# Alpharius



## jesse (Sep 29, 2008)

So i just started Deliverence lost and i cant help but wonder...
How big is Alpharius?
They claim he is the smallest of the primarchs, but i still find it hard to believe that a primarch could pass off as a normal marine.
Also, isnt Russ the shortest?
Many thanks,
jesse


----------



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

The Serpent Beneath suggests that The A Team use near perfect technology to produce mirages. It is likely to extend to omegon.

Of course there is the suggestion that the twins were smaller due to their limited space and "shared" nutrients meaning half the normal bulk. etc.


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

In Legion the first captain of the Alpha Legion was of similar size to the Primarchs I believe.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Words_of_Truth said:


> In Legion the first captain of the Alpha Legion was of similar size to the Primarchs I believe.


But the first captain was particularly big. Noticeably bigger than the other marines.

I'd pitch regular marines (outside of power armor) around 7'2. Alpharius is probably around 8'0 or so with the rest of the Primarchs probably closer to 8'6. Though Ferrus and Magnus are said to be noticeably taller than even their brothers. Ferrus is mentioned to be a head taller than Corax and Vulkan in _Fulgrim_. So he's probably pushing 9'10 or so. Maybe 10+ feet, since a Primarch's head is a lot bigger than one of our own.


----------



## Lord Commander Solus (Jul 26, 2012)

I'm fairly sure Omegon wore a kind of black stealth armour that made him appear much smaller than he was, to disguise the fact that he was also a Primarch from some Imperial Officers in Legion. Alpharius didn't have one for that meeting, but I'm sure if he wanted to he could have something similar.

He'd be smaller than most to start with, but technology would do the rest.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Lord Commander Solus said:


> I'm fairly sure Omegon wore a kind of black stealth armour that made him appear much smaller than he was, to disguise the fact that he was also a Primarch from some Imperial Officers in Legion. Alpharius didn't have one for that meeting, but I'm sure if he wanted to he could have something similar.
> 
> He'd be smaller than most to start with, but technology would do the rest.


I don't think believe that's true. There was only one time I really recall Omegon interacting with the Imperial Army in _Legion_ and that was at the dinner party. At that party he was pretending to be Alpharius, so...

And if you're talking about Ranko, the first captain pretending to be Omegon, then he didn't appear any smaller than he normally did. From the dinner party (keep in mind that Omegon in the quote is actually Ranko pretending to be Omegon):

"Chayne estimated Omegon’s stature, once again using the geometries of the tent structure as a scale. The Astartes was at least as big as the primarch himself."

If anywhere, I'd figure that a false height image would have been in _Deliverance Lost_ when Alpharius boards his vessel at the start of the book. I haven't the time to look it up right now.

Though could you provide the quote where Omegon's black armor makes him appear smaller?


----------



## redmapa (Nov 9, 2011)

I think it was in 'Aurelian' where Lorgar says that Alpharius is a full head smaller than the other primarchs, that'd make them as tall as a terminator (I think) meaning that a large marine could pass as Alpharius Omegon and vice versa without anyone noticing..



> Of course there is the suggestion that the twins were smaller due to their limited space and "shared" nutrients meaning half the normal bulk. etc.


thats not just a suggestion, in Deliverance Lost the magos biologis in charge of diseminating the Primarch project says that there is a case where the growth hormone(or whatever it was called) was totally absent


----------



## theurge33 (Apr 4, 2012)

Isn't there the scene wiht Alpharius and Horus when Alpharius says to himself how easily Horus could kill him? I am sure there were multiple factors to that statement, but most likely increased size and strength was part of it.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

theurge33 said:


> Isn't there the scene wiht Alpharius and Horus when Alpharius says to himself how easily Horus could kill him? I am sure there were multiple factors to that statement, but most likely increased size and strength was part of it.


I dug up the book. It's not exactly clear what is up. There could be several reasons:

1. Alpharius never fully understood the (at least persceived0 difference in strength between him and other Primarchs like Horus and just realized it. I find this unlikely, as all the primarchs are warriors (despite Lorgar's bitching) and the first thing they should have assessed is their brothers' abilities.

