The Space Marines

[Ming]

This is just for those new to the dark and gothic universe of warhammer 40k. It seems that many of you who are new to this violent and horrific future do not realize the might of a space marine. In summary, this is just background info.

On feral and backwater planets of the dark millenium, tribes of primitive humans huddle fearfully around campfires reciting tales of the storm warriors, massive and mighty angels sent by the God-Emperor of Mankind to destroy the daemons that speak to the minds of men and mercilessly punish the faithless and those who would doubt the authority of the Imperium of Man. On hive worlds there are whispers of an entire legion of genetically engineered monsters that serve the Golden Throne of Holy Terra, whose troops break the spines of entire armies and shatter the morale of their foolish foe. These are the space marines they speak of.

The lone space marine is already a one-man army; they are great behemoths, standing at a staggering 2.5 metres each, possessing the ability to crush a ork's skull with a bare fist, bones as hard as metal, two hearts, three lungs able to breathe poisonous gas, the best armour and weapons Humanity possess and an almost unbreakable faith and loyalty to the Golden Throne and their Chapter.

Space marines are divided into organizations called Chapters. Each Chapter possess a unique history, culture, colour schemes and trademarks that sets it differently from others. Examples inculde the noble Ultramarines whose deeds of valour and heroism stretched back 10,000 years ago since the Great Crusade who contrast greatly with the notorious Blood Angels, an extremely brutal and bloodthirsty chapter who suffer from a curse that date back to the Horus Heresy.

A Chapter is also responsible for protecting its precious gene-seed, the organs that are required to build a Space Marine and selecting recruits into their Chapter. The candidates are always young boys as the process of creating a space marine require the maturing male hormones. The main reason why space marines are so few in number compared to the toiling and sweating trillions of the human race is that the combat training they recieve to hone them into deadly warriors and the psycho-therapy they undergo to transform them into zealous fanatics take several years and gene-seed is limited.

When the Chapter is called for war their wrath is terrible indeed for fighting giants whose armour deflect every blow, weapons that sing slaughter amoung the ranks of your comrades and hearing pitiful howls of despair as friends recieve the purifying and holy touch of flames is an unnerving experience. Chapters not only play the role of warriors but also as executioners. They are the ones summoned to carry out the Exterminatus; a grim process of murdering an entire world when the Imperium deem it as too tainted and blasphemous to be saved and when millions of innocents are forced to die just to punish a single heretic. The doomed planet would be bombarded with virus bombs, carriers of the dreaded life-eater virus that reduce every living thing on the world into simpler subtances in minutes. When the decaying carcasses weep enough gas to reach the atmosphere, torpedoes are released to ignite the noxious fumes and "cleanse" the entire surface of the world. The Imperium do not mourn or feel remorse for their deeds. In fact they rejoice at having the planet cleaned and purified and that the guiltly has recieved retribution.

They are the Space Marines and only to the Golden Throne of Holy Terra do they serve and They Shall Know No Fear.

[WarmasterHorus]

Nice fluff, good read for the newbies :) Only slightly choppy english, didn't bother me though. Players should understand that Space Marines are so much more than grunts.

[Capt. Invictus]

umm...is it just me or have i read somewhere that SMs have three hearts?

[IWAssassin]

Nope. Two Hearts, Three Lungs

[Talos]

its says that space marine has unbreakable loyalty but some have crossed to chaos

[Bryn]

thats because they have unbreakable loyalty tho there primarcs (might be spelt badly) and the traitors were just following there leaders where as the librarians and the religios parts of a space marine chaptor worship the Eperour almost all of the traitor legions killed the librarians and chapilins exsept for a few where every one terned.

[-_Phoenix_-]

its says that space marine has unbreakable loyalty but some have crossed to chaos
Chaos is an insidious foe, and given time even a space marine can be corrupted. It takes the intense psycho-conditioning and training Grey Knights go through to be truely immune to chaos.

[Richtofen]

its says that space marine has unbreakable loyalty but some have crossed to chaos

That happend 10,000 before the 40,000. If you want to know why some marines went to chaos, that is an entirely different story. Suffice to say, in the beginning, the rank and file marine didn't know what was happening, as the tendrils of chaos infected the top dogs (primarchs) who then converted other ranking officers and by the time the rank and file realised what they were doing, it was too late, they had sold their souls to chaos. The Emperor himself, really is a living corpse. He was mortally wounded by his lieutennant (who was a space marine by the name of Horus). It is good to note at this time, that the Emperor was NOT a space marine, he was just an extraordinary human but "l33ter". After Horus was killed by the final blow from the Emperor, loyalists found the Emperor's broken body and said "Oh no, he's going to die unless we build a really huge complex and a huge life support system where we can hook him up to for a gazillion years until he comes back". After a while, the emperor (barely alive) shrivelled into a prune and is now usually referred to as the 'corpse god/emperor' usually by alien races but sometimes by heretics. This is getting a bit off track :/. Suffice to say, the beaten rebels (fully half of the original marines) said to themselves "this is not good" and so they fled to the Eye of Terror which is a region of space where the Warp and real space mix.

but yeah, a very brief overview of assorted stuff :/

[epsilorn]

very good post =)
an old player eh? =)

[ilia1986]

Some nice stuff. What about the other DoW races? :)

[-_Phoenix_-]

TBH, this thread here (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=21994) covers WH40K background.

[Cmdr_Adeon]

There have been cases of Marines crossing to chaos after the horus heresey. The Red Coarsairs chapter abandoned the Empire and became pirates some time ago (can't remember exactly when). They live in the mealstorm (a warp storm smaller than the Eye) and recruit from loyal chapters (normally individual marines, although occasionally a whole squad).

