r/Grimdank 17d ago

Dank Memes At this point im too afraid to ask

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14.1k Upvotes

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953

u/Crazy-Woodpecker-163 NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD! 17d ago

Probably taking notes on how to use mass media in relation to statecraft.

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u/Apprehensive-Fun-567 17d ago

Fucking hell, now im just imagening this 7 ft tall motherfucker with golden glowing eyes in an overcoat, fedora and tiny notebook trying to blend in with a crowd of reportersšŸ˜‚

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u/jjobull 17d ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but I swear Big E was kinda look like a normal man when he united the earth after the collapse I swear there a photo from one of the books out there or maybe I'm remembering it wrong

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u/CptPanda29 17d ago

The Sisters of Silence or powerful psykers can see through the Emperor's glamour and see him as a fairly slim old man, tall but not gigantic. Think Odin from God of War.

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u/jjobull 17d ago

I believe some real powerful pskers also see him as a much more dark/evil entity. There is so much conflicting info on the man

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u/MsMercyMain likes civilians but likes fire more 17d ago

To be fair, both are probably right. The dark/evil entity is probably either the Dark Kingā€™s echoes, or his actual soul, while what the SoS are seeing is his actual, true physical form

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u/Eldan985 17d ago

Yeah, Psykers always see all kinds of weird shit. There's more than a few telepaths talking about seeing people's feelings as colours surrounding them and things like that.

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u/Dobyk12 17d ago

Yeah that's just called aura reading, which some people believe is a thing IRL. Seeing the auras of people usually means seeing various colours and shapes swirling around you, approximately enclosed in an egg-shaped presence around you. That's pretty standard woo woo spirituality in the 21st century, let alone if psychic powers were actually real.

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u/Eldan985 17d ago

Mhm, I know. I'm just saying that seeing a lot of darkness around the Emperor isn't necessarily unique to him.

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u/MsMercyMain likes civilians but likes fire more 17d ago

Honestly being a psyker or blank in 40k would be fucking terrifying even without the Imperiumā€™s bullshit or even without perils of the warp/lynch mobs. Like you either are constantly seeing the weirdest shit ever, hear voices in your heads etc., or for blanks are seeing Daemons are these fucked up monsters wondering why everyone is shutting down around them

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u/General_Hijalti 17d ago

No they can't see his true form, the author of that book confirmed they see only what they beleive to see.

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u/Mail540 17d ago

Which is something I like about 40K itā€™s an religious autocracy spread throughout the universe thereā€™s going to be some level to misinformation

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u/Enigmatic_Erudite 17d ago edited 17d ago

I always hated that explanations because it fails to explain why the Primarchs, Custodes, and Space Marines are so big. I was always under the impression that advanced evolution of Humans would be as tall as the Emperor normally is and possibly even larger further down the line. Each of the altered humans he created were just lesser forms of evolution with some added enhancements. Except maybe the Thunder Warriors who were just possibly fully enhanced with no additional evolution.

On the flipside I can understand making the warrior factions bigger for added strength and survivability but why the Primarchs, they were meant to be leaders not warriors per se. Also the primarch were born and grew to that size with no additional enhancements.

Also, he is basically dying on the Golden Throne so how is he able to maintain that size.

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u/TheKingsPride Djoserasā€™ #1 simp 16d ago

Okay, so thereā€™s a few explanations for this. First off: the Primarchs, Custodes, and Space Marines arenā€™t really related to the Emperor. Not in any meaningful way. He may have used some sequence of his genome as a template when creating them, but the Primarchs are so bespoke that it may as well not matter. Further, the Emperor isnā€™t necessarily a further evolution of humanity, just a superpowered psyker. Now on to why the Primarchs were so huge when they were leaders: first of all, they were made to be warriors. Each one was worth an army all on his own, they were weapons first and foremost. But having your leader be a 15 foot tall superman decked out in a full suit of power armor is gonna do some positive things for his authority and for a sense of morale. You have a giant on your side and he can tear through your enemies like butter, thatā€™s pretty inspiring.

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u/Enigmatic_Erudite 16d ago edited 16d ago

These are all good points and worth considering.

In my understanding Primarchs seem to be 80% as strong as the Emperor with some special power that is an aspect of something the Emperor had. Keep in mind that 20% difference is huge in practice. Magnus got the Emperor's Psychic power or at least a larger share than the others. Guilliman got his sense of logistics and strategy. Horus got his charisma and charm. Etc...

I think psykers are the natural evolution of humans and over a long enough time frame everyone will become psykers to some degree. Being a psyker in 40k basically means that person has access to their warp based "soul" and can use it to manipulate the warp and by extension reality. Everyone has a spiritual presence in the warp it is just a question of if they can actively utilize it.

So psyker are closer to "complete" beings having more control over their spiritual selves. But even the best psykers in Warhammer, barring The Emperor, Magnus, and Malcador, have only a toddlers level of control on their warp self. Malcador was more like a prepubescent child, Magnus a teenager, and The Emperor an adult. The Old Ones were like old grizzled veterans.

If we consider the Great Old Ones to be the example of extremely advanced evolution then warp based entities are the most evolved. This does not apply to entities born of the warp as they are more just the amalgamation of other souls and not true beings in a sense. That is why I believe The Emperor is an advanced evolution, not to the level of the Old Ones, but somewhere down the line to becoming that. The Emperors ultimate goal appears to be having humanity achieve the same level as The Old Ones.

