So, we all know about the Blood Ravens. Is hinted many times that they are, probably loyal successors of the TS.
Then... Minotaurs. We all know that those guys are more violent than other chapters (except Flesh Tearers and Carchardons)... and their Primarch and founding is "Unknown/Classified". And what if they are made with the WE gene-seed?

So, my question is: could the Imperium use the gene-seed from the traitor legions stocks? The only sure thing I know is that the Word Bearers one is fully corrupted, so they sure won't use it. But for the others?

Could they? Sure.

Would they? Not on purpose.

I dont think the Minotaurs are descendant from any original traitor Legion geneseed. The strange gap in the records sounds more like the Imperium finishing off yet another cursed chapter from the 21st founding (I believe the M41 are different marines, which I will explain a bit later). After the Heresy traitor seed was put under stasis lock, but crucially not destroyed. This might be because they were unwilling to destroy the Emperor's work, or more likely as some measure of last resort. Yet it seems highly unlikely that they used it during the 21st founding, not really a time of great need or distress. But there has to be an explanation to this cursed founding. Then my darker take on all this. The 21st founding and perhaps others might be attempts at changing the traitor geneseed. Both of these took place in M36, the first records of the Blood Ravens start in M37. Survivors from the TS legion during the Heresy seems quite a stretch, although possible (but unlikely seeing as how their geneseed creates horrible mutations). It might just be the result of a millennium worth of research on TS and other traitor geneseed, cleaning up the 'impurities'. Leading to the founding of the Blood Ravens, which would explain the unmentioned primarch.

The 21st founding, has created some strange chapters, most notably the horrid mutations. It is also mentioned that due to unstable geneseed (unraveling genetic test codes?) they have a hard time to recruit. Of course this area is lacking in background material and my opinion fills out this theory. On the subject of the Minotaurs I believe they might have had partially/full traitor geneseed in both foundings. Now I say both foundings, because as said I believe they were purged due to the traitor element of World Eater geneseed (which might be the reason for their violent manner among even Astartes). The first time in M.36 they were too violent and the changed/'new' traitor geneseed was still too affected by the original traitors. After further research the second time the Minotaurs were less unstable (but the High Lords keep them close, seeing as what happened before). Im seeing this in line with chapters like the Blood Ravens and the cursed founding.

Well this is just my view on the subject.

I say go for it, personally when the new Space Marine codex comes out I plan on doing a Loyalist Chapter descended from the Night Lords...

I agree with Disciple of Fate about the cursed founding potentially being because they used the traitor gene but tried to "cure" it. The Black Dragons, Fire Hawks especially look like something right of the warp.

 Psienesis wrote:
Could they? Sure.

Would they? Not on purpose.

I agree with this belief

Same goes for chapters descended from the "Lost Legions" that was the original intent.

I see no problem with doing loyalists descended from traitor legions.

Why not?

Also, think about this: we know that during the Heresy many of the Traitor Legions had members who remained loyal to the Emperor, and some of those managed to make it back to Imperial service (like Garro and Varren, as well as the Death Guard centurion from Betrayal). Chances are their gene-seed was eventually collected upon their passing. Given the wide and diverse range of beliefs and attitudes among the Mechanicus, it's possible that some members actually regard this particular type of gene-seed as exceptional. After all, those samples remained "pure" when their peers were "tainted".

This debate crops up every month or so, the 40k fluff writers left the time sealed geneseed part of the backstory so that this debate can be brought up but never having one side vindicated

NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

Everything and nothing is true. But in this case I would most definitely agree with you Kain. Its almost a given that the BR are descended from Magnus. as such its believable that there would be other chapters out there from the other Horus followers. (within reason of course.)

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary
And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

So you got hints, and "0" proof...If you want to belive that, go ahead...Just don't say that is canon.....

The Imperium don't like to use Blood Angels gene-seed because of the flaw, so why would the Imperium create a chapter from gene-seed they know has flaws in it and most likely lead to a renegade chapter?

 CKO wrote:
The Imperium don't like to use Blood Angels gene-seed because of the flaw, so why would the Imperium create a chapter from gene-seed they know has flaws in it and most likely lead to a renegade chapter?

Yeah, this too...Now I'm not excluding that BR or Minotaurs can have traitor primarch...
But the worst and most brutal were GK too - and they descended directly from EMPEROR'S ballz...
My point, keep the open mind people....!

I don't see how it would make a "bad background"
I can understand something like
"My marines are actually half-eldar"
or
"My Grey Knights are actually evil Chaos Grey Knights" (Now if you say they are only worshiping a deamon because Tzeetnch has bambuzzled them or something I'm down thats kinda nifty) being a bad backgrounds
but
My guys are descendents of chapter that was formed from old gene stock that was actually traitor gene stock and because of that they share certain similarities with the pre-heresy versions of that chapter.
Is certainly better than
Yeah my guys are descendants of Ultramarines/Blood Angels/Raven Guard/Imperial Fists/etc they all live on a Ice/Fire/Hive/Jungle etc world and they are influenced by (Random warrior race from history)
or
My guys are Ultramarines/Dark Angels/Space Wolves/Templars etc.

That stuff is like a dime a dozen, I'd much rather face some Loyalists Descendents of Thousand Sons, or Emperors Children or Night Lords...

From a fluff perspective there is so much you can do from the simple "they have a dark secret that needs hiding" story or even a "The IoM knows full well that horrors their predecessors cause so use them as a special shock troops"

Personally my Loyalist Night Lord descendants are going to be have a story in which the IoM figures out they are descended from Night Lords so they cut off all supply lines and technology (my guys won't be using anything new so lots of older armor variants and no new weapons or gear (also so they can double as a HH army if need be)), then they force the Night Lord descendants to go on suicidal missions with the hopes that the chapter will eventually burn itself out. The idea is that my guys know who they come from and as such seek to atone for what they view as their own sins so gladly accept the most suicidal missions out of penance.

Or I could say...

My guys come from the Raven Guard, and they are suicidal and have older gear because a long time ago they pissed off the Imperium by killing a Grey Knight or Inquisitor.

Personally I find the first one cooler than the second.

But really I think it comes down to fluff, avoid the pitfalls of mary sues and uber special coolness.

For instance if you've got some World Eater descendants who are crazed bloodthristers who own everyone in combat because they are as brutal as Angron and your chapter master is basically Angron version 2 and the IoM is totally cool with that and use them as their ultiamte close combat guys cause they are better than Space Wolves and Blood Angels combined-Lame as gak

However, if your guys are World Eater descendants who through mental strength suppress their rage but occasionally they give in to this blood lust (You use the Blood Angel codex to represent them in this hypothetical) and because of this issue they are hated by the Inquisition and even other chapters (you represent this by never taking IoM allies other than guard). And your leader could even have some of Angron's tendencies (hell he should) but make sure he isn't just a clone.

Also, given the number of feth-ups the BR are responsible for, directly tied to their upper ranks turning to Chaos and, in one case, becoming a Daemon Prince, it further bolsters the concept that there's something fundamentally flawed with the gene-seed of the Traitor Legions, and is probably not the first, or even the tenth, choice of gene-seed for founding new Chapters.

Save a few individuals, the Blood Ravens have a serious, serious problem with willingly turning to the Ruinous Powers. They've also got a pretty powerful strain of kleptomania in their genes, considering that most of their relics previously belonged to other Chapters and the BR never bothered to give them back after picking it up off the corpse of some xeno or another.

They all got purged, basically. Their geneseed stocks got wiped, which is why they have to steal them off loyalist chapters, either that or breed them in weird-ass vat thingys..

Well, the CSM may not have access to their geneseed stocks (since those are kept on Mars or Terra) but that doesn't mean that the stocks themselves don't exist.

It's simply much easier to get geneseed from a Chapter's own stocks rather than attack Terra or Mars directly.

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

So you got hints, and "0" proof...If you want to belive that, go ahead...Just don't say that is canon.....

I'm making fun of how buttmad the "anti-1k sons" crowd gets whenever someone mentions that GW has done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

So you got hints, and "0" proof...If you want to belive that, go ahead...Just don't say that is canon.....

I'm making fun of how buttmad the "anti-1k sons" crowd gets whenever someone mentions that GW has done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

Well, I didn't say they can't be from their stock; I've said hint =/= fact, so don't exclude other opinions and perspectives...
People tend to view missing legions as "killed by the wolves, or added to UM"...I' dont, because this perspective is based on hints, just like yours, and BL can twist hints to the max (fact)....

 Kain wrote:

I'm making fun of how buttmad the "anti-1k sons" crowd gets whenever someone mentions that GW has done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

If you cannot engage in a conversation without using terms like "butthurt", please consider expanding your vocabulary.

With that said:
GW has not "done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus". They have let two authors work in appallingly hamfisted examples of "hints" in the Horus Heresy, which the pro-Thousand Sons crowd have latched onto as examples of proof positive that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

And what's more? "A lot of the Traitor Legions" did not remain loyal. The majority of the Traitor Legions turned traitor (as suggested by the whole "Traitor Legions" thing), killing the loyalists within their ranks.
Individuals like Garro were the exception, not the rule. The Fourth Company of the Thousand Sons is at this point an unknown quantity. All we know is they went down onto Prospero after the Space Wolves finished with the planet.

GW drops hints like a seagull craps.
Everywhere and without regard for consequences.
They're also really poor hints because of how unsubtle some of them are.

There is no good reason to use Traitor gene seed to form post-Heresy chapters.

I'm now going to Godwin the thread: it'd be like us saying, "Hey, look, why don't we just stand up a few regiments of Waffen-SS? They weren't all bad guys, after all, so we should just have a couple around, you know?"

 purplefood wrote:
GW drops hints like a seagull craps.
Everywhere and without regard for consequences.
They're also really poor hints because of how unsubtle some of them are.

Yeah, but even more fascinating are those people who bite on those (wink,wink) khmmmm....hints...
fe : In universe perspective = canon, and when you try to expand their view you are stupid and blind

 Valion wrote:
There is no good reason to use Traitor gene seed to form post-Heresy chapters.

I'm now going to Godwin the thread: it'd be like us saying, "Hey, look, why don't we just stand up a few regiments of Waffen-SS? They weren't all bad guys, after all, so we should just have a couple around, you know?"

Well I think the IG will resemble this quite a bit, considering the genocide thats commited in campaigns. But that is not a valid comparison in such grimdarkness. Why do you ask, because we already have the flesh tearers and minotaurs running around, so blood ravens (even if they have TS geneseed) would seem like the more 'normal' marines. Even so, remember that former French SS men served in Indochina, so need for troops overruled ethics. So why not in the IoM, its been under threat for 10.000 years, they might be looking for new ways to push outwards.
Also you cant just discount its use. Its like the lost legions, GW has deliberately left these things open, hence sealed away, instead of destroyed. So people could give their own twist to it and use it for explanations on the BR and the 21st founding. Just because it doesnt fit in your (and others) picture of 40k doesnt mean its not or not yet used.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
They all got purged, basically. Their geneseed stocks got wiped, which is why they have to steal them off loyalist chapters, either that or breed them in weird-ass vat thingys..

As far as I remember the Traitor Legions gene-seeds are simply locked and monitorated. The only exception is the Word Bearers one, judged corrupted beyond repairs.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Well I think the IG will resemble this quite a bit, considering the genocide thats commited in campaigns.

I didn't mean it would be like the Imperium asking that question, I meant it would be like us, today, asking that question.

Traitor legions are the most hated, the most feared, the most reviled entities in the universe as far as the Imperium is concerned.

If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.

JWhex wrote:
If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.

1000 time this...

Valion wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Well I think the IG will resemble this quite a bit, considering the genocide thats commited in campaigns.

I didn't mean it would be like the Imperium asking that question, I meant it would be like us, today, asking that question.

Traitor legions are the most hated, the most feared, the most reviled entities in the universe as far as the Imperium is concerned.

That is why I gave you the example of a Western 'civilized' nation employing former SS troops. Have we become more or less ethical in the West since the 40's during which this happened? We still do terrible things and let terrible things happen to others. We would never want a repeat of the crimes of WWII, but we still let similar events happen or go on for a significant amount of time before intervening.
Most feared or hated? Around the Cadian Gate perhaps, but on safe Holy Terra perhaps not so much. A lot has been forgotten in 10.000 years, who still knows the full extent of what they did. Maybe they are most feared or hated now because of what they stand for, a human power besides the IoM, causing rebellion. Again its lack of information from GW's part, I agree with you on that they are probably the most hated and feared. But perhaps some High Lords or gene-scientists didnt think this at a time of another crisis, seeing the new threat as bigger.

JWhex wrote:If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.

Or perhaps as mentioned earlier, the 21st founding was an attempt at changing traitor geneseed, thereby removing the flesh change in greater part. And youre forgetting that the TS were loyal, but the IoM attacked them due to deception. They are traitors now, because of what the Imperium did to the Legion. So the question is, does the original geneseed contain the loyalty to the IoM, or the later twisted hatred against the IoM for what they did (in one fell swoop killing most and preventing further geneseed reaching Terra)? Blood Ravens are first mentioned around M37, in M36 there are a lot of foundings that seem wrong, like the dark and cursed foundings. So they might have experimented with traitor geneseed. Using it to found some new chapters, which after initial testing and extermination might have been fine-tuned. And people tend to forget that once you start ignoring things they deliberately left open for interpetation its no longer 40k but your 40k. Everything with an unclear background has multiple posibilities, excluding one because it fits you isnt right, what Im saying is just my opinion, in no way right or giving closure, but one of the posibilities they left.

text removed.
You've been warned about this before. Don't do it again.

Reds8n

My formulation might have been unclear. Both sides were loyal, no one was evil. They were lied to by the evil side (Horus), making them fight each other. Magnus should just have let it end on Prospero, but he lived long enough to turn from regret and loyalty to misplaced hate and turning traitor. They were not forced on going traitor, they were declared traitors, so in the eyes of the IoM even if they might in act be loyal, they will remain traitors. But they went traitor unfortunatly, but by their own choice. After this its just a mess of disloyalty and divided groups, losing their sense of purpose killed them (being a legion of the Imperium). Illustrated by their lack of stance at first, they dont know what to do anymore. They felt betrayed and then just went on to fulfill how the IoM saw them, own choice (or not depending on how big you think Tzeentch his influence is).

Regarding the possibility of Minotaurs descending from World Eaters geneseed, my theory is that Angron's corruption was mostly due to the rage implants he received before being discovered by the Emperor. He reverse-engineered the implants and began installing them in his Legion, though I don't believe all of them were implanted. I believe that before Angron was recovered, the World Eaters (called something different at that time IIRC) were a bit more aggressive than the baseline Marine, but it was the widespread use of the implants that turned them into berserkers ripe for Khorne corruption.

