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Why is it that so many marine chapters don't know who their primarch is?

Some chapters are founded by Marines so the Dark Angels begat the Darker Angels (or whatever) and the new chapter recognizes their parent chapter and primarch.

Others are founded by the high lords and use geneseed provided by the Adeptus Mechanicus which may have been gathered from multiple sources or altered.

And over 10,000 years knowledge can be lost. A chapter could lose its monastery, spend centuries fighting and just lose records.

Or the information could be hidden. There were probably some loyalists from the traitor chapters who were put in new chapters after the heresy. I've seen theories that the Blood Ravens were founded from loyalist 1000 Sons and the Rainbow Warriors were the surviving loyalists of the traitor chapters.

The scale of Imperial bureaucracy is vast and mostly done by hand, the timescales involved and the fact that most Space Marine chapters reside in the most war torn parts of the Imperium all contribute to rather poor record keeping.

We are dealing with very long timescales, poor record keeping and in many cases deliberate knowledge restriction.

Can you say who the first person in your family tree was to have your surname and why? It's not easy, and that's over a much shorter span.

Also don't forget that not all Marines are the same. Those in the upper ranks might know such information, but those in lower ranks (ergo the majority) just don't need to know. The information is either repressed or not important enough next to learning how to best use a bolter to deliver the Emperors Fury to the enemies of Man.

Also for several thousand years the Primarchs were gone for the Marines, so they really weren't that relevant until very recent times when some of the Primarchs have returned.

I guess it would be a massive amount of time but it's about more than genes it's about identity. It's like a us soldier that has never even heard of George Washington if ya get what I mean. Just seems so bizarre...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Even then saying they forgot who their primarch is, is pretty much saying they forgot the 1 degree of separation between themselves the emperor himself.

Well George Washington was knocking around about 200 years ago, if he is still famous in another 9,800 years then you have a point!

Its not necessarily that they forgot either, if the mechanicus has a box of gene-seed lying around in storage, potentially evacuated from a base in a hurry, then the Chapter created from it might never know their origins.
Equally if a Chapter was founded using gene seed from a less stable source, the Chapter itself might deliberately destroy any evidence of their origins to avoid sanction.

My point was that he founded the us military. And as such you'd think as long as there was a usa with soldiers they would know his name. But yeah as for the destroyed records, what about an oral history? Surely there is time in a marine's training to at least mention the primarch?

This is what happens when every HQ unit is getting into melee combat all the time. You can only take so many bonks on the head.

Another reason to intentionally keep it secret is to prevent chapters descended from the same legion from becoming too close and potentially forming a legion. "Spiritual Liege", for example. The Dark Angels are another.

Doesn't really work in the case of the Dark Angels considering they're still a Legion.

My Angels of Silence don't know they're Dark Angels successors because a previous chapter master 5000 years ago had a bit of a mental breakdown (following a disastrous attempt to capture Cypher) and deliberately fusion bombed the chapter's Librarium to destroy all their records. The DAs and the rest of the Unforgiven chapters now think the Angels of Silence are borderline traitors at best (and actual allies of the Fallen at worst) and refuse all contact with them. They still have green armour and a lot of angel and sword iconography, so people do sort of suspect they're sons of the Lion. But nobody who actually knows is talking. Even the chapter's name has changed (they used to be the Angels of Truth), so Administratum records are no help (and it's possible Cypher monkeyed around with those records anyway). The current chapter master thinks they're most likely of Rogal Dorn's line.

Just as an example of how such information can be lost.

Some chapters choose not to remember - the Carcharodons refer to theirs as the Forgotten One, for example. It could also be a deliberate move by the High Lords to stop a repeat of The Wall Protocol or similar happening.

pm713 wrote:
Doesn't really work in the case of the Dark Angels considering they're still a Legion.

Which is exactly why I used it as an example for why some chapters don't know their origin...

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Doesn't really work in the case of the Dark Angels considering they're still a Legion.

Which is exactly why I used it as an example for why some chapters don't know their origin...

I misunderstood what you were saying. My bad.

I always wondered if for some it simply didn't matter. Even if you don't know your Primarch you are a loyal Astartes, an angel that guards the vision of the Emperor (open to some interpretation) with 9 godlike paragons of various theatres of war to venerate. That's your lineage, even if you can't directly trace your Geneseed back to Ultramar.

