Jokes aside, that's legit a potentially good idea if we subscribe to the idea that all psychically active species in the galaxy either die out or implode creating a chaos god. Big E could be basically creating a human pantheon to divide mankind's psychic power, kinda of like the Eldar pantheon before slaanesh.
Hold up. That description of the dark king as a smooth black orb sounds an awful lot like the Tyrant Star. I’d be down for that to be a thing. Like it’s slowly regaining power.
I was thinking the exact same thing about the Star Child and how it has changed the Emperor since the Heresy. I like to imagine the whole Pious intervention thing aboard Horus' ship as testament that even though he balled up his empathy, etc. and threw it away in desperation to defeat the Arch Traitor, that the Emperor was so compassionate even despite that. Which caused his righteous fury to relent, right up until Horus proved his damnation in front of the Emperor's very eyes.
4:55 wait a minute, in 40k isn't there a mysterious dark star that sometimes just appears above planets spreading madness and destruction under its balefull light? Is that the dark king then?
The problem with the Starchild is that if it ever returns to the Emperor will He ascend into full blown God of Order or will he be resurrected and brought back into the Emperor back when he was in 30k? It can't be both because you can't be a God AND be its avatar at the same time.
@rajukoley9249 the section of the book I'm talking about has a mortal wandering the Chaos Wastes, being led by a daemon. He asks to se the gates of heaven and the daemon points to the Chaos Gate. When he says no, no... like Sigmar's realm etc, the daemon smiles and continues pointing to the Chaos Gate. There are no Order Gods, they are all just aspects of the 4.
(Question for he feelings towards his sons)I'm confused i always hear that the emperor originally has no particular fatherly and caring feeling for his sons he may respect some aspects of there abilities and personal traits but ultimately there tools to him one he intended to get rid of when they serve there purposes and now the book is saying he had to remove his compassion,hope and care (as i understand it) from his soul to fight hores so which is it did ever really care, did only truly care for some or was it at this moment he realised he cared so he decided to take these measures to fight he son?
I've speculated something about the dark king. I think it always exists, and I think some form of the emperor will become it, but, there's a catch. I think that the dark king won't become a chaos god, valdor is out to get the emperor's true name, a true name can give you a lot of power over an entity, I believe valdor WILL succeed in finding the emperor's true name, I think he'll use that to alter the dark king warp entity in some way, to turn it into something besides a chaos god, a warp god set in opposition to them. A god of order if you will. I think this is ultimately why the emperor had such a keen interest in valdor practically from his birth. He knew what his role would be or at least an idea of it.
Emps becomes the Trinity. Dark Father. Suffering Mother. Pure Child. Ironic. The one who didn't want his children to believe in God, is the one most suitable to become one. Only one who rejects Godhood is worthy of achieving it. Hail the God-Emperor.
A man who is the closest to a god the species has ever produced, and is being made a god by the people around him, yet denies his godhood. The imperial truth was a stop gap to buy him a few more centuries of not being worshipped so he could avoid being made his own avatar. The more he concentrates his influence the further and further away he's driven from his humanity and this is largely out of his hands by the time his name is known on all those worlds. But he stopped the process by anchoring it to one physical location - earth. God is supposedly everywhere, this god is local to the Milky way galaxy, specifically in a chair. I think that's more interesting. A man scrabbling for a purchase in the physical world despite everything and everyone literally forcing godhood onto him. Perhaps that bridging of a gap between the physical and the divine is the point - the denial of both the mundane and the supernatural as ruler but a unsteady synthesis of both. The throne is breaking down, and God's don't explode.
"God" in 40k is a pretty loose term to describe very powerful beings, none of which created the universe they occupy. And no, ancient cultures calling stuff "god" doesn't count, since they called anything they dont understand that way, including fire and nature.
for an athiest it does look like that, but in any one else. A true god would be one that can control every realm with total authority. So like irl we couldn't say there isn't a god or that there is, 40k has just given us a realm that is connected to reality but does still follow rules that an actual God would have no need to.
