The whole war apparently stemmed from Lorgar believing that the Emperor was a god and getting slapped down for it because the Emperor was trying to keep everyone rational and secular to starve the Chaos gods to death. Lorgar then went off to find some real gods because he just needed someone to believe in, and he found them. Then the got them to infect Horus, etc. etc.

So what if the Emperor had said, "OK fine, I am a god - I am the Omnissiah. Keep spreading the Machine Cult at a slow pace because you spend so much time rebuilding the worlds you've conquered."? Does Mars end up going to war against the rest of the Imperium? Did the Emperor intend to ever get around to stamping out the Machine Cult?

Hi!

The emperor violated the "ghostbuster rule".

When someone asks you if your "a god" you say yes. It would have saved him lots of trouble.

I think the Mechanicum views the Emperor as as "Aspect" of the machine god, due to his considerable technical knowledge. I don't think he ever really tried to stamp out the cult because he needed their cooperation to reconquer the galaxy.

Primarch

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Very likely not as he was the one that secretly set the stage and engineered their eventual rise and influenced their belief systems as part of the long game he was playing. GW/FW stole pulled a page from Frank Herbert's concept of the missionaria protectiva where in his plan was to viewed as the living embodiment of the Omnisiah. Check out the big reveals in the HH novel, Mechanicum sometime for the latest fluff.
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanicum-Horus- ... 1849708177

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Brilliant ! :-D

BRAVO!!!

Tangentially, I always thought the machine god was one of the C'tan that the Emperor had somehow captured. Am I making that up?

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At least up until the latest newCrons reboot (before all this C'Tan shard nonsense), yes, it was highly highly implied that the being the Emperor defeated and imprisoned in the Noctis Labyrinth on Mars could have been The Void Dragon.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dragon_of_Mars

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Hi!

Interesting stuff!

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I always liked the link between the Void Dragon and the Mechanicum. It was probably the only C’Tan story I cared for.

But mostly I’ve been wondering if switching Lorgar to an Emperor-approved form of worship (Emperor-as-Omnissiah) would’ve prevented the whole damn Heresy. And if the Emperor was trying to stamp out religion to starve Chaos, does that imply that the Machine Cult can lead to Chaos? The Mechanicum did go traitor to some extent, but not clearly for religious reasons.

You'd probably dig reading the Dornian Heresy. The whole event pivoting on the fact that the Emperor accepted the word bearers, with some directives. The chaos powers then approached from a completely new direction and the 40k universe we know is completely topsey turvey with the Word Bearers being the militant arm of the Imperial Cult, the Ultras forming their own scientifically literate secular progressive empire, the Thousand Sons all undergoing the Soul-Binding ritual to prevent the flesh change, etc

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/here ... heresy.pdf

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This isn't quite true (mostly covered in the HH books, but also the Word Bearers Omnibus).

Yes Lorgar sees the Emperor as a God and the Emperor slaps him down for it.

But Lorgar doesn't wail off to the chaos gods just because he wants something to believe. He goes off because having the Emperor deny his divinity sets him off on a quest to try and find the true meaning of reality in the Warhammer world, which means he finds out about Chaos. So its not a case of Lorgar being whiny - Lorgar finds out the truth (chaos exists, gods exist) and finds out the Emperor lied to him (when the Emperor said there were no Gods, which Lorgar now knows a) exist and b) the Emperor knows exist). This betrayal and deceit from the Emperor is what turns Lorgar to Chaos.

Personally I think this makes him a much more interesting character than he is normallly portrayed by players as. He is my favourite primarch

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By the way, a bit of a fan theory here, but it might be interesting for that whole Emperor as a God narrative: http://philipsibbering.com/blog/2010/01 ... e-history/

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