Space Wolf Geneseed and Trefoil Legion Theories

[Spinsanity]

On the topic of the sons of Russ, the Space Wolves are no longer the only ones! That’s right, the genius of Belisarius Cawl has seen the creation of a number of successor Chapters who bear the gene-seed of Leman Russ. We’re pretty sure we even saw an appearance by the Wolfspear in the new codex expansion… So, for the first time, there are also guidelines for fielding Space Wolves successors in battle.

By far my fvorite reveal from that article, hopefully we get to see more than just the Spears...

[Bulwyf]

 

On the topic of the sons of Russ, the Space Wolves are no longer the only ones! That’s right, the genius of Belisarius Cawl has seen the creation of a number of successor Chapters who bear the gene-seed of Leman Russ. We’re pretty sure we even saw an appearance by the Wolfspear in the new codex expansion… So, for the first time, there are also guidelines for fielding Space Wolves successors in battle.

By far my fvorite reveal from that article, hopefully we get to see more than just the Spears...

 

 

There's nothing Do It All Cawl can't fix. Have a staple feature of your beloved Chapter's lore for around thirty years or so? Have no fear! Do It All Cawl can change it to make you the same as every other vanilla chapter. 

[StrangerOrders]

 

 

On the topic of the sons of Russ, the Space Wolves are no longer the only ones! That’s right, the genius of Belisarius Cawl has seen the creation of a number of successor Chapters who bear the gene-seed of Leman Russ. We’re pretty sure we even saw an appearance by the Wolfspear in the new codex expansion… So, for the first time, there are also guidelines for fielding Space Wolves successors in battle.

By far my fvorite reveal from that article, hopefully we get to see more than just the Spears...

 

 

There's nothing Do It All Cawl can't fix. Have a staple feature of your beloved Chapter's lore for around thirty years or so? Have no fear! Do It All Cawl can change it to make you the same as every other vanilla chapter. 

 

Erm.... That is actually not true and hasnt been true for a while.

 

There has been alot of lore built up around the hows and whys of why the Wolves couldnt have Successors and Cawl's most basic traits are literally hard fixes.

 

1. He ate Sedayne, or reverse-ate, so he has working knowledge of the Legion's creation. The VIth did exist before Fenris you know, they were a very small Legion with an atrocious implantation rate, but that is not innately a problem. More crucially, the Emp actively forbade any knowledge as to their exact quirks (he did the same to the Sallies, another chapter which until recently lacked successors), same with the Alpha Legion but we dont know anything more there. Point is that Cawl's basic concept makes him more or less the only surviving person that can actually help the Wolves out the gate.

 

2. His gene-stock is of an old vintage. This is not some weird hand-waving thing, its been a thing since 2012 that the biggest problem with Gene-Seed which Primarchs exist to fix is rapid degradation across generations. Cawl was given large stores of fresh stock which have shockingly enough not spent 10k rapidly filtering between generations with increasingly shoddy care. Its not so badly degraded that you will have Wulfen popping out at the first sneeze if change something.

 

3. Why Magnus did not do what he did the last time the Wolves tackled the problem is also explained, Cawl took so many measures to avoid Chaos's attention that Primaris initially had huge Daemon-related issues because he avoided even telling them what chaos was (a Firstborn theorizes Cawl was paranoid enough to even fear it getting out through dreams).

 

4. Cawl's main shtick is gene-editing, if anyone can spread the proper gene makeup around it is him. Why this wasnt done in 30k is fairly well-established in Inferno, the Emp had literally zero desire to given that he more or less built Fenris from scratch to facilitate a Legion and actually imported populations rather than the reverse.

 

5. The Wolves lost literally most of their gene-stocks in the Heresy, not out of some accident but raw attrition in mostly space battles and Prospero, the sort of places where gene-seed recovery wasnt an option. They were so wrecked that they were bailed out by the Ravenguard. Under the current paradigm the Wolf Brothers would have been harebrained even if they didnt have one of the iffiest gene-lines. The Lukas novel even mentions that the culture around Blood Claws actually leads to unusually bad attrition which, coupled with how bad an idea short generations are, sort of put them at a real risk of dying out. This was a big plot point in that novel actually.

 

So while I do understand your concerns and they do have thirty years of lore total (if you really squint and count the stuff no one really even acknowledges anymore) but you also cannot ignore a decade of subtle buildup.

Edited October 28, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Closet Skeleton]

 

2. His gene-stock is of an old vintage. This is not some weird hand-waving thing, its been a thing since 2012 that the biggest problem with Gene-Seed which Primarchs exist to fix is rapid degradation across generations. Cawl was given large stores of fresh stock which have shockingly enough not spent 10k rapidly filtering between generations with increasingly shoddy care. Its not so badly degraded that you will have Wulfen popping out at the first sneeze if change something.

 

There's been hundreds of generations since Primarchs have been a thing. Primarchs weren't created for the legions at all, they vanished in the warp before space marines were finished and the link between them is due to a 'failed' project being re-used not a synchronised plan.