Given that, it seems reasonable to me that World Eater geneseed could be used to create acceptable Loyalist Marines. The Minotaurs walk a fine line and could conceivably fall to Khorne, but they aren't doomed to do so just because they carry World Eater geneseed.

In fact, I think a similar argument could be made about Blood Ravens/Thousand Sons. At the time of the Heresy, there was very little knowledge of the precautions needed to use psykic powers safely. The Imperium has stagnated in nearly every way, but their procedures for training Librarians and other psykers are much more advanced than in the time of the Primarchs. Thus, while the Thousand Sons were corrupted by their exposure to sorcery and the Warp, it doesn't mean that they were weak against corruption, merely that they didn't know how to prevent it.

I believe people look at alleged possibilities like this from far too much of a meta perspective. We, as third party observers of a fictional universe, find things that we think are cool or badass about many of the Traitor Legions and go, "Hey, wouldn't it be awesome if..." The Imperium, on the other hand, views, from within this fictional world, the Traitor Legions and their primarchs as the most vile, repugnant, evil entities around. Suggesting that they would happily go about creating loyalist chapters from traitor gene seed really is akin to us, in present times, going, "Say, let's create some super-soldiers from the DNA of bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and a few Klan leaders because, you know, they might be good at some stuff."

Which is why it's super top secret. There are people here and there in the Imperium who chafe at its intellectual stagnation. If they can get into a position with minimal oversight and access to forbidden tech they can do something heretical, such as use Traitor geneseed to found a new chapter. If the higher-ups find out, often they'll try to facilitate the coverup so their own negligence isn't exposed. Only if an outside auditor (such as an Inquisitor) gets their hands on the info is it likely to be acted upon.

JWhex wrote:
If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.

Wait, so IF GW said, Blood Ravens are loyalists 1000 Sons, you'd say,"NO Guys who made this game, obviously you don't know the fluff behind the game you've made I've been playing for x years so I think I know a little more than the guys who MADE THE DAMN GAME",

I think my next army will be Chaos Grey Knights who are all female Space Marines and are actually loyalists Luna Wolves who've had their geneseed blended with both of the lost legions. I'll call them the Space Trolls

Whaddyathink? does it fit the fluff?

2x210 wrote:
I'll call them the Space Trolls
Whaddyathink? does it fit the fluff?

Nope. But it would be so freakin awesome.

Human DNA is 99.9% the same, since space marines are lacking many of the genetic deficiencies that humans have I'd say they are even closer. Thus telling apart one geneseed from another is going to be extremely hard after all we have a large bunch of chapters that are primarch unknown.

Also the whole blood raven thing is as close to proven as anything ever is in warhammer 40k and that means that either the imperium doesn't care or doesn't know. Saying 'whaah whaah its impossible', when it clearly is hinted not to be is kind of narrow minded. If you chose to go with a different interpretation go ahead but dont use your own assumptions to browbeat other players who are trying to be creative.

And just as you hate the idea that the BR may be TS i hate the idea that the traitors fell because of some problem with their geneseed, it takes away a lot of tragedy if you ask me. The entire idea that the emperor even made the primarchs different, rather than becoming different because of the environment they grew up in, is one of the weakest ones in the HH series. And just as you choose to ignore the heavy hinting of the blood ravens orgins I chose to ignore that.

Also there's plenty of room for remainder forces from all legion ending up on either side of the heresy because of the fact that marine forces were spread amongst the expeditions fleets and the unreliability of human warptravel (especially since there was a massive warp storm when horus was trying to bring his legions back to him.

2x210 wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.

Wait, so IF GW said, Blood Ravens are loyalists 1000 Sons, you'd say,"NO Guys who made this game, obviously you don't know the fluff behind the game you've made I've been playing for x years so I think I know a little more than the guys who MADE THE DAMN GAME",

Actually I say that all the time about 40k and a lot of other games. In 40k I say that about how they treat the IG as nothing but incompetent leaders who mass suicide their men in every battle and that even the most basic form of innovation is met with cries of "heresy."

I do it with Halo (all of the game Halo Reach makes no fething sense for example)

Star Wars ( That entire 2nd Galactic Civil War makes no fething sense either for example)

2x210 wrote:


Wait, so IF GW said, Blood Ravens are loyalists 1000 Sons, you'd say,"NO Guys who made this game, obviously you don't know the fluff behind the game you've made I've been playing for x years so I think I know a little more than the guys who MADE THE DAMN GAME",

Is that who he'd be saying it to? Mostly, the "guys who made the game" do not have anything to do with GW at this point.

Also, those guys made the game, past perfective. It's done.

 TheDungen wrote:


Also the whole blood raven thing is as close to proven as anything ever is in warhammer 40k and that means that either the imperium doesn't care or doesn't know. Saying 'whaah whaah its impossible', when it clearly is hinted not to be is kind of narrow minded. If you chose to go with a different interpretation go ahead but dont use your own assumptions to browbeat other players who are trying to be creative.

I will only say, this is a vice versa situation (imo)...People who use THE most usual in-universe hinted sterotype are the ones who are choking the creativity ( BR , missing legions, ranking primarchs by Corax quote etc.)...
Like I said, use TS geneseed, but do it on your own terms, not because most people think so.... anyway my two cents on this...

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Pretty much this. Not to mention, with all their time in the Warp, the Gene Seed is more than likely soaked with Chaotic corruption. I think the Minotaur's tendency towards violent behavior is more of a nurture vs. nature thing.

for the thousand sons, it might have more to do with a legacy of the thousand sons empire under the imperium. Where they tread, they left seeds in their wake. It wouldn't be a ridiculous assumption to say that because the bloodravens are based in an area that was the seat of thousand sons power, or basked in the shadow of TS power, that the seeds planted hadn't germinated to sprout increased psychic potential in the recruitment pool...

2x210 wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.

Wait, so IF GW said, Blood Ravens are loyalists 1000 Sons, you'd say,"NO Guys who made this game, obviously you don't know the fluff behind the game you've made I've been playing for x years so I think I know a little more than the guys who MADE THE DAMN GAME",

I think my next army will be Chaos Grey Knights who are all female Space Marines and are actually loyalists Luna Wolves who've had their geneseed blended with both of the lost legions. I'll call them the Space Trolls

Whaddyathink? does it fit the fluff?

LOL, you need to learn to recognize a little hyperbole/humour. But for the most part, GW changes the background all the time in major and minor ways. If you want to have some coherency to the background story you MUST ignore some things that GW vomits forth from time to time.

 TheDungen wrote:
Also the whole blood raven thing is as close to proven as anything ever is in warhammer 40k and that means that either the imperium doesn't care or doesn't know. Saying 'whaah whaah its impossible', when it clearly is hinted not to be is kind of narrow minded. If you chose to go with a different interpretation go ahead but dont use your own assumptions to browbeat other players who are trying to be creative.

It's not really creative though, is it? The first DIY chapter ever made was probably an Ultramarines successor, and I'd be willing to bet the second one ever made was a loyalist traitor. It's an old, old, old idea, and it's been done to death.

Two Black Library authors dropped one-sentence hints as to the Blood Ravens being successors of the Thousand Sons, and a third Black Library author has said he considers that idea to be ridiculous. It's basically, "There are no wolves on Fenris," all over again. You'll take what you want from it and run with it.

And just as you hate the idea that the BR may be TS i hate the idea that the traitors fell because of some problem with their geneseed, it takes away a lot of tragedy if you ask me. The entire idea that the emperor even made the primarchs different, rather than becoming different because of the environment they grew up in, is one of the weakest ones in the HH series. And just as you choose to ignore the heavy hinting of the blood ravens orgins I chose to ignore that.

This is where you're confusing perspectives. We know, as readers of the fluff, that the gene seed itself isn't responsible for Chaotic corruption. Characters in-universe, especially 10,000 years after the Heresy, do not. The Emperor's the only one who really understood gene seed in the first place, and he ain't talking. From an in-universe perspective, again, it makes absolutely zero sense to use traitor gene seed to create loyalist chapters. It would, as I said, be like us deciding to use DNA from the Klan to create super-soldiers.

The traitors gene-seed is on Terra.
It would be accessible to someone with sufficient clearance.

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:
The traitors gene-seed is on Terra.
It would be accessible to someone with sufficient clearance.

No, it would not be.

It has been, for quite some time in regards to the "written canon", that the Traitor Gene-Seed is in a genelocked, time-sealed vault which only the Emperor could open.

Given that the Emperor is permanently attached to life support, he won't be opening it any time soon.

So what if the ravens are descended from thousand sons? Its not like they exist or are even a major part of the storyline. Let people believe whatever they want, its a fictional universe and as far as them possibly being from the 1ks is not like saying the Tyranids are in fact evolved space marines from a parallel dimension.....

Will the fluff be less engaging if they are from traitor stock? I don´t think so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

It has been, for quite some time in regards to the "written canon", that the Traitor Gene-Seed is in a genelocked, time-sealed vault which only the Emperor could open.

Given that the Emperor is permanently attached to life support, he won't be opening it any time soon.

Someone needs to read up on the ravenguard in the HH books....

What? BR are canon, they were mentioned in a old SM Codex (don't remember what edition, though) then DoW came out and they had a huge wave of popularity. Then, CS Multilazors made novels about them (he raped the fluff, but still).
They're canon. Actually, after the Ultra, I think they're the most known vanilla chapter.

There would be no reason not to make chapters out of traitor legion gene seed.... In this case you blame the player not the game... There were literally thousands of loyal space marines from all the traitor legions, if they had survived (and a few obvious cases that did... I.e. Garro) they would have fought for the imperium

Do we stop using loyal gene seed because Roboute's chapters keep defecting all over the place....? In fact every loyal legion now has chapters founded from their loyal gene seed that have turned to chaos. So why not turn out some loyal chapters from traitor legions so that they can harness the unique traits of those legions.

The one exception I am willing to make, and this isn't set in stone, is thousand son gene seed as it is so unstable and during the great crusade they had horrific problems with mutation. If they could fix this then they could use thousand son gene seed otherwise I'd stay clear... Although, in my opinion, Blood Ravens are descendants of loyal thousand sons but that's a whole other thread so please don't discuss that here I simply said that to illustrate a point.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

This is where you're confusing perspectives. We know, as readers of the fluff, that the gene seed itself isn't responsible for Chaotic corruption. Characters in-universe, especially 10,000 years after the Heresy, do not. The Emperor's the only one who really understood gene seed in the first place, and he ain't talking. From an in-universe perspective, again, it makes absolutely zero sense to use traitor gene seed to create loyalist chapters. It would, as I said, be like us deciding to use DNA from the Klan to create super-soldiers.

I like this... Well said. BUT it is Grimdark to neither say they have or haven't used it.... Leaving things ambiguous, although frustrating, is games workshops key to success.

 tarnish wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

It has been, for quite some time in regards to the "written canon", that the Traitor Gene-Seed is in a genelocked, time-sealed vault which only the Emperor could open.

Given that the Emperor is permanently attached to life support, he won't be opening it any time soon.

Someone needs to read up on the ravenguard in the HH books....

I think you need to reread what you posted.

Corax's experiments with geneseed during the Horus Heresy have no bearing on y'know...the post-Heresy era.

 Kanluwen wrote:


I think you need to reread what you posted.

Corax's experiments with geneseed during the Horus Heresy have no bearing on y'know...the post-Heresy era.

You can´t possibly know that for sure since they aren´t done with the books yet....

Given that we can map DNA in the 21st century I find it hard to believe that in the 41st century they would inadvertantly create a legion out of traitor DNA.

 BryllCream wrote:
Given that we can map DNA in the 21st century I find it hard to believe that in the 41st century they would inadvertantly create a legion out of traitor DNA.

easy there, we have a reasonably easy time cloning and splicing, and they get all sorts of screwups left right and center any time they do something. I mean, they still use mechanical power for a lot of their systems, so it stands to reason they aren't that bright in the future.
="whats this pile of stuff, can we use it?"
+"what? what's it say on the list"
="Legio Trey-tur"
+"....hm.... odd, haven't heard of them... funny that we find that now, must be one of the dead offshoots of one of the ultramarines..."
="yeah, it's not on any of our charts, and says it's been in stasis for the past 8000 years"
+"what dude! we need to get on that! I can't believe 8000 years of administration let that one slip for so long!, praise the omnissiah WE came along!"
aaaaaaaaaand there you go.

 tarnish wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:


I think you need to reread what you posted.

Corax's experiments with geneseed during the Horus Heresy have no bearing on y'know...the post-Heresy era.

You can´t possibly know that for sure since they aren´t done with the books yet....

Right.

And when we have those books in hand, where it explicitly states "And Corax started to play with Traitor Legion geneseed"?
Then I'll change my statement.

Because then you'd actually be right. As it stands right now; Corax's experiments with geneseed were not tampering with the Traitor Legion geneseed. It was trying to create what amounted to "cloned" geneseed.

 poda_t wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Given that we can map DNA in the 21st century I find it hard to believe that in the 41st century they would inadvertantly create a legion out of traitor DNA.

easy there, we have a reasonably easy time cloning and splicing, and they get all sorts of screwups left right and center any time they do something. I mean, they still use mechanical power for a lot of their systems, so it stands to reason they aren't that bright in the future.
="whats this pile of stuff, can we use it?"
+"what? what's it say on the list"
="Legio Trey-tur"
+"....hm.... odd, haven't heard of them... funny that we find that now, must be one of the dead offshoots of one of the ultramarines..."
="yeah, it's not on any of our charts, and says it's been in stasis for the past 8000 years"
+"what dude! we need to get on that! I can't believe 8000 years of administration let that one slip for so long!, praise the omnissiah WE came along!"
aaaaaaaaaand there you go.

They are fairly bright...
They have teleporters and railguns so they can't be stupid... not entirely anyway.

 purplefood wrote:

 poda_t wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Given that we can map DNA in the 21st century I find it hard to believe that in the 41st century they would inadvertantly create a legion out of traitor DNA.

easy there, we have a reasonably easy time cloning and splicing, and they get all sorts of screwups left right and center any time they do something. I mean, they still use mechanical power for a lot of their systems, so it stands to reason they aren't that bright in the future.
="whats this pile of stuff, can we use it?"
+"what? what's it say on the list"
="Legio Trey-tur"
+"....hm.... odd, haven't heard of them... funny that we find that now, must be one of the dead offshoots of one of the ultramarines..."
="yeah, it's not on any of our charts, and says it's been in stasis for the past 8000 years"
+"what dude! we need to get on that! I can't believe 8000 years of administration let that one slip for so long!, praise the omnissiah WE came along!"
aaaaaaaaaand there you go.

