Astral Pathfinder Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 Hi there I was wondering what did the Emperor do with his TW after reunifiyng Terra ? I know he based the Astartes on them, and since Legions and even chapters still have Mk.1 armour for ceremony etc...they were Marine-like minus primarchs genes. Did he turned them into space marines or kinda ? Did they trained the first astartes ? Writtin this topic i got an idea : what if the thunder warriors became the Custodes. Since Mk.1 armor pretty look like Custodes armors and they didn't have any primarch to call their chief so... If anyone has the answer I'd like to know the source of that knowledge please. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 According to The Outcast Dead, the Thunder Warriors died after the reunification. Although the manner of death was never really described, but it was alluded that it was in part due to how they were engineered. Oh, and The Outcast Dead was written by Graham McNeill. And other than a glaring timeline discrepancy, wasn't that bad. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3353978 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 Their body was ridden with tumors, which led them to their death. They had limited use for the emperor, because they weren't brainwashed, IIRC. And they were way superior to space marines. Kinda closer to the Custodes, but the Custodes themselves are made in a unique way. IIRC once again, Betrayal has a bit of fluff about War Hounds attacking a facility held by Thunder Warriors. Each TW takes dozen of War Hounds with him before falling. They eventually get wiped out. So, to aswer you question : they just die, because they were meant to. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3353981 Share on other sites More sharing options...
WatchCaptainAzrael Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 +++Let's keep our comments civil and on topic.+++ Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3353988 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kais Klip Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 I agree with everything said so far, the most recent source would be The Outcast Dead. In terms of combat ability, it was shown that a Thunder Warrior is worth an average of 6 Astartes, or 3 Custodes. Whether as the biological consequence of their massive physical prowess, being the Emperor's prototype for both the Astartes and the Custodes (and thus riddled with biological mistakes that were corrected in the aforementioned), or of an engineered expiration date, the end result is that without specialised intervention the Thunder Warriors died within decades after Unification. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354007 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excessus Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 There was no real reason for them to die though. The Outcast Dead showed that they might have been able to live on with the help of astartes organs, but yeah, as the Emperor was unwilling to help them, they died out... :( Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354011 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demus Ragnok Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 There was no real reason for them to die though. The Outcast Dead showed that they might have been able to live on with the help of astartes organs, but yeah, as the Emperor was unwilling to help them, they died out... :( They were the emperors first large scale super soldier project. And most likely engineered with a limited life span. Why? The thunder warriors were physical beasts meant to trample the techno barbarian lords of terra under foot. But not to reunit mankind. Astartes traits were designed with their greater mission in mind. Custodes as well engineered with a purpose, different from the legions. As with any engineered "family" of products the "zero" generation becomes obsolete rather quickly as new generations become viable. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354014 Share on other sites More sharing options...
berzerkermike84 Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 the Emperor had them killed cause they was old school and the Space Marines where new school Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354044 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegnor Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 What's the source to suggest the Thunder Warriors were better than the Astartes, let alone the Custodes. If its the Outcast Dead, I've read it and didn't think that it said that at all. It said that the two Thunder Warriors shown were deadly fighters who took down some random Astartes. One of those Thunder Warriors was the TW equivalent of Abaddon and the other was his old army's champion. If you reversed the situation and put Abaddon and Khârn up against a group of run of the mill Thunder Warriors, I think they'd make a mess if them. Also, if Thunder Warriors were superior to Custodes, why wouldn't the Emperor have used them as his praetorians instead? Comparisons between Thunder Warriors, Custodians and Astartes aren't cut and dried in my view. It depends on the individuals and circumstances of the battle. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354062 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 The only "compare and contrast" that we could make is that it was apparently okay for the Thunder Warriors to cut loose and slaughter at will while apparently the Astartes need some sort of excuse like "Paganism was inherent even in the air so we ignited all the oxygen and nitrogen to get rid of the smell." As shown, the World Eaters and Night Lords both have been looked at more than once for their "excesses." On a side note, I thought the two Thunder Warriors were father and son? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354068 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegnor Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 I didn't think so, it was a General and Gunnery Sergeant/Champion kinda relationship if I recall correctly. Also think the difference in brutality between the Thunder Warriors and Astartes is overplayed. Astartes are pretty damn brutal. Lots of the accounts of how the Thunder Warriors fought are from the losers/victims perspective and are understandably pretty critical. But victims of an Astartes pacification would say the same. In Horus Rising, the remembrancers are horrified when they see what the Astartes have done to those who opposed them. If anything it might be that the surviving Thunder Warriors, having been replaced and discarded, have a much less romanticised view of their role and actions than some Astartes. Even then I suspect guys like Mortarion and Perterabo, let alone Kurze and Angron, would agree with the Thunder Warriors view of what they do. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354073 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durfast Spiritwolf Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Aegor makes a good point about the quality of the two sides involved in Outcast Dead. We cannot yet say that the Emperor designed them to have a limited shelf life or if this was just a consequence if them being his first crack at super warriors. We do know that the Space Marines were actually either mark III or IV, building on the Primarch project, but independent of the Custodes project (the timeline for which has yet to be established). However, isn't there a quote about the flame that burns brightest in there somewhere? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354074 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excessus Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Custodes were made before the primarchs. Horus meets Valdor in his warp-infused comadream in False Gods. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354077 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durfast Spiritwolf Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Thanks Excessus. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354080 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Also, if Thunder Warriors were superior to Custodes, why wouldn't the Emperor have used them as his praetorians instead? Because Thunder Warriors weren't brainwashed. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354118 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoros Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Also, if Thunder Warriors were superior to Custodes, why wouldn't the Emperor have used them as his praetorians instead? Because Thunder Warriors weren't brainwashed. And also because Thunder Warriors end up dying due to an inferior creation process? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354127 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesper Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Also, if Thunder Warriors were superior to Custodes, why wouldn't the Emperor have used them as his praetorians instead? Because Thunder Warriors weren't brainwashed. And also because Thunder Warriors end up dying due to an inferior creation process? They could've been saved from it. Maybe they could even have been created without this flaw. The emperor said "nope" to the first option. So I doubt he was innocent in the first place. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354130 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MordentHex Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 The Emperor was rather shrewed by necessity. Could the Thunder Warriors have been saved? Maybe. But at the same time maybe he didn't have the material or technology available at the time to do so. Thunder Warriors where by far greater in combat ability but at the price of genetic deterioration. Ruthless and resourceful warriors with physical power exceeding a space marine and a mind that is at least as sharp to boot. Brainwashed they probably where, but not to the same degree as space marines with hypnotherapy and such. Thunder Warriors becoming Custodies i would say is a negative but the process to make the Custodies probably came from knowledge learned from the creation of the Thunder Warriors and expanded on into something entirely different. This is what my take is on what i have read so far. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354178 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arachnid99 Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 My understanding was always that the Thunder Warriors were broadly comparable with the Custodes and Astartes, not necessarily better or worse, just different with a focus on raw power and strength rather than durability. I'm pretty confident that they don't have the multiple reserve organs that Astartes have etc. As for the fight in Outcast Dead they was very clearly highly experienced veterans who were pretty much the best the Thunder Warriors had so that wasn't terribly surprising. The description in Betrayal indicated that inflicted outsized losses on the World Eaters (but two or three to one not dozens) but equally that was pitting veterans of the Unification Wars against brand new, inexperienced Astartes. If official fluff came out and said "yes Thunder Warriors can take an Astartes one on one most of the time but have other flaws; i.e. short life spans, unstable, lack of durability etc. I wouldn't be surprised. For once it would be a case of the Emperor making a sensible military decision to phase out his "Ferrari's" for some "Humvee's". Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354179 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durfast Spiritwolf Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Vesper, are you still touting speculation as fact or do you have anything to back up your unequivocal statement that the TWs didn't undergo any form of mental conditioning, that the Emperor chose to give them a limited timespan and that he chose not to save them? ;) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354192 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 I didn't think so, it was a General and Gunnery Sergeant/Champion kinda relationship if I recall correctly. Also think the difference in brutality between the Thunder Warriors and Astartes is overplayed. Astartes are pretty damn brutal. Lots of the accounts of how the Thunder Warriors fought are from the losers/victims perspective and are understandably pretty critical. But victims of an Astartes pacification would say the same. In Horus Rising, the remembrancers are horrified when they see what the Astartes have done to those who opposed them. If anything it might be that the surviving Thunder Warriors, having been replaced and discarded, have a much less romanticised view of their role and actions than some Astartes. Even then I suspect guys like Mortarion and Perterabo, let alone Kurze and Angron, would agree with the Thunder Warriors view of what they do. The ranks given are Subedar(That's Babu, page 358) and Jamadar(Almost sounds like Jem'Hadar, but that's Ghota, on the same page.) what threw me off was the very last sentence of the book when Babu called Ghota "son." That certainly is a fair point although my view of the Thunder Warriors is solely from The Outcast Dead which has a Thunder Warrior saying that the body counts were in the millions(page 355). And I wouldn't say the Thunder Warriors were more brutal, just that they were...less refined. Where the Astartes were supposed to be scalpels, the Thunder Warriors were hammers. Also, page 403, "The warrior before him should not have been possible. His kind were all dead and gone, slain in