The Man with the Master Plan

[eldargal]

They can repair it and create temporary passageways at least. They certainly didn't create it but there is no reason to assume their mastery under the Empire was anything but complete and even post-Fall they maintain a better grasp of it than anyone else. It is also worth remembering the webway defends itself, it seals itself against the Necron Dolmen Gates, for example.

The fact is the Emperor had no chance of exploiting the network to the extent he hoped, even putting aside the fragility of the Terra entrypoint.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Brb. Going into webway.

[Dlatrex]

On that subject, given the new 'illumination' of the Necon that Matt Ward has so graciously offered us, is there truth that they now use/invade the webway in part? I was still following the old inertialess-drive background and saw that note listed somewhere. Mayhaps I missed it in the new dex.

[Nabterayl]

Yes, on page 8 of the new codex there is a sidebar on Dolmen Gates, a technology first granted to the necron by the C'Tan known as the Burning One. Dolmen Gates allow a breach into the webway, which is listed as the only way the necron can achieve FTL travel (which makes sense; an inertialess drive would only get you to 1. c). The catch is that the portals so created are unstable, and the webway can detect a breach by a Dolmen Gate and actively works to seal off the section of webway so infected. During the necron's sleep, the eldar actually sought out and destroyed many Dolmen Gates, and permanently isolated parts of the webway known to be used (presumably by gates they couldn't find). So the necron have access to the webway, but are limited by (i) the fact that many of their gates have been lost or destroyed, (ii) between the portal instability and the webway's self-sealing mechanisms, they can't spend too long on any given jaunt through the webway, and (iii) some of their gates lead to small (by webway standards), sealed-off sub-webways. So they have access to the webway, but not nearly as good access as eldar do.

[plawolf]

Here's a heretical thought, maybe the Emperor didn't fail, maybe the Chaos Gods didn't lie to Horus and the other fallen Primarches and in fact, the Emperor got exactly what he wanted and everything else is just Imperial propaganda.

Chaos Gods get power from worshippers, why couldn't the Big E do the same? If the Emperor does derive power from worshipers, and that the souls of loyal and faithful servants joins with him and adds to him in the warp when they die, well, the current state of affairs is about as good as it could conceivably get for the Emperor (a suspicious mind might wonder if it was all planned when things work out so well for someone), with mankind united in worship of him, and everlasting war providing him with a never-ending supply of loyal souls to feast upon on top of the thousand psykers sacrificed to him every day as a light snack.

Who can say the Emperor did not ascent to true Godhood as the Chaos Gods were claiming, and that the Golden Throne and Astronomica is just one big massive psychic 'Out of Office' script or 'Gone Fishing' sign designed to give the illusion that he was still around to keep things ticking over so the Emperor gets his worship allowance and fresh loyalist soul snacks, but the Emperor is actually living it big in Paradise with his 80 trillion and counting virgin Sisters of Battle?

[Cpt Codpiece]

having just finished angel exterminatus, there is a revelation near the end (no not the dog tag, though that was cool) that will add weight to the theory of the emeror knowing of the powers in tghe warp, intimatly almost fraternally

at that i will say no more.

[ElectricPaladin]

Here's a heretical thought...

The thing is, we know the Emperor rejected the earliest version of the Astronomicon Project because he thought the sacrifice of psykers was unacceptable. If he wanted to be the locus of worship and eat souls, he had plenty of opportunities to arrange that. Everyone wanted to worship him - he had to beat them off with a stick!

I think it's more likely that the Emperor was unaware of his own divine potential and will be as surprised as anyone else when (and if) he becomes a divine entity. That, or he knew that this could happen, but didn't want it to happen, preferring to give mankind freedom and independence from gods.

[Kyban]

Yes, on page 8 of the new codex there is a sidebar on Dolmen Gates, a technology first granted to the necron by the C'Tan known as the Burning One. Dolmen Gates allow a breach into the webway, which is listed as the only way the necron can achieve FTL travel (which makes sense; an inertialess drive would only get you to 1. c). The catch is that the portals so created are unstable, and the webway can detect a breach by a Dolmen Gate and actively works to seal off the section of webway so infected. During the necron's sleep, the eldar actually sought out and destroyed many Dolmen Gates, and permanently isolated parts of the webway known to be used (presumably by gates they couldn't find). So the necron have access to the webway, but are limited by (i) the fact that many of their gates have been lost or destroyed, (ii) between the portal instability and the webway's self-sealing mechanisms, they can't spend too long on any given jaunt through the webway, and (iii) some of their gates lead to small (by webway standards), sealed-off sub-webways. So they have access to the webway, but not nearly as good access as eldar do.

I feel like the gates don't fit with the rest of the fluff. It took the assistance of Tzeench for Magnus to break into it, doing almost nothing with his own considerable power. The warp is supposed to be anathema to the necrons and I thought they traveled through more of a "wrinkle in time" style shunt to achieve ftl. A lot of the Necron fluff is pretty crazy though, like the pylons that can cut the warp off from the material world, I've never liked that fluff, it just didn't seem right. (Didn't they make them before the fall but also put them next to the eye of terror, which wouldn't have existed yet?)

Here's a heretical thought, maybe the Emperor didn't fail, maybe the Chaos Gods didn't lie to Horus and the other fallen Primarches and in fact, the Emperor got exactly what he wanted and everything else is just Imperial propaganda.

