# Libarian numbers: How do they keep them up?



## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

I think it's been tossed around that there's a psyker in about one in a million people. So they're pretty rare.

Then it's been said, it also states that potential Librarians have it tougher than normal Space Marine candidates since they have to be physically able AND pass a battery of psychic tests to be accepted into the chapter. Logic would say that psykers would have a higher failure rate.

So how do Chapters maintain their cadre of Liberians? When some of their worlds they recruit from sometimes have populations only in the millions.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

I do recall that some chapters recruit promising psychers from amongst those taken by the Black Ships or the strongest of those trained by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica (the organisation that trains psychers). 

So i imagine if their own world can not supply the demands of the librarium then they go to other sources. This would add another barrier to the psychic aspirants and between the librarians and their other brothers. 

Also i don't imagine there is that great a need for psychic recruits. Most librariums seems small, a couple dozen psychers at the most, most considerably smaller. Add to this the fact they likely don't see combat as much as other marines- not being a direct part of the command or company structure and having other duties relating to the chapters history and record keeping, they probably don't sustain too many casualties.


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## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

There's also little evidence to support that every SM strike force is dispatched with a Liberian who actively engages in combat. In the both Ultramarines Omnibus' I can only think of Tigirus showing up for actual combat.

Liberians aren't like normal SM in that they have other roles beyond combat.


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

Maybe they just weed out the "gifted" from among the normal recruits/marine (e.g salamanders trilogy)?
The psyker gene is very rare, but there are huge numbers of recruits, and a psychically active one is bound to crop up every few decades or so.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

Librarians are not always recruited from already established psykers, they can come from within the ranks of the chapter. Look at the Salamanders books, Da'Kir made it to squad seargant before his psychic potential was realised. It's written in one of the books that the transformation to a SM can unlock latent psychic powers in recruits. While they may not have even registered in the slightest as a psyker during their early screening, by the time they are fully transformed they could have unlocked some deep seethed powers.

On the whole though, while they are handy to have, I don't think a chapter needs a huge amount of Librarians. Look at the Black Templars. They get by fine with none at all. Which begs the question, how do they psychically screen potential recruits?


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## Davidicus 40k (Jun 4, 2010)

Wusword77 said:


> Liberians aren't like normal SM in that they have other roles beyond combat.


Now that I think about it, that's kind of ironic. Psykers are some of the most powerful beings in existence, yet it's the Librarians who are not used solely for combat. Give the extra work to the neophytes, for Throne's sake!


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## GoRy (Apr 1, 2008)

I've read somewhere too about SM trawling black ships for potential recruits.

Think about it this way. There are 1000 chapters. As a GENEROUS guess, with a bit of extra guesswork, using the old 4 level hierarchy of SM librarians, 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - I forget the order, Codicer, Epistolary, etc, that could make 15 pyskers x 1000...thats what, 15000 in 1 million?

Fairly higher than average pysker numbers on average, but if you figure raiding the black ships guarentees psychic potential if they survive training and organ implantation, entirely possible that the odds are closer to 1 in 100.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Pyskers being one in a Million means there are loads of Psykers kicking about. From the Blood Angels book they don't really seem to mind when they find one so the numbers of them could vary wildly from time to time. They get the candidates, screen them and if one has potential train them in that direction. They don't go out looking for them to maintain a certain number of them or anything.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

I don't think this is such a stretch.

Librarians don't comprise such a large percentage within a Chapter. They constitute probably less than two percent of its actual force. Thanks to their prowess and abilities, their attrition rate is probably considerably lower than that of a line Astartes. Add to that Astartes longevity, and it's not like a Chapter is constantly in need to search for new Librarians.

Even the often feral, backwards worlds Astartes often recruit from probably have a population of a million or more people. As such, they can probably count on a prospective recruit every generation or so. Taking into consideration the previous factors (longevity, lower attrition rate), I'd posit most Chapters don't really have to look beyond their home-worlds to find prospective Lexicana.

Chapters that don't restrict themselves to a single homeworld for recruitment probably have it even easier.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Think about the attrition rate of humans trying to become a Space Marine. How many are even considered material to try? 1/50,000 normal men? 1/10,000? Let's go for the high end and say 1/1000men have the balls to try/grab the attention of a Chapter. The other 999 die in battle, disease, starvation, or are otherwise lack luster.

