Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 IllumiNini wrote:
Also if the Lost Legions were absorbed into the Ultramarines and then needed to "die out", they would all have had to die before the records of their Legions were expunged, otherwise I imagine something along the lines of polluting the Ultramarine gene seed with this other "unknown" gene seed or big questions being asked about an unknown gene seed would ensue.

Or, these "new" Ultramarines were simply flagged as "do not harvest" and their geneseed was left to die with them.

Many of the HH novels show issues between the SMs recruited on the
Primarch's home planet and those recruited on Terra, with many of those Terrans being from very early days, eg the DA novels, Scars, many others. Its possible some of these Terran recruits who don't quite fit in came from the 2 dissolved legions, thus explaining why they could never integrate, where many of the Terrans were able to integrate completely. If all SMs receive the same hypno-indoctrination, there shouldn't be a reason for different levels of integration.

Maybe not the best theory, but a possibility

 Breotan wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:
Also if the Lost Legions were absorbed into the Ultramarines and then needed to "die out", they would all have had to die before the records of their Legions were expunged, otherwise I imagine something along the lines of polluting the Ultramarine gene seed with this other "unknown" gene seed or big questions being asked about an unknown gene seed would ensue.

Or, these "new" Ultramarines were simply flagged as "do not harvest" and their geneseed was left to die with them.

There would still be a problem of the Second Founding. Assuming there were any left alive by this point, how many were?

This works prior to and during the Horus Heresy, but the minute the Second Founding comes around, the more that were left alive, the bigger problem they pose. For example, what if there were 1,000 with one of the lost Legion's gene seeds? Do you create a "Suicide Squad" Chapter with them who aren't allowed to replenish their numbers? Or were their numbers such that they could be spread out over the Successor Chapters of the Ultramarines Legion?

I kinda like this theory, though. There's plausibility in it. But it assumes that they were absorbed into the Ultramarines in the first place, which if we disregard all potential issues relating to gene seed, still presents a number of other issues such as providing records which explain the sudden appearance of however many Astartes into the Legion without there being record of their "Creation" process, changing the mindsets of all the 'transferred' Astartes to that of the Ultramarines, etc etc etc...

For me, it boils down to this:

(1) If there were so few of them (e.g. Hundreds, maybe less) of Astartes from the two Lost Legions, then it may have been the more likely case that they were purged along with their Legions' records.

(2) If there were enough to warrant such an action of integration, then maybe the Space Wolves (or maybe even another Legion) did destroy them after all.

Either way, I feel there were options that weren't so much better as they were logistically simpler compare with integrating them into the Ultramarines.

JustALittleOrkish wrote:
Many of the HH novels show issues between the SMs recruited on the
Primarch's home planet and those recruited on Terra, with many of those Terrans being from very early days, eg the DA novels, Scars, many others. Its possible some of these Terran recruits who don't quite fit in came from the 2 dissolved legions, thus explaining why they could never integrate, where many of the Terrans were able to integrate completely. If all SMs receive the same hypno-indoctrination, there shouldn't be a reason for different levels of integration.

Maybe not the best theory, but a possibility

Again, it comes down to the fact that they had different gene seeds. Also, we don't know the circumstances surrounding their record expunging. This means that we don't know if any of the Legions' Astartes survived and remained part of the Imperium. For all we know, they were considered akin to Excommunicated Traitors and any surviving Astartes from those two Legions either fled Imperium space or fled to the Eye of Terror to join the forces of Chaos.

I know a chap that swears blind he is sure that Ka'Bandha the bloodthirster that meets Sanguinius in the signus cluster is one of the missing primarchs.

I think it stems from when he is talking to Horus he calls him brother.

Agreed that one has been mentioned as 'The Lost' and one as 'The Purged'. From what I can piece together, the following kinda makes sense:

- Two primarchs had their caskets damaged.

- At least one may have been 'Lost' - since we know that all were found, the this may mean they found the body of a team primarch. If the Legion were otherwise stable, and followed the standard Crusade legion organisational structure, then folding them into a well-organised legion like the Ultramarines seems like a sensible response.

