Somehow, this makes more sense in my mind than the way Marines usually do it.

1: Clone a large batch of children utilizing a respectable Marine's DNA.
2: Train and test the children using the usual methods of the chapter
3: As each of the children is near-identical in DNA, they won't reject the geneseed

Aside from the religious mumbo-jumbo that might resist it, it seems far more intelligent to do this than what they currently do, which often leaves candidates rejected because, despite their skill, they're genetically unviable. And even if they are viable sometimes they aren't viable ENOUGH. So apparently genetic diversity is a BAD thing to Astartes, meaning cloning would be beneficial to them.

I'm not sure whether the Imperium has pefected cloning if it has then it is a good idea otherwise it would be hit and miss, admittedly with a higher success rate than what they do already.

We've perfected cloning now, so it seems a bit unlikely the Imperium would not be able to do it if they wanted to.

Kilkrazy wrote:We've perfected cloning now, so it seems a bit unlikely the Imperium would not be able to do it if they wanted to.

The only reference i can find is the DKoK regiments being essentially test tube clones and they have a special grant for that because the Bilogis arm of the Mechanicus says it's heretical etc

well I don't know if this is actually what they do but they probably clone the geneseed because it is faster but the materials to make it happen are harder to come by hence it takes forever?

Melissia wrote:
Aside from the religious mumbo-jumbo that might resist it, it seems far more intelligent to do this than what they currently do, which often leaves candidates rejected because, despite their skill, they're genetically unviable. And even if they are viable sometimes they aren't viable ENOUGH. So apparently genetic diversity is a BAD thing to Astartes, meaning cloning would be beneficial to them.

Er, no actually it wouldn't be. Cloning, while replicating the original cell structure, also causes problems over long periods of time. It's the whole "copy of a copy of a copy" problem.

Cloning technololgy is available to the Imperium. The DKoK are clones. (How has Kanluwen not seen this thread??? *edit* Oh, lol, he just changed his avatar.) I don't know if copy of a copy, etc, would be problematic but Melissa is wrong to dismiss the "religious mumbo jumbo" because there is no way the SM view it is mere mumbo jumbo. That said, I don't know that they would reject cloning on a "religious" basis. Maybe the technology is simply not available to them. People have a way of overstating how influential Astartes are with regard to other segments of the Imperium.

I would suspect that the current recruiting practices are promulgated by the Codex--which means that they are the best possible ones and any divergence could only foster the taint of Chaos.

Cloning is abhorred in the Imperium, I'm guessing it's abhorred for a couple of reasons:

1. Cloning doesn't reproduce the soul, which is handy if you want to produce human flesh to experiment upon without creating a possible gateway into the Warp, or as wetware for servitors, but useless if you want a person. The Astartes process seems to depend on the recipient having enormous strength of will and other qualities associated with a soul.

Basically the recruitment process put precedence for screening on aptitude with genetic compatibility coming a far second, with the Astartes willing to put up with recruits dying from genetic incompatibility. Souls come first in recruitment and those can't be reproduced through cloning.

2. Genetic variation is a good thing. A legion of cloned Astartes would all be vulnerable to exactly the same pathogens, etc, quite aside from the issues that a lack of soul would generate - I doubt that Blanks or Pariahs would be suitable candidates for the Astartes uplift.

3. Interestingly the gene-seed itself is cloned, but then they probably want to preserve both the material itself in a relatively stable condition, as well as the memetics it instantiates. This suggests that the Astartes process requires a marriage of asexual and sexual reproduction. I personally like to think of the Astartes process inverting a male's reproductive processes so that instead of producing sperm and androgens, what used to be gonads in a man produces stem cells and astartes-specific hormones in an Astartes.

Remember that Horus' body was cloned, and that clone was destroyed by Abbadon: It wasn't Horus brought back from the dead, it was mere flesh without the important psychic superstructure that made it the Primarch Horus.

The memetics that geneseed implantation delivers is as much a graft to the soul as the geneseed itself is a graft to the genetic structure of the recipient's body. Human technology, unlike that of the Eldar for example, is not up to the preservation and transferrance of the soul.

@Nurglitch:

Cloning does not reproduce the cloned subject's particular soul (as per your fluff example) but I don't know that the resulting clone has no soul. Any fluff to back up this claim?

I don't think that susceptibility to a certain disease is a very good argument that genetic variation is of any benefit to Astartes given that their trasformation leaves them immune to just about everything short of daemonic plagues.

Are Blanks and Pariahs truly "souless" or is that merely an epitaph?

Nurglitch wrote:Interestingly the gene-seed itself is cloned, but then they probably want to preserve both the material itself in a relatively stable condition, as well as the memetics it instantiates. This suggests that the Astartes process requires a marriage of asexual and sexual reproduction.

Could you extrapolate?

If cloning doesn't reproduce the subject's soul as well as their flesh, where would the clone get its soul from? Cloning Horus' body didn't bring Horus back to life. All you're left with is an artificial blank, mere meat.

Regarding Blanks and Pariahs, Blanks are naturally soulless, and Pariahs are psychic abominations that not only lack a soul but have a ravening psychic vacuum in place of a soul. That's explained in the rules for the Culexus Assassin and the Necron Pariah. A blank simply has the Soulless rule, while a Pariah has the Soulless and Psychic Abomination rules.

What would you like extrapolated?

Manchu wrote:@Nurglitch:

Cloning does not reproduce the cloned subject's particular soul (as per your fluff example) but I don't know that the resulting clone has no soul. Any fluff to back up this claim?

Not fluff, persay, but Eisenhorn makes mention of the fact that a large amount of Servitors in Inquisitorial Black Ships are cloned husks so as to prevent Daemonic possession.

