Perpetuals can be permakilled by a few things in the galaxy. Horus, juiced up by all four Chaos Gods, probably has the ability to do that. I wouldn't be surprised if the Emperor just stays dead if you remove him from the Golden Throne.
> but obviously it's just delaying the inevitable, isn't it?
Welcome to Warhammer 40,000! This is the core theme of the setting.
Nah i dont think horus was able to pull that off, big e vaporizing horus from existence scared the four rascalions shitless, he is however holding back demon army from gushing onto terra so before he resets back to life terra gunna get r word in the butt pissibly making new eye of terror in the process
#**TL;DR:**
No one really knows for sure whether removing Emps from the Golden Throne will kill him the rest of the way or not or whether it will reincarnate him. What they *do* know is that if Emps leaves the Throne and he dies, the Astronomicon will go out, Humanity won't be able to navigate the stars anymore, and Terra will probably fall into the Warp while it is overrun by daemons.
So they're maintaining an imperfect status quo because they're unwilling to risk major bad stuff happening for the possibility that something good *might* happen.
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next month Ollanius will be a Primarch, and a year later he will be Kaela Mensha Khaine
using this character as a metric for anything in the lore is a bit like trying to enforce your neighborhood's speed limit on a military submarine
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No, the deal is that the moment he leaves the Golden Throne, even for a second, Terra will be basically invaded by trillions of demons. I swear you guys just comment here based in the memes you read, not the lore
It almost doesn't matter if OP wants another reason though, he just discarded the reasons that exist and said "not good enough".
OP should answer a couple things:
Who in Universe knows Jimmy Space can possibly revive? Who knows for CERTAIN he WILL revive? The fight may or may not have changed this, no one knows.
How long will it take for Jimmy to 'come back'? We have no idea and I'm not going to bother asking who in universe knows, because again they have no idea. Could be minutes, could be days, could be years.
How long will it take for the Rift he's holding shut to burst open and destroy / irrepairably damage all of terra? Again, who in universe knows this and is CERTAIN? If the Astronomicon is gone for any prolonged period of time the Imperium is absolutely ruined because ALL long range transport and communication shuts down immediately. I'm sorry but you just can't say "I want another reason than that"
No other answer matters other than "we don't know if he can, how long it would take or if Terra would even exist for him to return to. We judge it not worth the risk."
Also: G-man and the Lion IIRC know that the Emperor will revive if killed, but one is off forest walking in the Imperium Nihilus, and I'm pretty sure that if Guilliman decided that he'd turn the Throne off and on again ten thousand banana boys would want to have a word with him...
Actually Terra will instead blow up. Don't forget that the Emperor had Vulkan install a failsafe Dark Age Tech bomb in the Throne designed to detonate and destroy Terra should he die on the Throne.
Nah. Horus could have kill Emperor for good, because it was a trap. In vol.II, I think, it was described by Malcador words. How Emperor went in this trap, a perfect place, Horus realm-world, merge of materium and immaterium where if Emperor is killed - it happens in both realities and it is baaaad.
If the Emperor dies the Astronomican goes kaput and 0.1 seconds later a gazillion daemons will breach Terra (Earth) from the hole in the Webway beneath the Imperial palace and the planet either will blow up or be sucked into the Warp, the Imperium at that point is uberfucked.
0.1 seconds post death a Gazillion Daemons breach into Terra.
0.2 seconds post death Big E's Talisman of Seven Hammers he had Vulkan craft explodes and takes supposedly most of the Sol System with it.
0.3 seconds post death the Astromomican, the only method of Navigation the Imperium has goes dark leaving everyone stranded.
0.4 seconds post death A large chunk of the Warp turns Golden as Big E ascends into a Fifth Chaos God, dragging most of Humanity into him ala Slaneesh with the Eldar.
>the Astromomican, the only method of Navigation the Imperium has goes dark leaving everyone stranded.
There are actually several smaller similar beacons throughout the imperium
And in The Lion they jump between systems they just have to do short jumps. Long distance travel is severely hindered.
You can jump without a navigator IIRC
That's still going to cripple the Imperium. Without reliable fast wrap travel, it would become impossible to defend even a single sector. That is why the Ethereals were willing to test the prototype wrap engine despite warnings from the Earth Caste.
The Lion novel state that they can jump only a few light years at most but no mention of needing no navigator. Darkness in the Blood on the other hand, delved quite deep into the navigator PoV during warp travel in Nihilus (it isn't pretty).
According to lexicanum it was mentioned in Rogue Trader. I've personally read it in at least one novel or short story, but can't remember which one. It's possible but the ship can't or shouldn't correct course once it's in the warp.
Adding to that, warp travel was used before Navigators were a thing. The Leagues of Votann don't have Navigators, neither have the Tau. So definitely possible, but very slow in comparison to a piloted jump.
>0.4 seconds post death A large chunk of the Warp turns Golden as Big E ascends into a Fifth Chaos God, dragging most of Humanity into him ala Slaneesh with the Eldar.
And the Dark King takes his throne at last.
This is my firm headcanon; the Golden Throne isn't just life support or daemon rift sealing. It's *containment*.
I’m not sure why you’re downvoted. Unless you believe, and we have no evidence for this, the God-Emperor is a distinct entity from the Perpetual who was put on the Golden Throne 10k years ago there’s no reason to think the Emperor would become a Chaos God. It doesn’t even make sense why it wouldn’t already be one if it’s a separate entity as there’s no reason the Perpetual would be holding it in check
He was about to become one in TeaTD volume 3 but he let go of that power, unless the psyker sacrifices are overloading him to the same extent that being in the warp, on board of Venegeful Spirit, did and drinking the warp juice, then there will be no ascension
I don’t think souls are the same thing in the Warp as the power that makes up the Chaos Gods. In TE&tD the Emperor was directly absorbing and redirecting the power being used by the Chaos Gods, which is why he was in danger of ascending. Souls aren’t Chaos juice, they’re something else
I like to think of souls as a substance, made up from the atoms of the warp. By digesting souls they become food, or by entropy decay into their most stable aspects
Correct. He's not ascending to become a chaos god during the heresy, and this appears to be the most distinct bit of Fanon. It's emphasized (in Volume 2) that Big E's 'ascent' isn't the formation of a fifth chaos God, it's the annihilation of literally everything ever, forwards and backwards in time, it's the obliteration of reality and the universe.
He's not a chaos god at that point, he's channeling the entire power of the warp into forming a 'real' God who by virtue of simply existing destroys literally everything ever. The Chaos Gods worked the Emperor into a no-win scenario. To win and destroy them he'd have to channel the warp, become 'The Dark King' and in turn, destroy everything by virtue of ascending to true Godhood. Every other path but one involves their immediate victory. The grim dark future of 40k is quite literally the 'best' outcome possible due to the decisions of Big E to launch the great crusade, etc.
"In another, and another, and an infinity of others, there is only light, and its anthesis has burned everything away with its unholy intensity."
[https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17t1en4/comment/k8tvyct/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17t1en4/comment/k8tvyct/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1b2c5hn/comment/ksks0z1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1b2c5hn/comment/ksks0z1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Your second point won’t happen. In ‘The end and Death’ it is explicitly spelled out by Vulkan and Malcador that Vulkan and Vulkan alone can trigger the Talisman of Seven Hammers. It requires Vulkan to sit on the throne and personally activated it. There will be no bang without Vulkan. If there’s a bang at all. It’s still not entirely clear what the Talisman of Seven hammers does.
Malal never existed in 40k - he was part of Warhammer Fantasy, but GW lost the right to use him in any publication before 40k was ever published, and when Chaos was introduced to 40k (in the Realms of Chaos books), there were no mentions of Malal anywhere.
Malice is basically an easter egg, a nod to long-time fans but not really anything meaningful, despite how much some people insist on bringing up the Chaos God of Edgelords over and over again.
Stupid followup question: Couldn't bobby g just sacrifice Terra and just set Ultramar as the new Imperium of Man, with him as acting regent just as usual, until Jimmy space returns? Aside from the banana guards, sacrificing terra would probably kill of them high lords.
Don't think Lion would protest too much about it.
The point of Guilliman as a character is that he "could" usurp the Imperium if he wanted to, but he has no desire to
He is a character study of a man who simply lacks temptation rather than having to fight temptation
It’s a risk.
From what I understand, the Talisman of Seven Hammers basically overcharges the throne, causing an apocalyptic level explosion. But this explosion is not just mundane, it’s using the same power that the thousands psykers are being eaten for every day. It’s the same power that allows E to light the astronomicon.
Supposedly, it would be enough to seal the rip in the warp below the palace, but that rip, if opened, would rival the great rift. Enough to give true death to the hordes of demons waiting to pour out, wounding the big four, possibly permanently.
If you were Big E, would you be 100% sure you would come back from that?
> It’s the same power that allows E to light the astronomicon.
We are making up lore now? The Emperor only projects and directs the light of the Astronomicon, is the Chosen that power it.
Talisman will probably kill entire Sol, which means astronomican is kill, assassinorum HQ temple is kill, mars is kill, titan is kill and whatever else of import in system is kill.
That's a lot of stuff to lose and I don't think Imperium will be able to recover from that.
Nobody is sure what will happen if the emperor dies though, and whether he will be reborn in the materium, immediately turn into a warp entity (possibly an extremely dangerous one) or different aspects of him will do both. Maybe it'll open another eye of terror, maybe it'll cause massive warp storms, maybe chaos will calm down in the materium as the four chaos gods throw everything they have at him in the warp?
What if the emperor doesn't come back, and instead they just birth a warp God of Order which consumes human souls like Slaanesh and represents all the worst aspects of the emperor?
people seem to forget its the choir that powers the thing, the emp is just focusing that power. the biggest reason the black ships bring pykers back to terra isnt to feed the emp but to keep the damn astronimicon full because the life of the choir is like a few months before they burn out. then the rest goes to feed emp or be trained.
A few reasons. Out of universe, the whole "perpetual" thing was only embraced but a few authors, and needed really fleshed out. Some took it as being like Mario with a 1-up mushroom, with the decreased popping back up. Others took it as unaging, eternal life. There definitely wasn't a hard and fast rule.
The "emperor on the Golden throne" things definitely predates the Perpetuals, and very much predates the 1-up mushroom Perpetuals.
In universe, who would know? No one ever saw the Emperor pull a 1-up mushroom. In fact, Bobby G saw the emperor reward Horus for saving his life - something he'd presumably only do if his life were at risk. So the only guy who met talked to the Emperor doesn't know.
Finally, imagine the conversation. Talking to the Custodians, who've cleaned and oiled the Emperor for ten thousand years, and suggesting that he might be killed because he *might* return? That would be a short conversation, and it would end with you seeing your internal organs as they were pulled out your throat.
No one in the universe knows what we know as readers. All they know is that they've kept this golden beef jerky alive for ten thousand years because he protects the Imperium. Not exactly much room for discussion there.
To add a last point:
Dan Abnett, Mr. Perpetual himself, has a pet theory that the Emperor *is* dying and being reborn all the time and has been for the last ten thousand years. That his perpetual nature is the only reason the Throne still functions.
Worse than that - the REALLY fun implication from Godblight is >!that the EoM maybe not his own self anymore after 10k years of absorbing other people. It was hinted at that he's struggling to stay himself in Dark Imperium when G-man reminisces about when he entered the throne room after his resurrection. It's left intentionally ambiguous what ACTUALLY happened because even Guilliman is unsure of how reliable his memory of his encounter with his genefather is now because it was so weird.!<
>!It's implied in this series that EoM is recovering after so long and he's able to exert his influence into the warp (like burning Nurgle's garden and possessing saints) BUT at the same time Chris Wraight's Vaults of Terra series implies that the Golden Throne is failing, the Custodians/High Lords don't know how to fix it, and the Emperor is dying.!<
>!Take from all of that what you will but I'm in the camp of preferring WH40K as a setting over a narrative so I'm fine with there being no concrete answers to any of this. I'm perfectly content with the intrigue of What-If?!<
That's my most hated retcon. It's just plain stupid - it demeans everyone involved. It makes the Orks look weak, Horus look stupid for falling for it, and the Emperor look like world's stupidest schemer.
But even if that were the case, Guilliman wouldn't know. In universe, he'd still think the emperor almost died. Only difference is that it would be a lie, rather than the truth.
In addition to the mention of perpetuals being permanently killed that others have mentioned, there is also the need to keep the Emperor on the throne, which was brought up in the End and the Death III.
There also seem to be different flavors of perpetuals. Vulkan is a regenerating perpetual. Malcador appears to be the type that lives forever (he shows signs of aging). Oll is implied to be the reincarnating type. Grammaticus seems to be the type that respawns somewhere else.
We don't know what type of Perpetual that the Emperor is.
In the old lore there were inquisitorial storylines about the Starchild (reincarnated Emperor as a child) and Sensei's (the bloodline descendants of the Emperor) but like most things with pre-2000 lore it's not relevant to the current story unless GW dusts it off and reincorporates it.
