1. the raven guard have a primarch, they are no unknown legion, his name is corax
2. the legion of the damned were once a chapter of astartes called "fire hawks"
3. read "deliverance lost"Â the alpha legion has access to undiluted primarch gene-seed material
read battle of the fang for how long the space wolves had access to cure the wulfen
4. "Progenoid Glands - The Progenoid Glands, also known as the Gene-Seed, are the 18th of the 19 genetically-engineered gene-seed organs implanted within an adolescent Space Marine Neophyte to create a new Astartes. Every Space Marine has these organs, one implanted in the neck and another in the chest. The organs hormonally respond to the presence of the other Astartes gene-seed implants in the body by creating germ cells with DNA identical to that of those implants through a process very similar to cellular mitosis. These germ cells grow and are stored in the Progenoid organs, much like sperm cells or egg cells are stored in the testes and ovaries of normal men and women. When properly cultured by the Apothecaries of a Space Marine Chapter, these germ cells can be gestated into each of the 19 gene-seed organs needed to create a new Space Marine. Thus, for most Astartes, their Progenoid Glands represent the only form of reproduction they will ever know, though the DNA passed on will be that of their Primarch, not their own. Mature Progenoid organs can be removed and new gene-seed implants artificially cultured from them. This is the only way new implants can be created, so a Chapter depends upon its existing Space Marines to create other Space Marines. Five standard years after implantation, the Progenoid Gland in the neck contains mature gene-seed and may be removed and its germ cells harvested, while the larger chest Progenoid is not considered ready for harvesting until 10 standard years have passed. The harvesting is normally done after an Astartes' death by an Apothecary, who carries a special attachment on the mobile medical field kit he carries on his arm known as a Narthecium. This attachment is called a Reductor and it is specifically used to extract both Progenoid Glands from the body of a slain Astartes so that his gene-seed can be used to replace the Chapter's loss, the only form of true immortality that Astartes will ever know."
neither of those glands is removed until a marine is dead, and for the removal, you need an untainted body.. there are many ways in which to kill off a marine that will make his gene-seed useless or simply lost.
4. eye of terror and maelstrom m utate the gene-seed,., chaos legions cannot normally boost their numbers
A couple of things here with regards to all of this.
1. Most marines do not have their progenoids retrieved until after death. It doesn't mean they have to. Marduk in Anthony Reynold's Word Bearers series mentions how his progenoids had been removed long ago and he is still alive and kicking.
2. Just because a gene-seed is corrupted doesn't mean its unusable, at least, not to the traitor legions. The Black Dragons, as well as many of the 21st founding chapters, would be loyalist examples of using corrupted geneseed. While the Imperium would consider such things blasphemy, the Chaos Legions, who are already being mutated by chaos, would probably not give a damn whether their new initiates were mutated due to gene seed corruption seeing as it would only be a matter of time before they were changed anyways. Grahm McNeill's Iron warriors splicing and dicing their organs with that of the Imperial Fists to produce warriors like Honsou would be a demonstration of this.
3. Just because their primarchs are corrupted, doesn't mean they can't be used to produce more geneseed. This goes back to my second argument where they would probably care a lot less about defects in the gene seed.
4. If Fabius Bile in 'The Talon of Horus' can reproduce a full fledge Primarch in pristine condition from the corrupted corpse of Horus, do you think he would have a problem producing extra gene seed to produce regular marines? And if he can do it, why would it be impossible for other chaos apothecaries or Dark Mechanicum adepts to do so as well?
5. Honsou and the Iron Warriors had already developed alternate ways of producing space marines using the powers of Chaos. I forget the novel/short story though it is by Grahm Mcneill and its about his Ultramarine captain when he is exiled into the Eye of Terror for not following the Codex Astartes. There he sees Space Marines being born though there are many mutant offspring that are rejected. Again, if the Iron Warriors can do so, why wouldn't other legions be able to do so as well? Or with alternate methods that involves the powers of Chaos?
