Ultra Marine Retcon

[nurgling6688]

Just a quick point to make that I think can help this argument greatly. I understand that vets hate when GW messes with their fluff from 2nd ed and such, but you have to remember, back then it was only a game, written by people who had no credentials for writing or "universe building." They did a pretty good job but just look at it as the base work. Now we have real authors coming in needing to make logical sense of what was previously written. That means stuff is going to change.

 

I feel that when a lot of the original fluff was written they didn't really have a good grasp of how big a galaxy is and what would be needed to conquer and control one. They thought of the galaxy more as a single country, which it is not. All they are doing now is taking the older stuff and trying to make it make sense within the context of a galaxy.

 

As for the Battle of Calth, KNF is just the opening stages of it, it doesn't cover the long drawn out conflict that ensues, which leaves plenty of room for all the older fluff.

[Conn Eremon]

Imperial Fists?

 

Technically yes, Terra is the Fists homeworld, although in practice they are a fleet based chapter.

 

That's after the Horus Heresy, though. However, like Guilliman, Dorn was master of is own minor empire prior to his discovery.

[Octavulg]

The difficulty, IMO, is that eight systems still isn't enough for five hundred worlds. Even if you play pretty loose with the definition, our solar system has less than twenty inhabitable worlds. So eight should get you 160. 320 if you're feeling generous. And a lot of those would have very small populations, due to being very inhospitable.

 

It's worth remembering that the whole "only the Ultramarines have an empire" thing has been explicitly retconned in C:SM 5e. Which allows a reduction from 500 to eight-odd to make sense.

 

Regarding the whole scale thing: I think the original approach was better. They just glossed over everything. That conceals a multitude of sins.

[Gree]

It's worth remembering that the whole "only the Ultramarines have an empire" thing has been explicitly retconned in C:SM 5e. Which allows a reduction from 500 to eight-odd to make sense.

 

No, the 5th edition Codex still contains the line fromt he Second Edition Codex reprinted in the book about only the Ultramarines having an Empire.

[Hyaenidae]

We are judging a recent book, in a hobby whose history has become incredibly in-depth, based off an informational codex created in 1995.

 

Seventeen. Years. Ago. There are guys in this hobby that haven't even been alive that long.

 

The Blood Angels have recieved massive retcons, as have the Grey Knights, Inquisition, Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Night Lords, Sons of Horus, Emperor's Chldren, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Raven Guard, and on and on, since that time.

 

Honestly, what made you guys think that the Ultramarines were exempt? Stubbornness? Elitism? Change was going to come to them, if only to make them more relatable. It was only a matter of time.

 

Either roll with the punches, and enjoy the re-birth of the Ultramarines; Or, stick with your old fluff, ignore the novels and new Codexes, and carry on with your hobby as you've enjoyed it. No amount of arguing is going to change BL and GW from this path.

[Octavulg]

No, the 5th edition Codex still contains the line fromt he Second Edition Codex reprinted in the book about only the Ultramarines having an Empire.

 

There is, I believe, a quote in the 5e codex explaining how as things degrade in the Imperium various Space Marine chapters have been expanding their realms.

 

Of course, I can't find the damn thing. :D

[calgar101]

I know the bit you mean Oct, it is in the description for Chapter Masters I believe.

[The emperors chosen]

- In all earlier sources, Ultramar consists of eight worlds, and a Chapter is a 1,000 men string sub unit of a Legion, later being used as the model for the new "Chapter" formations of the Second Founding. In KNF, Ultramar consists of 500 worlds, and a Chapter is a 10,000 strong formation.

 

The size of the legions and the various sub-formations seems to vary quite considerably. In 'Horus Rising' Torgaddon tears a strip off Eidolon for dropping with a full company and having only 39 men remaining having lost over half the company. So, presumably, we can draw from this that a company is indeed 100 men give or take a couple. Is a Lord Commander of the Emperors Children little more than a company captain then? It seems rather a grand title but it is the EC I suppose ;)

Then you get to the 'Death Guard' who are stated as never being more than seven companies strong in Index Astartes, oh all right it does qualify this as being of considerably greater size. But even at ten times the size, that puts the whole legion at 7,000 max which doesn't really fit with the new beefed up super legions in the 100,000+ size. So lots of bits that don't fit exactly with previous editions in the HH novels.