2. Horus reserved his prowess while "first amongst equals", but now that he's the top dog he doesn't bother hiding his badassery.

3. Horus has been pumped up by another source--Chaos, likely.


----------



## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Standard space marine is 7 foot, confirmed from GW as they were talking about outfitting Ploss with Armor. If you look at the Angron model he towers over the other Marines on the base with him. I would say he is almost 10 ft by that model.


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

I think Gav Thorpe got a little too excited with his first Heresy Novel, jizzed in his pants and wrote a lot of weird fluff.

The face transplant is pretty impossible. Its more likely that the Alpha Legionaire cells would reject the invading cells of the new face, become purple and have a horrible infection.

I think Gav Thorpe made it possible for potential future Alpha Legion writers to get a little to carried away with Alpha Legion warriors walk around with other people's face. Remember I was the first to say it. 

Gav Thorpe also forgot to write what drug the Emperor used before he let Corax leave Terra with the ultimate secrets of the legion creations. For me there was a lot more to lose than to gain by giving Corax the templates. Any contrary opinion is insane.


----------



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

I'm a big fan of Graham McNeill's depiction of Magnus in _A Thousand Sons_; he's very plastic in terms of descriptions of how large he is. Sure, Magnus is far and away the most psychically unstable of the Primarchs, complete with mutation-flawed gene-seed, but I wouldn't be averse to the notion that all Primarchs follow a similar, if not so pronounced, sort of fluidity of form. Alpharius might be able to puff himself up among his brother Primarchs to nearly their size, while shrinking down to merely larger than a Marine when hiding among his own ranks. It would also help explain any size discrepency between descriptions of Angron and the model.

Is it really that implausible? Magnus swells and shrinks like a balloon depending on his mood. Corax can make himself invisible. Ferrus bleeds warp-energy when decapitated. These are not creatures of the _real_, per se.

It's somewhat like an extreme version of what Orks go through as influenced by their Waaugh field, come to think of it. The psychic aura of a Primarch's self-confidence bolsters their size as necessary.

I can see two Primarchs getting into a fight, escalating from harsh words to blows and gradually swelling in size, their attacks getting more ludicrously anime-style superpowered.

Okay, enough tinfoil-hattery from me for the night.



ckcrawford said:


> The face transplant is pretty impossible. Its more likely that the Alpha Legionaire cells would reject the invading cells of the new face, become purple and have a horrible infection.


How... how is this relevant to the rest of the thread?

(Also, I disagree. We're already making GMO pig hearts that can be used as heart transplants in humans, so I don't see it as being much of a stretch that by the year 30k somebody somewhere would have figured out how to make tissue grafts from one human to another. Skaven manage it in fantasy by stitching body parts together with warpstone chunks embedded in; do you really think 30k can't explain away a face transplant? Perhaps the receiver of the transplant would have had to have the same blood type as the original host or something, but when you have the entire Alpha Legion to choose from, you probably have a few matches).


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

djinn24 said:


> Standard space marine is 7 foot, confirmed from GW as they were talking about outfitting Ploss with Armor. If you look at the Angron model he towers over the other Marines on the base with him. I would say he is almost 10 ft by that model.


Could you cite the source where they say a space marine is supposed to be 7 feet tall? I find it a bit odd they'd use imperial units.

Also is this post-ascension Angron or pre-ascension? 



ckcrawford said:


> The face transplant is pretty impossible. Its more likely that the Alpha Legionaire cells would reject the invading cells of the new face, become purple and have a horrible infection.


I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. After all, technology has been flowing into the Imperium (advanced technology at that) and it's not as if the AL did it on a whim. According to Alpharius it was both "difficult" and the AL apothecaries had "a lot of practice".


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

@Mossy Toes, because I was mentioning the whole novel as an entirely invented piece of fluff in the Heresy. Some peaces of work are just not taken serious. Some more than others. I'm not really sure how most view this novel though. I feel many readers take the novel with a grain of salt.

