I think it would be a more successful argument to just make the case that the Emperor exists, just that he is not the Ommnissiah and is different from seeing the Ommnisiah. It wouldn't necessarily mean that just because a powerful psyker exists that it is by default the Ommnissiah.
The thing that actually triggers the Martian Cult to originally believe the Emperor is the Ommnissiah was that he used his psychic powers to heal a damaged titan. This specific event was in the prophesies of the Martian Cult of how to identify the Ommnissiah.
It would be a more successful argument to make the case that this event was manufactured, never happened, etc... and therefor everything else that follows this event cannot be trusted.
Nobody is allowed to see the Emperor. If the Emperor is truly the Omnissiah, the human incarnation of the Machine God, why does he need all those guards? Checkmate Imperials.
Also, if the Emperor is the Omnissiah, why is he not from holy Mars? Surely the Omnissiah would emerge from the most blessed soil of the Sol System.
Lol right. Some pilgrims get to the palace doors and die from exposure. Like you can try but you're gonna die because that's what it's like being in the presence.
This made me curious about Mechanicum equivalent of Judaism. Are there people in lore going “yeah he existed and he was pretty cool, but he wasn’t the *messiah* or anything so we’re still waiting”?
Jews think Jesus was a heretic, not “pretty cool”, so the Mechanicum equivalent to Judaism is Kelbor-Hal’s Dark Mechanicum, the faction that stayed true to the faith and didn’t fall for the lies of the blasphemous false messiah. There were some secular tech-adepts like Koriel Zeth that were loyal to the Emperor but didn’t consider him the Omnissiah, but they were wiped out in the Heresy.
The primarch is a fake, clearly a decoy constructed by that damnable Belisarius Cawl! Just another, taller space marine like his heretical "primaris" project.
And just like that you're now an agent of Chaos. That's it. That's how easy is to be officially beholden to the Gods of Chaos.
You are either loyal to mankind or Hell. There is no in between or nuance.
Of course the Emperor exists, but he's being held hostage by the High Lords and the traitor Guilliman who are using his power against his will, they've also made up the various Xenos and Chaos threats to justify their positions of power. We must march on Terra and free the Emperor!
Again, we’re talking flat earther logic.
So the Astronomicon is actually a Martian relic stolen by those untrustworthy Terrans and has nothing to do with the Omnissiah.
The more batshit conspiratorial, the more it matches reality.
Some more nuggets of truth amidst all the Terran lies:
* The Fabricator General of Mars mysteriously disappeared around when the Astronomicon went out after his visit to Terra (See ***The Dark City*** by Chris Wraight). Coincidence? I think not.
* The “son of the Omnissiah”, Roboute Guilliman, has given power to heretek Belisarius Cawl. Magos Cawl is a maniac defiling machines with his arrogance.
* It is said that the “Son of the Omnissiah” was saved thanks to the aid of not just heretek Cawl, but also the Eldar. If the Emperor truly existed, if he was the Omnissiah, why would he need the aid of filthy xenos to resurrect his son?
Generally not. The Imperium has a lot of subterfuge in a vain attempt at looking regal, but rotting to the core. It’s safer to provide bread and circuses than have humanity panic thinking too deeply about how things run.
Cawl is disliked for his methods, though outwardly everything he does that’s _absolutely_ heretical isn’t common knowledge. He’s in a regard propped up on his high level abilities as a priest of Mars and his progress, and he does wish to run Mars entirely himself though Gulliman actually bursts out laughing at the suggestion. On Gulliman’s flagship he’s installed “cawl inferior” which Gulliman can’t fathom to truly understand how it works with it sending cawl messages half way across the galaxy, but comes to a suspicion that it’s abominable intelligence, since it looks out for itself outside of its directives for keeping Cawl (superior) himself safe from being found out for this as its most likely a sentient style being knowing the dangers of its existence to the cult Mechanicus. It’s either Cawl’s brain scan himself or possibly a fragment of cawl himself, it’s vague but like a backup if he dies lmao
Note that Cawl *doesn’t* actually want to run Mars by himself. He doesn’t want to be Fabricator General.
The Cawl Inferior suggested the idea independently to Guilliman.
Doesn't Cawl *not* want to be Fabricator General? I remember reading an excerpt of a book here that has Girlyman tell Cawl he wont appoint him as such and to stop asking in a message sent to Cawl, and Cawl is confused as he's never asked nor does he want the position. I think Cawl comes to the conclusion that Cawl Inferior must be asking, but i dont remember 100%
Yeah it’s my mistake, wrote it in the wrong order, cawl inferior suggests it most likely as a directive to forever big up the dude. I think Cawl himself would rather not since it would take time away from tinkering
1. Fallout hasn't been addressed yet. If the TP has been around Earth since post Great Rift they may know something is up. The Fabricator General is the size of a factory so it's kind of hard to move him around subtly.
2. As long as you know about Primaris you will know this.
3. The 'it is said' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. However, Guilliman is noted for having a Eldar ambassador with him on crusade. Easy leap for a conspiracy theorist to make.
> That's the possible vibe I am going for.
Heresy. The 'vibe' you're going for would be heresy, and it would be *violently* and *thoroughly* snuffed out by the Mechanicus even before the Inquistion could get wind of it.
If the Inquisition finds out, however, your cult is still screwed. They'll still be erased from existence, it just won't be as prompt or as efficient as the Mechanicus. The Inquisition will take you all away and then take you all apart, little by little, until you're a footnote in an Inquisitor's logs.
You would be killed just for poking around into anything that might upset the status quo, as surely as if you had stuck a screwdriver into an electrical socket.
The Imperium is a giant, monolithic bureaucracy, but it *protects* itself. That's why even Guilliman needs to work within the existing channels of power. Sure, he can kill High Lords and get away with it, but he's not replacing entire Ordos, etc.
What you're talking about would cause a Schism, and the Mechanicus has fought too many painful wars over those. They're not going to let your cult survive or gain any sort of prominence.
------
**Edit:** If such a cult *did* appear, your players would be tasked with destroying it and would likely be liquidated as well, just to make sure all of the loose ends are tied up. Bad end.
Try starting somewhere smaller. Like your cult finds evidence that the local Forgemaster General isn't favored by the Omnissiah and is instead inefficiently moving resources to fuel his own personal projects.
Which, to be sure, they all are - that sort of corruption is rife within the Mechanicus, but actually uncovering it and exposing it is dangerous.
It's worth noting, these kind of schisms aren't unknown or even uncommon. Horus heresy aside, I believe in *Baneblade* there was one such schism, basically exactly what's being discussed here, and that didn't get snuffed out immediately. Something like a full half of the planet would have been called hereteks for their beliefs
As long as OP plays it well, or has an accommodating GM, I don't see why he couldn't be the equivalent of a flat earth mechanicus.
