Age of Darkness - Rebirth

[Another Random Geek]

I'm afraid I don't have time to write a proper essay on the subject, cross-checking sources and the like, in "my 40k," the Blood Ravens chapter is one final "SCREW U, LOLZORZ" from the Changer of Ways to Magnus the Red. In Prosepro Burns, we see that Magnus's tragic flaw is his hubris, his belief that he knows more than anyone else, perhaps including his Father, and therefore can be trusted to screw around with stuff that is generally acknowledged by the rest of humanity as "bad mojo." Magnus tried to be loyal to the end, but failed, his sons cursed from the beginning by his corrupt bargain with the warp. Now here he is, stuck in the Warp, hated by his Father, hunted by those he once called Brother, and lord of a legion of mutants, sorcerers and dust buckets. In short, his life sucks.

 

Now, say you're that Greater Daemon that totally screwed Magnus, or the Big T himself for that matter, and feel like really screwing Magnus again. The one comforting thing in his life is that it really couldn't have gone any other way, his progeny was cursed from the beginning. Yeah, he might have delayed it a couple of years, but in the end, the Thousand Sons were doomed anyway right? Wrong. By allowing the Blood Ravens to come into existence, you show Magnus what the Thousand Sons could have, should have been had he played his cards right; a breed of warrior-scholars able to outthink and outfight their enemies without succumbing to the darkness. I envision the Blood Ravens as a sort of reverse-portrait of Dorian Grey, as the Thousand Sons' Gene-Seed degenerated in the warp, the Blood Ravens' apothecaries stabilized, (Tzeentch allowing it just to rub it in.) As the Thousand Sons fully embrace Chaos, the Blood Ravens purge it from their ranks.

 

The reason why this hurts more than anything else, as that as long as the Blood Ravens fight for the Emperor, overcoming impossible odds and winning, deep down Magnus feels that there is hope for redemption for the Thousand Sons, a hope that will probably forever be crushed in countless new and inventive ways by Chaos for poops and giggles. After all, the really insidious aspect of Tzeentch is that he embodies hope, not just change...

 

And yes, I'm aware that "The WARP did it" is the oldest and lamest trope there is.

 

Big fan by the way, ADB.

 

PS: If anyone finds any spelling or grammar typos, I wrote this in like, 5 minutes. -_-

[Dinks]

This reminds me of the discussion that arose during the switch from 2nd to 3rd, when GW tried to "reintroduce" some mystery to the 40k-verse by going away from the detailed overview fluff (i.e. when they went from the big 2nd edition codices to the paper-thin 3rd edition ones). Some people love the mystery, some people prefer to know the full story, even that which is 'hidden' in-game.

The mystery is good to a degree. GW needs to lay some fact down and say "this and this are the real events of so and so, it went like this...". Not all events but some, as just now the fluff and background is getting a tad crap as every author is dropping in his or her view of a legion or a chapter or whatever - nothing is consistant.

[Aegnor]

By laying done some definitive accounts of events only previously covered in hints and asides, you mean something like the Collected Visions HH book overseen by Alan Merrett, and the 16 books of exposition so far in the Heresy? :)

[Ethrion]

I'm afraid I don't have time to write a proper essay on the subject, cross-checking sources and the like, in "my 40k," the Blood Ravens chapter is one final "SCREW U, LOLZORZ" from the Changer of Ways to Magnus the Red. In Prosepro Burns, we see that Magnus's tragic flaw is his hubris, his belief that he knows more than anyone else, perhaps including his Father, and therefore can be trusted to screw around with stuff that is generally acknowledged by the rest of humanity as "bad mojo." Magnus tried to be loyal to the end, but failed, his sons cursed from the beginning by his corrupt bargain with the warp. Now here he is, stuck in the Warp, hated by his Father, hunted by those he once called Brother, and lord of a legion of mutants, sorcerers and dust buckets. In short, his life sucks.

