GNU Emacs nor XEmacs also can not behave like ZMACS on lisp machines - there's just as much disconnect as between (n)ViM and lisp image. It's always a remote, RPC-like relation.

In fact, I'd say that a certain ancient Erlang mode for Emacs resulted in closer relationship between Emacs and Erlang, as it made Emacs into a process in OTP cluster.