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 Gert wrote:

The Ultramarines had the largest number of Second Founding Successors because they had the numbers to do so. Every other Legion had taken brutal losses throughout the Heresy leaving the Ultramarines and Guilliman in the prime position to take charge of crafting the new order. They started off very strong and that just continued. If the Imperial Fists or Dark Angels had been in the same situation (i.e. not having a battered Legion or a missing Primarch) then they would have come closer to matching the Ultramarines in terms of Successors.

What that also means is that the sample size of Ultramarine geneseed is an order of magnitude larger, and has progressed through more generations, which highlights its stability.

That's why the argument for the Dark Angels doesn't quite work. How can one assert that their seed is more stable when it is used so seldom? That's like saying "this car model is the most reliable ever, with less than a 10% breakdown rate" when only 100 of them have been made.

Meanwhile, this other model is posting similar numbers with production totals in the millions.

And I agree that traitor geneseed purity is kind of a moot point. It's sort of like arguing which Austro-Hungarian battleship would fare best against Exocet missiles - an amusing intellectual exercise but one devoid of practical application.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Voss wrote:
Pure 'whiny emo Twilight vampires kill your friends and loved ones, drink the blood of the tainted and impure and psychically vulnerable to influences from thousands of years ago' perhaps. But not 'BAMF'
They lost that when the ghoul legion met Sanguinius.

Seriously though, for a single bit, wasn't Sanguinius the MOST pure of all the primarchs? I thought he was literally considered flawless, or was that just his physical form? Also, we might also go out on a limb here and point out the greatest space marines come from BA stock. Even excluding Dante, Mephy is something of a singularly powerful entity that is unmatched by peers.

Not sure why you think that wasn't serious. But...

Absolutely not. Sanguinius was a mutant. His obvious impurity was a _problem_, even pre-heresy, with special dispensation for Baal to even continue existing.
The Red Thirst was a pre-existing problem prior to his death or any sort of corruptive influence from outside, deriving solely from Sangunius and his geneseed.


As for mephiston... he's a vampire. Quite seriously, he was the WFB Vampire Lord profile just stuffed into 40k. He 'mastered' the black rage by becoming something worse.

The BA are monsters-in-waiting. Whether they fall to khorne, to their own rage, to their primarch's psychic death scream or their need to drink blood, they're completely and totally flawed. While most loyalists fall prey to some sort of chapter-dependent mono-mania, BA have it by far the worst. The one's who hit the black rage and don't die become monstrosities, locked up underneath the fortress-monastery.

Voss wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Voss wrote:
Pure 'whiny emo Twilight vampires kill your friends and loved ones, drink the blood of the tainted and impure and psychically vulnerable to influences from thousands of years ago' perhaps. But not 'BAMF'
They lost that when the ghoul legion met Sanguinius.

Seriously though, for a single bit, wasn't Sanguinius the MOST pure of all the primarchs? I thought he was literally considered flawless, or was that just his physical form? Also, we might also go out on a limb here and point out the greatest space marines come from BA stock. Even excluding Dante, Mephy is something of a singularly powerful entity that is unmatched by peers.

Not sure why you think that wasn't serious. But...

Absolutely not. Sanguinius was a mutant. His obvious impurity was a _problem_, even pre-heresy, with special dispensation for Baal to even continue existing.
The Red Thirst was a pre-existing problem prior to his death or any sort of corruptive influence from outside, deriving solely from Sangunius and his geneseed.


As for mephiston... he's a vampire. Quite seriously, he was the WFB Vampire Lord profile just stuffed into 40k. He 'mastered' the black rage by becoming something worse.

The BA are monsters-in-waiting. Whether they fall to khorne, to their own rage, to their primarch's psychic death scream or their need to drink blood, they're completely and totally flawed. While most loyalists fall prey to some sort of chapter-dependent mono-mania, BA have it by far the worst. The one's who hit the black rage and don't die become monstrosities, locked up underneath the fortress-monastery.

On the other hand, BA geneseed is renowned for being able to turn even wretchedly mutated, irradiated wasteland dregs into beautiful and healthy specimens of Space Marine, to an extent that they can source aspirants from populations that would be of no use to other chapters.

If your measuring stability you need to look how regular the gene seed performs as expected and how often it deviates from the norm.

I’d argue that 90% of the salamanders having coal black skin and yellow (is it yellow) eyes show’s incredible stability and only those marines that don’t have this are products of instability.

