An alternate timeline without Primaris

[Xanthous]

What might the Space Marine range have looked like, had GW never switched to almost universally making Primaris marines?

 

This question occurred to me while reading one of the innumerable debates about Firstborn vs Primaris. Perhaps its not that interesting of a hypothetical, but it seems to me that, before the release of Dark Imperium, GW were running out of ideas for Space Marines. As far as I can find, correct me if I'm wrong, the last, totally new, non-Primaris models GW came up with were the Centurions, nearly 10 years ago now, and they weren't exactly considered the most original design in the world.

 

This hypothetical isn't meant to bash Firstborn, or really prompt any polemical discussion on the Firstborn/Primaris debate, but just to prompt any thoughts about an alternate timeline without Primaris marines. Would we simply have an entire range of true scale Firstborn, and would people be satisfied with that? Was there really anywhere else to go with marines? None of these questions are rhetorical, I'm personally struggling to imagine what the range would look like, and would greatly appreciate any ideas people have.

[Kallas]

None of the Primaris designs needed to be Primaris.

 

Guilliman's reforms could have been done without introducing new super-Marines, and new marks of armour could have been introduced without being jarring.

 

We've had the mechanics to introduce new weapons and equipment in the lore, and while I'm not a fan of Guilliman rolling back the Chapter layout, there's some interesting potential in there.

 

Simply, the whole divide and mess was entirely avoidable while being able to retain the core of what they wanted to do (ie, create new kits to sell) without an apparent push to invalidate previous kits.

[Xanthous]

Are the legally different weapons and equipment not inherently part of the Primaris package, though? Could you see GW replacing bolters or plasma guns with a technically new but generally identical replacement? Unless you're talking about a different idea, of course.

[Lemondish]

28 minutes ago, Xanthous said:

Would we simply have an entire range of true scale Firstborn, and would people be satisfied with that?

 

No, because replacement sculpts are significantly less exciting than a titanic shift in unit composition and fighting style. They introduced not just true scale Marines, but a shift in how they organize and fight.

 

I can think of one group that would have been dissatisfied with a less wideband approach: GW shareholders. It's a business. Many seem to forget that.

 

30 minutes ago, Xanthous said:

Was there really anywhere else to go with marines?

 

Oh yes, definitely. They could have leaned into super special chapters like the Deathwatch and Grey Knights as the next way to sell Marines, but their reach is structurally limited compared to a whole entire new range that comes with a new set of complementary units. They entered 8th edition with the goal to sell a new Marine army to everybody, including those who already had Marine collections.

 

Of course, they could have done all this same thing without calling it Primaris and introducing that divide, but look at how much that divide has boosted engagement to the point that we still see discussions like 'rah, rah my preference is best, your preference is poop' going on six years now. It's been a fun ride.

[apologist]

It's an interesting discussion topic – thanks @Xanthous. Two strands I'd like to explore:

• Returned Primarch, Cicatrix Maledictus formed – timeline progression.
• No returned Primarch, no explicit timeline progression.

The former is closer to what we have, with the setting having been shaken up by two major events – the Eye of Terror expanding and the return of an Imperial Primarch to marshal the Imperium. This could have been used as a reason for the Codex Astartes to have been udpted/revised/superceded, giving a soft reason for GW to expand the Space Marine range in a similar way to what we have with Primaris – special weapon squads (e.g. Hellblasters); or power armoured marines in a Scout role (e.g. Phobos). This would have allowed some expansion of the range.

 

New vehicles could have been explained by the Primarch having greater access to or knowledge of lost STCs, or perhaps discovered during the equivalent of the Indomitus Crusade, rather than having been dreamt up by a third party (Cawl).

 

Ultimately, here it's the timeline progression that allows for the strictures of the Adeptus Astartes to evolve, rather than the existence of Primaris Marines. That same timeline progression could have allowed for a complete rework of the models in a new mark (or marks) of armour – with Marks VIII and a new Mark IX becoming the new norm. 