[Chaos Lord]

Want to know about the eldar?

well ill say any way

the eldar are an alian race who under that armor of there resemble the 40k version of elves
any way a long time ago before the imperium was started they (the eldar) went crazy and "over indulged" this made the youngest of chaos powers (slaanesh (spelt right?) ) grow strong and right at the hight of there greed the new god was born and the HUGE eldar empiere fell in on its self and created the eye of terror and also blew away the warp storms surrounding terra (earth) billions of eldar souls were lost when the "explosin" happend so now the eldar are aparently a rare breed but they do show up quite often...
that is what i know but if the eldar fans here are willing to put in some thing that ive mist then please do:)

[-_Phoenix_-]

"Join Chaos!! See the galaxy!! Go to the famous Mealstorm and try our specials menu!"

I presume you mean the Maelstrom :)

[ilia1986]

Geez Chaos Lord., How bout punctuation signs?

[Chaos Lord]

oh sorry...
well you know im bad at spelling i even forget puntuation!
why did i forget the stops again?

[Sanguislupus]

I agree with -_Phoenix_- that it takes the training of a Grey Knight to be able to fully resist the powers of Chaos. And thanks to this training the Grey Kinghts are the perfect force to combat the forces of Chaos especially their Demons.

[Thorcyra]

about the emperor

it is ten thousand years since the Emperor gave his life battling to save the Earth from the Warmaster during the last terrifying days of the Horus Heresy. The Emperor's mortal life ended at the moment of Horus' own destruction, yet he did not die. The Emperor's body was put into stasis at the point of death, and though his physical form was crushed and maimed his spirit did not falter. A vast machine was built to sustain him, a device constructed with the long forbidden secrets of ancient technology and arcane lore: the Golden Throne. Its vast structure sustains the Emperor's spirit which watches over and quides humanity from the warp, whilst at the same time battling against the horrific psychic entities which threaten mankind's destruction.

I thought that most primarchs who joined Horus joined him because he claimed the Emperors judgement was clouded and he was doing the will of the Chaos gods when its was infact Horus himself who had pledged allegence to the dark gods.

[Talos]

u got to love Horus ( does anybody know what colours Horus used)

[ilia1986]

Hmm. Nice. Can this.. Emperor Speak to his followers?


BTW, do the SMs die naturally? How was the Emperor first created and/or selected? What is his name? Does the Emperor have any inheritor in case of his death? What kind of leader is he? Brutal, or merciful, Good or evil?

[ShineDog]

he hasnt moved for 10000 years, nor spoken, hes viewed by his people as a god, and thats basically exactly what he is. according to the old fluff.

other than guiding the astronomican (a big psychic beacon for warp space navigation) and being fed lots of psykers souls to keep a live, he doesnt play any real DIRECT part in the setting. but lots of people claim to have had visions of the emperor, and there are things like the emperors tarot and thing.

basically this is the root of the dark side of the setting. the emperor is god, disagree and the inquisition do bad things to your limbs.

[Talos]

i never really cared about the emperor but who rules the humans if the emperor does not speak

[ShineDog]

the empires governing bodies are pretty damn brutal.

if a planet is deemed irrevocably tainted by chaos, they just nuke it, civilians and all, untill its a dead world.

thats exterminatus.

The inquisition are no holds barred rooting out heresy, various government bodies hunt down any mutants and basically kill em there and then, no questions asked (adeptus soraritus used to do this, not sure if they still do, anyone remember the rainbow warriors picture?

[Thorcyra]

The Imperium of man is governed by the High Lords of Terra 12 of the most powerful leaders of the organisations of the Imperium and govern in the Emperors name being the 12 most powerful individuals in the galaxy.

[DarthFelth]

f i remember right, it hasnt been that long since the emperor moved as he is the only person who can allow a founding of a chaptor ;) as i remember it, the chaos gods are looking in teh warp for his spirit and teh emperor is hiding waiting to be reborn, every 1000 years the link between his body and his spirit weakens which is why he speaks less and less.

He was orignal not on man, but like every shamon of old, and as they started to lose their abilty to be reborn they committed suicide and were born into one body which is why he neever aged and was so powefull. as i remember one group in the imperium is search out his kids, which dont age either to feed them to teh throne so taht god emperor will be reborn and lead the imperium again.

well something like that anyways

[Chaos Lord]

apparntly the average SM can live for 200+ years
the only reason Chaos space marines live for thousands of yeas is because they have the gods giving them un-natural life that is how they are still around
they can also go for days at a time without sleep(must be a lot of caffine:D)
because they can let one sidw of there brain sleep while the other remains active
then later they can switch over when needed

[Talos]

and because chaos is better

[DarthFelth]

no it because time has no meaning in the eye of terror, the marines their prolly think that they have only been gone like 20/50 years at the most (well how much time has past for then anyways) Look at dante, hes ALOT older than that, i think the average of 200years is more due to death in battle than anything else ;) actually come to think of it 200 was the average of a flesh tearer marine whcih have that major black rage problem

[KingKupo]

chaos better? ha, you wish.

Anyways, most of the chaos legions were simply misguided or turned to chaos by the emperor's stupidity. The emperor even had a few warnings from the Eldar and Magnus the red, primarch of the thousand sons.

Unfortunately the emperor became aware of Magnus study of arcane magic while he tried to warn him wich basically is witchcraft in the Emperium. So he ordered Leman Russ to go and burn down their planet and kill the thousand sons, wich they did a good job at. Magnus even sold his soul to chaos(perhaps unintentionally) in a attempt to save his planet and his sons, Unfortunately that wasn't enough and Leman Russ defeated him, but he retreated before he could kill him and took his legion with him.

i forgot what made mortarion of the death gaurd go to chaos but he had a certain psyker who lured him into warpspace after Istvaan where Nurgle attacked him with his plagues until he begged for it to stop.
during the Istvaan massacre One death Gaurd Captain and some space marines were still loyal and realized it before they too were tainted. so they seized a cruiser and warned terra. it is not known what happened to them afterwards.

fulgrim of the emperor's children became touched by Slaanesh, who pleasured him into submission. later he ordered Fabius Bile to connect their nervous centrum to their pleasure centrum so that anything could bring them great pleasure, including getting shot.

