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When Magnus and the Thousand Sons attacked the Fang, in addition to majorly prolapsing the Space Wolf garrison there and killing the Great Wolf, they also smashed all the medical/gene therapy equipment that had successfully created the Sons of Russ, a Space Wolf successor without the flaw of the Wulfen.

Magnus has been trying to figure out a way to bolster the numbers of the Thousand Sons and stop the rampant 'flesh change' mutation that curses them pretty much since day one, before he even turned to Chaos.

Seeing as he is supposedly this master conniver, being a demon-primarch of the Lord of Change afterall, why did he destroy all the equipment that could have allowed him to, at last, make MORE thousand sons, potentially free from mutation? That would have been the ultimate dick-over to the Space Wolves, not only denying them a successor chapter but using their own technology to bolster the numbers of their arch-enemy. He had all of that equipment, literally in grasp and could have easily evacuated with it all, in tact, back to the planet of sorcerers. He might have even been able to take that Wolf Priest who made the genetic breakthrough curing the mutation alive as well (although probably armless-and legless.... I don't think he would have gone willingly).

While it isn't a guarantee that the technology would have reduced the flesh change (although I think it is likely) he could have at least started making new marines again which has to be a win. Especially when it would be such a middle finger to the Space Wolves. So... Why didn't he?

magnus might not want more Thousand Sons seeing as all he could offer his new children is a unpleasant life in the warp.

It might be the case that they did not possess enough viable geneseed or the facilities to create more TS. There is also the vague description of how traitor legions get recruits, or new sorcerers in the case of the Sons. Maybe the TS are able to use the rubric in a smaller way to create more batches of Sons or as some BL books mention they can resurrect dead Sons.

Of course it all depends if the research would have been of any use in the case of the Sons. The flesh change seems to have been the plan of Tzeentch, as Magnus had to bargain with him to stop it during the Great Crusade. The book itself isnt very good, so Magnus might have just been as stupid in the fighting and with coming up with plans like that.

Because Tzeentch would be really pissed off if his favorite Legion didn't suffer mutation anymore.

Also, by the time of the Siege of the Fang, Ahriman had already performed his Rubric, rendering all non-psyker Sons into dust-filled suits of armour and nullifying the fleshchange in the remaining Sons while vastly increasing their psychic potential.
Basically, all that stuff would have been useless to the Sons...

Bran Dawri wrote:
Also, by the time of the Siege of the Fang, Ahriman had already performed his Rubric, rendering all non-psyker Sons into dust-filled suits of armour and nullifying the fleshchange in the remaining Sons while vastly increasing their psychic potential.
Basically, all that stuff would have been useless to the Sons...

Not at all. All the sorcerers have their progenoid glands so they have feedstock to create new fleshy marines with. Using the equipment and the sorcerers progenoid glands would let them rebuild the legion. Then it would be three parts- the sorcerers the rubrics and regular marines. The new batch would probably have an even higher incidence of psykers due to the feedstock. Win Win.

They also have Magnus himself. While the anatomy of a Primarch in comparison to an Astartes is unclear, I imagine Magnus would have some form of super-progenoid. At the very least, couldn't these extremely intelligent and ancient scholars realise that DNA is DNA? If the damn Space Wolves can figure it out, the Thousand Sons should have solved this problem ages ago.

Chapters have recovered from far worse situations than the Sons are in. Apparently the only reason they haven't is that their leader of "extreme intelligence" is actually an idiot and/or is still too angsty over what Ahriman did, even though it was a really, really long time ago.

Although we have to remember that all of the Primarchs are essentially moody teenagers with daddy issues. Maybe Magnus was so caught up in trolling his brother (who is probably dead, but in any case isn't around to see this happen) that he forgot that his own Legion is in a bit of a mess.

Because even though it happened before the 40th millennium, it would be progressing the story!

