Ideas to improve upon Primaris Marines lore

[Jackalwolf]

It is well accepted in general that the lore behind primaris marines is subpar. But the good news is that there's room for saving the fluff.

 

There's so little revealed that it could still be tied in to better created and / or well established and loved lore:

 

- Geneseed degeneration is the reason for the disparity. Marines were always intended to be primaris. There are references to heresy era marines being more than unimpressed with their descendants in different books.

 

- The Emperor always intended for primaris marines to succeed marines just like these succeeded the thunder warriors but the Horus Heresy put a halt on the project. Cawl, rather than create everything on his own, discovered and implemented the Emperor's project that he reveals to Corax for the creation of the raptors in Deliverance Lost.

 

- The Alpha Legion (who don't forget hold the formula for the better marines as per Deliverance Lost) are involved in the creation of the marines in an act that reveals them as loyalists (or at least a big faction in them).

 

- Arkham Land collaborates extensively with Bellisarius Cawl, making it a bit less Deus Ex Machina by bringing iconic geniuses into the mix.

 

- Arkham Land IS Bellisarius Cawl! Quite impossible after the events of Wolfsbane were a young Bellisarius Cawl is introduced in the HH timeline.

 

How would you save the lore of the primaris marines? We could collate the best suggestions and send to GW.

[Panzer]

- Geneseed degeneration is the reason for the disparity. Marines were always intended to be primaris. There are references to heresy era marines being more than unimpressed with their descendants in different books.

 

That wouldn't make much sense considering there are plenty of Chaos Marines from back then still around and those either aren't that tall or are said they are so tall due being infused with the powers of the warp. Fabius Bile also wouldn't be so surprised about Primaris if he'd knew about Marines being so tall back in his days. Not to mention Bile got access to original Emperor's Children geneseed from Trazyn iirc and that didn't create bigger Marines.

 

If they go that route it would be a rather big retcon.

 

 

- The Emperor always intended for primaris marines to succeed marines just like these succeeded the thunder warriors but the Horus Heresy put a halt on the project. Cawl, rather than create everything on his own, discovered and implemented the Emperor's project that he reveals to Corax for the creation of the raptors in Deliverance Lost.

Possibly.

The Emperor is purposefully designed as a character where nobody knows what exactly he might have planned in the end. Every new reveal can just be another plot to make people do what's needed to do. He wouldn't even have to give Cawl or Guilliman or whatever direct order to do something like that since his thing is to divine the future and do specific things that affect other events that affect other events that affect other events that end up being the way he thinks they need to be.

So arguing that way or mentioning it or whatever wouldn't really help in any way. The Emperor is vague on purpose so GW can do whatever they want and reveal it as "that was always part of his plan".

 

 

- The Alpha Legion (who don't forget hold the formula for the better marines as per Deliverance Lost) are involved in the creation of the marines in an act that reveals them as loyalists (or at least a big faction in them).

 

Of course that's possible at well but would that really improve the Primaris lore at all? It's just another "hidden group x did y and nobody knew about it". Just another layer of it on top of the already existing one. It's basically the exact same thing GW already did with Cawl just with a different twist on it.

Also we won't see Alpha Legion as loyalists anytime soon if ever considering they are part of the Chaos Space Marine Codex and there are tons of people who build their Alpha Legion as a chaos force and like it that way.

 

 

- Arkhan Land collaborates extensively with Bellisarius Cawl, making it a bit less Deus Ex Machina by bringing iconic geniuses into the mix.

 

I don't really see how that would improve anything. It would be interesting but in the end it's still the same story.

 

 

- Arkhan Land IS Bellisarius Cawl! Quite impossible after the events of Wolfsbane were a young Bellisarius Cawl is introduced in the HH timeline.

 

Same as above.

 

 

How would you save the lore of the primaris marines? We could collate the best suggestions and send to GW.

I'm one of those who don't think it needs to be saved at all. It just needs to be better told. A job for Black Library and their good authors rather than some GW guys trying to squeeze important new lore bits in Codexes and half-arsed campaigns.

[Bryan Blaire]

Did GW indicate somewhere that they think the lore for the Primaris is sub-par that they would be willing to listen to retcons to what they have established? If not, you are probably more likely to just be seen as insulting and make them less likely to do what you are suggesting.

