Revising my IA input and advice requested

[Bismarxist]

Hi there everyone, 

So after a while fiddling around with the IA of my chapter I've come up with what I think is a rather cool and unorthodox twist to them and I want yall's input about it.

 

So the 169th is out one the eastern fringe when a splinter of either Hive Fleet Behemoth or Kraken shows up. the 169th takes the Tyranids head on and rapidly are driven back to their Monastery and start loosing companies at an alarming rate. In an act of supreme desperation the chapter's apothecaries begin augmenting the chapter's Geneseed with genetic material taken from the Tyranids. Which was so devastatingly successful that within three weeks the entire splinter fleet had either been neutralized or captured.

 

overawed at the power that his apothecaries had tapped the chapter master of the 169th began rebuilding his chapter not just to it's codex size, but to the full strength of a legion, planning on then conquering the Eye of Terror. at which the point the Imperium would embrace him as a new Primarch and he would usher in the golden age of human conquest and transcendence.

 

Of course it wasn't long before OH heard rumors that the 169th was planning on expanding into a legion and sent in an investigation. Soon afterwards the chapter was declared traitors and knowing full well that they couldn't survive the retaliatory campaign the 169th pulled up stakes and fled into warp, determined to wage an unending war against the Imperium until they realized that their notions of purity were out dated and obsolete and the only way that humanity could survive and achieve it's manifest destiny was to embrace the power of the Great Devourer.

[Midgard]

There are two issues with this concept. First, how can gene-tinkering produce immediate results in a matter of weeks? Considering that Blood Angels spent the last ten thousand years trying to cure their gene-seed problems, and that even the Primarchs could not produce viable results without the Emperor's help, what chance would a single wayward Chapter under siege have to successfully create a method to rapidly increase their numbers? What resources do they have for it - do they have large pool of recruits to draw on, do they have equipment and factories to arm them, and so on? It would take years or decades for them to get to the point where expanding their numbers is realistic - and if they could sufficiently expand their numbers in a matter of weeks to beat back a Tyranid invasion, why couldn't they end up Legion-size in a year or two? That is, if such a development is even possible, considering the inherent difficulties.

 

Second, I doubt using Tyranid genetic materials would not have massive consequences. The new Marines may end up as little more than genestealer-hybrids, or may have all sorts of unforeseen side effects, starting with very obvious mutations and getting worse from there. Even if by some very minor chance the Chapter's Apothecaries can incorporate non-human DNA into the Chapter's gene-seed without making the gene-seed ineffective, who is to say the Marines will not end up as mutants, a species neither human nor sane?

 

Another thought - the description provided seems to indicate that the Chapter's fall came from their desire to increase their numbers to Legion-size. The Tyranid mixing does not really play into this very much, and is entirely coincidental. If you remove the entire Tyranid angle, the story would still work.

 

That said, this is exactly why Huron and the Astral Claws became Renegades - so you might want to add some other reason that would differentiate this Chapter from Astral Claws/Red Corsairs. Perhaps the Chapter gene-seed is flawed, and they attempt to increase their recruitment, because they know Marines will not last very long. As a result, this massive recruitment spike will attract unwanted attention, even though it is done for all the right reasons (i.e. let's say most Marines die before they turn 100, making them very short-lived; therefore, the Chapter must continuously recruit in greater numbers if it is to replace losses to combat and gene-seed quirks).

 

Another possible idea - why not try a different alien species as a corrupting influence. Specifically, I was thinking the Orks.

 

Now, this is a bit wild, but let me explain.

 

It is known that the Orks will fight each other as much as anyone else, and some Orks will sell their services as mercenaries. So, perhaps, a Chapter is desperately trying to stop a large Waaagh! Everything seems to fail, as there are too many greenskins for the Marines to stop. When things get bleakest, the Chapter Master (or one of his Captains) manages to negotiate with another Ork warband, which then manages to more or less save the Marines (although not without a cost). Lo and behold, the Marines with their notions of honor will not want to fight that particular bunch of Orks, even despite the xenophobic mentality of the Imperium (there is canon precedence for that - see Blood Angels and Necrons, for one). Sooner rather than later, the Inquisition finds out, and the Chapter is in a lot of hot water. One thing leads to another, and the Chapter has to go renegade to survive.

 

What do you think?

[Bismarxist]

hi there Midgard and thanks for the input. On your first point, what I was thinking was something along the lines of, the chapter is trapped in their fortress under siege, the apothecaries in an act of desperation "hybridize" a Death Company and throw them out the gates into the swarm who then fall like flies to them. So does that sound at all plausible because if it doesn't I could make the hybridization into something along the lines of what the Raven Guard did after the Drop Site Massacre.

 

As to your second point that is exactly the road that I want my marines to be walking. After their near anhiliation and seeing the sheer power that the "hybridized" marines unleashed the chapter master, who had undergone the hybridization procedures, did go slightly insane. He was convinced that the only way humanity could survive was to totally abandon it's humanity and merge with the Tyranid Swarm instead of making a vain stand to try to exterminate. That is what he set forth to build a legion of his Tyranid-marine hybrids, since after all once he brought the heads of the traitor primarchs and abbadon to terra even the fool Cassius would see that his way would lead to humanities transcendence.

 

on your third point what I am going for is to make my traitors more than just a band of blood thirsty reneagades and nihilistic pirates is that they are fighting for what they see as th future of the human race, ie it's merger with the Tyranid Swarm to produce something that is far more than just the sum of the two.

[Gulag]

So, what you're looking for are like the Infested Terrans of StarCraft?

[Bismarxist]

You could pretty much say that. Although it's more a chapter of Kerrigans and not mindless drones.

[Bismarxist]

hey there everyone,

so after much thought and deliberation (in a manner not unlike Khârn petting a small fury mammal) I've decide to scrap this entire idea and start from scratch

 

so if y'all would indulge just a little bit more of my, somewhat erratic, creative musings and help me consolidate my latest two ideas I would eternally grateful, because it's very annoying when you have half formed creative ideas scurrying around your head constantly chattering away and all.

 

so setting things off in the wake of the Macharius crusades a young chapter of marines, basically a mirror image of the smurfs vows to secure the far western fringe of the galaxy and the tragedy strikes. they loose sight of the Astronomicon and can't find it. trapped one of two things happens.

 

A.) after much wandering and fighting off the ravages of no supplies and finding dead world after dead world the marines cry out to the warp for deliverance and are answered by Nurgle. taking on the cold, smothering, form of the warp the marines become twisted into grotesque daemons of frost and rime and then return to the Imperium to smother all light and warmth.

 

B.) after much wandering through the ghoul stars the marines leave the galaxy and enter the dark of intergalactic space. there they find... something... monstrous. as dark and cold as the void in which it's massive form slept the marines see in it death and vengeance personified. after much supplication the marines awaken their sleeping god and return to destroy the Imperium that abandoned and forsook them. (ie they find a Reaper and wake it up)

 

so any thoughts as to these two ideas, completely stupid, somewhat salvageable.