u/Junior_Post8222

One oft-ignored matter of human history prior to Old Night is the widespread emergence of psykers. According to the lore, recorded instances of people wielding psychic powers go back to M22. However, we know that psykers have existed long before then, as the Emperor was formed by Neolithic warp-wielders into an avatar of their souls tens of thousands of years before. This raises the following question: How did psykers only get discovered in M22 when they had existed for so long before then? The boring answer would be that there is no answer and that GW simply wrote itself into a narrative corner by establishing the existence of psykers in the far future as well as the far past. However, I believe that there is a real, in-universe answer, and it is that the Emperor's creation substantially delayed mankind's full psychic awakening.

First, we must establish the relationship between humanity and the Warp. All humans, by nature of being sentient organic creatures, have a soul and a resultant psychic charge. For most people, this charge is minimal. By contrast, psykers have a significant psychic charge, which can be either an acquired trait resulting from the random impact of the warp upon people in realspace (e.g. the M42 Psychic Awakening) or one inherited from parents. In the case of the latter scenario, their "psyker gene" increases the potency of their souls, allowing them to become a conduit for psychic energy.

Now, onto the Emperor. As previously stated, the man once known as Neoth was created after thousands of shamanic psykers committed ritual suicide in order to reincarnate in one form. This would've been an impressive feat of coordination as the human population in 8000 BC (around when he is said to be born) was a mere 5 million spread across the entire world. With this act of mass suicide, a significant number of psychically capable individuals were removed from the genepool. Remember when I said that significant psychic connection (that which separates psykers from everybody else) is genetic? If so many psykers in an era of such low global population didn’t have the chance to reproduce before killing themselves, that would've stunted the population growth of human psykers in such a way as to explain why it would not be until M22 that sufficiently noticeable numbers of psykers existed. However, I recognize one potential fault with my theory, so I will attempt to meet it head-on.

The counterargument which I came up with is this: How do I know that it was a significant proportion of psykers who killed themselves? After all, some of them may have had kids before forming the Emperor, and we know that Erda (a psyker perpetual) existed during the Bronze Age (though her age vis-a-vis the Emperor is unknown). Plus, there is no indication that every or even most psykers were involved in the plot. To this, I would like to draw your attention back to the population of Earth at that time. Even if we assume the "thousands" of psykers who make up the Emperor to be just 2000, that would mean that psykers made up approximately .04% of the 5 million humans who were alive around 8000 BC. That's much greater than the statistics in M41, which commonly state that 1 in every 1,000,000 people were born as psykers. I hypothesize that psyker births were far more common (about 400 times more common) in the Neolithic period than in M41, and that this decline was due to a massive reduction in their population around the same time caused by the Emperor's creation. For the effects to be this significant and long-lasting, the psykers involved would've had to represent almost every psyker alive at the time. While extreme, such an event is not without historical precedent. 900,000 years ago, for example, our ancestors are believed to have been reduced to a mere 1% of their former population after some catastrophic event. While clearly some psykers were left, they must've been so few in number that it would take until M22 for them to make up a noticeable share of the population again.

First, let's get a basic understanding of the relationship between mortals and the immaterium. All sentient beings (with a few exceptions) produce psychic feedback through their emotions. They also have a soul, which carries some amount of psychic energy. The Warp is the primary destination of this psychic feedback and the souls of the dead, and entities have developed within it that either consume it all indiscriminately or specialize. The most powerful of these specialists are what are known as the Chaos gods, who consume certain kinds of psycho-emotional backwash and lay claim to the souls of certain mortals. However, this is not a one-way street. Certain individuals in the materium (psykers) are able to act as conduits for warp energy and can draw upon it.

What separates faith-based psychic manifestations (which I will henceforth be referring to as "miracles") from the warp powers of the Chaos gods is that their conduits need not be psykers. A perfect example of this is the Adepta Sororitas. None of the Sisters of Battle are psychic, yet all of them are capable of producing miracles. In The Gate of Bones, a seemingly impervious Dark Apostle who had bested two custodians was slain by a pair of bolt rounds fired by two sororitas which somehow penetrated his warp-flesh and destroyed his hearts. This is obviously an unnatural course of events that can only be explained by a miracle giving the sisters' bolts the power to bypass the resistance to mundane weaponry that warp creatures often possess.

How are conduits such as the Sisters of Battle able to wield psychic abilities without being psykers, you might ask? The answer is that the nature of miracles is extremely directed compared to the specializations of the Chaos gods. Think about it like this: The power of miracles derives from the collective worship by trillions upon trillions of people of the same man (the Emperor of Mankind) for his omnipotence and omnibenevolence. This is far more specific than the concepts of bloodshed, decay, change, and excess specialized in by the pantheon. For it to be comparable, a similar number of people would have to simultaneously fight in the same war, suffer from the same disease, take part in the same scheme, or engage in the same debauchery. The psychic feedback of Emperor worship is so strongly directed that even those whose minds are not designed to channel warp energy are able to act as conduits for it.

Another question that miracles raise is the relationship between the Emperor and his worship. After all, the Emperor was a staunch opponent of religion. However, do the existence of miracles mean that he has changed his mind during the intervening millennia since his internment? I think not, and I derive my evidence from the Horus Heresy, before his internment. In The End and The Death Part Three, millions of refugees follow Euphrati Keeler to the Astronomican (which has ceased to function after having been previously captured by the traitors) and, by praying together, manage to activate it once more. The Emperor was locked in battle with Horus during this time (though time itself had technically ceased as a concept by that point) and could not possibly have had a hand in the Astronomican's reactivation. On the other hand, worship of the Emperor was far less widespread in the Imperium during the Heresy, so there wouldn't have been nearly as much psychic energy already in the warp to draw upon. Rather, I believe that what allowed such a feat to occur was the physical proximity of a large number of people ("large" being a relative concept here) intensely focusing their minds on worship of the Emperor, as well as a strong conduit (Keeler) to direct the resultant psychic energy. In essence, worship of the Emperor does not need the Emperor's consent or participation in order to produce miracles.

The Legion of the Damned represent an interesting example of a miracle as they do not rely upon a conduit in order to manifest. However, I still consider them to be the Imperial Creed's version of demons. Typical neverborn are brought into the materium through summoning, psyker hijacking, or warp rifts, and manifest in forms relating to the type of psycho-emotional feedback which they consume. That's why Khornate demons look violent, Nurglite demons look diseased, Tzeenchian demons look confusing, and Slaaneshi demons look sexy (not my opinion). However, the Legion of the Damned appears to be self-manifesting. No one calls for them; they merely arrive unexpectedly when they are needed most to save the day, and then return to the warp. I believe this to also be a result of the focused nature of miraculous energy. Where a typical demon might require a distinct ritual to pass through the veil, the entire Imperium is effectively a giant ritual of faith, allowing them to appear anywhere. They may also possess the appearance of sentience, similar to demons, allowing them to "choose" where in the Imperium their help is most needed. As for the LOTD's form, since space marines are known by Imperial citizens as "angels of death", it shouldn't be surprising that the physical form of their god's otherworldly soldiers (a similar description to the angels of Christianity) would look like space marines. There are also theories that they are the remains of the lost Fire Hawks chapter, which would also explain it.

By this same logic, living saints are greater demons of the Emperor