Help settle a debate over fluff

[Bulwyf]

I have my own CSM army and the background I use for it is what follows in short form:

 

The Imperium continued to use geneseed from Traitor legions that remained loyal or were stored on Terra in subsequent Foundings. The rationale is that while the Primarch and most of his sons turned traitor that was a decision they made and not a genetic mutation or default in the geneseed which ultimately comes from the Emperor. The resulting Founding chapters were forced to keep their Primarch hidden and only a handful of Space Marines in these chapters would know the truth.

 

An example I would use for this would be the Blood Ravens who I believe is pretty implicitly implied to be descended from the Thousand Sons.

 

For my particular army they are not truly Chaos worshipers simply a Chapter that turned "Traitor" because the Inquisition found out their gene seed comes from the Night Haunter. And like the Soul Drinkers they were forced to turn "Traitor" because the Imperium turned their backs on them rather than the other way around.

 

One of my friends that I game with finds this background simply too fantastic and says that there is no way the Imperium would use gene seed from even loyal SMs from the Traitor legions that survived the Horus Heresy or were stored back on Terra.

 

I submit the question to you and ask if you think the background could exist under existing or even older fluff or is it simply wrong like my friend believes.

[Legatus]

The Imperium does not even like to use the gene-seed from loyalist Legions that are slightly suspicious, and they only rarely make successors with their gene-seed if any at all (like the Dark Angels or Blood Angels gene-seed). I think there may even be some sources that explicitely say that the traitor gene-seed got locked away somewhere in a vault and is never touched again, but I am not sure where that might have been described.

[Hellios]

I have my own CSM army and the background I use for it is what follows in short form:

 

The Imperium continued to use geneseed from Traitor legions that remained loyal or were stored on Terra in subsequent Foundings. The rationale is that while the Primarch and most of his sons turned traitor that was a decision they made and not a genetic mutation or default in the geneseed which ultimately comes from the Emperor. The resulting Founding chapters were forced to keep their Primarch hidden and only a handful of Space Marines in these chapters would know the truth.

 

An example I would use for this would be the Blood Ravens who I believe is pretty implicitly implied to be descended from the Thousand Sons.

 

For my particular army they are not truly Chaos worshipers simply a Chapter that turned "Traitor" because the Inquisition found out their gene seed comes from the Night Haunter. And like the Soul Drinkers they were forced to turn "Traitor" because the Imperium turned their backs on them rather than the other way around.

 

One of my friends that I game with finds this background simply too fantastic and says that there is no way the Imperium would use gene seed from even loyal SMs from the Traitor legions that survived the Horus Heresy or were stored back on Terra.

 

I submit the question to you and ask if you think the background could exist under existing or even older fluff or is it simply wrong like my friend believes.

 

The thing is if the thousand sons are the Blood Ravens... they probably did not get an imperial founding and just changed name/logo to hide themselves hid out somewhere isolated and then reappeared or were found again... some investigation probably took place as no records were found... however I bet the imperium has lost the records on afew chapters over time... and don't know the details like when they were founded and so on... after the investigation which found they were not mutated chaos worshipping freaks but good space marines fighting for the EMPRAH they were given a chapter number and added to the books. This is how I feel...

 

I have also have seen this vault thing pop up before but this could be to do with the geneseed already in storage and so geneseed from loyalists who were still alive such as Garro and so on may not have been locked in the vault... as for what happened to them... who knows... I still like the Grey Knight Theory!

[Lay]

I think there may even be some sources that explicitely say that the traitor gene-seed got locked away somewhere in a vault and is never touched again, but I am not sure where that might have been described.

According to Codex: Ultramarines (p.9), it was placed under a time-locked stasis seal though some believed the gene-seed was destroyed.

[Octavulg]

There are two obvious points where it might have been used - the Cursed Founding and the Dark Founding. The Dark Founding has had all information about it destroyed, while the Cursed Founding saw mass geneseed tinkering - and I see no reason they would have stopped at loyalist geneseed.

 

Plus, if you're a Cursed Founding Chapter, you're Cursed! And that's awesome.

[Bulwyf]

FWIW we had this debate at a GW tournament and a GW employee told me privately that as far as he was concerned the background for my army was fine since there was nothing officially from GW to say explicitly it did not or could not happen.

