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I quote from this forum: Random WH40k lore questions, in order to avoid an off topic.

Voss wrote:

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
If I remember correctly in the novel Dark Imperium someone suggested to create some primaris marines using also the geneseed of the traitor primarchs (and/or the geneseed of the unknown ones), but Reboot Gilligan refused, so I think the answer is no.

Though, on new loyal 'traitor' primaris chapters, I can see Cawl doing it anyway somewhere remote just to see how they work out. If he set up a facility in the Imperium Nihilius and just didn't bother to tell Roboute about it... he'd get his experimental data, and no one in that area would spend too much time questioning reinforcements.

Science can't be stalled by one man, Regent Lord or no.

I totally agree with you
Now I don't want dig into the lore, but I would had really loved to see the space marines successor chapters of the traitor legions placed on guard the Eye of Terror and/or the Maelstrom and bound in an eternal crusade to prove that they are immaculate. Obviously these chapters (composed by the loyal marines of those legions) should have adopted the original name of the legions, in order to highlight that they weren't tainted by their primarch's guilty. I mean to see the Dusk Riders fight against the Death Guard or the Luna Wolves fight against the Black Legion would be really interesting; at least to me.
In fact I love to think that the Blood Ravens are the successor chapter of the Thousand Sons and they appeared only in the thirty-seventh millenium (if I'm nor wrong) because the imperial geneticists took seven thousand years to repair the genetic flaw of Magnus' geneseed.

If GW came out and said that Cawl had released pre-traitor legions of Primaris, I'd buy it. You don't get to be as powerful, smart and long-lived as Cawl by not taking underhanded and secret actions.

And even in this age of going in to minute detail of every little action (Primarch X of X legion went to the toilet on this date of this year, on this ship on these coordinates before this battle, ect ect) GW does still leave little mysterious breadcrumbs around for it's fans to enjoy. I suspect it's a similar situation to the Two Missing Legions. GW mentioned that Cawl wanted to use old geneseed from the now traitor legions had... but Cawl is a good boy who totally wouldn't go behind Guilliman's back... would he?

There are already a few scattered examples of Successors of Traitor Legions, but they're Loyalists, however those ones are treated as rumors. Example, the rumors that Blood Ravens come from the Thousand Sons.

Another comment on this subject. Would the Primaris Not-Traitor Legions follow the path of betrayal once more? I think not. For the most part, the change of culture and fall to dark gods was brought about by the Primarchs. Without Fulgrim around, taking the possessed sword and having words whispered to him by Horus, and Fulgrim's daddy issues influencing the Emperor's Children, would they still have fallen? They may become pompous pricks, but I don't believe they'd go rogue. Hell, they might end up being buddy-buddy with the modern Blood Angels in a cultural standpoint.

Like Inferior Cawl said to Reboute Guilliman in Dark Imperium: «The warriors were not at fault, the science is not at fault; their Primarchs were. Chapters from your gene-line have also fallen in the past millennia, Lord Regent and we do not censor them.»

The big question is would their parent legion be obvious? If not, I can totally see Cawl sprinkling in a few test subjects into the pool and keeping track to see how they performed.

On the other hand, if his World Eater test subjects all start having uncontrollable fits of rage (that can't be confused for Blood Angels-style fits of uncontrollable rage), Cawl would keep scrap such program.

Side-Thought: RG wonders if Cawl Inferior is an abominable intelligence. What if it is and just an elaborately disguised copy of the abominable intelligence that is Belisarius Cawl? Who knows at what point replacing parts of your brain changes you from cyborg to android?

It's hard to say what the War Hounds/World Eaters were like before widespread installation of the Butcher's Nails was done on their Legion.

They may be predisposed to excessive violence, but then, so are many Loyalist Marines, not even counting the Blood Angel's and it's successors.

Without Angron and the Butcher's Nails, a War Hounds Loyalist chapter likely would not fall to the same depths as the original legion.

