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As re-confirmed in the recent WD article Progenoid glands mature after five (neck) and ten years (chest)

Given that most Marines are goign to be much much older than that - why would any of them still carry this vital gene-seed and not have it extracted asap?

I used to head canon that it would regrow again after the similarnumber of years but thats not the actual case.

There is a belief that the geneseed, while mature after 10 years, continues to absorb genetic information from the marine. Genetic memories. Thus if a marine is created from a progenoid that was collected from a vaunted hero of the chapter, they will inherit some of his skills, personality, or even direct memories. Weather this is true or not isn't known.

That's a good answer, I also assumed they regrew and the ones retrieved on the battlefield were more about preserving knowledge and skills (which may or may not be true, biology in 40k is sort of dodgy).

Would you want your testicles removed?

There's also the recovery time - is the Marine too valuable to be out of action for days/weeks/however long...

zerosignal wrote:
Would you want your testicles removed?

Technically, geneseed is an ovary. And Homo Astartes(Space Marines) are technically a parasitic species which reproduces by implanting their eggs into adolescent human males, transforming them into a new Space Marine who are all, technically by the way their species reproduction works, female.

From what little I've read of the extraction process in fiction, it sounds like the one in the neck can be removed. An apothecary removes his own in Fear to Tread and is fine. Then again, another is in the chest cavity. Behind the ribcage which has been fused to be completely solid to protect against impact and blades.

Assuming the removal of that particular organ isn't very likely fatal, it's definitely going to leave him off his feet for a while. You dont want to potentially kill off an experience soldier just to maybe get a new recruit. That's like shoot a Navy SEAL in the chest to draft in new US Marines because HR says the budget isn't big enough.

The ritualistic reason is because they believe that it allows the marine's experience (and sometimes mentioning his very spirit) pass onto the next generation. As mentioned, this has never been clear if it's true or if it's just a metaphor.

The practical reason is because plunging what is effectively a giant, cutting suction cup into the neck and chest of a marine is far easier when they're dead rather than when they're alive, especially if you want them continuing to be alive afterwards.

I would say the reason is because of the ritualistic one, as if Marines just wanted Geneseed, the AdMech proved that not only do they have the technology to mass produce geneseed, but it doesn't even require a space marine to do so, just get a male human in a vat, implant him with the geneseed cultivated from a (single) progenoid gland (which comes with 2 fresh glands), grow them to maturity, harvest both glands (Discarding the rest) rinse and repeat until you have enough. But the idea of mass producing them like that is probably not kosher with the Marine's beliefs (especially since the idea that a lobotomized living corpse is used rather than an honourable marine to contain the genetic gift given to them by their primarch is probably the worse kind of heresy)

 Grey Templar wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Would you want your testicles removed?

Technically, geneseed is an ovary. And Homo Astartes(Space Marines) are technically a parasitic species which reproduces by implanting their eggs into adolescent human males, transforming them into a new Space Marine who are all, technically by the way their species reproduction works, female.

That would seem to me be a better fit for what the Y chromasome does- alter an existing genetic template to develop along a different path of growth and development. (For those onlookers unaware, all humans begin development as female, and it's only the Y chromasome that puts this developing embryo on a path to being biologically male. But the U chromasome itself mostly only codes for maleness- it doesnt have what needed to actually form a full human, while the x chromasome does. Which is why human females are XX and suffer less genetically inhertiable diseases -because they have two chromasomes that full encode what a human should be, and can fall back on one if the other is deficient, so to speak. While males are XY, the template of the basic human, plus the augmentation to make it a male. But with only one X chromasome to serve as a template if there is a mutation or a inhertiable disease on it males are much more likely to display it.

Color blindness is the best and easiest example of that, perhaps followed by balding.

In this case it seems to me that progenpid glands are like a 3rd set of chromasomes, directing the body to change even further. That they need to be harvested from a grown astartes is an industrial flaw, not a method of sexual reproduction (which due to how geneseed must be harvested could never exost in nature anyway)

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
biology in 40k is sort of dodgy.

Is that understatement 'artificer' or merely 'master crafted'?

Carlovonsexron wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Would you want your testicles removed?

Technically, geneseed is an ovary. And Homo Astartes(Space Marines) are technically a parasitic species which reproduces by implanting their eggs into adolescent human males, transforming them into a new Space Marine who are all, technically by the way their species reproduction works, female.