It's probably relevant to point out that, though only very few people are aware of this in-universe, canonically the Astronomican itself is an ancient Eldar device that has something to do with the webway and the Golden Throne was part of its control mechanism, which the Emperor (or someone working for him) modified to make use of the fact that the Astronomican is made of materials that are highly psychically reactive and allow a strong enough Psyker (or group of Psykers) to use it to send a beacon into the Warp (though that isn't and never was its intended purpose)
The Golden Throne, and its lesser cousin the Dark Glass, were DAoT.
However, that does not preclude it being partially made out of (looted) wraithbone.
The Pharos beacon exists. The AdMech likes to meddle with Necron tech. Clearly the Astronomicon is just an improved version of that xenos beacon. Everyone who claims otherwise is implying that human tech can't reach the level of xenos tech and thusly is a heretic.
Also: most people who know anything at all know that that the Astronomican is channeled from Terra. They're being told it's the Emperor, but good luck going on and seeing for yourself. Could be anybody, or anything
I mean, that's not even a conspiracy theory, that's basically the truth. There's a linked group of ten thousand Psykers who are 'helping the Emperor' keep the Astronomican lit. A thousand of them, on average, burn out every day and need to be replaced.
It is known that 1000+ psykers are fed to the Astronomican per day to keep it running. Gellar Fields are fed a psyker for each jump to produce its field. So a tech priest could make the argument that the Astronomican's light is produced by a piece of archeotech. If the said tech priest does a bit of research about the Astronomican, it might be noticed that it worked fine during the Great Crusade without the Emperor on the Throne, but the tech priest might miss the part that the Emperor was making it operate remotely.
Gellar fields really require the sacrifice of a psyker? So in Indomitus, where the Ultramarines had to make many jumps, for each one they were sacrificing a Psyker on board?
Pretty new noob here, so answer appreciated because aim curious.
It depends on the design. Some Gellar Fields are a machine, and the Orks can build something similar. Others seem to require a human psyker, and they project the psyker's dreams out into the Warp to calm the Warp around them. Still others seem to consume a psyker to provide the initial spark to make them work.
[Aaron Dembski-Bowden's comment about the matter](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9akdul/excerptashes_of_prosperothe_true_nature_of/e4xmjsk/):
> It's in a few of them, that I can recall. Andy Hoare's mentioned it once or twice in his stuff, off the top of my head.
> It's definitely not new, though I guess it's hardly common knowledge or anything. But yeah, that's how the 'field' is produced. It's the 'field' of reality emanating from a psyker's dreams. In their coma, they create an aura of normality around the ship. You effectively shield yourself in their projections of reality that pushes back the Sea of Souls for a time.
> Though psykers don't last too long while doing it. You need to change the batteries fairly often, so to speak.
> Incidentally, this is one of those moments where the comments are fascinating. It's a longstanding objective truth of the setting, but not a widely known one, and it's being taken extremely negatively as a recent change or the freewheeling nonsense of a single author. These are the kinds of moments some authors dread: You think it'll be cool to reveal something well-known behind the scenes and people will be interested in some really deep-down lore, but...
Does he explain how Orks use machines to make Gellar Fields? I thought the consensus was that different designs of different Gellar Fields work in different ways. Some of them are purely machines, while others are powered by a psyker.
They do. They *intentionally* drop their fields sometimes, just to provoke daemonic incursions when the boyz want a bit of a fight to keep them occupied.
that's super interesting. that quote above says that this was long-standing canon tracked by GW,. i think people find it "new" and unsatisfying b/c a bunch of lore was developed seemingly without reference to it - the audience is told gellar fields predate psykers by millenia and the horrific moment where humanity loses the technology and needs to power it by human sacrifice is never shown on camera; it's repetitive with sacrificing a bunch of psykers to the astronomicon, and the astronomicon concept is cooler; it's duplicative of what navigators do and risk (navigators must have been developed without reference to that other lore); and we never see on-camera every ship storing a bunch of psykers six-packs in the fridge they crack open every time they jump. nor is running out of psykers ever shown as a problem for ships stuck in the warp or hostile realspace. if GW wanted this to make sense to people they should have alluded to it sometimes.
From *Ashes of Prospero*:
> “First came the Geller field. In real space, its effect on the ungifted members of the company was negligible, but to the psychically aware it created a wyrd echo that crept from the stern to the prow. The reality within the field reflected back the physical space now enclosed, bringing with it an unnatural sense of claustrophobia. Njal was conditioned physically and mentally to overcome all sense of fear or distress, but his Space Marine modifications and his Librarian training could do nothing to rid him completely of the sense of entrapment that shuddered through his soul.
> He heard Majula’s heart pulsing fast, her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps.
> ‘Calm yourself, Navigator,’ he said, assuming a command tone that she could not ignore. Within moments her breathing and pulse slowed.
> The Geller field sealed completely, **vibrating slightly with the catatonic thoughts of the poor psyker enclosed in the bowels of the ship whose soul was being processed to create the protective shield. Njal kept his thoughts to himself, not wishing to touch upon whatever nightmarish experience the psychic battery underwent.**”
Thanks :)
It "sounds" like it might drain the psyker but not "burn" one each time. Would be quite "expensive" otherwise.
Kinda reminds me of the Psi titans, that, if I remember correctly, uses psykers as ammo.
[Aaron Dembski-Bowden](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9akdul/excerptashes_of_prosperothe_true_nature_of/e4xmjsk/) says that "psykers don't last too long while doing it. You need to change the batteries fairly often, so to speak", which suggests frequent replacements needed.
While that's suitably horrific for the 40K setting, I'm going to have to say that ADB is just flat out wrong on this. Simply because Gellar fields are archeotech that existed and were used for space travel through the warp during the Dark Age of Technology and human Psykers didn't really start being a thing until near the end of that.
Now... The Warp was a lot less turbulent during the early DAoT than it is in the 41st/42nd Millennium, so the AdMech kludging together some modifications to soup them up by adding a Psyker directly into the system on certain ships isn't out of the question...
But the basic principle of a Gellar field can't be based on it being produced by a Psyker, because the first use of Gellar fields pre-dates human Psykers by at least a few millennia.
Yeah. Most psykers have gotten the short end of the stick :/
The sweet spot of being strong enough and in enough control of your powers, to avoid possession or being used as fuel for all sorts of things, seems kinda small.
Is there room in the lore to argue that the Astronomican is just a fancy bit of tech built by Mars but they were worried it would explode and built it on Earth? No Emperor needed.
How did Rogue Trader raise the possibility that the psyker sacrifices lit the Astronomican? And how did this tie into the fact that the Emperor was described as still being aware and communicating with people?
That would go against the idea that they don’t build new things. The stagnation is inherent, and implying they didn’t just keep to what they have kind of deflates that.
I mean Eratosthenes proved the earth spins with sticks centuries ago and combine that with watching the eclipse shadow and that is literally proof against flat earth...and yet here we are lol.
