lore question, how can chaos still have fleet and marines?

[Blitzwing]

so for over 10.000 years chaos still has fleet and marines, but no way to produce or replace them? Empire has seen better days, but still has the infrastruckture, chaos lost its all.

[Blitzwing]

so sooner or later chaos should run out of "chaos marines" and their fleet.

[Malal]

Chaos is constantly pumping out new ships from shipyards they control, as well as constantly getting new marines by chaos ways, from imperial deserting, to stealing geneseed in many ways, to *bad* stuff like daemonculaba.
So no, chaos shouldn't run out of anything.

[Blitzwing]

but that was 10.000 years ago and they lost civil war, empire does purge everything, so how? and where ? outside of the eye of terror anomaly there are no chaos colonies

[Bladiumdragon]

Originally posted by Blitzwing:

but that was 10.000 years ago and they lost civil war, empire does purge everything, so how? and where ? outside of the eye of terror anomaly there are no chaos colonies

They still have infrastructure, like Malal said (even though he doesn't exist). And the daemonculaba wasn't 10k years ago, nor was the infrastructure. I think daemonculaba were destroyed. I forget what they use now.

Still, they capture shipyards and the like and have the dark mechanicum to help with building new warmachines. It's part of how they still make demon engines.

[Warspite]

Well, fleet wise the ships Chaos use are older Imperium warships, which are apparently more susceptible to the corruption of Chaos. Obviously, some of these older ships are still in use within the Imperial navy, primarily in sector or planetary defence forces as reserves, so from time to time a few may succumb to Chaos and defect. I can't think of any Chaos shipyards, but the Eye of Terror is difficult to navigate, so it's entirely possible that some cult or another of the Dark Mechanicum do possess the skills and material to build new ships.

As for new marines, they can replace their losses in two different ways; either Space Marine chapters from the Imperium fall to Chaos, or just the old-fashioned way of giving a regular human gene-seed implants. Unlike Loyalist chapters though, Chaos Marines take their "recruits" from slave stock, rather than choosing inhabitants of nearby death-worlds.

[Malal]

Thing is, Civil War was 10k years ago, but Chaos controls *many* planets and places in Eye of Terror, and outside of it. (Maelstorm comes to mind.) They are inhibited by humans, humans that have skills equaling or sometimes better then imperial in certain places. Such humans work on creating, well, everything. Ships, tanks, daemon engines, to stuff like Bolter and Armour. And of course, it is a bit complicated where everything ends up, or sometimes even when, because chaos is chaos, but they still manage to have a chain of production working.

As far when it comes to new space marines, again, when they kill loyalist/renegade/other traitor marines, they always take their geneseed if they can. They also raid loyalist geneseed stocks, or do other stuff like this.
And then, they put that in recruits that they get from planets under their control.
Also, desertions/heresies still happen in Imperium, biggest case probably being old Astral Claws, now called Red Corsairs, who after heresy and war they caused, ended up controling entiire maelstorm and being size of entire bloody legion from times of heresy currently.

[Sindri Myr]

Chaos does absolutely still make new chaos marines in same manner loyalist does and in more evil ways such as the daemonculaba (wtf). Also chaos does have planets outside of the warp and they have MANY forge worlds. Remember a huge portion of the mechanicus and even the fabricator general turned to Horus' side. The dark mechanicus worlds still pump out old ship designs and even many new ones because the dark mechanicus believes in progress of technology. Also in the warp time flows differently while its 10,000 years in real space its been only 400ish years in the warp so there ships and equipment has aged much better then the imperiums ships.

[Brother PaciFist]

Everything that gets eaten up by the Immaterium or Warp space gets corrupted by Chaos. Entire worlds have fallen to the Immaterium. Forge worlds and worlds full of billions of people. Entire fleets have been swallowed whole. Many ships that survive this procedure get corrupted and start to worship the Chaos Gods just to survive. It is the only way to survive inside the Warp without the help of a Navigator and the Beacon of Light from Terra.

Chaos has no recruitment problems. The Empire itself replenishes the forces of chaos all the time. That is why the Inquisition has zero tolerance policy on rebellions and chaos worshipping. They destroy all chaos infected worlds by Exterminatus to prevent them to fall to Chaos. Once a world has become a Chaos World it is gone. Nobody can claim it back for the Empire. Natural Law does not apply in those regions of space. Chaos rules absolute.

