Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Stravo »

andrewgpaul wrote:No, not really. There's a couple of mentions of their existence, but that's it. They're deliberately left undescribed, so there's room for players to make up their own Legions in their games. Sadly, the majority of the fanbase considers this deep heresy.
Yeah, that always bothered me. The company has stated explicitly that these two Primarchs were intentionally left blank so that a player could have fun and start up his own legion based on a Primarch of their own design.

But as usual it seems to me that game players in general don't like these kind of open ended things in their fluff. For example in the VtM setting the company tried to keep things about the Antedeluvians very vague on purpose to allow the players to imagine things out on their own with the philosophy that what players sometimes come up with is way better than an "official" fluff explantion but players seem offended by this notion and want everything explained to them.

I never enjoyed that aspect of the gaming crowd. The company is doing you a favor and leaving back story open to interpretation by YOU the player and that somehow makes you angry?
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

I don't think it's so simple as that.

Consider that a huge aspect to playing or collecting Space Marines is designing your own Chapter, to the point where a good deal of the 4th Edition Codex was devoted to rules and background for just such an endeavour. Some players do established Chapters, true, but tons of SM players, myself included, prefer to go the DIY route.

The problem comes into play when you start messing with fundamental canon. With a thousand Chapters out there, most of which remain unrecognized in official materials, plenty of room is left for players to come up with their own Chapters and backstory, even though logically with all the 40k players out there we've probably well exceeded the approximately 1000 available Chapters, if one were to compile all existing DIY Chapters. With 20 legions and 2 left unnoticed, there's a lot less room to maneuver.

That's further complicated by the impact on history. One fresh Chapter cropping up in the 35th millennium local to Subsector Bumfuck, Segmentum Obscurus isn't a big deal; a full-blown Legion and Primarch which presumably participated in the Horus Heresy and spawned successor Chapters and/or Chaos Legions begins to stretch credibility a bit, especially if you intend to play nice with others who are trying to work in the same background fluff you are.

Plus a lot of people tend to use shit like that as excuses for their fucking female Space Marine Chapter. FUCK OFF ALREADY, NO ONE LIKES YOU
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by J Ryan »

I think there was an oblique reference to them in in the Thousand Son's book.
Spoiler
When Magnus is talking to his Chief Librarian, they mention the unstable Gene Seed that they had originally leading to a host of mutations. The Librarian asks Magnus what would have happened if he wasn't able to solve the mutations and the reply is something along the lines of, that they would have been destroyed and deleted from imperial records. When the Librarian dismisses the idea of an entire legion being forgotten, Magnus tells him he has not seen the wrath of the Emperor.
Or I could be misremembering that scene.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

Yeah, there have been a couple of lines like that throughout the HH series, dropping little hints as to the lost primarchs.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by andrewgpaul »

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:I don't think it's so simple as that.

Consider that a huge aspect to playing or collecting Space Marines is designing your own Chapter, to the point where a good deal of the 4th Edition Codex was devoted to rules and background for just such an endeavour. Some players do established Chapters, true, but tons of SM players, myself included, prefer to go the DIY route.

The problem comes into play when you start messing with fundamental canon. With a thousand Chapters out there, most of which remain unrecognized in official materials, plenty of room is left for players to come up with their own Chapters and backstory, even though logically with all the 40k players out there we've probably well exceeded the approximately 1000 available Chapters, if one were to compile all existing DIY Chapters. With 20 legions and 2 left unnoticed, there's a lot less room to maneuver.

That's further complicated by the impact on history. One fresh Chapter cropping up in the 35th millennium local to Subsector Bumfuck, Segmentum Obscurus isn't a big deal; a full-blown Legion and Primarch which presumably participated in the Horus Heresy and spawned successor Chapters and/or Chaos Legions begins to stretch credibility a bit, especially if you intend to play nice with others who are trying to work in the same background fluff you are.

Plus a lot of people tend to use shit like that as excuses for their fucking female Space Marine Chapter. FUCK OFF ALREADY, NO ONE LIKES YOU
The thing is, it seems to me like GW want people to adapt the setting in their own way. You say the 11th Legion defended the walls of the palace instead of the Blood Angels? fine. The 11th Legion are female? OK. I really don't understand the antipathy that people have for female Marines. OK, so it's contrary to canon? It's all made up anyway. It's not like female Space Marines would destroy the feel of the setting.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Ghost Rider »

andrewgpaul wrote:The thing is, it seems to me like GW want people to adapt the setting in their own way. You say the 11th Legion defended the walls of the palace instead of the Blood Angels? fine. The 11th Legion are female? OK. I really don't understand the antipathy that people have for female Marines. OK, so it's contrary to canon? It's all made up anyway. It's not like female Space Marines would destroy the feel of the setting.
The problem is while GW doesn't dislike minor changes, they definitely want a following of their material and their demands. The 2nd and 11th legion have problem that they hint there was something more, and as such their history can be molded by you, but by extension will be thrown out when they feel they can make money from it, just like Lucas does with whatever displeases him.

