40K - The Lost Legions

[SpaceMarine93]

Okay, so according to Warhammer 40K lore the God-Emperor, with his advanced knowledge of Genetics, produced a total of 20 primarchs for 20 Space Marine Legions. They were bred to be perfect generals, warriors and statesmen; larger, stronger, faster, and smarter than any normal human could ever hope to be. They possessed a charisma and martial prowess that made them like the mythical gods of old, untouchable by disease, old age or supposedly the petty failings of lesser men. The Primarchs were the Emperor's answer to reclaiming all the lost worlds of mankind, and welcoming them into his new Imperium. The Emperor intended to raise his sons to be the best military commanders and political leaders Mankind had ever known, and they would bring the Imperial Truth to the rest of the human-settled galaxy in their father's name.

The Ruinous Powers of Chaos, in an attempt to prevent the coming of the Imperium and order upon the galaxy, somehow spirited the children away through the Warp, however, leaving them scattered across the galaxy. Of all the 20 primarchs, only 18 were ever recorded (19, if you count Omegon). The other two primarchs were assumed either never found, or something had happened so that both primarch, and their legions' existences were erased from history after the Horus Heresy.

This gets me thinking: what if the last two Primarchs were found / not erased? Ambiguity always intrigues me in the possibilities available to explore. So I want to ask: If the two lost Primarchs were found / not erased and given their own, playable space marines, what should they be like?

How should the Primarchs from both legion be like? (Preferable with a summary of their background

What would form the culture of the Primarchs and their Space Marines (e.g. Flame based Salamanders, Viking/wolf based Space Wolves, Mongolia based White Scars, Greco-Roman based Ultramarines)?

What would be their combat doctrine? And what special weapons should they have?

Which side would they take during the Heresy and how would the Primarchs be removed from history like the others?

What would their history be after the Heresy (Bonus: if assuming they did canonically existed at one point, why all traces of them are removed from existence)

Which genders ( ) should the primarchs be?

Anyone got any ideas?

[Purple]

Officially speaking there is no canon data at all about them. The whole expunged from records thing is actually GW code for "GW will newer publish anything about them ever."

The idea is that long ago while GW still cared about it's user base the lost primarch were a clean slate players could use to make up their own chapters. And it sort of stuck even now when GW is all about money and only money.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Well, yes, but why spoil the fun?

Personal bet;
broke with the Emperor and were suppressed well before the Heresy, due to having an essentially different vision of how the Imperium should be- thought that the great project was fundamentally misguided.

Enemies the Imperium can tolerate; it knows what to do about enemies. Not that it always can, but at least the way is clear. Rivals, it finds less purchase on.

So what would the Imperium have found unacceptable at the time of the Crusade- what would have fitted sufficiently badly with the imperial truth that the Emperor would have done in two of his sons, and the other eighteen would have accepted it and spoken little of it?

I can think of a couple of possibilities;


the Emperor, bless the three surviving brain cells the golden throne serves, was never a particularly democratic being. Intellectually maybe, but at the gut level he was a collective reincarnation of a conclave of ancient shamen, a group and class of people to whom parliamentary procedure doesn't really occur.

Perhaps the Primarch landed on a planet with more than a pretence at it, and objected violently to the autocracy and command- state the Emperor intended to build? the Ultras do have something of that in them- perhaps it is actually the repressed strain coming through in the geneseed?


What if one of them landed on a high technology world that had held it's own- not completely of course, but that had remained relatively untainted and advanced through the Age of Strife? A heavily mechanised, roboticised world of pervasive computing and artificial intelligence?

I could see a Primarch who had risen to prominence in such an environment declaring his own private war on the AdMech- one that had to be suppressed for the good of the whole.


What about the old classic sci-fi standby that intricate genetic engineering looks to be turning out to be a lot easier to do than brute force rocket engineering, and it's likely to be a lot easier to change the colonists than it is the colony planet- wholesale genetic modification of the human into new ecological niches? Been written many times.

In fact, a Primarch who fell amongst abhumans could easily think so, that the human form is not sacred and sacrosanct, represents a limit that can and should be thrown off- and how desperately dangerous a thing for the future that would have to be. Another one mandatory to suppress.


What about doing the mongol thing properly- a Primarch who found himself among the void-born, and grew up disbelieving in the worth of fixed soil- that survival as a race of interstellar nomads was the only viable future, that it was pointless to be tied down as planet- peasants staked out for the wolves of the galaxy; far better to be the wolves.

Runs so counter to what the Imperium was trying to achieve (although look at the nids and tell me this is actually wrong) that again, could not be allowed to be so.


What of a Primarch who came to rest on a world where the powers of darkness were strong and relatively well understood, who grew up fighting Chaos and knowing it's wiles- in the early stages of the Crusade, the Emperor was trying to keep all this a secret, remember. So here is his long- lost son, head bursting with secret and forbidden knowledge the rest of the Human race must not know- and what else is there to do but suppress? (You could call this one, oh, I don't know, Sigmar, if you like.)

