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This thought just popped into my head, and I am wondering whether this makes sense.

1. Space marine chapters draw recruits from the populations of their homeworlds, or regions, e.g. Ultramarines drawing from Maccragge, Space Wolves from Fenris, etc.

2. They take the strongest among these populations, to undergo the transformation process into a space marine.

3. Whether these recruits are successful, or whether they don't survive the process, these recruits will never return to their previous lives again.

Does it not stand to reason, that by the very process of taking all the strongest members of their home population, space marine chapters are continually weakening the gene pool of said population? Is it just me?

which might be the REAL reason why they don't take women. keep those genes in circulation

BrianDavion wrote:
which might be the REAL reason why they don't take women. keep those genes in circulation

That is a VERY good point!

BrianDavion wrote:
which might be the REAL reason why they don't take women. keep those genes in circulation

Excellent answer!

And by "weakening the gene pool", it doesn't matter. On that scale, the amount of people that are going to be drafted into the guard means the genepool is already heavily chlorinated.

I imagine that recruitment numbers are small enough that the impact on the gene-pool is negligible. Many chapters can draw from populations that number in the tens of billions. Plenty of children miss the recruitment harvest and grow to be mean and nasty enough to survive to a point where they have their own kids.