Walk With Me
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Lorgar, Primarch of the XVII Legion, the Word Bearers, ordered on the planet of Khur the creation of a great city - a "perfect city" - dedicated to the worship of the Emperor as the God of Humanity. Yet 964.M30 showed the Legion XIII Ultramarines in their entirety surrounded the world, and forcefully evacuated the capital city of all its citizens under threat of death. The people compliant under the Word Bearers Legion were allowed to send out a single message of help, and the Lorgar's Legion responded swiftly.
Around the orbit of Khur two Legions warily regarded each other with shadowed guns and battle fleets at a hair trigger. Astartes should not fight Astartes, but they were Space Marines and they knew no fear.
Lorgar Aurelian indignantly landed at the outskirts of abandoned Monarchia for an explanation. It was perhaps fortunate that the city had not yet been blasted into nothing but orbital fire, but the threat was clear. Who would dare? Lorgar would not suffer such insolence, not even from his brother Primarch, Roboute Guilliman. They had no right!
But of course only one being could move a Primarch and their entire Legion away from the Great Crusade at a word.
This was the moment of Lorgar's great rebuke, and the instigating cause for his Heresy. The laughter of thirsting gods relished the harvest of pain and terror that would soon commence.
Or rather, it should have been.
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Lorgar looked into his father's unknowable face as the Emperor spoke: "You are a general, my son. Not a high priest. You were created for war, for conquest, to reunite the human race under the aegis of truth."
"I only seek to serve-"
"'This is worship," the Emperor said. "This is a poison to truth. You speak of me as a god, and forge worlds that suffer under the one lie that has brought humanity to the edge of extinction time and time again."
"The people are joyous–"
"The people are deceived. The people will burn when the consequences of such blind faith come crashing down upon them.'
"My worlds are loyal!" Lorgar was no longer kneeling. He rose to his feet, his voice rising with him. 'My Legion shapes the most fiercely loyal worlds in your Imperium!'
"It is not my Imperium." The words slammed into the minds of all the Word Bearers like bolter shells. Had they not been on their knees, they would have fallen. Their armor sensors pinged for life signs, so certain were they that they were dying under the sheer pressure of that power.
"It is the Imperium of Man. The empire of humanity, enlightened and saved by the truth. It is not a thing that needs to exist upon a foundation of false worship of a single being."
"I speak no lies. You are a god."
"Lorgar."
"'I will not be silenced because you do not like the melody of one single word. In your grip, a thousand worlds turn! By your will, a million vessels sail the void. You are immortal, undying, seeing all and knowing all that transpires across creation. Father, you are a god in all but name. All that remains is to confess to it."
"LORGAR." The voice came with a wall of pressure now, dense and all too tactile. It pounded into them like a miasma of engine wash, heating their armour and throwing Astartes to the ground. Around their Primarch, Space Marines were to be seen skidding off amidst a cloud of dust on the ground.
Defiant in the cyclone of unseen energy, scrolls of scripture ripping from his armour, Lorgar raised his hand to point at his father. "You are a god. Say the words and end the lie."
The Emperor sighed. He turned away, showing his back to his Legion. Then he turned his head slightly to the side and said
"Walk with me, Lorgar."
The Primarch shot back up to his feet, but before he could respond, the Emperor began walking away. Lorgar hesitated only a moment, looking down the kneeling forms of his Astartes, before leaving them behind. The Word Bearers did not begrudge him that, for somewhere in their two hearts they all realized here was a chance to find the answers they long craved.
Or perhaps, if not an answer, an ending.
Astartes cannot live with doubt.
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Lorgar followed his father as they walked out of the boundaries of Monarchia. He watched his father's back, tall and proud, and had to bite his tongue to keep from asking the questions that burned. They walked silently, Lorgar following like a servant, miles and miles away from the great city.
A part of him wondered if his father meant to slay him where there was no one to bear witness, but then just an instantly recoiled from it. That was a stupid thought. What was the point? The Emperor could do as he wanted, for the Word Bearers were the most loyal.
The thought of raising a hand to slay his own father was anathema – it was disgusting!
