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 Envihon wrote:
Okay, in the technical sense, the Sisters are more pure because they don't need be psychics to accomplish what they do but the GK are more diplomatic in the fact that they will work with xenos to defeat Chaos while the SoB are just "BURN THEM ALL!" kind of people. I still count that as a win since the GK have some plasticity in their thought process and realize that sometimes making non-human friends means less Chaos in the galaxy.

Actually being so plastic in their thinking can be seen as Heresy, and an invitation for Chaos to come walking in. Afterall, a common saying in 40k lore is: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

generalchaos wrote:As an aside they do mention that potential Sister are chosen from the regular stock of Schola students in the new Militarum Tempestus Codex.

What are you referring to? The only mentions of Sororitas recruits list a variety of additional requirements.

Or are you suggesting that we should also ignore codex fluff from the same edition, now?

ClockworkZion wrote:The issue is that when you're unaware of the changes from one thing to the next (like I missed the infant line addition from 3rd to 5th) it can throw you off even if you keep on top of it all. I'd rather they continue to add to the events instead of tweaking things that already exist every edition. Give us more new stuff, not re-tellings of old stuff. If it works (and 95%+ does) than don't mess with it and instead weave in new things for us to read about and enjoy.

Whilst I can totally understand being miffed about having missed something, I just don't get you here. Again: They did not "tweak" anything, they were just being consistent. No contradiction, reference to old stuff... how is this a bad thing??

On one hand you want more new stuff instead of re-tellings of old stuff, but on the other you're complaining that GW doesn't just copypaste everything but only specifically mentions the "from infancy" bit in half their codices instead of every time. I don't get it.

ClockworkZion wrote:I'd gone with making it longer for one, the original section while enough to convey key points didn't convey the reasoning behind the actions. Tossing in a little detail about the Grey Knights needing extra protection against the daemonic torrent of blood (and possibly nanomachines if it's the same one as before) and the sigils actively repelling it from them, and perhaps framing it like an act of mercy to provide the Sisters, who are likely at the end of their munitions and any supplies they have, to kill them, and then honor them by using their blood to form the sigils so that they may still serve on through death.

Basically it's one of those bits I think would have been better served as a page or two at least and done as a narrative through the point of view of one the Grey Knights who was there.

A story would have certainly been interesting. I'd +1 for a more detailed account, of course, but only because I like to read more SoB fluff in general, not because I would've needed it here. The "needing extra protection" bit was mentioned in the text, provided as the reason for why the GKs did what they did.
As for the "mercy killings", I don't think there would have been a good way to evoke that kind of understanding in the reader without making it look ridiculously artificial. If the Sisters would've been out of ammo, they would have been overrun or (more likely) killed themselves, either by suicide or a last charge, and if they weren't you'd still have a battle between the Sororitas and the GKs.

What would perhaps have worked would be some solemn words by the Knights' leader, either spoken to his own men before the assault, or after over the dead bodies of the Sororitas. But honestly, I've already got that in my headcanon, I don't need GW to point it out for me. It's just what would have made the most sense by all participants, given the circumstances, which is why I don't have an issue with the account as provided in the original source.

But I also liked the original ME3 ending because I filled in the blanks myself, whereas half the internet went on a rampage against the developer. So make of that what you will.

Envihon wrote:The Bloodtide incident: The closest the SoB will ever get to having an actual printed codex and that is their main reason for hijacking GK threads Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Threads evolve, depending on what's being posted about. That's just how things work.

You can always try to steer it more towards a GK discussion again.

Envihon wrote:But unless they put in the Bloodtide incident somewhere else, it seems they have ret-conned it like they did with Draigo.

40k does not have a canon, so technically speaking it's impossible for something to get retconned. You can, however, simply choose to ignore it on an individual basis. After all, it could just as much be argued that the Sisters no longer work for the Inquisition, seeing as the Chamber Militant-bit is absent from 5th and 6th Edition fluff.
An example - where do the Adeptus Arbites come from? The current edition's codices do not mention them when talking about the Schola. To some people, this would mean their recruitment is entirely up in the air, now.

Personally, I'm treating something as overruled as soon as it's directly or indirectly contradicted by newer studio material. But how we work with the sources we are provided has to be everyone's own decision, given that there exists no official ruling.

Envihon wrote:Unfortunately, it makes bad fluff like the Bloodtide incident and Mary Sue Draigo go away but it also makes my favorite parts like the Necrons being the force behind the Pariah gene go away too.

You could always keep the parts you like for your personal interpretation!

There is no single "true" interpretation of the setting, we all have our own little bubbles of how we perceive 40k. It makes it pretty silly to debate these things as there is precious little common ground, but that's why I think that every single thread discussing the background should have a disclaimer clarifying what sources are "admitted" into the discussion...

Envihon wrote:Okay, in the technical sense, the Sisters are more pure because they don't need be psychics to accomplish what they do but the GK are more diplomatic in the fact that they will work with xenos to defeat Chaos while the SoB are just "BURN THEM ALL!" kind of people. I still count that as a win since the GK have some plasticity in their thought process and realize that sometimes making non-human friends means less Chaos in the galaxy.

You're really going out of your way to make that sound like an insult there.

But personally, I've embraced that stubbornness as the source of their strength, and what allows them to go toe-to-toe with rogue Marines and other horrors of the setting in spite of lacking genetical enhancements. The big challenge lies in writing (or even roleplaying) Sisterhood characters in a way that they still have some unique personality and are not 100% robots, yet still fit into that incredibly narrow mold they are pushed into by way of their upbringing. A lot of writers, including professional ones, fail at this task. Looking back at my own experiences in Dark Heresy, I'm not satisfied with my own performance there, either. James Swallow, Kev Walker and Ben Counter are the only people I can think of who managed to pull it off, so far.

Might as well just change this to a SOB lore thread

I like Sisters better than Grey Knights.

Grey knights are augmented superhumans, who utilize psychic wards and purpose-built technology to fight their enemies.

Sisters of Battle are regular people who, through force of will, shrug off hits from weapons that ignore power armor and who commit superhuman acts without even being superhuman. The sisters need no psilencers, or force weapons on every girl, or even two bolters welded together, to get the job done.

It's like a psychic navy seal with a rocket launcher knocking out a tank - cool, badass, whatever.

But when a regular joe with a rock does it simply though sheer force of will and righteous faith, then I'm truly impressed.

the new codex strongly implies that a large degree of the resistance to chaos of grey knights is innate due to their close genetic association with the Emperor.

