okay so: -did nothing against the world eaters or the night lords -allowed perturabo to decimate his legion -the shit that he did to angron -lied to almost everyone about chaos, including his sons/generals -xenocide, multiple times, and I'm not talking about the rangadan I'm talking about the interex, the diasphorex, all those innocentes civilizations that where killed for ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON -cult leader that didn't wanted to be worshipped as a god but wanted everyone to treat him like one having blind faith on him and to never question anything, also, hypocrite considering the mechanicus -killed billions in order to create his empire, whenever a planet didn't wanted to join him they where destroyed -child soldiers -he called himself a tyrant ("the difference is I'm right") in conclusion: the emperor fucked up everything and he should have just given the crown to roubute and retire when he could

Big E suffers from 'Too many writers-itis'.

On the autocratic nature of Jimmy Space, i just want to point out Jaghatai smelled it immediately, but chose to follow because he agreed with the overall plan. It's the reason the Khan is my fave Primarch, his practicality and ability to look beyond himself.

I feel like the emperor is the most human human by that I mean he seems to have all four traits of a human but drastically amplified and this ironically enough makes him seem inhuman which I think is pretty interesting.

The man waited 30-40k years to take action, even sitting through the Golden Age. How much more patient can a dude be?

If one believes the multiple shaman reincarnation theory, Big E had so many personalities that could clash with one another that he could treat some of the primarchs like he treated Vulkan, and other Angron. That aspect could be a reason why his descisions were so absolute, if he didn't then his other personalities could make a different descision.

"He's a little bit complicated" That might be the biggest understatement ever said about 40K and that is truly saying something.

The Emperor's dejure origin story and many faces imply he is no mere "he," rather a hivemind. Effectively, an avatar of humanity composed of so many ancient shaman souls. Then, somewhere in the lore, I'm pretty sure it was a daemon claimed that is exactly why the Eldar failed as a species: they failed to create an 'Emperor' or unifying entity. Thus, Slaanesh was inevitable.

I am a nightlords fan and I like Konrad as a character. However I completely understand how, what the effigy of the emperor tells Konrad (or Konrad comes clean to himself whatever works for you) was absolutely correct, his insanity was his own fault because he chose to never have agency in the matter(of the visions of the future he saw) unlike Sanguinius who had it right, fight for the future you want not the one that's been inflicted upon you.

The emperor is one of the few fictional characters that is simultaneously backwards and intelligent. Most fictional dictators are liars who make everything up, but he has actual threats to fight against. He is such a walking contradiction and its one the reasons I find him so fascinating. Great video my man!

True heresy, I absolutly love it 🤣

As a french, don't forget napoleon how arrived to save the revolution and finished as a emperor. The emperor in w40k reminded me a lot of Napoleon

Emperor lacked empathy, it always felt like he could mimic it, but his actions were too ruthless. Understandabl due to such a violent galaxy existing, but so many of his problems could be solved if he was empathetic, at least to his sons.

Well we know the emperor wanted to unite humanity under his banner, but we also have seen him multiple times throughout the lore show his end goal was never to rule directly. He all but outright said to primarchs like horus, Dorn, Guilliman. I think his master plan would have been once the galaxy was essentially removed of most of the external threats him, the primarchs and custodes where going to basically fade off into the background. We knew the palace had near city sized apartments with 20 palace sized apartments. Why would suppose that is? Even the creation of the high lords of terra it was a way to prepare humanity for the eventuality that it would one day guide itself for the most part.