- At least one was 'Purged' by the Space Wolves. This could have been because a Primarch and his Legion rebelled against the Emperor, or could have been because of some sort of physical corruption that couldn't be solved. Who knows? But the Wolves definitely fought and defeated another Legion, which suggests that this Legion were an operational fighting force at some point.

- All the Primarchs seem regretful about these two occurrences - like they wish there was another way they could have solved whatever problem there was.


.

All this speculation depends on how and when the two Primarchs were written off.

If one happened early enough during the Great Crusade, then it's easy enough to see that legion absorbed by the Ultramarines. If it happened nearer to the Horus Heresy, then the Legion could have been wiped out completely on Istavaan or perhaps earlier. I doubt the Ultramarines' numbers swelled after the Heresy began.

Rayvon wrote:I know a chap that swears blind he is sure that Ka'Bandha the bloodthirster that meets Sanguinius in the signus cluster is one of the missing primarchs.

I think it stems from when he is talking to Horus he calls him brother.

Sounds a little unusual to me. The first thing that comes to mind is that every Primarch that turns becomes a 'Daemon Prince' while Ka'Bundha is a 'Greater Daemon', so there is a distinction. The second that that the term 'Brother' can be applied loosely (for example, it can be applied between best friends).

ArbitorIan wrote:Agreed that one has been mentioned as 'The Lost' and one as 'The Purged'. From what I can piece together, the following kinda makes sense:

- Two primarchs had their caskets damaged.

- At least one may have been 'Lost' - since we know that all were found, the this may mean they found the body of a team primarch. If the Legion were otherwise stable, and followed the standard Crusade legion organisational structure, then folding them into a well-organised legion like the Ultramarines seems like a sensible response.

- At least one was 'Purged' by the Space Wolves. This could have been because a Primarch and his Legion rebelled against the Emperor, or could have been because of some sort of physical corruption that couldn't be solved. Who knows? But the Wolves definitely fought and defeated another Legion, which suggests that this Legion were an operational fighting force at some point.

- All the Primarchs seem regretful about these two occurrences - like they wish there was another way they could have solved whatever problem there was.

Sounds fair enough to me (Except for the Ultramarines thing, I thing I've made my opinions clear on that haha)

Breotan wrote:All this speculation depends on how and when the two Primarchs were written off.

If one happened early enough during the Great Crusade, then it's easy enough to see that legion absorbed by the Ultramarines. If it happened nearer to the Horus Heresy, then the Legion could have been wiped out completely on Istavaan or perhaps earlier. I doubt the Ultramarines' numbers swelled after the Heresy began.

I think the two Primarchs were said to have 'Been Lost' by the time the Horus Heresy got into full swing (i.e. by the time the Isstvan V Drop Site Massacre came around). I'm not sure how soon into the Great Crusade it could have been but I always thought it had to be at least a short time after Leman Russ was found. I also think it 's reasonable to assume they were both 'Lost' after the last Primarch was found.

But as you said, it's nothing but peculation because we don't know the circumstances and we don't have a tight enough time frame for their disappearance.

Hasn't the whole "Ultramarines absorbed another Legion" thing already been debunked by the author who wrote it? I could have sworn that that came up in the last thread that OP could have easily looked up without starting a carbon copy of two hundred other threads...

 dusara217 wrote:
Hasn't the whole "Ultramarines absorbed another Legion" thing already been debunked by the author who wrote it? I could have sworn that that came up in the last thread that OP could have easily looked up without starting a carbon copy of two hundred other threads...

I've heard a few people say that, and it's a case of either the author actually debunked it or, as I've been trying to argue, the theory has too many holes that can be poked in it to actually work properly.

Also, if the OP had done his research, he could have, as you said, found everything that's been discussed here in countless other threads.

 Breotan wrote:
All this speculation depends on how and when the two Primarchs were written off.