The same with BA, if their gene seed consistently produces 50% of marines succumbing to the black range then it is stab because it’s performing as expected

I also question the use of the word mutation when applied to many of the genetic traits of the astartes. Salamanders and space wolves, for example, inherited genetic traits of their primarchs. What was the base line that these genes mutated away from when each of the primarchs they were created from where so incredibly different on a genetic level

mrFickle wrote:
If your measuring stability you need to look how regular the gene seed performs as expected and how often it deviates from the norm.

I’d argue that 90% of the salamanders having coal black skin and yellow (is it yellow) eyes show’s incredible stability and only those marines that don’t have this are products of instability.

The same with BA, if their gene seed consistently produces 50% of marines succumbing to the black range then it is stab because it’s performing as expected

I also question the use of the word mutation when applied to many of the genetic traits of the astartes. Salamanders and space wolves, for example, inherited genetic traits of their primarchs. What was the base line that these genes mutated away from when each of the primarchs they were created from where so incredibly different on a genetic level

We should perhaps also not lose sight of the fact that that percentage table started out as a game mechanic in the context of the Deathwatch RPG, and that 'mutation' has a specific meaning in that context - it's the chance of a mutation as an in-game trait of a character, not 'mutation' in the wider sense that it has in the background.

I wonder if the dark angles have been using samples taken from el Johnson as he slumbers in order to keep the gene seed true to the original

Tsagualsa wrote:


We should perhaps also not lose sight of the fact that that percentage table started out as a game mechanic in the context of the Deathwatch RPG, and that 'mutation' has a specific meaning in that context - it's the chance of a mutation as an in-game trait of a character, not 'mutation' in the wider sense that it has in the background.

That's a good point. RPG characters are supposed to be different from everyone else - that's why they get their own stories.

The nature of the mutation is likewise important. If the conversion process produces completely predictable traits, that's not really a mutation, it's an expected outcome, just like all the other advantages in terms of healing, enhanced strength and senses.

In this context, Ultramarines are truly "vanilla," having no other noteworthy markers like fangs or yellow eyes or such. This would doubtless be another reason for their popularity in propagating new chapters.

The Salamanders have only one rumoured successor chapter (The Black Dragons), who also exhibit signs of mutation.

So I think it's reasonable to assume that their geneseed is not particulary stable when used to create new chapters.

 Kroem wrote:
The Salamanders have only one rumoured successor chapter (The Black Dragons), who also exhibit signs of mutation.

So I think it's reasonable to assume that their geneseed is not particulary stable when used to create new chapters.

Black Dragons are Cursed Founding though so they’ve had weird things done with their geneseed. Might not even be from a single original primarch.

I think we need to talk about the difference between "pure" and "stable".
Pure geneseed is going to be closer in genetics to the Primarch that it was created from, so if you had an Emperor's Children Astartes with geneseed created directly from the source, Fulgrim, the chances of that Astartes having white hair and being beautiful are quite high. However, this also means that they are going to get a much more profound effect from any mutations the geneseed may have, for example, a Blood Angel might gain the visage of Sanguinius but would also feel the pull of the Red Thirst far more strongly than other Astartes.
Stable geneseed isn't necessarily going to be as genetically pure. The geneseed of the Ultramarines for example is extremely stable but it's rare for those of Guilliman's lineage to become similar if not identical to their Primarch, unlike the Blood Angels and to a degree the Space Wolves. It works but doesn't have the same potency as Chapters that have purer geneseed.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
What that also means is that the sample size of Ultramarine geneseed is an order of magnitude larger, and has progressed through more generations, which highlights its stability.

Stability yes but that isn't the same as purity.

That's why the argument for the Dark Angels doesn't quite work. How can one assert that their seed is more stable when it is used so seldom? That's like saying "this car model is the most reliable ever, with less than a 10% breakdown rate" when only 100 of them have been made.

That's not how genetics works. Successive generations of Astartes using Ultramarines geneseed will be less "pure" over time due to the mixing of DNA with many different Astartes hosts for the geneseed over the years but the stability of the genessed will be roughly the same. The Successors of the Blood Angels often have many similar physical traits such as blonde hair or physical beauty but the Successors of the Ultramarines don't really have any defining features in common outside of a similar culture in some cases.
The Dark Angels having pure geneseed is likely a result of its lack of use, in the same way that the Space Wolves' geneseed is very pure albeit not stable. The High Lord's choice to not use the Dark Angels or other Unforgiven to spawn more Chapters is due to a distrust of them rather than poor geneseed quality.

Excellent point, Gert.

I'd also note that the HH series heavily implies, if not outright states, that the Primarch and Legions were intentionally created to be slightly different from one another, with particular purposes intended for each. With that borne in mind, it's difficult to assess the relative purity and stability by comparing one Legion with another.

