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Fabius bile claims about 1 in 100 astartes aspirants succeed and that he 'works to lengthen those odds.

That about lines up with Sons Of Dorn, where three thunderhawks full of young aspirants produce 3 neophyte scouts. Note that's 1 battle brother from 100 humans who've had nothing more than a cursory auspex scan: most of them will never get close to an apothecarion for implants.


Custodes will have a higher rate of success because their... its not 'gene-seed'...but their implants are not only more sophisticated but apparently custom designed for each potential recruit who passes muster to maximise their potential.

In Dante, of 500 hopefuls, about half actually make it to Aspirant stage, of those, about 50 make it to the changing of the blood. Of those 50, about 20 actually survive. The blood gruel is chopped up failed aspirant.

I thought I read that customs are hame made through genetic engineering and that no 2 are the same.

back to the subject of serfs, where do they come from? are they a little community of humans that breed generations of users or do chapters go around acquiring them

Both. Most Chapters have a homeworld or recruiting worlds from which they take Aspirants, Serfs, and goods such as raw materials and foodstuffs.
The Wolves for example, given entire Fenrisian clans permission to reside in the area surrounding the Fang, where the clans agree to provide Kaerls and Aspirants while the Wolves provide protection.
For Chapters without a direct homeworld or who have lost recruiting worlds, it can be more difficult. The Carcharadons claim the right of the Red Tithe where the Chapter's 3rd Company chooses a world and takes its entire population as Serfs (in this case they are very much slaves) and Aspirants. The Chapter almost entirely operates in the far reaches of Imperial Space, so these worlds are often sparsely populated and their "loss" isn't noted as much as one closer to areas of control.

Using a slavery or oppressed force to provide labour and logistics to your military force has you forever watching, punishing, making examples and watching your back Not exactly ideal when you have chaos as an insidious enemy willing to exploit this weakness and for each chapter to such a small parcel of manpower. Constant exposure to dangers breeds contempt for them and you will work out ways of hitting your power armoured overlords where it hurts. Hell you look after their kit, sabotage it.

It was a stupid idea in history(slave rowers on war galleys were less useful than motivated and paid citizens. the biggest threat to Sparta at any time was their own hellot slave class and look at the paranoia and hate in southern USA during the slavery period) and in marine chapters that indulge in such nonsense no doubt it is an issue to them as well and no doubt have to commit manpower onto stupid stuff their system has caused.

Indoctrination works really well, have your serfs feel honoured for their duty and they will love every duty they fulfill for the chapter. Make them feel below you and honoured to be there and they will lovingly die for you without hesitation, except for perhaps a; "by your leave my lord, I shall take this next bolt round, be careful my lord, I fear I shall spatter your armour with blood."

People can feel honoured to work with someone every day. If you veiw your marine/company as a sacred defender of humanity it is part of your identity, I do not think they'd lose reverence.

Not to say you are wrong, but the balance of power between humans enslaving humans, and Astartes enslaving humans is much more in favour of the Astartes.
With human overseers the chances are that in a revolt a bunch of slaves will die but they have a good chance of overcoming the overseers.
Against Astartes they don't stand a chance. Even ingoring the transhuman dread factor, a revolt would have to get very lucky to wound an Astartes badly enough that the slaves could make gains and even then, he's one of potentially a hundred plus any slaves and serfs that stay "loyal". Combined with the high attrition rate we see with Chapters like the Carcharadons, the chances of a slave uprising against Astartes is rare.

Marines might be tough, but big enough bombs are still going to maim and kill them. And there's only 1000 marines in a chapter. Sabotaging their equipment and logistics will slow them down and cripple their capability. You'd need an enforcment caste to keep everyone in order and even then if there is trouble ir is drawing thought away from other areas. Any large scale deployment may result in issues rising again on the home front forcing marines to be spread thin on the ground on both fronts and this will amplify the results of sabotage and things like bombings on the home front. Especially if you know who to target(apothecaries).
I'd say the balance of power is evened out by the fact you'd have such tensions rise on large scale chapter deployments, and ~200 space marines to worry about should be pretty handleable especially if you have acsess to their armouries and stores.

The potential of damage is high and a chapter having the strength of only 1000 means they will not be able to take chances.