I don't think that susceptibility to a certain disease is a very good argument that genetic variation is of any benefit to Astartes given that their trasformation leaves them immune to just about everything short of daemonic plagues.

Funny enough, I can give you an example here:

There's actually something in the Star Wars "Republic Commando" novels similar to this. The Confederation of Independent Systems(read: the "Separatist" baddies that Palpatine ran from the prequels) were working on a series of bio-weapons intended to target only certain parts of the Clone genetic structures that would only kill clones. Clones themselves had the same in-built protection from pathogens that you see in Space Marines(partly because of their genetic make-up being the same all-around when it came to immune systems), but given that it's just a matter of modifying a virus/pathogen to target a specific part of the target genetic structure...that same clone physiology makes it waaaaay easier to hit them with a targeted bioweapon.

Are Blanks and Pariahs truly "soulless" or is that merely an epitaph?

Blanks aren't the same as Pariahs, truly.
"Blanks" just have no presence in the Warp. Whether through diligent training in being able to shield their thoughts from it, or whatever...they effectively register as having "no souls" to the Immaterium.
Pariahs, on the other hand, have a negative effect on the Warp. For some reason, they seem to(for lack of a better term) draw Warp energies into themselves, effectively grounding Warp powers out. But at the same time, they have "something" about them that puts people off to them, making it seem like they're soulless heathens.

Manchu wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Interestingly the gene-seed itself is cloned, but then they probably want to preserve both the material itself in a relatively stable condition, as well as the memetics it instantiates. This suggests that the Astartes process requires a marriage of asexual and sexual reproduction.

Could you extrapolate?

Geneseed is cloned, then the cloned geneseed is what's inserted into the Astartes until it "matures". Some Chapters insert two pieces of geneseed, then remove them from the Astartes as it matures to then use the material from it for the next generation of Astartes.
(All theory time here):

If you used cloned troops, the geneseed might not be compatible with those cloned troops as it needs the varying characteristics of different hosts to let it mature since it was originally present in thousands upon thousands of different Astartes during the Heresy and afterwards.

Think of it like an organ transplant. Try as you might: you can't force an incompatible donor's organ to an incompatible recipient.

As I see it, Melissa's theory could work, for maybe a generation or two, but the adverse effects of the 'copy+paste repeat' formula mentioned above would likely degenerate the clones over time.

Perhaps the cause of the chapters refusing to clone is that a marine, after going through the marine creation process, simply cannot be cloned. It stands to reason that after the marine receives the various genetic enhancements, alterations and implantations he is basically un-clonable. Or perhaps the residual Primarch (or Emperor) DNA in the implants prevent cloning somehow or are too advanced to be cloned.

Of course, these are based on interpretations of fluff, not my understanding of biology.

Or it could just be because cloning "elite" shock troops is a stupid idea.

Part of what makes an Astartes is the conditions they grow up in and the experiences/trials they go through to even become a member of the Scout Company. That influences their behavior, their drive to succeed, etc.

Cloning's all fine and dandy when creating a veritable meatcan army...but when it comes to Special Forces, it's the experience that matters.
You don't want them all thinking or behaving exactly the same, which is what you would get with memory imprinted clones.

Battle_Brother_Bruening wrote:well I don't know if this is actually what they do but they probably clone the geneseed because it is faster but the materials to make it happen are harder to come by hence it takes forever?

It takes nine months for unskilled labour to produce a clone out of basic foodstuffs.

Nurglitch wrote:If cloning doesn't reproduce the subject's soul as well as their flesh, where would the clone get its soul from?

Where do non-cloned subjects get their souls from? Sexual reproduction?

Regarding blanks, my question is do they truly lack souls or is "souless" simply a grimdark literary flourish? Having a soul that doesn't register in the Warp is not necessarily the same as having no soul, unless the 40k defnition of soul is the immaterial reflection of the material consciousness--which definition is pretty problematic. Regarding pariahs, having a soul that disrupts the Warp is also not the same as having no soul or some kind of "anti-soul" (will read their entries when I get home, hwoever).

Nurglitch wrote:What would you like extrapolated?

The text that I quoted. To wit, what about the implantation of geneseeds into a (by defauilt in Melissa's hypothetical) compatible donor implies the need for hosts to originate via sexual reproduction.

Why would they want to? Marine chapters don't need many new recruits, lots of chapters sustain themselves entirely from one feral world, which would have a tiny population, and a chapter based on a developed (much less hive) world like Ultramar have massively more potential recruits than they can possibly take in. Sure, some candidates don't make it through the training, and some can't take the gene-seed, but no one in 40k, much less space marines, is exactly squemish, so they don't care about the rejection rate.

Cloning has a lot of problems - it may not copy the soul in 40k, which is pretty important. Realistic cloning just makes a baby with the same genetics as the cloned person, it doesn't give them the same mind or upbringing, so the chapter has to raise a bunch of babies. More magical types of cloning run into problems with chaos corruption. All cloning runs into the 'same vulnerability' issue, both for biological agents and posession (if they have really similar minds, a single demon might be able to control a whole company at once). Geneseed doesn't seem to be identical from each marine, so there's no guarantee all the clones would react the same.

There's no reason for marine chapters to consider using cloning if it even would work, and lots of potential drawbacks.

Kanluwen wrote:Part of what makes an Astartes is the conditions they grow up in and the experiences/trials they go through to even become a member of the Scout Company. That influences their behavior, their drive to succeed, etc.

A clone will still have personal experiences, given time, right? Presumably, you could clone up a batch of normal humans and see which of those could make it into the scout company.

Twins have souls. They are clones.

That's a good point, KK. I reckon we'll have to drum up a definition of "soul" in 40k before long.

