Lore: training/recruitment

[shang]

After reading a number of books and hearing lots of anecdotes about legion astartes training, I realised the topic was vague. Now im going to lay out my thoughts, so please correct me. All I want is a better idea of how this all works.

 

So the lore about how astartes are selected and trained are well known, the implantation procedure is well documented. Furthermore, with the indoctrination, the adeptus astartes seem to be very well trained from the start. Consequently the personalities of the adeptus astartes seem to be very stunted in comparison to legion astartes (during the crusade); they are less emotional, lacking a sense of humour and are worse at interacting with humans (depending on legion). Not that I am calling the adeptus astartes boring, they are very much a different beast. They are well honed and indoctrinated killing machines. This can also be seen with the average day of a space marine, which are very regimented very much like a warrior monk. What I am trying to get at is, the legion astartes seem relatively more human than the adeptus astartes; magnifying positive and negative character traits.

 

Now legion astartes seem to have lower bar for entry in terms of recruitment (probably due to the demands of the crusade). The length and survivability implantation procedure is not as defined (it may well be faster as the knowledge of the implantation procedure is far superior). There doesn’t seem to be a “scout phase” (correct me if I am wrong, but I have seen any mentioned), inductees seem to jump to astartes very quickly. Because they are not indoctrinated as much, the legion astartes are less machine like and more human, for better or worse; alot of the legion astartes were awful. Much worse than a bad adeptus astartes.

 

Lastly the training the legion astartes seems to be of a lower quality and intensity than the contempory astartes (again due to the demands of the crusade, and the individual legion astartes being relatively less important as there are many more of them). Saying that, the legionnaire quickly learned on the job.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m not sure how this fits in with your question but in Horus rising, it’s specifically mentioned that the legionaries in the Luna Wolves were encouraged to learn and expand their horizons so they moved away from just being killing machines. The idea was that eventually the crusade would end and the legionaries would need to be ready for a different existence.

 

The same was true of the Emperor's Children and Blood Angels and probably others who were encouraged to pursue artistic interests and learn skills other than warfare. This might be why the Legion marines seem more rounded individuals than their 40k counterparts.

 

The Legionaries would also likely have a lot more contact with regular humans during the crusade, both in the expeditionary fleets and on the planets they repatriated. Whereas the 40k marines tend to lead quite cloistered lives when not fighting and their chapter serfs live to serve them rather than interact with them.

Edited October 28, 2020 by MARK0SIAN

[Karhedron]

Some legions had clear traits which suggested potential post-Crusade role. Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors as builders. Salamanders and Iron Hands improving technology (possibly Iron Warriors here too). Ultramarines as administrators. Thousand Sons as scholars.

 

However the Emperor clearly intended baseline humans to rule the Imperium, not Astartes (or even Custodes). The presence of a "retirement villa" on Terra suggests he planned to allow the Primarchs to survive (although that may have been pre-scattering). Whether the legions would have been permitted to survive in a scaled-back form is another matter.

[StrangerOrders]

Some legions had clear traits which suggested potential post-Crusade role. Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors as builders. Salamanders and Iron Hands improving technology (possibly Iron Warriors here too). Ultramarines as administrators. Thousand Sons as scholars.

 

However the Emperor clearly intended baseline humans to rule the Imperium, not Astartes (or even Custodes). The presence of a "retirement villa" on Terra suggests he planned to allow the Primarchs to survive (although that may have been pre-scattering). Whether the legions would have been permitted to survive in a scaled-back form is another matter.

With Valdor and the effort that the Emp expended on explicitly making Astartes very long-lived, I suspect putting them to the sword wasn't a plan tbh.

 

What I do suspect is that Grabiya's theorum would have been knocked out of commission at some point. Since that is what both allows for more mental fragility among the Legions and what was responsible for their sheer size. 

 

Knock it off and the Legions will reliably shrink back to more manageable sizes. Similarly, the Legions even at their height really were not that numerous even at their height and seemed to have a deep tendency towards turtling in on themselves.