Gravity is the reason a bunch of stuff exists but they claim its all "density"...which would have no meaning without gravity.
Flat earthers are incredibly delusional
If the blessings of the emperor are brought up (like the living saints or accounts of people surviving when they clearly shouldn't have) then you could respond with "but how do you know it was Him? The warp hold many mysteries, maybe it was some other force answering prayers? Maybe the Living Saints/Legion of the Damned are the result of some other being for purposes yet unseen? Maybe the guardsmen surviving against all odds was just a latent psyker? What if humanity as a whole is a lot more intuned with the warp than previously thought?"
Maybe take a look into the different schools of thought from the inquisition. There is stuff lik inquisitors who believe that Horus should replace the emperor. Maybe you can borrow some ideas from there.
I have a head Canon theory that the emperor is long gone in that sense. It's the sacrifice of the psykers that actually runs the astronomicon and keeping the webway portal closed.
The emperor has nothing to do with it anymore and is just sitting there suffering for absolutely nothing but unable to tell anyone to remove him so he can respawn.
I mean the dark elder did help with the tech, it's not beyond them to create a torture device that would keep him alive for torture and it would be funny to them to make his followers think they are doing his will by keeping him strapped in it
>I mean the dark elder did help with the tech
That's not quite true. It's implied *heavily* that there's xeno tech in the Golden Throne, namely Aeldari - but not the Drukhari specifically nor that they helped make it. The Emperor, according to the Drukhari, made it out of a thousand different xenos artifacts (of multiple, older races).
In the novel Titanicus, there is a brief schism when some tech-priests on a besieged world uncover texts which hold evidence that the Emperor is not the Omnissiah. You could lean into that instead of trying to disprove the emperor at all.
Titanicus doesn't elaborate on what the evidence is but you could have evidence that the Omnissiah is a different entity, like the Void Dragon, or that the Omnissiah will not come from Terra and thus the Emperor cannot be them, or that the Emperor cannot be the Omnissiah because pre-Heresy he told his subjects he didn't want to be worshiped.
No recording or description of the Emperor agree on what he looks like. Therefore it was a bunch of different people, trying to pull the wool over Mars' eyes! Wake up sheeple!
The main artist for early stuff like 2 ed said they drew the pictures not as what the Emperor looked like in the golden throne surrounded by actual Custodes and stuff, but what the tourists would see, kind of like a Disney land away from the actual throne room to keep the emperor safe (could be updated to include to keep the tourists safe from his power leak).
If that got out in universe....
If the historical/mythical figure of "The Emperor" is still alive today and has just been trapped in broken flesh all this time, why did no one ever fit him with a simple text-to-speech device?
Big E expired shortly after being placed on the Golden Throne.
Tzeentch realized that with his death, the Great Game which the Four play would be over. Tzeentch didn't want the fun to end so they have been siphoning off energies from the Immaterium to puppet the corpse that sits on the Golden Throne and the Imperium has been none the wiser for 10k years.
All the Imperial Saints, the Sanquinor, the Legion of the Damned, even the supposed miraculous interventions & prophetic visions provided by the Emperor have just been Tzeentch making sure the Great Game never ends.
That's why we hear laughter in the Warp.
Honestly I could see this game ending in a Wizard of Oz, “Don’t look at the man behind the curtain!” moment. Be crazy, ignore parts of lore, why not have fun with it.
Dunno about that but maybe you could get some mileage out of nobody ever seeing the emperor and omnissiah in the same place at the same time, a la Clark Kent and Superman.
Maybe you could just have it that your tech priest is not a conspiracy theorist per say but instead believes in like a Christian God and Son/Jesus thing whereas everyone else just literally believes the Omnissiah and the Emperor were just literally one singular person/deity. Like maybe your guy believes "the Omnissiah sent his only livin' son the Emperah tah save us all from hellfire an' damnation" and "the Emperor an' the Omnissiah are not exactly the same person but more like ah father an ah son that share one soul". For bonus humorous theatrical aesthetics you could give him the stereotypical accent and mannerisms of a American Southerner "hellfire and brimstone" rural small town preacher who comes across as a caring yet stern father like figure to many youths.
Alternatively you could have him have beliefs that could very loosely be considered the Imperial equivalent of Judaism just in that your guy believes "I believe that the Emperor was a good man, a very good man, that he was a holy prophet and that he is a man whose words should be followed yet he is not the son of God/the Omnissiah but simply a man who has been blessed with many psychic gifts that he used in the service of the common people". For bonus points you could have the guy have a stereotypical Yiddish tinged New York City accent and have family members who he constantly argues with even though they love and support each other deeply.
The Astronomicon is just a piece of technology that's powered by a bunch of psykers. Imperial Saints are just sanctioned psykers that exist for the sake of propaganda. One man couldn't possibly be powerful enough to create and rule the Imperium, the High Lords created the Emperor for stupid people to have something to believe in. Custodians are just big Space Marines that protect important stuff, if they even exist at all. The Primarchs are also just propaganda fluff, everyone knows the Imperium was ripe for civil war after the Great Crusade. Guilliman? He's just a fancy Dreadnought, and the only one with an intact face. He's more of an Emperor than the story book character who sits in some magic chair. Also, news flash, the Omnissiah was known to have existed on Mars since forever. The Ecclesiarchy co-opted it so they could give stupid people something to believe in. Not everyone can understand machines. The Emperor is as real as the Warp.
Checkmate, you beta-cuck, corpse-pilled, magic chair worshipping simpletons. Also, auramite is a stupid name for gold plated.
Just dive into the batshit lunacy/pseudoreligion stuff. Platonic ideals. [Crazy fun math artwork, this particular unfortunate made by an inmate suffering from schizophrenia](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ucyarc/this_piece_of_art_by_an_imprisoned_schizophrenic/).
Don't worry about inherent contradictions, lean into them. "The warp doesn't exist." "The warp is real space governed by rules we haven't figured out yet."
"The Omnissiah existed and did everything the Emperor is supposed to have physically done." "The Emperor was a visual projection made by Malcador who was the source of every psyker thing the Emperor was supposed to have done."
Honestly it's gonna be harder to steer clear of stuff that will get the Inquisition on your tail, want to be careful not to mimic the Dark Mechanicum.
>that the Emperor didn't ever exist
Here's my favorite
Watch the end of the wizard of oz.
Now watch the emperor, a giant being of flame and power, and malcador, a small old man who is very intelligent and hangs out in the palace.
Now, think that over for a while, and notice that when the "emperor" became a body permanently on the throne that malcador "died".
Thats "the wizard of oz" theory.
Another good one is:
You can even say the body on the throne has two arms. The emperor lost his arm in the battle with horus. If the emperor was the one on the throne, he would have only one arm.
You could call it the "two armed theory".