 

The Primaris are somewhere approximately half-way between Marines and Primarchs. The gene-seed of Marines is a literal descended version of the material which was used for the Primarchs, but I doubt that the Marines that were made for the Great Crusade were "always intended to be Primaris," rather the original Marines are what the Emperor had left from the Primarch project to make those Marines in quantity. The Primaris have an organ made from half of the "God-Maker" organ that the Primarchs have, the only half that could be recovered. The plans and material for the other half destroyed by some hand, possibly the Emperor's himself or another nefarious party - it could have even been damaged in the Chaos storm that swept the Primarchs away and the Emperor was never able to reconstitute it before he was en-Golden Throne'd. I personally have no doubt that the Emperor was always planning on something greater than the standard Marines, but I think it was probably also grander than the Primaris, such as a smaller army of full Primarchs and the original twenty were just his test runs, but that's my personal speculation.

 

Cawl very well could have a part (or whole, but slowly losing parts of itself/it's genius) of Arkhan Land's brain as a "brain in a jar" connected to his system, but it's not necessary and it doesn't actually add or explain anything additional. People may not like the DEM that is Cawl, but that doesn't mean that there needs to be anything else to explain it other than he is who he is.

 

In the end, the lore for the Primaris doesn't need to be "saved" just because it is what it is.

[Jackalwolf]

Really good points. Is it really a matter only of story telling?

 

The events of Deliverance Lost are pretty much the same upgrade to marines than Primaris are (produced faster, end up stronger and with better pre programmed skills) and it was a similar explanation of "it was always there but never used".

 

Somehow though, I did enjoy a lot that tale and haven't heard any of the backlash the primaris lore has created.

 

I still think Cawl is too much of a DEM for it to be palatable so it needs to be tied with the greater universe but could the rest be as "simple" as creating a good narrative?

 

Edit: I'd actually be interested in how to improve without retcon precisely to make it more plausible.

[Robbienw]

- Geneseed degeneration is the reason for the disparity.

That one won’t work. It’s specifically stated that primaris have new never before seen organs that no other marine, including heresy era ones, have ever had.

[NiceGuyAdi]

It’s not the background that’s the issue for me. I can get behind the idea of Cawl obsessively beavering away at his masterwork for millennia.

 

It’s just the way Primaris are presented as bigger/stronger/faster/more loyal/handsome/generous in bed, with no inherent drawbacks that just makes them inherently dull to me. Fortunately there’s plenty of room to start writing some human flaws or tragic shortcomings into their story that might make the fluff match the quality of the miniatures.

[Ishagu]

I like the lore. It feels like it came around suddenly but that's because the setting had been static for so long.

 

Belisarius Cawl really is an immense intellect with no equal in the current Imperium - that's not inherently bad as lore. Guilliman recognised this millenia ago.

 

The setting has literally always been filled with "poof it came out the blue" moments. Retconning centurions into the history of Space Marines is much worse in my opinion than outright creating new things as they have now done.

 

The galaxy has become even more dangerous and the Imperium has risen to answer the new challenges. Retcons on the scale you propose are much worse than the sudden developments.

[Panzer]

It’s not the background that’s the issue for me. I can get behind the idea of Cawl obsessively beavering away at his masterwork for millennia.

 

It’s just the way Primaris are presented as bigger/stronger/faster/more loyal/handsome/generous in bed, with no inherent drawbacks that just makes them inherently dull to me. Fortunately there’s plenty of room to start writing some human flaws or tragic shortcomings into their story that might make the fluff match the quality of the miniatures.

 

Well that's just for now.

So far we already got fluff bits about Corbulo (Sanguinary High Priest of the Blood Angels) reporting back about some worrisome behaviour amoung the BA Primaris after he joined them in hope having found a way to cure the Red Thirst. ;)

[Robbienw]

Plus Fabius Bile after some primaris marine genetics.  Probably only a matter of time until some sort of chaos Primaris unit appears!

 

As for actual changes to the Primaris fluff to make it better, one thing i would do would be to make them not just one dimensional marines +1.  Make them more of a subtype with advantages but also disadvantages.  Say that whilst they are bigger and tougher, they are slower than normal marines or something like that.  Give normal marines 2 attacks base and Primaris 1 attack base to represent this in game.

