Ogryn > Space marine?

[tzabazeus]

just a quick question to all you clavers reading this.

As an idea for an upcoming campaign i was going to play on a secret research facility experimenting with implanting a gene seed into an ogryn host - as would be revealed towards the finale.

so the questions are
1. is it viable?
2. are there instances where this has been done before in 40k cannon?

Niall

[DapperAnarchist]

1) - probably not, as Geneseed stands now. It is very delicate, and something as far from the Human norm as an Ogryn would have problems with it. However, since this would already be a techheresy and an affront to the Emperor (things we like) then the Geneseed or other enhancement procedure would be adapted for Ogryns.

2) - there are the Dark and Cursed Foundings, during which dodgy stuff was tried. Not sure if there is anything specific about abhumans, but there were attempts to create more powerful Librarians, to boost Space Marine size, and other interesting quirks. There's also those "Abhumans" who are created from the genestock of Imperial heroes, but come with various odd fates tied up with their souls...

[N01H3r3]

2) - there are the Dark and Cursed Foundings, during which dodgy stuff was tried. Not sure if there is anything specific about abhumans, but there were attempts to create more powerful Librarians, to boost Space Marine size, and other interesting quirks. There's also those "Abhumans" who are created from the genestock of Imperial heroes, but come with various odd fates tied up with their souls...

One thing worth considering is that, depending on one's definitions of human and abhuman, many Space Marine chapters may already recruit from an abhuman populace - for example, the Horus Heresy novel A Thousand Sons implies that the Fenrisians themselves aren't quite as human as they appear, their ancestors having been engineered to endure the harsh conditions of their world (which neatly explains why the Space Wolves geneseed has never been successfully used to produce another Chapter - if the process and the geneseed alike react in specific ways with Fenrisian genetics - the notion of the Canis Helix and the Wulfen curse, for example - then it may be unable to function properly when those genes are absent).

It'd be one of the major considerations of creating a new chapter of Space Marines. With every world possessing a divergent branch of humanity, even if those differences are miniscule, geneseed compatability and stability testing would need to be extensive, particularly for Chapters that recruit from many worlds, such as the Black Templars, Imperial Fists and Dark Angels. This is likely the reason why the Ultramarines geneseed is so frequently used - it's simply more stable than most others and thus can be used on the greatest variety of potential hosts with the smallest number of complications.

[Ynek]

A Thousand Sons implies that the Fenrisians themselves aren't quite as human as they appear, their ancestors having been engineered to endure the harsh conditions of their world (which neatly explains why the Space Wolves geneseed has never been successfully used to produce another Chapter - if the process and the geneseed alike react in specific ways with Fenrisian genetics - the notion of the Canis Helix and the Wulfen curse, for example - then it may be unable to function properly when those genes are absent).

I find this very odd, since the geneseeds were extracted from the Primarchs, by the Emperor, thousands of years before he even knew the existence of Fenris. How could he make a Primarch who creates a Fenris-specific gene-seed before he even knows of the existence of Fenris? I'll admit that I've never read the Space Wolves codex, so if there's some element of their background that I'm missing, please fill me in. ^_^

[N01H3r3]

I find this very odd, since the geneseeds were extracted from the Primarchs, by the Emperor, thousands of years before he even knew the existence of Fenris. How could he make a Primarch who creates a Fenris-specific gene-seed before he even knows of the existence of Fenris? I'll admit that I've never read the Space Wolves codex, so if there's some element of their background that I'm missing, please fill me in. ^_^

Well, for a start, it's not thousands of years - the Primarchs were created at the end of the Reunification of Terra, pretty much at the very beginning of the Great Crusade, which lasted a little over two centuries in total. It would be decades at most before the Emperor discovered any individual Primarch, and given that humans had already colonised Fenris (there are, afterall, humans there), its existence is likely to have been known to the Emperor (or those under the Emperor's command) long before the Primarch project began.

But that's a slightly different matter. Geneseed aren't static and unchanging; every Marine contributes a measure of his own genetics to the progenoid glands which will be extracted from his body to create new Astartes. Even without considering that, every Legion experimented and established different methods of changing a human into a Space Marine - the Blood Angels use the preserved blood of their Primarch to speed the process in a sarcophagus, while the Space Wolves are first exposed to the Canis Helix and sent into the wilds of Fenris as a feral, lupine monster, their implantation only completed if they overcome their bestial nature and return to the Fang... we don't know the kinds of changes made to the geneseed given natural mutation over time or these early experiments, nor do we truly know the depth or breadth of the Emperor's plan and how that impacts the warriors he created. It may be that, because of the unique way the Space Wolves create new Astartes, that the genetics of Fenrisians merge so easily with the genetic legacy of Leman Russ.

It may even possibly be something other than random chance that brought Russ to Fenris as opposed to any of countless other worlds... we don't know for certain.

[precinctomega]

Or, given that scientific support for the geneseed was far superior when Russ was rediscovered, he may have insisted that it be re-configured to suit the unique biochemistry of his adopted world.  It would, after all, be in character.

Interesting to hear that, though, not having read A Thousand Sons yet.  I've often thought that the humans of the Imperium had to be genetically different from those of today, partly because of a different mental constitution but also because of the ease and ubiquity of bionic implants.  I have a private theory that the humans of the Imperium are mostly descendants of early spacefarers, biologically adapted to make them hardier, more community-focused and less prone to biological rejection.

As to the OP, I don't think it would work, but I'm equally sure that some lunatic would try it (in fact, I suspect that a small host of lunatics will have tried it down the centuries).

R.