 Lynata wrote:
Whilst I can totally understand being miffed about having missed something, I just don't get you here. Again: They did not "tweak" anything, they were just being consistent. No contradiction, reference to old stuff... how is this a bad thing??

You're approaching it form the mindset of "what they don't mention doesn't change", when things get dropped it's annoying.

 Lynata wrote:
On one hand you want more new stuff instead of re-tellings of old stuff, but on the other you're complaining that GW doesn't just copypaste everything but only specifically mentions the "from infancy" bit in half their codices instead of every time. I don't get it.

Half of the codexes? A WD, a WD codex (which is arguably not a real codex) and 6th (not a real codex 2: the reckoning) are the mentions of it all. So that leaves out 2nd and 3rd which are the more complete codexes, especially 2nd which covered the most about the Sisters.

I am not asking for just copy paste but rather to not mess with what works and then add to the overall story by filling in the gaps, and not all at the "Time of Ending".

 Lynata wrote:
A story would have certainly been interesting. I'd +1 for a more detailed account, of course, but only because I like to read more SoB fluff in general, not because I would've needed it here. The "needing extra protection" bit was mentioned in the text, provided as the reason for why the GKs did what they did.

It was, but if there could have been more. I really think a character's account of it would have sold it best.

 Lynata wrote:
As for the "mercy killings", I don't think there would have been a good way to evoke that kind of understanding in the reader without making it look ridiculously artificial. If the Sisters would've been out of ammo, they would have been overrun or (more likely) killed themselves, either by suicide or a last charge, and if they weren't you'd still have a battle between the Sororitas and the GKs.

Sisters who are fighting on their last reserves, almost out of ammo, having not slept for days, heavily wounded, dehydrated and very out of it because of the sleep deprivation. Giving them the Emperor's Mercy at that point (not a bloody, painful slaughter, but a literal mercy killing in the least amount of pain possible) might do it.

That or they are mislead and the GK know they'll need to kill them and rather than potentially damn their souls to the Warp they quickly execute them as painlessly as possible and use their blood to create the sigils as a means of honoring them in death.

 Lynata wrote:
What would perhaps have worked would be some solemn words by the Knights' leader, either spoken to his own men before the assault, or after over the dead bodies of the Sororitas. But honestly, I've already got that in my headcanon, I don't need GW to point it out for me. It's just what would have made the most sense by all participants, given the circumstances, which is why I don't have an issue with the account as provided in the original source.

I really wasn't speaking from a headcanon approach, but rather as a way it could have been done a lot better from the get go is all.

 Lynata wrote:
But I also liked the original ME3 ending because I filled in the blanks myself, whereas half the internet went on a rampage against the developer. So make of that what you will.

I liked all of the ending outside of the push button bunk. I went for the Singularity ending btw (from the start of the game to the end actually).


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BrianDavion wrote:
the new codex strongly implies that a large degree of the resistance to chaos of grey knights is innate due to their close genetic association with the Emperor.

That's been hinted at before if I recall actually. It's interesting question of if it's actually the Emperor's personal Geneseed, or if it's just the one of the least tainted geneseed that he created (or if it's a geneseed from one of the two unknown Primarchs).

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Envihon wrote:
Okay, in the technical sense, the Sisters are more pure because they don't need be psychics to accomplish what they do but the GK are more diplomatic in the fact that they will work with xenos to defeat Chaos while the SoB are just "BURN THEM ALL!" kind of people. I still count that as a win since the GK have some plasticity in their thought process and realize that sometimes making non-human friends means less Chaos in the galaxy.

Actually being so plastic in their thinking can be seen as Heresy, and an invitation for Chaos to come walking in. Afterall, a common saying in 40k lore is: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

But a Grey Knights plasticity isn't a fault. Them deciding to help the Eldar after they purged a Craftworld that was full of Chaos isn't the entry that Chaos is looking for. The Grey Knights mind is literally an anathema to a daemon, which is why a daemon will never try to touch them, they will get burned like the Grey Knight is the opposite polarity. With their gene-seed being sourced from the Emperor himself and the fact that their psychic ability is rigorously tested and then trained to specifically repel Chaos is how the Grey Knights have never fallen to Chaos and represent that with training and control, the warp can be used as a weapon against Chaos, not just a way for Chaos to get in. The only force to do something like this are the Rune Priests of the Space Wolves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I like Sisters better than Grey Knights.

Grey knights are augmented superhumans, who utilize psychic wards and purpose-built technology to fight their enemies.

Sisters of Battle are regular people who, through force of will, shrug off hits from weapons that ignore power armor and who commit superhuman acts without even being superhuman. The sisters need no psilencers, or force weapons on every girl, or even two bolters welded together, to get the job done.

It's like a psychic navy seal with a rocket launcher knocking out a tank - cool, badass, whatever.

But when a regular joe with a rock does it simply though sheer force of will and righteous faith, then I'm truly impressed.

I would give you those points if the selection for Grey Knights wasn't so rigorous. Grey Knights aren't just regular psykers chosen and their power comes from the fact that their gene-seed is from the Emperor, they are tested trough 666 tests before they are even allowed to become a Grey Knight to make sure that they have the top, most resistant psykers the galaxy has to offer. On top of that they are trained to hone their psychic powers through sheer force of will as well to turn their psychic energies into the anathema of Chaos so that when daemons just try to touch their mind they get burned and only the most stalwart of daemon princes can even stand in a psychic battle against a Grey Knight. Psychic manifestations take will to conjure and repel, and the Grey Knights are the best psykers that the Imperium has to offer then on top of that, they are super human.

The Sisters of Battle aren't superhuman because they can't be. For reasons unexplained by GW, female genetics doesn't take a gene-seed but they apply the same training principles except the do it from when they are a child to get the same result as a Grey Knight and instead of using psychics, they use faith which can be just as powerful. Instead of a gene-seed, a lifetime of rigid discipline where the child knows nothing else. The only difference between a Sister and GK in my eyes, is the length of training. The GK can do it quicker because of the gene-seed but the amount that a initiate has to go through is literally through hell and back in a relative short amount of time that it takes for them to raise a Sister to the same point. As I have said before, SoB and GK are two sides of the same coin. The same principles applied in two distinct ways because of the resources available to each. I don't count the SoB as a regular "human". Are they genetically modified? No but they have been highly modified in other ways from the the regular population which makes them almost just like a Space Marine. A regular person can not just up and do what a Sister does but has to be raised that way in order to become a Sister.