 

Of course there are hints in the novels that the Emperor had super awesome 100% super foresight or whatever but that's all pretty open to interpretation.

 

 

 

 

It also allows successors without "wolf wolf" "ice ice" themes - which is nice; from other animals to completely unusual successors, that represent different world building

Dollars to donuts one of the successors ia called the Ice Wolves

 

Or you just get Frost Coyotes and Sleet Jackals.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Closet Skeleton

[klisof]

 

On the topic of the sons of Russ, the Space Wolves are no longer the only ones! That’s right, the genius of Belisarius Cawl has seen the creation of a number of successor Chapters who bear the gene-seed of Leman Russ. We’re pretty sure we even saw an appearance by the Wolfspear in the new codex expansion… So, for the first time, there are also guidelines for fielding Space Wolves successors in battle.

By far my fvorite reveal from that article, hopefully we get to see more than just the Spears...

In Dawn of fire Guilliman says Cawl created equal numbers of primaris from each strain of gene seed, so both the wolves and salamanders will be getting successors.

 

Guilliman also says the time of ultramarine dominance is over as well (presumably because off the big increase in non-UM successors) - we will have to see if GW follows through on that

[jaxom]

The lore supports many reasons why one could have a SW successor chapter at this point. However, I think the really important part is it normalizes people who want to use a SW successor chapter. Even if there is a bad reason given for something, if it expands people's ability to engage with the hobby, then I'm generally for it.

[Ragnar69]

A Wolf Priest nearly fixed the geneseed if Magnus hadn't interfered. So why shouldn't Cawl be able to do it with fresh geneseed not diluted by generations of replication? I'm not the biggest fan of Cawl and Primaris fluff, but in this instance I have nothing to complain.

[StrangerOrders]

 

 

2. His gene-stock is of an old vintage. This is not some weird hand-waving thing, its been a thing since 2012 that the biggest problem with Gene-Seed which Primarchs exist to fix is rapid degradation across generations. Cawl was given large stores of fresh stock which have shockingly enough not spent 10k rapidly filtering between generations with increasingly shoddy care. Its not so badly degraded that you will have Wulfen popping out at the first sneeze if change something.

 

There's been hundreds of generations since Primarchs have been a thing. Primarchs weren't created for the legions at all, they vanished in the warp before space marines were finished and the link between them is due to a 'failed' project being re-used not a synchronised plan.

 

Of course there are hints in the novels that the Emperor had super awesome 100% super foresight or whatever but that's all pretty open to interpretation.

 

I hate to 'well actually' but there is a well-actually here.

 

Betrayal, the first Black Book from 2012 which gives us the history of the Crusade actually noted that there was a very real concern early on that the Astartes would go extinct very quickly. Simply put the initial casualties of the Great Crusade were so bad that the degeneration I mentioned above was going at an exponential rate and the stocks were rapidly reaching 40k levels of 'questionable'. The Emp's research cadres had a council on the subject and basically patched it by introducing ways of popping out marines faster (down to one year, Pert would later figure out how to do it in even less) to try and offset the problem.

 

Then it was 'discovered' that the introduction of Primarch genetic tissue could actually more or less erase the corruption in geneseed and stabilize cloning to a remarkable degree, as well as being usable to synthesize entirely new stocks. Funny coincidence.

 

Chapters are much more conservative than Legions, although the Blood Claw model is still fairly iffy. But over 10k years even the most conservative losses are stll going to see serious degradation without access to the proverbial master-copy. Cawl's meanwhile is still very close to the Primarchs.

 

The Valdor novel reveals that this is actually why geneseed makes Astartes better than Thunder Warriors. Geneseed is basically a template for which a Primarch is the keystone or 'master copy', essentially allowing you to readily cross-reference and delete mutation along relatively predictable angles. Basically think 'mold stamping' as opposed to a cottage industry, a big problem with the TWs was simply that there was not 'a' problem to fix, what might fix one might make another go Akira while others would topple over dead on day one or never manifest any issues at all for 4 centuries. With an Astartes blood line, you typically had the same issues with the same fixes with relatively few unique problems on the individual level. 

 

Which is why Astarte, the Emp chief-scientist, went insane and tried to destroy the first space marines when the Emp pushed forward with the project despite the keystones being 'destroyed'. Her sanity was already really fragile from the... erm, 'questionable' things she was forced to do during the Unity and the Emp basically sold her on the idea that after the Thunder Warriors she would be done making monsters that were killed by their own bodies falling apart. She (and tbf, literally everyone else including Malc and Valdor) thought the Emp was delusional for thinking the Primarchs were still alive and did not want to be party to 'Thunder Warriors 2: Electric Boogaloo' (it did not help that some were really unnerved that he started calling them 'sons').

 

Great book btw, and deeply ironic. Given that between the BBs and Valdor, the Administratum's attitude towards Chapter Creation is sort of a glorious treatise on 'this is literally the opposite of how you keep a geneline healthy'.