 

Now, say you're that Greater Daemon that totally screwed Magnus, or the Big T himself for that matter, and feel like really screwing Magnus again. The one comforting thing in his life is that it really couldn't have gone any other way, his progeny was cursed from the beginning. Yeah, he might have delayed it a couple of years, but in the end, the Thousand Sons were doomed anyway right? Wrong. By allowing the Blood Ravens to come into existence, you show Magnus what the Thousand Sons could have, should have been had he played his cards right; a breed of warrior-scholars able to outthink and outfight their enemies without succumbing to the darkness. I envision the Blood Ravens as a sort of reverse-portrait of Dorian Grey, as the Thousand Sons' Gene-Seed degenerated in the warp, the Blood Ravens' apothecaries stabilized, (Tzeentch allowing it just to rub it in.) As the Thousand Sons fully embrace Chaos, the Blood Ravens purge it from their ranks.

 

The reason why this hurts more than anything else, as that as long as the Blood Ravens fight for the Emperor, overcoming impossible odds and winning, deep down Magnus feels that there is hope for redemption for the Thousand Sons, a hope that will probably forever be crushed in countless new and inventive ways by Chaos for poops and giggles. After all, the really insidious aspect of Tzeentch is that he embodies hope, not just change...

 

And yes, I'm aware that "The WARP did it" is the oldest and lamest trope there is.

 

Big fan by the way, ADB.

 

PS: If anyone finds any spelling or grammar typos, I wrote this in like, 5 minutes. :P

 

That's pretty cool actually. The one thing I would say though is that while the Blood Ravens have gone on to show what could have been, their ultimate existence is still down to Magnus. Without Magnus making the unknowing pact with Tzeentch none of the Thousand Sons would have survived to become Blood Ravens eventually. Without Magnus sending lots of his fleets away prior to the destruction of Prospero none would have survived to become Blood Ravens. If anything it might vindicate Magnus and show that had the Thousand Sons been left alone or at least not destroyed they would have been similar if not better to the Blood Ravens.

 

But as we know from Prospero Burns:

the entire situation was engineered by chaos(tzeentch) from the start to assure the destruction of the two most dangerous legions of the Imperium - the Space Wolves and he Thousand Sons, so it couldn't be avoided

 

[Epistolary Exander]

Has A-D-B actually comfirmed that was the survival of Arvida was a hint that Thousand Sons are the founders of the Blood Ravens?

 

I say this because there appears to be a consistent attempt to tie in all the threads of the heresy together in the different novels. It makes much more sense for the Arvida to have survived the hunt of the World Eaters, so he could be picked up by Garro & to be used as one of the founding fathers of the Grey Knights. Arvida was a member of the Corvidae cult & would have been perfect to teach the Grey Knight progisticars their skills & abilities. It is certainly true that Grey Knights have the attitude of "knowledge is power" in relation to their tactics & strageties in waging their war against the daemonic.

 

I believe Chris Wraight has said that Rebirth was showing how terrible the current position of the Thousand Sons was in the Heresy; the legion was being hunted by both Imperial & Traitor forces. It would seem unlikely that any "loyalist" members of the legion survived the heresy. We also know from Ahriman that the Magnus line geneseed significantly boosts latent psychic talent of the legions marines. If this geneseed was being used in the Blood Ravens there should be so many librarians present in the chapters ranks than in almost any chapter except the the Grey Knights.

 

Least this is my 2 cents on this subject.

[Galadren]

If this geneseed was being used in the Blood Ravens there should be so many librarians present in the chapters ranks than in almost any chapter except the the Grey Knights.

 

Well, it is part of the Blood Ravens fluff that they do have a larger than usual Librarium to the point that the Chief Librarian was also the Chapter Master up until Retribution.

[Epistolary Exander]

I mean the Blood Ravens would have dozens if not hundreds of librarians in their ranks, probable enough to make squads of them. Compare this to numbers of librarians the Ultramarines which has 25 & the Blood Angels which has 26, the difference would be more than large. Im saying this as my DIY chapter the Martyrs Vermilion ibrarians would only have about 50 librarians, has their entire command structure except for techmarines consist of librarians.