But on a more serious note, even though the rubric effectively halted all mutations, i can see the organs of the CSM not being in the best of shape, besides (if i recall correctly) a space marine can only ever create two more spaces marines, one upon death and one when they had lived a certain amount of years so the progenoid to fully mature and be able to passed onto new space marines

 Silverthorne wrote:
Not at all. All the sorcerers have their progenoid glands so they have feedstock to create new fleshy marines with. Using the equipment and the sorcerers progenoid glands would let them rebuild the legion. Then it would be three parts- the sorcerers the rubrics and regular marines. The new batch would probably have an even higher incidence of psykers due to the feedstock. Win Win.

But it would also depend on what exactly the flesh change is. From A Thousand Sons it seems that the flesh change results in becoming a spawn. Well a Chaos Spawn happens because of a Chaos God's disfavour, while in the case of the TS it served to bind them to Tzeentch. The part of the Wolf Brothers(?) makes it clear that (minor spoiler for the book):


What also discounts in favour of faulty geneseed is the fact that the flesh change suddenly started happening during the Great Crusade. If it was just the geneseed one would expect that it would be immediatly visible, like the dark skin that Salamanders get, at least in some. When the change did start to happen again it was at another favourable moment for Tzeentch, because it meant that resistance started to crumble, forcing Magnus's hand resulting in their fall. Its probably not a coincidence that the flesh change combined two of Tzeentch's favourite things, change and sorcery.

If Ahriman was intelligent and powerful enough to create and cast the Rubric, Magnus should not be powerless. Why not create new Thousand Sons to experiment upon, to find a cure for the flesh-change? Ahriman mustered his controversial solution in a rather short time, and Magnus is either too incompetent or unwilling to attempt to surpass him.

Why not mass-produce them as fast as possible and just use the Rubric? Even though it would be a slow growth, it would be better than stagnation - and those few Marines created would be of extreme quality, being powerful sorcerers (not to mention that having more Rubric Marines is not a bad thing).

Also, the flesh-change is a trait inherent to their geneseed, but seems to be exacerbated by the Warp. Magnus' arrival to the Legion stabilised them, but the patronage of Tzeentch and Magnus' ascension to Daemon Primarch made it worse than ever before.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
If Ahriman was intelligent and powerful enough to create and cast the Rubric, Magnus should not be powerless. Why not create new Thousand Sons to experiment upon, to find a cure for the flesh-change? Ahriman mustered his controversial solution in a rather short time, and Magnus is either too incompetent or unwilling to attempt to surpass him.

Why not mass-produce them as fast as possible and just use the Rubric? Even though it would be a slow growth, it would be better than stagnation - and those few Marines created would be of extreme quality, being powerful sorcerers (not to mention that having more Rubric Marines is not a bad thing).

Also, the flesh-change is a trait inherent to their geneseed, but seems to be exacerbated by the Warp. Magnus' arrival to the Legion stabilised them, but the patronage of Tzeentch and Magnus' ascension to Daemon Primarch made it worse than ever before.

Exactly. Even if 90 percent are still susceptible to flesh change then the legion is still growing. Even if they are transformed into rubrics. And the progenoid in the torso replenishes after seven to ten years. Or for true trollery he could just use wolf gene seed. Without the restrictions on legion building he could eventually wipe out the loyal wolves with chaos wolves so that when leman returns he is the father of a traitor legion and hated across the imperium.. Just as planned.

You all do know that Magnus is the greatest Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, the Lord of Change, right?

Getting rid of the Flesh Change is not in Magnus, or his master's, interests.

I don't think we know what the changer of ways considers to be in his best interest. The flesh change was really only necessary to force Magnus into turning over his soul. Now it keeps the elite forces of tzeetch far smaller than they could be. In fact we don't even know if the flesh change has occurred for 10, 000 years. The non mutated existence of 1000 blood Ravens suggests very strongly that it is no longer a factor.

The Blood Ravens are not confirmed to be Thousand Sons spawned.

And it never will be.... yet obviously it is so. Plus all my othrt points stand as well.

