Autek Mor's Secret Treasure (Massive Spoilers)

[Ishagu]

I doubt they can re-rereate Primarchs anyway. Isn't it pretty solid cannon the Emperor wove in some sorcery or otherwise factored the warp into their creation? Having the casket and pure science probably won't yield a Primarch.

 

Lots of mega-legionaries though? Maybe.

 

Also the World Eaters only made it possible by using the surgery-sorcery of the Emperor's Children. I doubt the Mor will be so keen to use Bile's methods.

That is correct. The Emperor engineered their souls in the same meticulous details as their impressive physical attributes. True Primarchs can't be replicated.

[NoLats_McGee]

Primarchs were almost unlimited sources of geneseed though. I guess that having a primarch corpse (or even some 'parts') would allow for pretty major geneseed production. This would explain why the WE on Bodt had so many marines and why Mor wanted it.

 

I also wouldn't put much past Mor. The guy who drowned a dragon in lava with his bare hands found him a bit extreme.

 

The real question is, if it WAS a primarch in the casket, who was it? Or was it some failed primarch prototype or even a 'blank slate'? (The robots you download celebrities on from Futurama Coke to mind)

[Ishagu]

All of the theories are great. An unknown Primarch would be fantastic.

 

We'll probably never know, or if we get answers they'll be underwhelming :-(

[NoLats_McGee]

An unknown primarch is actually possible. The primarchs were wonders of technology and warpcraft, so it's likely their bodies were preserved after they were 'purged'.

 

Another possibility is a failed primarch that never even had a legion, a cancelled prototype or even a 'spare' which big E may have kept in storage.!

 

The only other real possibility I can think of is much more boring, which is basically the casket has a heap of geneseed or some producing organ inside it.

 

Imagine a whole company of purged-legion marines rapidly produced and fighting for Autek Mor, with nobody knowing who they are (not even themselves), the only known thing being not to trust them.

[Kol Saresk]

Another thought. What if it's something different? What if this is something older than the Primarchs? A prototype?

 

Then again, the Emperor is the kind of crazy kook who would lock a C'Tan Shard in his basement and then personally influence his engineers into worshipping it as a god. So for all we know it's another super-powerful xenos entity.

[N1SB]

I've been following along.  The Treasure could be a Primarch or Prototype of them.

 

Or (for something not quite as disruptive to the lore), it could be: Parallel Innovation.

 

The Primarchs are unique, no doubt, but the science to create them was based on the same pre-Crusade technology that already existed.  Surely the Emperor was not the only one to imagine genetically-engineered super-soldiers.  In fact, in HH5, the option of fielding gene-crafted soldiers with the right Militia Provenance shows that others had the same idea.

 

Well, it took Emperor uniting a planet to create 20 Primarchs.  But perhaps on another planet or a federation of planets, they invested to make just 1.

 

As for Autek Mor's motives, would he be out to resurrect Ferrus Manus?  Would he even try to do so without his Emperor-crafted soul, assuming he would know or even be able to imagine that?  Based on the fact they didn't really like each other, I don't believe that would be true.  Is he out to create his own Primarch?  I think he enjoys authourity and wouldn't be out to create anything that would challenge it.  I think he just wants to farm the geneseed to create more stable Space Marines (Grabiya's Theorem), rather than a Primarch telling him what to do again.

 

This revelation has very interesting repercussions considering Autek Mor would later found the Red Talons Chapter away from the Iron Hands.

 

I'm also in the mindset of something the early 40k designers said.  Andy Chambers mentioned Rick Priestley taught him to never tie up loose ends.  Alan Bligh seems very much to be from the same school of thought.  I think this will be a deliberate loose end, but this thought exercise is important as we're playing this aspect of the game.

[Vulkan He'Dan]

Just because it's a casket with sigil if the Emperor on it doesn't mean it's a primarch at all. Maybe it's something completely different, some kind of golden age relic that the e.peror sealed away?