The War Hounds put down cowardly human auxiliary forces that fled from battle... Iron Hands purged a city after it survived a daemonic invasion because they had to make sure it was all gone.

But does the rot at the core of the geneseed line taint the entire line? Could it be that the corruption of the primarch by Chaos can infect the geneseed of it's line even without direct contact? Or worst, upon direct contact in the future? This is a chance that must be taken for the safety of the Imperium!

Seems to be a bit of nature* versus nurture.

To me it's the primarchs and often individual naughty space marines who were the first to be tainted who bring down their legions, rather than the geneseed. Cawl would certainly have used traitor geneseed. I mean do we think he really went and got rid of his traitor experiments because Rhombus Googlefort said not to? Primaris from traitor seed would actually make them interesting. Discovering their past and realising in horror what they are, maybe trying to right the wrongs of their genetic forebears? Questioning their own fate and beliefs? That's actual good writable material.

*Except it's not natural it's unnatural unnature versus not nurture?

I lean more on the Nuture side of the argument.

Had it been Ferrus Manus' Legion who had been nearly wiped out, and rebuilt with the help of Horus, making him feel more loyal to Horus than the distant and cold Emperor for who they crave attention, the Iron Hands could be the ones who fall instead of the Emperor's Children, assuming that other events lead to them drawing out the absolute worst traits of their culture.

 Thadin wrote:
It's hard to say what the War Hounds/World Eaters were like before widespread installation of the Butcher's Nails was done on their Legion.

They may be predisposed to excessive violence, but then, so are many Loyalist Marines, not even counting the Blood Angel's and it's successors.

Without Angron and the Butcher's Nails, a War Hounds Loyalist chapter likely would not fall to the same depths as the original legion.

The War Hounds put down cowardly human auxiliary forces that fled from battle... Iron Hands purged a city after it survived a daemonic invasion because they had to make sure it was all gone.

The World Eaters were savage because they recruited the biggest, meanest guys around. But before Angron returned, they were also one of the most disciplined of the legions. I don't think that they actually have any serious genetic flaws; all of their flaws come from the Nails and the later fall to Khorne.

Another big part as well is that you have to factor that there were a fairly large portion of the traitor legions that were loyal as well. The whole Isstvaan III massacre happened because they needed to rid themselves of loyalist elements before they could formally start their rebellion. If the disloyalty of the marines were based just on their gene-seed then they wouldn't have had to do that at all.

I think the biggest problem of openly saying (and even naming them after their original legion) that they're using traitor geneseed is the stigma that is attached to it. Even if the Imperium as a whole likely don't know the details, the Astartes and other institutions certainly do and it puts an inherent handicap on their relations with others due to their heritage. For a military force that's pretty important in their duties to protect the Imperium, and more importantly it paints a giant "attack me" target on their backs for the corresponding traitor legion that wants more of their geneseed which is unblemished in comparison. So far the main stock of Ultramarine gene-seed hasn't had any problems so far so it's kind of a "why fix what isn't broke". So I'm fine with the implied usage of traitor geneseed via the Primaris chapter designs and names, because in-universe wise it doesn't make much sense for them to use traitor geneseed explicitly and then promote that identity widely to everyone else.

Could you imagine if they released an index for loyalist, primaris emperors children and war hounds before they released a codex for CSM EC and WE!

It was chaos gods that corrupted the traitor legions, fundamentally. Without thier influence it wouldn’t have happened, or not in the way it did.

In order to corrupt Horus it was a hell of a conspiracy effort. And if there were no primarchs to corrupt I don’t think chaos could have done it. The primarchs were created to inspire loyalty and fealty on an instinctive level, only those with the strongest minds could resist the influence.

I think the primarchs were made using the knowledge and power that the chaos gods gave the emperor on molech so they were probably open to the influence of the dark gods from day one. That’s was probably the start of their scheme

Would the emperors children have gone to the laer temple if it weren’t for chaos or was that a massive conincidence? I can’t remember.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:


The World Eaters were savage because they recruited the biggest, meanest guys around. But before Angron returned, they were also one of the most disciplined of the legions. I don't think that they actually have any serious genetic flaws; all of their flaws come from the Nails and the later fall to Khorne.

