Short little question. If a Chapter has lost its previous homeworld, under what situations would it be possible for it to claim a new one? Would it work to have a Sector Lord simply hand over the rights to a world to the Chapter, can the Chapter simply claim an non-Imperial human world and work from there, or is there need to official sanction from higher instances?

My understanding is there is a little bit of a process to it. A space world is a world that is under imperium control but administratively pays no tihes to the imperium instead turning it's resources over as however the Marines see fit, in some cases remaining ona lower then imperial tech level in order to make for a better recruiting enviorment. The purity and the lack of mutation must be verified to ensure it is acceptable recruiting stock so the Mechine cult is likely consulted for their expertise there.

If the world the marines want to claim falls in an established sector even if it was held by another race the Administratum needs to approve it likely via the sector lord and the decision is ultimately likely ratified perhaps ultimately by the High Lords of Terra/Senatorum Imperialis (sp? I hate faux latin). Hope this helps.

On the whole getting a new world ceded shouldn't be a major problem but getting an already established world out of the administratums hands or a strategicly valuable world to be ceded over is likely difficult. I see space marine chapters handed worlds more often then not that classify as Deathworlds.

Pah! I say Marines take what they need, and then, if they are feeling magnanimous, maybe, MAYBE they will send a note to tell the administratum what they have taken. Because Marines are AWESOME and don't wait around to be told what they can and can't do.

But you knew that. )

I believe I remember reading in Rites of Battle in the Chapter Creation section, that worlds given to a Space Marine Chapter are normally chosen from hundreds to thousands of years before the creation of the Chapter itself. Considering that the world has to be cleared by the Mechanicus as someone else mentioned. Which takes a few different generations to make sure that the genes of the population are suitable, while having either very minor to no chance of mutation. I don't feel like pulling out my book to give exact quotes, but I'm almost positive it's in there. Might give you an idea as to how it's a posibility that the Imperium has a list of suitable worlds that could possibly be used as a Chapter recruiting world.

If you're talking about losing a world (like the Dark Angels lost Caliban), then either the Administratum works with them to find a suitable world, they just find one and take it, or they go fleet-based and acquire recruits wherever they find them.

Gaire said:

Just like the Black Templars. They crusade on a fleet based armada and recruit worthy recruits from various worlds.

Deepstriker said:

Kinda like the Templars. More akin to the Blood Ravens, really. Both are fleet-based chapters, the Temps just never had a homeworld to begin with. Split off from the Imperial Fists (who have/had a fortress monastery on Terra, but prefer the massive monastery-ship Phalanx) as a fleet-based crusading chapter. The Blood Ravens, OTOH, lost their homeworld (Cyrene) to Exterminatus due to total Chaos corruption of the population, leading to the BRs becoming fleet-based.

Sometimes fleet-based chapters get awarded a homeworld like the Crimson Fists have been given Rynn's World. But then again they are the "lapdogs of Terra" so what do you expect?

Alex

Just because your a fleet based chapter doesn't mean you will always be one, I have always gotten the impression the Templars are a fleet based chapter by choice in keeping with their eternal crusade ethos.

In answer to the direct question raised by the OP, the answer is, I would say, the traditional one: "It depends."

Many chapters (one imagines mainly Ultramarine successors) probably have a broadly Amalthian outlook, and seek to work within the existing hierarchies of the Imperium, respecting other power blocs and seeking to build a consensus as to how they should operate. If a chapter like this wanted to take a new homeworld, one imagines they'd get into things like bringing suits and petitions before the Senatorum Imperialis, seeking permission from local Sector Governors to recruit from individual worlds, or to adopt a world as a homeworld with the permission and consent of the local planetary and subsector governors.

Conversely, many chapters are far more informal, and will simply up sticks and deposit themselves on a world with little care for how the local authorities, or the wider Imperium will react. One imagines this tends to happen with frontier or death worlds quite a bit. And one would imagine it probably doesn't actually cause too many problems for the wider Imperium. The planetary governor of a death or frontier world proabably wouldn't be too influential in Subsector politics, and as such would be poorly placed to object. He may even welcome the sudden arrival of a Marine Chapter, as it is quite possible that it will increase his standing without affecting his position. Death/Frontier worlds are not usually of great financial importance, whereas the protection of a marine chapter in a region of space is likely to outweigh any objections the locals might have to their presence.

However, particularly high handed or arrogant chapters might actually displace the local planetary Imperial government, replacing it with one of their own. Once imagines that this is quite rare, but given the sort of ruthless behaviour one occasionally sees from Chapters like the Black Templars, Minotaurs and Carcharadons, it's probably far from unknown.

The Badab War books give a couple of examples of how Marine Chapters have gone about changing homeworlds. The Astral Claws were originally ordered to travel to the world of Badab in order to strengthen Imperial forces in the Maelstrom Zone. They took up residence in an orbiting defence platform, converting it to their Fortress-Monastary. However, when a failed Palace coup led to civil war on Badab itself, they stepped in, brutally crushed the rebellion, and took direct control of the planet itself.

Another example is the Star Phantoms: later in the conflict, they were tasked with a direct assault upon Badab, and were entirely successful, though due to the actions of their ruthless allies, the Carcharadons, the planet was rendered uninhabitable. The Star Phantoms grounded one of their Battle Barges on an uninhabited frozen moon in the region, claiming the world as their own. They were granted all rights to the Badab system in perpetuity by the Imperium as a spoil of war. (As an aside, the Star Phantoms are described as having survived the loss of their homeworld at least once before.)

