Is there any special provenance on geneseed?

[Trevak Dal]

So like, if say somebody got their geneseed from Sigismund, and on through the centuries would they keep track of Brother Tommen, who has geneseed that decends from the first Chapter Master of the Black Templars?

 

Or is it all pretty much seen as equally important?

 

I ask because of a couple of Black Library books (the ADB night lord one where the Red Corsair apothecary wanted to put the main character's geneseed into the astropath's kid, and the pulping of the sorcerer's geneseed)

[MARK0SIAN]

There is a short story from BL (I can’t remember the title of it) where a chaos guy is forced to continually track down and kill the gene seed descendant of his original Heresy foe (who I think is an Imperial Fist). The story implies that they keep track of the lineage of the gene seed.

 

Sorry my recollection is a bit rubbish though and doesn’t really help you much without the title.

[Trevak Dal]

Yeah I remember that too, it was cool

[MajorNese]

As far as I've read, there has not been a single instance of in-universe tracing the geneseed of a famous hero just because it was a famous hero. The Night Lord one is based on a unique geneseed deviation, which could prove more useful than the usual (to not spoil too much) and hasn't occurred in this form yet. One example from the Horus Heresy comes to mind that gives the reader a nod to a 40k protagonist, though no one in-universe knows.

 

Otherwise geneseed was destroyed if deemed corrupt (or out of hatred for the originator, to destroy their heritage), or treated with suspicion if originating from other primarchs/legions/chapters. One instance of chaos tracking down a single line of geneseed seems more like something chaos does just because it's chaos - it only follows its own rules.

[Leonaides]

Every blood angel has to memorise the lineage of his geneseed. Rafen recognised the hh apothecary who his geneseed had come from iirc.

And yes, almost certainly every geneline will be known. Its too important not to know that sort of thing really.

[The Unseen]

They probably do, it just isn't mentioned much.

EVERY geneseed line left in the 41st millenium is home to a great hero, they're a dime a dozen at this point when you have 10,000 years of constant warfare between the children of demi-gods.

And calling out specific characters being the gene scion of an ancient hero is one cliche GW hasn't fallen on yet, thankfully. The current heroes don't need the explanation to why they're so bad ass to be their great great great great great great sorta dad was awesome, it's super lazy and dumb.

 

The chaos example is actually one of my favorite shorts, especially considering it's got chaos protags.

And in that, the chaos lord swore on oath on his imperial fist once bestie to hunt down his descendents for all time after the fist insulted him and horus. And it isn't like he pours over rigourusly maintained gene records to figure it out in that story, he's led to each new member of the gene line by a sort of chaos inspired instinct.

 

*SPOILERS* (After hunting down and slaying fists who remind him of his once brother in arms for a subjective eternity, the Lord is tired of it, but is stuck with his oath to the gods, on pain of *heavily implied* spawndom. They won't let him as their plaything die honorably either)

[Elzender]

The thing is that, if I recall correctly, geneseed is not a 1:1 thing, as in, the geneseed of a single marine can generate more than 1 set of space marine organs to implant. Otherwise, it would be impossible to have a reserve stock and send a tithe to the Geneseed vaults on Terra. So, it may be that by now, over a hundred black templars have geneseed derived from Sigismund, but it has been dilluted with each "generation".

[War Angel]

I believe that short was in the novel “hero’s of the space marines” honestly more shorts about chaos than the marines... quite a misleading title.

[Bryan Blaire]

Rather than explaining why a given Marine is bad ass, I could see knowledge of a gene-seed lineage being used to extol additional effort or provide additional import to any given Marine's actions - more of a "don't dishonor your Marine ancestors" sort of thing.

 

"Marine John, you are of the line of Johns, and your forebearers are clearly unhappy with your performance..." - etc.

[Kinstryfe]

I think that, given 10,000 years is long enough for all sorts of things to have been forgotten, it's unlikely that these sorts of records are accurate if they even exist. With as superstitious as Astartes tend to be, I can honestly see a lot of this kind of thing coming up as bragging or as a sort of reverse logic kind of thing. Brother Dave singlehandedly cut down a Hive Tyrant with his chainsword. Brother Dave is obviously a great hero and bears the essence of Brother Kickbutticus in his lineage. Brother Steve fell off a Land Raider while washing it and got crushed to death by a passing Rhino. Brother Steve obviously had inferior geneseed.

[Panzer]

I think that, given 10,000 years is long enough for all sorts of things to have been forgotten, it's unlikely that these sorts of records are accurate if they even exist. With as superstitious as Astartes tend to be, I can honestly see a lot of this kind of thing coming up as bragging or as a sort of reverse logic kind of thing. Brother Dave singlehandedly cut down a Hive Tyrant with his chainsword. Brother Dave is obviously a great hero and bears the essence of Brother Kickbutticus in his lineage. Brother Steve fell off a Land Raider while washing it and got crushed to death by a passing Rhino. Brother Steve obviously had inferior geneseed.

 

Well it's literally the Librarians job to record and build a huge archive of everything that happens with the chapter and its marines. That would include deeds for each gene-seed line. So unless something happened to the archive or they repeatedly lose whole companies in battle so there are no witnesses to give report it's not very unlikely at all.

[MajorNese]

 

I think that, given 10,000 years is long enough for all sorts of things to have been forgotten, it's unlikely that these sorts of records are accurate if they even exist. With as superstitious as Astartes tend to be, I can honestly see a lot of this kind of thing coming up as bragging or as a sort of reverse logic kind of thing. Brother Dave singlehandedly cut down a Hive Tyrant with his chainsword. Brother Dave is obviously a great hero and bears the essence of Brother Kickbutticus in his lineage. Brother Steve fell off a Land Raider while washing it and got crushed to death by a passing Rhino. Brother Steve obviously had inferior geneseed.