Killkrazy:

Twins share the same soul. As the Cabal notes in Legion Alpharius and Omegon are one soul in two bodies.

Manchu wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Part of what makes an Astartes is the conditions they grow up in and the experiences/trials they go through to even become a member of the Scout Company. That influences their behavior, their drive to succeed, etc.

A clone will still have personal experiences, given time, right? Presumably, you could clone up a batch of normal humans and see which of those could make it into the scout company.

A clone will still have personal experiences, sure.

But they won't be the experiences that made a farmboy with a penchant for stealth into a Captain Shrike.

Manchu:

Non-cloned subjects get their soul from sexual reproduction. Just as the DNA/RNA of two parts parents recombine into that of a single individual, and hence the information that those molecules store and transcribe, so too does the soul. Cloning a body merely reproduces the material, it doesn't reproduce the soul. I'd doubt that personal experiences will allow the clone to generate a soul, since Blanks are naturally occurring and they don't generate souls over the course of a life-time. They go through life as zombies, with no more presence in the Warp than a chair. So clone-flesh is handy for use as components in machinery that you want to be resistant to possession, or to retain some special psychic property of the original donor (aka geneseed), but useless if you want to graft additional memetic augmentation to it.

Remember that the creation of an Astartes post-human is as much spiritual as it is physical. You're not going to make a Space Marine out of a human lacking a soul anymore than you're going to make a Space Marine out of a human lacking a body.


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Regarding Blanks, I'll put in that I don't believe they have experiences. They're what in philosophy these days is termed a 'zombie' or a person that has no 'inside' or 'qualia' or 'experience', but is otherwise physically indistinguishable from a normal person because they act like they can do thinks like imagine, feel, etc, but there's really nothing going on inside of them.

I like the way this syncs with the tendency of Blanks in the novels to have a porn habit, as a behavioural expression of their inability to feel.

Doesn't the alpha legion clone? I'm pretty sure chaos does it all the time. I think the problem is coming around geneseed, not specific warriors. They get their pick of the best of the best among candidates. Some new blood would be more than welcome in most chapters, I assume. No reason to clone. Unless you clone the primarch or something.

In the Last Chancers series there were 2 people who were cloned by the mechanicus, they were cloned from Lord Solar Macharius (without his knowledge) they were then taught everything about fighting that they could and sent into battle.
All but 2 died because they ddn't have Macharius' faith in the Emperor or something like that anyway.

Blanks do have souls. Their soul is simply a "negative" psychic presence, so to speak. Like the difference between matter and antimatter-- only the effect really only goes one way.

Kanluwen wrote:Er, no actually it wouldn't be. Cloning, while replicating the original cell structure, also causes problems over long periods of time. It's the whole "copy of a copy of a copy" problem.

Which Marines already should be suffering from anyway because of their limited genetic variation (the gene-seed apparently being hideously picky in that regards).

Manchu wrote:but Melissa is wrong to dismiss the "religious mumbo jumbo"

I dismissed the religious aspect because it's debatable whether or not each individual Marine chapter believes in it anyway. Some would, some wouldn't, and so it's best to focus on a different aspect of the conversation.

Nurglitch wrote:2. Genetic variation is a good thing. A legion of cloned Astartes would all be vulnerable to exactly the same pathogens, etc, quite aside from the issues that a lack of soul would generate - I doubt that Blanks or Pariahs would be suitable candidates for the Astartes uplift.

Except genetic variation is impossible with the nature of the gene-seed.

Melissia wrote:Somehow, this makes more sense in my mind than the way Marines usually do it.

1: Clone a large batch of children utilizing a respectable Marine's DNA.
2: Train and test the children using the usual methods of the chapter
3: As each of the children is near-identical in DNA, they won't reject the geneseed

Aside from the religious mumbo-jumbo that might resist it, it seems far more intelligent to do this than what they currently do, which often leaves candidates rejected because, despite their skill, they're genetically unviable. And even if they are viable sometimes they aren't viable ENOUGH. So apparently genetic diversity is a BAD thing to Astartes, meaning cloning would be beneficial to them.

Basically, it has all the disadvatages of Asexual reproduction. They would all have the same strengths and weaknesses. That's why sexual reproduction was "invented". Group strength through diversity.

In other words what if the host was allergic to peanuts? A whole chapter could be wiped out by by a jar of planters! Damn you Mr. Peanut!!!

@Nurglitch: I'm intrigued by your argument from (or parallel to) biology but I am still not seeing the logical connections very clearly. Assuming that a soul in 40k is the immaterial part of a material consciousness (or are consciousness and soul really separable?), I'm not sure why a clone or blank--who are seemingly capable of self-reflection--would not have one.

Also, what philosophers describe those "zombies" you mention? Is the description purely rhetorical/hypothetical, or do they posit that such people actually exist. I find the notion that philosophers would say such thing disturbing at the same level as discussion of the ubermensch.


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Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:but Melissa is wrong to dismiss the "religious mumbo jumbo"

I dismissed the religious aspect because it's debatable whether or not each individual Marine chapter believes in it anyway. Some would, some wouldn't, and so it's best to focus on a different aspect of the conversation.

So you're basically thinking of an "out there" DIY chapter or some heretics?

Yes, or just a shift in philosophy. Which, despite the Imperium's reputation, does happen.

Melissia wrote:Blanks do have souls. Their soul is simply a "negative" psychic presence, so to speak. Like the difference between matter and antimatter-- only the effect really only goes one way.

Kanluwen wrote:Er, no actually it wouldn't be. Cloning, while replicating the original cell structure, also causes problems over long periods of time. It's the whole "copy of a copy of a copy" problem.