If one happened early enough during the Great Crusade, then it's easy enough to see that legion absorbed by the Ultramarines. If it happened nearer to the Horus Heresy, then the Legion could have been wiped out completely on Istavaan or perhaps earlier. I doubt the Ultramarines' numbers swelled after the Heresy began.

It's explicitly stated that both where gone before Corax was found in Deliverance lost.

The order the Primarchs were discovered in is as follows:

Horus Lupercal
Leman Russ
[DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS]
Ferrus Manus
Fulgrim
Vulkan
Rogal Dorn
Roboute Guilliman
Magnus the Red
Sanguinius
Lion El'Jonson
Perturabo
Mortarion
Lorgar Aurelian
Jaghatai Khan
Konrad Curze
Angron
Corvus Corax
[DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS]
Alpharius Omegon

It's also been confirmed that in Deliverance Lost, the Emperor ia referring to not having found 2 of his sons, not having killed them.

It's been debunked by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, that the line about the XIII absorbing one or both legions, is just some bitter hearsay from the Word Bearers legion, and that's all it was intended to be, they are the size they are because they recruit from 500 worlda on a regular basis.

As for the 2 missing, several reasons are implied as to their fates, Sanguinius fears his legion may be purged due to their gene seed fault, Lorgar for his legion conquering about 3 planets in the entire Crusade, these imply there was possibly a genetic fault and a personality fault to blame. Of course, then we have Horus pining over capsule XI and what glory will never come to pass, the Word Bearers considering smashing up II to prevent the atrocities or shame (long time since I read the novel).
I believe that II is the Purged, and Sanguinius and Lorgar worry they will share his fate, possibly at the hands of the Custodes and/or Wolves.
XI I think was horrendously injured, and his legion was unable to replenish properly. That or his legion was destroyed by an enemy. Who's to say they just weren't very good fighters in the XIth and got wiped out by Kroot?

Years ago, Anne Marie Argent (not sure what her username is now if she's still writing 40K, I lost touch with her years ago) wrote about "Ra-Lee, the Silver Primarch", the only female Primarch.

I found the name and the idea to be really evocative, and although it may contradict the confused fluff of the Heresy novels, the idea of the Emperor trying a female Primarch is pretty interesting. What went wrong? Why are there no more female Astartes?

The fluff behind the missing primarchs has become too confused. In one of the early Heresy novels, I think it's Horus who sees one of the Primarch incubators is dark, as if it's offline and the contents are dead. However, in several later novels, it's implied the missing Primarchs and their Legions were destroyed by the others.

This yet again contradicts the early novels where various Astartes Legionnaires are shown as shocked, or distressed, or even intrigued by the idea of Astartes fighting Astartes. (We later learn the Space Wolves and World Eaters actually went to war.)

NoPoet wrote:Years ago, Anne Marie Argent (not sure what her username is now if she's still writing 40K, I lost touch with her years ago) wrote about "Ra-Lee, the Silver Primarch", the only female Primarch.

I found the name and the idea to be really evocative, and although it may contradict the confused fluff of the Heresy novels, the idea of the Emperor trying a female Primarch is pretty interesting. What went wrong? Why are there no more female Astartes

I'm sure it made for an interesting story, but the idea of a female Primarch is an interesting, completely non-canon one at best because it's been explicitly stated that all the Primarchs were male.

NoPoet wrote:The fluff behind the missing primarchs has become too confused. In one of the early Heresy novels, I think it's Horus who sees one of the Primarch incubators is dark, as if it's offline and the contents are dead. However, in several later novels, it's implied the missing Primarchs and their Legions were destroyed by the others.

This yet again contradicts the early novels where various Astartes Legionnaires are shown as shocked, or distressed, or even intrigued by the idea of Astartes fighting Astartes. (We later learn the Space Wolves and World Eaters actually went to war.)

Horus does see the tank of the 11th while he was on Davin in the novel "False Gods". While he's being healed in the temple, he is shown a vision of a potential future and then is shown the incubation tanks of the Primarchs as they get scattered across the galaxy. As for the status of the pod, several implications can be made, with the Primarch being dead before they were scattered being only one of them.

