THE EMPEROR - 40K'S BIGGEST STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS? A RANT. 

Actually, the bit in the Black Legion books is brilliant. They're laughing that the Word Bearers, in essence, won.

"The emporor loved his sons" Looks at mortarion, Looks at angron, L O O K S A T K O N R A D

I'm now convinced that we need North to make an alternate 40K universe and have other lore youtubers cover it.

I think the Emperor coming back really hurts the entire setting. It’s a cool idea, but the Imperium is cooler to me as a dying empire. I like the idea that the Imperium will never recover from the heresy, and that all of this warfare is the Imperium barely hanging onto it’s firm grip on the milky way galaxy.

Some legends should be left well enough alone.

This idea could be great for business too. Think about it, having a 30k version of each primarch, as well as a 40k to contrast it. On top of this, an Emperor of Mankind miniature would compete in sales with guardsmen losses. Add the new demon primarchs and volaire, pure carnage! Cause I'm not into 40k to win. I'm in it to watch entire tables of units (mine or my opponent's) get annihilated. I've been told I might be a Khorne worshipper. Don't listen to them.

Nice vid. I always thought that they were going to try and bring him back since the old 54mm inquisitor game with the different sects within the inquisition trying to maintain the status quo and put down all the heretical ideas, find and protect possible "second comings" of the emperor, strengthen his soul within the imaterium or even destroy his body to free him completely but these were never spoken of again. Guilliman talking to him is probably going to be the closest we get to seeing him until GWs sales tank and they try and get everyone back to the setting for the end times, having him hoble off of the golden throne. If I were going to write him back into the setting as a more active role and seeing as godhood seems to be the direction this is taking I'd have his body be destroyed (again with the terminus decree) but now free in the warp with all that belief he's able to guide humanity, warp travel becomes easier, psykers are safer and become more numerous, chaos forces get less direct intervention from their gods all that sort of stuff putting humanity on a more even footing as the final battles draw near.

The best, most intellectual discussion of 40K lore is found on this channel. Bravo.

Your Tempestus film NEEDS to get made! Guys who are basically special forces would be a great entry point for people who don't know much about 40K lore. Easier than inducting them into other parts of the setting, I'm sure.

I would add a bit for when the Emporah comes back where he chastises Guillaman for infiltrating other space marine chapters with his own geneseed and stops further creation of Primaris marines or at least halts it for a time until he can verify that it is pure and no longer agents of Guillaman

The emperor's true name is a mystery and before taking on the guise as the Emperor of Mankind he was simply known as "The Master" or "Master of the Lines" and referred to himself as "Revelation" or "The Master" when he was feeling cheeky; That is right, he referred to himself as "Revelation" when he was being serious, whatever that means, this was what he called himself, so there is something to think about. All we really know before the 30th millennium is that he was very active during the "Dark Age of Technology", most likely gathering technology and doom prepping, as well as spent a lot of time around other perpetuals. While before that even, during our time period and before our time period he mostly wandered across earth taking on guises of many historical people. But, one thing remained consistent, he always purported to promote peace and harmony above all things - obviously something changed between then and the 30th millennium, what he witnessed during the dark age of technology must of brought about that change. That is about it. I mostly played the table top game during 3rd edition and I recall the cruel irony being the whole point of the Imperium back then during the early days of the earliest writing on the heresy mostly in White Dwarf. This was before the whole mess that happened between then and the Era Indomitus time period, which now GW is forced to run with because the writers had to do something to pass the time when they were not allowed past 999.M41. We're still dealing with the mess that was novels and codex lore written during 5th edition (Though we did get Trazyn and Belisarius Cawl out of this time period of writing who are both awesome characters); But the truth is in the old lore (The Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers era), the Necrons were OP and unstoppable, the Tyranids were all consuming and unstoppable; The Traitor forces who worshipped chaos would of won eventually and the Imperium was doomed to be overrun. Games Workshop knew this, the writers knew this, the gothic grim dark nature of early 2000s WH40K was too much, they knew they needed to figure out a way out of the mess they put themselves into and what we have now was their way of forcing the setting to mould itself into a situation where they could still push storylines and produce new models so they can keep milking the franchise to make money. Basically, they pulled the same nonsense which Hasbro did with Transformers; No joke, it is exactly the same thing they did, if you know the history of the Transformers franchise you'd agree with me on this, because old lore is not compatible at all with current lore for that IP either and the old lore took it down a dark road to a dead end too, they rebooted it with Beast Wars and well... it went sideways after that. (Not to mention in the old lore Optimus Prime is dead half way through the entire thing too and stayed dead).

