Primaris Marines in Black Library

[grailkeeper]

Primaris Marines have just been announced.

 

If BL has any commercial sense they should have in some tie-ins  dealing with Primaris Marines coming soon. Striking while the Iron is hot  will go a good way towards promoting sales of the new models. I'd be massively surprised if we didn't see a quick tie in, called Primaris or something, followed by a quite a few more texts. ADB has more or less confirmed that there will be Primaris Marines in his upcoming Emperor's Spears book (although I'd say that is probably still a while away from hitting the shelves and nothing he creates can be accused of being just a tie in). These Marines have obviously been planned for some times, it'd be almost negligence for BL not to have plans for them as well.

 

 

Given that these marines are so new there is a lot of scope for how they develop. Its been a while since GW introduced something completely new. Primaris marines's  fluff is pretty inchoate in comparison to other long established types of marine- perhaps there'll be works which rival the Eisenhorn trilogy which was first intended to be a tie in with Inquisitor. What topics and themes do you think could be addressed with these new marines? It'll be interesting to see how Space Marines adapt to having new Primaris marines introduced into their ranks. Given that they tend to be fairly dominant personalities I'd say there is a good chance they'll have difficulty adapting to newer, more powerful, brothers.

 

There are also some interesting challenges for the authors. I wonder how they are going to work with the existing the fluff. For starters Primaris marines are all going to be much younger than other space marines , although some are already interned in dreadnoughts. Given that marines recruit young will these new super warriors also be teenagers? If not how have they been secret till now? Maybe on the other hand they can be made from fully grown adults.

 

It'd be interesting to hear people's thoughts.

[HeritorA]

 

Primaris Marines have just been announced.

 

If BL has any commercial sense they should have in some tie-ins  dealing with Primaris Marines coming soon. Striking while the Iron is hot  will go a good way towards promoting sales of the new models. I'd be massively surprised if we didn't see a quick tie in, called Primaris or something, followed by a quite a few more texts. ADB has more or less confirmed that there will be Primaris Marines in his upcoming Emperor's Spears book (although I'd say that is probably still a while away from hitting the shelves and nothing he creates can be accused of being just a tie in). These Marines have obviously been planned for some times, it'd be almost negligence for BL not to have plans for them as well.

 

 

Given that these marines are so new there is a lot of scope for how they develop. Its been a while since GW introduced something completely new. Primaris marines's  fluff is pretty inchoate in comparison to other long established types of marine- perhaps there'll be works which rival the Eisenhorn trilogy which was first intended to be a tie in with Inquisitor. What topics and themes do you think could be addressed with these new marines? It'll be interesting to see how Space Marines adapt to having new Primaris marines introduced into their ranks. Given that they tend to be fairly dominant personalities I'd say there is a good chance they'll have difficulty adapting to newer, more powerful, brothers.

 

There are also some interesting challenges for the authors. I wonder how they are going to work with the existing the fluff. For starters Primaris marines are all going to be much younger than other space marines , although some are already interned in dreadnoughts. Given that marines recruit young will these new super warriors also be teenagers? If not how have they been secret till now? Maybe on the other hand they can be made from fully grown adults.

 

It'd be interesting to hear people's thoughts.

 

Yes they will do - the new Primaris SM stuff will appear later this year with the 8th release and further GS supplements.

[Kelborn]

I expect some great ones, detailling the pov of certain chapters regarding RG and his mega ultras and a lot of bolterporn to celebrate the Primaris.

[DarkChaplain]

I couldn't be less interested in Super Space Marines, personally. Kinda kills my interest in the ongoing events.