Void__Dragon wrote:
Getting rid of the Flesh Change is not in Magnus, or his master's, interests.

It is in Magnus'. As for Tzeentch, it is hardly change for change's sake - it is more likely that Tzeentch had planned the outcome of the Rubric in the first place (some material even uses this as the reason for why Magnus did not kill Ahriman after the Rubric was cast). Perhaps Tzeentch intervened in the spell, causing the infamous side-effects when it would have otherwise worked exactly as Ahriman had intended.

Magnus repeatedly demonstrates a care for his Legion. The issue is that, for all his intellect, he's doing absolutely nothing about their predicament except moping; even when a solution is literally within his grasp, apparently.

EDIT: While the flesh-change seems to increase in severity in response to the Warp, it was almost undoubtedly increased to this level by Tzeentch itself to make them desperate. Tzeentch could have removed it entirely, could have transformed every Thousand Son into a psyker, could have simply allowed it to continue in the rare form it had been prior to the Burning of Prospero. It reached a level that was threatening to destroy the Legion utterly, which is what forced Ahriman into action. Given that it is heavily implied Tzeentch intended the Rubric to be cast, I would say that the increased amount of flesh-change was almost certainly Tzeentch's influence.

EDIT2: I mean in the sense that the Rubricae are so far from representing "change" (beyond the initial transformation) that it kind of disproves "change for change's sake", given how it's very likely Tzeentch made them the way they are.

Magnus's arrival didnt stabilize the flesh change, he bargained with a creature of great power in the warp (heavily hinted to be Tzeentch) for it to stop in exchange for his eye.

The rubric is also one of the most difficult spells, demonstrated by Ahriman gathering the strongest surviving sorcerers and still failing. It took the intervention of Magnus to stop the great power unleashed by the spell. Magnus did not and does not want something as the rubric. His actions at the time of the flesh change make it seem that he doesnt care at all what happens, to the extent that Ahriman kept the rubric a secret untill it went wrong. He also wastes his remaining living forces in a frankly dumb assault on the Fang and murders his own sons because he believes he has to be punished. He might care about his sons, but he cares about himself more.


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 Silverthorne wrote:
I don't think we know what the changer of ways considers to be in his best interest. The flesh change was really only necessary to force Magnus into turning over his soul. Now it keeps the elite forces of tzeetch far smaller than they could be. In fact we don't even know if the flesh change has occurred for 10, 000 years. The non mutated existence of 1000 blood Ravens suggests very strongly that it is no longer a factor.

Or if we factor in that the flesh change is indeed the work of Tzeentch and not the geneseed, it indicates that Tzeentch doesnt care about them in the slightest, hence no flesh change. If it is indeed to be believed that they are successors of course. But it does more to disprove the theory that it is in the geneseed than it does to prove it.

How does that explain why he didn't bogart the equipment?

Where are you getting this "Sons of Russ" Chapter that wasn't affected by the Curse of the Wolfen? Is this just some idea they made up for a BL novel?

 Silverthorne wrote:
How does that explain why he didn't bogart the equipment?

Well your guess is as good as mine. Maybe Magnus knew the equipment wouldnt do him any good. Maybe he didnt want it to do him any good. Maybe they had similar facilities on board some of their ships they had left. Maybe it was just the apothecary that was important. It all depends on what the flesh change actually is and if Magnus even still cares about it (from the book I would say he cares very little about his sons now). Or he just had another moment of derp, for which the book is most well known.


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 Psienesis wrote:
Where are you getting this "Sons of Russ" Chapter that wasn't affected by the Curse of the Wolfen? Is this just some idea they made up for a BL novel?

The book Battle of the Fang provides it, major spoiler:

Why would he want to revive the Legion? He's a broken, bitter shadow, he only acts out of spite.

He also wasn't really physically there. If the Sons had managed to overrun and take the Fang, maybe one of his sorcerers would have bothered to steal it. I doubt it though, from my understanding of why the space wolves cant make successor, all the priest was able to do was revert the gene seed back to its pre-Fenris state, which is useless anyway.