Lorgar steeled himself, it was a test of his faith, should his father raise his sword then he would accept it without fear into his chest.
The sun lowered in the sky, and the moons rose, and in the darkness creatures howled. High above the gathered fleets of Legion XIII Ultramarines and XVIII Word Bearers were brighter stars against the dark firmament.
The darkness itself frayed, and from the horizon a golden light dawned. Always, Lorgar realized, they had been walking towards the sun.
They walked until the sky turned blue again, and fleets were visible again as pale shapes scattered across the sky. Neither of these barely-human physical gods felt any tiredness nor need for sleep. They walked in silence until, at the banks of a river and along a copse of trees, the Emperor stopped.
He turned around, and gestured towards some boulders nearby.
"Sit with me, Lorgar."
Lorgar nodded. "As you wish, my lord."
The rocks crumbled slightly under the weight of their battleplate, which were only plated with ornamental gold – behind their grandiosity were almost impregnable layers of adamantium, arcane circuitry, disruptor fields, and powered servos. Lorgar sat to the right hand of his father, and he sat waiting with superhuman patience as the Emperor stared off towards the sunlight glinting off the surface of the river.
"You have heard, and failed to listen. So I will make it simple for you. Lorgar, hear me."
Lorgar held his breath and prepared himself, not having any hope.
"I am the Emperor of Mankind, and I am not a god."
Lorgar scowled.
"Long have you objected to this fact, Lorgar. I prevent humanity from their worship of me, and forbid you from this form of devotion. You do not understand why."
"I do not. Father, will you finally grant me an explanation why?"
"I am a human being, Lorgar," said the Emperor. "I am old. I am almost as old as human civilization itself. Under my tutelage did mankind come to fruition. Little remains of my first years, the time I thought I was mortal, and yet an echo of an echo of those years linger on.
"When I was a child, and watched over goats – waiting, bored out of my little mind, staring at the river much like this one. Just waiting. No thought of the future. No concern with the past. Just the wind. And the sky. And me. And some goats that I sometimes needed to poke in the head with a stick to make them obey."
Lorgar nodded. However, it was not entirely incompatible to be first a mortal and then become a god. Many were the legends of such beings. The Emperor may have started as a mortal, but that was merely his chrysalis, his unknowing shell before he came into the full awareness of his own power. As limited as his time as a human may have been, it did not change the fact that he had always been a god.
Was the Emperor perhaps just clinging to his humanity out of sentiment?
A flaw in perfection – but not one that Lorgar could repudiate.
He furrowed his brows. In some way, perhaps – it could be said that the Emperor was far more human than the Primarchs. The Primarchs were born made for battle, they grew impossibly quickly and gained potency in unprecedented speed to conquer the worlds they had chanced to fall upon. The Emperor had lived a full life as a human being – and in his millennia, perhaps several lifetimes of self-imposed limitations. Not until the Great Crusade had the Emperor finally needed to reveal himself.
Lorgar exhaled. Truly, only the divine deny their divinity. This sentiment, this love for humanity, more than ever it affirmed the Emperor as the one most worthy to carry the worship of his people.
"Father, if I have caused offense then I can only pray for your forgiveness. But what you are no longer such a limited being.
"But the people are Compliant. They are loyal and they mean well. They praise the immortal beneficence that you are. If you must punish someone, let me bear it all instead. I beseech you father – punish me instead and let me know what wrong have I spoken! I know you have forbidden it – but do not deny the truth any longer!
"Strike me down if you must – but I must say it! You are human, it is true. You are a god! This is also the truth. God-Emperor of Mankind! You have proven it! No one else is worthy of such a title."
The Emperor groaned. He raised the great golden Power Claw on his left arm and began tapping at his own forehead with a hooked finger. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The Emperor's nostrils dilated as he inhaled sharply.
Lorgar felt privileged that his immortal father and Emperor was willing to trust him enough to show frustration in front of him. It was too human a gesture, and Lorgar could not trust it.
"Lorgar. Before we start this – define for me. What is a God?"