[JH79]

It would be awesome to have an origin story set post Heresy that maybe ties into Guillimans eventual confrontation with Fulgrim. I love the idea of there being a sanctuary so secret that nobody stumbles upon it for 10 millenia... what would the custodian of such a place get to see in their lifetime? Is he or she a perpetual of sorts much like Dalia Cythera becomes in Mechanicum, or were they something else? What measures were undertanken in preparation for the potential discovery of the project? How was so much geneseed stockpiled and was it taken from ALL the Legions, traitors included? How in the name of The Emperor did they tamper with it's genetic template to make the marines bigger, faster & stronger... who did they experement on and for how long? So many questions, the back story is where it's at for me

[Kelborn]

Absokutely agree with you. Their backstory is what will be interesting.

 

Hah, I'm calling lost legion shenanigans. ;)

[drooling blood]

Not sure I care. I just want them to finish the heresy novels so I can be done and dusted with it. Theyve dragged it out, Adb's abbadon books and most others are now history.

Wrestling maybe, Its written on the same kinder garden kewl level.

We know what happened to the last guy that made super human warriors. It didnt turn out well.

if you all want to follow the biggest traitor down the roman hole. Then I pity you.

[DarkChaplain]

I really don't like the implications every Chapter having Primaris access brings about for Chapters like the Space Wolves or Blood Angels.

 

Did Cawl and co fix up the gene-seed to exempt Primaris from the flaws? That'd imply that he, and by extension his assistants and Guilliman, know their darkest secrets. How about the Canis Helix which has for 10,000 years prevented the Wolves from recruiting off-Fenris? Either it is now possible for Primaris, which opens a whole new can of worms, since they won't be from Fenris, or Guilliman and co have just stolen countless potential recruits from the Hearthworld under Russ's nose way back when.

What about the Blood Angels who still hide behind a golden mask of civility? Are Primaris even affected by the psychic deathscream and its repercussions for the Legion/Chapters? Why would they be?

What about Chapters like the Black Dragons who have clear mutations?

 

How did the Gene-seed even get into Cawl's hands? Did he just leech them off the vaults in secret? Wouldn't somebody have noticed during the proceeding foundings?

 

Where did they even get the technology from considering the ONLY person/Primarch who was granted access to the Emperor's hidden lab/storage was Corax, who took the stuff with him and destroyed it during the Heresy after the failure with the Alpha Legion and Raptors?

 

And most importantly: Why can Cawl do this stuff when Fabius Bile has been working on it since Great Crusade days and hasn't fully managed it yet, while being probably the most driven character in the background and the logical candidate for making it happen? I sincerely hope he'll have an ace up his sleeve and finally create his proper New Men, his masterpiece that will replace humans in time, and that they'll be far better than these Primaris dudes.

....but then that'd mean yet another power-up for Astartes and we're already dangerously close to DragonBall Z territory...

[A D-B]

I couldn't be less interested in Super Space Marines, personally. Kinda kills my interest in the ongoing events.

 

I think I'm the opposite. Ongoing events offer no real grist for the mill for me - the Studio's storyline doesn't interest me the way the setting itself does - but the idea of how to characterise variant Space Marines has a lot of narrative tread. So many questions, so many answers - all of those juicy interaction insights that make my favourite 40K fiction, rather than tie-ins to "Event X Is Happening And Here Is How It Happened".

 

I couldn't care less how Primaris Space Marines came into being (though, admittedly, I've known for like... a year at this point) and what Cawl says or does. What interests me is how they act and react, what makes them behave that way, what and why they think, how they're received in their new(?) Chapters, and so on.

[Midgard]

Crazy and whimsical theory that could potentially explain where the Primaris project came from (and will almost certainly be wrong, but hey, I'm trying here). It is possible that the technology used for Primaris marines is the same as the one used to create Raptors, and Cawl spent the last ten thousand years trying to fix its problems (or to engineer the Warp taint out of it).

 

Here are the known facts:

 

The Raptor/enhanced Space Marine technology was

given to Corax by the Emperor, and then subverted by Alpha Legion operatives... namely, Omegon himself, who physically stole it from Deliverance.

.

