When did Geneseed become important?

[Askari]

Hi I just thought of something. in Fulgrim after the drop site massacre i believe it says that the bodies of the slain were either burned or left upon the battlefield with their geneseed unharvested. this leads me to believe that when traitor marines were abundant geneseed wasn't too important to the chaos gods. However, i know that later perturabo became a Daemon prince by sacrificing a bunch of imperial Fist geneseed. My question is just when did chaos begin the practice of taking geneseed to please the dark gods. I know it couldn't have been when they started running low on marines because the practice had started by the end of the ultramarines crusade to drive out all of the remaining traitors from realspace and into the eye of terror and at this time there were still several tens of thousands of marines.

 

So just when did the Dark Gods become pleased by the sacrifice of geneseed and why?

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

i would think that the importance of gene seed became after the failed Siege of Terra. Horus thought with Terra under control, he could easily reproduce Marines. howver, he didnt plan to lose.

 

this would be ironic because the imperium also lost the ability to recreate gene seed shortly thereafter.

 

wolf lord kieran

[Tokunator]

I believe that in Perturabo's case the fact that he had to kill all these Imperial Fists first was the important part in the offering. So the geneseed could be symbolic and stand for all the dead Imperial Fists (probably easier to transport than all the bodies, though Khorne would have presumably preferred the skulls).

 

It could also symbolize that he destroyed a part of the Imperial Fists' future, as they would be unable to use this geneseed to create new Marines.

 

They would also leave the geneseed untouched as it was that of their enemies. If Legions assume their Primarch's mindset and skills through their geneseed (i.e. all Space Wolves had Russ' ferocity through the Canix Helix, the Thousand Sons had Magnus' talent for sorcery ...), it would probably be dangerous to implant it into new recruits. There might also be a stigma attached to it. In Storm of Iron, Honsou is shunned because he had been given Imperial Fist geneseed and not Iron Warrior geneseed, up until the moment where he is 'purged' by being possessed by a Daemon.

 

Furthermore, the Legions weren't recruiting in the middle of the Heresy. They were too busy fighting Loyalists and the Apothecaries had to spend their time looking after wounded Marines. I would assume that Horus kept his recruiting on hold until after the Siege of Terra, as he could then use the gene banks of the Legions loyal to him to replenish them instead of having to rely on stolen geneseed. Or at least that was the plan.

[Cpl_Saint]

Using Sanguinius and the Blood Angels as an example, is seems that while a Legion's primarch was alive, it was possible to harvest and create geneseed from them more quickly and reliably (and presumably purge any untoward side-effects) than the methods used in later years.

 

Since all the Primarchs are either dead, missing or transformed beyond recognition, geneseed replication is presumably much harder – not to mention the superstition and mediaeval surgical practices used to insert it.

[Arschbombe]

In Storm of Iron, Honsou is shunned because he had been given Imperial Fist geneseed and not Iron Warrior geneseed, up until the moment where he is 'purged' by being possessed by a Daemon.

 

I thought it was a mix because they kept calling him half-breed. I also didn't think he was purged by the daemon, but rather through his actions he found favor with the gods and the daemon was evidence of that.

 

What do you think they were planning to do with all the seed they stole there? Put it to use making more CSMs or sacrificing it to the gods? I had a vague impression that since Honsou had turned out to be a good investment that the mixing of geneseed had been proven to be a success.

[Leonaides]

You find out what happens to it in the Ultramarine book "Dead Sky, Black Sun"

 

 

Basically, they are hot-housing new chaos marines, but need to use the geneseed to do it. Take 1 child, add geneseed (appropropriately corrupted), insert into human female and wait for it to be re-born. The process is with flaws though, no skin on the marines when they're born and some serious mutation. Originally it was all supposed to go to Abbadon, to swell his forces prior to the 13th black crusade, but Honsou kept some back for his own purposes... Naughty naughty...