They are fairly bright...
They have teleporters and railguns so they can't be stupid... not entirely anyway.

not that those always work either

I'd say the even if there in not MEANT to be any modern legions founded using traitor geneseed

the amount of corruption and influence the various Chaos powers have on individuals (even those in high positions) I'm sure it has happened

either as a direct 'my god told me to do this, it will increase it's power)

or

they've tricked them into using traitor geneseed either without realising what it is, or by convincing them it's of benefit to the emperor.

Once the deception has been accomplished nobody, even the marine chapter may know the truth if the records have been corrupted

 poda_t wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 poda_t wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Given that we can map DNA in the 21st century I find it hard to believe that in the 41st century they would inadvertantly create a legion out of traitor DNA.

easy there, we have a reasonably easy time cloning and splicing, and they get all sorts of screwups left right and center any time they do something. I mean, they still use mechanical power for a lot of their systems, so it stands to reason they aren't that bright in the future.
="whats this pile of stuff, can we use it?"
+"what? what's it say on the list"
="Legio Trey-tur"
+"....hm.... odd, haven't heard of them... funny that we find that now, must be one of the dead offshoots of one of the ultramarines..."
="yeah, it's not on any of our charts, and says it's been in stasis for the past 8000 years"
+"what dude! we need to get on that! I can't believe 8000 years of administration let that one slip for so long!, praise the omnissiah WE came along!"
aaaaaaaaaand there you go.

They are fairly bright...
They have teleporters and railguns so they can't be stupid... not entirely anyway.

not that those always work either

Oh yeah and the teleporters we built are so amazing...

"So, my question is: could the Imperium use the gene-seed from the traitor legions stocks?"


I'm surprised so many people said it wasn't possible and just wrote it off. Here, I'll answer the question to you as simply as I can to the extent that "canon" (what could be considered canon given that Warhammer 40k canon is loose) goes:


In-Universe detractors of he Sons of Antaeus, a cursed founding loyalist chapter, point out that their resilience is similar to the Death Guard.

So the answer to your question, "Could the Imperisum use the gene-seed from the traitor legions stocks" is "Some people in the Imperium think they could."



....though honestly, when it comes to the Blood Ravens, I'm kinda amazed so many people think it's not possible for them to be descended from the Thousand Sonsafter a story had a Thousand Sons loyalist who had the symbol of a raven and used their catch phrase. I mean, come on, now. At that point, your only defense is that not every story is canon because there is no canon, but honestly, anyone who uses that defense shouldn't bother taking part in discussions about canon in the first place in my opinion, because according to them, there is no canon.

Really, if I recall correctly, THE HERO OF ISHVAAN (that's his actual title that history has given him!) was a Death Guard member, and the fact that he's known IN UNIVERSE HISTORY as "the hero of Ishvaan" should tell any Imperium member that there were at least SOME members of the traitor legions that were good people, considering one of the most famous HEROS in Imperium history was a Death Guard member. Off the in-universe historical record, one of the original Grey Knight founders was a World Eater. That said, I imagine they'd still want to cover up any Space Marine chapters that came from the traitor legions if only as a matter of honour for them and so they won't have to despair about such things.

 DarthMarko wrote:
sorry dude, agree with you completely...Some guy asked ADB "Why is Magnus neutral?".He said there is still time to change that (read : new novel ), loyalists aren't really an option....So we will see..

You're not digging deep enough.

Read: We are dragging this out for the sake of more money at the expense of plot.

Betrayer destroys the point of Magnus' final scenes in A Thousand Sons.

 Valion wrote:

It's not really creative though, is it? The first DIY chapter ever made was probably an Ultramarines successor, and I'd be willing to bet the second one ever made was a loyalist traitor. It's an old, old, old idea, and it's been done to death.

Meh the whole Ultramarines are resposible for 80%of the geneseed is also kind of limiting and the fact that some loyalists dont have sucessors. I get that it was created to explain why most chapters had exactly the same structure but in a time when they no longer do it could well be lowered.

It's not beating a dead horse, its the heel face turn, the redemption story, and its not a dead horse nor an undead one it's a classic.

It's kind of like the alternate reality episodes that shows up in sci-fi shows, sure it corny sure it has been done, but if done properly it's really enjoyable because it allows us to take a known factor and make if different.

 Valion wrote:

This is where you're confusing perspectives. We know, as readers of the fluff, that the gene seed itself isn't responsible for Chaotic corruption. Characters in-universe, especially 10,000 years after the Heresy, do not. The Emperor's the only one who really understood gene seed in the first place, and he ain't talking. From an in-universe perspective, again, it makes absolutely zero sense to use traitor gene seed to create loyalist chapters. It would, as I said, be like us deciding to use DNA from the Klan to create super-soldiers.

Since every chapter has lost people to chaos it seems kind of strange that they could blame it on the geneseed, in that case they'd have to destroy the adeptus astartes entirely.

Yea, by this point you'd think any remotely rational person (and give the Imperium some credit. They CAN think a little, at least!) would realize that everything is open to chaotic corruption (and again, some of the Heresy's greatest PUBLICALLY KNOWN heros were from the traitor legions). Off the public record, a ton of the original grey knights were traitor legion loyalists. (including TWO Luna Wolves, one who far as I know wasn't even Terran born, despite how their Primarch was the big bad).

Honestly it's to the point that I kinda don't see what the Dark Angels' big deal with the whole dishonour thing is. It's official that only the Grey Knights have never ever lost an astartes to Chaos, and no one publically knows they exist, which basically means that it's publically official in-universe (to anyone who knows what Chaos is, at least) that no space marine chapter has ever not lost a member to chaos.

That said, again, I can still see why they'd want to cover up a space marine chapter descending from a traitor primarch. Even if there'd be no shame from being descended from a loyalist hero of the Heresy that rebelled against their traitorist primarchs, I doubt any space marine chapter would want to have to say their Primarch is one of the traitor ones. Thus it'd be heavily covered up just to make things easier on everyone.

the deal with the fallen is that the unforgiven have done some pretty shade stuff to hide them. First it was probably a matter of pride, "we deal with this internally no one will ever know of this dishonour". Then after keeping it quiet a few centuries they suddenly realised that they had been withholding information from the imperium. "But hey as soon as we get the fallen no one will have to know".
Then someone else nearly found out and the unforgiven did something to prevent it. all of the sudden they were working against imperial authorities. "But hey it'll be fine f we can get all the fallen, cause then no one will ever find out".
Then came the day they killed to keep their secret, and so on. They're really no covering up the fallen they're covering up the fact that they've been lying for ten thousand years and what they've done to keep their secrets. The fallen must be found because once they are found the risk of being exposed is basically gone.

 TheDungen wrote:
Meh the whole Ultramarines are resposible for 80%of the geneseed is also kind of limiting and the fact that some loyalists dont have sucessors. I get that it was created to explain why most chapters had exactly the same structure but in a time when they no longer do it could well be lowered.

It's only "limiting" if you look at Space Marines as a vehicle for personal creativity. And that ain't how they're looked at in-universe.

Since every chapter has lost people to chaos it seems kind of strange that they could blame it on the geneseed, in that case they'd have to destroy the adeptus astartes entirely.

Not really. There is a massive difference in scale between a chapter and a legion. And I'd be willing to bet they don't use gene seed tithes from chapters that turned traitor, either.

Put it this way: you order 100 cartons of milk from two different companies. Company A provides 99 cartons of spoiled milk and 1 carton of unspoiled. Company B provides 99 cartons of unspoiled milk and 1 carton of spoiled.

The argument that the proponents of the, "The Imperium uses Traitor gene seed to make Spehss Mehrenes!" are making is, "Of course you keep ordering from Company A! Sure, they gave you terrible milk, but the next time, they might give you super-awesome milk!" Nobody would ever actually do that, of course, they would exclusively use Company B. But because nobody is thinking about this from a logical perspective, but rather a, "My loyal Night Lords are awesome, lololololol" one, you get nonsensical arguments for Company A.

The UM thing makes sense, actually, if you think about it, though I believe it was 60%, not 80%. Most of the 2nd Founding chapters came from the UM, and since that time, the additional Successor Chapters that descend from UM Successor Chapters simply proves the viability of UM geneseed.

Yo, dawg, I herd you liek ultramarine...

 Valion wrote:

 TheDungen wrote:
Meh the whole Ultramarines are resposible for 80%of the geneseed is also kind of limiting and the fact that some loyalists dont have sucessors. I get that it was created to explain why most chapters had exactly the same structure but in a time when they no longer do it could well be lowered.

It's only "limiting" if you look at Space Marines as a vehicle for personal creativity. And that ain't how they're looked at in-universe.

Since every chapter has lost people to chaos it seems kind of strange that they could blame it on the geneseed, in that case they'd have to destroy the adeptus astartes entirely.

Not really. There is a massive difference in scale between a chapter and a legion. And I'd be willing to bet they don't use gene seed tithes from chapters that turned traitor, either.

Put it this way: you order 100 cartons of milk from two different companies. Company A provides 99 cartons of spoiled milk and 1 carton of unspoiled. Company B provides 99 cartons of unspoiled milk and 1 carton of spoiled.

The argument that the proponents of the, "The Imperium uses Traitor gene seed to make Spehss Mehrenes!" are making is, "Of course you keep ordering from Company A! Sure, they gave you terrible milk, but the next time, they might give you super-awesome milk!" Nobody would ever actually do that, of course, they would exclusively use Company B. But because nobody is thinking about this from a logical perspective, but rather a, "My loyal Night Lords are awesome, lololololol" one, you get nonsensical arguments for Company A.

But said spoiled milk was good enough to found the Grey Knights with, ahh logic and 40k they go so will together

The GK weren't founded on traitor geneseed

the kicker is that the contraband argument makes no sense in the 40k universe. The logical extension of the spoiled milk argument and not using traitor geneseed because of unreliability is the complete death of the imperium because of the inherent lack of reliability in of psykers, and their tendency to get posessed, or spontaneously combust in a giant welter of flaming gore when said posession doesn't go to plan.

They were founded by former (some) members of the original traitor legions, so I guess you can have a traitor mentor and lead the army designed to hunt demons, but years after the heresy we can't possibly have loyalist descended from traitors.

I think you might all be taking the plastic space men a tad to seriously, 40k fluff is written like a 16 year olds creative writing project, so if people want to trounce that fluff who really gives a flying feth.

So there you go you win, it's totally impossible and not fluffy.

Now if you excuse me my female half-elder chaos space marine slannesh worshipping Grey Knights, need their pink and purple highlights done

Considering how... Tattered Imperial organisation is (couldn't find the right word), I'm sure it could happen, probably not intentionally, but it could be a mistake. I saw one on here a while back, a theory about how the Alpha Legion, using their plants in the Raven Guard, could have infiltrated their gene-seed and swapped it out for their own, which would result in an Alpha-Legion (ideologically) successor chapter, but with Raven Guard tactics ;D


Automatically Appended Next Post:

2x210 wrote:
They were founded by former (some) members of the original traitor legions, so I guess you can have a traitor mentor and lead the army designed to hunt demons, but years after the heresy we can't possibly have loyalist descended from traitors.

I think you might all be taking the plastic space men a tad to seriously, 40k fluff is written like a 16 year olds creative writing project, so if people want to trounce that fluff who really gives a flying feth.

So there you go you win, it's totally impossible and not fluffy.

Now if you excuse me my female half-elder chaos space marine slannesh worshipping Grey Knights, need their pink and purple highlights done

Nghh. Pink Slaanesh... WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE PINK?? IT COULD BE RED :C
-Hipster

Well, again, it's already speculated in-universe that a chapter is descended from traitor gene seed (Sons of Antaeus) so clearly some members of the Imperium think it's possible.

No. The Grey Knights use their own gene seed, widely thought to be derived directly from the Emperor. The loyalists from the traitor legions recruited by Malcador did not form the Grey Knights, they formed the Knights-Errant, a forerunner to the Grey Knights. Not the same thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 poda_t wrote:
the kicker is that the contraband argument makes no sense in the 40k universe. The logical extension of the spoiled milk argument and not using traitor geneseed because of unreliability is the complete death of the imperium because of the inherent lack of reliability in of psykers, and their tendency to get posessed, or spontaneously combust in a giant welter of flaming gore when said posession doesn't go to plan.

The difference there is that psykers are necessary, whereas ULTRA-COOL LOYALIST TRAITOR CHAPTERZ aren't. There's more than enough Loyalist gene seed to meet the Imperium's needs.

2x210 wrote:
They were founded by former (some) members of the original traitor legions, so I guess you can have a traitor mentor and lead the army designed to hunt demons, but years after the heresy we can't possibly have loyalist descended from traitors.

I think you might all be taking the plastic space men a tad to seriously, 40k fluff is written like a 16 year olds creative writing project, so if people want to trounce that fluff who really gives a flying feth.

So there you go you win, it's totally impossible and not fluffy.

Now if you excuse me my female half-elder chaos space marine slannesh worshipping Grey Knights, need their pink and purple highlights done

Yeah I agree with that. My only problem comes when people try to have it make sense in terms of the background. Just make the army look cool and no one will care.

Seems most of you think the Imperium is founded on reason. It´s not. Blind adherence to tradition, superstition and dogma is on the other hand what drives the imperium today. Most educated people and the elite of authority have no idea what happened during the heresy, as it is shrouded in myth and superstition. Some probably think that the Traitor legions where some kind of metafor or the like.
As for the Geneseed of former traitors, how easy would it be to manipulate the facts after all this time. Imagine a simple misunderstanding, a switching of labels, a lost cryo container being found with no information to go with it.... Mistakes are made.

Not to mention the imperium is bureaucracy hell. The motion to have traitor geneseed outlawed may still be in process 10.000 years later.

 Valion wrote:

There's more than enough Loyalist gene seed to meet the Imperium's needs.

I would love to know your source on this. The entire premise of the 40k universe is that the imperium's needs are not being met, which is why we have the problem of the existence of tau, orks, traitors, necrons, eldar etc in the first place. If the imperium's needs are being met, we don't have a game to play.

 tarnish wrote:
Imagine a simple misunderstanding, a switching of labels.

Surprised it's taken this long to come up. I can see the someone from the inquisition doing this. Think of it like raising a adopted child

When you consider these kinds of questions, it isn't important to look at the "if", but the "why".