 

I honestly think that with alot of Legions, a peacetime scenerio would probably see a Legion with very little inclination to leave their homeworld all that often. Look at how many stories of the Second Founding have Astartes being assigned to new chapters being super upset about what they saw as an exile, for all their aggression I genuinely do not think alot of Astartes like having to deal with mortals or 'outsiders' more than is strictly necessary.

 

The only exceptions I can really think of Pre-Heresy are the EC and UM, two of the least problematic legions in a peacetime scenerio. 

Edited October 29, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Arendious]

I think it's also worth considering that even at the apogee of the pre-Heresy Imperium there isn't really a 'peacetime' condition. While the 'major combat operations' might be winding down after Ullanor, there's still plenty of fighting for the Legions to do. As much as some characters grumble/ponder about demilitarized Astartes, it seems the intent was to keep the Legions busy with re-compliances and pop-up threats. (Even the million worlds of the Imperium leaves a lot of empty space in the galaxy.)

[MARK0SIAN]

I think it's also worth considering that even at the apogee of the pre-Heresy Imperium there isn't really a 'peacetime' condition. While the 'major combat operations' might be winding down after Ullanor, there's still plenty of fighting for the Legions to do. As much as some characters grumble/ponder about demilitarized Astartes, it seems the intent was to keep the Legions busy with re-compliances and pop-up threats. (Even the million worlds of the Imperium leaves a lot of empty space in the galaxy.)

True, even Sigismund says that the Imperium will never be at peace, I think his words are along the lines of they’ll spend all this time fighting to conquer the Galaxy then spend the rest of time fighting to keep it.

[shang]

Many of the astartes were expected to have a role after the great crusade.

However according to Malcador in "the first lord of the imperium" the astartes were going to be set up (the primarks were being set against each other, i was understood some of them were not going to reach "the end game") and the heresy was planned/intended; Malcador said the timetable had been moved/hijacked by the powers of the warp.

 

The plan was for the legions the cull each other. (According to the source mentioned above).

[Billy the Squid]

After reading a number of books and hearing lots of anecdotes about legion astartes training, I realised the topic was vague. Now im going to lay out my thoughts, so please correct me. All I want is a better idea of how this all works.

 

So the lore about how astartes are selected and trained are well known, the implantation procedure is well documented. Furthermore, with the indoctrination, the adeptus astartes seem to be very well trained from the start. Consequently the personalities of the adeptus astartes seem to be very stunted in comparison to legion astartes (during the crusade); they are less emotional, lacking a sense of humour and are worse at interacting with humans (depending on legion). Not that I am calling the adeptus astartes boring, they are very much a different beast. They are well honed and indoctrinated killing machines. This can also be seen with the average day of a space marine, which are very regimented very much like a warrior monk. What I am trying to get at is, the legion astartes seem relatively more human than the adeptus astartes; magnifying positive and negative character traits.

 

Now legion astartes seem to have lower bar for entry in terms of recruitment (probably due to the demands of the crusade). The length and survivability implantation procedure is not as defined (it may well be faster as the knowledge of the implantation procedure is far superior). There doesn’t seem to be a “scout phase” (correct me if I am wrong, but I have seen any mentioned), inductees seem to jump to astartes very quickly. Because they are not indoctrinated as much, the legion astartes are less machine like and more human, for better or worse; alot of the legion astartes were awful. Much worse than a bad adeptus astartes.

 

Lastly the training the legion astartes seems to be of a lower quality and intensity than the contempory astartes (again due to the demands of the crusade, and the individual legion astartes being relatively less important as there are many more of them). Saying that, the legionnaire quickly learned on the job.

 

Depends on the Legion.

 

There are various references scattered throughout the books of different training techniques used, for instance the 13th had already started implementing scout companies for their newly recruited inductees, noted in Pharos, by the outbreak of the Heresy. Where as others, such as the Iron Warriors seem to have implemented a more rapid elevation to the ranks in the line companies due to the sheer scale of the attrition warfare that the 4th engaged in, so the use of Scouts found little use for the kind of brutal grinding engagements that were characteristic of the 4th's combat theatres. 

