'Grey Area' CSM

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**Exergy**

WildeThing wrote:
We dont even know the 2 of the original 20 legions. The Alpha legion has been declared exterminated, what 12 times? No one knows that Alpharius has a twin.
The fact that the Dark Angels secret remains a secret is because few outside the Dark Angels can identify the fallen as anything other than regular CSM.

There are plenty of mysteries like this and I agree generally with your point about the 3rd person perspective we have, and that we tend to forget it is not a perspective available to characters within the 40k universe.

However I would still contend that in most cases, virtually all SM chapters, however old, would know of the founding legions, and which ones turned traitor. Sure a particularly pulpy death guard might be hard to tell apart from another nurglite, and a lot of the fragmented warbands would be anyone's guess, but I think faced with the heraldry and insignia of a traitor legion any space marine would know who they were facing. Its just that ingrained in their own history.

Tzeentch is a slippery one, but I expect the Thousand Sons would have to try harder than painting their armour blue and yellow to escape identification.

This is my interpretation, feel free to entirely disagree though! It's just fiction after all, and a fiction that has developed and undergone many changes, especially with all of the new Horus Heresy lore.

I can see that perhaps all the SM would know the 18 first founding legions and their heraldry. They would probably know about the HH and which fell to chaos.

But Chaos marines constantly change their heraldry to suit their new warband. Noisemarines, EC or not do not use EC heraldry.
Knowing that the emperors children were a preheresy legion is probably common SM knowledge. That is was based on Fulgrim, a primarch is also probably common SM knowledge. That he fell and joined the HH is probably common knowledge. That he killed Manus and Guilliman in duels is probably known by some, but not all SM. That he was possessed by a daemon inside a sword is probably known by no one or a very very few inquisitors. That he is now immortal living as a daemon prince in the warp is probably known by very few as well.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
anyway, we agree more or less. I see your points and you see mine but we are somewhere in the storms of chaos on the details but I do find it interesting as there is some grey area in how much the IoM knows about Chaos and the traitor forces.

**WildeThing**

Yeah I think we on the same page, I just think that the thousand sons would fall under the category of legions every space marine would recognise. As for their actions over the last 10k years, and the various details of what manner of beast they are today, however, that is a different story.

I expect they could probably approach the chapter of the OP in the eye of chaos, and sell them the "we are victims of the big bad wolves too" story, superficially allying them (allowing for 1k sons in the OP's warband) and most likely using them as a means to some devious further end, that the OP's chapter remains largely oblivious to.

**karandras15**

I have a lengthy fluff story for my Emperor's Children warband...and they are not "evil" per se...

Fabius found solid female stock and made female astartes during the heresy.
Wanting to remain loyal to the imperium, but knowing she would be exterminated, she fled into the warp with the EC.
She was enslaved as a concubine by a daemon prince, but was given access to his dark library.
She learned that a half the EC geneseed had disappeared on terra two centuries earlier and researched a way to get it.
She used the warp to sneak back in time with her female warband and retrieve the seed.
Her escape back through the warp unfortunately pushed her almost 10 millenia forward.
Finding the rest of the remaining EC in a state of corruption, she pushed to gain the services of all EC she found in exchange to allow them to pursue their own twisted goals...since returning she has accumulated 300 marines and scores of worshippers, her only aim is to somehow remove the mantle of power from Lucious...for all EC immediately serve him at his call.

**Selym**

karandras15 wrote:
I have a lengthy fluff story for my Emperor's Children warband...and they are not "evil" per se...

Fabius found solid female stock and made female astartes during the heresy.
Wanting to remain loyal to the imperium, but knowing she would be exterminated, she fled into the warp with the EC.
She was enslaved as a concubine by a daemon prince, but was given access to his dark library.
She learned that a half the EC geneseed had disappeared on terra two centuries earlier and researched a way to get it.
She used the warp to sneak back in time with her female warband and retrieve the seed.
Her escape back through the warp unfortunately pushed her almost 10 millenia forward.
Finding the rest of the remaining EC in a state of corruption, she pushed to gain the services of all EC she found in exchange to allow them to pursue their own twisted goals...since returning she has accumulated 300 marines and scores of worshippers, her only aim is to somehow remove the mantle of power from Lucious...for all EC immediately serve him at his call.