How many out of those survive the trials given to become an Aspirant? Let's be generous and say 2/5 do.

How many are not compatible with the geneseed? Seems somewhat rare (though more common amongst certain Chapters like the SW). We'll say 24/25 men pass this.

Then how many pass the battery of tests to become a Librarian? From the SM codex:

"Few normal Space Marine recruits survive the rigirous training, enhancement and indoctrination. Amongst Librarians, the attrition is far worse."

Far worse is pretty bad. But I'll be gentle and say 1/2 of the recruits make it.

Out of a population, that means 0.0195% of the male population will make it to become a Librarian. 

So out of a generation numbering 100 million men(which, again, is generous, since most SM recruit from feral/feudal/death worlds) you get...1950 men. Nice! Except psykers only occur once out of every million souls. So that drops the number down to .00195 men becoming a Librarian. Out of a group of 100 million men. At that rate, it would take ~513 generations of men to, on average, get one Librarian. Even if we assume the population bred at extremely young ages, and even if each generation took 10 years to come about, that's still over 5000 years to get one recruit with psychic powers to pass the Librarian trials. 

Even if a planet had incredible numbers of psychic men, say one out of 100,000 (that's 10 times the normal rate!) it would still take you 500 years to get one Librarian. And that's still assuming the girls are getting pregnant around 8/9.

And this is with EXTREMELY generous numbers. For normal Space Marines, you would be getting 4000 new Space Marines every few generations...from a population of around 600 million men and women.

As for the number of Librarians in a Chapter, it's higher than one would think. The Deathwatch rulebook says that most Librarians fill out the lower two ranks of Lexicanium and Codicier. "Few"become Epistolaries. And "Few if any" will become Chief Librarians. Yet many Chapters can boast "one or only a handful" of them. 

To give an idea of the numbers, the Ultramarines have one Chief Librarian, 5 Epistolaries, 9 Codiciers, 10 Lexicanicums, and 3 Acolytums. Or 28 psykers out of a theoretical 1000 men.

As for Chapters recruiting outside of their homeworld, it seems that some Chapters do. But according to the Deatchwatch rulebook it says that the "majority" of them pick their Librarians from their recruits. 

Even if Librarians never died in combat, a Chapter would never have enough to have the numbers they do (assuming they were First or Second foundings and had 10,000 years to build up their numbers).


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

hailene said:


> Except psykers only occur once out of every million souls. So that drops the number down to .00195 men becoming a Librarian. Out of a group of 100 million men.


The problem with this is that it isn't necessarily an additional step. A person (at birth) has a one in a million chance of being a psyker, not a marine (after selection). Going by your math it seems you are simply dividing the number of potential recruits by 1 million, which is not necessarily accurate.

Further this ignores the possibility off external recruitment (which while unlikely still might happen) and the idea of gene-seed triggering latent abilities. 

And I mean if you're going to bring logic into this I'd point out that the attrition rates Marines would likely suffer would make it nearly impossible for them to recruit solely from one planet with a population of a couple million without absoulutely destroying that world in a few generations. 

Also, those 28 Librarians are likely outside of the 1000 Marine limit (as it's 10 companies of 10 squads of 10 before command positions are even taken into account). Not really important, just thought it was worth mentioning.


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## GoRy (Apr 1, 2008)

MEQinc said:


> The problem with this is that it isn't necessarily an additional step. A person (at birth) has a one in a million chance of being a psyker, not a marine (after selection). Going by your math it seems you are simply dividing the number of potential recruits by 1 million, which is not necessarily accurate.


Thats a pretty good point.

Theoretically, that would, of course, mean that there is only a single space marine librarian alive, statistically speaking. However, what is the consensus for space marine life span? Dante does not count.

400 years? Let's say 400.

In the Imperium, I would guess shorter life expectancies (For the poor, ofc) would lead to a generation reproducing every 20 years, not taking multiple children into account. So in 400 years, you could theoretically have produced 20 pyskers (1 per million, per generation, of which there are 20 in 400). Of course, this is simply 1 in a million, in possibly millions of colonised planets. Take, say, a Hive planet. Only one I know details on is Thracian Primaris thanks to the Eisenhorn series, weighing in at a tidy 22b.

