The Emperor's Lie: The Imperial Truth (Warhammer 40k & Horus Heresy Lore)

the truth is one of the central aspects of all human philosophy from the most ancient of days upon Old Earth the Greek ins the Romani the Afric the Britannia the Orion all cultures filled vast librarians of works upon its nature theses upon theses about truth or on truth or concerning truth it forms in and of itself a myriad of different frameworks impossible to collate for many oppose one another upon absolutely fundamental principles what is the nature of truth how can one identify truth is truth all that is or is it an impossible ideal since all that is is ultimately subjective a barely coherent macro structure of generally agreed upon concepts that we have come to term the universe we inhabit none of these ancient societies have ever concluded as to what their own truth has been relegating is instead to the halls of universe Aryans collegians for people of learning to discuss and debate and discourse upon to know ultimate conclusion for what should such conclusion matter they were debating the ephemeral unknowable concepts of the universe there was no need to arrive at a decision the exercise in and of itself was the point the examination of the human condition not arriving at a deduction upon the nature of humanity's place within reality simple ignorant times we have the present era know that what would these philosophies and rhetoricians think if they saw the necessity of a truth such as we possess today would it have broken their minds to know that conviction is a matter of survival but your existence is dependent upon the truth and that finally society had at one glorious point arrived upon a single instance of it only for it to be torn down in the most terrible of infernos one man decided upon this actuality and he sought to bend an entire species upon its axis and all Oh dread ruined no then but this is a record of the most total philosophical framework ever devised by the hand of humanity and the greatest lie in our history the Imperial truth the Imperial truth was a name given to the Emperor's atheistic philosophy that underpinned the entirety of the Imperium from its birth upon terror during the unification Wars through the Great Crusade and even into the fires of the Horus heresy it was a system of values this held ultimately that the universe was a rational place purely rational but there were no such things as gods demons or the supernatural and that anything that appeared to be the latter was ultimately an aspect of universal science we had yet to unlock and explain thus it was no mere assertion that knowledge and learning was the way of things it was a direct repudiation of the esoteric the religious and the irrational principles beyond the known were not to be wondered as with anything akin to superstition they were to be researched by those most intelligent and qualified or to be dismissed as simply an aspect of reality to be discovered and investigated at a later date there was no room for religion or even faith itself under the Emperor's truth and within his now godless realm in fact they were to be actively and if necessary violently destroyed for the age of strife had been a period of human history where the ability of the human mind to be cowed by systems of faith was recklessly and greedily exploited religions cults and sects beyond counting had risen and fallen and risen again as a strife beset humanity had torn itself to shreds all promising answers Redemption were simply just power to those who would prostrate themselves before whatever Idol was placed upon the pulpit old knife was an age of the demagogue the prophets and the false messiah so much so that we have lost even the ability to record them all the Imperial truth was a direct response in so many ways to this darkest of chapters in humanity's history as a nascent Imperium spread to the Word of unity before it it did so with the harshest of repudiation for these false religions the lies of the past were to be torched upon pyres taller than the cathedrals raised to venerate them believers unwilling to renounce their faith clinging to their ignorance even as the light of the Emperor sought to illuminate them would suffer the same fate the Imperial truth was rational and absolute and in that lay a purity that was the fire needed to fuel the Emperor's regime terror of the late em 20s was a roiling sea of petty kingdoms vicious theocracies and lunatic cults and through these the blade of a unified atheistic philosophy cut straight and true it was not simply a case of the truth being better than others it was emancipating in its transparency there was nothing to be gained essentially by a man clad in gold telling you there were no gods of his to worship no demons he could protect you from no soul of yours he could save his philosophy was one concerned with the mundane and everyday the reality you yourself could see and shape and effect why should the heaving populace of terror spend their brief existences terrified of the fate of their supernatural eternal selves forever giving all they could body and mind to this priest for that depending on who was standing before them so easily exploited is the human mind so quickly turned to fretting over that which it cannot possibly comprehend or control so deliciously ripe for honeyed promises of safety and salvation for tens of thousands of years the yoke of religion had damned the species to war murder bigotry destruction and deepest purest ignorant it sought to fill all the gaps in the human condition with the ineffable when astro-man sirs of ages past questioned why the Sun moves