Boldthreat

Because I was needing an Ultima Founding chapter for that particular point. And of all the Ultramarines Ultima Founding Chapters, the Silver Templars fit closer to the archtype that I was looking for (Knightly chapter, more aggressive and impulsive, and maybe a reliance on superstitions) than say the Fulminators or the Castellans of the Rift. And again, I am not saying I have concrete evidence that the Silver Templars are not Ultramarines successors... it's not like Space Marines being Knightly, or superstitious or aggressive makes them anything but typical. Which is admittedly problematic for this position I admit... but that's irrelevant really, because it's not important to me who could be a lost legion successor... just that this situation exists. The I Legion I am not so sure. I am not saying you are wrong; I just have not read this myself. I could be wrong. The III Legion recruited from the Nobles of Europa, a particular region of Terra. The IV Legion recruited from the Auro Plateau of Sek-Amrak. The V Legion recruited from the technomadic tribes of the Thulean Basin. The VI Legion is shrouded in more secrecy than others. But it seems to appear that the recruits were recruited from the most barbaric and hyper aggressive regressive peoples from across Terra. So not region specific per say, but there is a underlying theme here. The VII Legion - We already touched on this. The VIII Legion recruited from the linked prison sinks of ancient Terra. The IX Legion seemed to recruit from not just the lost and dispossessed... but the mutated lost and dispossessed in horrific rad zones and poisoned wastelands. So, there was a specific type here. The X Legion recruited from all accross Terra... but a substantial number of them came from Old Albia. The XII Legion seemed to recruit from everyone but screened for that they sought out the most aggressive of persons. The XIII Legion recruited from a wide pool across Terra as well... but specifically it seems to regions that were bitterly resistant to Unification. And Specifically orphaned people from these regions. So, there is a link here. The XIV Legion recruited most of its recruits from Old Albia. The XV Legion got its initial recruits from the Achaemenid Empire. The XVI Legion got its initial batches from Jutigran Bowl and the Samsatian sub-plate sums. The XVII Legion recruited from the exterminated foes of the Emperor. Probably means everyone lol. The XVIII Legion... like the Space Wolves and the Alpha Legion are shrouded in more secrecy than others. I do not know here. The XIX Legion recruited from the Xeric Tribes of the Asiatic Dustfields. The XX Legion... yeah who knows? I think I will stand by my claim of "almost uniquely". Almost every other single legion was influenced by a particular region or group of people with similar situations. The only other legion that sticks out to me as doing something similar here is the World Eaters and the Space Wolves. And even the Word Bearers and the Space Wolves were heavily influenced by their Primarch's and/or the Worlds they were found on. They all were. Except the Imperial Fists. Dorn only strengthened what was already there, and Inwit seemed to be a world that produced the kind of people that were recruited into the VII Legion anyway. Good point, but I think that could still be a ramification of the foreign geneseed. I argue that all of the Imperial Fist successors of the 2nd and 3rd Foundings could potentially be affected by marines with suspect lineages. It's a messy answer for sure... but it's all I have. Maybe the Black Templars were mostly II Legion? Maybe the Excoriators and or the Soul Drinkers were mostly XI Legion? I do not know. And I would also argue that since most of these Chapters are crusading chapters in this era (Black Templars, Crimson Fists, Executioners, Iron Knights (Wiki says they have a homeworld but are a Crusading chapter... IDK) that not enough time has passed for them to really become that different in my opinion. So, if some of these chapters started favoring a particular geneseed through losses... that could explain the slight change in behavior/temperment over a short period of time. Accepted. Lord knows I am not doing anything but trying to connect dots using existing Lore. I just believe the ramifications from that particular short story are HUGE for the VII and XIII Legions. It changes how I look at successors of both legions personally. It has too. And that's fair. Really it is. I'm not really concerned with if I am potentially right on this chapter, or this character. That is not important. What is important is that we understand that everything is up in the air in this regard. Sigismund could be a Space Marine of one of the unknown Legions. Polux could. Rann could. The Black Templars could be scions of a unknown Primarch. No one knows. Thats the killer, no one will know. And everyone who could know is dead/missing/not talking. All we can do is discuss who we think could be scions of another Primarch and why. And unless GW officially answers the question for a particular character and chapter in a way that removes all doubt... we cannot tell someone that this character or this chapter is 100 percent an Imperial Fist Successor. And in regard to your last comment here... which is a reasonable position... I just think that there is evidence that the Imperial Fist geneseed produces a particular kind of Space Marine... and as a byproduct of that... an organization that is in line with Rogal Dorn himself. So almost uniquely I think if you find a chapter or character that does not seem to be in line with Rogal Dorn's character or in line of the Legion's character prior to Dorn's discovery... there is a real possibility that they could be of another genetic line. Thats why I suspect Sigismund. I do not believe Rogal Dorn knows that there is even a possibility that Sigismund was not his son. But I do believe that when Dorn discovered the flaw in Sigismunds decision to not lead the Retribution Fleet and disowned him... it was clearly because Sigimsund did not think like an Imperial Fist. Conversely Alexis Polux did... when he immediately obeyed his orders even despite the fact that it appeared he was winning. Because true Imperial Fists should only care about duty. Not what they want, how they will be remembered, or anything else. Sigismund's direct divergence of this creed is critical to me. It proves that he doesn't think like other Imperial Fists. It may be because he is not one originally. And I think that is cool. Regardless with the reconciliation later in the series... it's that initial conversation which could lead to the credibility of Sigismund actually not being a true son of Dorn. Who knows. I hope this gets explored officially... no matter where it goes. I am all on board more Soul Drinker novels. And I hope they do something with the White Templars too! Both stories could actually be linked... or they could go off into their own things completely unrelated to this theory. That was more a joke than anything. When I initially read the War of the Beast series... I was so bummed out that the first chapter to turn renegade post the Horus Heresy was from the Imperial Fists. That upset me more than the Imperial Fists getting wiped out lol. You could be right. I just do not trust Cawl. And I think he knows more than he lets Guilliman believe. I think the Sons of the Phoenix are III Legion successors, and because I believe that (and I readily admit it's because of the perceived visual cues of the colors and name alone... IE my own bias) Cawl is already playing fast and loose. So because I believe he is already throwing out chapters with traitor seed... I think he is throwing out successors of the unknown legions and passing them off as Ultramarines and Imperial Fists as well.