 

"Deliverance Lost" proceeded to imply that

Alpha Legion took the enhanced marine technology for themselves, minus the Warp contagion that produced mutations amongst the Raven Guard.

 

 

From "Praetorian of Dorn", we know that

Alpharius is dead, and Omegon is the sole survivor of the twin primarchs. We also know that Omegon had the untainted version of the enhanced marine technology.

.

 

Now, let's look at Escandor, and what had happened there.

 

There is a lot of uncertainty on who exactly Guilliman encountered, and what actually happened. It would not be impossible to surmise that

somehow, Guilliman left Escandor with the Raptor technology, either by taking it from Omegon/Alpha Legion, or obtaining it by some other means. It is also not impossible that Alpha Legion might have planned it and deliberately gave Guilliman flawed technology.

 

 

This creates a somewhat plausible way for Guilliman to get the technology to create uber-marines, but with sufficient issues to require refinement, reverse engineering, and what not. In other words, he would get the technology, but it would not be ready for deployment, which is where Belisarius Cawl comes in. Even with Cawl's obvious technical expertise, he would struggle to fix the issues, hence the 10,000 year work in progress, quite possibly interrupted by false starts, multiple upheavals in the Imperial history, old fashioned politicking, and who knows what else. Ten thousand years later, Cawl finally managed to create specimen who are close enough to the original intent of the technology to be useful, without the immediate ill side effects. Enter Primaris marines... who are basically

Corax's Raptors: now bigger, better, and less Warp-tainted.

 

[DarkChaplain]

IF that was the case, I'd be happy enough. Though I'd still want Fabius to be ahead of the game even with his flawed samples (considering he got the tainted stuff from Alpharius as well). I'd be happy enough with the origin explanation, at least.

 

However, I'd still be very iffy about the thematical repercussions for the setting going forward. They could be written in crazy interesting ways, but then again, how would they really feel different from regular marines outside of likely superiority complexes? What really sets them apart from the regular superhumans beyond bulk and power level?

 

I agree with AD-B that exploring this would be interesting. But the simple fact that these are superior Space Marines, better than even the Astartes Superior or New Men from way back when, and trumping likely even Custodes in sheer individual strength, and that every Chapter gets access to them now, no matter how that'd work, cheapens the value of mankind's elite of the elite a lot.

[Sete]

If guilliman is omegon all is forgiven.

 

And Fulgrim tried to kill omegon to avoid this current chain of events.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

 

I couldn't be less interested in Super Space Marines, personally. Kinda kills my interest in the ongoing events.

 

I think I'm the opposite. Ongoing events offer no real grist for the mill for me - the Studio's storyline doesn't interest me the way the setting itself does - but the idea of how to characterise variant Space Marines has a lot of narrative tread. So many questions, so many answers - all of those juicy interaction insights that make my favourite 40K fiction, rather than tie-ins to "Event X Is Happening And Here Is How It Happened".

 

I couldn't care less how Primaris Space Marines came into being (though, admittedly, I've known for like... a year at this point) and what Cawl says or does. What interests me is how they act and react, what makes them behave that way, what and why they think, how they're received in their new(?) Chapters, and so on.

 

 

See, it's that part that really interests me with regard to the Primaris Space Marines - I'm very happy to hear that there isn't a blanket assumption that Chapters will all accept reinforcements of this kind - I'm especially keen to see how some of the other 1st Founding Chapters & their immediate successors interact with them - Chapters to whom the Ultramarines are peers rather than figures of especial reverence.

 

You have purists like the Templars, the Raven Guard's own experience with similar technology and the insane hypocrisy of the Iron Hands, who despise the organic 'enhancements' of the Emperor's Children whilst simultaneously augmenting their own bodies mechanically.

 

I really hope we get exploration of the whole range of responses - violent confrontation to enthusiastic acceptance - the potential responses are as diverse as the Chapters themselves.

 

 

I mean, an extremist counter-crusade declaring Guilliman a Heretic and the Ultramarines Traitors wouldn't go amiss, but I love the Imperium the most when it's fighting itself.

