Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-25618639-20141119150740/@comment-6078851-20150101164410

i too have considered the idea that if emps is a perpetual then he cant know he is, otherwise he surely would have chosen to die by now. the problem i see with him not knowing though is that he's 50,000(ish) years old: he was born in a time of high human mortality rates, he was a child during this time (although god knows how quickly he grew), and from then to his taking the mantle of the emperor of mankind he would've been involved in many, many wars, and despite his prowess he isn't all-powerful or all-knowing and would've been less so back in the day, and so i find it hard to believe that in his extremely long life and multitude of experiences he never suffered a mortal wound from which to recover.

i see the point that if emps had let himself die from the wounds horus inflicted that it could've resulted in the imperium losing - terra was hard pressed to defend itself and was desperately in need  of the coming reinforcements, but if emps died and the astronomican went out then the reinforcements would've been significantly delayed, and as the traitor forces were getting warp-navigation help from the gods they didn't need the astronomican and could've potentially reinforced the traitor forces before the loyalist reinforcements could arrive, thus giving them the advantage.

but there has been 10,000 years since then, and, if emps knew he was a perpetual, many potential opportunities for emps to let himself die with the least amount of collateral damage to the empire - granted even the most minimal damage could reault in dozens, maybe even hundreds, of planets being invaded, destroyed, turned into daemon worlds etc, as well as god knows how many ships ending up lost in the warp. the astronomican may only be out for a single day but a lot can happen in a day. but regardless of how much damage would be incurred an empire with an emperor would be preferrable to an empire with a corpse, as a living emperor could clean up the collateral damage.