 Envihon wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Envihon wrote:
Okay, in the technical sense, the Sisters are more pure because they don't need be psychics to accomplish what they do but the GK are more diplomatic in the fact that they will work with xenos to defeat Chaos while the SoB are just "BURN THEM ALL!" kind of people. I still count that as a win since the GK have some plasticity in their thought process and realize that sometimes making non-human friends means less Chaos in the galaxy.

Actually being so plastic in their thinking can be seen as Heresy, and an invitation for Chaos to come walking in. Afterall, a common saying in 40k lore is: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

But a Grey Knights plasticity isn't a fault. Them deciding to help the Eldar after they purged a Craftworld that was full of Chaos isn't the entry that Chaos is looking for. The Grey Knights mind is literally an anathema to a daemon, which is why a daemon will never try to touch them, they will get burned like the Grey Knight is the opposite polarity. With their gene-seed being sourced from the Emperor himself and the fact that their psychic ability is rigorously tested and then trained to specifically repel Chaos is how the Grey Knights have never fallen to Chaos and represent that with training and control, the warp can be used as a weapon against Chaos, not just a way for Chaos to get in. The only force to do something like this are the Rune Priests of the Space Wolves.

The Geneseed is never expressly said to be the Emperors (it's not even clear if he has the correct organs implanted into his own body to create geneseed either), for all we know it could be one of the missing Primarchs (perhaps a counterpoint to Magnus), or Magnus' geneseed stock from before the Heresy. Or it could just be the Ultramarine Geneseed and the training/psyker nature of all of them makes them so effective and not the geneseed.

And if we want to pull in BL material there was a GK who was nearly possessed by a Daemon and went stark raving mad to fight it off, willingly got the emblem of Khorne branded onto himself during that time and became the number one Gladiator in the arena on a planet dedicated -to- Khorne.

And of course that Space Marine in the Daemon Codex may have been a Grey Knight, or even Draigo at some point in the future, who knelt in fealty to Slaanesh, or do you know of any other chapter of Marine that could fight through Daemons in the Warp without being torn apart by it?

So it's not that they are unable to fall, it's more that to fall is so disasterious that they can not do it for the sake of the Imperium.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Envihon wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Envihon wrote:
Okay, in the technical sense, the Sisters are more pure because they don't need be psychics to accomplish what they do but the GK are more diplomatic in the fact that they will work with xenos to defeat Chaos while the SoB are just "BURN THEM ALL!" kind of people. I still count that as a win since the GK have some plasticity in their thought process and realize that sometimes making non-human friends means less Chaos in the galaxy.

Actually being so plastic in their thinking can be seen as Heresy, and an invitation for Chaos to come walking in. Afterall, a common saying in 40k lore is: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

But a Grey Knights plasticity isn't a fault. Them deciding to help the Eldar after they purged a Craftworld that was full of Chaos isn't the entry that Chaos is looking for. The Grey Knights mind is literally an anathema to a daemon, which is why a daemon will never try to touch them, they will get burned like the Grey Knight is the opposite polarity. With their gene-seed being sourced from the Emperor himself and the fact that their psychic ability is rigorously tested and then trained to specifically repel Chaos is how the Grey Knights have never fallen to Chaos and represent that with training and control, the warp can be used as a weapon against Chaos, not just a way for Chaos to get in. The only force to do something like this are the Rune Priests of the Space Wolves.

The Geneseed is never expressly said to be the Emperors (it's not even clear if he has the correct organs implanted into his own body to create geneseed either), for all we know it could be one of the missing Primarchs (perhaps a counterpoint to Magnus), or Magnus' geneseed stock from before the Heresy. Or it could just be the Ultramarine Geneseed and the training/psyker nature of all of them makes them so effective and not the geneseed.

And if we want to pull in BL material there was a GK who was nearly possessed by a Daemon and went stark raving mad to fight it off, willingly got the emblem of Khorne branded onto himself during that time and became the number one Gladiator in the arena on a planet dedicated -to- Khorne.

And of course that Space Marine in the Daemon Codex may have been a Grey Knight, or even Draigo at some point in the future, who knelt in fealty to Slaanesh, or do you know of any other chapter of Marine that could fight through Daemons in the Warp without being torn apart by it?

So it's not that they are unable to fall, it's more that to fall is so disasterious that they can not do it for the sake of the Imperium.

The GK was specifically NOT from any known Primarch. To do so would be to desecrate the foundations they are founded on. They are meant to be incorruptible.

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 6 wrote:
The very nature of the Horus Heresy had proven the Space Marines were not to corruption as the Emperor hoped.

Furthermore

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 7 wrote:
Where the other Space Marine Chapters were built upon existing stock, the Grey Knights were born of a new gene-seed, one without the flaws that had gone before, and which carried the gift of the Emperor's own flesh and soul.

Here we have 2 seperate paragraphs that explicitly state the GK are NOT from any of the 20 Primarchs. If you were taking stuff from one of the 18 known it would be existing stock, and from the 2 unknown legions would also be classed as existing stock or have been destroyed.

The second paragraph I quoted explicitly states they are from the Emperor's geneseed.

 Deadshot wrote:
The GK was specifically NOT from any known Primarch. To do so would be to desecrate the foundations they are founded on. They are meant to be incorruptible.[

Desecrate? I hardly think so. I think you're exaggerating that one.

 Deadshot wrote:

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 6 wrote:
The very nature of the Horus Heresy had proven the Space Marines were not to corruption as the Emperor hoped.

Furthermore

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 7 wrote:
Where the other Space Marine Chapters were built upon existing stock, the Grey Knights were born of a new gene-seed, one without the flaws that had gone before, and which carried the gift of the Emperor's own flesh and soul.

Here we have 2 seperate paragraphs that explicitly state the GK are NOT from any of the 20 Primarchs. If you were taking stuff from one of the 18 known it would be existing stock, and from the 2 unknown legions would also be classed as existing stock or have been destroyed.

The second paragraph I quoted explicitly states they are from the Emperor's geneseed.

Actually I see two paragraphs that say the Emperor was disappointed that his elite warriors were not "chaos-proof" like he'd hoped (though if he'd actually talked to his kids about these sorts of things maybe it wouldn't have happened). Furthermore, all geneseed caries within it a genetic legacy of the Emperor, so just because it's a new Geneseed doesn't mean it's based on him directly. I mean look at how varied all the Primarchs are, and they all have his genes. It's likely that even if he started from scratch he probably didn't give them a direct full copy of his genes for the Geneseed. Else they'd be more like Primarchs than Space Marines in terms of power.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
The GK was specifically NOT from any known Primarch. To do so would be to desecrate the foundations they are founded on. They are meant to be incorruptible.[

Desecrate? I hardly think so. I think you're exaggerating that one.