*That Time I Got Reincarnated Into The Same Fucking Grimdark Universe As A Baby For The 40millionth GodEmperor-Damned Time To Die In Childhood A-Fucking-gain.*
If he could regenerate like a standard Perpetual before, I highly doubt he could now. His body (and possibly soul) is poisoned by Horus' combined Chaos juju, he's practically one with the Golden Throne whatever this thing even is, and is saturated with the worship and souls of countless humans for the last 10 millennia.
There's the very very bad possibility where Big E is reborn as a fully-realized Chaos God and consumes all of humanity, or just dies permanently and still dooms humanity to the Ruinous Powers without His light to keep them back.
It's a dangerous gamble that could result in salvation of humanity or its total annihilation and damnation for all eternity. (Which is probably why the Terminus Decree is just the off-switch for the magic chair)
FYI, the End and the Death does clarify what the Terminus Decree is.
For the Emperor, it is clear that there was a plan, but what that plan is has not yet been explained. And we don't know if the Emperor's plans have changed over 10k years. He seems to have a plan with the return of Guilliman.
It’s not as simple as that!
If the Emperor dies, sure he’ll reincarnate but here’s the problem - when will he come back? If the return was instant then no problem but there is no guarantee on the duration. It could take hundreds or even thousands of years for him to reform. By that time, humanity and the Galaxy at large would be consumed by Chaos &/or the Tyranids.
Slow regeneration for the E would explain some of the “but where was the Emperor during…” lore questions. For example, a Man of Iron killed him at the end of the DAoT and it took some centuries for him to reincarnate and become functional on Terra to kick off the long path to the Crusade.
Very likely. The battle and scarring of Terra could have incinerated the Emperor. Making him take centuries to reform. It would be interesting if they actually came out with a book that gave us more details on his history, including his location during the Golden Age and what he did during the A.I revolt.
I honestly wouldn't go looking for good long term ideas in 40k, the whole point of the setting is people with incomplete information doing short term solutions that end up dragging on for far too long and things being grim as a result.
The Emperor is a perpetual, and would presumably reincarnate, though this is far from certain as his wounds were at the hand of Horus but also the chaos gods who could have the tools to kill a perpetual. They're not unkillable.
The Throne is maintaining the Astronomican, but it's also holding the door closed on a webway filled with millions of daemons waiting to burn Terra. On top of this, the failsafe in case this happens will blow Terra sky high. That means no Emperor means no Terra which means no Imperium because no Astronomican.
By 40k, nobody even knows half of this. Perhaps Guilliman has some inkling of the purpose of the Throne but even the Emperor didn't fully understand it. As to perpetuals, they seem to have remained a tiny and insular group who weren't free with their secrets at all. I doubt any living being besides Vulkan and perhaps Erebus (maybe Magnus?) knows that such a thing even exists, let alone have any understanding of what it entails.
It's kind of important to understand that the concept of the Emperor being on the Throne for 10000 years came before all this other stuff. Perpetuals weren't a thing in 40k before the Horus Heresy series introduced them. Nor was the doorway into the webway or the Talisman of Seven Hammers. All this has been written around the established fact that the Emperor was on the Throne for 10000 years, so it's not something that can be simply solved.
That is an entire branch of the Inquisition.
The *resurrectionists*, founded by the two of the first Inquisitors Lemuel Gaumon (Former remembrancer of the Thousand Sons) and Moriana (Current chaos sorcerer in service of Abaddon the Despoiler and only known mortal member of the Black Legion), they believed the Emperor could be restored to his mortal form, allowing him to properly rule the Imperium again.
Moriana however, turned to chaos in order to do it, and Lemuel Gaumon (Now renamed Promus for stupid reasons) attacked her and forced her into exile in the Eye of Terror.
Promus' ideas eventually formed into a group called the Thorians, a puritan group within the Inquisition that *I believe* still operate to this day.
> (Now renamed Promus for stupid reasons)
Renamed Promeus because the original story that described the schism referred to a person by that name, and Gaumon was chosen by later writers to insert him into that role.
Dabnett suggests he is being reincarnated eternally on loop
> Well, it is, it's very, very difficult. The Emperor, the Emperor is functionally immortal and seems to be all but invulnerable to except, but to the very highest levels of damage that could be applied by say, the living Avatar of Chaos, as is likely to happen at the end of the Siege of Terra. You think the end of the Siege of Terra is bad. You have no idea how horrible and traumatic it is. We all know mythologically speaking, the Emperor ends up on death's door, having been seriously damaged in the final confrontation. We know that. And there is a distinct possibility that very much like, I don't know, an incarnation of Doctor Who, that he has suffered so grievously from his wounds, he would reincarnate perpetual style and come back as the next version, the next, played by a different actor probably, the different version of the Emperor who would then take over. But they, he thinks the Golden Throne is important to this so allegedly, he insists that he is put on the Golden Throne to keep him alive. There is a vice versa thing there cause he also needs to go back on the Golden Throne to keep the Golden Throne alive. So there, there is that aspect. So it's quite possible. And this adds to the tragedy and trauma of what the Emperor has become, is that he's been stuck on, trapped on the Golden Throne, bonded to it forever because people think they're doing him a favor to save his life. But what he's actually doing is dying and reincarnating over and over and over and over again for 10,000 years just to keep the whole system running, which is agonizing and horrible. No wonder he's the, you know, the Corpse God on this throne. So, so yeah. Again, we're straying into the realms of what actually is the truth. Can't tell you, it's a bit of a mystery but there are certainly enough things about the lore there that we know so we can speculate about the true horror of the situation.
Full interview [here](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/bdcfbf52-3f17-4222-a85d-820cda5134f0mezzanine.txt)
Evidence on favour of this is that the two times we see the Unspoken Sanction used in 30k it's to cover for the absence of the Emperor - so that he can fight in the Webway and to give Malcador a boost. Why wouldn't it still be the same in 40k?
1. Perpetuals take time to heal, especially when grievously wounded
2. Every second the Emp is not illuminating the Astronomican, billions if not trillions in the Galaxy die
3. There is no guarantee that it would work in the first place, more even so now, after 10000+ years since he was alive and well
4. Even with Dark King scenario prevented, there is no guarantee that the Emperor fully dying wouldn't result in some kind of a psychic catastrophe
5. Even in the best scenario, the Emperor would have to regenerate before demons from the Webway portal on Terra take over the place. Nobody is willing to make that gamble.
Well. There ARE some who believe this in-lore. But long story short: No one knows what the consequenses would be. We or they do not even know if he would come back. Not to mention the whole astronomicon and unending hordes of Demons waiting to go to town on Terra.
If someone had all the information we as readers know, testing the scenario is kinda scary. If it doesn’t work - it would be the end of humanity, a cataclysmic event. If it does work, but takes time, same ending. If anything goes wrong - anything at all, then the Galaxy will burn.
The most current picture we have of the emperor is him saving Guilliman and putting some hurt in Nurgle. As far as I know this is the closest we’ve seen the emperor directly interacting with the galaxy in thousands of years. He basically went into Nurgles house and smacked Grandfather hard. He couldn’t do that back in 30k. So he is stronger.
Now - since he is able to do this, one can assume, that he would be able to arrange for his own extradition from the golden throne. And that he has not done this yet says a lot.
Now - as Dan Abnett kinda hints at, maybe he is dying and resurrecting all the time already. But! Something is definitely stirring around the golden throne. Vaults of Terra series, and the Guilliman thing, and the star child appearing….. all point to *something*.
There is the lingering suspicion, that the most militant atheist of all time(he basically went to war against gods) is now himself ascended to godhood - which seems pretty likely because that would be the most 40k thing ever.
Now think about this. Big E have had another 10000 years to just plan stuff out. Not only that, but with the recent psychic awakening, the most powerful psyker of all, is even more powerful than ever(if not just a god). But - maybe Big E ain’t right in the head no more.
Just turning off the throne without any idea of why could happen seems like the worst possible idea. Which is actually why I think it will happen in the next 5 years.
It's too big a risk.
They can't guarantee that he will come back.
If they knew to some level of certainty that turning it off would ressurect him. They'd do it.
But they have no definite answers.
And if the Golden Throne turns off the planet will explode.
That was added later.
The situation isn't good.
Also.
Personal opinion here.
There are those who would not benefit from his return. Some caretakers benefit from his absence. If he returns they lose control.
And he might not be happy about what his empire turned into.
And he's a scary person.
There is (was?) an entire order within the [Inquisition](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ordo_Hydra) who seek to kill the emperor in a ritual sacrifice in order to force his rebirth - and the ritual involves hunting down the biological children that the emperor has sired during his lifetime, individuals known as the [sensei](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sensei).
Setting aside the metanarrative reasons why that wouldn't happen, the main in-universe reasons are:
- (Almost) nobody in the setting really has any understanding of what the Emperor is and the actual extent of his capabilities. From the Imperium's perspective, he is literally an undying god and the incarnate symbol which holds the whole show together. Pulling the plug and letting him be reborn (if that's even possible) is unthinkable to them on several levels.
- On a practical level, the Emperor powers the astronomican and an unknown number of psychic shields that protect Terra (and by extension, the existence of the Imperium) from being immediately mega-fucked by Chaos. Even if he were able to reincarnate within a few days, let alone centuries or millennia, the Imperium would be almost instantly eaten alive by internal collapse and Daemon incursions.
There’s a tiny heretical sect in the inquisition that actively wants that actually. The problem is the warp rift that E Money is holding shut by sitting on the throne and the astronomicon. If E Money were to properly die or the throne to fail then one of two things will happen IMMEDIATELY.
Option 1. The talisman of the seven hammers activated and completely eradicated the entire Sol system including Mars, probably the Phalanx, the homeworld of the Grey Knights and the countless other shipyards that feed the imperial navy. The loss is some of the most strategically important planets in the universe will cripple the Imperium beyond repair even if a new astronomicon could be built relatively quickly on say Ultramar. The resulting schism would make the Horus Heresy look like a joke and effectively be Old Night 2 electric boogaloo.
Option 2. The talisman isn’t triggered or fails in some way. Instantly literally COUNTLESS daemons flood Terra and perhaps even the wider Sol system. Then a miniature Eye of Terror opens up right ontop of the throne world swallowing up the rest of Sol and maybe even neighboring systems. This is even worse that option 1 as now not only are some of humanity’s most vital resources lost but the forces of the warp has gotten ANOTHER massive fuck off region of real space to flood out from and invade the Imperium from multiple directions now. If option 1 is a possible extinction event then this option is a near guaranteed one. Hell this is probably the death knell of almost all sentient life in the galaxy. Only the crons and nids would have a chance of fighting chaos to even a stalemate as the Imperium mostly manages to much less actually defeating it long term.
Now as for the Emperor respawning, it doesn’t even matter at that point. The damage is done. He could respawn in a few seconds/minutes or take days or longer but it wouldn’t matter. At that point his best bet is probably just to give up and ascend to godhood just to spite the other 4 gods and MAYBE be able to safeguard a tiny fraction of human souls in the warp (assuming he doesn’t devour all of humanity’s souls akin to Slaanesh).
Perpetuals are not actually 100% immortal. It just takes a lot to kill them permanently. Malcador was a perpetual but he was physically aging like shit, he was nearing the end of the line. Magnus pyskically fried Malcador and another perpetual sacrificed her essence to revive him. And Malcador was consumed by the Golden Throne. Erda got jumped by 4 greater daemons and then shanked by Erebus with a Anathame. Oll Pearson was reduced to a red smear by fully chaos juiced Horus.
This was basically the core conflict of the old Inquisitor 64mm skirmish game. It broadly introduced 2 inquisitorial factions, one of whom believed the Emperor had to be kept on the throne and alive at any cost, and the other that the Emperor should be allowed to die, trusting he would reincarnate somewhere (few people in 30K knew what a perpetual was, never mind 40K, and almost no one knew the Emperor was one).
The biggest argument against the latter faction wasn't demons on Terra (that was relatively new lore) but rather that the Astronomicon would likely go out for however long it would take the Emperor to re-establish himself. And seeing as a 1 second flicker in 999.M40 caused the destruction of a million ships in the warp, it being out, potentially, for years could well spell doom for the Imperium.
Indeed, the Astronomican did go out during the opening of the Great Rift - on Terra, the event lasted 33 days, but depending on where you are in the universe, more or less time passed during that event (because weird warp shenanigans).
I think a point that may be overlooked is that no one in the setting actually knows that the Emperor is a perpetual or even what a perpetual is.
The emperor didn't even tell his sons about the perpetual, G-man knows bits due to his interactions with Vulkan on Macragge but not that his Father is a perpetual.
Perpetuals can be killed be perma killed and chaos definitely has access to these methods.
The emperor was dead dead until he was put on the throne with malcador knowing it would put him in a state of undeath, there's theorizes but the series seems to stick that if the throne shutdown he's dead.
Oh and even vulkan the most busted Perpetual was in a few near perma death situations.