So, each SINGLE GENERATION, that's the chance of 22000 pyskers per generation? Then, we multiply this by 20 generations. Theoretically, in 400 years, there are just shy of 440k pyskers produced on a standard hive planet. 

And if a chapter recruits there? 20+ Librarians REALLY doesn't seem altogether too much of a stretch now! At space marine recruitment, a sample of any few hundred thousand may or may not turn up a psyker. But attrition means they do NOT only test "once a generation" for the most part (Some do, such as the fists on Necromunda, but we do know the Ultramarines test constantly). If a recruit can be anything up to 12 or 14 (I forget), and can be tested once per year, assuming 500000 people test per year and rejects never return and only 1 in 1000 as suggested above makes it, that's still a sample of 3m to pick from, in a 6year period from 6yrs to 12yrs. Odds are, 3 pyskers. Or none if the black ships arrive first


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

It's noted in the Blood Angels codex that they have more psychic applicants than other chapters, which makes up for the low population that they recruit from. But I think this goes outside just look at the pure numbers. People on Baal and mutated, diseased, stunted humans, the ones with latent psychic talent are probably better equip'd to pass the trials than the others. They have a strength of will to not be consumed by Chaos in the first place, also latent psykers are often described as unconsciously making themselves stronger and faster by willing themselves to be so. This would make them more likely to pass the trials. 

So yes only 1 in a million are going to be pyskers but those who do enter the trials are more likely to pass and more likely to have the strength of will to succeed.


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## GreatUncleanOne (Apr 25, 2011)

To be honest if you think about it a space marine lives for many many years so the rate of psyker recruitment will still be low. even 1 psyker recruit every couple of generations wouldn't be abnormal. Especially seeing as most chapters only recruit every generation or so

just a thought


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

MEQinc said:


> The problem with this is that it isn't necessarily an additional step. A person (at birth) has a one in a million chance of being a psyker, not a marine (after selection). Going by your math it seems you are simply dividing the number of potential recruits by 1 million, which is not necessarily accurate.
> 
> Further this ignores the possibility off external recruitment (which while unlikely still might happen) and the idea of gene-seed triggering latent abilities.
> 
> ...


As I wrote in my previous post, the majority of the Chapters do not actively look for recruits with psychic potential. They screen the ones they get.

And recruiting from a population of, say, 10 million with my numbers aren't too far fetched. If a battle-brother lives for an average of 100 years, you're only running through, say, 5000-10000 applicants every century (assuming only 1/5 or 1/10 applicants become Space Marines). Or 500/1000 people a generation. An absolute drop in the bucket.

Even if a Space Marine only lasted on average 50 years, that's still 1000/2000 people a generation.



GoRy said:


> Thats a pretty good point.
> 
> Theoretically, that would, of course, mean that there is only a single space marine librarian alive, statistically speaking. However, what is the consensus for space marine life span? Dante does not count.
> 
> ...



Close, but not quite. You have 22 billion people. Half of those are female. So you have 11 billion.

Then you have an 11 billion POPULATION. Not a generation, but an entire population. 

So let's say there are 3 generations. The younger ones are larger generally (as people tend to die as they age, as opposed to coming back from the dead, yeah?) , so we'll say 4.5 billion of men a generation.

Or 4500 psykers a generation...

I'll fill out the rest of the post later. I have to run to lunch first.

Edit: Okay, back from lunch. So to continue...4500 psykers a generation.

Given my 1/1000 numbers, that gives us 4.5 psyker recruits a generation. That works, right? Nope. Why?

One out of a thousand is probably pretty solid for a world where daily life is an exercise in survival. In the (relatively) safe life of a Hiveworld, how many would be worth recruiting? The ones worth a damn would probably be amongst the Gangers in the slums, but those probably make up a tiny percentage of the actual population. Probably tens of millions out of the many billions on the planet. 

And that's all for a Hiveworld. On a Feral World of twenty million you're going to have absolutely tiny numbers. Take the numbers I gave before and dive them by one hundred.