Imagine if after Perturabo nuked his home planet the big E came to him and said that he appreciates him for his good work

I think what gets a lot of people turned against the Emperor is his treatment of various Primarchs. Because absolute control and millions of deaths are harder to empathize with than the personal interaction of two individuals. I think it is important to contextualize his actions with his "sons" in the light that he was denied the ability to raise them according to his views and mold them into the tools he wished of them. To a being like the Emperor that desires total control over his plans, it must have been devastating to find his children already fully grown with their own morals and desires that he had no hand in. Adding to that, many of his children such as Kurze, Angron and Mortarian suffered from debilitating mental illness when they were found. Even 'successful' sons like Guilliman were seen to have become arrogant and ambitious - with Guiliman famously caring more for his Realm of Ultramar than the Imperium as whole. I think that it broke the human part of the Emperor's heart that he had to meet his sons as ultimately flawed men, rather than being able to guide them from infancy and this lead to many poor choices when it came to managing his children. There is perhaps a larger discussion possible as to if the Emperor wrote off some of his sons as ultimately not having a purpose in "The Great Plan" due to their flaws and that he simply decided to use for as long as he could. We know for a fact that he was working under an incredible time constraint that made him change his plans to be more ruthless and in the end he was still too slow to stop the Warp from crushing his dream.

I agree with the try and following a person who will fight. With the Emperor, it is very much a "I have to be right on the first go!" which in hindsight is where it all falls apart

the problem is i can't see him ever stopping. He's a bastard that's so focused on his "big picture" for so long, he's lost the ability to give a damn about the individual. If the heresy had ended in a victory where he was 100% fine. and all four chaos gods turned to cosmic dust. Every single Xenos capable of so much as counting to three gets shot in the head.... i am 100% certain he'd go "RIGHT. time to make sure every space marine is killed off 'cause they're no longer worth the risk of keeping." and then he'd kill any of his still loyal sons that didn't want to do that. and sooner or later he IS going to start "operation replace the Mechanicus 'cause those pricks are still religious and we can't have that" i don't know who he'd decide needs to die next. but he would. EDIT: OF COURSE I KNOW, THE SECOND THE WARP DIED DOWN TO THE SILVERY CALMNESS OF BEFORE THE WAR IN HEAVEN, EVERY SINGLE NAVIGATOR WOULD BE TAKEN OUT AND SHOT. SILLY ME. but after that.... who knows. you ever seen Llamas with hats? the last episode where Carl stands on a ruined bridge, having killed EVERYONE except himself, and the voice in his head is going "YOU HAVE TO FINISH YOUR WORK CARL!" edging himself to jump so that there's no life anywhere? i think once he gets it in his head that then, only then, would the Warp have nothing to ever feed on ever again Big E'd jump. just to be sure.

Well I kinda feel bad for the species that were actually allies of humanity during the golden age of technology (dark age for those Mars cultists) and stuck with us even in those hard times later to be wiped out by the imperium like a lot of xeno species were also allied to humanity and the Emporer still called for their genocide

Emperor did nothing wrong. Horus Heresy was a combined effort of all Chaos Gods.

The emperor's plan was not to sever humanity from the warp but to train psykers on the webway and super-charge the astronomicon, purging the warp of chaos with it

The Emporer had the right idea, but his excessive haste and inflexibility led to many major mistakes. I would like to see the Asuryan on trial. His actions (and inactions) resulted in the degeneration of the Aeldary race and the creation of the Chaos Gods, precipitating more ruin than anyone else in the galaxy.

One of the most well known grievances that is cited in the HH lore as one of the rebelion's causes is the fact that the Primarchs were forced to comply and assist the more formalized and properly organized Imperial civilian government. Multiple times during the series it has been made clear that the Emperor wanted the Imperium to be ruled by Humanity, it was not the 'Imperium of the Emperor' but the 'Imperium of Man' the Imperium after the triumph of ullanor was no longer to be a Military junta/dictatorship but one with functional and properly empowered civilian government with regular humans at its head. Then there is the Remebrancers comissioned by the council of terra and Malcador himself who were the ones who raised doubts about some of the things the learned about the GC (Again allowed by the Emperor and Malcador) and came to be despised by the Sons of Horus and ultimatelly murdered by Horus' command. While yes the Emperor and his household were still above the law, the Military, the main muscle of juntas and warlords(Primarchs) was not supposed to be, at least not entirely. They were supposed to work in concert as peers. The Imperium had just taken some significant steps in not being a junta. Heck while not effective the councils actions censuring Angron and Kurze showed that ,while not effective, there was to be a method by which to hold the primarchs accountable, who is to say it couldn't become something effective down the line. Hektor Varvarus was killed, because the traitors feared that him calling for the legion to be brought to account, for the marines stampeding through crowds after horus was wounded, would attract actual scrutiny and from the council and expose the heresy before it began. But some of the primarchs did not like that and wanting to preserve their powers as the Imperiums warlords, started a civil war over it, which destroyed any chances of of the Imperium becoming something better. SO the Heresy in the begining was an effort by the primarchs to prevent the """""""""""""Liberalization""""""""""""" of the Imperium.