As for Female Space Marine, the creation of the Space Marine dictated by GW for 40K pretty much goes "MEN ONLY" and most accept this for whatever whacky science 40K has the need for it. Creating female marines is akin to redefining a technology for the sake of redefining it. It smacks of far too much author's insert to make his squad feel special for no other reason then sex.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Night_stalker »

Yeah, bloody Mary Sue Chapter.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Ghost Rider wrote:
andrewgpaul wrote:The thing is, it seems to me like GW want people to adapt the setting in their own way. You say the 11th Legion defended the walls of the palace instead of the Blood Angels? fine. The 11th Legion are female? OK. I really don't understand the antipathy that people have for female Marines. OK, so it's contrary to canon? It's all made up anyway. It's not like female Space Marines would destroy the feel of the setting.
As for Female Space Marine, the creation of the Space Marine dictated by GW for 40K pretty much goes "MEN ONLY" and most accept this for whatever whacky science 40K has the need for it. Creating female marines is akin to redefining a technology for the sake of redefining it. It smacks of far too much author's insert to make his squad feel special for no other reason then sex.
Personally, I've come to suspect that this wouldn't be such a big deal in the 40k gamer community if it weren't for the fact that said community is overwhelmingly male. I can't shake the feeling that the whole argument boils down to:

"No, you can't make superwomen to go with our supermen!"
"Why not?"
"That's... just the way it is!"

Now, I wouldn't raise the issue, but that's because I don't like starting big fights for no reason. I really am inclined to question making this such a massive go/no go deal, especially when the biological differences between a human and a Space Marine are so much larger than the differences between an H. sapiens male and an H. sapiens female.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

There are plenty of superwomen in 40k, though. Lots of living saints, the Adepta Sororitas, many Inquisitors, Sisters of Silence... and so on and so forth. There's no reason to go out of your way to piss on canon to make female Space Marines if your goal is to play superwomen (since there are plenty of other options), which just tends to leave the Mary Sue thing others have mentioned.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Ghost Rider »

Simon_Jester wrote:
Ghost Rider wrote:
andrewgpaul wrote:The thing is, it seems to me like GW want people to adapt the setting in their own way. You say the 11th Legion defended the walls of the palace instead of the Blood Angels? fine. The 11th Legion are female? OK. I really don't understand the antipathy that people have for female Marines. OK, so it's contrary to canon? It's all made up anyway. It's not like female Space Marines would destroy the feel of the setting.
As for Female Space Marine, the creation of the Space Marine dictated by GW for 40K pretty much goes "MEN ONLY" and most accept this for whatever whacky science 40K has the need for it. Creating female marines is akin to redefining a technology for the sake of redefining it. It smacks of far too much author's insert to make his squad feel special for no other reason then sex.
Personally, I've come to suspect that this wouldn't be such a big deal in the 40k gamer community if it weren't for the fact that said community is overwhelmingly male. I can't shake the feeling that the whole argument boils down to:

"No, you can't make superwomen to go with our supermen!"
"Why not?"
"That's... just the way it is!"

Now, I wouldn't raise the issue, but that's because I don't like starting big fights for no reason. I really am inclined to question making this such a massive go/no go deal, especially when the biological differences between a human and a Space Marine are so much larger than the differences between an H. sapiens male and an H. sapiens female.
Here I'll just let Brother Gaius point stand. There are plenty of women in armor, and in fact the Adepta Soritas/Sister of Battle are visually...Space Marines. Chicks in Power Armor with all the glitter and paint your heart can desire.

The fact GW said "Men Only" is something that they have defined because in their science only men can biologically handle the Gene Seed and zygote. Thus the Emperor, in essence, rejects chicks as Space Marines.