Alpharius(he had a grudge with Roboute and tought of Horus more of his father) and night haunter(had a f*cked up mind and his legion consisted mostly of criminals) and several other primarches were never so close with their daddy so they tried to kill him for not showering them with love and go kill ork empires with them like he did with Horus.


The Emperor, altough nothing more than a shriveled psyker eating corpse is of vital importance to practicaly every race except chaos. The emperor is what keeps humanity to go chaos worshiping on large scale and protects humanity with some sort of psychic shield, should he die, you could compare the effect to a Tau ethereal dieing. only they will not flee of the tabletop but will begin chaos worshipping, creating a new chaos god and dragging the entire galaxy into the warp, making the same mistake as the eldar did.

[Talos]

thanks for that keep it up Kingkupo

[-_Phoenix_-]

Look at dante, hes ALOT older than that, i think the average of 200years is more due to death in battle than anything else ;) actually come to think of it 200 was the average of a flesh tearer marine whcih have that major black rage problem
Blood Angel's geneseed, as i'm sure your aware, is flawed. This results in the red thirst and the black rage. A curious side effect is that all Blood Angels are very long lived, living for over 1000 years if they don't die in combat. Dante is over 1100 years old for example.

'Normal' marines usually live to a max 300-400 IIRC.

Yeah, I collect BAs :)

[Talos]

i know alot about the w40K fluff but why does the emporer or those priest people kill the blood angel because of these flaws as it could be seen as a taint of choas

[DarthFelth]

yeah well i wa saying Flesh Tearers which are even more effected by the black rage, they dont tend to last more than 200years because the way the change dthe creation of their marines which has inscreased the speed of mutation on their genseed stock ;)

Lets be fair, its thair own fault for collection their replacement geneseed from a dead, a dead guy that just thought with pure evil none the less guy rather than from all the dead marines on the planet (which i doubt would of had the same effect really ;) )

*EDIT* because they are still loyal, perhaps for the defence of earth, for what sanguinius did, and if they killed the blood angels, then they would turn on teh sucessor chaptors, and i dont think they would sit about, i mean, thats only a few 1000 extra marines that would turn to on the imperium before they were attacked, just think what all the battle barges and strike cruises with viris bombs could do before they were caught, not a pretty thought really

[dewolfe]

Hmm. Nice. Can this.. Emperor Speak to his followers?

Depends on what source you look to. Older books, such as Eye of Terror by Barrington J. Bayley or Draco by Ian Watson (originally called 'Inquisitor' but renamed for the reprint), have the Emperor speaking/communicating with the outside world. [Spoiler ahead]. In Draco the Emperor has divided his conscious into thousands of different selves, each carrying out different tasks in His Imperium. He senses Draco wishing an audience and slows time so that he may speak to him. Of course, the book also contains Squats, Mars manufactured Shurikats, and many other things that are no longer considered 'proper' to the universe.

BTW, do the SMs die naturally?

As mentioned previously, all but the best/luckiest are KIA. The Chapter Masters are pretty damn old (Dante over 1 100 years due to a special flaw, as mentioned).

How was the Emperor first created and/or selected?

The great shamans of past felt the growing presence in the warp of what would be the first born God of Chaos, Khorne, and knew that many more would follow. Sensing that these chaos gods would be too powerful to oppose, and that they would consume the shamans’ souls, they sacrificed themselves and joined their essence into one "super soul". This was reborn as the Emperor. The Emperor had the Primarches created based on His genetic material to help him in the conquering of Earth, but some force (poss. Chaos Gods) scattered them around the galaxy. The Emperor took what remained of His son's genetic material (a diluted version of his own) and had it implanted in his warriors along with other genetic modifications to create the first Space Marines (it is believed that Cypher was the first to live through the operations). With aid of the marines, he overcame the other powers of Earth and set off on the Great Crusade which united all of the warring colonized worlds under the banner of the Imperium of Mankind.

What is his name?

He was first born in modern-day Turkey, so I'd imagine it'd be Turkish, or simply 'Emperor'. I think of him as a 'Bob'.

Does the Emperor have any inheritor in case of his death?

Old fluff is that he had sons. Currently, if he died, the Imperium would collapse.

What kind of leader is he? Brutal, or merciful, Good or evil?

All.

i know alot about the w40K fluff but why does the emporer or those priest people kill the blood angel because of these flaws as it could be seen as a taint of choas

It is a taint of Chaos, but it is a controlled taint. If you were to declare the Angels of Blood excommunite, you would have quite the fight trying to put them and their successors down. This would also send a message to the other chapters that they were not entirely safe, as every chapter less the Ultramarines have at least minor flaws, and in many cases, quite major ones. If no one was safe, you could see a large break off of many chapters. In addition to this, the Space Marines are seen as great heroes and the direct embodiment of the Emperor, and many commanders would rather follow them than anyone trying to off 'em. Remember also that the Astartes do not fall under Imperial Rule. A marine owes his allegiance to the Emperor, and the Emperor only. People request aid. No one, but the Emperor himself, can demand aid.

[IWAssassin]

Old fluff is that he had sons. Currently, if he died, the Imperium would collapse.

Not really. Depends on the fluff you read. Some of the newer fluff implies the Astronomican could be maintained without the Emperor. If that was the case the Imperium would not be largely effected by his death for many hundred years [until all the Astropaths die out, then you have a problem where warp capable vessels must be used to transmit messages instead of psykers].