In horus rising horus is telling the mournival why he wants the negotiations with the interex to succeed and that their way might be the better one and i completly agree on that the emperor is too sure he knows better than everyone else and took things to far even if his itentions were the right ones

grabbing my 8 pointed popcorn 😎

My personal view of the Emperor is a man doing absolutely horrific things in some hope that in damning a few generations now he could save a thousand thanks to these effforts

I always theorized that B E was a old one. Kinda like the x-naga from starcraft. Where he is trying to create his own image of the galaxy. He truly out for himself and wants the galaxy to bend to his will. Just a theory.

Its a pretty milktoast take but my way of looking at the emperor is that he is a godlike napoleon that worked with what he had. I.E. he was a megalomaniac that saw humanity would go extinct without his intervention and basically said "Fine, I'll do it myself", his methods were cruel, outstretching, and not always efficient. However, in the end, humanity is, in the 42nd millennium, still the top dog, and that was his doing. The imperium is incredibly flawed, but i'd wager to say it was the only true way for humanity to survive, in a way our modern and free-thinking minds can't comprehend. There's no time for talk when there are 7 million variables and entire planets at stake.

With regard to ruling the galaxy, it seems to me that it would be virtually impossible to run such a large, complex state democratically

There are some things I would like to add, for one its mentioned in that short story where Horus confronts Malcador about the 2 erased legions Malcador says humanity can not be ruled by someone who can not understand humanity implying at somepoint the emporer planned to step down. Also I dont know where Vulcan said it never would have worked I only know he said that he could have done a better job than the Mechanicus. Also I dont think he wanted all xenos dead He worked with Eldrad to beat the cabal and made that thing where primarchs could pardon species the fact it dosent come up more is kind of dissapointing based on the fact that it has a lot of story telling potential since it would be interesting to see how the Imperium would rationalize a loyalist primarch or better yet the Emporer spareing a xeno species also it would be cool to see what a xenos species who were spared by the emporer would think. Also I wouldent say he was ruleing the Imperium during the great crusade Malcador was running things on terra with the council, Horus was warmaster, and the lgions mostly ruled themselves. Peole say that the emporer just let legions like the world do there thing but when he ruled the crusade he was on the brink of haveing the blood angels wiped out for similar things(this is before sanguinious) Also on another note I dislike the writes desicion on the empoers backstory when they just made it the empoers dad died so he killed his uncle and then suddenly came up with his whole idology it just seems so boring and weird that you have a charcter who has lived throught all of human history and then proceed to sya he came up with his idology when he was 8 years old.

I think that The Emperor being a flawed but ultimately positive force fits in more with the grimdark theme of 40k. A great tragedy of a man trying his best to save what he can in a galaxy gone mad no matter the cost is much more compelling to me than a soulless tyrant with no feelings for his race nor his sons. I think that the combination of his gestalt origins and his ability to read minds and see the future make him alien to us and yet more human, for his reaction to it. If you saw the spiralling web of infinity trying in ever more horrid ways to stop you from just existing what would you do? Who do you trust? Do you have to make large and unthinkable sacrifices that would keep you up at night if you still had to sleep? Yes. But you do it anyway for sacrifice is the weight of rule. Sacrifice is the currency to spend to keep the flame of the human spirit alive. Since he is a central figure and funnily enough a character that reflects what the person he is speaking to wants to see, I see the Emperor as hope. As that is my favorite aspect of 40k. The indomitable weight of the human spirit stemming the tide of ruin for another day, another hour, another minute, so that someone else can live. So the whole can survive. And who has personally sacrificed more than the man sitting under the veritable Sword of Damocles for 10,000 years?