[Kelborn]

I couldn't be less interested in Super Space Marines, personally. Kinda kills my interest in the ongoing events.

I think I'm the opposite. Ongoing events offer no real grist for the mill for me - the Studio's storyline doesn't interest me the way the setting itself does - but the idea of how to characterise variant Space Marines has a lot of narrative tread. So many questions, so many answers - all of those juicy interaction insights that make my favourite 40K fiction, rather than tie-ins to "Event X Is Happening And Here Is How It Happened".

I couldn't care less how Primaris Space Marines came into being (though, admittedly, I've known for like... a year at this point) and what Cawl says or does. What interests me is how they act and react, what makes them behave that way, what and why they think, how they're received in their new(?) Chapters, and so on.

Imho I would like to read something about their origin. But not everything in detail. Just like the invention of the Marines. Keep most of it a mystery and rumors. And I agree with you that I'd love to see the reactions of certain chapters regarding their new "brothers" and how they would interact with this new breed. And how does a Primaris itself react in this : universe?

May I assume that your Emperor's Spears novel might deal with this?

Crazy and whimsical theory that could potentially explain where the Primaris project came from (and will almost certainly be wrong, but hey, I'm trying here). It is possible that the technology used for Primaris marines is the same as the one used to create Raptors, and Cawl spent the last ten thousand years trying to fix its problems (or to engineer the Warp taint out of it).

Here are the known facts:

The Raptor/enhanced Space Marine technology was

given to Corax by the Emperor, and then subverted by Alpha Legion operatives... namely, Omegon himself, who physically stole it from Deliverance.

.

"Deliverance Lost" proceeded to imply that

Alpha Legion took the enhanced marine technology for themselves, minus the Warp contagion that produced mutations amongst the Raven Guard.

From "Praetorian of Dorn", we know that

Alpharius is dead, and Omegon is the sole survivor of the twin primarchs. We also know that Omegon had the untainted version of the enhanced marine technology.

.

Now, let's look at Escandor, and what had happened there.

There is a lot of uncertainty on who exactly Guilliman encountered, and what actually happened. It would not be impossible to surmise that

somehow, Guilliman left Escandor with the Raptor technology, either by taking it from Omegon/Alpha Legion, or obtaining it by some other means. It is also not impossible that Alpha Legion might have planned it and deliberately gave Guilliman flawed technology.

This creates a somewhat plausible way for Guilliman to get the technology to create uber-marines, but with sufficient issues to require refinement, reverse engineering, and what not. In other words, he would get the technology, but it would not be ready for deployment, which is where Belisarius Cawl comes in. Even with Cawl's obvious technical expertise, he would struggle to fix the issues, hence the 10,000 year work in progress, quite possibly interrupted by false starts, multiple upheavals in the Imperial history, old fashioned politicking, and who knows what else. Ten thousand years later, Cawl finally managed to create specimen who are close enough to the original intent of the technology to be useful, without the immediate ill side effects. Enter Primaris marines... who are basically

Corax's Raptors: now bigger, better, and less Warp-tainted.

Pretty decent and not so weird as you might think.

General question: Are the Raptors (Raven Guard successor) still THE super-marine Raptors????? I'd always wondered about that.

If guilliman is omegon all is forgiven.

And Fulgrim tried to kill omegon to avoid this current chain of events.

YOU're the man, Sete! Exactly what I was thinking after hearing about RGs return. *high five* ^^

[Bulwyf]

What if cawl just invented them on his own ? I mean ppl other than established character can do things. You don't always need to retcon to get new fluff and lore.

[Marshal Rohr]

No amount of story can undue the damage of them being anything but a model line rescaling. Even if the dialogue and stories are downright Shakespearean, they shouldn't exist.

[A D-B]

No amount of story can undue the damage of them being anything but a model line rescaling. Even if the dialogue and stories are downright Shakespearean, they shouldn't exist.

