Your thoughts on the Primaris and lore progression

[chamberlainskeksil]

I actually really like that the Custodes are involved in the propagation of Primaris marines.  That they have sent envoys to chapters to make sure they understand the reality of the situation.

 

It's also useful from a game perspective.  Having a game where its custodes vs marines with no Primaris?  Traitor culling time.  The winner will get to say who was the heretic.  Part of the utility of a game universe is to provide a fictional framework for table top conflict.  This definitely does this.

[bluntblade]

 

The Custodes who are running around telling everyone that it's the Emperor's Will apparently regularly get visions from him and spend time trying to interpret them. So yeah, could be the Emperor's Will.

Knowing what we know about the Big Cheese, he's fond of throwing out his toys when their suitability is exceeded. He killed the Thunder Warriors and made the Astartes to replace them, he was likely planning on killing the Astartes as well, and knowing how the galaxy has grown messier over ten thousand years (Necrons waking, Tyranids arriving, the Beast, ect) he'd likely gone with Astartes 2.0 himself to combat the problem.

So I can see him being on board with this idea.

Him killing the thunder warriors and planning on killing the legions is all new fluff. In the past few years. It was never always a thing that the space marines were obsolete.

And it has not been set in stone that the Legions were meant to be done in.

[Lexington]

Can't say that I much care about Custodes venturing forth from Terra to hard-sell the Primaris Marines to all of the Chapters out there that were saved by Guilliman's repetitive heroics - none of the old concepts in that sentence were worth a damn anyway. Why would anyone think the new ones would be better?

 

I do, however, wonder why they even bothered with this whole iImperium Nihilus thing when it seems like anyone who wants to can just slip on through the Rift and get wherever they want to without so much as a jolt of turbulence along the way. It's pretty amazing how often the modern Studio sets up incredibly huge plot devices then handwaves them into obsolescence. It's almost enough to make me think they're bad at this.

[Brother Lunkhead]

I like the concept of Guilliman's return, the Great Rift, Imperium Nihilus

 

I think the Primaris are a pretty cool idea

 

Unless Cawl gets some major development, I feel he is the weak link

 

I meant to respond to this comment from Brother b1soul a few days ago, but as the discussion continued I'm glad I waited. On the whole I like what GW has done to advance the narrative. I like the ideas of the Great Rift, imperium Nihilus, the resurrection of Guilliman, and the Indumitus Crusade. I too think the Primaris are a pretty cool idea. But through it all my reaction has been "meh". So why am I not excited? What is it about all of this that has sapped my usual enthusiasm? 

 

Beyond the game mechanics (which are quite good in 8th Ed imo), the thing that has captivated me and kept me interested in 40k has been the quality of the narrative.Throughout every iteration of 40k, from Rogue Trader through 7th Edition a certain level of quality has been maintained in the narrative that I just don't see now. Oh sure, writers come and go, the atmosphere changes, and there is and abundance of retconning. But somehow through it all a quality of storytelling has been maintained that has kept me enthralled and forgiving of many sins. To me, it just ain't there this time around. For me Cawl is not the weak link. When it comes to the Dark Imperium, it's the quality of storytelling coming out of GW and BL that is the weak link.

 

Then I read this from Ugolino:

 

 

 

A chapter exists in M41. It's a brotherhood of a thousand Astartes, with a proud history, legends and glories and defeats and each Marine secure in the knowledge they and their chapter are the truest inheritors of their Primarch's legacy. The one, truest interpretation of the Codex's dictates. They wage war as their predecessors did, and their predecessors before that until the ancient Founding, wielding treasured, precious artifacts of past, more glorious ages. For the Imperium and for the Emperor.

 

But then Cadia breaks, the Eye spreads across the galaxy like an open wound, and what was becoming an unstable situation becomes an untenable one. The Chapter survives, though every Marine in it loses brothers, friends, fellows. Worse still is the knowledge- repressed, denied, raged against, that this is the beginning of the end. For their Chapter, for the Imperium, for mankind...and it happened on their watch. Astartes don't respond well to defeat. They may not know fear, but fatigue and spite fester in the ranks. They lose whatever patience they may have had for mortal frailties as they struggle to maintain what little order they can with the seeming dying of the light.

 

Maybe their homeworlds or recruitworlds are lost, or worse. Maybe there's treachery from fellow Imperial forces that they then put down. Either way, their numbers are whittled down, but they hold, they maintain an island of stability...and then, far too late to matter, reinforcements arrive. Imperial reinforcements- from a Crusade, the grandest of all Crusades- against the darkness. These are not fellow Astartes. They are strange, imperious golden statues, the stuff of legends. The Emperor's own eyes and reach, in the flesh- tersely, coldly assessing the ragged brotherhood...and finding them wanting.