Agreed, so for the sake of argument consider the Thousand Sons - the flesh change was definitely a genetic flaw.

It may have been covertly added by Tzeench because he's the god of being a manipulative **** and believes in stacking the deck, but it is a 'real' genetic condition and exists in any pre-heresy geneseed samples Cawl is likely to have had to work with.

 Grimskul wrote:
Another big part as well is that you have to factor that there were a fairly large portion of the traitor legions that were loyal as well. The whole Isstvaan III massacre happened because they needed to rid themselves of loyalist elements before they could formally start their rebellion. If the disloyalty of the marines were based just on their gene-seed then they wouldn't have had to do that at all.

I think the biggest problem of openly saying (and even naming them after their original legion) that they're using traitor geneseed is the stigma that is attached to it. Even if the Imperium as a whole likely don't know the details, the Astartes and other institutions certainly do and it puts an inherent handicap on their relations with others due to their heritage. For a military force that's pretty important in their duties to protect the Imperium, and more importantly it paints a giant "attack me" target on their backs for the corresponding traitor legion that wants more of their geneseed which is unblemished in comparison. So far the main stock of Ultramarine gene-seed hasn't had any problems so far so it's kind of a "why fix what isn't broke". So I'm fine with the implied usage of traitor geneseed via the Primaris chapter designs and names, because in-universe wise it doesn't make much sense for them to use traitor geneseed explicitly and then promote that identity widely to everyone else.

I think there is a misunderstanding: when I talked about the creation of the successor chapters of the traitor legions, I was talking about something should have done immediately after the Great Heresy, with the survivor loyal space marines of those legions. Instead if we talk about the use of the geneseed of those legions, to create new space marines chapters, it is obviously something that should be done secretly, in order to avoid any trouble with the new Lord Regent of the Imperium, the Inquisition and any other player involved; like Voss and alextroy suggested:

Voss wrote:
[…]
Though, on new loyal 'traitor' primaris chapters, I can see Cawl doing it anyway somewhere remote just to see how they work out. If he set up a facility in the Imperium Nihilius and just didn't bother to tell Roboute about it... he'd get his experimental data, and no one in that area would spend too much time questioning reinforcements.

Science can't be stalled by one man, Regent Lord or no.

 alextroy wrote:
The big question is would their parent legion be obvious? If not, I can totally see Cawl sprinkling in a few test subjects into the pool and keeping track to see how they performed.
[…]

Actually this is how I love to think how the Blood Ravens were created: Cawl secretly worked for some millennia on the Magnus' geneseed, to fix it and when he was sure he achieved his goal (namely after seven thousand years), he used that geneseed to create the Blood Ravens.

EDIT: someday I will learn how the multiquote works.

Fabius has the only source of clean Emperors Children gene seed. So none of the primaris could be made from that.

mrFickle wrote:
Fabius has the only source of clean Emperors Children gene seed. So none of the primaris could be made from that.

Question on this. As I've understood it, Fabius has previously been defeated by his foes, and previously Space Marines have launched expeditions into the Eye of Terror and returned victorious from it. Thus I have to wonder, even while its a stretch, if its really impossible that Emperor's Children gene-seed could not have been raided from Fabius stores?

It's 40k, there's always the chance that there's some random crap on a planet somewhere for anything you can think of.

The_Grim_Angel Wrote
Actually this is how I love to think how the Blood Ravens were created: Cawl secretly worked for some millennia on the Magnus' geneseed, to fix it and when he was sure he achieved his goal (namely after seven thousand years), he used that geneseed to create the Blood Ravens.

Impossible the Blood Ravens although their own records exist only from M37, they have found evidence they took part in actions milenia’s before, if this was the case and they were 1000 sons related, they would have gone the way of the Rubric long ago.

