Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Seeing as just like Loyalists, CSMs create new recruits to replace their dead (usually from cloning, kidnapping children, or simply recruiting from Chaos-loyal worlds) how many CSMs actually used to be loyal, and how many never were, meaning the epithet of 'traitor' doesn't really apply seeing as they're really just independent humans.

Are Traitors (both from the Heresy and recent defections) in the majority or minority of CSM forces? And are non-traitor CSMs seen differently by their brothers, or have a less virulent hatred of the IoM?

Hierophant wrote:
Seeing as just like Loyalists, CSMs create new recruits to replace their dead (usually from cloning, kidnapping children, or simply recruiting from Chaos-loyal worlds) how many CSMs actually used to be loyal, and how many never were, meaning the epithet of 'traitor' doesn't really apply seeing as they're really just independent humans.

Are Traitors (both from the Heresy and recent defections) in the majority or minority of CSM forces? And are non-traitor CSMs seen differently by their brothers, or have a less virulent hatred of the IoM?

All of them. You serve The Emperor's Glorious Imperium of Mankind for the continued survival of the human race, or you betray it to serve your own selfish purpose, leaving it weakened and exposed to Xenos and Heresy.

That's a pretty interesting question, but I'm not sure it's one it's possible to answer objectively. Most CSM stories focus on the capital-T Traitors because those have a lot of built-in drama. The hand-wave of "time flows differently in the Warp" also lets authors carry over more characters from the Heresy than is possible for the Loyalists.

In that context, clones or "recruited" CSM are mostly used as a mechanism to explain away CSM losses without diminishing the pool of known Traitors too much. So they mostly end up being mooks or chaff in other people's stories. That's a shame, imo.

I'd love to see stories about a Chaos champion who arose on a Warp-dominated world, was chosen to become a Marine by a warband, and then got out into the galaxy where there's suddenly much bigger fish swimming around. A Path to Glory campaign where he and his buddies have to adapt, prove their worth, and overthrow their enemies would be really cool.

There is no such thing as an independent human. All humans are servants of the God Emperor of Man. Therefore all those who resist his divine and benevolent rule are both heretics and traitors.

100%. There's no "independent humans" in 40k.

There were plenty of space marines in the Legions that resisted and stayed loyal. Many of them were purged but others like Garro managed to survive and find service again.

Anybody who went along with the Primach's bollocks is 100% evil and irredeemable.

87% by volume

I believe Blood Gorgons is a good book about traitor marines, and I don't think the principal character is a Veteran of the Long war. Can't quite remember as it's been a while since I read it.

I thought the OP's question was more along the lines of: how many CSM are Horus Heresy survivors, how many are renegades from loyalist chapters, and how many were damn kids that the were literally born in hell, taken (or offered) by their parents, and endlessly experimented upon and forced to kill just the survive another day? The easiest one for me to remember in the fluff is , and he was once an imperial citizen. If the child was born in the EoT, never saw anything but chaos until he was a power-armoured sociopath incabable of other emotions, can we really consider him a traitor.

Most people seem to be implying that they ever had a choice. Their first contact with Imperials ? Everyone shooting at everyone else, how's he supposed to have the slightest choice in the matter. Hate him for being an enemy and murdering Imperial citizens, sure. But remember that the only reason some CSM's are like they are is because, and to harp on it again, they were born in hell. Is Clagar, Grimnir, Dante, Creed and the rest had been born in the EoT, are we really going to pretend they'd be the Imperial heroes they are?

Mudrat wrote:
I thought the OP's question was more along the lines of: how many CSM are Horus Heresy survivors, how many are renegades from loyalist chapters, and how many were damn kids that the were literally born in hell, taken (or offered) by their parents, and endlessly experimented upon and forced to kill just the survive another day? The easiest one for me to remember in the fluff is

Spoiler:

Uriel Ventris' IW clone

, and he was once an imperial citizen. If the child was born in the EoT, never saw anything but chaos until he was a power-armoured sociopath incabable of other emotions, can we really consider him a traitor.

