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Snarky wrote:Didn't the last time the Emperor mass produce space marines lead to the Horus Heresy?

This. Far more harm can be done mass producing low grade Astartes than good.

Frazzled wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:D. the shear cost of fitting out a single chapter founding is massive, to supply a legion of new space marines would require a massive burden of multiple systems.

Yet historically they were able to do that with the Legions. Again, taking the geneseed out of the equation and just talking troopers, its not that big a deal.

You are forgetting that during the Great Crusade the whole 'hocus pocus' element of construction for highend tech was not present, so it was alot easier to produce things.

And space marine tech has advanced over 10000 years, power armour was alot simpler in the Great Crusade, so more likely easier to produce.

Frazzled wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:D. the shear cost of fitting out a single chapter founding is massive, to supply a legion of new space marines would require a massive burden of multiple systems.

Yet historically they were able to do that with the Legions. Again, taking the geneseed out of the equation and just talking troopers, its not that big a deal.

Taking the geneseed out of the equation, it still wasn't done that much and it wasn't near as big of a part for the Legions as you believe.

We've got a few examples of this, most notably Luther of the Dark Angels, where it required a lot of augmentative surgery and really rare and timeconsuming customized Artificer grade Power Armor.

Now I'm just thinking of massive labs of test patients to grow geneseed, no need for training, power armor or even worry to much about Heresy, just recruit a hefty amount of genetically viable "recruits", implant the geneseed then keep them in the lab to monitor, once their ready harvest the organs then implant them in a new recruit.

Unless I'm mistaken, and that your going to end up with less than or equal to the number of geneseeds. Meaning, say it takes 10 organs, we place all 10 into Bill, Bill's progeniator (sp?) finally matures, we harvest Bill, now do we get 10 back, or 20?

BeefCakeSoup wrote:The Sisters of Battle fulfill the role of sub-par mass produced Space Marines quite well. Their undying loyalty is also preferable to the bold independance common among Space Marine Chapters.

So yes, they could create a mass production of Space Marines, but it's easier to field Sisters wearing power armor and sporting bolters than it is to use tons of geneseed.

There are fewer Sisters of Battle than Marines.

rabidaskal wrote:@Void_Dragon

I'm pretty sure a single marine is cheaper than 1,000,000 guardsmen, no need for hyperbole.

Um...I beg to differ. I think that a million guardsmen would be a cheap price to pay for the life of a Space Marine. Honestly, the Imperial Guard is huge and takes ridiculous casualties. The sheer trillions upon trillions of people in the Imperium, the ridiculous amount of resources they all take, and their prodigous reproduction rate all adds up to one inescapable conclusion: human life is unbelievably cheap in the future. Space Marines are far more valuable.

This is, of course, just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

After reading about the well trainined and disciplined guardsmen in Legion, and then really thinking about it, I think the opposite, what's the point in Space Marines?!

Well trained humans in body armour with good weapons and armour could kill absolutely anything. Give them some heavy weapons, mortars, artillery, what couldn't they defeat if they had the mettle?

Line ten million blokes up with las guns would and they annhiliate anything they aimed at! Send ten thousand space marines up against ten million guards and I know who my money is on.. They could even win in fisticuffs! If a SM got dog piled by 50 guys, he's a dead man, I mean, how many heads is he gonna cave in before he gets his eyes gouged out? 5 or 6?

And have you seen how fast humans breed? Were like goddamn rats! I think we could beat the Tyranids with swords if we sent a 10 billion men at them. And that's just a drop in the ocean. They say there are 300 billion people on some hive worlds, no wonder the Imperium can beat anything they throw the guard at. Id just arm every second imperial citizen on a hive world with a las pistol and whats going to be able to take it?

Mangy dogs can kill a lion if there are enough of them.

There seems to be a basic misunderstanding of how Geneseed works. Its a one time use thing. When an apothecary or whatever goes around harvesting the geneseed of his fallen battlebrothers, hes not harvesting the organs that the Marine used or anything like that, he is harvesting the geneseed produced in the progenoid gland. It takes 5 to 10 years for the progenoid gland housing the geneseed to mature and be ready for removal. I hope you don't need me to explain to you why mass producing marines would thus be impossible. If they take 100 random recruits and stuff em full of geneseed, and 75 of them die off, they just lost 75 sets of organs/geneseed, etc., and chances are the remaining 25 aren't going to last long enough to provide 25 new sets of gene seed, because the lower quality marines either wont survive training, or their first battle.