There are a LOT of Chapters out there. Some know exactly where they come from (Ultramarines). Some think they know where they come from, but are wrong (Soul Drinkers). Some don't know where they come from anymore (Carcharadons).

Realistically, there are relatively few Marines in a Chapter who would have control over Chapter records. Erase the records and then make a rule that no new recruits are allowed to be told the truth. Fast forward a couple hundred years and 99% of the Marines in the Chapter have no idea where the Chapter came from. Any sufficiently imaginative person could come up with a dozen reasons why a Chapter might do this...

1. An Inquisitor needs the entire Chapter to go 'undercover', but something goes wrong and the only people capable of bringing the Chapter back out of 'deep cover' all die.

2. The Chapter leadership decides to purposefully distance itself from a Chapter Master who turned to Chaos in a way that protects the Chapter from Imperial sanction.

3. A specific and long-lived Marine (maybe a Dread?) goes rogue and actively monkeys with the Chapter over the course of thousands of years, causing the Chapter to lose track of its history.

4. A Chapter fortress is assaulted, causing massive devastation... killing all full Marines and destroying the Chapter's relics and records. Only a couple dozen new recruits are left alive. They rebuild the Chapter, but have only rudimentary knowledge of who they really are.

5. A Necron Overlord is unhappy with some Marines having set up shop on his favorite planet while he was sleeping and tasks his Crypteks with kidnapping and 'brain washing' the Marines to forget their heritage. The Overlord knows how important their heritage is and thinks it will be a good revenge to take it from them just as they took his planet from him.

Etc, etc.

Also... sad, but I think if you interviewed a thousand random people and asked about things that happened even a thousand years ago, I don't think you'd get many correct answers.

 BigbyWolf wrote:
My point was that he founded the us military. And as such you'd think as long as there was a usa with soldiers they would know his name. But yeah as for the destroyed records, what about an oral history? Surely there is time in a marine's training to at least mention the primarch?

A perfect example. He founded the Continental Army, but that grew out of the American Colonial Militias. The first professional military raised by the American Colonies, however were the Rangers (yes, the US Rangers predate the US), and the man responsible for them is Colonel Church, who virtually no bugger has heard of.


Enough chapters have been almost wiped out, or even wiped out and resurrected from archived geneseed, that there might be virtually no contact with prior generations. A lot of chapter secrets get lost that way (although the primarch's name is a big one!)

Equally, a chapter might be founded from archived geneseed. Which might be the "XYZ marines' not a first founding legion, and might not come with a primarch's name labelled on it.

locarno24 wrote:

 BigbyWolf wrote:
My point was that he founded the us military. And as such you'd think as long as there was a usa with soldiers they would know his name. But yeah as for the destroyed records, what about an oral history? Surely there is time in a marine's training to at least mention the primarch?

A perfect example. He founded the Continental Army, but that grew out of the American Colonial Militias. The first professional military raised by the American Colonies, however were the Rangers (yes, the US Rangers predate the US), and the man responsible for them is Colonel Church, who virtually no bugger has heard of.


Enough chapters have been almost wiped out, or even wiped out and resurrected from archived geneseed, that there might be virtually no contact with prior generations. A lot of chapter secrets get lost that way (although the primarch's name is a big one!)

Equally, a chapter might be founded from archived geneseed. Which might be the "XYZ marines' not a first founding legion, and might not come with a primarch's name labelled on it.

Interesting tidbit there. Also, excellent example of losing a founder's name after only a couple of hundred years. Wikipedia, here I come.

One thing to consider is a lot of the unknown primarch chapters DO, just we're not told it. Knights of the Raven are a good example, prior to 6th edition they where listed as unknown, but the 6th edition SM codex told us (to everyone's lack of suprise) they where raven guard sucessors

It’s tricky to compare the forgetting of such things with our history.

They are in a galaxy of constant war. Indoctrinated (brain washed) from birth to know and fight for the imperium.
The memory of marines is idetic so they don’t forget things.
You have to remember one of 9 names (and purposely forget if it’s one of the other 9+2

Probably because alot of the records that held the names of the primarch of each individual chapter have either been destroyed or lost. The imperium is literally the defintion of bloated bureaucracy and there's so much red tape nobody likely has the time or resources to rediscover every chapters origins. Also i doubt that many records remain, you know, with the whole Cicatrix Maledictum thingy.