Hey guys! I feel like this is my new favourite “get involved” show. Prepare yourselves for the walls of text.

Konrad Curze was the primarch who, with his legion, inspired cooperation through terror tactics throughout the great crusade. He would leave planets so afraid of the consequences of non conformity that they would remain loyal through fear. He seems to be very like the historical character of Vlad the Impaler, who is also said to use fear to reign, with one story saying he would leave a golden gem encrusted cup at the centre of each village knowing that it was safe, because it it went missing the village would be slaughtered.

His story is also pretty much driven by Marlon Brando’s character, Kurtz, from Apocalypse Now, who again ruled with terror. When Martin Sheen kills Kurtz he lies dying saying “the horror”, and when Martin Sheen is escaping Kurtz follower allow him to leave.

Now let’s look at the mirror. Kurze is constantly chastised by the Emperor for his tactics of instilling compliance of worlds through terror while Kurze argues that it still gives compliance and is therefore a viable tactic. The emperor forbids them from using these tactics and he goes back to fighting normally. During the heresy, a callidus assassin called, wait for it, M’Shen, infiltrates Konrad’s temple that is made of humans, literally made of humans, and finds him waiting in his throne room for her. She walks up and kills Kurze. He allows it as it is final vindication of his tactics. The Emperor had resorted to using terror tactics of assassination to gain compliance, something he always told Kurze was beneath them and doesn’t work. Kurze knew this was going to happen due to his ability to see the future, but unlike the Emperors ability or Sanguinius’s his was a disjointed weird creepy vision, he had told his legion to allow the assassin to get to his throne room and that they were NOT to stop her from leaving. I believe he did this because he needed the Imperium to know that the Emperor had used an assassin on his own son, and if they had killed her prior to her escape then no one would have known.

The astronomicon is nothing to do with the golden throne. The Golden Throne is the control system for the webway gate under the palace that Magnus screwed up when he tried to warn the Emperor of Horus’s betrayel using Astral Projection. The Astronomicon is powered by psychers in the Choir of the Astronomicon in the palace.

The fight between the Emperor and Horus was immense. Sanguinius had already fought and as stated, opened up a crack in Horus’ armour. By that time Sanguinius had already killed the great bloodthirster Ka’Bhanda at the infinity gate, killing it by breaking its back on his knee and held the eternity gate almost single handedly, but in the fight against Ka’Bhanda Sanguinius was badly wounded and almost beaten. Horus was going up against a spent foe, and Sanguinius knew he had to do some damage and hold up Horus until the Emperor found him, know he would die.

The Emperor and Horus fought for ages, the Emperor holding back the entire time, convinced that Horus could be saved and brought back into the light. The Emperor had his arm torn off, one of his eyes was popped (all in the fluff) and was laying broken when Horus went to kill him. At that point Ollanius Perrson, one of the perpetuals who later is Canonised by the Ecchlesiarchy as Saint Pius, entered the room and leapt in front of the Emperor. Horus his him with a bolt of psychic energy that disintegrates him. As the Emperor see’s this he knows there is no return for Horus, so he summons all of his strength and sends a psychic lance straight through the gap in his armour Sanguinius had opened. This is where people who question the Emperors power need to take note. The Emperor knows that killing Horus is not enough, he will just come back later when the Chaos Gods grant his soul Daemonhood, so the Emperor summons a bolt that no only kills him, it annihilates his very soul. The Emperor basically breaks the laws of the Conservation of Energy, he destroys energy, leaving nothing of Horus remaining.

He is then taken to Rogal Dorn, who in old fluff at least tells Dorn how to adapt the golden throne into a life support system. He is then placed on it to keep the webway gate closed and himself alive. Nothing to do with the astronomicon anymore. The Emperors soul is not in the warp any more than it would have been when he was alive, the whole point of the star child legend is to kill the Emperors body to allow his soul to be reborn, at the moment it is tied to his body. As for the throne, it is a life support system fed by psycher’s souls. They are connected and their life force is fed to the Emperor to keep him alive. If it was a stasis field he would not be able do anything, psychically, or even physically (yes according to fluff he sheds a tear every time a hero of the Imperium dies/space marine dies or some such). It is literally like having a person in a permanent vegetative state on life support for 10,000 years.

The Illuminati are also a bit more than just a group of people that are searching for the Sensei, they are individuals that have been possessed by a daemon and managed to cast that daemon out and survive the experience. This means they have seen the warp and have knowledge of the overarching machinations of chaos. They understand that the Imperium will fall if the Starchild is not reborn. They themselves are also said to be uncorruptable by chaos due to their unique understanding of how the ruinous powers change humans.

The Sensei are like black holes, you can’t see them in the warp directly, but you can sense them by seeing their effects on their surroundings! They’re also sterile too, so they are unable to have their own children.

Space Marines are like the Imperium’s Immune system, they act autonomously for the benefit of the Imperium, sometimes they don’t respond, but they are never ordered to, and ordering them is a good way to see them give you the finger, they are allowed to be autonomous due to their importance. They don’t see the Emperor as a god (well some do, but as a standard they don’t) they see him as the pinnacle of humanity and as a grandfatherly figure. Something that the rest of the Imperium, especially the Ecchlesiarchy have to bite their tongue about…. The Imperial guard are the antibiotics of the Imperium. They are delivered where they are needed and hammer the problem with countless bodies until they win!

Peace out!