I have recently been reading the Horus Heresy novel 'Thousand Sons,' and have played through several different 'Dawn of War' games - a gaming friend told me this week that it is strongly hinted that the Blood Ravens gene seed is descended from the Thousand Sons legion. The chapter has no records of its founding roots, and this seems to have been shrouded in secrecy.

I wondered what anyone out there knew about this, and whether or not there were any other chapters that might have suspect gene seed, either taken from stored gene seed taken during the Great Crusade from legions that then subsequently turned traitor, or from some other defective batch. There have certainly been many examples of great swathes of certain chapters turning to Chaos. In another sense, this kind of 'experimentation' on the part of (presumably) the High Lords of Terra, must have a reason - it could form an interesting plot device within Deathwatch games perhaps?

One thing that has always been somewhat of a surprise when it comes down to the Foundings and geneseed is that the Senatorum Imperialis are still using Traitor geneseed... (If the above is correct with regards to the Thousand Sons and the Blood Ravens.)

Kage

Would explain the high amount of psychers in the chapter.

I don't think there's much suggestion that the Blood Ravens are a new chapter created by the High Lords from Thousand Sons Geneseed. From my understanding the hints point to them actually being descended from the ships which escaped Prospero with sealed orders just before the Space Wolves attack. Ahriman's vision of the 'raven of blood' ties his prophetic cult, the Corvidae, and the future Blood Raven's chapter together.

At the time of the razing of Prospero, the Thousand Sons didn't consider themselves traitors - they were trying to warn the Emperor about Horus after all. I expect we'll get more hints in Prospero Burns when that is released, but to me it looks like those sealed orders were most likely sometihng like "lay low for a couple of thousand years and then come back to the Imperium when things have died down". There's no suggestion that they had any contact with the Imperial hierarchy.

Magnus could see the future and perhaps foresaw that the legions would be broken down into chapters, and that imperial record keeping would be bad enough that a chapter could simply appear out of nowhere, act like they'd been there all along and nobody would be any the wiser.

Kage is right, it is baffling why the High Lords would ever use traitor geneseed. I suppose, though, if one were to pose the question "why would the Imperium EVER use traitor geneseed" the answer is "because lots of 40k writers think it's cool." (I think they're wrong, though.)

Every 40k writer who has a stake in creating a new chapter for the background wants to make their own chapter interesting and exciting. One way to do this is to make the chapter's history opaque, and dropping broad hints that there were all kinds of mysterious things going on at their foundation is one way to do this. A loyalist chapter created using traitor geneseed automatically gives the new chapter's marines some "bad boy" cachet.

Personally, I think this tendency is overused. Too often it's used as an alternative to a genuinely interesting concept for a fan made chapter. After all, why bother coming up with a unique vision or concept for your chapter if you can just make loyalist wordbearers? Or loyalist death guard? Or loyalist Thousand Sons?

There is an excellent website out there that gives some very good guidance on creating your own chapter, and they specifically advise against ever creating one that uses traitor geneseed...because everyone tries to create a chapter like that. It's becoming trite and old, and it's a bit of a disappointment to see the same old concept wheeled out for the Blood Ravens....I'm not too bothered though really, because they were never my favourite chapter!

I believe the Mechanicus is the caretaker of all gene seed, and when a new founding happens it's the Mechanicus that hand out the goodies. It could be very feasible that a Magos decides to secretly experiment with pre-heresy traitor legion gene seed just to see what happens.

PGMason said:

Much of what you say here, in the light of the 'Thousand Sons' text makes sense - that the story of this legion is threaded with the idea (perhaps like the Alpha Legion) that they were trying to serve the Imperium's best interests through their heretical actions. It is quite believeable that a number of marines escaped Prospero, and the destruction of the Chapter in the way you mention, but the circumstances around their return as a 'viable' chapter would need some explaining, if, as 'It'suncertainwho' mentioned the AdMech controlled the stocks of gene seed. It means that someone, somewhere must have 'fudged' the founding or covered up the circumstances around the founding.

