Rune Priest Ridcully Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 Just started reading "Fear to tread" seams good so far, how ever, the fact that the black rage was present before the heresy makes me think that the creation of the legions was botched? At least three, the Blood angels, the Wolves and the Thousand sons had/were developing serious flaws that could threaten there existence. And it seems the lost legions may have had something similar from Sanguinius comments. So were the flaws intentional on the part of the emperor, but supposed to only kick in after the great crusade, or is it just the flaw developed naturally/mistake. I'm also thinking an alternate heresy could feature Magnus and Sanguinius working together to combat the respective flaws for their legions. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
malika666 Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 In the 3rd edition Chaos Codex it was mentioned that the Emperor's Children, in their early days, were almost totally decimated due to some genetic accident. In the first years of the Crusade Fulgrim's forces were under Horus' command until the Legion was large enough. The Imperial Fists are missing the Betcher's Gland (so they're no longer able to spit acid) and lack the Sus-an Membrane (no more suspended animation for them!) They also have some sort of obsessive side to them regarding conquering pain and discipline. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190576 Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustermaker Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 I have always felt that the Emperor made the flaws of the Legions/Primarch's so that the Heresy would happen. He is the most powerful human to ever have lived, put a god on mars so that one day he could have the Machine Cult on his side .... He doesn't just fly by the seat of his pants. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190607 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henricus Divis Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 I always believed that the warp accident which scattered the primarchs corrupted the geneseed which created the flaws in the legions such as the red thirst, the flesh change, the wulfen, the lack of a bletchers gland and such. Given that the legions were then created from this corrupted geneseed I think these flaws were more an accident the Emperor couldn't have foreseen as opposed to a design he put in for inscrutable reasons. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190637 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rune Priest Ridcully Posted September 29, 2012 Author Share Posted September 29, 2012 It's just the fact the emperor seems to have made no attempts to fix the ones he knew about, such as that of the Thousand sons. I like the idea of the warp storm corrupting the gene seed, and makes you wonder how much the seemingly non flawed ones were affected. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190701 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarKnight Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 I'm starting to think of the impurities of the geneseed was because of impatience on the Emperor's part. The warp storms that cut off Terra from the rest of the galaxy he had to take advantage in the break, while continuing to work on the geneseed might take a few more centuries and he didn't want to wait any longer to begin the Crusade. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190703 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Captain Kezef Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 In the new forge world book the Emperor's children took a double whammy early on. Half of their gene seed was being transported from earth to lunar and the tansport ship was lost. A virus infected the gene stocks on Terra, it effected many legion stocks but wiped out the Emperor's children supply. Untill they found Fulgrim the legion was actualy dying. After Fulgrim was found they could use him to restock the geneseed supply and build up the legion again. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190707 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henricus Divis Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 It's just the fact the emperor seems to have made no attempts to fix the ones he knew about, such as that of the Thousand sons. I like the idea of the warp storm corrupting the gene seed, and makes you wonder how much the seemingly non flawed ones were affected. Given that by the 41st millennium many chapters not descended from the UM now suffer various genetic defects/are missing various organs I think we can assume that even the non flawed geneseed suffered some degradation. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190716 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nova_Dew Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 Considering the first SM's were made from gene-stock that wasn't taken when the chaos gods wanted custody of their grand kids, the Big E knew about at least some of the flaws... the 10k sons rapid mutations maybe the wolfen too, He could have either wanted the mutations or deemed them of less import than what he gained Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190818 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Captain Kezef Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 Time and resources become a factor aswell. If the time and resources taken to fix these legions outweigh the need for such then they don't get fixed. It's simple military terms, the big E had allot on his hands and he needed the Astartes online to fight the crusade. Out of 20 Legions, two lost and around a quarter flawed is actualy not a bad situation from a military perspective. Not ideal, but workable. Big E could always refocus on fixing them after the crusade and most of the problems appeared to fix themselves when he found the Primarchs. The fact that these "fixes" where not exactly what they seemed is information the big E did not have. When you are working to a schedule and that schedule includes reuniting the entire human race, you don't have time and resources for pit stops to perfect your kit. You repair and make do and get the job done with what you have. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3190982 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonaides Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 It's just the fact the emperor seems to have made no attempts to fix the ones he knew about, such as that of the Thousand sons. I like the idea of the warp storm corrupting the gene seed, and makes you wonder how much the seemingly non flawed ones were affected. Given that by the 41st millennium many chapters not descended from the UM now suffer various genetic defects/are missing various organs I think we can assume that even the non flawed geneseed suffered some degradation. And a lot of UM genestock chapters have also lost organs and developed defects/idiosyncracies too... Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3191023 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rune Priest Ridcully Posted September 29, 2012 Author Share Posted September 29, 2012 Why was he in such a rush? Nothing was really a threat to the fledgling empire, what need did he have for rushing? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3191024 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henricus Divis Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 It's just the fact the emperor seems to have made no attempts to fix the ones he knew about, such as that of the Thousand sons. I like the idea of the warp storm corrupting the gene seed, and makes you wonder how much the seemingly non flawed ones were affected. Given that by the 41st millennium many chapters not descended from the UM now suffer various genetic defects/are missing various organs I think we can assume that even the non flawed geneseed suffered some degradation. And a lot of UM genestock chapters have also lost organs and developed defects/idiosyncracies too... I thought it had been stated as of the current codex that the 60/80% of the chapters that used UM geneseed suffered no degradation organ loss, whilst those that did not were suffering various defects and such. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3191115 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarKnight Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 Why was he in such a rush? Nothing was really a threat to the fledgling empire, what need did he have for rushing? My theory was the warp storms that separated the Imperium. When they finally abated, he didn't know how long they would last before they would restart again. Finding his sons and reseeding humanity across the galaxy before they restarted would be of utmost importance. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3191129 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysteriousmaskedmystery Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 i think it's just an imperfect experiment, i mean, the thunder warriors were flawed, so he created the primarchs, and when he lost them, he made the legions to replace them. now the one thunder warrior in outcast dead suggests they were flawed for a reason, because he knew he wouldn't need them anymore after retaking earth, maybe the SM weren't meant to survive past the great crusade, or at least, not all of them were. guilliman was looking towards ruling the empire when the crusade was done, while most of the legions were freaking about what they would do when the killing was done. maybe the emperor knew some of his sons would be capable of adjusting while others would not. what use would curze or angron have been in "peace time?" maybe he just didn't want to have to fight his own creations, so he put a timer in the gene-seed? or maybe we are looking for reason where none exists. maybe they are just flawed because it makes for a good story, gives horus and many of his brothers a reason to fall from grace and makes them seem even more like tragic, greek demi-gods than simple soldiers. maybe the guys who wrote this stuff never really stopped to consider why the emperor would let some of these things happen because if they did, it would make the stories less interesting or too complicated. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3191240 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 The Emperor is a tool but we have no real reason to believe that he meant for the flaws to exist, it's more that he might not have cared very much. Actually this kind of depends on whose perspective you look at. I mean the Big E supposedly censured the Night Lords and World Eaters for being too brutal and definitely censured the Thousand Sons for sorcery and yet librarians continued to exist and some argue that he secretly endorsed his more brutal legions as necessary evils while publicly decrying their methods. I mean if you think about it, what kind of person gives a legion of super soldiers to such stable and trustworthy candidates as a serial killer, a lobotomized gladiator that hates you, a bitter and cynical warlord that betrayed and overthrew his adopted father, and a heard boiled freedom fighter who you only "won over" by shaming him in front of his followers. I mean really, the Emperor was obviously a bit--off and had quite the invincibility complex so it must have never really occurred to him that he was setting up a very precarious house of cards. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3191316 Share on other sites More sharing options...
