Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-12.227.32.154-20150120202758/@comment-89.100.80.67-20150720171349

The Golden Throne is likely some kind of stasis device that slows down time. The Emperor's body is decaying because the passage of time can't be stopped completely. The injuries he recieved during his battle with Horus were said to be fatal, which means he will die from them eventually, even if he remains in the Golden Throne, because his body will continue to decay due to the passage of time. The Golden Throne has been working constantly for so long that it's failing, meaning the Emperor's body will likely begin to decay at an accelerated rate. Short of healing him, there's nothing that can be done to prevent his death. Had the Golden Throne remained operational, he could have survived for tens of thousand of years, depending on how the stasis works and how fast time is passing for his body. What would seem like a minute or so for the his ruined body is in reality ten thousand years thanks to the Golden Throne, assuming I'm right regarding how it works.

The Emperor's mind is not affected by the stasis because it exists in the Warp alongside his soul, battling the Choas Gods and powering the Astronomicon. The Astronomicon is beginning to fail, however, due to the continued decay of the Emperor's body. This means the psykers that are sacrificed to keep it and the Emperor going are likely not helping anymore, because they are too few in number or too weak to be of use. As the Emperor's body decays, he will need more and more psykers to sustian him, and thus the Astronomicon. The failure of the Astronomicon has already affected the outer regions of the galaxy, which can no longer rely on the Emperor's mental signal to guide them through the Warp. Eventually, the Emperor will die, and the Astronomicon will fail completely, sending the Imperium into the Age of Strife 2.0, but probably much worse.