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| “ | The Emperor Protects | „ |
| ~ Imperial slogan |
| “ | Look what they've made of our dream. This bloated, rotting carcass of an empire is driven not by reason and hope but by fear, hate and ignorance. Better that we had all burned in the fires of Horus' ambition than live to see this. | „ |
| ~ Roboute Guilliman on the current state of the Imperium of Man. |
The Imperium of Man, also called the Imperium of Mankind and simply The Imperium by imperial forces, are the main protagonists of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. It is a galaxy-spanning Human empire that dominate the Milky Way Galaxy while facing constant battles with Xenos races and the Forces of Chaos, their sworn enemies. Their Warhammer Fantasy counterpart are the Empire of Man.
During a period known as the Great Crusade in Imperial history, the Imperium brought a materialistic and atheistic doctrine centered on reasons and science which was known as the Imperial Truth but since the internment of the Emperor of Mankind within the Golden Throne, the entire Imperium has currently fallen under irrational superstition and corrupt tyranny, including the fanatical worship of the Emperor as a living god, of which ironically the Emperor originally intended to purge all forms of religious faith and even prohibited his people to worship him as such.
The Imperium was established by its founder and sovereign, the god-like Emperor of Mankind, renowned as the most powerful Human psyker in history. He created the Imperium over 10,000 Terran years ago during the late 30th Millennium amidst the Unification Wars on Old Earth, following the devastating era known as the Age of Strife.
Though the Emperor nominally maintains his rule over the Imperium as both its political authority and primary religious figure, his severely damaged body is now housed within the arcane life-support system known as the Golden Throne. This occurred after he sustained mortal wounds during the ancient interstellar civil war known as the Horus Heresy.
As a result of his unfortunate condition, the Emperor is unable to engage with others on a daily basis. Consequently, he has delegated the governance of the Imperium to the Senatorum Imperialis, an oligarchic council composed of the most powerful noble lords and adepts in the galaxy. Presently, the council is chaired by the Emperor’s genetic son, Primarch Roboute Guilliman, who oversees Imperial policy as both the lord commander of the Imperium and the Imperial Regent.
History[]
Great Crusade[]
According to legend, the Human homeworld was consumed by countless wars during the Age of Strife, a period that ended with the arrival of the Emperor. Amidst the inferno of collapsing arcologies, techno-barbarians clashed with gene-soldier collectives, and cannibalistic tribes unleashed dark psychic powers upon cyborg legions. Powerful warlords, demagogues, and nascent psychic deities emerged and fell, each threatening to drag the planet and its people into oblivion. Yet, the Emperor, sensing the abatement of the Warp Storms that plagued the Age of Strife, recognized an opportunity to reunite Humanity and usher in a new Golden Age.
The Emperor emerged from his hidden fortress beneath the Himalayan Mountains in the late 29th Millennium. His goal was the unification of Terra's techno-barbarian states, achieved either through diplomacy or the brutal Unification Wars. These campaigns pitted the Emperor's forces against the techno-barbarian tribes who controlled vast swathes of Earth's ravaged landscape. The wars were fought by superhuman soldiers called Thunder Warriors, genetically engineered from the Emperor's early followers to surpass baseline Humans. These warriors formed the foundation upon which the Space Marines would later be created.
With the last independent techno-barbarian state conquered, the Emperor began establishing the Imperium, signaling the end of the Age of Strife and the restoration of hope – a virtue and a curse for Humanity. Understanding the limits of solitary rule, even for one such as Himself, the Emperor formed His War Council, comprising His most capable generals and administrators, foremost among them Malcador the Sigillite.
Malcador, a learned man with a priest's demeanor, was not a warrior. His origins remained a mystery, known perhaps only to the Emperor, to whom he was rumored to be distantly related. Malcador was appointed to manage the newly built Imperial Palace and Court in the Himalayan Mountains, effectively governing Terra as the Emperor's right hand. The planet, once a battleground, transformed into a hub of activity, production, and planning.
As the conquest of Earth concluded, a sudden cosmic event sent a shockwave through the Immaterium, dispersing the Warp Storms that had convulsed the galaxy for over five millennia. This event appeared to be divine intervention, reinforcing the belief that the Emperor was a deity, a claim he vehemently denied. With the galaxy now accessible, the Emperor's armies prepared to venture into the stars, beginning with the planets of Terra's solar system.
After subduing the last of Terra's techno-barbarian states, the Emperor secured an alliance with the Cult Mechanicus of Mars, a techno-mystic group controlling the galaxy's most advanced industrial and scientific facilities. In the Treaty of Mars, the Emperor pledged to protect the Tech-priests' religion and respect the sovereignty of the Mechanicum and their Forge Worlds, granting them unparalleled autonomy within the Imperium. Furthermore, he gave six Houses of Navigators to the Mechanicum, enabling their ships to safely traverse the Warp once again after they lost their own Navigators centuries ago.
The Fabricator-General of Mars was granted a seat on the War Council of the Great Crusade. Access to Martian manufactoria allowed the Emperor to augment His Legions with superior equipment and supplies. Martian Tech-priests also contributed their expertise in constructing Warp-capable battleships to transport the Emperor's Legions across the galaxy, and provided massive city-crushing war machines known as Titans to the ever-growing Imperial military.
The Treaty of Mars united the Emperor's Terran military might with the industrial strength of Mars and the Mechanicum. With the necessary manpower and resources, the Emperor mobilized Terra and Mars for a vast military campaign, the Great Crusade, aimed at reuniting scattered Humanity under His rule. Thus began the Age of the Imperium. A vast fleet of starships was constructed in orbit of Mars, carrying the Emperor's armies to reconquer the galaxy for Mankind.