TennisBall Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 The White Scars and Iron Hands seem to be stable, why are there not more chapters with their geneseed? I was under the impression that the main problem with the wolves is that they take the Canis Helix. I'm not up on wolf lore so maybe this is really necessary for wolf geneseed to be fully activated but it seems an unnecessary part of the process that creates too many flaws in the finished product. Oh and Rain, brilliant observation there regarding the Emperor's grip on reality. Then again the whole point of the astartes and the thunder warriors before them was to kill people and destroy things. Quite what the Emperor thought was going to happen once all the fighting was over is anyone's guess. Primarch Mews or whatever the happy retirement village for them was going to be called could never have worked. Can anyone image Angron tending flowers and having cups of tea with Curze? Here's a thought, maybe there were so many flaws early on because the Emperor used knowledge of the warp in crafting his sons and the astartes. It might explain why so many still fall to chaos, because chaos had a hand in the creation of the original geneseed. How did chaos know about the infant primarchs otherwise to gain access to them and scatter them? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192122 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Garrett Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 The White Scars and Iron Hands seem to be stable, why are there not more chapters with their geneseed? Well, the White Scars and their successor chapters are said to have "an endless thirst for power and war" although what this means hasn't been gone into much since they've been the spotlight chapter in a grand total of one books (Savage Scars). And the Iron Hands have that whole "My meat bits are weak, chop them off and replace them with metal ones" that is shared by their descendants. I think the reason their gene seed isn't much used is because the High Lords are wary of having too many chapters with the kind of close ties to the Mechanicus that such an addiction to bionics entails. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192153 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ordos20 Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I am curious: a lot of the legions have some connection already added into the series to what they were like pre-primarch unification. What I have read (and still remember!!!) Dusk raiders prefered infantry (this carried on after Mortarion was found) World eaters were savage but "normal". They only became crazed killers after Angron made the butchers nails mandatory for every legionaire. The thousand sons did suffer from mutation, but most of it was hidden from prying eyes (and thus not known to everyone) etc. etc. (too lazy to type everything out) I am quite curious: what were the space wolves like before the reunification with Russ? There were some hints that the fenrisian wolves were human, but since the wolves were there before any legionaire was inducted on Fenris, it would seem it had to do with the humans on Fenris having been altered? Thus was the geneseed created to take advantage of this tampering, or was the geneseed alterd after Russ was found? Quite an interesting thing to think about for some really specific cases. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192617 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legatus Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I am curious: a lot of the legions have some connection already added into the series to what they were like pre-primarch unification. Indeed, from their early descriptions in the Index Astartes series and other sources, it has always appeared that the Legions suffered from similar conditions as their stolen Primarchs, even though some or most of those Primarch conditions were attributed to the Chaos gods tinkering with their gene-seed. If the Emperor created the Thousand Sons from Magnus' original gene-seed, while Magnus was corrupted by Chaos only after being spirited away, then why did the early Thousand Sons Legion also suffer severe mutation? This could be just an author's mistake. Giving the attributes of the Primarch to the Legion created from his gene-seed, while missing that some of the Primarchs attributes were developed after he was removed from Terra and his Legion was first created. Another explanation is that the Chaos Gods somehow spoiled the Primarchs' genes before they were entirely removed, and the Emperor then used the spoiled genes for the Legions. Or maybe it is just series of coincidences. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192639 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Captain Kezef Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I am curious: a lot of the legions have some connection already added into the series to what they were like pre-primarch unification. Indeed, from their early descriptions in the Index Astartes series and other sources, it has always appeared that the Legions suffered from similar conditions as their stolen Primarchs, even though some or most of those Primarch conditions were attributed to the Chaos gods tinkering with their gene-seed. If the Emperor created the Thousand Sons from Magnus' original gene-seed, while Magnus was corrupted by Chaos only after being spirited away, then why did the early Thousand Sons Legion also suffer severe mutation? This could be just an author's mistake. Giving the attributes of the Primarch to the Legion created from his gene-seed, while missing that some of the Primarchs attributes were developed after he was removed from Terra and his Legion was first created. Another explanation is that the Chaos Gods somehow spoiled the Primarchs' genes before they were entirely removed, and the Emperor then used the spoiled genes for the Legions. Or maybe it is just series of coincidences. It's suggested that the Emperor cut a deal with the chaos powers to create the primarchs, if this is true then they where subject to corruption and mutation from day one. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192671 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ordos20 Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I am curious: a lot of the legions have some connection already added into the series to what they were like pre-primarch unification. Indeed, from their early descriptions in the Index Astartes series and other sources, it has always appeared that the Legions suffered from similar conditions as their stolen Primarchs, even though some or most of those Primarch conditions were attributed to the Chaos gods tinkering with their gene-seed. If the Emperor created the Thousand Sons from Magnus' original gene-seed, while Magnus was corrupted by Chaos only after being spirited away, then why did the early Thousand Sons Legion also suffer severe mutation? This could be just an author's mistake. Giving the attributes of the Primarch to the Legion created from his gene-seed, while missing that some of the Primarchs attributes were developed after he was removed from Terra and his Legion was first created. Another explanation is that the Chaos Gods somehow spoiled the Primarchs' genes before they were entirely removed, and the Emperor then used the spoiled genes for the Legions. Or maybe it is just series of coincidences. It's suggested that the Emperor cut a deal with the chaos powers to create the primarchs, if this is true then they where subject to corruption and mutation from day one. It has been suggested by the Chaos gods yes, but the true story would be truly interesting Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192772 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legatus Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 In 1st Edition, it had unambiguously been stated that the Emperor tried to keep the Primarch Projekt a secret from the Chaos Gods, who he saw as a threat to mankind. The main intention of the Great Crusade had also been to take back the worlds that had fallen to Chaos back then. But a lot has changed since 1st Edition. In the Horus Heresy novels the Great Crusade is not about fighting Chaos. Chaos is unknown to all but the Emperor himself. But I am not so sure that the Chaos Gods telling gullible Marines or Primarchs that they had some deal with the Emperor holds much water. The gellar fields that were shown to some of the Marines in a vision were more likely meant to shield the Primarchs from the dark powers, for example. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192848 Share on other sites More sharing options...
malika666 Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 In the new forge world book the Emperor's children took a double whammy early on. Half of their gene seed was being transported from earth to lunar and the tansport ship was lost. A virus infected the gene stocks on Terra, it effected many legion stocks but wiped out the Emperor's children supply. Untill they found Fulgrim the legion was actualy dying. After Fulgrim was found they could use him to restock the geneseed supply and build up the legion again. Hmm, I wonder how the ship got lost, and then...where did it go to? Wouldn't surprise me if we would see some sort of pre-Heresy Chaos Space marines... :D Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3192938 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Garrett Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 It has been suggested by the Chaos gods yes, but the true story would be truly interesting I never cease to be amazed at how so many fans will argue against the Chaos Gods having a hand in the creation of the Primarchs till they are blue in the face. Practical: In almost every Horus Heresy novel, it's mentioned that the Primarchs are amazing feats of gene science and warp sorcery. Theoretical: It would beimpossible to utilize warp sorcery on the scale of creating twenty demigods without involving the Dark Gods in some way, shape or form, considering that such sorceries would draw on the lifeblood of the Ruinous Powers themselves. Practical: The Emperor did not hesitate to use the Void Dragon, who by any standard one can name counts as an "evil god", as a source of technology for his new Imperium. Theoretical: Emps has proven he has no compunction about leeching strength from "gods of evil" and he is confident that he can do so without paying them the price they command. Conclusion: It's certainly not out of character for Emps to have utilized the powers of Chaos in shaping the primarchs, especially considering that all throughout the Great Crusade he has been shown to be a :D , covered in a candy shell made of :) , topped with :P sprinkles and ;) flavored syrup, with a creamy :cuss nougat center. Although the above does not disqualify him from being better than the alternatives, for such is the nature of the grim dark future where there is only war. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/262017-were-the-legions-botched/#findComment-3193042 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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