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 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Shidank wrote:
It wouldn't be terribly difficult for a BL writer to bring them back. It would take all of a minute's consideration before they decided to have them return from outside the galaxy or emerge from their sub-terran vault.

Here's a better question for you: Do we have the writing talent in BL to make this fluff happen without it coming off as a complete disappointment?

So what you're saying is that it would be terribly difficult.


The reality is that the novels have made the Missing Legions even more missing. They're out of the story so early in the Great Crusade, to bring them back is effectively pointless. And they're definitely gone-gone, not just "left to go somewhere" gone.

It would be terrifically easy for GW to bring them back to try and squeeze more profit from their failing engine. It would not be given the attention or effort that it would deserve.

Never underestimate how lazy a executive will be if it saves/makes them money.

Failing engine?

Revenue has declined slightly, but it's fairly obvious at this point that the declining profits were the result of product investment. Hence the near non-stop release schedule of models and books in the last several months. I mean, it isn't like AdMech and Harlequins appeared out of nowhere overnight.

There is a passage in the heresy series where Dorn and Sigismund are standing near the plinths with all of the Primarch statues in the Imperial Palace. It mentions the "missing" two Primarchs who were found at some point, they made statues of them. They were subsequently destroyed. No matter the reason, or what happened to their legionaires. The legions aren't wandering around out in the galaxy.

Of course everything the Imperium says is a lie, the black library is its propaganda machine for all we know.

I reckon one of them had the impudence to be born female.

Thing is, we've received so many hints that I do believe we can piece together what happened to both of them.

11th Legion (The Forgotten) -

What we know: Caused a problem/shame for the Imperium. Proof -
"But the Eleventh Legion -" "Is expunged from Imperial record for good reason. As is the Second. I'm not saying I don't feel temptation creeping over me, brother. A single sword thrust piercing that pod, and we'd unwrite a shameful future."
- Word Bearers considering whether to kill the 11th Primarch before he grew to maturity.
Conjecture:
1. Space Wolves were set on either the 11th or the 2nd (Not both) but considering this one was the shameful one, I'm going to say the Space Wolves eliminated this Legion.
2. Both the Blood Angels and Thousand Sons worried about a Space Wolf sanction due to a gene-seed flaw. Therefore, putting two and two together, I believe the 11th Legion had an unacceptable gene-seed flaw, perhaps one that even the Primarch suffered and had to be eliminated because of it.

2nd Legion (The Lost) -
What we know: Ended up disbanded and survivors integrated with the Ultramarines. Proof -
"The Thirteenth definitely swelled to eclipse all the other Legions around the time the Second and Eleventh were 'forgotten' by Imperial archives."
- More Word Bearer talk.
(Considering that the 11th was most likely destroyed in its entirety, the swelled numbers must have come from the Second.)
Conjecture:
1. 2nd Primarch was never found (the Lost). I believe the 2nd Primarch is Sigmar, stuck on a world somewhere in the middle of an impenetrable Warp Storm.
2. Therefore his legion was probably peacefully reintegrated into the Ultramarines.


Just my 2 pence.

The author of the passage where the Word Bearers talk about the XIII consuming another legion has confirmed that it's merely hearsay among the Word Bearers, and the Ultramarines are so big because of Guilliman being so good at logistics. He has at least one entire planet dedicated purely to training recruits, and 500 worlds to recruit from. THAT'S the reason there are so many Ultramarines, not the integration of another Legion.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
The author of the passage where the Word Bearers talk about the XIII consuming another legion has confirmed that it's merely hearsay among the Word Bearers, and the Ultramarines are so big because of Guilliman being so good at logistics. He has at least one entire planet dedicated purely to training recruits, and 500 worlds to recruit from. THAT'S the reason there are so many Ultramarines, not the integration of another Legion.

Guiliman may have done that, but there was a big boost in there numbers when one if the legions was disbanded, of course, being the IoM they won't confirm if that is what happened.

2BlackJack1 wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
The author of the passage where the Word Bearers talk about the XIII consuming another legion has confirmed that it's merely hearsay among the Word Bearers, and the Ultramarines are so big because of Guilliman being so good at logistics. He has at least one entire planet dedicated purely to training recruits, and 500 worlds to recruit from. THAT'S the reason there are so many Ultramarines, not the integration of another Legion.

Guiliman may have done that, but there was a big boost in there numbers when one if the legions was disbanded, of course, being the IoM they won't confirm if that is what happened.