I also recall that the Flesh Tearers settled on a new homeworld simply because they regarded the locals as being just their type - stone age, hyper violent survivalists. Little of the section which describes the Flesh Tearers' actions in this regard supports the suggestion that they asked anyone's permission to set up shop on that particular deathworld!

So the circumstances in which a chapter switches homeworld can be incredibly diverse, and they way in which they go about the move will depend on the nature of the chapter and their relationship with the wider Imperium.

Just a personal take on it, anyway - Hope that helps!

Thanks for all the answers. This has cleared things up for me and given me some ideas to work with and I think I've reached a conclusion for how to deal with this.

lurkeroutthere said:

I totally agree. The Administratum won't easily part with valuable resources if they can avoid it. I'm not sure that I'd agree that it would need to work itself all the way to the High Lords, but I could be wrong. I could see it going to the Sector Governor but I'm not sure I'd go with that it would need to go even higher than that. But it would probably depend on what world the Chapter was after, as I think you implied if I'm not mistaken. A Deathworld isn't likely to be given much thought while a Hive World is likely considered a big NO.

The stuff about monitoring the purity of the local humans is not something that I was thinking on myself, but I totally agree that it would be very important. I could see the Chapter scouting out three or four potential planets and then make some sort of overview along with the Adeptus Mechanicus, to check out so that there arn't any significent mutant problem in the population.

AluminiumWolf said:

If we're talking about one of the wilder Chapters I could totally see this happening, in particular against a rebel world they have recaptured for the Imperium, but also that Chapters that takes part in Crusades for instance might decide to claim a world they captured as their spoils of war, even when being a Chapter normally more inclined to cooperation with the Adeptus Terra.

Kagra said:

I didn't read that it would take that long to clear a world. I'll have to check that up. I do however agree that most likely possible. The idea of there being a list of potential worlds to hand over to new Chapters is something that sounds reasonable to me, even if they might not have been earmarked for it.

Gaire said:

The scenario I had in mind is that the Chapter lost its first homeworld to Xenos who raised the population against the Imperium when the majority of the Chapter was away. When the Chapter returned they got pissed and lots of violence later they ended up with a dead world - which kind of was the plan by the Xenos from the start. Hence after that the Chapter turned into a fleet-based one, and they later got their hands on a world in a sector that is about one quarter in the Imperium and three-quarters out of it, if that makes any sense regarding the situation. I kind of figured that with the deterorating situation for the Imperials in that sector the Sector Governor thought it would be a very good thing to have a Chapter of Space Marines based in the neighborhood to help shore things up.

Deepstriker said:

I kind of figured they had spent a few centuries this way, recruiting people as they went by various warzones or planets that looked like it could give a good yield, but they really wanted to get their hands back on a homeworld of their own.

Gaire said:

I suppose that's true. It wasn't something that I had thought much about earlier since the Blood Ravens were so happily recruiting from all the planets in the Aurelian sub-sector, and there's a Chapter Keep on Aurelia itself, I kind of figured they did have homeworld, or at least recruiting worlds which didn't fit with the image of the nomadic fleet-born Chapters. But it seems I was wrong about it.

ak-73 said:

Very true. **** lapdogs gets a bone from the master.

lurkeroutthere said:

That's kind of how I figured the deal was as well.

Lightbringer said:

Excellent post Lightbringer, it was very informative. I would think that this Chapter in question prefers to play easy with the Imperium at large, and thus don't want to cause problems and stuff that could hit back on it further down the road - like the Ultramarine successor they are . Hence I think that perhaps the Sector Governor to more or less invites the Chapter to claim one of the worlds, perhaps a Death World or a world that isn't really much for the Sector's economy to hang on to, as a new homeworld. Very interesting to hear about the Badab War, I've got to pick up those books when I've got the money to spare.

Gurkhal said:

Well based on the byzantine nature of WH40k I see a sector governor being enough to get everythign actually done but a proclomation from the high lords being the official ratification. It's just so 40k for an imperial messenger to finally make his way to the planet 50-100 years later to finally tell the already moved in space marines that yes they can move in or no they cannot. For that world was actually ceded to so and so. That to me is very grim darkness and ironic but it's not to everyones taste.

Also with all due respect Aluminium Wolf seems to have a take ont he game world where the space marines are wierd prptorockstar gods who kind of just do whatever they want having no constraints on their behavior internally or externally. In his world every space marine is the better then an inquisitor, personally I suspect he's 15-16 and it will pass in time.

Also I suspect that even the fleetborn chapters have a host of planets they recruit from in a subsector more closely following the Blood Ravens model then the Templars model. The templars model is part of what makes them so wierd amongst the chapters. If memory serves the Templars are nowhere near codex compliant and some of their crusade fleets are more on the scale of a normal space marine chapter. If the templars ever deviated from their crusade mentality or gathered their forces in mass the other powers that be in the Imperium would likely see them as a HUGE threat of another Horus like Heresy. As it stands as lon as they keep puttering around, fighting the hopeless causes and depleting their forces at a suitable rate I think the other chapters and the Adeptus Terra are content to go "Eh, it's the Black Templars" and let their nomadic ways slide.