Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
Regardless of how he felt about Zenos and how he reacted to his death, Varis named Zenos as his successor immediately after taking the throne explicitly to avoid a succession crisis like the one Solus / Emet-Selch / Hades left behind. (This comes from the Lore Book Vol. II, if I'm not mistaken - I don't have it myself, so I'm just running off memory.) That said one must wonder what contingencies he had in place for his death, though I guess we'll find out soon enough.
I somehow doubt that Zenos being named successor would mean anything because it's highly probably that Murdering the Emperor is not legal in the Empire, which would preclude any legal transfer of power to the traitor.