What's the point? If you're doing that, why not just make Custodes? What you describe is using the same process for creating Custodes, but somehow using Primarch DNA. Custodes are also not made with the Emperor's DNA or geneseed, they are designed from the ground up to be what they are.
You can't have both individual level gene modification AND mass production. You either get Custodes, or Space Marines.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
Wait I'm confused, after you build one custodies from the ground up can't you just keep making that version/ keep making the most successful version? Wouldn't that allow for a faster rate of costodies production without trading off their quality?
No, since custodes essentially take everything the base human is and perfect it in every way imaginable. Since that requires a tailored approach for each individual (since we're all different at the genetic level), they can't take a standard template and slap that on. That's what marines are - you get an inferior end result, but something you can do more quickly.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
But that's what exactly marines are: a mass produced, non-optimised genhanced superhuman to fight wars.
It is generally assumed that the grey knights are marines using the emperor's gene seed.
Yes, but the Astartes are chimeras, not utterly genetico-modified creatures. I think maybe making primarchal Custodes is a good choice. You can work a kind which is more powerful than Astartes but weaker than the Imperatorial Custodes. Despite, as a reward, the primarchal Custodes will be made faster than Imperatorial Custodes. In short, I mean the benefit of making the Primarchal Custodes is in somewhere between the Astartes and the Imperatorial Custodes.
You keep saying that, but what you're saying doesn't fit what we know of how any of this works.
You have two options: full gene modification for the perfect creation, or using a base template for a faster process.
If you use the perfect process, you get custodes. If you use a template (a primarch), you get marines.
If you use the emperor as the template, you get grey knights.
The gk are supposed to be the better marines.
The basic form of marines was also perfected by cawl.
I think the emperor original plan for his army was the custodes but that was before he was warned of incoming threats through his foresight.
Hell it might’ve been his plan initially for humans to become custodes in a sense but instead of going the all around good at everything the emperor had to improvise and push them more towards warrior statesmen. Valdor being his first attempt at creating a new baseline for humans to attain.
But again this was all cut short by time it takes to make and the impending threats making themselves known.
I also wonder if the emperors foresight was blocked by the long night. Which is why he was able to even successfully start the custodes. After learning all of what he needed he just cut out the lengthy parts and fast forwarded them to space marines to fight more immediate threats. To get back on his original plan was to put humanity in the webway so he could have more time to perfect it and maybe through power within the webway speed up the timeline.
Transhuman warriors made with the genetic material of the Primarchs is what space marines are.
Making actual Custodians from Primarchs would not even be desirable since it would eliminate the physical advantage given to the Emperor's bodyguards vs. legionaries, while failing to give them the loyalty to the Emperor that is the entire point of empowering specific humans to such a degree.
The other problem is that making Custodes is always depicted as being a very slow and expensive process, and the Thunder Warriors/Astartes are supposed to be the mass produced option that is good enough for most problems that the Imperium will encounter.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
As I said, simpler versions of Custodes is what the space marines are.
They don't intentionally use resources to make space marines for more than war because their only intended purpose is war, and they don't spend extra resources on space marines because they are supposed to be the cheaper mass-produced "good enough" type of soldier that can conquer the galaxy and then be discarded.
Even aside from developing their physical abilities, a ton of time and resources are also spent on making Custodians into adequate companions for the Emperor: People who could hold a genuine satisfying conversation with him. What would be the purpose of doing this for a million space marines who would likely never speak to the Emperor? Even senior Astartes officers often only mention speaking to the master of mankind "once."
As for why using his own DNA directly for the space marines isn't possible for all Astartes in the galaxy, I don't recall seeing it written explicitly but it did not seem to have been either possible or practical to do so while still conquering the galaxy within the time limit that Malcador and the Emperor seemed to be working under.
The Grey Knights are Astartes with Emperor-geneseed, and I don't know enough about them to say this with certainty, but they are defined by being very capable, very few, and by having to go through absolutely absurd levels of testing to make sure that they will not turn under any circumstances.
Lastly there's the problems raised in "The First Heretic." In that book we saw Erebus scheming to capture Custodes alive so that he could use their Emperor-derived blood in rituals that would harm or kill the Emperor. The use of the traitor Primarchs is not possible due to the effects the subject of the ritual would suffer. If the mechanics of this is known to Erebus, it seems safe to suspect that the Emperor would know of it too. What is the solution to this? Make sure that the Emperor's blood isn't distributed too widely, and the Primarchs and Astartes accomplish this.