Bro when you think about it, people have literally lived and died thinking the siege ended the way the myths and legends said it did. Only now are we hearing otherwise. 40k is that old and backed up with unwritten, past lore lol. That's insane
I think the whole Horus Heresy was just a massive gambit by the Chaos Gods. Not to kill the Emperor, but to tempt him into embracing Chaos and becoming the Dark King.
Malice is the Dark King. That hateful fragment of the Emperor that he also ejected from himself, just as he ejected the Star Child. The Starchild is the light, Malice is the dark. Faux theory, but I like it.
I love how The Dark King is described, an immense black sphere surrounded by seven luminous white spear-bearing figures. Very much the vibe of a "Chaos God of order".
*Warp god of Order There are many warp gods in Immaterium and chaos gods are just subsets of Warp gods, there's even hints of both Magnus and Leman Russ' true form is akin to powerful Titans from old human legends but actually stronger than Imperium' titan mechs (since Primarchs' souls have ties to destiny and can bend the ties of fate surrounding them, at least to varying extent, only Horus which got permanently deleted and Fulgrim clone in Trazyn's museum technically have the original lesser warp god soul of Fulgrim prior to being ejected by daemonic soups that take over control his bodily remains which acts as Slaanesh's puppet/daemon Primarch)
The inquisitor books did not introduce the concept of Starchild. It was the Realm of Chaos: The Lost and The Damned from 1989. It also introduce Horus killing Sangiunus, the Emperor being taken to safety by Dorn. As well as Daemon Primarchs such as Mortarion, Magnus, Angron, Fulgrim, Lorgar and Perturabo. Yeah, that book is super important to what 40k would become and its sadly forgotten.
My theory after EATD II is this: Starchild is out there, but the husk of the emperor is therefore, as you said, a cold, unfeeling machine - and it was his humanity that lead him to follow Ollanius and reject the powers of the Dark King in the first place. So the rest of the emperors soul still on terra would be much more open to accepting this power, should he get the chance. And he might get that chance if his physical body dies and this part of his soul would be ejected into the warp. The custodes realize this, which is why they are so worried about the failing of the golden throne that they were open to deal with Commoragh to fix it and keep the body of the emperor alive. As long as the starchild is not reunited or sufficiently empowered, the Golden Throne is not just a machine for the Emperor - it is a prison for the Dark King. And I have to say - Humanity having to keep their own God locked up to prevent him from destroying it would be a very Grimdark/40k thing indeed!
So in summary: The Chaos gods tried to pull a Godhand from Berserk Ollanius Pius is still the GOAT Star Child is a thing (I’m just waiting for it to go the route of TTS) The Dark King might one day come again
The idea of the dark king becoming a 5th chaos god could play neatly with vashtor trying to become a 5th chaos god. This idea of multiple beings either attempting to become or being forced into the spot of the 5th god would be interesting. Maybe even bring back some malal/malice in there too since old stuff is coming back into canon.
@@maltheri9833 I just thought it would be neat so see some old stuff get resurfaced I got no real liking of it tbh. The paint schemes for the sons of malice is cool tho.
@@t_hetty1758 4 Chaos gods + ascended Vashtorr + barely remembered Malice + creeping Dark King + Enthroned Emperor of Mankind 8 pointed Star of Chaos completed, the 8 pointed Star of Chaos might even changes its alignment, powers and affinities as the emergence of new chaos gods happens to interrupt The Great Game and the boiling of Immaterium
@@ohamatchhams wow I didn’t even think of that. If there is a storyline leading to an “8 pointed star of chaos” like the actual symbol that would be pretty cool.
After refusing to become The Dark King, The Emperor told Ol He'd made a new plan. Here's my theory: The Emperor knows He's going to be mortally wounded in the battle with Horus. After all, he's basically just given up the power to win. What he wants, is for Ol to become Malcador's effective replacement, to steer The Imperium and act as His voice while the dying Emps is bound to The Throne. The tragedy of course, is that we know Ol will die, The Imperium will lose its immortal leadership and ties to the past, and be plunged into ten-thousand years of darkness.
Why does this seem obvious to even a lowly novice lore consumer like myself, or maybe I'm not that much of a novice anymore? I'm not even sure what the normal gamer level is because I don't really play them. If I did I would play battlefront Gothic with the skalgrim mod probably but I don't have a good computer for it.