I suppose the get out clause could be that the books are history written many years after the events took place, and there are many examples in ancient history of greatly exaggerated numbers taking part in battles. In some cases the country's population would likely to be lower than those said to be taking part, and with the retelling of tales the numbers would always go up, never down.

 

As for me? If the book tells a good story and sheds some light in the dark corners of the Heresy it's all good...

 

 

Well, I have my own conclusion to this. I think it's that each Legion has their own definition of what a company is. That would exclaim why the Death Guard would have so few, compared to the massive amounts the EC have(didn't they have over 30?)

[Gree]

No, the 5th edition Codex still contains the line fromt he Second Edition Codex reprinted in the book about only the Ultramarines having an Empire.

 

There is, I believe, a quote in the 5e codex explaining how as things degrade in the Imperium various Space Marine chapters have been expanding their realms.

 

Of course, I can't find the damn thing. ;)

 

It’s in the 5th edition rulebook IIRC. Of course that contradicts the line in the 5th edition Codex that also explains that the Ultramarines are unique in that they rule an empire whereas everybody else just has a single homeworld.

 

We are judging a recent book, in a hobby whose history has become incredibly in-depth, based off an informational codex created in 1995.

 

Seventeen. Years. Ago. There are guys in this hobby that haven't even been alive that long.

 

The Blood Angels have recieved massive retcons, as have the Grey Knights, Inquisition, Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Night Lords, Sons of Horus, Emperor's Chldren, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Raven Guard, and on and on, since that time.

 

Honestly, what made you guys think that the Ultramarines were exempt? Stubbornness? Elitism? Change was going to come to them, if only to make them more relatable. It was only a matter of time.

 

Either roll with the punches, and enjoy the re-birth of the Ultramarines; Or, stick with your old fluff, ignore the novels and new Codexes, and carry on with your hobby as you've enjoyed it. No amount of arguing is going to change BL and GW from this path.

 

Except much of that old fluff has been reprinted in the 5th edition Marine Codex. In fact almost everything Legatus had quoted can be found in the latest Codex.

[Octavulg]

It's in the Chapter Master section:

 

"most Chapter Masters rule entire worlds, systems or sub-sectors of space in the Emperor's name." - p. 52

 

Isn't conflicting fluff fun?

[Gree]

It's in the Chapter Master section:

 

"most Chapter Masters rule entire worlds, systems or sub-sectors of space in the Emperor's name." - p. 52

 

Isn't conflicting fluff fun?

 

It’s possible to reconcile that by having the worlds belong to the Chapter Master, but not necessarily the Chapter. Like dual titles.

[The Emperor's Champion]

The difficulty, IMO, is that eight systems still isn't enough for five hundred worlds. Even if you play pretty loose with the definition, our solar system has less than twenty inhabitable worlds. So eight should get you 160. 320 if you're feeling generous. And a lot of those would have very small populations, due to being very inhospitable.

Eight systems is plenty. These are NOT star systems. They're planetary systems. They have nothing, as far as we can tell, to do with anything orbiting anything. They're more than likely purely political systems - fiefdoms.

 

Each capital world ruling 63 or even 100 lesser worlds (63 would add up to the 500, 100 would be if you assume the systems are the old fiefdoms and each fiefdom still controls 100 worlds, and thus modern Ultramar would have something like 800 worlds), regardless of how they happen to relate in terms of orbit, is a simple matter.

[Legatus]

Eight systems is plenty. These are NOT star systems. They're planetary systems. They have nothing, as far as we can tell, to do with anything orbiting anything. They're more than likely purely political systems - fiefdoms.

Why wouldn't we assume that a system in 40K refers to the same thing it does in astronomy and every other fictional space setting?

 

I just dug up the Codex Eye of Terror, because I remembered something about planetary grafics in there. On the pages 24 and 25 there are several of the systems around Cadia described, and they all are collections of planetoids orbiting a star. So exactly what one would normally understand to be a system. Though they are all exceptionally large as far as real world examples go, not only containing up to nine or ten planets, but all of them being in some way inhabited or occupied.