Edited October 28, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

A Wolf Priest nearly fixed the geneseed if Magnus hadn't interfered. So why shouldn't Cawl be able to do it with fresh geneseed not diluted by generations of replication? I'm not the biggest fan of Cawl and Primaris fluff, but in this instance I have nothing to complain.

True, however that was to remove the Curse of the wulfen which it has been specifically stated Cawl did not do. So I don't know that that precedent really applies.

[StrangerOrders]

 

A Wolf Priest nearly fixed the geneseed if Magnus hadn't interfered. So why shouldn't Cawl be able to do it with fresh geneseed not diluted by generations of replication? I'm not the biggest fan of Cawl and Primaris fluff, but in this instance I have nothing to complain.

True, however that was to remove the Curse of the wulfen which it has been specifically stated Cawl did not do. So I don't know that that precedent really applies.

 

Avenging Son actually addresses this, as do the BBs and Valdor.

 

Alot of the gene 'flaws' were baked in features into the gene-seed. Cawl likes to tinker with the platform but he is fairly obsessive even in his own book about the exact virtues of each Legion, implied to be part of the reason why Primaris from the first batch tend to be very legion-centric. He had no interest in ironing out what he perceived to be the strengths of each bloodline. Guilliman theorized that the big problem Cawl 'solved' was that degradation had made alot of the bigger quirks sort of spin out of control.

 

So he did not even really try to fix the Wulfen or the Red Thirst, he just brought them back to their 30k levels. Wulfen were a problem back then but only a minor one.

 

The Black Rage is psychic so I think Cawl just shrugged on that one.

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

 

 

On the topic of the sons of Russ, the Space Wolves are no longer the only ones! That’s right, the genius of Belisarius Cawl has seen the creation of a number of successor Chapters who bear the gene-seed of Leman Russ. We’re pretty sure we even saw an appearance by the Wolfspear in the new codex expansion… So, for the first time, there are also guidelines for fielding Space Wolves successors in battle.

By far my fvorite reveal from that article, hopefully we get to see more than just the Spears...

 

 

There's nothing Do It All Cawl can't fix. Have a staple feature of your beloved Chapter's lore for around thirty years or so? Have no fear! Do It All Cawl can change it to make you the same as every other vanilla chapter. 

 

 

And that is my biggest issue with NewHammer. Cawl can fix this. Cawl can create that. Cawl can make dead planets alive again. Cawl can snap his fingers and the xenos die. When will Cawl snap his fingers and the Emperor will walk again? 

 

Cawl is somehow magically is adept in every field he puts his hands to (I know, this is addressed in the BRIEFEST) in that the O.G Cawl before he absorbed Sedayne/vise versa tampered in multiple fields despite it being strictly forbidden, even in the "enlightened" era of the Mechanicum. 

 

Cawl is able to make better plasma weaponry. Ensure that 500,000 new astartes are given ample enough suits, ample enough ammunition. The most egregious offense is that all of these new chapters, and all the existing ones suddenly have access to thousands of new vehicles powered by grav tech. You know, the technology that was poorly misunderstood in the time that the Emperor walked, as well as great thinkers and weapon smiths like Perturabo, Ferrus, Vulkan? 

 

I despise NewHammer so very much. I loathe the primaris to their very foundations. However Cawl makes my goddamn blood boil with his damn-perfection and ability to do everything excellently. 

 

 

 

 

On the topic of the sons of Russ, the Space Wolves are no longer the only ones! That’s right, the genius of Belisarius Cawl has seen the creation of a number of successor Chapters who bear the gene-seed of Leman Russ. We’re pretty sure we even saw an appearance by the Wolfspear in the new codex expansion… So, for the first time, there are also guidelines for fielding Space Wolves successors in battle.

By far my fvorite reveal from that article, hopefully we get to see more than just the Spears...

 

 

There's nothing Do It All Cawl can't fix. Have a staple feature of your beloved Chapter's lore for around thirty years or so? Have no fear! Do It All Cawl can change it to make you the same as every other vanilla chapter. 

 

Erm.... That is actually not true and hasnt been true for a while.

 

There has been alot of lore built up around the hows and whys of why the Wolves couldnt have Successors and Cawl's most basic traits are literally hard fixes.

 

1. He ate Sedayne, or reverse-ate, so he has working knowledge of the Legion's creation. The VIth did exist before Fenris you know, they were a very small Legion with an atrocious implantation rate, but that is not innately a problem. More crucially, the Emp actively forbade any knowledge as to their exact quirks (he did the same to the Sallies, another chapter which until recently lacked successors), same with the Alpha Legion but we dont know anything more there. Point is that Cawl's basic concept makes him more or less the only surviving person that can actually help the Wolves out the gate.

