Warhammer 40k: The Emperor of Mankind: The Manufactured Myth

[Shades of Eternity]

Warhammer 40k: The Emperor of Mankind: The Manufactured Myth
What if the God Emperor of Mankind was a lie?

 

[aramis erak]

Warhammer 40k: The Emperor of Mankind: The Manufactured Myth
What if the God Emperor of Mankind was a lie?

Canon has always said so, to a degree. His incarceration in the Golden Throne may be just a way to keep the unaging man out of controlling the faith the preceptors of Holy Terra use to control the Imperium.

Does the throne enable the Astronomicon? Yes. Does it need him in it? Probably not. Astropaths navigated in 30K, when the First Founding primarchs fought the chaos war of 30K, and the Emperor still walked amongst his genetically engineered offspring of the First Founding. (Original Epic Scale was explicitly the 31st Millennium.)

And, yeah, the whole setting is fascist as hell. Same for the fantasy Warhammer world. Fun for gaming, but sucky to live in.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Canon has always said so, to a degree. His incarceration in the Golden Throne may be just a way to keep the unaging man out of controlling the faith the preceptors of Holy Terra use to control the Imperium.

Does the throne enable the Astronomicon? Yes. Does it need him in it? Probably not. Astropaths navigated in 30K, when the First Founding primarchs fought the chaos war of 30K, and the Emperor still walked amongst his genetically engineered offspring of the First Founding. (Original Epic Scale was explicitly the 31st Millennium.)

And, yeah, the whole setting is fascist as hell. Same for the fantasy Warhammer world. Fun for gaming, but sucky to live in.

I believe that the Emperor's original plan was to put Magnus the Red into the Golden Throne; it needs a big psyker but not necessarily the Emperor himself. Big E is also a Perpetual meaning that if he dies he comes back; it is not known whether Horus managed to strip this from him, whether the Lords of Terra know, and whether the Throne is doing anything to this (e.g. keeping his regeneration down).

Warhammer Fantasy isn't so much fascist as a crapsack world. But if given the choice between being born in The Empire in Warhammer Fantasy and being born in Germany in 1600 and as an average person in both cases I think I'd pick The Empire (and this despite one of the in setting jokes being that the Midnight Aristocracy actually treats its peasants better than the human aristocrats). I'd also rather be a high elf peasant than Victorian peasant. And I'm not sure between an average Dark Elf slave and a plantation slave. Real world history kinda sucks.

 

[aramis erak]

I believe that the Emperor's original plan was to put Magnus the Red into the Golden Throne; it needs a big psyker but not necessarily the Emperor himself. Big E is also a Perpetual meaning that if he dies he comes back; it is not known whether Horus managed to strip this from him, whether the Lords of Terra know, and whether the Throne is doing anything to this (e.g. keeping his regeneration down).'

That's a new thing; I stopped tracking the lore in detail about the time 40K went to big boxed sets. And the novels started.

There has been a LOT of development of the 30k era

Warhammer Fantasy isn't so much fascist as a crapsack world. But if given the choice between being born in The Empire in Warhammer Fantasy and being born in Germany in 1600 and as an average person in both cases I think I'd pick The Empire (and this despite one of the in setting jokes being that the Midnight Aristocracy actually treats its peasants better than the human aristocrats). I'd also rather be a high elf peasant than Victorian peasant. And I'm not sure between an average Dark Elf slave and a plantation slave. Real world history kinda sucks.

It's been moved away from that, but WFB3 and WFRP1 era, it was just as fascist and crapsack as 40k:RT and the expansions. It's just that the tech was lower, so the felt effect was less in-one's-face...
… later editions have made it less so.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's been moved away from that, but WFB3 and WFRP1 era, it was just as fascist and crapsack as 40k:RT and the expansions. It's just that the tech was lower, so the felt effect was less in-one's-face...
… later editions have made it less so.

I can't agree here. Just as crapsack, possibly. Just as fascist? The Imperium of 40k has always had a maximum of two legal religions (with the Adeptus Mechanicus/Omnissiah having the possible second). Meanwhile if you go back to WFRP 1e The Empire is very much polytheist, with the Cult of Ulric being based in Middenheim and the head of the Cult of Ulric having a vote as Elector Count (the Cult of Sigmar got three, the halflings got one); it's just that Chaos worship is banned. And in 1e Karl Franz was not the great warleader he became in WFB - instead he was ageing and ineffectual.

Oddly it's Brettonia that changed drastically; Bretonnia as Arthurian/Robin Hood being run by a trickster elven Goddess didn't come in until the 1990s in WFB. Instead it's France six months before the revolution. Which I mantain is a superb setting bsisis.