 

This version of events is pretty much what we've got – the only real difference would be in terms of lore and background. If you ignore the Primaris background, and just think of the new models as Space Marines in mark IX armour, there wouldn't be a lot of difference. In fact, I suspect that something like this is how the design process for new Space Marines began.

 

+++

 

In the latter case, I think that there's less obvious space to expand – but really the only restrictions are in terms of lore. We've seen GW happily add in new units to the Space Marines in general (the Storm Talon, Centurion and Stalker, for example) – and individual Chapters (Thunderwolves, Sanguinary Guard, Ravenwing etc.) with little mention beyond the STC being discovered, or having been in use all along. 

 

This change would have been more similar to the organic progression we saw between 1st and 2nd edition, where beakies were gradually and organically replaced with Mark VII marines. That resculpt/rescale approach is much more similar to how other factions – like Eldar or Orks, for example – are treated, The models are updated, with greater or lesser changes in size and aesthetic, and little to no mention is made of this in-universe.

 

In this timeline, I think the natural place to expand (as @Lemondish suggests) would have been to look at individual Chapters – perhaps developing other popular Chapters (both First Founding and other charismatic ones like Crimson Fists, Marines Malevolent and other fan favourite), and perhaps use that as an excuse to introduce new units. The main problem here is balkanisation of the product range. Unit types that can be used by any Space Marine Chapter have a bigger potential market than those for a single subfaction.

 

Expanding the range by creating new universal units would have been trickier, but not impossible. GW loves to mine their old background, and pretty much any single figure from Rogue Trader with an unusual piece of equipment, weapon or distinctive feature could have led to a new unit type. Off the top of my head:

• Marines with flight packs (as opposed to high-impact jump packs) and boltguns
• Shieldwall marines: pairs of marines; one with a pavaise, one with a heavy weapon
• Recon marines with needle rifles, autoguns etc.
• Space Marines on riding lizards

 

The risk would have been that, without the justification of an in-universe event that allowed the reactionary Imperium to develop these things, the new models wouldn't have been accepted by the buyers. Even with that justification, we've seen how hostile some hobbyists have been to developments in Space Marines (and I don't want to get into that aspect of the discussion here, as it's a bit off-topic!)

 

Overall, this version of events is far more conservative, and I suspect it wouldn't have had anywhere near the impact or commerical success of a whole 'new shiny range' – perhaps why GW decided to do something far more striking and risky (though with concomitant better rewards). 

Edited April 20, 2023 by apologist

[Orange Knight]

People often talk about the greed of GW.

 

What isn't mentioned is the fact that the creatives within GW wanted to do this. The sculptors and artists were the ones most excited to be able to work on new Marines in a more liberated way, free from dogmatic constraints imposed by the old range and lore.

 

Whatever the reasoning was, it's undeniable that it caused ripples, excitement and dialogue within the community. GW chose the bold path, not the one of least resistance.

[Kallas]

33 minutes ago, Xanthous said:

Are the legally different weapons and equipment not inherently part of the Primaris package, though? Could you see GW replacing bolters or plasma guns with a technically new but generally identical replacement? Unless you're talking about a different idea, of course.

Well that's kind of the point. The lore has always enabled some innovation, but it was always limited and careful because of the Imperium's backslide into technopaganry. But we've had changes (eg, the Land Raider variants, even Razorback variants) and new units (eg, Centurions and Storm Ravens, even if they also had bad introductions; but they aren't even approaching the same scale of introduction as New Marines with All New Gear and All New Vehicles).

 

Thing is, improvements could have been made to the production of the grav-plates used on Land Speeders to open up new variants there (similar to how the Land Speeder Vengeance was added later) for something like the Storm Speeders; the Bolt Rifles functionally already existed (Stalker Bolters and Storm Bolters are essentially the Stalker/Auto Bolt Rifles) and could have been disseminated more widely (though generally Stalkers were kept to Deathwatch along with Special Issue ammunition because of supply, but also because of doctrinal reasons: which Guilliman's reforms could have done anyway). The problem with Primaris was the en masse, wholesale introduction of a bunch of different things with an extremely flimsy* set of convenient situations (eg, Cawl having been told to do this 10k years ago...except we only hear about this now, with no set up; or that he's got millions of Primaris on ice throughout the Imperium?!) 

