Editing Ultramarines (section)

==Overview==
[[File:NroL23W.jpg|left|350px|thumb|All said and done, the Ultries can be badass.]]
The Ultramarines are perhaps the closest to what many would consider a 'modern' military among the Adeptus Astartes. Strategy, planning and the minimization of casualties is the basis of any Ultramarine battle-plan and their central concept is that of a well drilled, immaculate army of soldiers who execute their duty with professionalism and competence. [[Alpha Legion|"Information is victory"]] is essentially the Ultramarine way, more so than [[Alpha Legion|most]] [[Raven Guard|other]] Chapters. Though they are much more relaxed with regards to discipline than the [[Red Scorpions|Forge World's favoured]], or [[Hammers of Dorn| those other guys]]. Even before they had reunited with their Primarch, it had been noted that the XIIIth Legion (then called the War Born) was strongly inclined towards the adoption of carefully thought out battle plans, an established chain of command, and an aversion to inflicting collateral damage. These tendencies were intensified further by their extensive study and practice of the [[Codex Astartes]], which covers a very broad range of battlefield situations and doctrines to live by. Thanks to each and every one of them training and living by it, their companies operate like a smoothly functioning combat machine with every unit functionally interlocking with every other. However, as much as this by-the-book discipline was their strength, it is often also, like the real-life ancient Roman Legions, their weakness, since the few situations that the Codex Astartes did not prepare them for tended to catch them flat-footed, lacking the flexibility to properly respond. More accurately, no Marine knows the whole Codex as it is too vast for even their minds. Each learns different parts of it. This means that while the whole Codex can be used for any situation, commanders don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. The initial Tyranid invasion and the [[Necrons|Damnos incident]] exemplify such situations, where the unconventional nature of their enemy nearly led to their defeat. It doesn't matter how smoothly your forces function if you don't actually have a way to win the battle.

That being said, they are extremely good at adapting to a threat once the initial shock has passed. In the aftermath of their near-defeat to the Tyranids, the Chapter would go on to crush Hive Fleet Kraken as a coherent invasion force as well as create an entire unit dedicated to fighting this particular threat (Almost as if they are a chapter that is protected by a [[Plot armour|mystical]] armour), called the Tyrannic War Veterans. These specialists would become highly sought after by the Deathwatch due to their experience and knowledge and was even augmented by survivors from [[Scythes of the Emperor|other Chapters]] that suffered the wrath of the Tyranids. During the Horus Heresy, an entire force of 1000 Ultramarines was decimated the initial Night Lord of invasion of Sotha. Despite being caught off guard at first due to their unfamiliarity with the Night Lord's unconventional tactics, they began to adapt fast to their enemy's fighting style and by the end of the battle, achieved a near 20-1 kill ratio over their traitorous cousins. Although they may be weak to a new enemy or new tactics, they have a superb reactivity once they have the information they need.

They’re not warriors or knights, but soldiers; a professional fighting force dedicated to defending the 500 Worlds of Ultramar and serving the interests of the larger Imperium beyond. A standing army that is the byproduct of a prosperous Star Empire to which they owe their existence. This is seen in their combat doctrine. They don’t have any specializations themselves because they are supposed to adapt to whatever situation presents itself and act accordingly. They are a fluid and malleable fighting force that is supposed to assess the situation, gain every scrap of intelligence/battle data they can, and then change themselves into whatever is required to get the job done; be it a blunt hammer or a precision blade. That being said, they do still have particular units which specialize at one thing or another. For instance, while the average Ultramarine will probably lose a duel to an average Dark Angel, the Invictus Suzerians can hold their own against even the best of the Lion's sons. By that same token however, a Suzerian won't out-snipe a Raven Guard Mor'Deythan. If not for being a bit too hard into the "honor and glory" thing, and being a bit too by-the-book, they would basically be [[Reasonable Marines]].

The [[Primarch]] of the Ultramarines is [[Roboute Guilliman]] (aka Robot Girlyman and about a thousand other highly appropriate names: Big Bobby G, Rowboat Gillman, The BIG RG, Rawbutt Girlyman , The Great Papa Smurf, God-Emperor of smurfs Ex. Ex.) and it was he who wrote the (in?)famous [[Codex Astartes]] after the events of the [[Horus Heresy|Daddy Issue Invasion]], prescribing each Space Marine chapter to a mere thousand warriors to ensure that no one man would ever command the loyalty of an entire Space Marine legion again. At least, that was the plan, but Roboute Guilliman himself never got to see it come to light, as he was [[Battle of Thessala|mortally wounded]] by a poisonous attack from his bro, the Traitor Primarch [[Fulgrim]], and he had been kept in stasis by the Ultramarines for thousands of years, only being revived through the actions of [[Belisarius Cawl|Archmagos Cawl]] and the [[Ynnari]] ten thousand years later (Working with Xenos? HERESY!).