Guilliman's musings about the Emperor in Dark Imperium are pretty interesting. By Guilliman's perspective the Emperor has become utterly inhuman and a being beyond understanding.
I just hope that the Dark King, Emperor becoming god fully and the Star Child isn't/won't be just a way for GW to create the "Age of Emperor" in case of 40k going down in sales, but would be an actual plot point to make the plot more interesting of 40k without the full collapse of everything.
@@maltheri9833 well, for Eldars you could make that the chaos that ensued made it possible for Isha to escape and now they have support of their god, or you could make something different with them. For Tau it would be very easy to just say that now they expanded more, but now they start to face bigger resistance from the population (after all the Emperor is now alive) so they would be faced with several options one of them being ethnic cleansing. Orks are just orks, maybe Ghazkull becomes a krork. Same for Tyranids, or you could make them loose control over large amounts of their forces after the "death" of Emperor and the blowout that happened after the destruction of Terra and the Astronomicon meaning that there are entire systems full of mindless swarms, maybe make some into their own hives either starting their own hive fleets that now attack independently of the Hive mind or make them stay where they are so that their plot point would be being destroyed by other factions that want to take that spot. You could save Admech by either them making rocket engines and move Mars as far away from Terra as possible or Void Dragon is awaken and saves them from doom, so Admech start worship him and fully turn into a technology cult possibly even turning into kinda-Necrons but without the living metal and it looks more like Dark Mechanicum. CSM gets out of the Eye of Terror and warbands create their small empires in Imperium Nihilus and the remaining parts of Imperium Sanctus that aren't Ultramar or other regions protected by IG and/or SM. Chaos Daemons are everywhere and fight between each other in real space. Kinda took inspiration from Pancreas's vid of bringing down the Imperium, but instead of making it stupid and too much like Fantasy Battles I instead opted for something that would be less stupid for the setting of 40k. After all Imperium just collapsing wouldn't be much except of non-imperial factions getting more powers against just Humanity, but this way other factions could gain relevance other ways that aren't just punching the remnants of humans but also somehow make them not just destroy all those remnants. Plus Imperium is too big to fall down by itself and imo only the destruction of Astronomicon and a large portion of Imperium Sanctus could realistically do it. However most importantly, this way Humanity wouldn't just die from being surrounded by enemies, but now have Emperor as an actual god that could help them by sending his own daemons to protect human worlds, and maybe eventually start a new Crusade Idk. Either way there are many ways to make the "Age of Emperor", or maybe it would be interesting to have some of it without 40k becoming 2nd AoS, like Emperor doesn't "dies" thus not fully becoming a god, but being just close enough to start making an impact. Though yes even with some new stuff for other factions they still would feel kinda left out by the amount of stuff Imperials would get so maybe it's not that good of an idea anyway
As the universe was not destroyed it is safe to assume that the Emperor, though really strong that he could rival the chaos gods has not ascended yet, since it's been known that the universe itself will get destroyed if the Big E ascends.
I could see a warhammer 50k on the horizon, mainly to allow for more story space and more AOS style gameplay, I think unlikely AOS it would be the end of 40k's lore and you'd get black library books for it just like heresy
You know this makes me think an eldar fall novel/s would be cool, like it turns out there was a war near the end (between a 3rd wave of 'we went to far' eldar vs the pleasurecults) but the anti-slaanesh fsction fails.
plot twist, john grammaticus gets to the newborn star child first and we get a trilogy about them "odd coupling" it around the universe......truly.....the darkest of timelines...
if they re going to bring the star child back it will be the part of its soul in the warp . and the dark king i think was suposed to be one of few character i think Lutin talked about it in the past and was saying Horus the Emperor and few others who could have been the dark king and those chaos of order and anti warp shhh are not going to happen there re some specific words they use when his close to became a god that like a tittle/explanation of what kind of god he will be
Perhaps Vashtor or Bel'akor will use Abbadon to become the Dark King. Magnus or Lorgar could also have been spending the last 10k years trying to figure out how to become the Dark King too.
