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To some this might seem a bit of a leap however:

Big E is clearly not as smart as his he would like us to think
He had all of human history to collect knowledge
He had other perpetuals helping him make his inventions
He had the choas gods give him “something” the help him create the primarchs.

Fabius has gene seed from a primarch and primarchs are all genius level
Fabius has had a long time to collect knowledge
Fabius is happy using Xenos knowledge
Fabius can engineer and re engineer astartes with perfect results
He figured out how to re make primarchs (but couldn’t “improve them”)
He’s come closer than any human variant to creating wraith one and a warp gate
He has a long term plan for the survival of humanity which so far hasn’t failed terribly

What do you think?

No.

Fabius is working from an existing thing. The Emperor conceived of then created the Primarchs in whole.

It’s a bit like asking if someone designing an internal combustion engine today is smarter than the person that invented them in the first place.

So…smart? Yes. No argument. But smarter? Nah.

They both seem to have the emotional intelligence of a pineapple, so there's that.

Fabius also doesn't get "perfect" results; that's kind of his whole deal.
Most of his creations that aren't using sanctioned procedures end up creating insane monsters that, while useful as shock troops, don't generally make for long-term soldiers.

Fabius is nuts. He's a great example of the insidious corruption of Chaos. He likes to think himself above his peers, but in reality his obsessive quest for "perfection" in his experiments is, if anything, even worse than the rest of his Legion.

He's intelligent, yes, but also has the advantage of adapting someone else's work. He's also not bound by the Imperium's approach to technology, which allows him to experiment. That doesn't make him more intelligent than anyone, just more able to express his intelligence than some. He's cloned Primarchs, but notably failed to reproduce what makes them special. He can do the physical bit fine, but has neither the understanding nor skill to make them "properly". His "perfect results" re-engineering his Legion are anything but. Only Fabius would call them perfect, everyone else sees them as useful, but flawed, creations.

Slipspace wrote:
Fabius is nuts. He's a great example of the insidious corruption of Chaos. He likes to think himself above his peers, but in reality his obsessive quest for "perfection" in his experiments is, if anything, even worse than the rest of his Legion.

He's intelligent, yes, but also has the advantage of adapting someone else's work. He's also not bound by the Imperium's approach to technology, which allows him to experiment. That doesn't make him more intelligent than anyone, just more able to express his intelligence than some. He's cloned Primarchs, but notably failed to reproduce what makes them special. He can do the physical bit fine, but has neither the understanding nor skill to make them "properly". His "perfect results" re-engineering his Legion are anything but. Only Fabius would call them perfect, everyone else sees them as useful, but flawed, creations.

Are you saying the emperor isn’t nuts? Cos I think he’s a total psycho. And Big E worked without constrains. He do deals with chaos, erased 2 of the primarchs from existence and history, happily wiped out millions of people of things didn’t go his way.

Fabius claims that his primarch clones were identical to the real thing which is why he destroyed them and stopped trying to remake them. Becuase they were so perfect they had all the originals flaws.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No.

Fabius is working from an existing thing. The Emperor conceived of then created the Primarchs in whole.

It’s a bit like asking if someone designing an internal combustion engine today is smarter than the person that invented them in the first place.

So…smart? Yes. No argument. But smarter? Nah.

Did the emperor create the primarchs from scratch. I haven’t read the millions of books from the HH but I thought other scientists worked on the primarch project and the emperor had to go to molech to get some power or knowledge to make them.

And your example of the combustion engine is a good one except that it is built using knowledge acquired by many previous people. All scientists are using someone else’s discoveries.


And if the emperor was the smartest human ever then the loss of the STCs wouldn’t be an issue - so it seems that people of even higher intelligence have existed before the 30-40K time window

Nobody said he was the smartest human ever.

Yes, there were smarter humans during the Golden Age, of course there were.

The Emperor used the knowledge he had researched and combined it with his bargain from the Gods to make the Primarch project.

The Emperor also improved on the gene-sciences of the Golden Age to make the Custodes and Astartes. He is very much a genius and Fabius is not smarter than him.

Golden Age of STC may actually have prevented genius.

Think about it. Each STC contained the sum total of all mankind’s scientific knowledge. Including engineering and other practical. applications thereof.

The AI element’s intent was to use said gathered and recorded knowledge to create solutions on demand. From the super basic “hello computer, we’ve arrived on our designated colony world, can we have some shelters please” right up to analysing new materials and finding applications thereof, curing novel and mutated disease etc.

The whole point of them was that the human users didn’t need the overall understanding. So whilst I’ve no doubt there would, in the early days at least, have been some kind of scientific staff presence on Colony Ships? The STC ensured the loss of such specialists wouldn’t risk the entire enterprise, nor did you need a representative in every field of science.

The Votann of the Kin also point to a more sinister purpose. That of ensuring the colonists did their job. Though that claim is shaky, as it makes the unsafe assumption all STC’s had the same functionality as the Votann. Whilst I don’t doubt most would’ve had gene editing capability to ensure the colonists could thrive in a wide range of environs, it doesn’t necessary follow the minds were edited too.

Rinse and repeat for even a handful of generations? What need of highly educated persons? The STC sees to our every need.

Absolutely, the dependence on the STCs is a huge part of what caused humanities stagnation once the men of iron destroyed them.

And the emperor and his plans clearly wasn’t immune to the stagnation. Yes, he used science to create the primarchs and legions but it’s not like he was encouraging science and innovation. More like he didn’t want any innovation becuase that might threaten the power he had needed to turn to the warp to achieve.

Bile is an example of an enhanced human who is free to innovate and he has made achievements comparable to the emperors.


His seeding of Homo Novus Amon imperial worlds could lead to a permanent evolutionary upgrade to all humans and his hidden base in the webway is presumably producing generation after generation of enhanced human warriors

I disagree on The Emperor.

He had to make a deal with the Mechanicum, because time was short and he could ill afford going to war with them. Not only was success far from guaranteed? But even if his forces prevailed, how much damage would’ve been done to the infrastructure so badly needed to mount the Great Crusade.

Mars was also still in some form of contact, however intermittent and patchy with other Forgeworlds. You go to war with Mars? You can expect a hostile reception from its erstwhile allies. You strike a bargain with Mars? And you’re far more likely to end up with allied staging posts, replete with toys and stockpiles of raw materials, and quite possibly other allies in the immediate galactic vicinity.

Part and parcel of that is leaving dealing with their superstitions to Another Day.

Just by developing the Primarchs and Astartes, he could’ve been declared Heretek. Neither seem based on STC, and so are strictly speaking unsanctioned. Likewise his willingness to fold in local weapons and that would likely be somewhat suspect.

What was the long term plan? Who can truly say. But I’d imagine weaning them off their superstitions would’ve been part of it. By no means a swift job, but one that could be done.

I don't recall Bile making anything like the Astartes or Custodes or Primarchs.

Bile has made an altered Abhuman species and has messed around with geneseed but he's nowhere even close to the Emperor in terms of ability.

The Emperor was also absolutely innovating and inventing, he just placed bans on things like AI because they were objectively dangerous.