Of course that assumes the final battle against Chaos DOESNT start with his death as the fluff says it will. Really the High Lords Rule. The Emperor doesnt communicate much [he hasnt been able to talk for 10,000 years and psychic communication more often than not either kills the recipient or drives them insane], so as long as the High Lords didnt advertise the fact much, the imperium would remain intact.

[DarthFelth]

im pretty sure it wasnt modern day turkery, im sure he was born alot before that watching over man until it was time to take control for himself as he believed his vision was the only and right one, just look at the imperium, its anything but i nice place really

[Talos]

what other chapters have flaws

[T10]

Well, the Grey Knights are made from a perfect geneseed, said to be taken from the Emporer himself. So, that's why they have some psychic stuff. So, if someone kills a Grey Knight, I'm porbably ging to shout "You killed the Emporer!"

[dewolfe]

In responce to IWAssassin...

I had always seen the Astronomican as the Emperor's psychic will forced out into one huge, cosmic light house. What have you heard to say otherwise (not calling you out, I just love the fluff and like to be completely up to date...although I haven't read anything BL for a couple of months [Doyle and Speare Shaker taking up my time]).

On GW fluff, I'd just like to say, it's full of holes. But it's so grand that you've got to expect that. Going back to Eye of Terror [Spolier] the last chapter has Tzeentch (himself) pondering. During said chapter, It claims that if the Emperor's soul were to truly die, then there would be a second great battle in the heavens (with different players, obviously), with the end result that He would absorb all of the Chaos Gods into one big happy...thing. On the other hand, the Emperor told Dorn how to construct the Golden Throne, so he must not have been as confident of his victory as the old Trickster.

[IWAssassin]

im pretty sure it wasnt modern day turkery

Indeed not. He was born in the region which in modern day TERMS is called Turkey. He was actually born around 8,000BC - pretty early in terms of human civilization.

As for the battle against Chaos. The thing is there are so many stories on it, told from MANY points of views. The only things which seem to be standardized

1) The death of the Emperor marks its begining
2) More than likley Chaos will be Destroyed.

Now the Eldar believe that Ynnead will destroy Chaos, Tzeentch believes the Emperor might destroy Chaos, and the Illuminati dont want to take the risk and just want the Emperor Reborn through the Sensei.

[dewolfe]

Sorry, poor wording on my part. I meant as IWAssassin has explained.

[Talos]

so when the emperor dies choas dies.so why has chaos tryed to kill the emperor so many times

[Cmdr_Adeon]

Well, the Blood Angels and all their successors have the Red Thirst

Space Wolf have the Wolfen. Sometimes the change of the gene seed causes the recipient to become a mindless beast. Space Wolves have fangs which is a part of this flaw.

The Dark Angels have a terrible secret. A large part of thier legion turned to Chaos during the Heresy. The battle to retake their homeworld destroyed it and killed their primarch (actually he was taken away by the Watchers in the Dark and will return for the final battle, but they don't know this).

Those are the only non-codex Chapters about which a large amount is written (the Ulotramarines have quite a bit, but they are pretty standard). However, the general fluff for marines says that most chapters no longer have pure geneseed. In many cases it is simply a case of a portion of the geneseed being missing (so they don't get one or more of the extra organs) but in some cases it is a minor mutation (for example the Blood Angels have little fangs).

In any case, there is approximately 1 space marine for every inhabited planet in the Imperium, so you do not dispense with their services unless you have no other option.

[Noir]

I heard that The Emperor's House takes up all of England.If his house takes up all of England,how many bathrooms would the Place have?Would there even be Bathrooms?Maybe for the Adeptus Custodes?

:p

[Throdax]

According to the fluff (not sure where I read it) the Dark Angels have one of the most pure geneseeds of all the chapters, I think that the Dark Angels have no know flaws.

The Dark Angels are also the first chapter to be created (well, before the Horus heresy the were called Legions and not chapters and were hugher then they are today, and to prevent another Horus heresy the Emperor tranformed all legions into the smaller chapters we know today).

The home world the Dark Angels is like a space traveling asteroid (Knowed as The Rock) that in reality it is the remains of their home planet that was not sucked into the warp during the planet takeover because of a huge monostary, that was the Dark Angels headquarters, that genereted a shield to powerfull that protected it wasn't the warp storm.

Dark Angels and the Inquisitors do not get along very well, in fact there are some reports that the whole chapter retreat from a planet just because and Inquisitor appered.

The Dark Angels have a special section called the Deathwing, that are the elite of the elite of the Dark Angels and they are know for never retreating from combat not matter the odds. They won they bleached bone armour after a lone squad of Deathwing terminators liberated their home planet (the Deathwing home planet not the Dark Angels) from a full Tyranid infestation.

The Dark Angels primarch was/is Lion el'Johnson (one of the first Primarchs that were infused with the Emperor geneseed and later scatered thru out the universe.) The current Chapter master of the Dark Angels is Comander Azrael.

The Dark Angels contain a book, called the book of names, which contains the name of all the traiterous Dark Angels that turned to chaos, and the Dark Angels eternal quest is to find and kill every Dark Angel in that book (unless they repent their sins to the Interrogator-Chaplains). The Dark Angels will pursue that objective above all other, even order from Terra.
That book is keepet by their Master Librarian Ezekiel.

Well this is all the Dark Angels fluff I can remember for now. If I made any fluff mistake any corrections are welcome.

[NightBringer]

mwahahahahahahahahahaha pathetic mortals!

you are all but food for the C'tan. We have seen u humans warshipping a corpse and building shrines to a machine (to which we thank you). you toil away oblivious in your own ignorance to the pure and simple fact

you are but food for our masters

and you, folowers of chaos. Once we have dispatched with your pathetic imbasils u call "gods" your fate will be nothing less than that of the rest of your speices

the universe is ours mortals, and we are taking it back

Mwahahahahahahahahaha (sounds of evil laughter)

[dmille]

^ uh huh...

