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How do? Brace yourself, high chance of wimbrilling.

Anyways. The Primaris, or at least how they were introduced have proven somewhat divisive.

Yet, when we dig into the background, it strongly points to them being based on existing plans. And that’s what I’d like to delve into with this thread.

For clarity, this is about background only. Not one’s own opinion on Primaris as a thing. So please stick to the topic at hand.

Ready? Off we go.

The first thing to understand is the Primarch Project, what happened, and why it points to Space Marines being a rush or ‘Friday’ job. This will also touch on Thunder Warriors. And indeed, start with them.

So, Thunder Warriors. Pre-cursors to Space Marines. And in certain areas, superior to Space Marines. Yet, by accident or design they were short lived. I’m in the camp of accident, otherwise why use the original Space Marines to wipe them out? Anyways. That’s a different, if closely related topic.

From there, with Terra pacified and unified, The Emperor embarked upon the Primarch Project. This was to be the final word in genetic manipulation using existing knowledge. 20 were created (arguably 21 because Omegon), and there was a plan. Then the scattering occurred. All of them snatched away and deposited around the Galaxy.

With that done, The Emperor creates Space Marines, based on remaining genetic samples. And we know the timing of The Emperor revealing Himself, getting Terra sorted and planning the Great Crusade occurred because, somehow, he knew the Warp Storms were about to clear. That’s why he cracked on with the Primarch Project when he did, so he’d have armies ready to go.

But, with that plan interrupted, original Space Marines were, by necessity, a rush job. A salvage operation to get at least some benefit of the Primarch Project. They were imperfect, unrefined. I mean, look at the gap between Astartes and Primarch. Its huge. Like a tiny, yappy, bulge eyed Chiuaua and a Wolf. Both of the same lineage, but one clearly superior in every way to the other.

Importantly though, they were a tool fit for the purpose. Faster, stronger, more intelligent and longer lived than pretty much any Warrior ever before. And so began The Great Crusade. Also, various of Cawl’s identities were present in that time, and at least one worked upon both projects.

Here, I’m going to jump forward to 40,000 for a brief moment. By this point, it’s become widely accepted that Space Marines are perfection. The greatest they can possibly be. But, as with much of Imperial Dogma, that is a lie.

Now, back to the Heresy era. After Istvaan , the Raven Guard were in a sorry state. The merest fraction of the Legion remained. And, in short time, The Emperor granted Corax and his Legion access to certain technologies. And this? This is where it gets interesting, from the Primaris point of view.

See, the Space Marines created in that process, before their corruption, were stronger, faster, more intelligent and more resilient than any other. Does......does that sound familiar? Anyone? No? Beuller? No? Dust? Bueller? Anyone? Dust?.

Basically, it describes Primaris Marines to a tee. And that technology already existed, in storage. So it’s seems that as much as the original Astartes were a rush job, they were still more than adequate for the time being.

Now, here comes the speculation.

I don’t, for a second, believe The Emperor didn’t have intentions to further improve his Astartes. I mean, there’s no examples at all previously of a ‘that’ll do, Pig, that’ll do’ attitude. And I for one argue that the dawn of the Heresy is the reason things were arrested when they were. Essentially, He had more pressing concerns, especially after Magnus Did Nothing Wrong. And after that point, he was either way too busy or too, y’know, kinda ded, to pick up where he left off.

Now. Corax and Guilliman were Brothers. There seems absolutely no chance that Corax’s ‘new and improved, never mind it’s goo now’ Sons wouldn’t have come up, or escaped the attention of Guilliman. And it’s likely Corax divulged much of his knowledge to Guilliman, either during or after the Heresy.

From there? Guilliman, the then de facto leader of the Imperium would’ve, inevitably, had been introduced to Cawl, assuming he hadn’t know of him beforehand.

And by that point, daemonic shenanigans, as were used to corrupt those early ‘might as well be Primaris’ Marines was better understood. From there, it’s a relatively simple, if time consuming, task to grant Cawl access to whatever records remained, and possibly even the original machinery.

After that? He had 10,000 years and near unlimited resources to tinker around. And there’s certainly no suggestion he just got it right first time around.

In summary - in no sense did Cawl personally invent The Primaris. Rather, his task was to recover existing knowledge and gene crafting, so the always planned next iteration could come to be.

Right, hopefully that’s coherent. Typing on iPad so can’t be bothered to edit.

All comments and criticism, citation and braining welcome. Personal opinions on Primaris as a thing not required.

we know one core element of the primaris project was the 'Sangprimus Portem' - which "contains the genetic material originally harvested from all twenty Primarchs".

