So, Robin Graves' comment in the Legions thread;

" Well not quite (in my opinion) Angron is noble to in his broken way. He was all ready to die along with his army of freed slaves and then the emperor just whisks him away leaving his allies to die! (That still baffles me! He's the friggin emperor! he easily could have defeated the slavers , probably on his own, definatly together with Angron, and very definatly with the spaceship he had in orbit over the planet! Sometimes i wonder if the emperor isn't really a blonde under a black wig.) "

...Got me thinking. What are the things that you think that the Emperor did wrong, or could have done a lot better?

There's the glaringly obvious ones of:

- Not telling his sons about Chaos.

- Not telling his sons why he withdrew from the crusade.

- And Robin Graves' aformentioned, not helping Angron out.

So what other examples do you think there are, and what do you think His reasons were?

Blowing up Magnus's homeworld because Magnus picked a bad way to try and save the Imperium probably didn't do him any favors.

EEEEEVERYTHIIIIING!!!

Ok seriously now:

The whole word bearers worshiping him thing. Let's count the ways:

1 having the Ultras (evacuate and) destroy their holiest city, that they built just for him. Should have kept them out.

2 sending down malcador instead of comming himself. When Lorgar ***** slaps the sigilite i was going "yes!"

3 mind ****** an entire legion into kneeling down. Seriously? wtf emperor?

Not telling his sons about chaos i can sort of understand, After all you can't start worshipping something if you don't know it exsists. (But it would have helped)

That crusade thing is another one of his blonde moments. Guys, i'm going home to build an oframp to some xenos intergalactic/halfreal superhighway. There done. "Scars" explains why making one of the primarchs warmaster was a bad thing. Horus was 1st amongst equals creating resentment but the emperor has no equal so his sons folowed him willingly.

Also as the HH novels go on, you see a shift in the depiction of the emperor, "Scars" flat out calls him a tyrant.

Creating the legions to start with. He'd been better off putting the primarchs in their own special cruiser and have them sack the hard targets.

Not dying properly? I mean sheesh, why is he still lingering as a husk of skin and bone...let him die and then we can see if that whole resurrection theory has any promise. Or it'll bring the Imperium crashing down and have it splitting up but either way it'll be fun to watch!

Believing that he could usher in an age of enlightenment by crushing any alternative belief system under his heel.

I suppose other than that you could also say he should've left clearer instructions in case of his death, or even appointed an obvious successor to the rank of Emperor, rather than causing this insane stagnation where people are just trying to "interpret his divine will". However, as I'm sure he intended to live forever, I can forgive him for not having a Plan B.

Hmm, Emperors Last Will and testament...could make for an intriguing plot line for DH2, find a rumour of his lost documents in Terran bureaucracy:

"I God Emperor of Mankind being of exceptionally strong and sound mind (and mostly) in body do hereby bequeath control of the Imperium to Gordian the Warrior, the collection of silver and gold cutlery to Sigmund and the pet cat to Steve who lives in the palace directly opposite."

Hmm, Emperors Last Will and testament...could make for an intriguing plot line for DH2, find a rumour of his lost documents in Terran bureaucracy:

"I God Emperor of Mankind being of exceptionally strong and sound mind (and mostly) in body do hereby bequeath control of the Imperium to Gordian the Warrior, the collection of silver and gold cutlery to Sigmund and the pet cat to Steve who lives in the palace directly opposite."

Your "emperors last will and testament" is clearly false! In life The Emperor was very anti religion and did not refer to himself as "the god emperor" No I have the one and true last will and testament of The Emperor.

And it reads thus:

I, being the Emperor of mankind and uniter of Terra, being of sound mind and not at all corupted by chaos, do hereby bequeath my possessions to the following persons:

To my beloved son Horus: The imperium and all it's fleets and armies nothing.

To my son Leman Russ: My collection of ancient duitchgermanic beer steins.

Txxxxsonxxxsigmarxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To my dear departed son Ferrus Manus: Nothing

To my effeminate preening peacock of a son Fulgrim: nothing

To my missing son Vulkan: That ancient hammer with the twin tailed comet engraved on it ,that you always wanted.

To my son Rogal Dorn: The Outer palace, provided he puts it back in pristine condition!

To my son Rowboat Girlyman Roboute Guilliman: The Imperium, since he might well conquer it if i don't give it to him.

To my disobediant son Magnus the Red: The imperial domains in the webway nothing

To my angelic son Sanguinius: You already have your old man's good looks, what more could you need?

To my son Lion El johnson: My collection of swords and armor.

To my son, siegeboy Perturabo: the inner palace nothing.

To my creepy son Mortarion: A special mulilung implant so you won't need that rebreather nothing.

To my whining son Lorgar: A letter of appology nothing.

To my prodigal son Jagathai: My fastest battlebarge.

To my very creepy and emo son Conrad Curze: Some happy pills and i'll change his name to Nighthaunter like he wanted me to from day one . nothing.

To my angry son Angron: A hug and the deactivation device for the butchers nails . nothing.

To my missing son Corax: my favorite landspeeder. the one with the cloaking device.

xxmy sxxxxyourxxxxxxxxxnamexxxxxxxxxxxxherexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To my son s Alpharius and Omegon: Seriously i have no idea what you guys want . nothing

[...] rumour of his lost documents in Terran bureaucracy [...]

This is an amazing plot idea. And an excellent joke on the reliability of Imperial bureaucracy. I can almost picture it lying around somewhere in those vast underground multistorey hallways, in the lowest drawer of some ancient, unimportant clerk's dusty desk, right below and covered by blue-coloured 3T second class form for industrial cheese regulations.

To my son s Alpharius and Omegon: Seriously i have no idea what you guys want.

Just as planned. . .

[...] rumour of his lost documents in Terran bureaucracy [...]

This is an amazing plot idea. And an excellent joke on the reliability of Imperial bureaucracy. I can almost picture it lying around somewhere in those vast underground multistorey hallways, in the lowest drawer of some ancient, unimportant clerk's dusty desk, right below and covered by blue-coloured 3T second class form for industrial cheese regulations.

That could actually work though for a game. Because for a start, Terran classes and nobility getting in the way, getting through about 30 military checks per 5m of travel...it would be one of the few games that it takes an entire session to just get from one noble palace to another! The chances of heresy and corruption would be low due to its location but instead you encounter deception, lies and political and social wrangling on an impossible level. Ok I need to start writing now...

The more important question though, what would you do if you actually found it? Surely, the impact such a document could hold, how it could shake the very foundations of the Imperium if it contained anything even remotely controversial or risky. Would you read it or would you destroy it lest the truth ever come out?

Derailment aside, he still should have died properly or at least arranged a better and more easily available manual for technology as opposed to missing STCs. Basically after M23 and most of the expansion it seemed like we relied on those existing ones. So why did he not, as a backup plan, have something like this:

All credit provided to the For Dummies cover generator and original image located here . Typo's are probably deliberate.

[...] rumour of his lost documents in Terran bureaucracy [...]

This is an amazing plot idea. And an excellent joke on the reliability of Imperial bureaucracy. I can almost picture it lying around somewhere in those vast underground multistorey hallways, in the lowest drawer of some ancient, unimportant clerk's dusty desk, right below and covered by blue-coloured 3T second class form for industrial cheese regulations.

There is one novel that starts with inquisitorial agents, deleting data: with A FLAMETHROWER in an ARCHIVE!

I wonder what the odds are of the big E's personal document being long gone. Or they are in his safethy deposit box in some remote part of the palace that hasn't seen anybody since the age of apostrophe (or however that was spelled)

That pic made me think of an episode of Red Dwarf: The one where Lister get's mail because after three million years (and the fact that the Red Dwarf is now flying back to earth) the unmanned postal service spaceship has finally cought up.