Which Marines already should be suffering from anyway because of their limited genetic variation (the gene-seed apparently being hideously picky in that regards).

"Gene-seed" isn't as picky as you think it is, considering it anchors itself to traits found in individuals from all across the bloody Imperium.
That's a pretty big difference from "limited genetic variation".

Melissia wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:2. Genetic variation is a good thing. A legion of cloned Astartes would all be vulnerable to exactly the same pathogens, etc, quite aside from the issues that a lack of soul would generate - I doubt that Blanks or Pariahs would be suitable candidates for the Astartes uplift.

Except genetic variation is impossible with the nature of the gene-seed.

See above.

If Space Marine Chapters recruited from "only" one genepool(one specific family group or region of a planet, etc), then you might have a point.
But that's not the case. Individuals come from all over the Imperium for some Chapters, and even the Chapters that maintain one specific recruiting ground(ex: Iron Hands) don't exclusively recruit from one family or bloodline.

@Melissa: I could actually see the Iron hands doing things at least close to this. Of all the Codex: Ultramrines chapters, I'd say the Iron Hands are the most divergent (at least from a spiritual persepctive).

@kanluwen: Are you saying that hosts may reject the geneseed for non-genetic (even non-biological) reasons?

No, all the reasons are genetic but they're seemingly absurdly recessed traits where you really need to have a ridiculously diverse genepool for those traits to actually survive.

Kanluwen: That depends on the reader then, as I've known MANY readers of the various Marine codices really emphasize the gene-seed failing in past discussions.

And it is a fact that it definitely can fail, and it's not that uncommon. That ontop of this they have to do genetic testing to see if any of the surviving candidates actually might possibly accept it, says that it's quite picky.


Actually it's in inbreeding that recessive traits come out the most frequently.

Melissa posited that if one donor's genetic make-up accepted the geneseed then so would his clone's. In other words, genetic diversity is necessary to produce the first subject but not any of the subsequent ones. Why would genetic diversity be of ongoing benefit to Marines (regarding compatibility with geneseed)?

Melissia wrote:Kanluwen: That depends on the reader then, as I've known MANY readers of the various Marine codices really emphasize the gene-seed failing in past discussions.

And it is a fact that it definitely can fail, and it's not that uncommon. That ontop of this they have to do genetic testing to see if any of the surviving candidates actually might possibly accept it, says that it's quite picky.

It's not so much that the geneseed fails, but something else during the process goes wrong. For example, some of them can't accept the Black Carapace, or during the process of the geneseed's maturation they don't properly "grow" the extra organs.

It doesn't stop them from being able to mature the geneseed, which is why those surviving candidates are kept alive. As human incubators for the Chapter's future.

Actually it's in inbreeding that recessive traits come out the most frequently.

Yeah, sure let's start breeding for blue eyes and blonde hair, along with muscle and body mass. Maybe some superhuman agility too, for flavor.

Oh wait, they tried that and it ended up with a large amount of mentally slowed, physically deformed, and sterile individuals.

Kanluwen wrote:Oh wait, they tried that and it ended up with a large amount of mentally slowed, physically deformed, and sterile individuals.

Yes. Which are... recessive genes, too!

More evidence is in dog breeds as well. The same thing that might cause a Dalmation breed also tends to cause blindness at some point in their life.

I'm not going to get into a discussion of genetics with you other than to say:
You're wrong.

Melissia:

No, genetic variation is entirely possible, and a rather important part of the background. Part of the background is the requirement that Chapters tithe part of their geneseed to Mars so that it can be monitored for purity. The process of maintaining that geneseed can lead to impurity, meaning that some Chapters have lost parts of the geneseed, such as the Imperial Fists losing the sus-an membrane, and the betcher's gland, and others have developed mutations in specific strains of geneseed, such as the Black Dragons where only some of the Chapter develop bony over-growth in the radius and ulna thanks to a mutated ossmodula.

Then there's also the limits and rates of geneseed infiltration into subjects, with the Luna Wolves being an interesting example in that there was a group of Astartes in the legion called the "Sons of Horus" because of their strong resemblanc to Horus Lupercal. Even if their geneseed was identical, their reaction to it was not if some grew to resemble Horus and others did not.

Similarly in Legion the Alpha Legion all seem to have a strong resemblance to each other, to the point that only very subtle differences in physiognomy could allow an observer to distinguish them as individuals. The Alpha Legion could, assuming this was a legion-wide trait, be taken as a legion whose geneseed routinely overpowered individual traits, whereas the Luna Wolves could be said to have had more variation in geneseed. Indeed, there's a comment to that effect in Legion where the Alpha Legion is supposedly the last legion to endure the influence of the Chaos Gods, and that the others have managed to corrupt themselves by over-burdening geneseed reproduction practices in order to maintain the ranks in the fact of casualties sustained in the Great Crusade.

The geneseed of the Blood Angels is perhaps the greatest example of mutation and over-writing the recipient's own genes, given that it remakes a scabby irradiated near-mutant into a beautiful post-human that will eventually suffer a mental breakdown and believe itself to be Sanguinius himself.

So ideally, the geneseed of the 41st millennium is the stuff that was floating around the bodies of the Primarchs in the 30th millennium, but in practice it's the strain of cultured geneseed that's suffered the least from millennia of exposure to background radiation, psychic effluvia, and the somewhat degraded practices of harvest and implantation that are rife amongst the Astartes.

Recruiting from a diverse (but not too diverse) genepool does several things besides outsourcing the hard work of raising children to the Chapter's vassals. Firstly it ensures that the Chapter has access to psychic mutations, the psychic mutations that make recruits comptable with the geneseed, as well as the mutations that make them candidates for the Librarium. Secondly it makes sure that the Chapter is not vulnerable to all the problems facing monocultures (look it up). Thirdly it makes the Chapter a part of humanity rather than setting it apart.