That sounds too much like the gene-reservoir Corax finds in the Emperor's labyrinth to be a coincidence, so yes, quite possibly.




https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Sangprimus_Portum

It's all perfectly reasonable. Plus, if you've successfully made something great, why wouldn't you then go on and try to further improve on it. That all makes sense.

They're just really irritating. (sorry)

No worries

Comment is fine. Diatribe not fine

regarding space Marines and their flaws. the Novel Valdore goes into some detail about the Space Marines development.


as such the priamris project makes sense. it was an effort to basicly "finish the job" on Marines that had been by necessity done without the full toolset needed. and in the end, all Cawl could do was add 3 new organs. (his original plan was more ambitious)

And I have doubts that Cawl even designed said three additional organs himself.

Rather, I suspect he found whatever amounted to The Emperor’s project notes, extra super secret special tech, and worked from there.

And in terms of the wider background, even though I personally am a fan of Primaris, it’s a more satisfying explanation.

Indeed, the 10,000 years he had speaks to The Emperor’s own brilliance, given he worked up the Primarchs from relative scratch in, well, actually, I don’t know. Is there a canonical timescale for that? I can’t imagine it’s much more than a century or two?

Also speaks to the resources available to The Emperor at the time. I mean, 20 men might build a house in X time, but a single man on his own won’t do the same in 1/20th the time?

Primaris are perfectly reasonable from a lore standpoint, people just wanna be dicks.

Comment on the topic, not subjective opinion.

The Selenar gene cults had a hand in it as well.

The Sangprimus portum was a Selenar artefact (originally called the Magna Mater) recovered by loyalists from the Moon before the Sons of Horus got it.

Read the siege of terra LE novella Sons of the Selenar for more information.

In short, as we already knew, the emperors forces defeated the Selenar on Luna. They weren't wiped out, he let them live and yoked them to his cause so he could use their superior genetic knowledge to mass produce Space Marines for the Great Crusade.

The Magna Mater contained the prime source information of the space marine genetic codes. Its highly likely the Selenar, given their superior genetic knowledge, made improvements to the source code for possible future use. Its possible Cawl didn't actually develop the new primaris organs, rather the selenar made the improvements originally.

Whoever came up with the concept/design/test subjects of what would become the Primaris over time, I still don’t think it was Cawl.

It doesn’t fit him, nor the Tech-Priest ethos, which is that everything is already done, we just need to go find it again. Which is a gloriously nihilistic approach to technology, and why I enjoy Ad-Mech so much.

Could the Magna Mater be what Corax was told was on Mars, and later corrupted?

And what was built once, can be built again, if one can find the blueprints?

Going down the rabbit hole further.....clearly The Emperor knew of the Magna Mater. But where did that knowledge come from? What if He’d seen blueprints or the relevant STC, and decided it was such a complex machine it was actually easier to go and chin Luna, and take the single, known example?

Seriously, I love this sort of chat. New to me info is presented, theories come up and are discussed and picked apart.

well the 3 organs are, basicly half of a primarch growth gland (something that clearly Cawl didn't develop) a set of muscle reinforcers, not exactly rocket science that. the one organ he likely did develop was the Bascilian furnace (mostly because it seems to ceom from his name) which... honestly is basicly a glorified adrenaline pump


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Whoever came up with the concept/design/test subjects of what would become the Primaris over time, I still don’t think it was Cawl.

It doesn’t fit him, nor the Tech-Priest ethos, which is that everything is already done, we just need to go find it again. Which is a gloriously nihilistic approach to technology, and why I enjoy Ad-Mech so much.

Could the Magna Mater be what Corax was told was on Mars, and later corrupted?

And what was built once, can be built again, if one can find the blueprints?

Going down the rabbit hole further.....clearly The Emperor knew of the Magna Mater. But where did that knowledge come from? What if He’d seen blueprints or the relevant STC, and decided it was such a complex machine it was actually easier to go and chin Luna, and take the single, known example?

Seriously, I love this sort of chat. New to me info is presented, theories come up and are discussed and picked apart.

keep in mind that Cawl is a bit of an odd case, he's not just a random tech priest, the original Cawl was always a bit of a independant thinker, and one of the minds he's absorbed was a student of the emperor's so... it's a bit complex.