around the sky the priests called it the work of a God in his chariot when children asked what will happen should they die the priests tormented them with promises of eternal damnation in a Catholic underworld unless they do precisely as the priests bade them when those who differed from what the priests demanded all humans should be who stood up and said I am equal to you I am a human the priests had their followers torture and murder them for the sins of their me existence questions were not to be asked of the world or even of one's place in it only of what one can do to pay homage to the God one was told to believe in religion was too many a panacea of the mind those fretful of their own existence buttresses for the intellect to those whom society or economics had denied the liberation of education to others it was a means through which they could exercise a total unassailable control over not just the lives of their fellow humans but their minds too with the ephemeral behind them the churches and the priests were free to perpetrate all manner of horror and abuse upon their folk physical and emotional predatory rapacious things gleefully did they sup upon the powers so readily handed to them by the willing and the terrified the religious thought permeated the human psyche at the most fundamental level twisting good people into monsters hijacking those who desire to do right by their fellow humanity and turning their decent intentions into twisted parodies of virtue and justice the Emperor and his imperial truth broke the shackles of the priests the dependence upon the churches and placed the fate of humanity solely in its own hands binding it to the greatest human endeavor ever conceived unity not just of Tara but beyond to the stars themselves for once the Emperor's unification wars began humanity would surge forth into the galaxy once more liberating its long-lost colonies from the yoke of not only the xenos but the shackles of faith to the foundation of the Imperial truth was solid beyond doubt and with it humanity achieved true greatness it did naturally come at quite the cost it is impossible to assay the number of humans who perished upon the pyres of their religions and beliefs or simply the religions and beliefs of their governments or rulers doubtlessly it runs into the billions compliance the formalized system by which a human world was subsumed into the Imperial fold stipulated complete adherence to the truth and total renunciation of all forms of faith should this be resisted well then the skies of that planet were soon to be filled with the drop pods of the lychee owners estar tees civilizations would direct lineage to old earth worlds settled in the first great stellar exodus those who had previously been humanity's torch bearers to the stars were burned to ash but while doubtlessly knowledge history and traditions of a myriad were lost utterly during these days the galaxy was routine in providing reminders of why the Imperial truth and its renunciation of religion was not only justified but painfully necessary in the millennia of the age of strife the occult was king and even amongst ostensibly civilized human societies thereafter world cankerous believed some cults the adherence to which were often violent subversive and uniquely dangerous in their dogmatic hatred of the Emperor's new philosophies terrorist atrocities mass suicides pacts with xenos races nothing was beneath these fanatics whose actions often provided ample material for Imperial iterators to promulgate upon and restate to the light that the emperor was bringing to such dark cultures iterators were one of the primary means by which the Imperial truth was enforced they were the most visible components of the vast machine and that was the Imperial civilian propaganda division but no simple demagogues were they rather a hybrid of retort ition philosopher and educator whether mendicant or embedded within military forces they were an omnipresent aspect to the Great Crusade moving amongst populations both newly encountered and long compliant to strengthen the tenants of the truth and ensure greater cultural alignment with Imperial ideals rooted from the most quick-witted educated and charismatic of Imperial civilians they would to be the bulwark against regression to the dark past as well as any newly encountered civilizations first point of contact with the Imperium and the first to tell these people what imperial systems would mean for them while in practice iterators acting as diplomats did deliver whole worlds and systems completely bloodlessly to the Imperium through sheer skill of persuasion upon many many other instances they were regarded as upon many many other instances they were regarded by recalcitrant populations as being little more than tools of a tyrant their words empty bombast and their promises completely meaningless in this case well the vaulters of the estar T's would have to do the work of enlightenment where speeches had failed in a dark mirror to the iterators there existed the order elucidated though appearing nominally as part of the Imperial civilian government the order was in fact under the direct control of Malkin or deciduous the Emperor's omnipresent right hand publicly appearing as bureaucrats but in secret acting as censors of the most ruthless capacity they were often embedded alongside iterators almost entirely without the knowledge of said in a support capacity from where they were able to collect data in vast quantities upon the work of iterators and apply it where needed this could range from everything to directing the type of language an iterator would