 Deadshot wrote:

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 6 wrote:
The very nature of the Horus Heresy had proven the Space Marines were not to corruption as the Emperor hoped.

Furthermore

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 7 wrote:
Where the other Space Marine Chapters were built upon existing stock, the Grey Knights were born of a new gene-seed, one without the flaws that had gone before, and which carried the gift of the Emperor's own flesh and soul.

Here we have 2 seperate paragraphs that explicitly state the GK are NOT from any of the 20 Primarchs. If you were taking stuff from one of the 18 known it would be existing stock, and from the 2 unknown legions would also be classed as existing stock or have been destroyed.

The second paragraph I quoted explicitly states they are from the Emperor's geneseed.

Actually I see two paragraphs that say the Emperor was disappointed that his elite warriors were not "chaos-proof" like he'd hoped (though if he'd actually talked to his kids about these sorts of things maybe it wouldn't have happened). Furthermore, all geneseed caries within it a genetic legacy of the Emperor, so just because it's a new Geneseed doesn't mean it's based on him directly. I mean look at how varied all the Primarchs are, and they all have his genes. It's likely that even if he started from scratch he probably didn't give them a direct full copy of his genes for the Geneseed. Else they'd be more like Primarchs than Space Marines in terms of power.

Are you deliberately misinterpreting it? Its there is black and white.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
The GK was specifically NOT from any known Primarch. To do so would be to desecrate the foundations they are founded on. They are meant to be incorruptible.[

Desecrate? I hardly think so. I think you're exaggerating that one.

 Deadshot wrote:

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 6 wrote:
The very nature of the Horus Heresy had proven the Space Marines were not to corruption as the Emperor hoped.

Furthermore

Codex: Grey Knights 5th Edition, Pg 7 wrote:
Where the other Space Marine Chapters were built upon existing stock, the Grey Knights were born of a new gene-seed, one without the flaws that had gone before, and which carried the gift of the Emperor's own flesh and soul.

Here we have 2 seperate paragraphs that explicitly state the GK are NOT from any of the 20 Primarchs. If you were taking stuff from one of the 18 known it would be existing stock, and from the 2 unknown legions would also be classed as existing stock or have been destroyed.

The second paragraph I quoted explicitly states they are from the Emperor's geneseed.

Actually I see two paragraphs that say the Emperor was disappointed that his elite warriors were not "chaos-proof" like he'd hoped (though if he'd actually talked to his kids about these sorts of things maybe it wouldn't have happened). Furthermore, all geneseed caries within it a genetic legacy of the Emperor, so just because it's a new Geneseed doesn't mean it's based on him directly. I mean look at how varied all the Primarchs are, and they all have his genes. It's likely that even if he started from scratch he probably didn't give them a direct full copy of his genes for the Geneseed. Else they'd be more like Primarchs than Space Marines in terms of power.

If you look to the quote found in my signature, you will see that the Emperor heavily hints that the Grey Knights are of a gene-seed derived directly from his genetic structure and not like that of the Primarchs. During the Horus Heresy, the Emperor realized that he failed when he made the Primarchs since they had fallen to Chaos and the only way to make them incorruptible was to use a gene-seed derived directly from him. The reasoning used to be that Malcador took it without the Emperor's knowledge but with the recent releases in Codices, Horus Heresy books and specifically Aaron Dembski-Bowden's (Who is overly careful to respect the fluff of the Codex and source material) The Emperor's Gift where it is blatantly pointed out that the gene-seed of the Grey Knights is indeed derived directly from the Emperor so that they are incorruptible. It is the reason why the Grey Knights are referred to as The Emperor's Gift, they are the last gift from the Emperor to humanity.

Fuethermore, they would be nothing like Primarchs. Primarchs were created from scratch using the Emperor's DNA as a starting point. Space Marines are made by taking some of the diluted Emperor DNA (the Primarch DNA) and implanting it into a host with its own DNA.

Genes are genes. You can be genetically traced to an ancestor many, many centuries dead. Since the Primarchs were created using the DNA of the Emperor, so, too, do all Space Marines share similar genetic material with the Emperor.

Taken as a whole, that line in the GK Codex doesn't make any sense. All Space Marines share a genetic link to the Emperor.

 Psienesis wrote:
Genes are genes. You can be genetically traced to an ancestor many, many centuries dead. Since the Primarchs were created using the DNA of the Emperor, so, too, do all Space Marines share similar genetic material with the Emperor.

Taken as a whole, that line in the GK Codex doesn't make any sense. All Space Marines share a genetic link to the Emperor.

Yes but the genes that were used to make the Primarchs were manipulated to express certain traits and make them all individuals that they were. They were crafted to be an expression of certain key traits of the Emperor. Lorgar was the Emperor's voice, Magnus the Emperor's mind, etc so the genes may have been derived from the Emperor, they were different much like a child shares DNA from it's parents but it isn't an exact duplicate otherwise they would be a clone. The same goes for the Primarchs. Then the gene-seed was derived from the Primarchs to make the Legions so we are getting even more distant from the Emperor even before accounting for all the mutations that have happened to the gene-seed leading up to the 41st millennium.

The Grey Knights are special because the gene-seed is directly derived from the Emperor himself. No manipulation to them, no engineering to it to express certain traits over the others, just straight Emperor. The Emperor thought that the Primarchs would be enough of him that they would resist corruption but different enough that he didn't create 20 exact clones of himself. When the Heresy happened the Emperor knew that he had failed and even with the engineering to prevent it. In the audio drama The Sigilite, Malcador talks about a discussion between him and the Emperor where the Emperor thinks that humans will eventually reach a point where they won't need him anymore but Malcador insists that humanity will always need him. This is partly why the Primarchs were created and partly why the Emperor put Horus in charge when he went to go create the human webway, to show that we won't always need the Emperor but when Horus "the best Primarch" fell to Chaos, the Emperor knew that it simply couldn't happen unless he was around. This is what the Grey Knights are and why it had to a pure genetic sample instead of an engineered one that they created. It is literally the Emperor admitting that he was wrong and Malcador was right, that humanity will always need the Emperor, that he is the only one that can protect humanity from corruption so he gave humanity one last gift, the means of making the purist Space Marines possible from a direct sample of DNA from the Emperor himself.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
... the removal of the specifics of the Bloodtide incident doesn't remove the fact that the Sisters *are* more-pure than the GK. =p