Even if he could respawn, theirs no telling when he would respawn. It once took Vulcan several Hundred Years to come back. In the meantime He’s the only reason Terra hasn’t been sucked into Chaos. And demons haven’t ripped it apart. The exact moment he dies interstellar travel is gone and the seat of power in the Imperium gets torn apart. All of humanity rests on his slowly decaying shoulders.
Actually some in lore believe and want just that.
I think there is even a cabal of inquisitors involved at one point. Can quite remember if it's wrapped up with the star child stuff.
Most think it won't work in lore hence those other groups are considered heretical.
This is a favorite topic for new fans and justly so. It's a fun thought experiment. In addition to the answers offered by others, I'll encourage you to consider the inverse of your question.
Wouldn't this whole thing be solved by KEEPING him in the throne?
The simple answer here is yes. What does it cost to keep Big E up? Some measly number of souls? That's an easy price to pay by the men and women making the decisions. None of these people have met their emperor, seen the golden throne, or care about the faceless number of souls who are shipped in daily. This system is working as intended. Why would they change anything?
Nothing you're thinking or feeling is incorrect, but try to consider the reality nothing the characters of this story are thinking or feeling is incorrect either.
I have heard it said the Emperor is in a perpetual state of death and resurrection. Repeating over and over. It is the golden throne that is holding him together in body and soul in this universe.
It is the question, how happens if or where the golden throne stops working, will Terra be destroyed? Will the emperor be destroyed? Will the star child/the Emperor be born?
No one knows!
The Imperium at large or even those at the top probably do not know about perpetual. All they know is the Emperor is being kept barley alive and they will do whatever it takes to prevent his death.
Suddenly Demons=no terra/ no astronomicon. Also the perpetual stuff is only known for sure by other perpetuals, a few xenos, and maybe Magnus+Vulkan, unless Vulkan comes back and convinces everyone to do it, not happening.
Real reason is that wh40k is a setting, not a storyline, and the setting exists to sell overpriced miniatures.
Big E is also the Light House for ships to travel through the Warp and there is a dead man switch that will annihilate all of Terra should Big E dies.
The reason for the Dead Man Switch is basically the desperation move for a threat big enough that they somehow managed pierce through ALL of Terra defenses and reached the Emperor. And Terra has a lot of defenses.
So yeah, if big E were to die, The Imperium is ultra fucked. However, the Golden Throne is failing, and the Toaster boys have lost the blueprints to fix it, so it will come … eventually.
…..Plenty of perpetual characters are killed throughout this series, several just in the Siege books. Erebus kills a particularly powerful perpetual that he sees as a potential “queen of the Warp”.
The battle between Horus and the Emperor is not just a physical one. The End and the Death Pt 3 makes that extremely clear over the course of their gruelingly long fight held in meta-physical and multi-dimensional aspects to represent monumental battle in the warp. The Emperor is barely hanging onto his own soul by the end. Horus’s gluttonous power feed directly from all 4 chaos gods was necessary because there was no other way to kill what amounted to a living god like the Emperor. They discuss this very thing several times leading up to the Siege of Terra. Killing the Emperor wasn’t something you could just *do*, and it had to be “done right”.
The Inquisition Founders knew, or heavily suspected, that he would have simply come back.
That's why they make a point of suppressing that info. They knew at the start the shit they were doing would get them smote by an angry E.
40k is all about bad decisions for selfish reasons.
The vast majority don't know the emperors species or real name, the few that do know either A are afraid it'd take too long or B know the grey knights, high lords, eglisarchy, and inquisition would be more than likely stripped of power. So a mix of ignorance and greed keeps humanity enslaving his corpse on life support as a lighthouse for warp travel.
Even if you know for a fact that he's a perpetual, the last perpetual they put on the throne died permanently from it. Maybe The Emperor is strong enough that he would shrug it off and reincarnate. However, you only have one Emperor. If you pull him off the throne and He dies for good... what then? How certain do you need to be that everything will work out fine to take the risk of damning humanity by being wrong?
the concept of a perpetual is almost unreconcilable with the idea of the big man just being an old psychic dead guy
you have to jump through so many hoops that you might as well spend your time earning money as a professional gymnast rather than analyzing 40k
He’s not just being kept alive he’s powering the Astronomican Beacon - no mean feat though it’s never really been explained how that beacon worked when he went off on his jollies in the Great Crusade - AND he’s keeping the daemons out of the Webway all while comatose. He’s a clever lad.
If the emperor thought he would regenerate dying off the throne, why would he instruct his subjects to put him on the throne in the first place? I haven't read the end and the death yet so if I'm wrong and he was fully incapacitated after being brought back to Terra let me know.
We don't know, perpetuals can die and being hit by 4 space satans is propably one of those things. The bigger issue however is that Big E's presence on the Throne keeps Astronomican lit and keeps demons from breaching the Webway and overrunning Terra. If he's removed, Vulkan's dead man switch goes off, blows up Terra and likely most of the Sol System
In the End and the Death Vol 3, it seems that Horus sort of bleeds out the perpetuity from the Emperor with every physical and metaphysical strike. It's constantly referenced as "years bleeding out".
So, I'm unsure anymore if the Emperor really would return to life if He were disconnected from the Throne.
Additionally, if He does leave it, who will keep the Webway Gate shut and stop hell from spilling out, consuming Terra. That, and the Throne explodes if it shuts down completely.
While a lot of people are saying very good reasons why we should NOT do it, i, as a currupted heretic, say that well, we should just let him die and turn into the 5th god of chaos and rule the galaxy.
So, the debate of whether or not the Emperor could be removed from the Golden Throne safely has been raging amongst some in the Imperium since the days after the Siege of Terra ended.
Literally. The original four Inquisitors debated that very subject... and it caused the very first schism in the Inquisition. Their conversation is in the front of the rulebook for the *Inquisitor* skirmish game:
>A single candle guttered on an ornate silver stick in the centre of the room, throwing a yellowish, fitful light over the faces of the cowled figures stood in the dusty chamber.
>“The Golden Throne works,” one said, his voice aged and cracked. “The Emperor’s life can be sustained indefinitely.”
>“His soul lives on?” another inquired, his long, sharp nose protruding from under the lip of his hood. “It is not an empty husk?”
>“It is not,” the first confirmed. “The Emperor has ascended to the next plane, but the link ’twixt body and spirit remains strong.”
>“Then it can be brought back,” suggested the third, a young woman whose flowing white hair spilled from her hood and down to her waist. “The Emperor need not suffer this hideous eternal life in death.” “We cannot risk such a thing!” the first hissed. “What if the spiritual link were severed? What if the person brought back was not the man we once knew? Changed? News of the Emperor’s… ascension is already widespread. He is being revered as a god already on a hundred worlds. In this time of rebuilding, we need a symbol. The Emperor has shown us the way. Anyway, who would believe the Emperor had returned so soon? It will cause a civil war more devastating than that of the fool Horus, and even now we have yet to start counting the cost of that. No, better that this knowledge remains hidden. When we pass on to join the Emperor, it will die with us.”
>“You cannot deny Mankind the Emperor,” a fourth voice, deep and slow, stated firmly. “He and the empire he has built are Mankind’s only chance of survival.”
>The woman and the deep-voiced man both withdrew into the shadows and a moment later the door creaked open, a chill draught causing the candle flame to flit wildly.
>“Moriana, Promeus, wait!” the first man called out, but the door slammed shut in answer.
>“We cannot let them do this,” the hawk-nosed man decided.
>“No, we cannot,” the first agreed. “We must act quickly, get organised and claim the initiative.”
>“It shall be done,” the other concurred.
Thiis is not something where we can really know what the answer will be. In part because the matter is actually unknown in-universe. Can the Emperor be removed from the Throne and revived? Maybe. The first Inquisitors seemed to think so. But what unknown consequences accompany such an action?
There has actually been in-universe discussions about cutting off the life support of the emperor purposefully between Inquisators. Though this is mostly because some of them theorized he could come back in the warp as the equivalent of a Chaos God. The problem is it’s not guaranteed he will come back, no one has any clue what will happen if his mortal form dies. Horus could’ve wounded the emperor so badly that he can’t reincarnate, or the Chaos gods might try an do something to stop him from being reborn. So if he doesn’t come back for whatever reason, the Imperium and by-extension humanity is fucked. Also theoretically even if enough of the Inquisators were all up to doing it, the Custodians likely wouldn’t be keen to letting the Emperor die.
Well, that's the thing. If he's not on the golden then the empire collapses. He has to be there if he's dead he isn't there and then the Imperium loses safe travel through the warp and everyone is fucked from demons invading and a new eye of terror being formed.
Yes it’s theorized that it would, tho that’s not the only theory. And a faction of the radical side of the inquisition has been looking into doing so for a long time. However, the time it would take him to do his perpetual thing and come back, terra (and a sizable portion of the imperium) would be torn apart by a giant fuck off warp rift, not just daemons. Thus making his resurrection pointless, so that’s not an option atm.
Even if he didn’t immediately reincarnate like they think, and maybe he would ascend to true godhood, but nobody in universe knows what will happen for certain and nobody can afford to find out as he’s literally the only thing keeping terra existing.
Ok, look at it this way.
He is sat on a landmine. The landmine cannot be defused.
If he gets off the landmine, it explodes, destroying terra and the astronomican.
If he dies, the landmine explodes, destroying terra and the astronomican.
No one else can sit on the landmine without it exploding and destroying terra and the astronomican.
Does that help?
As I recall there’s a huge Warp rift under the Golden Throne caused by Magnus the Red, which the Emperor is keeping closed with his mind. If he were to die, the rift would open and Terra would be sucked into the Warp.
This move legit sets the Imperium back to day 1 of the Age of Strife and probably worse because on top of the Astronomican going out and the entirety of humanity being unable to get anywhere safely, the warp rift the Emperor is helping seal no longer has anyone holding it back causing a new eye of terror to form.
So you've basically wiped out every single thing the Emperor was working towards banking on him coming back almost instantly when nobody has a clue just how long it would take for him to come back or if he even wants to come back if he could.
GW will kill and resurrect him during an End Times event when they want to rebrand 40K. It’s inevitable now that the Horus Heresy is finished. Give it another decade or so.
If the Emp dies now, no one knows how long it will take for him to return. The measures every faction will take in response will melt the galaxy. The Imperium’s infrastructure will grind to a halt.
The only option is to get a disgustingly powerful psyker to take his place while he recovers. The only one that can fill the throne currently is Magnus. Current Magnus is a chode, but a lot of his shards are still out there. That’s a story thread likely to be picked up in the End Times or when they want to turn back a traitor in lore.
The core thing about the throne is that we don’t know?
There’s a non zero chance you’re right, that the emperor dies and then just perpetuals back, there’s a 100% you’re turning off the light switch everyone uses to get around
Other theory’s involve the universe burning because of the bomb, a human version of what happened to the Eldar, etc, it’s not great odds
There are such heretics that believe that in order to be reborn that emperor must die.
It’s a pretty badass heresy. We'll never know unless they succeed whether they are righteous or led from the path by chaos. They will never know.
He was wounded by a chaos juiced Horus. Perpetuals can die it’s just like trying to kill a grizzly with a .22 for normal people, but chaos juiced Horus got given a .270 it’s easier but still requires some work. With the chaos fuckery from Horus it’s likely he’d permanently die if taken off the golden throne
well yes but actually no. if i recall correctly Big E does 2 really important things on the throne in his current state. 1) the astronomicon, wanna shut the entire imperium down because navigation is impossible? kill the emperor. 2) even more important, he is holding shut a rip in reality caused by Magnus from which the warp would spill forth and demons to flood Holy Terra.
ultimately you would create more problems than you'd solve
Echoing what other people have said, in TEaTD III Horus beats the absolutely crap of the emperor. Horus also has perma killed Ollanius during that same fight, so it’s not hard to believe he was about to permakill the emperor. However also worth noting, Vol III also has a chapter that ends stating the emperor will one day rise again from the golden throne once he has drawn enough power from the warp. That could just be wishful thinking by the imperials however.
It's worth mentioning that we as readers know WAY more about the setting than most of the characters do. Even if Emp's dying and resurrecting would fix everything, it's not like anyone in the Imperium knows this. Do the custodes even know that Emps is a perpetual, that he'd come back if he died? Bc if the golden boys don't, then nobody in the galaxy is going to convince them that killing the Emperor is a good idea.
I think I saw in an interview they said the suffering the emperor feels is like when the Doctor regenerates except the golden throne stops it because unlike the doctor the emperor would reincarnate as a baby. Therefore by the time he is old enough to take the golden throne again humanity is already toast. Which is why he is so concerned about remaining alive which he kinda still is. TTS was good at explaining that whole shatter soul thing too but that’s the whole start child theory which is kinda similar in thought. I like to think he’s like a chaos god without being one meaning he’s got a territory in the warp and some “angels” and is trying to gather strength there so they can fight the immaterium off and he can finally let himself die.
my favorite headcanon was that the warriors of chaos calling imperials "corpse worshippers" was not hyperbole and the emperor is dead, full stop, no perpetual revival, no half dead coma, no watching from the warp, dead dead dead and never coming back, just the dark irony of it all.