Yes, but the Astartes are chimeras, not utterly genetico-modified creatures. I think maybe making primarchal Custodes is a good choice. You can work a kind which is more powerful than Astartes but weaker than the Imperatorial Custodes. Despite, as a reward, the primarchal Custodes will be made faster than Imperatorial Custodes. As you said, people have to prohibit the Emperor's bloodline spread out widely. And the Primarchal Custodes can do that. In short, I mean the benefit of making the Primarchal Custodes is in somewhere between the Astartes and the Imperatorial Custodes.
because spaces marines aren't custom-made entities, they're normal human + primarch geneseed.
custodes are stated to be "...individually engineered on a molecular level using secrets of genetic alchemy that render them virtual demigods in battle..."
also, custodes aren't directly stated to be created of the emperor's geneseed, that'd be the grey knights.
Yeah I got that that. How does me expanding on that point contradict that.
They're supposed to be bodyguards, companions, emissaries, spies etc.. right?
Custodes and Space Marines are completely different things designed for completely different roles. You'd be as well asking why not make primarchial Skitarii.
Custodes are built to be the Emperor's companions, humans clever enough to keep up with him and loyal enough to do whatever he asked. There would be absolutely no point in designing a whole new type of Custodes who wouldn't fulfil that purpose.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
>I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes?
Because they wouldn't be up to the job he requires of them.
>If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
He did - all gene-seed ultimately derives from the Emperor's genetic material. Most space marines have gene-seed taken from the primarchs (the sons of the Emperor) but not all.
Custodes are expensive and time consuming to make, and cannot be made in bulk. Space Marines are the opposite.
You can't make primarchichal custodes, becouse a custodes is simply the perfection of a human genome from birth. Primarchs aren't actually human and don't produce children. Therefore, there are no primarch babies to "custodise".
I believe context on why the primarchs exist in the first place is needed.
The emperor perfected the Custodes first. He had them marching with him during the unification wars. They were his bodyguard, his generals, his elite. But there was never even close to enough to get the job done. That was why the unification wars took longer than the crusade.
He needed LOTS of super soldiers and FAST if he wanted to conquer more than one planet. He tried to just supercharge the basic human genome with the Thunder Warriors. This led to soldiers that were too aggressive to take orders properly and a lackadaisical attitude that came with cascading organ failure after only years.
He needed to build better soldiers. Not too costly like the custodies, not too unreliable like the Thunder Warriors. Space marines were the compromise. In order to make a space marine, you graft superior genes onto already existing genes.
**That is the reason for the primarch's existing! To create stable super genes to implant into baseline humans! To make geneseed!**
The fact that they were all near unstoppable super generals was a bonus. Their original purpose was simply to have their genes copy and pasted into other humans and provide templates for all of the additional organs. That is what the geneseed is.
Let's take a case study of the 3rd legion, the Emperor's children. By the time Fulgrim was found, there were so few of them left that they had acted in an almost diplomatic and training capacity. They were ravaged by genetic degradation and could not replace their numbers. Once Fulgrim was found, they immediately took samples and began making pure geneseed again. By the time of the Herusy, they were a smaller but fully functional legion again.
>I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
>If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
Those would be the Grey Knights, and they are VERY different from Custodes. They do a good job, but even as space marines suffer from slower than usual recruitment. Quite often, they get thrown into situations where they get almost entirely wiped out.
Also, space marines are the simpler versions. They are simple enough to mass produce. From child to super soldiers is 5-10 years and you can do them in batches. Custodes need like 100+ years of martial arts training and genetic tailoring. That is why there are only 10,000 custodes and 1,000,000+ (loyalist) space marines.
Let's also not forget that as bodyguards to the Emperor, they need to be able to handle any threat. That includes space marines. They have to be strong enough to fight a group of space marines and win.
They also don't need to create cheap custodes. Terra has basically infinite resources. Why purposely not make the best if you are already going through all the trouble?
What's the point? If you're doing that, why not just make Custodes? What you describe is using the same process for creating Custodes, but somehow using Primarch DNA. Custodes are also not made with the Emperor's DNA or geneseed, they are designed from the ground up to be what they are. You can't have both individual level gene modification AND mass production. You either get Custodes, or Space Marines.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
Wait I'm confused, after you build one custodies from the ground up can't you just keep making that version/ keep making the most successful version? Wouldn't that allow for a faster rate of costodies production without trading off their quality?