NightBringer: Welcome to the Relic Forums.
You might want to glance over the forum rules, which are located here (http://forums.relicnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24).

[NjalStormcall]

so when the emperor dies choas dies.so why has chaos tryed to kill the emperor so many times

This is more or less prophesy. If you know that if you die, you'll become an angel...that's nice, but probably you won't be hurrying to die.

[Evan_gelion]

I've never heard that bit about the Emperor duying causing Chaos to die myself, but I would imagine that it is entirely possible that Chaos does not simply believe that is true. (Or in Khorne's case, BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, WHO CARES!?, in Slannesh's case--well, he's high and he doesn't care. In Nurgle's case--"Decay is good!" and in Tzeentch's "It's all part of my master plan..." )

Also, addressing an earlier thread, it's important to point out that in the Imperium Space Marines are supposed to be rare and very low in number's. Like the old saying in the world "A million worlds, a million Space Marines" etc... They have to excuse small genetic flaws (like the occasional tendency to be gripped with insanity) to maintain a fighting force. In the Blood Angel's case, as well, their chapter also holds a special place in history--it was Sanguinius, their primarch, who was instrumental in the defeat of Horus. He put a chink in the Warmaster's armor, sacraficing his life (The Blood Angel's relive his death, hence their black rage) so the Emperor could eventually defeat the Warmaster. As a result, they view the Blood Angel's are held in too high regard, despite their genetic flaw. It IS important to point out though, that they are very worried about this trend. The Flesh Tearers, as were mentioned earlier (A sucessor of the Blood Angels), can create no new members anymore, due to their tendency to fall to the Black Rage. They are pretty much sentenced to a slow death, as they can take in no new members, and the only Flesh Tearers left are the last of their kind, if I remember right.

[Maximus Decimus]

their chapter also holds a special place in history--it was Sanguinius, their primarch, who was instrumental in the defeat of Horus. He put a chink in the Warmaster's armor, sacraficing his life

Do not present this as fact, according to the blood angels thats how the story goes, to the others it was all over after horus killed the terminator who came in, emperor seeing that there is nothing left of the true horus summoned all his power into a psychic bolt and killed horus. Before horus was hit the gods disconnected their link with horus as the psychic energy bolt would of also effected them. The only reason the emperor was wounded was because he did not want to fight back thinking that horus could be saved.

[Ming]

Oh boyz, i just slept a night here and then poof! :hat: I got 4 pages of replies! I read some of em...Just to summalize all of your replies read this part...

History
There were twenty primachs at the original...Primachs are more powerful version of space marines...which can speed of the production of sapce marines. But something happen(if memory serves me well, some daemons of the warp tried to snatch the primachs away, but were slain by the emperor but the primachs were scattered throughout the galaxy...)the primachs were all then scattered. They were infants at that time. At that time the emperor could not set out to find them because Terra(earth) was surrounded by warpstorms where chaos lurks :lurk: .But when the eldar accidently created the Fourth Chaos God, Slaanesh the Lord of Pleasure, the Dark prince of excess, which devoured and consumed many Eldar souls to gain power.This event was known as the fall of the Eldar. Which resulted the warpstorms to merge and 'sucked' far far away and form a gigtanic warp storm known as th eye of terror... The emperor then set out to look for his primachs.

To be continued...

[NjalStormcall]

The Fall of the Eldar came long before the primarch were scattered; the Fall of the Eldar coincided with the disruption of all warp travel and the end of the Golden Age for men as well. It wasn't until at least a thousand years after the Fall of the Eldar that the Emperor conquered Holy Terra, designed the Primarched, they were scattered, and he launched the Great Crusade, finding them along the planets he had liberated.

Or in some order of the above.

[IWAssassin]

Exact timeframe isnt set. All that's known is that the end of the Age of Strife and the fall of the Eldar happened at ROUGHLY the same time, 200 years before the Horus Heresy. Whether Slaneesh was born before or after the Primarchs were scattered. No fluff exists either way. It's presumed slightly after, but not much after.

[Ming]

Oh boyz, i just slept a night here and then poof! :hat: I got 4 pages of replies! I read some of em...Just to summalize all of your replies read this part...

History
There were twenty primachs at the original...Primachs are more powerful version of space marines...which can speed of the production of sapce marines. But something happen(if memory serves me well, some daemons of the warp tried to snatch the primachs away, but were slain by the emperor but the primachs were scattered throughout the galaxy...)the primachs were all then scattered. They were infants at that time. At that time the emperor could not set out to find them because Terra(earth) was surrounded by warpstorms where chaos lurks :lurk: .But when the eldar accidently created the Fourth Chaos God, Slaanesh the Lord of Pleasure, the Dark prince of excess, which devoured and consumed many Eldar souls to gain power.This event was known as the fall of the Eldar. Which resulted the warpstorms to merge and 'sucked' far far away and form a gigtanic warp storm known as th eye of terror... The emperor then set out to look for his primachs.

To be continued...

The Fate of The Primachs
Each Primach was sent a planet, thus each primach had their own character,
for example Robute Gulliman, the Primach of the Ultramarines was a noble man because he was raised by a noble governer of his planet...contrast to the Night Haunter, the Primach of The Night Lords, had to fend for himself when he was an infant, become the terror of his planet and ultimately ruled it with an iron fist and terror...Eventually, the emperor found each of his primachs. He gave each of the primachs their own legion of space marines to train...

The Legions
Each primachs were given a legion of marines which is around 10000 marines. Each legion had their own looks and tacties.For example, the Night Haunter's marines grow black hair and eyes, they also inheired the ability from their primach to see in the night. 'Cause the Night Haunter grew up on a planet which is shrouded with night.