The Alpha Legions' strong resemblance to each other was hinted at as being the result of(for most at least) surgical procedures in "Legion", so it didn't seem to be something like the Blood Angels where it overwrote the recipient's original traits.

Well, the Blood Angels' particular problems show us that genetics in 40k is at least significantly different from real-worl genetics, given that individual psychological trauma is an inherited trait.

Nurglitch: I know the problems with monocultures. I actually think that, because of their difficulties in reproduction and the fact that gene-seed is so picky, they logically SHOULD suffer from them.

How picky the geneseed is depends on the author (and even the reader), but it is to some extent.

Manchu wrote:Well, the Blood Angels' particular problems show us that genetics in 40k is at least significantly different from real-worl genetics, given that individual psychological trauma is an inherited trait.

Depends on what you think of genetic memory.

There's a reason big cats and other predators are afraid of fire, y'know.

Melissia:

Except that the geneseed doesn't completely over-write the recipient's own genetic code: you can't produce a Space Marine from pure gene-seed. It modifies an existing code. Given the complexities of genetics, there's no reason to double-down on an existing weakness. Better to shore it up by maintaining a pool of variants.

Kanluwen wrote:There's a reason big cats and other predators are afraid of fire, y'know.

And barking animals, i.e. dogs.

Well ,this has been educational (learned about monocultures and ubermensch). But perhaps, by way of Ockham's Razor, they don't clone because they don't need to. They have near limitless recruits to draw on anyways, which saves them all the resources from cloning and raising brats.

Nurglitch wrote:you can't produce a Space Marine from pure gene-seed.

How do you know? If the answer is "because none of them are" then we've got an answer for the overall topic, too.

Nurglitch wrote:Melissia:

Except that the geneseed doesn't completely over-write the recipient's own genetic code: you can't produce a Space Marine from pure gene-seed. It modifies an existing code. Given the complexities of genetics, there's no reason to double-down on an existing weakness. Better to shore it up by maintaining a pool of variants.

But if that pool of genetics is already extremely small anyway, shouldn't they already suffer from these problems?

When new chapter are comissioned, the techpriests of mars use cloned humans to rapidly reproduce the geneseed.

Clones of the great imperial heroes have been made in attempts to make super armies, although they always attract very bad luck after a short time of success.

Clones are used alot in the imperium but are usually mindless vat grown servitors.

@killkrazy 'twins are clones they have souls'

no point applying real world BELIEFS to a science fantasy setting that doesn't always follow the laws of physics let alone real world belief systems

The whole soul thing is beyond the point anyways, imo. But someone did tie the soul remark into our fantasy setting, a la the Alpharius/Omegon factoid.

Besides what I said before. Astartes believe that the geneseed takes a small amount of its hosts DNA with it. So basically a chapters gene-seed is supposedly becoming stronger all the time. The idea that your essence will be returned to the chapter and live on forever is the most core belief of all Astartes. I think its easy to dehumanize Space Marines because it seems they are genetically engineered (which they aren't technically, but genetically enhanced) but the idea of the geneseed being the direct link between them and their father The Emperor and their Primarch and every Brother that has ever fallen before them is very powerful and the holiest of the holies. It really is what separates the loyalists and traitors with no respect like Fabius Bile.

Corax allegedly tried cloning to replace his legion's losses after Isstvan. The results, even if only a rumor, could easily dissuade most Marines from doing the same.

Manchu:

Because the Astartes process uses geneseed to enhance an existing human being, not clone a Primarch.

Manchu wrote:Well, the Blood Angels' particular problems show us that genetics in 40k is at least significantly different from real-worl genetics, given that individual psychological trauma is an inherited trait.

That is Lysenkoism.

Manchu wrote:Cloning technololgy is available to the Imperium. The DKoK are clones.

Not quite.

The regiments/population are raised using massive amounts of IVF, not cloning, which is outlawed in the Imperium.

nobody wrote:Corax allegedly tried cloning to replace his legion's losses after Isstvan. The results, even if only a rumor, could easily dissuade most Marines from doing the same.

That is a good point, but he also tried to 'force grow' them to so as to quickly replace his Legion's losses, which may have had something to do with it too...

reds8n wrote:

Manchu wrote:Cloning technololgy is available to the Imperium. The DKoK are clones.

Not quite.

The regiments/population are raised using massive amounts of IVF, not cloning, which is outlawed in the Imperium.

Apart from all the billions of vat grown servitors and slaves of the techpriests

They're not clones, they're vat grown which is a different process.
And some, of course, are criminals and similar ne'erdowells.

But, to clarify, cloning of humans is illegal. Servitors, being essentially mindless biobots, get round this restriction by, technically, not being human.

@reds8n: Could you further explain what those Krigers are up to?

Weren't the Primarches clones (at least partially)? They are described as 'sons of the emperor' but no other source is ever mentioned for their genetic material AFAIK.

...They don't use cloning..as that's illegal. Of course it was also intended for it to be illegal for the Ecclesiarchy to have soldiers too of course...

Kreig uses "vitae wombs" to produce their regiments, but they never specify exactly how these work or what they are -- side note I have recollections of someone asking about this at one of the FW Open Days but cannot find a/the link .

I personally think this is probably a sneakt side step -- just like the "men under arms" get out clause -- but it could be anything from huge bioreactors where artifically inseminated eggs are incubated, to perhaps even harvesting female reproductive organs en masse -- all must serve their penance and help Krieg prove itself after all.

I think the idea of servitor wombs is certainly grim dark enough for the setting and the world. But that's perhaps a bit too technologically advanced for Kreig to have come up with, so I lean more towards them pumping women full of hormones to make them ovulating continuously and inseminate them.