I think that those who pointed it being an economic issue have it right.

The IoM is only able to produce a finite number of bolters, chainsaw-swords and power armor. To achieve the best use of this technology they only give it to the best and brightest, who are then genetically modified into superhumans.

Production inefficiencies create surplus allowing for the SoB or wealthy purchasers to acquire power armor, but for the most part it is constrained to the Emperor's Finest.

The idea that the geneseed would degrade seems to be a poor argument because of the history of the Legions and the ability to produce a large number of SM during a founding. It seems that when the IoM wants to make a whole bunch of marines at once, they can. While mutation is an issue, it wasn't really that widespread of an issue during the Great Crusade.

Regarding the risk of Chaos, the impression I get from the HH books is that the Marines who turned didn't do so due to a flaw in their gene-seed, but rather due to some sort of mental or social corruption by Chaos. The continued existence of marines going rogue seems to confirm that the purity of the geneseed isn't the controlling issue.

However, it might be true that there are certain personalities that are more susceptable to turning to Chaos. Perhaps as much as 50% (which would explain the heresy). Therefore, the selection process is probably more about determining those susceptable to the taint of Chaos than providing "the best" soldiers.

Finally, given that the IoM was able to produce and equip a number of marines at short notice (foundings, Legions), it seems that industrial capacity isn't that much of an issue (given a galaxy-wide empire, it shouldn't be hard to find spare production), and the threat of Chaos appears to be an overstated concern.

With the Emperor currently...unresponsive...and without the Primarchs to provide guidance for the marines, there is a threat (real or perceived) of the superhuman Marines taking over the IoM for their own ends. Not necessarily after turning to Chaos, but simply because they think they could do a better job or view the existing leadership as weak and/or ineffective.

So there are really 3 reasons for the scarcity of Marines:
1) Limited resources
2) Limiting susceptability to Chaos
3) Preventing a military coup.

I think #3 is the major option, and the primaryreason thats an issue are the fleets attached to the marines. A bunch of trained apes with guns is one thing. Trained apes piloting ships that can launch exterminatus is quite another.

As I think was said before they are already doing it fast as possible. They lost most ways to create it In the Heresy plus they wouldn't want too. Heresy round two wouldn't end up so well especially with no Big E or primarch's

its definitly #3



the Horus Heresy basically scarred the entire human population into fearing space marines.

on Terra especially, Space Marines are objects of fear and suspicion.




its so bad that Space Marine fleets are restricted in carrying lances. only Nova class frigates(escort) have lances and at great duress to the Imperial Navy.

it had been seriously considered to allow marines to have Transports and nothing more. only Rowboat was able to allow marines to keep active warships.

Heresy!

Current 40K figures put the ratio of fully trained, elite Guardsmen to Astartes as 20,000,000 to 1, give or take.

Astartes don't just take equipment and gene-seed, they need training, condition, psyker testing, taint searching, decades of work before they're even allowed out as a scout... it takes an immense investment from many branches of the Imperium and the Chapter. You rush it, it goes wrong.

aside from providing the equipment, Space Marines are trained completely by the chapter and in chapter facilities.

only the Ad Mech has any ties to a Space Marine chapter as the provider of equipment(and not even that is a 100% thing as some chapters have their own production facilities)



a Space Marine chapter is mostly self sufficient in its operation.

When you start mass producing a product there are much higher risks of flaws and defects. This is true in any situation.

I can't believe I'm doing this, but look at the Halo universe as an example of what happens when you mass produce a super soldier. Spartan II's were the best and once they started mass producing them the quality of each individual dropped.

Plus geneseed is finite.

I don't agree with the military coup idea. There are arguably more SM now than there was durring the HH. If SM became mass produced then there would just be more chapters. I think the biggest reason is lack of geneseed. You don't think below full strength chapters don't wanna refill their ranks, or worse, are afraid to? I highly doubt that.

Some thing i have realised the sp fluff is way better than they are in the actual game. In the fluff they don't take much casualties but in WH40K they lose lots. I'm just saying their fluff doesn't mach the gameplay

Sothas wrote:When you start mass producing a product there are much higher risks of flaws and defects. This is true in any situation.