The Emperor's point of view, but it's through a dream/story/adventure with Ciaphas Cain. They are in front of a huge ork waah. Everyone panics, except the emperor, that simply mutters something about "that fungus problem".

I didn't know that Northen Exile was a Thorian. (Not an insult, merely a joke. You can look at types of inquisitors if you have no idea of what I'm joking about.) Anyway, I don't think that the Emperor should rise off the Golden Throne and be active again because the Emperor would be too powerful to mix with the universes, the Imperium and the rest of 40K. For example, we can just ask ourselves, who (which characters) are allowed to defeat the Emperor? If we are being generous, we could suggest Abaddon but I don't think that 40K fans would be content with any-one defeating the Emperor... and when we have a character who is not allowed to fail, we have a limited character. This point is often overlooked but what really annoys me is that GW has placed the Sisters of Silence in the inner sanctum of the Imperial Palace on Terra, so the people who drain psychic power from the environment are placed next to the Emperor who needs psychic power to survive... Whose stupid idea was that? The Sisters of Silence might end up killing the Emperor. It's not as if the Emperor needs more guards, he has the Custodes for that purpose. (But GW wanted to pull out a new "important" army from somewhere.) Another thing that I dislike is that GW is drastically weakening the Emperor over time, the most obvious example being the Emperor being no longer being able to hold back the Great Rift. Which was a bad idea in my opinion but I can see why they did it... "Customers, the galaxies are now more warped and dangerous than before. How exciting!!! Buy our products." Previously the Golden Throne had problems but the Emperor wasn't that problem. I like how in the background, the Emperor was made mysterious. It may be different in the Horus Heresy novels, I don't read BL novels about Space Marines. If the Emperor was too relatable, it would lower the awe of him. Anyway, the Emperor is a benefit to 40K however the recent/new writers will probably fail to write the background well (like usual).

If the Emperor ever came back that's the grimdark out the window. I wish more primarchs had died in the heresy, then we wouldn't have to worry about them coming back and dominating the setting.

The return of the Emperor would make for interesting battles on the tabletop, espally with or agest Eldar players who have the miniature of Eldrad Ulthran.

Don’t bring him back. The whole setting is suppose to be him attached to the throne, borderline dead, and using the last bit of power he has in preventing the warp from spreading. Meanwhile, humanity fights to survive against the growing xenos empires around it.

There’s some stuff I don’t like about Big E’s lore and lore surrounding him. I can’t fully explain it here but there is some stuff I don’t like and would rather be removed from the lore. Part of me doesn’t want him back but I do think if handled well it would be cool and i’d love to used a powered down version of him on the tabletop. makes me think that they’d then combine the custodies and grey knights into one army with him at the head and maybe include sisters of silence or give them to the inquisition idk. I’m more worried about removing the grimdark if this happens but I think it could be done again if handled well.

I love your idea for the Emperor's return. With this new golden throne would the astronomicon still need psyker sacrifices? If not, that could give way to more portent psykers appearing. I've always said that if the Emperor returns the imperium would immediately descend into another civil war. He'd likely want the Inquisition completely gone or reeled in significantly and I doubt they would give up the insurmountable power that they hold on the Imperium. Grey Knights, Custodes, and Primarchs may recognize the Emperor but the Inquisition could likely get A LOT of support from Guard regiments and Space Marines chapters through fear alone. "He's a false Emperor a demon in disguise and he has swayed the most loyal of the true Emperor's followers, join us or die."

Bringing the Emp Back... would definately bring Cypher in on that. After all it's been his crusade to deliver that sword to him, untouched by anyone.