Derailment aside, he still should have died properly or at least arranged a better and more easily available manual for technology as opposed to missing STCs. Basically after M23 and most of the expansion it seemed like we relied on those existing ones. So why did he not, as a backup plan, have something like this:

All credit provided to the For Dummies cover generator and original image located here . Typo's are probably deliberate.

Awesome! Why can i like this only once?

Now make a "Conquering the Cadian Gate - for dummies" for Abbadon.

There is one novel that starts with inquisitorial agents, deleting data: with A FLAMETHROWER in an ARCHIVE!

Don't worry, that's all just to protect the spiritual sanctity of the Imperial citizen.

But you know, the topic does remind me of GW's descriptions of the forbidden archives in th Vault of Origins below the Ecclesiarchal Palace. Or the 6E rulebook remark about legions of scribes being busy with rewriting entire sections of history. I'm sure that in pure 40k style they have such an insane backlog that there's already a second groups of scribes that has started rewriting and censoring the records anew before the first group is even finished. All the while a group of influential politicians or Inquisitors is debating yet another revision...

Sribe: "But you can't burn this text! i haven't censored every word in it yet!"

This being the 40k universe i would'nt be suprised if they write with ink mixed with the ashes of the burned original documents.

Ah yes Farenheit 451: Using the term "fireman" in new and terrible ways.

Oh no. No! NO!

This is blasphemy! Stop it! Heretics! Traitors!

Regarding Lorgar, while the Emperor could have handled that situation better, there was probably nothing he could have done with Lorgar short of killing him.

Consider that after the Emperor breaks his spirit, he runs off to the Eye of Terror, meets Chaos, and eventually leans allll about it, including how horrible it is.

And his ultimate conclusion is?: "Well, they're Gods, so we should worship them no matter what. Because."

Sigh, I've only read a few books from the Horus Heresy series, and none of them have anything like a real conversation with the Emperor. I've often wondered what his thought process is like, to make him come to the conclusions he did. Even more so, I wonder if he realized, at the end, that he Had made mistakes. Was he so beyond humanity that he couldn't connect with them? Closer to an artificial intelligence programmed to aid Humanity? Or does he feel, does he regret? Does he realize he failed them, and curses himself for his blindness? Malcador said once that he had his reasons, but for other, unknown reasons, couldn't explain them at the time. Weak sauce, man, weak sauce.

The Angron thing stands out most of all to me, and sometimes I feel like GW just made His Royal Not-Godliness act that way so they could have an excuse for Angron being evil. Lorgar less so, but Mortarion and Curze also spoke to me. The Emperor forced Mortarion into a contest like he did with Russ and Vulkan, but didn't understand how bitter Mortarion was. And Curze, Emp's should have known Curze wasn't fit for command. The Big E is the greatest psyker Ever, couldn't he feel how sick his son was?

I keep thinking of what Roboute Guilliman said that one time (paraphrasing): "The Emperor is a peerless statesman, a masterful tactician, a brilliant scientist, and the most powerful psychic in history. But he was a terrible father..."

Come to think of it, how many Sons stayed loyal to the Emperor because they actually loved him? As opposed to staying loyal because those are the values they were raised believing in?

From what i've read in "Scars" Jagathai Khan really, really, REALLY disliked the Emperor. If Angron was most pissed with his dear ol' da', then the Khan is at number 2.

Asuming having his sons scattered across the galaxy wasn't part of his plan (And Magnus hints that it was! ) I wonder what it would have been like if the 20 primarchs* were allowed to grow up together.**

* Since the primarchs were named by their adoptive fathers on difrent worlds, i wonder what the Emperor was gonna call them originally. Did he even name them? Did he sit up all night with the Sigilite looking trough a book of babynames or was he a callous bastard that was content just numbering them?