A Space Marine Chapter is an incredibly time consuming and expensive thing to create. Think about it. Every new chapter needs:

Its own fleet. Which means building or appropriating a bunch of hard to make vessels. This is the big one people usually don't think about. And then you have to train/appropriate crews for these vessels.

Its own armory. Enough terminator armor, power armor, weapons, dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, Rhinos, Predators, Thunderhawks, etc. for an entire Chapter.

1000 new Space Marines. These don't grow on trees. They have to be recruited, trained, and then a command staff assembled for them. Then you need librarians, and apothecaries and techmarines.


So, with all that, you come to the critical question:

"We've spent all this time and money. Should we go with a known quantity and use reliable gene seed, or should we gamble on this gene seed from those crazy guys who turned traitor ten thousand years ago?"

The answer to this question is why they almost always use the Ultramarines, lol. And why there aren't very many Blood Angels successors, and no Space Wolves. If they don't use the gene seed from loyal chapters because it can't be trusted, why would they use it from traitor ones?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 poda_t wrote:

 Valion wrote:

There's more than enough Loyalist gene seed to meet the Imperium's needs.

I would love to know your source on this. The entire premise of the 40k universe is that the imperium's needs are not being met, which is why we have the problem of the existence of tau, orks, traitors, necrons, eldar etc in the first place. If the imperium's needs are being met, we don't have a game to play.

There's probably no shortage of gene seed. But a Space Marine chapter needs a lot more than just Marines in it, as I detailed above. It's all of that stuff that is probably in short supply.

And then there's all those ancient rules everyone follows just because that's what they've always done. Not everything the Imperium does makes sense, but given how easily and quickly the Legions were able to replicate Marines, a lack of gene seed is unlikely to be the limiting factor. Bureaucracy is more likely, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheDungen wrote:
Not to mention the imperium is bureaucracy hell. The motion to have traitor geneseed outlawed may still be in process 10.000 years later.

Unlikely. All that was decided right after the Heresy, before the rise of the Administratum. You have to remember that the Imperium [i]used[/i to be a well oiled machine. It was ten thousand years of being run by corrupt and short sighted humans that made it into what it is today. When the traitor gene seed was stasis-locked, Guilliman was at the head of the High Lords.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:


And then there's all those ancient rules everyone follows just because that's what they've always done. Not everything the Imperium does makes sense, but given how easily and quickly the Legions were able to replicate Marines, a lack of gene seed is unlikely to be the limiting factor. Bureaucracy is more likely, lol.

You say that nothing in the imperium makes sense, so, by default, that states that traitor geneseed would be both used and banned.
Again, we've got the same problem. The imperium's monolithic bureaucracy makes things very slow and possible for things to fall through the cracks. There is absolutely no reason that a random container or a box of items should go unlabeled and missing. Take for instance that recently, my university (University of calgary) had some professors that were digging through a forgotten sub-basement room in the engineering complex, and just so happened to have found TNT sitting in a few boxes. Yes. Forgotten explosive substances that were accessible to anyone who found a dusty room in a subbasement of the engineering department of the local university. Monolithic bureaucracies have a tendency of losing track of things, or taking so long to do something that by the end the whole point is forgotten, and then in the end, the grunt who gets told to repeat X a few hundred times eventually gives up, does it only a few tens of times, and then dumps it in an unmarked box and throws it over to somewhere else rather than do whatever it was he was supposed to do with it. I've seen it done in tiny offices all too often, never mind massive firms. Never mind that things that keep getting pushed back as more pressing matters step up, ineveitably, some things just fall off the calendar and don't get dealt with, until some other paper pusher walks into storage closet 12 to discover a huge mess that needs dealing with.

As to the marine replication, i don't think they have it. Those that do have it, it's a highly unstable technology that often results in mutation, and then it's repressed anyway because of the heretical nature of it. I don't deny that it happens, I think theres a BA successor that uses cloning, but looking at the raven guard, their cloning and marine acceleration parties were crashed by the alpha legion back during the horus heresy. Since then cloning and accelleration tech has been in short supply, and shortening ever since. A number of the loyalist legions and descendant chapters have serious problems with their own geneseed, mark of the wulfen, the black rage, salamander mutations....etc. A puritan imperium would have purged the elements out that appear to have a serious dysfunction, yet mutants and geneticcaly hard-wired nut-cases continue to operate in the name of the imperium.

Because it wasn't at all a joke... wait.

 poda_t wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:


And then there's all those ancient rules everyone follows just because that's what they've always done. Not everything the Imperium does makes sense, but given how easily and quickly the Legions were able to replicate Marines, a lack of gene seed is unlikely to be the limiting factor. Bureaucracy is more likely, lol.

You say that nothing in the imperium makes sense.

There is a massive, Eye of Terror sized difference between the word "nothing" and the phrase "not everything".

Please revisit your answer.

The "bureaucracy" argument is going to be a tough one to push. Mechanicus Adeptus Biologis are the ones who conduct the gene seed tithes, are the ones who transport them, and are the ones who store them. But yes, theoretically, the Imperium can use traitor gene-seed.

The 40K universe is a big place. Chapters have been created with mixed gene seed, such as the Relictors, who were an Ultramarines DA mix. It's possible that there have been chapters created with traitor geneseed, though it would be kept hush.

As to it being bad fluff, I would say that it's kind cheesy just to come out and say "oh, xyz chapter has Luna Wolves geneseed and they're loyalist." Rather, I think GW made the right decision at only hinting at it. That's just my opinion, it's not an absolute that I'm trying to force on everybody. (Totally not being passive aggressive btw)

Yeah any chapter that starts calling horus their progenitor isn't going to last long, regardless if they know that to be the case or not.

While the argument of geneseed shortage has a merit being largely discounted here, the very obvious point of simply having more geneseed to produce more marines across more chapters seems to have been completely ignored.

The material costs of a chapter have been explained, yet this is a cost the imperium would gladly absorb. If a star system were told it may host a new chapter, how quickly would they begin exporting massive amounts of material to be able to fund whatever they could to make this real? With the 41st millennium being the charnel house it is, I believe every monstrously wealthy system of planets would almost demand their own chapter in-system. It would not be hard to appropriate funds and get the cogs moving if the Inquisition baited the lines right in the systems where they could draw the most materials at small cost to the war machine. If you're trying to push chapters left and right and drop them in zones where they're twice as likely to encounter a Hrud migration, or WAAAGH!, or tomb world, or splinter fleet....why not use the questionable seed instead of wasting stable geneseed?

The chapters involved in the Badab incident could feasibly be said to be drawn from traitor stock(not all of them, obviously). Those sent to punish them could feasibly also be from that same stock and any losses incurred on the sanctioned chapters' parts would be deemed acceptable.

With the growing trend of genetic diversity between chapters, it's a fool's argument to say none of the traitor geneseed was ever used for a loyalist chapter. Accepting this seems to be the hard part for many.

 Shidank wrote:
While the argument of geneseed shortage has a merit being largely discounted here, the very obvious point of simply having more geneseed to produce more marines across more chapters seems to have been completely ignored.

The material costs of a chapter have been explained, yet this is a cost the imperium would gladly absorb. If a star system were told it may host a new chapter, how quickly would they begin exporting massive amounts of material to be able to fund whatever they could to make this real? With the 41st millennium being the charnel house it is, I believe every monstrously wealthy system of planets would almost demand their own chapter in-system. It would not be hard to appropriate funds and get the cogs moving if the Inquisition baited the lines right in the systems where they could draw the most materials at small cost to the war machine. If you're trying to push chapters left and right and drop them in zones where they're twice as likely to encounter a Hrud migration, or WAAAGH!, or tomb world, or splinter fleet....why not use the questionable seed instead of wasting stable geneseed?

The chapters involved in the Badab incident could feasibly be said to be drawn from traitor stock(not all of them, obviously). Those sent to punish them could feasibly also be from that same stock and any losses incurred on the sanctioned chapters' parts would be deemed acceptable.

With the growing trend of genetic diversity between chapters, it's a fool's argument to say none of the traitor geneseed was ever used for a loyalist chapter. Accepting this seems to be the hard part for many.

Exalted for truth. Congratulations, your first post was awesome

Using traitor geneseed makes as much sense as making a chapter of daemonically possessed marines and they'd never do.. oh wait.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080503232140/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/Troops/exorcists.html

 PunkNeverDie110 wrote:
What? BR are canon, they were mentioned in a old SM Codex (don't remember what edition, though) then DoW came out and they had a huge wave of popularity.

Blood Ravens were created for Dawn of War - Relic wanted to do their own thing without upsetting fans of existing chapters (too bad the powers behind the Ultramarines movie didn't have that foresight..), they subsequently made it into the 4th edition Space Marine Codex. They also got a proper pukka Index Astartes article in WD.

Woah, threadromancy!

But aye, it's been hinted that several of the Chapters are derived from Traitor gene-seed. Sons of Antaeus are maybe Death Guard, Blood Ravens are likely Thousand Sons, Red Scorpions might be Emperor's Children, Minotaurs might be World Eaters, Silver Skulls may be Loyalist IWs who joined Guilliman during the Heresy (Barabas Dantioch etc), nobody knows about the Soul Drinks (But I think Emperor's Children), Carcharodons are probably Raven Guard but may be Night Lords. However, none of this has been outright stated afaik.

I've always fancied the idea of a Loyalist World Eaters' descendant chapter. As a matter of fact, I believe there were Loyalist WE that led a last stand against their traitor kin.

Angrier-than-the-Black-Rage Loyalist Marines clad in bright white is definitely something that appeals to me.

 797th Red Tigers wrote:
I've always fancied the idea of a Loyalist World Eaters' descendant chapter. As a matter of fact, I believe there were Loyalist WE that led a last stand against their traitor kin.

Angrier-than-the-Black-Rage Loyalist Marines clad in bright white is definitely something that appeals to me.

Yeah Captain Ehrlen and his men, They attacked Angron directly.

 797th Red Tigers wrote:
I've always fancied the idea of a Loyalist World Eaters' descendant chapter. As a matter of fact, I believe there were Loyalist WE that led a last stand against their traitor kin.

Angrier-than-the-Black-Rage Loyalist Marines clad in bright white is definitely something that appeals to me.

All traitor legions had some loyalists, and all loyalist legions had some traitors. While this makes logical enough sense (Space Marines are NOT a hive mind. Each Space Marine is an INDIVIDUAL with his own personal thoughts and beliefs), it's outright stated in the third Forge World Horus Heresy book, which even gives some examples of traitor space wolves and loyalist luna wolves, etc. Even before then, however, loyalists from traitor legions pop up here and there. World Eaters in particular had quite a few. They wouldn't have had to have been purged at Ishtvaan otherwise. One of the Knights Errant (precursors to the Grey Knights) is a loyalist Word Eater and a bunch of them show up in Battle for the Abyss as well.

As for whether or not one became a descendant chapter...well, I myself figured that they had to do SOMETHING with surviving loyalists from traitor legions. I'd like to think the Imperium wasn't jack-ass enough to outright execute them (especially considering that Garro, a Death Guard, is PUBICALLY historically called "The Hero of Ishtvaan" in-universe, proving that the Imperium acknowledged there were good traitors instead of just covering up the whole thing). However, if the Blood Ravens and Silver Skulls speculations are true and are any indication, their primarch was likely covered up, possibly for their own good.

I wouldn't mind some "pissed-off but dutiful" marines myself, although admittingly the Flesh Tearers might already fill that niche in a way (obviously they're BA successors, not WE, though). Minotaurs are described as "chimeric" gene-seed and even IF Minotaurs are (fully or partially) WE descendents, they're a little... over the top (what with all that High Lords' dogs and other mysteries around them) that might not appeal to someone who wants a more "normal" WE descendant.

 ChazSexington wrote:
Woah, threadromancy!

But aye, it's been hinted that several of the Chapters are derived from Traitor gene-seed. Sons of Antaeus are maybe Death Guard, Blood Ravens are likely Thousand Sons, Red Scorpions might be Emperor's Children, Minotaurs might be World Eaters, Silver Skulls may be Loyalist IWs who joined Guilliman during the Heresy (Barabas Dantioch etc), nobody knows about the Soul Drinks (But I think Emperor's Children), Carcharodons are probably Raven Guard but may be Night Lords. However, none of this has been outright stated afaik.

It's been a slow day.

Aside from the known theories, any new ones to propose? Flicking around dropped the notion of the Star Phantoms being of IW geneseed in my head along with maybe stockpiled Luna Wolf genestock going towards the Dark Sons.

They haven't handed down a verdict on whether such a thing as a geneseed tithe or a formal updated collection of genestock existed during the Horus Heresy, but I feel it's foolish to assume each legion was 100% responsible for their own geneseed when they weren't even 100% responsible for their wargear.

Soul drinkers.

They always thought that they were from Rogal Dorns seed, but in the last book about them, it was confirmed that they were not, and they didn't know who their primarch was.

I know this is a ush but could you say because of how huge galexy is etc

They where split off from the legion long before they turned/rot Set in, isolated from the heresy by a plot device and as such a loyal fragment of traitor legion. Maybe got stuck out on the outer fringes
Returned, his there origins and basicly did a secret deal to become a black force or semi private army for high lords, doing the missions even the IOM cannot stomach. There price for survival. Or composed of multiple loyal fragments, for a more varied culture.
Mechanicus special mission force if want high tech, inquisition influenced, basicly powerful patron protected them

My opinion, for what it's worth:
Whilst I do agree that Traitor gene-seed could/can be used to create new chapters, I think that it is an incredibly boring and clichéd way of creating your own chapter, and would tell people to avoid it like Nurgle's plagues.
Far better to leave instances like this to the GW/BL writers and have it remain a near unique occurrence than every new SM player writing up a Chapter which has inherited Traitor geneseed, but are SUPER LOYAL, effectively picking and choosing traits and removing all sense of mystery/taboo from the whole traitor genes thing: it's hardly unique if every other Chapter was descended from the Night Lords/ World Eaters/ Luna Wolves!

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I dont think the Minotaurs are descendant from any original traitor Legion geneseed. The strange gap in the records sounds more like the Imperium finishing off yet another cursed chapter from the 21st founding (I believe the M41 are different marines, which I will explain a bit later). After the Heresy traitor seed was put under stasis lock, but crucially not destroyed. This might be because they were unwilling to destroy the Emperor's work, or more likely as some measure of last resort. Yet it seems highly unlikely that they used it during the 21st founding, not really a time of great need or distress. But there has to be an explanation to this cursed founding. Then my darker take on all this. The 21st founding and perhaps others might be attempts at changing the traitor geneseed. Both of these took place in M36, the first records of the Blood Ravens start in M37. Survivors from the TS legion during the Heresy seems quite a stretch, although possible (but unlikely seeing as how their geneseed creates horrible mutations). It might just be the result of a millennium worth of research on TS and other traitor geneseed, cleaning up the 'impurities'. Leading to the founding of the Blood Ravens, which would explain the unmentioned primarch.