employ to providing magenta level intelligence briefings on cultural touchstones exploitable in military solutions the sheer quantity of information at the orders disposal allowed it to shape the very fabric of the Imperial Crusade identifying common tropes amongst separated by hundreds of light-years assessing cultural shock event risk of different first encounters situations as well as the potential for post consigns recidivism all based on data models crunched from tens of thousands of worlds while all of this was their day-to-day purpose he sort of macroscale Imperial Intelligence Agency their underlying purpose was the suppression by means of extreme prejudice of all faiths to this end they operated under no formal jurisdiction being sanctioned to enact whatever means they saw face by the city lights office itself their order and its history was one of blood murder and genocide extreme acts taken under the highest of secrecy's in order to eliminate occult sects secret societies and fanatical malefactors even those whom society would vest quasi spiritual roles shaman's witch doctors wise women in petty spiritualists none were below the scrutiny of the elucidate errs and given the span of their careers and the level of data modeling they undertook they no doubt considered any judgments they made to be supremely well-informed and based on the most solid of statistical projections the existence of these secret police were not widely known and certainly actively discredited by their iterator counterparts but they did exist and their terrible actions were not only state sanctioned but deemed the necessary if bloody cost of the truths ascendancy it has been said in retrospect that the works of these iterators and remembrance errs elucidate errs and the starties ardent celebrants of the truth all clothed to a fanaticism of their own and this is not without merit that being said the Imperium since it's early days did still to a degree touch upon the irrational and the esoteric at least in the broadest sense the necessity of astro telepathy for instance is hardly an exact science with the early communication method across the Gulf of space being literally on nearly oh man see interpretation of dreams rituals such as the practice of oaths of the moment bias tardies legions yet remained secularized yes but still redolent in character of sacramental ceremonies ancient beyond reckoning call it the trappings of faith if you will mayhap in his wisdom the emperor himself made a concession in this manner an acknowledgment that our human species is ultimately an emotional one we feel so deeply do we humans creatures so beneath his perfect mind perhaps knowing we are not cold cogitate errs he allowed the retention of these echoes of the spiritual in order to stimulate and engage the primitive hind brains of his charges why else would he name his greatest endeavor the crusade the following is an excerpt from the essay truth in all his works by Alastair Gundy the rationalist philosopher of Terah and one of the first scholars of the Imperial truth as well as an early contributor to its ideals and place within the imperial system as an aside from this work on the merits of a single creed of truth I wish to discredit a popular theory as the foolishness that it is you see X Gough at the primitive notion of demons I attribute these stories of beings of darkness and purest blackest evil to little more than the overblown fear mongering creations of the tyrants of Old Earth dreamed up to keep the basest chattel of mankind suppressed in servitude the preachings of false prophets the suit saying of the seers and the curses of old hags are but a comical and dramatic methods for the feeble to appear strong and for the worthless to garner undeserving respect the trinkets and charms peddled to keep such spirits at bay are a little more than mercantile exploitations of salesmen of serpent soil all of this an economy of nonsense is an exercise in obtaining and maintaining control over the weak-minded what of the tales of gods and their miracles and retribution at best they are simply a coincidence attributed to divinity unexpected hope or despair laid at the feet of certain menacing yet ultimately on extraordinary events at worst there are the heard behaviors of group hysteria and mass hallucination or the spreading of symptoms of mental infirmities caused by the Radiological legacy of terror the words and deeds of such so-called gods as Makris abundance degree land corner tan and the contagious King are patent works of fiction imagined from the minds of madmen nor can they be made to appear from thin air with bubbling incantation or the scribbled dobbing of childlike symbols the names hold no power over us we are to be a Galactic Empire of mankind unified by our Enlightenment claims as these illogical beings mean us great harm and reside in the turmoil of the warp to our falsehoods the empyrion is a necessary conduit for space travel and simply another dimension yet to be fully charted as all areas of space are the galaxy is mankind birth right the warp falls within our domain and we shall master it also just as the seafarers of Old Earth once bulked at the depths and the gas divers of Jupiter avoided the hot Jets of the Jovian zones mankind has and will again overcome its irrational immaterial fears we learn more of the xenos forms of the empyrion with every voyage they may appear to be drawn towards us but are simply like shoals of harmless Oceana creatures attracted by the blinking lights along the keels of our vessels as in any ecosystem there are two are predators to be wary of but these are simply star