Most people seem to be implying that they ever had a choice. Their first contact with Imperials ? Everyone shooting at everyone else, how's he supposed to have the slightest choice in the matter. Hate him for being an enemy and murdering Imperial citizens, sure. But remember that the only reason some CSM's are like they are is because, and to harp on it again, they were born in hell. Is Clagar, Grimnir, Dante, Creed and the rest had been born in the EoT, are we really going to pretend they'd be the Imperial heroes they are?

I'm sure similar arguments could be made about children raised under Hitler or ISIS who have known only obediance their cause, and their first contact with Western/English/American life being highly trained armies sent to kill them. Does it excuse the horrible things they do? Does it relieve them of blame? Does it make them less of a threat? All answers no.

The fact is, you can be one of 3 things in 40k. You can be a loyal servant of the God-Emperor of Mankind (Imperial), a traitor (any human-based being who does not serve the Imperium) or a Xenos. There is no grey area here. The Imperium is less tolerant of traitors than FN2199 "Nines."

You are either die serving the Imperium, or you are a heretic. There is no middle ground.

 Deadshot wrote:

Mudrat wrote:
I thought the OP's question was more along the lines of: how many CSM are Horus Heresy survivors, how many are renegades from loyalist chapters, and how many were damn kids that the were literally born in hell, taken (or offered) by their parents, and endlessly experimented upon and forced to kill just the survive another day? The easiest one for me to remember in the fluff is

Spoiler:

Uriel Ventris' IW clone

, and he was once an imperial citizen. If the child was born in the EoT, never saw anything but chaos until he was a power-armoured sociopath incabable of other emotions, can we really consider him a traitor.

Most people seem to be implying that they ever had a choice. Their first contact with Imperials ? Everyone shooting at everyone else, how's he supposed to have the slightest choice in the matter. Hate him for being an enemy and murdering Imperial citizens, sure. But remember that the only reason some CSM's are like they are is because, and to harp on it again, they were born in hell. Is Clagar, Grimnir, Dante, Creed and the rest had been born in the EoT, are we really going to pretend they'd be the Imperial heroes they are?

I'm sure similar arguments could be made about children raised under Hitler or ISIS who have known only obediance their cause, and their first contact with Western/English/American life being highly trained armies sent to kill them. Does it excuse the horrible things they do? Does it relieve them of blame? Does it make them less of a threat? All answers no.

The fact is, you can be one of 3 things in 40k. You can be a loyal servant of the God-Emperor of Mankind (Imperial), a traitor (any human-based being who does not serve the Imperium) or a Xenos. There is no grey area here. The Imperium is less tolerant of traitors than FN2199 "Nines."

You are either die serving the Imperium, or you are a heretic. There is no middle ground.

No disagreement with this. However, we didn't and don't pretend that the real life examples you mentioned had a choice in serving evil, as opposed to the majority of the adults who did so. I guess for me its just disliking the word traitor when used in this context, as none of the hitler youth had sworn any oath's to the UK or US, same as the CSM I am referring to. Does this make them less dangerous? No.

To me its more about the distinction between sins and punishment. However, I am quite aware that there basically isn't one in 40k. If you divided the being in 40k between Imperials, Heretics (being people who don't worship the emperor) instead of traitors, and Xeno's, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I have no idea what you are all talking about...

You can be LOYAL to the Imperium.

If you are LOYAL but decide to do things without authorization/be a rebel or outlaw about it RENEGADE

If you don't follow Imperial Creed and commit acts of heresy you are a HERETIC

And finally.. if you were loyal to the Imperium, and have decided to violate that allegiance, breach said trust and actually take up arms against the Imperium, you are a TRAITOR!

Chaos Space Marines fight for Traitor Legions - Thus: traitors. Until the ratio tips past 50% which doesn't seem likely, there will always be enough jerks to keep the T in traitor going for that faction.

With that out of the way;
The original Legions and chapters who turn traitor make up the vast majority, AFAIK, but that might be head canon.