Really? Seems to be 1-0 in GK's favor, no GKs have fallen to chaos like a certain Miriael Sabathiel, along with some Battle-Sisters

Not quite true. Codex: Chaos Demons has a story about The Changeling (a trickster Demon of Tzeentch), who causes shenanigans on some hive world by impersonating the Governor and other officials into inciting revolt and chaos worship. When warp portals open up and demons start pouring through, the Grey Knights show up to contain the demonic incursion. Eventually they realise The Changeling is impersonating senior officials and they track him to a huge fleet of a thousand refugee ships trying to flee the planet. Instead of risking The Changeling getting away, Stern orders the refugee fleet destroyed. But it turns out that everything that had happened on the planet was just a lead-up to this point, because a newly ordained Grey Knight watching the destruction of the refugees lets a seed of doubt into his mind.

It would seem that the Grey Knight brainwashing is not perfect. Tzeentch, being the master of intrigue and scheming, appears to have planned to lure a Grey Knight to chaos.

GoonBandito wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
... the removal of the specifics of the Bloodtide incident doesn't remove the fact that the Sisters *are* more-pure than the GK. =p

Really? Seems to be 1-0 in GK's favor, no GKs have fallen to chaos like a certain Miriael Sabathiel, along with some Battle-Sisters

Not quite true. Codex: Chaos Demons has a story about The Changeling (a trickster Demon of Tzeentch), who causes shenanigans on some hive world by impersonating the Governor and other officials into inciting revolt and chaos worship. When warp portals open up and demons start pouring through, the Grey Knights show up to contain the demonic incursion. Eventually they realise The Changeling is impersonating senior officials and they track him to a huge fleet of a thousand refugee ships trying to flee the planet. Instead of risking The Changeling getting away, Stern orders the refugee fleet destroyed. But it turns out that everything that had happened on the planet was just a lead-up to this point, because a newly ordained Grey Knight watching the destruction of the refugees lets a seed of doubt into his mind.

It would seem that the Grey Knight brainwashing is not perfect. Tzeentch, being the master of intrigue and scheming, appears to have planned to lure a Grey Knight to chaos.

But they never say that he fell to Chaos, only that a seed of doubt was left. They left a cliff hanger specifically so that we could spend hours debating that very point...or at least it feels like they did.

 Envihon wrote:

GoonBandito wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
... the removal of the specifics of the Bloodtide incident doesn't remove the fact that the Sisters *are* more-pure than the GK. =p

Really? Seems to be 1-0 in GK's favor, no GKs have fallen to chaos like a certain Miriael Sabathiel, along with some Battle-Sisters

Not quite true. Codex: Chaos Demons has a story about The Changeling (a trickster Demon of Tzeentch), who causes shenanigans on some hive world by impersonating the Governor and other officials into inciting revolt and chaos worship. When warp portals open up and demons start pouring through, the Grey Knights show up to contain the demonic incursion. Eventually they realise The Changeling is impersonating senior officials and they track him to a huge fleet of a thousand refugee ships trying to flee the planet. Instead of risking The Changeling getting away, Stern orders the refugee fleet destroyed. But it turns out that everything that had happened on the planet was just a lead-up to this point, because a newly ordained Grey Knight watching the destruction of the refugees lets a seed of doubt into his mind.

It would seem that the Grey Knight brainwashing is not perfect. Tzeentch, being the master of intrigue and scheming, appears to have planned to lure a Grey Knight to chaos.

But they never say that he fell to Chaos, only that a seed of doubt was left. They left a cliff hanger specifically so that we could spend hours debating that very point...or at least it feels like they did.

There's also the 'Silvered Knight' that came to Slaanesh and bowed at his knee's after surviving each and every decadent sin up to his throne.

 Psienesis wrote:
Genes are genes. You can be genetically traced to an ancestor many, many centuries dead. Since the Primarchs were created using the DNA of the Emperor, so, too, do all Space Marines share similar genetic material with the Emperor.

Taken as a whole, that line in the GK Codex doesn't make any sense. All Space Marines share a genetic link to the Emperor.

Which was my original point.

Furthermore, if the Emperor's body has no implants to make geneseed than it's just a derivative just like all the other geneseeds are, in short, a watered down version of him. The only difference is that there is no Primarch it's based on specifically. Which means while they can trace their lineage to him, it doesn't make them any closer to the Emperor than any other Marine, just less possible corruption in the geneseed itself.

Additionally, if it were the pure essence of the Emperor, then they really wouldn't need a lot of special training or selection and you'd be able to use just about any Psyker who could pass the Space Marine indoctrination process. After all, he was walking Chaos repellent and if they had even 1/10 his ability no Daemon would even be able to harm them, much less fight them.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
There's also the 'Silvered Knight' that came to Slaanesh and bowed at his knee's after surviving each and every decadent sin up to his throne.

Indeed, and to date there have only been two people who've managed to survive in the Warp (and not be a person turned into a Daemon, or be living on a planet that's in the Warp, I mean full, unfiltered Immaterium on this): a little girl and her dog in the now defunct 5th Edition lore for Tzeentch, and Draigo. So if Grey Knights are the only ones strong of will enough to walk through the Warp, then it sounds a lot like a Grey Knight (and because of the nature of the Warp it could be a future event).

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Genes are genes. You can be genetically traced to an ancestor many, many centuries dead. Since the Primarchs were created using the DNA of the Emperor, so, too, do all Space Marines share similar genetic material with the Emperor.

Taken as a whole, that line in the GK Codex doesn't make any sense. All Space Marines share a genetic link to the Emperor.

Which was my original point.

Furthermore, if the Emperor's body has no implants to make geneseed than it's just a derivative just like all the other geneseeds are, in short, a watered down version of him. The only difference is that there is no Primarch it's based on specifically. Which means while they can trace their lineage to him, it doesn't make them any closer to the Emperor than any other Marine, just less possible corruption in the geneseed itself.

Additionally, if it were the pure essence of the Emperor, then they really wouldn't need a lot of special training or selection and you'd be able to use just about any Psyker who could pass the Space Marine indoctrination process. After all, he was walking Chaos repellent and if they had even 1/10 his ability no Daemon would even be able to harm them, much less fight them.

