An (admittedly dumb) lore idea

[Kaede45]

To start off, this is an idea that I haven’t fully fleshed out, so there is definitely room for improvement.

 

To preface, as I was getting into 40K & learned of the Primarchs, including the missing 2nd & 11th Primarchs. It appeared to me that these missing Primarchs were a way to give people (like me) the ability to make their own Space Marine legions that weren’t part of the “known” Primarchs. It makes sense as a means to say “no one knows who they were, but players can take them & make whatever they want.”

 

However, in recent times it seems like GW has started making lore regarding these lost Primarchs meaning that (at least to me) trying to make lore surrounding them & making custom chapters is now conflicting with established lore.

 

My idea was “what if there were more than 20 Primarchs?” What if the Emperor had created more “proto-Primarchs” who either vanished when they were sent into the Warp, deemed failures & destroyed at some point or even just never made it past infancy? The Emperor likely would have still used their gene-seed to make more Astartes & it could be said that only those made from these proto-Primarchs have any knowledge of them. It could be a new & interesting way to make custom chapters who are not just descendants of the main 20.

 

Anyway, what do y’all think? The idea is still half-baked, but I’m open to feedback. As always, thank you for your time & input & God bless!

[Grotsmasha]

18 hours ago, Kaede45 said:

To preface, as I was getting into 40K & learned of the Primarchs, including the missing 2nd & 11th Primarchs. It appeared to me that these missing Primarchs were a way to give people (like me) the ability to make their own Space Marine legions that weren’t part of the “known” Primarchs. It makes sense as a means to say “no one knows who they were, but players can take them & make whatever they want.”

 

 

I forget the source (one of the employees responsible for the Lore at the time), but it's been confirmed to be the case

 

18 hours ago, Kaede45 said:

My idea was “what if there were more than 20 Primarchs?”

 

Technically, *TECHNICALLY*, he did.... 

 

But back to the actual question, definitely a fun possibility worth exploring 

Edited August 8 by Grotsmasha

[darkhorse0607]

19 hours ago, Kaede45 said:

My idea was “what if there were more than 20 Primarchs?” What if the Emperor had created more “proto-Primarchs” who either vanished when they were sent into the Warp, deemed failures & destroyed at some point or even just never made it past infancy? The Emperor likely would have still used their gene-seed to make more Astartes & it could be said that only those made from these proto-Primarchs have any knowledge of them. It could be a new & interesting way to make custom chapters who are not just descendants of the main 20.

 

Go read Valdor, feel the vindication 

[apologist]

The idea of proto-Primarchs certainly has merit; it strikes me as exactly the sort of fun idea that you could build a whole campaign or personal army around. 

 

The concept of the Primarchs has expanded from them just being the leaders of Space Marines Chapters (later Legions), and while they've now grown to being supersized and supernatural, I think there's still space. After all, it's a big galaxy, and with characters like Basilio Fo, Amar Astartes and the Selenar priesthood around (and their counterpart biological/technomantical/magical geniuses in the years that follow), it's entirely possible that other not-quite-Primarchs or Primarch/adjacent beings might exist.

 

We've had a couple of 'are-they-aren't-they?' figures like the Sleeper and Alpha Primus, so the creation of Primarch-lite or Primarch-like figures is possible; and there's also the twin precedents of the Grey Knights having geneseed that's not derived from the 20 Primarchs* and Cawl's production of Astartes from geneseeds beyond the remaining nine loyalists.

 

On a closely-related note, Rick Priestley posted the following comment on a YouTube video, which gives the author's intent on the missing legions:

 

 

There's more discussion and reading material on this thread, if it's helpful:

 

 

 

*arguably)

[Doghouse]

In all honesty I'd ignore whatever tidbits there are and just make one of the lost legions if that is what you want to do. I'm currently doing the 11th personally, the records of both are expunged so to be fair you can do what you want regardless.

 

Anything any of us do isn't going to become canon so why worry? Put together an awesome Legion idea and go for it I say!

 

As for your other idea, that's perfectly fine. One aspect of war that is massively overlooked when it comes to 30k is experimental warfare like the SOE in the second world war. Cawl probably wasn't the only one playing around with Primaris concepts and it's incredibly plausible that others were trying weird experiments on either side to give them the edge. The trick is not to tie this stuff to known characters in 40k like Malcador or the Emperor and instead create your own mad scientist type.

[Wormwoods]

My personal, silly headcanon has always been that there were only 18 Primarchs, but a latter Imperial scholar thought that was untidy, and fudged the numbers. 10,000 years is a long time.