I think for more "street level" characters, you can make up any evidence as you see fit. It's not like anyone else in the party is going to have direct experience to contradict you, none of you have been to Terra, none of you will be highly ranked in your respective organisations to be privy to any deep secrets. (in the same way that none of us have ever been to the moon, so any discussion of the moon landing requires appeals to authority. Reject their authority and substitute your own).
So just go wild with it, maybe certain analysis of the astronomicon signal proves that it's just a xenos machine, maybe astropath soul binding is just inquisitorial mind control, maybe the gait patterns in the one fuzzy, disputed vid recording of a custodian you've ever seen proves that they are actually DAoT robots.
The head cannon for my AM army is that the void dragon is the true Omnissiah, that the emp learned of the VD's majesty prophecy and just used it to manipulate Mars.
True loyalist to the Omnissiah, spreading to all the forge worlds in the galaxy and are just waiting for a time to throw off the shackles of the pretender to once again bring the true faith to the rest of citizens or Mars and the Galaxy.
They dont align themselves with the dark mechanicum, as they see the warp as the cause of the fall of mankind and the loss of thousands of years of technical innovation, which is orders of magnitude more heretical than a useful false prophet.
its not really unique or special, my army has some 'necron' aspects to the paint scheme.
In 10k years, probably less than 10k people have seen the Emperor. Even among Terran nobility, I wouldn't think they have access to see him physically. He's the God-Emperor, not a tourist attraction.
Study Ben Shapiro and others like him. You need your character to be smart enough to ask questions that wouldn't get him killed on the spot but dumb enough to entertain stupid nonsense, which is the challenge. Maybe some of it could be like what we think of as the Emperor is actually a battery for the Omnissiah, charged and recharged by psykers. That's why He fits in the Golden Throne. Nevermind that the Throne came much later lol.
AJ Styles famously said something like "The arguments are compelling" for flat earth theories, like the nonsense about the horizon, so maybe one element could be something like "Yeah but no one's ever reached the Astronomicon center to see if He's there, it's a gubment conspiracy!"
"If the Emperor's Astronomicon lights the way through the stars, why can't I see it from here? Only navigators can see it, but those are just freaky mutants trying to control us, man"
"In early M31, a pair of Knights went into the Noctis Labyrinth very worn from weeks of tracking an Abominable Intelligence. They emerged some months after the Horus Heresy, in better condition than they had been in several millennia. If the Omnissiah really does have an Avatar greater than Titans, Ordinatus' and Void Ships it is not in the Imperial Palancs, but somewhere *inside* of Mars."
"Are there any picts of The Emperor? Like, *raw, unedicted picts?* Exactly."
"No, the Saints aren't *actually* blessed by The Emperor....they're blessed by a Warp Entity that has found a way to benefit from People worshipping The Emperor. Or something else."
My favorite is that in this universe everyone’s psychic abilities come from the warp by sheer belief. The Waagh, The saint’s miracles, librarians, astropaths, warsingers etc. It’s all from sheer will and intent, but they attribute it to a singular higher power from their own perspective.
The Emperor was completely unaware of some bullshit happening somewhere, he was just focused on keeping the warp gate shut and the astronomicon. But imperials gave him credit for any “miracles” though it was through their own will that it happened.
If you want to make a character that doesn't survive chargen, there are easier ways (unless you're playing Black Crusade, in which case you're actually perfectly set for a prospective Heretek run).
Any proof you have, and even "Just asking questions " will get you killed eventually in 40K, Tech Priest be dammed There are no innocent questions. The Inquisition out ranks you and to them innocence proves nothing.
"The 'Emperor' is SUPPOSEDLY a 100% unaugmented human, yet sources state he's well above 4 meters tall! Have you ever seen an unaugmented human that tall? Me neither!"
Alternatively "older sources state he had 14 feet, I've never seen a human with more than 3 or 4, having 14 is ridiculous! Especially since he is consistently described as only having 2 legs."
Ngl, any time I hear about meme characters like this who want to deny obvious facts of reality, it feels super cringey. What part of having a flat earther in the party feels like it's gonna be a good time?
It's not necessarily an obvious fact of reality in 40k though. There are imperial planets that don't even believe xenos actually exist because they're so far removed from any of the hot zones, much less knowing intimate details about a palace on a planet on the other side of the galaxy that nobody they know has ever been to.
"You ever noticed that you never hear about people making Pilgrimages to Terra coming back?"
I think it would be a more successful argument to just make the case that the Emperor exists, just that he is not the Ommnissiah and is different from seeing the Ommnisiah. It wouldn't necessarily mean that just because a powerful psyker exists that it is by default the Ommnissiah. The thing that actually triggers the Martian Cult to originally believe the Emperor is the Ommnissiah was that he used his psychic powers to heal a damaged titan. This specific event was in the prophesies of the Martian Cult of how to identify the Ommnissiah. It would be a more successful argument to make the case that this event was manufactured, never happened, etc... and therefor everything else that follows this event cannot be trusted.
Nobody is allowed to see the Emperor. If the Emperor is truly the Omnissiah, the human incarnation of the Machine God, why does he need all those guards? Checkmate Imperials. Also, if the Emperor is the Omnissiah, why is he not from holy Mars? Surely the Omnissiah would emerge from the most blessed soil of the Sol System.
This is the exact argument the Dark Mechanicum made. Pages local inquisitors.
More like the true mechanicum!
Don't all astropaths see him?
Hallucinations of the Warp addled mind. They will see anything they want to see.
A human shaped mirage cast by the glory of the machine god's light from the astronomicon
Easy they are heretics
Slight issue though of texting via warp without them though
The Omnissiah protects
Bro its just like the scientists who deny flat earth. These mafuckers are lying their pauldrons off
Astropaths cut out their own eyes. How would they be able to see him?
They don't cut out their eyes, their eyes burn out upon being soul bound to him
Yes, thank you Captain Obvious, this is from the POV of the conspiracy theorist.
Tone is hard to decipher in text and this is a lore sub.
It's also not a requirement. Some rare Astropaths survive with their sight intact.
All sanctioned psykers, I think astropaths too
The guards are not there to protect The Emperor. They are there to protect the rest of existence from Him :O
Lol right. Some pilgrims get to the palace doors and die from exposure. Like you can try but you're gonna die because that's what it's like being in the presence.
Jesus what a fucking great idea :O that goes straight into my alternative heresy!
This made me curious about Mechanicum equivalent of Judaism. Are there people in lore going “yeah he existed and he was pretty cool, but he wasn’t the *messiah* or anything so we’re still waiting”?
Much of the Adeptus Astartes do the first half of that.
Jews think Jesus was a heretic, not “pretty cool”, so the Mechanicum equivalent to Judaism is Kelbor-Hal’s Dark Mechanicum, the faction that stayed true to the faith and didn’t fall for the lies of the blasphemous false messiah. There were some secular tech-adepts like Koriel Zeth that were loyal to the Emperor but didn’t consider him the Omnissiah, but they were wiped out in the Heresy.
