No. They eradicated their reliance on the warp but they never severed their species’ connection to it. I will do that for humanity, once and for all.+

 

+I have conquered humanity’s cradle-world. I have conquered the galaxy, in order to shape mankind’s development as it at last evolves into a psychic race. No isolated pockets of our species may remain free, lest in their ignorance they invite destruction upon us all. I have shattered the hold of faith and fear over the human mind. Superstition and religion must continue to be outlawed, for they are easy doors for the warp’s denizens to enter the human heart. This is what we have already done. And soon I will offer humanity a way of interstellar travel without reliance upon Geller fields and Navigators. I will offer them means of communicating between worlds without reliance on the warp-dreams of astropaths. And when the Imperium shields the entire species within the laws of my Pax Imperialis, when humanity is freed from the warp and united beneath my vision, I can at last shepherd mankind’s growth into a psychic race.+

The primarchs, thought Ra. The Thunder Legion. The Unification Wars. The Great Crusade. The Space Marine Legions. The Imperial Truth. The Webway Project. The Black Ships, with psykers huddled in the holds, watched over by the Silent Sisterhood. It is all about–

 

+Control. Tyranny is not the end, Ra. Absolute control is but the means to the end.+

The hubris… Ra couldn’t fight the insidiously treacherous thought, to see the hidden depths of his master’s ambitions. The sheer, unrivalled hubris.

 

+The necessity.+

The Emperor’s voice was iced iron.

+Not arrogance. Not vainglory. Necessity. I have already told you, Ra. Humans need rulers. Now you see why. A single murder is on one end of the spectrum, for rulers bring law. The hope of the entire race is at the far end of the continuum, for I – as ruler – bring salvation.+

 

Ra stared towards distant Terra, unsure if he was humbled or touched by the alien sensation of something akin to terror.

 

+You are shedding tears, Ra.+

Surprised, the Custodian touched gold-clad fingertips to his tattooed cheeks. They came away glinting with faint wetness in the light of distant suns.

 

‘I have never done so before.’

 

+That is not true. You wept on the night your mother died. You merely do not remember it.+ Ra still looked at the faint moisture on his fingertip. How curious. ‘Forgive the indignity, sire.’ +There is nothing to forgive. The immensity of my ambitions sit ill within mortal minds. Even among mortals that will live as close to eternally as my Ten Thousand.+

 

 

 

Edited by Klod
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+Everything that has happened, will happen again. It is the way of things. Yet humanity’s death will eclipse the eldar’s annihilation tenfold, for we are evolving into a far more psychically powerful race. Uncontrolled psychic energy will tear reality apart. The warp’s entities will feed on the carcass of the galaxy. There must be control, and control must be maintained.+

 

So, basically, this is the source for the current Imperium being ripped in half and this is the Psychic Awakening event we're about to see? :)

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When the Emperor arrived at Deliverance, Corax saw both the powerful psychic glamour of a shining being floating through the air that the Emperor projected to everyone else and a relatively normal man walking on the ground, overlapping like a film camera double exposure. The Emperor expresses surprise that Corax can see through the glamour, and even suggests that it's not really his choice for normal humans to see him that way.

 

Like the kitchen scene in The Matrix where Neo breaks the mug by turning to look after the Oracle tells him not to worry about the mug, what's really going to bake your noodle is the question of whether or not the Emperor deliberately showed Corax this double face.

 

Likewise, does the Emperor really simply appear as people expect to see him, or does he appear as he wishes them to see him? It's useful to the Emperor for adepts of the Mechanicum to view him as the Omnissiah, logic incarnate. It's useful for the Custodes to see him as a king to whom they are the only true companions. Et cetera.

I don't think anyone has really seen the Emperor.  The sisters of battle see through the glamour as well but they see a young man with lines of age on his face and an eternal scream, the custodes just see an old man.  You can never really take what the Emperor says at face value, he changes the way he looks to generate certain responses from humans, so you can be damn sure he does it with his speech, maybe Corax needed to hear that 'he could see through the glamour'.  The Emperor is a genius of immeasurable greatness, he sees the future and like tzeentch he seeks the future path that he believes is advantageous and someone that is immortal and has lived for 48,000 years, will have to change or every conceivable action or response or influence possible to really change the future, especially if its a desired future and compounded by the fact that every other bugger with divination is doing the same thing. Think about how many people and incidences would have to be changed to change the future in a very specific way and to such an extreme degree. I would wager that every single thing he does is to enact the future he wants to see. I don't think anyone could ever really know the Emperor, not even Malcador.  Obviously he still says stuff that is true, but I'm always sceptical when it comes to the big E.

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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I just want to point out that in "The Board is Set" the Emperor clearly calls them his sons to Malcador, someone whom (unless they show otherwisw later) he's never hidden anything from.

that story might also imply that the emperor knew that some of his sons would fall, that no amount of quality time would change that fact. the question seemed to be which would and what effect that would have...keeping some of the chaos bound sons loyal might have led to even darker results than the heresy itself

 

so it appears that the emperor’s only real choice was in influencing the pattern to minimise the fall out. it’s not a perfect explanation but it goes some way to explaining his borderline abusive treatment of some primarchs compared to others

 

it might even be a clue into the reasons behind purging the lost two, when dorn’s realisation that they would have made the heresy worse is taken into account

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One of the really great things about how MOM is written is that we are not given an absolute answer one way of the other how the Emperor regards or feel about anyone! not even the custodians :ohmy.: We only hear him speak through everyone’s own perception, he is everything to everyone. Even Ra questions if what the Emperor says and show him is the real deal or not.

 

"When I speak to you, to others, am I speaking aloud? Does my mouth move and form the shapes of human language? Does a human voice emerge? Or is it merely how mortal minds process my presence and psychic will?"

 

This means that we always have to filter what is said through the listeners expectations:

 

- All custodies are mistrusting of the primarchs and space marines and blame them for all :censored: that is going down. In addition to their high regards of themselves as the Emperors companions it makes sense that they “hear” big E “speak” of everyone else as tools and of themselves as valuable assets and companions.

 

- Land sees the Omnisia, logical, detached and without emotions. He "hears" a divine monotone Emperor without any feelings for his creations.

 

- In the prologue when the Emperor speaks to Magnus he "hears" his name, not “nr. 15” as for example Land "hears".

 

- As The Unseen writes the different primarchs sees him differently based on their own perspective, some perceive warmth and some not.

 

If you don´t apply the filter, big E is just sounding like uncaring as-hole (and maybe that the truth. Who knows :wink: ) As such, MoM actually does not brakes with other lore, it just gives an more in depth picture how different people engages with the big E.

 

Does this means he is the cuddly father figure to the primarchs? Hell no, every description from their POV describe him as distant and aloof to them also. Could he feel love for them? Why not, in so much a being such as the Emperor could.

 

Does it means that he regards the custodes as his closes companions and confidantes? We don´t know but they regard them as such at least, and that´s what we "hear" from them :tongue.:

from memory, even Magnus is perceived differently by those around him

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