The Ultramarines base their ideals upon the teachings of super-Ultra Smurf daddy, who ended up on a neo-Roman planet and soon adopted their way of thinking. They believe in individual strength to strengthen the whole ([[Chaos|and not for the betterment of one self]]), and in following the rules, however strict they might be. This way, order is maintained in all things. Courage is, naturally, also a big thing to them, since it goes with the idea of the individual working to better the whole. All this means that the Ultramarines are very, ''very'' good at doing their job, as long as they are prepared for it and works alongside the rest of their Chapter, but tend to be rather stumped when a situation which their planning and reasoning can't immediately deal with, comes up. When such situations do occur, such as the First Tyrannic War, they tend to have to take a bit of time to adapt. Being an army of mini-Guillimans, an elucidating example of their tendencies can be gleaned from a set of wargames that Guilliman had with Corax back in the halcyon days. Corax, who was one of the Imperium's best tacticians, beat Guilliman in three battlefield scenarios in which he outmaneuvered Guilliman through the use of Moritats and ad-hoc civilian saboteur squads. Guilliman, who initially hadn't considered the use of either unit due to them being so unorthodox, caught on to their usefulness after the three defeats. Once he'd gotten Corax's number, Corax never beat him again. Corax himself said of the games: "I won battles against him, but never a war." That's basically the Ultramarines in a nutshell; you may win some battles against them with unorthodox tactics and imagination. But odds are they are going to figure you out, and once they do, you are in a lot of trouble.

[[File:SpacemarineGettingArmoured.PNG|500px|right|thumb|Ehh... Could you get your ass off the altar, Claudius?]]

The Ultramarines are also notorious for disregarding much of the wider Imperium in favour of their own worlds, the famed ''500 Worlds of Ultramar''. This has earned them much hate from in-universe factions, who don't like how they essentially go "Screw you guys, we'll just make our own, sort of working empire! [[meme|With blackjack! And hookers!]]"; One of Fulgrim's [[Iterator|iterators]], who had the ear of powerful members of Terran court, once said that ''"The Lord of Ultramar sees little else besides the primacy of his own culture."'', and also Malcador and the Emperor were not surprised when Guilliman chose to defend his 500 worlds rather than get his hands dirty with the Horus Heresy. Which is, of course, the complete opposite of Ultramar’s “protect the greater whole” philosophy, but GW has always been stupid like that. Many elegen/tg/entlemen dislike this as well, since it sort of makes the Ultries seem they know better than the rest of the Imperium, while still being lauded as being some of the most honourable Chapters in the entire galaxy.

In the Ultramarines' defense however, they're probably the most successful space marine chapter in the galaxy, considering that they defend and maintain hundreds of worlds, and those worlds are some of the most prosperous, meritocratic worlds in the entire Imperium. Plus, the Ultramarines have an affinity with the common people, as they believe that it's their sworn duty to protect the innocent, like the Salamanders but not quite to the same degree. Even with their duties in Ultramar, the Chapter still sends warriors out into the wider galaxy, making significant contributions at [[Armageddon]] and at [[Ultramarines Honour Company|Cadia during the]] [[Black Crusade|13th black crusade]]. That said, their propensity to focus on defending Ultramar (alongside other Chapters in or near Ultramar) could also be the simple pragmatism of recognizing that a thousand (or a few thousand with the nearby Chapters considered) Marines cannot really do much more than that without heavily diluting their force projection. And besides, Guilliman was getting involved with the Horus Heresy until Ultramar got cut off by the Ruinstorm. Plus on top of all that, most of the Imperium sucks because of the choices of the people running the show. There's no reason most of the rest of the Imperium's worlds couldn't implement the sorts of policy decisions that make Ultramar as prosperous as it is; it's not as though Ultramar keeps any of it secret. Since they choose not to, the Ultramarines' attitude is may essentially just be "ok look, when the rest of you want to stop being retarded, you let us know. We've got more than enough work to do as it is, so until then, we'll be over here not dealing with your shit".

All of the other Space Marine legions [[Space Wolves|save one]] (or maybe [[Dark Angels|two]], depending on how you look at it, maybe [[Angry Marines|three]] if you count anger and most likely [[Black Templars|four]] when thinking about it) adopted the Codex and split up into multitudes of smaller chapters, and most Space Marine chapters today follow the practices found within it, although some like the Space Wolves and the Black Templars have refrained from implementing it. This is because, generally speaking, it really is a very good general reference for tactical and strategic planning; Guilliman's strategic capabilities were, after all, only rivaled by Dorn and Horus in the entire Imperium. However, the Ultramarines and more than a few of their Successor Chapters are very rigid in their compliance to it. Where most other Chapters like the [[Imperial Fists]] and [[Raven Guard]] looks to it for guidance when encountering unfamiliar situations, the Ultramarines see the Codex as a sort of "holy book" and follow its instructions to the letter. Ironically, Guilliman himself believed this to be misguided and noted that the Codex was never meant to replace the ability to act on one's own judgments. But [[Grimdark|Irony]] is a strong force in 40K universe.