We don't actually know what goes into making a gene-seed, they never said how it was created off the genetics of the Primarchs after the Primarchs were scattered to the wind. I tackled why it is different with this in my previous post: "Yes but the genes that were used to make the Primarchs were manipulated to express certain traits and make them all individuals that they were. They were crafted to be an expression of certain key traits of the Emperor. Lorgar was the Emperor's voice, Magnus the Emperor's mind, etc so the genes may have been derived from the Emperor, they were different much like a child shares DNA from it's parents but it isn't an exact duplicate otherwise they would be a clone. The same goes for the Primarchs. Then the gene-seed was derived from the Primarchs to make the Legions so we are getting even more distant from the Emperor even before accounting for all the mutations that have happened to the gene-seed leading up to the 41st millennium. "

The Primarchs have the Emperor's base but are not the Emperor himself and have a variation from him. Also, the Primarchs also do not have a progenoid glands either yet the first gene-seed were developed from the DNA samples that the Emperor still had even though the Primarchs were gone so it isn't that hard to think that he could do it with his own DNA.

The Grey Knights are still not the Emperor themselves and still have the vestiges of their humanity but the Emperor's gene-seed heightens their abilities which is why their psychic abilities are an anathema to Chaos and why daemons can't touch the mind of a Grey Knight. Daemons have always had to talk to a Grey Knight to even try and corrupt them for that reason, you just can't force your way into a Grey Knights head, you have to appeal to their logic, their emotions and their latent humanity which is what happens to Alaric in his moment of doubt and how the Trickster put the seed of doubt into that fabled Grey Knight. None of them fell but they questioned things but that is a flaw innate in humans not the Emperor. Receiving a gene-seed makes you super-human and greatly improves your abilities but it doesn't make you into a clone of the source, otherwise every single Space Marine would of turned into a Primarch. Saying that this would be the case for the Grey Knights doesn't follow the logic of how a gene-seed works.

I find it surreal that someone is arguing that a group who has never fallen to chaos needs to slaughter innocents in order to protect them while they destroy chaos daemons.

By killing the sisters the gk weren't protecting themselves: they were becoming the very thing they were sworn to defeat. The idea that it helped them go on to destroy a bunch of daemons simply doesn't matter. Chaos is constantly warring with anyway.

That's why the story was dumb when it appeared and that's why it had to be removed. In just a couple paragraphs mr ward had completely destroyed the ethos of the grey knights. He may as well have written that they yelled "for the blood god" during the activities.

 Envihon wrote:
The Grey Knights are still not the Emperor themselves and still have the vestiges of their humanity but the Emperor's gene-seed heightens their abilities which is why their psychic abilities are an anathema to Chaos and why daemons can't touch the mind of a Grey Knight. Daemons have always had to talk to a Grey Knight to even try and corrupt them for that reason, you just can't force your way into a Grey Knights head, you have to appeal to their logic, their emotions and their latent humanity which is what happens to Alaric in his moment of doubt and how the Trickster put the seed of doubt into that fabled Grey Knight. None of them fell but they questioned things but that is a flaw innate in humans not the Emperor. Receiving a gene-seed makes you super-human and greatly improves your abilities but it doesn't make you into a clone of the source, otherwise every single Space Marine would of turned into a Primarch. Saying that this would be the case for the Grey Knights doesn't follow the logic of how a gene-seed works.

Basically then, geneseed doesn't matter then because beyond making them Space Marines it doesn't actually make them superior at fighting Daemons, nor does it make their powers any different, it's the training and mental conditioning that does that.

So even if it is derived from the Emperor directly (and at this point all we can really assume is that it's purer than the Primarch's Geneseeds due to never having been potentially touched by Chaos like they were), it's not pure enough to really make them better than any other Marine as a Marine, but just pure enough that it's not likely to suffer mutations later that can be exploited by Chaos.


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clively wrote:
I find it surreal that someone is arguing that a group who has never fallen to chaos needs to slaughter innocents in order to protect them while they destroy chaos daemons.

By killing the sisters the gk weren't protecting themselves: they were becoming the very thing they were sworn to defeat. The idea that it helped them go on to destroy a bunch of daemons simply doesn't matter. Chaos is constantly warring with anyway.

That's why the story was dumb when it appeared and that's why it had to be removed. In just a couple paragraphs mr ward had completely destroyed the ethos of the grey knights. He may as well have written that they yelled "for the blood god" during the activities.

You do know that killing witnesses has been a part of the Grey Knight method for fighting Daemons prior to Ward ever touching the book, right? First war of Armegheddon ended with the Inquisition, Grey Knights vs the Space Wolves who didn't want the Guardsmen there to be killed for what they had seen and fought: namely a massive daemonic incursion. The Space Wolves felt that the IG earned the right to live, the =I= and Grey Knights tried to follow their containment procedure. This is actually a major part of Space Wolf lore on why they don't get along with the Inquisition (namely the Inquisition tried to hold Fenris hostage to get what they wanted).

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Envihon wrote:
The Grey Knights are still not the Emperor themselves and still have the vestiges of their humanity but the Emperor's gene-seed heightens their abilities which is why their psychic abilities are an anathema to Chaos and why daemons can't touch the mind of a Grey Knight. Daemons have always had to talk to a Grey Knight to even try and corrupt them for that reason, you just can't force your way into a Grey Knights head, you have to appeal to their logic, their emotions and their latent humanity which is what happens to Alaric in his moment of doubt and how the Trickster put the seed of doubt into that fabled Grey Knight. None of them fell but they questioned things but that is a flaw innate in humans not the Emperor. Receiving a gene-seed makes you super-human and greatly improves your abilities but it doesn't make you into a clone of the source, otherwise every single Space Marine would of turned into a Primarch. Saying that this would be the case for the Grey Knights doesn't follow the logic of how a gene-seed works.

Basically then, geneseed doesn't matter then because beyond making them Space Marines it doesn't actually make them superior at fighting Daemons, nor does it make their powers any different, it's the training and mental conditioning that does that.

So even if it is derived from the Emperor directly (and at this point all we can really assume is that it's purer than the Primarch's Geneseeds due to never having been potentially touched by Chaos like they were), it's not pure enough to really make them better than any other Marine as a Marine, but just pure enough that it's not likely to suffer mutations later that can be exploited by Chaos.


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clively wrote:
I find it surreal that someone is arguing that a group who has never fallen to chaos needs to slaughter innocents in order to protect them while they destroy chaos daemons.