Aaron Dembski -Bowden has confirmed it. He wrote the book, he knows what he meant.

but that wouldn't explain how the ultramarines are able to produce and sustain that much gene seed. That's enough gene seed to eclipse all of the other chapters combined... They make up like 51% of all space marines.

 GKTiberius wrote:
but that wouldn't explain how the ultramarines are able to produce and sustain that much gene seed. That's enough gene seed to eclipse all of the other chapters combined... They make up like 51% of all space marines.

That's only in 40k, in 30k they were large but certainly not responsible for the kind of numerical dominance they are "now".

 Orblivion wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
but that wouldn't explain how the ultramarines are able to produce and sustain that much gene seed. That's enough gene seed to eclipse all of the other chapters combined... They make up like 51% of all space marines.

That's only in 40k, in 30k they were large but certainly not responsible for the kind of numerical dominance they are "now".

Each successful space marine has a progenoid gland, that once mature can be harvested from living or dead marines by the apothecaries. So, the more marines you have, the more progenoid glands you can harvest. Now, the progenoid glands can be used to create new gene seed, whilst an exact number isn't given for how many you can make, it is implied it is more than one.

So now lets add that to the UM's, they had one of the most logistically efficient commanders in the era, who dedicated a lot of time and resources into new recruits, multiply that with the UM's having arguably the most stable gene seed in that era also, and finally, the fact that marines create more gene seed. A x B x C is the reason why they have so many marines.

Otto Weston wrote:
2nd Legion (The Lost) -
What we know: Ended up disbanded and survivors integrated with the Ultramarines. Proof -
[color=violet]"The Thirteenth definitely swelled to eclipse all the other Legions around the time the Second and Eleventh were 'forgotten' by Imperial archives."

Even ADB has said this was just the conjecture of a few Word Bearers, and that he never thought people would read that far into it, lol.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orblivion wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
but that wouldn't explain how the ultramarines are able to produce and sustain that much gene seed. That's enough gene seed to eclipse all of the other chapters combined... They make up like 51% of all space marines.

That's only in 40k, in 30k they were large but certainly not responsible for the kind of numerical dominance they are "now".

Nope. But you're both wrong, technically.

The Ultramarines swelled to be over half the total Space Marines after the Heresy. And that was because all the other Legions were mangled by the fighting, and the Ultramarines had a far more efficient recruitment pipeline. So during the Scouring, after the BA/IF/WS were beaten to a pulp at Terra, and the SW had beaten themselves to a pulp on Prospero, and the Dark Angels had just beaten themselves to a pulp, period, and the IF/Sa/RG had been beaten to a pulp at Istvaan, it was at that time that the Ultramarines, who were comparatively untouched, and bigger to start with, were over half the Space Marines.

They were not, however, over half the Space Marines before the Heresy. They were just the largest Legion.


People really overlook this part of the Horus Heresy. It pretty much killed the gak out of everybody, and probably reduced many of the Legions, both loyal and traitor to 20, or even 10% of their prewar strengths.

Think about it: Istvaan III: Four legions kill off all their loyalists.
Istvaan V: Three Legions basically destroyed.
Calth: Half the Word Bearers destroyed, a good third of the Ultramarines destroyed.
Caliban: Half the Dark Angels destroyed.
Prospero: Almost all the Thousand Sonds destroyed, large chunk of the Space Wolves destroyed.

Then, after all that, there's a huge battle over the most heavily fortified planet in the galaxy, resulting in a two month long pitched battle, and a total rout of the Traitor forces at the end. But, in the mean time, there were 8 traitor legions and only 3 loyal ones present. You have to assume that all of the forces at Terra were probably pulverized.

Why? Because at some point, the Ultramarines were "over half" the remaining Space Marines. And the Traitors were so badly beaten they had to run away in a disorganized rout, meaning that there were definitely less Traitors than Loyalists who survived the Heresy. And they had all lost their home worlds, so they weren't able to recruit new Marines like the Ultramarines could.

How am I wrong then? All I was saying is that GKTiberius' counter argument to Buca was in reference to 40k numbers, while Buca's point was in reference to 30k numbers.

i didn't know that the progenoid glands produced multiple geneseed "stem cells", but that does make sense.

So far, i am subscribing to the lost and the forgotten theory. but the question to me is, what flaw would the forgotten have had to produce such a violent and totalitarian response?