Some geneseed seems to effectively over-write the host's genetic code, giving the host a completely different appearance (e.g. Emperor's Children, Blood Angels, while others seem to affect appearance only in the sense that the owner is larger/bulkier than they might otherwise expect to have been (e.g. Ultramarines, Iron Warriors). Is this a measure of purity or stability? Possibly – but it rather depends what was intended by the Emperor and his genewrights.

Compare this with the Salamanders or Raven Guard: the skin of recipients of these geneseeds are very markedly and obviously affected – but how much is this intentional, and how much is it down to a failure of one or more organs? If we assume that the effects are intentional, we might expect other aspects of the recipients' genecode to be overridden (as with the III or IX), leaving the Marines looking very similar to one another in all aspects of their appearance... but not only does that not seem to be the case, we can't even compare like with like.

Basically, in the absence of a 'neutral' geneseed, I think it's difficult to assert that a particular effect is intended, or a result of impurity or stability.

Other than the X Legion chapters (who lost their Primarch very early in the Heresy), for the First/Second founding chapters there shouldn’t be that much systematic difference wrt the purity as they all had the same starting point of one of the Legions with direct access to the Primarch and the same 10,000 years drift.

Maybe a bit less for I and IX Legion chapters who had to quickly rebuild from the immediate Heresy aftermath sans Primarch?

Later foundings will be potentially less pure as we know the AM do sometimes mess around with it when founding a new chapter.

As others have said though, that’s a different thing to stability. Even pre Heresy some of the gene seeds were highly unstable and there was significant variations in effect between Legions (by design it seems).

This got me thinking more broadly about gene-seed, so I had a dig through old stuff.

Firstly, the term 'gene-seed' seems to be used in various ways in various places. In the original article on creating Space Marines (reproduced in the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium), it has a very specific and quite limited meaning: the zygote of a particular organ – so, for example, the Ultramarines Legion would have nineteen separate gene-seeds, one for each organ.

The Compendium goes on to state:

Most chapters have existed for thousands of years. During that time, gene-seed belonging to some chapters has mutated. This has resulted in changes in the exact nature of the artificially-cultured organs. Such changes may sometimes make an implant useless. in other circumstances changes in an organ might reduce effectiveness or cause new and strange effects. [...] As well as mutant implants, many chapters have lost one or more types of gene-seed due to accident, genetic failure, or some other cause. Very few chapters therefore possess all nineteen implants.

Examples of this are the Imperial Fists Chapter, who lack the Betcher's Gland and Sus-An membrane – and hence would have only seventeen implants. The Salamanders might have nineteen, but with a mutation in the melanochrome.

How does this relate to purity? The article goes on:

Although the chapter's Apothacaries [sic] and surgeons are able to perform the necessary implant operations, they do not necessarily understand the exact functioning of each organ. The processes involved are incredibly ancient. Procedures are handed down from generation to generation, becoming increasingly ritualised and misinterpreted. For these reasons, the efficiency of each organ differs from chapter to chapter, depending on the condition of that chapter's gene-seeds and the degree of debasement.

My emphasis – and one interpretation of this is that the gene-seeds are all stable; and it's their mishandling or poor decision-making that largely accounts for the big differences we see between Chapters. Whether this applies to the Legions, where the procedures are at least new – though not necessary better understood by the Legion apothecaries – is a moot point.

The reason I flag that is that the info we're given on the gene-seed in the HH series implies that it was largely back-developed from the Primarchs, and was further modified after the Age of Unification by the Selenite Gene-Cults. While the latter understood things, it's by no means certain that the Imperium did, even from the outset – so it's possible that all the apparent 'natural' mutation, variance or degradation is a result of poor practice, rather than inherent instability. In other words, the Ultramarines and Word Bearers might simply have been better at following orders than (say) the Space Wolves.

Of course, while this is certainly the background lore that informed the Horus Heresy authors; authorial fiat rules all: it's likely that the writers have developed and adjusted the details; but I thought it would be interesting anyway. I for one had come to think of 'geneseed' as a catch-all term for 'genetic material', when it's got a very specific meaning.


+++

To answer Mad Doc Grotsnik's question:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:That’s because Geneseed is finite, and a bit of a pain to replace. Though I’m still not entirely convinced post-mortem harvesting is the only way it’s obtained, as I can’t see, and am not aware of, any reason why once a Progenoid Gland has matured it wouldn’t be removed aboard ship between actions. Unless of course the Progenoid Gland serves other purposes -perhaps aiding in keeping the various hormones and other chemical goodness balanced?

You're right, post-mortem harvesting is not the only way it's obtained – in fact, it's more routine for it to happen relatively early in a Marine's career (this was why survival-focussed Veterans were used as sergeants for Scouts).