Furthermore, this all assumes that the Space Marines are sweeping by every few years. They only come by every generation or a few. If they come, on average, every other generation, that cuts down the numbers considerably. Then the numbers are whittled down further when you consider the age a Space Marine recruit can be taken. Around 12-16. That leaves only a quarter of every other generation that will be eligible for service in a Chapter.

Even I myself didn't realize what a tiny window a Space Marine applicant has. Even before thinking about the actual worth of a boy, you have to realize that most boys won't even fall into the narrow window of when the Space Marines recruit.


On another note, I realize that psykers may have an advantage during Space Marine trials. An enormous carnivore may be able to devour Recruit X normally, but a sub-conscious kinetic blast may avert the killing blow, for example. I think this may be less of a factor than some believe. From the Deathwatch rulebook, it seems that psychic powers tend to manifest in adolescence and early-adulthood. There might be some overlap with Space Marine recruits, but I'd say more than half would still be too young, even if they were psykers.

Also the Black Ships themselves would be thinning the psyker herd, anyway. As to what percentage they're able to grab is anyone's guess.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

Now consider how rare pariahs are....seeing as they are the spawn rate of only 1/100th of a psyker...


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Lux said:


> Now consider how rare pariahs are....seeing as they are the spawn rate of only 1/100th of a psyker...


Thought it was 1/1000th (IE 1/billion) chance? It was Eisenhorn or Ravenor, I think?


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## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

You guys are waaayyy overthinking this, the answer to 'How do they keep them up?':










Tag - Librarians - The Cure for Ignorence (I added a twist to that one :biggrin










Tag - The Library - Reading is Sexy!!!



EDIT 

Sorry if this de-rails a cool discussion, it was just a bit of humour based on ... well ... my sorry excuse for a sense of humour lol.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> So yes only 1 in a million are going to be pyskers but those who do enter the trials are more likely to pass and more likely to have the strength of will to succeed.


Exactly.

Here's another thing. Talking about how only one out of "X" humans is capable of being an Astartes, or how many Aspirants will actually survive is kind of pointless. Why? Because there's no real standard.

Think about it. Before the events that led to their Chapter being decimated ("Deus Sanguinius" & "Deus Encarmine"), the Blood Angels were perfectly capable of sustaining recruitment rates from the numerically small, physically stunted, and irradiated population of their home-world.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> Exactly.
> 
> Here's another thing. Talking about how only one out of "X" humans is capable of being an Astartes, or how many Aspirants will actually survive is kind of pointless. Why? Because there's no real standard.
> 
> Think about it. Before the events that led to their Chapter being decimated ("Deus Sanguinius" & "Deus Encarmine"), the Blood Angels were perfectly capable of sustaining recruitment rates from the numerically small, physically stunted, and irradiated population of their home-world.


This still doesn't make sense.

In a world with 10 million people you have ten psykers. Half of which will be female.

Of those 5, how many are Space Marine material?

Out of those how many will actually pass the trials?

The Librarian trials?

And why would a psyker be more likely to pass his trials? Few would have manifested any powers, and fewer still would have any control of their powers.

Plus you have to whittle down the figures even more when you consider the regular Black Ship sweeps across worlds. 


Keeping a Chapter up to strength is much easier. Librarians make up, from our Ultramarine example, around 2.5% of a Chapter. Psykers are one million times rarer than a normal person. That's a 400,000 times difference.

And keep in mind that most Chapters are _not_ actively looking for psyker recruits. They screen the ones that pass the trials.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

No offense, but I disagree with the basic premise itself.

I disagree with the idea that a Chapter needs to recruit a new Librarian every twenty years, on the dot. I seriously doubt that their attrition rate is that high. They might go a whole generation - maybe even two - and not worry about it. The Ultramarines, for instance, have a Librarius comprised of forty-five Librarians. They have three Lexicana for each Company. They have a Codicier for almost every Company. They have enough Epistolaries to man every Battle Company - and the Veterans, should they wish it.

I also disagree with the basic preconception of what makes for "Space Marine material". Ideals, broad thematic concepts, and outright propaganda aside, we know for a fact that successful recruits include everything from teenagers gang members from impoverished under-hives (hardly the environment for producing optimal physical specimens) to feral tribesmen, to irradiated, physically stunted nomads, to products of a militarized, "Sparta"-style society.