Also, I'm not quite following how there's a contradiction, but you gave me an interesting idea:

What if the Legions weren't destroyed by Astartes, hence leaving Astartes fighting Astartes an abhorrent idea. I know they're not hugely different from Astartes, but maybe at least one of the Legions was destroyed by the Custodian Guard? I don't have any evidence to support this, but it's an interesting thought.




Pretty accurate summary

Maybe the Cabal nuked them.....

 Ratius wrote:
Maybe the Cabal nuked them.....

Not impossible, but I have my doubts about that. From the skim reading I did on one of the wiki pages, they seem more the sort of group that would guide the galaxy rather than take serious action such as destroying to Astartes Legions. I know they were supposed to have suborned the Alpha Legion, but that's an entirely different thing to destroying Legions.

Also, if the two missing Legions still existed and the Cabel had something to do with it, then maybe they could have persuaded the two Legions to keep their oaths to the Emperor, thus giving him the advantage over Horus' forces and maybe (just maybe) the Horus Heresy could have ended more favourably for the Imperium. The reason I say this and the fact you should keep in mind is:

Cable hate Chaos. Here's an exert from http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Cabal:

"The Cabal claims to have battled the forces of the "Primordial Annihilator" (Chaos) for a time longer than the existence of Mankind as a thinking species. The Cabal is a hidden organisation, covertly predicting the future and steering the intelligent races of the galaxy towards their ultimate goal of wiping Chaos from existence within the Empyrean."

Conversely, they may have played a hand in having the Imperium (or other party) destroy them because of fears they may turn to Chaos, but this scenario seems less likely to me.

No agreed. I was being a bit tongue in cheek

haha my bad. I've always been horrible at picking that up haha

 Fugazi wrote:

TheWanderer wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Or someone just wanted to reference the 2 destroyed Roamn Legions...

pretty sure I have read exactly this, not 100% certain of the source but pretty sure it was one of the original rogue trader era writers.

Also, there are a couple of threads about this so might be worth searching those for more info

If you're curious, see this thread where I sum up a Rick Priestly interview explaining the mystery: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/420975.page#8127625

thank you! that makes for some interesting reading, I very much like the idea of the expunging being a reward for coming back after rebelling, that actually makes some sense, the idea being that it was their bad deeds being expunged along with their name. I like it.

Kind of wrecked by the ongoing rumour mill inside the HH books though which is sad. Sounds more like they were bad eggs and got wiped or went mutant. which is a lot less interesting,


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Agreed that one has been mentioned as 'The Lost' and one as 'The Purged'. From what I can piece together, the following kinda makes sense:

- Two primarchs had their caskets damaged.

- At least one may have been 'Lost' - since we know that all were found, the this may mean they found the body of a team primarch. If the Legion were otherwise stable, and followed the standard Crusade legion organisational structure, then folding them into a well-organised legion like the Ultramarines seems like a sensible response.

- At least one was 'Purged' by the Space Wolves. This could have been because a Primarch and his Legion rebelled against the Emperor, or could have been because of some sort of physical corruption that couldn't be solved. Who knows? But the Wolves definitely fought and defeated another Legion, which suggests that this Legion were an operational fighting force at some point.

- All the Primarchs seem regretful about these two occurrences - like they wish there was another way they could have solved whatever problem there was.


.

doesn't work for me.

-The little snippets made in HH books suggest they were very much alive at least at some point during the crusade so dead before it started doesn't run, also why delete the records?
- purged doesn't run for me, although some of the snippets suggest it, why delete the records? they don't delete the records of all the other traitors

TheWanderer wrote:
-The little snippets made in HH books suggest they were very much alive at least at some point during the crusade so dead before it started doesn't run, also why delete the records?
- purged doesn't run for me, although some of the snippets suggest it, why delete the records? they don't delete the records of all the other traitors

Well as far as being gone/dead/missing before the Horus Heresy started, I reckon that makes sense purely because if they had been part of the crusade, then, like the rest of the HH, it'd be incredibly difficult to cover up. This means that their involvement would be recorded and we'd know something about them.

