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So, we all know about the Blood Ravens. Is hinted many times that they are, probably loyal successors of the TS.
Then... Minotaurs. We all know that those guys are more violent than other chapters (except Flesh Tearers and Carchardons)... and their Primarch and founding is "Unknown/Classified". And what if they are made with the WE gene-seed?

So, my question is: could the Imperium use the gene-seed from the traitor legions stocks? The only sure thing I know is that the Word Bearers one is fully corrupted, so they sure won't use it. But for the others?

Could they? Sure.

Would they? Not on purpose.

I dont think the Minotaurs are descendant from any original traitor Legion geneseed. The strange gap in the records sounds more like the Imperium finishing off yet another cursed chapter from the 21st founding (I believe the M41 are different marines, which I will explain a bit later). After the Heresy traitor seed was put under stasis lock, but crucially not destroyed. This might be because they were unwilling to destroy the Emperor's work, or more likely as some measure of last resort. Yet it seems highly unlikely that they used it during the 21st founding, not really a time of great need or distress. But there has to be an explanation to this cursed founding. Then my darker take on all this. The 21st founding and perhaps others might be attempts at changing the traitor geneseed. Both of these took place in M36, the first records of the Blood Ravens start in M37. Survivors from the TS legion during the Heresy seems quite a stretch, although possible (but unlikely seeing as how their geneseed creates horrible mutations). It might just be the result of a millennium worth of research on TS and other traitor geneseed, cleaning up the 'impurities'. Leading to the founding of the Blood Ravens, which would explain the unmentioned primarch.

The 21st founding, has created some strange chapters, most notably the horrid mutations. It is also mentioned that due to unstable geneseed (unraveling genetic test codes?) they have a hard time to recruit. Of course this area is lacking in background material and my opinion fills out this theory. On the subject of the Minotaurs I believe they might have had partially/full traitor geneseed in both foundings. Now I say both foundings, because as said I believe they were purged due to the traitor element of World Eater geneseed (which might be the reason for their violent manner among even Astartes). The first time in M.36 they were too violent and the changed/'new' traitor geneseed was still too affected by the original traitors. After further research the second time the Minotaurs were less unstable (but the High Lords keep them close, seeing as what happened before). Im seeing this in line with chapters like the Blood Ravens and the cursed founding.

Well this is just my view on the subject.

I say go for it, personally when the new Space Marine codex comes out I plan on doing a Loyalist Chapter descended from the Night Lords...

I agree with Disciple of Fate about the cursed founding potentially being because they used the traitor gene but tried to "cure" it. The Black Dragons, Fire Hawks especially look like something right of the warp.

 Psienesis wrote:
Could they? Sure.

Would they? Not on purpose.

I agree with this belief

Same goes for chapters descended from the "Lost Legions" that was the original intent.

I see no problem with doing loyalists descended from traitor legions.

Why not?

Also, think about this: we know that during the Heresy many of the Traitor Legions had members who remained loyal to the Emperor, and some of those managed to make it back to Imperial service (like Garro and Varren, as well as the Death Guard centurion from Betrayal). Chances are their gene-seed was eventually collected upon their passing. Given the wide and diverse range of beliefs and attitudes among the Mechanicus, it's possible that some members actually regard this particular type of gene-seed as exceptional. After all, those samples remained "pure" when their peers were "tainted".

This debate crops up every month or so, the 40k fluff writers left the time sealed geneseed part of the backstory so that this debate can be brought up but never having one side vindicated

NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

Everything and nothing is true. But in this case I would most definitely agree with you Kain. Its almost a given that the BR are descended from Magnus. as such its believable that there would be other chapters out there from the other Horus followers. (within reason of course.)

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary
And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

So you got hints, and "0" proof...If you want to belive that, go ahead...Just don't say that is canon.....

The Imperium don't like to use Blood Angels gene-seed because of the flaw, so why would the Imperium create a chapter from gene-seed they know has flaws in it and most likely lead to a renegade chapter?

 CKO wrote:
The Imperium don't like to use Blood Angels gene-seed because of the flaw, so why would the Imperium create a chapter from gene-seed they know has flaws in it and most likely lead to a renegade chapter?

Yeah, this too...Now I'm not excluding that BR or Minotaurs can have traitor primarch...
But the worst and most brutal were GK too - and they descended directly from EMPEROR'S ballz...
My point, keep the open mind people....!