I think Big E had a noble goal, but didnt go about it in the most noble way.

I can't believe I'm hearing positive xenophobia. Inquisitor: "Fuck do you mean you want to wipe out all xeno life?" Zealous civilian: "Humanity can't thrive otherwise!" Inquisitor: "HUMANITY CAN'T WHAT?!" *gunshots*

Oh man, once you mentioned Karl Schmit, my mind went to "please, don't go the way I think you are going" and well, It went someone there, but not as much

18:07 The Necrons when hearing that: "Am I a joke to you?"

The crazy part is that I think that the terrible future that the Emperor saw, that of humanity ascending into a psychic race that would destroy itself, could have been prevented if he hadn't been so stuck on carrying out his Great Plan exactly as he thought it should. If, perhaps, the Emperor could have been more humble, more introspective, more flexible, then the Eye of Terror would have remained as it was. Essentially, would the Great Rift and the Psychic Awakening have happened, or at least happened as quickly, if the Horus Heresy hadn't put Abaddon where he was to destroy Cadia? It's a real Greek tragedy of a thing when you think about it.

I am so excited for this video! The Emperor as an individual is surprisingly under discussed.

From my understanding of the Valdor book everything points to the emperor having a ticking clock and he could have done everything himself but he didn't have the time and let's be honest the thunder warriors needed to go and he was a very big ends justified the means even on terra during the unification wars. So in short he should have just culled problematic primarchs sooner like angron

In 35 years of following Warhammer I never expected to hear such HEEERRRESSSSYYYY

"Don't care how, I want it now!" *buzz buzz* Horus: He was a bad egg

11:30 thats where people get hung up tho, many people think that because there are dangerous outside threats, fascisms is not only justified but also the best answer. this is very very much up for debate. even within the text, there seem to be better ways, but emp fanboys tend to be like "as soon as there is a big threat, that's when you need emperor and fascism", and isnt that the very core of the lie of fascism?

Oooo do Inquisitor Fidus Kryptman next 🤔😅😃👍🏽

He feels like a less knowledgeable god emperor than the one from Dune, which from my impression knew for certain and was patient. He also experienced every single human and human experience throughout history.

Big E strikes me as a "fuck it, lets see what happens if i do this" kinda guy

EMPS RULES! CHOAS DROOLS!

I think the Emperor's goal is one we could agree on, but the way he uses people (mistreats most of them really) is probably why he was so rushed, perhaps kindness and compassion would have slowed him down too much to put an end to chaos, thus he elected to become a tyrant. In short, good goal, shit application.

We must secure an empire for our people, and a future for human children. -Big E probably

He was waiting for humanity to hit their lowest point so he could have the least resistance when he took over Terra and the universe (which actually made me think that the man of irons revolt wasn't actually a "revolt") as for his xenophobia... all I'm saying is I'm thankful the space orangutans didn't get wiped during the crusade

I do believe that yes. The Imperium is better with one leader. The problem with multiple leaders is that everyone would have their own goal in mind for stuff. It is something the Imperium has a problem with currently with the High Lords, till Guilliman showed up and helped "thin" that issue. When there is looking threats, literally from all sides, there is no room for discussion. No debating. You need a decision immediately. That is why I believe it was right for the Imperium to be as a whole and planets to not be allowed "independents". Cause the Ork Waaagh is not gonna wait for you to have a hearing about it with your fellow leaders.

