Who trained the first Astartes? No, really?

[depthcharge12]

Now, this is a question that has been bugging me for a while.

 

Who would have trained the first Astartes, particularly the 1st legion as there were no other Astartes to take on that role. I doubt the Emperor would take time out of his busy schedule to train the plank owners - it's possible, but not likely.

 

Would the Thunder Warriors have done it? I would doubt that again as they would have been kept out of the know more than likely if the Emps wanted the 1st to have a trial by fire. If that's not the case, then I doubt the Emperor would use half deranged brutes to train the aspirants/marines.

 

While I think un augmented humans might have done the earlier training, there would have come a point that they would have reached their limits.

 

So who, exactly, would have been teaching the aspirants/marines and training them at the beginning?

[Castiel]

I would guess that it was the Custodes. They are a standing military strength that could spare some members to train the Astartes.

[Slips]

Matrix Style Indoctrination, I think. While in their coma-like states while being implanted with the Astartes Organs, their brains were being pumped full of information.

[Black_out]

I always thought it was some form of subconscious psycho-indoctrination.

 

I guess the question at that point would be "but who came up woth that program" to which I would answer "I have no freaking clue" or "The Emperor, of course!"

[Castiel]

Matrix Style Indoctrination, I think. While in their coma-like states while being implanted with the Astartes Organs, their brains were being pumped full of information.

That is a good point as well, the basic information and things could be pumped into them this way as we already know that they use this method in 40k. Add to that some training by human mentors, maybe some from the Custodes so they learn how to use their post-human strength without fear of hurting their opponents and you probably have a good idea how it started.

 

We also know that the Emp was still at war on Terra when the Astartes were first unleased, so some of them may simply have been given a bolter and thrown in the deep end. They have superior armour and resilience to their enemy and great weapons, so they may have gained through full on combat experience in minor skirmishes with little threat to themselves as well.

 

EDIT: Oh, they could have trained against combat servitors as well as is mentioned in the Heresy novels a a few times.

[Fire Golem]

In Infinity, there's a faction called Aleph which is basically aspects of an AI in vat grown bodies, and they basically get everything downloaded into them, and then they go and train to build up their muscle memory and stuff. That's how I would imagine it, like Slips and Black_out said, indoctrination, and then they spar and train to actually get to grips with what they now know.

[Excessus]

"The best", that's who.

I imagine the big E collecting various weapon, tactic and combat masters from around the globe to train his new astartes troops. After a while the astartes get skillful enough to oversee the new recruits and their training and start to develop their own method of warfare...

...and then they test it in the plentiful battles of the unification era, the survivors are more veteran than any veteran before them having survived things no mortal man could.

...at least in my imagination it's like that...

[depthcharge12]

I had a fan made theory that the 1st legion was used to eradicate the rest of the a Thunder Warriors to blood themselves, gain experience, and tie up any loose ends.

 

It might also explain the 1st legion's quiet, mistrustful nature and why they tend to stay away from the other legions during the crusade.

[Olis]

Considering the Thunder Warriors and the Legiones Astartes overlap when it comes to when they were in operational service, I like the idea that they had a hand in training the first Astartes. 

[Balthamal]

I'd be very surprised that at least some of the Thunder Warriors didn't get involved in the training of the 1st generation Legionnaires. There's supposed to be enough overlap so that 20 Legions departed Terra pretty much at the dawn of Unification. The XVI Legion pacified the moon after all. Given that this was also the heyday of the Mechanicum psycho indoctrination would also be pretty much a given but also the trials that the prospective astartes would have to go through would also have weaned those not of a sufficient baseline of skill in combat

[Lord Tharand]

I seem to recall mentions in various novels that the early Astartes trained/worked with Thunder Warriors. 

[Emperor's Furor]

The Emperor gave them tutoring sessions.

[Toomanyprojects]

In Infinity, there's a faction called Aleph which is basically aspects of an AI in vat grown bodies, and they basically get everything downloaded into them, and then they go and train to build up their muscle memory and stuff. That's how I would imagine it, like Slips and Black_out said, indoctrination, and then they spar and train to actually get to grips with what they now know.

Just for info, that sounds a lot like the Bene Tlelaxu in 'Dune'.

I like the idea of the custodes doing it myself, perhaps with a few surviving thunder warriors doing the odd bit here and there

[depthcharge12]

 

In Infinity, there's a faction called Aleph which is basically aspects of an AI in vat grown bodies, and they basically get everything downloaded into them, and then they go and train to build up their muscle memory and stuff. That's how I would imagine it, like Slips and Black_out said, indoctrination, and then they spar and train to actually get to grips with what they now know.

Just for info, that sounds a lot like the Bene Tlelaxu in 'Dune'.

