What do you think, Veeky Forums?
Is there hope for the Imperium? Will the plug somehow be pulled on the Emperor's life support and maybe the Primarchs can return and hold the Imperium together until he reincarnates?
Emperor of Mankind
Logan Russell
Cooper Martin
I seriously doubt big E will be going anywhere if he was planning for the primarchs to rebel from the get go.
Ethan Edwards
Isn't it canon that if Big E dies Terra will be engulfed in a Warp storm and a new Chaos God will be born?
Liam Richardson
>Is there hope for the Imperium?
For Impeium Secundus rules by Gulliman who reincarnates in Emperor's body.
Jacob Powell
Wasn't aware 40k was a work brimming with optimism, rainbows and unicorns. A place where after some pain, the good guys beat all the meanies and skip merrily into the sunset while holding hands, forging an empire of goodness and kindness forever and ever.
Wyatt Myers
No, there's no hope.
Let me tell you the grand joke of 40K. It is a joke that's become even better with the new fluff.
You see, the Emperor is a Perpetual. A Perpetual is a kind of human who is - for one reason or another - immortal. When you kill them, unless effort is taken to destroy their soul (presumably) in the Warp, they will always come back. Vulkan is a Perpetual, John Grammaticus is a Perpetual, Ollanius Pius is a Perpetual.
Now, at the same time - The Emperor is on the Golden Throne to prevent a horde of demons from breaking into Terra. The choir of psykers is there to feed him energy so he can keep doing that. If the Golden Throne ever failed, billions of demons would spill forth, consuming all life on Terra.
Also, the Astronomicon would go out. All ships in the Warp would suddenly be unable to navigate. Worlds would be cut off from each other. Only ships guided by Chaos (who don't use the Astronomicon's light to guide them) would be able to travel freely.
The cosmic joke here is that the Emperor is in checkmate. If he dies, he'll return to his full power and glory. It's never specified how long Perpetuals take to return, but Daimon took less than a hour - Let's give the Emperor a day, and then He returns as a glorious blazing figure.
In that time, Terra is swarmed by uncounted numbers of daemons, and everyone dies. Billions of souls perish when the light of the Golden Throne - just for a few hours - goes out.
This is why the Emperor can't die. If he dies, he can fix everything that's been broken - But in the interim, he loses the game forever. So the terrible irony is that to save himself, the Emperor must die; But to save himself means dooming the human race to an eternity of torment at the hands of Chaos.
That's why the Emperor sits on his Throne and stares forth, all-knowing but helpless. That's why he clings to life. Because the moment he dies, everyone is fucked forever.
The end.
Josiah Mitchell
Well, fuck.
Nathaniel Flores
In canon, nobody really knows.
Eldar scholars say he'll become Necoho, god of atheism, reincarnate and make a new eye of terror. Some Imperial scholars believe he's a perpetual, and that he'll be reborn soon enough after dying. Then there's the starchild believers, who think the Emperor must die so that the fragment of his soul can be made full and reincarnate. The basic idea in the lore is "maybe, but maybe not."
Hudson Reyes
The obvious answer is to kill Chaos. Are you all doing your part?
Lincoln Campbell
Actually, a viable answer would be to drag Magnus back to Terra and shove him onto the Golden Throne. How you're going to capture a daemon Primarch is anyone's guess, however. And Magnus is so tainted by Chaos that it might just make things worse.