Far more likely they are connected to one of the two missing Primarchs, of which one had potent Psychic abilities. Hence why they cannot trace their geneseed and anyone who is in the know, isn’t telling them for whatever reason.

Actually I don't think it isn't impossible, because it is perfectly plausible suppose the imperial geneticists took some millennia, to fix the flaws in the Thousand Sons geneseed. Like it is perfectly plausible suppose the chapter was founded, only when they were absolutely sure those flaws were fixed and that all the Blood Ravens' records previous to the 37 millennium circa (year of their official foundation if I'm not wrong) might be attributed to field tests. Moreover, because in the Imperium there is some sort of damnatio memoriae about the Traitor Legions (in fact no one of them was rebuilt; at leas officially) and because accordingly my theory they should have a deeply modified version of the Thousand Sons' geneseed, no one can find out what their ancestor legion is: their geneseed is de facto unique.

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
Actually I don't think it isn't impossible, because it is perfectly plausible suppose the imperial geneticists took some millennia, to fix the flaws in the Thousand Sons geneseed. Like it is perfectly plausible suppose the chapter was founded, only when they were absolutely sure those flaws were fixed and that all the Blood Ravens' records previous to the 37 millennium circa (year of their official foundation if I'm not wrong) might be attributed to field tests. Moreover, because in the Imperium there is some sort of damnatio memoriae about the Traitor Legions (in fact no one of them was rebuilt; at leas officially) and because accordingly my theory they should have a deeply modified version of the Thousand Sons' geneseed, no one can find out what their ancestor legion is: their geneseed is de facto unique.

It’s nothing to do with flaws like the flesh change and more to do with the spell the Rubric of Ahriman, any Space Marine with 1000 sons lineage would likely have been affected by it and turned to dust within their suits.

Also apart from above average amounts of aspirants in the Blood Ravens forming psychic abilities after geneseed implantation, that’s about where the similarities end. Blood Ravens being a lost contingent of 1000 sons who somehow escaped the Rubric or have somehow been reverse engineered is just wishful thinking by 1000 sons fanboys IMO. Why go to the trouble of re-engineering the geneseed of a traitor legion when you have plenty of stable loyal chapters geneseed to create a new founding from?

Far more likely they are related to one of the lost Primarchs or possibly a specifically engineered chapter to fight Chaos but that mission fell away with the internment of the Emp on the throne, would also explain why they have an affinity with the Grey Kinghts and Ordo Malleus. Neither of which I would suspect would want a traitor legion geneseed implanted in this new fighting force. The other reason for the affinity could be the Grey Knights and Ordo know the truth about the fall of their Primarch and have some empathy for the Blood Ravens? That empathy would certainly not be reserved for the Sons of Magnus.

I haven't stated the Blood Ravens are a lost contingent of the Thousand Sons. I have stated their geneseed could be derived from the Thousand Sons' geneseed, after an heavy work of manipulation, in order to stabilize it without recur to the same method used by Magnus the Red, when he met his legion; a method that probably involved (even if unwittingly) the use of the Ruinous Powers. So the Rubric of Ahriman has nothing to do with my theory, because it something happened after the Thousand Sons had retreated back to the Planet of Sorcerers, while I'm suggesting the Blood Ravens' geneseed was created working in secret on the stock of Thousand Sons geneseed the Mechanicus preserved. In fact Inferior Cawl stated in Dark Imperium: «The warriors were not at fault. The science is not at fault. Their Primarchs were. Chapters from your gene-line have also fallen in the past millennia, lord regent, and we do not censor them», even if we don't know if he was talking about the lost primarchs' geneseed, the traitors' ones or both.
About your last question I think I can answer in two different ways. The first one is answer directly: to understand what went wrong with the Thousand Sons' geneseed and use that knowledge to improve the other geneseeds; has someone said primaris space marines? The second way is invert your question: why go to the trouble of recreating a legion erased from Imperial records (likely by order of the Emperor himself), when you have plenty of stable loyal chapters geneseed to create a new founding from?