6. Time does not flow the same in the Eye of Terror as it does in the material universe. That doesn't just mean that it can go slower or faster, it can loop as well. John French's novel Ahriman:Sorceror demonstates this with librarian Astraeos. Astraeos is a renegade librarian who fled into the Eye after the destruction of his chapter by the Inquistion. There he goes into the service of Ahriman, including being captured by the Inquistion in order to lure them to a specific place at a specific time so that Ahriman can ambush them. After Astraeos escapes, the Inquisitor Izdubar tells the Grey Knight Dreadnaught Cenderion that they were able to identify Astraeos' chapter from DNA samples they had taken from him and that they would purge his chapter for guilt by association. This makes Astraeos the very reason his chapter is purged and he himself is forced to flee to the Eye of Terror. This means that within the Eye, the traitor legions have the potential for an infinite span of time in which to grow and recoup losses if they were to loop time over and over. This is inconsequential with regards to the Horus Heresy but can explain legion and warband retaining strength despite devestating losses in the period after Horus Heresy.
7. It has been suggested (I forget which novel but I think it's 'The First Heretic') that the Emperor actually gained his knowledge of how to create the primarchs from the warp/chaos gods. If such is the case, would it be that difficult for the Chaos Legions/Dark Mechanicum to also secure lesser forms of that knowledge in order to produce Space Marines at an accelerated rate? If Corax, after the Istvaan massacre and before the Alpha Legion sabotaged his labs, was able to produce superior space marines faster than regular, why would the legions of chaos, with the knowledge of the chaos gods/Alpha legion spies, not be able to do the same?
Of course many of my arguments carry the problem of "Well if that's true, why don't the Chaos legions just out produce the loyalist forces and overwhelm them in a tide of Space Marines"? However, they do go a long way to explaining how the Chaos Legions are able to maintain their numbers
I see that Neithan02Â has his usual tip top grasp of organisational structure, genetics and logistics then...
I suspect that the Black Legion retain strong numbers by a combination of recruitment tools. They are known to absorb diseffected marines from elsewhere e.g. rebel marines. Â They are known to take over warhosts of defeated, chaos foes and I would not put it past them to also recruit in the usual sort of manner as other chapters, albeit in a smaller scale and less...friendly no doubt.
The are potentially quite able to harvest fallen gene seed and fix that into their own newbie marines, or even use the Iron Warriors methods.
Please don't forget that a stated source does not need to be made to allow the possibilty of something and if you bother to debate fiction so much as to almost try and make it real, then don't forget to temper some of your ideas with how it works in the real world i.e. rarely will a single method of anything be used as it is too brittle to last lifes tests.
Also the use of the 'lost and the damned' varies between legions/chapters lost to chaos, so potentially the BL could lose a enguagement or have a pyrhic victory but if they achieved it with a high percentage of mere humans, then there marine numbers could be maintained to a greater extent that a unit mainly formed of marines.
As with anything, allow shades of grey into your thinking, it's not all black and white and it certainly won't always have a stated source from the Black Library to back it up. Those are only a snap shot into the situation.
just a tip: why do the red corsairs, the black legion and f.e. the iron warriors take loyal gene-seed to produce new initiates when they could take their own mutated gene-se3ed and already produce marines that have the gifts of the chaos gods through mutation... ( remember that iron warrior warsmith who is actually a bearer of imperial fist gene-seed or do you remember the term the red corsairs use for their apothecaries, and why they call em that way?)
oh wait, is it because they cannot cultivate the gene-seed organs from mutated gene-seed and thus cannot induct new neophytes?
that is a totally different thing than the dragon warriors, who were messed with by the mechanicum and who are declaired excummonicate traitoris or so, aren't they, being hunted by the inquisition because of their taint...
or should we take the night haunters, who limit their induction of neophytes depending on whose gene-seed those people are blessed with, aka: if taint is perceived in the former bearer, his gene-seed will not be passed on)
to 3. emperor'S children lost a lot of their gene-seed reserves prior to finding fulgrim and were nearly wiped oput, only the access to his, then pure gene-seed saved them. we could debate on how much the traitor legions could take with them into the eye of terror and how that influenced them...  aldso the eye of terror and the contact to chaos mutates them and their gene-seed, so basiccally: their gene-see dis mutated and since their primarchs are demon princes now, they do not have access to an untainted source of genetic material for the induction of new marines.... why do you think that legions like the emperoir's children, the thousand sons and so on are relatively small? --> they cannot really reproduce and the other legions take in traitor marines or take loyal gene-seed to replenish their ranks.
to 4: fabius bile has access to primarch gene-seed material from terra, as we find out when we read "deliverance lost" .. you have no argument.