The Emperor protects even when no one else will

As I learn more about the universe beyond the surface stuff, the more I think the Emperor only acted for his own glory. He was in a rush because he had a small window between old night and someone better coming around and being able to stop him. Perhaps he even sold humanity as a whole out at Moloch.

as a person who collects multiple races on tabletop, two of which imperium. with what I know and how you describe things, It smells like the emperor recognised his mortality, an end... a time when he would cease to be and his vision lost. His actions in my mind line up with someone who's fighting a clock, a very long one sure. but one where the scale of his vision is weighed down by an enevitability he can't outrun. Of course I see him as an idiot, he was so focused on what he could do he forgot what happens beyond him, What becomes of his vision. It strikes me the emperors ascended being never truely understood the mortality of the common factory worker, where no matter how well prepaired you are or strong the safty regulations. Something bad will happen outside of your control. you can't prevent accidents, just cushion the blow. Ironicly it was such his posistion in life I think he had a loose grasp of meaningful consequences coming back on him. Everything before that he could in one way or another overpower. A rushed project has plenty of safty hazerds to abuse, which the chaos gods did.

When you are in a fight to the death nothing matters except survival. You can sit around and say " that was wrong or I'd have done this " but at the end of the day it all comes down to the simple question of " do I want to live?" The Emperor said Yes.

You are very quickly becoming one of my favourite Content Creators I really like having your videos on in the backround ^^

Fantastic, deep thinking video this one mate. One of the best pieces of work you've produced, very thought provoking.

I love your channel dude, while other channels mostly or completely just recite the lore and explain it (since it's tge easiest thing to do tbh) you actually do the speculation videos abd giving your thoughts on the lore, you quickly became one of my favorite channels if not #1

Since I saw a lot of comments judging the Emperor's actions let me point a counter arguments why we CANNOT judge them: -Emperor has been alive for a really long time now, from at least 8000 BC ( just to give you a perspective how long is that, at that time most humans still lived in stone age and we just started doing agriculture in the Middle Eastern area ), and he has seen our species continuous rise and fall ( I am talking about creating civilization, than the fall of Rome, China, Islamic Empires which brought stagnation, then our Golden Age during the DAoT and our downfall during AoS ) so he has entirely different look at Humanity as a whole than us who cannot even live past 100 years mark. -We have very little information from Dark Age of Technology, Men of Iron rebellion and Age of Strife. Having much greater knowledge in this area could help us to get a broader picture why the Emperor acted like he did after Age of Strife was over and not before (giving into account how long he lived and who he was in history he could take control of Mankind long before we set out to Stars, nevermind later on during the other ages). -We have no idea about his personal life, his motives, his trials and his deeds before we took the mantle of the Emperor of Mankind. We only have accounts of other people, some theories and that is about it. The closest we get is "The Last Church" but even that is only showing one side of him instead of whole story. -many people here are just doing common mistake that everyone else is doing regarding 40k and real world history as a whole - judging the past using 21st century morals. Which is a very wrong way to look at history because we live in a world where we have modern technology to assist us, are top species on our planet, we control much of the planet landmass and we had no major wars past WW2. In short, that perspective is only made possible in certain circumstances where we have 90 to 100% control. Which means that perspective is as fragile as our modern world if you take one foreign equation and implement it. -Only thing that I so-so agree with others is how he dealt with his "sons" in certain situations. But that is once again highly debatable as we do not know the men, what he has seen so far, what changed in his past to act like he is and was he even aware what will consequences of his actions be giving how departed he was from normal Humans (which Primarch mentally were despite having superhuman bodies).

My honest opinion is the the Emperor of Mankind is a weapon that was crafted by Malcador to "save humanity from the chaos gods". That was and wil always be his only purpose. The only way to ensure that is to starve chaos of all worship so it can be weak enough to destroy. The only way to ensure that while keeping humans alive is to make sure that humans don't worship chaos, and no one exists outside humanity who is capable of chaos worship. The plan is simple: Have the space marine legions mostly wipe each other out. Move all your emerging psychers into the imperial webway. Use said psychers to power up. Sit on the magic golden chair, and brain blast chaos. GG EZ. Enjoy galaxy and the warp all for humanity. Things did not go according to plan.

