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Assuming the Imperium sees a need to get as many Astartes as possible, how many more could you see them being able to create? Could they like create let's say tens of millions?

And how large would Astsrtes forces be if they were steadily expanded all throughout M30-M42? Could you see legions of hundreds of millions?

I'm relatively certain that the Imperium lacks the ability to create new gene seed, so what they got now might be their maximum. Or close to it. But the lore has changed a lot since last I checked, so maybe they CAN make more gene seed now.

Each Marine carries 2 Progenoid glands which take either 5 or 10 years to mature. Traditionally they are removed on death with the 2 glands being to cover those Marines who are killed before their glands mature or whose bodies cannot be recovered.

When new Chapters are founded, vat-grown clones are used to host the implants until enough are ready. Using this method, it takes just over 50 years to culture 1000 sets of implants from a single starting specimen. What this means is that the Imperium could probably churn out a significant number of new Marines in 50-100 years if necessary.

Of course, growing the bodies are only part of the story. You also need wargear, tanks and a fleet to carry them to warzones. You also probably need a suitable homeworld (or worlds) to recruit future candidates from. You also need to consider training. It is not uncommon for newly founded Chapters to be loaned experienced officers from a genetically related Chapter to help establish them. The logistics of founding a new Chapter are not trivial but given the size of the Imperium, it could probably support a lot more Marines than it currently has.

The question is whether such resources are best spent on more Marines or whether raising new Guard regiments would actually provide more bang for your buck. Or Titans, starships etc. Marines perform a vital role in the Imperial war machine but there probably comes a point where 10,000 grunts in tanks are better suited to some battles than 1000 supersoldiers in drop pods. Guilliman founded a significant number of new Chapters during the Indomitus Crusade. My guess is that if he though more Chapters would have been more useful than other assets, he would have founded more.

The choke point isnt so much the gene seed--the astartes tithe a portion of that, and the High Lords have a bank of it that could create more marines than the Imperium could equip reasonably.

If they didn't care about arming them equally to their peers, the High Lords could have a boat load made. Since there's no canon count of how much tithed seed is in storage, there's literally no telling how much they have on ice.

 Karhedron wrote:
Each Marine carries 2 Progenoid glands which take either 5 or 10 years to mature. Traditionally they are removed on death with the 2 glands being to cover those Marines who are killed before their glands mature or whose bodies cannot be recovered.

When new Chapters are founded, vat-grown clones are used to host the implants until enough are ready. Using this method, it takes just over 50 years to culture 1000 sets of implants from a single starting specimen. What this means is that the Imperium could probably churn out a significant number of new Marines in 50-100 years if necessary.

Of course, growing the bodies are only part of the story. You also need wargear, tanks and a fleet to carry them to warzones. You also probably need a suitable homeworld (or worlds) to recruit future candidates from. You also need to consider training. It is not uncommon for newly founded Chapters to be loaned experienced officers from a genetically related Chapter to help establish them. The logistics of founding a new Chapter are not trivial but given the size of the Imperium, it could probably support a lot more Marines than it currently has.

The question is whether such resources are best spent on more Marines or whether raising new Guard regiments would actually provide more bang for your buck. Or Titans, starships etc. Marines perform a vital role in the Imperial war machine but there probably comes a point where 10,000 grunts in tanks are better suited to some battles than 1000 supersoldiers in drop pods. Guilliman founded a significant number of new Chapters during the Indomitus Crusade. My guess is that if he though more Chapters would have been more useful than other assets, he would have founded more.

So assuming each of the millions of Astartes had a Chapter created via vat-grown clones based on him, they could expand Astartes to billions. Sort of like have a single chapter descend from a single Astartes like single legions descend from a single Primarch.

This conversation is exactly why I don't like the over the top portrayals of marines where single squads turned wars etc.

It means that the imperium deliberately prevents itself from winning and that no other faction has any chance.

Marines are not limited even by recruitment - they can clone anyone with the compatible genome and they've got trillions of people too choose from which equals hundreds of billions of suitable candidates.


In this environment they can't be OTT badasses and still work in the setting

That's the point of the Imperium though. Without the politics, dogma, power grabbing and pure stupidity it would be unstoppable, but it's all there and the Imperium is slowly stringing itself up.

