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Orkeosaurus wrote:She then became the Primarch of the Space Foxxx chapter, right?

Sanguinius' wings are a mutation ("The infant Sanguinius came to rest upon the planet of Baal Secundus, and, warped by the powers of Chaos, he now sported angel-like wings from his back." That the Emperor can recognize them is rather irrelevant on this point, as wings do not diminish ability to recognize facial features, Primarchs are ten feet tall giants, and the Emperor is the most powerful psyker to have lived), so that's not really a valid point to make on the Emperor's genetic engineering ability; however the sheer ridiculous of any of a dozen features Space Marines have (the thing that steals memories from people when you eat their brains? What were they thinking?) is sufficient to prove that the Emperor could make a female clone without too much trouble, if he really wanted a second daughter. (Plus they do find some way of getting wings on those scary babies.)

As for the Emperor himself, as he stands at least as tall as his Primarchs, he most likely went through the same process as his Custodes; sort of a proto-Space Marine process developed during the unification of Terra.

The problem is that none of them are clones. I've frequently heard them described as clone-sons, but this false. A clone is an exact duplicate, which it's very explicitly spelled out that none of them were. It would be more accurate to state that he attempted to create a race of supermen based on his own template. (For a real puzzle: if each space marine in the legion was based on their primarch, and the primarchs were all lost before they were complete, and the only way to make a space marine is with the chapter geneseed, where did the Emperor get all that geneseed when the only sources of it disappeared before it could be harvested?)

As far as possibilities: remember that the other primarchs are implied to not know what happened to Legions 2 and 11. Dorn implies they were male, but also admits that he does not know who they were or what happened, and so may just be assuming. During the heresy he muses that perhaps some message might be gotten to them for aid, only to be told by the Sigilite that they are 'lost to us forever'. (Which implies they may still be alive during the Seige of Terra)

And yes, those silly female space marines of early GW... packaged and stamped 'Space Marine' Obviously they were horrible mistakes.... LOL

The real reason is, as we all know, that GW can't sculpt women to save their ass.

BaronIveagh wrote:The problem is that none of them are clones. I've frequently heard them described as clone-sons, but this false. A clone is an exact duplicate, which it's very explicitly spelled out that none of them were.

Cloning does is not always the duplication of an organism's entire DNA sequence; it can be the duplication of any segment of it.

Ergo, the Primarchs were produced in a significant part through cloning, and in some part through whatever other forms of genetic tampering the Emperor has available, and they would be "a clone" insomuch as they were produced through the cloning process. It most certainly is an apt word to describe them, as they are first and foremost the product of the cloning, and furthermore if GW refers to them as clones then by god, clones is what they are!

It would be more accurate to state that he attempted to create a race of supermen based on his own template. (For a real puzzle: if each space marine in the legion was based on their primarch, and the primarchs were all lost before they were complete, and the only way to make a space marine is with the chapter geneseed, where did the Emperor get all that geneseed when the only sources of it disappeared before it could be harvested?)

I have no idea on this one; what I'm even more concerned about is their naming scheme. Did "Alpharius" just decide to name himself "Alpharius", and coincidentally get the Alpha Legion to command?

Orkeosaurus wrote:Did "Alpharius" just decide to name himself "Alpharius", and coincidentally get the Alpha Legion to command?

No, he was given the name / took the name Alpharius, who, when found by The Allfather, was granted Legion XX, that being the Legion which was crafted from his genetic material. Subsequently, he renamed it the Alpha Legion.

Gwar! wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:Did "Alpharius" just decide to name himself "Alpharius", and coincidentally get the Alpha Legion to command?

No, he was given the name / took the name Alpharius, who, when found by The Allfather, was granted Legion XX, that being the Legion which was crafted from his genetic material. Subsequently, he renamed it the Alpha Legion.

Is that a fact? What were the Alpha Legion called before Alpharius found them?

ph34r wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:Did "Alpharius" just decide to name himself "Alpharius", and coincidentally get the Alpha Legion to command?