They are then gestating multiple foetuses. These are removed and grown in a tank/artifical womb.

Thus they are 'naturally conceived' babies that are not grown naturally. This way females can be continuously fertilised and harvested for embryos without straining them too much, all the while staying within the letter, if not the spirit, of the Imperium's laws and dogma.

IIRC "Brave New World" has something themed towarsd this.

@ Mr. Spiggott:

No, the Primarchs are soemthing quite, quite different indeed... one really should read "The First Heretic" ASAP.


..but, in the meantime...

That's not exactly a huge reveal if you're read Fulgrim, or A Thousand Sons, or what have you.

Care to save me the bother and spoil me?

reds8n wrote:...They don't use cloning..as that's illegal. Of course it was also intended for it to be illegal for the Ecclesiarchy to have soldiers too of course...

Kreig uses "vitae wombs" to produce their regiments, but they never specify exactly how these work or what they are -- side note I have recollections of someone asking about this at one of the FW Open Days but cannot find a/the link .

Why do i have an image of the Tleilaxu Axlotl Tanks.....

It's decades since I read Brave New World.

From what I remember, though, the technique is to take a blastula and divide it at an early stage so that all the cells remain completely undifferentiated and retain the capability to develop fully.

This is merely an adaptation of how natural clones (identical twins) occur.

Only the lower castes were produced in this way, since there was commensurately more demand for mentally slowed midgets than upper-class administrators.

But the exact mechanics in Brave New World are irrelevant unless you consider why Huxley was attributing such a manner of reproduction to his dystopia: he was riffing on fears of Americanization and industrial mass production.

But 40k isn't a piece of literature trying to make a point, and the particulars of the background make as much difference to it as the paint-jobs make to the miniatures in the game.

The Iron Warriors use Clones for their Chaos Space Marines with no Major problems. Some get rejected. The Current champion of Warsmith Honsou is a clone of an Ultramarine Captain.

No, they don't use clones.

They use cloned genetic material.

Big difference.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:The Iron Warriors use Clones for their Chaos Space Marines with no Major problems. Some get rejected. The Current champion of Warsmith Honsou is a clone of an Ultramarine Captain.

Not really.
Edit that 'no' out and change 'some' to 'many' or 'most'. Otherwise its wishful thinking to call hundreds of mutants a success.
These poor creatures didn't have their own skin, and actually the installment was deactivated rather violently....


The only attempt at cloning was done in the heresy (RG, corax, weregeld ) and the remnants of that have been destroyed as it was not possible to create marines this way no matter how much old knowledge from DAoT was available to try it.

Grarg wrote:Why do i have an image of the Tleilaxu Axlotl Tanks.....

40k cribbed background from Dune? There's no way that's possible!

Nurglitch wrote:That's not exactly a huge reveal if you're read Fulgrim, or A Thousand Sons, or what have you.

It goes a lot further.



But lets tale any discussion of that elsewhere.

Last ight I started reading "Dead men Walking" as it happens, if anything pertinent crops up I'll add it in here.

Actually no, that's just reiterating what's spelled out in every book after Horus Rising.

1hadhq wrote:

The only attempt at cloning was done in the heresy (RG, corax, weregeld ) and the remnants of that have been destroyed as it was not possible to create marines this way no matter how much old knowledge from DAoT was available to try it.

Not quite true. One of Swallow's Blood Angels books had an apothecary trying to restore their losses due to a civil war via cloning.



Of course...this all depends on how much you want to ignore the series.

reds8n wrote:

Spoiler:

The very genesis of the Primarchs and the powers they were given are a combination of science and sorcerous/psychic pacts wrought with the Chaos Gods themselves. Prayers and sorcerous incantations were wrought upon their very gestation pods.

So no mention of genetic material from any source other than the Emperor then? Magic clones are still clones.

Not sure if this got mentioned already but didn't Corax (Primarch of the Raven Guard) try his hand at cloning space marines after his Legion was nearly wiped out at the Dropsite Massacre? I'm pretty sure it went pear-shaped really quickly and resulted in monsters made flesh that spooked the crap out of some Space Wolves and drove Corax insane. If a primarch couldn't manage to clone his own legion it would seem rather unlikely that any of the current chapters could pull it off.

edit: found it on Lexicanum http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Corax it is under the "Horus Heresy" heading.

This may have already been brought up but I think that the Imperium dosen't clone simply because they've lost the technology to do so. At one point they had it I mean Fabius Bile used the process to make a clone of Horus and the technology used was probably from the Great Crusade era.

And gene seed isn't cloned I believe it is self replicating in that it's placed inside slaves a grown withing them then harvested. It would be great if the Imperium had cloning though, Imagine taking Guilliman and cloning him. Or finding DNA in the bones of Dorns hand or heck even cloning the Emperor. Then we'll see how strong the enemies of the Imperium really are although I doubt the various factions of the Imperium would allows these clonings to happen for various reasons.

On an extremely good Imperial History site (some may recognise, it is green and black when you go on it) that my memory fails to remember, I read about an entire chapter of prefabbed, cloned marines. They were very good at what they did, but the inquisition found out, and exiled them on pain of death, so they travelled to the outer reaches, out of the reach of the astrinomican, and settled their own world. Cloning is apparently super unholy, and its true, all christians complain about it

Warboss Imbad Ironskull:

Except as the debacle involving cloning Horus Lupercal's body, as well as Ferrus Manus' death in Fulgrim, and Magnus' invasion of Terra in A Thousand Sons, the important part of the Primarchs is psychic and cloning mere flesh doesn't do anything to replicate the soul.