Any other ideas?

[SpaceMarine93]

Any other ideas?

Well, Lastie, author of the WH40K parody crack fic "PRIMARCHS" shown her hilarious versions of the Lost Legions:

Hecate, a female Primarch, leading Hell's Fury Bunnies (all female Space Marines), suppressed due to the fact once put to work she did her Great Crusading SO well she makes all other male Primarchs and warriors look bad and had to be imprisoned, Legion liquidated and existence censored.

Carl, the other Primarch of the Fear Loathers, who only conquered one planet which happened to be full of psychoactive drugs and had since then become a lazy, television watching dope-head living in an underground basement home on a distant corner of the galaxy who rents his legion out to other people.

Finally, read PRIMARCHS, man, its AWESOME

[2000AD]

Officially speaking there is no canon data at all about them. The whole expunged from records thing is actually GW code for "GW will newer publish anything about them ever."

Actually the Horus Heresy series has started dropping hints, so far we've had (off the top of my head):
- Leman Russ musing that space marines fighting each other isn't unprecedented in Prospero Burns.
- The First Heretic had a few, namely the Word Bearers rumour that the Ultramarines absorbed one of the legions and Lorgar almost bringing them up before Magnus said they'd sworn a vow of silence.
- In False Gods when Horus was sent back in time he lingered over the 11th primarchs pod musing he could save a lot of grief by doing him in there and then.

Also there's apparently something in one of the audio books too.

My guess is that at least one of them told the Emperor where he could stick his offer when he found him again and immediatly declared was against the Imperium.

[Simon_Jester]

2000AD, that alludes to them but doesn't define them. Though, yes, it does raise the alarming possibility that GW will publish on them.

SM93, I don't think that's in keeping with what ECR's looking for; those are jokes, not explanations for why a Primarch and their chapter (assets of literally incalculable value to the Imperium) would be destroyed or exiled and never spoken of again.

Somewhat amusing jokes, though.
________

I like ECR's take on it, but he seems to have hit most of the obvious ways in which a Primarch could get in trouble for violating the Imperial Truth as we know it.

Also, Sigmar. Hah!

Hmmmm. Some of those suppressions might take a different form than others. The Emperor might have settled for imprisoning a Chaos-fighter primarch away from his legion. While he wanted to keep the existence of Chaos a secret, I don't think he was actively trying to burn out knowledge of its existence among those dedicated to fighting it. In which case you have another trigger for "lost Primarch" stories- our hypothetical primarch being locked away somewhere, not released in time to interfere in the Horus Heresy (Horus might have worked hard to ensure that this would be so, come to think of it)... and he'd probably fit the 40k Imperium better than a lot of the other primarchs; he might not like everything it's become but he'd fit in better than he did in 29k, that's for sure.

Alternatively, a primarch who dissents from the idea of the Imperium's authoritarian structure appeals to my sensibilities; maybe that's the Eleventh Primarch who "had to be" put down to avoid trouble, the one Horus was thinking about.

[PainRack]

Given that their legion itself was expunged, I rather believe that at least one of the legion was so utterly defeated that they suppressed all records so that the myth of the super primarchs could remain intact.

[NecronLord]

Given that their legion itself was expunged, I rather believe that at least one of the legion was so utterly defeated that they suppressed all records so that the myth of the super primarchs could remain intact.

Given the original inspiration (the Roman Legions lost in the Teutoberg forest, who were never rebuilt) a total and utter defeat by the Imperium's enemies is the most appropriate answer, and a plausible enough one.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. Split the difference. One legion that was utterly defeated, and one that simply would not get with the program, openly defied the Emperor and his plans for the galaxy, and was crushed by the others well before the Heresy.

[Nephtys]

Except why would you expunge their names and whatnot, but not the records of the very-obvious 9 traitors who almost certainly did more damage?

[Simon_Jester]

All right. Suppose the Emperor had twenty legions. One was utterly defeated in a way that wound up humiliating them- say, they ran afoul of a large Eldar force that handily outmaneuvered them, or something. The loss of one legion could be suppressed, after a long enough period had elapsed; relatively few people would remember it. And so that legion could conceivably be stricken from the records as long as it didn't happen in a context that would make it impossible to hide.

Likewise, if a single primarch not yet in contact with his legion encountered the Emperor, but expressed rebellious and defiant sentiments and generally made trouble, the Emperor might (more in sorrow than in anger) decide to imprison or otherwise neutralize that primarch, and incorporate said primarch's legion into one of the others- again, striking a primarch from the records. Plausible deniability still reigns, more or less.

The Heresy, though, that was too big to be denied- it literally split the Imperium in half, and the traitor legions were still out there when the war ended, still a threat to the Imperium. There was no possibility of suppressing knowledge that Horus and the Luna Wolves, or any of the other traitor legions, had existed.

[Bedlam]

Except why would you expunge their names and whatnot, but not the records of the very-obvious 9 traitors who almost certainly did more damage?