 

* And that's not to say that the existing lore justifications for new things is particularly amazing and thought provoking, just that those lore mechanisms existed and have been used before, plus they maintain the lore, rather than breaking with it in a massive way.

 

I think @apologist hits many of the same notes I'm thinking of, so I'll just leave it with their comment. Simply, the method in which Primaris were brought about was shoddy; GW could have very readily made many additions to the Marine line without making a mess of things, no matter how "bold" it might seem to make a mess just because they can.

[Xanthous]

@apologist, thanks for the great response. I think you hit the nail on the head noting that the development of a purely firstborn range in place of the Primaris shift would end up looking very similar to what we have now, and given that 10th ed seems to be tending towards grouping via armour type more than Primaris vs Firstborn, that might be close to where we'll end up. 

 

I agree that while they could expand into the more distinct chapters that have more creative space to be fulfilled, that wouldn't satisfy the need for generic space marine releases, but I don't know if GW would be totally inflexible in that. Thinking back to Dark Vengeance, that was the starter set for two editions, and it featured models that were distinctly Dark Angels, rather than generic marines. Certainly in the current timeline, it's flavourless marines all the way, and there are obvious advantages to that, but its interesting to consider that Ultramarines haven't always had a monopoly on the poster.

[jaxom]

8 hours ago, Kallas said:

Well that's kind of the point. The lore has always enabled some innovation, but it was always limited and careful because of the Imperium's backslide into technopaganry. But we've had changes (eg, the Land Raider variants, even Razorback variants) and new units (eg, Centurions and Storm Ravens, even if they also had bad introductions; but they aren't even approaching the same scale of introduction as New Marines with All New Gear and All New Vehicles).

 

Thing is, improvements could have been made to the production of the grav-plates used on Land Speeders to open up new variants there (similar to how the Land Speeder Vengeance was added later) for something like the Storm Speeders; the Bolt Rifles functionally already existed (Stalker Bolters and Storm Bolters are essentially the Stalker/Auto Bolt Rifles) and could have been disseminated more widely (though generally Stalkers were kept to Deathwatch along with Special Issue ammunition because of supply, but also because of doctrinal reasons: which Guilliman's reforms could have done anyway). The problem with Primaris was the en masse, wholesale introduction of a bunch of different things with an extremely flimsy* set of convenient situations (eg, Cawl having been told to do this 10k years ago...except we only hear about this now, with no set up; or that he's got millions of Primaris on ice throughout the Imperium?!) 

 

* And that's not to say that the existing lore justifications for new things is particularly amazing and thought provoking, just that those lore mechanisms existed and have been used before, plus they maintain the lore, rather than breaking with it in a massive way.

 

I think @apologist hits many of the same notes I'm thinking of, so I'll just leave it with their comment. Simply, the method in which Primaris were brought about was shoddy; GW could have very readily made many additions to the Marine line without making a mess of things, no matter how "bold" it might seem to make a mess just because they can.

9 hours ago, Kallas said:

Guilliman's reforms could have been done without introducing new super-Marines, and new marks of armour could have been introduced without being jarring.

I think part of what would be required would be a time skip. One reason Cawl got worse was GW backtracking that he had 10,000 years of R&D time (with appropriate nods to him having a hand in many a failed/cursed/mysterious Founding) then 200 years of rolling out his new tech with a massively expanded industrial base provided by the Living Primarch. Instead it became he had to have all the toys now because there was only now. Even a change like "everyone wears Mk8 Errant armor now" was usually written off as requiring hundreds of years to diffuse through the Imperium in previous lore.

 

I almost think a techno-barbarian aspect would make more sense for a massive, quick change. How would Marines adapt to dwindling technological resources as more Forge Worlds are lost or as their Chapter becomes more isolated by rough warp routes, etc?

 

[Kallas]

1 hour ago, jaxom said:

I think part of what would be required would be a time skip.