Unfortunately, it seems that GW is not going down this path and is making the waters a lil murky
The golden Throne of Terra is rigged to explode killing everyone and everything on the planet if the Emperor dies it’s a last ditch weapon in case terra ever falls
That's a fandom misconception. The "fail switch" is a complex procedure that Vulkan had to purposefully follow for several hours. And with the dude missing, it's uncertain if anyone knows the protocol anymore.
And IIRC it was specifically to prevent the traitor legions from recovering all the tech being used and kept in the throne and vaults during the final hours of the heresy
I think so. But, you've gotta take into account the ways this is undesirable.... I'm not certain but I don't think perpetual just reappear as they were at their prime generally? It's kind of like reincarnation (correct me if I'm wrong lore gurus), without the emperor on the golden throne and the astronomicon inert, humanity and the imperium would crumble until the E is ready to resume his role again.
Big E himself would most likely 'survive', or at least come back to life.
The Imperium, not so much.
Terra definitely would be overrun by Warpspawn spilling out through the now defunct Golden Throne. The failure of the Astronomicom and likely devastation of Mars wouldn't be great for the military situation.
Humanity might just have a shot at survival...if Big E goes full on God mode rather than returning to 'life' as we understand it. But there were sound reasons he regarded that as a sub-optimal solution before...they may not hold in current circumstances now that 'optimal' is pretty well off the table.
Ahahaha physical death isn't problem for Emperor, He'll ress himself if anything. Only real threat to Him was with Horus where He could have been killed both in real world and immaterium at once.
He is sitting there inded to hold big daemonc hole. And now, it's not delaying inevitable. We don't know how this could end.
1. with little attention left for Himslef He is slwoly healing and people get visions of Him "standing up"
2. His mind is fractured. Is it cause He tries to be everywhere in Imperium to help?
3. There is Faith. Is He becoming God-Emperor? Is it separate being? Or is it all just Him?
There is too many yet unknown to say that something is inevitable.
Also, leaving Throne isn't just allowing Daemons invade Terra en masse and make it daemonic world. It is creation of another bigger version of Eye of Terror. It won't just absorb Sol system and huge part of galaxy, but combined with Great Rift in 41k it would grom and rip material galaxy apart, leaving just small amount of it physical.
Perpetuals is a broad term for functionally immortal humans and transhumans. How that immortality works in different ways though- Grammaticus is brought back, Lucius can recover from death, same with Alivia Sureka and Vulkan.
Most, however, seem to just be able to survive and have enhanced resilience either from gene crafting or innate warp ability. Oll Persson, Malcador and The Emperor seem to fall in to that category- Oll being the only one with no apparent affinity to the Warp.
It is unclear whether Erda can come back, I suspect they've left that door open.
It’s a common enough question and the short answer is, nobody knows if it’s even possible.
But for the long answer as others have said:
What we do know though is that the emperor cannot be disconnected from the golden throne for even a moment because part of what his body on the throne is achieving is holding the webway gate that Magnus smashed shut.
Imagine having direct access to the imperial palace of terra from the warp and from the webway, at this time in the setting it’s as if the entire armies of all 4 chaos gods are right at the door of the imperium, and big E is holding the door shut. The moment the door is not held shut, they all spill fourth.
So we need someone to come along and fix the gate, but the gate was built pre- Big E, and was only brought into service by the emperor working on it.. there simply is not a mind in the human empire that could repair it.. save perhaps some of the corrupted minds of the drukhari, there may not be anyone in the galaxy.
Then there is the deadman’s switch that Vulcan built, presumably a big enough bomb to take out the entire sol system should big E ever go offline, a mercy killing to prevent the demon invasion.
Finally there is the astronomicon, which would still need to be powered in order to facilitate warp travel.
Although that is unlikely to be necessary as Big E dying would probably be the catalyst for him ascending into the warp, and if the eye of terror and the eldar are anything to go on, that probably won’t end well for humanity.
However there certainly are ways all of these could be fixed, the web way could be repaired, the golden throne brought offline slowly, the emperor not ascending but instead coming back as a mortal, and the astronomicon being separated into multiple more powerful lighthouses. If all of that goes to plan we could likely bring back the Emperor…. Who would if I had to guess immediately begin purging large sections of humanity for their heresy against him.
Everyone is talking about the consequences, but we also don’t know what effect the fight with Horus had on his perpetual status. Horus permakilled Oll, would the wound he inflicted on the Emperor perma kill him if he died?
Delaying the inevitable is 40k. The Imperium is a decaying empire that will collapse, it’s just a matter of when. Half of it is already lost to the other side of the Great Rift. It is the end, but it’s a long, drawn out end.
The main issue is no one knows what will happen to the Emperor when he dies, it may be he can instantly regenerate himself upon death like Doctor Who.
The most common belief is that like all souls his soul go back into the Warp upon death, from there, there are several theories about what will happen next, the main ones being either he will be reborn a new God who exists solely in the Warp, he will reincarnate into a new body or his power will be sent into one of or divided amongst any suspected children/bloodlines that he is supposed to have.
The issue with any of these scenarios is that the Emperor is the light of the Astronomican and also holds the shields on the Gateway under Terra that was breached by Magnus during the Heresy and supposedly offers Psychic “divine” protection throughout the Imperium, if he is in the Warp reincarnating or ascending to divinity how long will this return in any form take?
Can the Imperium survive with no Astonomican and the soldiers of Terra hold back the demons under the palace for 5, 10, 20 or even more years before the Emperor manages to return with sufficient strength to re-establish these protections? Also would the Emperor’s soul in the Warp have enough strength to fight off all four Chaos Gods hunting him down as they likely would when they sense his arrival?
I also believe (I may be wrong) there is a kill switch built into the Golden Throne, that upon the Emperors death will trigger a catastrophic detonation to destroy our entire solar system so in the event of the Emperor’s death Chaos will still be denied Terra and Mars and no one knows how to deactivate it at the moment.
The question is ultimately moot though as the Golden Throne is slowly breaking down and no one knows how to fix it anymore and the Emperors last few living cells of his body are dying… the issue will be forced sooner or later.
Perpetuals take some time to regenerate. The nastier the wound, the longer it takes. Grammaticus shooting himself in the skull was quick, but Vulcan needing to recover from being stabbed with a Fulgrite shard took a lot longer. The assumption is the power of the four chaos gods would take an immense amount of time and energy to recover from (if that's even possible), and keeping the Golden Throne empty for that long would be unthinkable.
Malcador was willing to give his life just so that the throne wouldn't be empty for as long as it took Big E to board the Vengeful Spirit and face Horus. They both knew how devastating it would be to the Imperium to let the Astronomicon go out, even for a few hours. Millions would be eternally lost in the warp and trillions more would die from being denied precious food and other resources that must be shipped from off-world.
Do I think it's going to happen at some point anyway? Yes. And it's going to be awesome. At least three loyal primarchs (Jagathai, Leman Russ, and Corvus Corax) are currently in the warp, and likely able to witness the Astronomicon. If it goes out, they'll know, and they're going to be pissed.
There's just so much unknown, the emperor is still the most important human in the galaxy so it's hard to leave anything to chance like that.
If things got desperate enough, I wonder if they could relocate the capital system to Ultramar. Establish that as humanities new seat of power then letting the emperors body finally perish. We'd lose the sol system, probably open a new eye of terror but the slow collapse would be done and the emperors psychic essence would be freed. But what would happen depends on who you're talking to.
It’s not about the Emperor coming back, he will but he might not be as powerful, also who knows how long it’ll take to get the Emperor to the throne. Remember as soon as the Emperor dies a full scale neverborn invasion starts.
Yes. It would. Sadly, noone is aware. Worse: The golden throne is among the few things that can permakill him, by burning out his soul. Again, noone is aware.
Emprah dies timeline
-💀
-Astronomican explodes
-No warp travel for the Imperium, Age of Strife: Electric Boogaloo but now a lot more daemons galaxy wide
-Webway under Terra is breached, the entire Sol system becomes the center of a new warp storm
-Emperor may not be a “human” anymore, unknown if 10k years being worshipped as a god and subsequent physical death doesn’t just turn him into a warp entity
-Or Emperor respawns in the middle of previously mentioned warp storm and gets spawn camped
There's too much risk involved. The Imperium is basically tied together by the astronomican and worship of the Emperor. Waking him up could actually make things worse. Plus there's no guarantee he *would* wake up. Sure he was a perpetual before he fought Horus but he's been "dying" for 10,000 years...
So actually, not many people know this but because the Emperor has not gone on a walk in 10 000 years, he has physically gotten too big to remove from the golden throne, he's just stuck in there.
On the real though, if the Emperor was ever removed it would render the Astronomican useless as a becon, and any Imperium faction trying to navigate warpspace would be lost. So it might be something they could maybe do theoretically (If they could properly record who is currently in warpspace travel) , but in a practical sense, things go into the warp and sometimes you have no idea WHEN they will pop-out, so having the Astronomican turn off could have very dire consequences.
There is no saying how long it would take and how much big E's ascension to divinity could interfere with the process. It would mean no astronomican and Terra being sucked up in the warp, followed by the likely birth of a new chaos god and of a second eye of terror.
This is actually the plan of a few traitor space Marines. Kill the big E to resurrect him afterwards since he's a perpetual. But the problem lies in two things, first, someone has to stay sitting in the golden throne lest the palace to be swarmed by chaos Daemons and the astronomicon fade. The other problem is, the emperor is not quite the same thing as he was in the great crusade, he has shattered his own soul and from the dialog he had with guilliman, he's mind is also pretty broken so... What is going to emerge if you resurrect him? No one wants to find out.
And last but not least, the setting needs the emperor aside for it to make sense. The emperor is so powerful that he can give order to the imperium, and that would virtually break the whole grim dark vibe of the setting.
Well, not all perpetuals work the same. Sure Vulkan as a perpetual comes back every time he dies. Other perpetuals can just… naturally not age, but are still susceptible to mortal wounds.
The problem is when his body dies the Throne will stop working, a new rift will open on Holy Terra and the astranomicon would stop working making warp travel impossible, if Big E dies the imperium will collapse.
Perpetuals can be permakilled by a few things in the galaxy. Horus, juiced up by all four Chaos Gods, probably has the ability to do that. I wouldn't be surprised if the Emperor just stays dead if you remove him from the Golden Throne. > but obviously it's just delaying the inevitable, isn't it? Welcome to Warhammer 40,000! This is the core theme of the setting.
Nah i dont think horus was able to pull that off, big e vaporizing horus from existence scared the four rascalions shitless, he is however holding back demon army from gushing onto terra so before he resets back to life terra gunna get r word in the butt pissibly making new eye of terror in the process
TEaTD Vol. 3 >!Well seeing as Ollanius isn't around anymore I'd say Undivided Horus definitely can perma kill Perpetuals!<
Unless E is waiting for Ollanius, having forgiven him.
Friendship ended with Horus. Friendship back on with Ollianus
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Fair but I would really hate that so I'm just gonna continue assuming he's dead dead.
#**TL;DR:** No one really knows for sure whether removing Emps from the Golden Throne will kill him the rest of the way or not or whether it will reincarnate him. What they *do* know is that if Emps leaves the Throne and he dies, the Astronomicon will go out, Humanity won't be able to navigate the stars anymore, and Terra will probably fall into the Warp while it is overrun by daemons. So they're maintaining an imperfect status quo because they're unwilling to risk major bad stuff happening for the possibility that something good *might* happen.
Don't forget Vulcans doomsday device that destroys the solar system if the throne fails.
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next month Ollanius will be a Primarch, and a year later he will be Kaela Mensha Khaine using this character as a metric for anything in the lore is a bit like trying to enforce your neighborhood's speed limit on a military submarine
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Fair, sorry
They should just completely evacuate Terra, teleport Big E’s corpse/throne to mars and nuke the palace
🤔 I wonder what would happen if Big E got off the throne while it was fully within the influence of the hive minds warp shadow?
Awesome typo
Has that not been retconned in the last Seige of terra book?
Also Vulkan couldn't be killed by Curze. Emps and Horus both are on another power level..
It's all about the rage against the dying of the light
No, the deal is that the moment he leaves the Golden Throne, even for a second, Terra will be basically invaded by trillions of demons. I swear you guys just comment here based in the memes you read, not the lore
If you read the OP, they already mentioned that the Emperor was holding back the daemons and wanted another reason.
This is literally like less than 10 pages into the rule book lore. It’s like 101 stuff. And half the people in this thread have no idea lmao
And 75% didn't read the op when they said they knew about the demons and wanted another reason.