It's often those who yearn for ascension out of sheer ego and unhinged avarice that fail to grasp the what being a god actually entails. However, some men who are very long lived and powerful enough to be a flick of a dick away from godhood such as the emperor fear the possibility that becoming a god could be a fate FAR WORSE than any hell conjured in the collective imagination of mankind.
I'd say a mix of 40k being made for the longest time as a setting more than a story, expansive but not that continuous. Along with that, their experience with warhammer fantasy: where they did build and change some, but would eventually try to end it and fumbled pretty much every aspect of it, thus may make them nervous to change too much.
@@livefromtheblacklibrary because they're uncreative. Think just for a second about how many story lines can come from a world like necromunda alone. They very rarely explore these, skipping thousands of years of what would be turmoil, rebellion, discoveries and political movements. But no, instead we get that Cawl alone equipped and made an entire 8-9 legion of better super soldiers and nobody knew about it, as if the inquisition wouldn't know and have it under their authority instead of a primarch of which 9 turned traitor already.
With the whole Star Child/God of Order theory it really does seem like we are inevitably barrelling towards an AoS style complete change to the setting, if the Emperor ascends and becomes the God of Order (like they did to Sigmar, basically making him the default protagonist of AoS) with all currently alive Primarchs returned its entirely possible we see the dead ones come back too since their souls must still be lingering in the Warp somewhere since ya know, when that kinda Warp fuckery is involved no one is ever truly dead, so as much as it would absolutely suck and retcon the shit out of core parts of the setting itself such as Sanguinius' death at the hands of Horus, Ferrus Manus' death at the hands of Fulgrim on Istvaan V being a core part of Fulgrim's tragic fall to Chaos they could pull some bs like "with the Emperor's ascension and the birth of a new God of Order, all those loyal to him were restored in a psychic emanation as powerful as the very formation of the galaxy itself" kinda retcon and that sheer amount of unleashed psychic energy brings the Emperor's realm and the dead loyalist Primarchs into being and that's how we'll see essentially the end of 40k as we know it when they inevitably AoS hard reset/End Times the setting, plus they're not just gonna stop once all the currently alive Primarchs are back in the setting on both the loyalist and traitor side, like they're not just gonna stop writing once we reach that point and be like "that's it, this is 40k forever now, no new stories ever again" kinda thing, that would be just stupid, they've kinda forced themselves to pull an End Times scenario and hard reset the entire setting
With Girly Roboman around there might be changes in how the setting functions vut i doubt they'd pull an AOS, even just the name 40k carries way too much money
@andreadangelo2299 I mean the setting is over 40 years old. I'd be worried if they make no progress in the story in an entire century. They've gotta end the damn books at some point who the hell expects a never ending bible?
No. All this stuff is to keep you buying. They'll never resolve it unless doing so would make more money. This setting stuff is just to facilitate sales.
Here's a suggestion Chrono : when the HH concludes 18 years of publication, what's going to happen next? as in are there going to be a continuation of sorts (imagine the great scouring being turned into a novel series as a HH sequel) or more books that take place in 30k?
I would love to see a series based on the war in heaven. The idea of a war 60 million years ago with perhaps an insight into the old ones and stuff like ctan and early chaos. Also birth of eldar and krorks.
@@t_hetty1758 very tough nut to crack this with the factions being composed of xenos, and with technology that's so advanced. It can work if done correctly. That's my take.
You have something there. I have been around 40k since the middle too late 80s. I remember the books you speak of about Draco. In the current lore custodians who in the throne room their armor turns black. Also the emperor looks differently to different people.
I feel like Warhammer is finally getting out of the it’s stagnation faze that it been stuck in for so long. Probably because gw realizes all the money that comes with it.
That’s true but tbh I do have some issues regarding that because now so many books are either just serious as a heart attack or can’t risk straying from the current direction of the narrative
Vol 2 was great I was angry there was a full third volume. Horus vs sanguineous was amazing. In the first book I called the fact that the emp would be the dark king not horus, I was pleasantly surprised with him, relinquishing the power, as I thought it was actually a really well delivered character beat after he was challenged by ollonius.