the last battle of Unity. It was a measure of their sacrifice that they had all died to win the last and greatest victory for the Emperor." Of course, the same history says Babu Dhakal died raising the Banner of Lightning(page 405). And on page 406, Dhakal describes whatever event that wiped out the Thunder Warriors as a "cull", not a disease and says that any who survived the cull are most probably dead from the fact their bodies were engineered to win a planet, not conquer a galaxy(page 406). Of course, apparently Betrayal says that they all died of tumors and War Hounds(assuming Vesper recalls correctly) so who knows? On the matter of "could have saved them, Babu Dhakal says that the very things that kept him alive he had learned from the Emperor and that he needed gene-seed in order to survive(page 407). So that means for "salvation" wouldn't exist until after the Primarchs and the first batch of gene-seed was made but since the Thunder Warriors were supposed to be dead by then..... As a final matter, the apparent reason forte death of the Thunder Warriors, as Babu Dhakal sees it, was: "Such tales as are told of us come from the mouth of the last man standing, and it would not do for the Emperor to have to share his victory with others. Where is the glory when you conquer the world with an unstoppable army at your back? To begin a legend, you must win that war single-handedly, and there must be no one left alive to contradict your version of events." That was on page 407. Just to clarify and reiterate, all of these pages are from The Outcast Dead by Graham McNeill. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354206 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegnor Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Thanks for the quotes - saved me going and digging them out. I don't doubt the Emperor is a ruthless bastard or that he saw the Thunder Warriors, much like tge Astartes as expendable resources to be discarded when their usefulness was at an end. The question is, was he wrong to do so? The Chaos "the Emperor is a *$#£!" contingent here will hold it up as an example of why he was the real bad guy. I disagree. The Thunder Warriors and Astartes were tools and nothing more. They were sterile creations who had one purpose - to preserve humanity as a species. This status is really central to the entire Heresy. It's why Horus was so cut up about the Council of Terra taking control - it underlined that the Astartes were close to the end of their usefulness. As highlighted by the human officer in Gav Thorpe's Ravens Flight - the Astartes contribute nothing to humanity's future beyond killing their enemies. They were weapons and nothing more. If the Emperor wanted humanity to have a future, it makes sense he must have intended to get rid of the Astartes once they were not required anymore. The Emperor's real mistake was believing he could keep them on the leash without his tools realising their fate - especially once he renounced direct control of the conduct of the war. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354221 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kais Klip Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Well in terms of Astartes, it is very, incredibly even, unlikely that the Emperor would have discarded or hoped for his Primarchs to fall in battle sooner than later. Following that line of thought, it must also be unlikely that the majority of the Astartes would've been discarded. Rather, I believe Guilliman had the right idea; if the Crusade was ever really finished, much like the Unification was, I would expect the Primarchs to be given either governance or security posts, whichever suited them the most (we know that many Primarchs, and thus would their legionaires given time, always yearned for peaceful arts; Perturabo and architecture, Lorgar and faith (whether that would be accepted or if he would be forced to find another is a different question altogether) and Guilliman and governance, are but just a handful of examples. The more.. martial of the primarchs would've probably acted as a security force, able to almost immediatly redeploy through the Imperial Webway to where they are needed, since I doubt the Emperor would be naive enough to think threats requiring Astartes attention would ever completely subside (constant Dark Eldar raids, Necron tomb worlds etc, and even the tyranids). In fact it leads me to the obvious conclusion that had the primarchs not rebelled, most of them would be neutralising these respective threats in m41; thus destroying them post-Crusades or really at any date the Emperor would foolishly think as the "end of threats" would be an atrociously bad move. While it can be said he has made mistakes of similar scope (Ullanor) the narrative puts forward that despite any errors or non-perfect behavior the Emperor has been a very good thing for humanity on the large scale, provided we prefer a much larger number of successful worlds to a handful of perfect worlds (that were brought under compliance, however a question would be whether most of them lost their successes) and the rest being... hospitable. We must remember that Astartes not being able to reproduce is a crucial point; a point that serves to remind the Primarchs that their sons (and them as well, following the Emperor's logic) are not separate species to humanity, and barring the likes of Fabius, never will be. Thus, the most they could get out of rebellion against the Emperor's Imperium in terms of humanity, would be simply seeking to take his position, which they ended up trying to do. If only they were just a little bit patient, because most of them would've have gotten what they desired under Horus as Emperor, until the chaos gods got involved and sent many completely away from what could be seen as acceptable ways by the Emperor's Imperium. I do have a feeling that our questions regarding civilisations and the Primarchs will be answered in the Unremembered Empire arc. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354255 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegnor Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 The Primarchs are in a different category to the Astartes. They are irreplicable works and I agree would not have been discarded. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354275 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Sangha Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 DIdnt the Emperor build his Sons estates on Terra where they were supposed to stay after the crusades? I think its in the ravens flight when Corax goes to Terra Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/274393-what-happened-to-the-thunder-warriors/#findComment-3354315 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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