No, he was given the name / took the name Alpharius, who, when found by The Allfather, was granted Legion XX, that being the Legion which was crafted from his genetic material. Subsequently, he renamed it the Alpha Legion.

Is that a fact? What were the Alpha Legion called before Alpharius found them?

The 20th Legion? Legio XX?

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Ergo, the Primarchs were produced in a significant part through cloning, and in some part through whatever other forms of genetic tampering the Emperor has available, and they would be "a clone" insomuch as they were produced through the cloning process. It most certainly is an apt word to describe them, as they are first and foremost the product of the cloning, and furthermore if GW refers to them as clones then by god, clones is what they are!

Incorrect. Cloning in this case would be molecular cloning, not cloning in the sense that they were identical copies. (Notice, none of them resemble their 'father', beyond a higher then average height and muscle mass. Only a few of them showed any psychic power at all, several showed serious genetic defects from the engineering process. Further, one must wonder at the thousands of defective embryos that had to have been produced to get 20 viable specimens) )

One must wonder though, what was the point? If he himself was the height of physical and psychic might, why not do a direct clone? It would actually be much simpler.

And genetic tampering would hardly begin to describe it. He added entire organs which it's implied he did not himself posses. It would be more accurate to say that he used his own DNA as a basic template and then engineered an entirely new person each time from the ground up, with subtle variations on a central theme. If this is, in fact, the case, at some point in the process they would have produced a female embryo, just to determine it's viability. If one or more of these was, indeed, viable, it would be functionally a female primarch. Given the Emperor's rather practical approach to most things, I doubt he'd have simply 'tossed it out'.


@GWAR! Remember that each legion had a name before they found their primarch. Luna Wolves became Sons of Horus, Dawn Raiders became Death Guard, etc.

BaronIveagh wrote:One must wonder though, what was the point? If he himself was the height of physical and psychic might, why not do a direct clone? It would actually be much simpler.

Because having a carbon copy clone would cause major issues.

@GWAR! Remember that each legion had a name before they found their primarch. Luna Wolves became Sons of Horus, Dawn Raiders became Death Guard, etc.

The Legions may have named themselves, but they were always "officially" just numbered Legions. I very much Doubt that the Space Wolves Legion referred to themselves as such long before they knew who their primarch was after all.

Also, Horus named his legion the Luna Wolves. It was the Emperor who renamed them the Sons of Horus.

Gwar! wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:One must wonder though, what was the point? If he himself was the height of physical and psychic might, why not do a direct clone? It would actually be much simpler.

Because having a carbon copy clone would cause major issues.

@GWAR! Remember that each legion had a name before they found their primarch. Luna Wolves became Sons of Horus, Dawn Raiders became Death Guard, etc.

The Legions may have named themselves, but they were always "officially" just numbered Legions. I very much Doubt that the Space Wolves Legion referred to themselves as such long before they knew who their primarch was after all.

Also, Horus named his legion the Luna Wolves. It was the Emperor who renamed them the Sons of Horus.

Ehh... I may be rusty on my HH novels, but I was under the impression that it was the other way around from what Mortarion said in Flight. Point stands on the Death Guard though.

Dunno what the Space Wolves called themselves.

Yes, two Emperors would definitely have posed a narrative problem, due to um.... him/them winning?

BaronIveagh wrote:Incorrect. Cloning in this case would be molecular cloning, not cloning in the sense that they were identical copies.

Uh... that's the point.

They need not be identical for them to have been primarily created through cloning, only completely through cloning. I never said they were identical, just that I consider them clones nonetheless. The Clone Troopers in Star Wars were (lightly) genetically altered, and they're still considered clones, and they even got the title of a (rather disappointing) movie to reaffirm it.

(Notice, none of them resemble their 'father', beyond a higher then average height and muscle mass. Only a few of them showed any psychic power at all, several showed serious genetic defects from the engineering process. Further, one must wonder at the thousands of defective embryos that had to have been produced to get 20 viable specimens) )

One must wonder though, what was the point? If he himself was the height of physical and psychic might, why not do a direct clone? It would actually be much simpler.