As for deleting the records, it may stem from the idea in the interview of whet's-their-name where it was a reward of sorts, but that doesn't sit so well with me since that still begs the question of their fate after their records were expunged. My view is that there were circumstances that led to their destruction, expulsion from the Imperium, fleeing the Imperium, or something along those lines, with the circumstances surrounding these events allowing for the complete and utter expunging of their records.

 IllumiNini wrote:

TheWanderer wrote:
-The little snippets made in HH books suggest they were very much alive at least at some point during the crusade so dead before it started doesn't run, also why delete the records?
- purged doesn't run for me, although some of the snippets suggest it, why delete the records? they don't delete the records of all the other traitors

Well as far as being gone/dead/missing before the Horus Heresy started, I reckon that makes sense purely because if they had been part of the crusade, then, like the rest of the HH, it'd be incredibly difficult to cover up. This means that their involvement would be recorded and we'd know something about them.

As for deleting the records, it may stem from the idea in the interview of whet's-their-name where it was a reward of sorts, but that doesn't sit so well with me since that still begs the question of their fate after their records were expunged. My view is that there were circumstances that led to their destruction, expulsion from the Imperium, fleeing the Imperium, or something along those lines, with the circumstances surrounding these events allowing for the complete and utter expunging of their records.

if you look at my posts earlier in this thread you'll see why I cant really agree with those as reasons to expunge the records, all of those things have been done by other legions who's records are still there.

TheWanderer wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:

TheWanderer wrote:
-The little snippets made in HH books suggest they were very much alive at least at some point during the crusade so dead before it started doesn't run, also why delete the records?
- purged doesn't run for me, although some of the snippets suggest it, why delete the records? they don't delete the records of all the other traitors

Well as far as being gone/dead/missing before the Horus Heresy started, I reckon that makes sense purely because if they had been part of the crusade, then, like the rest of the HH, it'd be incredibly difficult to cover up. This means that their involvement would be recorded and we'd know something about them.

As for deleting the records, it may stem from the idea in the interview of whet's-their-name where it was a reward of sorts, but that doesn't sit so well with me since that still begs the question of their fate after their records were expunged. My view is that there were circumstances that led to their destruction, expulsion from the Imperium, fleeing the Imperium, or something along those lines, with the circumstances surrounding these events allowing for the complete and utter expunging of their records.

if you look at my posts earlier in this thread you'll see why I cant really agree with those as reasons to expunge the records, all of those things have been done by other legions who's records are still there.

I can appreciate that (and I have read this entire thread), but if the records were expunged complete from all Imperial Records, that would include the records of the Legions that wiped out the Legion(s) (assuming that's the case) because their records would technically fall under the umbrella of Imperial Records.

 NoPoet wrote:
Years ago, Anne Marie Argent (not sure what her username is now if she's still writing 40K, I lost touch with her years ago) wrote about "Ra-Lee, the Silver Primarch", the only female Primarch.

I found the name and the idea to be really evocative, and although it may contradict the confused fluff of the Heresy novels, the idea of the Emperor trying a female Primarch is pretty interesting. What went wrong? Why are there no more female Astartes?

The fluff behind the missing primarchs has become too confused. In one of the early Heresy novels, I think it's Horus who sees one of the Primarch incubators is dark, as if it's offline and the contents are dead. However, in several later novels, it's implied the missing Primarchs and their Legions were destroyed by the others. EDIT: also there has been occaisions where chapters who've suffered great losses borrow gene seed from terra in order to remain active. Usually this has a negative effect on the Space Marine morale.

This yet again contradicts the early novels where various Astartes Legionnaires are shown as shocked, or distressed, or even intrigued by the idea of Astartes fighting Astartes. (We later learn the Space Wolves and World Eaters actually went to war.)