 

[Storm Hunter]

First of all who is this Honsou guy and secondly why would anybody be stupid enough to try and steal something off Abaddon.

[Tokunator]

An Iron Warriors Warsmith with an entire Daemon World full of guns would be so stupid...

 

He didn't steal it from Abbadon, he captured it for him and merely kept some for himself.

 

The whole story can be read in Storm of Iron, which is actually one of the better novels the Black Library has produced.

[Askari]

Yeah Storm of Iron is good except for how "small" the battle is considering how much geneseed is stolen.

 

So from what I've taken from the conversation the consensus is that during the heresy the traitors didn't take geneseed because they were planning on taking the Emperor's lab on Terra and making all the marines they wanted, but once it became apparent that it would be a war lasting millennia they began putting more importance on the geneseed of loyalists and started sacrificing/stealing it.

 

Now here's a new question: What does it mean to "sacrifice" geneseed? I always figured it meant corrupting the geneseed then implanting it in new marines but i've heard some people say that the geneseed is literally sacrificed and destroyed. This doesn't make much sense to me as i figure that the marines are offering up the service of the new marines that will be created from the geneseed to the gods and not actually destroying it since they have so little.

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

I recall some piece of fluff where sacrifices were discussed. The idea discussed therein was that a sacrifice is more powerful the more power the sacrifice has. In the fluff the sacrifice discussed was an Imperial Governor.

 

Geneseed has the potential to make an Astartes. It's pretty powerful stuff. Perhaps that is the idea behind sacrificing geneseed- the potential power of geneseed makes it a worthy sacrifice, and thus the reward for it will be great.

[Tokunator]

I'd assume you'd set fire to it to sacrifice it.

 

Yes, the idea that geneseed is a worthy sacrifice due to the fact that it can be used to create a Marine sounds very plausible.

[Senseilord Ashahara]

it's not a 'sacrifice' if it isnt valuble to you.

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

Or valuable to someone else. I mean, how many aristocratic scumbag Imperial Commanders are really useful to the Chaos Space Marines? Yet they represent power and the Emperor to the Imperium.

[Imperial Knight]

Ok I know this topic is discussing chaos marines and the need/use for geneseed, but here is my question if mixing geneseed is so taboo why can it be done. I ask because you look at chapters like the Celestial Lions why can't they be saved by another chapter, either by infusion of geneseed or by apothecaries, the principals of geneseed harvesting and implementation cannot be that different. So why the big taboo, especially renegade chapters for example, if my chapter is renegade and I beat another non renegade chapter, I will harvest their geneseed to produce more marines. Now I do understand the whole purity of my lineage etc... but not all chapters have that devout mindset. I think it is an issue that should be re-assessed especially in the DIY section. It should not be the focal point of the fluff but if a chapter has to do it to survive, loyal or renegade, why not, and please tell me more than because its wrong or weak story line.

[Grey Mage]

A marine with another chapters geneseed is a bastard child at best, a lesser stepchild or mistrusted changeling at worst. Geneseed is the source of their power.... part of their most inner selves. Few marines would be so pragmatic, or truely knowledgeable enough, to say "oh, its just the same genes from a different source, who cares?"

[Askari]

But in storm of Iron the Warsmith ascends to daemonhood just by capturing the geneseed. of course, he captured way more than 400 progenoid glands but it still seems strange to think that chaos marines would waste such a valuable resource. Of course the iron cage makes sense that Perturabo destroyed the geneseed because the iron warriors were still unified and didn't have competiton for fresh geneseed and the destruction of the geneseed was more of a way to get revenge of Dorn.

 

It always seemed to me that chaos killed humans and mariness and sacrificed regular people's souls and corrupted those things that would be useful. Geneseed doesn't contain a soul and so the only way it can be used to make the chaos gods stronger is to implant it in a marine that will do the gods' bidding.

[Justicar Crucius]

my guess is that with the death of the primarchs, it would be sacrilege to take the geneseed parts from the body of the primarchs