I like that.

Fabius is a beast at surgery

**Vaerros**

karandras15 wrote:
I have a lengthy fluff story for my Emperor's Children warband...and they are not "evil" per se...

Fabius found solid female stock and made female astartes during the heresy.
Wanting to remain loyal to the imperium, but knowing she would be exterminated, she fled into the warp with the EC.
She was enslaved as a concubine by a daemon prince, but was given access to his dark library.
She learned that a half the EC geneseed had disappeared on terra two centuries earlier and researched a way to get it.
She used the warp to sneak back in time with her female warband and retrieve the seed.
Her escape back through the warp unfortunately pushed her almost 10 millenia forward.
Finding the rest of the remaining EC in a state of corruption, she pushed to gain the services of all EC she found in exchange to allow them to pursue their own twisted goals...since returning she has accumulated 300 marines and scores of worshippers, her only aim is to somehow remove the mantle of power from Lucious...for all EC immediately serve him at his call.

This is really just too far-fetched and bears so many holes. :\

**Selym**

Vaerros wrote:

This is really just too far-fetched and bears so many holes. :\

I see what you did there

**AjaxBreakerofStone**

Selym wrote:
Vaerros wrote:

This is really just too far-fetched and bears so many holes. :\

I see what you did there

I just choked on my coffee. Good on ya.

**karandras15**

What are the holes?

It aligns with current EC fluff, and with the gene seeds and good apothecaries, she can eventually ressurect the III legion...

And turn on the 13th crusade when victory is seemingly at hand...

My Chaos Lord is modelled riding a lictor she defeated and captured in 1-on-1 combat. (Slaaneshi steed w/ combat familier)

**Selym**

karandras15 wrote:
What are the holes?

It aligns with current EC fluff, and with the gene seeds and good apothecaries, she can eventually ressurect the III legion...

And turn on the 13th crusade when victory is seemingly at hand...

My Chaos Lord is modelled riding a lictor she defeated and captured in 1-on-1 combat. (Slaaneshi steed w/ combat familier)

He's just buttjurt that there is now a female spess muhreen. Even if she is for chaos.

**karandras15**

Chaos is the only place it works...it was not clear all the crimes against humanity Fabius was doing early on...but we know he was doing it, we can assume he started with minor infractions like trying it on females...

On the other hand the empire allows mutated chapters like the Black Dragons...so who is to say there isn't an Amazon chapter?

**Vaerros**

Selym wrote:
karandras15 wrote:
What are the holes?

It aligns with current EC fluff, and with the gene seeds and good apothecaries, she can eventually ressurect the III legion...

And turn on the 13th crusade when victory is seemingly at hand...

My Chaos Lord is modelled riding a lictor she defeated and captured in 1-on-1 combat. (Slaaneshi steed w/ combat familier)

He's just buttjurt that there is now a female spess muhreen. Even if she is for chaos.

Interesting assertion you have there. My issue isn't with the female space marines(though that's out there) as much as it the extremely contrived events leading up the creation of this warband:

- Fabius Bile, for whatever reason, manages to engineer a process for creating female space marines? Why? Even if we accept that he's capable of this(he is established as pulling such zany things off, I'll give you that), why would he just create regular old space marines that just happen to be female? This doesn't fit with the kind of twisted life forms we've seen him engineer in the fluff and doesn't really serve him any purpose.
- I see absolutely no particular reason for this character to remain loyal to the Imperium, assuming she went through the same gene-alteration and indoctrination process as her male counterparts.
- There's no explanation as to how she becomes enslaved by this demon prince and somehow is granted access to all of his forbidden literature
- Calculated time travel via the warp is just really out there. What timeline is her origin story placed in, anyway?
- Why would modern EC just decide to follow this random individual that appears out some of time-rip? What would she be offering them to make it worth their time?
- The bit about Lucius...I could be mistaken but does he actually have such a leadership position in the EC post-heresy?

