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Well, with two threads of widely differing outlooks I came to a question I just cannot answer. What is a Thousand Son? Are the sons the few sorcerers and their rubric body guards that have survived the past ten thousand years? Could it be since the sorcerers are the only sentient legionaries left that only they can be called a Thousand Son? Can rubrics really be anything more than automatons and deserve the same classification as a Thousand Son demon engine? Are Tzaangors simply levy armies used as fodder by the sorcerers? Or are Tzaangors more closely tied to the legion and operate its machines of war thus deserving a classification of a Son? Are the various cults fostered and used by the sons simply fodder? One may say (incorrectly imho) that since the cultists are sentient and fly and fight under the banner of the Sons that they are more deserving of membership than a rubric marine?

Now clearly we do not have a hard lore answer to this and the codex did not answer as much as it should have imho. So the answers given are going to swing wildly. I ask you fellow dakites what you think a Thousand Son actually is.

My personal answer is that the only remnants left of the legion that could rightly be called a Thousand Son are the sorcerers and magnus. Rubrics to me seem like another tool in the arsenal of this shattered legion. I would as far to say that the Thousand Sons as a legion have ceased to exist since the Rubric. Some of the sorcerers are newer recruits and never even fought under the legions banners. I honestly think the faction could use a name change to further cement the fact that they are no longer a legion as one would think of them back in crusade. Something along the lines of The Cult of the Thousand Sons or something to that effect.

What do you think?

A name change doesn't change anything other than to satisfy the higher than usual pedantry around this book.

Good post, but I feel like it's time to move on. In my opinion anyway...

Yeah. Labels are labels. Things are what they are. Reasonable people could disagree about how to use the term "Thousand Sons." If you really want to know whether or not something deserves descriptor X, then you need to quantify descriptor X and then see whether or not a given thing meets the qualifiers you've quantified.

Personally, I tend to think of sorcerers and rubrics as thousand sons (the latter just have the "dusty" status condition at the moment). Anything that isn't currently or formerly an astartes probably doesn't count in my book. Tzangor/cultists are comparable to the mortal guardians of the Fang, and those guys definitely aren't considered "Space Wolves."

But ultimately, the answer to, "is a thing X," is to ask, "what are the qualities of X, and does the thing possess those qualities?"

The psykers are the only true members imo. Rubrics aren't really alive, although they are treated as brothers by the living marines, and tzaangors are like one step above cultists to the thousand sons; they are mutants native to Sortiarius.

The black library book The Talon of Horus has a Thousand Sons sorcerer as the main character which is what I'm basing this off of.

How arent rubrics not alive. They have been retconed to not be automatons anymore. They may not have a body but their soul and consiciouness is still there
.

Table wrote:
Well, with two threads of widely differing outlooks I came to a question I just cannot answer. What is a Thousand Son? Are the sons the few sorcerers and their rubric body guards that have survived the past ten thousand years? Could it be since the sorcerers are the only sentient legionaries left that only they can be called a Thousand Son? Can rubrics really be anything more than automatons and deserve the same classification as a Thousand Son demon engine? Are Tzaangors simply levy armies used as fodder by the sorcerers? Or are Tzaangors more closely tied to the legion and operate its machines of war thus deserving a classification of a Son? Are the various cults fostered and used by the sons simply fodder? One may say (incorrectly imho) that since the cultists are sentient and fly and fight under the banner of the Sons that they are more deserving of membership than a rubric marine?

Now clearly we do not have a hard lore answer to this and the codex did not answer as much as it should have imho. So the answers given are going to swing wildly. I ask you fellow dakites what you think a Thousand Son actually is.

My personal answer is that the only remnants left of the legion that could rightly be called a Thousand Son are the sorcerers and magnus. Rubrics to me seem like another tool in the arsenal of this shattered legion. I would as far to say that the Thousand Sons as a legion have ceased to exist since the Rubric. Some of the sorcerers are newer recruits and never even fought under the legions banners. I honestly think the faction could use a name change to further cement the fact that they are no longer a legion as one would think of them back in crusade. Something along the lines of The Cult of the Thousand Sons or something to that effect.

What do you think?

Depends on what you mean by TS, TS in lore or on the TT? If the latter then anything with the keyword, the former, good luck. We can't get a solid definition of what a human is you want a definition of what super soldiers from the future are, and not just that but a particular subset of a particular group of peo... Astartes.

If I had to give a guess I would say anyone who now or in the past has possessed some form of Magnus' gene seed is a TS, but I don't know a lot about gene seed lore, and assuming there is some kind of genetic variation someone will eventually say "how far from Magnus specifically can you vary? Any point you pick will just be an arbitrary distinction" and then someone else will point out that the gene seed that makes Magnus, Magnus must be in the Emperor as well which would make the Emperor a TS and that doesn't make any sense...

Table wrote:
Well, with two threads of widely differing outlooks I came to a question I just cannot answer. What is a Thousand Son? Are the sons the few sorcerers and their rubric body guards that have survived the past ten thousand years? Could it be since the sorcerers are the only sentient legionaries left that only they can be called a Thousand Son? Can rubrics really be anything more than automatons and deserve the same classification as a Thousand Son demon engine? Are Tzaangors simply levy armies used as fodder by the sorcerers? Or are Tzaangors more closely tied to the legion and operate its machines of war thus deserving a classification of a Son? Are the various cults fostered and used by the sons simply fodder? One may say (incorrectly imho) that since the cultists are sentient and fly and fight under the banner of the Sons that they are more deserving of membership than a rubric marine?

Now clearly we do not have a hard lore answer to this and the codex did not answer as much as it should have imho. So the answers given are going to swing wildly. I ask you fellow dakites what you think a Thousand Son actually is.

My personal answer is that the only remnants left of the legion that could rightly be called a Thousand Son are the sorcerers and magnus. Rubrics to me seem like another tool in the arsenal of this shattered legion. I would as far to say that the Thousand Sons as a legion have ceased to exist since the Rubric. Some of the sorcerers are newer recruits and never even fought under the legions banners. I honestly think the faction could use a name change to further cement the fact that they are no longer a legion as one would think of them back in crusade. Something along the lines of The Cult of the Thousand Sons or something to that effect.

What do you think?

Are/Were you part of the Thousand Sons Legion regardless of current flesh/dust status? If Yes = Thousand Son.
Are you a traitor marine who was taken in by the Thousand Sons and wear their colours and fight their battles? If Yes, close enough for goverment work, but technically no.
Are you a non-marine who fights for the Legionaries? If Yes, then you're part of the Thousand Sons military/army/TO&E, but are not a Thousand Son.
Are you a war machine or daemon summoned into a war machine that fights against the enemies of the Thousand Sons? If yes, then you're still a daemon and/or vehicle and therefore you're a non-marine and part of the Thousand Sons military/army/TO&E, but are not a Thousand Son.

The rubrics by definition cannot be thousand sons because there are more than 1000 of them. And where are their parents, I might ask? If Magnus is their father, where is their mother?