[Dammeron]

that's the wonderful thing about the 40K universe; plenty of scope for this sort of thing, though rather than being an "official" or sanctioned Chaoter Founding, I think it would probably fit better if it was the work of some wampy over ambitious Inquisitor with access to the relevant knowledge and materials etc and his cohorts.

[jumai]

I have my own CSM army and the background I use for it is what follows in short form:

 

The Imperium continued to use geneseed from Traitor legions that remained loyal or were stored on Terra in subsequent Foundings. The rationale is that while the Primarch and most of his sons turned traitor that was a decision they made and not a genetic mutation or default in the geneseed which ultimately comes from the Emperor. The resulting Founding chapters were forced to keep their Primarch hidden and only a handful of Space Marines in these chapters would know the truth.

 

An example I would use for this would be the Blood Ravens who I believe is pretty implicitly implied to be descended from the Thousand Sons.

 

For my particular army they are not truly Chaos worshipers simply a Chapter that turned "Traitor" because the Inquisition found out their gene seed comes from the Night Haunter. And like the Soul Drinkers they were forced to turn "Traitor" because the Imperium turned their backs on them rather than the other way around.

 

One of my friends that I game with finds this background simply too fantastic and says that there is no way the Imperium would use gene seed from even loyal SMs from the Traitor legions that survived the Horus Heresy or were stored back on Terra.

 

I submit the question to you and ask if you think the background could exist under existing or even older fluff or is it simply wrong like my friend believes.

 

The thing is if the thousand sons are the Blood Ravens... they probably did not get an imperial founding and just changed name/logo to hide themselves hid out somewhere isolated and then reappeared or were found again... some investigation probably took place as no records were found... however I bet the imperium has lost the records on afew chapters over time... and don't know the details like when they were founded and so on... after the investigation which found they were not mutated chaos worshipping freaks but good space marines fighting for the EMPRAH they were given a chapter number and added to the books. This is how I feel...

 

I have also have seen this vault thing pop up before but this could be to do with the geneseed already in storage and so geneseed from loyalists who were still alive such as Garro and so on may not have been locked in the vault... as for what happened to them... who knows... I still like the Grey Knight Theory!

 

 

Well, there's almost no way the Blood Ravens are first founding Thousand Sons... that would mean everything you need for a self-sufficient Chapter escaped the Space Wolves AND Magnus without recourse to either Horus or the Eye of Terror, then somehow weathered the Rubric of Ahriman unscathed... then, what, phoned up the High Lords of Terra and asked for a job? Hardly...

 

On the other hand, while things like Index Astartes claim that in recent times, new chapters are created (almost) solely from Ultramarines gene-seed, at some point someone talked fast enough that the Administratum let them found the Grey Knights. If that can happen, anything could. ("Yeah, I'm gonna need my own Space Marines. Nono, psychic ones. Yeah, all of them though. And can we have some of the mars guys flesh out these schematics? Oh, you know, just a little custom wargear, nothing too outlandish...")

 

 

Additionally, official fluff in which a chapter branded Excommunicatus Traitorus turned up to defend Imperial interests appeared as recently as Codex: Blood Angels. Some renegade BA successors helped defend Baal when Dante put a call out to all sons of Sanguinius, though they kept well away from any actions involving loyalist marines. Then there's the Legion of the Damned.

 

So, if you ask me, the events of your fluff are entirely conceivable. Eyebrow-raising certainly, but no harm in that.

[Chengar Qordath]

Personally, I always assumed the loyalists from Traitor Legions got turned into the Deathwatch. After all, the Deathwatch is made up of a mishmash of marines from different chapters that and specialize in fighting all the non-Chaos enemies of the Imperium. The remaining loyalists would probably be kept far away from any Chaos activity; as the end of the Flight of the Eisentsein indicates, they are still less than trusted by the Imperial establishment. Also, the fact that the Deathwatch repaints their armor black would make a lot of sense if it started out as loyalists covering up the colors of their traitor legions.

 

The theory that Grey Knights were made up of ex-loyalists really does not hold water in light of the fact that all GKs are all psykers, and their gene-seed is supposed to be unique. Also, in answer to jumai post, as I recall the Emperor himself ordered th creation of the Grey Knights.