 

They are told this is a rescue. That, impossibly, Primarch Guilliman- perhaps their own Chapter's father figure from the distant past- has returned and wages war. That on his word- on what grounds? With what proof? This is clearly impossible, and they've seen far too many lies and tricks from the Archenemy already- they are to be given their share of resources and to await further instructions, like a master throwing a dog a bone. The fleet hangs overhead- not for protection, but for something else.

 

And then the unkindest cut of all. Their new brothers land. These are not Space Marines. These are not their brothers. These are malformed, lumbering...things, oversized golems clad in alien, clearly heretical- innovation is heresy- armor and wielding new weapons, fresh from some mad magos's forge. This heretek, this Cawl...Who is he to discard the artifacts of the glorious past? Who is he to try and improve on the Emperor's own work?

 

They call themselves Primaris. The brothers call them mutant, quietly at first. Abomination. Genecrime. The Custodian Guard- the proud, strutting peacocks in their shining armor, fresh from an eternity on Terra while the galaxy burned- had made it clear refusal is not an option. Accept these creatures pretending to be brothers into their ranks, or die in shame as traitors. No choice at all.

 

Perhaps it starts from the ranks. Mutinous mutterings, too many for the Chaplains or sergeants to suppress. Perhaps the sergeants and the chaplains are to blame in the first place- after all the Chaplains are meant to guard against heresy and divergence from the Chapter cults...and these revelations and decrees are nothing if not divergent from the way of things. The Primaris themselves don't help matters- too detached, too wide-eyed, too vocally eager to march in lockstep with the orders of a distant, uncaring Primarch- anyone can find fault with them if they try hard enough, and the jaded marines have enough reasons to try. Maybe warp whispers worsen an existing problem, or perhaps cause it to fester at the Chapter's heart.

 

Whatever the cause, it ends in butchery- brothers hacking apart and gunning down those who would be their fellows in calculated, vindictive, cathartic savagery. Even caught by surprise, the Primaris rally around each other, and reap a bloody toll on their attackers...But already distrusted and never given a chance, they are too few and their foes too many. They all die. From there...what is one more betrayal when retribution is inevitable?

 

On distant Terra, eventually, still another brotherhood is struck from the scrolls of honor. Excommunicate traitoris.

 

 

Now that is stirring!! Perhaps Brother Ugolino could give GW a few tips 

[BitsHammer]

Just remember: Guilliman knows better than the Emperor and somehow some Mechanicum guy can improve Astartes more than the Emperor himself could. Just wait until 9th Edition when Cawl makes an Astronomicon machine and they just dump the Emperor's corpse in the trash bin.

 

Ease the knee jerking, I can feel it from here and it keeps rattling my desk.

First off, we have nothing that says the Emperor wasn't at least partially involved in founding the project. The Horus Heresy series isn't over and if the big cheese can have a heart to heart with his son in M40, he can definitely do so in M31 when he was put on the throne. Basically, I'm saying that there is room here for this to be a thing, it just isn't being put into play yet.

 

The Emperor is all about improving things. He made the Thunder Warriors to help him unite Terra and made his Primarch sons. Losing the Primarchs he decided that to find his Sons and to get the job done the Thunder Warriors weren't enough so he canned them and made the Astartes. Seeing the Astartes fall during the Heresy I can definitely see him saying that improvements need to be made on what was basically just a less volitile model of Thunder Warrior.

 

Cawl is mentioned to have learned from the Emperor at some point, and though he may not have the memories, he still has the skills. Which means every secret he learned is locked away and will come naturally to him as he stumbles into it. Which means that it is VERY possible that Cawl was part of the Space Marine geneseed project during the early days. He could have even been a part of the Grey Knight geneseed project as well (which was all about upgrading the geneseed and making it less pants and potentially corruptible). Such knowledge would have made it reasonable for Guilliman to approach him (especially if the Emperor name dropped Cawl as someone trustworthy to continue his work) in regards to trying to improve the Astartes so that they'd be less likely to run off and start wearing spikey armour and listening to death metal.

 

I will not disagree that the way the writing presents this is hamfisted, nor will I disagree that GW could have done it better. I feel like the problem that the team is facing may be executive driven ("Marine sales are lagging, so we need to do something to change up the line and get people interested again") which has lead to this backfilling the lore for the Primaris to be the new marines going forward in the lore basically as fast as possible.