So a few things:

1 - The slaves would have to somehow organise a revolt without anyone finding out and convince literally every single slave to join them or the uprising would fail. As soon as one slave lets slip that something might happen, the Chaplain is down in the slave decks making examples of people with his big stick and gun.
2 - Slaves aren't going to have access to the armouries without supervision, they have to be with an Astartes. So unless they're storming a ships armoury with their entire compliment (once again with absolutely nobody noticing a massive movement cropping up amongst the slaves) which would get locked down as soon as their intentions became clear, and the few that did make it in would then have to kill all the Techmarines and Servitors present, at which point they're locked in a confined space that can be controlled by the Astartes externally. As well as this, the weapons in the armoury will be mostly useless as they are designed for use by Astartes and are often bio-locked to Astartes.
3 - If the slaves get lucky and somehow managed to take the armoury, they're then faced with the full complement of Astartes who are far better fighters, won't die easily and most importantly now have no reason for mercy. If a Company of Astartes can take a planet, what do you think they'll do to poorly armed slaves with nothing to stop their already dangerously violent tendencies?
4 - If the slaves managed to somehow by some insane metric beat a Company of Astartes (we're not doing a Chapter because that's just not happening) on their own turf, what do they do after? They can't operate much of the equipment because they don't know how. They can't access the food stores because the entire fortress/ship has been locked down since the uprising began. If someone finds out what they did, they're getting purged. It's a lose-lose scenario.

You're vastly overestimating human slaves fighting Space Marines chief.

A slave revolt alone is unlikely to do much, but this is 40k. Behind a slave revolt there is always a chance of Chaos or Xenos involvement, and that can outright kill an entire Space Marine Chapter.

That is an option but not one that was considered in this example.
This is very specifically dealing with just bog standard slaves, no Daemons, Spawn or Genestealers to be had.

Putting down this slave revolt I put a round in the geller generator now we're daemon chow? You also underestimate subtle sabotage, german shells were far more likely to misfire than allied for a reason and part of that was sabotage.

 Llamahead wrote:
Putting down this slave revolt I put a round in the geller generator now we're daemon chow?

That would be one of my points. If the slaves are on a ship, how are they going to get it to do anything? As soon as a revolt is launched all of the core systems will be locked with only the ship's Captain or Techmarine being able to override it.
Hell if all seems lost then the Astartes commander might just blow up the ship out of spite.
For any ship-based revolt to succeed the slaves would have to take the armoury, engineering deck, bridge, chapel, apothecarion, and weapons arrays all at the same time to have a chance at success. As soon as one of these is taken before the other, then it all gets locked down and the air gets taken away. Actually, they don't even need to go that far as the Astartes can just put helmets on and vent all the air anyway.

You also underestimate subtle sabotage, german shells were far more likely to misfire than allied for a reason and part of that was sabotage.

Space Marines don't need artillery to commit mass murder when they themselves are the weapon. A slave might be able to get lucky with a few firearms but personal CQC weapons or the Astartes armour? Not a chance.

The Gellar field option supposes two very obvious flaws. 1. The ship is in the warp and wouldn't immediately emergency translate back to real space.

And 2. That the demons wouldn't instantly kill the slaves first. Thats like saying if I got close enough with a melta charge strapped to my head, I could take down a ork. Even if you succeed in the attempt, you're still gonna be dead meat. There are countless stories of Single Marines taking out entire platoon (50 men) sized units of traitors. Hell, Abnett shows a single one taking out a pack of Dark Eldar with just a knife and a bolter. Think what 50 would do against a ragged mob of unarmed slaves. This is silly to even consider.

Only a fool would openly revolt. An insurgency would work well enough. Bombings with direct acsess to the marine's armouries and barracks, and you're expecyed to be lugging things around for them. You can target them when they are out of armour.
Abd my point is the threat of this is much larger than you'd appreciate as a marine chapter is such a small organisation, amd most the time its going to be split into smaller forces. You might only have 200 marines on the entire planet. Let that sink in.

Mind i am talking about the oppression of chapter serfs. The people who directly serve the chapter in its chapter house, on its ships or on the battlefield. These are exactly the people who could cripple a marine chapter and killing them, will also you guessed it... cripple the marine chapter!

