If the Emperor, beloved by all, did not want people to treat him as a god...

If the Emperor, beloved by all, did not want people to treat him as a god, then why did he manifest himself as a golden omnipotent giant?

Would you like to know the big secret of 30k/40k?

The Emperor wasn't as clever as he thought he was

I don't think it's ever specifically stated. Ifor you asked the writers though I get the feeling they would say something like "that's just his true form and he no longer wished to hide amongst mortals."

But yes, it would have been better had he just kept slowly manipulating like he had been. The world would be a better place.

>beloved by all
Clearly not.
>did not want people to treat him as a god
but he did. Starchild prophecies required him to.

Witnessed.

I remember something being said somewhere about him knowing that mankind instinctively needed a great figure of power to unite behind. So he made himself a powerful golden king and created legions of powerful space knights. Thing is, he was always very bad with undrrstanding how regural humans think amd that they instinctively drift towards religion, so he ended up a god instead of a king, his warriors angels of death instead of knights.

This, the Emperor had a pretty distinctive lack of empathy for normal humans.

>instinctively drift towards religion
I think a better word would be "mindlessly".

The emperor being worshipped as a god, when he's not and never was, is satire of modern day religion.

At the same time, the emperor did his best to make sure that logic and reason *could not* explain the universe, or even his own actions, by hiding the existence of Chaos from the Imperium and purging anyone else who had a working knowledge of it.

When the smartest man on a planet either is unable to explain much of what occurs, or disappears, then it's not crazy to think that the central figure of your existence who clearly does understand it has power like unto a god.

You would too, if you knew everyone you ever knew or will know is going to be dead in the blink of an eye, and he was used to thinking on a grand scale, not used to humans being focused on him.

...

Relevant

>then why did he manifest himself as a golden omnipotent giant?

He wanted people to obey him, so appearing as a hyper masculine patriarch makes sense.

Pretty sure he mentioned the existence of "creatures" in the Warp to Horus, he talked about the Emperor telling him as much in Horus Rising. He just didn't go into a whole lot of detail, he left them as "entities that are why we have gellar fields" or something.

The issue is that he wasn't just a hyper masculine patriach, he was going "GOD DOESN'T EXIST YOU STUPID BARBARIANS now look how I make myself into a 10 feet tall giant in a golden armor who's too beautiful for simple mortals to stand my sight OoOoOoO also I'll make myself shiny as fuck OoOoO"

...

>Horus: "The day will not save them. And we own the night."
>Emperor: "o fugg xD"

huh...

never thought of it like that

>But yes, it would have been better had he just kept slowly manipulating like he had been.
He tried that, and it all fell apart due to the birth of Slaanesh and the rise of psykers. If he just kept sitting by pulling strings humanity would still be a bunch of random independent systems as the Necrons wake up and the Tyranids begin pouring into the galaxy.

He had Malcador as a friend.

Malcador was the true Emperor and the golden giant was just his psychic projection and public face.

The body currently on the throne is nothing more than the projection after it was converted into a psychic perpetual engine so it could power the Astronomican.

When Malcador appeared to die, he was actually disappearing back into the shadows to guide humanity in secret.

Thats a game changer.

So what's with all the ''sacrifice 1000 Psykers a day'' thing?

An excuse to cut down on the number of dangerous psykers in the Imperium?

Maybe the perpetual engine isn't actually that perpetual. It would just be a normal engine and that would need fuel.

>to guide humanity in secret
Well, he's doing a pretty shit job, then.

Who said he was guiding humanity to greatness?

The light of their souls keeps the astronomican burning.

The Astronomicon is a giant pyre of burning souls that human ships use to navigate through the warp. Since the Emperor and other psykers powerful enough to keep it going without burning up are gone you need to heap lesser psykers to the pyre every day.

He wasn't very smart

Tbh emperor meets just about every definition of a god that I can think of. He certainly isn't human. He is immortal, has magic powers, exudes an overpowering godly aura, etc. How is this not a God?

>then why did he manifest himself as a golden omnipotent giant?
he didn't

>but later images and fluff
are heavily romanticized, be it in-setting or unknowingly from the people writing themselves.

He creates warpstorms at will too

>He is immortal
technically not true

he wouldn't need the golden throne if he were an immortal

Immune from aging (immortal) versus immune to harm (invulnerable). The emperor is immune to aging. He's on the throne because he was wounded by Horus. If he'd never been wounded we have no reason to suspect he'd be ailing.