The Warhammer 40,000 Compendium covers this:

Phase 18 – Progenoids. There are two of these glands, one situated in the neck, the other deep within the chest cavity. These glands are important to the survival of the Marine's chapter. Each organ grows within the Marine, absorbing hormonal stimuli and genetic material from the other implants. After five years, the neck gland is mature and ready for removal. After ten years the chest gland becomes mature and is also ready for removal. A gland may be remove anytime after it has matured.[...]These glands represent a chapter's only source of gene-seed. When mature, each gland contains a single gene-seed corresponding to each zygote implanted into a recipient Marine. Once removed by surgery, the progenoid must be carefully prepared, its individual gene-seeds checked for mutation and sound gene-seeds stored.

In terms of progenoids regrowing, it's implied, but not stated, that the glands are removed and that's it:

Gene-seed can only be obtained by removing one or both progenoid organs from a living (or very recently deceased) Marine. The whole purpose of the progenoid organ is to provide gene-seed to enable the chapter to continue. It is not possible to create a zygote in any other way.

I take the above statement to mean that you will only ever get two gene-seeds from a marine, since each gland produces only one gene-seed for a new progenoid gland, and there's no other way of producing progenoid glands. It's the latter bit, along with the continual emphasis on how precious the progenoids are, which heavily implies they don't regrow. After all, if Marines can have them removed every five or ten years, a veteran would produce dozens. Later statements like 'As each Marine has only two progenoid glands, the rate at which a chapter can create new Marines is restricted.'

 Apologist wrote:
This got me thinking more broadly about gene-seed, so I had a dig through old stuff.

Firstly, the term 'gene-seed' seems to be used in various ways in various places. In the original article on creating Space Marines (reproduced in the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium), it has a very specific and quite limited meaning: the zygote of a particular organ – so, for example, the Ultramarines Legion would have nineteen separate gene-seeds, one for each organ.

The Compendium goes on to state:

Most chapters have existed for thousands of years. During that time, gene-seed belonging to some chapters has mutated. This has resulted in changes in the exact nature of the artificially-cultured organs. Such changes may sometimes make an implant useless. in other circumstances changes in an organ might reduce effectiveness or cause new and strange effects. [...] As well as mutant implants, many chapters have lost one or more types of gene-seed due to accident, genetic failure, or some other cause. Very few chapters therefore possess all nineteen implants.

Examples of this are the Imperial Fists Chapter, who lack the Betcher's Gland and Sus-An membrane – and hence would have only seventeen implants. The Salamanders might have nineteen, but with a mutation in the melanochrome.

How does this relate to purity? The article goes on:

Although the chapter's Apothacaries [sic] and surgeons are able to perform the necessary implant operations, they do not necessarily understand the exact functioning of each organ. The processes involved are incredibly ancient. Procedures are handed down from generation to generation, becoming increasingly ritualised and misinterpreted. For these reasons, the efficiency of each organ differs from chapter to chapter, depending on the condition of that chapter's gene-seeds and the degree of debasement.

My emphasis – and one interpretation of this is that the gene-seeds are all stable; and it's their mishandling or poor decision-making that largely accounts for the big differences we see between Chapters. Whether this applies to the Legions, where the procedures are at least new – though not necessary better understood by the Legion apothecaries – is a moot point.

The reason I flag that is that the info we're given on the gene-seed in the HH series implies that it was largely back-developed from the Primarchs, and was further modified after the Age of Unification by the Selenite Gene-Cults. While the latter understood things, it's by no means certain that the Imperium did, even from the outset – so it's possible that all the apparent 'natural' mutation, variance or degradation is a result of poor practice, rather than inherent instability. In other words, the Ultramarines and Word Bearers might simply have been better at following orders than (say) the Space Wolves.

Of course, while this is certainly the background lore that informed the Horus Heresy authors; authorial fiat rules all: it's likely that the writers have developed and adjusted the details; but I thought it would be interesting anyway. I for one had come to think of 'geneseed' as a catch-all term for 'genetic material', when it's got a very specific meaning.


+++

To answer Mad Doc Grotsnik's question:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:That’s because Geneseed is finite, and a bit of a pain to replace. Though I’m still not entirely convinced post-mortem harvesting is the only way it’s obtained, as I can’t see, and am not aware of, any reason why once a Progenoid Gland has matured it wouldn’t be removed aboard ship between actions. Unless of course the Progenoid Gland serves other purposes -perhaps aiding in keeping the various hormones and other chemical goodness balanced?

You're right, post-mortem harvesting is not the only way it's obtained – in fact, it's more routine for it to happen relatively early in a Marine's career (this was why survival-focussed Veterans were used as sergeants for Scouts).