Consider the qualifications listed in "Space Marine" (the novel): musculature potential, drug-use readings, psychosis level, *psychic profile,* ocular reflexes, intelligence, ballistic skill, pain tolerance. And at no point are they talking about finding a superhuman. It's his "passionate intensity" that interests them. Or, in another paragraph:

"So the Imperial Fists scrutinised transcripts of trials and criminal records involving youngsters, hunting for a special blend of ingenuity, daring, will-power ..."

Given this very varied spectrum of "acceptable Astartes recruitment material", I seriously doubt it comes down to "one out of a thousand men" being qualified, and hoping a psyker happens to match them in capability. I suspect that, even if we _were_ talking about a Chapter that focused on young boys who were already superior physically specimens (and this has been shown to not be a prerequisite), said Chapter would either possess a planet or had a system in place that produced superior physical specimens to begin with.

What it really comes down to, I suspect, is Gene-seed compatibility. The superhuman organs and the indoctrination process are what truly make an Astartes.

EDIT: per the boldened part above, I question where you get the idea that Aspirants aren't scanned for psychic potential before they pass their trials.

I also question the idea of Black Ships coming to any Space Marine fief-world to pick up psykers.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

No one is saying they have to recruit a brand new Librarian every twenty years like it's a refrigerator you need to replace. What I'm saying is that every time they do a recruiting run you can expect X amount of Librarians per a run. So then after Y number of recruitment you can expect Z number of Librarians in a Chapter assuming Librarians live to Q number of years.

The numbers say that they shouldn't be able to.

And it's not simply a matter of being awesome enough to become a Space Marine, but you also need to have the luck to be the right age at the right time (when they're recruiting) and to actually be selected for the trial. A world is a big place. It's even larger when you live in a feral or feudal world. You could be the biggest baddass on your continent, but if a Chapter doesn't know you exist you can't even attempt the trial. One in a thousand is an enormously highball number for the number of people to even attempt a trial. For the person's hiveworld example of 22 billion souls, of which half are men (11 billion) of those within the proper generation (say around 4.5 billion) then of those of the right age (12-16) you probably have a billion people on hand. That would mean you would have *one million* people at your trials.

Even if we were to take some feral world with 10 million people on it (that means that there's 1/2200th of the population of our theoretical Hiveworld and that's ignoring that the fact that a feral world has a bottom heavy age range compared to a civilized Hiveworld) then you still get ~454 recruits. That's insane. I'm probably overestimating the number of recruits they get by an order of magnitude plus change. 

As for where they state that they don't hunt for psykers in particular comes from page 182 from the Deatchwatch rulebook:

"Each Chapter selects its candidates for the Librarium in a variety of ways, depending on its method of recruiting. The *majority* of Chapters ensure that new recruits are screened by the Chapter's Librarians for signs of psychic potential, and those that show psychic abilities are chosen as candidates to join the Librarium. Other chapters, however, actively recruit those with psychic talent and sometimes even draw them from the Scholastic Psykana..."

So *some* Chapters hunt for psykers, but the majority of them do not. Are we to believe that every Chapter we've seen with Librarians are part of the minority?


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

hailene said:


> This still doesn't make sense.
> 
> In a world with 10 million people you have ten psykers. Half of which will be female.
> 
> ...


In some of the BL fiction we see latent psykers manifest abilities like willing themselves to be stronger etc. So yes they have no control over it but it does enhance them and their ability to succeed. We also see that non-corrupt psykers tend to be of stronger will than regular people. This makes them more likely to succeed in the trials. 

Blood Angels are supposed to have the more Psykers than other chapters and they only have 36. From each recruiting they take up 50 or so applicants, many die during the process. They do this once a generation so every 20 years or so give or take. So to get any Psykers in at all a higher proportion of them must make it though the trials than is represented in the population.


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## GoRy (Apr 1, 2008)

Perhaps there is also the choice here to "read between the lines" as it were. Does every pyschic "blunt" need to have no potential for growth? We know that Marines are "force-fed" intelligence as it were. Is it possible that this unlocks functions of the brain that normally never would be? Hence, is it possible that with the same treatment, if a normal man could survive it, that psychic potential could be unlocked in a normal man?


