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Hello dakka dakka. Something about the Grey Knights bugs me, there's written about as been incorruptible. I don't think this is possible. There's plenty of examples of Space Marines turning to chaos. Since the heresy the tests of inducting marines have become more rigorous, trying to stamp out the chance of the the same thing happening again. Which didn't work, hence the Badab war. My main reason why I don't think the Grey Knights are incorruptible is because they're rumoured to have come from the Emperor, as in his genes, even though the first Knights came from 7 other marines. He lied to everyone and made pacts with the chaos gods, to me this is a pretty corrupt thing to be going around doing, I think it's amazing that no Knights have gone bad.

Any thoughts?

They are not truly incorruptible, no.

They are the most incorruptible beings the Imperium can put together, though, and none of them have ever fallen. That they are constantly vigilant of the possibility of corruption is both a great defense and evidence of it's possibility. If they thought they were absolutely incorruptible, they'd have a level of hubris that would actually lead to such a fall.

Also, the only "evidence" the Emperor made any daemonic pacts is the words of daemons, not the most reliable of sources.

Grey Knights are genetically no more similar to the Emperor than any other Marine, which is to say "some". He started with his own stuff as a base, then moved on from there.

They may be corruptible, but none have been corrupted so far.

Therefore, as far as we know, they appear to be incorruptible until proven otherwise.

They themselves don't know how or if they are incorruptible IIRC (The Emperor's Gift).

I think the difference is in "none have been corrupted yet".

They don't have any "corruption-immunities" or "anti-corruption-protective-genes" or any of that stuff. They are just as tempted and as in danger of being corrupted as any other Space Marine. But, as written, it is a record to their dedication, rigorous training and vigilance that none have been corrupted to date.

The way the Grey Knights Codex phrases the corruption issue is similar to saying, for example, "Warrior X has never been defeated". It doesn't mean that Warrior X has never can be defeated or has some sort of divine help that always intervenes to make him win. It just means that Warrior X is pretty good at keeping the upper hand so far.



Also, it is unlikely that you can make Space Marines from the Emperor, as he wasn't a Space Marine or Primarch.. "just" a human born naturally to a regular human mother in the dawn of history. He wouldn't have gene-seed to spawn Marines.

Also, it is unlikely that you can make Space Marines from the Emperor, as he wasn't a Space Marine or Primarch.. "just" a human born naturally to a regular human mother in the dawn of history. He wouldn't have gene-seed to spawn Marines.

Where do you think the genetic material to create the Primarchs came from?

From the Chaos gods, duh.

Psienesis wrote:

Where do you think the genetic material to create the Primarchs came from?

Emperor used his DNA in the "gene-engineering" of the Primarchs.. true. But that isn't the standard "gene-seed-creation" of a Space Marine.

Either way.. if you want to have it this way... than ALL Space Marines are made from the Emperor's genes.. Death Guard, Abaddon, Horus himself, World Eaters... . Thus, the Emperor's genes evidently offer no particular protection against chaos-corruption...

Indeed, if you want to fancy the theory that Grey Knights have some sort of in-built immunity to corruption (of which there is no indication in the fluff), the more probable reason would be that they may perhaps be the only Space Marines not (!) created with the Emperor's DNA in the background. ?

But that again, this would seem to contradict the "7 knights" story, which includes plenty of regular Space Marines (with their Emperor-genes) from Legions that have shown no particular immunity to being corrupted.

I like the theory that the GK geneseed is crafted from the geneseeds of those members of the Traitor Legions that remained loyal.

The GK are viewed as "Incorruptible". This is not the same thing as "immune to corruption". The GK take a number of steps, some of them quite esoteric, even mystical, to protect themselves from the effects of Chaos. So far, this has proven effective, as no GK has ever turned to the Ruinous Powers. This is not to say, however, that it could never happen, only that it has never happened.

Incidentally, the other Space Marines are viewed as the grandsons of the God-Emperor, as the DNA that went into their creation was spliced from that of their Primarchs.

The only GKs that are truly incorruptable are the Purifiers.

However, no GK to date has fallen to Chaos(as in, turned)

Thussly, they are functionally incorruptable.


Note that is NOT the same as Immune to Chaos. Nurgle's Plague can still kill a GK and turn him into a Zombie. It will be a very unstable Zombie and the GK will be very resistant to the disease, but it can still kill him.

A GK has never turned to Chaos, and their bodies are very resistant to daemonic influence. As in very hard to posess. They still can be posessed, the Daemon will just be very uncomfortable and the GK will eventually throw the daemon out.

The biggest fear all GKs have is that they might be the first to fall to Chaos.

Ed Orange wrote:
Which didn't work, hence the Badab war.

The Badab war was not to do with chaos, but because of Huron wanting power, he only turned to chaos when he realised he had no other way out.