Later foundings knowledge of Horus Heresy

[alfred_the_great]

What's the thoughts on a 7th (or 13th, or 17th etc) Founding Chapter knowing about the HH?  Would they be in as in the dark as the rest of Humanity, or would it come as part of the "Chapter in a box" starter for the new Chapter Master?

 

I ask because I really like the Grave Warden, Deathshroud and general DG HH line of figs, but the DG premise (and 30k in general) leaves me slightly cold.  I'm aiming at the re-discovery of picts of DG in action, pre-corruption, which are used as an object of veneration by the "new" Chapter.  Would they know what early DG look like?  Would a red arm and red shoulder pads mean anything to them, other than "hey look, old SMs kicking xenos butt, they're cool"?

[TDF]

I would imagine that they would have plenty of records passed down from the parent Chapters concerning the Heresy.

I also doubt they'd be allowed to not know the origin of the Traitor Legions - nobody wants a Space Marine Captain to look stupid when he's trading insults with a 10,000 year old Chaos Lord.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I agree with Tdf4638 that a later Founding's Space Marines must know the Traitor Legions' origins and identity, as it would be criminal negligence to invest so many human and material resources in a military unit, only to handicap this unit by leaving it ignorant of its likely opponents' tactics and capabilities- this would also leave the new Chapter vulnerable to Chaos infiltration and corruption. However, such basic competence is NOT GUARANTEED in the 40th millennium's Imperium, which regularly edits and deletes its records to suppress info it considers "heretical" or otherwise detrimental to public morale. For example, the histories of worlds Horus brought to compliance pre-Heresy, tell it was Guilliman who brought these worlds to compliance ('Black Dawn', C. L. Werner's short story in the 'Victories of the Space Marines' anthology).

 

If a later Founding was told a pre-Heresy Death Guard's heroics were actually performed by pre-Heresy Iron Hands, and that images depicting the Grave Wardens and Deathshrouds actually depicted Morlocks and Medusan Immortals, how would they know the difference? And who would allow them to know the difference, considering the Inquisition would hunt down and erase from existence all trace of whoever tried tell the truth?

[alfred_the_great]

Cheers all.

[Leonaides]

Note however that the marines knew it wasnt guillimans weapon on that world though. Marines likely have better records or stories etc about then as its s matter of honour as well as target recog. Some chapters may even have 'living' members who remember the hh or remember dreadnoughts who remembered it.

[Lysimachus]

In the first Ragnar book (which is one of my favourite sources regarding initiation into a Chapter) knowledge of the HH/Traitor Legions is part of the information 'downloaded' directly into the brains of the new recruits via ancient 'learning machines' along with stuff like how to shoot a bolter and how power armour works.

 

Although, it's interesting that the knowledge has to be accessed and applied practically, and the book also mentions that some brethren are for whatever reason better able to assimilate, retain and access the 'downloads' (and others aren't), so I guess you could have a Chapter where something has happened to their learning program and they have lost a lot of their/the Imperium's history.

 

In general though, I'd agree that a Chapter will know about the HH/traitor Astartes.