As for the face transplants... according to reality I guess they are (I just looked it up). Lol, you should go a head and look it up if you want. I guess what I'm saying is this piece of lore will be abused in the future. How many times have we heard the Alpha Legion do this before? What is the likeliness that authors and fluff will show Alpha Legionaries getting face transplants? If its what they do, I say pretty high.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

ckcrawford said:


> As for the face transplants... according to reality I guess they are (I just looked it up). Lol, you should go a head and look it up if you want. I guess what I'm saying is this piece of lore will be abused in the future. How many times have we heard the Alpha Legion do this before? What is the likeliness that authors and fluff will show Alpha Legionaries getting face transplants? If its what they do, I say pretty high.


To be fair, we really don't have much information on the AL. 

And as both _Legion_ and _Deliverance Lost_ both show, the AL is crazy about facial reconstruction. It's not something entirely far-fetched.

The only non-heresy book I can recall off the top of my head that has any decent amounts of AL is the disastrous _Hunt for Voldorius_. You could have easily swapped out the AL leader for any renegade/CSM. It was stupid.

And the much more acceptable "The Long Games at Carcharias". Still, not a lot of material to judge what the AL can not do.


----------



## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

ckcrawford said:


> Gav Thorpe also forgot to write what drug the Emperor used before he let Corax leave Terra with the ultimate secrets of the legion creations. For me there was a lot more to lose than to gain by giving Corax the templates. Any contrary opinion is insane.


Really? Until the Alpha Legion made their move, there was no hint that anyone save Corax, the Custodes accompanying him, a single member of the Mechanicus, and the primarchs most trusted legionaries knew about what they had obtained. Corax even hid the information from Dorn, a brother he knew he could trust.

Corax knew that he and his brother primarchs were created with a degree of accelerated growth and high capacity for learning and retaining information. These were things that he would need access to if he was to rebuild his legion in enough time to be of some use in stopping Horus and his allies. The only individual who had any access or knowledge to this information was the Emperor, him giving Corax that information actually makes sense.


There has always been fluff regarding the fact that the Raven Guard were decimated and struggled to rebuild during the Heresy. We knew that Corax made a number of attempts at altering the geneseed of his legion or cloning it for more recruits. What we never had were details, something Deliverance Lost gave us. It explained how Corax was able to manipulate his geneseed in a time-frame that was useful, it explained how the tampering was led astray and why Corax never made another attempt, it explains why the Raven Guard were never able to play a greater role in the Heresy.


Stealth and infiltration have always been huge ideals of the Alpha Legion. The decimated remnants of a legion escaping a trap is a perfect cover for infiltration, the facial scarring easy enough to explain away. And when it comes to other legions allied to Horus, it appears the more chaotic, the less stable ones, are the ones who need the most eye kept on.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

hailene said:


> Could you cite the source where they say a space marine is supposed to be 7 feet tall?


The closest thing to a hard figure I've seen is this (7ft in power armour, note that it's eight minus one):


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

I'm not familiar with the person in the picture? That's to be expected since I don't really know what anyone who works at GM actually looks like.

Or the artist that drew that sketch. Is it just a piece of fan-made work?


----------



## Lost&Damned (Mar 25, 2012)

as far as i remember (sorry of this has been previously said) but the Alpha legion do try and recruit taller humans and use surgery and hormones to make them even taller


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Lost&Damned said:


> as far as i remember (sorry of this has been previously said) but the Alpha legion do try and recruit taller humans and use surgery and hormones to make them even taller


Could you provide a source for this? 

The only particularly tall AL is Ranko. Alpharius, Omegon, and Ranko are all described as considerably larger than the other AL.


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

@ darkreever, I totally respect your opinion on the matter. My beef with giving away the template is that the Raven Guard did not have a force strong enough to defend the template in the first place. If we look at _Raven's Flight_, we know the enemy, at least Angron and his World Eaters, knows Corax is still alive. Its not far to say that the enemy was hunting him down and he knew it.

