Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-91.224.27.226-20131031140001/@comment-3258762-20140102110116

Hereticalthoughts wrote: Again, chapters.

If you have a son or daughter (whatever your gender is) would you expect them to look exactly like you? Same facial features, body type, hair and eye color, etc? Likely not, each generation from you is likely to look more and more different, and if the missing legions look roughly like the Ultramarines with a few quirks it'd be easy enough to integrate them into their legion after a few generations. But you're not countering Neithan's argument here. What chapters? This is Legion days, the Chapters are all Ultramarines, they are all drawn from the 500 worlds of Ultramar, they are all copies of Guilliman. Chapters look different because they're based on different worlds, they are molded by the worlds they live on, and their culture changes based on the worlds, there are no such things in a Legion Chapter.

The skin of the Astartes changes depending on how the Primarch looks: The Salamanders were black even before they re-connected with Vulkan (how this works no one knows) the Space Wolves were pale before they met Russ, the Blood Angels were fair-skinned and blonde before they met Sanguinius, not because they were born that way, but because the superior gene-set of the Gene-Seed overwrote the original gene-structure. Sure, some would look a bit different, a Blood Angel with dark hair, a Space Wolf with tanned skin, it's not much but they're different. What if the 2nd Legions Astartes were like the Salamanders? Or the Night Lords? How do you go "Pfft, they're just a bit mutated from our incredibly pure gene-seed, that's why they don't have any sclera/that's why they have charcoal black skin."

People ask why the only black space marines in the galaxy are the Salamanders? Because Vulkan was black. Sure, you have Jonah Orion, but he's the only other. You can be black, white, asian, hispanic, it doesn't matter, you'll change because your body goes "Oh! This is better genes, let's use these instead!" which is one of the main points of the Gene-Seed.