Prior to the reconquest of Earth, the Emperor had employed advanced genetic engineering and psychic arts to create the primarchs, twenty superhuman military commanders of exceptional physical, mental, and social prowess, forged from His own genetic material and the power of the Warp. The Emperor recognized the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and their daemonic servants as the greatest threat to His plans for Humanity's reunification and galactic order. He sought to shield His gestating primarchs from the Dark Gods within secret laboratories beneath the Himalayan Mountains, but the Chaos Gods pierced His defenses.
They opened a Warp portal in the Emperor's laboratory, stealing the infant primarchs and scattering them across the galaxy, corrupting many with the power of Chaos. Undeterred, the Emperor utilized the remaining primarch genetic material. Having created the Thunder Warriors to unite Old Earth, he then transformed ordinary Terran men into a new corps of transhuman warriors: the Space Marines, or Legiones Astartes, who knew no fear. Fueled by technology and resources from around the Sol System, the Space Marine Legions rapidly grew in number and power. They became the spearhead of the Emperor's Great Crusade, breaking the will of enemies and toppling empires, both Human and alien.
With Mars integrated into the Imperium, the Great Crusade commenced in earnest, beginning with the conquest of the Sol System. The Legiones Astartes seized the scientific research facilities and spacedocks of Luna, previously controlled by the Selenar gene-wrights. The humbled and enslaved gene-wrights of Luna aided in forging the next generation of Space Marines. Alien invaders were purged from the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, and their enslaved Human populations were repatriated to Earth. The mutated humans of the Neptunian Deeps were exterminated without mercy, and the false-world of Sedna was vaporized by the guns of the Imperial fleet. The Great Crusade was a monumental operation of unimaginable scale and complexity, involving billions of troops and tens of thousands of voidships, manageable perhaps only by a mind like the Emperor's.
The Imperium's forces were organized into Imperial expeditionary fleets – semi-autonomous battle groups assigned to traverse the stars and wage war in the Emperor's name. These fleets were composed of a vast array of voidships, and their paths were dictated both by the Emperor and His War Council, and by the will of their commanders, entrusted with seeking out the enslaved and destroying the alien wherever they held sway.
For two centuries, the Great Crusade forged the Imperium across the galaxy. During this time, the Emperor rediscovered His scattered sons, the Primarchs, each granted command of the Space Marine Legion derived from their own genetic code.Horus, found on the mining world of Cthonia near Terra, was the first Primarch to be reunited with the Emperor. For three decades, they fought side-by-side, forging a deep bond of affection between father and son. The Astartes Legions, alongside the Imperial Army (later divided into the Astra Militarum and Imperial Navy after the Horus Heresy), brought countless human worlds under the Emperor's rule, creating a vast interstellar civilization.
However, the Great Crusade ended abruptly with the treachery of Warmaster Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus and supreme military commander. The Emperor had entrusted this role to him so He could return to Terra to oversee a secret project: opening the Aeldari Webway for human use. Horus and several other Primarchs deeply resented the Emperor's absence and His plan to replace their direct rule with a human bureaucracy. Establishing the Council of Terra as the Imperium's governing body, the Emperor retreated to His laboratories beneath the Imperial Palace. There, He began His ambitious Webway project, intended as humanity's greatest gift. Unbeknownst to the Emperor, trouble was brewing in the wider Imperium.
The Council of Terra's creation sparked outrage amongst distant Primarchs, who felt slighted by being governed by "lesser" mortals. Some viewed it as a betrayal of their sacrifices in the Emperor's name, arguing that they, not Terran nobles and bureaucrats, deserved to rule the Imperium they had built. This resentment was one of many that allowed the Chaos Gods to corrupt the Primarchs. Consumed by jealousy and ambition, Horus proved vulnerable to the temptations of Chaos and the machinations of Lorgar, Primarch of the Word Bearers, who had secretly embraced Chaos. The Dark Gods deceived Horus, convincing him that the Emperor only intended to use the Primarchs and humanity to ascend to godhood. Enraged, Horus accepted their support in a bid to seize the Imperium for himself. Horus swayed nine other Primarchs and their Legions to his cause, serving the designs of Chaos. He instigated the Horus Heresy, a galaxy-wide rebellion against the Emperor. Half of the Imperium's military forces, along with elements of the Mechanicum, joined the Traitors, unleashing the greatest conflict mankind had ever known.
Horus Heresy[]
WIP
41st Millenium[]
WIP
Era Indomitus[]
Trivia[]
- Although the Imperium of Man may be committing evil deeds, but they were also performing heroic deeds in order to protect Humanity from various threats throughout the grimdark galaxy, especially in their perpetual war with the Forces of Chaos and various Xenos species. However this claim is questionable since they also attacked many non-hostile races simply for occupying worlds they wanted.
- The Imperium of Man share some similarity with the Empire of Man, such as the Emperor of Mankind being worshipped as a god after his internment within the Golden Throne, which is similar to Sigmar being the venerable patron deity of the Empire after his mysterious disappearance. However unlike his Warhammer Fantasy counterpart, the Imperium promotes Human Chauvinism and Absolute Xenophobia while the Empire promotes Enlightenment and Tolerance.
External Links[]
- Imperium of Man on the Villains Wiki
- Imperium of Man on the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki
- Imperium of Man on the Lexicanum
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