The flaw would only be in the training and selection, not necessarily in the geneseed. There's no evidence that individual geenseeds are tested before they're put into an aspirant, and if you can watch and monitor a single aspirant it shouldn't be hard to watch and monitor more than one.

Sothas wrote:Plus geneseed is finite.

Only because it's artificially constrained as a finite resource.

One progenoid is capable of producing 2 more progenoids which can be removed after 10 years (approx. 20 years total time, counting each phase and assuming you can't replace a progenoid once it has been removed). In 500 years a dedicated progenoid production program could produce 33 million specimens, more than enough (even with a huge error rate) to supply all of the marines necessary.

There really isn't anything limiting geneseed except Terra.

Sothas wrote:I don't agree with the military coup idea. There are arguably more SM now than there was durring the HH. If SM became mass produced then there would just be more chapters. I think the biggest reason is lack of geneseed. You don't think below full strength chapters don't wanna refill their ranks, or worse, are afraid to? I highly doubt that.

It's not that low strength chapters don't want to or are afraid to refill their ranks, it's that the High Lords are nervious about a large number of SM being around.

Also, I can't find the number of SM during the Heresy, anyone have an idea? I know there are ~1 million in the current game era.

I would say the average would be about 10,000 or maybe a few thousand more per Legion, with obvious differences, Ultramarines and Word Bearers containing about 200,000 and 100,000 respectively. Times 18 would probably give about 2,000,000 with the discrepancies, so there's half now than before The Heresy. It's also more to do with Terra not liking large number of marines in a single organization, hence why 1000 is the strict guideline for a Chapter.

Sothas wrote:When you start mass producing a product there are much higher risks of flaws and defects. This is true in any situation.

I can't believe I'm doing this, but look at the Halo universe as an example of what happens when you mass produce a super soldier. Spartan II's were the best and once they started mass producing them the quality of each individual dropped.

Plus geneseed is finite.

I don't agree with the military coup idea. There are arguably more SM now than there was durring the HH. If SM became mass produced then there would just be more chapters. I think the biggest reason is lack of geneseed. You don't think below full strength chapters don't wanna refill their ranks, or worse, are afraid to? I highly doubt that.

Geneseed isn't finite, but rather is created very slowely.


each Space marine has 2 progenoid glands. each progenoid, when harvested, can make 1 space marine.


each marine can create 2 new space marines and over time the chapter can replenish its numbers and most chapters have excess reserves.

the problem arises when they take massive casualities and don't recover all the geneseed. they can't take in as many initiates as they could because they don't have enough geneseed to grow the implants.

so they are basically stuck with low numbers of marines for an extended period of time waiting for their numbers to slowely increase.

Slow gain = finite. As it was pointed out that low strength chapters have to wait some time before they can get enough geneseed to replace their numbers this creates a problem if they ever wanted to mass produce them. The idea here is mass producing them and that can't really happen in the short term. It could be possible over time to create enough marines that produce enough geneseed to start mass producing marines, but we know HLoT would never allow it.

Regardless of the reason, the outcome is the same. SM can't be mass produced


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iproxtaco wrote:I would say the average would be about 10,000 or maybe a few thousand more per Legion, with obvious differences, Ultramarines and Word Bearers containing about 200,000 and 100,000 respectively. Times 18 would probably give about 2,000,000 with the discrepancies, so there's half now than before The Heresy. It's also more to do with Terra not liking large number of marines in a single organization, hence why 1000 is the strict guideline for a Chapter.

I have no idea where you're getting your numbers from. Math gets us no where near that number.

30 known 2nd founding chapters.
9 original legions.
This equals 39 known chapters at second founding = 39,000 marines
We can generously double that for lost/unknown/dead chapters and for the hell of it make it an even 80,000.
Double that for the traitors = 160,000.

Even multiplying it by 5 for casualties lost durring the heresy (that's 4 out of 5 marines dead) you don't even equal the 1mil-1.2mil there are now. Please explain to me how you got to 2mil?