To be continued...

[DarthFelth]

The Flesh tearers CAN create new members, its just that their members fall so quickly to the Black Rage that every few hundred years more and more fall, its just that the chaptor is running outta people to turn into marines. Anouther flaw of the blood angels is to do with wanting to drink blood, read the flesh tearer back ground, it says how no imperial commander will likes to stay around to long due to 'wierd' goings on hints at their first for blood, more so when they fall to the black rage thats all they wanna do is drink blood and bash things. Personaly i wonder wether judging my mephiston that sanguinus will be reborn or something ;)

[dmille]

Ming, your explanations would be easier to read if they were all in one post (that "edit" feature cropping up again). Not to downplay your work, however, but I think that existing sites, such as this one (http://www.criticalhit.co.uk/w40krp/appendix.shtml) provide sufficient background in an easy to read, accessible, well documented format.

[KlavoHunter]

Okay. The timeframe is as follows.

The Age of Strife began, and psykers started appearing amongst the populations of all Human worlds, mutations became rampant, and Daemons began possessing Psykers and screwing over worlds. Warp Storms encompassed just about the entire galaxy. Earth itself was surrounded by an especially large one.

The only planets that got off light were the ones that brutally supressed psykers and mutants. Warfare broke out throughout all the Human worlds, especially Earth and Mars.

Earth was broken apart into many factions of warlords trying to gain control of the planet. One major one sprang up, led by the Emperor. He PERSONALLY created the forerunners of both the Space Marines, and even the Primarchs... creating enhanced warriors that overpowered the disorganized armies of the other warlords.

Mars, on the other hand, was highly technological. And when they went to civil war, the entire planet was rendered effectively uninhabitable. The religion of the Cult Mechanicus was founded, as technology allowed them to build shelters to survive the devastated Mars environment.

The Emperor, having united Earth under his rule, begins creating twenty Primarchs. These are to be a form of superhuman with aspects of his own divinity and powers infused in them. The powers of Chaos found out about them, despite all of the Emperor's mighty psychic wards that he put up. They lacked the power to reach in and kill them, but they did the next best thing. The Chaos Gods expended a good deal of power in sucking the Primarchs into the Warp, and scattered them throughout space. Their twenty canisters were thrown across the stars, and they all eventually found their way to some Human planet or another.

With his planned creations lost, and with the birth of Slaanesh approaching, the Emperor did not have time to create any more Primarchs. Instead, he took the genetic data for all twenty of the specialized organs and such that made them so uniquely powerful, and created copies of them.

These made up the twenty organs and implants that differentiate a Space Marine from a normal human. These twenty in combination are known as geneseed. Geneseed is implanted in a prospective Space Marine at a young age, and training begins, along with the sceduled implantations and stimulations to make some of these organs work properly. The result of this process is a Space Marine, a power-armored giant, who is so far superior to normal humans that they are worth over a thousand times their weight in normal humans.

The Eldar, meanwhile, are engaging in massive orgies and doing drugs, et cetera... and their collective obsession with pleasure eventually spawned Slaanesh, the Chaos God of Pleasure. The Eldar homeworlds, along with most of their race, were all consumed, and the Eye of Terror, an area of overlap of the Warp and normal space, was put in it's place.

With the birth of Slaanesh, the warp storms plaguing the galaxy were purged, and the Emperor's Crusade began, with 200,000 Space Marines under his command, split into 20 legions. Each legion's Marines had geneseed derived from one of the twenty Primarchs, marking them as unique.

Mars was the first to join the newly-formed Imperium, as the Emperor personified the Omnissiah that had been prophecised by the Cult Mechanicus. The legend went that a man would come who would have an incredible knowledge of all technology, comprehending things that even the highest members of the Cult Mechanicus found to be a total mystery. As the Emperor had been alive for all of human history (and then some), and survived the Age of Strife, he alone knew the secrets of Mankind's technology in whole.

The Cult Mechanicus had hardly been idle after uniting Mars, they had created a whole civilization there, and an astonishingly mighty military. The Legionnes Titanicus, or, more familiarly, the Titan Legions, were the weapons of choice on Mars.

A Titan is a huge walking war machine, easily 30-120 meters in height. They are armed with devastating weapons, easily capeble of devastating entire cities with a few sweeps of their weapons. Even massed fire from an entire Company of Space Marines could not do more than irritate a Titan, if even that, its defenses are so stout. The only thing capeble of killing a Titan in an even match is another Titan, or bombardment from a heavy capital warship in orbit.

With the combined forces of both Earth and Mars marching forward, the Galaxy laid awaiting them. Human planets were liberated from alien or Daemonic rule, some human-controlled planets resisted and had to be conquered first, and others laid themselves at the Imperium's feet and begged for them to take over. The irresistable might of the Imperium grew and advanced. The Space Marine and Titan Legions were supported by the growing general army that was drawn from the planets they conquered, the Imperial Guard.

It took some time and searching, but, one by one, the planets that the twenty Primarchs had landed on were encountered by the Imperium, and the Emperor came to them each, and they were reunited with their "father", and also took their places at the head of the respective Space Marine Legions from which their geneseed was derived.

The Imperium expanded more and more for many years, but the Chaos Gods were not idle. They sent their whispered promises and messages to the Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions, trying to convert them from their true purpose.

It was first the greatest of the Primarchs, Horus, of the Luna Wolves, who was first afflicted. He was Warmaster of the Imperium, and controlled an entire FIVE Legions of Space Marines, rather than just his own. He was slowly converted to Chaos, and corrupted the Legions under his command, also. The Emperor never had a clue the whole time.