The 21st founding, has created some strange chapters, most notably the horrid mutations. It is also mentioned that due to unstable geneseed (unraveling genetic test codes?) they have a hard time to recruit. Of course this area is lacking in background material and my opinion fills out this theory. On the subject of the Minotaurs I believe they might have had partially/full traitor geneseed in both foundings. Now I say both foundings, because as said I believe they were purged due to the traitor element of World Eater geneseed (which might be the reason for their violent manner among even Astartes). The first time in M.36 they were too violent and the changed/'new' traitor geneseed was still too affected by the original traitors. After further research the second time the Minotaurs were less unstable (but the High Lords keep them close, seeing as what happened before). Im seeing this in line with chapters like the Blood Ravens and the cursed founding.

Well this is just my view on the subject.

From what I understood, the 21st cursed founding was due to the Mechanicus messing with the genetic coding to attempt to improve mutating Geneseed.

The fluff says specifically that the traitor geneseed was locked away and stasis sealed. So there was definitely at least some Imperium control or at least storage.

Either way, as always, it really doesn't make any sense for the AdMech to make new Chapters from traitor geneseed. This is an organization that is extremely risk-adverse. It took them 6,000 years to work up the guts to try manipulating it, and the 21st Founding failed so hard they haven't tried again. The Ultramarines represent 66%+ of Space Marine chapters not because somebody really likes blue, but because the Ultramarines geneseed is stable and supports all of the implants. Plus, they are Codex Adherent so their successors are more likely to be as well. The Codex Astartes took Space Marines from being 45% reliable to being about 98% reliable. The Imperium likes having Space Marines that don't fall to Chaos very often.

It costs a lot of time and resources to create a Space Marine chapter and equip it.

The big question that always needs to be asked is this: What's the motivation? What's the potential gain? If the AdMech won't even make new Blood Angel chapters anymore (the fluff seems to suggest the Lamenters were the last new one) because of the Black Rage, why would they make ones with Traitor geneseed?

I was not talking white knights,

More doing jobs even inquisitors consider dark, damnble stuff, or rather too close ties for general comfet to other powerful instructions.

Black as night stuff, kinda things publicly done could get you considered renegades or traitor status.

The darkest, dankest corner of the dark impirial underbelly.

Yes, but what is the point when you could have another Chapter of Marines that is:
1. More stable
2. More predictable
3. More loyal
4. Less likely to get to executed for HERESY!

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The fluff says specifically that the traitor geneseed was locked away and stasis sealed. So there was definitely at least some Imperium control or at least storage.

Either way, as always, it really doesn't make any sense for the AdMech to make new Chapters from traitor geneseed. This is an organization that is extremely risk-adverse. It took them 6,000 years to work up the guts to try manipulating it, and the 21st Founding failed so hard they haven't tried again. The Ultramarines represent 66%+ of Space Marine chapters not because somebody really likes blue, but because the Ultramarines geneseed is stable and supports all of the implants. Plus, they are Codex Adherent so their successors are more likely to be as well. The Codex Astartes took Space Marines from being 45% reliable to being about 98% reliable. The Imperium likes having Space Marines that don't fall to Chaos very often.

It costs a lot of time and resources to create a Space Marine chapter and equip it.

The big question that always needs to be asked is this: What's the motivation? What's the potential gain? If the AdMech won't even make new Blood Angel chapters anymore (the fluff seems to suggest the Lamenters were the last new one) because of the Black Rage, why would they make ones with Traitor geneseed?

Well, the Iron Warriors, Luna Wolves, Night Lords, and Alpha Legion were all extremely stable as Gene Seed goes. Hell you could even pass off loyalist Night Lords as being most certainly Raven Guard. What's that, they regained the ability to spit acid? PRAISE THE EMPEROR, IT'S CLEARLY A MIRACLE!

Of course, if it's a fringe Magos who wants to start a secret project, the Admech certainly are not above whacking anyone who learns too much.

I wouldn't expect the Imperium to use traitor gene seed under normal conditions. IIRC the fluff explcitly states that it was outlawed to use the traitor geneseed that they had in stasis stock.

So we know that they explicitly DO have traitor gene seed on stock, but they are also explicitly legally barred from using it.

It's notable that the Sons of Antaeus, who are rumoured to come from the Death Guard, come from the Cursed Founding, where the Mechanicus did all sorts of hijinks that were most likely illega. Thus, the likely in-universe explanation for why some think Death Guard gene seed was used for them is because that's a special case where all sorts of illegalities were committed. Although this isn't explicitly stated by the fluff (still, given that we know that it's officially illegal to use traitor gene seed, it makes sense that in a case where it maybe was used was a founding where all sorts of shenanigans were committed)

The same goes for the Minotaurs, who are also from the Cursed Founding (though their gene seed is described as chimeric. Again, from a founding filled with shenanigans)

Blood Ravens and Silver Skulls are possibly traitor gene seed NOT because the Imperium one day said "Hey, let's make a new space marine chapter from traitor gene seed!" but because someone said "We have these loyalist Thousand Sons and Iron Warriors who remained loyal during the Heresy. They should have their own chapter but we'll hide their primarch" (Why hide the primarch? Not known, but I can see lots of reasons why, some for the good of the Space Marine chapter itself to not have that stain and some because the Imperium wouldn't want to endorse creating new chapters from traitor gene seed)


TL;DR: All speculated cases of traitor gene seed in the fluff come from Cursed Founding chapters or from left over loyalists from the Heresy. (Except Red Scorpions. Instead they're "It's a secret.") If you're making a loyalist chapter from traitor gene seed, it'd either be left over loyalists from the Heresy or from illegal shenanigans (Cursed Founding wasn't the only time illegal shenanigans happened but it's definately the largest amount of them in a single founding)

(as for Carcharodons, I'm pretty sure they're Raven Guard. HH Book 3 practically slams that in your face with a hammer without explicitly stating it. Although even if they are Night Lords instead, they'd still fall under the "left over loyalists from the Heresy" category considering their archaic technology)

Blood Ravens aren't loyalist Thousand Sons. That's entirely fan guesswork, while at least the Silver Skulls have more solid material to go off (like their emblem being the near spittin image of the Iron Warriors).

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Except Red Scorpions. Instead they're "It's a secret.")

Why are people so against the idea that a chapter's predecessor is unknown for reasons unrelated to their founding? The Storm Wardens and the Crimson Sabres both made the decision to seal away or destroy the records pertaining to their founding. Why couldn't the Red Scorpions have done the same? Perhaps they were afflicted by a genetic assault, similar to what the Dark Eldar did to the Raven Guard and now worry that their genestocks have been compromised. this would also explain the fascination with checking for pure geneseed. Perhaps there was a falling out with their predecessor in the earliest years of their formation, and instead of holding a grudge, they simply wiped the slate clean. There are plenty of more interesting reasons beyond, "They're traitor geneseed."

jareddm wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Except Red Scorpions. Instead they're "It's a secret.")

Why are people so against the idea that a chapter's predecessor is unknown for reasons unrelated to their founding? "

Ultimately it's just a cheap narrative hook to "add mystery". But the problem is, there are so many special snowflake chapters out there that it's just generic. Forgeworld is especially bad about it. It took the Fire Hawks, who had a confirmed genetic lineage and made them snowflake mysteriousssss. Heck, almost all of their favorite chapters are special snowflakes. Red Scorpions, Star Phantoms, Space Sharks, Exorcists, Minotaurs... Same with the Storm Lords. They're just Fantasy Flight Games' special snowflake mysterioussssss chapter.

Nobody's against the idea in principle. It's just silly, amateurish, and boring. Given how obsessive Space Marines seem to be about their heritage, and relics and dreadnoughts, how exactly is it that so many Chapters have somehow forgotten what their gene heritage is? It would be like you suddenly forgetting your last name just because it originated in 13th century feudal England. It would be an okay idea if it was a small handful of chapters that had extraordinary reasons to ignore their history.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

jareddm wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Except Red Scorpions. Instead they're "It's a secret.")

Why are people so against the idea that a chapter's predecessor is unknown for reasons unrelated to their founding? "

Ultimately it's just a cheap narrative hook to "add mystery". But the problem is, there are so many special snowflake chapters out there that it's just generic. Forgeworld is especially bad about it. It took the Fire Hawks, who had a confirmed genetic lineage and made them snowflake mysteriousssss. Heck, almost all of their favorite chapters are special snowflakes. Red Scorpions, Star Phantoms, Space Sharks, Exorcists, Minotaurs... Same with the Storm Lords. They're just Fantasy Flight Games' special snowflake mysterioussssss chapter.

Nobody's against the idea in principle. It's just silly, amateurish, and boring. Given how obsessive Space Marines seem to be about their heritage, and relics and dreadnoughts, how exactly is it that so many Chapters have somehow forgotten what their gene heritage is? It would be like you suddenly forgetting your last name just because it originated in 13th century feudal England. It would be an okay idea if it was a small handful of chapters that had extraordinary reasons to ignore their history.

To be fair, the Imperium has stood for ten thousand years, which is longer then the entire history of modern human civilization.

How would a chapter just forget who their parent chapter is, anyway? "Oops, I just shredded our record saying we are Ultramarines descendants. Should I make a new one, Fred?". "Nah, I'm sure we'll remember simple information like that".

 TheCustomLime wrote:
How would a chapter just forget who their parent chapter is, anyway? "Oops, I just shredded our record saying we are Ultramarines descendants. Should I make a new one, Fred?". "Nah, I'm sure we'll remember simple information like that".

You say that like it was an accident. In both cases I mentioned the chapters purposefully destroyed or locked away their records. They don't want the future generations of their chapter to know because whatever happened to them was either seen as a terrible stain on the chapter's history or the history of their predecessor, perhaps something both parties wanted to forget. We live in an information age where more information is always seen as an improvement, but 40k is not an information age, and knowledge that is seen as "tainted" in any number of ways is considered best left forgotten rather than taint the future.

There's no real reason for a post 2nd Founding chapter to know its progenitor in the first place. It's not like Chapters go round swapping geneseed with eachother. It's entirely plausible for the High Lords not to tell the new chapter in order to avoid them having any kind of familial bond that might interfere with their loyalty to them. They could easily get some Adept's Sociologis and Psychologis to construct a chapter cult wherein the Primarch doesn't matter (whilst keeping it different enough from the Imperial Creed so they don't go round slavishly following the Ecclesiarch), of course over time they will serve alongside other chapters and learn about the importance of the Primarch's to the 1st & 2nd Founding's cults, at which point they might start to wonder how they 'lost' theirs when in fact they hadn't.

jareddm wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Except Red Scorpions. Instead they're "It's a secret.")

Why are people so against the idea that a chapter's predecessor is unknown for reasons unrelated to their founding?

I wasn't aware that anyone was against the idea that the Red Scorpions' predecessor was unknown for reasons unrelated to their founding. If someone was, they certainly never mentioned that in this thread.

TiamatRoar wrote:
Snip

There's a loyalist WE in the GK? I had no idea. Must have missed that codex entry. Regardless, I dislike the Minotaurs for the same reason everyone else dislikes (or likes) them, that they're Lawful Stupid. By contrast, I always saw the World Eaters as a kind of paradox, which is where the most of their appeal came to me. The Flesh Tearers are direct and obvious, what with the heraldry and colouration of their armour. However, the WE are painted white and gilded in blue, a pattern typically associated with the 'Good' factions of fiction.

In short, the WE made fantastic anti-heros, and their possible descendants would almost certainly continue to do so.

jareddm wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
How would a chapter just forget who their parent chapter is, anyway? "Oops, I just shredded our record saying we are Ultramarines descendants. Should I make a new one, Fred?". "Nah, I'm sure we'll remember simple information like that".

You say that like it was an accident. In both cases I mentioned the chapters purposefully destroyed or locked away their records. They don't want the future generations of their chapter to know because whatever happened to them was either seen as a terrible stain on the chapter's history or the history of their predecessor, perhaps something both parties wanted to forget. We live in an information age where more information is always seen as an improvement, but 40k is not an information age, and knowledge that is seen as "tainted" in any number of ways is considered best left forgotten rather than taint the future.

Not so for the Spess Muhreens. They obsess over their chapter's history, deeds and figures of legend. Many Marine chapters derive a lot of their identity from who their parent chapter was and there are many examples of camaraderie between fellow descendants of the same Chapter. Ex. The Sons of Sanguinius returning to Baal to defend the Blood Angels home world from the space bugs. It would be very strange for a Marine chapter to just forget who they descended from and I wouldn't be surprised if such chapters were looked upon with a modicum of suspicion.

 jhe90 wrote:
I was not talking white knights,

More doing jobs even inquisitors consider dark, damnble stuff, or rather too close ties for general comfet to other powerful instructions.

Black as night stuff, kinda things publicly done could get you considered renegades or traitor status.

The darkest, dankest corner of the dark impirial underbelly.

There is no task that an Inquisitor of the right persuasion would consider "too dark". This is, after all, exactly what Inquisitors of Radical philosophies do. A given Inquisitor worries only about the censure of his or her fellow Inquisitors... the Inquisition, as a body, fears censure from no one.

In general we prefer it if users don't drag up old threads like this.

We'll carry on this time however.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

jareddm wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Except Red Scorpions. Instead they're "It's a secret.")

Why are people so against the idea that a chapter's predecessor is unknown for reasons unrelated to their founding? "

Ultimately it's just a cheap narrative hook to "add mystery". But the problem is, there are so many special snowflake chapters out there that it's just generic. Forgeworld is especially bad about it. It took the Fire Hawks, who had a confirmed genetic lineage and made them snowflake mysteriousssss. Heck, almost all of their favorite chapters are special snowflakes. Red Scorpions, Star Phantoms, Space Sharks, Exorcists, Minotaurs... Same with the Storm Lords. They're just Fantasy Flight Games' special snowflake mysterioussssss chapter.

Nobody's against the idea in principle. It's just silly, amateurish, and boring. Given how obsessive Space Marines seem to be about their heritage, and relics and dreadnoughts, how exactly is it that so many Chapters have somehow forgotten what their gene heritage is? It would be like you suddenly forgetting your last name just because it originated in 13th century feudal England. It would be an okay idea if it was a small handful of chapters that had extraordinary reasons to ignore their history.