 

2. His gene-stock is of an old vintage. This is not some weird hand-waving thing, its been a thing since 2012 that the biggest problem with Gene-Seed which Primarchs exist to fix is rapid degradation across generations. Cawl was given large stores of fresh stock which have shockingly enough not spent 10k rapidly filtering between generations with increasingly shoddy care. Its not so badly degraded that you will have Wulfen popping out at the first sneeze if change something.

 

3. Why Magnus did not do what he did the last time the Wolves tackled the problem is also explained, Cawl took so many measures to avoid Chaos's attention that Primaris initially had huge Daemon-related issues because he avoided even telling them what chaos was (a Firstborn theorizes Cawl was paranoid enough to even fear it getting out through dreams).

 

4. Cawl's main shtick is gene-editing, if anyone can spread the proper gene makeup around it is him. Why this wasnt done in 30k is fairly well-established in Inferno, the Emp had literally zero desire to given that he more or less built Fenris from scratch to facilitate a Legion and actually imported populations rather than the reverse.

 

5. The Wolves lost literally most of their gene-stocks in the Heresy, not out of some accident but raw attrition in mostly space battles and Prospero, the sort of places where gene-seed recovery wasnt an option. They were so wrecked that they were bailed out by the Ravenguard. Under the current paradigm the Wolf Brothers would have been harebrained even if they didnt have one of the iffiest gene-lines. The Lukas novel even mentions that the culture around Blood Claws actually leads to unusually bad attrition which, coupled with how bad an idea short generations are, sort of put them at a real risk of dying out. This was a big plot point in that novel actually.

 

So while I do understand your concerns and they do have thirty years of lore total (if you really squint and count the stuff no one really even acknowledges anymore) but you also cannot ignore a decade of subtle buildup.

 

Solid points, old vintage is a nice way of putting it.

 

 

It also allows successors without "wolf wolf" "ice ice" themes - which is nice; from other animals to completely unusual successors, that represent different world building

Dollars to donuts one of the successors ia called the Ice Wolves

 

 

Why the hell can't they just... oh man. I have to go make a diagram about this.

 

How I want the Vlka Fenryka to be: 

 

How they're portrayed in 40k:

 

 

Wolf Lord driving a wolf Chariot, next to his Wolf-Priest, commanding his Wulfen. Enough already!

 

[jaxom]

Betrayal, the first Black Book from 2012 which gives us the history of the Crusade actually noted that there was a very real concern early on that the Astartes would go extinct very quickly. Simply put the initial casualties of the Great Crusade were so bad that the degeneration I mentioned above was going at an exponential rate and the stocks were rapidly reaching 40k levels of 'questionable'. The Emp's research cadres had a council on the subject and basically patched it by introducing ways of popping out marines faster (down to one year, Pert would later figure out how to do it in even less) to try and offset the problem.

 

 

Then it was 'discovered' that the introduction of Primarch genetic tissue could actually more or less erase the corruption in geneseed and stabilize cloning to a remarkable degree, as well as being usable to synthesize entirely new stocks. Funny coincidence.

 

Chapters are much more conservative than Legions, although the Blood Claw model is still fairly iffy. But over 10k years even the most conservative losses are stll going to see serious degradation without access to the proverbial master-copy. Cawl's meanwhile is still very close to the Primarchs.

 

The Valdor novel reveals that this is actually why geneseed makes Astartes better than Thunder Warriors. Geneseed is basically a template for which a Primarch is the keystone or 'master copy', essentially allowing you to readily cross-reference and delete mutation along relatively predictable angles. Basically think 'mold stamping' as opposed to a cottage industry, a big problem with the TWs was simply that there was not 'a' problem to fix, what might fix one might make another go Akira while others would topple over dead on day one or never manifest any issues at all for 4 centuries. With an Astartes blood line, you typically had the same issues with the same fixes with relatively few unique problems on the individual level. 

 

You've reversed the cause-and-effect. Astartes loses spurred the implementation of accelerated gene-seed replication and implantation which led to the swifter degradation of the gene-seed. Primarch DNA stabilized that accelerated method. The accelerated method is what Guilliman put the kabosh on after the Heresy.

 