I love Malcador voice here xD Canon or not, the current version really feels lackluster, I recommend you guys checking out 50k The Shape of the Nightmare to Come fanfic / theoretical way the setting would progress after another 10k years made like 12 years ago. Apotheosis of the Emperor presented there is way more fascinating and way more fitting the vibes of grimdark 40k than all this Dark King crap. Holy hell, and treating Horus as potential Dark King is abyssmal. Horus is just a dude and a tool, while each of chaos gods represents the primal truth of the universe, some primal rules that govern the life itself. Some warmongering guy is not befitting such a grand role, because from philosophical point of view, he represents nothing, while true 4 chaos gods represent something far greater than mere mortal life, mere motivations and personality. But well, recent GW book writing quality is not shining. Ynnari plotline was an interesting concept, but pulled off in such a lackluster way, it's basically at the dead end. While it could lead to something deep and meaningful, if the law and order in form of the emperor and Ynnead as the god of death would represent the state, most people in the galaxy live in currently, making an impact on the warp itself, creating a warp consciousness of cumulated cold, relentless order / the basically death cult the Imperium is as a whole. Tyranny, law and order makes you dead inside, while you're still alive, while whatever you do, it's always centered around physical death. Thousand planets forcing people to die in war, in industry, in poverty, and often due to meaningless formalities, people are obsessed about. If such unnatural state, billions of people suffering is not something to stir and influence the warp, I do not know what is. Such environment is unfit for life, unfit for mortals, and is something far greater, like other chaos gods, it represents something extreme enough to birth demons.
yeah I get you - not a big fan of the "amputating the part of Big E soul" I don't remember him being compassionate and caring man, don't know about 50k, but I wished for Sanguinus killing Horus and then fighting Big E in black rage, Majorkill made a video on that
I think I understand how the dark King transformation works as we know pskers draw their power from the warp but they can't draw too much power or they will lose control or die but the emperor does not have to worry about this therefore he can draw upon as much warp power as he wants until he can eventually become the dark king.
Yes and no, The Emps does not have a limit to the energy his siphons, but if he gets too much he will ascend to godhood which he doesn't want to cause if he did the galaxy will get utterly destroyed
17:11 no way. The Starchild would be Jesus, the Emperor the Father, and what they pray to as the Holy Spirit. The star child of all of them would not be the Holy Spirit. Which is basically the divine breath of life in the world (the Holy Spirit). The star child as a representation of The Emperor’s humanity would obviously be analogous to Jesus.
I both get it and don’t as two sons were wiped out before and there was even a Vote on if Lorgar should be wiped out or not and he sees Sangius dead on the ground too but I guess he spent the most time with Horus would effect him because what 50-75 or 100 years with him the most out of everyone
Imagine if the star child and the dark king both return as seperate entitys and the imperium is split into 2 groups. Some space marine chapters can follow the dark king and some chapters can follow the star child. Maybe the cadians and krieg both take different sides. Basically splitting all imperium players down the middle like a 2nd heresy. Krieg fans might follow the dark king (as an example) and then they would be in lore arguments with cadian fans. Black templar players may debate with ultramarine players about who the real emperor is. Basically the entire imperium is ripped in half as well as the imperium players.
I’m not that knowledgeable on 40K lore, I only play the video games and watch lore vids. But I gotta say I love this idea. That as the Horus Heresy was underway and Horus and his father faced off, The Emperor took in more power of the Warp to get stronger, obsessed with the need to defeat Horus, but as he does time gets all weird and he gets encased in a dark cacoon like thing, slowly he could become the Dark King, maybe the realm and single demonic the Dark Skimg already exist because either he’ll eventually come to exist, or it always remains enough of a possibility. Either way it’s an ancient friend of the Emperor who eventually manages to snap him out of this mind set somehow, I like to think this is the Emperor keeping what remains of his Humanity rather then truly becoming a god and relinquishing the power. The Emperor can be a fucked up psychotic person , who knows. But he does care greatly for Humanity. I’d love it if he ever returned to “normal”, maybe have him always be on the verge of becoming the Dark King, like an ever present dark side. Imagine if the Dark King could somehow manifest as a trusty evil copy if the Emperor, but blackened and truly evil.