Going off memory, that list seems incomplete. I believe these have been mentioned in novels/short stories: Shadow Wolves - (destroyed) Fists Exemplars - (renegade/destroyed) Astral Knights - (destroyed) Emperor’s Warbringers (short story on a ancient relic bolt gun I think) I believe these are confirmed, but cannot recall if they have a novel/short story to back it up: Subjugators Red Templars Invaders And I wanted to add the Celestial Guard… but it now seems like they are unknown. So I do not know what happened there. I hope the Fire Lords stay Imperial Fist successors. Ever since Praetorian of Dorn I thought the little ceremony where they swore their oaths with their hands in a fire until it was blackened was a great reference to the Fire Lords badge. I want to theorize that the Sable Swords are IF successors. But I do not know for sure. And can it be argued that the Retributors are official now?

This is the entire point of this thread. If the 7th and 13th Legions accepted Space Marines from the unknown legions prior to the 2nd Founding, and neither they... nor their adoptive Primarchs would know it... then the possibility of Chapters claiming to be sons of Dorn or Guilliman could in fact be scions of the unknown Primarchs. We do not know what Cawl knows when it comes to the genetic legacies of Chapters founded in the Ultima Founding. He could be passing off Chapters as Imperial Fists and or Ultramarine successor chapters that are actually using the genetic material of the Traitor Legions and/or the Unkown Legions. Yes, they could NOT be Ultramarines Successors. My first post here addresses this: and Not the Templars... who would paint their armor Black in mourning... have symbols and robes and ceremony all over the place. And Dorn's homeworld was not this. Inwit was a death world that produced very practical and no-nonsense Space Vikings. Pissed off and aggressive/brutal Imperial Fists are not Templars... they are Executioners like Fafnir Rann. Dorn created the Templars... and the temple on the Phalanx... but where did this come from? It did not come from Terra and the original Legion... and it did not come from Inwit. Maybe it came from a brother or brothers that he was close to and was influenced by? Maybe when Dorn told Sigismund he was not his Father... it was actually truer than either of them knew. I am not saying this theory is correct. At all. What I am saying... is its possible. And in this setting that is all you need. So bringing this back to the original point of the thread. Even if the Ultramarines and the Imperial Fists are the most prominent genetic lines... this is in reality false... because many of their successors are not true successors. But on the other hand... I do not think it ultimately matters. Are my adopted sons any less of my children? No. I am proud to be their Father. This is where the White Templars are wrong. It doesn't matter who their genetic lineage leads back to... they are sons of Rogal Dorn. And as long as they subscribe to His ideals of what is expected of every Space Marine... he would call them Sons (as he did with Sigismund until he failed to uphold the truth of the 7th Legion). This was the whole point of the Novella The Crimson Fist... One of these Imperial Fists was a true Imperial Fist... the other was not... and what separated them was why they made the decisions they made. As I hope you can see... there is more to it than just the word Templar... given that I bring up seeing potential similarities in chapters like the Howling Griffons and the Iron Knights. And it's not because of the name. It's tied to the character of various chapters and if I feel they fit a potential archetype of what could be more than just nurture. And I will touch on this more in my next responses. Thats odd, because as shown above I said: But I want to add to this. Because I think it's something that you might be overlooking. On one hand, as you can see above... you actually agreed with my belief in nurture being more important than nature. But you also need to dive into the character of the VII Legion more. Quoted from 40kWiki: and and and What I am getting at... is that almost uniquely... the VII Legion did not have an identity based on whatever region or culture of Terra they came from. They recruited from all regions, even those that were assigned to other Legions (that lead to the character of those Legions prior to the return of their Primarchs). On top of that... the very nature of the geneseed of this legion seemed to weed out all but a particular kind of man, for whatever the real reason was. On top of that... again, almost uniquely Rogal Dorn's transition to command of the Legion did not see the Legion change significantly in culture or character, only strengthening what was already there. So what I am getting at... is that despite whatever region or culture, despite the influence of their Primarch, the VII Legion geneseed DOES produce a specific kind of space marine and organization. What produced the character of the Imperial Fist Legion was the geneseed of Rogal Dorn more than anything else. I don't see successor Chapters with true VII Legion Geneseed falling too far from the family tree in regards to character. I think an Ultramarine Successor can be a spot on Imperial Fist clone. I think a White Scar Successor can too. I think a Blood Angels Successor can too until the genetic issues show up. And I am not saying that an IF Successor Chapter is going to always be a clone of the Legion... nurture does have a role... but I think there is a case that IF Geneseed, through its selection process, creates a specific thing that is harder to be divergent from than other genetic lineages. Another odd statement, because the point of the quote that you responded to, was: If the Ultramarines can legitimately produce Silver Templars, Castellans of the Rift and Marines Errant... then telling them apart from Imperial Fists Successors (When the Imperial Fists get their organs restored in the Primaris project and before when they were not missing the two organs) would be practically impossible. Indeed. I don't think you understand what I am saying. I could be wrong on the White Templars. I even state this in the thread that this thread was ported from. I could be right. Neither you nor I will ever get any vindication on this unless Black Library makes a point to answer it. It could be an Administratum error... they could be a Chapter taken over by the Alpha Legion and forgot they were Alpha Legion... it could be anything. The Black Templars are probably of Dorn's genetic material... and the Silver Templars are probably Ultramarines. The whole point of this discussion is that it is so muddy that you cannot gate-keep against the idea, nor can you truly know how prevalent the successor Chapters of the Ultramarines and the Imperial Fists are... because some of them are from an Unknown Legion, and even if we will NEVER know who they are... they are out there. And you cannot claim it's not possible.