This series will have some legs considering the sheer number of characters in 40k.

Gotta say, as a Ork, World Eater, and Thousand Sons fan, this hits hard.

> it’s okay to like the Imperium Eh, it depends what specifically and in what way; the Imperium is too wide, old and contradictory to really have a single view of *all* of it. I like Cain as much as I like most fictional anti-heros or the average WW1&2 American Soldiers, but I wouldn’t say the same about an abhuman or heretic culling SoB or a Red Scorpion, except in the same way I like the Night Lords or Iron Hands. Personally I find it fascinating and like it as this big contradictory mess of different factions and ideologies only united by some comatose immortal, like the Emperor is the only person the SoB, Astartes, Mechanicus, Inquisition and Custodes can agree on. That said, 30k Imperium under Emps is a really different story, and as many mistakes and wrong doings as he did, I think we can all agree the galaxy was better for humanity and Xeno alike when he was still physical walking about. Anyway, I’m gonna go cancel you for being unAmerican and unchristian for supporting the imperium and not the real good guy in the last church.

Who are we to judge the Emperor? No, seriously, think about it. In US courts, one is tried before a jury of ones' peers. The Emperor has no peers. He's not even truly human, something people forget, and he never was. All this before we consider his 40,000 years of experience and psychic foresight. I could go on and on. Entire papers could be written about the psychology of a transhuman immortal demigod who never had a childhood and can see into the future. All this BEFORE we start analyzing his decision making processes and reasoning.

How about Trial the primarchs?

Yep he's definitely not just Tzeentch up there maintaining the status quo and sucking down constant psyker smoothies. *double eagle wink*

6:24 That's one thing about the emperor. Everything feels rushed. The Astartes project was rushed. The thunder Warriors were rushed (...) The great crusade was all rushed.Even the creation of the primarch was, according to the geneticist that made them, rushed because the emperor wanted everything done now, now, now" And that right there is why Lorgar worshiped him, okay, I'm not to read up on why Lorgar worshipping him; but once you factor in the fact that the Emperor was rushing, you can understand why people would want to worship him. he is asking you to put your faith in him, to trust in his judgment even as he makes decisions you would disagree with. No sane bioethics community would approve the Astartes project. if you put a gun to their heads, and then presented to them Catherine Halsey with her Spartan 2 project or the Emperor of Man with his Astartes project and told them to pick one or you shoot; they would go for Catherine Halsey's SPARTAN-2 project, due to being welcoming of both males and females and the much lower attrition rate. It would have also ended disastrously for Mankind. Hell, the way Lorgar was conducting the Great Crusade is the way it SHOULD have been conducted if you believe in the Imperial truth. The way the Emperor conducted the Great Crusade is the way you would expect someone who proclaims himself a God would conduct it. No rational human, even the Primarchs combined would conduct the Great Crusade that fast. At most, there would have been periods of expansion followed by periods of consolidation.

I like to see the Emperor as the God of Will instead of Order. Humans are not known to be orderly but to be enduring creatures

Probably my favorite 40k channel now.

the emp was a weapon who lacked empathy, and was easily tricked by the warp gods into creating a galaxy of suffering that fed them. if the emp wasnt fascist, then chaos would probably sputter and die due to improved quality of life lol

TOTAL XENO DEATH

I see him as a necessary evil. He isn't good. But he's humanity's best shot at a future.

