Upon the Golden Throne, The Emperor writhed in the indescribable agony of ten thousand years of torture while watching His dream, His Imperium, wither and rot away into the things he most hated. He could have easily died and let this nightmare stop- all He would have to do is give in. But with all He was, He did not. He could not, not for the last ten thousand years of anguish and never for as long as He could hold out; every second in this bloody galaxy millions died holding the line in His name, so how could He so any less? After all, more than anyone He knew what the price was- complete an utter damnation for Humanity. Not because the Astronomicon would go out, leaving the galaxy in darkness once more as a second and final Old Night descended. Not because The Four warp tumors would be allowed to freely prey on Terra, feasting on the countless trillions of souls there and destroying the very heart of the Imperium.
If He died, if He gave in, then He would be reborn as… HIM. As the most terrifying thing He had ever envisioned in countless eons of life and turmoil, more terrible than anything He could have dreamt of in His darkest and most terrible nightmares before being entombed upon this damned gilded prison which acted as a monument to His hubris. The unspeakable horror of a seemingly inevitable future which had been veiled from His vision until it had been too late. The epitome of all His fears coalesced into just two damning words, a name of what would be if He wavered for an instant.
The Star Father.
The idea of it had haunted His nightmares since before the Age of Strife, even if He hadn't fully realized just what he feared. A malevolent and inescapable god of Order. The Eternal Tyrant.
That was the true reason for why He had cracked down on Lorgar so harshly and perhaps unjustly. He had been afraid, so afraid that His terror had overcome His reason; a bitter irony for one who prized logic and reasoning so highly that He had scorned things such as religion and faith. Had He not been such a blind fool, He would have merely shown Lorgar His nightmare, and explained WHY He refused to be worshiped. Rather than keep His fear hidden, He should have been open and honest with His son, with all of His sons really, and let them know the true scope of the peril Humanity faced.
But in His hubris, in His pride and need to be seen as unfailing, He had made a decision for Lorgar, for His sons, for Humanity.
And as He was entombed upon the Golden Throne, body shattered by the heartbreaking duel upon the Vengeful Spirit with what had once been the son closest to His heart, He realized the true depth and magnitude of His mistakes. His many, many mistakes, many of them outright fatal for those He loved and cherished, and a dagger to the heart for His dreams. Suddenly, the Veil that had so clouded His foresight and kept Him on His damned path to the Golden Throne was lifted. The future that the Four-no, FIVE- had hidden from Him was revealed in all of its horror.
Possibly the saddest part of it all was that they hadn't even needed to lift a single finger to truly manipulate Him. He had done that to Himself; as that one human artist had said back towards what was the beginning of the third millennium, He had played Himself. When the blinders were finally off and He had seen what He had truly wrought, He had sent a scream of fear and pain into the Warp that had continued unabated. Pleading. Begging. For anyone to save Him from the hell of His own making.
But the worship of Him had grown, and with it, the laughter of the Fifth god. The Living Saints. The Miracles. The faithful citizens of the Imperium saw them and rejoiced in them as signs of His protection and favor, but in truth they were the signs of the end approaching. Even as earnest as Saints such as Celestine were, they did not know the truth of their own existence, of how they were little more than daemons of the Fifth Chaos God that was forming within Himself. Sebastion Thor, that absolute legend of a man, had delayed the Ascension at least a little. He had seen Vandyre's true Master- as the only human to see the Star Father, he had rewritten the Ecclesiarchy to prevent that future. Even that was not enough to stop that dark fate though, for Thor could not even conceive of NOT worshiping the Emperor let alone trying to dissuade the countless faith-driven masses of the Imperium to do likewise. If anything, seeing what the Emperor's suffering kept at bay convinced Thor further that the Emperor WAS worth worshiping, albeit with modifications to said worship. No, Thor had not stopped the Star Father, but he had given his Emperor something truly precious and often overlooked: time. He had given the Emperor more time to sit upon the Golden Throne, and arm His one and only weapon against HIM.
The Talisman of Vulkan. An act of desperate defiance against the seemingly inevitable. One last roll of the dice.
It was, simply put, if one ignored all of the complex Warpcraft and techno-sorcery that had went into its creation, a dead-man's switch. Not to kill the Four, no, but to kill Himself. To make absolutely sure that He died and stayed dead if The Star Father rose. He had tested it against Himself, and it had, thankfully, burned Him. It grew in power. Every scrap of power that He could afford to spare was fed into it. But then, the Star Father began to shriek in anger and denial. Without any input or planning from Himself, a way out was created. One that had flown under both His and the Star Father's radar, escaping their vision much to His surprised relief and His dark, future self's unending fury.
