Chaos Space Marine Recruitment - 40K Theories

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1. Too bad that there was no mention of the current Alpha Legion recruitment method. Which is subversive manipulation of potential loyal Astartes recruits through elaborate psychic hypnosis and indoctrination. Then have their memory temporarily wiped to prevent detection and plant them as sleeper agents as neophytes . Once those sleepers have been trained and equipped and send on several missions, a secret Alpha Legion agent within the loyal chapter uses a activation code either psychic or verbal to restore those sleeper agents memories. Alpha Legion doctrine kicks in and those agents turn immediatly against their former comrades and afterwards disappear to rejoin the Alpha Legion's ranks as fully trained space marines with all the knowledge, training and equipment their host chapter was providing them.
2. for some reason I thought it said " chaos 'special' marine recruitment "
3. Why would a slave or captive of a chaos raid become a chaos marine?
4. I always thought that most new chaos space marines were "created" through loyalist space marines being corrupted by chaos, especially when travelling through warp space where they are more susceptible. Like a sickness, they become tainted and slowly devolve into chaos space marines, not so much the rigorous processes of recruitment and training like a dark parody of loyalist space marine recruitment methods.
5. The Traitor Legion supplement recently touched upon this I think (specifically the Emperor's Children section iirc). Here's some way I know of that CSM recruit:
   1) Disillusioned Space Marines - Red Corsair's and Black Legion are the best examples of this. Black Legion perhaps more so in terms of cannabalizing other CSM warbands and demanding fealty to Abaddon; but the Red Corsair's (Huron's outfit) are known for taking in so called 'loyalist' space marine's. Not all of them are strictly speaking Chaos worshipers to begin with, but due to storyline reasons (and perhaps lack of options) more or less become so by the end of it.
   2) Tryouts; Daemon Worlds and other Chaos Strongholds have a sizeable prisoner labour 'market' (aka; Slaves) They fulfill all sorts of roles from building fortifications or whatever to serving as 'entertainment' purposes. In these worlds where there is no hope, they are indoctrinated into the Chaos faith from pretty much the outset (serving as a bit of a counterpoint to the Space Marine worlds), with the younger generations desperate to escape the lash of menial servitude and becoming masters themselves.
   3) Wholesale abductions etc -- capturing space marine scouts and indoctrinating them while they're arguably the most susceptible.
6. They also recruit them in the same way as regular marines, just have a population rise up against the local goverment and see who survives. There is a story on this in the 3.5 codex detailing this selection method.
7. Have you read Betrayer? Spoiler alert, but Erebus has a ritual for "respawn." He brings a chaos practitioner back from the dead, which heavily implies that the Word Bearers can simply call back their forces from the dead, in addition to the method they employed in the 40k Word Bearer Omnibus, where they have a machine called the Discord which is basically a speaker system that blares the noise of Chaos until those that hear it can understand it and hear it speak to them. These were both done to humans, however in principle they can be applied to Astartes.
8. Question: Imperial Marines becoming Chaos Marines can be considered Traitor Legions?
   
   Of course not.
   
   Keyword: Geneseed.
9. And here I was, thinking that the "Shark Teeth For Everyone" Dental Plan was the main cause...
10. By this, you'd think the Chaos Marines would inevitably end up horribly understaffed in the long run, due to having little real structure in their recruitment(exception being Iron Warriors), not to mention their tendency for mutation/self sacrifice that probably doesn't help the preservation of their original geneseeds.
    
    I always imagined that Chaos might compensate for this lack through their demonic overlords, perhaps creating demonic versions of geneseeds to create new Chaos Space Marines, or using some new, unholy method entirely to create their marines.
    
    That could at least explain why they wouldn't just be horribly outnumbered by their loyalist counterparts in every encounter.
    
    Relying on turncoats or raids is unreliable at best, and unfeasible in the long run.
11. One thing I have always been confused is GW has such conflicting reports on space marine recruitment. In some instances it says it can only be at most, very young teens who can be recruited, while in some books and even in DoW, it says how adult gangers have been recruited, or a famous instance was the Father like figure to Magnus somehow able to be made into one.
12. Sargent Ballsack?
13. I thought one of the answers would be California. :/
14. I want to see some chaos space marines defecting to the imperium.
15. Traitors failures foes!
16. these were more facts than theories
17. Grand Father Nurgle Wants you!
    Lets be honest here The Grand father is the only chaos god who actually gives a damn about his followers
18. This, along with the deamonculaba, makes me wonder. Can Astartes procreate normally? Ignoring the required forbidden love fanfiction required. Is a Space Marine able to copulate with a woman and have a viable child, or would the child have horrible disfigurements, or does the Space Marine creation process have steroid-like side effects that can render them impudent?
19. @40K Theories
    3:17
    Pain cannot kill, so this is hardly a super human trait.
    Enough pain can cause your body to fall into shock, which might then cause low blood perfusion to tissues, which would then cause your organs to fail. But pain itself is simply in the mind. One might argue that with a Space Marine's hyper metabolism and organs, this would never be an issue anyway and that hypnosis wouldn't even be needed.
20. That was a great idea