For those with little biology background: Primarchs are bespoke genetic creations, they have unique DNA (blue print for building the body - when DNA is being used to create something we say the DNA is being expressed). Parts of their DNA were isolated to grow organs (like taking a blue print, copying one specific room, and just building that room) which could be implanted into normal humans (smashing open a house's wall, inserting that room, and patching up the wall). Those isolated bits of DNA are the foundation of gene-seed. Normally, DNA is part of a feed-back loop with the body, and parts of the DNA are or aren't used based on that loop. This loop can permanently effect how the DNA can be used; how humans can change without altering our DNA while we grow and experience new things. To use the house metaphor: if we don't want someone to build the porch on a blueprint we can cover it up with a piece of paper (reversible) or we can cover it up with whiteout (irreversible); alternatively, we can go HAM and build so many porches. These alterations to expression (DNA is the same, just not all of it can currently be used versus mutation, a change in the DNA) can be passed on during DNA replication/reproduction. That's the perk of gene-seed: DNA replicates itself and self-creates cells (and then organs) under the appropriate conditions. The Astartes organs are part of a feedback look with the gene-seed; it's why gene-seed extraction at death was preferred as by then it had been appropriately altered by use. Take the gene-seed, set it up to express itself and you get a "fresh" set of Astartes organs. There's basically no difference in the DNA of a someone in their physical prime versus when they just enter reproductive age, but there's a difference in what parts of the DNA are being expressed. Hence, "fresh" because over 10,000 years of this feedback cycle there's been a large promotion of expressing the wolf-like characteristics found in the gene-seed. Then there's actual mutation. A key issue is that more complex organisms have ways of reducing mutation or stopping it from spreading. A simple excised DNA strand won't have that. "Bacterial mutation rates typically range from 1 in 10 million to 1 in a billion base substitutions per nucleotide per generation," per the Royal Society and for humans "average mutation rate was estimated to be approximately 2.5 x 10^-8 mutations per nucleotide site." [Genetics. 2000 Sep; 156(1): 297–304]. That's roughly a 10,000 fold increase in mutation rate. A primarch or the The Sangportum Primus would have genetic information with a much smaller mutation rate and reduced or no alteration of expression.

 

I don't have Inferno with me at the moment, so I can't talk about the above with specifics relative to the Canis Helix.

Edited October 28, 2020 by jaxom

[StrangerOrders]

 

Betrayal, the first Black Book from 2012 which gives us the history of the Crusade actually noted that there was a very real concern early on that the Astartes would go extinct very quickly. Simply put the initial casualties of the Great Crusade were so bad that the degeneration I mentioned above was going at an exponential rate and the stocks were rapidly reaching 40k levels of 'questionable'. The Emp's research cadres had a council on the subject and basically patched it by introducing ways of popping out marines faster (down to one year, Pert would later figure out how to do it in even less) to try and offset the problem.

 

 

Then it was 'discovered' that the introduction of Primarch genetic tissue could actually more or less erase the corruption in geneseed and stabilize cloning to a remarkable degree, as well as being usable to synthesize entirely new stocks. Funny coincidence.

 

Chapters are much more conservative than Legions, although the Blood Claw model is still fairly iffy. But over 10k years even the most conservative losses are stll going to see serious degradation without access to the proverbial master-copy. Cawl's meanwhile is still very close to the Primarchs.

 

The Valdor novel reveals that this is actually why geneseed makes Astartes better than Thunder Warriors. Geneseed is basically a template for which a Primarch is the keystone or 'master copy', essentially allowing you to readily cross-reference and delete mutation along relatively predictable angles. Basically think 'mold stamping' as opposed to a cottage industry, a big problem with the TWs was simply that there was not 'a' problem to fix, what might fix one might make another go Akira while others would topple over dead on day one or never manifest any issues at all for 4 centuries. With an Astartes blood line, you typically had the same issues with the same fixes with relatively few unique problems on the individual level. 

 

You've reversed the cause-and-effect. Astartes loses spurred the implementation of accelerated gene-seed replication and implantation which led to the swifter degradation of the gene-seed. Primarch DNA stabilized that accelerated method. The accelerated method is what Guilliman put the kabosh on after the Heresy.

 

For those with little biology background: Primarchs are bespoke genetic creations, they have unique DNA (blue print for building the body - when DNA is being used to create something we say the DNA is being expressed). Parts of their DNA were isolated to grow organs (like taking a blue print, copying one specific room, and just building that room) which could be implanted into normal humans (smashing open a house's wall, inserting that room, and patching up the wall). Those isolated bits of DNA are the foundation of gene-seed. Normally, DNA is part of a feed-back loop with the body, and parts of the DNA are or aren't used based on that loop. This loop can permanently effect how the DNA can be used; how humans can change without altering our DNA while we grow and experience new things. To use the house metaphor: if we don't want someone to build the porch on a blueprint we can cover it up with a piece of paper (reversible) or we can cover it up with whiteout (irreversible); alternatively, we can go HAM and build so many porches. These alterations to expression (DNA is the same, just not all of it can currently be used versus mutation, a change in the DNA) can be passed on during DNA replication/reproduction. That's the perk of gene-seed: DNA replicates itself and self-creates cells (and then organs) under the appropriate conditions. The Astartes organs are part of a feedback look with the gene-seed; it's why gene-seed extraction at death was preferred as by then it had been appropriately altered by use. Take the gene-seed, set it up to express itself and you get a "fresh" set of Astartes organs. There's basically no difference in the DNA of a someone in their physical prime versus when they just enter reproductive age, but there's a difference in what parts of the DNA are being expressed. Hence, "fresh" because over 10,000 years of this feedback cycle there's been a large promotion of expressing the wolf-like characteristics found in the gene-seed. Then there's actual mutation. A key issue is that more complex organisms have ways of reducing mutation or stopping it from spreading. A simple excised DNA strand won't have that. "Bacterial mutation rates typically range from 1 in 10 million to 1 in a billion base substitutions per nucleotide per generation," per the Royal Society and for humans "average mutation rate was estimated to be approximately 2.5 x 10^-8 mutations per nucleotide site." [Genetics. 2000 Sep; 156(1): 297–304]. That's roughly a 10,000 fold increase in mutation rate. A primarch or the The Sangportum Primus would have genetic information with a much smaller mutation rate and reduced or no alteration of expression.

