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Timeline of a Founding


Captain Mike

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In preparation for my DIY chapter I've been combing various wikis and source books to find out exactly how a founding happens, but I've come up short on a lot of details. Does anyone know/can make an educated guess from the existing lore the answers to the following?

 

1. Does the date of a founding indicate when a chapter is operational, or when it's started. The lore mentions it takes half a century to produce enough organs, so if a founding date represents the very beginning it's a very big difference.

 

2. How is the officer class trained? I always assumed a chapter would start with a lot of officers (incl. Chapter Master) seconded from other chapters.

 

3. How are specialists trained? Techmarines are said to need 30 years of training on Mars, so waiting for enough Marines to fully develop and THEN receive full training to give the chapter an effective Forge adds even more time. Librarians I imagine take even longer.

 

4. What about screening and managing to get enough recruits from the chapter-world population to get the nominal 1000 marines? Beginning a chapter would be more draining on the world than taking a few recruits to replenish losses.

 

I feel this is kind of important! The final founding before the Ultima founding was said to take place in 738.M41. If that means they were operational by 738, that's some fresh chapters for the first Tyrannic War. If that's just when the idea started, those chapters wouldn't be operational until almost a century later!

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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@D3L the good thing about 40k is that yeah, there's a lot of flexibility. But I'd like to have something to base it in.

 

I don't see many people handle the founding of a chapter, because most people write chapters a few hundred or thousand years into their existence. Having tried to find stuff on founding I see why!

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1. Whichever, the lore is vague.

 

2. The SM codex states that officers are taken from an existing chapter.

 

3.Presumably as per 2 (makes the most sense)

 

4. Probably many different recruitment sources.

 

At the end of the day there are many holes in the canon, probably so as to let people form their own fluff

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I’m currently tweaking my DIY, before finalyzing it. There really isn’t that much. There is a lot hinted at but not alot specifically stated. I kinda gather that “foundings” are generally clusters of new Chapters being formed, rather than the Imperium decided on a bunch of Chapters being formed at once. I think the Ultima founding includes a few mixed Chapters in it, since all Primaris Chapters seems to be a caveat.
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Given that most foundings are of multiple Chapters, I would imagine that recruits are drawn from all over for it and assigned to Chapter Alpha, Chapter Beta, etc as they are implanted. I can't recall exactly where but I think I remember reading instances of chapters earning their homeworld, so I think that until then they would just act as a fleet chapter and recruit from wherever is open. Could be why most chapters with genetic flaws don't often display them immediately, as it isn't until Geneseed A and Population B start mixing en masse that things really start happening.

 

I'd also err on the side of a Chapter's founding date bring when they are a viable Chapter, rather than being initially formed. Enough things like the naming of a chapter are said to take so long that I can definitely see that being the emphasis instead of them simply existing. Eg the grey armoured Chapter 813 was active in preliminary testing on 697.M37, but it wasn't until 738.M37 that their Chapter matter deigned to give the order to paint their armour lilac and orange and The Emperor's Roses were formed.

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Re- starting out as a fleet based chapter, again I don't think that's always the case. Certain chapters are basically there as garrisons, or in the case of the Ultima founding set up on the smouldering remains of an extinct chapter.

I'd agree with this. There's a lot of mention in the lore of chapters, or whole founding (however that works...) being set up to defend certain areas of space. And also to home worlds being tested and established for them.

 

That said, 26 findings, 10,000 years and probably many thousand foundings (taking into account attrition), they may have experimented with the formula a little. Especially in the Golden Age of the Imperium.

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I'm actually ok with that, because this being the Imperium it means that there's likely an entire branch of a bureaucracy dedicated entirely to finding suitable real estate for new chapters of Astartes. The Ordo Domus Astartes or some such.
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