Editing Primarch (section)

=== Where Are The Lost Legions Now? ===

''Note: This assumes that the theory of the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines absorbing the II and XI Legions is correct.''

Assuming that the survivors of the II and XI legions were mind-wiped and assimilated into the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines in ''The Chamber at the End of Memory'' (despite common misconceptions online, anyone who actually read the story would know that it does ''not'' confirm this, even if it's a possibility), it raises the question of where, if anywhere, the descendants of the two legions are now. Given that the Ultramarines are the progenitors of the majority of Space Marine chapters in the galaxy, and there is precident for chapter that are 'offically' Ultramarine to have gene-seed of the Tratior Legions, that leaves a lot of options. Even having the founder of the chapter appear in the [[Horus Heresy]] series is no guarantee that the chapter isn't descended from one of the lost legions, since the members of the chapter wouldn’t even know themselves. By the end of the Horus Heresy the only person who knew which marines were and weren't descended from the Lost Legions would be Rogal Dorn who likely took the secret to...wherever he went, and Roboute Guilliman once he 'woke up' from his Nap. As of ''Dark Imperium'', the one person who knows even part of the contents of the gene-seeds for these legions is [[Belisarius Cawl]], who most likely used what samples he had of these gene-seeds (as well as un-chaosified gene-seeds of the other eight) to raise additional [[Primaris Marines|super-space marines]] despite Guilliman's insistence to not entertain such notions. As with the original legions, these new marines and the chapters they eventually formed were equally dispersed among the official gene-lineages with no evidence of their true heritage being apparent.

The obvious place to start looking for successor chapters of the lost legions is any chapter that seems to deviate a bit too far from the behavior of their supposed primarch during the second founding and formation's within the original space marine legions that also strayed from the rest of the Legions

The [[Mortifactors]] and [[Doom Eagles]] are two such candidates, given that they don’t behave anything like [[Roboute Guilliman]] and the Ultramarines. Especially given that the II Primarch was described by [[Fulgrim]] as “normally contemplative”, “quiet”, and “humorless”. It would also explain why the [[Soul Drinkers]] believed themselves to be descendants of the Imperial Fists despite later being shown to not have Dorn’s geneseed, despite having a weapon gene-coded to the Soul Drinkers. The fact that the Soul Drinkers rejected the authority of the [[High Lords of Terra]] and fought for the common good of humanity rather than the Imperium itself also fits well with fan theories of one of the lost primarchs being a humanitarian who either believed coexistence with xenos was possible or rejected the Imperium for being just another tyrannical regime and unlike Jaghatai couldn't take the hypocrisy for the common good in the face of survival necessities against Chaos.

Another common theory is that given similarities between the Mortifactors and the [[Sons of Malice]], and the fact the 11th Legion was absorbed into the Ultramarines could imply that during the founding of the Astartes Praeses, some geneseed belonging to the Mortifactors (who were a second founding chapter, so likely could have simply been a group of the 11th legion who stuck together), was used in order to create them. If the 11th Primarch was a cannibal corrupted by [[Malal|certain powers of the warp]], it could lend credence to why the Emperor wanted to get rid of him so quickly.

Then, of course, there is the elephant in the room, the red-headed stepchild of the Imperial Fists, [[Sigismund]] and the [[Black Templars]]. The Black Templars are about as un-Imperial Fist-like as it is possible to be, Imperial Fists being siege specialists who tend towards stoicism and prefer to dig in and defend until the last man, whereas the Black Templars are hyper-aggressive, always crusading, rarely if ever man any fortifications (they don't even have a homeworld, just maintaining a chapter keep on every world they liberate), and are known for their hatred of psykers and extreme piousness, something that is not really seen in the other Imperial Fist descendants. Though Dorn has been shown to have quite the well of rage himself. And, of course, [https://youtu.be/0Vh_N8CpcL0?t=1207 they do not have "fist" in their name]. A lot of attention is paid on Sigismund obsessive desire for Dorn's paternal favor, and there is a brief moment of attention paid to the fact that Sigismund offered to personally tear down the statues of the II and XI primarchs on Terra, sayng they are traitors and did not deserve to be remembered. Dramatic irony perhaps? There's also parallels to Sigismund's IRL namesake, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#King_of_Hungary| whose father died when he was young, was basically adopted by King Louis the Great of Hungary and Poland, and ended up becoming king of Hungary]. Dorn even says in a moment of anger that Sigismund is “not his son, and never will be”. Regrettable statement made in a moment of anger? Or a subconscious Freudian slip?

Finally, the retconned OG first founding [[Rainbow Warriors]] and [[Valedictors]] are theorized to be lost legion loyalists too.

However, it should be noted that a Chapter's culture, tactics, and temperament aren't necessarily determined by ancestry. Deviations might just be a sign of a Chapter's circumstances affecting its internal culture and structure (e.g. the [[Red Scorpions]]' genetic purity leading to even more extreme xenophobia and intolerance of corruption than usual, and their Apothecaries being given authority than in most Chapters), or of a homeworld culture displacing that of the Chapter's founders (something that is discussed when [[Uriel Ventris]] fights alongside the [[Mortifactors]] in one of the Ultramarines novels). Even heritable traits might be lost, gained, become exaggerated, or otherwise change over time, due to mutation or [[Cursed Founding|genetic tampering]]. Applying Occam's Razor would lead one to conclude that most of the weirder Chapters' origins are probably [[Ultramarines|quite]] [[Imperial Fists|boring]], too, since Lost Legion heritage raises just as many questions as it answers, if not more.