I don't see how it would make a "bad background"
I can understand something like
"My marines are actually half-eldar"
or
"My Grey Knights are actually evil Chaos Grey Knights" (Now if you say they are only worshiping a deamon because Tzeetnch has bambuzzled them or something I'm down thats kinda nifty) being a bad backgrounds
but
My guys are descendents of chapter that was formed from old gene stock that was actually traitor gene stock and because of that they share certain similarities with the pre-heresy versions of that chapter.
Is certainly better than
Yeah my guys are descendants of Ultramarines/Blood Angels/Raven Guard/Imperial Fists/etc they all live on a Ice/Fire/Hive/Jungle etc world and they are influenced by (Random warrior race from history)
or
My guys are Ultramarines/Dark Angels/Space Wolves/Templars etc.

That stuff is like a dime a dozen, I'd much rather face some Loyalists Descendents of Thousand Sons, or Emperors Children or Night Lords...

From a fluff perspective there is so much you can do from the simple "they have a dark secret that needs hiding" story or even a "The IoM knows full well that horrors their predecessors cause so use them as a special shock troops"

Personally my Loyalist Night Lord descendants are going to be have a story in which the IoM figures out they are descended from Night Lords so they cut off all supply lines and technology (my guys won't be using anything new so lots of older armor variants and no new weapons or gear (also so they can double as a HH army if need be)), then they force the Night Lord descendants to go on suicidal missions with the hopes that the chapter will eventually burn itself out. The idea is that my guys know who they come from and as such seek to atone for what they view as their own sins so gladly accept the most suicidal missions out of penance.

Or I could say...

My guys come from the Raven Guard, and they are suicidal and have older gear because a long time ago they pissed off the Imperium by killing a Grey Knight or Inquisitor.

Personally I find the first one cooler than the second.

But really I think it comes down to fluff, avoid the pitfalls of mary sues and uber special coolness.

For instance if you've got some World Eater descendants who are crazed bloodthristers who own everyone in combat because they are as brutal as Angron and your chapter master is basically Angron version 2 and the IoM is totally cool with that and use them as their ultiamte close combat guys cause they are better than Space Wolves and Blood Angels combined-Lame as gak

However, if your guys are World Eater descendants who through mental strength suppress their rage but occasionally they give in to this blood lust (You use the Blood Angel codex to represent them in this hypothetical) and because of this issue they are hated by the Inquisition and even other chapters (you represent this by never taking IoM allies other than guard). And your leader could even have some of Angron's tendencies (hell he should) but make sure he isn't just a clone.

Also, given the number of feth-ups the BR are responsible for, directly tied to their upper ranks turning to Chaos and, in one case, becoming a Daemon Prince, it further bolsters the concept that there's something fundamentally flawed with the gene-seed of the Traitor Legions, and is probably not the first, or even the tenth, choice of gene-seed for founding new Chapters.

Save a few individuals, the Blood Ravens have a serious, serious problem with willingly turning to the Ruinous Powers. They've also got a pretty powerful strain of kleptomania in their genes, considering that most of their relics previously belonged to other Chapters and the BR never bothered to give them back after picking it up off the corpse of some xeno or another.

They all got purged, basically. Their geneseed stocks got wiped, which is why they have to steal them off loyalist chapters, either that or breed them in weird-ass vat thingys..

Well, the CSM may not have access to their geneseed stocks (since those are kept on Mars or Terra) but that doesn't mean that the stocks themselves don't exist.

It's simply much easier to get geneseed from a Chapter's own stocks rather than attack Terra or Mars directly.

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

So you got hints, and "0" proof...If you want to belive that, go ahead...Just don't say that is canon.....

I'm making fun of how buttmad the "anti-1k sons" crowd gets whenever someone mentions that GW has done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
NO.

There is no way to access the Traitor Gene-Seed and it makes for an absolutely appallingly bad background.

Except a lot of the traitor legions remained loyal. A huge chunk of the Thousand sons split off and renounced Magnus and said the official motto of the Blood Ravens. It's canon, deal with it.

NO - again stop posting something which isn't true and certainly not canon - no offense... Did you even read the story "rebirth" ?
I'll bet you didn't...So here is a summary

Spoiler:

4th fellowship (1000 marines, NOT A HUGE CHUNK) who were sent away were attacked by Kharn and the WE when returning to Prospero, so do the MATH

And that traitor legions who remained loyal were purged on Istvaan, except few lucky ones....