Perhaps instead of being some experimental female space marine, she's instead a brilliant human scientist that worked under and was somehow betrayed by Bile(I think we can stretch things enough to allow for a sufficiently brilliant non-Astartes to be on some research team of his)? That's still pretty out there, but it would do this for you:
- Remove the questions around the engineering of these space marines
- Give your character a reason to hate Bile and the EC(and I suppose remain 'kind of loyal' to the Imperium)
- Making her into an obsessed and resourceful(but ethically neutral) researcher could allow for some kind of Bile-like secret knowledge that *maybe* some EC warriors would be interested in enough to join her

**Selym**

karandras15 wrote:
Chaos is the only place it works...it was not clear all the crimes against humanity Fabius was doing early on...but we know he was doing it, we can assume he started with minor infractions like trying it on females...

On the other hand the empire allows mutated chapters like the Black Dragons...so who is to say there isn't an Amazon chapter?

The fact that IOM doctrine is a convoluted li'l bastard, and something that one day is deemed passable, will be burned at the stake for witchcraft and heresy the next day.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaerros wrote:

Interesting assertion you have there. My issue isn't with the female space marines(though that's out there) as much as it the extremely contrived events leading up the creation of this warband:

1) Fabius Bile, for whatever reason, manages to engineer a process for creating female space marines? Why? Even if we accept that he's capable of this(he is established as pulling such zany things off, I'll give you that), why would he just create regular old space marines that just happen to be female? This doesn't fit with the kind of twisted life forms we've seen him engineer in the fluff and doesn't really serve him any purpose.

2) I see absolutely no particular reason for this character to remain loyal to the Imperium, assuming she went through the same gene-alteration and indoctrination process as her male counterparts.

3) There's no explanation as to how she becomes enslaved by this demon prince and somehow is granted access to all of his forbidden literature

4) Calculated time travel via the warp is just really out there. What timeline is her origin story placed in, anyway?

5) Why would modern EC just decide to follow this random individual that appears out some of time-rip? What would she be offering them to make it worth their time?

6) The bit about Lucius...I could be mistaken but does he actually have such a leadership position in the EC post-heresy?

7) Perhaps instead of being some experimental female space marine, she's instead a brilliant human scientist that worked under and was somehow betrayed by Bile(I think we can stretch things enough to allow for a sufficiently brilliant non-Astartes to be on some research team of his)? That's still pretty out there, but it would do this for you:
- Remove the questions around the engineering of these space marines
- Give your character a reason to hate Bile and the EC(and I suppose remain 'kind of loyal' to the Imperium)
- Making her into an obsessed and resourceful(but ethically neutral) researcher could allow for some kind of Bile-like secret knowledge that *maybe* some EC warriors would be interested in enough to join her

1) It could be part of a desire to have a larger recruitment drive. Additionally, it could have been part of an idea for a SM breeding program. IIRC one Primarch actually tried this, but it failed horribly and he exiled himself after killing the "offspring".

2) I didn't think on that. I have no idea. Revenge maybe?

3) It's slaanesh. DP's of Slaanesh would do this kind of thing all the time. Probably took her to its base for some post/pre war smeksy times. Maybe it got distracted one day by some passing warp dust.

4) HH era by the sound of it. Attempts to go back in time via warp travel, gets lost, and is catapulted to the 41st milennium.

5) Drugs, boobs, warzones, boobs, new sights, boobs, Female Space Marine Boobs.

6) Yeah. CSM codex puts him as a major leader of EC warbands.

7) I actually prefer the female SM story, tbh.

**Vaerros**

Selym wrote:

1) It could be part of a desire to have a larger recruitment drive. Additionally, it could have been part of an idea for a SM breeding program. IIRC one Primarch actually tried this, but it failed horribly and he exiled himself after killing the "offspring".

2) I didn't think on that. I have no idea. Revenge maybe?

3) It's slaanesh. DP's of Slaanesh would do this kind of thing all the time. Probably took her to its base for some post/pre war smeksy times. Maybe it got distracted one day by some passing warp dust.

4) HH era by the sound of it. Attempts to go back in time via warp travel, gets lost, and is catapulted to the 41st milennium.

5) Drugs, boobs, warzones, boobs, new sights, boobs, Female Space Marine Boobs.

