Been getting more into wh40k lore lately and all the grimdarkness of the grimdarkness, how does the EmperorTM fit here? (Esp since there's the "God-Emperor" 🤢)
rubs my hands together like a hungry little fly. yesssss. yessssssss.
but also, i got you, friend.
slaanesh is part of the great family
tyranids are born of the reaper emperor, the swarm that announces the harvest, her presence in the warp
kibellah, indoctrinated
kibellah, chosen daughter
one day the imperium will be harvested, extinction will come to humanity. it is inevitable. the reaper emperor sees the god-emperor of mankind as, to quote harbinger, "dust struggling against cosmic winds." she thinks the imperium is sad because of its fanaticism, its paranoia, its constant surveillance of actions and thought. she thinks it's sad they do not see the complexity and beauty and necessity of the chaos gods. she sees the god-emperor of mankind and his sons as a sad, broken family, torn apart by their own inability to understand their human-ness.
but for the most part, not many people know about her or the reapers. those aligned with chaos may have, but for the most part, she is an unknown entity. though she has her own agents, working within the imperium and within chaos to prepare for her arrival.
anyway, for 0.5 seconds the chaos gods set aside their machinations and rivalries to kiss the reaper emperor and the xenomorphs, shower them with gifts. slaanesh, the prince of pleasure, is part of the great family, as mentioned above, they interact with her the most.
both the reaper emperor and nurgle, the lord of plague, are perhaps the closest in terms of embodiment: death, destruction, extinction, but within death there is life and laughter, and without death there can be no life. cycles of extinction, cycles of rebirth; such is the order of all universes. grandfather nurgle, in all his disease and decay and putridity, kisses the reaper emperor's cheeks, wraps his huge body around her, grants her and her daughters and wives gifts of health. when the black lips of extinction press blessings into his flesh, he weeps pus. he weeps and sings in plagues, as her hands touch him to wipe away his tears, as she smiles and tell him how beautiful, how marvelous he is. she gifts old nurgle spice from shai-hulud (for he who is given spice is beloved) and tells him that her sibling misses him deeply. "old eternal worms shouldn't be apart from each other for too long. may your disease one day grace arrakis." (yes, i do imagine nurgle as a giant worm.)
the blessing "may you always be healthy and violent" comes from khorne, the lord of blood. every xenomorph birth is a blessing, a song: pure violent birth. khorne thanks the reaper emperor and her daughters for such signs and sights, he kneels before her and kisses her hands. she lets him kiss and bless her most violent daughters, princesses that smile as they are given gifts of unspeakable violence. khorne, kharneth, basks in their perfection, tells them to worship their mother. the reaper emperor hands alia atreides to khorne, tell him that she is a violent daughter to be, that she needs a blessing from him. the lord of rage smiles wide and grips alia by the skull as he draws the hot, red, spice-laced blood, "may you always be healthy and violent."
tzeentch, the lord of change, is fascinated by reaper technology and indoctrination. an architect, he marvels at the reapers and their archives, their networks, the immensity of every thought is an echo of the reaper emperor's thoughts. the reaper emperor has given him husks to examine, small pieces of reaper technology, allowed him to replicate the process. old tzeentch kisses the reaper emperor's cybernetic scars, grants her gifts of sorcery, real psychic magic. her daughters are educated from his libraries, the old raven god of entropy teaching her daughters true and terrifying magic as old as the stars. he lets xenomorph princesses linger in the dark spaces of his realm, their presence a blessing, their presence an inspiration. the reaper emperor returns his kisses and gifts him blessings from nyx and shar; so that night and darkness may always be the domains that strengthen him. "may darkness always guide you back to me, entropy."
if there is one thing that the reaper emperor wants from the imperium of man (she already has kibellah as a daughter, and the bloodspun web serves and worships her), it's the adepta sororitas. the sisters of battle would make for excellent revenants, every since soldier and saint turned into a machine-women, reaper-women overseen by nemesis. the chaos gods know this and bring her yearly offerings of adepta who seek indoctrination and transformation.