It can't be argued that the 40k narrative itself has devolved into a moot tangle of dead ends and amateur mistakes made to cover the blazing speed of tectonic activity that GW seems content to move at, but to directly say something at this level of intrigue that could have occurred in the short span of time following the Horus Heresy would be boring just smacks of a lack of imagination.

Saying the AdMech would never use traitor geneseed is like saying Horus will never turn. By fans saying that, it's adding fuel to an excellent founding storyline.

Minotaurs are not World Eaters. They are Iron Warriors.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Minotaurs are not World Eaters. They are Iron Warriors.

Their gene-seed is described as chimeric. They could be both.

The chapter master is pretty much Khorne as a Space Marine, though. He even spends his off-time sitting on his throne counting the blood spilled in his name.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Blood Ravens aren't loyalist Thousand Sons. That's entirely fan guesswork, while at least the Silver Skulls have more solid material to go off (like their emblem being the near spittin image of the Iron Warriors).

Are you kidding me? GW has done some seriously heavy-handed hinting, and has all but come out and said it.

I honestly feel the whole Blood Ravens debate should have ended the moment GW had a prophet scream about missing Thousand Sons being "Ravens crying tears of blood". However, GW (well, Black Library) has gone even further than that, eventually introducing one of those Thousand Sons as a guy named Arvida (similar name to the Blood Ravens legendary hero) spouting "Knowledge is Power" and coming from a Raven-themed cult of the Thousand Sons, but apparently that doesn't count as solid material compared to Silver Skulls' emblem resembling the Iron Warriors' (although I personally believe in the theory that Silver Skulls are Iron Warriors too. It's just that I find the Blood Ravens to be way more obvious)

The Blood Ravens are so friggin' obvious that some anti-Thousand-Sons-Theory people argued in other threads on this forum that they're TOO obvious, that's how obvious they are! When something's so obvious that people opposed to the theory try to use that obviousness against it, that's some hard-core obviousness there.

It's almost like the Power Girl thing where the artist kept on drawing bigger boobs on her each issue seeing how far they could go until the editors finally noticed. Only in this case the writers keep slamming more and more cues that the Blood Ravens are Thousand Sons as a game to see how far they can go before people finally stop denying it. (Arvida's still active in the story even as of a recent HH novel, Scars, so I expect the writers intend the game to continue).

Wyzilla wrote:To be fair, the Imperium has stood for ten thousand years, which is longer then the entire history of modern human civilization.

Considering we still know the story of the Trojan War which was passed on via oral tradition for centuries, it seems a fair bet a spacefaring civilization can remember who their genetic father is.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:To be fair, the Imperium has stood for ten thousand years, which is longer then the entire history of modern human civilization.

Considering we still know the story of the Trojan War which was passed on via oral tradition for centuries, it seems a fair bet a spacefaring civilization can remember who their genetic father is.

From a tabletop standpoint, the "forgotten father" cliche is to present mystery and originality. I like it. As a writer, it's dry and lazy. If there was an added element of intrigue to spice it up, much as it may dismay the tabletop leaners, I would actually enjoy it. The wild speculation in this thread alone has been thought provoking and insightful enough to get me thinking on a number of mystery chapters and where their true genetic legacies lie.

The point of the game is fun and what's more fun than engaging one another in passionate debate on the possibilities presented by such an idea of traitor geneseed being in loyal chapters?

In a lot of cases, it's not that they forgot so much as they destroyed the evidence. In these cases though you'd have to wonder just how a Space Marine chapter was capable of destroying so much evidence on a galactic scale. That could be due to the "Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale" flaw of the authors, I suppose.

I'm trying to recall chapters which forgot their founding fathers as opposed to hints of a cover-up. None come to my mind atm but I wouldn't be surprised if some existed.

Of the ones pointed out in this thread:

Minotaurs: Confidential even to the Inquisition. Described as Chimeric so it's not like they completely forgot, I guess. At least they're aware that it's chimeric? Anyways, covered up by order of the High Lords themselves.

Red Scorpions: Either "forgotten" or "purposefully covered up", with the fluff EXPLICITLY stating the evidence supports the latter theory.

Silver Skulls: They claim they're Ultramarines (the fluff has always explicitly said and pointed out "Claimed, but no proof"). So they didn't forget at all. Whether or not they're lying (and whether or not they know they're lying) is another matter. (popular fan theory is that Gulliman helped cover it up and changed it to Ultramarines)

Crimson Sabres: Purposefully destroyed all the records because they were pissed at all those 1st Founding Chapters lording their founding status over them. Basically a big "F you and your "Oh we are so superior because we are closest generation to our primarchs!" gak!'

Blood Ravens: Evidence is they purposefully destroyed it, especially considering that when a Blood Raven finally did find the answer, he purposefully destroyed it, too!

Carcharodons: I'm not sure Corax even told everyone about these guys when he sent them off in the first place, and they're outside the galaxy for so long that it's not too far fetched that people wouldn't know where they're from. The Carcharodons themselves might remember and simply not be bothering to tell anyone (they're not the most sociable bunch). It's notable that the Imperium (Death Watch, specifically) did analyze their gene-seed and the gene-seed "looks like Raven Guard DNA, with the differences being easily explained and expected by the passage of time"

Storm Wardens: Sealed the records due to the nemesis incident. Although it's notable that there was some really @#$@#$ed up warp-gak or something going on there. Several scribes recorded the Chief Librarian (at least, I think it was the Librarian) narrating what happened within the halls of one of the most secure types of places in the Imperium (a Space Marine fortress) and all of the scribes, despite writing down exactly what the Librarian said, ended up with different and often mutually exclusive recordings.

Sons of Antaeus: Cursed Founding chapter. All sorts of illegal shenanigans meant it was probably covered up.



Sooooo, yea. In all those cases, evidence is they (probably) purposefully covered it up, not forgot about it. (with some added "WTF?" for the Storm Wardens. Carcharodons might be a case of either "never told the Imperium in the first place" or "forgotten by everyone else", but "forgotten" actually makes sense for them considering they're outside the Imperium most of the time. We don't know whether the Carcharodons themselves forgot or not)

If you are are to make this thing into a chapter. Then even the Marines wouldn't be told anyhing. I mean the Dark Angels to have knowledge basically get to hear about the betrayal of someone they trusted..The solutions seems to look at fluff coming from like the Sons of Dorn and the DArk Anges. If they are made from that it would be the biggrst secret. I mean likely only a few people ouitside or even inside this chapter would know about it

The chaphter would be changed and secretive to the nth degree and that knowledge would likely only be privy for the Chapter Masters. Since the secrets you learn as an Aspirant are really low-key stuff where a battle a while ago.

I only read the first two pages and this one. Its pretty obvious, especially with more recent fluff that loyalist traitor legions were forgiven and returned to service after the Heresy and the Gulliman changes. I think the loyalist forces claim to be Ultramarines as there predecessors for several reasons. For one perhaps the UM primarch was the one willing to incorporate the loyalist traitors back into the fold and they hold loyalty to him for that. In addition, since the Ultramarines were the ones who made the changes and created the chapters, then technically they can say it was Gulliman and the Ultramarines and thus avoiding any of the stigma of being originally from the traitor legions.

I haven't read any books with the video game chapter in it so I wont comment there, I think that has been beaten to death anyway.

Silver Skulls- claim ultramarines. During the Heresy, the Iron Warriors were treated as the garrison legion. They were spread hither, thither, and yond, sometimes in as small a group as a squad across the expanse of the Great Crusade. We know many of these did not get the word that they were betraying the Imperium. The Paramar battle is a good example of this when an entire Grand Battalion carries on business as usual before the Alpha Legion attacks and the Iron Warriors help the Imperium. The fact that they were not destroyed, withdrew and "were never heard from again" along with the Silver Skulls heraldry and colors points to an obvious correlation. Not to mention their space assets survived, despite being heavily damaged.

This is an example but it is well known that the Heresy was not as black and white as the original fluff made it out to be. Every legion had its loyalists and traitors. An entire clan or whatever you call group of Space Wolves sided with Horus. I would bet even some Word Bearer units chose to stay loyal. When you are hundred thousand plus strong, spread out across the galaxy, many times in ships for long periods of time out of communication, people are going to get lost in the mix or over looked, it just happens. Towards the end of the Heresy and the scourging, as short handed as the loyalists were, they were going to take all the help they could get.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Blood Ravens aren't loyalist Thousand Sons. That's entirely fan guesswork, while at least the Silver Skulls have more solid material to go off (like their emblem being the near spittin image of the Iron Warriors).

Are you kidding me? GW has done some seriously heavy-handed hinting, and has all but come out and said it.

There are no hints. There was a sentence spoken by a Thousand Son, and people immediately jump on that like it's proof.

Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Blood Ravens aren't loyalist Thousand Sons. That's entirely fan guesswork, while at least the Silver Skulls have more solid material to go off (like their emblem being the near spittin image of the Iron Warriors).

Are you kidding me? GW has done some seriously heavy-handed hinting, and has all but come out and said it.

There are no hints. There was a sentence spoken by a Thousand Son, and people immediately jump on that like it's proof.

Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

Actually, the hints began before the HH character.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Blood Ravens aren't loyalist Thousand Sons. That's entirely fan guesswork, while at least the Silver Skulls have more solid material to go off (like their emblem being the near spittin image of the Iron Warriors).

Are you kidding me? GW has done some seriously heavy-handed hinting, and has all but come out and said it.

There are no hints. There was a sentence spoken by a Thousand Son, and people immediately jump on that like it's proof.

Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

I dunno... their armor color evokes the pre-Heresy Thousand Sons color scheme (both a dark red, tho the BR don't use the silver bling the TS did) and if they were loyalist TS, they might concievavbly stick with the pre-Heresy colors. Especially since the blue and gold scheme of the post-Heresy TS is more well-known to the Imperium. "We can't be Thousand Sons! Those guys wear blue and gold! We wear red. See? Completely different!"

*shrug*

Anyway, I think it is more likely that the BR were made in the 21st Founding with TS geneseed, rather than them being loyalists left over from the Heresy. I don't see them escaping the Flesh Change for 10,000 years (the Tzeentch curse that nearly destroyed the Legion before the Crusade) but I do see the Admech wondering if they could "fix" the Flesh Change in the TS gene-seed just in time for the 21st Founding.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

Is that really relevant though? The Mortifactors, a Second Founding chapter, look nothing like the Ultramarines for example.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mortifactors
or the Genesis Chapter. Look more like Blood Angels to me.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Genesis_Chapter
or the Brazen Claws. Look nothing like the Iron Hands, chapter symbol included.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Brazen_Claw
etc

Just saying...

Don't some think that the Minotaurs are from World eater gene seed?

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

Is that really relevant though? The Mortifactors, a Second Founding chapter, look nothing like the Ultramarines for example.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mortifactors
or the Genesis Chapter. Look more like Blood Angels to me.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Genesis_Chapter
or the Brazen Claws. Look nothing like the Iron Hands, chapter symbol included.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Brazen_Claw
etc

Just saying...

I'm talking about facial features. Blood Ravens don't resemble their Primarch at all. They look more like Ultramarines, given that almost all of them look like burly white dudes with receding hairlines. Plus given the odds, they're almost certainly Ultramarines.

 Shidank wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Blood Ravens aren't loyalist Thousand Sons. That's entirely fan guesswork, while at least the Silver Skulls have more solid material to go off (like their emblem being the near spittin image of the Iron Warriors).

Are you kidding me? GW has done some seriously heavy-handed hinting, and has all but come out and said it.

There are no hints. There was a sentence spoken by a Thousand Son, and people immediately jump on that like it's proof.

Plus the Blood Ravens don't even look like Thousand Sons.

Actually, the hints began before the HH character.

Like I said, the debate really should have ended long before that character, when a prophet referred to some sent-away Thousands Sons as "Ravens crying tears of blood for their lost father.", considering how the BLOOD RAVENS are constantly looking for their lost primarch.

At that point, the authors are blatantly either trying to slam it into your face, or are the biggest trolls ever (again, like I said earlier, you know something is blatantly obvious when some people arguing against it say it's because it's too blatantly obvious). The fact that the authors continue to run with it by introducing that character and then continuing to have that character play a role in the story makes the former more and more likely, IMHO (because at that point it stops being a joke and starts being more serious).

Col. Dash wrote:
I only read the first two pages and this one. Its pretty obvious, especially with more recent fluff that loyalist traitor legions were forgiven and returned to service after the Heresy and the Gulliman changes. I think the loyalist forces claim to be Ultramarines as there predecessors for several reasons. For one perhaps the UM primarch was the one willing to incorporate the loyalist traitors back into the fold and they hold loyalty to him for that. In addition, since the Ultramarines were the ones who made the changes and created the chapters, then technically they can say it was Gulliman and the Ultramarines and thus avoiding any of the stigma of being originally from the traitor legions.

I haven't read any books with the video game chapter in it so I wont comment there, I think that has been beaten to death anyway.

Silver Skulls- claim ultramarines. During the Heresy, the Iron Warriors were treated as the garrison legion. They were spread hither, thither, and yond, sometimes in as small a group as a squad across the expanse of the Great Crusade. We know many of these did not get the word that they were betraying the Imperium. The Paramar battle is a good example of this when an entire Grand Battalion carries on business as usual before the Alpha Legion attacks and the Iron Warriors help the Imperium. The fact that they were not destroyed, withdrew and "were never heard from again" along with the Silver Skulls heraldry and colors points to an obvious correlation. Not to mention their space assets survived, despite being heavily damaged.

This is an example but it is well known that the Heresy was not as black and white as the original fluff made it out to be. Every legion had its loyalists and traitors. An entire clan or whatever you call group of Space Wolves sided with Horus. I would bet even some Word Bearer units chose to stay loyal. When you are hundred thousand plus strong, spread out across the galaxy, many times in ships for long periods of time out of communication, people are going to get lost in the mix or over looked, it just happens. Towards the end of the Heresy and the scourging, as short handed as the loyalists were, they were going to take all the help they could get.

Most people suspect the Silver Skulls are from Barabas Dantioch's group of Iron Warriors. Barabas himself has a permanent mask forged onto him which looks like the Silver Skulls symbol, and the last novel he and his band appeared in, they became so buddy-buddy with the Ultramarines that the Ultramarines considered them to be one of them.

Ultramarines consider some loyalist Iron Warriors to be Ultramarines, and Silver Skulls claim to be Ultramarines successors.... makes sense to me. *shrug*

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm talking about facial features. Blood Ravens don't resemble their Primarch at all. They look more like Ultramarines, given that almost all of them look like burly white dudes with receding hairlines. Plus given the odds, they're almost certainly Ultramarines.