This all seems to be reasonable and more than likely the case. I like when enough bread crumbs are left in the fluff that you can deduce things without having it completely explained.
I believe in another topic someone said that based on the novel about the Emperor and the Seige of Terra and the warp gate, that the Custodes were supposed to replace the space marines, like the marines did the thunder warriors. Maybe I am wrong but even if it is true, there is still a big gap from primaris to custodes. This just makes the raptors that Corax made all the more intriguing, maybe they were even better than the primaris?

I think you're pretty spot on the money there, and it's a shame that so many people settle on the "Cawl invented them in a few years!" interpretation, when there's so much room for "actually, here's what could have been the case".

In the Valdor novel (which I've not had the pleasure of properly reading), I understand that the Thunder Warriors also seemed to have their own Primarchs, who were intentionally killed off by the Custodes, and even by some of the first Space Marines of the 1st Legion.

You're very much right on Corax and Guilliman being not just brothers, but actually seeming to be very close with eachother - Corax's novel gives us a scene of him and Guilliman running simulated battles together, and while I think Corax pretty much gets his ass handed to him over and over by Guilliman, they both deeply respect eachother and their alternative methods of warfare. I do think that Corax may have trusted Guilliman with the truth of his project, and the hope of it potentially being restored.

Basically, I think you're pretty spot on with the situation at play, and I'm fairly sure that's the kind of vibe GW seem to be pushing for, at least in my interpretation of the setting.

So if Primaris are perfected Space Marines, what are Custodes?

Not Space Marines, I guess?

I think that the Custodes, being around since before Space Marines and Thunder Warriors, were already perfected, but not what the Emperor wanted as his mainline troops (either from how expensive they would be to make, but even perhaps from a sentimental attachment to them?).

Thunder Warriors and Space Marines, on the other hand, were super soldiers built for certain tasks, and not really built to outlive that. If Primaris Marines were intended, which I believe they were, then they might simply represent the next step in the evolution of "indoctrinated super soldier", between the Imperial Army and Custodes.

Well, that's a pretty strange thing, to have already perfected an even superior super-human, but wait 10,000 years to display your super secret but not as superior superhuman. I'm wonderimg what the in-universe explanation is for persuing Primaris when you are already making super-super Custodess soldiers.

First off re Thunderwarrior Primarchs, those indeed where a thing, and apparently there where 20 seperate Thunder warrior legions each lead by a Primarch. the DIFFERANCE though is Primarch was, for the Thunderwarriors JUST a rank.

As for Primaris and custodes etc, there's no evidance Custodes where ever intended to replace Marines. Custodes came first

Indeed. Custodes are "better" but they're not even remotely cost effective to mass produce, even on the limited scale of astartes and thunder warriors, which means they're so expensive as to not be expendable: a bad trait for a soldier!

The only other imperial combatant remotely in their league for "enhanced human" are assassinorium operatives, who are also way above 'just space marines.

Personally I find it entirely likely that Cawl would slap his name on an organ that he copied from someone else's designs. It simply seems like something his character would plausibly do.

The Thunder Warriors were intentionally designed to die out over time, the only thing that changed was how fast they became disposable. That's covered in The Outcast Dead and subsequent novels.

A lot of people seem to fail to grasp that, across the various books, the Emperor is not short sighted. His singular failure is not seeing what Horus would become.

Cawl has, through his merging with Director Senadyne , The Great Work, met the Emperor. We know from what Cawl says and what Guilliman says that lots of the Mechanics consider the Primaris heresy, because Cawl has tampered with the Machine God's work. Ergo if Cawl has simply followed the Emperors plans he'd prove it.

I suspect we wil eventually see the run up to Cawl beginning the project with Guilliman.

Assassins don't count , being surgically and uniquely altered on a case by case basis, rather than effective mass production needed for Astartes/Primaris.

With Custodes, the Emperor envisioned them as his "true" sons. They'd lead his initial armies, then police the peace. A core utterly loyal all powerful force. This s mainly in Master of Mankind. You see how ruthless the Emperor is, in a sense the relationship with the Primarchs is an act that becomes more more thanks to the Heresy.

Custodes? I’ve a loose theory on that, and it draws on a principle we see in 40k. It’s all about carefully crafted levels of defence.

Consider the PDF. Intended as the first line of defence for a given world. Tactically, they’re enough to handle small scale stuff, like Dark Eldar raids, Cult Uprisings etc. And they’re typically armed and trained in that matter.

But, they can rarely match the martial power of an Imperial Guard Regiment. Thus, should the Governor become corrupted or just troublesome, the planet side forces can be more easily taken out.

And I think the Custodes are the same concept. They’re stronger, faster, better, more than Astartes, because when you’ve Legions of super soldier, your bodyguard needs to be stronger.