 

I don't have Inferno with me at the moment, so I can't talk about the above with specifics relative to the Canis Helix.

 

No, I think I have the right of it. Its on page 27 iirc. Will dig it up later but I think thats the one.

 

There were already big concerns about stability before Grabiya's theorem was put into effect. Valdor weighed in heavily on this angle, especially the Astarte bits. 

Edited October 28, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Karhedron]

Of course there are hints in the novels that the Emperor had super awesome 100% super foresight or whatever but that's all pretty open to interpretation.

The Emperor explains this in person to Cawl in "The Great Work". He explains that sometimes foresight is a vague intuition that covers centuries. At other times he can see a specific day as clear as crystal.

[Closet Skeleton]

 

Then it was 'discovered' that the introduction of Primarch genetic tissue could actually more or less erase the corruption in geneseed and stabilize cloning to a remarkable degree, as well as being usable to synthesize entirely new stocks. Funny coincidence.

Exactly, the Primarchs had to exist before their tissue could be used. They didn't create the primarchs to use their tissue that way.

 

Great book btw, and deeply ironic. Given that between the BBs and Valdor, the Administratum's attitude towards Chapter Creation is sort of a glorious treatise on 'this is literally the opposite of how you keep a geneline healthy'.

 

 

Which makes no sense since the Adeptus Terra managed to keep marines around for 9000 years so must be doing something more or less right.

 

All 'truths' about the creation of the space marines should be taken with a grain of salt, especially the in universe dubiously accurate black books.

[Bulwyf]

If I remember correctly Black Library has a saying that all things are canon but that doesn't mean it is the truth. 

[jaxom]

 

 

Then it was 'discovered' that the introduction of Primarch genetic tissue could actually more or less erase the corruption in geneseed and stabilize cloning to a remarkable degree, as well as being usable to synthesize entirely new stocks. Funny coincidence.

Exactly, the Primarchs had to exist before their tissue could be used. They didn't create the primarchs to use their tissue that way.

 

Great book btw, and deeply ironic. Given that between the BBs and Valdor, the Administratum's attitude towards Chapter Creation is sort of a glorious treatise on 'this is literally the opposite of how you keep a geneline healthy'.

 

 

Which makes no sense since the Adeptus Terra managed to keep marines around for 9000 years so must be doing something more or less right.

 

All 'truths' about the creation of the space marines should be taken with a grain of salt, especially the in universe dubiously accurate black books.

 

 

If I recall correctly, Adeptus Terra Foundings are a decades long process.

 

Okay, have the texts in front of me now. p.27 HH: Betrayal,

 

 

... the diminishing stability of the gene-seed itself through over use and the increasing need for ever greater numbers of Space Marines in the field. This was a matter that only worsened as the Great Crusade pushed on ever wider afield into the galaxy. Forces could no longer be concentrated as easily as before, and attrition was taking its toll as years of near-constant battle became decades... so the simple truth was that more Space Marines were needed and faster than before.... Grabiya's Theorem which demonstrated that a Primarch's genetic code could be used to stabilise and expand gene-seed stocks with what was hoped to be 'minimal deviation'. Alongside this accelerated gene-culturing techniques previously unavailable were put into effect, reducing processing time to create a battle-worthy Space Marine to a single year in some cases.... Many since have come to believe that the drive to create larger Legions at speed had a prime role in the degradation in the sanity and physiological make-up of certain Legions and paved the way for the horror that was to come.

 

Primarch genetics was the basis for the creation of gene-seed. Gene-seed is self-replicating, but it also seems like new gene-seed can be made ab initio from a primarch (in addition to stabilising damaged gene-seed, but they might have been better of using 'repair' rather than stabilise if that was the intent).

 

Regarding the 6th Legion gene-seed from Inferno, p. 73:

 

What also made the VIth singular was the unique nature of its gene-seed.... [the high implantation fatality rate] which was to be demonstrated subsequently as a factor of the VIth's gene-seed before its later stabilisation with its Primarch's genetic pattern.

 

p. 74

 

It was said, long before the influence of Fenris and its culture, that there was something of the bestial to the Legion's warriors, something readily apparent in the first foreshadowings of a mark of what was to become later known as the Canis Helix upon them, though insufficient time had yet to pass for this to become very pronounced.

