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[Grim Portent]

Have read legion by Dan Abnett.
So after seeing future with cabal device Omegon and Alpharius decide : we will do everything, we will do this for the emperor
And when imperial commander, who tried bombarding alpha legion, fails to run away fron Alpharius and asks primarch : why you even do that?
Alpharius tells them - for the emperor!

So alpha legion is legion of closet loyalists?

Sort of. The Alpha Legion is thought to have decided that the best way to serve the Emperor was by bringing about the destruction of the Chaos Gods by ensuring Horus' victory in the Heresy, sacrificing humanity to save every other sapient species in the galaxy.

There is also a theory that they intended the current status quo to come into being somehow, and manipulated things so that Horus wouldn't win, but neither would the Emperor, allowing mankind to prolong it's existence far longer than it otherwise would have.

The Alpha Legion in it's current state appears to have more or embraced the idea of fighting an eternal war against the Imperium. They use daemonic weaponry, warp rituals, mutate like any other legion and sometimes ascend to daemonhood. They are in every way a chaos legion now, the only question is if they still have an ulterior motive for their actions.

[Kot]

As for the HH, noone actually knows the true purpose, and Alpha Legion is not even unified in what they want to achieve. They betray everyone inscluding themselves and generally do some serious shenanigans.

Spoiler: Well, there's this theory which I absolutely adore. Spoilers ahead. (click to show/hide)

There are two outcomes of the Cabal prophercy, there is Alpharius and Omegon. There are numerous instances when the twins worked against each other and they fuck up both Traitors and Loyalists, but they also help both immensely (Alpha Legion saves Corax and other survivors from Istvaaan, so the Raven Guard still exists) Alpha Legion steals Primarch genecode but gives fake to Horus and yet we don't see many Chaos Alpha Legionnaries beating the shit out of everyone else.
In my opinion, the twins didin't actually agree on getting the status quo to happen, they proably disagreed on what they should do, with one thinking that they should help Emperor and maybe the Cabal is wrong and they can sort out the Chaos thing later on, or maybe that it's better to have some years of complete glory without slaughtering everyone, while the other one wanted to sacrifice humanity to kill Chaos Gods.

And now for the ultimate plot twist incoming...

You know the Grey Knights? How they are amazing, superior, all-psykers with resistance to corruption? How they have no Primarch and supposedly utilize upgraded Gene-Seed with traits of no other known strain? How they are sometimes compared to acient Primarches?
Remember how the Omegon kept an unpainted (grey) suit of power armour around?
Remember that the first Grand Master of Grey Knights name was Janus? Janus, as in two-faced acient Roman god of beginnings (Alpha) and ends (Omega)?
Look into your heart, you know it's true...

FUCKING JANUS WAS OMEGON.

[Tack]

You sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Also, didn't one of them die for realsies?

[spazyak]

You sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Also, didn't one of them die for realsies?

It's the Alpha legion, we may never know.

[Grim Portent]

You sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Also, didn't one of them die for realsies?

The Ultramarines think they might have killed Alpharius, but even they aren't certain that it was actually him rather than an Alpha Legionnaire  in disguise.

[Tack]

Because the extra feet of height and faint glow doesn't tip them...

[nenjin]

Because the extra feet of height and faint glow doesn't tip them...

Been a while I read that part of the series, but, basically yes. No one really knows what Alpharius and Omegon look like except for the Emperor, and they love trotting out a random legionnaire and having them claim to be either. That and IIRC, the genetic likeness of the twins is very strong in their legion.

[Kot]

The Ultramarines think they might have killed Alpharius, but even they aren't certain that it was actually him rather than an Alpha Legionnaire  in disguise.

The situation is so damn weird that people even theorize that Alpharius killed and replaced Rawbutt. Also, IIRC even some (most?) Ultramarines actually don't think so, since they have no record of that except Girlyman claim, which is pretty suprising for Ultramarines even pre-Cato Sicarius, so... when it comes to Alpha Legion, you literally cannot not be conspiracy theorist, as there are conspiracies inside conspiracies and everything is so fucking complicated. We have barely any information about them and most of that comes either from unreliable stories or Imperial records which were mostly supplied by Inquisitor Kravin which was later on suspected of being a heretic working for Alpha Legion.

Because the extra feet of height and faint glow doesn't tip them...

Nobody has actually a single fucking idea how Alpharius and Omegon look like since they usually went around in armour and the amount of decoys they had was insane. Doesn't help that they were twins so to your best knowledge it could be Omegon who got killed. Or not. Or some random decoy. Or noone. Or plywood mockup.

[stabbymcstabstab]

Also Alpharius and Omegon we're the shortest two stand about the size of a tall Space Marine. Then add onto the fact the Alpha Legion was well known for have a massive amount of tall space marines who all looked the exact same, before cosmetic surgery, you get situations like no one knowing if either of the two twins are dead.


tl;dr: No one knows, not even GW.

[Tack]

I know the sons of corax tend to all have the douche-look.

That or GW never put much effort into the Raven Guard upgrade kit.

[Rolepgeek]

What's kinda weird to me, but interesting, is that Space Marines are supposed to be simultaneously shock troops (thus the color of their armor), guerilla forces, and indomitable defense forces. I mean, yeah, it probably depends a lot on the chapter and company we're talking about, and they're all-around elite badasses, compared to everyone else, but it still seems funny.