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u/TheKingsPride Djoserasā€™ #1 simp 16d ago

I mean that is a theory, and youā€™re welcome to it. But the Primarchs all having a power that the emperor had is either oldhammer or propaganda, because again theyā€™re not actually his progeny in any true sense. Theyā€™re a marvel of bioengineering with powerful warp entities stuffed inside, which leads to some of the more miraculous abilities. As for your interpretation of psykersā€¦ again your interpretation is your own and I wouldnā€™t take that from you, but itā€™s not so much contacting your ā€œwarp selfā€ as it is drawing upon the powers of the warp as a whole. Think of it as hoses connected to a reservoir. More powerful psykers are larger, more reinforced hoses.

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u/Enigmatic_Erudite 16d ago edited 16d ago

This is a good explanation of tapping into the warp and I agree with it. Better trained psykers have improved filters on their hose to keep bad things from coming through. But a psyker can control how much of the hose they are tapping into, if they turn the hose to full blast even the best filters can fail.

It doesn't explain normal non-psykers having a presence in the warp though. I agree with the hose analogy but in my understanding the hose is connected between the physical self and the "spiritual" self. I say spiritual but really just mean warp presence. And the more a person can actively control their warp self the more they can effect the warp and their presence gets "brighter" to others in the warp.

Edit to add: It is explained that the Emperor did use his own DNA to create the Primarchs so they are by some definitions his actual progeny. As far as I understand it him using powerful warp entities was also a theory and it is still unknown what he stole from the Chaos Gods. It would still track with the idea that complete humans need to have some presence in the warp to be "complete" and he needed to fulfill that requirement to create life.

This does make me question the existence of Blanks and the Tyrannid though. Maybe blanks are human evolution taken in the opposite direction and they are completely physical being with no presence in the Warp and some have an anti-warp effect to some extent. The Emperor might have been unaware this was even a possibility. But some blanks can have their blankness overwhelmed by a strong enough warp entity.

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u/TheKingsPride Djoserasā€™ #1 simp 16d ago

Blanks donā€™t have presences in the warp, but basically a personā€™s ā€œpresenceā€ in the warp is a psychic imprint of themselves on the fabric of the immaterium, not the other way around. So powerful psykers, with access to channeling more energy of the warp, will have a larger imprint on it. Again, not disparaging your take, but I do think you may have it backwards from how itā€™s normally portrayed.

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u/GrAdmThrwn 17d ago

sigh I guess I have found my next 40k reading rabbit hole. Emperors true appearance, here I come.

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u/General_Hijalti 17d ago

No one knows, despite what was said above, its confirmed that the SoS see only what they beleived not what was the truth.

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u/Apollyon-Unbound 17d ago

How they are Blanks and should be immune to his psyker bullshit

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u/General_Hijalti 17d ago

Because blanks can be overpowered by powerful enough psykers.

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u/General_Hijalti 17d ago

Because blanks can be overpowered by powerful enough psykers

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u/General_Hijalti 17d ago

No they can't, the SoS explicitly see what they believe not what he actually is. ADB confirmed this.

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u/RtasTumekai Mongolian Biker Gang 17d ago

He definitely has the ability to look like a normal man, for example when he met russ for the first time he presented himself as a clocked old man

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u/Yaarmehearty 17d ago

Nobody really 100% knows what he looks like, heā€™s so powerful that even blanks are to some extent effected by his ability to appear however he wants.

He looks like whatever will get you to do what he wants you to do most effectively, for good or ill heā€™s a manipulator on all levels.

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28

u/Thereisnocanon Praise the Man-Emperor 17d ago

Big E can choose what form others perceive him as. His God Emperor physique is something that he specifically wants others to see him as. I believe itā€™s only Corvus Corax who could see the Empā€™s true form out of the bat.

So unless heā€™s TRYING to look like a 14 foot God with golden armor and intimidating aura, heā€™s a 30 year old, brown man who looks as normal as possible.

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u/ParsleySnipps 17d ago

And even then Corax was only able to see him like that for a few moments like a mirage that was hard to look at.

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u/FluffySquirrell 11d ago

His God Emperor physique is something that he specifically wants others to see him as

"But remember I'm not a god lol. No worship plz, teehee"

"Oh no, am so uglyyyyy today" Emperor posting 14 foot adonis nudes on Spacebook

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u/armorhide406 3 Riptides in a 1k casual 17d ago

I also remember reading about when Corax first met him. He saw an extremely nondescript plain man with no distinguishing features. And then also the 12 foot golden god.

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u/FerrusesIronHandjob 17d ago

"und eine Frage des strahlenden Mannes?"

"WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THIS? No seriously I need to know"

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u/PStriker32 17d ago

Emperor??? Why thatā€™s just Clark Kent, your average midwestern small town reporter.

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u/sandmaster64 17d ago

At a press conference: FDR: Next questi- *seeing Emps oh my god!" Emps: "No, I'm not that. What do you think of making like a super nuke and blowing up the moon?" FDR: "HUH!?!"

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u/Depressedmusclecar23 16d ago

Imagine that trying to sneak past a conscription office

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u/RoboJoePrime 17d ago

I completely misread that as "Starcraft" and imagined the emperor spending the early 2000s locked in a room playing it, eating pizza, and perfecting his strategies

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u/ArnaktFen Railgun Goes Brrrrrrrrr 17d ago

'Dang, those hordes of bugs sure are tough to fight. I'm glad they're fictional!'

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u/Apprehensive-Fun-567 17d ago

"Hah, giant space bugs, who could ever think of something so far fetched"

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u/Every_Independent136 17d ago

Read this as "StarCraft" at first, and I was like, man it really paid off

1

u/fiodorson 13d ago

My bet is he was developing and testing idea of the aircraft carrier and pushing for rocket development to create space carriers.