Celestial Lions Lineage

[Marshal Mittens]

Celestial Lions are basically successors after BT gave them geneseed after Armageddon?

[Brother Tyler]

Note that I've split this out from the other discussion about playing a non-Black Templars successor using the Black Templars rules. This is not quite on topic to that discussion.

 

Celestial Lions are basically successors after BT gave them geneseed after Armageddon?

That is a very interesting question.

 

They wouldn't be a successor in the normal sense. The closest comparison I can think of is the recipient of an organ. That recipient doesn't become the child of the donor (unless the recipient was the donor's child before the transplant).

 

Gene-seed and a real world organ transplant aren't quite the same thing, though. The Celestial Lions took the donated Black Templars gene-seed and used it to rebuild their Chapter. The two gene-seeds were at the very least related by both descending from the VIIth Legion line. However, we don't know who the original predecessor of the Celestial Lions Chapter was. It may have been the Black Templars to begin with, in which case the Celestial Lions were already a descendant (or successor, if you will) of the Black Templars. Alternately, some other descendant of the Imperial Fists Legion may have been the Celestial Lions' predecessor. The shared lineage meant that there was a high(er) chance of compatibility, making the integration of the Black Templars gene-seed into the Celestial Lions a viable solution. If I recall the story correctly, the majority of gene-seed used to reestablish the Celestial Lions was from the Black Templars. If that's correct, then I think it can be convincingly argued that the Celestial Lions can be claimed as a descendant/successor of the Black Templars. If their original predecessor was some other VIIth Legion successor, then that Chapter, too, is a predecessor. In that instance, the Celestial Lions could be said to have two predecessors, one the original predecessor and the other a temporary predecessor.

 

Taking the issue further, I wouldn't be surprised if the Torchbearer fleets gifted the Celestial Lions with sufficient stock of pure Celestial Lions gene-seed, enabling them to discontinue the use of Black Templars gene-seed in future implantations (though some degree of Black Templars gene-seed would remain from those battle-brothers that were created in the interim.

[Marshal Mittens]

So much of their war gear, ships, Nd Armory also came from them. Maybe not a successor in the purest sense, but pretty close, in my opinion.

 

I plan to do a mixed Celestial Lion/Black Templars crusade in the future, though HH is sort of in the way.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

If that was the case, in some ways, the Imperial Fists themselves are almost descendants of their own successors since the original chapter was wiped out?

[Medjugorje]

its often discussed to dogmatic imo. Its the geneseed from Rogal Dorns legion and as long the time or other circumstances didnt changed it - its a successor chapter of the imperial fists.

[Karhedron]

its often discussed to dogmatic imo. Its the geneseed from Rogal Dorns legion and as long the time or other circumstances didnt changed it - its a successor chapter of the imperial fists.

 

I am inclined to agree. Chapters that can trace their lineage back to one of the original Legions regard that Legion and Primarch as their progenitor. It may well be that there were other Chapters along the way, the AdMech simply identifies a sufficiently pure and stable specimen geneseed from among their tithes. I am sure the Celestial Lions consider they owe an enormous debt to the Black Templars but they are both still Imperial Fist successor chapters.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

That's kind of my point, you can take it too far. 

[Brother Tyler]

Most Chapters are very simple, tracing their lineage back through a predecessor Chapter to a Legion, or sometimes directly to the Legion as the 2nd Founding Chapters and those Chapters created from pure Legion gene-seed stock. While most people focus on the Legion relationship, the Chapter relationship is also important. See this discussion for a more in-depth explanation.

The Celestial Lions Chapter and Imperial Fists Chapter are corner cases, both with exceptional circumstances that defy the normal tracing of lineage*. Actually, that's only a "maybe" in the case of the Celestial Lions since we don't know who their original predecessors were - it's possible that the Black Templars were their predecessor.

A more pointed question (getting back to the OP's question) might be whether or not the Black Templars consider the Celestial Lions to be a successor (or descendant, if you prefer that language). My gut feeling is that they don't, that they recognize them as a brother Chapter (since they are both descended from Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists Legion) and that the Celestial Lions are indebted to them for the gene-seed.



* And we know of other instances in the official lore where Chapters have benefited from the gene-seed of others, notably the Blood Angels. That's a topic for the Space Marines forum, though.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

So basically they are double dipping .