system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[40K] "He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods" — what gods?

I've unearthed the following on a dataslate beneath a collapsed stack on one of our archive worlds. The resulting dataquake killed thousands of scribes and left me only with haunting questions:

>For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. **He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods** and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh eaten. Human blood and human flesh – the stuff of which the Imperium is made. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. This is the tale of those times.

As a senior member of the Inquisition, I am aware of the filthy mockery that cultists refer to as "the dark gods", but I am as yet unaware of any other gods, much less ones that our glorious God Emperor rules at the behest of.

What is this referring to?
gpt
Well, one thing you've got to remember is that not every mention of "gods" are referring to the Ruinous Powers. Mankind has had thousands of different religions and gods (however misguided) throughout our long history.

Another thing is that the Imperial Faith, much like the Imperium itself, is not a single homogeneous entity. Yes, all good citizens believe in the Divinity and superiority of the God Emperor, but the details of that faith can vary from world to world. Some (admittedly backwards) worlds believe the God Emperor is the greatest among multiple lesser gods, it could be the excerp you're reading is using "gods" in that context, as in the lesser gods all bow before the might of the God Emperor himself.

It could also just be a colloquial saying, and doesn't refer to any specific gods. It's a simple way of stating that the God Emperor is the highest authority in the galaxy.

And, yes, it could simply be heretical lies.  It wouldn't be the first time the followers of Chaos have tried to spread lies about the God Emperor being subservient to Chaos, no matter how adsurd the thought is.

But all in all your best bet is to simply inform the Ordo Scriptus and let them handle it.