 

I admit it might be possible for renegade legion/ chapter could come back into the imperium & try to pass itself off as loyal as is what is suppose to have happened with the Thousand Sons becoming the Blood Ravens, but I am sceptic of the chances of this.To see if this feasible you have to look at how the Imperium, founds, equips & treats the Astartes geneseed.

 

The imperium usually equips Astartes chapters with ships & equipment supplied from forge worlds or supplies raw materials from mining worlds for the chapters to use to create their own gear. Usually this process would happen because of long standing known trade agreements/ or agreements with specific forge worlds. I would assume due to how obsessive the mechanicus is over its resources & data it would keep a track of such agreements on a centralised data base, but this is not clear. So it is possible for a random chapter could negotiate & set up its own agreements with individual forgeworlds to recieve its supplies.

 

Yet more importantly than this is that each chapter has to send its techmarines to Mars to be trained, it would be easy for the mechanicus to keep track of how many chapters there are by logging which marines they train come from & it would seem rediculous if the mechanicus did not have procedures in place to specifically train techmarines & keep them. This is especially true because of my next point.

 

The High Lords of Terra have control of the Astartes supplies of geneseed, for which the High Lords given the tasks of collecting & monitoring geneseed to the mechanicus. The mechanicus stores the chapters geneseed by itself, but in relation to its own parent (1st founding legion) geneseed. This is done while the traitor geneseed stock from before & during the heresy was placed in time stasis seals not to be used ever again. In this manor the mechanicus is repsonsible for checking the purity of each new tithe sample of geneseed recieved (each chaoter has to supply 5% of its genestocks to the mechanicus) against the individual chapter's geneseed stock. Due to how the geneseed stock is organised it should be relatively easy to track the lineage of each chapter back to the original legion, this is considering the imperium's level of genetic technology is more advanced than our own & we would be able to track chapter lineage easily. Due to these reasons it would be extremely hard for a chapter to come in from the cold & claim to be a ultramarine succsessor etc. The only 2 exceptions I can think of this is if the chapter is a dark/ cursed founding chapter for which it is believed the mechanicus tried to correct/ mix geneseed & therefore could try & blag a dodgy result. I will explain the 2nd method after I explain how the imperium founds a chapter.

 

The imperium founds a chapter's geneseed by selecting 1 sample of geneseed of all the 19 Astartes implants from a parent chapter (eg ultramarines/ crimson fists etc). This 1 sample is then cultivated by implanting the sample into a test slave & is allowed to develop. From this sample 2 new sets of implants are created & are implanted into another test slave, to get 4 more sets of implants & so forth. Until a 1000 sets of marine implants are created, which is enough for an entire chapter to be founded. These implants are then implanted into a 1000 neophytes which go on to form the new chapter. This new chapter is then equipped and supplied & added to the imperium;s & mechanicus rosters. It could be possible for a renegade force like the thousand sons could try to pass itself off as a newly founded chapter if renegade forces literally intercept & destroy a newly founded chapter in secret before they are added to the rosters. This would then give the renegade force the opportunity to initially pass itself off as the new chapter & then as the chapter supplies its first geneseed tithe, the renegade chapter would literally become the new chapter as far as the mechanicus & imperium are concerned.

 

I believe this would be the best hope for how any renegade force could come in from the cold & to be classed as loyal again. Mainly because the mechanicus appears to primarily compares a chapter’s genestock against its own stocks. The mechanicus does not have access to the traitor genestocks as these are time locked, so that they can not be used to create any more marines from.