 

The Adeptus Astartes and the Legions are separated by 10,000 years of history, and they were envisioned for a different kind of warfare and in a different era ie: the Imperial Truth the other the Imperial Creed. The Legions of the Great Crusade were still subject to hypno-indoctrination, but The Legionaries were genetically designed to obey their Primarchs, there's references littered through the lore of the force of will a Space Marine has to exert to disobey orders, to the point were it requires almost physical exertion on their part.

 

There are exceptions, namely among the Terrans, hence perhaps why the Traitor Legions chose to purge themselves on Istvaan III of who they considered to be too loyal to the old ways, to the Emperor, before the coming of the Primarchs. The Adeptus Astartes don't have that anchor to keep them inline, also the Legions of the Great Crusade were envisioned to be more than just weapons, Sanguinius, Fulgrim, Roboute Guilliman, Magnus the Red, all of them tried and in many cases succeeded in  teaching their sons to be more than warriors, The Great Crusade seemed to demand more and in a wider scope from the Legions, hence hypnotic indoctrination to erase all but the most narrow of focuses  in warfare would be, if anything, counter productive. 

 

In terms of recruitment, it appears more to do with the debased practices of the 41st millenium, where the scientific procedures for implantation are now arcane quasi cult like inductions where not all of the processes are fully understood, hence the recruitment pool for the Astartes seems lower and the failure rate appears higher.

 

Although, as StrangeOrders says, the rapid implantation and recruitment process to feed the demands of the GC were causing genetic instability issues, we can see that there was true understanding of how to compensate for those deficiencies in Grabiya's Theorem, by the 41st Millennium however any hope of that has been completely lost, both through the lack of the Primarchs and the knowledge that's been lost since. 

 

If anything in terms of quality, the Adeptus Astartes appear more of a shadow of their former glory, like the legions of the Roman Empire at the nadir of its power, they retain many of the hallmarks of the Legions, but their tactics are hidebound their structure dogmatic and rely on the same equipment and weaponry which was pioneered by the legions 10,000 years ago. I think the appearance of superiority has more to do with their deployment as a surgical strike force, hence local superiority is the focus, for the Legions it wasn't part of the campaign could suffer setbacks, but it was acceptable in the wider scheme of the conflict; the Astartes don't have the numbers to so deploy only where it is vital or they know they can achieve success. 

[StrangerOrders]

Many of the astartes were expected to have a role after the great crusade.

However according to Malcador in "the first lord of the imperium" the astartes were going to be set up (the primarks were being set against each other, i was understood some of them were not going to reach "the end game") and the heresy was planned/intended; Malcador said the timetable had been moved/hijacked by the powers of the warp.

 

The plan was for the legions the cull each other. (According to the source mentioned above).

You have to remember that Malc's entire shtick is being a really good liar.

 

The story you are referencing even ends with him ambiguously asking the Emp why he is forced to lie. 

 

Also, that character does show up in other books and she low-key hated Astartes from long before the Heresy, so what he tells her is about as comforting a story as you can tell a dying friend. Compare with 'the Board is Set' which has Malc and the Emp discussing the Heresy and where they could have done better or worse.

[Bung]

The other thing is the loss of technical knowledge after the Horus Heresy.

In book 3 its mentioned in the IF section that they took enough childs from a population to recruit entire companies at once.

Which means the legions had the technological base to equip an entire chapter of Space Marines with armour and weapons at once while 10000 years later some chapters have to scavange from battlefields what they can get.

Together with a technological decline Like the one Europe experienced after the fall of the roman empire.

 

And there are other things that changed the lives and training of Space Marines.

I think at the time noone thought Marines could be corrupted by Chaos as there wasnt much knowledge about it.

So after the Heresy and encountering deamons and possesed Marines the training would change to make them more mental ressistant against corruption.

