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.