The Warhammer 40,000 Compendium covers this:

Phase 18 – Progenoids. There are two of these glands, one situated in the neck, the other deep within the chest cavity. These glands are important to the survival of the Marine's chapter. Each organ grows within the Marine, absorbing hormonal stimuli and genetic material from the other implants. After five years, the neck gland is mature and ready for removal. After ten years the chest gland becomes mature and is also ready for removal. A gland may be remove anytime after it has matured.[...]These glands represent a chapter's only source of gene-seed. When mature, each gland contains a single gene-seed corresponding to each zygote implanted into a recipient Marine. Once removed by surgery, the progenoid must be carefully prepared, its individual gene-seeds checked for mutation and sound gene-seeds stored.

In terms of progenoids regrowing, it's implied, but not stated, that the glands are removed and that's it:

Gene-seed can only be obtained by removing one or both progenoid organs from a living (or very recently deceased) Marine. The whole purpose of the progenoid organ is to provide gene-seed to enable the chapter to continue. It is not possible to create a zygote in any other way.

I take the above statement to mean that you will only ever get two gene-seeds from a marine, since each gland produces only one gene-seed for a new progenoid gland, and there's no other way of producing progenoid glands. It's the latter bit, along with the continual emphasis on how precious the progenoids are, which heavily implies they don't regrow. After all, if Marines can have them removed every five or ten years, a veteran would produce dozens. Later statements like 'As each Marine has only tow progenoid glands, the rate at which a chapter can create new Marines is restricted.'

I always found it quite sensible to do a very slight mental adjustment and just say that each Progenoid gland contains the seed for two new sets of implants, i.e. that each fully-matured marine can have up to four total 'offspring' - otherwise between irretrievable combat losses, failures in implantation, failure to mature, corruption, tithes, necessary stockpiling etc. it beggars belief that the marines can even sustain their numbers, let alone expand existing chapters or found new ones. With that slight adjustment, you have ample space for all that while the total loss of e.g. a fully-packed thunderhawk or boarding torpedo is still a major calamity for a chapter that would have them go to considerable lenghts to reclaim the wreckage and possibly the geneseed.

On the mutations of the Salamander's geneseed, it's only the Nocturnian variety that has them. If one took the geneseed of the 18th Legion prior to the rediscovery of Vulkan, it would not have had the mutations caused by the radiation present on Nocturne and Prometheus. The Astartes created with this geneseed would not have the coal skin or the firey eyes of those created after Vulkan's rediscovery and the integration of Nocturnian recruits.
So in theory, there is nothing wrong with the geneseed taken from Vulkan's DNA until it gets blasted with a lifetime of radiation from living on the Salamander's home world.

 Gert wrote:
On the mutations of the Salamander's geneseed, it's only the Nocturnian variety that has them. If one took the geneseed of the 18th Legion prior to the rediscovery of Vulkan, it would not have had the mutations caused by the radiation present on Nocturne and Prometheus. The Astartes created with this geneseed would not have the coal skin or the firey eyes of those created after Vulkan's rediscovery and the integration of Nocturnian recruits.
So in theory, there is nothing wrong with the geneseed taken from Vulkan's DNA until it gets blasted with a lifetime of radiation from living on the Salamander's home world.

Similarily, the effect of the Canis Helix in Space Wolves seems to be at least linked to the specifics of Fenrisian genestock, at least according to some of the novels.

Fenrisians are more capable of suppressing the mutations of the Canis Helix. The brutal life that the people of Fenris endure endows them with higher-than-normal resilience and ferocity which seemingly allow them to be inducted with fewer issues than people from other worlds. This was even known to the Imperium and when Fenris was discovered and Russ integrated with his Legion, the planet was actually terraformed to make it even more deadly to human life and barbarian tribes from other death worlds were imported in to artificially increase the population. Its superstitions were encouraged rather than suppressed in order to continue the experiment that was the 6th Legion. The Wolves that emerged during the Crusade were as much a product of Imperial meddling as they were Fenris and Russ.
The Wolves first attempt at creating Successors was a disaster and the Wolf Brothers were disbanded shortly after their creation, with Russ himself spiriting them away before agents of the Imperium could have them killed. With Cawl's Primaris there are now at least three Successors descended from the 6th Legion's lineage. They still suffer the effects of the Canis Helix but Cawl's tinkering meant that it was less pronounced in most cases but for some, it drastically increased the effects of the mutations.