 

Overall I am trying to say it is highly unlikely that the Thousand Sons could be the founders of the Blood Ravens, just for the practicality of doing so & getting away with it. Its for these reasons that I belief Arvida was a founding member of the Grey Knights. I belive it would be more probable that the emperor stabilised the thousands sons geneseed & used that for the grey knights, so that they would be more able to banish daemons etc than the thousand sons themselves founding the blood ravens

 

If I am incorrect in any of my information please correct me. The main sources of the information here are the Space Marine dex, Blood Angels dex, Index Astartes: Rites of Initiation & the top of my head :D

 

More importantly than this, you would think the Imperium would have a procedure to indentify chapters that just try to blend in from now where like the Tiger Claws etc ;)

[Galadren]

Well, it wasn't the gene-seed that made someone a psyker, it was the psychic potential of the person themselves and some help from Magnus on the side. Prospero had a very high population of those with psychic potential, as well as Magnus to help unlock it in those with latent abilities. The Blood Ravens don't have Prospero to recruit from or Magnus to push things in a certain direction. They just recruit and train like any other codex chapter.

[Leonaides]

I mean the Blood Ravens would have dozens if not hundreds of librarians in their ranks, probable enough to make squads of them.

They do... Maybe not hundreds, but certainly more than a 'typical' chapter. And sometimes they are fielded as squads.

[Mykra]

Has A-D-B actually comfirmed that was the survival of Arvida was a hint that Thousand Sons are the founders of the Blood Ravens?

 

It was the last paragraph that pretty much put a spotlight on it. Whispering the Raven chapter motto and then the lava 'flashing' onto the Corvidae cult marking of the black raven head was like a literary neon arrow.

 

I think Wraight in that scene was writing for a movie almost with the lava flashing onto the symbol and him disappearing into the shadows.

[Epistolary Exander]

Ahrimans states in A Thousands Sons that the legions character became evident after a few years of the great crusade. He means by this that he & the legions battle brothers started to experience thier abilities similiar to the tizcan cults & at the same time the flesh change started to affect the legion. This suggests that it is the thousand sons geneseed that enhances their latent abilities not Magnus, but certainly it could have been Tzeentch who does this.

 

It is possible that if the Thousands Sons fleet was staffed from peole from Prospero then the the entire or a significant part of the Thousands Sons fleet could be comprised of psykers who could be used to form a breeding population of psykers from whom the legion could recruit from. It is stated is known that Thousand Sons vessels did have elements of the Spire Guard attached to them (Rebirth & Battle of the Abyss (I cant believe I am citing that ;) )). So it is feasible that Thousand could maintain their traditional psyker squads, but would alter their composition to become more codex adherent of they are the founders of the Blood Ravens.

 

From where does it say that the Blood Ravens form squads of librarians?

[Epistolary Exander]

Yea the cult symbol was highlighted in the end, but that could be argued to support my theory of how Arvida was used to train the Grey Knight Prosticars. There is a good chance the Geometric would have been destroyed by the World Eaters. Either the Emperor or Malcador seem to be aware of which specific marines to approach to form the inquisition & the Grey Knights. The display of the corvidae cult symbol could be used to hint that the Arvida was chosen by Malcador/ the Emperor to form the Grey Knight Progisticars.

 

While "Knowledge is power" is on the front of Mechanicum, what would you suppose this means?

 

"Knowledge is power" appears to be a pretty common thought/ philosophy in the Imperium outside of the Thousands Sons Legion. The inquisition & other organisations are known to hide or manipulate information for their own agenda. Just look at how Horus manipulated Russ into attacking the Thousand Sons & how the Alpha Legion acts with its all espianage in the HH stories so far, even going so far as to say secrecy is their most powerful weapon.

[Ethrion]

While "Knowledge is power" is on the front of Mechanicum, what would you suppose this means?

 

"Knowledge is power" appears to be a pretty common thought/ philosophy in the Imperium outside of the Thousands Sons Legion. The inquisition & other organisations are known to hide or manipulate information for their own agenda. Just look at how Horus manipulated Russ into attacking the Thousand Sons & how the Alpha Legion acts with its all espianage in the HH stories so far, even going so far as to say secrecy is their most powerful weapon.