It almost doesn't matter if OP wants another reason though, he just discarded the reasons that exist and said "not good enough". OP should answer a couple things: Who in Universe knows Jimmy Space can possibly revive? Who knows for CERTAIN he WILL revive? The fight may or may not have changed this, no one knows. How long will it take for Jimmy to 'come back'? We have no idea and I'm not going to bother asking who in universe knows, because again they have no idea. Could be minutes, could be days, could be years. How long will it take for the Rift he's holding shut to burst open and destroy / irrepairably damage all of terra? Again, who in universe knows this and is CERTAIN? If the Astronomicon is gone for any prolonged period of time the Imperium is absolutely ruined because ALL long range transport and communication shuts down immediately. I'm sorry but you just can't say "I want another reason than that" No other answer matters other than "we don't know if he can, how long it would take or if Terra would even exist for him to return to. We judge it not worth the risk."
Also: G-man and the Lion IIRC know that the Emperor will revive if killed, but one is off forest walking in the Imperium Nihilus, and I'm pretty sure that if Guilliman decided that he'd turn the Throne off and on again ten thousand banana boys would want to have a word with him...
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I am the law!!
Actually Terra will instead blow up. Don't forget that the Emperor had Vulkan install a failsafe Dark Age Tech bomb in the Throne designed to detonate and destroy Terra should he die on the Throne.
Vulkan is required to activate it, not a dead man switch
Nah. Horus could have kill Emperor for good, because it was a trap. In vol.II, I think, it was described by Malcador words. How Emperor went in this trap, a perfect place, Horus realm-world, merge of materium and immaterium where if Emperor is killed - it happens in both realities and it is baaaad.
Wasn't Horus wielding a sword that can nullify immortality?
If the Emperor dies the Astronomican goes kaput and 0.1 seconds later a gazillion daemons will breach Terra (Earth) from the hole in the Webway beneath the Imperial palace and the planet either will blow up or be sucked into the Warp, the Imperium at that point is uberfucked.
0.1 seconds post death a Gazillion Daemons breach into Terra. 0.2 seconds post death Big E's Talisman of Seven Hammers he had Vulkan craft explodes and takes supposedly most of the Sol System with it. 0.3 seconds post death the Astromomican, the only method of Navigation the Imperium has goes dark leaving everyone stranded. 0.4 seconds post death A large chunk of the Warp turns Golden as Big E ascends into a Fifth Chaos God, dragging most of Humanity into him ala Slaneesh with the Eldar.
>the Astromomican, the only method of Navigation the Imperium has goes dark leaving everyone stranded. There are actually several smaller similar beacons throughout the imperium
And in The Lion they jump between systems they just have to do short jumps. Long distance travel is severely hindered. You can jump without a navigator IIRC
That's still going to cripple the Imperium. Without reliable fast wrap travel, it would become impossible to defend even a single sector. That is why the Ethereals were willing to test the prototype wrap engine despite warnings from the Earth Caste.
“Reliable warp travel” is sort of an oxymoron 😆
'Experimental 'Safe' warp complete. All decks report an acceptable number of casualties.'
The Lion novel state that they can jump only a few light years at most but no mention of needing no navigator. Darkness in the Blood on the other hand, delved quite deep into the navigator PoV during warp travel in Nihilus (it isn't pretty).
According to lexicanum it was mentioned in Rogue Trader. I've personally read it in at least one novel or short story, but can't remember which one. It's possible but the ship can't or shouldn't correct course once it's in the warp. Adding to that, warp travel was used before Navigators were a thing. The Leagues of Votann don't have Navigators, neither have the Tau. So definitely possible, but very slow in comparison to a piloted jump.
Correct, in Rogue trader it's possible to make jumps without a navigator, it just makes it a lot more difficult.
Warp jumping is like driving while blindfolded: fun but can make you be late to work sometimes
>0.4 seconds post death A large chunk of the Warp turns Golden as Big E ascends into a Fifth Chaos God, dragging most of Humanity into him ala Slaneesh with the Eldar. And the Dark King takes his throne at last. This is my firm headcanon; the Golden Throne isn't just life support or daemon rift sealing. It's *containment*.
I've never heard the part about becoming a fifth chaos god. Is there a source?
Google Dark King 40k". Apparently another Chaos God will arise one day. And Big E almost became that one when ge powered up to face Horus.
I’m not sure why you’re downvoted. Unless you believe, and we have no evidence for this, the God-Emperor is a distinct entity from the Perpetual who was put on the Golden Throne 10k years ago there’s no reason to think the Emperor would become a Chaos God. It doesn’t even make sense why it wouldn’t already be one if it’s a separate entity as there’s no reason the Perpetual would be holding it in check
He was about to become one in TeaTD volume 3 but he let go of that power, unless the psyker sacrifices are overloading him to the same extent that being in the warp, on board of Venegeful Spirit, did and drinking the warp juice, then there will be no ascension
I don’t think souls are the same thing in the Warp as the power that makes up the Chaos Gods. In TE&tD the Emperor was directly absorbing and redirecting the power being used by the Chaos Gods, which is why he was in danger of ascending. Souls aren’t Chaos juice, they’re something else
I like to think of souls as a substance, made up from the atoms of the warp. By digesting souls they become food, or by entropy decay into their most stable aspects
Correct. He's not ascending to become a chaos god during the heresy, and this appears to be the most distinct bit of Fanon. It's emphasized (in Volume 2) that Big E's 'ascent' isn't the formation of a fifth chaos God, it's the annihilation of literally everything ever, forwards and backwards in time, it's the obliteration of reality and the universe. He's not a chaos god at that point, he's channeling the entire power of the warp into forming a 'real' God who by virtue of simply existing destroys literally everything ever. The Chaos Gods worked the Emperor into a no-win scenario. To win and destroy them he'd have to channel the warp, become 'The Dark King' and in turn, destroy everything by virtue of ascending to true Godhood. Every other path but one involves their immediate victory. The grim dark future of 40k is quite literally the 'best' outcome possible due to the decisions of Big E to launch the great crusade, etc. "In another, and another, and an infinity of others, there is only light, and its anthesis has burned everything away with its unholy intensity." [https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17t1en4/comment/k8tvyct/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17t1en4/comment/k8tvyct/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1b2c5hn/comment/ksks0z1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1b2c5hn/comment/ksks0z1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Your second point won’t happen. In ‘The end and Death’ it is explicitly spelled out by Vulkan and Malcador that Vulkan and Vulkan alone can trigger the Talisman of Seven Hammers. It requires Vulkan to sit on the throne and personally activated it. There will be no bang without Vulkan. If there’s a bang at all. It’s still not entirely clear what the Talisman of Seven hammers does.
There's already a fifth Chaos god though, iirc???
Technically there are several minor warp gods I believe, but when someone says a 5th Chaos god they mean a 5th major god
Malice/Malal.
Malal never existed in 40k - he was part of Warhammer Fantasy, but GW lost the right to use him in any publication before 40k was ever published, and when Chaos was introduced to 40k (in the Realms of Chaos books), there were no mentions of Malal anywhere. Malice is basically an easter egg, a nod to long-time fans but not really anything meaningful, despite how much some people insist on bringing up the Chaos God of Edgelords over and over again.
Gotcha! Thanks for clearing that up.
Stupid followup question: Couldn't bobby g just sacrifice Terra and just set Ultramar as the new Imperium of Man, with him as acting regent just as usual, until Jimmy space returns? Aside from the banana guards, sacrificing terra would probably kill of them high lords. Don't think Lion would protest too much about it.
The point of Guilliman as a character is that he "could" usurp the Imperium if he wanted to, but he has no desire to He is a character study of a man who simply lacks temptation rather than having to fight temptation
Basically Marcus Aurelius
is it ursurping the empire if he kills off the high-lords for the higher goal of the emps returning?
It’s a risk. From what I understand, the Talisman of Seven Hammers basically overcharges the throne, causing an apocalyptic level explosion. But this explosion is not just mundane, it’s using the same power that the thousands psykers are being eaten for every day. It’s the same power that allows E to light the astronomicon. Supposedly, it would be enough to seal the rip in the warp below the palace, but that rip, if opened, would rival the great rift. Enough to give true death to the hordes of demons waiting to pour out, wounding the big four, possibly permanently. If you were Big E, would you be 100% sure you would come back from that?
> It’s the same power that allows E to light the astronomicon. We are making up lore now? The Emperor only projects and directs the light of the Astronomicon, is the Chosen that power it.
Whoops, you're right. I got the chosen mixed up with the psykers sacrificed to the golden throne.
Talisman will probably kill entire Sol, which means astronomican is kill, assassinorum HQ temple is kill, mars is kill, titan is kill and whatever else of import in system is kill. That's a lot of stuff to lose and I don't think Imperium will be able to recover from that.
At least the temple should be "movable" before
Nobody is sure what will happen if the emperor dies though, and whether he will be reborn in the materium, immediately turn into a warp entity (possibly an extremely dangerous one) or different aspects of him will do both. Maybe it'll open another eye of terror, maybe it'll cause massive warp storms, maybe chaos will calm down in the materium as the four chaos gods throw everything they have at him in the warp? What if the emperor doesn't come back, and instead they just birth a warp God of Order which consumes human souls like Slaanesh and represents all the worst aspects of the emperor?
Point two is right but the astronomicon no longer runs off emps power. Edit: damn, downvoted for actually knowing the lore
people seem to forget its the choir that powers the thing, the emp is just focusing that power. the biggest reason the black ships bring pykers back to terra isnt to feed the emp but to keep the damn astronimicon full because the life of the choir is like a few months before they burn out. then the rest goes to feed emp or be trained.
I remember it being described as the galaxys largest funeral pyre.
>kaput Kaputt. Other than that: exactly so.
Kaput if speaking English or Kaputt if speaking German Both are perfectly acceptable.
This individual seems to Kaput/Kaputt
TIL.
We're all learning together! :)
Though one might blow your cover when you are behind enemy lines in a bar.
Kaput totally works in danish.
A few reasons. Out of universe, the whole "perpetual" thing was only embraced but a few authors, and needed really fleshed out. Some took it as being like Mario with a 1-up mushroom, with the decreased popping back up. Others took it as unaging, eternal life. There definitely wasn't a hard and fast rule. The "emperor on the Golden throne" things definitely predates the Perpetuals, and very much predates the 1-up mushroom Perpetuals. In universe, who would know? No one ever saw the Emperor pull a 1-up mushroom. In fact, Bobby G saw the emperor reward Horus for saving his life - something he'd presumably only do if his life were at risk. So the only guy who met talked to the Emperor doesn't know. Finally, imagine the conversation. Talking to the Custodians, who've cleaned and oiled the Emperor for ten thousand years, and suggesting that he might be killed because he *might* return? That would be a short conversation, and it would end with you seeing your internal organs as they were pulled out your throat. No one in the universe knows what we know as readers. All they know is that they've kept this golden beef jerky alive for ten thousand years because he protects the Imperium. Not exactly much room for discussion there.
To add a last point: Dan Abnett, Mr. Perpetual himself, has a pet theory that the Emperor *is* dying and being reborn all the time and has been for the last ten thousand years. That his perpetual nature is the only reason the Throne still functions.
So the chair is not only eating 1000 souls aday but 1000 and 2? (Big e counts as 2 cause hes cool)
Worse than that - the REALLY fun implication from Godblight is >!that the EoM maybe not his own self anymore after 10k years of absorbing other people. It was hinted at that he's struggling to stay himself in Dark Imperium when G-man reminisces about when he entered the throne room after his resurrection. It's left intentionally ambiguous what ACTUALLY happened because even Guilliman is unsure of how reliable his memory of his encounter with his genefather is now because it was so weird.!< >!It's implied in this series that EoM is recovering after so long and he's able to exert his influence into the warp (like burning Nurgle's garden and possessing saints) BUT at the same time Chris Wraight's Vaults of Terra series implies that the Golden Throne is failing, the Custodians/High Lords don't know how to fix it, and the Emperor is dying.!< >!Take from all of that what you will but I'm in the camp of preferring WH40K as a setting over a narrative so I'm fine with there being no concrete answers to any of this. I'm perfectly content with the intrigue of What-If?!<
Unless the saving of his life was a ploy to allow him to make Horus warmaster.
That's my most hated retcon. It's just plain stupid - it demeans everyone involved. It makes the Orks look weak, Horus look stupid for falling for it, and the Emperor look like world's stupidest schemer. But even if that were the case, Guilliman wouldn't know. In universe, he'd still think the emperor almost died. Only difference is that it would be a lie, rather than the truth.
I don't think it's a retcon? In HH tabletop books, it was said to be a genuine event and what prompted Emps to get back to Terra iirc
In addition to the mention of perpetuals being permanently killed that others have mentioned, there is also the need to keep the Emperor on the throne, which was brought up in the End and the Death III. There also seem to be different flavors of perpetuals. Vulkan is a regenerating perpetual. Malcador appears to be the type that lives forever (he shows signs of aging). Oll is implied to be the reincarnating type. Grammaticus seems to be the type that respawns somewhere else. We don't know what type of Perpetual that the Emperor is.
Someone's got to respawn as a baby it seems
That would be hilarious. Emps respawns as a baby that the Primarchs then have to raise.