[Panzer]

Or it remains just some plot hook forever like his new men. ^^

[Robbienw]

Could be.  But i would be willing to bet there will be some kind of chaos primaris/derived from primaris unit appear in the next few years.

[deathspectersgt7]

They have grown on me except those Ineptors. But their lore I pitched .  Mine  is these are the Bad Boys Corax wanted to produce and the Raven Guard recovered the material the Alpha Legion  stole. 

[Kinstryfe]

I'm not sure how many times I've said it, but a lot of this seems to stem from people not thinking of this as the shift in GW's narrative process from what they've done for most of thirty years. The Primaris story is in its act one, whereas most previous GW fluff was presented as looking back on past events. I think many people are used to a beginning, middle, and end. The Emperor forges the Imperium, Horus Rebels, The Emperor barely wins but is enthroned. With Primaris we're still at the beginning. If we've read GW's prior stuff, do we really think that Primaris aren't going to have bad stuff happening with them before the story is over?

 

The fluff about Primaris certainly has some less than stellar parts, but its concept is hardly new to the lore. The Raven Guard's efforts. Bile's new men. The attempts to improve Astartes like the cursed founding. All of this is stuff that shows the possibility was always there.

 

So how to make it better? Honestly I think a lot of this will happen in Act 2, when the most likely results are that chaos gets an equivalent thru reasons, and it's found that while Primaris may not initially exhibit the flaws of their geneseed they eventually do, and how. So I guess one option is to just let GW play out their story.

 

Otherwise, none of the base story is really too out of whack unless you assume GW will never advance the story of Primaris Marines. One crazy tech dude made everything is perhaps the biggest leap of belief, being the best at literally every Mechanicus specialty, and that could have been done better. Have a genetics guy running it, and some tech guys, and plasma guys, etc. A dark secret is already hinted at in a few places, what with weird BA Primaris suspicions and Cawl pushing for all twenty strains to be put into play, so Primaris is currently unflawed but with foreshadowing in play. Perhaps the one thing that would have been nice (though may go against the idea GW has for future plot) would be if they were presented as superior but much harder to create. Give chapters a real decision between burning 100 recruits for 10 regular marines or 4 Primaris. But even then I think having lots of them around may play into any future plot where things go wrong.

 

I'll also add though, it's not well accepted that this fluff is "subpar". There's an incredibly vocal group of people who bring it up in practically every thread they comment in, but there's been no indication of mobs at game shops calling for petitions on Primaris models. There are groups of people who dislike almost all aspects of the fluff, and this is no different.

[Boldthreat]

I think the number one way to improve the upon the Primaris lore is to actually expand what little we actually have been given.  We have had a complete founding of Chapters made entirely of Primaris Space Marines.  We have had Chapters completely rebuilt or close to completely rebuilt by Guilliman himself and the Indomitus Crusade.  Yet we do not know hardly anything about them, how they actually organize their forces (in the Primaris only Chapters) and how that process actually took place.  We got a small blurb about how the Crimson Fists marines accepted them with open arms, and how great it was to have brothers that actually met Rogal Dorn or the Emperor.  That is great in all but the actual Codex actually barely even touches on this.  Why did we not get more information on this Galaxy changing event.  Hell this was a bigger deal to the community than Guilliman actually returning!  Yet the Codex barely touches on this.

 

The sad part is, we are actually 200+ years past that galaxy spanning rearming and reorganization... and we still don't know anything.  At what point do Primaris marines become firmly rooted in existing chapters?  I would submit that after the 13th Black Crusade, the War on Macragge and the Terran Crusade, the Ultramarines would be hurting for marines of any kind.  We know that Guilliman sends Primaris marines back to Ultramar prior to leaving the Indomitus Crusade... Uriel Ventris admits as much when he meets Guilliman for the first time.  We don't know how many but I would wager after the ordeal that was the Black Legion assault on Macragge it was more than 100 for sure.  Then we have the Plague Wars.  Not only does Guilliman return with a whole "11th Company" that is actually pretty large, but he creates multiple chapters of new Primaris only around Ultramar.  How do these Chapters organize?  In the Plague wars I imagine that the Ultramarines take losses... are those losses replaced with Primaris marines at this point?  As the Chapter takes losses is the 11th Company folded into the proper Chapter organization?  We should know the answers to these questions!  Heck after 200 years of constant fighting and crusading how many of the Primaris marines that actually were recruited in the Great Crusade or the Heresy are still alive?  I would bet not many!  Most would probably be Primaris created on their respective Chapter homeworlds.