[shang]

 

 

In terms of recruitment, it appears more to do with the debased practices of the 41st millenium, where the scientific procedures for implantation are now arcane quasi cult like inductions where not all of the processes are fully understood, hence the recruitment pool for the Astartes seems lower and the failure rate appears higher.

 

I agree with most of that. But the smaller pool of aspirants also seems like a chapter is more selective because it only has 1000 members. A legion had no restrictions.

[Mogsam]

The legions were less picky and their rejection rates (for most legions) were much lower, having access to fresh geneseed if they needed it, much like Fulgrim used.

 

If I emember correctly, some of the novels suggest that hypnosis was used regularly on new recruits which would help speed up recruitment, while others had academies that were precurserint scouts.

[MegaVolt87]

 Iron Warriors were one of the early adopters of psycho-indoctrination for space marines, I think there were also another additional 1-2 legions that were doing this super early on. I think Terrans in the traitor legions seemed to thrive if they readily adopted their primarch's foster world culture, compared to those still keeping their old trappings and honours and not making much effort to fit into the new legion culture.

 

I think legions were picky with their recruits, that Terran WS guy who was going to be a SoH, along with his fellow recruits then were given to the WS instead when they needed some more numbers. If you have to turn over quite a few recruits, I am sure you would have some sort of metric/standard of whom to cut, in such a situation. Then legions like IW, UM etc who have highly successful implant rates, can kinda throw in anyone really. Its obvious physical suitability was more of a priority than mental fitness back then. Current 40k, feels like its the other way around. Front end SM like the company captain, the chaplain, librarian, banner guy etc would be far more personable with social skills because they would be seeing and dealing with many outside Imperial functionaries than the regular troopers. And if not, there are many others in officer positions in Astartes forces to do that diplomacy/ liaison work. Joe bolter bro is so whacked out from his brainwashing top ups, training and prayer routine to have much patience to deal with mortals except for don't mess with the Inquisition ones. 30k commanders were often lead from the front murder blenders, legion era tactics and strategy had the material + numbers to allow for less imaginative tacticians in positions of command, while a modern 40k chapter requires a more keen mind and diplomatic ability. 

 

30k Legion commander- drop in 150 legionaries on top of them by drop pod, I'll teleport in with 50 terminators, then have the other 400 roll up in the land raiders and spartans. The 12 dreadnaughts assigned to us told me they don't want to show up for such a minor skirmish. Wait after the phosphex clouds disperse first though. TaKTicShIAN 

 

40k Chapter commander- we attack at night, deploy via thunderhawk and march on foot, launch our attack at dawn, just as the scouts ambush the enemy supply run before it gets back to the enemy stronghold in the morning. We got heavy support of one dreadnaught and 5 terminators to breach the wall. If the cowards abandon their position, the 3 speeders and some bikes will chase them along with the thunderhawks. We took many casualties, we must make the attack count with 70 astartes. MASTER TACTICIAN 

[bluntblade]

The legions were less picky and their rejection rates (for most legions) were much lower, having access to fresh geneseed if they needed it, much like Fulgrim used.

 

If I emember correctly, some of the novels suggest that hypnosis was used regularly on new recruits which would help speed up recruitment, while others had academies that were precurserint scouts.

Also of note is that failed Aspirants had a better chance of functioning and being able to serve as a Chapter self or soldier in a prestigious regiment or SA Cohort.

[b1soul]

I think the psycho-indoctrinated killer schtick was more the norm in earlier editions and perhaps among certain chapters

 

If you look at HH marines, a lot are, in essence, emotionally rewired human males.

 

Their feeling of fear is greatly dulled, which allows them to be calm and focused in deadly situations.

 

Their sex drive is removed.

 

Their desire for male-on-male brotherhood and team-based violence against "out-groups" is amplified.

 

A White Scar or Space Wolf behaves like a Chogorian or Fenrisian warrior with the rewiring above plus an eidetic memory, maybe an IQ boost and the SM physical augmentations.