Well, the Emperor's powers are from the psychic gestalt that we assembled in him, so they probably couldn't be transferred in their entirety. I hypothesize that is physical stature was due to the same process he used on his Custodes before the unification of Terra, but that's just because it seems strange for him to have been walking around ten feet tall prior to revealing himself as "The Emperor of Mankind".

And genetic tampering would hardly begin to describe it. He added entire organs which it's implied he did not himself posses.

Did I not say this myself?!

It would be more accurate to say that he used his own DNA as a basic template and then engineered an entirely new person each time from the ground up, with subtle variations on a central theme.

And that theme is his DNA, which he cloned... I don't see where we're disagreeing on any of this.

If this is, in fact, the case, at some point in the process they would have produced a female embryo, just to determine it's viability. If one or more of these was, indeed, viable, it would be functionally a female primarch. Given the Emperor's rather practical approach to most things, I doubt he'd have simply 'tossed it out'.

And they named her "Leman Russ".


Also, according to one of the various Wikis, the Geneseed was never in the Primarchs; it was created after the Primarchs runoft so that the Emperor could have the Space Marines with him as he looked for them during the Great Crusade. So he made a geneseed from each Primarch (presumably he had some leftover DNA) and a legion from each Geneseed and the whole thing went on from there. (I haven't been too up on the Horus Heresy books, so I don't know what happened with the two Legions that never found their Primarch.)

BaronIveagh wrote: Further, one must wonder at the thousands of defective embryos that had to have been produced to get 20 viable specimens) )

what if he had made a thousand primarchs???

Lord of battles wrote:
what if he had made a thousand primarchs???

Khorne would have gak himself.


That said, they probably produced more then a thousand primarchs to get those 20 viable embryos. Genetic engineering is a rough buisness.

Orky, by that logic if I took a rat, cloned enough of it's DNA to work with, and created rat ogres, you're saying they would be clones of the rat, even if the rat's DNA only made up a fairly small percentage of it.

No, but I don't think a fairly small percentage of the DNA comes from the Emperor, I think that all human attributes of the Primarch come from the Emperor, and while you may note correctly that the amount of changes made from the human genome in the Primarchs is impressive, it in no way nears the amount of human attributes the Primarchs still have. Every feature not exclusive to the Primarchs is a human feature; to find what was engineered on top of the Emperor's DNA you would compare a Primarch with a human, to find what was from his DNA would be to compare a human to a sea slug, or something along those lines. (I'm sure we actually share 60% of our DNA with sea slugs or something like that, but we're talking pretty rough approximations.)

Humanity is the base; they are far more human than "scatchbuilt", while a rat ogre is far more ogre than rat. In fact, I would say that to have taken an ogre, and added the rat's features, resulting in a rat ogre, would be a decent analogy, and in that circumstance I certainly would be willing to call the rat ogre a clone of the ogre.

ehh...

Primarchs are further from baseline human then a chimp is.

The number of genetic alterations to deal with the fact that they have a gland that secretes corrosive venom into their mouths without injuring them alone is staggering. Never mind the differences in protien folding, metabolism, etc.

Superficially, yes, they resemble a human being, but I might remind you that fluff likes to underline how not human they are. Gav Thrope put it best when he wrote that primarchs had to learn to be human. Human is not their natural state.

That is, of course, if we look at it assuming that the Emperor made them using real DNA. GW seems to think that human cells have a core of pure handwavium, and that human organs are as interchangeable as ork organs. (Just sew in a new one doc, he'll be fine!)

I don't contest that the Space Marines are hugely different from humans - they are really quite monstrous, all things considered - but you can be quite monstrous from a normal standpoint and still be very closely related to a human from a purely genetic standpoint. The corrosive glands are quite spectacular, but the gums, the teeth, the cheeks, the tongue, the roof of the mouth, and all of those other things are still largely human, and even if most systems are changed to some degree, that these changes would be actually exceed what was first there in volume seems rather ludicrous. Perhaps the significant difference in their circulatory system means a lot of backtracking has to be done with the core functions of the cells, but I don't know if I see a lot of evidence for that. After all, they can superimpose the new system over the existing one in Space Marine initiates.