 Gert wrote:
Fenrisians are more capable of suppressing the mutations of the Canis Helix. The brutal life that the people of Fenris endure endows them with higher-than-normal resilience and ferocity which seemingly allow them to be inducted with fewer issues than people from other worlds. This was even known to the Imperium and when Fenris was discovered and Russ integrated with his Legion, the planet was actually terraformed to make it even more deadly to human life and barbarian tribes from other death worlds were imported in to artificially increase the population. Its superstitions were encouraged rather than suppressed in order to continue the experiment that was the 6th Legion. The Wolves that emerged during the Crusade were as much a product of Imperial meddling as they were Fenris and Russ.
The Wolves first attempt at creating Successors was a disaster and the Wolf Brothers were disbanded shortly after their creation, with Russ himself spiriting them away before agents of the Imperium could have them killed. With Cawl's Primaris there are now at least three Successors descended from the 6th Legion's lineage. They still suffer the effects of the Canis Helix but Cawl's tinkering meant that it was less pronounced in most cases but for some, it drastically increased the effects of the mutations.

There was an implicit suggestion in Abnett’s HH books (mostly Prospero Burns but also some others) as well as the novel Battle for the Fang that the Fenrisian population had some sort of genetic tinkering that messed up the geneseed somehow and that’s why it now only works properly on Fenrisians (pre Primaris). This is linked to the whole ‘there are no wolves on Fenris’ thing.

In Battle for the Fang a team of Wolf Priests were working on resolving the issue and were seemingly close to doing so before Magnus invaded, trashed the project, and killed everyone involved in it as partial revenge for Prospero.

Presumably Cawl either had geneseed samples directly from Russ to use on Primaris that were untainted or he just fixed it given 10,000 years to work on the issue undisturbed and with much better facilities and knowledge than the Wolf Priests who nearly managed it.

Cawl had Primarch samples for certain, and access to at least some of whatever you’d call a blueprint for making Primarchs. Basically anything they managed to find/salvage from the original Primarch and Astartes projects.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cawl had Primarch samples for certain, and access to at least some of whatever you’d call a blueprint for making Primarchs. Basically anything they managed to find/salvage from the original Primarch and Astartes projects.

Cawl also has that MacGuffin from the moon that contains optimized stuff not even the Emperor himself could produce.

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Sangprimus_Portum

 Gert wrote:

That's not how genetics works. Successive generations of Astartes using Ultramarines geneseed will be less "pure" over time due to the mixing of DNA with many different Astartes hosts for the geneseed over the years but the stability of the genessed will be roughly the same.

That being the case, why is the topic even broached? I mean, there is a clear implication that geneseed is not equally stable, and that this can produce unacceptable levels of mutations.

My point regarding sample size also stands. It isn't enough to breed an animal that has one generation of desirable traits, the breed has to be stable enough (and viable enough) to survive through many generations. We see this in crops, livestock and pets.

It is possible that a geneseed produces the desired organs (and stat line!) but does so in a way that fundamentally weakens the marine's physiology, or creates a congenital weakness, like bad hips in some of the larger dog breeds.

The Ultramarine geneseed is clearly fairly bland - it produces no superlative effects, offers none of the surplus ferocity of the Blood Angels or Space Wolves, but it does create the expected gains toughness and - just as importantly - progenoid organ growth is also good.

They aren't particularly "pure" at this point, but that's also besides the point, because hybrid vitality has its own virtues. Indeed, the Ultramarine geneseed's ability to mesh with a variety of DNA and function as expected is a feature, not a bug. Yeah, it's neat if everyone who gets the jab ends up looking like a golden Adonis or the Wolfman, but that's not the point of the exercise.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:


As for the 8th Legion having "multiple mutations/organ deficiencies" to begin with: do you have a source for that? Because I've never seen it. All of the Night Lords implants work perfectly fine in the current time-line, so obviously they would have worked in the Heresy era. Same for mutations, as the majority of Legions had low instances of mutation in that time do to better methods and having access to their Primarchs. So, give me a source, or I'll just assume it's more of your "fan-fic" that you love throwing into your comments so much.

I'm gonna say he has no source for it. Though I too have never seen mention that they had mutations or problems with their implants. Unless he's trying to claim that the Eyes and their pyskers seemingly having a predilection for precognitive abilities is massive mutations.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
That being the case, why is the topic even broached? I mean, there is a clear implication that geneseed is not equally stable, and that this can produce unacceptable levels of mutations.

The OP wanted to know which Legion had the most stable and purest geneseed.

My point regarding sample size also stands. It isn't enough to breed an animal that has one generation of desirable traits, the breed has to be stable enough (and viable enough) to survive through many generations. We see this in crops, livestock and pets.