I like the idea of the custodes doing it myself, perhaps with a few surviving thunder warriors doing the odd bit here and there

Well...as a sci fi genre, everything comes back to Dune/Starship troopers as they say :P

 

 

I was discussing with Athrawes that there was something mentioned in one of the seminars:

 

"Dark Angels

There was some discussion by Alan Bligh about the Dark Angels being the 1st, and things that might not have gone well when the 1st Legion pushed out from Terra, or maybe being hushed up in the early years prior to finding their Primarch. Things like atrocities, or excessive violence. John French added some extra elements, it was a bit cryptic but could be very interesting. It all seems a considerable way off, but they are obviously thinking about it within the Story / Campaign / Narractive arc."

 

 

So maybe they were trained by the TWs? That would explain the violence.

[Lucien Eilam]

While I think un augmented humans might have done the earlier training, there would have come a point that they would have reached their limits.

 

Why? Look at sport. World champions are, by definition, trained and coached by people who ultimately aren't (and, very often, never were) capable of the things that they are. Most actual practice in any pursuit is with peers or even an acknowledged lesser opponent (sparring partners in boxing, for example), while trainers observe and feedback.

 

The Imperium had no shortage of elite soldiers the dawn of the Crusade, many of whom had some some sort of augmentation, but I don't see that it would be necessary to train the Space Marines.

[ROBOcaster]

I would say the Thunder Warriors, with a mix of the subconscious psycho-indoctrination. We know the technology for the psycho-indoctrination was in use so that explains that but to explain the Thunder Warriors let’s take a look at real life shall we?

 

Whenever a new military is started it must always be trained by an existing military in order to learn some sort or order, guidance, and standards. In the revolutionary war we in the US learned of to fight from the French, and from my personal experience after we invaded Iraq our job was to train Iraqi Police and Army, and US Special Forces are designed to train up new fighting forces all over the world. Also look at all other T1 Operators around the world, our nations armies did not just start out with SFOD-D, Rangers, SEALs, JTF2, SAS, GROM, KSK, we had to build them with the most elite regular guys we had until the “old men” could start training the new-new guys. It’s easier to train new elite warriors if you use really good existing warriors, which if I’m not mistaken the Thunder Warriors were.

 

In conclusion you need to use your existing good warriors to make future great warriors.

[tdemayo]

I assume the genewrights who worked on the Primarch Project and the creation of the Space Marine organs also had a hand in the early training.  The first marines would be the first  full test of the biological hardware after all. 

[Xin Ceithan]

This is an interesting topic, since we know so little about this time. Most of the fluff regarding the training of space marines is post heresy, post scouring even and mostly based on the Codex Astartes. We do not from that source that a lot of codex training and indoctrination was aimed at not repeating the proccedere that was believed to be involved in the traitorous mindset.

 

While all that hypno thingy and psycho mind scrubbing and editing would have it's places, I think "by the best" is probably the most likely suggestion. Taken from anywhere and any fields required and probably quite messy, a lot of trial and error. I'd speculate the primarchs being designed to feature in the initial outline quite prominently. Training them first. And then use them to facilate training the growing legionnaires. Then the primarchs get scattered and they have to go from schooling twenty small demigods to clusters of kids undergoing forced mutation.

 

It was probably pretty messy. Even though induction / implantation ages were less standardised. We are still talking raising and training what are essentially genenhanced child soldiers. I would imagine it as a gritty cross between Skirata and company training the Clone Warriors in Star Wars and Kurt Russell growing up in Starforce Soldier. Not pretty really.

[Fire Golem]

 

 

In Infinity, there's a faction called Aleph which is basically aspects of an AI in vat grown bodies, and they basically get everything downloaded into them, and then they go and train to build up their muscle memory and stuff. That's how I would imagine it, like Slips and Black_out said, indoctrination, and then they spar and train to actually get to grips with what they now know.

Just for info, that sounds a lot like the Bene Tlelaxu in 'Dune'.

I like the idea of the custodes doing it myself, perhaps with a few surviving thunder warriors doing the odd bit here and there

Well...as a sci fi genre, everything comes back to Dune/Starship troopers as they say :P

I was discussing with Athrawes that there was something mentioned in one of the seminars:

"Dark Angels

There was some discussion by Alan Bligh about the Dark Angels being the 1st, and things that might not have gone well when the 1st Legion pushed out from Terra, or maybe being hushed up in the early years prior to finding their Primarch. Things like atrocities, or excessive violence. John French added some extra elements, it was a bit cryptic but could be very interesting. It all seems a considerable way off, but they are obviously thinking about it within the Story / Campaign / Narractive arc."

So maybe they were trained by the TWs? That would explain the violence.

If they explore that more in the DA fluff, it might finally be something I find interesting about the DA. I hope they go into that.

[OzDestro]

Now, this is a question that has been bugging me for a while.

 

Who would have trained the first Astartes, particularly the 1st legion as there were no other Astartes to take on that role. I doubt the Emperor would take time out of his busy schedule to train the plank owners - it's possible, but not likely.