Lorgar smiled. A discussion was already the beginning of a concession. Many faithless had been led to the light through nothing but simple honest discourse. Preaching was for the unknowing and the already initiated, but for the doubting – just a simple conversation was necessary. Back and forth, answering questions, quelling reservations, using logic.
"A god is a being that stands above, an immortal, all-knowing being! A creator and a guide, the one that cares for an exalts His people and as they are exalted He is exalted in turn – higher and higher! The worthiest being to ever live!"
The Emperor stared down at his son. Great disappointment was in his eyes.
And he spoke "And that, Lorgar, is where you are wrong."
Lorgar punched the ground and dropped to one knee. "Then, father! I beg again. Enlighten me on how I am wrong!" he snarled out.
"Gods… are arseholes."
Lorgar looked up. "Wha-"
"Sit your brass-plated arse back down, Lorgar."
Slowly Lorgar stood up and then back down to a sitting position beside his father. This vulgarity – never had he expected this from his glorious sire.
And the Emperor continued "Gods care about their worshippers, is this a joke? I have gone from one end of the galaxy to the other. There are beings that do have abilities and domains that might be considered godlike - the Eldar have their Gods, the Orks have Gork and Mork, and ignorant savages cry out to the heavens and are answered by emotional parasites – and all of them are… arseholes.
"Gods do not exist. No gods actually work for the betterment of the species that spawned them. They are creatures of the status quo. It is a feedback loop – the worse the people behave, the more their gods reflect their immorality. The more their gods exemplify their worst traits, the more its people are driven towards irrational excess. This is the downfall of the Eldar."
"That… does not quite refute how you are a better God for Mankind…?" Lorgar's voice pitched oddly at the end.
"I have fought beings that have been called gods. I have broken Kaela Mensha Khaine over my knee. I stuck the Void Dragon in a jar. Those four parasites FEAR ME because I can accomplish what they cannot. Gork and Mork are nothing more than collective dreams among Ork-kind. Do you know the difference between them and me, Lorgar? Hmm?
"I can do this."
The Emperor reached out and thwacked the back of Lorgar's head with his open palm. The ancient technique known as the dope-slap.
Lorgar was stunned, but more out of surprise than pain. The slap nearly bowled him over, but it barely registered as pain.
"Gods *do not exist*, Lorgar. *I* exist. As long as the bulk of me locates its power in the Materium. Look, how I strike my fist – I discipline my son – which is something I should have prepared time for, I now realize, but I had believed you were all smarter than this – and may take direct action to resolve problems instead of needing to send a prophet or spirit possession or some vague prophecy.
"I speak, and it is truth. I delegate, and it is done. And I, the Emperor of Mankind, take action to safeguard my Imperium on behalf of all humanity that exist alongside me."
Lorgar stared, his mind bursting with fire; a whirlpool of confusion, and his superhuman intellect roared to make sense of the Great Truth the Emperor had finally – finally! – revealed to him. "Father, do you mean – you… you deny you are a god. Because you *must*?"
"Do you have any idea of the amount of power I would have to give up just to *BE* a God, Lorgar?!"
The words slammed into Lorgar's mind, not because they were filled with so much potency, but because they were said so gently and with melancholy that the Primarch was struck numb for several seconds.
Eventually Lorgar rallied "Father, do you have contempt for gods – and the concept of worshipping gods, because none of them worthy? No." Lorgar shook his head. "Do you not wish to be worshipped as a god – not because you consider yourself superior to them, but because godhood is detrimental to you…
"Gods…" Lorgar blinked. He blinked again. "Do not… exist."
"Gods do not exist," said the Emperor.
"Gods do not exist!" Lorgar said in terrible enlightenment.
"Gods do not exist," said the Emperor. "I am a human being, the pinnacle of everything humanity can become, existent in the Materium."
"All the worship, all the prayers said in your name. Father, how is it wrong? If you must not speak of yourself as a God, if you may not admit to it – for a being of such power as to speak it, is to make it a truth – have we, in this worship, being encroaching upon the foundation of your existence as the Emperor?"
The realized that they were in some small way killing their object of worship – that is the first heresy!