6) Yeah. CSM codex puts him as a major leader of EC warbands.

7) I actually prefer the female SM story, tbh.

1) Eh, the breeding program idea feels even more far-fetched.
2) *shrugs*
3) I'm not questioning the motives of the demon prince, I'm saying there's no explanation as to how this character even came across it. On the surface, being a slave of a demon prince would seem like a pretty significant part of the origin, but here it's merely a vehicle for this character to somehow get access to the gene-tech.
4) Hm, alright. The time traveling bit is still just way too out there though in my opinion. It would be simpler to have the character get to the stock through conventional means.
5) Nothing established about the character has her being in a position to provide any of this to their satisfaction. And certainly it would make for a darker, less morally grey warband if these are their motives(though my suggested tweaks doesn't solve that either).
6) Ah, thanks for the info.
7) To each their own. I kind of like the idea in general of refining the recruitment process during the crusade era - it's not a stretch at all to have some homebrewn fluff that establishes that the Imperium made steps to have a much saner creation process for space marines. The problem with it here is that it doesn't really add anything of value and the background surrounding it just makes everything less plausible.

**karandras15**

Couple of explanations...

I've always asserted Fabius tried it on females trying to exploit their potentially higher tolerance for pain (FNPin the fluff)

The demon prince...his motives are that he is a collector, obsessed with several things, one of them is owning females of all varieties of races in big glass jars in his palace...although he wants to defile them all, his unending obsession overcomes the desire.
While perusing the slaves of the legions coming to the warp, he would forceably take, barter for, or sneakily steal women that caught his eye. While invisibly watching some EC set up camp near a hive city on the edge of the warp, he noticed the walk, mannerisms and gestures that could only be noted as female. He waited for the company to engage the hive and swooped in to investigate during a firefight. As the EC waltzed into the barracaded city, he saw the 10 afeminate space marines sealing a flank and swooped in to confront the Champion. The prince demanded she remove her helmet. She refused, so he went to grab her, and felt the sting of a master bladewielder, while the rest of the squad drew bolters down on the prince. He knew that a squad of marines were nothing to be trifled with so he made an offer to come with him peacefully, and he would not vanquish them from existance...she was unsure of their chances in a fight and could hear the urging of Slaanesh to go with him...
With that, the women were teleported back to his palace and discovered his twisted nature...the decades spent in the palace were spent in varying levels of slave, confidant, friend and concubine to the prince...the demon would capture eldar swordmasters and pit them against her to hone her skills, eventually, she became a superior duelists to all she fought...the betrayal story is really the best though

**Selym**

*effeminate

**Exergy**

Vaerros wrote:

- Fabius Bile, for whatever reason, manages to engineer a process for creating female space marines? Why? Even if we accept that he's capable of this(he is established as pulling such zany things off, I'll give you that), why would he just create regular old space marines that just happen to be female? This doesn't fit with the kind of twisted life forms we've seen him engineer in the fluff and doesn't really serve him any purpose.

I can see Fabulous Bill wanting to Engineer a genetic super human that bleeds for 5 days but doesn't die.

**Selym**

Exergy wrote:
Vaerros wrote:

- Fabius Bile, for whatever reason, manages to engineer a process for creating female space marines? Why? Even if we accept that he's capable of this(he is established as pulling such zany things off, I'll give you that), why would he just create regular old space marines that just happen to be female? This doesn't fit with the kind of twisted life forms we've seen him engineer in the fluff and doesn't really serve him any purpose.

I can see Fabulous Bill wanting to Engineer a genetic super human that bleeds for 5 days but doesn't die.

Oh god...

**c0j1r0**

Fabius Bile would be more likely to make something like a Daemonculaba than a female Space Marine.

**Selym**

c0j1r0 wrote:
Fabius Bile would be more likely to make something like a Daemonculaba than a female Space Marine.

Ah I forgot about those!

Bloody horrific imo... (Poor Uriel Ventris)

**c0j1r0**

Selym wrote:
c0j1r0 wrote:
Fabius Bile would be more likely to make something like a Daemonculaba than a female Space Marine.

Ah I forgot about those!

