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AUTHOR NOTES
I believe to have found a good compromise to those wishing to have female Space Marines, one that does not drop the lore and one that will make both parties (the pro Female Marines and the pro Traditionalists) happy. I simply ask that you read through the entire post before commenting and keep an open mind while doing so.
DESCRIPTION
A Mark II Space Marine is, on the surface, no different from any other Space Marine. Their skills, capabilities, and limits are the same of any other Space Marine. The noticeable differences come simply from a slightly higher success rate for producing new Space Marines with recruitment being able to be doubled through the recruitment of females as well.
HISTORY
During the early 36th millennium, before the start of the Age of Apostasy, many scholars and scientists were charged with the duty of finding ways to refine the process which creates the Emperor's Finest to either boost a chapter's numbers more quickly or to further increase the resistance or power of an individual Space Marine. This led to two separate foundings of chapters being tested on, each with a separate goal.
The Twenty First founding's goal was to improve the skill and capabilities of the Space Marines themselves. Dubbed Project Homo Sapiens Novus, it is commonly known as the Cursed Founding due to it's complete failure in many regards, with most of the chapters already suffering ill fates and the remainder kept under the close eye of the Inquisition.
Sometime during the early days of the Age of Apostasy, the Twenty Second founding was formed. Unlike the Twenty First founding, whose goal was to increase the potency of a single Space Marine, the Twenty Second founding's goal was simply to refine the process which creates new Space Marines by either shortening the length of time it takes to create one or by increasing the comparability of potential recruits to increase successful recruitment numbers.
Much like the Twenty First founding there were many failures. One particular process used to this day by the Argent Stars chapter almost completely does away with most of the original creation procedure all together, only utilizing the geneseed and certain zygote implants while supplementing the rest with genetic manipulation, bionics, and heavier chem therapy. The results produced new Space Marines of both genders in record time, allowing the chapter to sure up it's ranks extremely quickly. Sadly the process was not widely adopted as eventually a large number of marines within the chapter developed severe mental instability and went completely insane (though the Argent Stars still make use of these insane battle brothers in their own battle companies, similar in fashion to the Blood Angels).
Several chapters, however, used a process which showed no ill side-effects. Though the process only increased the success and survival rate of recruits becoming fully fledged battle brothers by a few percent, the biggest achievement was nearly doubling the number of potential recruits by allowing those of the female gender to become Space Marines. Even after all this time the process has shown no flaw and, while the marines themselves do not show individual improvement and are no stronger than any other chapter, the chapter's that have adopted this process have been able to recuperate from losses at about double the rate of a normal chapter.
DO ALL SPACE MARINE CHAPTERS USE THIS PROCESS?
Absolutely not. The Codex Astartes, nor any other doctrine, demands or even calls for the use of the Mark II Astartes Creation Program. Only a small number of chapters use this process since it is not required or even suggested to candidate chapters upon creation of said chapter. In order to use the Mark II process a chapter must either be seeded from a chapter which already used the Mark II process or must go through an application process to apply for the Mark II process to be used.
WHY WOULDN'T CHAPTERS USE THIS CREATION PROCESS?
There are a wide variety of reasons why future foundings or already-established foundings do not and would not use this process. For some the reasoning is simply not knowing about the process as, again, chapters are not directly informed that there is an alternative process since it is not covered in any doctrines or the Codex Astartes. There are other reasons, however, which I will go into.
Tradition: With most chapters it comes down to tradition. Simply put, most chapters will not use the process out of either staunch traditionalism, superstition, or reverence for the established doctrines and/or the Codex Astartes.
Non-Candidates: Some chapters simply do not qualify for the Mark II process due to geneseed malfunction. Other chapters simply don't seek out the process for the same reasons.
Reason for Suspicion: The Inquisition oversees the application of any chapters wishing to use the Mark II process which did not inherit it from a chapter they succeeded from. Thus it is up to the Inquisition to determine whether or not a chapter is allowed to even use the process. In a good number of cases the applicant chapters are declined under reason of suspicion. This could be due to the chapter having disobeyed orders in the past, purposely hiding things from the Inquisition (and the Inquisition knowing that they are), or having questionable traditions, recruitment, or practices.
There are many other reasons as well and because of such varied reasonings for not adopting the new process there is still only a small minority of chapters which use this process. Even during the founding of a new Chapter, only about 5-10% of the foundings within a founding will seek out this process or whom are already "born" into it from the chapter they succeeded from.
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