BrianDavion wrote:First off re Thunderwarrior Primarchs, those indeed where a thing, and apparently there where 20 seperate Thunder warrior legions each lead by a Primarch. the DIFFERANCE though is Primarch was, for the Thunderwarriors JUST a rank.

Oh, I see! Interesting!

As for Primaris and custodes etc, there's no evidance Custodes where ever intended to replace Marines. Custodes came first

Yeah, Custodes were always around - pre Thunder Warriors, pre Space Marines, pre Primaris. They are the Emperor's perfect troops, but require such an investment that making so many of them would be impractical.
Thunder Warriors were ideal for taking Terra - savage, brutal, and heavily resilient to the weaponry of human warlords. Don't require vacuum sealing, don't need the same kind of long-term casualty recovery that long-term void campaigns would need.
Space Marines, while being weaker in form than a Thunder Warrior, had far better training and discipline, as well as superior equipment for prolonged void campaigns and energy weaponry that might be found out in the Great Crusade. Designed to last physically, for semi-perpetual war, but also weak enough to be defeated by Custodes.
Primaris were a further extension of this philosophy - more durable, but similarly trained and equipped - the beta to the initial Space Marine program, that unfortunately was delayed until Cawl could finish other people's projects with his own insight.

At least, that's how I see it.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm wonderimg what the in-universe explanation is for persuing Primaris when you are already making super-super Custodess soldiers.

Custodes are bespoke creations, each one individually genetically rebuilt. Astartes are the cheap mass-market version. Each Custodes represents a great deal of time and effort to create. Marines are essentially self-reproducing

BrianDavion wrote:
First off re Thunderwarrior Primarchs, those indeed where a thing, and apparently there where 20 seperate Thunder warrior legions each lead by a Primarch. the DIFFERANCE though is Primarch was, for the Thunderwarriors JUST a rank.

As for Primaris and custodes etc, there's no evidance Custodes where ever intended to replace Marines. Custodes came first

Where is this Thunder Warrior thing covered?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
First off re Thunderwarrior Primarchs, those indeed where a thing, and apparently there where 20 seperate Thunder warrior legions each lead by a Primarch. the DIFFERANCE though is Primarch was, for the Thunderwarriors JUST a rank.

As for Primaris and custodes etc, there's no evidance Custodes where ever intended to replace Marines. Custodes came first

Where is this Thunder Warrior thing covered?

If it's the same one I'm thinking of, it's in the "Scions of the Emperor" anthology - something like "End of Memories".

Funny enough the project being rushed feels real familiar working in software.

Mini marines are the prototype that was pushed out the door because of management promises.
Primaris are the refactored v2 that actually does what was initially promised.
Custodes are the personal pet project of the CEO that got proper funding but never got to market viable.

Why not, rather than looking to improve astartes, not just expand the custodes. Already better than SM. That’s never added up for me but I may not have read something

mrFickle wrote:
Why not, rather than looking to improve astartes, not just expand the custodes. Already better than SM. That’s never added up for me but I may not have read something

Custodes are basically custom jobs. They're created singularly, as each individual needs specific surgeries and procedures to become a Custode. Thus they can't be mass produced like space marines or primaris. So not good for front line troops which is what space marines where used for in the Great Crusade.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
First off re Thunderwarrior Primarchs, those indeed where a thing, and apparently there where 20 seperate Thunder warrior legions each lead by a Primarch. the DIFFERANCE though is Primarch was, for the Thunderwarriors JUST a rank.

As for Primaris and custodes etc, there's no evidance Custodes where ever intended to replace Marines. Custodes came first

Where is this Thunder Warrior thing covered?

Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, I think.

BrianDavion wrote:
regarding space Marines and their flaws. the Novel Valdore goes into some detail about the Space Marines development.

Spoiler:

We learn a woman named Amar Astarte was the head of the project, we also learn she decided space marines without the primarchs present to stablize them where hopelessly and utterly flawed to the point where she thought the project was a failure and tried to destroy it.

as such the priamris project makes sense. it was an effort to basicly "finish the job" on Marines that had been by necessity done without the full toolset needed. and in the end, all Cawl could do was add 3 new organs. (his original plan was more ambitious)

That makes no sense to me. If your project isn't going well then why would your plan be to blow it up...

I'd understand if she thought that Marines shouldn't be trusted to the Emperor, she was bribed, she went a bit mad or just was plain against it from the start and that was her first chance to bail but blowing it up because it's not working out?