Most geneseed does not change facial features and the ones that do are considered the oddballs. Salamanders, Space Wolves, Raven Guard, Luna Wolves. It's the planet being recruited from that defines a chapter's primary facial features in other cases.

jareddm wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm talking about facial features. Blood Ravens don't resemble their Primarch at all. They look more like Ultramarines, given that almost all of them look like burly white dudes with receding hairlines. Plus given the odds, they're almost certainly Ultramarines.

Most geneseed does not change facial features and the ones that do are considered the oddballs. Salamanders, Space Wolves, Raven Guard, Luna Wolves. It's the planet being recruited from that defines a chapter's primary facial features in other cases.

I honestly wish I could have found exactly where I read this, but I believe it was written in BL literature that if the aspirant has traits similar to the Primarch, the geneseed will pronounce those features over other development. This follows why many legionnaires looked alike and they all seemed to mirror their primarch. They were all from the same world, sometimes the same regions, and the differences between themselves and Terrans was huge. In 40k, with so many chapters drawing from so many worlds, the genetic diversity alone means unless you have a plain faced white guy (Row-boat Girly-man), everyone will deviate significantly from their primarch.

 Archie The Death Rider wrote:
Don't some think that the Minotaurs are from World eater gene seed?

It's just fan wishful thinking and straw grasping. Same theory has been tossed around about the Space Sharks from time to time.

If you can justify it well enough, I don't see a problem.

The men who handle the geneseed have done far stupider things. The Corrupted Founding was entirely super-tinkered Geneseed that basically blew up in their face with how badly it failed. I don't see why a chapter rooted in a partially corrupt (or loyalist traitor sample) geneseed isn't feasible considering how much they could modify/work in it.

I'd say per usual everything GW, it varies on a gak ton of factors. Not everything is black/white or locked in stone. If you can get creative with it (and do it well/justify it well) then do it.

They probably would, but they would also intentionally delete all records.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Archie The Death Rider wrote:
Don't some think that the Minotaurs are from World eater gene seed?

It's just fan wishful thinking and straw grasping. Same theory has been tossed around about the Space Sharks from time to time.

It's mainly because their combat styles and culture seem to match those traitor legions with the actual primarchs of them being explicitly unknown. In both cases, however, while the primarchs were unknown, the Imperium (the not-so-classified guys in it, at least) did manage to analyze the gene-seed (unlike the Red Scorpions). Minotaurs is "chimeric" (IE, consists of multiple chapters combined. That doesn't rule out the World Eaters, of course, but does rule out ONLY being World Eaters) and Carcharodons have lots of traits that only Raven Guard gene-seed is known to have (and IA13 also makes it blatantly obvious by showing the Carcharodon helmet and a bunch of Raven Guard wearing Carcharodon colors sent to the fringes of the galaxy by Corax. But... like ravens crying tears of blood, that's probably not good enough for a lot of people). The Red Scorpions thing is the same.

Sons of Antaeus are at least explicitly acknowledged to have the possibility in-universe, though, so it does show the idea/possibility isn't entirely unknown to GW.

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm talking about facial features. Blood Ravens don't resemble their Primarch at all. They look more like Ultramarines, given that almost all of them look like burly white dudes with receding hairlines. Plus given the odds, they're almost certainly Ultramarines.

Fair enough. But there isn't much evidence the Silver Skulls look more like the Iron Warriors than any other chapter. Also the burly white dudes would also apply to the Iron Fists, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, etc.

jareddm wrote:
Most geneseed does not change facial features and the ones that do are considered the oddballs. Salamanders, Space Wolves, Raven Guard, Luna Wolves. It's the planet being recruited from that defines a chapter's primary facial features in other cases.

Yea that's what I thought as well. You're implanting recruits with new organs but you're not building them from scratch.

 Shidank wrote:
I honestly wish I could have found exactly where I read this, but I believe it was written in BL literature that if the aspirant has traits similar to the Primarch, the geneseed will pronounce those features over other development. This follows why many legionnaires looked alike and they all seemed to mirror their primarch. They were all from the same world, sometimes the same regions, and the differences between themselves and Terrans was huge. In 40k, with so many chapters drawing from so many worlds, the genetic diversity alone means unless you have a plain faced white guy (Row-boat Girly-man), everyone will deviate significantly from their primarch.

I think that's mostly the Alpha Legion or in one case, Little Horus (though I think there were more look-alikes in the chapter). I can see how your features might change to resemble your primarch (Salamanders for example) but it's the exception rather than the rule. And it doesn't change all your primary features. Otherwise the Thousand Sons would all have red skin and flowing red hair.

Wait, I just realized I've never actually seen a picture or read a description of what a Thousand Son looks like. Don't tell me they all had red skin and hair, and were all giants??

TiamatRoar wrote:
Minotaurs is "chimeric" (IE, consists of multiple chapters combined. That doesn't rule out the World Eaters, of course, but does rule out ONLY being World Eaters) and Carcharodons have lots of traits that only Raven Guard gene-seed is known to have (and IA13 also makes it blatantly obvious by showing the Carcharodon helmet and a bunch of Raven Guard wearing Carcharodon colors sent to the fringes of the galaxy by Corax.

Presume you mean Extermination, and not IA13?

 EngulfedObject wrote:
I think that's mostly the Alpha Legion or in one case, Little Horus (though I think there were more look-alikes in the chapter). I can see how your features might change to resemble your primarch (Salamanders for example) but it's the exception rather than the rule. And it doesn't change all your primary features. Otherwise the Thousand Sons would all have red skin and flowing red hair.

Wait, I just realized I've never actually seen a picture or read a description of what a Thousand Son looks like. Don't tell me they all had red skin and hair, and were all giants??

The Salamanders black skin and eyes is due to a reaction between Nocturne's sun and their gene-seed, afaik, so that's indirect. But as mentioned above, the other Legions/Chapters do sometimes change slightly to look more like their genetic forefather, which is rather plausible.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'm talking about facial features. Blood Ravens don't resemble their Primarch at all. They look more like Ultramarines, given that almost all of them look like burly white dudes with receding hairlines. Plus given the odds, they're almost certainly Ultramarines.

Fair enough. But there isn't much evidence the Silver Skulls look more like the Iron Warriors than any other chapter. Also the burly white dudes would also apply to the Iron Fists, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, etc.

Well, Blood Angels are the pretty boys with long, luscious locks of blonde hair, so they definitely aint bald, just look at Corbulo.

Wait, I just realized I've never actually seen a picture or read a description of what a Thousand Son looks like. Don't tell me they all had red skin and hair, and were all giants??

There are no actual descriptions of the TS Phenotypes aside from Psyker-ness. However, if the TS were unusual, it would have been mentioned in either A Thousand Sons, or the Burning of Prospero

 dusara217 wrote:
Well, Blood Angels are the pretty boys with long, luscious locks of blonde hair, so they definitely aint bald, just look at Corbulo.

Oh I don't mean bald necessarily. I was just meant the white and receding hairline thing. The Blood Angels aren't really exempt. In the grim darkness of the far future, no one is exempt from receding hairlines! NO ONE!

 ChazSexington wrote:
[The Salamanders black skin and eyes is due to a reaction between Nocturne's sun and their gene-seed, afaik, so that's indirect. But as mentioned above, the other Legions/Chapters do sometimes change slightly to look more like their genetic forefather, which is rather plausible.

Yea their looks changing to resemble their genetic forefather is possible but it doesn't necessarily have to be the case. There's no mention of the Thousand Sons looking like Magnus for example.

None of the named Dark Angels really resemble the Lion either.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
Well, Blood Angels are the pretty boys with long, luscious locks of blonde hair, so they definitely aint bald, just look at Corbulo.

Oh I don't mean bald necessarily. I was just meant the white and receding hairline thing. The Blood Angels aren't really exempt. In the grim darkness of the far future, no one is exempt from receding hairlines! NO ONE!

 ChazSexington wrote:
[The Salamanders black skin and eyes is due to a reaction between Nocturne's sun and their gene-seed, afaik, so that's indirect. But as mentioned above, the other Legions/Chapters do sometimes change slightly to look more like their genetic forefather, which is rather plausible.

Yea their looks changing to resemble their genetic forefather is possible but it doesn't necessarily have to be the case. There's no mention of the Thousand Sons looking like Magnus for example.

None of the named Dark Angels really resemble the Lion either.

I feel like we're spending too much time on the looks of Space Marines. Like I said earlier, I believe the only correlation drawn between Primarch appearance and Space Marine appearance is that features already shared will be more prominent(pale=paler, blond=blonder, black=blacker, etc.).

=P Let's focus!

Guys, look what I found! There really are Thousand Sons that look just like Magnus! What the feth??

This is from the Horus Heresy: Collected Visions on pg 168. The tag is "The Scarab Occult * Magnus's Veterans * Franz Vohwinkel"

You can also find it uploaded here:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Fall_of_Prospero



It's the only depiction I could find on what a Thousand Sons legionnaire might look like under the helmet. So I guess this is either a fluke or Space Marines really do take on their Primarch's features. This is a bit extreme though. I didn't think the average Astartes would take on their primarch's features to this extent. Otherwise all Dark Angels would have flowing golden hair, etc.

That is way too much artistic leeway.

Ssssooooo... you know better than GW what should be in GW's fluff? Interesting.

Look, GW excels at keeping things vague so you can fill in the gaps any way you like. They did it with two 'lost legions'. They did it for a long time with the Legion of the Damned. There are a metric ton of chapters who don't know which Primarch their gene seed is attributed to,

If you want to play at being descended from a traitor legion have at it. Don't let someone ruin your fun by pointing at a notoriously vague and imprecise (by design) canon.

Could some Inquisitor have laid his mitts on traitor gene seed and inserted it into the process of creating a new chapter for his own nefarious purposes? Sure, but rest assured that that Inquisitor, his protogees and their protogees are keeping a close watch on that chapter for signs of corruption. Unless they're Istavaanians or Xanthites, of course.

Could some Mechanicum functionary have made 'purifying' traitor gene seed his life's work? Sure, and if he did he'd certainly want to give his 'perfected' gene seed a trial run at some point. It's an easy matter for the Mechanicum, which controls gene seed for purity, to introduce their own special combination of herbs and spices into the creation of a new chapter.

Could the High Lords have actually ordered such an experiment? Could be, if you assume the Emperor's handiwork is sacred and without flaw. It would be easy to assume that the gene seed was corrupted by nurture not their (created) nature.

I think we can take a hint from the Legion's performances before they were reunited with their Primarchs. Some of them (1K Sons) had persistent pre-Primarch issues. Some issues were resolved by their Primarchs. Others were made worse when they joined the Primarch and their 'home worlds'.

Were World Eaters berserker nut-cases without their Primarch and his Butcher's Nails? The Legion had a tendency for violence, but Angron expanded on it.

Were Blood Angels prone to Black Rage/Red Thirst through pure genetics, or is it the radioactive wastes of Baal that bring out that tendency? In this case it may be a case of Primarch death issues; one might assume that pre-Heresy gene seed would be 'purer', even for this Loyalist Chapter.

Without Alpharius/Omegron are Alpha Legionnaires still Alpha Legionnaires? I rather think this one is clearly a case of training and indoctrination rather than pure genetics, but that's just me speculating. Now, if that gene seed had a predilection toward subterfuge, might that not be an attractive trait for a Chapter?

or even...

In today's Imperium Word Bearers would actually fit in rather nicely. Without the Emperor to reprimand them, and in a theocratic dictatorship, the temptation to wander off in search of 'true divinity' would not be a thing. If some Eccclesiarchy pogue got access to the gene seed banks they might very well want to see a Chapter of religious zealots a la Black Templars created.

One might go so far as to consider it one's duty to recreate the original Legions 'as they should have been', without flaws induced by home worlds and Primarchs, in order to complete the Emperor's Holy Work... walking in His footsteps so to speak.

With a little thought you can make almost any story in the Grimdark believable. IF you take the time to think through rationales and likely outcomes instead of snorting Matt Ward crack and putting the 'Rule of Cool' above everything else.

After all, one man's cool is another man's putrescence.

If you're going to invest in traitor legions or lost legions or some other 'out there' concept you should probably submit your offering to the harshest critics - here, for example - and let them punch holes in your proposed background. Deal with the most egregious issues and you'll probably have some fluff worth sharing around, without falling into the 'fanboy' trap.

My two teef.

While I agree with the whole filling the gaps thing I'm just amazed there's actually art of mini-Magnuses running around. It's significant because it would actually rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons geneseed. Course it might just be a fluke since it seems to be the only illustration of its kind.

 EngulfedObject wrote:
While I agree with the whole filling the gaps thing I'm just amazed there's actually art of mini-Magnuses running around. It's significant because it would actually rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons geneseed. Course it might just be a fluke since it seems to be the only illustration of its kind.

Since we keep ignoring this, I'll bring it up again:

Geneseed does not seem to make a carbon copy of a Primarch. It seems to rather expound on traits already present that are shared with the primarch. If you already had long blond hair, I'm sure Sanguinius's geneseed would make it more luxurious than ever. If you were already a red-headed stepchild, Magnus would make you more gingery than ever before.

Geneseed is not a cloning mechanism.

 Shidank wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:
While I agree with the whole filling the gaps thing I'm just amazed there's actually art of mini-Magnuses running around. It's significant because it would actually rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons geneseed. Course it might just be a fluke since it seems to be the only illustration of its kind.

Since we keep ignoring this, I'll bring it up again:

Geneseed does not seem to make a carbon copy of a Primarch. It seems to rather expound on traits already present that are shared with the primarch. If you already had long blond hair, I'm sure Sanguinius's geneseed would make it more luxurious than ever. If you were already a red-headed stepchild, Magnus would make you more gingery than ever before.

Geneseed is not a cloning mechanism.

And you seem to be ignoring this.


I never said gene-seed results in a carbon copy. In fact I was saying the appearance of the Blood Ravens has little to do on whether or not they do have traitor gene-seed (since the features should primarily stem from the recruits). Then I realized no one here actually knows what a Thousand Sons marine looks like so I found an illustration from the Horus Heresy artbook.

Last I checked the topic was about chapters made from tratior gene-seed... which includes the Blood Ravens. So you'll excuse me if I ignore what you said when we have angry Magnus clones staring us in the face.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Shidank wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:
While I agree with the whole filling the gaps thing I'm just amazed there's actually art of mini-Magnuses running around. It's significant because it would actually rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons geneseed. Course it might just be a fluke since it seems to be the only illustration of its kind.

