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Who is more evil, the God-Emperor of Mankind or Emperor Palpatine?

Who is more evil?

  • The God-Emperor of Mankind

    Votes: 1 5.3%
  • Emperor Palpatine

    Votes: 18 94.7%

  • Total voters
    19

LordFrancis93

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I didn't know what forum to post this, since I joined literal seconds ago. So I apologize if it's misplaced.

I think Palpatine, since nothing the Master of Mankind did can match the sheer, petty evil of Operation Cinder.
 
The thing is... the Emprah is not really evil. He didn't even become a "god" until after he became a throne ornament.

Before that he basically fought Chaos while the Empire was essentially utopia-lite. It didn't really go downhill until the bureaucrats came along and made him a religious figurehead, then did brutish acts in his name.

Even "not dead yet", the Emprah is using psyker power to hold back some of the worst that Chaos can send. He is lterally in the edge of dying to protect his people.

---

Palpatine blows up planets to show he is a big tough guy and enslaves other planets because he hates aliens. He is a prime example of being evil for the sake of being evil and holding onto power because it makes him feel powerful.

---

Not much of a comparison. Sheev wins the evil game.
 
So basically Space!Caesar vs Space Hitler?

I choose the dude whose intent was to commit atrocities, rather than the one who did them as a side effect of his ambitions. For all of GE's brutality and cruelty, he at least did not INTEND to mass murder everyone for his own personal short term benefits.

That was just a side effect.....
 
im a fucking heretic

Q9qFwLq.jpg
 
@Vikram at the worst possible portrayal of skulldad, the whole 'organic machine' thing, he was apathetic to plight/suffering. To him, it was unimportant in the greater picture, which is the survival of humanity/defeat of chaos or whatever. After everything was done and over with he would slither into the shadows and let humanity rule itself.

In contrast:

Darth Sidious said:
These pages unite one of the first Sith Lords with he who shall be the last. Each author's voice echoes the era in which he or she held power, but the Sith Order has evolved over seven thousand years. The errors made by my predecessors will not be my own. Their triumphs will be nothing compared to my omnipotence.

Tarkin said:
And he would not allow himself to be sidetracked from his goal of unlocking the secrets many of the Sith Masters before him had sought: the means to harness the powers of the dark side to reshape reality itself; in effect, to fashion a universe of his own creation. Not mere immortality of the sort Plagueis had lusted after, but influence of the ultimate sort.

Dark Empire Sourcebook said:
With the knowledge gained from his Dark Side Compendium, he would create an eternal dynasty, with the descendants of Skywalker as its nobility, and Palpatine himself as its omnipotent ruler.

Dark Empire Sourcebook said:
There have been many who have served the Dark Side, but not all of them have sought to rule the universe as Palpatine has.

Dark Empire Sourcebook said:
He would journey across the universe spreading the shadow of his rule, blotting out the stars themselves, and taking his Dark Rule to other helpless galaxies.

Official Starships and Vehicle Collection #64 said:
In place of the Empire and the New Republic, Palpatine planned to bring about a new form of galactic governance. He would use the dark side to control everything and everyone in the galaxy. What's more, he was capable of it.

I'm not calling the Emperor a good administrator -by any means- but he planned for the Imperium to exist without himself at its stead:


I can't remember what fucking book this is said:
'The Emperor and I have a debate,' he said. 'It has been running for a long time, and I miss our discussions now that He is gone. Such a powerful intellect. Blunt, but powerful. And, very occasionally, even a sense of humour – of a sort. Would you credit that?'

Hassan listened cautiously. He didn't understand what Malcador meant when he said the Emperor was 'gone'. He was not. Surely, He was not. Where would He have gone to? Hassan wanted to ask, but Malcador kept on talking, just as if the absence of the Master of Mankind from the eternal seat of power were a trivial thing, hardly worth lingering over.

'This is our debate – He believes that the task of a ruler is to make himself obsolete, so that his people will replace him when they are mature enough. I disagree. I do not think we will ever be mature enough for that. I believe that no one but He will ever be strong enough to hold mankind together, even for a moment. He is quite exceptional, you know, perhaps in ways He doesn't even understand Himself.'

Malcador looked sidelong at Hassan. His gaze was shrewd. 'So what do you think, Khalid? Whom would you side with, Him or me?'

Hassan took a deep breath. He didn't know whether to be flattered to be asked, or insulted.