Bloody horrific imo... (Poor Uriel Ventris)

Yeah man, I consider getting physically ill whenever I am reminded of them.

**Exergy**

Vaerros wrote:

- Fabius Bile, for whatever reason, manages to engineer a process for creating female space marines? Why? Even if we accept that he's capable of this(he is established as pulling such zany things off, I'll give you that), why would he just create regular old space marines that just happen to be female? This doesn't fit with the kind of twisted life forms we've seen him engineer in the fluff and doesn't really serve him any purpose.

I can definitly see it as a means to an end. He might want to cross breed SM with something else, or to have a SM that he can impregnate with something else so that it gives birth to something truly awful. Perhaps he tried to do it with normal humans before, but they lacked the constitution to make it through the pregnancy.

Think 'Aliens' What happens if a facehugger infects a really weak diseased human. Perhaps the human dies before the chest-burster can fully gestate.

**Vaerros**

Exergy wrote:
Vaerros wrote:

- Fabius Bile, for whatever reason, manages to engineer a process for creating female space marines? Why? Even if we accept that he's capable of this(he is established as pulling such zany things off, I'll give you that), why would he just create regular old space marines that just happen to be female? This doesn't fit with the kind of twisted life forms we've seen him engineer in the fluff and doesn't really serve him any purpose.

I can definitly see it as a means to an end. He might want to cross breed SM with something else, or to have a SM that he can impregnate with something else so that it gives birth to something truly awful. Perhaps he tried to do it with normal humans before, but they lacked the constitution to make it through the pregnancy.

Think 'Aliens' What happens if a facehugger infects a really weak diseased human. Perhaps the human dies before the chest-burster can fully gestate.

The warband fluff as it as seems have him making female space marines for the sake of it, but this is an interesting(well, twisted) creative expansion of that.

**c0j1r0**

Exergy wrote:
He might want to cross breed SM with something else, or to have a SM that he can impregnate with something else so that it gives birth to something truly awful.

That's basically what a Daemonculaba is. The Iron Warriors just beat him to it.

**Exergy**

c0j1r0 wrote:
Exergy wrote:
He might want to cross breed SM with something else, or to have a SM that he can impregnate with something else so that it gives birth to something truly awful.

That's basically what a Daemonculaba is. The Iron Warriors just beat him to it.

well maybe he succeeded in making female astartes, but found they were sterile and then he lost interest and moved on to some other project.

**Mr Morden**

I thought this was goig to be linked with the Culture Warship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCU_Grey_Area

when you read the description be a cool "Demon" / Rogue AI controlled vessel for your Chapter ?

"The Grey Area has a fascination with war, genocide and pain and the methods of inflicting it. Its interior is a museum containing devices that inflict pain and documents detailing their use. The ship has been described in reviews as "psychopathically righteous"

**Durandal**

What if an Inquisitor declared your Chapter tratorous based on incorrect or flimsy evidence? Perhaps he didn't like your chapter's cult, or perhaps your chapter had some gene seed malfunction that caused a minor mutation.

Suddenly the IoM turns against you, and your chapter has no choice but to go it alone. Freed from any restrictions from the Codex Asartes (because how could it get any worse?) Perhaps you alter your armor to inspire fear, or dabble with forbidden weapons or tactics.

Your chapter is nominally cut off from the support of the local planets. Your tithes of men and materials cease and supplies grow short. You need to make up for the shortfall somehow. Perhaps that old heretech cult a few systems away that you never got around to exterminating would make a good replacement for your missing tech priests? Certainly they have equipment and facilities, mobile ones at that, you can use to save your chapter.

But choosing that path also means protecting them from the Mechanicus forces trying to stomp them out, further cementing the inquisitor's claims of betrayal and adding Mars to your enemies list.

And what about your Astropaths and Navigators? Potential traitors and backstabbers all who could be selling you out to the inquisitor to prove their loyalty. Do you replace them with your own Librarians? this would prevent you from using those forces in combat, limiting your strength at a critical juncture.

Do you sack a Black ship for replacements, further deepening your heresy?

It is comparatively simple for a chapter to become a rogue element flufwise. There are so many ways to die in 40k

**Selym**

EDIT: nvm