 

Well it's literally the Librarians job to record and build a huge archive of everything that happens with the chapter and its marines. That would include deeds for each gene-seed line. So unless something happened to the archive or they repeatedly lose whole companies in battle so there are no witnesses to give report it's not very unlikely at all.

One of the central themes of 40k is how much knowledge is lost. Entire foundings with dozens of chapters are simply wiped from memory, and each time the homeworld of a chapter is destroyed, all records are lost too. Given how much variation there is between individual chapters, there should be both extremes - those who keep track of every bit of their chapter's history and lineage, and those who don't even know from which primarch they descend, when they were founded or where.

[Panzer]

 

 

I think that, given 10,000 years is long enough for all sorts of things to have been forgotten, it's unlikely that these sorts of records are accurate if they even exist. With as superstitious as Astartes tend to be, I can honestly see a lot of this kind of thing coming up as bragging or as a sort of reverse logic kind of thing. Brother Dave singlehandedly cut down a Hive Tyrant with his chainsword. Brother Dave is obviously a great hero and bears the essence of Brother Kickbutticus in his lineage. Brother Steve fell off a Land Raider while washing it and got crushed to death by a passing Rhino. Brother Steve obviously had inferior geneseed.

 

Well it's literally the Librarians job to record and build a huge archive of everything that happens with the chapter and its marines. That would include deeds for each gene-seed line. So unless something happened to the archive or they repeatedly lose whole companies in battle so there are no witnesses to give report it's not very unlikely at all.

One of the central themes of 40k is how much knowledge is lost. Entire foundings with dozens of chapters are simply wiped from memory, and each time the homeworld of a chapter is destroyed, all records are lost too. Given how much variation there is between individual chapters, there should be both extremes - those who keep track of every bit of their chapter's history and lineage, and those who don't even know from which primarch they descend, when they were founded or where.

 

Another central theme is how much Space Marines value tradition and honouring ancestors. Imo we can have both. We can have the lost knowledge about technology etc while still keeping the records of deeds of individual Space Marines for the chapters that are still around.

[MajorNese]

 

 

 

Well it's literally the Librarians job to record and build a huge archive of everything that happens with the chapter and its marines. That would include deeds for each gene-seed line. So unless something happened to the archive or they repeatedly lose whole companies in battle so there are no witnesses to give report it's not very unlikely at all.

One of the central themes of 40k is how much knowledge is lost. Entire foundings with dozens of chapters are simply wiped from memory, and each time the homeworld of a chapter is destroyed, all records are lost too. Given how much variation there is between individual chapters, there should be both extremes - those who keep track of every bit of their chapter's history and lineage, and those who don't even know from which primarch they descend, when they were founded or where.

 

Another central theme is how much Space Marines value tradition and honouring ancestors. Imo we can have both. We can have the lost knowledge about technology etc while still keeping the records of deeds of individual Space Marines for the chapters that are still around.

I agree, they value it. Meaning if circumstances allow, they will track everything. But if circumstances turn against them - destruction of the homeworld/fortress monastery/deliberate sabotage, these things do get irrevocably lost. To name a few examples in different directions:

 

The Raptors' homeworld was destroyed during a black crusade - the chapter survived and settled down elsewhere, and still know the important parts of their history, but any part/relic not stored in the surviving fleet/marines got lost in the process.

Then there's the Blood Ravens - their past is (officially) unclear to them, and any time it surfaces, it is either kept secret or outright destroyed.

And for the Astral Knights, the chapter was destroyed but not their homeworld, so the records entirely survived.

I'm not sure about Dark Angels, didn't they deliberately destroy records of their foundings as cover-up? It has been a while since I read about them.

 

As with so much in the 40k universe, it is entirely up to the chapter/writer how detailed it is. The chapter will probably try to remember every bit (unless they have reason not to), but if that record survives is still up to debate.

 

 

[...] With as superstitious as Astartes tend to be, I can honestly see a lot of this kind of thing coming up as bragging or as a sort of reverse logic kind of thing. Brother Dave singlehandedly cut down a Hive Tyrant with his chainsword. Brother Dave is obviously a great hero and bears the essence of Brother Kickbutticus in his lineage. Brother Steve fell off a Land Raider while washing it and got crushed to death by a passing Rhino. Brother Steve obviously had inferior geneseed.

Of this, I have never read a single mention. Chapters are proud of their traditions and lineage, I don't think anyone would ever call their geneseed "inferior". "Inferior" does not exist in 40k Astartes vocabulary - they are all the greatest heroes that ever lived, to insult some examples of geneseed would be to insult the chapter, lineage and ancestors. Even more grave when insulting a brother this way, or even staining the memory of brother Steve who slipped off that Land Raider. There are flaws in the geneseed that makes it deviate from the norm, but that is usually per chapter, not per marine.

 

Otherwise, regularly mentioned and tracked lineage was that of the aspirants. Sons of great nobles or knights, division by knightly/noble houses causing friction, or a different mentality between marines from highborn or lowborn background.

[Bryan Blaire]

Keeping a history doesn't require 10,000 years of records. Sure, they may only have 1,000 years of records (or more or less), that doesn't mean that the Marines wouldn't place some value on having it.

[Arkangilos]

They also would have oral traditions and such. It doesn’t even have to be, “from Kaligis the great, Hero of Zaphron.” It could be as simple as, “from the line of Angelos, of which there were many great heroes like Kaligis the great.”

 

Then there is the whole (may not actually be from the line of Angelos but for the sake of morale we will say it).