That way out took the form of a simple, seemingly unremarkable Human man, who the Eldar's Laughing God Cegorach had spent a lifetime carefully blessing and guiding. The Great Clown, having listened to His screams, had acted in ways none could anticipate, both true to and seemingly opposed to his own nature. Of course, Cegorach had little choice BUT to act, to at least try and prevent what was coming; The Star Father was no joke, after all.
That simple man's name was Ciaphas Cain, and his life would be an elaborate comedy, oftentimes in the Greek sense of the word.
Cain's destiny was always in constant flux so that no power beyond himself could truly choose his fate, but one thing was certain: somehow or other this simple mortal man would kill the Star Father.
At one glance, he was a Commissar of incredible skill, and gifted with common sense. It was so baked into him that even after the birth of the Star Father, Ciaphas, in spite of being turned into one of those… Bright Lords, he would find the will to defy HIM. He would create a haven for those who remained, and, after thousands of years, slay HIM once and for all, and become the true Fifth Chaos god of Order- but an Order that keeps others safe, not the Order that smothers their will. Cain the god would be the one who would lead Humanity to glory.
At another glance, he was a warlord of Chaos. His actions would poison the gods themselves, turning them into something more pleasing- more kind. And when the Throne failed, they would be pushed over the edge, as the only cults left would be those that poisoned them. Humanity would defeat them by turning them into allies- calming the Warp over the course of millennia. And once again, Cain would slay HIM, and once again, become a Chaos god- this time, of freedom, liberty, and hope. And once again, Humanity would pass their final trial, and an eternal golden age would begin.
A third fate was that Ciaphas would be inducted into the Mechanicus. That he would rise fast, and eventually become a Prophet of Mag'Ladroth, and see the encroaching Monster. In this timeline, the damage of the Star Father would be limited to Terra, as thousands of Pylons would be constructed around the planet on His own orders. The Warp would rage and shake, but That Which Should Not Be would be contained, and, eventually, eradicated. Mag'ladroth would be worshiped by humanity, but as a C'tan, would never become a Warp god, and, as master of machines, lead humanity into a level of technological mastery that would outpace even the Necrons, and keep them as benevolent masters of the Materium, and, eventually, the Immaterium as well. It stung that a repentant C'Tan would be humanity's savior in that path, but if that was the price He paid, then so be it.
Again and again, countless paths. Countless ways that Caiphas Cain, the seemingly ordinary man plucked from the squalor of the Underhive of some nameless Hivecity would grow to defy fate itself. Cain the High Lord. Cain the Rogue Trader. Cain the Human leader of the combined Orkish WAAAGGGH. Cain the Inquisitor. Cain the noble pirate. Cain the Astartes. Cain the Ecclesiarch. Cain the co-leader of the Farsight Enclaves. Cain the Lord-Admiral. Cain the planetary or even sector Governor. In at least one particularly hilarious path which was an absolute comedy of errors, Cain the Sororitas. And even a few paths where he WASN'T taken from the Hive, becoming either a criminal mastermind or achieving his dream of running either a brothel or a tavern, yet was STILL crucial in SOMEHOW defeating the Star Father. No one path was an absolute certainty; Cain's fate was his own despite his complaints to the contrary. He did not let the gods, any gods, roll the dice for him. For Ciaphas Cain, any path was possible.
And now… this path. One different from all the others He could see.
Oh, He would still Ascend to godhood fully. But in this timeline, it was tempered. Restrained. Made tame and not something to be feared with every fiber of His being.
The god of Death and the Afterlife. Of Humanity and the Eldar… and whoever else filed the paperwork to become a 'sanctioned Xenos'. An enemy of Chaos, but not a Chaos god of Order. The Star Father, xenophobic bigot which that particular iteration of Himself shamefully was, needed to remain pure- away from the taint of Xenos souls. When Eldrad had tied his very own soul to Him, He had heard the distant, but ever-growing laughter of the Star Father pause in shock before the fury had come.
"WHAT IS THIS?!" His dark counterpart had raged. "THIS IS NOT THE GOLDEN PATH! HOW?! HOW DO THEY BIND THEMSELVES TO YOU?!"
"Slaanesh offered them a way out," He snarled at His future self, equally shocked but delighted whereas the Star Father was enraged beyond all reason. After all, as He well knew, fear could do that to you.
"NO… NO… NO NO NO!" The Star Father gnashed and cursed, in some ways acting like a spiled toddler that had been denied a treat. "CIAPHAS IS DAMNED! TURNED INTO A DAEMON PRINCE!"