Hellebore wrote:
This conversation is exactly why I don't like the over the top portrayals of marines where single squads turned wars etc.

It means that the imperium deliberately prevents itself from winning and that no other faction has any chance.

Marines are not limited even by recruitment - they can clone anyone with the compatible genome and they've got trillions of people too choose from which equals hundreds of billions of suitable candidates.


In this environment they can't be OTT badasses and still work in the setting

From a real world perspective, the setting wants Astartes to be near mythical god soldiers and an elite knightly caste. It can't have that if Astartes are industrially farmed (Kamino style Geneworld pumping out marines next to a forgeworld churning out bolters)

In universe access to geneseed and its use is controlled by archaic tradition and station in the IOM. The reasons for that date back to the Horus Heresy and the need to reduce the existence/power of unaccountable fighting forces. You could argue that the Highlords need to pump out more chapters, and perhaps they are, but there's an upper limit that they can produce while trying to maintain some semblance of control over the production.

It's presumably a huge decision to found one, as you are handing some existing soldiers autonomy over their own force capable of flying anywhere and fighting anyone. Entire chapters can and do turn renegade and traitor, meaning this isn't a process you want rushed.

You might ask why the highlords don't just found their own massive legion, bred for loyalty like the kaminoan clones, but the regular marines wouldn't take that very well.

 =Angel= wrote:
It's presumably a huge decision to found one, as you are handing some existing soldiers autonomy over their own force capable of flying anywhere and fighting anyone. Entire chapters can and do turn renegade and traitor, meaning this isn't a process you want rushed. You might ask why the highlords don't just found their own massive legion, bred for loyalty like the kaminoan clones, but the regular marines wouldn't take that very well.

The political balance in the council of the High Lords would probably be severely affected if someone wanted to produce significant numbers on marines. Everyone will be worried about someone trying to take control of them, the Fabricator-General would be upset at being asked to devote so much capacity to outfitting them, other branches would be upset at getting less stuff. It would likely be a political disaster for whoever suggested such a thing.

you are handing some existing soldiers autonomy over their own force

This is the reason I think that new chapters are trained by a crusade’s worth of existing chapters. There are companies from three or four chapters, fighting a campaign together as they normally do, and the new chapters, who have freshly made, newly recruited butter-bar marines as their officers, go along with the crusade as back ups and auxiliary units. They get access to huge amounts of expertise, excellent veteran companies to fight alongside, and all their lessons and decisions are done under the observation and guidance of several chapters so that nobody can take them over and twist them to some private agenda.

The Aurelius Rex/Brother Tyler cadre theory just doesn’t work. The sole reason that groups like the Unforgiven are different than a legion is that Azrael can’t send his own bodyguards to take over the other chapters in the unforgiving. That’s pretty much the most important thing that qualifies them as separate chapters. Yet according to the most common fanon for chapter foundings, that one firewall against heresy is discarded to found new chapters. It’s not for me.

pelicaniforce wrote:

you are handing some existing soldiers autonomy over their own force

This is the reason I think that new chapters are trained by a crusade’s worth of existing chapters. There are companies from three or four chapters, fighting a campaign together as they normally do, and the new chapters, who have freshly made, newly recruited butter-bar marines as their officers, go along with the crusade as back ups and auxiliary units. They get access to huge amounts of expertise, excellent veteran companies to fight alongside, and all their lessons and decisions are done under the observation and guidance of several chapters so that nobody can take them over and twist them to some private agenda.

The Aurelius Rex/Brother Tyler cadre theory just doesn’t work. The sole reason that groups like the Unforgiven are different than a legion is that Azrael can’t send his own bodyguards to take over the other chapters in the unforgiving. That’s pretty much the most important thing that qualifies them as separate chapters. Yet according to the most common fanon for chapter foundings, that one firewall against heresy is discarded to found new chapters. It’s not for me.

So is what he said not true, or is it and you just dont like that part of the lore? I cant tell

123ply wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:

The Aurelius Rex/Brother Tyler cadre theory just doesn’t work.