The event that truely started the Horus Heresy was the Scourging of Istvaan III. The Emperor ordered Horus to stop the rebellion on the planet, and Horus parked his fleets in orbit. Then, rather than halting the rebellion by landing and enforcing rule via military force, he ordered Exterminatus, the complete and total devastation of the planet.

The Warmaster's fleet unleashed a barrage of Virus Bombs on the helpless Istvaan III. Within mere moments, every piece of organic material on the planet was consumed, and the planet burned. The psychic death-scream of the 12 billion inhabitants was so loud in the Warp, that it even outstripped the Astronomicon for a brief moment.

But the Emperor trusted Horus so blindly, so implicitly, that he felt that the Warmaster had only done what he needed to do. Immediately prior to the Scourging of Istvaan III, a contingent of loyal Space Marines hijacked the frigate Eisenstein from Horus' fleet, and warned the Imperium of the threat they were faced with.

And thus began the Horus Heresy... where Space Marine fought Space Marine, Titan clashed with Titan, and unimaginable warfare destroyed entire planets.

Istvaan V was Horus' stronghold, and seven Legions of Space Marines were dispatched to destroy Horus. But this failed miserably. Those Legions that were not devastated in the botched attack had instead flocked to Horus' banner, joining his cause.

***CONTINUED LATER***

[WarmasterHorus]

Very nice fluff, well written, and all of it correct, unlike some other posts in this thread.

[Ming]

Indeed, WarmasterHorus. It's very good.

[-_Phoenix_-]

Going back to Blood Angels and why they aren't wiped out for being deviants.

The reason is that the red thirst and the black rage are closely guarded secrets. I assume a number of the inquistion suspect that the geneseed is flawed, and there are several rumours floating around the Imperium regarding them. However common knowledge simply has the Blood Angels as an assault oriented chapter who are sometimes a bit blood thirsty in battle.

[Sanguislupus]

In response to the questionwhat other chapters have flaws

In addition to the Blood Angels and their successor Chapters the Space Wolves gene seed is flawed resulting in the Wolves somewhat unorthodox organization and tactics. For starters they have extraordinarily long canines and their skin is much hairier. To become full Space Wolves an trainee must drink from the “Cup of the Wulfen” and endure the curse of the Wulfen. In other words after drinking from the cup there is a chance that the Space Wolf will become what is know as a Wulfen. A Wulfen is a Space Wolf that transforms into a part wolf killing machine that rends bites and tears through his opponents in close combat. In addition to their genetic difference the Space Wolves are practically atheists in terms of believing that the Emperor is a god. Unless they are calling on the Emperor to judge the deeds of the fallen they give little reference to him except as being the greatest warrior ever having been the only person to beat their Primarch Lemun Russ in close combat. Other than the Space Wolves I can’t think of any other Chapters with flawed gene seed. The Dark Angels only “flaw” would be that during the Horous Heresy a full half of their Chapter joined Chaos and because of this the Chapter home world was torn apart. Now the Dark Angels are attempting to gain forgiveness in the eyes of the Emperor by hunting down all of what they call the “Fallen” those Dark Angels who fell under the sway of Chaos. This belief also applies to the sucessor Chapters of the Dark Angels all of whome refer to themselves as the "Unforgiven" presumably for their brethen's heresy.

[Dante]

Dont forget about the 21st founding chapters! (also known as the cursed founding) All of these chapters had bad luck and eventual dissapated. The Flame Falcons were lost in the warp or something..but have ressapated (reapeared) now and then as the Legion of the Damned to help thier brethren in times of need. The lamenters found the ure to the Red Thirst but then they were branded Excommincate traitors! The list goes on... But did i see something about the blood angels being flawed? You fools! The black rage and red thirst are gifts from Sanguinius that allow us to defeat the enemies of the Emperor!

HAIL EMPEROR!!!!!!!

[KingKupo]

The lamenters weren't excommunicated, they accidently sided with a chaos legion that had just betrayed the empire and were given forgiveness if they went on a penitent crusade. unfortunately this brought them right into hivefleet's path and their bad luck follows them to this day

[Dante]

Ok but they were thought to be tratiors for a while... But your right!

[NjalStormcall]

Well, the Space Wolves believe that the Emperor was a great man, but still a man after all. Morkai, the double-headed wolf who watches the gates of death, judges our fallen.

[Dante]

Going back to Blood Angels and why they aren't wiped out for being deviants.

The reason is that the red thirst and the black rage are closely guarded secrets. I assume a number of the inquistion suspect that the geneseed is flawed, and there are several rumours floating around the Imperium regarding them. However common knowledge simply has the Blood Angels as an assault oriented chapter who are sometimes a bit blood thirsty in battle.
~says the Raven

Fools! Thout shall feel the fury of the Death Company!!! (crazy mublins about death, blood, sanguinus, that dude that is stuck on a chair {just kiddin} eventually incoherant) Anyways...yes the warmaster is good at history...but thats bout it! AHAHAHa! also like i said before black rage/redthirst (not same thing) are gifts from Sanguinius! I mean..the Death COmpany are scary...they feel no pain, they only see Sanguinius, and they crave only for the warm blood aof thier enemies!!!!!!!!

HAIL EMPEROR!

[dmille]

Dante, excessive roleplaying tends to make threads a bit hard to process, especially as your chance of being a Blood Angel anytime in the next oh, say, 40,000 years or so are rather low.

You might want to put your "Hail Emperor" line in a signature, so you don't have to post it any time (and as it'll only show up once per thread, it makes it a bit easier on everyone else's eyes too).

PS: Thanks for sticking to black text this time.