The Curse of the Wulfen is biological. The Flesh Curse is magical, a condition Ahriman ended, or rather changed with magic of his own.

Magnus is a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch. While he may be more powerful and possess more knowledge now, this also makes him nothing more than another daemon of Tzeentch, another little part of him.

The big irony of becoming a Daemon Prince is that yeah you get the eternal life and inconceivable power, but you're essentially a slave in mind and body forever now with no way out.
In my opinion he personally didn't care that much about Russ or the Space Wolves or consider them much more than the agents of change. All things are due to his master and all grudges would ultimately have to fall upon Tzeentch. He attacked the Fang because his master wanted him to, and destroyed the equipment at the cost of all the remnants of his old life (legion armies, legio cybernetica, remaining command structure of the Sons) because it was commanded of him.

Honestly I don't see Magnus really wanting to make more Thousand Sons, through any methods. He was a loyal servant of the Emperor that got forced into a lot of bad decisions, and now he has to pay the price for that for the rest of eternity. And he can't even kill himself to end it. I don't see him wanting to submit anymore of his children to share in his fate.

 Badablack wrote:
Magnus is a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch. While he may be more powerful and possess more knowledge now, this also makes him nothing more than another daemon of Tzeentch, another little part of him.

The big irony of becoming a Daemon Prince is that yeah you get the eternal life and inconceivable power, but you're essentially a slave in mind and body forever now with no way out.
In my opinion he personally didn't care that much about Russ or the Space Wolves or consider them much more than the agents of change. All things are due to his master and all grudges would ultimately have to fall upon Tzeentch. He attacked the Fang because his master wanted him to, and destroyed the equipment at the cost of all the remnants of his old life (legion armies, legio cybernetica, remaining command structure of the Sons) because it was commanded of him.

Honestly I don't see Magnus really wanting to make more Thousand Sons, through any methods. He was a loyal servant of the Emperor that got forced into a lot of bad decisions, and now he has to pay the price for that for the rest of eternity. And he can't even kill himself to end it. I don't see him wanting to submit anymore of his children to share in his fate.

That's the best explanation I've heard. I thought about ways around it-- he could have sent Ahriman to try to abscond with the gear and take the Wolf Priest captive since Ahriman is a free agent with a deep loyalty to the sons and only a superficial affiliation to Chaos but I think he in general has a why bother type of mindset. Since both sides have dicked him over, his give a damn is probably busted in either direction.

Well basicly this one space wolf apothecary knows (and only he knows) how to cure the geneseed for it to be viable outside of Fenris. The plan is to ring the Eye of Terror with Space Wolves successors once this would be finished. But Magnus kills him and trashes most of his lab, leaving no trace of his work and no means to recreate it (as it is emphasized that only he knows iirc), which was one of the reasons Magnus attacked.

That was Russ' plan, too, when they created the Wolf Brothers, which went horribly awry, and was, in fact, how they learned that non-native Fenrisians could not use Space Wolf geneseed. That is why there are no SW Successors in M41.... or any-when, for that matter.

This "Sons of Russ" thing is simply a made-up thing for a BL novel.

 Psienesis wrote:
That was Russ' plan, too, when they created the Wolf Brothers, which went horribly awry, and was, in fact, how they learned that non-native Fenrisians could not use Space Wolf geneseed. That is why there are no SW Successors in M41.... or any-when, for that matter.

This "Sons of Russ" thing is simply a made-up thing for a BL novel.

It is made-up for the BL novel and not found in any other source. But it wasnt a plan, he was really really close to actually pulling it off according to the novel, like just a year more and it would have been done. Thats one of the reasons Magnus attacked, to prevent it.


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 Silverthorne wrote:

 Badablack wrote:
Magnus is a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch. While he may be more powerful and possess more knowledge now, this also makes him nothing more than another daemon of Tzeentch, another little part of him.