It is possible that a geneseed produces the desired organs (and stat line!) but does so in a way that fundamentally weakens the marine's physiology, or creates a congenital weakness, like bad hips in some of the larger dog breeds.

Ok but those examples are all about taking things with the desired traits and making sure they are bred into the genetics of the initial plant/animal. That isn't happening with the Ultramarines lineage.
I'll give an example:
Brother Lucian is of the Ultramarines Legion and has been selected to join the newly formed Aurora Chapter. Eventually, Lucian is killed and his geneseed passes onto the next Astartes. This process repeats itself for some time until the geneseed originally belonging to Lucian is sent to Mars to form part of the Aurora Chapter's geneseed reserve. It is then chosen to be used in the creation of a new Chapter during the Sixth Founding and it passes to Brother Scarn of the Star Blades. The same process as before proceeds until once again a new Chapter is formed from the Star Blades with the Astartes bearing Scarn's geneseed being one of it's founding members. This continues into M41 whereupon the geneseed originally implanted in Brother Lucian has been hosted by many Astartes from all over the galaxy. While Lucian likely bore a good resemblance to his Primarch, Brother Kerrin from the Honourbound in M41 likely looks nothing like Guilliman.
There are of course exceptions because genetics is fun like that and traits shared by previous geneseed hosts may crop up at any time.

The Ultramarine geneseed is clearly fairly bland - it produces no superlative effects, offers none of the surplus ferocity of the Blood Angels or Space Wolves, but it does create the expected gains toughness and - just as importantly - progenoid organ growth is also good.

They aren't particularly "pure" at this point, but that's also besides the point, because hybrid vitality has its own virtues. Indeed, the Ultramarine geneseed's ability to mesh with a variety of DNA and function as expected is a feature, not a bug. Yeah, it's neat if everyone who gets the jab ends up looking like a golden Adonis or the Wolfman, but that's not the point of the exercise.

The point of this specific exercise was the OP asking who had the purest and most stable geneseed. So actually having the discussion about the difference between purity and stability was very relevant to the question asked.
The answer to the question differs depending on which definition you want. Purity could mean a lack of abnormalities such as the Red Thirst or Curse of the Wulfen but it could also mean that which is most similar to the donor Primarch. Stability could mean which lineage has the lowest rejection rate but also mean which lineage retains its genetic traits such as the beautiful visage of the Blood Angels or the ashen skin of the Salamanders.

I figure a lot of later founding chapters in the Imperium are constantly undermanned, due to fewer geneseed in chapter vaults, less equipment to supply replacement warriors, and being under constant threat due to their placement in more hostile space (whereas first-founding chapters and many second-founding ones have likely consolidated their hold over their homeworld/protectorate worlds).

I do believe the Imperium have a more 'survival of the fittest' mentality when it comes to founding new chapters -- they are, after all, an asset with which they protect their holdings from enemies, and any asset is to be expanded when needed. The lost of say, a handful of chapters would be bad, but not irreplaceable when how the AdMech can mass produce them in less than a century. Compendium 1st edition page 9 states it took 55 years to produce 1000 healthy sets of organs -- though the wording makes it sound like they do so starting with one ‘test-slave', then implant the resulting two progenoids into two hosts, and so on and so forth. Which isn't impossible due to this being an exponential equation. If the AdMech removes both geneseeds as soon as possible, and having 100 vat-hosts/'test-slaves' implanted simultaneously, after 55 years and an obscene amount of bodies they can found 100 new chapters.

55 years in the scale of millennia isn't a long time really. Even given the equipment needed to be produced to outfit each new chapter to the bare minimum (around 900 or so power armour and 100 or so scout armours, bolt guns, some rhinos and such, plus bare minimum servitors and tools for manufactoring their own weapons and ammunitions. That's not really a lot, considering we are talking about dozens of forge worlds and industrial worlds across the galaxy being coordinated to do so.

Thus, it's probably seen as relatively painless to replace lost chapters in the long run by the High Lords. Sure it sucks to be on the council when you had to replace those losses, but when you are not the ones responsible, losing a couple chapters is just another tragedy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But per the title, I certainly think it was Ultramarine who has the purest gene-seed, I mean, did you all forget how the Ultramarines movie started? "They are more than mortal. They are steel, and they are doom. They are the champions of mankind. And the greatest of them all... are the Ultramarines."

The progenoid is listed as implanted.

So you take a mature "hollow" progenoid, and implant it in the neck. It regulates the rest of the implant process, and then it reacts to the presence of the other organs by creating "seeds".

A second progenoid grows in the chest, and it *also* reacts to the other organs by growing seeds.

The first is "ready" at 5 years. The second at 10. One presumes the duplicate progenoid forms in the first 5 years, and then proceeds to copy the organs.