You are making assumptions on top of assumptions. "Bombing the marine's armories"? WITH WHAT? What planes would slaves have that could evade Thunderhawk Gunships? Or are you talking like a clandestine bomb? Yeah, show me one instance in the fluff of a human lead revolt catching the Astartes "off their game". It doesn't happen. You can't expect a group of ragged slave dreggs to outsmart a bio engineered super being. That's like saying a Sister of Battle could possibly beat a Custodes Shield Captain in a feat of strength. IF the conditions were right.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What planes would slaves have that could evade Thunderhawk Gunships?

The ones in the chapter armory? It's not like it's even a difficult task, the Thunderhawk is a slow and bulky transport that depends on close escort from true fighters to survive against enemy aircraft. Get behind it, put a few rounds into those exposed engines, and you've got a nice smoking crater full of marine corpses.

You can't expect a group of ragged slave dreggs to outsmart a bio engineered super being.

Why not? They're brutal, utterly lacking in any kind of conscience that would stand in the way of exterminating the enemies of the Imperium, durable against small arms fire, etc. And those things have value. But for all the talk of space marines being strategic geniuses the majority of their battle plans consist of little more than charging straight at a completely outmatched enemy and annihilating them with overwhelming force. They're a brute force terror weapon, nothing more.

Plus, it's not like you need a lot of finesse when the marines are at a massive numbers disadvantage. A guided missile doesn't care how smart the user is, it just locks onto its target and turns a marine into a corpse.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You are making assumptions on top of assumptions. "Bombing the marine's armories"? WITH WHAT? What planes would slaves have that could evade Thunderhawk Gunships? Or are you talking like a clandestine bomb? Yeah, show me one instance in the fluff of a human lead revolt catching the Astartes "off their game". It doesn't happen. You can't expect a group of ragged slave dreggs to outsmart a bio engineered super being. That's like saying a Sister of Battle could possibly beat a Custodes Shield Captain in a feat of strength. IF the conditions were right.

We are talking about chapter serfs man.
Chapter serfs clean and take care of the inside of chapter property and aid in logistics during combat operations.. By bombing i mean sneaking a bomb in with your mop trolley not flying over in an aircraft. By sabotage i mean screwing with some fuses when you have been told to load ammo so that the company's whilwind battery rains usless duds on that group of charging khorne bezerkers so that your line suddenly finds itself beset.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But my original point is that mitreating the people who keep you in your business and take care of most of what enables you to field your force is sorta a poor idea.

It was done historically of course. But always with a thick atmoshpere of mistrust and paranoia. Things that are not conductive to a well oiled machine.

 OldMate wrote:
Mind i am talking about the oppression of chapter serfs. The people who directly serve the chapter in its chapter house, on its ships or on the battlefield. These are exactly the people who could cripple a marine chapter and killing them, will also you guessed it... cripple the marine chapter!

Maybe you should have clarified that earlier.

 OldMate wrote:
Using a slavery or oppressed force to provide labour and logistics to your military force has you forever watching, punishing, making examples and watching your back Not exactly ideal when you have chaos as an insidious enemy willing to exploit this weakness and for each chapter to such a small parcel of manpower. Constant exposure to dangers breeds contempt for them and you will work out ways of hitting your power armoured overlords where it hurts. Hell you look after their kit, sabotage it.

It was a stupid idea in history(slave rowers on war galleys were less useful than motivated and paid citizens. the biggest threat to Sparta at any time was their own hellot slave class and look at the paranoia and hate in southern USA during the slavery period) and in marine chapters that indulge in such nonsense no doubt it is an issue to them as well and no doubt have to commit manpower onto stupid stuff their system has caused.

Indoctrination works really well, have your serfs feel honoured for their duty and they will love every duty they fulfill for the chapter. Make them feel below you and honoured to be there and they will lovingly die for you without hesitation, except for perhaps a; "by your leave my lord, I shall take this next bolt round, be careful my lord, I fear I shall spatter your armour with blood."

People can feel honoured to work with someone every day. If you veiw your marine/company as a sacred defender of humanity it is part of your identity, I do not think they'd lose reverence.

Thought that was clear as mud.

You brought up enslavement and I countered with how slavery under Astartes would be different from regular humans. I was being very specific with my language and only talking about slaves and not Serfs, you were not as clear.