Jaon:

Sounds like fan-ficton (aka 'trash').

Worse than fanfic, it sounds like justification for FSMs!

Shoo with that trash! It has no place here!

Nurglitch wrote:Warboss Imbad Ironskull:

Except as the debacle involving cloning Horus Lupercal's body, as well as Ferrus Manus' death in Fulgrim, and Magnus' invasion of Terra in A Thousand Sons, the important part of the Primarchs is psychic and cloning mere flesh doesn't do anything to replicate the soul.

Regardless I think it can be argued that even if they didn't have the same soul as the subjects they where cloned from they would still be valuable assets to the Imperium. The Primarchs where created to be generals, to lead in war is in their very genetics. This would be inherant in the clones which in all probability would make them just as effective as their originals (what do you call the original subject that was cloned anyway?). Though I will admit they would lose the experience gained by their originals in that their lives won't be exactly the same but if brought up within their respective chapters I think they would take to it like a pig to mud.

If geneseed mutates the way it is, wouldn't clones too?

Perhaps they worry that they could corrupt their stock.

Or maybe clones just ain't grimdark... I mean, mass-produced Space Marines would mean victory for the Imperium surely?

What was it that Corax did to make a ton of new Marines? Was that an acceleration process?

The IoM probably couldn't mass produce Marines even with cloning, because they can't built the necessary equipment (power armour, bolters and ammo) in large enough quantities.

nobody wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

The only attempt at cloning was done in the heresy (RG, corax, weregeld ) and the remnants of that have been destroyed as it was not possible to create marines this way no matter how much old knowledge from DAoT was available to try it.

Not quite true. One of Swallow's Blood Angels books had an apothecary trying to restore their losses due to a civil war via cloning.
Of course...this all depends on how much you want to ignore the series.

Chaos scum like F.bile doesn't count.
It a shame they killed a clone of him, hoped we get rid of this selfaggrandizing apothecary right now.

andain841 wrote:Not sure if this got mentioned already but didn't Corax (Primarch of the Raven Guard) try his hand at cloning space marines after his Legion was nearly wiped out at the Dropsite Massacre? I'm pretty sure it went pear-shaped really quickly and resulted in monsters made flesh that spooked the crap out of some Space Wolves and drove Corax insane. If a primarch couldn't manage to clone his own legion it would seem rather unlikely that any of the current chapters could pull it off.

Henners91 wrote:
What was it that Corax did to make a ton of new Marines?

Seems this valid piece of fluff isn't welcome as it ends the clone marines debate..

Kilkrazy wrote:The IoM probably couldn't mass produce Marines even with cloning, because they can't built the necessary equipment (power armour, bolters and ammo) in large enough quantities.

You doubt the Mechanicum and the Munitorum?

Mass produced Marines are not neccessary, just read the 'right' novels and a single marine is always enough.
And we also prefer to keep the eternal war, don't we?`Endless numbers of marines would quickly grant ultimate victory to the IoM.

Kilkrazy wrote:The IoM probably couldn't mass produce Marines even with cloning, because they can't built the necessary equipment (power armour, bolters and ammo) in large enough quantities.

Indeed. A single full suit of military-grade power armor alone-- designed for humans, and thus requiring less materials-- costs enough to outfit an entire platoon of Guardsmen with weapons and armor for an entire campaign.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull:

A Primarch's body is just the tip of the iceberg. Same with that of a Space Marine. Reproducing the meat is simply making a simple process more complicated and expensive.

Again, what exactly do we mean by "soul" in 40k?

A "soul" in 40k is one's psychic presence in the warp.

Every living being has one. Yes, even Blanks have one, as do Tau. Even locations and animals have them.

One wonder, then, whether and how this "presence" survives the destruction of its material self. Maybe it doesn't (not sure if it's ever been claimed to, honestlty)--and that could explain the notable lack of a 40k afterlife.

I think, and this is just speculation, that for non-psykers all of the energy in the soul disperses in the form of pure emotions, eventually being absorbed by one of the Chaos Gods.

Psykers survive, for a short while, in the warp. But eventually theirs will as well, unless they have a suitably powerful ego/psyche with which to withstand the horrors of the Warp and continue on. The lesser psykers will likely be consumed by Daemons. The most powerful of these psykers probably eventually become Daemons, or make their way to the Emperor to join with him.

It's almost as if the 40K fluff is a bodged up collection of tropes, themes, memes and scenes, dredged from a thousand SF, fantasy and historical examples by lucky dip methods, as opposed to the finely crafted, internally logical setting that results from a rigorously tuned writing machine.

Good thing too, or else we wouldn't have any reason to dig into those memes to figure out what they're alluding to. And that would make for a duller background forum.

Nurglitch wrote:Warboss Imbad Ironskull:

A Primarch's body is just the tip of the iceberg. Same with that of a Space Marine. Reproducing the meat is simply making a simple process more complicated and expensive.

.......I'm not sure what your point is?

My point is that, as others have pointed out, cloning a Primarch's body is a waste of time unless you can reproduce the entity that was bound into the flesh. Ditto with the Space Marine. The essence of a Space Marine isn't simply the Astartes' physical body; the candidate's spiritual strength is more important and that's something you can't reproduce in a vat in a cost effective way. I mean suppose counter-evidentially that clones can have souls so that clones of sufficient strength of will and character could be reproduced from scratch, and that such clones could be safe-guarded from the issues of monocultures. Now consider the strenuous physical ordeals an ordinary Astartes candidate must go through to be certified from the procedure. Since we have no guarantee that the clones' souls will be mass-produced like their bodies, we can reasonably expected the same rate of attrition in candidacy. 99% of clones will be wasted meat. Meat that required not only vats, but being raised from newborn, requiring care, guidance, education, and so on above and beyond the usual Chapter budget for recruitment and training. On the other hand, Humanity is billions strong and groups of humans can produce greater numbers for considerably less cost and far less expertise.