Yes, you can go "That makes no fucking sense, biologically!"...neither does Warp Travel, Hyperdrive, and an enormous amount of science fiction under our current understanding of science but the thought of SoD is that we come up with a rationalization of logic so it does work until something within said universe contradicts this. Why? Because we really cannot say why it works and such rationalization is illogical. In 40K the geneseed and zygote needed to start making ANY space marine doesn't work with women. Saying otherwise, needs more proof then GamesWorkshop doesn't want girls in the clubhouse for the in-universe reason.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

I actually have no problem with the concept of female space marines, if people would buy it (who knows, maybe they wouldn't. I dont do interviews to ifgure those things out.) in terms of pure aestehtics. It wouldn't be any more practical than normal Space Marines already are and I dont see any conceivable advantage in doing so. Supposedly the gene seed is only engineered to work with men - whether or not it acts on specific hormones more common in men or what, I dont know - biology isnt my strong point and I'm not really even sure how "biological/genetic" gene-seed really is, since sometimes it seems more like gray goo nanowank to me (with some merit, I learned in latter fluff...)

Culturally it might be a different story. Considering how often we hear of Astartes being recruited from feral or feudal worlds, I suspect that discrimination would play a not-so-minor part in things. I mean most of the feral tribes we see in recruitjment fluff don't seem to favor female warriors, so there's a real selection bias going on. Hell, pre-Crusade Terra during the unification wasn't much better than a feral world itself, so I imagine thta the early proto-Astartes had similar shit going on.

If we had more emphasis on hive ganger recruitment (say) that might be more reasonable to expect equal recruitment.. but we don't.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Simon_Jester »

My feeling is that while GW has a rule on the subject, it shouldn't be a big deal if one guy breaks it for their own army and repaints a bunch of Sisters of Battle and calls them female Space Marines. Who cares?

It doesn't affect gameplay balance, and it's not like anyone's tabletop army has their entire backstory revolve around the critical fact that women can't be Space Marines.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

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Simon_Jester wrote:My feeling is that while GW has a rule on the subject, it shouldn't be a big deal if one guy breaks it for their own army and repaints a bunch of Sisters of Battle and calls them female Space Marines. Who cares?

It doesn't affect gameplay balance, and it's not like anyone's tabletop army has their entire backstory revolve around the critical fact that women can't be Space Marines.
It's not a rule, literally it's their canon. Thus sure, a lone guy(s) can have his Female Space Marine Chapter and that is no different then playing via house rules. In that aspect, no one gives a fuck. People only give a damn when someone else tries to shoehorn it as a legion that should be accepted by others in something other then an anything goes setting.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

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Personally, I just have thematic problems in general with female space marines. The Space Marines are an order of monastic knights who crusade around and do shit for the God Emperor of Man. They are a bunch of dudes who form a little prayer circle and then go off and kick ass. The main thing is that monks are men and knights are men. The fairer sex just doesn't enter the equation.

Secondly, Space Marines are supposed to be massive. They are some seriously huge motherfuckers in full plate. Like it or not, when it comes to shoving ridiculous musculature on a human frame the male physique works better. People like Sergio Oliva and Mariusz Pudzianowski just appear massive next to their female counterparts.

I just have great difficulty imagining why thematically people would want to make female Astartes other than hair-brained ideas or contrarianism. Sure you could say that people can simply repaint Sisters and call them female space marines, but they could also repaint Orks and call them Ork space marines or repaint Eldar and call them gay space marines. If no one cares any random object can proxy for a model under any army ruleset you like. This is not really any more of an argument for the possibility of female space marines than it is for my change jar being filled with disembodied president head marines.

Frankly, I dislike a lot of DIY chapters in general because in my personal experience the average 40K player is actually pretty terribly poorly versed in the thematic underpinnings of the universe. I tend to like the joke chapters more because it tends to be more believable that a gene-seed mutation caused a chapter to be more flaming than Elton John than some random Blood Angels Successor chapter has figured out how to control the black rage and makes heavy use whirlwinds but doesn't have a chaplain or dedicated assault unit in sight.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by andrewgpaul »

Ghost Rider wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:My feeling is that while GW has a rule on the subject, it shouldn't be a big deal if one guy breaks it for their own army and repaints a bunch of Sisters of Battle and calls them female Space Marines. Who cares?