Yeah i think all csm fighting for a traitorous legions are traitors, even if they were born on daemon worlds. In the saner legions they probably will have been indoctrinated into their legions history. If the process is anything like the creation of loyalist marines then it is possible for them to end with very intense feelings of betray from the IoM dating back from when their primarch originally fell. Think about how the blood angels get intense visions of the moment of sanguinius death. That would be interesting to explore.

But mostly those hellspawn marines are just pawns and fodder sent to die. Anyone above the rank and file is probably an Original Traitor.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
There is no such thing as an independent human. All humans are servants of the God Emperor of Man. Therefore all those who resist his divine and benevolent rule are both heretics and traitors.

Here is how it works for any Human Being, especially for Astartes like ones. So, if he can't realize he should fight for the emprah, he's a traitor.

 Deadshot wrote:

Mudrat wrote:
I thought the OP's question was more along the lines of: how many CSM are Horus Heresy survivors, how many are renegades from loyalist chapters, and how many were damn kids that the were literally born in hell, taken (or offered) by their parents, and endlessly experimented upon and forced to kill just the survive another day? The easiest one for me to remember in the fluff is

Spoiler:

Uriel Ventris' IW clone

, and he was once an imperial citizen. If the child was born in the EoT, never saw anything but chaos until he was a power-armoured sociopath incabable of other emotions, can we really consider him a traitor.

Most people seem to be implying that they ever had a choice. Their first contact with Imperials ? Everyone shooting at everyone else, how's he supposed to have the slightest choice in the matter. Hate him for being an enemy and murdering Imperial citizens, sure. But remember that the only reason some CSM's are like they are is because, and to harp on it again, they were born in hell. Is Clagar, Grimnir, Dante, Creed and the rest had been born in the EoT, are we really going to pretend they'd be the Imperial heroes they are?

I'm sure similar arguments could be made about children raised under Hitler or ISIS who have known only obediance their cause, and their first contact with Western/English/American life being highly trained armies sent to kill them. Does it excuse the horrible things they do? Does it relieve them of blame? Does it make them less of a threat? All answers no.

The fact is, you can be one of 3 things in 40k. You can be a loyal servant of the God-Emperor of Mankind (Imperial), a traitor (any human-based being who does not serve the Imperium) or a Xenos. There is no grey area here. The Imperium is less tolerant of traitors than FN2199 "Nines."

You are either die serving the Imperium, or you are a heretic. There is no middle ground.

Whilst I can never tell when people are posting in character, the children raised under ISIS or Hitler aren't in any way traitors.

 Ginsu33 wrote:
I have no idea what you are all talking about...

You can be LOYAL to the Imperium.

If you are LOYAL but decide to do things without authorization/be a rebel or outlaw about it RENEGADE

If you don't follow Imperial Creed and commit acts of heresy you are a HERETIC

And finally.. if you were loyal to the Imperium, and have decided to violate that allegiance, breach said trust and actually take up arms against the Imperium, you are a TRAITOR!

Chaos Space Marines fight for Traitor Legions - Thus: traitors. Until the ratio tips past 50% which doesn't seem likely, there will always be enough jerks to keep the T in traitor going for that faction.

But what about Alpha Legion and the parts of the Night Lords that do not operate in the eye of terror? Without chaos time warping or the dark powers extending their life expectancy, all the traitor marines in said warbands would be long dead by the year 40k. The only thing left would be newly recruited marines. They wouldnt be renegades or traitors, as they were never loyal to the imperium. They might be heretics from the IoM point of view, but that is openly subjective.

That also makes me wonder which Legion is the 'purest' in terms of traitor ratio.

Alpha Legion and Night Lords seemingly the least, due to lack of warp and Chaos interaction, meaning more deaths due to just the sheer number of years passed. That said, do either engage in risk as much as other Legions? If they just mainly did hit-and-run or piracy attacks against civillian target for 10k years, they may have very low attrition levels.

World Eaters must also be mainly new recruits. Eternal combat + butchers nails + huge Istavan losses + internal schisms...

Do Thousand Sons even recruit? Are they technically 100% traitor?

Death Guard likely have the highest number of traitors due to sheer resillience thanks to Nurgle.