Also "clear as mud" means it isn't clear at all.

The best example would have been the hellots and I should have left it at that.

as for clear as mud
I maybe conscious of my skill level when it comes to communicating.

I'm pretty sure they would also have undergone some rounds of psycho-indoctrination as part of being aspirants. Probably a few continued rounds after that as well, whilst the Imperium would love to be able to brainwash all of humanity, with the Astartes support staff it's a small enough number that you can be thorough.

You really have to back up the lens here. The average life of humans that don't die before they are 20 due to the millions of issues, eaten by xenos, or killed and broken down by xenos, the prospect of being made into a fricking SLAVE to the gods is a much better existence than the regular.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You really have to back up the lens here. The average life of humans that don't die before they are 20 due to the millions of issues, eaten by xenos, or killed and broken down by xenos, the prospect of being made into a fricking SLAVE to the gods is a much better existence than the regular.

This is a thing. The idea of mistreated serfs rising up against their astartes overlords to fight for revenge and/or freedom could make for a fun story/campaign. However, I feel like the number of chapters whose serf populations want to rebel is probably pretty low.

Based on limited examples, it seems like chapter serf cultures tend to cast service to the chapter in a positive light. So it seems that many serfs see serving the chapter as a positive way to spend their lives/a meaningful purpose. I wouldn't be surprised if this culture is cultivated by those outside the serf population, but that's beside the point. Serf populations not enamored with their masters might still be aware that they have relatively comfortable lives compared to some of the other hellholes in the imperium. And those whose serfdom is itself hellish would need to be pushed to the point that they're willing to risk or sacrifice their lives for the sake of a rebellion.

Basically, it's probably pretty cheap and easy to do the bare minimum for serf morale to keep them from actually rebelling. Give them a safe place to sleep, food that doesn't make them sick, and enough free time to make friends and find love, and they'll probably be significantly better off than the average hive worlder. Chapters are pretty well-funded. If your serfs are willing to rebel, you were probably hoping they'd rebel.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What planes would slaves have that could evade Thunderhawk Gunships?

The ones in the chapter armory? It's not like it's even a difficult task, the Thunderhawk is a slow and bulky transport that depends on close escort from true fighters to survive against enemy aircraft. Get behind it, put a few rounds into those exposed engines, and you've got a nice smoking crater full of marine corpses.

Planes wouldn't be stored in an armory, they'd be stored in a vehicle bay (likely a hanger) but let's assume the chapter's slaves manage to steal a plane.. the only planes in that hanger would be Stormhawks, Stormtalons, Storm Ravens, and Thunderhawks. (and MAAAAYBE Xiphion interceptors if the chapter was lucky)



first of all the controls of those planes would be designed for a astartes, which may mean they're poorly laid out for the chapter serfs, secondly, they would be required to know how to fly the planes which seems... unlikely.

even if rebelling chapter slaves could steal fighters they'd be lucky not to pancake themselves in attempted take off

Aren't chapter serfs used as pilots though? I don't think the controls would be that different.

The whole thing about marine crews is problematic. I headcannon that marines fulfill these roles, (or else their units should be nerfed back to scion or guard skill level, not something I have ever seen represented), and the 1000 marines per chapter is infantry strength and does not include tank crews or pilots. But I do see chapter serfs as a great potential source of additional troops(like packing a few guard battalions that are suited to synergise and trained to fight alongside your marines) and of course, more importantly to fulfill all the logistics and maintenance that keeps the boys in armour in the field and kicking xeno/heretic/mutant ass .

Thats not headcanon, that's actually canon. 1000 Battlebrothers is the total strength of the Companies then there's the added strength of officers, specialists such as Chaplains and Apothecaries, pilots, Dreadnoughts and then non-Codex formations such as the Ultramarines Honour Company.
As for Serfs, they do accompany Astartes forces but are purely there in a support capacity and not a combat one (with the exception of Space Wolf Kaerls).

I expect other chapters would use their serfs as “home guard” too, if their throne worlds got attacked directly as often as Fenris does. Or indeed at all.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Aren't chapter serfs used as pilots though? I don't think the controls would be that different.

The fluff is all over the place there. Some have marine pilots, some have techmarine pilots, some have servitors and humans, others humans.