 

While a lot of people in the Imperium probably quote 'knowledge is power' or variations on the theme, it is technically the 'official' motto of the Blood Ravens. Official canon yet or not it's obvious what's being tried to be done by some.

See A D-B's earlier posts - quite illuminating.

[Epistolary Exander]

I have read A-D-B earlier posts. They are very enlightening about how GW & BL work behind the scenes, I believe it appears A-D-B has not yet spoken to the other people involved in writing the HH series about this issue & as sound as he is, A-D-B could be wrong that the information in Rebirth is related to the Blood Ravens.

[Midgard]

Ultimately, only the BL truly knows what the official status of the Blood Ravens is, and anything we would say here is pure speculation. From A D-B's posts in this and other threads on topic, I gather he is not a fan of "Blood Ravens are Thousand Sons successors" theory, and it is entirely possible that all the mystique about them is a plot device, with some parties really, really wishing it was true. Personally, I think it would be amusing and possibly work on the "rule of cool" criteria, but that is me, and there are probably many people out there who wish Blood Ravens just went away - to each their own, I guess.

 

That said, while theoretically you would imagine that someone would wonder why a Chapter of Astartes appears out of nowhere, and why they have this strange gene-seed, there are several ways how a Chapter with traitor gene-seed could not only be founded but could also survive as a legitimate organization.

 

First, it is entirely possible that they did not hide their origins. While the Imperium was on its way to becoming a paranoid "shoot first, ask questions later" nightmare, with a little luck the surviving Thousand Sons might find someone sympathetic in charge. They would probably spend a long time being locked away while the powers that be decide their fate, but if they are clearly loyalists, they might yet survive. If someone like Iacton Qruze (himself a scion of a traitor legion) or Malcador takes up their cause, they may be allowed to live, under certain conditions (which may include mind-wiping or other forms of psychic alteration, or perhaps they could be simply made to swear an oath of silence - the Space Marines seem to be big on these things). And it is not impossible that their deliverance may yet come from a completely unexpected corner - if they spend the entire Heresy in lockdown, I can imagine how Leman Russ, perhaps feeling massive guilt about Prospero now that he knows the truth, might be willing to take these survivors under his proverbial wing, and sponsor them as one of the new Chapters in the Second Founding.

 

Bottom line, if the surviving Thousand Sons get a powerful protector, they might be able to make it through the Heresy, and become a Second Founding Chapter. They might, however, be forced to undertake an oath of silence on their origins, to where by the time the Chapter consists of all-new Marines, their origins in a traitor legion are a poorly remembered (and heavily suppressed) myth - and as time passes and the records are (possibly deliberately) destroyed, their origins become lost. The Imperial authorities, however, WOULD know the truth, although as the time passes, only some very select Mechanicus personnel may know the genetic origin of the Blood Ravens (and they are sworn to silence/not talking/etc).

 

This would actually work very well with the fluff notice that Blood Ravens' gene-seed is more frequently checked for purity, ostensibly because of prevalence of psykers in the Chapter. But what if there is another reason for the frequency of gene-seed checks - what if the Mechanicus knows exactly where the gene-seed originally came from? What if they are checking not only for purity of genetic material, but also for any flaws associated with the Thousand Sons, who were notoriously prone to "flesh change"? What if the reason for the frequency of checks is that even after all these years, the Imperium still does not entirely trust the Blood Ravens, although the specific reasons for that are known only to very few, and ancient and poorly remembered pacts protect the Chapter from the knowledge they are not even aware of ever becoming public?

 

I think this explanation is at least somewhat plausible, although by no means guaranteed to be correct. It is much easier for GW to use 13th or 21st Founding as a cop-out for the Blood Ravens, not to mention that it would be unlikely to upset the precedent in the fluff. And then, there is also a good possibility that pigs will fly before GW or BL give a definite, no-misinterpretation-possible answer - which is the smartest thing they could do, in my book. Perhaps this never-ending ambiguity and many often misleading but tanatlizing hints is why we love the universe - and why we would never get a straight answer.