Hierophant wrote:
That also makes me wonder which Legion is the 'purest' in terms of traitor ratio.

Alpha Legion and Night Lords seemingly the least, due to lack of warp and Chaos interaction, meaning more deaths due to just the sheer number of years passed. That said, do either engage in risk as much as other Legions? If they just mainly did hit-and-run or piracy attacks against civillian target for 10k years, they may have very low attrition levels.

World Eaters must also be mainly new recruits. Eternal combat + butchers nails + huge Istavan losses + internal schisms...

Do Thousand Sons even recruit? Are they technically 100% traitor?

Death Guard likely have the highest number of traitors due to sheer resillience thanks to Nurgle.

Thousands sons definitely recruit, they just only take psykers. Dunno about the others.

Probably quite a few. Read the Night Lords trilogy?

Apothecaries are very highly valued by Chaos Space Marine Warlords due to their ability to create new Astartes. Fabulous Bill isn't only wanted for his groovy crushed velvet hat, but he's a decent geneticist (though not as good as Guilliman or Cawl, apparently). Variel the Flayer and Garreon the Corpsemaster maintain an apothecarium on New Badab IIRC.

 ChazSexington wrote:
Probably quite a few. Read the Night Lords trilogy?

Apothecaries are very highly valued by Chaos Space Marine Warlords due to their ability to create new Astartes. Fabulous Bill isn't only wanted for his groovy crushed velvet hat, but he's a decent geneticist (though not as good as Guilliman or Cawl, apparently).

... that does raise a potential answer to the nuMarines. and Bile has been getting a bit of spotlight time.

Why can't Chaos Space Marines just use the warp to copy+paste themselves rather then train new recruits which probably have a 99% fail rate cause you know, chaos space marines

BrianDavion wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
Probably quite a few. Read the Night Lords trilogy?

Apothecaries are very highly valued by Chaos Space Marine Warlords due to their ability to create new Astartes. Fabulous Bill isn't only wanted for his groovy crushed velvet hat, but he's a decent geneticist (though not as good as Guilliman or Cawl, apparently).

... that does raise a potential answer to the nuMarines. and Bile has been getting a bit of spotlight time.

NuMarines; because the Guilliman and Cawl are better geneticists than Fabius Bile, whose 10,000 years of research and forbidden knowledge is crap.

 Exergy wrote:


But what about Alpha Legion and the parts of the Night Lords that do not operate in the eye of terror? Without chaos time warping or the dark powers extending their life expectancy, all the traitor marines in said warbands would be long dead by the year 40k. The only thing left would be newly recruited marines. They wouldnt be renegades or traitors, as they were never loyal to the imperium. They might be heretics from the IoM point of view, but that is openly subjective.

They would be regarded as forces of Chaos.

 Exergy wrote:

 Ginsu33 wrote:
I have no idea what you are all talking about...

You can be LOYAL to the Imperium.

If you are LOYAL but decide to do things without authorization/be a rebel or outlaw about it RENEGADE

If you don't follow Imperial Creed and commit acts of heresy you are a HERETIC

And finally.. if you were loyal to the Imperium, and have decided to violate that allegiance, breach said trust and actually take up arms against the Imperium, you are a TRAITOR!

Chaos Space Marines fight for Traitor Legions - Thus: traitors. Until the ratio tips past 50% which doesn't seem likely, there will always be enough jerks to keep the T in traitor going for that faction.

But what about Alpha Legion and the parts of the Night Lords that do not operate in the eye of terror? Without chaos time warping or the dark powers extending their life expectancy, all the traitor marines in said warbands would be long dead by the year 40k. The only thing left would be newly recruited marines. They wouldnt be renegades or traitors, as they were never loyal to the imperium. They might be heretics from the IoM point of view, but that is openly subjective.

Graham McNeill stated on Twitter the BL policy is SMs are functionally immortal. Dying of age just doesn't happen to them, at least as far as fluff-writers are concerned. I've at least never heard of a SM dying of old age.

 ChazSexington wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
Probably quite a few. Read the Night Lords trilogy?