Exactly. The potentiality that we have IF successors and UM successors that are actually related and do not know it is a huge wrench in attempting to unwind this web. Are the Silver Templars really Ultramarines successors? Are they related to the White Templars? One question that would be super important to know… would be if the White Templars were missing the lost organs that was normally missing with the Imperial Fists successors. Both potential answers would not necessarily torpedo this theory… a no answer would be further evidence of the link between this chapter and other ultramarines successors (real and not real) and a no would mean that the IF geneseed as a whole was tampered with, and it was not genetic degeneration that caused this loss. We know for sure that the IF chapters had these organs in the War of the Beast. Belisarius Cawl has to know. If he is thinking of using traitor geneseed against Guilliman’s orders, then throwing lost legion stuff out there is just as possible. And remember, the Primaris geneseed restores the lost 2 organs to the Imperial Fists and their successors, which could only further make identification more difficult. The only thing that we know would be a identifier in this current setting would be ease of recruit acceptance. And even then, even the Black Book on the Imperial Fist legion couldn’t confirm if this was a genetic thing or the tradition that the fists used to implement it. And Dark Imperium stated that those chapters who accepted the new Primaris geneseed had to accept the reforms to implementation as well. In short who knows. But if IF geneseed is more painful and dangerous to recruits, that’s the only identifier we will have. When the Ultramarines are producing Silver Templars, Castellans of the Rift and Marines Errant… it would be hard to tell the difference between IF and UM chapters. Another stop for the White Templars would be Guilliman himself. Time for a Paternity test Mr. Guilliman.

This is Wh40k. Presenting out stuff without any plan to use it or at least any plan to use it in the planed future is their thing. Timeline events, Chapter names, strange xenos, planets, CSM warbands, are all thrown out just to fill space/make the Galaxy seem lived in/as inspiration for people like us. I would not be one bit surprised if they have no plans to use those things in the future or have no plan that any canon chapter are decendents of II and XI. Normally I would agree. This is not a one off line in the middle of a Codex. This was a short story in the Horus Heresy covered by a popular BL author. And as we know, when discussing what is going into the Horus Heresy novels, the authors have panels and discussions and they talk this out. Then they get approval and write the story. So this is not happenstance. This story was written with a purpose and I believe the authors are good enough at what they do to actually talk about the ramifications of this revelation. Now absolutely, they may not go anywhere with it. But this opens a door to somewhere. Could this tie to the Soul Drinkers? Or the White Templars? Or some other unknown story? We will never know unless a BL author decides to walk us down that path. And I am ok with them not touching it at all moving forward. If all it does is allow someone to take that story and run with it in his own campaign. Then that is a win. So assuming the White Templars stuff is explored... what could a Crusade hope to accomplish and where would they go? Well... if they know who their Primogenitor is, that would be the first place I would go. To see what their Chapter History says about the subject, and what they believe. And they would have to walk back primogenitors until they get to the 1st Founding Legion. If the revelation came from Cawl and the Primaris... then finding Belisarius Cawl would be another primary objective. And I think you could cover this in a single story or draw it out for more as well. This would have been a difficult task prior to the opening of the Great Rift... the current setting makes this even more of a nightmare. And the Soul Drinkers are getting new novels... so here is another story that could touch on this. Here is hoping they get stuck in with it.