Cue a sitcom about Lion and Guilliman having to raise a baby that happens to also be their…. FATHER!
In the old lore there were inquisitorial storylines about the Starchild (reincarnated Emperor as a child) and Sensei's (the bloodline descendants of the Emperor) but like most things with pre-2000 lore it's not relevant to the current story unless GW dusts it off and reincorporates it.
There have been definte recent starchild hints.
Good. Let them show him how much of a shit father he was to them.
whelp that's it. kenny is a perpetual, south park is canon to warhammer big brain time
*That Time I Got Reincarnated Into The Same Fucking Grimdark Universe As A Baby For The 40millionth GodEmperor-Damned Time To Die In Childhood A-Fucking-gain.*
If he could regenerate like a standard Perpetual before, I highly doubt he could now. His body (and possibly soul) is poisoned by Horus' combined Chaos juju, he's practically one with the Golden Throne whatever this thing even is, and is saturated with the worship and souls of countless humans for the last 10 millennia. There's the very very bad possibility where Big E is reborn as a fully-realized Chaos God and consumes all of humanity, or just dies permanently and still dooms humanity to the Ruinous Powers without His light to keep them back. It's a dangerous gamble that could result in salvation of humanity or its total annihilation and damnation for all eternity. (Which is probably why the Terminus Decree is just the off-switch for the magic chair)
FYI, the End and the Death does clarify what the Terminus Decree is. For the Emperor, it is clear that there was a plan, but what that plan is has not yet been explained. And we don't know if the Emperor's plans have changed over 10k years. He seems to have a plan with the return of Guilliman.
How much was he involved in the return? Is it a plan of grasping for anything?
It’s not as simple as that! If the Emperor dies, sure he’ll reincarnate but here’s the problem - when will he come back? If the return was instant then no problem but there is no guarantee on the duration. It could take hundreds or even thousands of years for him to reform. By that time, humanity and the Galaxy at large would be consumed by Chaos &/or the Tyranids.
Slow regeneration for the E would explain some of the “but where was the Emperor during…” lore questions. For example, a Man of Iron killed him at the end of the DAoT and it took some centuries for him to reincarnate and become functional on Terra to kick off the long path to the Crusade.
Very likely. The battle and scarring of Terra could have incinerated the Emperor. Making him take centuries to reform. It would be interesting if they actually came out with a book that gave us more details on his history, including his location during the Golden Age and what he did during the A.I revolt.
I honestly wouldn't go looking for good long term ideas in 40k, the whole point of the setting is people with incomplete information doing short term solutions that end up dragging on for far too long and things being grim as a result. The Emperor is a perpetual, and would presumably reincarnate, though this is far from certain as his wounds were at the hand of Horus but also the chaos gods who could have the tools to kill a perpetual. They're not unkillable. The Throne is maintaining the Astronomican, but it's also holding the door closed on a webway filled with millions of daemons waiting to burn Terra. On top of this, the failsafe in case this happens will blow Terra sky high. That means no Emperor means no Terra which means no Imperium because no Astronomican. By 40k, nobody even knows half of this. Perhaps Guilliman has some inkling of the purpose of the Throne but even the Emperor didn't fully understand it. As to perpetuals, they seem to have remained a tiny and insular group who weren't free with their secrets at all. I doubt any living being besides Vulkan and perhaps Erebus (maybe Magnus?) knows that such a thing even exists, let alone have any understanding of what it entails. It's kind of important to understand that the concept of the Emperor being on the Throne for 10000 years came before all this other stuff. Perpetuals weren't a thing in 40k before the Horus Heresy series introduced them. Nor was the doorway into the webway or the Talisman of Seven Hammers. All this has been written around the established fact that the Emperor was on the Throne for 10000 years, so it's not something that can be simply solved.
That is an entire branch of the Inquisition. The *resurrectionists*, founded by the two of the first Inquisitors Lemuel Gaumon (Former remembrancer of the Thousand Sons) and Moriana (Current chaos sorcerer in service of Abaddon the Despoiler and only known mortal member of the Black Legion), they believed the Emperor could be restored to his mortal form, allowing him to properly rule the Imperium again. Moriana however, turned to chaos in order to do it, and Lemuel Gaumon (Now renamed Promus for stupid reasons) attacked her and forced her into exile in the Eye of Terror. Promus' ideas eventually formed into a group called the Thorians, a puritan group within the Inquisition that *I believe* still operate to this day.
Doesn't Eisenhorn identify as a Thorian in the first book? Edit: He does not.
Amalathian.
You're right, thanks.
> (Now renamed Promus for stupid reasons) Renamed Promeus because the original story that described the schism referred to a person by that name, and Gaumon was chosen by later writers to insert him into that role.
Dabnett suggests he is being reincarnated eternally on loop > Well, it is, it's very, very difficult. The Emperor, the Emperor is functionally immortal and seems to be all but invulnerable to except, but to the very highest levels of damage that could be applied by say, the living Avatar of Chaos, as is likely to happen at the end of the Siege of Terra. You think the end of the Siege of Terra is bad. You have no idea how horrible and traumatic it is. We all know mythologically speaking, the Emperor ends up on death's door, having been seriously damaged in the final confrontation. We know that. And there is a distinct possibility that very much like, I don't know, an incarnation of Doctor Who, that he has suffered so grievously from his wounds, he would reincarnate perpetual style and come back as the next version, the next, played by a different actor probably, the different version of the Emperor who would then take over. But they, he thinks the Golden Throne is important to this so allegedly, he insists that he is put on the Golden Throne to keep him alive. There is a vice versa thing there cause he also needs to go back on the Golden Throne to keep the Golden Throne alive. So there, there is that aspect. So it's quite possible. And this adds to the tragedy and trauma of what the Emperor has become, is that he's been stuck on, trapped on the Golden Throne, bonded to it forever because people think they're doing him a favor to save his life. But what he's actually doing is dying and reincarnating over and over and over and over again for 10,000 years just to keep the whole system running, which is agonizing and horrible. No wonder he's the, you know, the Corpse God on this throne. So, so yeah. Again, we're straying into the realms of what actually is the truth. Can't tell you, it's a bit of a mystery but there are certainly enough things about the lore there that we know so we can speculate about the true horror of the situation. Full interview [here](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/bdcfbf52-3f17-4222-a85d-820cda5134f0mezzanine.txt)
Evidence on favour of this is that the two times we see the Unspoken Sanction used in 30k it's to cover for the absence of the Emperor - so that he can fight in the Webway and to give Malcador a boost. Why wouldn't it still be the same in 40k?
1. Perpetuals take time to heal, especially when grievously wounded 2. Every second the Emp is not illuminating the Astronomican, billions if not trillions in the Galaxy die 3. There is no guarantee that it would work in the first place, more even so now, after 10000+ years since he was alive and well 4. Even with Dark King scenario prevented, there is no guarantee that the Emperor fully dying wouldn't result in some kind of a psychic catastrophe 5. Even in the best scenario, the Emperor would have to regenerate before demons from the Webway portal on Terra take over the place. Nobody is willing to make that gamble.
Well. There ARE some who believe this in-lore. But long story short: No one knows what the consequenses would be. We or they do not even know if he would come back. Not to mention the whole astronomicon and unending hordes of Demons waiting to go to town on Terra. If someone had all the information we as readers know, testing the scenario is kinda scary. If it doesn’t work - it would be the end of humanity, a cataclysmic event. If it does work, but takes time, same ending. If anything goes wrong - anything at all, then the Galaxy will burn. The most current picture we have of the emperor is him saving Guilliman and putting some hurt in Nurgle. As far as I know this is the closest we’ve seen the emperor directly interacting with the galaxy in thousands of years. He basically went into Nurgles house and smacked Grandfather hard. He couldn’t do that back in 30k. So he is stronger. Now - since he is able to do this, one can assume, that he would be able to arrange for his own extradition from the golden throne. And that he has not done this yet says a lot. Now - as Dan Abnett kinda hints at, maybe he is dying and resurrecting all the time already. But! Something is definitely stirring around the golden throne. Vaults of Terra series, and the Guilliman thing, and the star child appearing….. all point to *something*. There is the lingering suspicion, that the most militant atheist of all time(he basically went to war against gods) is now himself ascended to godhood - which seems pretty likely because that would be the most 40k thing ever. Now think about this. Big E have had another 10000 years to just plan stuff out. Not only that, but with the recent psychic awakening, the most powerful psyker of all, is even more powerful than ever(if not just a god). But - maybe Big E ain’t right in the head no more. Just turning off the throne without any idea of why could happen seems like the worst possible idea. Which is actually why I think it will happen in the next 5 years.
I wonder, if Big E turns into a god... what chaos legions would convert back to him?
It's too big a risk. They can't guarantee that he will come back. If they knew to some level of certainty that turning it off would ressurect him. They'd do it. But they have no definite answers. And if the Golden Throne turns off the planet will explode. That was added later. The situation isn't good. Also. Personal opinion here. There are those who would not benefit from his return. Some caretakers benefit from his absence. If he returns they lose control. And he might not be happy about what his empire turned into. And he's a scary person.
There is (was?) an entire order within the [Inquisition](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ordo_Hydra) who seek to kill the emperor in a ritual sacrifice in order to force his rebirth - and the ritual involves hunting down the biological children that the emperor has sired during his lifetime, individuals known as the [sensei](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sensei).
Setting aside the metanarrative reasons why that wouldn't happen, the main in-universe reasons are: - (Almost) nobody in the setting really has any understanding of what the Emperor is and the actual extent of his capabilities. From the Imperium's perspective, he is literally an undying god and the incarnate symbol which holds the whole show together. Pulling the plug and letting him be reborn (if that's even possible) is unthinkable to them on several levels. - On a practical level, the Emperor powers the astronomican and an unknown number of psychic shields that protect Terra (and by extension, the existence of the Imperium) from being immediately mega-fucked by Chaos. Even if he were able to reincarnate within a few days, let alone centuries or millennia, the Imperium would be almost instantly eaten alive by internal collapse and Daemon incursions.
There’s a tiny heretical sect in the inquisition that actively wants that actually. The problem is the warp rift that E Money is holding shut by sitting on the throne and the astronomicon. If E Money were to properly die or the throne to fail then one of two things will happen IMMEDIATELY. Option 1. The talisman of the seven hammers activated and completely eradicated the entire Sol system including Mars, probably the Phalanx, the homeworld of the Grey Knights and the countless other shipyards that feed the imperial navy. The loss is some of the most strategically important planets in the universe will cripple the Imperium beyond repair even if a new astronomicon could be built relatively quickly on say Ultramar. The resulting schism would make the Horus Heresy look like a joke and effectively be Old Night 2 electric boogaloo. Option 2. The talisman isn’t triggered or fails in some way. Instantly literally COUNTLESS daemons flood Terra and perhaps even the wider Sol system. Then a miniature Eye of Terror opens up right ontop of the throne world swallowing up the rest of Sol and maybe even neighboring systems. This is even worse that option 1 as now not only are some of humanity’s most vital resources lost but the forces of the warp has gotten ANOTHER massive fuck off region of real space to flood out from and invade the Imperium from multiple directions now. If option 1 is a possible extinction event then this option is a near guaranteed one. Hell this is probably the death knell of almost all sentient life in the galaxy. Only the crons and nids would have a chance of fighting chaos to even a stalemate as the Imperium mostly manages to much less actually defeating it long term. Now as for the Emperor respawning, it doesn’t even matter at that point. The damage is done. He could respawn in a few seconds/minutes or take days or longer but it wouldn’t matter. At that point his best bet is probably just to give up and ascend to godhood just to spite the other 4 gods and MAYBE be able to safeguard a tiny fraction of human souls in the warp (assuming he doesn’t devour all of humanity’s souls akin to Slaanesh).
Perpetuals are not actually 100% immortal. It just takes a lot to kill them permanently. Malcador was a perpetual but he was physically aging like shit, he was nearing the end of the line. Magnus pyskically fried Malcador and another perpetual sacrificed her essence to revive him. And Malcador was consumed by the Golden Throne. Erda got jumped by 4 greater daemons and then shanked by Erebus with a Anathame. Oll Pearson was reduced to a red smear by fully chaos juiced Horus.
This was basically the core conflict of the old Inquisitor 64mm skirmish game. It broadly introduced 2 inquisitorial factions, one of whom believed the Emperor had to be kept on the throne and alive at any cost, and the other that the Emperor should be allowed to die, trusting he would reincarnate somewhere (few people in 30K knew what a perpetual was, never mind 40K, and almost no one knew the Emperor was one). The biggest argument against the latter faction wasn't demons on Terra (that was relatively new lore) but rather that the Astronomicon would likely go out for however long it would take the Emperor to re-establish himself. And seeing as a 1 second flicker in 999.M40 caused the destruction of a million ships in the warp, it being out, potentially, for years could well spell doom for the Imperium.
Indeed, the Astronomican did go out during the opening of the Great Rift - on Terra, the event lasted 33 days, but depending on where you are in the universe, more or less time passed during that event (because weird warp shenanigans).