 

p. 79

 

Many [of Russ' warriors] had died in the attempt [to become Astartes], but far less than might have been expected, and this was for two reasons. The first was the stabilising effect of Leman Russ' own gene-helix pattern over the existing VIth Legion gene-seed, which seems to have all but revered prior difficulties of candidate survival. The second was that the Fenrisians themselves proves of extraordinary resilient stock,

 

It reads to me that the Canis Helix is a natural portion of VIth legion gene-seed, presumably some more primal DNA spliced in, but it its presence decreases the long-term and replicative stability of the gene-seed compared to other legions. As Russ was a stable genetic construct, something in his genetics must have acted as stabilising factor for the interface between "base" primarch gene-helix and whatever extra part that would be the Canis Helix in gene-seed. I think this would have been the crux of the Wolfpriest Hraldir's research - isolating and/or replicating whatever Russ' body produced that stabilised the Helix.

Edited October 28, 2020 by jaxom

[Bryan Blaire]

To continue some of Jaxom's example – Primarchs tissue with the gene-seed blueprint for the various gene lines intact is the equivalent of having an original blueprint that degrades by "copy of a copy of a copy" generative technique, but you go back to that original blueprint and start building from that again. Without that original blueprint, what originally looked like a small roof overhang with a window has turned into building a 10' x 10' covered back porch with a hot tub in it. Once you overlay that blueprint, the next generation of building doesn't go crazy with the added on stuff that wasn't intended anyway.

 

But with genetics on magi-organs.

 

(Sorry, don't what to get too far afield in the molecular biology of it all, it's not necessarily board relevant)

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

I gotta say this thread is completely derailed but I am loving every minute of it. I had no idea there was this much developed lore around the Wolves' background.

 

This is coming from someone who's knowledge of Space Wolf lore is basically "Super soldier men have doggo genes so in battle they go bark-bark & chop-chop. Some go bark-bark & chop-chop so much they turn into fulltime doggos"

[StrangerOrders]

 

 

 

Then it was 'discovered' that the introduction of Primarch genetic tissue could actually more or less erase the corruption in geneseed and stabilize cloning to a remarkable degree, as well as being usable to synthesize entirely new stocks. Funny coincidence.

Exactly, the Primarchs had to exist before their tissue could be used. They didn't create the primarchs to use their tissue that way.

 

Great book btw, and deeply ironic. Given that between the BBs and Valdor, the Administratum's attitude towards Chapter Creation is sort of a glorious treatise on 'this is literally the opposite of how you keep a geneline healthy'.

 

 

Which makes no sense since the Adeptus Terra managed to keep marines around for 9000 years so must be doing something more or less right.

 

All 'truths' about the creation of the space marines should be taken with a grain of salt, especially the in universe dubiously accurate black books.

 

 

If I recall correctly, Adeptus Terra Foundings are a decades long process.

 

Okay, have the texts in front of me now. p.27 HH: Betrayal,

 

 

... the diminishing stability of the gene-seed itself through over use and the increasing need for ever greater numbers of Space Marines in the field. This was a matter that only worsened as the Great Crusade pushed on ever wider afield into the galaxy. Forces could no longer be concentrated as easily as before, and attrition was taking its toll as years of near-constant battle became decades... so the simple truth was that more Space Marines were needed and faster than before.... Grabiya's Theorem which demonstrated that a Primarch's genetic code could be used to stabilise and expand gene-seed stocks with what was hoped to be 'minimal deviation'. Alongside this accelerated gene-culturing techniques previously unavailable were put into effect, reducing processing time to create a battle-worthy Space Marine to a single year in some cases.... Many since have come to believe that the drive to create larger Legions at speed had a prime role in the degradation in the sanity and physiological make-up of certain Legions and paved the way for the horror that was to come.

 

Primarch genetics was the basis for the creation of gene-seed. Gene-seed is self-replicating, but it also seems like new gene-seed can be made ab initio from a primarch (in addition to stabilising damaged gene-seed, but they might have been better of using 'repair' rather than stabilise if that was the intent).

 

Regarding the 6th Legion gene-seed from Inferno, p. 73:

 

What also made the VIth singular was the unique nature of its gene-seed.... [the high implantation fatality rate] which was to be demonstrated subsequently as a factor of the VIth's gene-seed before its later stabilisation with its Primarch's genetic pattern.

 

p. 74

 

It was said, long before the influence of Fenris and its culture, that there was something of the bestial to the Legion's warriors, something readily apparent in the first foreshadowings of a mark of what was to become later known as the Canis Helix upon them, though insufficient time had yet to pass for this to become very pronounced.

 

p. 79

 

Many [of Russ' warriors] had died in the attempt [to become Astartes], but far less than might have been expected, and this was for two reasons. The first was the stabilising effect of Leman Russ' own gene-helix pattern over the existing VIth Legion gene-seed, which seems to have all but revered prior difficulties of candidate survival. The second was that the Fenrisians themselves proves of extraordinary resilient stock,

 

It reads to me that the Canis Helix is a natural portion of VIth legion gene-seed, presumably some more primal DNA spliced in, but it its presence decreases the long-term and replicative stability of the gene-seed compared to other legions. As Russ was a stable genetic construct, something in his genetics must have acted as stabilising factor for the interface between "base" primarch gene-helix and whatever extra part that would be the Canis Helix in gene-seed. I think this would have been the crux of the Wolfpriest Hraldir's research - isolating and/or replicating whatever Russ' body produced that stabilised the Helix.