** que theme music "Primarch babies"

Emperor: " Russ quit biting El johnson! Magnus stop that! Lorgar, are you building a temple out of blocks again? Fulgrim, don't pull on Sanguinus' feathers! Magnus, I told you to stop that! Has anybody seen Corax? Angron, don't throw your toys at me! Perturabo, don't kick over Dorn's building blocks! Conrad don't look at me like that! Alpharius? why are you wearing Roboute's clothes? Put those back! Jagathai get back here! Oh great, and now Mortarion is sick! ... MALCADOR! wanna give me a hand with these **** kids!?"

It would appear that most of the Emperors problems could have been solved with better communication, and not being a **** and keeping secrets from those he supposedly trusted.

If he'd told his sons about Chaos and given them at least some small bit of knowledge about it, then who knows how things may have turned out? Though i'm pretty sure Curze would have still gone bad.

As for my theories as to why the Emperor did things the way he did, here goes:

Essentially his plan is to ascend to godhood. Through wiping out all other belief systems, all that was left was the Emperor, and he knew that it was inevatable that he would become worshiped as a divine being.

Mankind is not enlightened enough to not believe in a supreme being. Individuals maybe, but most people are not. (A person is smart. People are stupid.) With the removal of all other belief systems and a few generations of people not even knowing about alternate belief systems, the stage was set for the creation of Emperor worship. There would be no other belief systems to get in its way.

Through prayers to the Emperor, he would gain power through the warp. This was done before only slightly differently with Slaneesh. And with the Emperor researching Webway travel instead of Warp travel, the potential corrupting influence of Chaos would be greatly lessened.

It could be argued that he knew that Horus would betray him and that he set in motion plans to make sure he would come out on top eventually. If the Cabal could see the potential outcomes in the future, surely the Emperor, the most powerful human psyker to have ever lived could have a go at predicting the future.

And now with ten thousand years of trillions of people praying to him, when he does die, rather than being reborn as a perpetual, there's a very good chance that he'll truly become a being of the warp and essentially ascend to godhood.

Unfortunately most of the human race will be killed by Chaos, but at least the Emperor gets what he wants.

That's just a theory i've been thinking about for a while now. I've never really seen the Emperor as Space-Jesus. He may look like him, but his actions and plans, (ie: The Great Crusade,) dont really fit with the nice guy model. I've always thought that the Emperor is pretty much just in it for himself. He's just useing the human race to get what he wants.

With the removal of all other belief systems and a few generations of people not even knowing about alternate belief systems, the stage was set for the creation of Emperor worship. There would be no other belief systems to get in its way.

You mean except for the Cult Mechanicus?

I'm sorry for this nitpick of your theory - I just have to bring this up anytime the Horus Heresy novels and the Emperor's supposedly anti-religious stance comes up ... it feels like one of those huge plot holes.

I've never really seen the Emperor as Space-Jesus. He may look like him, but his actions and plans, (ie: The Great Crusade,) dont really fit with the nice guy model.

An interesting thing in 40k is how the setting never (or rarely) copies something from the real world or other franchises 100%, but instead gives it a unique spin. Undoubtedly, there are a lot of parallels between the Emperor in his role as humanity's saviour, especially when the Ecclesiarchy preaches that he "died for your sins", but at the same time there are notable differences as you said. Then again, who knows for sure what actually happened - either in 40k, or in the real world.

That being said, you can absolutely have a harsh regime without it being all about the leader/s egoism.

"Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions."

-- T. S. Eliot

Even though it isn't confirmed in the Heresy Books, I do think there's quite a bit of truth in the biggest mistake he made was making a deal with the Chaos powers and then trying to renege on it by snuffing out their powerbase through his "Crusade" of Enlightenment. I'd consider that a big mistake.

Did he actually engage with them or was that just Tzeentch propaganda to make converts.....

It gets hinted at in two novels, but the sources are unreliable at best.

Realm of chaos: lost and the damned: hints that the Emperor's main goal was/is stop chaos.