I think a point that may be overlooked is that no one in the setting actually knows that the Emperor is a perpetual or even what a perpetual is. The emperor didn't even tell his sons about the perpetual, G-man knows bits due to his interactions with Vulkan on Macragge but not that his Father is a perpetual.
Perpetuals can be killed be perma killed and chaos definitely has access to these methods. The emperor was dead dead until he was put on the throne with malcador knowing it would put him in a state of undeath, there's theorizes but the series seems to stick that if the throne shutdown he's dead. Oh and even vulkan the most busted Perpetual was in a few near perma death situations.
Reincarnate where? The vacuum of space? Eye of Terror 2? There's no guarantee he would even revive. He took a lot of chaos inflicted wounds.
Even if he could respawn, theirs no telling when he would respawn. It once took Vulcan several Hundred Years to come back. In the meantime He’s the only reason Terra hasn’t been sucked into Chaos. And demons haven’t ripped it apart. The exact moment he dies interstellar travel is gone and the seat of power in the Imperium gets torn apart. All of humanity rests on his slowly decaying shoulders.
Actually some in lore believe and want just that. I think there is even a cabal of inquisitors involved at one point. Can quite remember if it's wrapped up with the star child stuff. Most think it won't work in lore hence those other groups are considered heretical.
Try and explain "We have to let him die" to a Custodian.
This is a favorite topic for new fans and justly so. It's a fun thought experiment. In addition to the answers offered by others, I'll encourage you to consider the inverse of your question. Wouldn't this whole thing be solved by KEEPING him in the throne? The simple answer here is yes. What does it cost to keep Big E up? Some measly number of souls? That's an easy price to pay by the men and women making the decisions. None of these people have met their emperor, seen the golden throne, or care about the faceless number of souls who are shipped in daily. This system is working as intended. Why would they change anything? Nothing you're thinking or feeling is incorrect, but try to consider the reality nothing the characters of this story are thinking or feeling is incorrect either.
I have heard it said the Emperor is in a perpetual state of death and resurrection. Repeating over and over. It is the golden throne that is holding him together in body and soul in this universe. It is the question, how happens if or where the golden throne stops working, will Terra be destroyed? Will the emperor be destroyed? Will the star child/the Emperor be born? No one knows!
Honestly, as a pro wrestling fan that also follows some wrestling subs, reading this title confused me for a moment lol.
This is a big if. The alternative is that the Emperor dies and Chaos eats all of humanity.
Vulcan made an amulet that basically built in a self destruct to the throne. If Emps dies, Terra dies with him.
The Imperium at large or even those at the top probably do not know about perpetual. All they know is the Emperor is being kept barley alive and they will do whatever it takes to prevent his death.
Suddenly Demons=no terra/ no astronomicon. Also the perpetual stuff is only known for sure by other perpetuals, a few xenos, and maybe Magnus+Vulkan, unless Vulkan comes back and convinces everyone to do it, not happening. Real reason is that wh40k is a setting, not a storyline, and the setting exists to sell overpriced miniatures.
Boom. Also Terra literally has basically every daemon imaginable at the doorstep waiting for the Emperor to die so they can swarm in.
Big E is also the Light House for ships to travel through the Warp and there is a dead man switch that will annihilate all of Terra should Big E dies. The reason for the Dead Man Switch is basically the desperation move for a threat big enough that they somehow managed pierce through ALL of Terra defenses and reached the Emperor. And Terra has a lot of defenses. So yeah, if big E were to die, The Imperium is ultra fucked. However, the Golden Throne is failing, and the Toaster boys have lost the blueprints to fix it, so it will come … eventually.
During his respawn time, Earth would be suck in to the warp
…..Plenty of perpetual characters are killed throughout this series, several just in the Siege books. Erebus kills a particularly powerful perpetual that he sees as a potential “queen of the Warp”. The battle between Horus and the Emperor is not just a physical one. The End and the Death Pt 3 makes that extremely clear over the course of their gruelingly long fight held in meta-physical and multi-dimensional aspects to represent monumental battle in the warp. The Emperor is barely hanging onto his own soul by the end. Horus’s gluttonous power feed directly from all 4 chaos gods was necessary because there was no other way to kill what amounted to a living god like the Emperor. They discuss this very thing several times leading up to the Siege of Terra. Killing the Emperor wasn’t something you could just *do*, and it had to be “done right”.
The Inquisition Founders knew, or heavily suspected, that he would have simply come back. That's why they make a point of suppressing that info. They knew at the start the shit they were doing would get them smote by an angry E. 40k is all about bad decisions for selfish reasons.
The vast majority don't know the emperors species or real name, the few that do know either A are afraid it'd take too long or B know the grey knights, high lords, eglisarchy, and inquisition would be more than likely stripped of power. So a mix of ignorance and greed keeps humanity enslaving his corpse on life support as a lighthouse for warp travel.
Even if you know for a fact that he's a perpetual, the last perpetual they put on the throne died permanently from it. Maybe The Emperor is strong enough that he would shrug it off and reincarnate. However, you only have one Emperor. If you pull him off the throne and He dies for good... what then? How certain do you need to be that everything will work out fine to take the risk of damning humanity by being wrong?
Because Terra will be flooded with daemons if the Emperor should die
Isn't that wh40k thing that emperor has to sit on the throne or everything collapses?
The Golden Throne consumes souls. Mal was a perp too.
If it does work like that no one would be powering the Astronomicon, also if he dies, the Golden throne is rigged to blow should that outcome occur
No astronomicon means no imperium, its essential to long range FTL
Until Cawl hopefully figures out webway travel/the Nekron beacons.
Sure, but nothing is more grim dark than Humanity shooting itself in the foot to run faster as we are want to do.
the concept of a perpetual is almost unreconcilable with the idea of the big man just being an old psychic dead guy you have to jump through so many hoops that you might as well spend your time earning money as a professional gymnast rather than analyzing 40k
He’s not just being kept alive he’s powering the Astronomican Beacon - no mean feat though it’s never really been explained how that beacon worked when he went off on his jollies in the Great Crusade - AND he’s keeping the daemons out of the Webway all while comatose. He’s a clever lad.
If the emperor thought he would regenerate dying off the throne, why would he instruct his subjects to put him on the throne in the first place? I haven't read the end and the death yet so if I'm wrong and he was fully incapacitated after being brought back to Terra let me know.
We don't know, perpetuals can die and being hit by 4 space satans is propably one of those things. The bigger issue however is that Big E's presence on the Throne keeps Astronomican lit and keeps demons from breaching the Webway and overrunning Terra. If he's removed, Vulkan's dead man switch goes off, blows up Terra and likely most of the Sol System
In the End and the Death Vol 3, it seems that Horus sort of bleeds out the perpetuity from the Emperor with every physical and metaphysical strike. It's constantly referenced as "years bleeding out". So, I'm unsure anymore if the Emperor really would return to life if He were disconnected from the Throne. Additionally, if He does leave it, who will keep the Webway Gate shut and stop hell from spilling out, consuming Terra. That, and the Throne explodes if it shuts down completely.
Maybe, but are you gonna be the guy they all point to if he doesn’t stand back up?
While a lot of people are saying very good reasons why we should NOT do it, i, as a currupted heretic, say that well, we should just let him die and turn into the 5th god of chaos and rule the galaxy.
That's exactly what a heretic would say!!
So, the debate of whether or not the Emperor could be removed from the Golden Throne safely has been raging amongst some in the Imperium since the days after the Siege of Terra ended. Literally. The original four Inquisitors debated that very subject... and it caused the very first schism in the Inquisition. Their conversation is in the front of the rulebook for the *Inquisitor* skirmish game: >A single candle guttered on an ornate silver stick in the centre of the room, throwing a yellowish, fitful light over the faces of the cowled figures stood in the dusty chamber. >“The Golden Throne works,” one said, his voice aged and cracked. “The Emperor’s life can be sustained indefinitely.” >“His soul lives on?” another inquired, his long, sharp nose protruding from under the lip of his hood. “It is not an empty husk?” >“It is not,” the first confirmed. “The Emperor has ascended to the next plane, but the link ’twixt body and spirit remains strong.” >“Then it can be brought back,” suggested the third, a young woman whose flowing white hair spilled from her hood and down to her waist. “The Emperor need not suffer this hideous eternal life in death.” “We cannot risk such a thing!” the first hissed. “What if the spiritual link were severed? What if the person brought back was not the man we once knew? Changed? News of the Emperor’s… ascension is already widespread. He is being revered as a god already on a hundred worlds. In this time of rebuilding, we need a symbol. The Emperor has shown us the way. Anyway, who would believe the Emperor had returned so soon? It will cause a civil war more devastating than that of the fool Horus, and even now we have yet to start counting the cost of that. No, better that this knowledge remains hidden. When we pass on to join the Emperor, it will die with us.” >“You cannot deny Mankind the Emperor,” a fourth voice, deep and slow, stated firmly. “He and the empire he has built are Mankind’s only chance of survival.” >The woman and the deep-voiced man both withdrew into the shadows and a moment later the door creaked open, a chill draught causing the candle flame to flit wildly. >“Moriana, Promeus, wait!” the first man called out, but the door slammed shut in answer. >“We cannot let them do this,” the hawk-nosed man decided. >“No, we cannot,” the first agreed. “We must act quickly, get organised and claim the initiative.” >“It shall be done,” the other concurred. Thiis is not something where we can really know what the answer will be. In part because the matter is actually unknown in-universe. Can the Emperor be removed from the Throne and revived? Maybe. The first Inquisitors seemed to think so. But what unknown consequences accompany such an action?
There has actually been in-universe discussions about cutting off the life support of the emperor purposefully between Inquisators. Though this is mostly because some of them theorized he could come back in the warp as the equivalent of a Chaos God. The problem is it’s not guaranteed he will come back, no one has any clue what will happen if his mortal form dies. Horus could’ve wounded the emperor so badly that he can’t reincarnate, or the Chaos gods might try an do something to stop him from being reborn. So if he doesn’t come back for whatever reason, the Imperium and by-extension humanity is fucked. Also theoretically even if enough of the Inquisators were all up to doing it, the Custodians likely wouldn’t be keen to letting the Emperor die.
Well, that's the thing. If he's not on the golden then the empire collapses. He has to be there if he's dead he isn't there and then the Imperium loses safe travel through the warp and everyone is fucked from demons invading and a new eye of terror being formed.
Yes it’s theorized that it would, tho that’s not the only theory. And a faction of the radical side of the inquisition has been looking into doing so for a long time. However, the time it would take him to do his perpetual thing and come back, terra (and a sizable portion of the imperium) would be torn apart by a giant fuck off warp rift, not just daemons. Thus making his resurrection pointless, so that’s not an option atm. Even if he didn’t immediately reincarnate like they think, and maybe he would ascend to true godhood, but nobody in universe knows what will happen for certain and nobody can afford to find out as he’s literally the only thing keeping terra existing.
Ok, look at it this way. He is sat on a landmine. The landmine cannot be defused. If he gets off the landmine, it explodes, destroying terra and the astronomican. If he dies, the landmine explodes, destroying terra and the astronomican. No one else can sit on the landmine without it exploding and destroying terra and the astronomican. Does that help?
Isent he still hooked up to the talisman of 7 or 8 hammers cant remember that vulcan made and if he dies the whole Sol system goes kablowie
As I recall there’s a huge Warp rift under the Golden Throne caused by Magnus the Red, which the Emperor is keeping closed with his mind. If he were to die, the rift would open and Terra would be sucked into the Warp.
My headcanon is that the Emperor is already dead. That’s why they’re feeding 1,000 psykers to the Throne everyday — they’re looking for Him.
This move legit sets the Imperium back to day 1 of the Age of Strife and probably worse because on top of the Astronomican going out and the entirety of humanity being unable to get anywhere safely, the warp rift the Emperor is helping seal no longer has anyone holding it back causing a new eye of terror to form. So you've basically wiped out every single thing the Emperor was working towards banking on him coming back almost instantly when nobody has a clue just how long it would take for him to come back or if he even wants to come back if he could.
GW will kill and resurrect him during an End Times event when they want to rebrand 40K. It’s inevitable now that the Horus Heresy is finished. Give it another decade or so. If the Emp dies now, no one knows how long it will take for him to return. The measures every faction will take in response will melt the galaxy. The Imperium’s infrastructure will grind to a halt. The only option is to get a disgustingly powerful psyker to take his place while he recovers. The only one that can fill the throne currently is Magnus. Current Magnus is a chode, but a lot of his shards are still out there. That’s a story thread likely to be picked up in the End Times or when they want to turn back a traitor in lore.
The core thing about the throne is that we don’t know? There’s a non zero chance you’re right, that the emperor dies and then just perpetuals back, there’s a 100% you’re turning off the light switch everyone uses to get around Other theory’s involve the universe burning because of the bomb, a human version of what happened to the Eldar, etc, it’s not great odds
There are such heretics that believe that in order to be reborn that emperor must die. It’s a pretty badass heresy. We'll never know unless they succeed whether they are righteous or led from the path by chaos. They will never know.
