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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