Cloning Space Marines

[Kesendeja]

What would happen if someone were to try and clone a space marine? Would the result be an Astartes, or the human that was originally chosen?

[Nabterayl]

Depends on which part you try to clone. Remember that a space marine doesn't have a single set of DNA. A space marine is the recipient of multiple organ transplants (a biological cyborg, if you want to think about it that way). Except for the geneseed zygotes themselves, the marine's DNA is regular old human. The zygotes' DNA is that of the chapter's geneseed, and never the twain shall meet. You don't create a space marine by modifying the recruit's DNA. Space marines are only "genetically engineered" in the sense that the zygotes (which modify the recruit endocrinologically, not genetically) have man-made DNA.

Thus, if you took your DNA sample from almost anywhere in the marine's body, you would get a clone of the recruit, pre-modification. If you took your DNA sample from the zygotes, you would get ... well, something different. The DNA in a modern chapter's geneseed is probably not an exact copy of the DNA of the donor primarch by now. In fact, since we're dealing with an artificial gene sequence that is only designed to produce organs, the geneseed sequence very well may not be able to produce a self-sufficient organism. So best case scenario, you end up with something very close to a primarch. Much more likely, though, the only thing you can clone from a geneseed DNA sample is more space marine zygotes, which are useless (and indeed, will die) unless implanted in a host body.

[Cpt Codpiece]

corax had the closest hardware to be able to do anything close to cloning (the raw DNA from the emperor and the modified strands for each primarch, and the ones he didnt use at all)......
till omegon stole it and corrupted it before giving it to horus, who in turn gave it to fabius bile.

now bile has been messing with these things since the lear so is the only one capable of cracking the secrets..... if he had a clean source, which only alpharius and omegon had/have.

the tech to clone was lost in the aftermath of the heresy.

[Wolfshade]

As Nabterayl says, the result would be a man, or at least most probably. Certainly, just because they have the same genetic components but it would not have any of the hypno therapy, or enahcned muscle masses that are obtained through training. Only the changes that are wrought to the base genetic code would be copied

[bfmusashi]

Pretty sure some of the organs are dedicated to increasing the muscle mass. I mean, Blood Angels just pop out of their box ready to roll.

[Wolfshade]

Yes but that is the work done by the organ/sarcophagus. If I were to chop a rats tail off and clone that,the new rat would have a full tail.

[Nabterayl]

Yeah, the zygotes do a good job of modifying the body, but they don't do it genetically.

[Kesendeja]

Thank you for the input. It will help a lot with the RPG game I'm running.

[GordPotts]

In the Blood Angels books, there is an entire book that talks about the repeated failed attempts to properly clone a Blood Angel from the gene seed of one of their Battle Brothers and it details decades of failure leading to Fabius Bile being able to sabotage the whole program. Cloning mostly produced abominations that were either brain dead or feral.

[Kesendeja]

What were the titles of the books? I don't think I've ever seen them.

[pgarfunkle]

I think its Red Fury by James Swallow which is the one that centres on the cloning, it's the 3rd novel in the series.

[Kesendeja]

thanks

[Denzark]

Some of the traitors nicked Horus's body after the retreat from the palace, and cloned it - the newly named Black Legion captured it back and destroyed it. So must be possible.

[Nabterayl]

Duplicating a space marine is totally possible, just not a simple matter of taking a single DNA sample and running with it. If you donate your kidney to me and want to duplicate me, foreign kidney and all, you can do that. Just clone me, clone the kidney, and them do a transplant ("just," he says). You could do the same thing with a space marine - clone the person and then re-implant them, either with cloned zygotes or a fresh set from the same geneseed.

[Cpt Codpiece]

the cloning of horus was only a tiny mention in 2nd ed codex though if i remember right. (i dont actually think it has been mentioned since, hence my initial 'lost in aftermath of heresy')
and it lead on to what has been clarified in the HH books, that abbaddon, aximand and the other 'sons of horus' were supposed clones of horus while alive, down to their physical similarities.

if the cloning of the GS zygotes was possible, it would need to be the oldest and least mutated samples..... locked in the vaults on terra.

[Nabterayl]

I don't see why you'd need to clone zygotes though. If there is anything exceptional in a space marine's DNA, it's in his homo sapiens DNA - not in the DNA of the transplanted organs that he shares with millions of battle brothers throughout history.

[Cpt Codpiece]

it is the zygotes that add the chapters own 'traits'.
the biologists in ravens flight pull apart the DNA used for all of the legions, finding the canis helix and the other less well known sources for the other primarchs and some that were not used at all ;P

it is the primarch DNA that was used to create the zygotes, and the improper cloning method used that causes the mutations in the latter generations especially with the more divergent sources (like the space lycanthropes, vampritic angels and the arthriticmarines..... oh no those last ones are just boring :)), not unlike the rather barbaric practice used in human vaccines (google MRC5 and WI 38, its quite shameful).

the geneseed is only a replication method, the zygotes while triggered by the geneseed (and blood in BA case) are still the unique aspect of each chapter/legion.

[Nabterayl]

Yes, they are, but if I wanted to clone a specific space marine I would not care about the specific code of that space marine's particular zygotes. That makes him an Ultramarine, a Son of Horus, a Space Wolf. What makes the particular specific hero I want to clone is what his mommy and daddy gave him. If you want to clone Abaddon, say, you'll do much better to take his homo sapiens DNA, clone that, and add a set of Luna Wolves zygotes than to clone Abaddon's specific zygotes. You could do both, but I think as long as you have Abaddon's human sequence and any set of Luna Wolves zygotes of the right vintage, you have everything you need to make an "Abaddon clone." If all you have is a set of Luna Wolves zygotes - even clones of the ones Abaddon is implanted with - then you only have the makings of a Luna Wolf.

[Cpt Codpiece]

ah, now i get ya :) got carried away on the whole cloning possibility and steps needed, rather than the specifics of the actual marine at an individual level :)

[Katharon]

Funny thing on this subject: Corax had succeeded in producing at least a hundred non-corrupted (let's call them) "super Astartes" that he called Raptors. They were stronger, faster, and more agile than normal Astartes -- something closer to what a Custodian must be like in my opinion. Anyway, the reason I bring up that first point is that each Raptor has two gene-seeds inside him and it would have been possible to harvest their gene seed and restart the process all over again to produce more non-corrupted Raptors. However, the story plot had it being that Corax was too horrified by what happened to the corrupted Raptors that he forbade from continued research.

A lot of rumors and fluff around Captain Shrike (Raven Guard special character in the current codex) have him being the inheritor of the non-corrupted Raptor gene-seed. I think that that is personally pretty awesome, and reflects why he should be more powerful than your average Space Marine and is a captain to begin with.