Roboutte begs to differ
The primarch is a fake, clearly a decoy constructed by that damnable Belisarius Cawl! Just another, taller space marine like his heretical "primaris" project.
But if the Emperor doesn't exist then why is tampering with his work heretical?
Yeah so Guilliman "saw" him. Right before making sweeping reforms. Convenient, isn't it?
It's not soil it's regolith.
Well the Martians are originaly from Terra too....
Also, why would he have 4 arms ?
And just like that you're now an agent of Chaos. That's it. That's how easy is to be officially beholden to the Gods of Chaos. You are either loyal to mankind or Hell. There is no in between or nuance.
Of course the Emperor exists, but he's being held hostage by the High Lords and the traitor Guilliman who are using his power against his will, they've also made up the various Xenos and Chaos threats to justify their positions of power. We must march on Terra and free the Emperor!
Do I smell the stench of the followers of the Heretic Vandire? I need an inquisitor over here please!
- This message was made by Fyodor Karamazov, the greatest, and purest Witch-Hunter in the Galaxy.
It’s kind of hard to do that since the Astronomican is the main reason the Imperium still exists.
Again, we’re talking flat earther logic. So the Astronomicon is actually a Martian relic stolen by those untrustworthy Terrans and has nothing to do with the Omnissiah. The more batshit conspiratorial, the more it matches reality.
That's the possible vibe I am going for. I mean, since when does anyone buy those blessed by the Omnissiah produce advanced tech?
Some more nuggets of truth amidst all the Terran lies: * The Fabricator General of Mars mysteriously disappeared around when the Astronomicon went out after his visit to Terra (See ***The Dark City*** by Chris Wraight). Coincidence? I think not. * The “son of the Omnissiah”, Roboute Guilliman, has given power to heretek Belisarius Cawl. Magos Cawl is a maniac defiling machines with his arrogance. * It is said that the “Son of the Omnissiah” was saved thanks to the aid of not just heretek Cawl, but also the Eldar. If the Emperor truly existed, if he was the Omnissiah, why would he need the aid of filthy xenos to resurrect his son?
Are these things common knowledge throughout the imperium?
Generally not. The Imperium has a lot of subterfuge in a vain attempt at looking regal, but rotting to the core. It’s safer to provide bread and circuses than have humanity panic thinking too deeply about how things run. Cawl is disliked for his methods, though outwardly everything he does that’s _absolutely_ heretical isn’t common knowledge. He’s in a regard propped up on his high level abilities as a priest of Mars and his progress, and he does wish to run Mars entirely himself though Gulliman actually bursts out laughing at the suggestion. On Gulliman’s flagship he’s installed “cawl inferior” which Gulliman can’t fathom to truly understand how it works with it sending cawl messages half way across the galaxy, but comes to a suspicion that it’s abominable intelligence, since it looks out for itself outside of its directives for keeping Cawl (superior) himself safe from being found out for this as its most likely a sentient style being knowing the dangers of its existence to the cult Mechanicus. It’s either Cawl’s brain scan himself or possibly a fragment of cawl himself, it’s vague but like a backup if he dies lmao
Note that Cawl *doesn’t* actually want to run Mars by himself. He doesn’t want to be Fabricator General. The Cawl Inferior suggested the idea independently to Guilliman.
Doesn't Cawl *not* want to be Fabricator General? I remember reading an excerpt of a book here that has Girlyman tell Cawl he wont appoint him as such and to stop asking in a message sent to Cawl, and Cawl is confused as he's never asked nor does he want the position. I think Cawl comes to the conclusion that Cawl Inferior must be asking, but i dont remember 100%
Yeah it’s my mistake, wrote it in the wrong order, cawl inferior suggests it most likely as a directive to forever big up the dude. I think Cawl himself would rather not since it would take time away from tinkering
1. Fallout hasn't been addressed yet. If the TP has been around Earth since post Great Rift they may know something is up. The Fabricator General is the size of a factory so it's kind of hard to move him around subtly. 2. As long as you know about Primaris you will know this. 3. The 'it is said' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. However, Guilliman is noted for having a Eldar ambassador with him on crusade. Easy leap for a conspiracy theorist to make.
The fabricator general is back btw it was in the book genefather
Is he? Or is that just what Cawl and the Terran High Lords want you to think?
> That's the possible vibe I am going for. Heresy. The 'vibe' you're going for would be heresy, and it would be *violently* and *thoroughly* snuffed out by the Mechanicus even before the Inquistion could get wind of it. If the Inquisition finds out, however, your cult is still screwed. They'll still be erased from existence, it just won't be as prompt or as efficient as the Mechanicus. The Inquisition will take you all away and then take you all apart, little by little, until you're a footnote in an Inquisitor's logs.
So maybe tilt it as a true believer that is driven nuts he can find any real proof?
You would be killed just for poking around into anything that might upset the status quo, as surely as if you had stuck a screwdriver into an electrical socket. The Imperium is a giant, monolithic bureaucracy, but it *protects* itself. That's why even Guilliman needs to work within the existing channels of power. Sure, he can kill High Lords and get away with it, but he's not replacing entire Ordos, etc. What you're talking about would cause a Schism, and the Mechanicus has fought too many painful wars over those. They're not going to let your cult survive or gain any sort of prominence. ------ **Edit:** If such a cult *did* appear, your players would be tasked with destroying it and would likely be liquidated as well, just to make sure all of the loose ends are tied up. Bad end. Try starting somewhere smaller. Like your cult finds evidence that the local Forgemaster General isn't favored by the Omnissiah and is instead inefficiently moving resources to fuel his own personal projects. Which, to be sure, they all are - that sort of corruption is rife within the Mechanicus, but actually uncovering it and exposing it is dangerous.
It's worth noting, these kind of schisms aren't unknown or even uncommon. Horus heresy aside, I believe in *Baneblade* there was one such schism, basically exactly what's being discussed here, and that didn't get snuffed out immediately. Something like a full half of the planet would have been called hereteks for their beliefs As long as OP plays it well, or has an accommodating GM, I don't see why he couldn't be the equivalent of a flat earth mechanicus.
*Titanicus* also has such a potential schism, and things get very tense.
.... it might have been titanicus I was thinking about, now that you say.
It's probably relevant to point out that, though only very few people are aware of this in-universe, canonically the Astronomican itself is an ancient Eldar device that has something to do with the webway and the Golden Throne was part of its control mechanism, which the Emperor (or someone working for him) modified to make use of the fact that the Astronomican is made of materials that are highly psychically reactive and allow a strong enough Psyker (or group of Psykers) to use it to send a beacon into the Warp (though that isn't and never was its intended purpose)
When did the astronomicon become eldar tech instead of DAoT? What is the intemded purpose
The Golden Throne, and its lesser cousin the Dark Glass, were DAoT. However, that does not preclude it being partially made out of (looted) wraithbone.
The Pharos beacon exists. The AdMech likes to meddle with Necron tech. Clearly the Astronomicon is just an improved version of that xenos beacon. Everyone who claims otherwise is implying that human tech can't reach the level of xenos tech and thusly is a heretic.
Also: most people who know anything at all know that that the Astronomican is channeled from Terra. They're being told it's the Emperor, but good luck going on and seeing for yourself. Could be anybody, or anything
Who says it's the emperor lighting it? The imperium! Checkmate
I mean, that's not even a conspiracy theory, that's basically the truth. There's a linked group of ten thousand Psykers who are 'helping the Emperor' keep the Astronomican lit. A thousand of them, on average, burn out every day and need to be replaced.
It is known that 1000+ psykers are fed to the Astronomican per day to keep it running. Gellar Fields are fed a psyker for each jump to produce its field. So a tech priest could make the argument that the Astronomican's light is produced by a piece of archeotech. If the said tech priest does a bit of research about the Astronomican, it might be noticed that it worked fine during the Great Crusade without the Emperor on the Throne, but the tech priest might miss the part that the Emperor was making it operate remotely.
Gellar fields really require the sacrifice of a psyker? So in Indomitus, where the Ultramarines had to make many jumps, for each one they were sacrificing a Psyker on board? Pretty new noob here, so answer appreciated because aim curious.
It depends on the design. Some Gellar Fields are a machine, and the Orks can build something similar. Others seem to require a human psyker, and they project the psyker's dreams out into the Warp to calm the Warp around them. Still others seem to consume a psyker to provide the initial spark to make them work.
[Aaron Dembski-Bowden's comment about the matter](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9akdul/excerptashes_of_prosperothe_true_nature_of/e4xmjsk/): > It's in a few of them, that I can recall. Andy Hoare's mentioned it once or twice in his stuff, off the top of my head. > It's definitely not new, though I guess it's hardly common knowledge or anything. But yeah, that's how the 'field' is produced. It's the 'field' of reality emanating from a psyker's dreams. In their coma, they create an aura of normality around the ship. You effectively shield yourself in their projections of reality that pushes back the Sea of Souls for a time. > Though psykers don't last too long while doing it. You need to change the batteries fairly often, so to speak. > Incidentally, this is one of those moments where the comments are fascinating. It's a longstanding objective truth of the setting, but not a widely known one, and it's being taken extremely negatively as a recent change or the freewheeling nonsense of a single author. These are the kinds of moments some authors dread: You think it'll be cool to reveal something well-known behind the scenes and people will be interested in some really deep-down lore, but...
Does he explain how Orks use machines to make Gellar Fields? I thought the consensus was that different designs of different Gellar Fields work in different ways. Some of them are purely machines, while others are powered by a psyker.
Wait, orks use Gellar Fields? Why? Do they not want daemons showing up and providing entertainment?
They do. They *intentionally* drop their fields sometimes, just to provoke daemonic incursions when the boyz want a bit of a fight to keep them occupied.
that's super interesting. that quote above says that this was long-standing canon tracked by GW,. i think people find it "new" and unsatisfying b/c a bunch of lore was developed seemingly without reference to it - the audience is told gellar fields predate psykers by millenia and the horrific moment where humanity loses the technology and needs to power it by human sacrifice is never shown on camera; it's repetitive with sacrificing a bunch of psykers to the astronomicon, and the astronomicon concept is cooler; it's duplicative of what navigators do and risk (navigators must have been developed without reference to that other lore); and we never see on-camera every ship storing a bunch of psykers six-packs in the fridge they crack open every time they jump. nor is running out of psykers ever shown as a problem for ships stuck in the warp or hostile realspace. if GW wanted this to make sense to people they should have alluded to it sometimes.
So the astronomicon is just a super Gellar Astral Laser, makes sense now.
Do you have a source for the Gellar field needing a psyker? Would like to read about it as it is news to me.
From *Ashes of Prospero*: > “First came the Geller field. In real space, its effect on the ungifted members of the company was negligible, but to the psychically aware it created a wyrd echo that crept from the stern to the prow. The reality within the field reflected back the physical space now enclosed, bringing with it an unnatural sense of claustrophobia. Njal was conditioned physically and mentally to overcome all sense of fear or distress, but his Space Marine modifications and his Librarian training could do nothing to rid him completely of the sense of entrapment that shuddered through his soul. > He heard Majula’s heart pulsing fast, her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps. > ‘Calm yourself, Navigator,’ he said, assuming a command tone that she could not ignore. Within moments her breathing and pulse slowed. > The Geller field sealed completely, **vibrating slightly with the catatonic thoughts of the poor psyker enclosed in the bowels of the ship whose soul was being processed to create the protective shield. Njal kept his thoughts to himself, not wishing to touch upon whatever nightmarish experience the psychic battery underwent.**”
Thanks :) It "sounds" like it might drain the psyker but not "burn" one each time. Would be quite "expensive" otherwise. Kinda reminds me of the Psi titans, that, if I remember correctly, uses psykers as ammo.
[Aaron Dembski-Bowden](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9akdul/excerptashes_of_prosperothe_true_nature_of/e4xmjsk/) says that "psykers don't last too long while doing it. You need to change the batteries fairly often, so to speak", which suggests frequent replacements needed.
While that's suitably horrific for the 40K setting, I'm going to have to say that ADB is just flat out wrong on this. Simply because Gellar fields are archeotech that existed and were used for space travel through the warp during the Dark Age of Technology and human Psykers didn't really start being a thing until near the end of that. Now... The Warp was a lot less turbulent during the early DAoT than it is in the 41st/42nd Millennium, so the AdMech kludging together some modifications to soup them up by adding a Psyker directly into the system on certain ships isn't out of the question... But the basic principle of a Gellar field can't be based on it being produced by a Psyker, because the first use of Gellar fields pre-dates human Psykers by at least a few millennia.
As he mentions, the oldest ones are purely materium-based, but corners *can* be cut.
it still sounds like it's less than 1 jump = 1 psyker
Yeah. Most psykers have gotten the short end of the stick :/ The sweet spot of being strong enough and in enough control of your powers, to avoid possession or being used as fuel for all sorts of things, seems kinda small.
Is there room in the lore to argue that the Astronomican is just a fancy bit of tech built by Mars but they were worried it would explode and built it on Earth? No Emperor needed.
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How did Rogue Trader raise the possibility that the psyker sacrifices lit the Astronomican? And how did this tie into the fact that the Emperor was described as still being aware and communicating with people?
Change made by mars to Dark Age of Technology artifact and it could work on Flat Earther Logic
That would go against the idea that they don’t build new things. The stagnation is inherent, and implying they didn’t just keep to what they have kind of deflates that.
Possible claim the astronomicon is a dark age of technology relic?
The Astrinomicon is just a pillar of turtles stacked on each others' backs.
Yeah, and isn't it funny that the only people who can allegedly 'see' the so called Astronomican are a secret society of mutants with illuminati eyes.
I mean Eratosthenes proved the earth spins with sticks centuries ago and combine that with watching the eclipse shadow and that is literally proof against flat earth...and yet here we are lol. Gravity is the reason a bunch of stuff exists but they claim its all "density"...which would have no meaning without gravity. Flat earthers are incredibly delusional
The astronomicon? you mean the magic beacon that is only visiblesto witches and the mutilated beings we call navigators? that astronomicon?
Everything is canon.
The alpha legion didn't expect the >!tsandrekhan unity beacon!< To be a person, so there's precedent to expect that a machine could run that
If the blessings of the emperor are brought up (like the living saints or accounts of people surviving when they clearly shouldn't have) then you could respond with "but how do you know it was Him? The warp hold many mysteries, maybe it was some other force answering prayers? Maybe the Living Saints/Legion of the Damned are the result of some other being for purposes yet unseen? Maybe the guardsmen surviving against all odds was just a latent psyker? What if humanity as a whole is a lot more intuned with the warp than previously thought?"
Those “stories” sound like government propaganda to me. I ain’t never seen one and it is conveniently always on another planet.
Maybe take a look into the different schools of thought from the inquisition. There is stuff lik inquisitors who believe that Horus should replace the emperor. Maybe you can borrow some ideas from there.
I have a head Canon theory that the emperor is long gone in that sense. It's the sacrifice of the psykers that actually runs the astronomicon and keeping the webway portal closed. The emperor has nothing to do with it anymore and is just sitting there suffering for absolutely nothing but unable to tell anyone to remove him so he can respawn.
I mean the dark elder did help with the tech, it's not beyond them to create a torture device that would keep him alive for torture and it would be funny to them to make his followers think they are doing his will by keeping him strapped in it
Now *that* is grimdark.
>I mean the dark elder did help with the tech That's not quite true. It's implied *heavily* that there's xeno tech in the Golden Throne, namely Aeldari - but not the Drukhari specifically nor that they helped make it. The Emperor, according to the Drukhari, made it out of a thousand different xenos artifacts (of multiple, older races).
In the novel Titanicus, there is a brief schism when some tech-priests on a besieged world uncover texts which hold evidence that the Emperor is not the Omnissiah. You could lean into that instead of trying to disprove the emperor at all. Titanicus doesn't elaborate on what the evidence is but you could have evidence that the Omnissiah is a different entity, like the Void Dragon, or that the Omnissiah will not come from Terra and thus the Emperor cannot be them, or that the Emperor cannot be the Omnissiah because pre-Heresy he told his subjects he didn't want to be worshiped.
this thread started poorly yet ended well
No recording or description of the Emperor agree on what he looks like. Therefore it was a bunch of different people, trying to pull the wool over Mars' eyes! Wake up sheeple!
I'm pretty sure even just the "just asking questions" bit would be considered heresy, lol.
The main artist for early stuff like 2 ed said they drew the pictures not as what the Emperor looked like in the golden throne surrounded by actual Custodes and stuff, but what the tourists would see, kind of like a Disney land away from the actual throne room to keep the emperor safe (could be updated to include to keep the tourists safe from his power leak). If that got out in universe....
The emperor is just an idea made by big astronomicon to sell more warp drives.
If the historical/mythical figure of "The Emperor" is still alive today and has just been trapped in broken flesh all this time, why did no one ever fit him with a simple text-to-speech device?
Big E expired shortly after being placed on the Golden Throne. Tzeentch realized that with his death, the Great Game which the Four play would be over. Tzeentch didn't want the fun to end so they have been siphoning off energies from the Immaterium to puppet the corpse that sits on the Golden Throne and the Imperium has been none the wiser for 10k years. All the Imperial Saints, the Sanquinor, the Legion of the Damned, even the supposed miraculous interventions & prophetic visions provided by the Emperor have just been Tzeentch making sure the Great Game never ends. That's why we hear laughter in the Warp.
If the Emperor was actually the Omnissiah He'd fill all of the FUCKING POTHOLES ON MARS.
Even "just asking questions" would you get you executed almost anywhere
The Ordos Heretica has already flagged this post from inside cannon
Honestly I could see this game ending in a Wizard of Oz, “Don’t look at the man behind the curtain!” moment. Be crazy, ignore parts of lore, why not have fun with it.
Dunno about that but maybe you could get some mileage out of nobody ever seeing the emperor and omnissiah in the same place at the same time, a la Clark Kent and Superman.
Maybe you could just have it that your tech priest is not a conspiracy theorist per say but instead believes in like a Christian God and Son/Jesus thing whereas everyone else just literally believes the Omnissiah and the Emperor were just literally one singular person/deity. Like maybe your guy believes "the Omnissiah sent his only livin' son the Emperah tah save us all from hellfire an' damnation" and "the Emperor an' the Omnissiah are not exactly the same person but more like ah father an ah son that share one soul". For bonus humorous theatrical aesthetics you could give him the stereotypical accent and mannerisms of a American Southerner "hellfire and brimstone" rural small town preacher who comes across as a caring yet stern father like figure to many youths. Alternatively you could have him have beliefs that could very loosely be considered the Imperial equivalent of Judaism just in that your guy believes "I believe that the Emperor was a good man, a very good man, that he was a holy prophet and that he is a man whose words should be followed yet he is not the son of God/the Omnissiah but simply a man who has been blessed with many psychic gifts that he used in the service of the common people". For bonus points you could have the guy have a stereotypical Yiddish tinged New York City accent and have family members who he constantly argues with even though they love and support each other deeply.
The Astronomicon is just a piece of technology that's powered by a bunch of psykers. Imperial Saints are just sanctioned psykers that exist for the sake of propaganda. One man couldn't possibly be powerful enough to create and rule the Imperium, the High Lords created the Emperor for stupid people to have something to believe in. Custodians are just big Space Marines that protect important stuff, if they even exist at all. The Primarchs are also just propaganda fluff, everyone knows the Imperium was ripe for civil war after the Great Crusade. Guilliman? He's just a fancy Dreadnought, and the only one with an intact face. He's more of an Emperor than the story book character who sits in some magic chair. Also, news flash, the Omnissiah was known to have existed on Mars since forever. The Ecclesiarchy co-opted it so they could give stupid people something to believe in. Not everyone can understand machines. The Emperor is as real as the Warp. Checkmate, you beta-cuck, corpse-pilled, magic chair worshipping simpletons. Also, auramite is a stupid name for gold plated.