Some of the threats the Imperium faces are very real, but a LOT of them were not, in reality. The threats the 30k Imperium claimed to face were as follows: the Xenos that betrayed humanity during the Age of Strife, the vicious human warlords that are oppressing their fellow Man, and the ignorance of the populace in the way of a scientific and logical galaxy. Of those 3, there are massive lies involved in each one. The first has basically zero evidence of any "betrayal" and the Imperium constantly uses the blanket term "xeno" to justify genocide of every alien species they find even if they did literally nothing to humanity or were even working with other human civilizations. Whether it be the Interex, Diasporex, or the genocide of humans worshipping Eldar in Caldera. In reality, the Imperium's objective seems to be more of exterminating all non-humans and using the "betrayal" thing as an excuse to justify themselves. So notch this as a complete lie. The second threat being the human warlords. This is more fair, as since the Imperium is so human-centric, it obviously won't genocide worlds under the thrall of powerful warlords or nobility, but this is hypocritical considering that they're taking it from warlords into the hand of...another warlord -the Emperor. Most people, even the worst in human history, unironically believed they were right when oppressing others; the warlords overthrown likely believed themselves in the right too. And the Emperor especially believes he is right -"I am different because I am right." So this one is true, but hypocritical. The final threat being the ignorance of humanity and the need to spread the Imperial Truth...which in reality was a lie. State-sanctioned ignorance to the populace "for their own good". So yes, an obvious lie here. The Imperium really is impossible to defend when you look at its scoreboard.

the emperor's core sin, when you get down to it, is hubris. He believed he was always right, that the means always justifies his ends, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, they are either on his side or they are dead. Thus, he never considered the moral or social consequences of his actions. He was not malicious, but he never cared about anything but his vision in the end. When it comes to my take on the imperium, you must consider why is was created from a metatextual sense, why it was written the way it is. My interpretation is that in large part 40k is a way of showing how stupid authoritarianism, facism, bigotry, and all thet awful stuff is stupid by showing just how harillairously dark the world would have to be for any of them of be justified, and even then the modern imperium is not justified, what the emporor intended it to be is a grey area and also by definition not fascism (if your curious why Live respond and I will explain), but the modern imperium is fascist to a tee, it is a warning about what authoritarianism leads too even with the best of intentions as well as what I said before. Also, no, the imperium DOES want all aliens dead, what the Eizenhorn books said really doesnt fit. The reason many aliens are still alive, is a combination of the imperium just having bigger fish to fry, mainly chaos the tyrranids, and inquisitors who are older realizing that along with that if they quietly play nice with the tau and eldar, the imperium wont have to wrangle its horribly slow beaucraucy into wiping them out when those resoruces are despertaly needed elsewhere.

Do you have the source for the Neolithic painting thing (2:00)? I remember there's a scene from Master of Mankind when Big E is talking to Ra Endymion and Big E mentions that his uncle murdered his father with a bronze dagger which would put his early life in something like the early Uruk period. I'm kinda splitting hairs since the Uruk period is immediately after the Neolithic, but cave paintings seems to suggest something hundreds or maybe a few thousand years earlier in time.

I don’t think the Big E wanted to wipe out the Eldar. Otherwise how would he get that sweet Eldar booty for cheap?

I think Emperor never wanted to rule the galaxy in the first place. He wanted to get in control of most human-populated planets in the galaxy and then he wanted to kick Dark Eldar out of Commoragh and basically settle everyone in their place. Just driving around in Webway to get from place to place feels a bit too small-time for the Emperor. The Emperor even was buds with Eldrad, of all people. Eldrad definitely wouldn't want to help loyalists win if he knew the Emperor was going to purge Eldar later. He actually sent out assassins to deal with Cabal, that included Eldar too. You are also being unfair to Eldar in respect of Chaos. Eldar do want to defeat Chaos just as much as the Imperium does, they just focus on Slaanesh first because Slaanesh is deliberately targeting them in particular and is practically causing their extinction by herself. Their whole thing in the modern lore is to assemble bits of Ynnead together so that he can fight Chaos for them. They even try to help the Imperium defend against Chaos despite the Imperium being very ungrateful in return.

