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I was just going back through the first Index Astartes and was trying to figure out the relationship between the Primarchs and their respective legions. Putting together the various things I've read this is how it seems to me;

Emperor started working with genetics to create what would become the Space Marines.

Once he figured out how to grow the various implants, he wanted to create the ultimate solider from the ground up using the knowledge gained from his previous work.

When he later found the lost Primarchs, he gave each their own legion to command. Apothecaries then used the Primarchs genetics to assist in the farming of gene seeds (this is where the Space Marines started to become different from other Legions).

The implanted Progenoid glands serve as a means to harvest the individual gene seeds similar to stem cells.

The variations in gene seeds between chapters is the result of their Primarchs original DNA and the mutations which have occurred over time.

That sounds right to me, any thoughts or corrections?

Werent they space marines when they were introduced to their primarch though?

That seems a fairly good summery, but a little bit off.

The Emperor didn't have "modern" Space Marines when he took over Terra, but rather augmented Humans though, most likely bionic enhancement and chemical or biological (through Gene therapy) enhanced soldiers.

Once he had gotten bored of rampaging about Terra (as an Immortal being of in effect Unlimited Power is want to do) he hunkered down and started to build the Primarchs in his image. Now, there's a lot of theories regarding why each Primarch just so happened to be made the way there were (Sanguins with wings, Russ with fangs etc), but for me, the easiest explanation was they weren't done that way. They were scratch built "perfect" humans, based off his own DNA. Essentially mini-Emperors, each one trying to focus one aspect of the Emperors powers.

Now of course, Tzeench weren't gonna let this newbie get all up in his face with this dastardly plot, so the 3 main chaos Powers (Slaanesh wasnt born untill the Eldar collectively crapped their minds out, therefore clearing up all the warpstorms that had Terra isolated at this time) took it apon themselves to turn the Clones into ugly pink Smears. They failed to do that however, because they were not strong enough to completly bypass the Emperors own wards, they were however able to fling them away through the warp, and while the Emperors own wards prevented the capsules from being destroyed or flung into a random star (hence why all the Primarchs landed on some sort of human inhabited world) but he couldn't prevent the chaos gods infecting the foetal Primarchs in some manner, altering the genetic makup of each.

After this happened, the Emperor used the data he had assembled from this project and set about creating the first batch of "true" Space Marines with the organs and geneseed and the lot. It was only until each primarch was found and they could re-harvest their now (obviously mutated) DNA and grow geneseed out of that, did each legions genetic traits come into play. Don't forget the original legions had zero resemblance to their Primarchs, just terrans who just so happened to get picked for the Transformation, and it wouldn't be until the legions were mostly replaced with recruits from their own homeworld that their genetic traits and organisational quirks (as dictated by their Primarch) came into play.

Now, I suddenly feel that I have derailed this thread with my wild conspiracy theories. I apologise, but believe you should be thankful I didn't get into what I think of the whole Alpha Legion/Ultramarines/Dark Angels malarky

So tl;dr
Emperor makes Augmented Terrans
Emperor makes Primarchs
Primarchs are Stolen
Emperor uses Data from them to Make "true" Space Marines.
Emperor Steals Underwear
...
Profit!

Didn't the Eldar already crap their minds out??? Seeing as how Fulgrim became a prince of Slaanesh

Cryonicleech wrote:Didn't the Eldar already crap their minds out??? Seeing as how Fulgrim became a prince of Slaanesh

As i said, the Birth of Slaanesh occurred just before the Great Crusade (ya know, the one that collected all the Primarchs), and was in fact the only reason it could happen at all. The birth of Slaanesh quite literally ripped the Galaxy a New One, creating the Eye of Terror and dissipating the plethora of warp storms that had formed all over the galaxy (which in turn were being caused by the Eldar having loads of awesome Drugs and Sex).

Gwar! wrote:...Now, there's a lot of theories regarding why each Primarch just so happened to be made the way there were (Sanguins with wings, Russ with fangs etc), but for me, the easiest explanation was they weren't done that way. They were scratch built "perfect" humans, based off his own DNA. Essentially mini-Emperors, each one trying to focus one aspect of the Emperors powers.

I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, or missing your point. It sounds like you're contradicting yourself. They weren't made special, but they were made special?