"Lorgar, you are actively making my task harder. While you slowly bring worlds into compliance, while you raise churches, while you teach children to say litanies – worlds are being burned, billions are being preyed upon by the alien, and grand technologies are ransacked and lost forever. I have revealed myself in order to secure the safety of as many humans as fast as possible, and unify them under the Imperial Truth.
"You have disobeyed not just my orders, but the reason for which you were created."
The Emperor pointed with his claw back to where they had walked from. "I DO NOT NEED this divine excrement, Lorgar. The Legions are made for conquest. CONQUER! I do not need pulpits and choirs, give me gun nests to defend against the alien! Give me LOGISTICS INFRASTRUCTURE, not churches! I do not ask from you your worship, only OBEDIENCE."
Lorgar lowered his eyes and began to mutter "Everything we have done… was it wrong? Yes, it is indeed true, that only the truly divine deny their own divinity. Could we have been arrogant in our ignorance, forcing that divinity upon our master? We did not realize that there had to be a reason the divine must deny His own divinity."
"I said STOP IT, Lorgar." The Emperor flicked his arm out to swat Lorgar in the back of his head again. The Primarch followed through, falling to his knees in obeisance.
He slapped his palms open on the ground, cracking the soil and spraying dust in a circle all around them, flattening trees in a shockwave. "Father, I have sinned!" Lorgar roared. Then in a lower tone of voice, full of anger and dismay "But I must ask – had we continued unabated, what could our misplaced devotion have wrought?"
"I am the Emperor of Mankind, an immortal, yet human all the same. But I am not all that exists of me. There are oddities in the Warp, intelligences formed of the emotions and desires of all thinking beings that live in the galaxy. The Materium is the reality from which all things spring – the Immaterium is but a warped reflection of thoughts and memories. Something must stand between the worthless Chaos and the purposeful Order of the Imperium of Man supreme in the Materium.
"Only after the galaxy is secure, only after humanity is safe, could I take steps to directly protect humanity from the depredations of the creatures that infest psykers, create mutants, that lead souls into the damnation of their vices. "
"What could your misplaced devotion have done? Look at me."
Lorgar looked up, and from his mouth issued a silent scream. Instead of the face of his father, he saw a naked skull, its left eye covered by red module, its rotting body festooned with machines, tubes and hoses that snaked up and around the Golden Throne.
"The Imperium lives, but as an abomination of itself struggling to survive, on the blood of billions of worthy souls shedding blood daily in a million battlefields. Myself, slain at the hand of my most beloved son, and the Warp broken open to plague humanity forevermore. In endless agony I must roil in the Warp to prevent Terra and Sol from collapsing into a new Eye of Terror, and maintain the Astronomicon, and in anguish be unable to aid not even a fraction of all those who cry out to me for succor.
"The God-Emperor of Mankind, lacking compassion, beyond the release of death, shattered into a thousand pieces, the best of myself dead with my sons, a target for worship – that needs that worship – unable to die, unwilling to complete Ascension, lest humanity die with Him."
"How could this happen?" If this was a prophecy, then Lorgar had damned them all!
"Was it me?" he wondered. Who among his sons was the most beloved?
That would be Sanguinius. Or perhaps Horus, the first-found and closest to the Emperor. But Lorgar could not even begin to imagine what sequence of events could drive these most loyal to betray their father.
So far, Lorgar knew, only he had dared to be so openly disobedient.
"Chaos is ever the enemy, and chaos begets chaos. But the universe is a mechanism of order that wrestles even random chance into repeating fractal patterns.
"As Primarchs grow in power, so may I slowly release the proportion by which I must remain as a guardian of humanity in the Materium. This is as you were designed. Did you think that you would be discarded once the Crusade was done, much as I had disposed of the Thunder Warriors? No, my sons – you are pieces of myself. You are my mortality. You are all the best of me that I have put aside in order to become an utterly ruthless and logical creature dedicated to the survival of mankind.
"If only you did as you were meant to do, only then I would be able to ascend as the protector aspect between the Materium and everything that seeks to prey upon the souls that live in it."