 

While I lament the stories we're obviously not getting, I'm not upset about this. The new Marine kits we got honestly only sold because we got Grav and it's not like they can just keep pumping out new weapons with new kits to get people to buy stuff they can make cheaper by buying some weapon bits online and kitbashing their old extra models.

 

Basically, from a buisiness standpoint I feel the Marine became too bloated with too much based on interchangability leading to the army not selling as much as the execs felt was comfortable, leading to this rapid shift for the new stuff to get into place to replace stuff as quickly as possible while they slowly work on phasing the old stuff out.

 

It's not the approach I wanted, but it's the approach we seem to have and I've come to terms with it.

 

That said, while the approach has lead to some rather hamfisted feeling writing, at the end of the day the Imperium is still very hierarcal. No matter how independent Marines can try to be they still have to answer to higher powers. The Inquisition, High Lords of Terra, the Custodes and the Lord Guilliman himself all have the Emperor's personal granted authority. In short, when they say "jump", if you don't want to risk being declared a traitor, you say "how high?" and jump.

 

The only ones who EVER got away with pushing back against this were first founding chapters and even then they have come pretty close to being heavilly screwed over because they got too much pride and didn't follow directions.

[DuskRaider]

If they really wanted to sell more Marines they could... I don't know... just give them better rules? Maybe not let 30K die off? Hell, they could have sold Primaris as true scale Marines to an expansion like Shadow War and people would have bought the hell out of them for 40K as well considering so many are obsessed with true scale. 

[D3L]

If they really wanted to sell more Marines they could... I don't know... just give them better rules? Maybe not let 30K die off? Hell, they could have sold Primaris as true scale Marines to an expansion like Shadow War and people would have bought the hell out of them for 40K as well considering so many are obsessed with true scale.

It does seem a strange angle for them to have tried to have gone down considering nothing else they produce is "true scale", and easily 98 out 100 customers couldnt give a rat's derrier, merely some digital crusaders.

[DuskRaider]

 

It does seem a strange angle for them to have tried to have gone down considering nothing else they produce is "true scale", and easily 98 out 100 customers couldnt give a rat's derrier, merely some digital crusaders.

 

 

Yeah, I mean if that was their intention or motivation, they just as easily could have made a box set for some stand alone game and it would have still sold like hotcakes... look at Betrayal at Calth, Burning of Prospero... Shadow War. They were all HUGE hits. It would have been even bigger if GW sold "heroic scale" or whatever they'd like to call it for Marines. 

[Robbienw]

'True Scale' space marines is a misnomer as well, propagated by those who think referring to something with the word 'true' makes their preference/opinion on scale somehow more valid.

 

'Art Scale' or 'closer to regular human proportions' is a much more accurate description for models that are referred to as 'True Scale'

[DuskRaider]

Same difference

[Claws and Effect]

Use your imagination guys. Guilliman "speaks" for the Emperor, more or less. He commands the high Lords.

 

The fabricator general of Mars himself will order the Forgeworlds into compliance to manufacture the new technologies of the 42nd millenium, or he will be removed from his position.

 

The Space Marines are autonomous to an extent - but they can't go AGAINST the will of the entire Imperium hierarchy, administration and High Lords.

These charges are coming from the very top of all the major Imperium institutions.

 

I know some of you are hoping for this to be in some way a grand Heresy, but the whole point of the new lore is that the Imperium is galvanised for the first time with a singular purpose. The high Lords aren't squabbling for power plays - they are doing what they are supposed to.

The Imperium would already have fallen if it wasn't for these changes. How many of you even know that if it wasn't for Guilliman and the Custodes Terra would already be cut off completely by Warp Storms due to the machinations of Chaos?

So in other words, you're saying that GW have completely discarded the "Write your own narrative!" line they've been touting for decades and have replaced it with "Play our story or else!".

 

Sorry, but no.

[Ishagu]

Why can't you write your own stories as before? There's always been lore that you can't alter, eg: Emperor sits on the Throne, Inquisitors have lots of authority, etc etc

[Jarl Caldersson]

Why can't you write your own stories as before? There's always been lore that you can't alter, eg: Emperor sits on the Throne, Inquisitors have lots of authority, etc etc

 

Because if I said my army denied the Primaris I am now branded a traitor and attacked by custodes.

[DuskRaider]

When you guys supporting this stuff have to jump through crazy hoops to justify the ridiculous continuity errors that GW has concocted for 8th (screwing around with geneseed, deus ex machina Cawl, no Primaris = jsut as bad as Horus now) then you know something went wrong.