It doesn't affect gameplay balance, and it's not like anyone's tabletop army has their entire backstory revolve around the critical fact that women can't be Space Marines.
It's not a rule, literally it's their canon. Thus sure, a lone guy(s) can have his Female Space Marine Chapter and that is no different then playing via house rules. In that aspect, no one gives a fuck. People only give a damn when someone else tries to shoehorn it as a legion that should be accepted by others in something other then an anything goes setting.
But no-one does that - it's impossible. All the threads on modelling forums basically consist of "hey, look at my cool army of female Marines", and then gets drowned in hate. It's not like the guy's coming round your house and forcing you to accept them in your personal canon. If he wants to change the universe to allow them - something GW's own bigwigs don't seem bothered about - why does it affect you?
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Ghost Rider wrote:It's not a rule, literally it's their canon. Thus sure, a lone guy(s) can have his Female Space Marine Chapter and that is no different then playing via house rules. In that aspect, no one gives a fuck. People only give a damn when someone else tries to shoehorn it as a legion that should be accepted by others in something other then an anything goes setting.
OK. Maybe I'm getting an exaggerated sense of how much players care. But if it's not a GW publication saying this (because then that fucks with their canon), I don't really see why anyone should care, at all.

As for the thematic aspect, well, if warrior-monks are an all-male job, where the hell do the Sisters of Battle come from? I mean, they're explicitly played up as warrior-nuns as much as the Marines are warrior-monks. The only thing Marines have that they don't is the geneseed to turn them into supersoldiers.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by andrewgpaul »

Same place as real nuns recruit from - people sign up. They may also take females from the Schola Progenium. And if necessary, it doesn't actually say anywhere that they take a vow of celibacy ...
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

I think its safe to say we can treat 40K and games Workshop as not being one uniform, consistent entity over a long period of time. That is, over time, their policies and approach can and probably do change. (To put it another way I'd say that the guys running GW in the earlier days - when the fluff and concepts in 40K, including Space Marines, was set up - were more laid back and flexible and basically just gave more of a damn about the fans and the hobby in general. In latter years it became more corporate and all the bad stuff therein - stuff not proceeding past 41st millenium, a perpetual status quo, increasing grimdark, - and they just work off/recycle the older material perpetually.)

In terms of fandom, its also possible/likely that there are canon obsessed fans who object to the idea of "damaging" continuity in such ways and who demand every facet of the universe bieng laid out in excruciating detail rather than make it up themselves. They exist in every fandom, and it wouldnt surprise me if they are the ones who have the loudest voices (and thus gain the notice of GW.)
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by andrewgpaul »

That would be the Warseer 40K Background forum. :) Thankfully, I don't think GW do listen to them, at least going by comments I've seen from Black Library authors.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by bilateralrope »

andrewgpaul wrote:Same place as real nuns recruit from - people sign up. They may also take females from the Schola Progenium. And if necessary, it doesn't actually say anywhere that they take a vow of celibacy ...
One of the Ciaphas Cain books (Last Stand) makes it clear that they don't take a vow of celibacy.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Night_stalker »

Yeah, they also can gamble as I recall... There's also female commisars in canon as well.

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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Elheru Aran »

andrewgpaul wrote:No, not really. There's a couple of mentions of their existence, but that's it. They're deliberately left undescribed, so there's room for players to make up their own Legions in their games. Sadly, the majority of the fanbase considers this deep heresy.

BTW, I'm sure that there used to be three missing Primarchs, and that the Raven Guard were invented by GW somewhat later than the other 17 original Chapters/Legions. I can't remember where I saw this though, and it bugs me.
You may be thinking about the Blood Ravens, who speak of a 'unknown Primarch' on occasion and... it actually hasn't been said outright where they come from, but many think they've got Thousand Sons ancestry, given their large numbers of Librarians. I'm not sure about the Raven Guard, but as current GW canon stands, the Raven Guard are First Founding, and there are only two Unknown Primarchs/Legions.

Following up on the speculation upon same, perhaps the Unknown Primarchs ended up on *uninhabited* worlds? Or worlds that were so fucked up that they got their asses screwed over and had to be put down when the Emperor showed up?
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by andrewgpaul »

No; I definitely remember seeing a chart of the 1st Founding CHapters (that's how old it was), with three blank spaces. This was well before Dawn of War.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by 2000AD »

andrewgpaul wrote:No; I definitely remember seeing a chart of the 1st Founding CHapters (that's how old it was), with three blank spaces. This was well before Dawn of War.
Well the 2nd edition rule book only has 2 empty spaces on their list of the 20 primachs/legions. That was released in 1993 so if there was an old list with 3 spaces it was 1st edition only and they decided to add a primarch.
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Re: Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

Post by Bedlam »

I'm not sure they even had Primarchs back then atleast not in their current form. The original Rogue traider book had Space marines as being recruited from convicted criminals and I dont think they even had bio enhancement then just better gear.

The first reference I remember to Primarchs relating to space marines had them as legandary heros of the chapters rather that their creators (dispite the name) so that a single chapter would have several Primarchs in its history.
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