Some of the High Lords of Terra have been suspect over the intervening 10,000 years of the Imperium (wasn't Goge Vandire a High lord at one point?) - it is actually fairly believeable that such a character may have sanctioned the founding of chapters from 'experimental' gene seed, on the understanding that the chapter would be very closely watched. After all, what better 'stock' to form a chapter with a strong Librarius than Thousand Sons gene seed (obviously forgiving the propensity for this to cause mutation from time to time)!?

Why would the High Lord of Terra be involved at all? They don't deal with this stuff. The Ad Mechanicus has the repository of the gene seed tithe and partially supplies the Astartes. There's over a thousand chapters of Space Marines with chapters being destroyed or founded all the time. None of them are going to be sharing their intimate secrets with the Ad Mech and the only ones the Ad Mech would care about would be technical anyway. Communication is far from perfect in the Imperium. A new chapter springing up somewhere isn't going to raise alarm bells. They're just going to think a transmission got lost in the warp or paperwork misfiled. It's a big, big galaxy.

The high proportion of Psykers in the Thousand Sons came from their recruits being from Prospero not their gene-seed. The Blood ravens have found either a psker rich recruiting pool or if they are Thousand Sons decendants, the writers are doing some retcon.

Kage2020 said:

The thing with that is that we don't know if the geneseed has anything to do with their betrayal. Looking at the Horus Heresy books (particularly Fulgrim and Flight of the Einstein) it would seem illogical to suggest this given that a large number of battle brothers from the traitor legions remained loyal to the Emperor, hence Istvaan III.

Nehlo said:

On the other hand, one might consider the vanilla interpretations of the 40k universe. Does it really matter with "genetics" when there are pitch-forks and burning torches in the hands of the peasants?

Kage

Kage2020 said:

But given the lack of knowledge that affects the vast majority of the Imperium, how would they know who had traitor geneseed?

Also, if some part of loyal chapters can turn to chaos (Dark Angles <cough> Space Wolves <cough><cough>) then isn't there a chance that some of the traitor Astartes didn't follow Horus. There must have been a quite a difficuly choice to make between their Emperor and the Their Primarch.

But yes it's a good story anyway. And explains their annoying refferences to the unkown primarch.

Jude Order said:

This is wrong. The first recruits, for all legions, came from Terra. The Emperor used the genetic material of his abducted (synthetic) sons to create the Space Marine legions. When the Primarchs were rediscovered, they became head of their respective legions. There are instances of tensions between the Terran born legionaires the latter recruits (probably most notable with the Dark Angels). The Thousand Sons are warpy not only because they are the sons of Magnus, but also because some of them were recruited from Prospero. Ahriman, for example, is from Egypt on Terra.

As a side note, the World Eaters reunion with their genefather is casualty intensive.

Lightbringer said:

Do you happen to have a link to this site ?

Lightbringer said:

I was not aware that using traitor gene seed was an idea that others had tried before when making a new chapter up - are there any examples you could furnish me with? I don't agree that it's trite - it seems to me to be the very epitome of the 41st Millenium and the dark nature of the galaxy that some of the original gene seed from pre-heresy legions would be held by those in charge of the Imperium. The Emperor, having created the Space Marines on Terra, would surely be unlikely to simply give charge of all the gene seed used in crafting these super warriors fully into their own hands.

More concievable perhaps is that traitor gene seed was destroyed wholesale at the close of the Heresy - and might go some way to explaining why traitor legionaires have a tendency to raid loyalist chapters for their seed. In any case, I will try and find out more about where the original rumour came from - as my friend was quite adamant that there was some truth to it - and at the very least it seems an appealing narrative - after all, the Dark Angels have their dirty little secret - why not any of the other chapters?

Cynical Cat said:

However, in respects to the Blood Ravens, their higher then average instance of Librarians comes both from the worlds they recruit from; such as Cyrene pre-Dawn of War campaign, and an almost subconscious preference for those with latent psychic ability. But yes, it is possible that some aspect of the progenitor of each chapter takes hold in said tendency to manifest full blown psychic ability.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I might be wrong, and you'll forgive me if I am, but aren't modern Librarians recruited from the Black ship internees on Terra these days and then distributed to the chapters.