It could be mechanical rather than biological

[Xwingt65]

Its probably whatever technology the World Eaters had been using to push the limit on how fast a legionary can be created. IIRC, Its been mentioned in almost every FW book that statistically, when compared to normal human-to-legionary transformation time, the World Eaters casualty figures would've rendered them extinct but they have access to some technology that allows them to keep pace with their losses. Its heavily implied in the 40K universe, Krieg Guardsmen are created the same way, but from test tube to adulthood in a very short time. Just a shot in the dark though. If I was Mor, I would look for a magic formula to grow legionaries. Between that and the Iron Hands brutal doctrine, Im wondering if we won't see thousands of brainwashed, growth accelerated iron hands grinding across the traitor lines in the next few book.

 

So, how many of the badguy legions had extra super fancy ways of making marines?

[Marshal Rohr]

In book four they said all eighteen would be doing it.

[Ishagu]

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

[Calas Typhon]

It could hold or unlock the secrets to the butchers nails, the patterns to reproduce and craft.

 

After all, its not like they were a bad thing bar the lobotomization. If say, the Iron Hands had their Hands on said patterns and put to work on it, who knows what could be created or achieved.

 

Edit: when I say not a bad thing, I mean not as a bad thing for the Astartes but instead as a tool to be used by the Astartes. The increased aggression is a massive boon.

[Kol Saresk]

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

It's Marines fighting Marines. Did you expect them to go tiptoeing through the tulips together?

[depthcharge12]

 

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

It's Marines fighting Marines. Did you expect them to go tiptoeing through the tulips together?

When was it ever 1 for a city anyways? That sounds more like the Grey Knights.

[Marshal Rohr]

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

They are still slaughtering hundreds of thousands of mortals don't you worry.

[Ishagu]

 

 

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

It's Marines fighting Marines. Did you expect them to go tiptoeing through the tulips together?

When was it ever 1 for a city anyways? That sounds more like the Grey Knights.

It's always been this way. Loken literally says it in Horus Rising too, so clearly it's supposed to apply in 30k.

 

Now we keep hearing how all the Legions need special methods of replenishing their numbers due to losses suffered in the Great Crusade.... 10 Guys are supposed to be able to conquer a planet.

[Calas Typhon]

 

 

 

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

It's Marines fighting Marines. Did you expect them to go tiptoeing through the tulips together?

When was it ever 1 for a city anyways? That sounds more like the Grey Knights.

It's always been this way. Loken literally says it in Horus Rising too, so clearly it's supposed to apply in 30k.

 

Now we keep hearing how all the Legions need special methods of replenishing their numbers due to losses suffered in the Great Crusade.... 10 Guys are supposed to be able to conquer a planet.

 

 

They still could, but its all about doom gloom and grim from forgeworld and black library. Nothing is more doom, gloom and grim than super soldiers committing genocide on other astartes and those they are supposed to protect en mass.

 

If you give a night lord the equipment and I am pretty sure he would be able to sort out a planet.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

 

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

It's Marines fighting Marines. Did you expect them to go tiptoeing through the tulips together?

When was it ever 1 for a city anyways? That sounds more like the Grey Knights.

It's always been this way. Loken literally says it in Horus Rising too, so clearly it's supposed to apply in 30k.

 

Now we keep hearing how all the Legions need special methods of replenishing their numbers due to losses suffered in the Great Crusade.... 10 Guys are supposed to be able to conquer a planet.

Actually Loken says he once heard someone else(Rogal Dorn, I believe) make that comparison.

 

Wait, you took that literally? Even though we see absolutely the opposite in every novel, including the one it was said in?

 

Huh.

 

And again, Marines fighting Marines, using weapons that even the Emperor outlawed against each other, and that isn't when they're losing arms and legs and going after each other with their teeth.(cue Monty Python)

[Ishagu]

Do we see the opposite?

 

You sir, have clearly not read the Iron Snakes book or the Uriel Ventris adventures.

 

5 Iron Shakes and a Landspeeder liberate and entire planet from a Dark Eldar Cabal that defeated the whole PDF, and Uriel Ventris does some Superman stuff in every chapter lol.

 

As part of the Iron Snakes training, each recruit has to defeat a giant underwater monster (Hundred foot long Tyranid creature) wearing nothing but Speedos and armed with a harpoon. Good book!

 

 

PS: I hate Uriel Ventris

[Charlo]

^ that just sounds like too OTT for me...