Funny thing actually. Malcador did supposedly suggest that the Emperor make half the Primarchs female.

I always liked the idea that the Ultramirnes absorbed another legion. Their gene-seed has shown the least ammount of deteriation (source: Death Watch rulebook) after 10.000 years and they're responsible for about 3/7s (Source: Codex space marines 4ed, better doubble check this number) of the succesor chapters that are still active in the 41m. To me it makes sence that their gene-seed is adaptable enough to handle the foreign marine legion.

I've read somewhere that the original idea was to have the two missing legions rebel with Horus then see redemption and fight for the Emperor in the end and thus their names being stricken was a honour rather then a punishmet. This does NOT hold up in the current fluff and is simply wrong. Still, I very much like the idea of them betraying the betrayer.

Nerak wrote:
Funny thing actually. Malcador did supposedly suggest that the Emperor make half the Primarchs female.

Google didn't turn up much on that, so not 100% on it. Intriguing ideao, though.

Nerak wrote:
I've read somewhere that the original idea was to have the two missing legions rebel with Horus then see redemption and fight for the Emperor in the end and thus their names being stricken was a honour rather then a punishmet. This does NOT hold up in the current fluff and is simply wrong. Still, I very much like the idea of them betraying the betrayer.

Where's DiCaprio and that loud Inception music when you need it? The Betrayal-ception is real haha

Still, a decent theory (even if it isn't 100% plausible). This reminds me of a theory that I'm rather fond of which that at least one of them turned to Chaos and as later expunged from all records and existence, the destroyed Legion's small size (or some other factor like that) as well as the agreement between the Primarchs to never again speak of them allowing for the records to be expunged and a complete cover up to ensue. This theory doesn't necessarily account for the fate of the other Legion, but I think it also serves as a precursor (related or not) to the fall of Lorgar to the Ruinous Powers.

I am so sorry. I searched around and realised I'd read it on malcadors page on 1d4chan. To say that makes it uncertain is quite the understatment so don't take it as canon.

Edit: I still like the idea though. Why would you not have half the demigods be female. You could argue that would represent the species as a whole better.

I have a related question, and I think it's a pretty good one.
Could the Omega Vault have anything to do with the lost Primarchs?
"Naval-minded Inquisition agents on their brief sojourns at Erioch have postulated that the fortress must have been brought there in some great and secret undertaking in the past." - referring to Watch Fortress Erioch.
" A heroically-proportioned statue of an Imperial warrior carved from alabaster occupies the centre of the dais and its incredible antiquity can be only be guessed at. [...] Over the past few decades, those arriving at Erioch from the Calixis Sector have come to associate the shrine with Saint Aret the Lethecant, sovereign guardian of that which should not be remembered. A scattering of purged dataslates and cracked library crystals can sometimes be found left as offerings to the saint to call on his assistance in expunging memories of the past." - Saint Aret is obviously not one of the Primarchs, but the symbolism seems to be the only one i can find that resonates with the desire NOT to remember the lost legions/primarchs.
"The Last Fortress is Truth." ....
Further more, does anyone actually know the total number of Death Watch? Their ways of recruitment make it really difficult to determine the exact number of battle brothers under their banner. Perhaps sufficiently difficult that they could hide ... legion strength at all times? (referring to the original Death Watch being one/part of one of the lost legions)
They watch over the Jericho Reach for apparently no reason. If we are to assume that the Death Watch were originally one of the 20 legions, could it be that something happened in the Jericho Reach? As in, something that would warrant their deletion (on purpose) from Imperial Records as if they are gone; moving a giant battle fortress that is invaluable in the field of war full of some of the best tech the Imperium could offer through the Warp itself so they could watch over some great, terrible secret. Then their tragedy would be the sacrifice of their name and legacy, being expunged from all record so they could ultimately perform their most sacred duty. And that would most certainly make sure that whatever happened to the other legion, the nature of the two tragedies is unrelated.
What do you guys think?