How are the Space Marines from each Primarch's homeworld able to become Space Marines?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**pm713**

IIRC it's implied but not openly stated.

**Iron_Captain**

Formosa wrote:
Furyou Miko wrote:
VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Formosa wrote:
Modern gene seed in 40k seems to only be able to bond with teenagers, however 30k gene seed doesn't seem to have that pre requisite, or at least doesn't seem to fail when bonded with older people, there of course is a cut off age, I'd imagine early twenties

I don't even think that there is a problem with the Gene-Seed that prevents people in their 20s-30s from getting the gene-seed, I think it was a decision by the loyalists to just make use of the best teens. A teenager would be alot eaasier to indoctrinate into the Chapter Cult along with everything else, plus as their bodies are growing quite a bit more, they could have a higher rate of getting the best results. The one problem I can see now days is that some of them have started to deteriorate, so using someone more maliable might increase the success rates.

OK.

A big part of the Marination process is performed by hijacking the normal bodily processes of Puberty. That's why aspirants have to be in pre-teens, or early teens at the oldest, and that's why they have to be boys - if you did the same thing to a female aspirant, they would end up being effectively neutered males, and probably have even worse body dysphoria than all-male Marines.

There's also the fact that the only thing the gene-seed really does to the body itself is alter the body to reduce he probability of organ/implant rejection. Everything else is done by the implants. The real job of the gene-seed is to be collected in the progenoids, having gathered up samples from all the other implants so they can be regrown in vats prior to implanting in the next batch of recruits.

Sorry but that's categorically not true, we have had plenty of novels with aspirants who are teenagers, not pre teens, we also have examples of adults who can be turned into space Marines.

Gene seed also works on clones, so while I agree it most likely works best on teens and pre teens, they are not the only ones that can be turned.

The only real explanation here is GW inconsistency. Some GW writers in the past have written that only pre-teens can become Space Marines, others have included early or late teens as well. Then there are yet other writers who have given us clear examples of adults becoming full Space Marines (especially in the Space Wolves). There is no coordination on this between GW writers, so headcanon of it what you will.
I think it is clear however, that the vast majority of Space Marine chapters recruit teens as their candidates.

**godking**

Furyou Miko wrote:
godkingl wrote:Wolf at the door horus heresy story.

Thje space marines leadership of the 13th company of the space wolves would have been 35 at the youngest when they became space marines.

These where guys who fought for Russ for 20 years before the arrival of the emperor.

Oh. Space Wolves.

The 13th Company all went Wulfen, incidentally, which is what happens when someone has a bad reaction to the implantation process and devolves into a clawed, fanged, barely-sentient beast.

MOST of them went Wulfen after millenia in the warp not all of them.

Besides the space wolves there is also a graphic novel about a black templar who was at the very least in his late teens when he was selected as an aspirant.

It is unlikely but not impossible to become a space marine after your pre teens.

**Red Marine**

In the old fluff the process of becoming a marine took longer. It was also a lot less dangerous, with fewer deaths & rejections of implants. I imagine this would allow for the inductees to be older thsn in 40k. I do remember (and my old memories could be wrong) that were a lot of deaths when inducting members of the Primarchs native human elites. The space wolves if i remember right lost a lot of Russ's chosen. The exception being Sanguinious's volunteers, because of their unique method of organ implantation.