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Post by: ansacs
There tends to be a great deal of talk on this board of space marines.  No idea why... 
In these discussion the topic that the creation of these space marines is extremely wasteful.
My questions are thus:
How many humans does it take to get to the center of a...er, make a space marine?
Do they die from the failed process? If they do not die what happens to them?
I base these next questions off of a real world politically/socially charged situation. Please do not explore whether this morality is right or wrong here but perhaps with a friend over some wine. It is well known that in some locations throughout the world the bullet for an AK47 is used as money and the gun itself is worth more than the life of the person holding it. Considering this to be true in a real world situation could it not also be true in the grimdarkness of Warhammer 40K?
If the space marine candidates all die from the process could it be cost practical considering these individuals are usually hive gangers, deathworld savages, and in general people with little discipline who would commit violent crimes if not controlled? ie they are not useful for IG recruits and not useful members of IoM society.
If not cost practical as a replacement for prison then would these individuals be worth less than conscript training, flak armour, and lasgun? ie are they worth less than IG equipment?
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Post by: Mezmerro
 ansacs wrote:How many humans does it take to get to the center of a...er, make a space marine?
It mostly depends on the status of the chapter geneseed and apothecarion. At best near 80% of implantations are successful and those who failed to accept implants mostly survive and become chapter serfs, and there is no bottom plank for "at worse" - for the barbaric chapters with highly mutated gene-seed and ritualized implantation procedures things for the recruits can go REALLY bad.
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Post by: chromedog
ansacs wrote:There tends to be a great deal of talk on this board of space marines. No idea why...
In these discussion the topic that the creation of these space marines is extremely wasteful.
My questions are thus:
How many humans does it take to get to the center of a...er, make a space marine?
Just one. Just one exceptional specimen who is generally from a feral world, has survived conditions that would kill lesser men (OMG, NO wifi! ) and has passed numerous tests (physical, mental AND Genetic). Then they have to survive the chemical, physical and psycho surgery on them to turn them into "scouts".
General odds, 1 or so from each thousand candidates.
Do they die from the failed process? If they do not die what happens to them?
Some get turned into servitors, some get made into chapter serfs. Some probably become soylent marine.
I base these next questions off of a real world politically/socially charged situation. Please do not explore whether this morality is right or wrong here but perhaps with a friend over some wine. It is well known that in some locations throughout the world the bullet for an AK47 is used as money and the gun itself is worth more than the life of the person holding it. Considering this to be true in a real world situation could it not also be true in the grimdarkness of Warhammer 40K?
If the space marine candidates all die from the process could it be cost practical considering these individuals are usually hive gangers, deathworld savages, and in general people with little discipline who would commit violent crimes if not controlled? ie they are not useful for IG recruits and not useful members of IoM society.
If not cost practical as a replacement for prison then would these individuals be worth less than conscript training, flak armour, and lasgun? ie are they worth less than IG equipment?
Not all candidates die from the processes involved in making them marines. It's said that there are no wolves on fenris - partially because the apex land predator on Fenris has about as much in common with the extinct terran Canis Lupus as my aunt Dot does (although she did have a body hair issue and a monobrow ... ) and probably because they are the remnants of failed initiates with the canis helix running mad in their bodies.
If there's one thing the Imperium has in abundance (apart from one-eyed superstitions), it's people. Their greatest resource. All humans are of value, even if it's only fertiliser.
No problem is so large that they can't just throw legions of meatbags against the foe and wear them down (or at least expend all their ammo).
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Post by: Peregrine
The human cost of making space marines is irrelevant in how much of a waste they are. Life is cheap in 40k, and the Imperium has no moral problem with spending it.
The cost problem with space marines is a practical cost. Creating space marines and giving them their precious fortresses/religious rituals/etc and all the best equipment uses up resources that could be better spent on more guardsmen and nuclear missiles. After all, a space marine dies in an orbital bombardment just like a guardsman, so why spend the extra resources to create and arm a space marine? Their only purpose is to create propaganda heroes for the imperium. Their actual practical value in winning wars is nonexistent, but it's worth sending in a few marines and mopping up an enemy HQ or whatever so that the oppressed citizens of the Imperium can be united in their worship of the heroic defenders of humanity.
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Post by: PrinceRaven
ansacs wrote:Do they die from the failed process? If they do not die what happens to them?
As for the Space Wolves, I'll give you a hint. "There are no wolves on Fenris."
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Post by: piprinx
As for the creation of a marine, you might have 100 kids ( who could very well be one in 10,000) who have been screened, deemed genetically and mentally compatible enter, and end up with one scout receiving his black carapace and becoming a marine.
The value of a space marine might be immeasurable though to the Imperium, as not only are they a supreme fighting organism but they also serve as a religious icon. Its kind of like how in the USA we hero worship people in the special forces. To your regular joe they are magical murder fairies that protect us at all times, even though they themselves are regular joes who have gone through immense amounts of training. I would assume your regular army grunts vastly outnumber them and probably, in the grand scheme of things, accomplish more, but since the magical murder fairies are so rare and mysterious, they get more attention. In this case it's a giant murder fairy who also has a direct genetic connection to your God.
The main thing I've always wondered for marines though, is the inherent organ loss attrition for scouts. A mature progenoid gland in a marine creates two gene seed sets, a gene seed set is used to grow/clone a complete set of space marine organs. Each time a scout dies having received some of the space marine organs, those are lost, and require a new set of organs to be grown from a gene seed. At some point, some chapter must have had basic implant organ shortages from this attrition, but it's never been touched upon.
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Post by: Teras
Space Marines fight and win battles, that in turn give for everybody else in Imperium chance to continue waging war.