[Claws and Effect]

Why can't you write your own stories as before? There's always been lore that you can't alter, eg: Emperor sits on the Throne, Inquisitors have lots of authority, etc etc

For 10,000 years the Space Marines have been told that geneseed tampering and technological innovation are both HERESY, and that they would be branded Excommunicate Traitoris for doing either one.

 

Now they are being told that they will be branded traitors for not accepting the results of what they've been told they would be heretics if they did themselves.

 

If every chapter just blindly accepts it without question, then GW will have spit in the face of their own lore.

[DuskRaider]

Spirtual Leige demands your fealty... you know, the guy who's biggest accomplishments in the Heresy were shrugging his shoulders, declaring the Emperor dead and trying to start his own Imperium, dodging the Siege of Terra and then declaring himself in charge because he had the largest Legion left over...

[Blindhamster]

So many trolls..

[Schlitzaf]

Claws, just so we are clear, Lamenaters exists and they are said to be tampered with their gene seed to fix BA Flaw. And not considered traitors

[DuskRaider]

An act as simple as not handing over your gene tithe can get you slapped with the traitor label in 40K. Tampering is a HUGE no no, it was one of the reasons the Emperor's Children went traitor, they knew if what they were doing to their Genesee was discovered, they'd go the way of the Lost Legions.

 

Oh, and by the way... the Emperor never gave Corax instructions on how to make "Astartes+", he gave him instructions on how to fast track the creation process so Corax could get his Legion back into the fight ASAP. As we know, the Alpha Legion intercepted the info, kept it for themselves, and gave the XIXth corrupted data leading to the Weregeld and giving credence to the theory that the XXth are the largest Legion during the Heresy (something they would obviously hide from their allies as well as enemies).

[Ishagu]

 

Why can't you write your own stories as before? There's always been lore that you can't alter, eg: Emperor sits on the Throne, Inquisitors have lots of authority, etc etc

For 10,000 years the Space Marines have been told that geneseed tampering and technological innovation are both HERESY, and that they would be branded Excommunicate Traitoris for doing either one.

 

Now they are being told that they will be branded traitors for not accepting the results of what they've been told they would be heretics if they did themselves.

 

If every chapter just blindly accepts it without question, then GW will have spit in the face of their own lore.

And what makes you think any Marines or Apothecaries could do what Cawl did? The rules could have been in place to protect the geneseed.

 

Cawl had access to the Emperor's research, laboratories and was even working under his direct command pre-Heresy. His orders came at a time before the Imperium regressed into a religious, iron-fisted, backwards regime. Cawl and Guilliman are both from a different age, trying to once again enlighten mankind.

 

Guilliman is fully aware that his actions could one day lead to a schism, but he's working within the very limits of what the Imperium can adjust to without upsetting the major institutions to a great extent. 60% of all Marines are descendants of the Ultras - they'll fall in line with Guilliman. The other 40% have no reason not to trust a loyal son of the Emperor, the Custodes and the priesthood of Mars.

 

That's not to say you can't run a force that doesn't include Primaris. Heck, you could have an entire company that choses not to utilise them. Your chapter might even keep Primaris as a total separate entity from the existing battle brothers, or it might not have been re-enforced or completely missed by the Indomnitus Crusade.

[Wargamer]

None of that changes the fact that everything about them, where they posted here, would have been slapped down as god-awful fanfiction. When our own Liber and AU projects expect a higher standard of writing than GW produces, you know something has gone catastrophically tits-up.

[Ishagu]

Perhaps, but there are many examples of lore the community doesn't like.

I happen to really like the new lore, Cawl's antics and the Indomnitus Crusade idea. Finally the Imperium is active and no reactive.

[Marshal Rohr]

Perhaps, but there are many examples of lore the community doesn't like.

I happen to really like the new lore, Cawl's antics and the Indomnitus Crusade idea. Finally the Imperium is active and no reactive.

You fundamentally do not understand the difference between meta-narrative, macro level narrative, and micro level narrative.

[Jarl Caldersson]

I really doubt that a chapter will just be "missed" there is so many ways to keep track of the chapters as they are setup not to be independent. Gene-tithes, mechanicum support for vehicles/armor/ships, inquisitors, the list goes on.

[Ishagu]

 

Perhaps, but there are many examples of lore the community doesn't like.

I happen to really like the new lore, Cawl's antics and the Indomnitus Crusade idea. Finally the Imperium is active and no reactive.

You fundamentally do not understand the difference between meta-narrative, macro level narrative, and micro level narrative.

I understand you don't like anything new, but the lore isn't going back to 7th edition.