20:27 this tongue and cheek meme seems to come with a wink tho. its so so prevalent, and people get really passionate about the hate. im pretty sure its evolved beyond the meme, kinda like how many people made it their personality to hate elves for whatever reason, it starts as a half joke, then it becomes the actual culture. at some point, getting so into the humanity first thing kinda just starts to feel like an expression of pro fasc tendencies lol

The amicable xenos immediately turning predatory after the Cybernetic Revolt probably didn't help matters. It wouldn't shock me in the slightest if that was the turning point in Big E going "No. All of you.".

I've been getting more acquainted with your uploads. Your content is excellent, I hope your channel blows up.

I think the need for speed in the great crusade is how volitile the universe is. It is not like “Oh there is a rising empire they may rival our fleets in 100 years.” It is like “Uh oh Bongo the snakeman randomly dug up an ancient super weapon from the war in heaven from his rhubarb field and now controls a whole sector in space and can annihilate solar systems with the press of a button!” In this universe where power shifts are only offset by the sheer scale of the universe, when you get the advantage you gotta seize it and use it to exponentially gain more advantage, else it be taken away at any moment.

big e is pure resilience and determination

The emperor had right idea and plan in regards of at least attempting to destroy the chaos gods, however his genocide of various xeno species is bit questionable. For one, during and after age strife with the eye of terror opening up, our allied xenos races were almost certainly facing similar calamities as humanity. And if there a few of them still allied with the now scattered humanity, why wouldn’t the emperor try to contact our allies instead of full on genocide? Or were they just currupted by chaos or somthing simpler? As for other peaceful minor xenos who had no ill will to humanity during the great crusade, why didnt the emperor add them as a client, or protectorate species to the imperium?

I really like that scene in Horus Rising in which Garviel is discussing the great crusade with Sindermann, and he asks the question “couldn’t we have just left them alone?” And Sindermann is like: Sindermann: A child is drowning, what do you do Garviel? Garviel: I save him. Sindermann: and what if that child is scared of you? What if he fights you back? Garviel: I save him anyways. It’s such an easy and simple way of describing the great crusade on the human side of the conflict.

at 12:40 ish, i love how you reframe the xenophobia

Really interesting topic!

I think it's somewhere in the middle. He's right about quite a bit, but He is also an unbearably arrogant. The Last Church comes to mind.

Very good defense of the Emperor as autocrat.

muy bueno el juego, gracias por traerlo.

He may not be perfect, but he's the one that stepped up. It feels better to be on the same side as the big guy that the forces of hell fear/hate - literally calling him the 'anathema' - than it might to be lorded over by some xenos or chaos pawn. At least, that's my two cents.

What are you talking about? During the Emperor's reign, there were several treaties and alliances formed with xenos factions. He had a meeting with Eldrad, discussing the future of both their species. If I'm not wrong, there literally was a section within the Imperial Palace, reserved to house alien diplomats?? True about the planets. They would be an easy resource for Chaos in servitude, soldiery, even materials. And ancient human colonies could also hide old tech, which the Imperium surely did not want to gloss over. Oh, he didn't go far enough, he was too benevolent in not coding the Primarchs on the genetic level to be loyal to him, like he did with the Custodes.

9:56 the Emperor alwats planned to step down. He wanted us to not need him any more.

Argel Tal was a homie. A real fucked up homie. But a homie.

Had the Big E not held so much info to himself, maybe things would have turned out differently

What is this heresey.

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!!!!!

Man here doing konrads work

My belief has always been 'tolerate not the breath of the tyrant' so you can probably imagine what I think of Big E.

Big E nowadays reminds me a lot of Kain from LoK. A proud, arrogant, ruthless and powerful man who's dragging the whole world to salvation mostly against its will in a decades long plan that only has a small chance of working.

lets not forget that the imperium so far doesnt even have 0.01% of the entire galaxy under the imperium umbrella .. if you think how many trillions of planets there re out there

The ends do justify the means, let it all burn

40k is such a interesting franchise