That would seem to me be a better fit for what the Y chromasome does- alter an existing genetic template to develop along a different path of growth and development. (For those onlookers unaware, all humans begin development as female, and it's only the Y chromasome that puts this developing embryo on a path to being biologically male. But the U chromasome itself mostly only codes for maleness- it doesnt have what needed to actually form a full human, while the x chromasome does. Which is why human females are XX and suffer less genetically inhertiable diseases -because they have two chromasomes that full encode what a human should be, and can fall back on one if the other is deficient, so to speak. While males are XY, the template of the basic human, plus the augmentation to make it a male. But with only one X chromasome to serve as a template if there is a mutation or a inhertiable disease on it males are much more likely to display it.

Color blindness is the best and easiest example of that, perhaps followed by balding.

In this case it seems to me that progenpid glands are like a 3rd set of chromasomes, directing the body to change even further. That they need to be harvested from a grown astartes is an industrial flaw, not a method of sexual reproduction (which due to how geneseed must be harvested could never exost in nature anyway)

No. This is all wrong, genes/chromosomes don't work that way at all. The vast majority of your genes, including the required "recipe" for both male and female versions of you, are on the other (not X/Y) chromosomes. The Y chromosome primarily acts as a signal to run the make version of the recipe, by switching on the hormone balance that triggers development there. In the absence of a Y you get the female hormone mix and development triggered. Only with certain specific genes does having only a single X chromosome matter.

Im totally wrong, and you are correct!

Well, as you completely edited your response before I finished responding, I had better remove my response too!

And thank goodness I did! No need to make myself look more foolish than I already do!

I feel like if they regrew then it would be easy to just make a space marine farm for generic marines with the more veteran marines seeds going to exceptional candidates.

Maybe keeping it inside the marine is an economical and safe place to store it?

If my memory is correct the geneseed also balances their chemistry/metobolism (or something) and without it their power armour needs to dispence chemicals (or something) to restore the balance.

I agree that the practical reason is that it's so deeply embedded it's simply not worth it to remove it while the marine is pre-deadified

nareik wrote:
Maybe keeping it inside the marine is an economical and safe place to store it?

Safe? In a marine who deploys in the most inhospitable environments possible - poisonous atmospheres, radiation-filled space hulks, burning chemical factories? A marine risking his life riding into battle on a drop pod, boarding torpedo or little metal box aka Rhino? A marine who could at any moment be vaporized by his own plasma gun or an enemy lascannon? Every fight is another chance to lose this priceless treasure, the material to make a new marine.

No, it's left mainly because of superstition, space magic supposedly infusing the gland with the marine's experience and thus becoming "better". Apothecaries should know how to extract it safely. There's even fluff examples of Chaos warbands stealing the geneseed of Loyalists and leaving them alive to suffer the humiliation of losing such a treasure.

We're also assuming they still retain the knowledge of how to extract it without putting the incubating Marine at risk.

It could well be a simple procedure. But if knowledge has been lost to the point the crucial tool is now known as The Emperor's Holy Cup Holder on the Narthecium, well....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We're also assuming they still retain the knowledge of how to extract it without putting the incubating Marine at risk.

It could well be a simple procedure. But if knowledge has been lost to the point the crucial tool is now known as The Emperor's Holy Cup Holder on the Narthecium, well....

We know they can extract as they awlays confirm in the fluff notes (ie recent WD for example) that you can.

Taking it out under battlefield conditions is risky - even if its not destroyed by whatever killed the maine. Still I guess it makes a narrartive hook

Spetulhu wrote:

nareik wrote:
Maybe keeping it inside the marine is an economical and safe place to store it?

Safe? In a marine who deploys in the most inhospitable environments possible - poisonous atmospheres, radiation-filled space hulks, burning chemical factories? A marine risking his life riding into battle on a drop pod, boarding torpedo or little metal box aka Rhino? A marine who could at any moment be vaporized by his own plasma gun or an enemy lascannon? Every fight is another chance to lose this priceless treasure, the material to make a new marine.

No, it's left mainly because of superstition, space magic supposedly infusing the gland with the marine's experience and thus becoming "better". Apothecaries should know how to extract it safely. There's even fluff examples of Chaos warbands stealing the geneseed of Loyalists and leaving them alive to suffer the humiliation of losing such a treasure.