Also, yeah, once they went with the whole "you can absorb memories by eating brains" thing you could see what road they were going down.

Gwar! wrote:

ph34r wrote:Is that a fact? What were the Alpha Legion called before Alpharius found them?

The 20th Legion? Legio XX?

They must have had an actual name, for example the Death Guard were the Dusk Raiders.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I don't contest that the Space Marines are hugely different from humans - they are really quite monstrous, all things considered - but you can be quite monstrous from a normal standpoint and still be very closely related to a human from a purely genetic standpoint. The corrosive glands are quite spectacular, but the gums, the teeth, the cheeks, the tongue, the roof of the mouth, and all of those other things are still largely human, and even if most systems are changed to some degree, that these changes would be actually exceed what was first there in volume seems rather ludicrous. Perhaps the significant difference in their circulatory system means a lot of backtracking has to be done with the core functions of the cells, but I don't know if I see a lot of evidence for that. After all, they can superimpose the new system over the existing one in Space Marine initiates.

Also, yeah, once they went with the whole "you can absorb memories by eating brains" thing you could see what road they were going down.

Yes, except the teeth, gums, etc can't still be largely human, or the secretions of the gland would burn and dissolve them. Space Marines would have no teeth.

Further, the circulatory system would have to be very different (and not just to adjust blood pressure from a second heart). Larriman's organ would cause strokes and cardiac arrest trying to heal a marine if they didn't radically alter the circulatory system. The chapter mentioned in planetkill that never slept would go quite mad from the mental and biological results of that fluke. (Though this may be leading into them joining the ruinous powers, who knows?)

We'll avoid the warp fueled 21st founding all together. Seeing as it spawned an entire chapter of Wolverines (Sons of Anteaus), Human Torches (Flame Falcons), and Ghost Riders (Legion of the Damned). I think it could safely be said that someone at GW was reading Marvel Comics in the late 90's.

BaronIveagh wrote:Yes, except the teeth, gums, etc can't still be largely human, or the secretions of the gland would burn and dissolve them. Space Marines would have no teeth.

Their physical structure is all human. Their material composition is likely different, but that how much of a genetic reworking that is seems to be something of an unknown (and will probably remain so forever, since I don't know that what Space Marines are able to spit actually exists ).

Further, the circulatory system would have to be very different (and not just to adjust blood pressure from a second heart). Larriman's organ would cause strokes and cardiac arrest trying to heal a marine if they didn't radically alter the circulatory system. The chapter mentioned in planetkill that never slept would go quite mad from the mental and biological results of that fluke. (Though this may be leading into them joining the ruinous powers, who knows?)

I was mixing up my points there; what I was trying to say is that the general cellular biology needn't be substantially altered, in response to the new circulatory system being needed to supply them with nutrients. The circulatory system itself definitely needs an overhaul, I agree, probably more of one than anything else in the Space Marine's body (mouth included).

We'll avoid the warp fueled 21st founding all together. Seeing as it spawned an entire chapter of Wolverines (Sons of Antaeus + Black Dragons), Human Torches (Flame Falcons), and Ghost Riders (Legion of the Damned). I think it could safely be said that someone at GW was reading Marvel Comics in the late 90's.

They read DC even earlier!



"Make them fear the night..."

Unholy Impostor Batman!

Back on what I was saying earlier: Chimps have a much greater similarity. Circulatory system, nervous system, all very similar. A primarch would be shaped similar, but the underlying functions would be much different, and that makes up a great deal more of the genetic code. Many of the basic proteins would have to be altered, such as hemoglobin, in order to transport enough oxygen for the primarch to run and fight for days on end. Basic human functions like metabolism would have to be totally re-written for a primarch to be as large as they are and as built as they are without needing a constant stream of food. Extended lifespan would be the biggest hurdle, and probably comprise the bulk of code taken from the Emperor. Bones would have to bond something besides calcium in order to remain human shaped but scaled up like that, to avoid constant micro fractures in the long bones. the list goes on.