So why the template was released to a primarch and legion which at this time are pretty much live bait is crazy.


----------



## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

I forgot which Black Library person it was who was talking to Commissar Ploss (Gav Thorpe I think) that Marines are 7 ft tall, because Commissar Ploss is 7ft and they where joking about getting Armor for him. And it is 7ft with no Armor on.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

ckcrawford said:


> @ darkreever, I totally respect your opinion on the matter. My beef with giving away the template is that the Raven Guard did not have a force strong enough to defend the template in the first place. If we look at _Raven's Flight_, we know the enemy, at least Angron and his World Eaters, knows Corax is still alive. Its not far to say that the enemy was hunting him down and he knew it.
> 
> So why the template was released to a primarch and legion which at this time are pretty much live bait is crazy.


Or in the least, why they would take the templete to the one of the few places they know they would have taken it to, either Terra or a primarch's homeworld.

Though, to be fair, they were screwed whether they took it to a remote asteroid or some vessel in deep space.

Still, I think they would have been better off staying on Terra, the most fortified planet in the Imperium. They could have taken more Terran recruits. Heck, they could have shipped their Deliverance recruits over to Terra.


----------



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

hailene said:


> And the much more acceptable "The Long Games at Carcharias". Still, not a lot of material to judge what the AL can not do.


Not to mention John French's pretty excellent "We Are One," and to a lesser degree, "Hunted."


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

hailene said:


> Or in the least, why they would take the templete to the one of the few places they know they would have taken it to, either Terra or a primarch's homeworld.
> 
> Though, to be fair, they were screwed whether they took it to a remote asteroid or some vessel in deep space.
> 
> Still, I think they would have been better off staying on Terra, the most fortified planet in the Imperium. They could have taken more Terran recruits. Heck, they could have shipped their Deliverance recruits over to Terra.


My thoughts exactly. Operations coming out of Terra make more sense, then leaving a weapon so powerful out there for anyone to take given the right power. 

What makes less sense, is that Terra was indeed in dire need of more reinforcements. So why was it not the Emperor's first objective to increase his forces before playing this little game in no mans land.


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

That's an annoying thing, white scars went to defend Terra, but Raven Guard wouldn't another Primarch would of helped immensely.


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

Words_of_Truth said:


> That's an annoying thing, white scars went to defend Terra, but Raven Guard wouldn't another Primarch would of helped immensely.


The counter argument was to have another front for the war. However, thats why I argue that for another front to be created, Corax and his depleted army was a poor choice.

A more logical approach would be to make expedition units from Terra. If they had to, they would be able to stop the expeditions and create a large enough force to defend the walls of Terra. Instead they took an unnecessary risk to take it away from Terra and lose it to the traitors. And thats exactly what happened.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

ckcrawford said:


> What makes less sense, is that Terra was indeed in dire need of more reinforcements. So why was it not the Emperor's first objective to increase his forces before playing this little game in no mans land.


There's a bit more rhyme and reason to this one. Corvus makes the argument to the Emperor that Horus had just crushed 3 loyalist Legions and killed a Primarch. People not steadfastly loyal to the Emperor may be swayed to Horus' cause because it looks like he's going to win.

Letting Horus rampage across the galaxy with impunity looks like a sign of weakness. Corvus' depleted force would demonstrate to the rest of the Imperium that the Emperor and his men were still in the game while at the same time not overly weakening Terra's defenses.

Plus Corvus had a major bone to pick with the traitors. It was probably a compromise to keep Corvus somewhat in line.


----------



## cheeto (Apr 1, 2011)

Good question. I often wonder about the size of marines myself. Throughout the books we get wildly different variations of the scale of "regular" marines. I've read everything from 3 to 4 meters for a Marine and was later surprised to read about marines two and a half meters tall thinking that was particularly short. 

