Editing Soul Drinkers (section)

==Sons of the Lost Legions?==

The short story ''Chamber at the End of Memory'' raises a new possibility as to the identity of the Soul Drinkers' gene-sire. The Soul Drinkers may actually be sons of Dorn…from a certain point of view. ''Chamber at the End of Memory'' reveals that after the [[Primarch#Two_Missing_Primarchs_.7C_The_Forgotten_.26_The_Purged|two missing primarchs]] were purged, [[Roboute Guilliman]] and [[Rogal Dorn]] went to Malcador to argue in favour of sparing the Astartes of the II and XI Legions. They were the ones to propose wiping the memories of everyone who'd interacted with the two missing primarchs and folding the survivors of the II and XI Legions into the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists. This proposed memory wipe included themselves, so it was very possible that several of the most prominent Imperial Fists by the time of the Horus Heresy may not have been sons of Rogal Dorn at all. The Soul Drinkers may not be literal sons of Dorn, but they may very well be adoptive ones.

If the Soul Drinkers are descended from one of the lost legions, their behaviour (assuming it reflects their gene-sire) might go a long way in explaining why one of the lost primarchs was "disappeared". What is the most notable aspects of the Soul Drinkers? The fact that they openly declared that they fought for the good of humanity as a whole, rather than the Imperium and the High Lords of Terra. The idea that they are loyal to the human species as a whole, rather than any one individual or institution. Something that was very much unlike Rogal Dorn, in fact unlike most of the primarchs aside from maybe [[Jaghatai Khan]], [[Roboute Guilliman]], and [[Vulkan]]. Now extrapolate that behaviour up to the level of a primarch.

One of the few things that seemed to make the Emperor angry, even more so than [[Chaos]] or [[xenos]], was disagreeing with his vision for humanity, as well as the idea that anyone other than him knew what was best for the species, much less that humanity deserved the right to self-determination. ''Master of Mankind'' spells this out pretty explicitly. It's also very telling that the Emperor [[Lion El'Jonson|valued]] [[Adeptus Custodes|loyalty]] [[Rogal Dorn|over]] [[Fulgrim|any]] [[Malcador|other]] [[Horus|virtue]], including [[Perturabo|creativity]], [[Lorgar|devotion]], and [[Roboute Guilliman|independent thought]]. [[Jaghatai Khan]] was one of the Emperor’s least favorite sons because he refused to drink the Kool-Aid and saw the Emperor as just another petty tyrant [[Imperial Truth|who may not have had the best ideas on the future of humanity]], rather than buying into the Emperor's claims that he was leading humanity into a glorious new golden age. The Khan only sided with the Imperium because Jaghatai saw it as a lesser evil (and didn’t want to get [[BLAM]]med). The only reason the Khan wasn’t censured or executed was because he preferred to keep to himself, was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and honestly didn't mind serving the Imperium in his own way: killing xenos scum [[Meme|for great justice]] at the edges of the galaxy while everyone else built an empire behind him. Similarly, [[Angron]] and [[Mortarion]] were very vocal about how they considered the Emperor to be little better than a tyrant and a hypocrite, but the Emperor never censured them for saying these things because Angron and Mortarion always did as they were ordered (debatable in Angron's case, considering he was directly ordered to stop implanting his legion with the Butcher's Nails and, you know, didn't) and never did anything about how they saw the Emperor as a tyrant other than bitch and moan until the [[Horus Heresy]]. Imagine what would have happened if one of the Emperor’s sons told him, to his ''face'', that they disagreed with his visions for humanity, or that humanity deserved the right to rule itself? Would that have been enough for them to get purged?  Probably not, but it wouldn't be the first thing the Primarchs left unsaid to daddy-E.

Additionally, the re-founding of the Soul Drinkers indicates that the Primaris Soul Drinkers have identical gene-flaws to those of the original chapter. These geneflaws don't precisely match any geneflaws of any original legion, even though Cawl used untainted gene samples straight from the Sangprimum Portem/Magna Mater for re-foundings. And Cawl ''has'' mentioned thinking about using Lost Legion Geneseed in the past...

Will this idea ever be confirmed? Unlikely, given that almost everything surrounding the missing primarchs is a massive "no-go" zone for GW writers. But it's fun to speculate about.