Emperor of Mankind - Original Origin: Note: This section discusses material that was once considered canon but whose canonicity may now be questionable.The Emperor is the collective reincarnation of all the shamans of Neolithic Humanity's various peoples, the first Human psykers. The foul Warp entities that would become the four Great Powers of Chaos had not yet fully formed when the Emperor was born on Old Earth during prehistoric times before even the Age of Terra, somewhere in ancient central Anatolia (modern Turkey) in the 8th Millennium B.C.But even before the birth of the Emperor, as Humanity grew and progressed, the Immaterium began to become increasingly disturbed by the dark undercurrents of Humanity's collective psyche, and the shamans began to lose their former ability to reincarnate into new bodies. Instead, upon dying, their souls were consumed by the entities and Daemons of the Warp.Eventually the shamans of Humanity, unable to reincarnate, would become extinct, and without the shamans and their psychic abilities to guide the race, Humanity would inevitably fall prey to the corruptions of Chaos, just as eventually happened to the Aeldari. In these ancient days, all the shamans of Earth gathered in a grand conclave to decide what must be done to stave off the day when they had all been consumed by the Warp.In the end, the shamans decided to pool their collective psychic energies by reincarnating as a single soul in a single Human body to create an individual they called "the New Man." The thousands of shamans, as one, took poison, and as one, they died, their souls flowing into the Immaterium in a rush of psychic power that overwhelmed those Daemons who sought to feast upon it with a cleansing, purifying fire, a flame imperishable that became one soul out of many.A standard year later the child who would become the Emperor was born in a Neolithic settlement of Anatolian herders and farmers of a normal mother and father, with normal brothers and sisters. His psychic power was so great that its energies altered His genome and physiology in the womb and rendered Him immortal so He would no longer need to reincarnate and could not be assaulted by the daemonic creatures of the Immaterium upon His death. As He grew older, His potent psychic powers began to manifest.For thirty-eight thousand Terran years, He wandered over the Earth and throughout Human history. He travelled among the different peoples of Mankind. While He had first been only an observer of Mankind's triumphs and follies, He soon began to help where He could, using His ancient wisdom to spread efficient government, crop management, animal husbandry, technology and peace. He used His influence carefully, at first adopting only the guise of a normal man, and without revealing His true nature.As the millennia passed, the man who would become the Emperor watched the Human species develop. He travelled the entire globe, watching and helping, sometimes adopting the persona of a great leader or advisor. In times of trouble He became a crusader, a religious leader or even a messiah, at other times He remained a back-stage contributor to events, an advisor to kings, a court magician, a pioneering scientist. Many of the guises He adopted were humble, others became monumental figures of world history or religion. At times of crisis He would be there, steering Humanity along a narrow path to survival that only He could see.As Humanity prospered and advanced over the millennia, the Warp became increasingly disturbed. The man who would become the Emperor was aware of how the extreme sides of the Human character were feeding the nascent Chaos Powers. Despite His best efforts to promote peace and harmony across Old Earth, the instinctive values of martial honour, ambition, defiance, and self-satisfaction could never be eradicated from the Human character.Some of the New Man's plans proved less than successful; seeds of wisdom often failed to flourish or grew into uncontrollable monstrosities leading to eras of persecution and war. The Chaos Gods sensed the presence of the New Man, the "Anathema" as they would name Him, and His efforts to curb their own power and growth. Even before they became fully conscious in the Immaterium the Ruinous Powers recognised the man who would become the Emperor as their greatest enemy.Khorne was the first of the four major Chaos Gods to wake fully, and an era of wars and conflict soon raged across the globe to herald his birth. Tzeentch was the next, and nations and politics soon grew to maturity with all of their implicit intrigues and double-dealings.Nurgle was the third to awake and plagues swept across Old Earth's continents claiming many souls for the Lord of Decay. By the end of the European Middle Ages on Terra, all three of these Chaos Gods had awoken to full consciousness. The fourth, Slaanesh, still slumbered, to be awakened by the follies of a different species, the Aeldari.But as the New Man's psychic powers further developed, He became ever more aware of the terrible dangers that awaited Mankind in the broader universe and He resolved to do all in His power to defend and guide Humanity towards a future as the predominant species in the galaxy.As more and more Humans were born with the mutant psyker genes that granted them the ability to wield the potent power of the Immaterium in the last centuries of the Dark Age of Technology, and Humanity suffered from the deadly effects of uncontrolled psykers that heralded the onset of the Age of Strife, the Emperor realised that He would have to take a more direct and open role in Human affairs than ever before.Following the birth of Slaanesh after the Fall of the Aeldari in the 30th Millennium, and the end of the Warp Storms that had prevented interstellar communications and travel from the Sol System, the Emperor determined that the time had come to directly steer the history of Humanity once more, or see the Human race ultimately go extinct due to the troubles of Old Night.