By killing the sisters the gk weren't protecting themselves: they were becoming the very thing they were sworn to defeat. The idea that it helped them go on to destroy a bunch of daemons simply doesn't matter. Chaos is constantly warring with anyway.

That's why the story was dumb when it appeared and that's why it had to be removed. In just a couple paragraphs mr ward had completely destroyed the ethos of the grey knights. He may as well have written that they yelled "for the blood god" during the activities.

You do know that killing witnesses has been a part of the Grey Knight method for fighting Daemons prior to Ward ever touching the book, right? First war of Armegheddon ended with the Inquisition, Grey Knights vs the Space Wolves who didn't want the Guardsmen there to be killed for what they had seen and fought: namely a massive daemonic incursion. The Space Wolves felt that the IG earned the right to live, the =I= and Grey Knights tried to follow their containment procedure. This is actually a major part of Space Wolf lore on why they don't get along with the Inquisition (namely the Inquisition tried to hold Fenris hostage to get what they wanted).

You misconstrued what I wrote. The gene-seed greatly enhances their abilities as psykers and with their purity. This can be easily seen with the Grey Knight Hyperion who was a Chaos tainted psyker from a crappy Hive City. After Ravenor gave the teenage psyker to the Black Ships, he was discovered by the Grey Knights and turned into a Grey Knight. Before he was merely a mirror psyker, able to just reflect the psychic powers of those around him. The latent psychic power was enough to make him a candidate for recruitment into the Grey Knights. Once having the gene-seed instilled in him, his true psychic potential is unlocked and he becomes a powerful Pyrokine with considerable power enough to possibly be considered to become a Librarian or even a Prognosticar which he later becomes after he learns proper control and discipline. This unlocking of Hyperion's latent psychic abilities wouldn't of happened without the gene-seed so it has a profound effect on their psychic abilities and resisting Chaos. It still takes practice and training to apply psychic powers effectively though so they still train. Just because you have an innate ability, doesn't mean you don't need to train it and become even better with it. It's what makes you good at something to become great at something.

And the Armageddon incident wasn't the Grey Knights fault. That one is entirely on the Inquisition. The Grey Knights made sure that the Space Wolves did everything in their power to keep the populace intact so that a purge wouldn't happen including making sure that no one saw the Grey Knights. Although things like that happen, the Grey Knights do everything possible to make sure it doesn't, they know the cost of it and it weighs heavily on them even more so because they are psykers and can feel as billions are snuffed from existence. When the Inquisition announced what was happening to the population of Armageddon even after they were shown to be cleared of taint, the Grey Knights had the same reaction as the Wolves did. The problem? The Grey Knights don't have the luxury of defying the Inquisition like the Wolves can. They had to follow orders. It's the reason why I play pure Grey Knights and don't have any Inquisitorial forces in my army anymore. One of the Grand Masters covers for the Lord Inquisitor even where Logan promptly removes his head. A great show of loyalty on the Grand Master's part but damn if the Inquisitor didn't deserve it.

All this I have talked about is in The Emperor's Gift. ADB does a great job sticking to source material for all sides of that conflict and I am glad they got him to write that GK novel.

 Envihon wrote:
You misconstrued what I wrote. The gene-seed greatly enhances their abilities as psykers and with their purity.

Conjecture and head canon at best. It's never stated that their geneseed actually does that. And if it did, I think we'd be seeing a lot more powerful Psykers than lvl 1 Brotherhoods.

 Envihon wrote:
This can be easily seen with the Grey Knight Hyperion who was a Chaos tainted psyker from a crappy Hive City. After Ravenor gave the teenage psyker to the Black Ships, he was discovered by the Grey Knights and turned into a Grey Knight. Before he was merely a mirror psyker, able to just reflect the psychic powers of those around him. The latent psychic power was enough to make him a candidate for recruitment into the Grey Knights. Once having the gene-seed instilled in him, his true psychic potential is unlocked and he becomes a powerful Pyrokine with considerable power enough to possibly be considered to become a Librarian or even a Prognosticar which he later becomes after he learns proper control and discipline. This unlocking of Hyperion's latent psychic abilities wouldn't of happened without the gene-seed so it has a profound effect on their psychic abilities and resisting Chaos. It still takes practice and training to apply psychic powers effectively though so they still train. Just because you have an innate ability, doesn't mean you don't need to train it and become even better with it. It's what makes you good at something to become great at something.

This is from a novel isn't it? I'm not dismissing it on that notion, but it has a lot less weight in my mind than anything that the Studio puts out, so I treat it less like actual proof and more like an entertaining "what if?"

 Envihon wrote:
And the Armageddon incident wasn't the Grey Knights fault.

Never said it ways, I just said that it's how they operate. It was an explicit part of canon in the past too that they killed anyone who wasn't considered important and mind wiped the rest. So I can't blame Ward for doing the same.

 Envihon wrote:
All this I have talked about is in The Emperor's Gift. ADB does a great job sticking to source material for all sides of that conflict and I am glad they got him to write that GK novel.

Hey may be not actively contradicting studio canon, but he's definitely building threads from things that are not codex lore.

Is Janus still hinted at being You Know Who (or his Brother)?

I use the Black Library novels as a way to clarify what is in the Codex. As long as a novel doesn't blatantly contradict the Codices, like C.S. Goto did. Novels do something that the Codices can't, actually let us get inside the head of the people in the army or of some of the special characters that make up an army. A codex may give a list of deeds and history but never the personal motivations. A codex can't give that kind of detail, novels can.

I think dismissing the stuff Black Library and Forge World put out is loosing scope of the way all this fits together to create the background we all play in. It is the difference between Warhammer 40k and Warmachine for me. It creates more of a rich environment to play in. I think it would diminish things if we didn't consider it alongside the Codices for information about the universe.

To point out, most of the things we "know" about the Horus Heresy is directly from Black Library and Forge World so to let those factors way in but not the the novels that take place in the 41st millennium seems to me like it is a double standard. I know a lot of people are hesitant with letting in the Black Library stuff because of bad authors introducing bad fluff but they seem to have a better handle on it than GW did with 5th edition codices.


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 Alpharius wrote:
Is Janus still hinted at being You Know Who (or his Brother)?

Are you doing that because of spoilers?

 Envihon wrote:
I use the Black Library novels as a way to clarify what is in the Codex. As long as a novel doesn't blatantly contradict the Codices, like C.S. Goto did. Novels do something that the Codices can't, actually let us get inside the head of the people in the army or of some of the special characters that make up an army. A codex may give a list of deeds and history but never the personal motivations. A codex can't give that kind of detail, novels can.