'Do not hesitate,' warned the Sigillite. 'Choose.'
'I was going to say…' began Hassan, haltingly. 'I was going to say that the Emperor will lead us forever. That is what we are taught. What I believe.'

Malcador nodded. 'Well said. You are with me, then. And you are right, of course – He has such high aspirations for our species. Too high, perhaps, for He does not always appreciate His indispensability.

At the end of Horus Rising, after Ullanor, there's already a civilian council set up, sending a delegation of administrators across the Imperium, insisting to Horus -who recently became Warmaster- that Terra has to begin collecting tithes from its worlds, to which Horus replies that most of the instated governors are on worlds still in compliance, still rebuilding. The head of the delegation, Aenid Rathbone, claims that it's the will of Malcador the Sigillite and the Emperor. After she leaves, Horus says that people like her will be the death of the Imperium, not its myriad of enemies. He says:

Horus Rising said:
'But it is the Emperor's will,' Torgaddon remarked.

Horus shook his head. 'It is not, for all she says. I know him as a son knows his father. He would not agree to this. Not now, not this early. He must be too bound up in his work to know of it. The Council is making decisions in his absence. The Emperor understands how fragile things are. Throne, this is what happens when an empire forged by warriors devolves executive power to civilians and clerics.'

We can infer from the above that the Emperor has too much faith in the general populace. He's already ceded a degree of power/autonomy, Horus at this time is fairly trusting/loving of the Emperor, and spent most of his formative years under his tutelage, I would assume he knows the man well, personally.

Technically, one can argue that the Emperor didn't care about the Imperium personally, since it's just a means-to-an-end, but that's stretching it. When he was struck down and interred on the Throne, the Senatorum Imperialis took up governance of the Imperium, with the help of Guilliman's reforms. When Palpatine died, on the other hand:

Emperor Palpatine said:
If an Empire cannot protect its Emperor then that Empire must be deemed a failure. It collapses not only because its central figure is gone, but because it must not be allowed to remain!

In his 40k years of life, the Master of Mankind has never done anything nearly as... sheerly, pettily evil as Operation Cinder. GEOM has done stuff such as slavery, anti-religious pogroms, state-enforced destruction of mixed human-alien civilizations. But Palps wanted to burn down everything out of sheer spite.

To contrast, again:

The Emperor of Mankind - His Last Words said:
"Now all of you go! You know your duties. Execute them well. The universe has many horrors yet to throw at us. This is not the end of our struggle. This is just the beginning of our crusade to save Humanity. Be faithful! Be strong! Be vigilant!"

The stance of both Empy and Palps on aliens is contradictory, so I'll ignore it.

Emps turned humanity from the certain prey of alien species like the Nephilim, or the chattel of Chaos, into the dominant force of the galaxy for 10k years, and is keeping the universe from falling into eternal damnation.

Contrast that with Palpatine, who basically wants to become a Chaos God and cover the universe in the darkness of his shitty rule.
 
@Vikram at the worst possible portrayal of skulldad, the whole 'organic machine' thing, he was apathetic to plight/suffering. To him, it was unimportant in the greater picture, which is the survival of humanity/defeat of chaos or whatever. After everything was done and over with he would slither into the shadows and let humanity rule itself.

In contrast:













I'm not calling the Emperor a good administrator -by any means- but he planned for the Imperium to exist without himself at its stead:




At the end of Horus Rising, after Ullanor, there's already a civilian council set up, sending a delegation of administrators across the Imperium, insisting to Horus -who recently became Warmaster- that Terra has to begin collecting tithes from its worlds, to which Horus replies that most of the instated governors are on worlds still in compliance, still rebuilding. The head of the delegation, Aenid Rathbone, claims that it's the will of Malcador the Sigillite and the Emperor. After she leaves, Horus says that people like her will be the death of the Imperium, not its myriad of enemies. He says:



We can infer from the above that the Emperor has too much faith in the general populace. He's already ceded a degree of power/autonomy, Horus at this time is fairly trusting/loving of the Emperor, and spent most of his formative years under his tutelage, I would assume he knows the man well, personally.

Technically, one can argue that the Emperor didn't care about the Imperium personally, since it's just a means-to-an-end, but that's stretching it. When he was struck down and interred on the Throne, the Senatorum Imperialis took up governance of the Imperium, with the help of Guilliman's reforms. When Palpatine died, on the other hand:



In his 40k years of life, the Master of Mankind has never done anything nearly as... sheerly, pettily evil as Operation Cinder. GEOM has done stuff such as slavery, anti-religious pogroms, state-enforced destruction of mixed human-alien civilizations. But Palps wanted to burn down everything out of sheer spite.