The big irony of becoming a Daemon Prince is that yeah you get the eternal life and inconceivable power, but you're essentially a slave in mind and body forever now with no way out.
In my opinion he personally didn't care that much about Russ or the Space Wolves or consider them much more than the agents of change. All things are due to his master and all grudges would ultimately have to fall upon Tzeentch. He attacked the Fang because his master wanted him to, and destroyed the equipment at the cost of all the remnants of his old life (legion armies, legio cybernetica, remaining command structure of the Sons) because it was commanded of him.

Honestly I don't see Magnus really wanting to make more Thousand Sons, through any methods. He was a loyal servant of the Emperor that got forced into a lot of bad decisions, and now he has to pay the price for that for the rest of eternity. And he can't even kill himself to end it. I don't see him wanting to submit anymore of his children to share in his fate.

That's the best explanation I've heard. I thought about ways around it-- he could have sent Ahriman to try to abscond with the gear and take the Wolf Priest captive since Ahriman is a free agent with a deep loyalty to the sons and only a superficial affiliation to Chaos but I think he in general has a why bother type of mindset. Since both sides have dicked him over, his give a damn is probably busted in either direction.

Magnus is a bit of an odd one when it comes to caring about his Sons. He doesnt care about the flesh change on the planet of sorcerers, but he gets angry at Ahriman for casting the rubric. He cares enough about them to not want to see them turned into mindless robots, but not enough to do anything about them becoming spawns after the first bargain (why wouldnt he have helped Ahriman if he cared or been asked if Ahriman still thought he cared?).

So this one apothecary somehow knows a way to do a thing that the best minds of the Imperium couldn't figure out when they still had the Emperor, who designed the damn thing, walking around?

I don't buy it. Sounds like Doctor Wolfy there was getting ahead of himself, or was deluding himself (or being deluded) into thinking that he could cure the gene-seed where both Russ and the Emperor could not.

 Psienesis wrote:
So this one apothecary somehow knows a way to do a thing that the best minds of the Imperium couldn't figure out when they still had the Emperor, who designed the damn thing, walking around?

I don't buy it. Sounds like Doctor Wolfy there was getting ahead of himself, or was deluding himself (or being deluded) into thinking that he could cure the gene-seed where both Russ and the Emperor could not.

Well think of it what you will of course. Its a strange bit of fluff but the way it is written it is not meant as a delusion:

(Quotes from lexi) ''Magnus, having ordered Ahmuz Temekh to break orbit and lead the fleet away no matter what happened on the surface of Fenris, immediately made to execute his plan, his whole reason for instigating the invasion of Fenris in the first place; the destruction of Thrar Hraldir's Apothecarion, as well as all his research and protoypes.

Magnus achieved his purpose. The Sons of Russ project would not rise again, and there would never be any successors born to the Space Wolves. The battle robbed the Rout of their possibility to reproduce, spread, grow in power and potentially strike a devastating blow against the forces of Chaos.''

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Fang#.UsIx4vTuIeU
Seems a bit much to sacrifice most of his remaining forces and legion for a delusion.

The power that a Writer has is great indeed...

By same logic and reasoning a lot of things could have happened differently.

But not gonna get into that....

This was a crippling blow to the Space Wolves. Magnus got to take another stab at his brother's sons. Forcing them to now wait and or struggle to find another means of expanding themselves. Which, if it took this long just for a guy, who should at the very least have informed the Great Wolf or at least Bjorn The Fell-Handed or SOMEONE instead of being all cagey about things...then it'll no doubt take another ungodly amount of time to figure it out again...

Again though I agree with Psi on this one...it seems a bit sketchy that this one Wolf Priest figured this out when the guy who created not only the Space Marines but the Primarchs could not. Hell even his own Son who was the source for this stuff! if those two couldn't figure it out...then really how did this guy do it?

Anyway back to the OP...Plot is the reason.