Aside from all the risks of producing soulless Blanks, genetic degradation, monoculturing Astartes, and so on, cloning Astartes is simply making an expensive process and making it moreso.

If they used cloning, i doubt that they would even consider it for the Astartes, because they are far too important to the survival of the Imperium. If they massed produced Guardsmen, it might work for a few generations before the genetic structure of the original copy unravels and mutates. And then there is the whole problem with the replication of the soul, etc. Overall, they way they do it right now works just fine.

Manchu wrote:Cloning technololgy is available to the Imperium. The DKoK are clones.

I'm pretty sure this is not true, and i have no idea where you got this idea. DKoK are all normal people born from mothers. their steeds are clones, but not the soldiers.

Foxy_Grandpa wrote:

Manchu wrote:Cloning technololgy is available to the Imperium. The DKoK are clones.

I'm pretty sure this is not true, and i have no idea where you got this idea. DKoK are all normal people born from mothers. their steeds are clones, but not the soldiers.

Then you'd pretty much be wrong.

IAs 5-7 all contradict your statement, in stating that a large quantity of the ground troops utilized by the Death Korps of Krieg are vat-grown clones.

Hence why very few Kriegers actually have names, rather than just serial numbers.

Citation please.

I own all three of those and i have never seen where it says that.

all of the DKoK have names and serial numbers. (at least i thought)

what page of what book says that?

Discarding the comments on cloning normal astartes in bulk which I agree with although I've never heard of the Imperial war machine being limited in terms of funds. My main point was the value of cloning the primarchs. Now forgive me but I can't help but think that even if they don't have the experiences and memories of their originals they would still have the genetic make up of the original which means they would develop in the same rapid way and quickly become master tacticians and warriors especially when "raised" amongst their respective chapters which where created in the vision of their primarch. This would be a great asset to the individual chapter as well as the Imperium as a whole

WHY DO YOU ALL IGNORE THE FACT THAT CORAX TRIED TO CLONE MARINES AND IT WENT TO HELL?!

Sorry for caps but that rather cements the issue:

If. You. Clone. Marines. Bad. Stuff. Happens.

Well. Considering that one of the Emperors Children Apothecaries (forgot who) successfully cloned alot of soldiers and met great success.

Which makes me ask the question, why didn't the Emperor simply clone himself?

Then he would have Primarchs with all his physical, and perhaps mental abilities. Which makes me think it is a control issue... breed too many supermen, and you lose control. Granting only limited abilities, that are watered down from Emperor to Primarch to Space Marine allows the Emperor and Empire to retain a chain of command. Make the Space Marines sterile, to avoid spreading super traits to mankind. The process must remain difficult, to control Space Marine numbers, but not so difficult to prevent having enough. And you would rather have the geneseed slowly degrade vs. possibly improve over time.

Warprat wrote:Which makes me ask the question, why didn't the Emperor simply clone himself?

The Emperor wanted sons. As the Emperor tried to have children but he failed. As women usually exploded when he did it with them

Nurglitch wrote:Citation please.

IA volume 5. No page number, but I distinctly remember it being implied on the page about the Watchmasters for the Grenadiers.

So it's not actually the case that the Death Corp are cloned, it's simply a leap of logic you made because you thought it was implied. So noted.

It's a completely reasonable leap of logic considering the statement in that very same book that the standard foot soldiers have no names, just numbers, even before they enlist within the Grenadiers(wherein they don the skull-faced respirators to show that they're "Dead Men Walking").

There's also a statement that, right before that statement, the Death Korps of Krieg, due to the fact that they really don't have a stable population are the only world in the Imperium that's given carte blanche by the Munitorium to use clone technology.

So, tell me. How do you read that, when the only people we've seen with actual names have been high ranking Krieg officials or Commissars(who actually aren't from Krieg proper)?

Asherian Command wrote:Well. Considering that one of the Emperors Children Apothecaries (forgot who) successfully cloned alot of soldiers and met great success.

Are you talking about Fabius Bile? That did not go well at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kriegers are mass-produced in vats. I assumed they were clones but I guess they could just be test tube babies. Either way they're mass produced on a production line like their lasguns.

You are aware that leaps of logic are by nature unreasonable, right? Leaps of logic bypass the steps that certify that a conclusion is valid. Deductive logic proceeds by making no leaps, and cautiously bases each new step on the proceding steps using either valid rules of reasoning, or truth-preserving inferences. So long as the premises are true, the conclusions will also be guaranteed to be true.

Inductive logics can make short leaps of logic, provided that they are well-justified, and the conclusion is acknowledged to have some possibility of error since it is not fully justified by valid rules of reasoning or truth-preserving inferences.

Moving from the notion that a numbering system instead of names to the notion that those so numbered are clones is completely unwarranted. The Romans, for example, tended to give their children numbers until their survival was sufficiently guaranteed to give them names (and presumably get emotionally attached). Indeed, if you want to dehumanize people, so that they might act like the Death Corps for example, giving them numbers instead of names is an effective way of discouraging human contact.

As for the notion that there's a bald statement to the effect that Krieg is the only world permitted to use cloning, you still haven't cited the source you are paraphrasing, or given us a quote so that we can check that you're paraphrasing accurately.

I repeat: Citation required.

Krieg has been given special dispensation by The Mechanicum to use the normally heretical "Vitae womb" technique. They were given this special permission due to their badassery.

I figured they're naming goes alot like Clone Troopers of Star Wars. They have a number officially but end up getting nicknames eventually.