On the flip side, the geneseed is always protected by at least one superhuman warrior in state of the art armour with significant void/pressure/rad shielding, highly mobile and easily redeployed. Fluffwise marine casualties are relatively rare (in terms of mortal injury: they get all their limbs blown off, clot the wounds and go into a coma, ready for rehab. It takes a lot to kill a marine properly).

Also, while stuck in the marine it stays out of the hands of the Administratum and Ad Mech, making it a more politically resilient store than other kinds of geneseed dumps. Finally, storing geneseed inside marines is spreading eggs throughout baskets; if a conventional geneseed dump gets hit by traitors or other disaster then the seed inside the veterans acts as insurance against that.

My reasoning is because of the ritualistic belief of genetic memory and Codex limitations on Chapters. I assume Black Templars don't have this restraint and are constantly making new marines.

I just realized something. It may be because the Progenoid glands simply do not survive for that long outside of a living body. Regular human organs don't last for months on cold storage, they go bad within days if I remember. Even with the new tech the Imperium would have, they probably do not want to keep the geneseed outside of a functional marine body unless absolutely necessary (i.e: just before they croak), for maximum freshness. Presumably they do have some way of preserving the progenoid glands but prefer it to be "fresh" if at all possible, as well as probably it being extremely hard to do so.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I just realized something. It may be because the Progenoid glands simply do not survive for that long outside of a living body. Regular human organs don't last for months on cold storage, they go bad within days if I remember. Even with the new tech the Imperium would have, they probably do not want to keep the geneseed outside of a functional marine body unless absolutely necessary (i.e: just before they croak), for maximum freshness. Presumably they do have some way of preserving the progenoid glands but prefer it to be "fresh" if at all possible, as well as probably it being extremely hard to do so.

They probably dont have enough stasis patterned refrigerators available.

Another tick in the 'keeping seed in astartes is a safe, effective place to keep seed' box.

As well as being defended by a one man army, that army also functions as an effective incubator.

Not a complete hack job these space marines!

I still think a space marine is actually one of the 'least safe' places to keep it.

I literally lol'd when I read that.

It's like saying "well, an M1 Abrams tank is always manned by at least one of the best trained soldiers and has state of the art armour with significant NBC protection, is highly mobile and easily redeployed. In reality, destroyed M1 tanks are relatively rare (in terms of catastrophic ammunition failure: they get all their tracks blown off, park for a while, ready for repair. It takes a lot to kill an M1 properly)."

Therefore, instead of burying it in Fort Knox we should keep all our gold reserves inside of M1 tanks driving around on the battlefield.


That's.... hilarious.

It may be something that was a holdover from the Great Crusade, where there simply wasn't an easy way to store geneseed from the vast amounts of space marines there were (think about the amount of stasis tubes they'd need) and was simply romanticized into "preserving the skill of the warrior" after generations of muddling after the Emperor's interment in the golden throne.

 Grey Templar wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Would you want your testicles removed?

Technically, geneseed is an ovary. And Homo Astartes(Space Marines) are technically a parasitic species which reproduces by implanting their eggs into adolescent human males, transforming them into a new Space Marine who are all, technically by the way their species reproduction works, female.

So, all space marines are female?

HERESY!

*BLAM*

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I still think a space marine is actually one of the 'least safe' places to keep it.

I literally lol'd when I read that.

It's like saying "well, an M1 Abrams tank is always manned by at least one of the best trained soldiers and has state of the art armour with significant NBC protection, is highly mobile and easily redeployed. In reality, destroyed M1 tanks are relatively rare (in terms of catastrophic ammunition failure: they get all their tracks blown off, park for a while, ready for repair. It takes a lot to kill an M1 properly)."

Therefore, instead of burying it in Fort Knox we should keep all our gold reserves inside of M1 tanks driving around on the battlefield.


That's.... hilarious.

You're mean and you are arguing against a caricature of my points, not against what I actually said. Also, I don't think your analogy actually compares that well. Gold is not to M1 as Geneseed is to Space Marine. The geneseed perhaps would be more like the tank commander who goes on to train more crews, or redundant systems that are built into the tank and are difficult to remove without damaging other components of the tank? I don't know, I don't have much to do with real warfare.

Also, note I did not say Space Fort Knox is a bad place to keep geneseed. I said keeping the geneseed inside the marines is cheap, usually effective and adds a layer of insurance for should Space Fort Knox eventually get raided. The fact I mentioned the strategies can be used together implies that I think keeping genebanks is also a good idea (but not perfect either).