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I was reading some fluff the other day where it was stated that time passes differently in the warp than in real space. This got me thinking, there have been cases where a ship goes into warp and for the ship a few days or weeks pass but they emerge centuries later. Here is a question I have not seen posed, what if this were to happen to a company (or even chapter sized element) of pre heresy marines. I will use Death Guard as an example, the death guard were loyal to the emperor so if this lost company emerged they would have no concept of what had happened in the following millennium.

I thought his would be a interesting concept for an army. they would almost certainly not be taken in by the imperium, I don’t think they would necessarily follow chaos automatically. The big issue in game terms would be that the legions of the heresy era didn’t have access to a lot of the wargear that is available now.

This seems like a cool idea. Run with it.

Something similar happened to a pre-heresy cruiser, it didn't say what happened to the crew.
Usually however it isn't good.

This idea has occured to me before also, I originally thought it up as I was thinking of possible ways for the BA to combat The Flaw, If a company or even a squad of pre heresy BA showed up after being lost in the warp, somehow isolated from the psychic baclash caused by Sanguinius' death the Sanguinary Priests may be able to use the information encoded in their geneseed to halt or even cure The Flaw.

The other idea other than a traitor legion would be to use it to create your own founding chapter from one of the missing legions by saying the whole legion was lost in the warp but years later a battlebarge with several hundred brother marines on board shows up.

Its entirely possable.

they would probably be very confused at first, but if they didn't pop out somewhere with access to extensive knowledge of the identities of the Chaos Legions then a company of Deathguard might well found a chapter loyal to the Emperor.

I smell a Blood Ravens argument/thread coming up...

I've been tooling around with an idea similar to this for a while. I think you're right, it's likely they wouldn't go Chaos, and the Imperium would have a hard time trusting them. It would make for a very good story.

Space Marine's are usually considered quite a precious resource by the Imperium. I think if they turned up somewhere where the imperium was loosing, then the Imperium would gladly accept their help. I think the imperium would probably take them back too... albeit after months of anal-probing (like they did to Lysander). I would guess that the chapter would have to be renamed and have all it's records destroyed (possibly mind wiped too).

Of course if they just appeared, on a course for Holy Terra, flying Death Guard colours... They would probably get shot at.

This happened with some Space Wolves in one story. They told borderline blasphemous stories about fighting alongside Russ and shocked the M41 Wolves stating that the Primach hated the Spear of Russ gifted to him by the Emperor and on many occasions attempted to lose it...

Ships travelling in the warp for a short period of real-space time and re-emerging centuries later into real space has occured before, both to loyalist and traitor forces. The night lords books mention that thier ship has only travelled for centuries but the night lords have fought for 10000 years. Something similiar happened to Lysander of the Imp Fists.

Nice idea, though if Death Guard or any forces associated with traitor legions were to emerge and enter imperial space, they would most probably be treated as hostiles and suspect to taint.

If they showed up and were recognized as being Death Guard or whoever, they'd be shot out of the sky. The Imperium didn't barely trusted Lysander, and he was from a loyal legion. There's no way their solution to having a bunch of supposedly loyal Death Guard show up wouldn't involve automatic weapons.

One thing to consider though, the color schemes and legion symbols for the traitor legions are different now than they were during the Great Crusade, so as long as they don't actually tell anyone that they're Death Guard, they might be able to get by as just another fleet based chapter. At least for a little while.

they were the Dusk Raider before they found Mortarion, so if they so if they showed up having been lost before they found their Primarch would anyone even know they were Death Guard?

It would be difficult to make the connection.

the Deathguard wear very different colors now(well, there's so much gunk and who knows what all over their armor you couldn't tell the original color) so Deathguard from before the Heresy would just look like plain grey space marines.


the same would go for Luna Wolves. Their traitor counter parts are the Black legion. completely different color scheme.