So is what he said not true, or is it and you just dont like that part of the lore? I cant tell

It was made up by some people on a message board sometime around 2003. Since then there have been a few forgeworld or BL books that have referenced it as being true. lots of people have started working for GW since then have seen the theory and just used it. The problem is that when those few people on that message board made it up, lots of stuff in the official lore said that it shouldn’t work that way, they just didn’t really bother to come up with anything better. At GW everything is canon and they also publish some confusing or flat out wrong things, like a story which mentioned a primarch named Rubinek who’s never been seen anywhere else and GW says is just a mistake on the part of the author.

Just had to fix the quote box.

pelicaniforce wrote:

you are handing some existing soldiers autonomy over their own force

This is the reason I think that new chapters are trained by a crusade’s worth of existing chapters. There are companies from three or four chapters, fighting a campaign together as they normally do, and the new chapters, who have freshly made, newly recruited butter-bar marines as their officers, go along with the crusade as back ups and auxiliary units. They get access to huge amounts of expertise, excellent veteran companies to fight alongside, and all their lessons and decisions are done under the observation and guidance of several chapters so that nobody can take them over and twist them to some private agenda.

The Aurelius Rex/Brother Tyler cadre theory just doesn’t work. The sole reason that groups like the Unforgiven are different than a legion is that Azrael can’t send his own bodyguards to take over the other chapters in the unforgiving. That’s pretty much the most important thing that qualifies them as separate chapters. Yet according to the most common fanon for chapter foundings, that one firewall against heresy is discarded to found new chapters. It’s not for me.

I'll accept I don't have a source for that- that's just my understanding. I understood also that chapters are asked to split to found new chapters. I had imagined there would be some kind of screening to make sure the officer appointed as chapter master understood his duty was to the new chapter and not the parent.

I'd wager that it's not the job of marine chapters to police and guide each other in the way you describe. A completely fresh chapter being sent to support the Raptors and the Marines Malevolent would be expected to carry out its duties without handholding. There are few codex chapters that would actually have the mentality to soft soap the new guys, who after all, are trying to earn respect and glory.
Even in a theatre where the marines present defer to another chapter's experience (2nd, 3rd war for Armageddon) and they get instructed what to do, no-one is telling them how to do it. Hypnoindocrination, while no substitute for practical experience would give new officers much of what they needed to succeed.

I don't think the Imperium can have much more Space Marines than what they currently have if only because of attrition rates. Space Marines die in drove and geneseed isn't always intact and retrieved. In ideal peaceful conditions, the Imeprium could probably produce billions of Space Marines relatively quickly, but since it's always on the brink of collapse and fighting pitch battles for its survival, there can't be that much more of them. The same goes for the other army branches of the Imperium. It's probable that the Imperium cannot support much more Imperial Guard regiment than those currently deployed or more Sisters of Battle, Skitarii, Scions, etc.

Marines don't die in droves at all. That's what guardsmen are for.

I suspect after a few generations the new chapter would be fairly independently minded. Like how commonwealth nations don't blindly follow the UK's lead (there might be some exceptions [There are always exceptions]).

Since it takes 50 years to produce 1000 gene-seed, in each subsequent 50 years you can multiply that result by 1000.

50 years 1,000 gene-seed
100 years 1,000,000 gene-seed (that's a million)
150 years 1,000,000,000 (that's a billion)
200 years 1,000,000,000,000 (that's a trillion)
250 years 1,000,000,000,000,000 (that's a quadrillion)

So in 200 years we would have enough gene-seed for our Earths entire population, and change, from a single gene-seed.

But with increasing production facilities would need to be enlarged and/or multiplied. And these bigger and more numerous facilities will need to be supplied and defended. Which can lead to forces being stretched even more thin.

Equipment production may also have trouble increasing there production to match. "Fabricator General we need a billion new fleets of Adeptus Astartes vessels and you have 200 years to do it; and regular productions must maintained - if not increased."

Isn't part of the limiting factor that the High Lords of Terra historically approved requests for new Chapters AND the Adeptes Mechanicus dealt with storage and distribution of geneseed? You essentially had to fight through red tape to get anything done. Guilliman has been cutting through that red tape to both jumpstart the Primaris line and to green light new Chapters.

pm713 wrote:
Marines don't die in droves at all. That's what guardsmen are for.