No apology necessary. This is a fun subject. I want to be clear, what I’m saying could be wrong. But we can no longer say that without an asterisk. The window is open for this to be a thing. I absolutely agree. I don’t think the Authors would have published this without a plan to explore it more later. I hope the White Templars are explored more.

No I get it. I really do. Im just bored with it. 40k is a huge setting. It dwarfs the Battletech setting. So why does it feel smaller? Because we keep getting the same characters from the same Chapters fighting the same things. Spear of the Emperor brought in some fresh air. Made the galaxy actually feel big. I’m all for going to generic captains and masters personally. Heck I’m an Imperial Fist fan and I think we have seen enough Imperial Fists. There is only 1000 of them at one time. Let’s see some Doom Warriors. Skull Bearers. Or those yellow Ultramarines (not the Scythes). Helbrecht has been chasing the same Orc for 20 years. Can one of them kill the other one now? And I don’t care which lol.

It bothers me. I felt that the introduction of the Primaris and the time jump was a chance for a whole new roster of characters. Now all the old marines are returning and it’s lost it’s excitement. Space Marines die. It’s what they do. But we hold to these 800 and 1100 year old characters like somehow they are more important than the Chapters that spawned them. The Chapter is the character. The character is just the pinnacle of what that chapter produces. So kill Dante off in a gruesome and heroic way and replace him. His replacement will just be a younger variation of Dante anyway. I thought it was so cool when Forgeworld interred Culln in a Dreadnaught. So have Dante fall to the Black Rage. Feed Logan Grimnar poisoned dog food. Let the Eldar kill Kantor. Let. Calgar. Die. How cool would it be if Luther killed Azrael? Off Vladimir Pugh and no one cares. He’s an Imperial Fist.. dying is what they do. But you say you wanna put Grimnar to sleep and everyone loses their minds. But I’ll admit a piece of hypocrisy on my part. For the love of the Emperor bring back Captain Cortez. I kid, I kid.

Oh man. Now this is a discussion. Here is my headcanon: Rogal Dorn is alive. And he’s the father of mankind worshiping the Emperor, not Lorgar. The Dorn of the Great Crusade dies with the Emperor. He is consumed by rage and anger and almost brings the Imperium to another civil war. The only thing that stops him is a religious experience he has in the Pain Glove. Dorn is Paul. He’s also the last Primarch alive prior to Vulkan being rediscovered in the War of the Beast. Dorn starts to get deified as he becomes the last son of the Emperor. He fakes his death because only the God Emperor is worthy of worship. and has been directing things in the Shadows ever since. If he comes out of hiding, it’s because his status quo is being challenged by Guillimans nonsense of hope and knowledge as opposed to blind faith and fear. The Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines absorbed the lost legions. Other legions may have as well, but these two specifically for sure. I believe the Soul Drinkers and the White Templars are related to the lost legions. I would bet money that the Doom Eagles and Doom Warriors are as well. I am also convinced that Sigismund is a son of a lost Primarch. I would further say that the Temple of Oaths, the Templars, and the IF legion painting their armor black in mourning find its origins in the Lost Legion debacle. Even if none of them know it. Barbaric and assault oriented sons of Dorn are like Executioners. The Templar style did not come from the VII legion on Terra or from Inwit (a world that produced better space vikings than Fenris). The Templar/Knightly aspect came from a Lost Legion. Space Marine Chapters are not portrayed accurately in the novels and codexes. These child soldiers would be completely and fundamentally immersed in their chapter cult. There would not be any room for diversity of thought or character. Every Ultramarine would be a Marneus Calgar or a Cato Sicarius. The only thing that would separate one who reaches that level would be happenstance. Looking at the daily rites of the Space Marines… there would not even be enough time for heresy. Marines would be fighting and dying or training to fight and die. Every battle aftermath would see a chapter reshuffle. Because every battle would probably involve the entire Chapter (given their 1000 man limit). With newer initiates coming online and the reserve companies plugging holes. In fact, an Astartes who didn’t promote within a single battle or two would probably be given the Emperors peace and his rare geneseed given to a new candidate who could move faster in the organization. It would be a brutal death cult. Even the Ultramarines. Chapters would be constantly recruiting. Not this once a generation crap. They would have to to keep up with the frequency of deployment and losses. Surviving to even get into the first company would be such a feat of accomplishment that you would earn the title veteran just walking into the door. And we are not talking hundreds of years. We are talking 10 wars or battlefields in a relatively short amount of time. But the higher you go and survive the better your life expectancy gets with things like Terminator Armor and more relic equipment. Chapter corruption would never be a single marine or company. It would have to happen to the entire chapter or not at all. Any slight hint of a problem would be dealt with swiftly and brutally. So the corruption would have to be slow very small and something done over time across generations or not at all. Basically every Battle and Casualties would be just like your last game of Epic Armageddon. The Space Marine Chapter just has the capability to thrive in that tempo. The Chapter shows up to a war zone… and drops right on top of the worst location that has to die yesterday: and then they move on, they do this over and over constantly until the threat is to a level that the Guard and Navy can finish it without them. On to the next war. Rinse and repeat. A chapter is not a Legion. It’s a specific thing designed to operate as a 1000 man swat team. Splitting the Chapter into various war zones would be suicidal and not the norm. Not when you only have 1000 against millions. And chapter serfs or servitors would be flying fighters and driving tanks. Space Marines are in power armor and it took so much in resources and child deaths to get that space marine, to just Throw him in a tank or aircraft. We need him in that Tactical squad. When you only have 1000 billets, space marines need to be in space marine squads period. All Space Marines should worship the God Emperor. It should be mandatory and central to their continued existence in the Imperium. Basically my Headcanon is that the Grim Dark future is really freaking Grim Dark. Everything is a lie. Death is all there is. Over and over and over. Not even the elite space marines get long lives. And no one has the time to take a step back and plan something different. And all these characters that GW never kills off… would be dead by now. All of them. We would be on 1001 Marneus Calgar or whatever his new name is. His name wouldn’t even matter. Except to the brain washed children who have his name written into their minds via hypnoindoctination. Ok, that’s all for now.