Yeah, a time skip was necessary, because GW had been edging the 41st Millenium for a long time already  That bit was understandable, and at least fine on its own.

[spessmarine]

My preference would be things unfold similarly without the awful/awkward fluff to retcon them in.

Like yeah, you need to do something other than refresh the tactical marine kit for the 10th time and shoehorn in the 10th flavour of veteran squads before everyone in the GW studio collapses from boredom.

 

Sicarans, we can make them again, just cause (they look cool). Add in Bladeguard anyway because they really fit space marines. And so forth.

Re-scale was overdue too.

[One Paul Murray]

Playing devil's advocate for a moment; in a timeline where the Imperium develops all these things organically, RG wakes up and shakes up the chapter structure and all that good stuff... you still end up with a bloated codex for marines. Just with this time the bloat all being Firstborn.

 

Then there is the fact that there are two arms to this, one of which is the Black Library. Narratively they were running into cul-de-sacs with the constraints around chapter numbers, decaying geneseed and so on. Therefore the Primaris gave them an opportunity to expand the setting in a way that they couldn't have done otherwise.

 

To me, if I had a criticism of the way that the Primaris lore has been delivered it would be that I haven't really enjoyed most of the novels produced. Someone summed it up as the entire universe being sucked into a melodrama of 30 or so key protagonists that can never die. Dante and Calgar shouldn't be heading novels unless you are willing to kill them off, as there is no jeopardy. I've always felt that the BL novels shine best when looking at smaller squads, such as the Iron Snakes novels, or the Blood of Asaheim style.

 

That's a lot of waffle to say I am not necessarily against the principle of the Primaris push, or the underlying lore behind it. I just think the writing and focus has shifted for the worse in the Dawn of Fire books.

 

To pull that back to the question at hand, had you not implemented Primaris then I think you would have people arguing over the new style of Marine codex, saying it was bloated and all that. Then you would have had people grouching about the quality of the BL publications. 

 

In short, you'd have exactly what you have now.

[Captain Idaho]

Model wise - we've seen new MK6 Marines so we could expect a range refresh there.

 

I suspect we'd get some new elements for specialist units - Breachers, Grav specialist weapon users (i.e. new weapons, like Grav shot guns etc), likely some 30K ports such as Destroyers, likely some Dark Age of Technology Marines...

 

There'd be a few ways to go alongside our tried and tested Firstborn staples.

 

Background wise... I think GW could have gone down a more genetically desperate route. It would have tied much more into the theme of the history of the Imperium. We already have the 21st Cursed Founding and the 13th Dark Founding.... what if the disasters of the Cursed Founding were expanded and much more genetically divergence was entered into the gene pool of the Marines? What if the stores on Terra were corrupted and the Founding of new Chapters created all sorts of anomalies?

 

Akin to the glory days of Andy Chambers and team's rules on the Cursed Founding, what if there were rules to reflect mutations for Chapters, which could be increased more and more but at a greater cost and limitations on equipment etc? (The aforementioned new Destroyers and Breachers added to the more stable Chapters?)

 

So if your army has Primary mutation Trait Severe (from that section) they have limitation on XYZ.

 

I think it would have been where GW could logically have taken things if they wanted to move the narrative but keep with the existing themes, developing new models and weapons without breaking the narrative with a giant deus ex machina character like Cawl.

 

Besides, flawed genetics because the Imperium is deteriorating is more in lined with 40K than new, improved, better Marines but trust us, things are desperate bro.

[One Paul Murray]

Is that not just more of the same? We've had Blood Angels degrading into Flesh Tearers and their ever more desperate decay. Space Wolves have only ever been one step away from Wolfing McWolfyson. We've got the whole mutation stick with Corax.

 

You could have gone that route, but it would just be accelerating down the same narrative dead end.

 

Tyranids could never have turned up en masse, as the weakened line of space marines wouldn't have been able to cope. Necrons would still need to always be a few years from really waking up. Orcs would still need to stay roughly in their systems to avoid overloading everything.

 

All of which has been said before, which makes for dull fare.