 

Would the Thunder Warriors have done it? I would doubt that again as they would have been kept out of the know more than likely if the Emps wanted the 1st to have a trial by fire. If that's not the case, then I doubt the Emperor would use half deranged brutes to train the aspirants/marines.

 

While I think un augmented humans might have done the earlier training, there would have come a point that they would have reached their limits.

 

So who, exactly, would have been teaching the aspirants/marines and training them at the beginning?

 

This is such a good point!

 

I thought they would have had the same officers/ warlords from before they were Marines.

The Marines weren't selected individually - wasn't it warbands and armies the Emperor brought to him and then augmented?

 

You could see a warlord taking his officers and training them in the ways of the Emperor and the gear, then the officers do the same to their sergeants, the sergeants down to the troops.

It's like the way the Imperial Guard who came from Hive gangs - you bring the whole gang!

It would take time, but it would be logical and would have kept discipline to keep the same "officers" they had pre-induction.

 

The Emperor may have even formed a training cadre from his Custodes to train the warlords...?

[GhostMalone]

I put the program down to this;

 

Aspirant training mental and physical training

 

Implantation

 

Weapon training (remember the first astrates didn't have half as much in there arsenal so volkites bolter chainsword

 

Minor deployments to learn combat techniques

 

As recruits increase first gen astrates pass on there techniques and refine new equipment and training regimes

 

The astrates start to train in there way of warfare for there recruits.

 

Astrates train astrates

 

Now I don't believe there was any psycho indoctrinated crap as the astrates needed to be flexible and think for themselves compared to the Thunder warriors and there 40k counterparts.

 

On the matter of custodes I believe they weren't utilized in any training aspects as pre great crusade there no. Would have been smaller.

 

This is the feeling I've been given since scars and the blood games and all the materials so far.

 

I also believe if it hasn't been retconned is that in dark Angels astellian is put in his place by the chaplain saying they were given to much freedom in decision making and that's why the heresy happened this to me alludes to no psycho conditioning

[Larkyn]

I think it's either the Matrix style stuff, or Thunder Warriors.

 

Hyaenidae (or Heathens, as that's so much easier to spell) has a nice little story in the In Memoriam thread about the "Firstborn" Astartes and how they were training with some Thunder Warriors. Granted, it's a fan-story, but I believe everything in that thread is better written than most things GW has come up with in a while.

[Hesh Kadesh]

I put the program down to this;

 

Aspirant training mental and physical training

 

Implantation

 

Weapon training (remember the first astrates didn't have half as much in there arsenal so volkites bolter chainsword

 

Minor deployments to learn combat techniques

 

As recruits increase first gen astrates pass on there techniques and refine new equipment and training regimes

 

The astrates start to train in there way of warfare for there recruits.

 

Astrates train astrates

 

Now I don't believe there was any psycho indoctrinated crap as the astrates needed to be flexible and think for themselves compared to the Thunder warriors and there 40k counterparts.

 

On the matter of custodes I believe they weren't utilized in any training aspects as pre great crusade there no. Would have been smaller.

 

This is the feeling I've been given since scars and the blood games and all the materials so far.

 

I also believe if it hasn't been retconned is that in dark Angels astellian is put in his place by the chaplain saying they were given to much freedom in decision making and that's why the heresy happened this to me alludes to no psycho conditioning

Sorry, but As-tar-tes. 

[GhostMalone]

 

 

I put the program down to this;

 

Aspirant training mental and physical training

 

Implantation

 

Weapon training (remember the first astrates didn't have half as much in there arsenal so volkites bolter chainsword

 

Minor deployments to learn combat techniques

 

As recruits increase first gen astrates pass on there techniques and refine new equipment and training regimes

 

The astrates start to train in there way of warfare for there recruits.

 

Astrates train astrates

 

Now I don't believe there was any psycho indoctrinated crap as the astrates needed to be flexible and think for themselves compared to the Thunder warriors and there 40k counterparts.

 

On the matter of custodes I believe they weren't utilized in any training aspects as pre great crusade there no. Would have been smaller.

 

This is the feeling I've been given since scars and the blood games and all the materials so far.

 

I also believe if it hasn't been retconned is that in dark Angels astellian is put in his place by the chaplain saying they were given to much freedom in decision making and that's why the heresy happened this to me alludes to no psycho conditioning

Sorry, but As-tar-tes.

Phone auto correct

[Felix Antipodes]

I always thought either the Custodes and/or Thunder Warriors did the training (with the TW rewarded with being all but annihilated for their efforts). Now I think the Custodes probably did it. I can't see the EoM risking his new Legions forming any comradie with their trainers since he had already decided the TW had to go permanently.

 

Query: wasn't the high level brainwashing a post second founding thing? Not saying it wasn't part of the Legion routines but I don't get the feel from the books that it was as severe then.