Do we? Have it actually been said or is it just hints and winks that we in our want for it to be true declare sure evidence? Yes. The Short story Chamber at the end of Memory. By James Swallow. The Space Marines of the Lost Primarchs we’re mind wiped and absorbed by the Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines for sure. The Primarchs were mind wiped as well. All the ones who knew their fallen Brothers. Guilliman and Dorn were the ones specifically who pushed the mind alteration to save the Space Marines from the fate of their respective fathers. All we know is what these Primarchs did was really bad. Like worse than what Horus was doing. We know for sure the Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines absorbed the fallen legions. What we do not know, is if other legions did as well. Remember, there are dark rumors that Autek Mor of the Iron Hands had Suspicious origins in regards to his bloodline/geneseed. So anything it is possible. That is what makes this crazy. Dorn will not know who is a true son or who is not. The marines themselves will not know. Their mind wipe was seen as a mercy. Malcador was clear, this was Dorn and Guillimans plan. The Emperor did not order this, He allowed Dorn to do it. Sigismund could be a Lost Legionnaire. So could Fafnir Rann. They would not know it. Dorn would not know it. I think some assume that when I say Dorn told Sigismund that he was not his son, that Dorn was making a statement that was a known genetic fact to him. I don’t think so. Dorn was disowning Sigismund because Sigismund made a decision that went against everything Dorn stood for. It had nothing to do with genetic lineage. And even though Warhawk brings this to resolution… there is a very real possibility that Dorn was correct in saying Sigismund was not his Son. It’s just neither of them will ever know it. The real truth is we may never know. But what we can do is try to make educated guesses. This scenario is more than likely why there are discrepancies in the genetic history of the Soul Drinkers and the White Templars. Was the Soulspear a weapon of a Lost Primarch? So here are the Facts: The Imperial Fists absorbed some marines from the Lost Legions. We do not know how many. The marines who were adopted were mind wiped and have no idea about their true history. Rogal Dorn himself was mind wiped and had no idea this happened. In fact he was the one to float the idea and demand it, to save these marines from sharing the fate of their fathers. The Second Founding was unique in that the Chapters formed here were formed from existing marines directly from the Legion, and not from a single progenoid like those of later foundings. And since the Soul Drinkers are a second/third Founding successor… and some Marines that were alive in the Heresy were alive in the War of the Beast… we have to assume that the 3rd Founding is iffy in this regard. So the odds the Second and Third Founding Chapters have foreign genetic material in their gene vaults is very high. This also means there is a chance that over 10000 years of happenstance could see any of these 2nd and 3rd founding Chapters become predominately not of Dorns genetic material a possibility. And given the Imperial Fists prevalence to dying to a man… it’s very possible it could be completely so, if unlikely. Given how the 4th Founding emptied the gene vaults of terra to create 100s of new Chapters. There is a huge chance that many Chapters of complete lost legion material could have been founded that believe they are Imperial Fist successors. And hopefully the veterans who did form the new leadership for these chapters sent their genetic material back to their parent chapters. Or cross contamination is still possible. And because the Mechanicus increased the tithing of the existing chapters to re fill the genevaults… the chances of this happening again are very high. The only chapters who could avoid this contamination would be of those of later Foundings (4th and later) who were founded using a single progenoid that links back to an original Imperial Fist legionary/Rogal Dorn. The only characters alive in the current setting who could potentially be aware of this situation are The Emperor (good luck), Belisarius Cawl, and a certain Emperors Children apothecary. Unless some chapter secrets have this written down. But this would be super secret squirrel stuff worth killing over. Potentially, the loss of the 2 organs could be an identifier to weed out foreign geneseed. We know these organs were still good in the War of the Beast/4th Founding however. So this could have been caught later when this problem reared it’s head. Or this could even have been done on purpose to find the tainted seed! What would be really crazy… is if the lost legion genetic material of the IF gene vaults also lost these organs… indicating foul play… I hope someone officially explores this with the White Templar stuff. This could be one hell of a Rabbit Hole.