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

hailene said:


> And why would a psyker be more likely to pass his trials? Few would have manifested any powers, and fewer still would have any control of their powers.


Look at the description Pheobus gave of what Chapters look for in recruits, it's willpower and potential. What trait best describes an untaited psyker? Willpower. To have such power and not be possessed indicates strong character and impressive willpower, regardless of whether or not you are aware on in control. Indeed having only limited control of your powers would require even more impressive mental discipline, to prevent the accidental unleashing of power (this is especially true on a feral world were you are likely to be murdered for being a witch).

Plus _Descent of Angels_ shows us how an individual, with no knowledge of his powers, is capable of utilizing his psykic ability to make himself a physically better fighter. 



> Plus you have to whittle down the figures even more when you consider the regular Black Ship sweeps across worlds.


That's assuming that the Black Ships sweep without the Astartes permission or oversight, which seems unlikely to me (it seems to me that they'd at least be like "Hey marines, this guys pretty awesome you want him?"). Plus, Black Ships sweep at most once a generation (and often less than that), roughly how often marines recruit, so odds of the Ship taking potential marines is limited.



> Psykers are one million times rarer than a normal person.


But a Marine Aspirant isn't a normal person. 1 in a million normal people is born a psyker but this ratio doesn't hold for aspirants. A psyker (at least an uncorrupted one) is better suited for life as a Marine.



hailene said:


> And it's not simply a matter of being awesome enough to become a Space Marine, but you also need to have the luck to be the right age at the right time (when they're recruiting) and to actually be selected for the trial.


You're assuming that Chapters recruit at only one period every X years. It seems to me that many Chapters monitor their recruitment base at all times and take the best aspirants whenever they become available. Your also assuming that a fixed trial date only allows individuals of a very narrow age range and isn't timed such that the majority of a generation can qualify, both of which seem unlikely.



> As for where they state that they don't hunt for psykers in particular comes from page 182 from the Deatchwatch rulebook:


The quote isn't specific about when exactly this is done. When is an individual a recruit and when do they become an aspirant? When in the recruitment process is the scan done?

Also, note that it talks about psykic potential, meaning that the individual isn't necessarily and may never become a psyker in the truest sense of the word. This means that such individuals might not be the 1 in a million but one of the others, not a psyker but someone with the chance to become one.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

You guys say that untainted psykers have good willpower. That makes sense, but the thing is that most Space Marine recruits are too young to have their powers manifest. They haven't had to resist the temptations of the Warp.

As for BAs having more psykers than others fits well with the UM has 28 psykers. BAs have ~35% more psykers in their ranks than the UM, and that's adding the 3 neophytes that have yet to reach the lowest rank within the Librarian ranks.

I won't muddle us with recruitment habits of different Chapters right now (my books are at home and I'm on break right now at work). I'll see if I can touch on that later tonight when I get home.

Riddle me this:

How many aspirants does a recruitment usually get? 30? 40? 50? 100?

What are the chances of those 100 men being psykers? Even if a psyker had a 100% chance of success, the chances of them actually being a psyker is absolutely tiny.


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## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

Has anybody considered in this thread that the Gene Seed of the Astartes themselves could cause a person to manifest Psyker abilities?


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

hailene said:


> No one is saying they have to recruit a brand new Librarian every twenty years like it's a refrigerator you need to replace. What I'm saying is that every time they do a recruiting run you can expect X amount of Librarians per a run. So then after Y number of recruitment you can expect Z number of Librarians in a Chapter assuming Librarians live to Q number of years.
> 
> The numbers say that they shouldn't be able to.


The numbers don't add up because you add external factors that I think are - with respect - rather irrelevant. See below.



> And it's not simply a matter of being awesome enough to become a Space Marine, but you also need to have the luck to be the right age at the right time (when they're recruiting) and to actually be selected for the trial.


I don't assume that a broad statement like "X psykers per generation" is to be taken literally. As in, all five male psykers of a planet with a population of 100,000,000 are born on the same year of their respective population. See below.