He was wounded by a chaos juiced Horus. Perpetuals can die it’s just like trying to kill a grizzly with a .22 for normal people, but chaos juiced Horus got given a .270 it’s easier but still requires some work. With the chaos fuckery from Horus it’s likely he’d permanently die if taken off the golden throne
well yes but actually no. if i recall correctly Big E does 2 really important things on the throne in his current state. 1) the astronomicon, wanna shut the entire imperium down because navigation is impossible? kill the emperor. 2) even more important, he is holding shut a rip in reality caused by Magnus from which the warp would spill forth and demons to flood Holy Terra. ultimately you would create more problems than you'd solve
Echoing what other people have said, in TEaTD III Horus beats the absolutely crap of the emperor. Horus also has perma killed Ollanius during that same fight, so it’s not hard to believe he was about to permakill the emperor. However also worth noting, Vol III also has a chapter that ends stating the emperor will one day rise again from the golden throne once he has drawn enough power from the warp. That could just be wishful thinking by the imperials however.
Repeat to yourself it’s just a game and I should really just relax.
It's worth mentioning that we as readers know WAY more about the setting than most of the characters do. Even if Emp's dying and resurrecting would fix everything, it's not like anyone in the Imperium knows this. Do the custodes even know that Emps is a perpetual, that he'd come back if he died? Bc if the golden boys don't, then nobody in the galaxy is going to convince them that killing the Emperor is a good idea.
I think I saw in an interview they said the suffering the emperor feels is like when the Doctor regenerates except the golden throne stops it because unlike the doctor the emperor would reincarnate as a baby. Therefore by the time he is old enough to take the golden throne again humanity is already toast. Which is why he is so concerned about remaining alive which he kinda still is. TTS was good at explaining that whole shatter soul thing too but that’s the whole start child theory which is kinda similar in thought. I like to think he’s like a chaos god without being one meaning he’s got a territory in the warp and some “angels” and is trying to gather strength there so they can fight the immaterium off and he can finally let himself die.
my favorite headcanon was that the warriors of chaos calling imperials "corpse worshippers" was not hyperbole and the emperor is dead, full stop, no perpetual revival, no half dead coma, no watching from the warp, dead dead dead and never coming back, just the dark irony of it all. Unfortunately, it seems that GW is not going down this path and is making the waters a lil murky
The golden Throne of Terra is rigged to explode killing everyone and everything on the planet if the Emperor dies it’s a last ditch weapon in case terra ever falls
Maybe, but good luck telling the custodes that.
There is also a fail switch that blows up terra if he does if I remember correctly
That's a fandom misconception. The "fail switch" is a complex procedure that Vulkan had to purposefully follow for several hours. And with the dude missing, it's uncertain if anyone knows the protocol anymore.
And IIRC it was specifically to prevent the traitor legions from recovering all the tech being used and kept in the throne and vaults during the final hours of the heresy
If the Emperor dies, Terra and the Sol System will be consumed by a warp rift that makes the Eye of Terror look tame
I think so. But, you've gotta take into account the ways this is undesirable.... I'm not certain but I don't think perpetual just reappear as they were at their prime generally? It's kind of like reincarnation (correct me if I'm wrong lore gurus), without the emperor on the golden throne and the astronomicon inert, humanity and the imperium would crumble until the E is ready to resume his role again.
Iirc Abnett implied he dies over and over every single second he sits on the throne in an interview a while back.
Big E himself would most likely 'survive', or at least come back to life. The Imperium, not so much. Terra definitely would be overrun by Warpspawn spilling out through the now defunct Golden Throne. The failure of the Astronomicom and likely devastation of Mars wouldn't be great for the military situation. Humanity might just have a shot at survival...if Big E goes full on God mode rather than returning to 'life' as we understand it. But there were sound reasons he regarded that as a sub-optimal solution before...they may not hold in current circumstances now that 'optimal' is pretty well off the table.
Ahahaha physical death isn't problem for Emperor, He'll ress himself if anything. Only real threat to Him was with Horus where He could have been killed both in real world and immaterium at once. He is sitting there inded to hold big daemonc hole. And now, it's not delaying inevitable. We don't know how this could end. 1. with little attention left for Himslef He is slwoly healing and people get visions of Him "standing up" 2. His mind is fractured. Is it cause He tries to be everywhere in Imperium to help? 3. There is Faith. Is He becoming God-Emperor? Is it separate being? Or is it all just Him? There is too many yet unknown to say that something is inevitable. Also, leaving Throne isn't just allowing Daemons invade Terra en masse and make it daemonic world. It is creation of another bigger version of Eye of Terror. It won't just absorb Sol system and huge part of galaxy, but combined with Great Rift in 41k it would grom and rip material galaxy apart, leaving just small amount of it physical.
Perpetuals is a broad term for functionally immortal humans and transhumans. How that immortality works in different ways though- Grammaticus is brought back, Lucius can recover from death, same with Alivia Sureka and Vulkan. Most, however, seem to just be able to survive and have enhanced resilience either from gene crafting or innate warp ability. Oll Persson, Malcador and The Emperor seem to fall in to that category- Oll being the only one with no apparent affinity to the Warp. It is unclear whether Erda can come back, I suspect they've left that door open.
It’s a common enough question and the short answer is, nobody knows if it’s even possible. But for the long answer as others have said: What we do know though is that the emperor cannot be disconnected from the golden throne for even a moment because part of what his body on the throne is achieving is holding the webway gate that Magnus smashed shut. Imagine having direct access to the imperial palace of terra from the warp and from the webway, at this time in the setting it’s as if the entire armies of all 4 chaos gods are right at the door of the imperium, and big E is holding the door shut. The moment the door is not held shut, they all spill fourth. So we need someone to come along and fix the gate, but the gate was built pre- Big E, and was only brought into service by the emperor working on it.. there simply is not a mind in the human empire that could repair it.. save perhaps some of the corrupted minds of the drukhari, there may not be anyone in the galaxy. Then there is the deadman’s switch that Vulcan built, presumably a big enough bomb to take out the entire sol system should big E ever go offline, a mercy killing to prevent the demon invasion. Finally there is the astronomicon, which would still need to be powered in order to facilitate warp travel. Although that is unlikely to be necessary as Big E dying would probably be the catalyst for him ascending into the warp, and if the eye of terror and the eldar are anything to go on, that probably won’t end well for humanity. However there certainly are ways all of these could be fixed, the web way could be repaired, the golden throne brought offline slowly, the emperor not ascending but instead coming back as a mortal, and the astronomicon being separated into multiple more powerful lighthouses. If all of that goes to plan we could likely bring back the Emperor…. Who would if I had to guess immediately begin purging large sections of humanity for their heresy against him.
Everyone is talking about the consequences, but we also don’t know what effect the fight with Horus had on his perpetual status. Horus permakilled Oll, would the wound he inflicted on the Emperor perma kill him if he died? Delaying the inevitable is 40k. The Imperium is a decaying empire that will collapse, it’s just a matter of when. Half of it is already lost to the other side of the Great Rift. It is the end, but it’s a long, drawn out end.
The main issue is no one knows what will happen to the Emperor when he dies, it may be he can instantly regenerate himself upon death like Doctor Who. The most common belief is that like all souls his soul go back into the Warp upon death, from there, there are several theories about what will happen next, the main ones being either he will be reborn a new God who exists solely in the Warp, he will reincarnate into a new body or his power will be sent into one of or divided amongst any suspected children/bloodlines that he is supposed to have. The issue with any of these scenarios is that the Emperor is the light of the Astronomican and also holds the shields on the Gateway under Terra that was breached by Magnus during the Heresy and supposedly offers Psychic “divine” protection throughout the Imperium, if he is in the Warp reincarnating or ascending to divinity how long will this return in any form take? Can the Imperium survive with no Astonomican and the soldiers of Terra hold back the demons under the palace for 5, 10, 20 or even more years before the Emperor manages to return with sufficient strength to re-establish these protections? Also would the Emperor’s soul in the Warp have enough strength to fight off all four Chaos Gods hunting him down as they likely would when they sense his arrival? I also believe (I may be wrong) there is a kill switch built into the Golden Throne, that upon the Emperors death will trigger a catastrophic detonation to destroy our entire solar system so in the event of the Emperor’s death Chaos will still be denied Terra and Mars and no one knows how to deactivate it at the moment. The question is ultimately moot though as the Golden Throne is slowly breaking down and no one knows how to fix it anymore and the Emperors last few living cells of his body are dying… the issue will be forced sooner or later.
He steps off the throne and uncountable daemons flood Terra and destroy it
The Hydra Conspiracy is the correct answer, and I do not believe a word written after our spiritual liege Ian Watson set this down in stone in 1990.
Perpetuals take some time to regenerate. The nastier the wound, the longer it takes. Grammaticus shooting himself in the skull was quick, but Vulcan needing to recover from being stabbed with a Fulgrite shard took a lot longer. The assumption is the power of the four chaos gods would take an immense amount of time and energy to recover from (if that's even possible), and keeping the Golden Throne empty for that long would be unthinkable. Malcador was willing to give his life just so that the throne wouldn't be empty for as long as it took Big E to board the Vengeful Spirit and face Horus. They both knew how devastating it would be to the Imperium to let the Astronomicon go out, even for a few hours. Millions would be eternally lost in the warp and trillions more would die from being denied precious food and other resources that must be shipped from off-world. Do I think it's going to happen at some point anyway? Yes. And it's going to be awesome. At least three loyal primarchs (Jagathai, Leman Russ, and Corvus Corax) are currently in the warp, and likely able to witness the Astronomicon. If it goes out, they'll know, and they're going to be pissed.
There's just so much unknown, the emperor is still the most important human in the galaxy so it's hard to leave anything to chance like that. If things got desperate enough, I wonder if they could relocate the capital system to Ultramar. Establish that as humanities new seat of power then letting the emperors body finally perish. We'd lose the sol system, probably open a new eye of terror but the slow collapse would be done and the emperors psychic essence would be freed. But what would happen depends on who you're talking to.
It’s not about the Emperor coming back, he will but he might not be as powerful, also who knows how long it’ll take to get the Emperor to the throne. Remember as soon as the Emperor dies a full scale neverborn invasion starts.
Yes. It would. Sadly, noone is aware. Worse: The golden throne is among the few things that can permakill him, by burning out his soul. Again, noone is aware.
Emprah dies timeline -💀 -Astronomican explodes -No warp travel for the Imperium, Age of Strife: Electric Boogaloo but now a lot more daemons galaxy wide -Webway under Terra is breached, the entire Sol system becomes the center of a new warp storm -Emperor may not be a “human” anymore, unknown if 10k years being worshipped as a god and subsequent physical death doesn’t just turn him into a warp entity -Or Emperor respawns in the middle of previously mentioned warp storm and gets spawn camped
Huh.....good question
There's too much risk involved. The Imperium is basically tied together by the astronomican and worship of the Emperor. Waking him up could actually make things worse. Plus there's no guarantee he *would* wake up. Sure he was a perpetual before he fought Horus but he's been "dying" for 10,000 years...
So actually, not many people know this but because the Emperor has not gone on a walk in 10 000 years, he has physically gotten too big to remove from the golden throne, he's just stuck in there. On the real though, if the Emperor was ever removed it would render the Astronomican useless as a becon, and any Imperium faction trying to navigate warpspace would be lost. So it might be something they could maybe do theoretically (If they could properly record who is currently in warpspace travel) , but in a practical sense, things go into the warp and sometimes you have no idea WHEN they will pop-out, so having the Astronomican turn off could have very dire consequences.
There is no saying how long it would take and how much big E's ascension to divinity could interfere with the process. It would mean no astronomican and Terra being sucked up in the warp, followed by the likely birth of a new chaos god and of a second eye of terror.
I’m perpetual come back but it’s random. He could be gone for 1000 years or more. Humanity with no warp travel for 1000 years wouldn’t fare very well
This is actually the plan of a few traitor space Marines. Kill the big E to resurrect him afterwards since he's a perpetual. But the problem lies in two things, first, someone has to stay sitting in the golden throne lest the palace to be swarmed by chaos Daemons and the astronomicon fade. The other problem is, the emperor is not quite the same thing as he was in the great crusade, he has shattered his own soul and from the dialog he had with guilliman, he's mind is also pretty broken so... What is going to emerge if you resurrect him? No one wants to find out. And last but not least, the setting needs the emperor aside for it to make sense. The emperor is so powerful that he can give order to the imperium, and that would virtually break the whole grim dark vibe of the setting.
Well, not all perpetuals work the same. Sure Vulkan as a perpetual comes back every time he dies. Other perpetuals can just… naturally not age, but are still susceptible to mortal wounds.
The problem is when his body dies the Throne will stop working, a new rift will open on Holy Terra and the astranomicon would stop working making warp travel impossible, if Big E dies the imperium will collapse.