 

That issue aside, the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines (and then the 5th Edition Codex Space Marines) did specifically mention eight worlds. Not just "the eight biggest worlds" or "the eight capital worlds of the systems".

 

So, yeah. It's 500 worlds now. At least in the Horus Heresy continuity. The point for the purpose of this thread is that this constitutes a heavy retcon of the Ultramarines background, and that this is not merely a clarification of the make up of the Ultramar realm we merely had not previously been aware of. Previously, Ultramar had consisted of eight worlds (dismissing Prandium). Those had been the worlds Guilliman had united before he had even been found by the Emperor. The Ultramarines continued to recruit from those worlds they had recruited from during the Great Crusade even though when they were reduced to a single Chapter that was not really necessary anymore. And after the Heresy those eight worlds benefited greatly from Guilliman's reforms.

Now that has changed. Now Guilliman has continued to add worlds to Ultramar throughout the Grea Crusade, and it remains to be seen whether 98% of them will now be destroyed during the Heresy, later over the course of 10,000 years, whether the worlds will be given to various of their successor Chapters (which explictely did not happen according to previous fluff), or whether the Ultramarines actually are supposed to still have 500 worlds in the 41st millennium.

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

Well, suffice to say, this probably will be retconned in 6th edition and the Ultras will have had around 500 worlds during the Great Crusade under their rule that got separated out to various successors

[Kol Saresk]

Probably the same way that the Blood Angels had a civil war retconned into their last Codex right?

[karden00]

Here's a thought:

As far as Ultramar is concerned, the Heresy started a few hours ago. That leaves TEN THOUSAND YEARS for Ultramar to become the entity it is in the 41st.

 

Howabout this: Roby G lands on Macragge, does some butt kicking, sets up a little empire. Emperor shows up, gives him a legion + support, Roby G goes off and does a lot more butt kicking in the immediate area. Ultramar gets big. Really big. Calth happens, Heresy happens, SoT happens, everything goes to poop and the Big E kinda dies. Scouring happens, 2nd founding happens. Many chapters are created out of the old XIIIth, and "Ultramar" as it was known is greatly reduced as other chapters begin to make their own path.

 

Seriously, there are ten thousand years and the biggest civil war sitting between what Abnett wrote about and what we are more familiar with today, you have to be flexible with that kind of remove.

 

Get over it, everyone. I loved old Necron fluff, and I wanted to barf when I saw, let alone read the new garbage. So I chose to ignore it. Anyone who is still on this legion size bender should do the same. Honestly, this intellectual property is the product of many, many minds, so being selective with it is the only way youre ever going to be happy with it. Why is a bigger Ultramar such a hard pill to swallow anyway? It only makes us That Much Cooler.

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

Well, yes. Notice I do not say it is a good thing, nor do I say it is a bad thing. Only that it has/probably will happen.

[Legatus]

As far as I understood the original post, he was mainly concerned enquiring about (or rather commenting on) the fact that the recent books had retconned a lot of things, and that BL was likely to retcon more in the upcoming novels. That in itself is an entirely judgement free description of the situation. I tried to be free of judgement in my first replies, mainly pointing out what elements had indeed been retconned by the recent book, without commenting on whether I thought the changes were great or not so great.

[Bannus]

*Cleanup, Aisle 3*

 

Alright gents, I removed some distractions from the thread. Let's stay on topic.

[Watch-commander Albus]

Am I the only one that likes all those retcons? I think that with the Horus Heresy series and the Forgeworld books like the Badab Wars, the WH40k background is progressively becoming better and better. The universe is becoming more consistent, the stories are starting to make sense. The vast seize of the galaxy was never properly incorporated in the 40k background.

 

Everybody will hate me for this, but I hope that sooner or later chapter numbers are increased from 1000 marines to 3500/5000 up to 10.000 marines or so. At least such a fighting force would make sense. 100 men strong companies just do not seem a viable fighting force to me, not even for superhuman space marines.