> A world is a big place. It's even larger when you live in a feral or feudal world. You could be the biggest baddass on your continent, but if a Chapter doesn't know you exist you can't even attempt the trial. One in a thousand is an enormously highball number for the number of people to even attempt a trial. For the person's hiveworld example of 22 billion souls, of which half are men (11 billion) of those within the proper generation (say around 4.5 billion) then of those of the right age (12-16) you probably have a billion people on hand. That would mean you would have *one million* people at your trials.


I think you're over-analyzing this.

In "Space Marine", the Imperial Fists didn't bother with investigating a million different individuals, or what have you. It's made quite implicit that they had a means (probably automated, via Servitor or what have you) of keeping tabs on the judicial proceedings of violent offenders and flagged individuals who possessed the attributes they looked for in a prospective Aspirant. That they were a Chapter that scanned for psychic potential before taking them off-world is beside the point given Deathwatch's own statement, but worth pointing out nonetheless.

By contrast, in "Angels of Darkness", the Dark Angels don't engage in a planet-wide scouring/evaluation of the available manpower of the tribes of Piscina IV. Their process is, if anything, rather "relaxed". They go to a tribe that has provided worthy specimens in the past. They skipped one of their generations, in fact. The chieftain presents to them the best youths he has from the appropriate age-bracket. Two out of twenty make it, and none of the trials they were exposed to can be described as "deadly". Nor are any of the youths described as paragons by any means.

So in neither case does it appear as if they have to go through hundreds, thousands, or even more "prospective applicants".

How do they find psykers?

In the former example, involving a hive/populated world, even if the Chapter in question wasn't automatically scanning for psychic potential amongst its various candidates, said Chapter would probably have systems in place for psykers to be reported to them. On non-Astartes tithe worlds, the Black Ships obviously don't randomly show up to find psykers on their own. They're gathered in advance and delivered to them. I would imagine the various authorities of a hive-world that has a relationship similar to that between Necromunda and the Imperial Fists wouldn't be opposed to delivering such youths to the Space Marines.

In the latter example, a young psyker - a shaman, if you will - would be an infamous product of his generation. I don't think there's any doubt that a tribal society would present him to the "Sky Warriors" (or whatever). Even if the population was spread out enough where the Space Marines didn't visit that specific tribe, I would think knowledge of said psyker would not be limited to just his specific clan/tribe. Their neighbors would likely know of him as well.

And that's all assuming that the Space Marine recruiting ship doesn't have a Librarian aboard. 40k and Heresy material is increasingly showing us that the abilities of psykers go far beyond those shown in the Codices, which tend to be rather localized (for the benefit of gameplay). This, especially when it comes to psykers communicating, scanning for each other, casting their awareness across great distances, etc. I'd posit that it would be far from impossible (quite the opposite, in fact) for a Librarian arriving on said planet to focus his energies on searching out another active psyker.

So honestly, I still have to disagree with the basic premise of a Chapter having to rely on randomly finding Librarians among already recruited Aspirants. When Deathwatch RPG says:



> The majority of Chapters ensure that new recruits are screened by the Chapter's Librarians for signs of psychic potential, and those that show psychic abilities are chosen as candidates to join the Librarium. Other chapters, however, actively recruit those with psychic talent and sometimes even draw them from the Scholastic Psykana..."


I don't think that's exclusive from the concepts I proposed above. I sincerely read that as saying that, all other things aside, most Chapters will scan all their recruits. That's sound policy. Other Chapters then treat the recruitment of Librarians as constantly as they do Astartes (Blood Ravens, for instance, or other Chapters with a focus on psyker powers). But, at the end of the day, I doubt the former would ignore reports or voluntary presentations from their tithing populations; and I doubt even more that one of their Librarians - on a ship stopping to recruit, no less - wouldn't take the time to ensure that a prospective recruit isn't planet-side. 



Aramoro said:


> Blood Angels are supposed to have the more Psykers than other chapters and they only have 36.


On this note, I'm embarrassed that I totally goofed on my earlier citation of the Ultramarines' Librarians. I'm not quite sure how I read "10" Lexicana as "30".

Cheers,
P.


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## GoRy (Apr 1, 2008)

Wusword77 said:


> Has anybody considered in this thread that the Gene Seed of the Astartes themselves could cause a person to manifest Psyker abilities?


