Imperator! This one is keeping me awake...

[Alrik_40000]

So I've been into 40k for about a year now - reading fluff, playing Dawn of War , buying a crapton of Marines... etc. I like to think I have a pretty good handle on the background of the universe. I happened to be pondering the painting of my Blood Ravens dreadnought while brushing my teeth tonight, and was struck by a thought....

If he was that damn important and he wasn't quite dead, why didn't they just put the Emperor in a Dreadnought sarcophagus ?

Seems to me like the criteria for dread-hood is to: A - be an Almost Dead Guy, and B - be a Not Quite Dead Guy (meaning mortally wounded but refusing to die). He was obviously alive enough to go on the Throne, so why didn't they Dread him up to really keep him around?

(And don't hand me that malarkey about it being dangerous to put psykers in Dreadnoughts, the Grey Knights do it often enough! LOL)

What do you all think? Theories and observations?

[rkiviman]

I believe its because his psychic ability keeps the astronomican up and running. The greates fear for the Imperium is when the Emperor finally dies. Then what is going to happen to all of makind?Will they be able to use the warp or go back basically to the time of strife and anarchy!!?? It's his psychic essence that keeps everything going and being able to use the warp.

[Nabterayl]

I always got the impression that the Emperor was more than just mortally wounded. The pilot of a dreadnought is still essentially himself. His brain still works well enough to use a mind impulse unit, for instance, and at essentially no loss of skill. His body may no longer work, but his brain still does. The function of the dreadnought is to give the brain a new body to direct, when a body is so messed up that not even bionics can keep it functional.

By contrast, I always got the impression that the Emperor's body - including the brain - was essentially done for by the time Rogal Dorn found him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as we know, the Emperor has never actually spoken, or otherwise physically interacted with the outside world. All we have are psychic phenomena, such as the soul binding ritual, the direction of the Astronomicon, and the Emperor's Tarot, which might be the result of his psychic influence.

In other words, if you will, a dreadnought is a solution if the body is broken but the brain can be saved. I don't think the Emperor even had a functioning brain, really - just a soul, and not even clearly that. Hence the need for more drastic measures than a dreadnought sarcophagus.

EDIT: Okay, perhaps this question needs to be answered by somebody who has read the Horus Heresy books. The information on Lexicanum leads me to believe that we might know more by now. Am I correct that the Golden Throne also seems to be the only known way of allowing the Emperor to project his psychic might with sufficient strength to do the things that need to be done in order to keep mankind a spacefaring species - e.g., direct the Astronomicon?

[krispy]

also - you would need too make a really big funnel attached to the dreadnought to feed the emperor the blood of the thousand psychers that he has for breakfast every morning....

kinda weird that "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" is such a Chaos saying when the emperor of mankind drinks so much blood himself

[Just_Me]

I always got the impression that the Emperor was more than just mortally wounded. The pilot of a dreadnought is still essentially himself. His brain still works well enough to use a mind impulse unit, for instance, and at essentially no loss of skill. His body may no longer work, but his brain still does. The function of the dreadnought is to give the brain a new body to direct, when a body is so messed up that not even bionics can keep it functional.

By contrast, I always got the impression that the Emperor's body - including the brain - was essentially done for by the time Rogal Dorn found him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as we know, the Emperor has never actually spoken, or otherwise physically interacted with the outside world. All we have are psychic phenomena, such as the soul binding ritual, the direction of the Astronomicon, and the Emperor's Tarot, which might be the result of his psychic influence.

This is not quite correct. The Emperor’s mind was fully functional after his battle with Horus, at least enough that he was able to design, on the spot, the life support systems of the Golden Thrown and impart these designs along with final orders to Rogal Dorn.

As to why the Emperor wasn’t put in a Dreadnaught, please understand that I mean no personal disrespect when I say that is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.

In the first place he has MUCH better things to do than tramp around as a giant wind-up toy crushing things. He is the guiding force behind the light of the Astronomicon and the psychic shield that protects human souls from Chaos. He is not just a really badass fighter; to the Imperium he is the political, spiritual, and intellectual heart of humanity. Putting him in a dreadnaught would be like cramming every world leader, scientist, artist and the original copies of every artistic masterpiece, scientific discovery, and political document (not to mention Jesus Christ, Siddhartha, Mohammed, Moses, and any other central religious being you care to mention) into a battle tank and then driving it off to shoot bad guys, what part of that actually sounds like a good plan?