[Sandlemad]

 

 

 

Man, the new lore FW are doing is really nerfing Marines.

They're so weak now.

 

What happened to 1 Marine for a city, 10 for a planet power level?

From what we read in these books they die in droves, they are recruited and put through the grinder in droves, and they're hardly any better than a normal human with a gun.

It's Marines fighting Marines. Did you expect them to go tiptoeing through the tulips together?

When was it ever 1 for a city anyways? That sounds more like the Grey Knights.

It's always been this way. Loken literally says it in Horus Rising too, so clearly it's supposed to apply in 30k.

 

Now we keep hearing how all the Legions need special methods of replenishing their numbers due to losses suffered in the Great Crusade.... 10 Guys are supposed to be able to conquer a planet.

 

 

They're ramping up production due to the heresy being an absolute meatgrinder, not due to the great crusade (barring noted losses like the RG at Gate 42 or the DA xenocide) . Marines killing marines in spectacular numbers is the point of the heresy, these are meant to be colossal battles the likes of which are half-myth millennia later. Every instance in FW's books of marines going up against unaugmented humans has had the legions absolutely slaughter them.

 

That's aside from GW's longstanding lowballing of invasion numbers for marines and pretty much anything else. FW's military history take on the heresy uses numbers that at least tries to appear more realistic. Which is refreshing.

[Kol Saresk]

I have read those, and those are in 40K. Not 30K. In 30K where we routinely see hundreds, if not thousands of Marines being slaughtered.

 

Remind me, how many of warriors did Loken see die when they were hunting down the "Emperor" in order to conquer Sixty Three Ninteen? Did he see ten? Twenty? Meanwhile every single Luna Wolf Harous was commanding was assaulting the city.

 

At the Whisperheads, Loken took his entire company. And not only did he lose troops during the battle, he lost troops after the battle when one of his Marines was possessed by Samus.

 

We routinely see in every Heresy book that ten Marines cannot conquer planets.

 

Even in 40K they do not conquer. Your Iron Snakes novel? That was one Marine and a Land Speeder who was liberating a city that the second time around had built better defenses. When he was with his squad and fighting Dark Eldar, it was as part of a company; the squad was not alone.

 

In one instance his enemy was small enough that he was able to pick them off piece by piece. In the other, if he had been alone then he would be dead.

 

If you want a real example of a single Marine actually conquering a city, try reading Lord of the Night. Even then, Zso Sahaal had help from the mortals.

[depthcharge12]

It's also marine on marine action (quiet Slaanesh). Marines should be dying in droves.

[Kol Saresk]

It's also marine on marine action (quiet Slaanesh). Marines should be dying in droves.

And don't forget all of the outlawed weaponry they're throwing against each other. Phall sounded like a paradise with all of the phosphex and "forbidden" munitions that were being thrown around. Imagine if that was all on a planet? Probably just a few chunks of rock left when they were done.

[depthcharge12]

 

It's also marine on marine action (quiet Slaanesh). Marines should be dying in droves.

And don't forget all of the outlawed weaponry they're throwing against each other. Phall sounded like a paradise with all of the phosphex and "forbidden" munitions that were being thrown around. Imagine if that was all on a planet? Probably just a few chunks of rock left when they were done.

Agreed, it's not the slap and tickle fest of 40k. It'd be comedic to see the hero get hit and dragged away by buddies while the villian shakes his fist and escape out the back window. If few to no guys are dying, it'll look like a Saturday cartoon.

[God-Potato of Mankind]

In 40k Chapters are also far more specialised and regarded as precious.

 

Gone are the massed battalions of Line Astartes literally slowly walking at entrenched enemy positions. Gone are the boarding shields and their highly attritional method of warfare. Gone is any real attritional form of Warfare. Legions in 30k were hundreds of thousands strong, they will die in droves simply because their value individually is far less. 40k Imperial Command will throw a million Guardsmen at a thing, but will think very carefully about where to deploy even 10 Astartes.

 

Plus while hundreds of thousands of Astartes are dying, literally billions of mortals are dying at the same time. The ratio seems pretty heavily stacked in favour of Astartes.