The Mystery of the Minotaurs

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**Pilau Rice**

Manchu wrote:
No doubt that entry resembles even modern Khornate Berserkers rules-wise. But the World Eaters are hardly doing out of xenophobia, is what I meant.

They were renowned for being tolerant of Xenos during the Great Crusade were they?

**Manchu**

Are you suggesting the World Eaters worship Khorne because they hate xenos?

**Pilau Rice**

Manchu wrote:
Are you suggesting they worship Khorne because they hate xenos?

No

**Manchu**

Nor am I saying the WE ever took it easy on xenos ... obviously.

**Eetion**

With regards to them never using Traitor Geneseed.

Their are a number of gentic flaws creeping into the astartes chapters, imperial fists, salamanders, space wolves, Blood Angels, raven Guard, all having some deterioration, as well as the same risk from the other Legions... Copies of copies and all that.

In the mean time we can assume the Traitos geneseed is relatively stable.

The imperium is dependent on its marines. I don't think they would totally discount the possibility if by adding traitors seed woulld provide a larger number of recruits with minimal genetic defficiency, that boost to the astartes Geneseed pool may well be attractive option.

I wouldn't put it past the High Lords or Inquisition sanctioning an experiment on the stability and results of introducing traitor gene seed. The results affecting future foundings.

As we all know the 21st founding didnt go so well.

**DemetriDominov**

Yes, but does anyone have any idea's why the Minotaurs went into hiding?

**Manchu**

It's not clear that they went into hiding. We don't know if they cloistered themselves or were called to some obscure location by the High Lords or what. All we know is that they do not appear in the records for a long stretch. That could just mean that the records themselves were tampered with. What we do know is that when they reappeared in the records, they were just as brutal but less savage and more controlled. And they had plenty of awesome gear. And they seemed to have a special relationship with the High Lords.

**DemetriDominov**

Yeah, but they were gone for 2,000 years. Nobody but the High Lords seem to know where they went - which means, really, the only way to do that is to eliminate witnesses - or find other means of keeping them quiet, usually by eliminating them.

**Manchu**

What exactly do you mean "where they went"? They disappeared from the records. No one reported seeing them or hearing from them. This doesn't mean they went somewhere or that no one saw or heard from them ... Whatever the Minotaurs were doing, if they existed at all, during those two thousand years is so mysterious that even the Inquisition can't figure it out. Naturally, that makes the Inquisition all the more suspicious.

Keep in mind that they were pretty much shunned by others right before their disappearance. So maybe it's less a matter of "hiding out" than it is is of "nobody bothering to look for you."

It's hard to connect the missing time with the chimeric geneseed issue -- unless you believe the High Lords somehow recalled and eliminated the Chapter, created a new one, and then sent them on their merry way with awesome toys. Thinking about it, the larger events of the Imperium don't offer many clues. Well, if they stumped the Inquisition, what chance do we have?

**DemetriDominov**

I meant exactly what I asked. Where did you think they went? What were they doing?

You offered three good ideas, each as valid as the next. That's all I was asking.

Now, I ask, why did they return?

**Manchu**

That's a much easier question to speculate about. Upon "returning" they showed strict obedience to the High Lords. It stands to reason therefore that they returned because the High Lords ordered them to do so.

**DemetriDominov**

Were they really called upon though? Or were they just ready to come back on their own accord?

**Manchu**

We can only speculate. What is currently published does not answer any of your questions. Like I said, it stands to reason that they were ordered back to action by the High Lords after the High Lords supplied them with a ton of cool stuff -- terminator armor, strike cruisers, you name it.

**Zakiriel**

Backtracking here for just a moment, Where does this information come from that Mr. Bile was involved with the cursed founding?

**DemetriDominov**

Something to do with the speculation that they were trying to create a primarch, and that when they *whoever they are* failed, the pyschic backlash was great enough for bile to feel it - and I don't even think bile is a pysker.... Maybe Lexicannum needs to clean their sources?

**Medium of Death**

The Minotaurs were a product of the Cursed Founding; and while they avoided the genetic mutation that occurred in other Chapters from the same Founding, they quickly achieved an unsavoury reputation for completely different reaspons. For the Minotaurs were berserkers. Known for quick responses to calls upon them for aid, they were also known for ignoring command-trees and battle-plans completely and simply engaging the enemy unto their destruction. This reputation for being unreliable allies resulted in the Minotaurs being shunned by the main body Imperial. This suited the Minotaurs fine, and sometime in M38, they simply disappeared from Imperial records.