We know for sure thad the Ultramarines and the Imperial Fists absorbed marines from the lost legions. What we do not know, is if they were the only ones. There could have been others for sure. We just know that both Dorn and Guilliman advocated for this, so they did do it. I doubt it will be explored in detail myself. I just think it’s a juicy nugget meant to be left out there for a player to latch onto and.nothing more. We can’t even be certain that the Soul Drinkers and the White Templars are facing a situation because of this or something else. I hope they explore it more. I would love a series on the White Templars and the crusade to discover the truth.

You misunderstand. I’m not saying it’s real or not. I’m saying it’s possible. Very possible. Who is to say Sigismund’s memories were not altered, given that even the Primarch’s memories were? I don’t think this is something that you can ever hand wave away. Even if Sigismund or Dorn flat out tell you that Sigismund is a true son of Dorn… there is a chance that they are both wrong. And let’s ignore Sigismund. Let’s assume it’s 100 percent true he is a true genetic son of Dorn. But what about those Black Templars of the 2nd Founding who aren’t? Given the nature of how Space Marines replace losses, there is a serious chance that through happenstance or what have you… a chapter that started out as predominately of The genetic heritage of Rogal Dorn… may change. We can only assume if this has happened or not. But we know at least 2 Chapters have had issues that could fit into this exact scenario. And I believe it would be folly to assume it could not, or has not happened to others. The only chapters who could dodge this scenario are the space marine chapters that were created using the genetic material of a single space marine who was truly a son of Dorn. That’s not the case of the 2nd Founding. The Second Founding Chapters of the Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines are tainted with foreign geneseed. Period. And given how expansive the 4th Founding was… there is a huge chance that the Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines created successors of the Lost Legions unbeknownst to anyone. So there is a very real possibility that the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines spawned chapters that are related to each other genetically, and not to the primogenitors that records will show they spawned from. So even if Sigismund was a true son of Dorn. Even if Lucretius Corvo is a true son of Guilliman. Both could be wrong given how everyone was mentally altered on this… But even if they are right… there is a real possibility that over 10k years of losses and happenstance… both Chapters could actually end up more related than not. And my Opinion on this, is that it’s so cool. But My enjoyment of Sigismund or the Black Templars has nothing to do with their genetic relation to Rogal Dorn. Even if they are not genetically his children, I would still say that they are in spirit and that is all that matters. Because I believe Dorn is of the character that his adopted children are his Sons. And those sons view him as father. Blood lineage does not matter here. And I think that’s cool. You can find Ultramarines who act like Imperial Fists or Black Templars. And vice-Versa. Look at the Marines Errant or the new Wardens of the Rift. Look at the Fists Exemplars and the Imperial Fists for that matter. So yes, this theory is so easily dismissed. Except for the fact that the situation is there for it to be true as well. Which is to say, this theory is false until GW picks it up and runs with it when and if an author chose to do so. And if/when that happens, you will not be able to deny its possibility. And I would argue they are hinting at it with the White Templars and the Soul Drinkers. But they could go the alpha legion route as well. Who knows? The real question is… if Sigismund were officially declared a lost legion adoption… would you enjoy his story and legacy of the Black Templars less? I honestly think I would enjoy it more. It would just be another layer of cool surrounding all the cool. So instead of being a Night Lords candidate that got shuffled into the Imperial Fists… he was a Night Lords candidate shuffled into a Lost Legion and then adopted by the Imperial Fists. I don’t think that makes him any less of an Imperial Fist. It’s not about if it’s true or not. It’s about the possibility. And I think it’s genius.