It really could have just been Chaos mutation. The Emperor would not have admitted it as such, and would have just told the other primarchs that something went wrong with the geneseed.

But other primarch had mutations, or irreversible problems or situations. Sanguinious, Magnus (depending on what fluff you read) Ferrus (contaminated with necrodermis), Angron (butchers nails), Mortarion (Had to breathe at least a little of the poison gasses from his own planet), russ (the canis helix which almost condemned the space wolves). So short of some sort of mutigenic spawn situation (and even then the Thousand sons dealt with this to a lesser extent) it would have to have been something that would just make them non functional, and been so pervasive that it was prohibitive to create more beyond first founding.

I'm not talking about incidental Chaos mutation. I mean they could have pledged themselves to Chaos and their bodies had been corrupted. The Emperor had them annihilated and told the other primarchs that it was a geneseed flaw, then purged any and all remaining genetic material. Either to "prove" his story or out of spite, or both.

oh, I see. yea, that is plausible.

Wouldn't the chaos gods have realised the relevance of such a strong being falling to chaos and done anything and everything possible to keep them alive and/or hidden from the big E? Also, there is the whole they can resurrect whoever they please thing if they are a follower?

Obviously, if the E did his whole Horus totally destroying the soul trick then they would be dead.

Lastly though, it points back to my original comment, I don't care how loyal Horus was or any other primarch, if there were rumours any of them fell to chaos I cannot see the Emperor not taking it 100% seriously if others had already fallen, especially to chaos.

I always thought Be’lakor was one of the missing primarchs.
It takes a truly exceptional individual to reach daemon prince status and even more so for an undivided daemon prince, especially when you consider the fact that Lorgar and Perturabo are the only other known undivided daemon princes. To my knowledge, anyway.
If you consider that the birth of Slaanesh happened just a few hundred years before the events of the Horus Heresy, there’s a very small window of time between the possibility of the four gods elevating the very first mortal champion (as Be’lakor is referred to as “the first of his kind”) and Lorgar’s and Perturabo’s ascension at the end of the heresy.
I think Emperor went down to Planet X at some point during the Great Crusade, saw what had happened to his “lost” son and went “Oh, hell nah,” deleted ALL records, put Russ and his boys on the susceptible legion, and swore all the primarchs (if any were even present) to never speak of it. Ever. No clue about the other primarch though.
Of course, this is Chaos and 25 years of conflicting connect-the-dots lore we’re dealing with here. Probably not a whole lot of merit to it, but it’s my headcanon theory.

 tweber92 wrote:
I always thought Be’lakor was one of the missing primarchs.
It takes a truly exceptional individual to reach daemon prince status and even more so for an undivided daemon prince, especially when you consider the fact that Lorgar and Perturabo are the only other known undivided daemon princes. To my knowledge, anyway.
If you consider that the birth of Slaanesh happened just a few hundred years before the events of the Horus Heresy, there’s a very small window of time between the possibility of the four gods elevating the very first mortal champion (as Be’lakor is referred to as “the first of his kind”) and Lorgar’s and Perturabo’s ascension at the end of the heresy.
I think Emperor went down to Planet X at some point during the Great Crusade, saw what had happened to his “lost” son and went “Oh, hell nah,” deleted ALL records, put Russ and his boys on the susceptible legion, and swore all the primarchs (if any were even present) to never speak of it. Ever. No clue about the other primarch though.
Of course, this is Chaos and 25 years of conflicting connect-the-dots lore we’re dealing with here. Probably not a whole lot of merit to it, but it’s my headcanon theory.

Be'lakor predates the primarchs. He is undivided with no slaanesh

 Orblivion wrote:
It really could have just been Chaos mutation. The Emperor would not have admitted it as such, and would have just told the other primarchs that something went wrong with the geneseed.

Because 30K is perhaps the most significant reason why the Ultramarines are so dominant now. Just not for the reasons he stated.

 GKTiberius wrote:
but that wouldn't explain how the ultramarines are able to produce and sustain that much gene seed. That's enough gene seed to eclipse all of the other chapters combined... They make up like 51% of all space marines.

60% of all modern (that is, M41) Chapters are UM descendants.

In the time of the Great Crusade, the UM had the most-stable of all the geneseed available, and Mars was producing it at a record rate. They weren't relying on previous generations of Space Marines to produce it, nor was there a codified limit to the number of Space Marines that could be in a Legion, simply a limit placed by logistics.