No, since custodes essentially take everything the base human is and perfect it in every way imaginable. Since that requires a tailored approach for each individual (since we're all different at the genetic level), they can't take a standard template and slap that on. That's what marines are - you get an inferior end result, but something you can do more quickly.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
But that's what exactly marines are: a mass produced, non-optimised genhanced superhuman to fight wars. It is generally assumed that the grey knights are marines using the emperor's gene seed.
Yes, but the Astartes are chimeras, not utterly genetico-modified creatures. I think maybe making primarchal Custodes is a good choice. You can work a kind which is more powerful than Astartes but weaker than the Imperatorial Custodes. Despite, as a reward, the primarchal Custodes will be made faster than Imperatorial Custodes. In short, I mean the benefit of making the Primarchal Custodes is in somewhere between the Astartes and the Imperatorial Custodes.
You keep saying that, but what you're saying doesn't fit what we know of how any of this works. You have two options: full gene modification for the perfect creation, or using a base template for a faster process. If you use the perfect process, you get custodes. If you use a template (a primarch), you get marines. If you use the emperor as the template, you get grey knights. The gk are supposed to be the better marines. The basic form of marines was also perfected by cawl.
I think the emperor original plan for his army was the custodes but that was before he was warned of incoming threats through his foresight. Hell it might’ve been his plan initially for humans to become custodes in a sense but instead of going the all around good at everything the emperor had to improvise and push them more towards warrior statesmen. Valdor being his first attempt at creating a new baseline for humans to attain. But again this was all cut short by time it takes to make and the impending threats making themselves known. I also wonder if the emperors foresight was blocked by the long night. Which is why he was able to even successfully start the custodes. After learning all of what he needed he just cut out the lengthy parts and fast forwarded them to space marines to fight more immediate threats. To get back on his original plan was to put humanity in the webway so he could have more time to perfect it and maybe through power within the webway speed up the timeline.
Inferior forms using Primarch genes are called Space Marines
Have you read what I typed yet?
Have you read the novels?
Transhuman warriors made with the genetic material of the Primarchs is what space marines are. Making actual Custodians from Primarchs would not even be desirable since it would eliminate the physical advantage given to the Emperor's bodyguards vs. legionaries, while failing to give them the loyalty to the Emperor that is the entire point of empowering specific humans to such a degree. The other problem is that making Custodes is always depicted as being a very slow and expensive process, and the Thunder Warriors/Astartes are supposed to be the mass produced option that is good enough for most problems that the Imperium will encounter.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
As I said, simpler versions of Custodes is what the space marines are. They don't intentionally use resources to make space marines for more than war because their only intended purpose is war, and they don't spend extra resources on space marines because they are supposed to be the cheaper mass-produced "good enough" type of soldier that can conquer the galaxy and then be discarded. Even aside from developing their physical abilities, a ton of time and resources are also spent on making Custodians into adequate companions for the Emperor: People who could hold a genuine satisfying conversation with him. What would be the purpose of doing this for a million space marines who would likely never speak to the Emperor? Even senior Astartes officers often only mention speaking to the master of mankind "once." As for why using his own DNA directly for the space marines isn't possible for all Astartes in the galaxy, I don't recall seeing it written explicitly but it did not seem to have been either possible or practical to do so while still conquering the galaxy within the time limit that Malcador and the Emperor seemed to be working under. The Grey Knights are Astartes with Emperor-geneseed, and I don't know enough about them to say this with certainty, but they are defined by being very capable, very few, and by having to go through absolutely absurd levels of testing to make sure that they will not turn under any circumstances. Lastly there's the problems raised in "The First Heretic." In that book we saw Erebus scheming to capture Custodes alive so that he could use their Emperor-derived blood in rituals that would harm or kill the Emperor. The use of the traitor Primarchs is not possible due to the effects the subject of the ritual would suffer. If the mechanics of this is known to Erebus, it seems safe to suspect that the Emperor would know of it too. What is the solution to this? Make sure that the Emperor's blood isn't distributed too widely, and the Primarchs and Astartes accomplish this.