The Emperor raised his hand, and a black book appeared upon his palm in a burst of golden flame. "The Imperial Truth is truth. Gods do not exist. And they can be starved out. And then… replaced by something else. Something that cares. Domains of thought and desire once impregnated into the skeins of the cosmos cannot be changed into a different being, but a creature that is yet nascent can be imbued by the human power to change themselves.
"But such a being is not godly, cannot be a god, because it would be capable of real change and growth instead of a seemingly chaotic but self-perpetuating repeating pattern of ingrained behavior.
"This is the aspect known as the Star Child…"
The Emperor tossed the book down in front of Lorgar. "But this can only be done if the galaxy is properly prepared."
"Properly… prepared…" Lorgar echoed. He hesitantly picked up the book of the Imperial Truth.
"I told you religion was poison. You did not believe me."
'Literally poison?' Lorgar thought. What an odd vulnerability for a… being that must not be referred to as a god. But the horror of that glimpse of a God-Emperor would not leave him.
"Do you know what the worst about this is?" The Emperor said with a dark chuckle. "The Lectitio Divinatus is not even wrong."
Lorgar looked up sharply, a needle of hope painfully showing through his eyes.
"But the Adeptus Mechanicus are further along with this than you are. You know I do not reject the Adeptus Mechanicus in the veneration of myself as the Avatar of the Omnissiah."
"Yes. Father, this has always been something that had left me perplexed in how the Imperium allows what is in essence a second, separate Imperium with its own laws and its own religion, to exist at the same time as the denial of divinities by the Imperial Truth."
"If properly activated, the Omnissiah as the culmination of all human knowledge, would be a being that lives backwards in time in order to manipulate the timeline to ensure that humanity existed far into the future.
"You may not remove humanity's evolution from the time stream because any change you make is still in the Omnissiah's future, and thus may be corrected for. Nor may you destroy the Omnissiah in the future, because humanity can recreate it. Worshipping ME as the Avatar of the Omnissiah is not an issue since I would be part of the effort to create it. I would be sending information upstream to myself. My ability to heal technology at a touch has already hinted as much to me."
Lorgar's chest swelled with delight at being finally trusted with the real answers. Then his other heart clenched painfully at remembering this was as much a chastisement as a reward. His faith, his devotions, the honest efforts of millions in their praise of a being more than ever proven worthy of their worship – more and more he had spent so much in futility.
No, futility would have been fine. If such worship had simply been irrelevant to the Emperor, they could endure it. But knowing their worship was harmful, none of them could bear that sin.
"But the Omnissiah can only protect humanity from time paradox. It cannot help humanity from being snuffed out of existence though gun and blade and sickness and mutation. We cannot know it has been properly activated. We cannot know if it the extermination of this particular instance of humanity is a part of its own history. We must struggle to be worthy of our survival. Put not your faith in gods, Lorgar, because they…?"
"They do not exist. We must rely on our own power instead of being reliant on external assistance."
"No, because gods are arseholes. The God-Emperor of Mankind with his mind and soul flayed open to the galaxy lacks perspective and might subconsciously cause more suffering because more suffering means more praying, and more prayers mean more strength in the Warp to better protect humanity from horrors."
The Emperor clenched his fist and sky grew dark. He spoke with thunder and lightning and the fury of the heavens themselves: "THIS IS WHY THINGS HAVE TO BE DONE PROPERLY LORGAR."
The Emperor open his hand back out into a palm, and made a motion as if throwing something away. "I keep secrets because I am a being that is also capable of viewing the future. But the mere act of myself seeing also myself in the future invalidates all prophecy. "Instead I keep secrets from even you, my sons, to ensure that my influence does not taint the safety margin I have for my Plan, for the narrow Golden Path of humanity's survival.
"Lorgar, you have spoken of your faith, but have not shown trust in me."
"Father, was I wrong? Then we must make this right. We have misled the worlds we brought into Compliance. If we must burn them all to save you from the wrong we have done, then- "
"That would be senseless, Lorgar, because why did I work so hard to save humanity if you would just destroy the populations and the resource base we need to further the Great Crusade?"
"A mistake, no matter how well-intentioned, does not erase the sin that was committed. Without penitence there can be no forgiveness." Lorgar hissed out. "What must I do? Father, I am lost. Guide me, father, for I know not what I do."