 

At this point in the setting they shouldn't be Primaris Space Marine and Regular Space Marine... it should just be Space Marine.  But we are all still dealing with something that is 100s of years old now... when our Chapters should have moved on by now.  The whole point of the Great Rift and setting of the 8th Edition is that everything is worse now.  Cadia fell.  The forces of Chaos are everywhere.  The Imperium is cut in half!  Our favorite Chapters were dying in the field.  The Primaris aren't a replacement.  They are an evolution!  An evolution implemented minutes to midnight to the end of the world.  There is a cool story here... its just overshadowed by the idea that our beloved warriors of the past 30 years are being replaced.  They arent!  Its an evolution.  

 

I think GW and Black Library need to keep moving that evolution.  Give us a fully realized product.  Honor the past, but move forward into the future with the Space Marine line.  I got into this hobby when I was 12.  I am 33.  I will always look at the older stuff and be hit with feelings of nostalgia.  3rd Edition art and fluff will always be my foundation, and in some ways I lament many of the things I feel has been lost in the feel of the setting and game.  But I truly believe there is a great story here still.  But instead of pulling the band-aid off, its being pulled off slowly.  Embrace what you started GW, fully evolutionize the Space Marines with a proper Codex and fleshed out lore!  

[Endova]

Honestly I'd prefer the just squat the whole range out of existence. Their lore is irredeemable, the rules are a travesty and the model kits I've played around with so far are sub-par. (I literally just decided to give Inceptors a chance and I got burned by it.) I truly, truly despise everything about Primaris Marines.

 

I know that'll never happen, so I suppose at the very least I could tolerate them if they were spun into their own faction and separate codex. Mirror the Schism of the East and West Roman empire by building upon the Cicatrix Maledictum. Just as things are starting to look up at the tail end of the Indomitus Crusade, Cawl unleashes his own Order 66 to all of the Primaris, and they're revealed as the shoddy, worthless things they are. Cawl cackles and take his band of traitors to the Dark Imperium, and we get to explore a new civil war, in which Cawl and his Primaris lackeys are completely exterminated.

 

Then they get their own codex which can get as much attention as SoB, and hopefully slowly die off.

[Boldthreat]

Honestly I'd prefer the just squat the whole range out of existence. Their lore is irredeemable, the rules are a travesty and the model kits I've played around with so far are sub-par. (I literally just decided to give Inceptors a chance and I got burned by it.) I truly, truly despise everything about Primaris Marines.

 

I know that'll never happen, so I suppose at the very least I could tolerate them if they were spun into their own faction and separate codex. Mirror the Schism of the East and West Roman empire by building upon the Cicatrix Maledictum. Just as things are starting to look up at the tail end of the Indomitus Crusade, Cawl unleashes his own Order 66 to all of the Primaris, and they're revealed as the shoddy, worthless things they are. Cawl cackles and take his band of traitors to the Dark Imperium, and we get to explore a new civil war, in which Cawl and his Primaris lackeys are completely exterminated.

 

Then they get their own codex which can get as much attention as SoB, and hopefully slowly die off.

 

I get your frustration.  I just do not see it going that way.  We already have a faction of marines that had a civil war and an imperium divided.  We do not need another type of Space Marine.  We do not need another type of Chaos Space Marine.  Now that the Space Marines are going through and evolution, GW can now truly divorce Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines via the lore and in game stat.  Now Space Marines are their own thing, invigorated by the technology of the Mechanicum and the return of Guilliman... and the forces of Chaos are an ancient breed of warrior from the nightmares of the past.  Instead of being the good/bad versions of the same line, we can see them both fully realized into their own truly unique factions, again, not just in lore now, but in game as well.