Questions and comments:

Does the second progenoid form in the absence of the first? This would explain how it's simultaneously a seed and an implant.

This implies the progenoid itself is therefore re-useable and biologically immortal. The creation of the seeds and second progenoid is your opportunity for the subject's DNA to affect the gene-seed. There are fun implications here for things like the BAs, is it only progenoids that were "alive" at the death of Sanguinius that go Death Company, for instance?

Is there a further interplay between the organ implants and the progenoid that forms in the chest? Specifically, are the Carcharodons chimeric because they added, say, a NL sus-an membrane and black carapace to a Raven Guard progenoid, resulting in a "chimeric" second progenoid?

What happens if you mix organs of radically different genetations- a third generation oolitic kidney and a 29th generation Lyman's ear?

I've always wondered too if the implants were each derived primarily from a single Primarch, with the Progenoid itself being the primary from each father, leading to increased expression in each organ in its "perfectly matched" primarch. The Sons of Sanguinius and the Omophagea, for instance, or the Night Lords and the Occulobe.

As regards stability and purity, that has been addressed.

Can someone find an explanation of what "Pure and Stable" means as to Gene-seed? I thought in layman's terms, it was "ability to be compatible with the least amount of failures".

My kneejerk response is BA because they take genetically mutated "freaks" essentially from a heavily radiated moon, and make them into mini-sanguiniuses all over the place.

Then again, the Space wolves likely view their mutations as beneficial (Wulfen) so their instability might be a good thing in their eyes?

Again, I have very limited understanding as to where the goal posts are here, so feel free to rip me apart here.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can someone find an explanation of what "Pure and Stable" means as to Gene-seed? I thought in layman's terms, it was "ability to be compatible with the least amount of failures".

My kneejerk response is BA because they take genetically mutated "freaks" essentially from a heavily radiated moon, and make them into mini-sanguiniuses all over the place.

Then again, the Space wolves likely view their mutations as beneficial (Wulfen) so their instability might be a good thing in their eyes?

Again, I have very limited understanding as to where the goal posts are here, so feel free to rip me apart here.

Another part of stability is the ability to take the progenoid gland harvested from a marine and use it to grow healthy organs to implant into aspirants.

But rejection rates and percent of successful implants that end the process in full battle brothers is another factor.

What absolutely blows my mind about 40k as a setting is the absolute rigidity to ignorance in all things, and an absolute aversion to scientific thought. Is the Gene-seed have a high purity rating, or are there severely altering x factors at play that completely skew the results? For instance, in Dante, one of the teachers talks about how they have a 1 out of 10 rejection rate among most aspirants that make it to that phase. If that is true, that makes them pretty damn near perfect. It really makes no sense to me. The Space Wolves don't really reveal their numbers, nor do most chapters, but I would guess that few chapters take their aspirants from more mutated and genetically inferior stock than the Blood Angels. So does massive radiation mutation make for better candidates, or lessen rejection? Why has no one in 40k ever actually tried to consider this? Surely it's not outside the boundries of their imperial laws to conduct "breeding" experiments, to discover exactly what factors affect the rejection rate of Gene-seed implementation?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What absolutely blows my mind about 40k as a setting is the absolute rigidity to ignorance in all things, and an absolute aversion to scientific thought. Is the Gene-seed have a high purity rating, or are there severely altering x factors at play that completely skew the results? For instance, in Dante, one of the teachers talks about how they have a 1 out of 10 rejection rate among most aspirants that make it to that phase. If that is true, that makes them pretty damn near perfect. It really makes no sense to me.

Congrats, that's 40k. Stuff is dumb because of culture and dogma, which is the point.

The Space Wolves don't really reveal their numbers, nor do most chapters, but I would guess that few chapters take their aspirants from more mutated and genetically inferior stock than the Blood Angels. So does massive radiation mutation make for better candidates, or lessen rejection?

No, the Blood Angels geneseed is just designed to adapt the most mutated human forms into angelic Astartes.

Why has no one in 40k ever actually tried to consider this? Surely it's not outside the boundries of their imperial laws to conduct "breeding" experiments, to discover exactly what factors affect the rejection rate of Gene-seed implementation?

The only times the Imperium has tried to mess with geneseed resulted in mass mutations and an entire Founding being known as Cursed with most of the Chapters being purged or turning renegade. Generally speaking, the Mechanicus has absolutely no idea what it is doing with geneseed and the only reason Cawl was able to get as far as he did was that he literally merged with one of the architects of the Astartes project.

Gert, can you tell me what book covers the part about Cawl merging with one of the original architects?

Is it "The Great Work"?