"He still serves Me." Cegorach had told him that he would offer Him a way out through Ciaphas, after all- though once again, it had been forced to come through as a cosmic joke at Cain's expense.
"YOU CANNOT DO THIS!" The Star Father… almost pouted. It was an extremely angry pout, true, but there are only so many ways and so many times to say that a being was enraged without it getting tiring. "MY BIRTH IS INEVITABLE!"
"Not anymore." That was His voice, but different. The scene expanded. Suddenly, He saw the Star Father, in all of HIS golden glory, facing off against… Himself… but different.
This new version of Himself was clad in hues of gold, purple, and blue. A faint, nearly unnoticeable point was at the tips of His ears, and His features were even finer and more noble looking than they already were. He wielded a new sword- a combination of Eldar and Human forging, with a noticeable curve and wave-like ripples in the material unlike the Star Father's straight and rigid blade. His armor, forged of Wraithbone and Auramite in equal amounts that were somehow harmoniously entwined together to make the other material stronger, shone with the souls of the dead. But these souls, Human and Eldar both as well as some others, resided in a languid and peaceful manner- the promise of Rest instead of eternal Work. His face held everything yet nothing, but above all a tranquil yet righteous fury fused with the desire to protect and serve as a shield towards those who had created Him. He was everything that He had wanted to be. The two possible fates locked blades, straining against each other in a duel for the future of Mankind, of the galaxy itself.
"Choose your Destiny, Us of the Past!" the multi-colored one called, the Blade of Unity crossed with the Blade of Order. The two pushed against each other, trying to throw the other off guard so that a decisive blow could be struck. A pure contest of both might and will. "Me, or HIM!"
It was an easy choice.
"You!" He cried out, in desperation and relief. "I renounce the Star Father! Tell Me Who You Are!" With a roar of effort and jubilation, the other, partly alien version of Himself threw the Star Father off of HIS feet, and stabbed HIM in the heart before that accursed Blade of Order could be raised in defense. With a scream, the Star Father finally died. With a single thrust, a single act of faith, His long nightmare had been defeated. The survivor of this duel for the very Soul of Humanity turned to Him, and spoke.
"I am the God-Emperor to the Humans, and Ynnead to the Eldar. I am the Last Bastion of Sanity. I am the Hope of the Galaxy against Chaos. I am the Promise of Peace and Rest. I am the Peacemaker between The Last Gods of the War in Heaven."
"But above all else… I am Ayaz, the boy who would swim in the river after dark, even when told not to."
Then, with the sound of a billion tidal waves, the vision ended.
"Ayaz…" He whispered inside the Warp. It was a name He had not heard for tens of thousands of years.
It was His name. The name His mother had given Him all those years ago, by those riverbanks in Anatolia.
Long ago, He had cast it aside- an unnecessary thing. What was the point of using a name that none alive, save Himself, remembered? Neoth had been His first replacement name. His most recent was Revelation.
"I will be Ayaz again," He decided. He heard a distant scream, and the last wisp of HIM vanished, leaving only Himself, finally freed from the chains of His own creation.
The Star Father was no more. Only Ayaz remained. For the first time in ten thousand years, Ayaz smiled. Oh, His body didn't show it. But in the Warp, His relief was felt. Across the Imperium in that moment, every Sanctioned Psyker broke out into joyful sobs; even the Astropaths had happy tears impossibly running from their empty eye sockets.
"Ciaphas… thank you," he whispered, before he let out a small chuckle. "Though… I do hope you don't know how you saved me… at least not yet. You might die from Imposter Syndrome overload." There was a faint laugh in the distance, and one final word from the one who had helped set up this enormous cosmic joke.
"Bazinga!"
With a groan of good natured humor that momentarily blocked out the agony He still felt, even if fear of the future was no longer part of that pain, He projected a response into the Warp so that His… friend could hear it. After all, every Emperor needed a Court Jester, didn't they? Ayaz's astral voice roared through the Throne Room, shocking the Custodes who for the first time in ten thousand years of careful vigil didn't know how to act. If anything this reaction from the near demi-gods, crafted by the Emperor's own hand, just added to the humor and His amusement. After all, what was a joke without a straight man to be the punchline or an audience to be entertained or shocked?
THAT SHOW WAS CANCELED IN M3 YOU DUMB CLOWN! AND IT WASN'T EVEN GOOD IN THE LAST SEASONS! SIENFEILD WAS BETTER!
"Bite your tongue, Empy! Do not blaspheme against the greatest show ever created!" Cegorach howled back, from behind the Webway gate. And thus, the two fell into a (mostly) friendly bickering match over their preferred shows.