Incorporating those officers’ gene seeds spoils most of the purpose of that single-seed bottleneck. The Inq have purged a chapter before for genetic problems, neither the chapter nor mechanicus nor terra want that extra progenies in there. And still in Avenging Son Guilliman clearly prefers those core leaders to stay formally separate from the new units. I agree. A Marine who falls in battle whilst on loan to another Chapter would HAVE to have his geneseed returned to his original Chapter, no matter if they share a Primogenitor or not. The risk of contamination is too great. The question is, were they concerned about this in the 4th Founding? And almost all of the Imperial Fist Chapters of this era were 2nd Founding, meaning that the odds they had foreign geneseed in their Chapter vaults and in the Mechanicus vaults was virtually guaranteed by the very nature of the 2nd Founding and how those chapters were formed. So even if the Veterans genetic material is returned to their original chapter... that still does not address the original contamination that happened to the Legion itself. A second (and maybe third) founding chapter, unless it loses the lost legion geneseed through happenstance or discovers the abnormalities and purges them (and when and how would this happen?), will potentially always send tithes with multiple gene lines in it to the Mechanicus... meaning potentially leading to founding Chapters of a lost lineage. Remember, at the time of the War of the Beast, the Imperial Fists had all functioning organs. So I imagine it would be extremely difficult to distinguish between the 3 potential strands. So given that the Ultramarines and the Imperial Fists are doing this unawares... how many Chapters of the 4th Founding are actually entire Chapters of lost legion genetic material? This is a very real potentiality until the Ultima Founding. I would wager if anyone knows this... its Belisarius Cawl. And its around this time that the White Templars discover that they are not genetic descendants of Rogal Dorn. So the good news is that all the Primaris Geneseed and replacements will combat this original problem. Cawl knows who the progenitor of the White Templars is. And I would wager their Primaris replacements all are using the geneseed of the Unkown Primarch. And that is cool. Conversely... are the new Soul Drinkers using Dorn geneseed... or is Cawl playing fast and loose here too? So here is a fun game... look at the Imperial Fist and Ultramarine 2nd and 3rd founding chapters... who comes across as illegitimate children? Soul Drinkers are fishy. And the prideful selfish guy in me wants to completely disown the Fist Exemplars lol. But I have my suspicions on the Black Templars (maybe the Silver Templars and the Black Templars are secretly related?). On the 13 Legion side... Mortifactors and Doom Eagles get my spidey senses tingling. And an even more fun game is once you have your suspicious chapters picked out... do you think you can see parallels between the ones you picked that were IF successors and the ones you picked that were Ultramarine successors? (I am randomly connecting dots that aren't there mind you, its just fun to consider)... but I feel I can tie Chapters like the Howling Griffons, Iron Knights, and the various Templars (White, Silver... Maybe Black) to a overarching theme. And less so I feel like Grim and seemingly superstitious chapters like the Soul Drinkers, Mortifactors, Fire Hawks (ironically they always claimed to be Ultramarines Successors) and Silver Skulls and even the Novamarines maybe... ect into another. So in my head... one of the Lost Legions was very knightly... and holy faith of some kind was prominent. Could this have been their downfall... in a similar manner to Lorgar and the Word Bearers? Maybe they did not want to give up their belief in a God and unlike Lorgar... didn't believe the Emperor was it either... directly conflicting with the Imperial Truth either way? The other group seems to be grim and dour... with a sense of impending doom or a belief in spiritual portents and omens. Ironically... both of these characteristics would find a home in the 7th Legion to a certain degree or another... which is doubly interesting, there used to be a theory about the Tarot and the Primarchs... and how they were tied together. And the way it was presented had Dorn being close to both lost Primarchs in temperament. If you can find that theory... pay attention to what it says about those primarchs and their attitudes. Maybe this is what drove him to float fighting to absorb the Marines in the first place. Out of love for his lost brothers that he was close to. What if this was when he founded the Templars and the Holy temple on the Phalanx... the plot thickens lol. That is the beauty here. All of the things I am picking apart could also easily be claimed to be due to chapter cult based on their respective homeworlds and have nothing to do with genetic lineage of the Primarch. I truly believe that nurture plays more of a part than nature. But there is just enough here to question that assertion. All we will ever know is what we are specifically told... and everything we are told is a Lie. I love this setting. Ill leave this to kind of back up my point (even though I think its probably wrong)... Notice that before Dorn showed up... the Legion was very no nonsense... they would accept honours and trinkets in humbled silence. The Phalanx Warders were the pinnacle of this ideal: Not the Templars... who would paint their armor Black in mourning... have symbols and robes and ceremony all over the place. And Dorn's homeworld was not this. Inwit was a death world that produced very practical and no-nonsense Space Vikings. Pissed off and aggressive/brutal Imperial Fists are not Templars... they are Executioners like Fafnir Rann. Dorn created the Templars... and the temple on the Phalanx... but where did this come from? It did not come from Terra and the original Legion... and it did not come from Inwit. Maybe it came from a brother or brothers that he was close to and was influenced by? Maybe when Dorn told Sigismund he was not his Father... it was actually truer than either of them knew. I am not saying this theory is correct. At all. What I am saying... is its possible. And in this setting that is all you need. So bringing this back to the original point of the thread. Even if the Ultramarines and the Imperial Fists are the most prominent genetic lines... this is in reality false... because many of their successors are not true successors. But on the other hand... I do not think it ultimately matters. Are my adopted sons any less of my children? No. I am proud to be their Father. This is where the White Templars are wrong. It doesn't matter who their genetic lineage leads back to... they are sons of Rogal Dorn. And as long as they subscribe to His ideals of what is expected of every Space Marine... he would call them Sons (as he did with Sigismund until he failed to uphold the truth of the 7th Legion). This was the whole point of the Novella The Crimson Fist... One of these Imperial Fists was a true Imperial Fist... the other was not... and what separated them was why they made the decisions they made.