 

About the '500 worlds of Ultramar' thing: this could just be a saying. Like sailors that claim to have sailed the seven seas. It could very well be that Dan Abnett never intended that Ultramar has exactly 500 worlds, or that Ultramar has 500 worlds but not all of them are viable.

 

In topic of the battle of Calth: Know No Fear was the story of only the opening shots of that battle up until the first small victories of the Ultramarines. It is good to keep that in mind when comparing it to the summary of Collected Visions.

[Kol Saresk]

*snip

 

Everybody will hate me for this, but I hope that sooner or later chapter numbers are increased from 1000 marines to 3500/5000 up to 10.000 marines or so. At least such a fighting force would make sense. 100 men strong companies just do not seem a viable fighting force to me, not even for superhuman space marines.

 

*snip

Hehe it's funny that you mention this because every BL novel is already following this and has been following this since way back when because they always have too many Marines dying to only have 100 Astartes.

[Iron Lord]

Am I the only one that likes all those retcons? I think that with the Horus Heresy series and the Forgeworld books like the Badab Wars, the WH40k background is progressively becoming better and better. The universe is becoming more consistent, the stories are starting to make sense. The vast seize of the galaxy was never properly incorporated in the 40k background.

 

I'm wondering if the size of the Imperium itself is going to receive a major retcon- due to issues with the population.

 

In Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader it states that Astropaths make up 90% of the psykers in the service of the Imperium.

In the 5E Rulebook timeline, 1 billion astropaths are brain-burned at once in the event known as The Howling: M34

 

In Codex: Witch Hunters, a sidebar has advice from an Inquisitor Malich, saying that even if you find a psyker, only 1 in a thousand is strong enough at resisting the perils of the Immaterium to be permitted to live.

 

In Tales of Heresy (and I think other sources) the figure for the percentage of humans born that are psychic is 1 in a million.

 

So- to maintain a population of a billion-plus astropaths, you're going to need a birthrate high enough to maintain a population of a trillion psykers (though most end up dying young aboard the Black Ships or at the Golden Throne- so the actual population will be less than the birthrate would suggest).

 

And you'd need a birthrate appropriate for a population of a million trillion ordinary humans.

 

Way too many to fit on a million planets, even if those dwelling in space are taken into account.

 

Deathwatch seems to support this "billion billion ordinary people" figure, saying of psykers that, although vanishingly rare "In an empire of a billion billion they number in their millions".

 

And some of the other FFG books occasionally give a figure for the Imperiums worlds of billions, rather than a million.

[Bat33.1]

Well, I have my own conclusion to this. I think it's that each Legion has their own definition of what a company is. That would exclaim why the Death Guard would have so few, compared to the massive amounts the EC have(didn't they have over 30?)

 

Sounds about right for EC, I'm sure there is mention in KNF of a company number in the hundreds for one of the Ultra Marine Companys but this is what happens when the background story is written in a form of chinese whispers ^_^

[MadDoc]

I'm still not seeing how exposition and clarification (which is all that KNF does) somehow equates to retconning... ^_^

[Octavulg]

Personally, I don't like the new direction because I never really had a problem with the old one. Two hundred thousand marines conquering a galaxy isn't particularly less plausible than two million marines doing it - either way, they're going to need to be capable beyond the realm of what is really believable. And at least the old numbers meant the Imperium actually made more Space Marines as things got more and more dangerous. The new numbers mean Space Marines are less capable (meaning all the stuff they do in the reused background makes even less sense) and that the Imperium is basically trying to kneecap itself.

 

Also, I found the Badab War books to be kind of...shallow. A lot of the changes felt like they were done because the author wanted to, and not because things actually didn't fit any more. Kind of like how every other Black Library book invents a new Imperial Fists Second Founding successor chapter. Or the sweeping retcons about geneseed in Rites of Battle. Or the general characterization of the modern Salamanders as genetically unstable radiation freaks.

 

MadDoc:

I'm still not seeing how exposition and clarification (which is all that KNF does) somehow equates to retconning

 

Legatus had a pretty big list of stuff that actually changed, as opposed to just being expanded upon. Some of it's debatable, but much of it is pretty clearly change.