Librarian Scouts?

[ElectricPaladin]

This is a relatively small Space Marines question.

What do psykers do during the scout stage?

Are their psyker scouts running around?

How come we don't have rules for that!

[Kyban]

I assume they're singled out as recruits for special training and don't actually go through the normal scout phase. They probably wouldn't be fielded while going through librarian training due to the risks involved with that.

[Cpt Codpiece]

im sure it used to be......

aspirant: once the aspirant has been selected, either via gene screening or librarius methods (spoon bending noticed in mess hall maybe??). he will be sent to the librarius while he completes his novitiate stage, probably like the 'younglings' in starwars.

novitiate: once implants have taken root the novitiate is further screened and tested, training continues as standard, plus librarius duties..... stacking shelves, filing, polishing the chief librarians sceptre

Lexicanium: once the novitiate has taken all of his implants and his black carapace is complete, his duties in the librarius continue, but more secrets are revealed and greater skills are learned, the first librarius key is attained (access to the soft core stash LOL)

Codicier: once a lexicanium has reached as far as he can in both knowlege and skill, he rises to the ranks of the codicier, writing his own notes on the warp and its uses in battle, the second key is awarded for more seriously guarded secrets (wooo the dvd collection)

Epistolary: once the codicier has completed his works on the warp and proven himself in the field of battle, his duties are more focussed on training the lexicanium ranks in non combat times, during combat they serve as prime battle mages and councillors to the commanders, if i remember right they are in charge of making/distributing the force weapons. the third key is awarded for access to the most forbidden tomes and artifacts (the 'toy' box maybe LOL)

chief librarian: like the highlander........ there can be only one. the big cheese, mr know it all. will melt your brains as soon as look at you, oh and has the big bunch of keys that opens the stores to the major cool arcane stuff (ooohhh the dungeons LOL).

certain chapters have differing ranks and practices also. DA: they become interrogators/facilitators of the chaplains. SW: story tellers and keepers of the wolf traditions BA: tend to the tower and assist in 'calming' the brothers who succumb to the curse

any failed aspirants are either mind wiped and become librarians (in our world terms), or are killed. the same goes for any librarian in any stage of his training.

[Nabterayl]

Librarians-in-training are called acolytum (which seems to be both plural and singular in 40K faux-Latin), and I agree that presumably they're trained as psykers first and commandos second. It may be that they don't receive serious combat training until they're lexicanium (also seems to be both plural and singular, grrrr says the classicist), but they have to be trained at some point. And since the basic skills of a space marine are those of a commando rather than an infantryman, it makes sense that they'd serve with a scout unit at some point (even if that makes them older, like a twenty- or thirty-something psyker serving alongside teenaged scouts). As for why we have no rules for them ... 'cause, you know. Reasons.

[bfmusashi]

Has anyone ever manifested that early? The earliest I can remember was Njal as a bloodclaw.

[Houghten]

The Black Ships are full of as many children as they are adults.

[Cpt Codpiece]

some chapters go looking for ripe young minds.

[dark messenger]

So when the Black Ships come calling the would-be librarians are picked out of the crowd by other fully established librarians?
Coz that could get messy.
I know that all psykers are mind-bonded by the Emperor's will but the whole genetic testing process would mean that, if say 5% of the successfully bonded pyskers were good recipients for genhancement - only 2% or less would be good for a Chapter?

The attrition rate among novitiates and scouts is high - and the number of SM Chapters is equally high. So how is it decided who gets what size slice of the librarius cake?

[Nabterayl]

The Black Ships are only suppose to come around every century - more recently these days, we're told. That still leaves plenty of psykers who never get on a Black Ship at all. And space marines are only interested in you for a very narrow span of time (unless you're one of the weird chapters like Space Wolves, who still seem to recruit adults). So I imagine space marines would not very often compete with the Black Ships for recruits just because a recruiting mission is highly unlikely to coincide with a Black Ships run, assuming that the Black Ships are even authorized to take space marine subjects at all.

[Kyban]

So when the Black Ships come calling the would-be librarians are picked out of the crowd by other fully established librarians?
Coz that could get messy.
I know that all psykers are mind-bonded by the Emperor's will but the whole genetic testing process would mean that, if say 5% of the successfully bonded pyskers were good recipients for genhancement - only 2% or less would be good for a Chapter?

The attrition rate among novitiates and scouts is high - and the number of SM Chapters is equally high. So how is it decided who gets what size slice of the librarius cake?

The Black Ships don't take psykers for the SMs and only some psykers are mind-bonded (only astropaths I think). I think all of the psykers taken by the Black Ships that are suitable for the SMs are taken by the Grey Knights, the SM chapters get their librarians from the psykers that they get through their normal recruiting.

[dark messenger]

Thanks. It makes more sense now because I did always get that confused!

About the OP, considering that the psychic potential in a recruit may come out at any stage be it during the selection/trial process of recruits or even once becoming a full battle brother, it seems to me that all SM scouts are treated the same and trained at the same time - regardless of their role in the Chapter.
However it would be really cool to have a group of psychic scouts running recon for the Chapter! You'd get the feeling they wouldn't lose very often :D