The Ultramarines are also the base source of about 80% of the Geneseed for new Space Marine chapters, mainly for two reasons, and totally not because GW wants to push vanilla marines as much as possible to new players. The first in-universe reason is that, during all times of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, the Ultramarines were by far the largest Legion (numbering around 250-300.000 Marines) and it made the split into a multitude of chapters, many of which are still around today, much easier on them than [[Raven Guard|on]] [[Salamanders|certain]] [[Imperial Fists|other]] [[Iron Hands|chapters]]. This was further compounded by the fact that the Ultramarines were largely intact after the Heresy, whereas many of the other Legions, smaller even to begin with, had been absolutely decimated. The Salamanders, Raven Guard, and Iron Hands had all nearly ceased to exist after the Dropsite Massacre, and the Imperial Fists, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and White Scars had all been similarly assblasted either right before, or during, the Siege of Terra. The only two Legions that were still kicking about in relatively large numbers after the Heresy were the Dark Angels and the Ultramarines, as neither Legion had been involved in either event. The Dark Angels however, then suffered a catastrophe when the Legion returned to Caliban. With Luthor's betrayal of the Lion and the destruction of their homeworld, the First Legion was still going strong compared to most of their cousins, but were not nearly so numerous as they might have been. The second is that Ultramarine geneseed proved to be simply the most reliable, largely free of mutation [[21st Founding|(unless someone tries to deliberately mess with it)]] or other quirks of personality some other successor chapters express. It also had a very low rate of rejection compared to most other Legions. The only other similarly stable, easily implanted Loyalist geneseed repositories were those of the Dark Angels and Imperial Fists, both of whom ended up having either [[Blades of Vengeance|quite]] [[Angels of Absolution|a]] [[Angels of Defiance|few]] [[Consecrators|successor]] [[Angels of Vengeance|chapters]] themselves, or just [[Crimson Fists|a]] [[Fists Exemplar|few]] chapters with [[Black Templars|one absurdly huge chapter]]. If anything, the psychological tendency it imposes is compliance with group conformity, which is far more preferable for the [[High Lords of Terra]] (the only group allowed to sanction new foundings or give later recognition to [[Steel Confessors|chapters unofficially founded]] or [[Sons of Medusa|after loyalist secessions from loyalist chapters]]) than the various other obsessions that may result.

The third, secret reason the Ultramarines have so many Successors is due to Guilliman and the Mechanicus hiding other legion traitors as Ultramarines. Since the Ultramarines are so numerous, no one would question just another one of their successor chapters. Plus since Guilliman spent a bunch of time after the Heresy as the Imperium's Lord Commander (aka boss man), he would have had ample opportunity to fudge as many of the Loyalist Traitors' chapter origins as he pleased. During the Great Crusade, the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists received reinforcements for the Lost II and XI legions. However, the Ultramarines were also not nearly as devastated during or just after the Heresy as the Imperial Fists were. Guilliman would then also hide loyalists from the traitor legions as his sons including the Silver Skulls. Later foundings using traitor stock may also include (but are not limited to) the Red Scorpions, the Storm Wardens, the Fire Angels, the Sons of Antaeus, the Mortifactors, and the Iron Snakes. There's also a very strong possibility that the Minotaurs fall into this group. How exactly this works for them being "reliable as Ultramarine geneseed" is unknown since you would think the people testing Geneseed would notice the difference between, say, Word Bearer and Ultramarine stock. Also, if Ultramarine geneseed is so reliable, wouldn't the traitor stock spread out through their successor be a dead giveaway? Finally, Guilliman had his mindwiped so he wouldn't know who had traitor geneseed in his ranks. This means that many of his successor chapters may have some traitor geneseed mixed into the pool which must raise some eyebrows once in a while when it gets examined. Maybe the guys doing the geneseed tests just have asterisks next to those cases and count them as "unusual, but acceptable deviancy to never, ever question, ever". However, it's just as likely that Guilliman has people in the Mechanicum hierarchy, like Cawl, who are still actively covering for the Loyalist Traitors.

Because they are the poster-boys for Space Marines, they are perhaps the most famous Chapter in the general 40k fandom, but are widely hated by many denizens of [[/tg/]]. This may initially have been due to their popularity - the Space Marines in general suffer something of a backlash from fa/tg/uys because of their overwhelming popularity with the annoying young children that infest the hobby, and the Ultramarines are the most popular of them all - but of recent editions the blatant favouritism displayed by certain Games Workshop writers towards the Chapter have earned them considerable ire, especially from fans of other Space Marine chapters that get slagged off in the process. This is mainly the fault of [[Matthew Ward]]'s 5th edition Space Marine Codex, which explicitly claimed that the Ultramarines were superior to all other Space Marines (In 2nd edition it was explicitly stated.) and was not helped by Ward's own poor fluff-writing skills (see [[#Quotes|Quotes]] below). However, more recent fluff has served to bring the Ultramarines back to their "Space Roman" roots, making them far less objectionable than they were in the past. Forge World's Horus Heresy line has been particularly kind to them, giving them a variety of stylish Heresy-era gear, all of them with that "The Glory That Was Rome" vibe.