 

Dude, in the long, broad, and many-layered history of 40K, this isn't on the bad end of the spectrum. You're immersed in what you don't like right now, as it unfolds, but in 10 years? 20? 

 

Imagine someone said the Space Wolves had plenty of werewolf traits and the Blood Angels were practically vampires. The only reason that's remotely fine is because they've been that way for 20+ years and we're used to it. Christ, they're called the SPACE WOLVES. The Space Wolves. Say that to a regular human being.

 

As ideas go on the scale of good to bad, Primaris Marines are new and confusing but they have plenty of lore precedent already, and they have a lot of narrative tread. 

 

Meanwhile, Space Wolves and Iron Man of the Iron Hands and Angry Ron and the person who stood up to Horus is an Imperial Fist except it's a Custodian except it's a Guardsman.

 

I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm saying you're being ridiculous acting like it's terrible. Perspective, boys and girls. Let's ease down on the overreactions.

[Scribe]

I await your redemption of the concept, and I do mean that respectfully and sincerely, as you, Wraight, and French, like, get me man.

[Sete]

We all know it was Ollanius, know in 40k as Sly Marbo, that actually defeated horus with rylanor, which unfortunately did not survive the fight, and saved the Emperor.

[Marshal Rohr]

I don't think I'm gonna be here in the hobby in ten more years, to be honest. I'll probably stick around to see how the Heresy wraps up. This isn't the first thing the studio has done to me, obviously. I'm getting tired of being told 'it'll be fine' and then it never is fine. The 'just around the corner' never shows up. You've got to realize that, you've been here for years too. You've got to remember me loving the universe so much I collected every reference to Black Templars, different marks of boltguns, inventing new chapters for the liber, and trying to make a guide to Armageddon 3. Spent hours and hours coming up with sources to help other posters get their hands on second and first edition lore. Once drove across the entire island of Oahu in search of a rare White Dwarf I couldn't find in four states on the mainland.

 

I'm not being obtuse for no reason. They systemically stripped the universe of all the things I spent money and time cultivating.

[bluntblade]

I couldn't be less interested in Super Space Marines, personally. Kinda kills my interest in the ongoing events.

Same. I'm basically having visions of that bit in Avengers 2 where Vision appears and immediately is the bestest and can beat the baddie because he just got made to be the bestest.

[A D-B]

I don't think I'm gonna be here in the hobby in ten more years, to be honest. I'll probably stick around to see how the Heresy wraps up. This isn't the first thing the studio has done to me, obviously. I'm getting tired of being told 'it'll be fine' and then it never is fine. The 'just around the corner' never shows up. You've got to realize that, you've been here for years too. You've got to remember me loving the universe so much I collected every reference to Black Templars, different marks of boltguns, inventing new chapters for the liber, and trying to make a guide to Armageddon 3. Spent hours and hours coming up with sources to help other posters get their hands on second and first edition lore. Once drove across the entire island of Oahu in search of a rare White Dwarf I couldn't find in four states on the mainland.

 

I'm not being obtuse for no reason. They systemically stripped the universe of all the things I spent money and time cultivating.

 

Absolutely. And we agree on most things since, like, forever. But there's a definite (and, in fandom, very clear) narrowing of perspective at times. One that mistakes familiarity and burnout with "everything" getting worse. One that likens disliked changes in a portion of the setting to the entire thing sucking. I doubt any of us have missed that in any of the fandoms we like - we've all seen it many times, I'm sure - but when it's happening to you, it's practically impossible to see past the cognitive bias. It's like depression: you're not depressed, you're not pessimistic, you see things as they really are and everyone else is naive or ignorant. That's how depression biases  you. And, indeed, how it gets you to spiral. 