Space Marine bones do use a form of ceramic, although as this is administered through their diet I don't know what the Primarchs have going for them in that regard. The bones of a Space Marine grow differently from those of a human as well, with the carapace forming over the ribcage being the best known (if rather logically dubious) example.

I don't see why they would need a "constant stream of food". They are only 10 feet tall. They would need to eat a lot compared to a regular human, but we know Russ ate a ton already, and it would seem that pretty much every other Primarch was capable of getting enough to eat on his own.

I also don't know what you're saying about the lifespan; the Emperor's DNA is the base. He doesn't need to add that in, if his immortality is genetic.

And while these are all nice attributes to be making note of, they still are nothing compared to the base they are being written on. Nearly every alteration is still going to be leaving the system 70-95% Emperor. Altered haemoglobin is still going to be haemoglobin, it's not going to be something never seen before built from scratch. Altered bones are still going to be following the human blueprint very, very closely, because while having a ribcage fuse into interlocking plates seems quite inhuman indead, that there is such a thing as a "ribcage" at all is thanks to the human physiology being used as a template. For something like the bones structure of the hands it's going to need to follow very closely behind indeed.

Yeah, except ceramic isn't exactly soluble. (Which is why teacups and amphorae last thousands of years at the bottom of the sea.)

I know they say ceramics, but the body would require serious modification to digest ceramics, let alone bond them in place of calcium.

They fight with chainswords.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looking it up again, they're actually "ceramic-based chemicals". (I have no idea if there's a difference.)

Kanluwen wrote:

KOS wrote:excuse me... but in Rogue Trader and in old WD issues, I saw some female Space Marines so I think that ... YES... they might make female marines, but they won't make them because technology is not going to help who controls the machinery and there are no scientists to improve the current technology.

And Rogue Trader/old WD issues had Imperial Guard riding jetbikes, Sentinels with Assault Cannons, Marines with Shuriken Catapaults, etc.

Get over it. The background has changed.

Or do you think Malal still exists too?

but who cares. Female SM existed back in the days and it was WH40k anyway even if the BG changed. So in fact, females in SM ranks existed. Period.

Now background has changed and I wonder if someone use some female SM in their army list from the old days. That would be.... heretical and interesting 8D

I seem to recall something on the female 'Marine' packaging along the following lines, although I suspect the wording is off. It's been a while since I saw it.

'Intruder alert! Some female adventurers have stolen suits of power armour and are claiming to be Space Marines!' There was some more, too, something about them being liars I think, but my memory is...cooked. I'm not even entirely sure of the bit I do remember.

Jon Garrett wrote:I seem to recall something on the female 'Marine' packaging along the following lines, although I suspect the wording is off. It's been a while since I saw it.

'Intruder alert! Some female adventurers have stolen suits of power armour and are claiming to be Space Marines!' There was some more, too, something about them being liars I think, but my memory is...cooked. I'm not even entirely sure of the bit I do remember.

that could be well in line with the RT background LOL

Jon Garrett wrote:I seem to recall something on the female 'Marine' packaging along the following lines, although I suspect the wording is off. It's been a while since I saw it.

'Intruder alert! Some female adventurers have stolen suits of power armour and are claiming to be Space Marines!' There was some more, too, something about them being liars I think, but my memory is...cooked. I'm not even entirely sure of the bit I do remember.

I remember someone saying that here on Dakka in one of Dr Thunder's threads, but not on the packaging of the marine.

If one of the "unknown" primarchs turn out to be female it'll make the fluff of female Space Marines more beleivable and the way they would be physically would be far different than the male space marines. Maybe they would be far more harder to corrupt (like the SOB's) than the male space marines which was why chaos casted them away never to be found. But only if GW could make decent female models. If there were female space marine models they won't have the bulky armor of the males maybe something like the SOB or eldar armor...

Given how some of these guys respond, if female space marines go canon, they might just open a vein.

I might point out that all the primarchs were found at some point, but then two were 'lost' again. (Quite a while before the heresy, if the HH novels are canon)