Question for more veteran lore-nerds. Considering the main 1000 marines are just the companies infantry units, not considering the detachments allowed to the various strike cruisers and battle barges for boarding defense/command, or the vehicle drivers and various additional techmarines assigned to the ships and vehicles, how many marines do you think would make up a typical, mostly-Codex compliant chapter of the Adeptus Astartes? And how many of those do you think would be techmarines?

Also also, I don't know too much about the geneseed, but while I'm fairly certain the Primarchs are all basically half-magic in the first place, would a race like the Tau, Dark Eldar, or maybe the Eldar(the tech-savvy races, basically) be able to sequence the genes if they got a fully grown Space Marine corpse or ten? They might not be able to recreate them very easily, but would it be technically possible, or is there a part of the geneseed I don't know about, or would the typical Chaos shenanigans on anything to do with gene manipulation occur(well obviously they would but is it a necessity or just GW?), and so on.

[Tack]

typical

Probably less than 1000 'cos they're all dying constantly. Once they go above that number of (admittedly active) marines, it's time to make a new successor.

Also I'd like to say that Techmarines are pretty rare... there shouldn't be too many per chapter, considering that it's more or less a special thing mars does, and they also have to do their own version of 'loyalty testing'.
But now all I can imagine is a vast lecture hall full of space marines with the paint fresh on their armor, all listening to a tech-priest lecturer telling them how to retrofit a rhino.

[Kot]

Question for more veteran lore-nerds. Considering the main 1000 marines are just the companies infantry units, not considering the detachments allowed to the various strike cruisers and battle barges for boarding defense/command, or the vehicle drivers and various additional techmarines assigned to the ships and vehicles, how many marines do you think would make up a typical, mostly-Codex compliant chapter of the Adeptus Astartes? And how many of those do you think would be techmarines?

1000.
The limit also applies to techmarines, librarians, chaplains, Chapter Masters, Captains, etc. Basically everone Space Marine except Initiates (not Scouts, as some Scouts are full Battle Brothers) There are some extempts (Ultramarine Honour Company WHAT THE FUCK MATT WARD!?) and most non-retarded Chapters usually just oscillate around the 1000 number because it's so fucking hard to manage usually thinly spread force, but Ultramarines are known to have a hard-on for that.

Also I'd like to say that Techmarines are pretty rare... there shouldn't be too many per chapter, considering that it's more or less a special thing mars does

There is around 5 full Librarians and 5 Chaplains, with maximum of maybe 10 "helpers" (forgot the technical terms) that are proably going to become ones in future, and 5-15 of Techmarines and Apothecaries per full 1000 strength chapter. It varies, of course.
Disregard that I suck cocks.
There should be one of each specialist per Company, with Librarians also having about 10-15 lower-level ones tasked with managing the actual Chapter library. Chaplains also proably have their own little sidekicks.

Also also, I don't know too much about the geneseed, but while I'm fairly certain the Primarchs are all basically half-magic in the first place, would a race like the Tau, Dark Eldar, or maybe the Eldar(the tech-savvy races, basically) be able to sequence the genes if they got a fully grown Space Marine corpse or ten? They might not be able to recreate them very easily, but would it be technically possible, or is there a part of the geneseed I don't know about, or would the typical Chaos shenanigans on anything to do with gene manipulation occur(well obviously they would but is it a necessity or just GW?), and so on.

Gene-seed isin't that simple. We often think of it as just gene modification program that you inject into someone and then it goes pop! and you have a Space Marine, while you really have to do very goddamn complex procedures including physical implantation of both biological and mechanical kind, very rigorous training and ridiculous amount of other necessary things that aren't really that easy to figure out. So, technically if Tau, Eldar or Dark Eldar were to start experimenting on bodies (belive me, they proably  have metric fuckton of it already), they could get some progress, but first they would have to reverse-engineer a body, understand it whole, all the complex systems, and even then there is a huge chance it wouldn't work on humans, not to mention Eldar or Tau. On top of that, gene-seed is very unstable to the point that Space Marines sometimes have hard time managing it despite the millenia of experience, so Dark Eldar, despite their most advanced knowledge of gene-stuff and working with bodies would proably end up with mutated monsters, Eldar wouldn't really use that because they consider even Space Marines worse and Tau don't really have the knowledge and will proably never do.

So, technically possible, even if so slightly, but it would take so much effort it's not really worth it.

[TempAcc]

Also Alpharius and Omegon we're the shortest two stand about the size of a tall Space Marine. Then add onto the fact the Alpha Legion was well known for have a massive amount of tall space marines who all looked the exact same, before cosmetic surgery, you get situations like no one knowing if either of the two twins are dead.


tl;dr: No one knows, not even GW.

You have to also take into account that primarches are basicaly half warp beings and able to change their appearance and size. Magnus was known for changing his looks and size depending on what situation he was in. In the council of nikea, he appeared before everyone as "smaller then expected" so he'd look less threatening to all the people that were going to judge him and his legion. Rus apparently became bigger and scarier the angrier he became. I wouldn't doubt that both alphys and omegurr are capable of changing their looks and height at will.

[Xantalos]

Magnus could also pull an Apache Chief Ee-Nay-Chuk (or however it was spelled) to fistfight titans if he so desired, so size isn't really a fixed thing for primarchs.