Yes, kind of - whereas I suggested it was the training rather than the genetics, but possible.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

hailene said:


> You guys say that untainted psykers have good willpower. That makes sense, but the thing is that most Space Marine recruits are too young to have their powers manifest. They haven't had to resist the temptations of the Warp.
> 
> As for BAs having more psykers than others fits well with the UM has 28 psykers. BAs have ~35% more psykers in their ranks than the UM, and that's adding the 3 neophytes that have yet to reach the lowest rank within the Librarian ranks.
> 
> ...


Blood Angels codex says about 50 Aspirants per recruitment. The problem is you're trying to find some sort of problem with the fluff and the fluff is infallible. It just is, it's a fictional world and canon is canon. 

Fact 1 - 1 in a million souls is a Psyker
Fact 2 - Recruitments happen once a generation and get about 50 Aspirants
Fact 3 - Sometimes one or more Aspirants is a Psyker

Those are just plain old facts. Whatever you have to believe to make those numbers work is cool. Personally from reading the fluff I believe Psykers make better recruits hence increase their chances. But that is just a guess based around those 3 facts. There IS no great answer to this, those are the fact, just believe what you want to.


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

hailene said:


> You guys say that untainted psykers have good willpower. That makes sense, but the thing is that most Space Marine recruits are too young to have their powers manifest. They haven't had to resist the temptations of the Warp.


Just because your powers haven't manifested (or you aren't aware that they've manifested) doesn't mean that daemons aren't aware of your powers. Temptation and taint are not the same and you don't have to be aware of your powers for them to be corrupted. Psykers souls are inherently 'brighter' in the warp and thus more attractive and more vulnerable to daemons, this is regardless of whether or not the individual is aware of their gift.

Further, Marines generally recruit shortly before puberty but it appears that they don't have to (the SW codex talks about a marine sleeping around as a kid, which I don't think is possible for a pre-pubescent) and while it is common that psykic powers first appear during puberty there is nothing that says this has to be the case. The first trigger is generally extreme distress or danger, something that a feral worlder (particularly a warrior) is quite likely to face before puberty.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> Blood Angels codex says about 50 Aspirants per recruitment. The problem is you're trying to find some sort of problem with the fluff and the fluff is infallible. It just is, it's a fictional world and canon is canon.
> 
> Fact 1 - 1 in a million souls is a Psyker
> Fact 2 - Recruitments happen once a generation and get about 50 Aspirants
> ...


Personally, the only thing I want to add is that Fact 3 is not dependent on mere chance.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Aramoro said:


> Blood Angels codex says about 50 Aspirants per recruitment. The problem is you're trying to find some sort of problem with the fluff and the fluff is infallible. It just is, it's a fictional world and canon is canon.
> 
> Fact 1 - 1 in a million souls is a Psyker
> Fact 2 - Recruitments happen once a generation and get about 50 Aspirants
> ...


I'm going to have to agree with this. I'm drawing on information from very different sources that probably haven't been collaborated. Probably just an over-sight by GW.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Sorry to bump an old thread, but "Deliverance Lost" gave us some numbers:

Corax is talking about expanding RG numbers. With new, improved geneseed he'd be able to increase the number of compatible men radically. A quote from the book:

"At present, only the smallest percentage of candidates are suitable for gene-seed implantation...Our recruitment pool would expand from a _few tens of thousands to millions_."

A high end would be 50,000 potential recruits (5 is quite high for "a few") and assume by millions he means *2*, that'd still be one in forty men being compatible with a geneseed.

A low end would be 30,000 potential recruits out of a 9 million population, or one out of 3000.

Real number is probably somewhere in between.

An educated guess would be 40,00 recruits and 6 million potential men. Or 1/1500

And before we forget, we have to remember this is during the beginning of the Horus Heresy--basically right after the Great Crusade. And during the Great Crusade, as per the Space Marine Codex, the Legions were pumping out men as quickly as they can to replace massive losses. "Modern" Chapters don't tend to be on a constant war footing, and also support a force anywhere between 80 to 100 times smaller than a Legion had.

They can, and are, pickier than GC era recruitment. That would that a Chapter's recruitment pool would be even narrower than the estimated 1/1500.


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