I think dismissing the stuff Black Library and Forge World put out is loosing scope of the way all this fits together to create the background we all play in. It is the difference between Warhammer 40k and Warmachine for me. It creates more of a rich environment to play in. I think it would diminish things if we didn't consider it alongside the Codices for information about the universe.

Seeing as the offical studio policy is "everything and nothing is canon" I think it isn't that big of a deal. For the record though, I rank them as follows:

Studio > FW > BL > Headcanon/Fan theory/fan fiction

So it all fits in there, but I'm not going to assume that the BL is automatically the best source to expand the codexes since they rarely have input from the studio.

 Envihon wrote:
To point out, most of the things we "know" about the Horus Heresy is directly from Black Library and Forge World so to let those factors way in but not the the novels that take place in the 41st millennium seems to me like it is a double standard. I know a lot of people are hesitant with letting in the Black Library stuff because of bad authors introducing bad fluff but they seem to have a better handle on it than GW did with 5th edition codices.

Actually a lot of it came from the studio first, but FW is running with it by expanding those established events into playable campaigns and giving the participants working rulesets. Likewise the BL is doing the same, taking existing studio material, and spinning it their own way. Some of that way is pretty silly too.

hoenstly codexes of late have given me some reason to suspect GW's been working more closely with BL in terms of ensuring fluff matches up.

ClockworkZion wrote:You're approaching it form the mindset of "what they don't mention doesn't change", when things get dropped it's annoying.

Initially, this approach was based on my (false) assumption that 40k actually had a canon, where everything - including old material - adds to the greater whole. Needless to say, I've since had to change this perception after hunting down quotes from the people who write the setting. In this process, however, I also stumbled over the design notes for the 3E Codex (printed in WD #292), where they explained that, yes, they are aiming for inter-edition consistency.

When opening a new codex I would expect to find the "from infancy" bit just as much as I'd expect a description of the Schola (which we didn't have in the 3E codex either, btw), the background story for how the Immolator was created, or a description of the Orders' organisation. We do not always get all of this, or sometimes any of this - but GW has been re-posting bits and pieces from old material time and time again. And I like that this approach actually gives me something to shape the setting with, for as you said, the 6th Edition book is ... quite lacking in content.

ClockworkZion wrote:I am not asking for just copy paste but rather to not mess with what works and then add to the overall story by filling in the gaps, and not all at the "Time of Ending".

... so are you complaining that the "from infancy" bit has not been mentioned everywhere since it was first published, or are you complaining they put it back in?

ClockworkZion wrote:I really wasn't speaking from a headcanon approach, but rather as a way it could have been done a lot better from the get go is all.

Sure, sure. I guess I just don't understand what all the commotion is about. I suppose it depends on how we interpret things - personally, I didn't need to read anything more (seeing as I filled in the blanks myself), and maybe the guys at GW just didn't expect anyone else to do so either - just like with the ME3 ending. For me, that was part of the fun; the ability to make up stuff yourself in a way that lets it look sensible to you as the individual reader.

Given how GW's portrayal of things has evolved over the decades, sometimes I actually wish they'd leave more blank spots for us to fill ourselves.

Envihon wrote:[...] Horus Heresy books and specifically Aaron Dembski-Bowden's (Who is overly careful to respect the fluff of the Codex and source material) The Emperor's Gift [...]

"I’ve read 40K novels that categorically violate my opinions and perceptions of how 40K works, and I have no trouble ignoring them afterwards. Similarly with some design studio sourcebooks, if I come across an idea that I find patently, uh, “in conflict” with my views (there’s some diplomacy for you), I’ll just ignore it and try not to write about it."
-- Aaron Dembski-Bowden

An example of studio fluff that ADB is ignoring would be the lightning on the Night Lords' armour, where the newest codex says that it's actual Warp-fueled lightning, but where, as far as his novels were concerned, ADB said "feth this" and continued to write them as painted-on.
Which I actually agree with, because the real lightning was a dumb idea.

The HH novels are internally consistent (or at least they are supposed to be), but don't expect them to be 100% compatible to the stuff that the main studio is producing.
Which I actually like, because some stuff in the HH books was also a dumb idea.

Envihon wrote:Novels do something that the Codices can't, actually let us get inside the head of the people in the army or of some of the special characters that make up an army. A codex may give a list of deeds and history but never the personal motivations. A codex can't give that kind of detail, novels can.
I think dismissing the stuff Black Library and Forge World put out is loosing scope of the way all this fits together to create the background we all play in.

You're not operating by GW's manual here, though. This stuff is intentionally, specifically not meant to "fit together". The novels also do not really "let you get inside the heads of people", because then you'd have a 100% accurate account of what happened, but this is not how those books own writers explained it.

"The absolute truth which is implied when you talk about "canonical background" will never be known because of this. Everything we know about these worlds is from the viewpoints of people in them which are as a result incomplete and even sometimes incorrect. The truth is mutable, debatable and lost as the victors write the history...
Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it. Let's put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex... and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths."
-- Marc Gascoigne (Chief Editor Black Library)

BrianDavion wrote:hoenstly codexes of late have given me some reason to suspect GW's been working more closely with BL in terms of ensuring fluff matches up.

But Black Library is not internally consistent. Every author is writing for himself. It would be impossible for GW to ensure it matches up, until BL pulls a Disney and enforces its own canon policy, simultaneously discarding what has been published before.

It is of note that GW has been and probably always will be adopting select bits and pieces from BL material - whilst ignoring others. Perhaps you've spotted one such example where the studio writers thought it'd be worth including in a codex?

"If the developers and other creative folks believe a contribution by an author fits the bill and has an appeal to the audience, why not fold it back into the ‘game’ world – such as Gaunt’s Ghosts or characters from the Gotrek and Felix series. On the other hand, if an author has a bit of a wobbly moment, there’s no pressure to feel that it has to be accepted into the worldview promulgated by the codexes and army books."
-- Gav Thorpe

@Lynata: I was mostly just annoyed that the description of how Sisters are chosen isn't consistent from edition to edition in the codexes. I don't care that it was in a WD at one point, or that it's been brought back, it's just one of those things that I would like to see not change because it doesn't need to be. If anything I'd like it to be expanded on with more detail (like they did for Storm Troopers) but not changed to seem fundamentally different.