The lore state that Chapters are destroyed, lost and founded regularly and numerous Chapters have been on the brink of collapse on several occasion. Space Marines die in drove just like anybody else. In fact, in terms of proportion, their attrition rate is probably higher than that of the Imperial Guard which loses troops in massive numbers but is so large it might just be a minuscule fraction of its overall strength. Space Marines fight the deadliest foes in the deadliest conditions. That leads to a lot of deaths.

epronovost wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Marines don't die in droves at all. That's what guardsmen are for.

The lore state that Chapters are destroyed, lost and founded regularly and numerous Chapters have been on the brink of collapse on several occasion. Space Marines die in drove just like anybody else. In fact, in terms of proportion, their attrition rate is probably higher than that of the Imperial Guard which loses troops in massive numbers but is so large it might just be a minuscule fraction of its overall strength. Space Marines fight the deadliest foes in the deadliest conditions. That leads to a lot of deaths.

It says that they're occasionally destroyed. For Chapters to be near destruction or destroyed then they've faced what is ultimately a very rare and very powerful invasion.

There's also no solid canon that I'm aware of that claims that a chapter of Marines is more impactful in warfare than the same resources spent on IG or other forces.

IG are the Shield of the Emperor. Astartes are not.

So assuming each of the millions of Astartes had a Chapter created via vat-grown clones based on him, they could expand Astartes to billions. Sort of like have a single chapter descend from a single Astartes like single legions descend from a single Primarch.

There is also a severe limiter on aspirant humans that are genetically capable of accepting the geneseed.

Frankly the Imperium needs battleships. All other considerations are secondary.

 Frazzled wrote:

So assuming each of the millions of Astartes had a Chapter created via vat-grown clones based on him, they could expand Astartes to billions. Sort of like have a single chapter descend from a single Astartes like single legions descend from a single Primarch.

There is also a severe limiter on aspirant humans that are genetically capable of accepting the geneseed.

Frankly the Imperium needs battleships. All other considerations are secondary.

Don't battleships require absurdly large crews though? What's worse, finding 1000 suitable aspirants or 100 000 crewmen?

Yeah, because emergency hot-housing millions of Space Marines worked out so well the first time.

Bharring wrote:
There's also no solid canon that I'm aware of that claims that a chapter of Marines is more impactful in warfare than the same resources spent on IG or other forces.

IG are the Shield of the Emperor. Astartes are not.

No they're his Angels of Death. Between a shield and a divine death machine I'll take the angel thanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:
Yeah, because emergency hot-housing millions of Space Marines worked out so well the first time.

It did. They conquered most of the galaxy and overran threats the modern Imperium couldn't hope to deal with. The problem was the Emperor being an ass but with him 98% dead that's not a problem.

Bharring wrote:
There's also no solid canon that I'm aware of that claims that a chapter of Marines is more impactful in warfare than the same resources spent on IG or other forces.

IG are the Shield of the Emperor. Astartes are not.

If you factor in peacetime, I'd believe it. Lets say you get 1 regiment of guard for a company of marines (complete speculation).
40 years later, a newly recruited guardsman/PDF soldier would be pushing 50 something. Without action, that solder could be well drilled but have had no actual combat experience. The Imperium and its Munitorum would have had to feed and clothe that guardsman for 40 years.
40 Years later, an Astartes would be in his prime. There would have been no need to feed and clothe the marine, as they are basically turned loose on their recruitment worlds to govern them.

A threat arises and the regiment is mobilised. The Fleet needs to direct a ship to go get the regiment. The transport ship might need to link up with escorts and cruisers for protection. The Munitorum makes sure they have combat supplies, hopefully appropriate to the warzone.
The company goes to war. They board the strike cruiser they were initially provided with and have maintained for 40 years. Chapter forges have produced all the ammunition they needed for training for 40 years, and the ship already has all they need. The strike cruiser is its own defence, though escorts may accompany it.

They re-enter the materium. The Imperial navy co-ordinates with local forces so they can bring the imperial guardsmen down into a safe landing zone,. Space to atmosphere fighters escort the transports down, guard are to be shuttled to the front in trucks and transports.
The strike cruiser enters the materium. Observing local traffic en-route to the world, the chapter conducts a boarding operation, scuttling an enemy vessel. In high orbit, the strike cruiser drops half the company directly into the front at a critical point, providing orbital fire support to disrupt enemy re-reinforcements and aid local superiority. Enemy forces are destroyed in detail in a small area, rallying local loyalist forces.