Khorne has recruitment worlds where billions of soldiers are fighting for the right to go on conquest for the Chaos Gods. Nurgle is holding great parts of humanity in his strong cancerous grip. Slanesh cant be beaten, because without passion there would be no life. And Tzeentch is Change himself. The Forces of Chaos can not be beaten, they get only stronger.

That is the setting the Warhammer 40k is based on. It is a miracle the Empire managed to survive. It is not a miracle that Chaos survived^^.

Have fun.

[AstartesPanda]

Gotta remember also during the great crusade alot of the fleets had to be self sufficient. With mechanicus forge ships pumping out ammo and other stuff in a limited way and entire forgeworlds turned with the warmaster and then fled into the eye to set up shop. All there wargear is old and sometimes means theyy work better and last longer or are prone to decay and to counter this or to make it worse, hard to tell in the warp lol. Ya Battlebarge might be falling apart but has be tainted by nurgle so heals itself or rott = good. Or partly why chaos marines use deamon engines as they dont have access to dreds or tanks etc. And like others have pointed out the warp does not really flow with normal tiime. Some chaos marines remember the attack on the imperial palace as if it were months or couple of years ago. Otherwise have been fighting the Long War for 100's of years. The only way i can make it make sence to me anyway is within the eye of terror each region has its own crazy timezones. Always ships to steal as its better to capture a city sized ship then it is the destory it. Red Corsairs are made up of traitors and renegades from all ovver the imperium and all of the legions and chapters.

I dont know bro id link you to some lexi stuff but youd just get lost with endless tabs like me and forget what yyou were looking up in the first place.

[Ysthrall]

Note even some of the fluff in-game: The Sons of Malice Space Marines, who turned to Chaos (lets not poke that any further). The Space Marine chapter that landed on the Slaaneshi world, got eaten and spat out as a Chaos Space Marine chapter....

Every chaos cult and rebellion and persecuted group adds recruits, some of whom are even reasonably standards for Chaos Space Marines. And as mentioned, time is screwy, the warp and the Eye of Terror treat linear time as a guideline, and the Traitor Legions were substantial.

And that's not getting started on such happy fellows as Fabius Bile (ex chief Apothecary of the Emperors Children). Who clones many copies of Fabius Bile, each of whom is convinced they're the real one, who set about cloning more copies of Fabius Bile, and then getting down to the fun stuff like trying to clone Space Marines. Or indeed, Primarchs.

[Kim Jong Chill]

for simplicity.
1. time is irrelevant in the warp (hence Spire entering and suddenly leaving the warp centuries later)
2. the whole of the WH40K universe has to have endless warfare and no faction can be extinguished, therefore anything you can think of, as long as it agrees with the canon, is true as to why a faction has endless resources.

[Harukage]

Meah. Aplha Legion still takes recruits from imperial worlds, as well as plant sleeper agents as potential recruits for loyalist chapters. Therefore they always have a lot pf new marines. And potentialy new fresh geneseed when sleeper agaents are activated and they defect after compleeting their missions.

[Grinch]

Originally posted by Kim Jong Chill:

for simplicity.
1. time is irrelevant in the warp (hence Spire entering and suddenly leaving the warp centuries later)

This really cannot be stated enough, heaps of examples spring to mind.

A famous Ork warlord went back in time before to the moment just before he left, killed his old self to get a second copy of his own weapon.

Slaanesh supposedly showed up a few times before it's own birth, like, a couple thousand years before it even existed.

See also; the start of the friggin game where Admiral Spire shows up centuries after going missing.

Plus, defeat really means nothing when you've given your soul to one or more of the Dark Gods, your essence becomes a part of them, just like a lesser daemon is nothing more than a miniscule part of the God that spawned it, when that small part is 'killed' it just goes back to the psychic mass that is the Warp.

[Machine Spirit]

I think they still have recruiting worlds within the warp and steal gene seeds from loyalists. They probably arent too fussed about mutations in gene seeds either. Also, death to a Chaos Marine doesn't always mean death, they could be resurrected.