[Dante]

Im sorry...I just get so into it...Anyways...Wuts this trhead about? Space Marines? wut? um...they are geneticly enhanced soldiers from da Future...
:dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:
Yeah...srry for messing up ur threads i guess

[orkdom]

That happend 10,000 before the 40,000. If you want to know why some marines went to chaos, that is an entirely different story. Suffice to say, in the beginning, the rank and file marine didn't know what was happening, as the tendrils of chaos infected the top dogs (primarchs) who then converted other ranking officers and by the time the rank and file realised what they were doing, it was too late, they had sold their souls to chaos. The Emperor himself, really is a living corpse. He was mortally wounded by his lieutennant (who was a space marine by the name of Horus). It is good to note at this time, that the Emperor was NOT a space marine, he was just an extraordinary human but "l33ter". After Horus was killed by the final blow from the Emperor, loyalists found the Emperor's broken body and said "Oh no, he's going to die unless we build a really huge complex and a huge life support system where we can hook him up to for a gazillion years until he comes back". After a while, the emperor (barely alive) shrivelled into a prune and is now usually referred to as the 'corpse god/emperor' usually by alien races but sometimes by heretics. This is getting a bit off track :/. Suffice to say, the beaten rebels (fully half of the original marines) said to themselves "this is not good" and so they fled to the Eye of Terror which is a region of space where the Warp and real space mix.

but yeah, a very brief overview of assorted stuff :/

damn straight its brief. you left out the fact that horus wasn't a sm, he was a primarch, and the emperor's supposed son. he was also the most powerful primarch, although rumor has it that had leman russ, the space wolves primarch, ever had the chance to fight him, horus woulda had his ass beaten in... the emperor, sanguinius(ba primarch), and rogal dorn(imperial fists primarch), stormed horus' capital ship during the heresy after horus got cocky and let his shields drop. on the way to horus, sanguinius collapsed as horus attempted to channel chaotic psychic energy to the emperor, sanguinius taking the blow for his "father"(this is the image the blood angels see visions of- their primarchs last moments as horus' immense psychic powers basically put his soul on the rack and tore it to pieces). when horus was finally killed by the emperor, the emperor was so badly wounded that when rogal dorn found him, he at first thought him dead, and so carried his limp body from the chaos infested ship... :rip: god-emperor.

[orkdom]

Going back to Blood Angels and why they aren't wiped out for being deviants.

HAIL EMPEROR!

the raven guard, space wolves and dark angels all have their own flaws as well. the raven guard primarch corax, during the horus heresy, thought he did not have enough men to fight off the traitor legions, and so decided to "speed up" the genetic enhancement process of his marines. as a result, an entire generation of raven guard came out as basically warp beasts in power armor, and they now sit in dungeons below their fortress-monastary.
for the wolves, not only do they grow fangs, but some succumb to a disease of the geneseed caused by flaws in the original seeds created, and since they dont know where their primarch is, they can't make a new one. an entire great company is known to have succumbed to the mark of the wulfen, in fact these were leman russ' honor guard, with which he charged straight into the eye of terror to finish off the chaos.
with the dark angels, although there is no physical or mental mutation inherent of their gene-seed, it is a fanatically guarded secret that almost 1/2 of their chapter turned traitor during the horus heresy--even worse if you ask me...

[ShadeDancer]

the raven guard, space wolves and dark angels all have their own flaws as well. the raven guard primarch corax, during the horus heresy, thought he did not have enough men to fight off the traitor legions, and so decided to "speed up" the genetic enhancement process of his marines. as a result, an entire generation of raven guard came out as basically warp beasts in power armor, and they now sit in dungeons below their fortress-monastary.
for the wolves, not only do they grow fangs, but some succumb to a disease of the geneseed caused by flaws in the original seeds created, and since they dont know where their primarch is, they can't make a new one. an entire great company is known to have succumbed to the mark of the wulfen, in fact these were leman russ' honor guard, with which he charged straight into the eye of terror to finish off the chaos.
with the dark angels, although there is no physical or mental mutation inherent of their gene-seed, it is a fanatically guarded secret that almost 1/2 of their chapter turned traitor during the horus heresy--even worse if you ask me...

The Raven Guard primarch personally killed every horribly mutated marine in his chapter a short time before he vanished.
The wulfen vanished into the eye when the SW attacked the 1000 Sons. Leman Russ vanished after the heresy was over.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm nitpicking but I just felt like standing up for the Raven Guard.

[NjalStormcall]

Leman Russ going into the Warp is pretty much disappearing the same way the other Primarches did, except that Leman is so powerful that he never gets killed. Leastwise, that we know of.

[Bryn]

And corax had to speed up the genetic process because all but adout three thousand men were left after istivan and then corax realised what he did and purged them then went into the eye of terror on a pentant crusade and hasn't been seen since but he could still be alive the same with leman russ persinaly i want him to come back the same with leman russ just when we need them the most. Just one more thing why hasent Games - Workshop done any models for the raven guard they are a First founding chapter but other chapters get modeled i think there is some thing wrong. revolt :iws: :flamer: :rant: :fencing:

[Dante]

I neva said those things bout blood angels...did i?

[20weedall]

By the way the eldar did not create slanesh at the same time as the emporer to Quote Eldrad Ulthan "what do you humans know of folly we have sung songs of lement before your ancestors crawled on there bellies from the sea"

[NjalStormcall]

Eldrad Ulthan could easily be taking poetic license. The Emperor, or at least his Star-Child form, was around before the Chaos Gods took form or at least before the Warp became synonymous with Chaos.

[ShadeDancer]

Almost all marine chapters (except ultramarines and dark angels+their successors) have slightly flawed genes. The blood angles and space wolves are just slightly more extreme examples. Imperial fists are missing a few of marines more exotic skills, and raven guard have increasingly pale skin and dark hair as they get older. There are lots of little flaws like this but they don't usually cause a problem.

[GreatSamaman]

I'm stickying this thread so I can lock down subsequent repeat threads, and prevent new people from being lost and repeating the same fluff/tt questions :D

EDIT: Added the thread to table of content post