Apothecaries are very highly valued by Chaos Space Marine Warlords due to their ability to create new Astartes. Fabulous Bill isn't only wanted for his groovy crushed velvet hat, but he's a decent geneticist (though not as good as Guilliman or Cawl, apparently).

... that does raise a potential answer to the nuMarines. and Bile has been getting a bit of spotlight time.

NuMarines; because the Guilliman and Cawl are better geneticists than Fabius Bile, whose 10,000 years of research and forbidden knowledge is crap.

we have no idea how long nuMarines have been in the pipe for all we know Cawl's had people working on this, at Gulliman's order for 10 thousand years. if that's the case I can think of several, LARGE advantages Cawl would have over Bile.

1st: How often as Bile's research been interrupted/destroyed over the years? I mean when the black legion attacked his cloning experiment they did so with the express INTENT of destroying the research. Cawl meanwhile has had 10 thousand years UNINTERRUPTED.

2: Gulliman and Cawl likely had access to the original research and facilities used to create the primarchs and astartes

3: No Chaos. Seriously, given how mutative chaos is Fabius Bile must have a hugely up hill battle to get any progress done, the man's attempting to do genetics in a enviroment that REALLY isn't conductive to it

Most street judges never live to retirement...

Oh sorry wrong universe.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Ginsu33 wrote:
I have no idea what you are all talking about...

You can be LOYAL to the Imperium.

If you are LOYAL but decide to do things without authorization/be a rebel or outlaw about it RENEGADE

If you don't follow Imperial Creed and commit acts of heresy you are a HERETIC

And finally.. if you were loyal to the Imperium, and have decided to violate that allegiance, breach said trust and actually take up arms against the Imperium, you are a TRAITOR!

Chaos Space Marines fight for Traitor Legions - Thus: traitors. Until the ratio tips past 50% which doesn't seem likely, there will always be enough jerks to keep the T in traitor going for that faction.

But what about Alpha Legion and the parts of the Night Lords that do not operate in the eye of terror? Without chaos time warping or the dark powers extending their life expectancy, all the traitor marines in said warbands would be long dead by the year 40k. The only thing left would be newly recruited marines. They wouldnt be renegades or traitors, as they were never loyal to the imperium. They might be heretics from the IoM point of view, but that is openly subjective.

Graham McNeill stated on Twitter the BL policy is SMs are functionally immortal. Dying of age just doesn't happen to them, at least as far as fluff-writers are concerned. I've at least never heard of a SM dying of old age.

You got a source for that?

 Wyzilla wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Ginsu33 wrote:
I have no idea what you are all talking about...

You can be LOYAL to the Imperium.

If you are LOYAL but decide to do things without authorization/be a rebel or outlaw about it RENEGADE

If you don't follow Imperial Creed and commit acts of heresy you are a HERETIC

And finally.. if you were loyal to the Imperium, and have decided to violate that allegiance, breach said trust and actually take up arms against the Imperium, you are a TRAITOR!

Chaos Space Marines fight for Traitor Legions - Thus: traitors. Until the ratio tips past 50% which doesn't seem likely, there will always be enough jerks to keep the T in traitor going for that faction.

But what about Alpha Legion and the parts of the Night Lords that do not operate in the eye of terror? Without chaos time warping or the dark powers extending their life expectancy, all the traitor marines in said warbands would be long dead by the year 40k. The only thing left would be newly recruited marines. They wouldnt be renegades or traitors, as they were never loyal to the imperium. They might be heretics from the IoM point of view, but that is openly subjective.

Graham McNeill stated on Twitter the BL policy is SMs are functionally immortal. Dying of age just doesn't happen to them, at least as far as fluff-writers are concerned. I've at least never heard of a SM dying of old age.

You got a source for that?

 ChazSexington wrote:
Graham McNeill stated on Twitter

 Wyzilla wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:


Graham McNeill stated on Twitter the BL policy is SMs are functionally immortal. Dying of age just doesn't happen to them, at least as far as fluff-writers are concerned. I've at least never heard of a SM dying of old age.

You got a source for that?

Wat.