Second being a Dreadnaught would be a massive downgrade for him, walking around as a flesh and blood being he was beyond question one of the most powerful single entities in the 40k universe. If you had the flesh and blood Emperor in an Apocalypse game I would be reluctant to fight him with a handful of Imperator Titans at my command. It would be like taking a paraplegic Superman and deciding that he can still do his job if we just put him in a wheelchair with a grenade launcher attached, I wouldn’t want to fight the result, but compared to the original it would really just be kind of sad.

Finally, the injuries he sustained were not only more severe that that any dreadnaught pilot suffers, but also partially supernatural in nature, he didn’t just suffer a couple of nasty scratches from Horus’s power claw, he suffered the combined psychic onslaught (through Horus) of the first, last, and only time all four Dark Gods completely united, only his own indomitable will and the impossibly arcane workings of the Golden Thrown keep him alive, and even then all they really do is keep his psychic mind anchored to his body (which itself may not even be alive anymore).

also - you would need too make a really big funnel attached to the dreadnought to feed the emperor the blood of the thousand psychers that he has for breakfast every morning....

kinda weird that "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" is such a Chaos saying when the emperor of mankind drinks so much blood himself

Pssh! Blood is for wusses, the Emperor drinks pure undiluted psyker-soul! Mmmh mmmh good !

[jodrell]

According to [URL="http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor_of_Mankind#The_Golden_Throne"]Lexicanum[/URL], the Golden Throne was originally constructed as the entry way to the Webway that the Emperor was building to allow humanity to use the Webway instead of warp ships.

At the outset of the Heresy, when Magnus the Red used his sorcerous powers to warn the Emperor of Horus's treachery, he inadvertently created huge holes in the Emperor's psychic shield. Daemons poured into the human-built portion of the Webway and slaughtered thousands of Adeptus Mechanicus workers there. The Custodian Guard and Sisters of Silence were left fighting a desperate battle to prevent the daemons from reaching the portal through into the Imperial Dungeon. Eventually the Imperial forces had to abandon the Webway and retreat back into the Imperial Palace. The portal was closed but only the psychic power of the Emperor was enough to keep it that way so he was forced to remain on the Golden Throne or find a suitable replacement. When the Emperor was forced to battle Horus on board the Sons of Horus flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, his place on the throne was taken briefly by Malcador the Sigillite. Malcador perished performing this endeavour, and the mortally wounded Emperor was reinstated upon the Throne after his battle with Horus. At his instruction, it was then enhanced and converted into the life-sustaining form it currently bears.

So if the Emperor was moved from the Throne, the Webway portal would open and the powers of Chaos would be unleashed on Terra.

[Cryl]

According to [URL="http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor_of_Mankind#The_Golden_Throne"]Lexicanum[/URL], the Golden Throne was originally constructed as the entry way to the Webway that the Emperor was building to allow humanity to use the Webway instead of warp ships.

So if the Emperor was moved from the Throne, the Webway portal would open and the powers of Chaos would be unleashed on Terra.

Exactly that, the astronomican wouldn't work without him and the Golden Throne is stopping Terra getting overrun by the content of the warp. That's a really bad thing given that the Golden Throne is failing and the Ad Mech (unsurprisingly) don't know how to fix it!

[AirHorse]

Think of it this way, the golden throne is basicaly an uberdreadnought that sustains not just the emperors body(though that is questionable after a couple of handfuls of millenia :P) and also keeps his immortal soul tied to his body so he can still direct the astronomicon.

This thread just made me have a random thought, I had been under the impression that the emperor was the ultimate bad *** with some uber plan totaly firing away throughout the millenia for whatever his grand purpose really is(maybe it really is to unite humanity and engineer its survival!) but ultimately he was aloof and used humanity as a tool overall.

But talking about the golden throne just here made me realise that it was the emperors choice to get incarcerated within the golden throne and effective prevent him from ascending to the warp and more than likely becoming a god because of the power of his soul. That is one hell of a sacrifice for humanity right there! Respect for the big E!

[Gotthammer]

Putting him in a dreadnaught would be like cramming every world leader, scientist, artist and the original copies of every artistic masterpiece, scientific discovery, and political document (not to mention Jesus Christ, Siddhartha, Mohammed, Moses, and any other central religious being you care to mention) into a battle tank and then driving it off to shoot bad guys, what part of that actually sounds like a good plan?

[URL="http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r314/Gotthammer/40k/EinsteinVsNinjas1.jpg"]I think Einstein deserves a special mention on that list.[/URL]

[Ivarr]

It's all myth...the Emperor died that day and the rest of the story is a farce forced upon us by the powers that be to avoid total chaos...which would have inevitably been the undoing of all the Emperor worked for. It is very effective, but "goof" all the same. At this point, the whole of what happened during the Heresy has fallen to legend. Who knows what is real and what is not any more??