Since we keep ignoring this, I'll bring it up again:

Geneseed does not seem to make a carbon copy of a Primarch. It seems to rather expound on traits already present that are shared with the primarch. If you already had long blond hair, I'm sure Sanguinius's geneseed would make it more luxurious than ever. If you were already a red-headed stepchild, Magnus would make you more gingery than ever before.

Geneseed is not a cloning mechanism.

And you seem to be ignoring this.


I never said gene-seed results in a carbon copy. In fact I was saying the appearance of the Blood Ravens has little to do on whether or not they do have traitor gene-seed (since the features should primarily stem from the recruits). Then I realized no one here actually knows what a Thousand Sons marine looks like so I found an illustration from the Horus Heresy artbook.

Last I checked the topic was about chapters made from tratior gene-seed... which includes the Blood Ravens. So you'll excuse me if I ignore what you said when we have angry Magnus clones staring us in the face.

And what makes you think that native Prosperites didn't have red skin?

The red skin is plausible. The missing eye is not. That said, I can certainly see a sub-cult within the legion that ritualistically removed their eye as part of respect for their primarch, or for other esoteric reasons. But that would be completely unrelated to geneseed.

 dusara217 wrote:
And what makes you think that native Prosperites didn't have red skin?

No idea, I'm wondering if anyone here can clarify since I haven't read the Thousand Sons novels in the HH series. It would be rather odd though since there's no special mention of a red-skinned population in other fluff sources.

jareddm wrote:
The red skin is plausible. The missing eye is not. That said, I can certainly see a sub-cult within the legion that ritualistically removed their eye as part of respect for their primarch, or for other esoteric reasons. But that would be completely unrelated to geneseed.

Yea, I can see the removing the eye part. But unless the native populations really did have red skin and hair, it would mean the colour comes from the geneseed... and that Blood Ravens can't have Thousand Sons geneseed. Course its only a single picture and could easily be retconned ... not that it's from the most credible source anyway.

EngulfedObject wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
And what makes you think that native Prosperites didn't have red skin?

No idea, I'm wondering if anyone here can clarify since I haven't read the Thousand Sons novels in the HH series. It would be rather odd though since there's no special mention of a red-skinned population in other fluff sources.

I'm currently reading a Thousand Sons, and there is absolutely no mention Thousand Sons having red skin, though I believe that they said Ahriman had bronze skin.

jareddm wrote:The red skin is plausible. The missing eye is not. That said, I can certainly see a sub-cult within the legion that ritualistically removed their eye as part of respect for their primarch, or for other esoteric reasons. But that would be completely unrelated to geneseed.

That would make sense, if there was cult within the Legion that did that.

 dusara217 wrote:
I'm currently reading a Thousand Sons, and there is absolutely no mention Thousand Sons having red skin, though I believe that they said Ahriman had bronze skin.

Exactly, there was no reason for me to assume the inhabitants of Prospero had red skin since it's never mentioned (as far as I'm aware) whereas Magnus is specifically called "the Red."

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
I'm currently reading a Thousand Sons, and there is absolutely no mention Thousand Sons having red skin, though I believe that they said Ahriman had bronze skin.

Exactly, there was no reason for me to assume the inhabitants of Prospero had red skin since it's never mentioned (as far as I'm aware) whereas Magnus is specifically called "the Red."

Lol I think the point was missed when I said we may have veered off topic. The picture is just a picture and explained away in a number of ways.

I'm glad we addressed genetic inheritance, but we should try and find other common markers now that physical description has been ruled out as a fuzzy indicator of genetic legacy.

It's possible the guys in the picture had lots of red warpaint on, maybe. Considering how much Marines loved their Primarch, painting their entire bodies red in honor of Magnus seems plausible enough to me (same with ripping out the eye)

We know the eye doesn't come from the gene seed anyways. It comes from Magnus selling it to Tzeentch. At least, if I recall correctly.

Also, gene-seed differentiates itself over time. Carcharodons fluff explicitly state that their gene seed resembles the Raven Guard, yet "has lots of differences which can be explained by the passage of time and generations" or something like that.

(and yea, I meant Extermination for the Carcharodon's Raven Guard origins. I keep forgetting that the massacre was split into two books)

I decided to do a bit more investigation myself and I've found that the previous shown image is not the only picture in Collected Visions of Thousand Sons without helms.



Both clearly show Thousand Sons with greyish skin, possibly native to Prospero, rather than what has been previously shown.

jareddm wrote:
I decided to do a bit more investigation myself and I've found that the previous shown image is not the only picture in Collected Visions of Thousand Sons without helms.


Both clearly show Thousand Sons with greyish skin, possibly native to Prospero, rather than what has been previously shown.

Phew. Glad that's resolved and we can move on to more interesting things than how the Thousand Sons looked

jareddm wrote:
I decided to do a bit more investigation myself and I've found that the previous shown image is not the only picture in Collected Visions of Thousand Sons without helms.



Both clearly show Thousand Sons with greyish skin, possibly native to Prospero, rather than what has been previously shown.

Yea, I was going to do more digging but I haven't had access to my book for the past few days. That's what I thought, it really is just that one picture. Still, if it's actually printed then it's possible there was a small group that looked just like Magnus - still mindblowing! You could use that to make your own mini-Magnuses for example.

 Shidank wrote:
Phew. Glad that's resolved and we can move on to more interesting things than how the Thousand Sons looked

Determining what the Thousand Sons looked like or how much the gene-seed affects their appearance is perfectly relevant to the thread since it might rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons (traitor) gene-seed. Did you have something more interesting in mind?

 EngulfedObject wrote:

jareddm wrote:
I decided to do a bit more investigation myself and I've found that the previous shown image is not the only picture in Collected Visions of Thousand Sons without helms.


Both clearly show Thousand Sons with greyish skin, possibly native to Prospero, rather than what has been previously shown.

Yea, I was going to do more digging but I haven't had access to my book for the past few days. That's what I thought, it really is just that one picture. Still, if it's actually printed then it's possible there was a small group that looked just like Magnus - still mindblowing! You could use that to make your own mini-Magnuses for example.

 Shidank wrote:
Phew. Glad that's resolved and we can move on to more interesting things than how the Thousand Sons looked

Determining what the Thousand Sons looked like or how much the gene-seed affects their appearance is perfectly relevant to the thread since it might rule out the Blood Ravens having Thousand Sons (traitor) gene-seed. Did you have something more interesting in mind?

I would agree except that the discrepancies in non-canon art and the general acceptance that geneseed affects physical condition based on where you're from and physical traits you already possess seem to rule out physical appearance as much of an indicator at all.

As a favor, I'll ask you to stop spamming the same pictures and bringing this up over and over unless there's something new to add.

 Shidank wrote:
As a favor, I'll ask you to stop spamming the same pictures and bringing this up over and over unless there's something new to add.

Wow, you're friendly one. I re-posted the picture once since you were complaining about us continuing the discussion. It was an over-top picture that was oddly relevant to the discussion so I thought it worth discussing. And it's from material published by GW. What makes your opinion more valid as a fluff source?

And what exactly has your contribution been other than stating your opinion as fact, then complaining about other people discussing the topic?

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Shidank wrote:
As a favor, I'll ask you to stop spamming the same pictures and bringing this up over and over unless there's something new to add.

Wow, you're friendly one. I re-posted the picture once since you were complaining about us continuing the discussion. It was an over-top picture that was oddly relevant to the discussion so I thought it worth discussing. And it's from material published by GW. What makes your opinion more valid as a fluff source?

And what exactly has your contribution been other than stating your opinion as fact, then complaining about other people discussing the topic?

There's no reason to get angry and try to stoke up a flame here. I was perfectly polite in asking you to stop repeating the same information that had been all but dismissed. I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise.

My contribution? Personally, stimulating a changing narrative in the discussion before it stagnates as it has.

With both of your aggressive points addressed, I trust we can get back on track now? If not, I invite you to message me privately rather than further spam the thread.

 Shidank wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Shidank wrote:
As a favor, I'll ask you to stop spamming the same pictures and bringing this up over and over unless there's something new to add.

Wow, you're friendly one. I re-posted the picture once since you were complaining about us continuing the discussion. It was an over-top picture that was oddly relevant to the discussion so I thought it worth discussing. And it's from material published by GW. What makes your opinion more valid as a fluff source?

And what exactly has your contribution been other than stating your opinion as fact, then complaining about other people discussing the topic?

There's no reason to get angry and try to stoke up a flame here. I was perfectly polite in asking you to stop repeating the same information that had been all but dismissed. I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise.

My contribution? Personally, stimulating a changing narrative in the discussion before it stagnates as it has.

With both of your aggressive points addressed, I trust we can get back on track now? If not, I invite you to message me privately rather than further spam the thread.

Uh if that was your intention then you failed because there weren't any new posts on the thread for something like three days after your post trying to get us to "focus." And I wasn't the one being aggressive. And no, the picture has been discussed and I was satisfied that an answer from a fluff source could be found.

How about you guys stop arguing on the thread and take it to PM Land. Eh?

What do you guys think about a few dozen Ultramarine descendants actually being from the Iron Warriors Grand Company that didn't go traitor and was at Imperium Secundus?

Let's look at all the signs of a traitor legion being present in modern loyalist chapters(and I'm open to new suggestions):

Heraldry
Methodology of Warfare
Internal Relations
Rituals
War Cry


Blood Ravens are too easy, so let's look for another chapter. Night Reapers are VERY Night Lord-ish, the Red Scorpions have the same geneseed ident flaw as the EC(though this may be due to genetic deviation over the millennia), the SOns of Anteus have been called modern Death Guard.

Past that, let's jump to "what if" town and take a look around. What if the Golden Halos who survived the meatgrinder through tenacity and dogged assault were Death Guard? What if the Red Hunters were actually Luna Wolf(which may add to why they live on an incredibly short Inquisitor leash)? The Desolate Brotherhood/Brotherhood of Misery being Iron Warriors doesn't seem like much of a leap either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dusara217 wrote:
How about you guys stop arguing on the thread and take it to PM Land. Eh?

What do you guys think about a few dozen Ultramarine descendants actually being from the Iron Warriors Grand Company that didn't go traitor and was at Imperium Secundus?

Already done, good fellow!

And I've considered this before and even wondered if every Word Bearer went down with the ships(though it does seem more likely for THEM to go down with the ship). Iron Warriors in the UM successors would explain the intense variation in tactics by those who operate outside of Ultramar

 dusara217 wrote:
How about you guys stop arguing on the thread and take it to PM Land. Eh?

What do you guys think about a few dozen Ultramarine descendants actually being from the Iron Warriors Grand Company that didn't go traitor and was at Imperium Secundus?

That's what the Silver Skulls may be.

What I would find interesting is a story on Apothecaries or Mechanicus realising their Chapter is made up of gene-seed from several sources, thus they actually don't share one common forefather. Because even if the Silver Skulls aren't IW successors, Loyalists who belonged to Traitor Legions would have had their gene-seed extracted and potentially implanted into new neophytes.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
How about you guys stop arguing on the thread and take it to PM Land. Eh?

What do you guys think about a few dozen Ultramarine descendants actually being from the Iron Warriors Grand Company that didn't go traitor and was at Imperium Secundus?

That's what the Silver Skulls may be.

What I would find interesting is a story on Apothecaries or Mechanicus realising their Chapter is made up of gene-seed from several sources, thus they actually don't share one common forefather. Because even if the Silver Skulls aren't IW successors, Loyalists who belonged to Traitor Legions would have had their gene-seed extracted and potentially implanted into new neophytes.

I could have sworn there was at least one canon chapter that was speculated in universe to have two different (loyalist) primarchs. I forget which one, though.

But yea, most fans believe that if those loyalist Iron Warriors became a chapter, Silver Skulls is the most likely one. They've always been stated to only "claim" to be Ultramarines, their leader Iron Dantioch has an iron mask permanently grafted around his head that looks like the Silver Skulls' icon, and the fact that the Ultramarines like them so much that they consider them honorary Ultramarines would segue easily into the Silver Skulls being claimed to be Ultramarine descendants. It's notable that the Silver Skulls in modern 40k work closely with the Ultramarines too, showing that brotherhood they shared lasted the millenia. (as for the prognostication obsession of the Silver Skulls, it's EXPLICITLY stated that's from the culture of their home world. Thus the "They don't act like Iron Warriors because they're into all that fortune telling prognostication stuff!" argument has already been officially debunked). The whole thing thematically fits, though of course it's all just circumstantial evidence.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
How about you guys stop arguing on the thread and take it to PM Land. Eh?

What do you guys think about a few dozen Ultramarine descendants actually being from the Iron Warriors Grand Company that didn't go traitor and was at Imperium Secundus?

That's what the Silver Skulls may be.

What I would find interesting is a story on Apothecaries or Mechanicus realising their Chapter is made up of gene-seed from several sources, thus they actually don't share one common forefather. Because even if the Silver Skulls aren't IW successors, Loyalists who belonged to Traitor Legions would have had their gene-seed extracted and potentially implanted into new neophytes.

I could have sworn there was at least one canon chapter that was speculated in universe to have two different (loyalist) primarchs. I forget which one, though.

But yea, most fans believe that if those loyalist Iron Warriors became a chapter, Silver Skulls is the most likely one. They've always been stated to only "claim" to be Ultramarines, their leader Iron Dantioch has an iron mask permanently grafted around his head that looks like the Silver Skulls' icon, and the fact that the Ultramarines like them so much that they consider them honorary Ultramarines would segue easily into the Silver Skulls being claimed to be Ultramarine descendants. It's notable that the Silver Skulls in modern 40k work closely with the Ultramarines too, showing that brotherhood they shared lasted the millenia. (as for the prognostication obsession of the Silver Skulls, it's EXPLICITLY stated that's from the culture of their home world. Thus the "They don't act like Iron Warriors because they're into all that fortune telling prognostication stuff!" argument has already been officially debunked). The whole thing thematically fits, though of course it's all just circumstantial evidence.

I could see Steel Clerics having some Word Bearer in the mix.

TiamatRoar wrote:


I could have sworn there was at least one canon chapter that was speculated in universe to have two different (loyalist) primarchs. I forget which one, though.

Relictors Geneseed is supposed to be derived from both the Ultramarines and Dark Angels according to their IA article.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:


I could have sworn there was at least one canon chapter that was speculated in universe to have two different (loyalist) primarchs. I forget which one, though.

Relictors Geneseed is supposed to be derived from both the Ultramarines and Dark Angels according to their IA article.

That's right! I'd forgotten about these guys.