Then we read about the primarchs and they make them out to be figures that tower above and beyond the scale of a marinewhich had me thinking 5 to 6 meters for all these years. I remember thinking it was odd that any marine in the Legion could pass for Alpharius myself... 

I think the problem is moot when taken into consideration that the authors all seem to have their own ideas not necessarily based on any codex.

In summary, I'm more confused now than ever.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

cheeto said:


> Good question. I often wonder about the size of marines myself. Throughout the books we get wildly different variations of the scale of "regular" marines. I've read everything from 3 to 4 meters for a Marine and was later surprised to read about marines two and a half meters tall thinking that was particularly short.
> 
> Then we read about the primarchs and they make them out to be figures that tower above and beyond the scale of a marinewhich had me thinking 5 to 6 meters for all these years. I remember thinking it was odd that any marine in the Legion could pass for Alpharius myself...
> 
> ...


Could you provide your sources where they say a marine 4 meters tall?

I recall a couple times marines in terminator armor described as a bit short of 3 meters.

We've had at least a few mentions of humans going up to primarch's waists--which would put primarchs at around 9 feet tall or so.

A man goes to a marine's chest. A marine goes to a primarch's chest. We've seen those sorts of comparisons often enough.


----------



## nevynxxx (Dec 27, 2011)

I was listening to a design podcast from 2008 with Jes Goodwin the other day. It's still on iTunes....

He talks at the end about doing the 50mm scale models, and how they needed to be more "to scale" than 30mm ones. To do that he drew a full sized space marine on the wall by getting the tallest person in the office to stand on a box. He states 6'6" to 7'6", but broad as well as tall. "About the same as some basket ballers, but you'd need to glue 4 of them together to get the sheer bulk of a space marine" he says.

That's before armour....


----------



## cheeto (Apr 1, 2011)

hailene said:


> Could you provide your sources where they say a marine 4 meters tall?
> 
> I recall a couple times marines in terminator armor described as a bit short of 3 meters.
> 
> ...


I would if I could remember. It was early on so it could be Goto... but still...


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

cheeto said:


> I would if I could remember. It was early on so it could be Goto... but still...


4 meters is over 13 feet tall. An average person wouldn't even go up to their hips.

There's no way a space marine could be this tall.


----------



## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

ckcrawford said:


> The counter argument was to have another front for the war. However, thats why I argue that for another front to be created, Corax and his depleted army was a poor choice.
> 
> A more logical approach would be to make expedition units from Terra. If they had to, they would be able to stop the expeditions and create a large enough force to defend the walls of Terra. Instead they took an unnecessary risk to take it away from Terra and lose it to the traitors. And thats exactly what happened.


Having it on Terra is a poor choice as well. Given that Dorn and eventually Sang and Khan would be wondering where Corax is getting Super Marines from. The better question is why the Emperor didn't just give it to Dorn.

Sending the operation away to a planet with little current strategic value in the eyes of the Traitors (as the Raven Guard are a spent force) seems a justifiable choice.


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

Wusword77 said:


> Having it on Terra is a poor choice as well. Given that Dorn and eventually Sang and Khan would be wondering where Corax is getting Super Marines from. The better question is why the Emperor didn't just give it to Dorn.
> 
> Sending the operation away to a planet with little current strategic value in the eyes of the Traitors (as the Raven Guard are a spent force) seems a justifiable choice.


The Imperial Fists and Dorn are stationed at Terra.


----------



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Wusword77 said:


> Sending the operation away to a planet with little current strategic value in the eyes of the Traitors (as the Raven Guard are a spent force) seems a justifiable choice.


That's iffy. Sending it to an unknown planet means that it'd have little in the way of defenses. Both electronic, psychic, and physical.

And on the other hand, it didn't matter how good the defenses were when the AL infiltrated the RG. A rogue planet in the middle of nowhere would have been, if anything, worse.

But, still, sending the plans to Deliverance seemed the worst of both worlds. They'd have to ship the information off world--adding another security risk. The world is less fortified than Terra. Both planets are both extremely conspicuous.


----------