spawn hunting the shoals and harbours no malicious intent towards us I understand that sailors can be a superstitious loss so I must reiterate there are no demons in the warp this is one of the many reasons why the Imperial truth is so critical to breaking the fear human minds experience when faced with the vastness of the cosmos without us we could never even leave the light of Sol there's a lot within this piece of gandhi's work that summarizes the aspects of the Imperial truth specifically its early crusade assertions coherently and indeed bluntly he's disdain for the priests and the peddlers of false truths is paramount in the early paragraphs rightly decrying the usurpation of humanity's desire for the ephemeral by pernicious systems desiring simply to exploit he posits the guest out story theory common in early truth discourses namely that superstitions formed as explanations for universal systems all an aspect of an ignorant humanity simply attempting to explain and understand the cosmos and their place in it as the onward march of science and progressivism took hold the self-same superstitions would simply vanish as humanity discovered more finally and perhaps crucially he proclaims an answer to perhaps the most fundamental challenge to the rationalism of the Imperial truth the warp the warp the material Imperial a myriad of different names exists for the reality or rather unreality that exists in tandem to our own it is a dimension of pure formless energy energy that is harnessed in our universe by those beings we've come to term Sycho an energy which quantifiably and measurably responds to sentient emotion and thought formed within our universe it is also the means by which humanity is capable of solving the issue of faster-than-light space travel as by means of utilizing the warp drive human ships may enter the dimension and emerge elsewhere navigating the roiling tides of psychic energy as Mariners of old did the watery oceans of old earth and within the warp there are demons we of the modern age he used the word well loosely in the era of the Imperial truth they were regarded as predatory xenos beings as Gandhi put it uniquely vicious uniquely poorly understood but xenos nonetheless aliens of energy not flesh and blood their existence was not denied by the Imperium not per se but neither was it widely known the remembrances of Garvey alok n former 10th company captain of the 16th Legion Luna walls speak of an incident involving the entity Samus and his subsequent debriefing at the hands of his Primarch Horace looper Cal the future war master enlightened his Astarte subordinate to the nature of the enemy that he faced call it a spirit call it a demon we use these words alien and Zino's to describe the inhuman filth that we encounter in some locales the creatures of the warp are just aliens - but they are not life-forms as we understand them they are not organic they are extra dimensional and the influence our reality in ways that seem sorceress to us supernatural if you will so let's use all the last words for them demons spirits possessors changelings all we need to remember is that there are no gods out there in the darkness no great demons and ministers of evil there is no fundamental immutable evil in the cosmos it is too large and sterile for such melodrama there are simply in human beings to oppose us things we were created to battle and destroy orcs skycam to shefte chili cat Eldar joke hero and the creatures of the warp were stronger than all of them for the exhibit powers that are bizarre to us because of the other nough sup their nature while it is not beyond me this horrid irony of using the words of the arch traitor himself to illustrate the foundational imperial philosophy they are and yet are entirely appropriate and indeed an illustration of how little the broader Imperium was aware of the threat within the warp if a captain in the most paramount of the Leonia starties was unaware of the nature of the beings within the immaterial what could the majority of the Imperium population possibly know of them why were they not informed because the Imperial truth was a lie the Galactic and metaphysical conflagration that was the Horus heresy put paid to this the Emperor's lie as the warp bled into real space and usurped the fundamental foundations of all that is nine legions of the Emperor's Space Marines nine pry marks the Emperor Sons themselves fell to corruption vilest and most total pledging servitude to the dreaded sentences within the depths of the immaterial that darkest of Pantheon's that named themselves the gods of chaos the primordial Annihilator a concept an energy an onion averse 'el truth in and of itself it is the Great destroyer the unmake a--from outside of all things it crushes logic reason universal laws warping them all - clay you to be sculpted by this vilest multifarious appendages gods exist and they are fowler than anything we could have ever imagined or do they is the Emperor's truth really the Emperor's lie it's a reality of the universe that gods and demons are supernatural the unknown the ephemeral do in fact exist did the master of mankind actually hide this from us lie to his species about the fundamental truth of all things truth there is that word again one thing must be made clear here the Emperor loved by all Hallowed upon the throne savior of mankind denied his followers even his Primarch sons access to the full knowledge of the cosmic system they were sent forth to conquer in his name his motives well you may ask why but it would be almost ludicrous to assume that we can infer debase even though the knowledge of this very