To contrast, again:



The stance of both Empy and Palps on aliens is contradictory, so I'll ignore it.

Emps turned humanity from the certain prey of alien species like the Nephilim, or the chattel of Chaos, into the dominant force of the galaxy for 10k years, and is keeping the universe from falling into eternal damnation.

Contrast that with Palpatine, who basically wants to become a Chaos God and cover the universe in the darkness of his shitty rule.
Is there a reason I am singled out? I did say I choose Sheev.
 
How is this even a contest. Palpatine literally goes enabling act on an entire galaxy
 
Terrible things happen in WH40k the Emperor is trying to save humanity.
Palpatine is just being a dick because he can.
He's also basically Space Hitler, as mentioned earlier
 
As I said in the SV version of this thread, if you gave the WH40k Emperor a puppy he'd glance at it, and drop it to the floor as irrelevant.

If you gave Palpatine a puppy he'd use Force Lightning on it just for fun. And because merely kicking puppies just isn't cruel enough. The WH40k Emperor isn't a good guy, but he's not the kind of cackling self-consciously evil villain Palpatine is. He's a lot closer to a Chaos worshipper than the Emperor, to put it in WH40K terms.
 
The thing is... the Emprah is not really evil. He didn't even become a "god" until after he became a throne ornament.

From what I understand of WH40K lore, there would be the undead blighter on the golden throne, and there would be the "warp god" created and fueled by all those people's belief in him.
It might make more sense to think of those are to different entities.

But as to the question of the thread - I'll go along with the apparently unanimous consensus.
One the one hand we have a guy whose story is "Everything I did, I did for the good of humanity. If some of my choices had bad outcomes, it's because I'm not infallible" while on the other side we have a guy whose story is "Everything I did, I did for myself, and my quest for absolute power! Bwahahahah!"

Though from the point of view of someone of a sapient alien species whose homeworld got slagged by the forces of either human-run empire, the distinction might not seem so important...
 
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Emps definitely caused more suffering than Palpatine ever could, for all that matters.
 
Emps definitely caused more suffering than Palpatine ever could, for all that matters.

Much longer lifespan in which to do it.
Empy was also far more of a "Space Hitler", what with that whole policy of exterminating all "xenos".
If you were an alien living in the StarWars universe during the period of Imperial tyranny, you could still be partying in a pub with your pals, without having to fear that the cackling madman on Coruscant was going to order that your entire species be wiped out just for not being humans.
And then there's the whole Fedora-tipping "Imperial Troof" nonsense... so Space Stalin as well.

"Empy did more evil, Palpatine was more evil" is perhaps the best way to sum it up.
 
the geom is more deluded and causes more lasting harm, but Palpy does it for lulz
 
The biggest problem that many fans dont like to talk about is canon 40K is the bad end. Its the timeline when sanity and mortal races lose. The imperium and great crusade? That is the Emperor in desperation mode. Just him moving openly is a sign of how utterly cluster fucked things are. The previous golden age he had helped Humanity built got burned down so hard all that was left was savagery and insanity and when he could finally get off Terra he was in "gotta fix this last millennium" mode because of the shear number of threats to Humanities survival. Humanity was broken and about to be overrun and slaughtered by any of a dozen + threats. If things went his way Humans would be the dominate race of the galaxy and transition back into a enlightened people with time with him and his salvageable sons fading into the background hiding and moving in the shadows as the Emperor had ever done.

Where unspeakable atrocities committed? Yes. Because he saw no other way for Humanity to survive and that is his primary objective above all else. Where other races purged? Yes because many of them were threats to Human survival who could not be reasoned with or took advantage of Humanities collapse to kick them while they were down. But a number of races were spared. Did he enforce all Humans joining or die and stamp out religion and cultures? Yes because Humanity had to be united to survive and frankly many of those cultures were dangerous or utterly degenerate. He actively knew religion was dangerous and pointless just feeding things in the warp that thought of mortals as food.

The Emperor fucked up but he is trying. Palpatine is a rabid monster who tortures the galaxy and all around him for the giggles and to jerk off to the suffering. Comparing them is like trying to put a apple next to irradiated feces.
 
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