EDIT 1: about my last question Lorgar says to Magnus in the novel "The first heretic": «I fear the Emperor will break the Word Bearers - and break me. We would be cast alongside the brothers we no longer speak of».

EDIT 2: Are you suggesting the Inquisition wouldn't tollerate a chapter that use a geneseed derived from a traitor legion (good reason to keep secret the origin to that geneseed), but would tollerate a chapter that use the geneseed of a legion purged and expunged by the Emperor himself? To me isn't really plausible.

It’s nothing to do with flaws like the flesh change and more to do with the spell the Rubric of Ahriman, any Space Marine with 1000 sons lineage would likely have been affected by it and turned to dust within their suits

Any non-psyker, anyway.
But we don't know what happened to Thousand Sons gene-seed in storage vaults. The initial blood ravens mat have been psyker - surviving the rubric - and the chapter rebuilt post-rubricae from gene-vaults.

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
I haven't stated the Blood Ravens are a lost contingent of the Thousand Sons. I have stated their geneseed could be derived from the Thousand Sons' geneseed, after an heavy work of manipulation, in order to stabilize it without recur to the same method used by Magnus the Red, when he met his legion; a method that probably involved (even if unwittingly) the use of the Ruinous Powers. So the Rubric of Ahriman has nothing to do with my theory, because it something happened after the Thousand Sons had retreated back to the Planet of Sorcerers, while I'm suggesting the Blood Ravens' geneseed was created working in secret on the stock of Thousand Sons geneseed the Mechanicus preserved. In fact Inferior Cawl stated in Dark Imperium: «The warriors were not at fault. The science is not at fault. Their Primarchs were. Chapters from your gene-line have also fallen in the past millennia, lord regent, and we do not censor them», even if we don't know if he was talking about the lost primarchs' geneseed, the traitors' ones or both.
About your last question I think I can answer in two different ways. The first one is answer directly: to understand what went wrong with the Thousand Sons' geneseed and use that knowledge to improve the other geneseeds; has someone said primaris space marines? The second way is invert your question: why go to the trouble of recreating a legion erased from Imperial records (likely by order of the Emperor himself), when you have plenty of stable loyal chapters geneseed to create a new founding from?

EDIT 1: about my last question Lorgar says to Magnus in the novel "The first heretic": «I fear the Emperor will break the Word Bearers - and break me. We would be cast alongside the brothers we no longer speak of».

EDIT 2: Are you suggesting the Inquisition wouldn't tollerate a chapter that use a geneseed derived from a traitor legion (good reason to keep secret the origin to that geneseed), but would tollerate a chapter that use the geneseed of a legion purged and expunged by the Emperor himself? To me isn't really plausible.

Grim I think you have misinterpreted my previous post.

I am not saying the Blood Ravens were genetically engineered from one of the lost Primarchs geneseed. I am saying they are the remnants of the legion of that Primarch. Also just because a Primarch and his legion was expunged from records, this doesn’t necessarily mean they were a traitor legion and like you say “the warriors were not at fault”. This could equally hold true for the expunged Primarch’s Legion. Someone in the thread discussing the two lost Primarchs came up with a perfectly plausible reason for one of the Lost Primarch’s Marines continued existence. With the removal/loss of their Primarch they were absorbed into the Smurfs, when Bobby did his restructure they were put back into their own legion as not true Smurf lineage. They were then maybe put on ice for a while, mind wiped and then put on the fringe of the Eastern edge of Empire as the rebranded Blood Ravens.

On the other point, this still stands. Why would they re-engineer the 1000 sons geneseed for a new chapter when they have so many more stable ones to create another chapter from already?

On the point of Primaris, it took Cawl a 100 centuries to effect. The Blood Ravens existed long before Primaris became a reality. Also it is perfectly possible the Blood Ravens were supplied Primaris from their original Primarch geneseed as Cawl still held samples of all the 20 Primarchs geneseed. Again you would have to ask the question, why would Cawl after the Heresy divert resources to specifically re-engineer the 1000 sons when he already had a massive project such as the Primaris one already on the go. He would have also had to complete this project in under half the time he did the the Primaris one. Also who instructed/authorised Cawl to embark on re-engineering the 1000 Sons gene-seed? It just doesn’t add up.