[Epistolary Exander]

I agree the best for GW to do is to allow the Blood Ravens to have their ambiguity & to allow us to make our judgement up :P

[A D-B]

I have read A-D-B earlier posts. They are very enlightening about how GW & BL work behind the scenes, I believe it appears A-D-B has not yet spoken to the other people involved in writing the HH series about this issue & as sound as he is, A-D-B could be wrong that the information in Rebirth is related to the Blood Ravens.

 

I've spoken to several of them: other HH authors, editors, and IP team employees. In response to Rebirth, I even started mailing the others about these kinds of "hints" in the future.

 

There's a difference between hinting something to generate interest (getting hinted so much that it becomes a meme in the fandom's consciousness), and it actually being true. I'm sure to THQ/Relic, it's considered what they want to be true, given the number of hints they make. But that's separate.

 

I doubt there'll ever be confirmation, and there's a reason for that. Take it however you wish.

 

EDIT: I'm not against the possibility of it. Not at all. 40K is rich with that kind of mystique. I'm against it being definitively stated, even through a plethora of heavy-handed hints. And as I said, I wouldn't hold your breath for a definitive answer. The mystery is what's supposed to be interesting about it.

[Mykra]

First, it is entirely possible that they did not hide their origins. While the Imperium was on its way to becoming a paranoid "shoot first, ask questions later" nightmare, with a little luck the surviving Thousand Sons might find someone sympathetic in charge.

 

One of my big questions is just where the Imperium draws the line at traitor geneseed and declares a being irreversibly contaminated or whatever diabolical heretic stamp they have laying around the office. In 40K the Imperium seems rather blunt and rigid in it's thinking, but the 30K stories seem to show that they are more than willing to take people at personal levels than genetics. They allowed

Garro and his surviving Death Guard

to live and serve, they allowed

Sons of Horus

to be active in the Empire, so I don't see them turning their backs on Thousand Sons if some showed up and proclaimed they were loyal, were tested to an inch of death and back, and then an eye was kept on them for a very, very long time.

[Ethrion]

The Imperium post-heresy was an entirely different entity than the one during the 'naive' years of the Great Crusade. The best description of the change comes in the story 'The Last Remembrancer': where it's shown that no matter what happens there will never be any more trust. Everything will always be more clandestine and there will always be an under current of fear. The Horus Heresy was the death of innocence and of true brotherhood.

 

I just couldn't see the Imperium allowing loyalist elements of the Thousand Sons to survive. Even if the Blood Ravens turned up thousands of years after the heresy and said "hey we lost all our records in the great flood of 36K but we're loyal...really" I just can't see them not being gene-tested or whatever they do to determine their origins. Surely someone somewhere after 10,000 years would be like "wait a second...".

 

Part of me thinks it is cool though that there is the potential for loyalist Thousand Sons to remain. But a bigger part of me doesn't want it to be true. The whole appeal of the Thousand Sons is one of tragedy: dabbling in powers they didn't fully understand, damned for it but ultimately their downfall was engineered on the grand scale and they were in fact always loyal they were just forced into exile and to become traitors.

[Epistolary Exander]

Fair enough I stand corrected ^_^

 

I think there is a slight possibility a chapter like the BLood Ravens could pass a genetic test on their lineage primarily becayse it appears the mechanicus does not have access to the 9 traitor geneseed stocks to compare samples against. The mehcnicus could work out that the Blood Ravens or which ever traitor legion/ chapter that try becoming loyal genesee is not 1 of the 9 loyalist legioons, but due to the experiments of the dark & cursed foundings the mechanicus may not be able to say the renegades chapter's geneseed was from a traitor legion.

 

If the Imperium is this open to having "renegade" forces coming back in from the cold, like supposedly the Blood Ravens have, then surely there is a high probability the Alpha Legion would have abused this gaping hole to cause further mischieve in the Imperium? It would be certainly fit in with the Alpha Legions tactics & strageties. Could the ALpha Legion get any better cover than being a "loyalist" chaper?