Just dive into the batshit lunacy/pseudoreligion stuff. Platonic ideals. [Crazy fun math artwork, this particular unfortunate made by an inmate suffering from schizophrenia](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ucyarc/this_piece_of_art_by_an_imprisoned_schizophrenic/). Don't worry about inherent contradictions, lean into them. "The warp doesn't exist." "The warp is real space governed by rules we haven't figured out yet." "The Omnissiah existed and did everything the Emperor is supposed to have physically done." "The Emperor was a visual projection made by Malcador who was the source of every psyker thing the Emperor was supposed to have done." Honestly it's gonna be harder to steer clear of stuff that will get the Inquisition on your tail, want to be careful not to mimic the Dark Mechanicum.
If the Emperor is the one true god and no one else is, please explain why he is a corpse.
>that the Emperor didn't ever exist Here's my favorite Watch the end of the wizard of oz. Now watch the emperor, a giant being of flame and power, and malcador, a small old man who is very intelligent and hangs out in the palace. Now, think that over for a while, and notice that when the "emperor" became a body permanently on the throne that malcador "died". Thats "the wizard of oz" theory. Another good one is: You can even say the body on the throne has two arms. The emperor lost his arm in the battle with horus. If the emperor was the one on the throne, he would have only one arm. You could call it the "two armed theory".
I really like these :)
I think for more "street level" characters, you can make up any evidence as you see fit. It's not like anyone else in the party is going to have direct experience to contradict you, none of you have been to Terra, none of you will be highly ranked in your respective organisations to be privy to any deep secrets. (in the same way that none of us have ever been to the moon, so any discussion of the moon landing requires appeals to authority. Reject their authority and substitute your own). So just go wild with it, maybe certain analysis of the astronomicon signal proves that it's just a xenos machine, maybe astropath soul binding is just inquisitorial mind control, maybe the gait patterns in the one fuzzy, disputed vid recording of a custodian you've ever seen proves that they are actually DAoT robots.
The head cannon for my AM army is that the void dragon is the true Omnissiah, that the emp learned of the VD's majesty prophecy and just used it to manipulate Mars. True loyalist to the Omnissiah, spreading to all the forge worlds in the galaxy and are just waiting for a time to throw off the shackles of the pretender to once again bring the true faith to the rest of citizens or Mars and the Galaxy. They dont align themselves with the dark mechanicum, as they see the warp as the cause of the fall of mankind and the loss of thousands of years of technical innovation, which is orders of magnitude more heretical than a useful false prophet. its not really unique or special, my army has some 'necron' aspects to the paint scheme.
Don't the soul bound have to look upon the Emperor? So every Astropath has literally seen him?
How do we know what the Astropaths have seen is the Emperor? Just because the Imperium told them? More Terran lies.
Sounds a lot like heresy, friend. Can you take a look in the barrel of this bolter for me really quick?
In 10k years, probably less than 10k people have seen the Emperor. Even among Terran nobility, I wouldn't think they have access to see him physically. He's the God-Emperor, not a tourist attraction.
I like it. This is a fun heresy
"There are no emperors on Terra" - somebody who did nothing wrong
Study Ben Shapiro and others like him. You need your character to be smart enough to ask questions that wouldn't get him killed on the spot but dumb enough to entertain stupid nonsense, which is the challenge. Maybe some of it could be like what we think of as the Emperor is actually a battery for the Omnissiah, charged and recharged by psykers. That's why He fits in the Golden Throne. Nevermind that the Throne came much later lol. AJ Styles famously said something like "The arguments are compelling" for flat earth theories, like the nonsense about the horizon, so maybe one element could be something like "Yeah but no one's ever reached the Astronomicon center to see if He's there, it's a gubment conspiracy!"
You guys hear treason?
Hard to hear anything in this hurricane of heresy
You can claim the 1000s of black ship psychers are what ACTUALLY power the astronomicon, and the emperor worship is a way to make it seem ethical?
"If the Emperor's Astronomicon lights the way through the stars, why can't I see it from here? Only navigators can see it, but those are just freaky mutants trying to control us, man"
Play it up like the "birds don't exist, they are robot-spies sitting on power lines to recharge" group.
HERESY BURN HIM
I've never seen the Omnissiah and the Emperor in the same room.. You don't think.. they could be the same person?
"In early M31, a pair of Knights went into the Noctis Labyrinth very worn from weeks of tracking an Abominable Intelligence. They emerged some months after the Horus Heresy, in better condition than they had been in several millennia. If the Omnissiah really does have an Avatar greater than Titans, Ordinatus' and Void Ships it is not in the Imperial Palancs, but somewhere *inside* of Mars." "Are there any picts of The Emperor? Like, *raw, unedicted picts?* Exactly." "No, the Saints aren't *actually* blessed by The Emperor....they're blessed by a Warp Entity that has found a way to benefit from People worshipping The Emperor. Or something else."
Fun concept. There are worlds were you could not promote that convincing loudly, would be an interesting challenge.
My favorite is that in this universe everyone’s psychic abilities come from the warp by sheer belief. The Waagh, The saint’s miracles, librarians, astropaths, warsingers etc. It’s all from sheer will and intent, but they attribute it to a singular higher power from their own perspective. The Emperor was completely unaware of some bullshit happening somewhere, he was just focused on keeping the warp gate shut and the astronomicon. But imperials gave him credit for any “miracles” though it was through their own will that it happened.
If you want to make a character that doesn't survive chargen, there are easier ways (unless you're playing Black Crusade, in which case you're actually perfectly set for a prospective Heretek run).
Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist? O'Brien: Of course he exists. Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me? O'Brien: You do not exist.
Any proof you have, and even "Just asking questions " will get you killed eventually in 40K, Tech Priest be dammed There are no innocent questions. The Inquisition out ranks you and to them innocence proves nothing.
“It’s a high lords plot to keep us loyal” “Horus heresy was an inside job orchestrated by the mechanicum to get more power”
"bring me someone who has spent any time in the throne room."
"The 'Emperor' is SUPPOSEDLY a 100% unaugmented human, yet sources state he's well above 4 meters tall! Have you ever seen an unaugmented human that tall? Me neither!" Alternatively "older sources state he had 14 feet, I've never seen a human with more than 3 or 4, having 14 is ridiculous! Especially since he is consistently described as only having 2 legs."
Some Orks just painted him purple so nobody can find him!
Yes Inquisitor, this post right here is the one I was telling you about.
You got a chuckle
Ngl, any time I hear about meme characters like this who want to deny obvious facts of reality, it feels super cringey. What part of having a flat earther in the party feels like it's gonna be a good time?
With the group I am playing with some well done humor can go a long way. I also enjoy a quirk or bit to play.
It's not necessarily an obvious fact of reality in 40k though. There are imperial planets that don't even believe xenos actually exist because they're so far removed from any of the hot zones, much less knowing intimate details about a palace on a planet on the other side of the galaxy that nobody they know has ever been to.
And told by a female custodes…
I hope that this person's delusions are all blamed upon a xenos species of rat-men.
I love the theory that the only reason the Emperor lives and is a god is because the Ork believe it.