thing is so torturously secreted from the Imperium that this very record itself teeters on the brink of heresy most total that the emperor was completely aware of the hypocrisy inherent in the name of his philosophy let alone the concept is beyond doubt and that he extended his knowledge to those he deemed either worthy of us or necessary within his plans is also beyond doubt Malka door for one the entirety of the liji o custodes his marvelous life wards sundry other Imperial organizations of much more specialized natures likely to had knowledge of the true nature of things the order elucidated the sisters of silence the Ordo sinister all owed their existence to combating or suppressing the existential level threats artifacts Sakana history concepts from the unholy beyond that he did not choose to illuminate his sons is perhaps a subject so complex it will need its own record but what all these reveals must be acknowledged before we proceed further the Emperor knew and the emperor lied or rather as one prefers to see it he did not reveal the entire truth now I imagine at this point there are some amongst you who are beginning to well question the emperor lied to you you feel this within your hearts attempting to deny all that it is making you feel or is it not anger towards him and is that not the vilest sin marking you for death is he not our God Emperor our most holy Savior our destiny incarnated fear not he as he has always been was possessed of the most ardent surety that his path was indeed the correct one what other explanation is there he knew of his hypocrisy but he persisted to have concealed the truth of the war from so many even in an age of grandest enlightenment must have only been the hardest of decisions and one not made lightly in the least but again you no doubt cry why any discussion of the immaterial is inherently a difficult and dangerous one for it in and of itself is not a place that lends itself to definition no rational mind can fully shape form or contain the knowledge of it properly for itself is an ever-changing cascade of purest unreality but discussing such things one inevitably trends towards allegory using crude metaphors in an attempt to deliver an approximation of an understanding simile fragments of a greater truth but what we do know is that the warp is alive not alive in the sense of biology as we know it but rather it is a pure energy possessed of self-awareness sentience all of its own at sentience is a reflection of the dreams hopes fears wants loves hatreds desires all of the myriad of emotions that all sentient life in our universe feels it is an ocean and into that ocean we pour our thoughts and in those vast tide of passions intelligences emerge war masters analogy is not entirely without justification nor was Gandhi is a vowel that these intelligences are simply xenos of an altogether more unknowable quality but to compare the demon to the orc is fundamentally impossible an orc is a thing of hateable flesh the demon is purest energy while both are predatory the demon uniquely is so stalking sentient life from beyond the skein of reality itself seeking means through which it can inveigle its way into our world once it is capable of doing so it's manifestation presents itself by accumulating all material around us both real and psychic to invariably clothe itself in whatever it may to inspire horror their scent movements utterances even their very presence proclaim their other nurse in Vedas to this plane but as terrible as these lesser emanations are they are but fragments of a greater and more cyclopean whole as one has discussed previously in one's discourse upon the nature of the archenemy over time the intelligences of the warp began to reflect fundamental pillars of the nature of all sentient life and for whatever reason whatever dark jest our universe has played upon us they are fundamentally negative war and bloodshed disease and decay desire and ambition mutation and change the warp is a mirror and we by our existence give it life the intelligence is within it seek to increase their hold over us to wield our emotions for their benefit the more we feel and the stronger we feel it the greater they swell in power the more blood is shed and bones broken the greater waxes the Lord of war the more that health is usurped and plagues ravage the land the greater waxes the Lord of decay the more humans strive for impossible perfection or plumb the depths of depravity the greater waxes the Lord of excess the more we seek power to manipulate our own destinies the greater waxes the Lord of change and should any of these be carried out deliberately in their name o yet greater do they swell belief is their truest sustenance they crave it beyond anything else for it nourishes them beyond simpler unaligned emotions these greater intelligences and the lesser creatures in their thrall they are stories rendered alive they are self-aware concepts as if the laws of physics in this plane could be personified and treated with enumerable Infinite charts of the same simple fictions predatory legends given form by our simple belief in what we feel they are what we make them how does one combat an idea what happens when concepts themselves are the enemy what is one to do when every iota of belief in the supernatural direct or indirect feeds the primordial Annihilator starve them cut them off from what sustains them deny them sucker and watch the dreadful power of the warp wane as reality simply forgets it is there well would that it were so simple if one had to hazard the broadest of guesses the Imperial truth was an attempt by the Emperor to weaken the connection between this terraqueous realm of ours and deny the arch enemy its source of power by weakening the hold of faith and the supernatural upon the human mind he may have sought to starve his foes and Shepherd humanity away from a time when the terrible darkness of the night caused us to cry out for the aid of the ephemeral for beyond our Ken the ephemeral was hungrily watching though many of us had no way of knowing our beliefs fed things greater and more terrible than imagination and in horrid retrospect many did so willingly bargaining for the power of the warp in exchange for servitude at the feet of the dark pantheon superstition religion faith all form the easiest pathways by which the demonic other may crack the scheme eliciting its tendrils into the hearts and minds of humans and making way for its apotheosis by suppressing violently if needs be all knowledge of the immaterial and the wielding office beyond the most surface level understanding was the emperor and those within his inner circle seeking through ignorance to bring an Enlightenment but scant writings we have of his closest servant speak of it in such tones Malka door the sigil ice in conversation with 5th Legion Primark jagged icon spoke of this as the ultimate of necessities the purest and most truest deception but a temporary measure meant to by the Imperium vital time in an almost impossibly short span we have the present those of us who even know that the Imperial truth was once the most perfect race can only look at what has come of it and decide if it truly were a shield made of the knighted ignorance that styled itself as the sword of enlightenment then the Imperial truth could only ever have been as the siege light set an impermanent solution to a problem on a universal scale certainly there seems to have been much much more to play and more pieces upon the board than even I may yet Ken the Emperor's as yet to me unexplained absence from the Great Crusade during its final years scattered references to a seemingly endless stream of men materials and may joy disappearing into the depths of the Imperial dungeons even as the war masters hordes rampaged across the Stars all speak to a great plan that is beyond what records available even those to the logos historic avert you can surmise perhaps through his colossal psychic might he was building some greater work than even the Imperium this bears further and deeper investigation not this speculation what then do we ultimately arrive at as a conclusion upon the Imperial truth itself was it the great lie that some of my colleagues to cry it has our gods real does the supernatural underpin all of reality itself as hard as this is for one to say the truth maybe yes and no but this universe we exist in is stranger and altogether more malignant and cruel is a very real thing it's self-aware state cannot be denied for we saw the heresy we saw the scouring and now we see the opening of the eye and the birth of the Great Rift and every day more and more and more of the never born things from beyond the veil hammer at the walls of our pity reality faith is the order upon which the Imperium turns faith in the god Emperor and His angels of death and who deny his divinity is to literally court one's own death he has truly ascended the being now of psychic energy a Godhead in his own right but does this in and of itself ultimately violate the Imperial truth as a concept what is the Warped but energy the miracles we see performed before our very eyes which have come to define the Imperium itself could they not simply be the manifestation of a greater Universal system and that in our ongoing psychic awakening humanity is discovering the mailee ability of reality under the sheer power of belief the immaterial and the material are indelibly bound two sides of the same coin each capable of harnessing and wheeled in the forces of the other to gain immense power is this not then how the universe operates it is not then ultimately a facet of scientific truth albeit one that stretches simply too far into the unknowable that we simply cannot quite grasp it at present within this macro structure of fleeting concepts that we have decided collectively to term reality it has become apparent since the earliest days of the Imperium that all things are a matter of belief it does not matter whether this belief Springs from reason or faith ultimately your truth that one that lives inside you can shape the foundations of this universe if you believe in it hard enough you may even bring others into your fold your truth supplanting theirs on and on until somewhere beyond the walls of our conceptual framework something opens its eyes and fixes you within its gaze it is at this point you will find out just how small and horribly atrociously important that belief of yours really was Ave Imperator gloria in excelsis terra of this video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my patreon subscribers if you'd like to help support the channel head on over to patreon comm slash oculus Imperia if you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos you can contact me or follow me on twitter at oculus Imperia otherwise please like subscribe comment let me know your feedback and as ever thank you very much for watching you

Channel: Oculus Imperia

Views: 199,978

Keywords: Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Lore, Warhammer 40k Lore, Warhammer 30k, Horus Heresy, Horus Heresy Lore, Forge World, Games Workshop, Astartes, Primarchs, Space Marines, Adeptus Astartes

Id: LiSBoQxQxSk

Length: 42min 5sec (2525 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020