 

Personally, I think the problem with having a chapter of loyalists from one of the traitor legions is reasonably plausible, but has run into a major problem of over-saturation. It can be a reasonably interesting idea for one or two chapters, but way too many people have tried to do it, often with badly written or non-existent fluff justification.

[Dan The Deamon]

as far as i'm concerned the 40k universe has a lot of room for fluff and secrets. although, even if you have outstanding reasoning and plenty of background fluff written some stories and ideas just aren't going to be accepted.

 

Loyalist Night Lord gene seed marines sure is plausible, i don't envy you for trying to convince anyone of your fluff though. I have a feeling it won't be taken as seriously as you'd like.

 

I haven't seen a loyal Night Lord story done up well. As far as i can tell the Night Lords just loose all appeal once brought back to loyalty. I don't want to change your mind or anything, but there are some emperor loving chapters which share similarities with the Night Lords, aside from the whole abhorring imperial dogma.

 

This just isn't an argument you can win or lose.

[Man Behind The Curtain]

Well you can explain away pretty much any radical fluff with a few simple words.

 

"An Inquisitor flashed his rosarius and gave the go ahead."

 

These guys have almost unlimited power within the imperium and very little oversight. Its not unreasonable to assume that an Inquisitor probably from one of the more radical sects set things in motion in secret to replace a new Imperial Fists founding's geneseed with some illicit geneseed that he got his hands on for the purposes of experimentation.

 

Hell it wouldn't be beyond some agent of chaos like fabius bile or Ahriman to manipulate such an event to happen so that he could black mail that chapter with the information at a later date.

 

It would be a rather large conspiracy and ripe with great fluff opportunities.

 

one of the beauties of such an open ended world full of so much betrayal and lies and schemes and subtle evils is the opportunity to play with the estasblished!

 

Well you can explain away pretty much any radical fluff with a few simple words.

 

"An Inquisitor flashed his rosarius and gave the go ahead."

 

These guys have almost unlimited power within the imperium and very little oversight. Its not unreasonable to assume that an Inquisitor probably from one of the more radical sects set things in motion in secret to replace a new Imperial Fists founding's geneseed with some illicit geneseed that he got his hands on for the purposes of experimentation.

 

Hell it wouldn't be beyond some agent of chaos like fabius bile or Ahriman to manipulate such an event to happen so that he could black mail that chapter with the information at a later date.

 

It would be a rather large conspiracy and ripe with great fluff opportunities.

 

one of the beauties of such an open ended world full of so much betrayal and lies and schemes and subtle evils is the opportunity to play with the estasblished!

 

It would be important to note that this might require some traitors within the organisations that store copies of a chapters geneseed intermittently to check purity etc or on the other hand a section of marines within the chapter whose geneseed is not from a traitor legion and who are the "public face" of the chapter as far as their genetics and the imperium are concerned.

 

in that second scenario a more sophisticated geneseed cloning facility privately available to the chapter would be neccessary to replace the stocks supplied by the imperium.

[Rain]

It's your army do what you want. Is it really consistent with existing canon fluff? No it's not, but then most people's personal fluff isn't, and it is after all your fluff, not like you're imposing it on someone else's army.

[jumai]

Also, in answer to jumai post, as I recall the Emperor himself ordered th creation of the Grey Knights.

 

This is true, but by the time it happened he was already on the Golden Throne. Everything I've read regarding the period between his duel with Horus and his final words seems to indicate he was generally delerious and half lucid at best, and that the Adeptus Terra often preferred to act in his name (in a less figurative sense) for the sake of morale and stability. In those days, "The Emperor" ordered a lot of things so that it wouldn't come to light that the Emperor's status as a raving, drooling trauma patient was preventing him from running a government. By the Horus Heresy series especially, not everyone borrowing his authority took the WWtED approach.

 

I'm just saying, the infantile, unproven, and legally unaccountable Ordo Malleus somehow getting itself set up with a brand new super-elite personal military of unprecedented specifications, right in the middle of the single greatest act the Imperium has ever made to decentralize authority, on the orders of a delerious despot, in reversal of previous policies and maxims... kinda smells like "read between the lines" to me. If I had to guess, the Inquisition got away with doing it in return for backing the High Lords' process of establishing themselves as permanent official regents.

 

All speculation, but it's 40k lore, no one's supposed to know anything for sure.