Perhaps the High Lords offered them completely impunity from their actions in return to serve them. Although now that the High Lords control them, or at least presume to, perhaps something was done to wipe their memories or placate them. It also says that they excel in siegecraft.

Imperial observers during the Antigonis campaign noted that the transition from neophyte to Scout to full Marine in the Chapter was remarkably fast, and also highlighted the heavy use of hypno-indoctrination and neuro-cerebral surgery involved, as well as the monitoring and 'refeshing' of these techniques in full Marines by the Apothecaries of the Chapter.

Pretty much World Eaters.

Their chapter master is most interesting. The way I read this reminds me of a mixture of Horus & Angron. Perhaps the attempt to recreate the Primarchs "failed", but produced him instead. A lesser Primarch type character.

The name of the bloody-handed and paranoid master of the Minotaurs Chapter, Lord Asterion Moloc revels in his dark reputation, and his name is a byword for slaughter and destruction carried out in the Emperor's name on a score of worlds. The veteran of a hundred battles, his body has been heavily rebuilt with cybernetic augments and his sheer spite and malice is enough to allow him to shrug off wounds that would fell a lesser Space Marine. A brutal tactician, Lord Asterion Moloc takes pleasure in the utter destruction of his foes, and is most often found in battle at the head of his Terminators slamming into the enemy line. He is also a diligent and disciplined logistician and strategist, and a master of siegecraft. Outside of battle he can be found on his brazen throne at the center of the maze-like chambers of the heavy assault carrier Daedelos Krata, surrounded by data-feeds, tabulation servitors, and casualty reports, measuring the drops of blood spilt in quest of his Chapter's strategic goals.
The Minotaurs' Chapter have been used often in the past to persecute traitors, iconoclasts and renegades from within the ranks of the Space Marines by the High Lords of Terra. As a result, Asterion Moloc has long become expert in the systematic destruction of other Adeptus Astartes forces that have strayed from the path of righteousness, viewing such targets as both worthy of the Emperor's wrath, and the ultimate test of the Minotaurs' skills in battle. This reason above any other was the one of the fundamental causes for the Minotaurs Chapter to join the Loyalists in the Badab War and many of their battles, specifically the savage engagements in which they devastated the Lamenters Chapter and forced their surrender, having entered into legend among the Space Marines.

I know Russ was seen as the Primarch Killer, but Angron and the World Eaters were used to completely eradicate "obstacles".

It's also interesting that they "return" when the total authority of the High Lords is threatened on a relatively massive scale, the Macharian Heresy.

**kwah**

i know exactly who they are they are! "BAM" well looks like a commissar got that idea.

**Pilau Rice**

Eetion wrote:

In the mean time we can assume the Traitos geneseed is relatively stable.

Or the belief that it was stable was incorrect from the offset. As

The Horus Heresy had revealed weaknesses in the geneseed of several Space Marine Legions which had been exaggerated by the accelerated zygote harvesting techniques needed to keep the huge Space Marine Legions up to strength. The powers of Chaos exploited this growing physical and mental corruption to turn Horus’s troops against the Emperor - IA: CODEX ASTARTES

http://redelf.naxx.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_ca.html

This is also stated again in the new Forge World publication Horus Heresy: Betrayal. The flaw apparently was always there and the new processes made the problems worse over time.

It also specifically mentions on the Word Bearers Geneseed

The gene-seed of the Word Bearers was originally thought to be pure, but events subsequent to the Horus Heresy revealed the weaknesses inherent in their genetic make-up. The Space Marines of the Word Bearers have a marked tendency towards dogged, unquestioning belief and stubbornness that verges on insanity. - IA: Word Bearers

http://redelf.naxx.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_wb.html

Also, hadn't come across this before

It is also the case that the processes utilised by the Adeptus Mechanicus to store and to cultivate tithed geneseed from the Adeptus Astartes may become corrupted and imperfect. Though the particulars of a new Founding are shrouded in secrecy and arcane ritual, it is known that all of a new chapter's genetic make-up is not always drawn from the seed of one donor chapter. Instead, a new chapter may represent a genetic cocktail of the geneseed of others, and although purity testing is rigorous in the extreme, it is perfectly possible that these disparate elements may react with one another at a later date, in ways quite unforeseeable by their creators, and so the seed of a disastrous mutation or character flaw is sown - IA: ROGUE SONS

http://redelf.naxx.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_renegades.html

Zakiriel wrote:
Backtracking here for just a moment, Where does this information come from that Mr. Bile was involved with the cursed founding?