 

I do not want to see Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists play the same with the same rules.  Hopefully with a proper Primarised Imperial Fists army and whatever happens to Chaos Marines in the Future (hopefully they all get the amazing treatment the Death Guard got), we can have two factions that actually play different... truly different.

 

I get that the introduction seemed force.  I can see that.  Why would they not have released the warriors during the War of the Beast... or before the 13th Black Crusade.  But this is 40k... maybe they did?!?  Maybe they were always there operating in the past or in secret wars.  The setting actively allows for conspiracies and half truths.  The setting is ripe to be rewritten or shown to be up when its actually down.  Its not that the idea of Primaris is bad, it was just really forced.  The solution is not to backpedal.  Its to fully realize the evolution and move forward with that product as the new normal for Imperial Space Marines.  It will fall into place and slowly we can come to the understanding that they are still the Space Marines we all love.  

 

This is all my opinion however, and I truly understand your position and feeling of this new direction.  But heck I am an old timer now.  I think Centurions are stupid.  I think Storm Ravens are stupid.  Why the heck is my genetically engineered super soldier infantry man flying a star fighter?  Cataphractii Terminators are cool sure, but are you telling me people think they look better than Indomitus?  Bull-hockey!  Indomitus Terminators are the coolest looking thing on the planet.  Mark 7 armor will always be cooler than Mark 4 or 10... period.  I get that.  That new Ultramarine guy... Felix  McNobody... he will never, ever be Marneus Augustus Calgar... but its time to move on.  Space Marines die.  Technology evolves.  Embrace it.  Honor the past, but buckle up for the future.  I think we will end up enjoying the ride.

[Bryan Blaire]

My reading of "Why didn't we see Primaris released earlier in the universe time-line?" amounts to "Because Cawl understood Guilliman as telling him not to reveal the Primaris until they were 'finished' and Guilliman told him to reveal them." With Guilliman wounded and in stasis, he never had the chance to specifically give Cawl the "reveal them" instruction, so Cawl, apparently being the literal direction following guy he is, just kept working on them and their armaments--either trying to perfect all of it or simply manufacturing more of it all, including the Primaris--until Guilliman finally woke up.

 

My personal hope is that we find out that the Primaris are just as susceptible to Chaos, but more like the Primarchs, it has to be a more personal acceptance of Chaos to fall, rather than simply ending up falling due to circumstances like the Crimson Sabers did to become the Crimson Slaughter. I also hope that we find out that they definitely have their Primarchs' gene-seed flaws (if present) and inclinations, but magnified in the way that the Primarchs' seem to be when they do come out (after all, they are a partial way between a standard Marine and a Primarch already).

[Guest]

I will inject some real life idea with fluff. Cawl didn't release them because the Primaris aren't ready. We already know Cawl is tampering with other geneseed, even though RG said no. He obviously is still working on the Primaris. Additionally he is still working on their armaments, hence the lack of diversity. When RG left Cawl had his support and funding cut off making progress slow down significantly. Real life shows this as we do currently lack diversity and as cawl "finishes the Primaris project" we will get new Primaris kits.

[Jackalwolf]

I will inject some real life idea with fluff. Cawl didn't release them because the Primaris aren't ready. We already know Cawl is tampering with other geneseed, even though RG said no. He obviously is still working on the Primaris. Additionally he is still working on their armaments, hence the lack of diversity. When RG left Cawl had his support and funding cut off making progress slow down significantly. Real life shows this as we do currently lack diversity and as cawl "finishes the Primaris project" we will get new Primaris kits.

Now that would make for an amazing act 2 as some others have suggested, specially if you tie it in with their flaws appearing in said act due to them not being ready.

[Boldthreat]

Something else I'm thinking on. Greater Ultramar has been reborn and is defended by no less than 10 space marine chapters. Of these 10 chapters, only two have traditional astartes forces: the Ultramarines and the Sythes of the Emperor. The Scythes had to be completely rebuilt with Primaris marines. The rest of the Chapters are completely new, Primaris only chapters.

 

As of the end of the Plague Wars, 90+ percent of the 10,000 marines of Greater Ultramar are Primaris. That is not an even split... Primaris are the future, at least they sure are in Ultramar.

 

Its fluff like this that really make me question the thought that Primaris aren't the future of loyalist Space Marines moving forward. This really feels like an evolution of this faction, not something meant to run in tandem with legacy marines. At least lore wise.