"Lorgar, you must understand. I am old. Long have I been a servant of humanity, were it not for the need, I would not have revealed myself to rule. Long have I been a patron of the arts and the protector of human thought. I respect the effort of the people of Monarchia. The exquisiteness of their craft, even I cannot deny.
"They are misguided, but they are not to be despised.
"But what they have done is an affront to MY LAW."
Lorgar grimaced. He placed his fist upon the ground and lowed his head. "I too, have committed a crime against the tenets of the Imperial Truth. For too long I have believed that what I had done was only righteous, but must a Primarch be above the law? Father, punish me."
The Emperor opened his palm up again, and in a flash of power, a device appeared. He tossed the square piece of metal with a large red button on it towards Lorgar. The Primarch caught the device on his own armored palm and stared down at it in furrowed-brows confusion.
"If you press this switch, the fleet above shall waste Monarchia, wiping it from the face of the galaxy. All that toil, all that praise and worship, all for naught. You have wasted everyone's time.
"Or you may choose not to press the button, and I will allow Monarchia to persist. You are a servant of mankind after all, and if this is what the people want then perhaps I shall allow it to remain existent. Forbidden to everyone of course, let it be domed up and sealed off, and put your more serviceable planetary capital elsewhere. But I shall allow you to retain the proof of your Perfect City.
"This is not a test, Lorgar. Do you serve me, or do you serve humanity? Are you my soldier, or do you keep responsibility as a ruler in your own right? I care not. Either way, the open worship must end."
Lorgar immediately slammed his finger onto the button, cracking the red metal casing.
"Well clearly I value the time and effort of the people of Monarchia more than you do," said the Emperor.
Lorgar looked up, and gave the Emperor a bland look that stated 'why did you lie to me again?'
The Emperor smiled again and let out a little chuckle of amusement. Lorgar was once again struck with how much he was unworthy and yet honored by the Emperor behaving with such spontaneous ease in his presence. For all his life he had seen the Emperor, his father, as this great and powerful and unknowable being.
And yet all the Emperor had to say was 'I am a human being' and then he acts in such a casual humanlike way again. Smiles. Jests. Sarcasm.
How terrifying.
Truly divinity can only be defined by itself.
"Lorgar, while I am being so free to tell you my secrets like this, I might as well speak of my own regrets. Sometimes I wonder – what if instead of creating twenty sons, I made twenty sons and one daughter?"
Lorgar's look almost said 'what fool thing are you talking about now?', but he was much too fearful of his father to allow such indecorum to appear on his expression.
The Emperor continued to muse "Instead of leaving it for everyone to wonder who inherits the galaxy once I move on to greater things, mayhap a being crafted specifically for rulership in peace time could have prevented so many misunderstandings.
"But I was needed to make haste and you were all made for war to save as many humans as possible. Now Pax Serenitas can only be achieved through the effort of man and man alone. Primarchs exist only to bridge the way."
Lorgar adjusted his seat on the ground into as much of a cross-legged position as his full suit of armor allowed. He clasped his palms and fingers together almost as if he would start meditating. "Does this mean you have decided to spare the people of Khur, father?"
"To the people of this planet, I give the easier duty. Tear down their glorious city. Tear down their temples. Piece by piece. Melt their golden idols and turn their marble statues into bricks. But in destruction, purpose. Let them infuse their faith into their sacrifice – cast the metal into weapons to be used against psyker and warp phenomena.
"There is indeed a power in such things. I am a Man who does not like his time to be wasted, and so I shall not waste such pain and piety when it can be turned into a weapon against the four Emotional Parasites and their daemon agents."
"Father- wait. What? Faith is effective against… daemons? But the Imperial Truth denies the existence of such creatures."
"People are prone to great folly, you know this. Selfish and self-aggrandizing, fearful of their own mortality. Knowing something is out there only tempts them more to seek it. I have tried to protect mankind through ignorance of the Warp, but events have shown me that is not as effective as I had originally envisioned.
"It is these entities of the Warp that make psykers so dangerous. Each psyker left unchecked is a portal to a realm of chaos and terror, open to possession. An open mind is a gate with its doors unbarred and unguarded.
