Depiction of Konrad Kurze in HH books.

[Conn Eremon]

Well, we have seen nothing to state that there were criminals until Nostromo started pumping them out.

 

What we know of their Terran recruitment is the Night's Children or whatever they were called. Children born and raised in a political penal colony that learned to survive, and were avoided by those who were criminals out of fear.

 

So the Night Lords began with recruits that learned how to use fear as a weapon for survival, and were used as a last resort tool for the Emperor's justice.

 

They then found Curze, and the Legion's first influx of Nostromans were probably more like the original, mixed in with those more like their father. In other words, the 'for justice' part is mixed in a bit earlier in their former lives.

 

Then you get the later influx of Nostromans, as the criminal elements if the world creep back to the fore. These are the criminals. They don't do it simply to survive. They do it because the voices in their head tell them to, or because it shuts them up. They do it because it was the favorite pastime of the bored aristocracy. They do it because it gets them off.

 

Do you see the difference? The difference between killers and murderers? The difference between survival and unhealthy urges? The Terran recruits are nothing like the later corruption. These are not serial killers, these are survivors, who are so good at it than anyone who would put that at risk, such as actual serial killers, wants nothing to do with them. I can't think of any Legion or Primarch that wouldn't look upon these children and favor them for recruitment. They are perfect, ready to be molded to whatever image is wanted. Which is what the Emperor did. Turned their skills at instilling fear in those who would harm them as a defense mechanism into a weapon for His Most Imperial Justice. Curze then introduced recruits who were already molded to that purpose by the Night Haunter'a influence, but that purpose fell by the wayside when that influence waned. Leading to the corruption of the Legion and the death of their home world.

[Scribe]

I believe, and please Cormac correct me if wrong, the implication some (Cormac, Kol, for example) are taking is that the original recruits where not criminals.

By the text as written (RaW) this is true. The progeny of the prison hive/pit where not criminals, however they certainly scared the :cuss out of criminals (savage killers) and so we have 2+ views.

1. The original Night Lords where not criminals in definition, therefore, the influx of Nostramian criminals still fits the IA fluff.

2. The original Night Lords where not criminals in definition, but where worse than criminals in practice, and due to this, the influx of Nostramian criminals is invalidated.

Its RaW vs RaI.

EDIT: I was ninja'ed

[Conn Eremon]

Sort of, but I would need "were worse than criminals in practice" clarified.

 

As in, worse than criminals in those things that make criminals bad and led to the fateful destruction of Nostromo? I'd say no. Nothing suggests they do any of that but stay alive. The fact that they are given a wide berth, with no mention of them going on the attack or hunting them down, implies they are always on the defensive. They are trying to survive and they use these methods as a defense mechanism.

 

As in, worse than criminals in the act of instilling fear, for whatever the original purpose, and being just plain better fighters/warriors/killers? I'd say yes. But where I'm hearing that this means the Night Lords Future Bad is apparently also present from the beginning, I'm reading it and going "So . . . Generic Space Marine Recruitment Pool? I can dig."

[Kol Saresk]

I believe, and please Cormac correct me if wrong, the implication some (Cormac, Kol, for example) are taking is that the original recruits where not criminals.

 

Yes and no. Not all of the recruits were criminals, and at the moment we don't even know that the majority are criminals. All we know is that the penal colony is a primary source of recruitment from Terra. That could mean it supplies twenty percent while the other centers only supply ten(or even 19.99999999999) percent at most individually.

 

In Massacre, we primarily focus on the penal colony. It gives a skewed perception.

 

Especially since in Betrayal, the "small number of recruits going to the Night Lords from Albia" was large enough to warrant being mentioned as well. And as we know, small can be rather relative. As well as who knows what kind of hypno-indoctrination might have been used. It could be they were serial killers in the making, but after some subliminal messaging, they became controlled, using their killer instincts for battle rather than pleasure.

 

The other thing is regardless of where the recruits came from, the Pre-Curze VIII, are calm, efficient and controlled. They use terror tactics to level an uneven playing field. There was no whooping of joy or thrill of the hunt.

 

Later on, we see a Legion debased by its desires. It does revel in the kill. It gets high off the adrenaline rush that comes from chasing down fleeing prey and crushing it beneath your boots as you land, hearing it scream as your claws caress the skin from its face.

 

There is still a significant period of change. Somewhere, we go from soldiers, to murderers.

 

Also, there is still the header from the IA article to consider.

 

"The Night Lords have always belonged to the darkness. Ever since their inception, the black seed of their Primarch infected them with violence and despair. Although they once fought with grim efficiency in the name of the Emperor, the Night Lords were among the first to turn to the darkness, sowing misery and fear like a plague across unnumbered worlds."

 

Even the IA article hinted at less than stellar beginnings. It never said they were pure, just that there was a significant change from what they were, to what they became. And currently, that change still exists. It just isn't what we assumed it was going to be.

[Legatus]

"Only the strongest and the most ruthless survived in the subterranean warrens, and those who did grew in cruelty and cunning."

 

"Only the most ruthless, hardy criminals remained healthy and strong on the cut-throat world of Nostramo"

 

To say that the latter were an entirely different breed because they are officially classified as "criminals" seems to be an entirely semantic argument.

Edit: Especially because the newborns in the penal colony were not officially judged. So them not being considered "criminals" in lieu of any form of justice system is merely a technicality. 

[Legatus]

 

Also, there is still the header from the IA article to consider.

 

"The Night Lords have always belonged to the darkness. Ever since their inception, the black seed of their Primarch infected them with violence and despair. Although they once fought with grim efficiency in the name of the Emperor, the Night Lords were among the first to turn to the darkness, sowing misery and fear like a plague across unnumbered worlds."

 

Even the IA article hinted at less than stellar beginnings. It never said they were pure, just that there was a significant change from what they were, to what they became. And currently, that change still exists. It just isn't what we assumed it was going to be.

 

That seems to refer to a genetic legacy, though.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

Also, there is still the header from the IA article to consider.

 

"The Night Lords have always belonged to the darkness. Ever since their inception, the black seed of their Primarch infected them with violence and despair. Although they once fought with grim efficiency in the name of the Emperor, the Night Lords were among the first to turn to the darkness, sowing misery and fear like a plague across unnumbered worlds."

 

Even the IA article hinted at less than stellar beginnings. It never said they were pure, just that there was a significant change from what they were, to what they became. And currently, that change still exists. It just isn't what we assumed it was going to be.

That seems to refer to a genetic legacy, though.

Okay, so our choices are the gene-see infecting them with violence and despair, or some of the recruits growing up in a penal colony being infected with violence and despair. Either way, less than stellar beginnings involving violence, whether it be before or after the gene-seed implants.

[Legatus]

It goes on to say that initially they fought for the Imperium with grim efficiency, but that when they fell they sowed fear and misery like a plague. First there were issues. Then they went completely bonkers. And according to the Index Astartes article, the influx of ruthless sociopaths was a crucial step towards their doom.

[Kol Saresk]

And according to Massacre, the VIII Legion starts out grimly efficient with the Nostraman psychopaths still falling to their doom. So..... Yeah.

[Legatus]

Let me rephrase my inital example:

 

"A lot of the original recruits of the Legion were ruthless sociopaths. Eventually the Night Lords started getting recruits from Nostramo. Unbeknownst to Night Haunter, a lot of the new recruits were ruthless sociopaths."

[Conn Eremon]

 

 

"Only the strongest and the most ruthless survived in the subterranean warrens, and those who did grew in cruelty and cunning."

"Only the most ruthless, hardy criminals remained healthy and strong on the cut-throat world of Nostramo"

To say that the latter were an entirely different breed because they are officially classified as "criminals" seems to be an entirely semantic argument.

Edit: Especially because the newborns in the penal colony were not officially judged. So them not being considered "criminals" in lieu of any form of justice system is merely a technicality.

I'm not saying the difference is simply down to being labeled or not. I'm saying that the standards for those classifications apply to one, while not the other.

 

I'm not being pedantic. I'm not saying they're not criminals because you can't break the law in a lawless place.

 

I am saying that Massacre shows a very different intent behind things than you are suggesting. Cruel and cunning? Yeah I can see that. Ruthless, sure.

 

But how? The Nostromans perpetuated the horror of their surroundings. They were the most ruthless, cruel and cunning, because they were sharks swimming in an all-shark pond. No defending these folk, they did what they did because of who they are, and only the best of them could survive each other.

 

The Terrans don't sound like they were the same. They didn't perpetuate, they survived. They were ruthless, cruel and cunning, because survival demanded it. They did what they did, because of their surroundings. That might not make them blameless, but it does make them different than those Nostromans.

 

It's like comparing child soldiers to militant tyranny. While the circumstances might be similar, and the actions similar, the individuals themselves are not.

[Kol Saresk]

Let me rephrase my inital example:

 

 

"A lot of the original recruits of the Legion were ruthless sociopaths. Eventually the Night Lords started getting recruits from Nostramo. Unbeknownst to Night Haunter, a lot of the new recruits were ruthless sociopaths."

Let me reiterate Forgeworld's example:

 

Pre-Curze VIII Legion was an efficient killing machine. After the finding of its Primarch and the decay of Nostramo, its primary recruiting ground, the Night Lords became a fighting force that killed not because they were told to, but because they wanted to. They would go on to sow terror like a plague, rather than using it a a scalpel."

 

Since you have use Jason Voorhees before, think of the Pre-Curze VIII as Jason Voorhees. Think of the Fallen VIII as Freddy Krueger. Now do you see the difference?

 

Just because the change isn't what we thought it was, doesn't mean it didn't exist. Just that our assumptions were wrong.

[Scribe]

I hope that further work proves you guys right and doesnt continue down what I believe to be the narrowed and redundant path set by Massacre. ;)

[Conn Eremon]

See, I knew we'd find common ground. Thinking I should be right. :D

[Balthamal]

Quite liking the debate generated but I'm with Kol on this. It's never stated that the VIII were angels from moment they were raised, indeed the original Index Astartes goes so far as to say they weren't exactly the pinnacle of a warrior elite when they were selected for ascension. But they were cold and disciplined. They'd have to be, 500 Astartes isn't going to skip through an enclave of tens of millions no matter how bloody minded they may be. Massacre merely reinforces the fact that is was Nostramo that damned the Night Lords, first by tipping the Night Haunter over the edge during his infancy and then by offering up the scum of humanity to join the Legion.

 

What is interesting is that so many different opinions are held (as described in a different thread; those who'd follow the philosophies of Sevatar, Sahall etc) and how they vary between both the Terrans and the Nostramans. Sahaal is Terran and believes himself right to the exclusion of all else and, like his father before him, willfully chose to continue believing it despite the evidence to the contrary. Then there's Sevatar who being Nostraman born and bred sees nothing to argue with in the way the Legion is, only that Curze is deluding himself if he believes there was any higher purpose to the atrocities they committed, almost as if he's being fatalistic and shrugging his shoulders and saying "this is simply our nature and we're being true to it"

 

Talos would fall roughly halfway between this divide I'd say, because he really does believe in the role of the Legion as Curze envisioned it but is a realist enough to see exactly what the Legion is and can't conceive how it could ever rise beyond simply killing to sate it's own appetite for blood and terror. What he doesn't truly appreciate, at least until the very end, is that the Legion was originally as he believed it but once Nostramo became the soul of the Night Lords, that's when they really sunk into the dirt and couldn't escape it.

[TemujinZero]

The Terran recruits might have had unsavoury origins, but the first wave of Nostraman recruits came from Curze's ideal zero crime society.  I think there are still grounds for Curze to complain of the poisoning of his legion, especially if we take his warped perspective into account.  To many of us, those initial Nostraman recruits were not so different from the nutcases recruited later, since we view Curze's version of justice as essentially hollow.  To Curze though, everyone is at heart a monster looking for the next opportunity to stab their neighbour in the face without consequence, and his law-abiding at the point of a skinning knife citizenry is as much as can be hoped for.

 

Curze didn't hate the later recruits because they were rapists and murderers at heart.  He thinks that's what we all are at heart.  He hated them because he saw in them the ideology that cloaked his own sadism slipping away.  The denial of his own sadism was a big part of what made Curze tick in his more stable days.  Those later recruits represented a direct challenge to this ideology, and their presence precipitated Curze's own descent into madness.

 

The Terrans might not have grown up under his personal terror regime, but perhaps they were given a pass on account of having been moulded by the Emperor himself for decades before he met them.  Either way they don't represent the challenge to his purported world-view that the later Nostramans did.

[Augustus]

I want to see a Nostraman Night Lord born under Curzes regime. Is there any? With the original Terrans the way they were and the later Nostramans the way they were I guess they might not have lived very long.

[Kol Saresk]

There are none mentioned. Yet.

[Augustus]

Thanks Wade. I look forward to a dipiction or an explanation. :D

[Kais Klip]

I view the legion post-Nostramo as coming back right full circle, to the prison complexes of terra; the Terran children are _still_ scaring the crap out of criminals and murderers, except both of them are wearing power armour now.

 

Bam, Terran Night Lord loyalists *terran fist bump*

[Sanct]

What happens to the type of recruit after nostramo was destroyed?  With nostramo destroyed, and their criminal elements no longer being drawn into the nightlords, then the next 21 years should have had some progress towards watering down the sociopathy of the force as a whole.

[Conn Eremon]

That presumes that the Night Lords continued recruitment programs with enough gusto to have any impact on a Legion of such size.

 

Considering they pretty much went on the run, focused entirely upon ravaging world after world after world, I find it unlikely.

[Kol Saresk]

Actually it could be possible they continued recruiting. Their specific brand of tactics actually calls for survivors. And Massacre does make mention that they went to kidnapping recruits whenever they saw fit and used hypno-indoctrination and accelerated implantation procedures, all of which could come together in unbalancing a new Night Lord's mind. Which if anything would add to the insanity, not take away.

 

Massacre also says that they had such a high rate that it is widely accepted that it was a rather large portion of the fleet that stayed in the Eastern Fringe while the 90,000-120,000 went to Istvaan V.

[Conn Eremon]

You're right, I am wrong about their recruitment programs. Forgot about that. But I just don't see it having an impact. Even if a quarter of their numbers are new recruits, which I feel would be really, really pushing it.

 

That's 30k fresh recruits who after twenty years will have been just barely promoted to experienced recruits. I don't see them affecting the character of the Legion by any noticeable degree, not when surrounded by 90k crooked copmarines, who would themselves have a corrupting effect on the recruits.

 

You would also have to consider that these recruits are forcibly being taken from worlds that the Night Lords hit with vengeance. They are probably not going to be the kind to try and fix the Legion, y'know? They'd be broken.

[Kol Saresk]

Exactly. If anything, the fact these recruits will most likely be suffering trauma from how they were taken, who knows what kind of hypno-indoctrination(are they brainwashed into believing they're Nostraman? Or is like the CIA mind control expirements?) to the fact they are going through a hazardous acceleration of the implantation procedure, if anything, the Legion would become worse.