 Chimaera wrote:
[[…]
I am not saying the Blood Ravens were genetically engineered from one of the lost Primarchs geneseed. I am saying they are the remnants of the legion of that Primarch.
[…]

In fact I wrote "recreating" not "engineered".
For all your other points I could both answer directly, than (like I have did before) inverting your questions and reasonings. But I don't want "dance with the words" to find out who of we two is wrong, because we are talking about head-canon and any head-canon is valid, until it doesn't contradict the true canon (what the Games Workshop states in its novels, stories, comics…), so in my opinion your theory is valid as much as mine; even if I continue to prefer my theory.

Isn't one of the first Grey Knights a former Thousand Sons?
If so, Grey Knight have part of that geneseed, and they don't suffer from the Rubrics.

Yes: Janus (the first Grand Master of the Grey Knight) was a loyal Thousand Sons and he didn't suffer from the Rubric. But among the founding members of the Grey Knights you can find out also an Ultramarines (Tylos Rubio), a loyal World Heaters (Macer Varren), a Dark Angels (Epimetheus) and a loyal Luna Wolves (Garviel Loken), so we can't actually associate the Grey Knight geneseed to a particular chapter. On the contrary it seems to me their geneseed was created directly from the Emperor's genoma, not using one of the primarchs.

 alextroy wrote:
But does the rot at the core of the geneseed line taint the entire line? Could it be that the corruption of the primarch by Chaos can infect the geneseed of it's line even without direct contact? Or worst, upon direct contact in the future? This is a chance that must be taken for the safety of the Imperium!

I have to imagine that this would be completely dependent on when the geneseed was harvested, similar to the BA. Their current geneseed is derived from samples taken after Sanguinius was killed. If, for example, you used pre-heresy and/or pre-"nails" World Eater geneseed as the base for their Primaris line I can't imagine them being afflicted worse then the War Dogs were.

 Cybtroll wrote:
Isn't one of the first Grey Knights a former Thousand Sons?
If so, Grey Knight have part of that geneseed, and they don't suffer from the Rubrics.

Strong Pskyers dodged the Rubric spell, so Arvida wouldn’t have been turned to dust.

From memory as well as their existing gene-seed (from whatever chapter) the Grey knights get some of the Emp’s gene-seed implanted in them also to fortify them against chaos, but I could be wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The_Grim_Angel wrote:

 Chimaera wrote:
[[…]
I am not saying the Blood Ravens were genetically engineered from one of the lost Primarchs geneseed. I am saying they are the remnants of the legion of that Primarch.
[…]

In fact I wrote "recreating" not "engineered".
For all your other points I could both answer directly, than (like I have did before) inverting your questions and reasonings. But I don't want "dance with the words" to find out who of we two is wrong, because we are talking about head-canon and any head-canon is valid, until it doesn't contradict the true canon (what the Games Workshop states in its novels, stories, comics…), so in my opinion your theory is valid as much as mine; even if I continue to prefer my theory.

Recreating vs re-engineer same difference in my book.

But anyway you are right, both our opinions could be valid/credible, it just depends on your personal perspective.

I do think GW should shed some more light on the two lost Primarch’s, after all these years I think the fan base deserves it.

I also totally believe the Blood Ravens should get their own codex. The Dawn of War game introduced 40k to such a wide audience they deserve recognition for that at least, hell my Son started playing it on Steam with his mates 15yrs after I first played it. Crazily he gets an online match almost straight away, just shows how big a following the original DOW 1 game still has and still attracts new players. Shame Relic kept screwing up the follow up games in the series. All someone needs to do is take the original DOW game, give it a graphics refresh, bring it upto date on buildings, ground units etc and away we go. Why Relic couldn’t realise that for DOW 3 is just a mystery to me.