And I agree with @Kanluwen, it does make a poor background (imo)
....

If something that has been repeatedly beaten into our heads makes you butthurt then that's your problem if you can't take a very, very obvious hint.

So you got hints, and "0" proof...If you want to belive that, go ahead...Just don't say that is canon.....

I'm making fun of how buttmad the "anti-1k sons" crowd gets whenever someone mentions that GW has done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

Well, I didn't say they can't be from their stock; I've said hint =/= fact, so don't exclude other opinions and perspectives...
People tend to view missing legions as "killed by the wolves, or added to UM"...I' dont, because this perspective is based on hints, just like yours, and BL can twist hints to the max (fact)....

 Kain wrote:

I'm making fun of how buttmad the "anti-1k sons" crowd gets whenever someone mentions that GW has done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

If you cannot engage in a conversation without using terms like "butthurt", please consider expanding your vocabulary.

With that said:
GW has not "done everything short of outright saying that the Ravens are descended from Magnus". They have let two authors work in appallingly hamfisted examples of "hints" in the Horus Heresy, which the pro-Thousand Sons crowd have latched onto as examples of proof positive that the Ravens are descended from Magnus.

And what's more? "A lot of the Traitor Legions" did not remain loyal. The majority of the Traitor Legions turned traitor (as suggested by the whole "Traitor Legions" thing), killing the loyalists within their ranks.
Individuals like Garro were the exception, not the rule. The Fourth Company of the Thousand Sons is at this point an unknown quantity. All we know is they went down onto Prospero after the Space Wolves finished with the planet.

GW drops hints like a seagull craps.
Everywhere and without regard for consequences.
They're also really poor hints because of how unsubtle some of them are.

There is no good reason to use Traitor gene seed to form post-Heresy chapters.

I'm now going to Godwin the thread: it'd be like us saying, "Hey, look, why don't we just stand up a few regiments of Waffen-SS? They weren't all bad guys, after all, so we should just have a couple around, you know?"

 purplefood wrote:
GW drops hints like a seagull craps.
Everywhere and without regard for consequences.
They're also really poor hints because of how unsubtle some of them are.

Yeah, but even more fascinating are those people who bite on those (wink,wink) khmmmm....hints...
fe : In universe perspective = canon, and when you try to expand their view you are stupid and blind

 Valion wrote:
There is no good reason to use Traitor gene seed to form post-Heresy chapters.

I'm now going to Godwin the thread: it'd be like us saying, "Hey, look, why don't we just stand up a few regiments of Waffen-SS? They weren't all bad guys, after all, so we should just have a couple around, you know?"

Well I think the IG will resemble this quite a bit, considering the genocide thats commited in campaigns. But that is not a valid comparison in such grimdarkness. Why do you ask, because we already have the flesh tearers and minotaurs running around, so blood ravens (even if they have TS geneseed) would seem like the more 'normal' marines. Even so, remember that former French SS men served in Indochina, so need for troops overruled ethics. So why not in the IoM, its been under threat for 10.000 years, they might be looking for new ways to push outwards.
Also you cant just discount its use. Its like the lost legions, GW has deliberately left these things open, hence sealed away, instead of destroyed. So people could give their own twist to it and use it for explanations on the BR and the 21st founding. Just because it doesnt fit in your (and others) picture of 40k doesnt mean its not or not yet used.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
They all got purged, basically. Their geneseed stocks got wiped, which is why they have to steal them off loyalist chapters, either that or breed them in weird-ass vat thingys..

As far as I remember the Traitor Legions gene-seeds are simply locked and monitorated. The only exception is the Word Bearers one, judged corrupted beyond repairs.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Well I think the IG will resemble this quite a bit, considering the genocide thats commited in campaigns.

I didn't mean it would be like the Imperium asking that question, I meant it would be like us, today, asking that question.

Traitor legions are the most hated, the most feared, the most reviled entities in the universe as far as the Imperium is concerned.

If the Blood Ravens were really based on the 1k sons geneseed then they should be experiencing the flesh change that nearly destroyed the chapter at its inception.

It was known to be craptastic geneseed as well as the source of marines that would have a special affinity to and inborn loyalty to a demon prince.

I dont like the idea because it is just so fething stupid. Even if GW carved in stone on the plinth of their giant space marine at Lenton HQ that the Blood Ravens were formed from 1k sons gene seed, I would still say they dont know wtf they are talking about.