Chaos Gods get power from worshippers, why couldn't the Big E do the same? If the Emperor does derive power from worshipers, and that the souls of loyal and faithful servants joins with him and adds to him in the warp when they die, well, the current state of affairs is about as good as it could conceivably get for the Emperor (a suspicious mind might wonder if it was all planned when things work out so well for someone), with mankind united in worship of him, and everlasting war providing him with a never-ending supply of loyal souls to feast upon on top of the thousand psykers sacrificed to him every day as a light snack.

I don't think he would have needed to go to such extremes to be worshiped but I have always believed that the more worshipers a being had made them more powerful based on the fluff for the warp. Planning it all out really would have made him no better than a chaos god, not a conspiracy I particularly like. I feel like he would have just struck Horus down immediately if he was so inclined unless you're suggesting Horus with his demon power-ups were about as strong as the emperor.

having just finished angel exterminatus, there is a revelation near the end (no not the dog tag, though that was cool) that will add weight to the theory of the emeror knowing of the powers in tghe warp, intimatly almost fraternally .

He certainly knew a lot about them and it is even suggested that he struck a deal with them to create the primarchs, in which case he underestimated them but leading up to the heresy it seems like no one knows much about them, like they've been hiding (and plotting) since the Fall.

[Cpt Codpiece]

He certainly knew a lot about them and it is even suggested that he struck a deal with them to create the primarchs, in which case he underestimated them but leading up to the heresy it seems like no one knows much about them, like they've been hiding (and plotting) since the Fall.

no it is revealed by one of the primarchs that the emperor knows of chaos in a very specific way. i dont want to spoil the book for anyone but i will say this, for the emperor to denounce the powers in the warp, the 'gods' of chaos........ he is swimming in a certain river in egypt......... de nile ;P

[plawolf]

...I don't think he would have needed to go to such extremes to be worshiped but I have always believed that the more worshipers a being had made them more powerful based on the fluff for the warp. Planning it all out really would have made him no better than a chaos god, not a conspiracy I particularly like. I feel like he would have just struck Horus down immediately if he was so inclined unless you're suggesting Horus with his demon power-ups were about as strong as the emperor.

The thing is, we know the Emperor rejected the earliest version of the Astronomicon Project because he thought the sacrifice of psykers was unacceptable. If he wanted to be the locus of worship and eat souls, he had plenty of opportunities to arrange that. Everyone wanted to worship him - he had to beat them off with a stick!

I think it's more likely that the Emperor was unaware of his own divine potential and will be as surprised as anyone else when (and if) he becomes a divine entity. That, or he knew that this could happen, but didn't want it to happen, preferring to give mankind freedom and independence from gods.

Well, going by established fluff, it would not be too unreasonable to assume that if the Emperor was on the cusp of true Godhood, he may have needed some vast sacrifice of souls to give him the power to break through the threshold and attain full God status.

The Emperor would have found it hard to keep the remaining population loyal, never mind devote, if he just went and sacrificed a few trillion souls for his own personal benefit.

Sure, the Chaos gods betray and sacrifice their loyal servants all the time and the follower still keep coming, but that is more down to the Chaos Gods personally micro managing everything and granting all sorts of gifts and favors to their most loyal followers and punishing those who stray (or just for poops and giggles). Seems like a hell of a lot of work.

In comparison, the Emperor doesn't seem to grant anywhere close to as many gifts and favors to his followers, yet there are far more of them than Chaos followers. Just in terms of the reward-to-effort ratio, who has the better set up?

In addition to that, it is also entirely possible that the Emperor is not as callus as the Chaos Gods and actually care about the well being of the Human race and wanted to do something nice for them before ascending to Godhood, or he had even grander plans with the human race once he built his human webway.

If having pretty much the entire human race worshipping you gave you X amount of power. Had the Emperor succeeded in this original plan and moved humanity into the webway and stayed there for a few more millennia the entire human race would all be psykers, and having a larger population base because of natural population growth overtime. If the entire psyker human population worshiped the Emperor then, it would have given him Y amount of power. It would not be hard to assume that Y > X, most likely be several orders of magnitude.

On top of that, the Chaos Gods would have been massively weakened since with the Human race protected from them by the webway, they would loose their primary source of foodstuffs. If the Great Crusade continued uninterrupted, humanity would have gone on to wipe out all the other remaining non-human sentient races from the Galaxy and further diminished the Chaos gods' recruiting pool and weakened them more.

If the Emperor ascended to Godhood then, he may not have needed a vast sacrifice if all the human race were psykers and all wished to help him, and thus all lent him a portion of their psychic power. Being sustained by a larger population of psykers compared to blunt humans might have also given the Emperor even more power. Come that time, a far more powerful Emperor God juiced up with the happy psyker thoughts of the entire human race would have easily outmatched all the weakened Chaos Gods. Maybe to the point where the Emperor God could have gobbled them up as well and become even more powerful.

With Magus breaking his webway, the Emperor might had to resort to plan B and settle for what he could salvage. No one really saw the Emperor and Horus fight. Dorn only arrived after the dust had settled. For all we know, the Emperor could have zapped Horus with mind bullets the moment he saw Horus, and then just crack open his own armor with the late Horus' claws and gave himself a few flesh wounds to make it look real, and then just faked it when Dorn finally stomped near.