The UM told Mars "Hey, we got enough guys to field, like, another forty thousand. Send us some more gene-seed so we can get started" and Mars was like "Ok, here you go."

 GKTiberius wrote:
Originally, the story was intended to facilitate the player creating one of the two lost legions themselves. Bu that fell by the wayside after the RT editions, and they have never reinstated the fluff. What doesn't make sense to me, is if half of the primarch fall traitor and rebel, what did the other two do that was o bad that they cant be spoken of. Horus literally destroyed everything the GC worked for and even laid the Emperor low after being responsible in one form or another for the deaths of no less than 2 primarchs, what could be worse than that?

This.

But i think it's important to keep that story element; partly because of the 'mystery' aspect for the deeper storyline of the primarchs+emperor, but mostly for keeping a trace of it's roots in the fluff - and those glorious days you were encouraged to create your own chapter and maybe, just maybe it might become 'chapter approved' in WD.

Good times.

 Psienesis wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
but that wouldn't explain how the ultramarines are able to produce and sustain that much gene seed. That's enough gene seed to eclipse all of the other chapters combined... They make up like 51% of all space marines.

60% of all modern (that is, M41) Chapters are UM descendants.

In the time of the Great Crusade, the UM had the most-stable of all the geneseed available, and Mars was producing it at a record rate. They weren't relying on previous generations of Space Marines to produce it, nor was there a codified limit to the number of Space Marines that could be in a Legion, simply a limit placed by logistics.

The UM told Mars "Hey, we got enough guys to field, like, another forty thousand. Send us some more gene-seed so we can get started" and Mars was like "Ok, here you go."

Seems like the implication has been that the Legions weren't even tithing much of their geneseed to the AdMech in the first place. So they weren't even asking the AdMech at all. The progenoids and geneseed recovery was still the same.

The Codex was what demanded that geneseed be tested and regulated by the AdMech. In fact, that was the biggest part of the Codex Astartes; making sure that all the substandard Legion-building practices were wiped out.

But you're right that it's more than 60% (latest codex actually says 2/3rds again). "Just over half" was at the end of the Scouring when the Legions were broken up. However, the distribution has slowly changed as the Ultramarines geneseed has remained the favorite for new chapters.

Hey, vanilla remains the most-popular flavor of ice cream, too, for, like, decades running. There must be something to the power of bland.

However, since (in the time of the GC) the gene-seed creating the Astartes Legions started out in a lab on Terra, there had to be some sort of repository *somewhere* responsible for the cultivation and continued creation of it. The UM didn't just spring up out of the ground. Perhaps it was kept on Mars, perhaps it was kept on the recruiting worlds, or the Primarch's "homeworld" or somewhere else, but in the end, it doesn't really matter... fact was, the UM didn't need to absorb another Legion to become as large as they did, they had more than sufficient recruiting worlds and gene-seed stores to supply themselves.

It's possible that the Primarchs were dead and that they struck them and the legions from record to instill future generations of their gene-seed holders would be loyal to their new masters like they were of the same stock because they wouldn't know. It's possible no one destroyed them.

Nope - we already know that ALL 20 (21) Primarchs were found and known, and that the Never To Be Spoken of Again Two did something so horrible - more horrible than rebelling against the Emperor and the Imperium of Man and dooming all of humanity to an eternity of horror - that we can't know anyhting about them, ever,

Until GW/BL/FW need that cash injection!

They must have been xeno lovers I guess. That is the only thing that big E would consider worse than chaos. Hell even chaos purges xenos still and well they're chaos.

Either that or they beat the emperor in one his challenges and demanded he serve them.

Speculation is a little bit pointless. GW obviously doesn't want us to know, because it's one of the few truly mysterious things left in the series.

 Alpharius wrote:
Nope - we already know that ALL 20 (21) Primarchs were found and known, and that the Never To Be Spoken of Again Two did something so horrible - more horrible than rebelling against the Emperor and the Imperium of Man and dooming all of humanity to an eternity of horror - that we can't know anyhting about them, ever,

Until GW/BL/FW need that cash injection!

They kind of wrote themselves in to a corner. Though to be fair I don't think it has to be worse than rebelling from the imperium or turning to chaos and rebelling. They try pretty hard to keep all knowledge of traitor marines secret as well, but when 9 of the 18 remaining legions rebel you can't exactly just "expunge" that from history immediately and they've had difficult over time because chaos marines keep showing up and the sightings and destruction continue the myth