 

In order to give some level of diversity I feel that they would have always needed some form of big jolt.

[BrainFireBob]

Going to say some maybe controversial things. 40k-that-was was a stagnant setting- the Imperium was incapable of advancing, a bureaucratic dystopia. The Imperium survived because its tech- including SMs- were such fantastic designs, stubbornly applying the same solutions to new and different problems, and willing to victory.

 

If that's your product, you're going to attract people who identify with it, and people to whom it is completely and totally foreign, most strongly. They forgot the nature of what they were selling and what it said about their audience. 

 

Add to that that the "10k years of unchanging tech" is an Imperial thing, and people sick of FOMO and rapidly changing paradigms could feel "safe" investing in 40k. The models wouldn't really change, the game would just keep changing to try to better reflect the models, you see. 

 

So of course the Primarisification didn't go over well with a large chunk of the existing base. They bought in partially because of the implied promise of buy a battle company, stop playing after college, introduce your 10 year old with your completely valid core collection that you could leave as a hobby and return to. I firmly believe this *was* a significant factor in brand longevity, they've tossed it. 

 

As regards fluff- to me, I loved that the Imperium had the resources to ROFLSTOMP the galaxy *if* someone had authority to just issue requisitions. This is a bureaucracy who will respond to a shortfall in planetary manpower tithes of 5 men by launching a million man crusade to genocide a sector. There were many background teasers that production of Marine arms had recently increased, such as deliveries of Terminator armor- Cawl having priority requisition would have fit perfectly. Say there's a FW with a billion incomplete suits of Terminator armor, missing only the number 5 hex head screw- to affix the vanity plate. And that Cawl used it for Gravis ankles, due to its .03% grip strength over the otherwise identical number 4, and only one FW has the STC for the number 5, althought number 4s can be made anywhere. That's 40K, to me- anyone who has authority and access to release the armor without the vanity plates could purge the galaxy, but no one both has the info and the authority. 

 

Bringing back Bobby G in specific has always bugged me for that reason. 

 

Edit: What I see in the Firstborn- Primaris debate is a large chunk of people who prefer goals versus those who prefer journeys- those who measure their collection by endpoints, like achievement hunting, these want to have done project points, and those who want constant DLC to "keep it fresh"- read, don't want to be able to be done. Personally, I'm of the "you can't enter the same river twice" school of thought.

 

Second edit: As with all change- good, bad, or just different sidegrade- it could be changing what drew another frater in the first place, is my key point.

Edited April 21, 2023 by BrainFireBob

[Brother Tyler]

I'm just going to address the basic premise of the discussion - GW's alternative to Primaris.

 

As I see it, the decision to introduce the Primaris concept (and by extension, Belisarius Cawl) was the result of a number of factors, the three primary factors being a need to ensure the profitability of the Space Marine range (that's not greed - it's a smart business decision), the intent to advance the setting, and the need to improve the scale of the models. The return of Roboute Guilliman was an element of advancing the storyline, but that didn't necessitate the Primaris introduction. Instead, it allowed it because Roboute Guilliman, as the only known living Primarch (at that time), had the authority to force major changes within the Imperium, changes that the stagnant bureaucracy couldn't/wouldn't effect.

 