[Panzer]

Something else I'm thinking on. Greater Ultramar has been reborn and is defended by no less than 10 space marine chapters. Of these 10 chapters, only two have traditional astartes forces: the Ultramarines and the Sythes of the Emperor. The Scythes had to be completely rebuilt with Primaris marines. The rest of the Chapters are completely new, Primaris only chapters.

 

As of the end of the Plague Wars, 90+ percent of the 10,000 marines of Greater Ultramar are Primaris. That is not an even split... Primaris are the future, at least they sure are in Ultramar.

 

Its fluff like this that really make me question the thought that Primaris aren't the future of loyalist Space Marines moving forward. This really feels like an evolution of this faction, not something meant to run in tandem with legacy marines. At least lore wise.

 

Pretty similar to the sate of the Blood Angels. They and their successor got almost wiped during the Devastation of Baal so now most of the BA and successor chapters include big amounts of Primaris. Not to mention the Primaris only chapters. However since they needed to quickly re-build their strength since they're more or less alone on their side of the great rift they don't just create Primaris but also huge amounts of regular Marines (twice the amounts of machines = twice as many Marines in the same amount of time) so there will be a mix of both for quite a while.

[Ishagu]

Honestly I'd prefer the just squat the whole range out of existence. Their lore is irredeemable, the rules are a travesty and the model kits I've played around with so far are sub-par. (I literally just decided to give Inceptors a chance and I got burned by it.) I truly, truly despise everything about Primaris Marines.

 

I know that'll never happen, so I suppose at the very least I could tolerate them if they were spun into their own faction and separate codex. Mirror the Schism of the East and West Roman empire by building upon the Cicatrix Maledictum. Just as things are starting to look up at the tail end of the Indomitus Crusade, Cawl unleashes his own Order 66 to all of the Primaris, and they're revealed as the shoddy, worthless things they are. Cawl cackles and take his band of traitors to the Dark Imperium, and we get to explore a new civil war, in which Cawl and his Primaris lackeys are completely exterminated.

 

Then they get their own codex which can get as much attention as SoB, and hopefully slowly die off.

This kind of negativity and vitriol is very tiresome. I can't take your opinion seriously and you adds nothing to the discussion.

 

As for the Primaris having to be established, 200 years in the Imperium is basically no time at all. Heck, if takes longer just to traverse it!

[D3L]

Honestly I'd prefer the just squat the whole range out of existence. Their lore is irredeemable, the rules are a travesty and the model kits I've played around with so far are sub-par. (I literally just decided to give Inceptors a chance and I got burned by it.) I truly, truly despise everything about Primaris Marines.

 

I know that'll never happen, so I suppose at the very least I could tolerate them if they were spun into their own faction and separate codex. Mirror the Schism of the East and West Roman empire by building upon the Cicatrix Maledictum. Just as things are starting to look up at the tail end of the Indomitus Crusade, Cawl unleashes his own Order 66 to all of the Primaris, and they're revealed as the shoddy, worthless things they are. Cawl cackles and take his band of traitors to the Dark Imperium, and we get to explore a new civil war, in which Cawl and his Primaris lackeys are completely exterminated.

 

Then they get their own codex which can get as much attention as SoB, and hopefully slowly die off.

I agree, 

 

I also believe they will be split off into their own oversized power armour faction, a take it or leave it approach, while at the same time being enticing to new hobbyists because of their high points cost, low physical cost (like non FW custodes)

[Kallas]

This kind of negativity and vitriol is very tiresome. I can't take your opinion seriously and you adds nothing to the discussion.

The opposite stance, that Primaris are great and just dandy, is also extremely tiring and adds nothing.

 

While his opinion is extreme, it's not uncommon (well, the general thrust of it, maybe not the Squatting part). Primaris are a very devisive topic - and relentless optimism (as you have displayed quite often) is just as grating to some of us as Endova's is to you.

[Jackalwolf]

I personally was taking a lot from the thread with great points of view I hadn't considered in both camps.

 

If we can keep it civil and positive (not as in like they're awesome but as in like if you don't like them which lore advances would make you feel better), that would be ideal.