The guardsmen arrive at the front, fresh uniforms and lasguns contrasting with the bedraggled men on station. The men hear rumours that Astartes hit the enemy a few Klicks down the line, where vast plumes of smoke betray the orbital impacts.
The rest of the company has arrived at the front, Thunderhawks dropping Rhinos and support vehicles just behind the front. The convoy, though less than 20 vehicles, is greeted by cheers and local flower petals as it passes.

Word is passed down from local command- there will be a push. The enemy are reeling at the shock of the Astartes assault, while the Imperial morale is high. to capitalise, key targets have been identified. The regiment is ordered to capture a town with an airstrip. They advance on foot and in chimeras, supported by tanks from another regiment and artillery from another.
The Astartes are assigned a town where an an enemy leader is suspected to operate from. They advance in their rhinos, supported by predator/vindicator tanks, with landspeeder scouting and hunting ahead. Assault marines perform a Halo drop from a Thunderhawk.

The guard take heavy casualties. The first combat action sees many men lose their nerve and lose co-ordination, get caught out of position, panic, be shot by commissars etc. The street fighting is hard and the enemy know the territory.
Hypno-Indoctrination means the Astartes co-ordinate. The assault combat squads take out enemy support positions before they get range. They prey on the enemy in the streets, launching brutal raids on officers and lone squads before jetting away. When the ground forces arrive, the enemy are already in disarray- vindicators make a breach that the rhinos punch through. With the Astartes/tanks among them and their lines of retreat cut by Assault marines, the majority of the enemy forces are cut down swiftly in short range firefights/assaults.

At the end of the war, the guard have taken more than 50% casualties. the Marines take 30%, but many will fight again. The guard are ready for retirement, the marines are ready for the next fight.

50% more if they let girls into the treehouse

I think a Fenrisian does actually tell Arjac Rockfist that they should allow female marines on the basis that she's badass and the men around them are much less so. Sadly it's not so simple.

craggy wrote:
50% more if they let girls into the treehouse

[Only a small percentage of people are compatible to receive the implants and hypno-suggestion to turn them into Marines. Before the process of implantation begins the potential recruit receives tissue compatibility tests and psychological screening. If the testing proves successful the recruit becomes an aspirant. ]

We've been over this. Even if they compensated for the geneseed compatibility with female hormones and tissue types generally, and even if women were admitted to and survived the battle-royale/tests of strength that weeds out the weaker candidates, they'd still have to pass specific tissue compatibility tests.

If a test had previously admitted 1000 men, and chose the top 100 as potential aspirants, and instead admitted 1000 men and 1000 women to choose the top 200, in all likelihood you'd just get the top 200 men. Which would represent a dramatic reduction in standards.
If you chose the top 100 men and top 100 women, you'd have lowered standards even further, and still run into all the tissue compatibility issues above.


In the real world, Astartes and Sororitas forces are single gender as an army concept- warrior brotherhood and warrior sisterhood.
In universe, the sisters are a single gender army because of the concept itself, someone wanted an army made up of athletic women in form fitting armour- Vandire for reasons we won't go into on a family forum, the Ecclesiarchy to rules-lawyer the highlords. Men who would be far better candidates for a baseline human power armoured force are passed over and pushed into the storm-trooper corps instead, so the concept army can continue.Women who would make great stormtroopers are instead handed prayerbooks and bolters, so the concept army can continue.
In universe, the Space Marines are men because they have to be, and because it is sensible for them to be.

In universe if someone wanted to put in the effort to make supersoldiers that were girls, yes they could have female marines. But it wouldn't be nearly as efficient as the current system. Consequently, you wouldn't have double, 50% more, or anything like that.

AS many as GW needs to create codices for repeating cashflow.

The difference in strength between boys and girls only appears at puberty, though. If neophyte are about 10 years old when they're selected and get their first implants, gender shouldn't make much of a difference. From then, growth is controlled by the hormone implants, so the natural difference in size and muscle would be overriden by all the space steroids.

Assuming it was all possible, in the end female space marines would logically be the same as male space marines: massive piles of muscles with superhuman reflexes and freaky organs. Hypnotherapy and indoctrination means they wouldn't be feminine either, they'd just think like marines. It'd be hard to tell the difference without looking at the plumbing.