 

Worth noting as well, and I apologize for being too lazy to type it out like you did up there (and well done for doing that btw) but there is an additional complication in trying to deal with their genes on the Terran side of things.

 

The Wolves were one of the Tri-foil (I cant recall the spelling) Legions, three Legions the Emp had additionally altered and then destroyed all records regarding said alterations. The others being the Sallies and the Alpha Legion, so it would be even harder than the other Legions out the gate to try and figure out what exactly is going on with them genetically. So tampering with them is really tricky I imagine.

 

For those wondering on the Sallies, the implication from their BBs is that their heroic nature is actually the result of their being modified to be that way, to such a degree that pre-Vulkan they seemed to have something akin to an inbuilt martyr-complex. Its kind of an awesomely twisted idea for the Sallies to have been carved upon and to have had their emotional range rewired to create a perfect bloodline for 'heroes'. Its wonderfully 40k to basically make one of the only heroic and benevolent forces literally genetically-enslaved to those ideals.

 

I wonder if the Primarchs did leave blood and flesh samples behind though to prevent degeneration though, it would not really matter that much given that almost every Progenitor base has experienced alot of attacks/damage over the millennia and the Heresy destroyed just about everying, but its interesting to consider.

 

Granted, a running theme in the BBs is that alot of the Primarchs really struggle with the idea that they could die, so it is dubious as to whether any of them would take a moment to consider what would happen to their bloodline should they die. 

 

But its fun to consider.

 

 

I gotta say this thread is completely derailed but I am loving every minute of it. I had no idea there was this much developed lore around the Wolves' background.

 

This is coming from someone who's knowledge of Space Wolf lore is basically "Super soldier men have doggo genes so in battle they go bark-bark & chop-chop. Some go bark-bark & chop-chop so much they turn into fulltime doggos"

I kind of hate that the memes discourage people from looking deeper at them, their fluff is alot of fun.

 

To give an example, most everyone knows they call themselves 'the Rout'.

 

But most people don't know the name is an insult. Because 'the Rout' was a nickname on Terra for the packs of wild dogs/jackals that attacked travelers or defeated armies, hence the name. Which was fair because their original form could not control their bloodthirst and gene-quirks, so they tended to be more a useless rabble. The wolves were originally hated and Russ gave them an identity to be proud of along with a fanatical code of conduct.

 

But they kept that name, designed to be a slap in the face, so that even 10k years later they could never forget where they came from and what they could become again if they let their guard down.

 

Thats just cool as heck to me lol.

Well my off shoot chapter will involve an ice Kraken... no wolves at all...none   you see Ultra off shoots that don't even use the Omega symbol so why can't Russ's off shoots choose whatever totem they want...

 

My guys are going to use harpoon and Trident looking power weapons and have sea cloaks like the Dark elves from the world that was (I miss old Warhammer) ooh might have to steal some Salamander cloaks?...do they have any 

A Nautical Chapter.... who have a Huge Kraken as their symbol, steel armour with thunderhawk blue and sea green accent colours... think iron ravens scheme

I guess if I had to visualise a theme... something like the Game of thrones  Greyjoys… /  Viking ship raiders etc etc

 

I'm looking fwd to the new space wolf dex now... 

 

Mithril

This is illegal if the current wolf and Sally descendents have taught me anything. Spears are the new fashion.

 

You must clearly call them the Krakenspears. Failing that you may go with Spears of the Kraken.

[templargdt]

One of the best threads I've read in a while.  Thanks all.  I miss a lot not reading the novels unfortunately.

[Xenith]

Actually a pretty enlightening thread, consider me edumacated. Curious to see what Magnus does in the Era Indomitus, considering the lengths he went to to scupper the SW's last attempts at creating successors. 

 

I'm going to have to read Inferno and the Valdor novel.

[MasterDeath]

 

 

The Wolves were one of the Tri-foil (I cant recall the spelling) Legions, three Legions the Emp had additionally altered and then destroyed all records regarding said alterations. The others being the Sallies and the Alpha Legion, so it would be even harder than the other Legions out the gate to try and figure out what exactly is going on with them genetically. So tampering with them is really tricky I imagine.

 

Any informations how the Alpha Legion has been tampered with? Has it to do with their bodily similarity and seemingly "hive mind"? 

[PeteySödes]

=][=  Continued from News and Rumors thread. Please continue the good discussion brothers!  =][=

Edited October 29, 2020 by PeteySödes

[Karhedron]

I know the Trefoil legions were raised and trained in secrecy, the implication being that they had roles other than just straight forward conquest. I don't recall mention of genetic manipulation though. At least, none above and beyond the geneseed they inherited from their Primarchs. Feel free to correct me if I missed it somewhere.