"I have said that I am a human being, a pinnacle of what humans can be. When a human puts their faith in me, as Myself the example of all They can be, there is a resonance. I am empowered as they are empowered in turn. It is not as like the psyker opening themselves up to the vagaries of the Warp, but because I cast a great and potent shadow in the Immaterium. My existence FIXES the rules of the Materium in place. I am the anathema, the anti-Chaos, and that power is shared by all who believe in me.
"It happens that prayer and religion is not the only way to be graced by my beneficence. My symbols carry power."
"I see. I thank you for your clemency, father."
"To the Word Bearers Legion, the task is even simpler. Go forth and conquer. Bring me worlds into Compliance more than the Ultramarines manage in ten years, and I will be appeased."
The Emperor this directed his baleful gaze down to Lorgar. "And as for you, the cause of all this folly. Forcing me to travel away from my own important duties in order to chastise your impudence-"
"I accept any punishment you say, father!"
"The Great Crusade by itself is not my Great Work. It is but the first step in a narrow Golden Path for humanity's survival. As Chaos ruined the Eldar Empire, so must it never happen to my people. The Imperial Truth is the way of reason and logic, and all of humanity shall be a weapon against the purposeless boil of Chaos.
"Your efforts have blunted this blade, Lorgar. Sharpen it.
"You have Faith, but faith alone is not enough. Great Works of stone and gold are not enough to show devotion. Faith without service is meaningless air coming out of worthless mouths.
"There are no Gods. If you find any that dare claim godhood in this galaxy, slay them.
"In this way I will be pleased. I name thee Lorgar, Aurelian, Antheokratos, Chaosbane, go forth and become a shining light against the malevolent darkness of the Warp. Only when the task is done shall you earn the right to bear witness to a Godshead of Mankind in Its ascension.
"Let those who would attempt to lead you astray from this path fall under your blade."
"Father – my lord – you honor me."
"Also, kill Kor Phaeron. He is a Chaos worshipper and has all this time been maneuvering you to worship those unworthy beings in the Warp. The Old Faith as a religion is a mechanism of the Four. Parasites seek to collapse my Imperium and empower themselves in the resulting emotional eruption of my sons rising up against me and driving my Imperium back into barbarism and fear and superstition."
Lorgar looked up sharply. Kor Phaeron was his foster father, the one who had discovered Lorgar as an infant and raised him to become the master of all Colchis. He was first to trust in Lorgar's vision of The One, the true divinity and master of mankind.
One father asks his son to kill his other father.
"Lorgar. Two Primarchs and their Legions have already been lost to their corruption. It is because I am your father and, though I do not show it, I do consider my sons more than just tools. But if you fall to Chaos I will have no choice but to kill you. You and I have a greater duty to mankind."
Lorgar clenched his fist and slammed it over his breastplate and bowed. For the first time the Emperor had shown trust in him, and Lorgar could not repay that with treason. Everything the Emperor has spoken to him about made sense, he did not ask for belief on blind trust alone.
The Emperor's divinity had to be repudiated, but it was also inevitable. The Emperor was worthy of worship, Lorgar exulted. He was not wrong!
And if Kor Phaeron was an enemy of that truth, an enemy of the glorious future that is the Imperium, then Lorgar would remove him without doubt.
"I… understand, father. Your will be done."
"Good."
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Kor Phaeron was gone when they returned.
"Well that certainly is a vinegar infused vegetable," the Emperor mused. "Lorgar, the guilty has fled. Handle this. It seems I will have been too long away from Malcador, he is setting AdMech Magos Biologis faces on fire again."
The Emperor then walked off nonchalantly as if he had not completely upended his son and his entire Legion's whole world-view – again – and leaving it for someone else to clean up the mess. Perhaps, Lorgar mused, there was indeed a reason the Emperor did not interact much with his Primarchs.
Perhaps it was for the better that way.
The truth was often… an inconvenient thing.
Lorgar turned his back on the Emperor and towards his Word Bearers. There was work to be done.
.
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Lovehammer Emperor accidentally into canon 40k.