I say go full on DIY. Ultima Founding. Want Deathwing Colored Templars? Do it. Then tailor your own lore around your Friends Eldar faction and work it into your very own story. Bone Templars/Dark Templars/Ect…

They actually retconned it only being two chapters for the Fists, they added a few more for The Beast Arises. I forget the exact number, but it was at least one more with the Fists Exemplar, and maybe the Excoriators? There are way more. But as everytime the autors for different books / games dont know what others already established. The Excoriators are often not mentioned although they are a secound founding chapter, some autors mention Soul drinker, some not. Originally, the 7th Legion had enough survivors from the Iron Cage to found the Crimson Fists and the Black Templars. Dorn would take a small group of die hards and reorganize/train them for some time whilst the 2 successors were crusading in their stead. But this has been expanded. The Excoriators are a thing and known as 2nd Founding. So are the Fists Exemplar (made up of a faction that actually believed in Guillimans reforms). I cannot remember if the Soul Drinkers are officially 2nd Founding or not. I know initially in their trilogy it was stated so. But I think that was retconned or walked back as rumor as well. We know they are at least 2nd or 3rd Founding as they were involved with the Last Wall Protocol in the War of the Beast. The same can be said of the Iron Knights. They were present in the War of the Beast. So they predate the 4th Founding. I have seen them classified as 2nd Founding, but I’m not aware of anything officially stating as such. And the only other Chapter of this Era that we are aware of are the Executioners, which we know are 3rd Founding. The 4th Founding changes everything. We know the Fists Exemplar fall off the history books. But none of the other named chapters disappear or are destroyed (at least officially… the Last Wall cover up the destruction of the Imperial Fists). But every chapters gene stores and the mechanicus own collection are used to create as many chapters as possible. So it’s practically impossible after this to track official successors. I would say that the 4th Founding would be a good place to put the earliest DIY successor chapter… with 2nd/3rd Founding being a harder sell (you would have to explain why they were not present for the Last Wall Protocol). Throw in the fact that some gene seed labeled as IF gene seed could actually belong to the Lost Legions and you have some room for shenanigans. We know that when the Mechanicus prepare the founding of a chapter, they select 1 progenoid candidate and over the span of 50 (going off memory could be wrong on the number) years replicate it till they have 1000 sets of stable gene seed. So all of the geneseed given to a new chapter are all tied to one original source gene-line. So if the Mechanicus pull a stable progenoid from their Imperial Fist stores… but it’s actually from a Marine who was absorbed from a Unknown Legion (and even Rogal Dorn doesn’t know because he agreed to a mind wipe) and it passed the tests and was selected. You would have a whole Chapter of geneseed that is labeled Imperial Fist genetic successor, but actually are not. So this could very well be why the White Templars believed they were IF successors, but when scrutiny is applied they find out that it’s not the case. The question is if they lost the 2 organs over time like the true sons of Dorn. Knowing this possibility as a fact. We know that the second founding successors were divided from the parent legion, so there wasn’t one source of genetic material (a single progenoid) as In the later Foundings. We also know that in the Fourth Founding, Veterans from all Chapters would be sent to the new Chapters to form the core of the new leadership. So there is still a chance for foreign DNA to be mixed in with true 7th Legion material. And that also means there is a chance that any successor could unintentionally spawn a successor chapter of a lost legion. Guilliman’s primogenitors would have the same issue. Think about this… hypothetically the Black Templars could have started out as a true Rogal Dorn successor chapter. But if just one set of progenoid glands (being of foreign material) gained favor through happenstance and the given nature of how a chapter replaces its losses… the Chapter could eventually end up not being a true genetic successor of Rogal Dorn. Is this what happened to the Soul Drinkers? Maybe this could explain why the Templars no longer produce Librarians and the Imperial Fists and Crimson Fists do… or maybe… just maybe… the Imperial Fists genetic line purged 2 genetic markers that went against their ideals (can’t sleep whilst a traitor lives/can’t spit acid if you don’t allow yourself to be captured) as a way to combat the spread of foreign DNA (once they discover the situation). Who knows what happened in 10k years. That would make one hell of a story! Now we have a true discussion, is Chapter behavior nurture or nature?