I think the Codex says a Chapter can only have 1000 Space Marines. And that if you mass produce I'm pretty sure they'd mutate,like Corax's Legion/Chapter

Vires` wrote:I think the Codex says a Chapter can only have 1000 Space Marines. And that if you mass produce I'm pretty sure they'd mutate,like Corax's Legion/Chapter

Not true they are told not too, but many chapter have more. The Space Wolves I think are at legion strength. Pretty Sure Ultras and Fists have more too. Didn't Corax use unorthodox methods of making progenoids

Sothas wrote:When you start mass producing a product there are much higher risks of flaws and defects. This is true in any situation.

Space Marines are already mass produced. Specifically, they are the mass production product of the Primarch Project. The Primarchs themselves were the Super Prototypes.

Space marines were mass produced before the crusade (by comparison to what they are now. I wouldn't call 1,000 years mass production). They are not anymore. 39,000-80,000 to ~1 mil in 10,000 years is not mass production. What I'm saying is that if they actually wanted to mass produce marines it would take time to build up the geneseed to even begin the process of mass production.

The only way they could produce marines faster is if they never sent Marines into combat situations. Marines are already being produced at the fastest possible rate the Imperium can manage.

Sothas wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:I would say the average would be about 10,000 or maybe a few thousand more per Legion, with obvious differences, Ultramarines and Word Bearers containing about 200,000 and 100,000 respectively. Times 18 would probably give about 2,000,000 with the discrepancies, so there's half now than before The Heresy. It's also more to do with Terra not liking large number of marines in a single organization, hence why 1000 is the strict guideline for a Chapter.

I have no idea where you're getting your numbers from. Math gets us no where near that number.

30 known 2nd founding chapters.
9 original legions.
This equals 39 known chapters at second founding = 39,000 marines
We can generously double that for lost/unknown/dead chapters and for the hell of it make it an even 80,000.
Double that for the traitors = 160,000.

Even multiplying it by 5 for casualties lost durring the heresy (that's 4 out of 5 marines dead) you don't even equal the 1mil-1.2mil there are now. Please explain to me how you got to 2mil?

160,000? Unfortunately your math is also deeply flawed, considering there were 100,000 in the Word Bearers alone, and even more than that in The Ultramarine's, meaning there's more than 200,000 in those two Legions alone. I interpreted the question as how many Space Marines were there in before the Heresy actually started. As I said, there were 10,000 roughly in each Legion, known to be around 13,000 in the Space Wolves. So, 18 times 10,000 equals 180,000 which was where I went so very wrong. So, add 90,000 for The Word Bearers. Now, numbers for the Ultramarines are sketchy, some say 250,000, some say otherwise. In truth, the base numbers for the Legions are likewise sketchy, some say they were all in the hundreds of thousands, some other sources say they were nearer 10,000. So, we can get three numbers from this.
Firstly, 180,000 (18 times 10,000) add 90,000 for the Word Bearers, and 240,000 for the ultramarines, which gives us 510,000
Secondly, 1,800,000 (18 times 100,000) add 140,000 for the ultramarines, gives us 1,940,000
Thirdly, 180,000 (18 times 10,000) add say 5,000 for the Word Bearers as they were known for being a larger chapter, 13,000 for the ultramarines which gives 198,000

All are drastically different, I prefer to think in the millions, as having only a few hundred thousand in total just seems a little low, for the current numbers of Astartes. The High Lords, fearful of another Heresy, probably wouldn't want to actually increase the numbers of Astartes by so many either.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:The Sisters of Battle fulfill the role of sub-par mass produced Space Marines quite well. Their undying loyalty is also preferable to the bold independance common among Space Marine Chapters.

So yes, they could create a mass production of Space Marines, but it's easier to field Sisters wearing power armor and sporting bolters than it is to use tons of geneseed.

Only problem with that idea is the 5th edition warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

Yes, Matt Ward really did write a line in there that says "there are only 4000 sisters of battle in the entire galaxy".

Yet another piece of established background that the idiot has casually smashed into the dirt.

iproxtaco wrote:

Double that for the traitors = 160,000.

Even multiplying it by 5 for casualties lost durring the heresy (that's 4 out of 5 marines dead) you don't even equal the 1mil-1.2mil there are now. Please explain to me how you got to 2mil?

160,000? Unfortunately your math is also deeply flawed,

True enough, but we were both calculating different numbers. I was calculating the total based on the numbers given for the Legions, he was using the numbers of the successors, which is why we both came to different numbers.