Here is the link to the Index Astartes article CURSED FOUNDING

http://redelf.naxx.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_cf.html

**Admiral Valerian**

Pilau Rice wrote:

The gene-seed of the Word Bearers was originally thought to be pure, but events subsequent to the Horus Heresy revealed the weaknesses inherent in their genetic make-up. The Space Marines of the Word Bearers have a marked tendency towards dogged, unquestioning belief and stubbornness that verges on insanity. - IA: Word Bearers

Sounds like Sisters of Battle aka Word Bearers 2.0 to me

**Agent_Tremolo**

Manchu wrote:
IA vol. 10 states that the Minotaur geneseed is "chimeric" and that the Magos Biologos may have arrogantly used "forbidden" sources for the 21st Founding. So that's as close as we get to an answer. IA vol. 10 says nothing about the World Eaters. That is totally fan speculation based on IA vol. 10 comments that prior to their disappearance they were known for their extreme brutality. I believe IA vol. 10 uses the word beserk or berserker at some point, from which fans have inferred the World Eaters connection.

That word, chimeric, is intriguing and doesn't quite suggest the use of traitor geneseed.

Xenos DNA? Now that'd be ironic.

**Mr Nobody**

DemetriDominov wrote:
Yes, but does anyone have any idea's why the Minotaurs went into hiding?

I can only speculate that perhaps the high lords used them in their own black ops missions, keeping them well away from the eyes of the public and especially the Astartes. They might only have reappeared because the high lords decided they could be used in larger, publicly known missions.

**Spartan089**

They could have spent the last 2000 years building up their strength, its been noted they have the most advanced hardware of any chapter out there including the iron hands and salamanders who pride themselves on technology. Almost all their battle brothers have MK VIII armour which is the most advanced mark. In other chapter if they can get it its ussually reserved for high ranking battle brothers.

**redkommando**

Not all the Traitor Gene-seed was flawed. The orgional gene-seed wouldn't have been, and the Emperor's Children had the most pure gene seed, even more so than the ultramarines. While not impossible for the High Lords to sanction the use of traitor gene seed its going to be an incredibly rare occurance. That being said, the Mechanicus didn't really obey the High Lords, Hence the second Primarch project in the 21st founding and the creation of the Steel Confessors as well as other things.

So its not Impossible, just not likely.

**Manchu**

Admiral Valerian wrote:
Pilau Rice wrote:

The gene-seed of the Word Bearers was originally thought to be pure, but events subsequent to the Horus Heresy revealed the weaknesses inherent in their genetic make-up. The Space Marines of the Word Bearers have a marked tendency towards dogged, unquestioning belief and stubbornness that verges on insanity. - IA: Word Bearers

Sounds like Sisters of Battle aka Word Bearers 2.0 to me

That's even more disturbing when you consider the SoB are not genetically engineered. It appears to be a human trait. Aaron Dembski-Bowden would no doubt cackle maniacally if we were to suggest that the Word Bearers' flaw was being "human, all too human."

**Admiral Valerian**

Manchu wrote:
Admiral Valerian wrote:
Pilau Rice wrote:

The gene-seed of the Word Bearers was originally thought to be pure, but events subsequent to the Horus Heresy revealed the weaknesses inherent in their genetic make-up. The Space Marines of the Word Bearers have a marked tendency towards dogged, unquestioning belief and stubbornness that verges on insanity. - IA: Word Bearers

Sounds like Sisters of Battle aka Word Bearers 2.0 to me
That's even more disturbing when you consider the SoB are not genetically engineered. It appears to be a human trait. Aaron Dembski-Bowden would no doubt cackle maniacally if we were to suggest that the Word Bearers' flaw was being "human, all too human."

There was that line from The Last Church where the priest warns the Emperor that Humans will want to believe in something greater than themselves even more with the Emperor taking it away from them. He then warns the Emperor that eventually he will become their god-head. Ironic, as it turned out.

EDIT: Though TBH, it would appear not all Humans want to believe in gods. The Astartes don't, at least not completely. The Iterators and most of the Remembrancers scoffed at the idea; even at the end, despite having been exposed to Chaos onboard the Vengeful Spirit, Voss seemed utterly unaffected, probably because he lacked belief in the powers of gods and Daemons.

**Manchu**

The issue doesn't seem to be a need for gods but rather a need for idols.