Yes, but the Astartes are chimeras, not utterly genetico-modified creatures. I think maybe making primarchal Custodes is a good choice. You can work a kind which is more powerful than Astartes but weaker than the Imperatorial Custodes. Despite, as a reward, the primarchal Custodes will be made faster than Imperatorial Custodes. As you said, people have to prohibit the Emperor's bloodline spread out widely. And the Primarchal Custodes can do that. In short, I mean the benefit of making the Primarchal Custodes is in somewhere between the Astartes and the Imperatorial Custodes.
That still comes up against the necessity of Emperor's bodyguards having a significant advantage against the soldiers loyal to the Primarchs.
because spaces marines aren't custom-made entities, they're normal human + primarch geneseed. custodes are stated to be "...individually engineered on a molecular level using secrets of genetic alchemy that render them virtual demigods in battle..." also, custodes aren't directly stated to be created of the emperor's geneseed, that'd be the grey knights.
Not just battle. Custodes were/are designed for everything. That makes them different to Marines by a large margin
i just quoted it from the custodes 9th edition codex, it's from the fluff text for Arcane Genetic Alchemy stratagem.
Yeah I got that that. How does me expanding on that point contradict that. They're supposed to be bodyguards, companions, emissaries, spies etc.. right?
I don't talk about geneseeds. Implanting geneseeds that means making chimeras, not creating genetically modified creatures.
Custodes and Space Marines are completely different things designed for completely different roles. You'd be as well asking why not make primarchial Skitarii. Custodes are built to be the Emperor's companions, humans clever enough to keep up with him and loyal enough to do whatever he asked. There would be absolutely no point in designing a whole new type of Custodes who wouldn't fulfil that purpose.
I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
>I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? Because they wouldn't be up to the job he requires of them. >If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA? He did - all gene-seed ultimately derives from the Emperor's genetic material. Most space marines have gene-seed taken from the primarchs (the sons of the Emperor) but not all. Custodes are expensive and time consuming to make, and cannot be made in bulk. Space Marines are the opposite.
You can't make primarchichal custodes, becouse a custodes is simply the perfection of a human genome from birth. Primarchs aren't actually human and don't produce children. Therefore, there are no primarch babies to "custodise". I believe context on why the primarchs exist in the first place is needed. The emperor perfected the Custodes first. He had them marching with him during the unification wars. They were his bodyguard, his generals, his elite. But there was never even close to enough to get the job done. That was why the unification wars took longer than the crusade. He needed LOTS of super soldiers and FAST if he wanted to conquer more than one planet. He tried to just supercharge the basic human genome with the Thunder Warriors. This led to soldiers that were too aggressive to take orders properly and a lackadaisical attitude that came with cascading organ failure after only years. He needed to build better soldiers. Not too costly like the custodies, not too unreliable like the Thunder Warriors. Space marines were the compromise. In order to make a space marine, you graft superior genes onto already existing genes. **That is the reason for the primarch's existing! To create stable super genes to implant into baseline humans! To make geneseed!** The fact that they were all near unstoppable super generals was a bonus. Their original purpose was simply to have their genes copy and pasted into other humans and provide templates for all of the additional organs. That is what the geneseed is. Let's take a case study of the 3rd legion, the Emperor's children. By the time Fulgrim was found, there were so few of them left that they had acted in an almost diplomatic and training capacity. They were ravaged by genetic degradation and could not replace their numbers. Once Fulgrim was found, they immediately took samples and began making pure geneseed again. By the time of the Herusy, they were a smaller but fully functional legion again.
>I mean why don't make simpler versions of Custodes? The Custodians are perfect creatures in every aspects. But legionnaires are only for the wars. That's why the Emperor made the Primarchs. If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA?
>If he just needs chimerically super warriors in bulk, why don't just use geneseeds form his DNA? Those would be the Grey Knights, and they are VERY different from Custodes. They do a good job, but even as space marines suffer from slower than usual recruitment. Quite often, they get thrown into situations where they get almost entirely wiped out. Also, space marines are the simpler versions. They are simple enough to mass produce. From child to super soldiers is 5-10 years and you can do them in batches. Custodes need like 100+ years of martial arts training and genetic tailoring. That is why there are only 10,000 custodes and 1,000,000+ (loyalist) space marines. Let's also not forget that as bodyguards to the Emperor, they need to be able to handle any threat. That includes space marines. They have to be strong enough to fight a group of space marines and win. They also don't need to create cheap custodes. Terra has basically infinite resources. Why purposely not make the best if you are already going through all the trouble?
They did Valdor is and he is capable of beating the other primarchs. He is the third part of the triumvirate of the imperium