I still think the Emperor becoming a god is in itself a cruel irony, although more for mankind itself than for the Emperor personally. In fact I wonder if this was in fact his original plan - people mention his enforcement of Atheism, but if we look at what happened when Tau-aligned humans started worshipping the idea of The Greater Good, it resulted in the birth of a warp entity representing not the Tau themselves, but the humans' perspective on the Tau. When you go back to the Word Bearers and the Emperor's harsh admonishment of them for the supposed crime of worshipping him, this could have been the real risk - they could have potentially caused the birth of a god that was not the Emperor himself, but a representation of what the Imperium meant to it's worshippers. Effectively a Chaos God that the real Emperor would have no real control over. Remember the Emperor was more than aware of Slaanesh's existence so would know the danger of this happening. What has happened with him being enshrined on the Golden Throne however, and fed the souls of billions of psykers over the millennia, is he has himself changed and become the focal point of all this worship. Currently he is still bound to a decaying ancient physical form, but I believe the time is coming where he can be truly reborn as a god - so I think the next big narrative thing is going to be his death (and with it the death of Terra itself), and the birth of a new god - a god of Order, balanced against those of Chaos. I also believe the Emperor is in league with the Aeldari god of Death, who can grant him this rebirth via the invocation of his true name. This is what Constantine Valdor seeks, and while Valdor is likely incapable of knowingly causing harm to the Emperor, his death itself will ultimately fall to his other most loyal servants - the Grey Knights. This is the true nature of the Terminus Decree - it simply instructs the Grey Knights to destroy the Golden Throne. I think this would be awesome too as it would give the Imperium a huge power boost in some ways, but also create schisms - for instance many returning loyalist primarchs who remember the Emperor's original purpose may reject the Emperor as a god and instead choose to serve his original vision. Guilliman in particular already suspects that he is meraly a tool - a useful idiot. Conversely some traitor primarchs may decide to align with what is effectively a new Chaos God - Lorgar in particular I imagine would feel particularly vindicated. Neways basically I think whether the Big E has been playing galactic 4D chess this whole time or is instead the victim of a cruel ironic twist when the Chaos Gods finally welcome their new brother, the Emperor as a literal god is the kind of "end times" (or new beginning) the setting desperately needs. Also if Terra blows up and the various Imperial factions start infighting, that actually has zero effect on the average tabletop game! The most affected faction are the Custodes, who conveniently now have a large contingent of their number out amongst the stars.

I'm sorry but I really despise that the Emperor has as much, or more, power than the chaos gods. Chaos is already a joke under Abaddon's incompetence, having the actual gods themselves be scared of a single psychic man makes them look so weak. If they feared him for his ability to unify humanity, I could buy it, but for him to suddenly get a massive power boost like he's in DBZ really undermines the dark tragedy of the Imperium

Brilliant idea mate. Absolutely brilliant!

In a galactic war setting , I'm not sure why people are happy with characters not truly dying. The status quo is getting dry. Make us moist with a bigger and permanent death

Howdy North, now this is what i meant when I asked you about sacrificing Kaldor Drago to save the Emperor. Well done sir well done, 👏👏👏😎

Good vid, fun discussion. Out of curiosity do you plan on covering lore of factions outside of the Imperium and chaos?

Nothing is more terrifying than the unknown (ex. Death). Similarly nothing is more awe inspiring (ex God).

why is it that every time that 40k lore discussions rise everyone starts to argue about who is the real asshole and who did nothing wrong? I wonder if these kind of discussions happened before the horus heresy books.

Hey north do you have an email I could contact? For some reason ive thought of an entire story line that I cant seem to get out of my head until I share it with someone. Plus if you enjoy the read maybe it could be a good discussion topic for a video

I personally prefer the emperor as an uncaring mastermind. And people think the emperor knew the heresy was coming is well... it's stated in a conversation with malcador he did.

Chef's Kiss North

"What message does this send?" is a question that really needs to be ignored by 40k. If moralists can't trust the audience to think for themselves, then they should at least realise that 40k is a setting of villain protagonists and all dogmas get called out when it's their rivals' turn in the spotlight. The Imperium is a necessary evil and a self-sabotaging dystopia. Chaos are victims of circumstance and irredeemable monsters. Orks are glam rock cartoon characters and dim-witted savages. I want Helsreach to be the first mainstream title so everyone can have a good cry about the fascist aesthetic of the Black Templars and Steel Legion. Let them rant about the racist implications of white humans being attacked by whatever Orks represent today. No damage control from GW sending mixed messages by mistake. 40k gets a pass on all of this because it's an allegory for everything, taken to an extreme until it's an allegory for nothing.

Yeah the last Church was the first book story that really just pissed me off and made me dislike Big E. I heard simmilar bad from Master of Mankind, so yeah, chaos fanboys shouldnt write about him. Too many cooks in the kitchen writers should mess with others characters and established stuff.

i want him back so i can paint him lol