man these books really aren't that interesting imo, it's so overly bombastic. I'd love some more setting in Badab war or conflict in imperium Nihulus but that marvel shit sells huh
I don't like that they're fleshing out the Emperor. I preferred him as a complete unknowable that the reader is allowed to project motivations and abilities onto. I think it's the only way to reconcile all the lore contradictions about him. No matter what the Black Library says, I'm going to continue to insist that the Emperor foresaw the Heresy and used it as an opportunity to become a god, only realizing at the very end what exactly that would do. Letting fans individually choose their lore of the Emperor just seems to fit more in the spirit of the setting. That being said, bringing back the Star Child is absolutely awesome, easily my favorite bit of the new book.
The Emperor separating his soul of a part of him with so compassion and love to fight Horus and he can coalesce into a body or soul of the star child theory maybe the emperor knew what this would mean in the future .
This might be a weird question, but im new to the lore and wonder if GW makes huge additions to the lore to continue the story. I know they we got few primarchs back, but are they really going to make some 5th chaos god?
@@whitebenjamin75 My copy just came in, so I’m going to start it tonight, I seriously can’t believe so many RU-vidrs have finished it already, assuming they have full-time jobs and sleep 8 hours, because the thing is the size of a baneblade
Star child is one of those things that feels unpolished in the setting. It’s a very 4 year old idea of edgy to require the magical extraction of ALL your positive emotions in order to kill your son. Actually applying logic to what they are saying makes you realize that this is the dumbest plan possible cause then you think, “removing ALL of a person’s trust, empathy, and love will probably create the perfect candidate for a dark emperor” it would just leave you super paranoid and power hungry😂 Rather, it would be MORE than sufficient to just TEMPORARILY suppress whatever part of his psyche would offer mercy. Who knows, you might want a leader who gives literally a single F about you and your wellbeing beyond your usefulness as a tool
The Star Child lets the Black Library authors subvert hope. A revitalized/reborn Emperor is the sort of thing that gives folks a hope that the Imperium’s agonizingly slow fall from the heights of the Great Crusade can be arrested (& hopefully reversed). Dangling that cookie in from of the reader, & the snatching it back will be peak Grimdark.
I do recommend the Dark Imperium books, they slap big time. The second book is bit tedious to read but the structure and the story are very sound. But in the 3rd book it all pays off big time. About the starchild, I was already assuming to be a facet of sorts of the Emperor allowing and blessing the "burst" of the Saints. Btw in dark imperium we get to know one of the new saints. Again, I can't recommend it enough.
Do you have an estimate of when your full video of end and the death part 2 will release? because I want to watch it before I watch any other videos because I cant afford to buy the book
Abaddon proclaimed in Arks of Omen that he foresees the death of pretty much the galaxy, and that he needs his key to obtain the means to save at least something. Perhaps we're going to need the maximum evil Lord Abaddon, Warmaster of Chaos to save humanity in a heroic duel against the Emperor!
No, he's objectively Good. Good for humanity. anyone thinking else has no idea how humans work, he's even sitting basically dead even as a perpetual, every other perpetual even in 40 k has given up yet he is still trying. That type of effort doesn't come from being a bad person.
@@tarektechmarine8209 look we all know that the only reason the emperor is still alive is because the orks believe he is DA BIGEZT HUMMI. and he can't die until he fights with gork and mork
Ok, Probably way wrong, but random nerdy theory comes to mind when I was midwatching your video, at 11:00 in the video, you go on about how the Emperor got rid of his Hope,Mercy,Grace,Love, Ok this is where it gets really twisty, But the 4 Chaos gods, Khorne, god of Warfare, rage and murder, Nurgle, Disease Despair and Decay, Tzeentch, Change and sorcery, Slaanesh, pleasure and excess, What if you use the Warp as time twisty and changes things, but what if Hope is Khorne, Yes it would be a twisted "Hope" But ok this is the weakest point. Nurgel Mercy, Always happy, Grandfather Nurgle... Spreading the blessings, with "mercy? Tzeentch, He's a bird, Graceful, And slannesh, twisted "love" @Live! from The Black Library. :P
I don't like any of it. I think the Emperor is in a fine place right now, an agonized corpse on the Throne powering the GPS with his waning psychic might crying as his Imperium, which was a monument to his vanity, decays. We got Guiliman and the Lion hack, if we could get Rogal Dorne and Jaghatai Khan back as well, we don't even need the Big E to get off the Throne. If we can get Vulcan back and he and the Eldari can do some voodoo to make the throne redundant then he can just die we can move on. The entire Warhammer 40K franchise should not revolve around Space Sigmar.