It just might be easier to expunge details near the beginning of the crusade rather than at the end. If the loss of one of the legions occured then the imperium consisted of only a few hundred worlds none of which have been full members for more than 20 years its easier to wipe out all details than when the imperium consists of 100s of thousands of worlds many of which have been members for over 100 years and about half of which have been directly conquered by the traitors in the last few centuries.

Say a legion was wiped out almost to a man by Orks or something similar (or even worse a well defended normal human held planet), it takes place just as the first wave of the crusade has over reached itself. Several hundred worlds have been brought into the imperium but havn't been made fully compliant yet, if there start to be rumours that the space marines arn't as indistructable as advertised then the whole house of cards could start to come tumbelling down so the emperor wipes all trace of them, even ordering the scorching of the worlds they have a big part in capturing (say they were a less effective or smaller legion it might only be a dozen or so worlds) and covers it up with tales of revolution and punishment. Wait a few years and you've got a loyal empire still fearful of marine retribution ready to start crusade part 2.

As for an anti-imperium primarch I'd say that would be morelikely to be where additional ultramarine troops come from. Primarch is found like all the others, he seems somewhat troublesome but the emperor trusts him anyway, he gets given his legion full of terra born marine and starts recruituing from his homeworld. After he conquors a world or two it comes to light that hes just too anti imperium to work and one of the terra born marines blows the wistle on him and the emperor and the other legions come to bring him to justice, the 90% of his legion born on earth turn against him while the new guys stay loyal its a slaughter and the primarch is killed / imprisoned / mind wiped / etc. The terra born are secretly folded into the ultra marines and again all details are hidden which is easy as the primarchs only just be found and hasn't done much again its for the political good of the imperium showing a unified face.

What do you think?

[Agent Sorchus]

I buy that an anti-Imperium Primarch would have been cause to have some revisionism, but not the wiping out of an Entire Legion (ie the first idea of a complete loss). Not because of the Legion itself, but because there would be no reason to completely un-name the Primarch. Besides that fact that they would just rebuild the Legion as fast as possible to make up for it's loss, there being other ways to hide weakness. And since when was the Imperium held together on the apparent invulnerability of the Marines? They are awesome yes, but when any old man portable machine gun is a threat you can't say that the fall of some marines is anything less than inevitable. And you can still spin the fall of an entire Legion as a good propaganda to rally and honor the fallen.

The loss of either Legion has to come down to either covering up a secret more than dangerous enough to the Imperium, while not being dangerous to all the Space Marines and their Primarchs; or it was something so dishonorable that no mention or spin could possibly be allowed.

[Ahriman238]

The Traitor Legions, and all subsequent heretics, have been erased from all official Imperial histories. Their lore is only kept by Loyalist Astartes and in dark tomes of the Inquisition.

HH allusions to the Lost Legions (to the best of my knowledge):

Mechanicum: Rogal Dorn stands in a hallway with statues of eighteen Primarchs. He comments how much easier the coming conflict would be with two more legions. Malcador the Sigilite tells him it is better not to say or even think such things.

The First Heretic: Lorgar and Magnus are talking about how close Lorgar came to being
"cast aside like the brothers we no longer speak of." Lorgar says he still remembers how they- and Magnus snaps at him stop speaking and "honor the oath you swore that day!" Lorgar says the other Primarchs forget the past too easily, and asks Magnus if the Emperor decreed that he and the Word Bearers be destroyed, could Magnus stand with his brothers and never speak his (Lorgar) name again, just because of a promise? Magnus assure Lorgar the WOrd Bearers will not walk the path of the "purged and forgotten" and quickly changes the subject.

Later, in the same book Argel Tal and a squad of Word Bearers either go back in time or have a vision of the creation and scattering of the Primarchs. The Word Bearers comment that if they could just smash the caskets containing the Lost Primarchs they could save themselves a lot of trouble, and Lorgar a lot of heartbreak, down the line. Mention is also made of persistent rumors that the Ultramarines swelled their ranks by absorbing survivors of the Lost.

Prospero Burns: Leman Russ explains that the great virtue of the Wolves is that they will do anything the Emperor tells them to, even destroy a legion. When Kasper recoils at the thought, Russ tells him it has happened before.

All this seems to definitively settle the matter. It had better because it's probably all we're ever going to get.

[madd0ct0r]

other reasons for the removal of a primarch:

he was a pariah. Once the emprah discovered the Necron source of this, the little bugger had to be removed.
this theory is now dead sadly, since the sister's of silence are about in the heresy books.

he liked aliens. brought up by eldar (maybe they tried to 'rescue' Angron as well?) or in a Tau-esque multi race federation. Hell, he could have fought his way up the Ork hierarchy as a digganob.

he was a centaur, and power armour just couldn't be redesigned.

[SpaceMarine93]

Okay, got that

Here's the thought, what should they look like?

[Simon_Jester]

...How the hell should we know?

[PainRack]

They should look like Anime creations. You know, Dragonball Z or the like.

Revealing why the Emprar killed them all

[madd0ct0r]

I'm still voting for centaur.