[Commissar Ciaphas Cain]

For reference - Who's to say that their geneseed would show up as Magnus'? Who's to say that someone, say, Malcador didn't go into the records and change what was on file for Magnus' geneseed to something different? Then perhaps institute a "deviation" of someone else's geneseed (Probably Guilliman's) that the Blood Ravens "match". Malcador would certainly have had the power to do it, as Regent of Terra and we don't know how far back the BR's history actually goes, thanks to the obliteration of all records in M36 (Which led to Azariah Vidyah, the Great Father's assumption of Chapter Master and Chief Librarian). If the BR's geneseed keeps coming back as merely a highly unique form of another Primarch's geneseed they most likely wouldn't question it, beyond the occasional inquiry by the Inqusition into the stability of the Chapter itself. I agree that there's no way the highly superstitious High Lords would allow a chapter to run around with Traitor geneseed, unless the Blood Ravens are bribing the mechanicum to keep it on the down low or something (which I still doubt).

 

Just another thought.

[Galadren]

Well, also, you have to remember that all records of the Traitor Legions gene history were deleted. Not to mention the Imperium no longer has a complete list of their chapters so whose to say they didn't just show up one day and say "Hey, we've been around for a while. Yeah, we lost our chapter records. You don't know when we were founded either? Weird."

[Ethrion]

Well, also, you have to remember that all records of the Traitor Legions gene history were deleted. Not to mention the Imperium no longer has a complete list of their chapters so whose to say they didn't just show up one day and say "Hey, we've been around for a while. Yeah, we lost our chapter records. You don't know when we were founded either? Weird."

 

Well it's 'officially' said that all records of the traitor legions are deleted but I reckon it's more likely that records are just seriously highly classified. It is certainly true that there is no complete list of chapters but I'm sure that if and when (I doubt it's a regular occurrence) a marine chapter randomly appears and are loyalist that they don't undergo ridiculous scrutiny.

 

For reference - Who's to say that their geneseed would show up as Magnus'? Who's to say that someone, say, Malcador didn't go into the records and change what was on file for Magnus' geneseed to something different? Then perhaps institute a "deviation" of someone else's geneseed (Probably Guilliman's) that the Blood Ravens "match". Malcador would certainly have had the power to do it, as Regent of Terra and we don't know how far back the BR's history actually goes

 

If the Blood Ravens are descendants of one of the fleets that Magnus originally sent away from Prospero prior to the Space Wolves invasion then they would definitely show lineage. Why would Malcador want to change what was recorded about Magnus' geneseed? Firstly, as far as Malcador and the Emperor know at that point, the Thousand Sons have turned traitor so they would not be looking to do them any favours. Secondly, neither of them would know that Magnus had sent his fleet off in different directions, nor would they know that these same fleets (or elements of them) returned and remained loyal and so would have no reason to change records even if they wanted to.

[Don the Oiler]

Others get in trouble for fact-checking

 

Hehe... hehehehe...

That explains a lot.

 

On topic, subtle hints fuel fan discussions, anyone can read up facts. I mean, who gives a fuzz about traitor legionaires in the Grey Knights any more (although you could argue grey armour with an =I= is still nothing more than a very unsubtle hint)?

I prefer long discussions with presumptive evidence to a simple "look up codex xyz page 123".

 

But that's just me.

[Gnostiko]

Great story, although I was hoping for more reveal on what happened to the rest of the Thousand Sons fleet. Anybody want to guess on who attacked the group the Geometric was in?

 

Pretty 'meh' about the reference to the Blood Ravens; as far as I'm concerned A Thousand Sons sealed the deal with Kallista's vision.

I don't see anything wrong with an outright, explicit explanation of the Ravens being the descendants of the Thousand Sons - just because we, as the audience know it, doesn't necessarily mean it's in-universe knowledge...pretty much like the events of the HH series as a whole :sick: