Unkown Chapter Backgrounds

[RazorDaemon]

I'm working on a DIY Chapter, and was wondering other than instances like the 21st Founding, how exactly does a Chapter have an unknown founding or unknown parent Chapter, a clerical error on Terra? I'm at a loss because a Chapter's creation is (almost) always with an official Founding through the High Lords. While it makes sense the High Lords themselves wouldn't bother to actually know each Chapter of a Founding, how does it come to pass a record isn't made, or how would the record become lost or destroyed?

 

That, or am I just missing a chunk of info or have some of it wrong?

[Messor]

It would be hard. Honestly, even the Dark founding and the cursed founding are hard to justify. Note that the 13th (the Dark Founding) was the only instance where all records were lost. Many 21st (The Cursed founding) chapters know exactly where they came from. It's just a hard thing to forget, and the only circumstance outside those foundings would be catastrophic, like the records, Librarium, and Chaplaincy AND all senior marines are just wiped out. Even then, why wouldn't the younger marines remember?

 

MAYBE it would work if the Chapter was founded, or chartered at least, and the training Cadre was destroyed before ever meeting the first batch of recruits. Even then...

 

The only saving grace is that apparently a simple DNA test doesn't seem to do it for Astartes, but that's only one of many factors that can clear up whose geneseed is whose. What might be easier: do you have any ideas that we can brainstorm on? A clerical error could actually happen in the Imperium, but it just looks lame in writing.

[RazorDaemon]

Why are there so many Chapters I see with unlisted Foundings and Parent Chapters? Is it just nobody has bothered to officially declare it from GW or a licensed source? Blood Ravens come to mind as Officially Blurry.

 

I'm still working on details, but I mostly know why the Chapter itself would be uncertain. It just crossed my mind that wouldn't Terra have records for every Chapter, every founding, with exceptions being the two lost Primarchs/Legions and the 13th and 21st Foundings?

[Messor]

Diplomatic version: Terra probably does have records (except when they don't) but it's in no way organized in a way that they can just say "What's that you're looking for? Blood Ravens? Ah, right here."

 

A Chapter with an unknown founding is much more common than one with unknown parentage. The founding is a much smaller part of their history than their genetic heritage. Many Chapters with unknown foundings tend to assume they are Dark or Cursed founding. Official Chapters that don't know their gene legacy are rarer than most DIYers tend to think.

[Darrell]

The most likely explanation is the records were lost or never made. Maybe a cleric somewhere said "I'll write that down after lunch" then had a gargoyle fall on him. Maybe files got misplaced, or destroyed during war. Records can also be sealed, like the Minotaurs, for special reasons. In those cases, it's not a matter of "Not Known" as it is "Not Available".

 

Of course, this raises the question of how the knowledge gets lost from the Astartes' memory. Surely, they knew, at least at one time, when they were founded? Someone had to tell them where that gene-seed came from. There are Astartes whose only purpose is to know the Chapter's history inside and out, so how did they forget? Why couldn't they just record it again?

 

The only answer I can think of, at the moment, is their memories have been erased either through accident (nasty psyker attack) or choice.

 

Suppose you have a Chapter that is honorable, its records filled with glories and victories, they are exemplary in their loyalty. But, they are a successor of X founding where X > 2. Their parent Chapter goes traitor. Perhaps they were very close, or had similar beliefs. The successor Chapter hunts down their parents and butchers them, but it's not enough. They feel it has stained them.

 

The Chapter decides the only way to remove the stain is to remove the source. All references to connections between themselves and their treacherous parents must be eliminated. They call in favors from on high, obliterating records or sealing them throughout the Imperium. The Chapter culls its own, wiping out any references in their own monastery. Maybe they go further and physically wipe out the memory from everyone. It might be a clumsy process, erasing unrelated memories as well, but no price is too high to remove the stain.

 

It takes years, but the Chapter is persistent. Eventually, no one remembers. A whole section of history vanished. Those responsible die off, taking whatever secrets with them. Neophytes are recruited and have no idea. "This is the way it's always been", they're told, and they ask no further.

 

It is a high cost, for Space Marines own nothing and history is everything to them. But, for some, the only thing they value more than their history is their loyalty.

[Leonaides]

The dark angels took a vow not to tell any new marines about the fallen, net result- 90 percent of the chapter know nothing about it. All it takes is the living marines deciding not to pass on that knowledge for it to become less and less known, and then a couple of casualties during a war could kill off the last few who know.

 

Maybe the guy in charge wants the chapter to forge its own heroes and legends, not get hung up on old ones, and decides its better that way.

 

PRetty much as long as there are living marines, it boils down to a group decision not to pass on the knowledge. Geneseed testing is not as accurate as people seem to imagine, a chapter could have lost both betchers gland and mucranoid and not be a dorn chapter for example.

[Prefect Apollyon]

Why are so many canon Chapters without a Founding/Parent Chapter?

 

It's GW, well known for being thorough.

 

They could be like the Exorcists (13th), never told (and if they have been told, they're hush-hush about it) to deliberately hide their identity. Otherwise justifying the loss of all knowledge as to a Chapters heritage is incredibly difficult to explain. The only other official 13th Founding Chapter, the Death Spectres know they are Raven Guard stock.

 

The Blood Ravens made it "kewl" to have no idea about their origins, and panders to the idea their records have been expunged and their minds wiped of all knowledge due to something heretical (Thousand Sons). They are the exception, just like the Ultramarines having control of a mini-empire are an exception.

 

DIY Chapters should avoid not knowing their origins like the plague. It creates too many questions, DIY Chapters shouldn't be at all special/snow-flakes. They should be interesting though.  

[Conviction]

Considering how long 10k years actually is, I could see how the administrative arms of the Imperium could lose or forget what Chapters were founded. Especially when you consider how long each Chapter actually takes to create. That said, it does seem pretty hard to believe that the actual Chapter would forget its founding...unless they purposefully wanted to do so.

 

As others have stated, I think that this is mainly done due to GW laziness or the GW belief that it adds mysteries into the 40k universe.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Why are there so many Chapters I see with unlisted Foundings and Parent Chapters? Is it just nobody has bothered to officially declare it from GW or a licensed source? Blood Ravens come to mind as Officially Blurry.

Pretty much.  You'll find, if you dig back to the sources, most of the Chapters that get mentioned by GW rarely were much more than a name in a fluff blurb. They didn't need a background, or a Founding, or a parent chapter for the purposes they were being used. It was the fans that have scoured the books looking for all of this data and compiled it, not GW.

 

And it's not because GW is lazy. It's literally because if you're writing a couple paragraphs about a battle or campaign or event, you're not going to waste two sentences saying "And so it was, the Emperor's Hairy Knuckles showed up. They were successors of the Imperial Fists and from the 10th Founding. They were wiped out by Tyranids on the planet Skeezy V in M43 and struck from the Imperial Records."

 

As far as the Blood Ravens go, it is important to remember they are basically a fan-fiction chapter created by THQ. So they're subjected to the same fan-fictionisms that are common in these DIY Libers. Mysterious sounds cool, and cool is special, and special is a fan-fiction staple.

 

The reality is, you're right. Most Chapters would know where they came from. It's a fair leap of faith to think that somehow they forget. I mean, a Chapter is a perpetual thing, with Marines growing older, and getting killed, and being replaced. If the oldest copy of the Iliad was one that somebody wrote down around the 10th century, but we still know about the story, that means it existed for 1,000 years, give or take, just as an oral tradition. Kinda hard to believe that Space Marines, with technology which can destroy planets and travel faster than light through a parallel universe, would forget what geneseed they use and who their parent chapter was.

 

So typically if a Chapter doesn't know where it came from, there probably needs to be a reason. Maybe it's like Fight Club, and you don't talk about it.

[Gorkimedes]

Theres also the fact that marines live on average what, 400 years? Even counting the oldest chapters that can't be a ridiculous number of generations. 

[Conn Eremon]

A Chapter forgetting its roots seems implausible unless accompanied with a near total destruction event followed by an extended solitary existence.

 

A Chapter not being told the truth of its roots seems more plausible, given the extensive secrecy and misinformation that is rife through every stage and department of the Imperium, most especially those most involved with the creation of Chapters.

 

But the best method, in my opinion, to handle an unknown origin is to write the article with an outsider narration. Most full-length articles written by GW and FW with unknown origins tend to use this method. It doesn't mean that the Chapter itself is clueless, just that the narrator doesn't know, and by extension the readers don't either.

[Leonaides]

Vet sergeant- don't forget that the Illiad is also a good point the other way... It has some pretty large errors in it, a lot of exaggeration and we have no idea about what really happened, where or when. And that's just in 1000 years, times that by 6 or 7 and you've got a very plausible reason for errors to creep in. Remember bjorn the fell handed tests and corrects the old saga's every 1000 years when he's awoken...

[Veteran Sergeant]

Yeah, but at no point did anyone forget that one side were the Greeks and the other side were the Trojans.