Gwar! wrote:Now of course, Tzeench weren't gonna let this newbie get all up in his face with this dastardly plot, so the 3 main chaos Powers (Slaanesh wasnt born untill the Eldar collectively crapped their minds out, therefore clearing up all the warpstorms that had Terra isolated at this time) took it apon themselves to turn the Clones into ugly pink Smears. They failed to do that however, because they were not strong enough to completly bypass the Emperors own wards, they were however able to fling them away through the warp, and while the Emperors own wards prevented the capsules from being destroyed or flung into a random star (hence why all the Primarchs landed on some sort of human inhabited world) but he couldn't prevent the chaos gods infecting the foetal Primarchs in some manner, altering the genetic makup of each.

I'm glad you brought this up. I believe I read similiar acounts in the HH books. But I really don't understand the logic of that, it's always bugged me. How did they each end up on a human world? How could they be sent so far, yet not just destroyed? I'm not sure I buy that theory (I know that it is technically canon), but I think something else had to be afoot. I'll have to go back and read when Horus was taken back in time and shown the origianl 20, it seems like there was more going on there.

Gwar! wrote:After this happened, the Emperor used the data he had assembled from this project and set about creating the first batch of "true" Space Marines with the organs and geneseed and the lot. It was only until each primarch was found and they could re-harvest their now (obviously mutated) DNA and grow geneseed out of that, did each legions genetic traits come into play. Don't forget the original legions had zero resemblance to their Primarchs, just terrans who just so happened to get picked for the Transformation, and it wouldn't be until the legions were mostly replaced with recruits from their own homeworld that their genetic traits and organisational quirks (as dictated by their Primarch) came into play.

Interesting, I'm not sure I follow why it is that gene-seeds could not be harvested until the Legion had a Primarch. Unless they were somehow direcectly tied to the Progenoid gland? I figured that the pre-primarch Space Marines weren't at their full capability until they became endowed with the Primarch DNA. Obviously if creating Primarchs were that easy, you would just have a few legions of them, instead we have space marines who benefit from the missing Primarch DNA (or whatever it is they contributed).

Gwar! wrote:Now, I suddenly feel that I have derailed this thread with my wild conspiracy theories. I apologise, but believe you should be thankful I didn't get into what I think of the whole Alpha Legion/Ultramarines/Dark Angels malarky

Not at all, please do. Based on posts I've seen of yours in the past, I enjoy your contributions. You are well versed in the Fluff.

Gwar! wrote:
Emperor makes Augmented Terrans
Emperor makes Primarchs
Primarchs are Stolen
Emperor uses Data from them to Make "true" Space Marines.
Emperor Steals Underwear
...
Profit!

Ha, I think you may have lost me there in the end.

Ok I appologise foe the poor wording in first quote there.

What I meant is that he used his own DNA, and altered each of them subtly, but he didn't say "Right This lad will have wings, this lad will have one eye, this lad will be a wolfman".

As for the "Reharvesting the DNA" yeah you caught me out, that's my own take on the thing Under the "canon" the Emperor did indeed say "Right This lad will have wings, this lad will have one eye, this lad will be a wolfman", which to me makes less sense than anything else in 40k.

The way I see it, the Terrans and 1st generation Space Marines from their homeworlds were all augmented with a single "strain" of organs, and the geneseed was then augmented with the DNA of each primarch. Im not suggesting they rebuilt a whole primarch, but they used each Primarchs DNA to stabilise the geneseed to better suit the homeworld of each primarch (another affect of the Emperors wards)

Now to clarify as to why the Capsules were not just destroyed.
First we have to consider that, the Chaos Gods were all idiots and just flung them in random directions, and they all just Happened to land on human worlds. This is Idiotic to the extreme and mathematically so impossible that it is close enough to 1/∞ to make no difference.

So we have to consider, why didn't they destroy them? 2 possible explanations spring to mind immediately. The first, is as mentioned, before the Chaos Gods swiped them away, the Emperor was able to place psychic wards to ensure the Primarchs safety, ensuring they were not squished in The Warp and that they would land on a Planet that he Would Eventually conquer in the Great Crusade. This could also be inferred from the fact that during the Crusade he knew he was actively looking for Primarchs. Why this didn't prevent the obvious mutations some Primarchs suffered could be because the Chaos Powers managed to penetrate SOME of the wards.

The Second theory, is that Tzeentch, knowing the Threat the Emperor would pose, and having a wicked sense of Humour, engineered it so that half of the Primarchs would turn against him, ensuring the Emperor would die. You can speculate from the Horus Heresy Novellas, when Horus had that Vision where he saw what would happen to the Imperium if he didn't go and Kill The Emperor.