to 5. if you knew a tad more about that method, you'd know that the iron warriors raided the facility on hydra cordatus, thus gaining access to vast quantities of imperial gene-seed tithes from the imperial fists, which they used as material for the daemoncubula or whatever that device is called--> you have no argument
to 6.. I'd actually have to read it but let's take some examples: Ahriman is deemed THE chaos sorceror aside from his primarch, he may perform feats that others only dream about. the world eaters do not use sorceror's, the iron warriors don't do them either. the death guard does not like them either (only one of them that i really remember is typhon who has no allegiance to mortation anymore) also: if the chaos gods were that able to manipulate time, do you not think that they'd have taken out many of their opponents long before? (or each other for that matter, I mean: kill of the eldar early and you have no slaneesh f.e.)
7. it has been suggested by a demon to a primarch when the demon is the one who tries to get lorgar to "defect" to chaos... it is a suggestion without proof.
in "the outcast dead" it is strongly hinted that empi had already created anti-psyker geneforged soldiers to battle the cogniscients (or what they are called)Â Â also gentic breeding of men is already in techno barbarian terra, which empi lived through
maybe, if you read delivarance lost, you find out that alpharius gave only manipulated samples and data to horus and kept the undiluted material for himself though that is only , i think, in the alst 2 chapters, i can look for the exact lines later if you wish)
8. as gene seed is mutated by staing in the eye of terror, you have little of an argument.
that is only somehting that the chaos gods tell horus in the 2nd book of the HH series.. it has to be doubted a lot.
Empi did some genetic manipulating before even the thunder warriors (the outcast dead) and the whole primarch project took centuries with access to tons of research and "pure" specimens.
the warp per definition taints genetic material simply by exposure
--> hence the traitor legions have no pure, useable gene-seed.
--> Legions have no access to proper research facilities and specimens on which to conduct every experiment needed to get to that level of sophistication.
It would not be as much about knowledge, which the chaos gods do not really have, as they are
1. not interested in the research, they can manipulate the beings and bless them with mutations to get the things done they want to get done.
2. they have little access to the research, even the Primarch data in "Delivarance Lost" is far from the whole picture and the Alpha Legion did not obtain everything.
Neithan02 - the no proper research facilities, well the dark mechanicus do have them, and they would happily trade whatever they find/produce for souls/meat/etc. And it would be very difficult to make the jump from the more primitive thunder warriors straight to unkillable demi-god primarchs without some sort of help, even from genewrights,Â
And all legions have to have some sort of ties to proper facilities, otherwise they wouldn't be able to keep their ships, armor, weapons and armies in the field because they would fall apart from lack of supplies or maintenance. It's why places like, I think Samech?, are so powerful, everyone depends on them.
And where does the dark mechanicus reside mostly (and what do they use for their tech... answer to both is : the warp
aka the very stuff that mutates the gene seed and makes the stores and organs of the traitor legions unusable.
2. you have guys like fabius bile, who have dealt withg that conundrum for millenia and have not come up with anyhting.
3. is it in the interest of the dark mechanicum to create more space marines, which they have little access to?
4. is it in the interest of anytraitor legion to allow anbother one to have recruits and new initiates on a pre heresy scale --> balance of power and so on
5. you assume that the dark mechanicum is on par with empi's labs or that the traitor legions were able to transplant those facilities available on their previous homeworlds, (imo) doubteable.
regarding the 'time-looping' effect of warpspace: if any of the gods can actively loop time, on purpose, i would think that tzeentch would be the only one who could have such an ability, and no-one knows what his plans are, but he's the smartest of them and can maybe see that the gods are needed for some far off plan...
as powerful as ahriman is i'm not sure if this is something he could do (although i havn't read the novel in question). i think rather it's either only usable by tzeentch or one of the many 'odd' things about warpspace - the lost waagh! is a good example: orks (not noted for their proficiency in warp travel), set out on a waagh! and emerge from the warp in the same place they left... and before they left. the resultant conflict with their previous selves halted the waagh! before it technically began. to me that suggests that this time-looping is simply an aspect of the warp, or that tzeentch gains great amusement from paradoxes :)
Just to shoot this out, not all the traitor legions are heavily corrupted or mutated by the warp, I'm fairly certain the Night Lords and Alpha Legion can still make new recruits from their own gene seed, if only because they're typically outside the Eye of Terror.