 

Let me put it more personally. There are plenty of things I don't like in 40K - more and more as time goes on as authors or designers whose work I'm not really into codify the setting through their lenses; as I get overexposed to concepts that once felt way more awesome, and so on. But every time I bring that up with someone else, their answer is "I don't care about that part" or "It's never on my table, so who cares?" and "What does it really change?"

 

Primaris Marines may not be an idea that grabs you, personally. And I'm not going to try to convince you to hold out and hope they get redeemed in your eyes. But, as I'm fond of saying, and as has been explained to me in tones both patient and patronising, it's all a pendulum. Things go one way, then they go the other. For every new thing I can't stand in 40K, there are ten things getting new leases of life, or are new things I like. More importantly, there are many other things remaining unchanged.

 

I'm not going to let my vision of 40K circle entirely around the metaplot of what the reborn Guilliman is doing in his fleet. That's practically irrelevant to the galaxy. It's the Studio's storyline and that's all good, but it doesn't define or eradicate 30 years of 40K for me. It's just one story in the setting. The setting itself hasn't changed all that much. It's just difficult to see that at the dawn of a new edition when the loudest voices right now are the advertising engines and the Studio excited that it gets to have a storyline. 

 

Besides, for every aspect of the Primaris concept that I feel is a little hinky, there are other aspects I can't wait to explore. For every aspect of the new setting changes I'm not keen on, I know there are a hundred things still the same, and I'm sure other authors will cover the things I don't like, anyway. It's not my place to redeem anything. So, like, I'm not objecting to you disliking something. It's just surreal when you're so relentlessly negative and can't see anything of value in any of this; do you then see some of us as wilfully ignorant or something? Primaris Marines aren't even 'making lemonade' for me. The moment I heard about them, I didn't care a damn about their origin lore - I immediately thought "...okay, this will make for some awesome stories and interesting tensions within Space Marine Chapters."

 

(Right after that, I wanted to see the models, but you know what I mean.)

[Kelborn]

 

*snip*

 

I'm not going to let my vision of 40K circle entirely around the metaplot of what the reborn Guilliman is doing in his fleet. That's practically irrelevant to the galaxy. It's the Studio's storyline and that's all good, but it doesn't define or eradicate 30 years of 40K for me. It's just one story in the setting. The setting itself hasn't changed all that much. It's just difficult to see that at the dawn of a new edition when the loudest voices right now are the advertising engines and the Studio excited that it gets to have a storyline. 

 

Besides, for every aspect of the Primaris concept that I feel is a little hinky, there are other aspects I can't wait to explore. For every aspect of the new setting changes I'm not keen on, I know there are a hundred things still the same, and I'm sure other authors will cover the things I don't like, anyway. It's not my place to redeem anything.

*snip*

 

Nailed it!

If one doesn't like the newest story line around RG and his uber Marines, than you don't have to engage it. Like A D B said, there are still TONS of other story lines (and don't forget the centuries between 30 and 40K) to explore or to play with.

I'm curious of what they will do with it. If I found it imho stupid or ridiculous, I'll go and enjoy another part of the setting. Noone is forced to stick with the recent lore like Gathering Storm, etc.

 

You're liking Armageddon? Jeez, go grap your BTs and smach some xenos skulls. No one will stop you.

 

Yes, if you are a player, you have to deal with new factions or troops. But your guys are still there. You still get rules for them.

 

I can understand you, Marshal, but it's not the time to hang one's head. :)

[JH79]

Christ, they're called the SPACE WOLVES. The Space Wolves. Say that to a regular human being.

Oh my, I really wasn't expecting that... neither was I expecting my mouthful of freshly brewed bedtime Tea to eject itself from my mouth along with a quite shockingly sudden burst of laughter!

Space Wolves... it really does sound "normal" enough to all of us

[Marshal Rohr]

I'm not seeing anyone as willfully ignorant, or wrong. Definitely not anything like that. It's like seeing your best friend you grew up with getting into stuff you don't like and going your separate ways. You hate the thing you loved because it left you behind and didn't care.