Assuming I'm accurate in the three elements that I described, GW could have achieved a similar effect without the "Primaris" concept, while retaining the same models. In this, Roboute Guilliman may have authorized some forge world (most likely located in the Realm of Ultramar, but it really could have been anywhere that was relatively secure based on the known history of the Imperium) to continue the Emperor's works in improving the arms and equipment of the Adeptus Astartes. When the Primarch was restored and appointed as the Regent of the Imperium, he consulted the forge world and, seeing the results of their works, approved full scale production and fielding. Instead of having (hundreds of) thousands of Primaris Space Marines ready, there may have been far fewer, but still enough to significantly bolster and re-man the existing Chapters. Instead of being Primaris, these would simply have been bog-standard Space Marines, but re-scaled (not in-universe). These would be equipped with Mk X power armour, improved weapons, and no bubblegum. The changes to the Codex Astartes could then be explained by Roboute Guilliman's meditations upon his Codex Astartes; the experiences, interpretations, and adaptations by various Chapters over the millennia; and the advances made by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The "Primaris" kits would then be sold as re-scaled Adeptus Astartes in slightly different squads. This would also have allowed GW to re-scale the Firstborn in the older armour, ideally ensuring that all marks were as interchangeable as possible (except that we know that they would have gone with the existing pose philosophy, so this would be largely limited to those bits that could be used interchangeably). It would have been nice to see the Tactical, Devastator, Assault, Sternguard, etc. re-scaled to match the Primaris size while retaining their Mk VI, VII, and VIII armour. Updating characters would then have been possible simply by gifting them with bespoke Mk X armour rather than having to cross the Rubicon Primaris. Vehicles, too, could have been upscaled. Personally, I would have preferred an increase in Chapter size by a factor of 2 or 3 (or even 5), allowing for the introduction of another intermediary rank between the Chapter Master and Captain, with the Adeptus Mechanicus (or Cawl) simply having creating sufficient numbers to get all existing Chapters up to the new full strength with the possibility of fewer new/reborn Chapters. This would have allowed for a bit more restructuring in Chapters, with varying outcomes (different strokes for different folks here, so I won't bother suggesting one particular outcome) as well as interesting dynamics for certain Chapters such as the Space Wolves and Black Templars. The challenge with this last idea, of course, is that it then begs the question of whether or not the existing Chapters would be able to sustain such a high Chapter population with their existing recruiting pools, so I guess that's not really a good idea.

 

Realistically, I'm not sure how palatable the non-Primaris storyline was to GW, however. The introduction of Primaris didn't happen in a vacuum, after all. The overall lore change and expansion to the setting included Roboute Guilliman, Mortarion and the Death Guard, the Adeptus Custodes, etc. A Primarch returning to the Imperium is a Major Event, however, and I'm fairly certain that GW felt that such an event demanded some major shakeups to the paradigm. The introduction of the Primaris Adeptus Astartes is just the most visible of those changes, but I imagine that something like it (the models) would have happened regardless of the lore explanation. Admittedly, there would have been ways to incorporate those other "additions" without needing the Primaris. Ultimately, "Primaris" could simply have been a range refresh and re-scaling rather than a huge lore change.

 

Personally, whatever issues I had with the introduction of Primaris are irrelevant, especially as we see GW start to blur the divide between Primaris and Firstborn units. While there are a few elements about the models and a few kits that I really don't like, I appreciate the majority of the kits (I especially like the helmets and weapons, minus those of the Compensators). In this, I would be grateful for the Primaris models regardless of the lore explanation for their introduction. I just wish that GW had done so in a way that allowed for more support of the Firstborn (even if I had to buy re-scaled versions). Whether or not that would have been as profitable as the path we are on now, however, is anyone's guess.

 

And as much as I loooove the Firstborn kits and their interchangeability, there were problems with the poses and proportions that were clearly fixed with the Primaris. So even if Primaris were simply introduced as Mk X with the older marks of armour preserved, GW would still have had to re-sculpt and re-tool. I'm betting that the cost-benefit analysis showed that it was much more costly to do that than to simply focus on the Primaris line, especially since the business model of continuing to appeal to new players and older players willing to buy new models seems to drive GW's planning considerations. While I love the Firstborn models, I can appreciate the business decision to focus on Primaris as that keeps GW profitable and able to continue as a business for new players over the years.

[phandaal]

On 4/20/2023 at 4:08 AM, Orange Knight said:

Whatever the reasoning was, it's undeniable that it caused ripples, excitement and dialogue within the community. GW chose the bold path, not the one of least resistance.

 

"Hold my beer" is a bold strategy, often accompanied by boldly stupid decisions.

 

To the question of the thread: we would have gotten new units anyway, just like the other factions are getting, but maybe also more upscaled resculpts rather than almost-but-not-quite quasi-replacement units like we have been getting with Primaris.