Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
What's your point? Empy wanted to make it as difficult as possible, just in case someone went against him. He's a paranoid freak like that.
Warhammer 40k General thread
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Isn't it kind of moot anyway? The Space Marine augmentation isn't actually genetic, despite the gene-seed thing. If somehow an SM had a child it would just be a bog-standard human.
If there were female SM and they did the sex.. a normal human child would still be the result.
MC_Lovecraft
Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist
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Gene editing absolutely can be passed down to offspring, as long as the editing affects the gametes as well as the somatic cells. That's how GMO crops work.
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My point is that this is a stupid reason to not have female members. If a rival power has the ability to undo sterilization they can just make new Space marines, banning the creation of female Space marines just means that they need to find a self-sustaining population of baselines (which there are quite a lot in the 40k setting!) and just recruit dudes there. The ability to create new SMs is not meaningfully stopped. Notice how CSMs exist despite also being all dudes.
Come on dude, stop with the rationalizations. Everything you're saying is easily countered. The only way to make this makes sense as in-universe lore is to have the Emperor be a weird misogynist who hates women which frankly sucks. Dude was flawed enough without making him a lame woman hater.
And look at that, another way this logical chain is pointless and goofy. Well said 🫡
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Oh I agree, but that wasn't what I meant. My point was that SM augmentation isn't actually done via gene-editing? It's various implants doing stuff via hormones and magic warp chemical compounds.
The only genetic component is located in the Progenoid Glands, which can be harvested to make more gene-seed and thus new implants.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
Even if that's true, which I'm skeptical of, it would still be a normal human with the correct genetic affinity for the Astartification process, meaning that they Space Marines wouldn't be dependent on existing human population and normal families for new recruits, cutting them off humanity, and allowing them to develop their own seperate, incestuous transhuman culture that would eventually try and supplant normal humans, which is explicitly what Big E wanted to avoid.
Big E wasn't concerned about rival powers, he wanted space marines themselves to be dependent on normal humans for new recruits, and not be able to reproduce independently. That's the point. This is canon.
MC_Lovecraft
Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist
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I mean, that doesn't really square with how the various legions' inherit quirks from the Primarchs though, right? My understanding was that they are essentially put through a CRISPR-like process that modifies their genetics such that they are functionally the biological children of their Primarch, but I admit my grasp on the lore is far from comprehensive.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
Actually, looking into it some more, I think Big-E choosing not to create Femstartes intentionally is it self a retcon, and in older lore, the Emperor did try to make female space marines repeatedly, and failed repeatedly, and in the end it turned out that since geneseed is derived from himself and his sons, who are all male, it just couldn't be made to reliably work on women, so he gave up and decreed no fem-marines ever.
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Which is, of course, a purely hypothetical example. Everyone knows Choas Space Marines don't exist, just like Choas itself.
I don't see how having Space Marines depend on their chapter serfs for reproduction solves any of Emp's concerns at all.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
They don't really use chapter serfs. They have recruiting worlds.
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The point is that they're not meaningfully dependent. You can rule people and recruit from them.
Space Marines aren't a ruling class because they can't breed. They aren't a ruling class because the various armies of lesser augmented humans in the Imperium would shoot them if they tried to be. And tellingly despite that they still almost became one anyway! It wouldn't be invalid to view the Horus Heresy as a split between the Marines who were content to exist within the Emperor's system as warriors and those who wanted to take a commanding role.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
In many places they actually are, but that's not the point. The point is, they're dependent on normal humans on a fundamental level, so they can't get rid of them. It's a constant reminder that their purpose is to protect humanity, not replace it.
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Really? *squints at your friendly neighbourhood Chaos Space Marine human slave farm* could have fooled me.
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To my knowledge there is (almost) no actual gene-editing going on with Space marines. More or less what happens is that you start with gene-seed as a baseline, a collection of stem cells and molecular machinery that is used to grow all the various implants necessary for the creation of an Astartes, and those implants are then placed inside an aspirant's body over a period of time, usually years.
The reason why they inherit genetic quirks is because the implants themselves are based on the Primarch's genetic code, but the SM's genes are left untouched except for the development of special organs called Progenoid Glands which make new gene-seed, and only twice over the course of a Space Marine's life I think. It's why Astartes Apothecaries are so important and why Marines risk so much to recover their dead, they go extinct without the harvest of Progenoid Glands.
Which would make all of the implants akin to IRL transplants more or less, that don't get rejected because of the Emperor's Leet Medical Skillz I assume.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
They also do other heretical things, like try and make female Space Marines!
Then play a different faction.
MC_Lovecraft
Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist
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That's just an inversion of the relationship that still keeps them necessarily tied to one another. Chaos Space Marines do have to defend those slave farms from destruction, if not harm, if they want to make more Chaos Space Marines.
This seems like a self-contradictory statement though, you are saying it's not gene editing because it's gene editing based on the Primarch?
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
Of course, I say that, but at this point Femstartes are likely a matter of "when" not "if." I would put good money on them becoming canon within the next two years or so.
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No I mean the actual implants are based on the Primarch's genetic code, but there's no change to the human recipient's genetic code.
Like a transplant more or less. If you receive a new foreign kidney it does all the stuff a kidney is supposed to do but it's not actually changing anything about your own DNA. Except special Primarch Kidneys also make you super buff and tall. Somehow.
MC_Lovecraft
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Right, and I'm saying that the "somehow" is definitely genetic editing, or it doesn't make any sense.
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The human who is turned into space marine does not get their gene's edited.
They get implanted organs that are based on the genes of their primarch, that do stuff to their bodies, but do not, strictly speaking, change their genetics.
Mustapha Mond
World Controller, Western Europe
At this point, Fabius Bile has managed to (with extreme difficulty) make some kind of, sort of, female space marine things that aren't nearly as good as the real thing. He's still working on it.
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You are saying that something in Warhammer 40k does not make sense?
That's unpossible.
MC_Lovecraft
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You know what, you're right, I retract my objection.You are saying that something in Warhammer 40k does not make sense?
That's unpossible.
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I agree that it doesn't make sense, but that's how it's described. Most of the lore pertaining to SM creation says you put the implant inside then it does hormones and stuff, and you get swole. It's super HRT therapy idk.
I don't blame you for going "wait what" though lol.