Firstly - the references to the "Child star" fit the old lore too perfectly for it to just be a reference. It's absolutely a plot point they're going to follow up on. Lion: Son of the Forest uses an awful lot of Arthurian symbolism, including presenting the Emperor as the Fisher King. The Fisher King needed the Holy Grail to be healed, so that suggests that there will be some kind of quest plotline to find the "Holy Grail" - probably the Starchild. Secondly, however - actually finding the Starchild and reunifying the Emperor's soul is far too Noblebright for a 40k plotline. I propose that by the time the Starchild shows up, both it and the man on the Golden Throne have changed too much, and they can't be reunified. He on Earth becomes the Dark King and a new antagonist for the setting; the Starchild becomes the new Emperor, with only fuzzy access to the old Emperor's power and memories, and The Emperor in the warp - the focus of the Imperial Cult's worship - becomes a new, less powerful god.
Extremely late to the Dark King hype but could the Dark King be either Belakor or Vashtorr? I think they would be VERY interested in this prophecy if they don't know of it already. They certainly aspire to godhood at least and Vashtorr has the eloquence of a King.
I didn't read it but I've listened to several videos about the Dark King and The Emperor "turning down" godhood but it's also super clear the Emperor is losing his free will and kinda becoming the opposite of his goals. Is he the dark king? Or is he just becoming consumed by the dark king, which is what it sounds like. I still can't buy the "need" to jettison his empathy. Dudes done horrific shit, to his sons as well. Horus was so comically gone that not killing him would require throwing away his empathy. Empathy for Horus, humanity, the empire, Malcadore, etc etc, and all his loyal sons.
To me it seems like there are two... well at least two ways of becoming a god in 40k 1. Becoming a Psyker black hole. 2. Having enough people THINK you are a god for long enough. The first option results in the same thing that happens when any black hole is formed, a giant explosion ala Slaanesh. The second is what is happening to The Emperor. I love how you can theoretically gaslight your way to apotheosis in 40k. In all seriousness it makes sense the actual God would be the star child after 10k years of glutting of the hopes and dreams of the Imperium. Going around making imperial daem- I mean living saints... while the corpse on a throne killing thousands a day is just a machine to keep the webway closed.
Chaos must have taken a serious hit when The Emperor beat down Horus. If they could make Horus so powerful he was a challenge to Him, why haven't they done it since unless it actually hurt them somehow. But then that makes one wonder how Drachnyan isn't a warp god.
With his humanity going away, the only thing the fills his husk are the ungodly amount of faith and devotion. So the emperor is split into three: the humanity (star-child), his negative emotions (dark king), and the rotten corpse which took all the religious part of humanity in the 40k
one point Awl made was the Emperor's impatience, he strove for godhood too quickly and in desperation. he was taking in the backwash of the 4 powers to achieve godhood, and in doing so would become a god reflective of what he absorbed. i think to become a proper god for humanity one must be created from the warp will of humanity alone. to amass enough power to achieve apotheosis this way would take time though, at least 10,000 years... unrelated to my first bit, but the emperor tossing his compassion away reminded me of when guilliman met him in 40k and met a cold, calculating being. i bet the emperor didn't always see the primarchs as just tools, but he lost compassion for all his sons when he resolved to kill horus.
Great lore. Good analysis. But youre barking up the wrong tree regarding the Christian Trinity analogy. Look into Gnosticism and the Demiurge. Guarantee itll give you some new analytical angles and maybe some content for the future!