And a 3rd theory is, That was the Original plan, but the Cabal Hijacked it. As we know, the Cabal convinced Alpharius/Omegon to side with Horus, in order to destroy the Chaos Gods. Of course, all these plans went down the crapper when The Emperor was able to burn Horus' Soul and Body into nothing.

I was just doing some reading in the IA2, Blood Angels section. Apparently the original gene seed for each chapter was harvested from their respective primarch. The Emperor bore the Primarch's who intern had the original gene seeds which gave rise to their Legion, hence why traits reflect their primarch. Without the Primarchs there wouldn't be Space Marines as we know them.

One thing to remember as well is that some of the Primarchs recorded genetic data was horribly messed up after whatever caused them to be scattered across the warp (I assume) ripped Terra a new one. The Emperors children and the Thousand Sons are two I can think of off the top of my head (its the reason why they were named the Thousand Sons long before any notion of "1000 Speac Mareenz Hurr!" was dreamt up, because while the other Terran Legions had tens or hundreds of thousands of Marines, he only had 1000, and the Emperors children has about 200 IIRC).

Clearly the Emperor must have re harvested their DNA so that their legions could be built up faster, and it wouldnt have hurt to take it from the others too (ya know because a) his data might have been a little fuxxed and b) because THE FREAKING WARP MUTATED THEM!)

I'll read up on the 1000S and EC, and I know this will possibly sound like Imperial rhetoric; AI2 p.30: It seems plausible that the powers of Chaos had attempted to pervert and distort the perfect works of the Emperor, but the possibility that one of more of the Primarchs were altered by Chaos at the very beginning of their lives must surely be preposterous.

Emperors Children would be more than 200 Marines, "Fulgrim" has several company commanders mentioned and i believe you'll not see companys consisting of 10 marines.

Edit to clarify:

IA 1:

Emperors children had 200 to begin with, but risen to 30 companies before heresy.
Also "pure geneseed" and "fully functional organs", so maybe Data lost, but not mutated primarch?

1hadhq wrote:Emperors Children would be more than 200 Marines, "Fulgrim" has several company commanders mentioned and i believe you'll not see companys consisting of 10 marines.

The most numerous legion of all was the Ultramarines. The Thousand Sons of Magnus the Red were of a small number as many of them had developed mutations or uncontrollable levels of psychic powers. Fulgrim's samples had been largely lost, and this left the legion of the Emperor's Children also with a very small number. Both of these legions would increase their numbers to acceptable standards only after their Primarchs were found.

Maybe based off older fluff but that's what the fluff says.

Wow, just finished reading most of the 1000 Sons bio in IA3. I can't believe how the stuff they wrote in 2003, was so beautifully done in the Horus Heresy in 2006. If you've read the HH series I highly recommending going back to read some of the fluff books like Index Astartes. Magnus' story is more tragic than Horus in my opinion.

I didn't see anything which specified that they're numbers were 1000-beside the comments about they're mutant rate and how that kept their numbers low. Also, it seems to indicate that they actually culled Marines from the gene seed before the Primarch was found, so I guess the Emperor backed that gak up on a ZIP drive.

jabbakahut wrote: so I guess the Emperor backed that gak up on a ZIP drive.

Sadly the Zip Drives for Fulgrim and Magnus were badly damaged when The Trio of Chaos Gods ripped the Himalayas a new one

And yes I agree, Magnus was one of the most hard done by Primarchs, even if it was all part of Tzeentchs plot.

I've been thinking about writing a script for a 40K movie and I think Magnus' story might make a good focus.

Hell yea it would! Magus's story always was one of my favotires

jabbakahut wrote:I've been thinking about writing a script for a 40K movie and I think Magnus' story might make a good focus.

Personally, I would love to see the Horus Heresy in its entirety turned into a sort of Miniseries. It would have to be traditionally animated of course, American or Japanese style I couldn't care less (there are pros and cons to both) but no live action, and no CGI. Live action is too restrictive and too expensive, and 3d CGI makes me puke, because a) it look god awful and b) its being used too much now because its slightly cheaper than traditional animation, and you can sure as hell tell.

Tzeench did screw the hell outta Magnus. Who sez Slaanesh has ALL the massive, pulsating members in the warp?