In this way many of the Space Marine Librarians don't actually come from the same world as their Space Marine breathern but pressumable any psykers that are strong enough from the chapters homeworld have are given over to the chapter.

Face Eater said:

Not to my knowledge, no. They're taken from neonates that are discovered to have psychic potential. That's presumably why there aren't actually all that many librarians in each chapter.

from france

i agree psyckers for the sm come from their word sometimes they are adopted if young in the world in wich they campaign. it s a rare ocurence but it happens. espcially on death world where people has the natural ability to survive and make lilkely candidate.

anyway because each chapter has his own policies of recruiting all solution are possible so maybe also the blackships.

Lightbringer said:

Because not all of the traitor legions went traitor. The Thousand Suns, in particular, weren't traitors. In the event that enough of them survived the SW attack (by being off-world, presumably) the Emperor might have ordered that they be left unharmed. In order to remain safe, however, they'd have to change their name and colours, so as to avoid the ire of other Imperial forces not so quick to forgive the Thousand Suns brethren.

macd21 said:

Unfortunately, you may be a little mistaken here. The Thousand Sons were indeed initially loyal - even though they were clearly dabbling with sorcery and therefore dangerously aligning themselves with the Chaos Power Tzeench (admittedly inadvertently - there is some evidence to suggest this in the use of the no.7 I think and with the 'hostility' of the future Nurglesque Death Guard Chapter and Primarch) - as evidenced by the warning Magnus sent to the Emperor that precipitated the razing of Prospero by the Space Wolves.

After the razing of Prospero, and Magnus' defeat by Russ, surviving Thousand Sons and their (now partly daemonic) Primarch threw in their lot with Horus - and as the Horus Heresy board game illustrates were at the Siege of Terra with the Warmaster. From there they fled back into the Eye of Terror - however I am not sure when Ahriman attempted the ritual that finally destroyed the bodies of his fellow marines and condemned them to a hellish eternal existence.

Forces off-world are another matter though possibly. So, I accede that your point here is an interesting one. As the (rather awful) Horus Heresy novel 'Battle for the Abyss' illustrates, a Thousand Sons sorcerer and a World Eaters marine remain loyal and work with the Ultramarines and a Space Wolf against traitorous Word Bearers. It is possible that some Thousand Sons turned from their legion once they had gone to Horus - and this may explain how the Blood Ravens eventually got set up - but there is no evidence of this as far as I know.

when captain Thule returns as a dreadnaught in DOW 2 he mentions something about the secrests of kronos not passing his lips also in one of the dark crusade battles the chaos lord calls him "brother"

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Astra_Telepathica

This will have been where I read it. But i would not at all be surprised if it was conradicted in later fluff.

In my opinion it would vary on the chapter. If they recruit from a hive world then they probably do have enough people to provide powerful psykers from their homeworld. But for chapters that recruit from, say, a deathworld they would have few if any psykers and they would be much more likely to be sent pyskers from other worlds.

Although how they would remain yound enough to be transported to earth, go through sanctioning and be returned to their chapter before they are too old to be implanted seems to mean that it shouldn't work, maybe they freeze them for the journey.

Face Eater said:

There are other factors as well - a given potential Librarian (that is, a person sent from the Adeptus Astra Telepathica to become an Astartes Librarian) must still be physically, mentally and genetically suitable to become a Space Marine in the first place. This may be more or less problematic for different chapters - those using Ultramarines or Imperial Fists geneseed (as the most stable, and the most commonly used) would have less difficulty finding someone genetically compatible, while a potential Space Wolves Rune Priest may have to be Fenrisian, as only those native to Fenris are suitable to become Space Wolves (something suggested in more recent background, and which provides quite a fitting explanation for why the Wolf Brothers - the only successor chapter produced from the Space Wolves' geneseed - became unstable).