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Post by: PrinceRaven
 piprinx wrote:The main thing I've always wondered for marines though, is the inherent organ loss attrition for scouts. A mature progenoid gland in a marine creates two gene seed sets, a gene seed set is used to grow/clone a complete set of space marine organs. Each time a scout dies having received some of the space marine organs, those are lost, and require a new set of organs to be grown from a gene seed. At some point, some chapter must have had basic implant organ shortages from this attrition, but it's never been touched upon.
Because the implanted Astartes grow extra gene-seed in addition to the ones they already have*, I'd imagine they'd have reserves of organ implants.
*And when they run low they stick the progenoids in ordinary people, wait 10 years for them to grow them some more gene-seed then "harvest" them.
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Post by: piprinx
 PrinceRaven wrote: piprinx wrote:The main thing I've always wondered for marines though, is the inherent organ loss attrition for scouts. A mature progenoid gland in a marine creates two gene seed sets, a gene seed set is used to grow/clone a complete set of space marine organs. Each time a scout dies having received some of the space marine organs, those are lost, and require a new set of organs to be grown from a gene seed. At some point, some chapter must have had basic implant organ shortages from this attrition, but it's never been touched upon.
Because the implanted Astartes grow extra gene-seed in addition to the ones they already have, I'd imagine they'd have reserves of organ implants.
True, and I imagine that growing up a huge reserve of the organs is what leads to the genetic deviancy in future generations. But if you are having batches of 100 or more guys all needing the organs, and you might have multiple sized groups like that in a short time span because of marine deaths there has to be some kind of strain on some of the early implantation organs. If I recall correctly it takes decades for the progenoids to mature in order to be harvested while the marine is alive, or you have to get it when the marine is dead and hope they are salvageable, if they aren't that's X amount of organs you will never see again.
The way I've always seen it though, is that one marine is only able to create the two sets of gene seed based organs from one progenoid. If they could culture more than two sets from one marine, there wouldn't be as much need to harvest the gene seed. They would have plentiful amounts of the later implant organs, but the first few implants are going to have severe shortages from early scout/novitiate deaths.
Edit: For the 10 years organ farming, isn't that from what the AdMech does to build up reserves from gene seed tithes to supply gene seed to form new chapters? I've never read that as a Space Marine practice unless it was added in a newer book.
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Post by: PrinceRaven
piprinx wrote: PrinceRaven wrote: piprinx wrote:The main thing I've always wondered for marines though, is the inherent organ loss attrition for scouts. A mature progenoid gland in a marine creates two gene seed sets, a gene seed set is used to grow/clone a complete set of space marine organs. Each time a scout dies having received some of the space marine organs, those are lost, and require a new set of organs to be grown from a gene seed. At some point, some chapter must have had basic implant organ shortages from this attrition, but it's never been touched upon.
Because the implanted Astartes grow extra gene-seed in addition to the ones they already have, I'd imagine they'd have reserves of organ implants.
If I recall correctly it takes decades for the progenoids to mature in order to be harvested while the marine is alive, or you have to get it when the marine is dead and hope they are salvageable, if they aren't that's X amount of organs you will never see again.
Edit: For the 10 years organ farming, isn't that from what the AdMech does to build up reserves from gene seed tithes to supply gene seed to form new chapters? I've never read that as a Space Marine practice unless it was added in a newer book.
5 years for the neck progenoids to mature, 10 for the chest.
You might be right about that, I'm not entirely sure.
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Post by: PredaKhaine
PrinceRaven wrote: ansacs wrote:Do they die from the failed process? If they do not die what happens to them?
As for the Space Wolves, I'll give you a hint. "There are no wolves on Fenris."
Apart from the ones that were already there obviously 
The Wolves also use failed aspirants for serfs and servitors too.
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Post by: tommse
Dark Angels seem to kill aspirants that failed the transformation so they are spared the dishonor of going home. The people at home then believe that their kids had passed the test.
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Post by: Lynata
ansacs wrote:How many humans does it take to get to the center of a...er, make a space marine?
As has already been mentioned, this answer depends both on the population (genetic compatibility, susceptability to hypnotic suggestion) of the planet and on how well a Chapter managed to preserve its technological and medical knowledge.
For example, the extremely primitive people on the Fleshtearers' homeworld of Cretacia are said to possess an unusual degree of genetic compatibility to the creation process, and according to WD #251 "only a small percentage of them reject the genetic modifications that make a Space Marine superhuman, while their simple minds are easily adapted to the mental conditioning all Space Marines undergo", which means you could turn almost the entire world into Space Marines. However, as fans familiar with this Chapter know, the degenerated state of the native people and their cannibalistic traditions, in combination with the Chapter's defective geneseed means that the Fleshtearers are still doomed.
Likewise, as the entire Imperium suffers from a general decline in technological knowledge, the creation process itself has become increasingly mystified and debased, more tradition than actual science, which increases the likelihood of implant malfunction and/or the death of the subject. The degree of how much this has affected successful recruitment is different amongst all Chapters, reflecting the success (or failure) of their Apothecaries to preserve knowledge and expertise across the millennia.
For further reading, White Dwarf issue #247 had an Index Astartes article about the creation of Space Marines; an online backup is available here.
ansacs wrote:If the space marine candidates all die from the process could it be cost practical considering these individuals are usually hive gangers, deathworld savages, and in general people with little discipline who would commit violent crimes if not controlled? ie they are not useful for IG recruits and not useful members of IoM society.
If not cost practical as a replacement for prison then would these individuals be worth less than conscript training, flak armour, and lasgun? ie are they worth less than IG equipment?
It could certainly be argued that one of the basic requirements for Space Marine recruitment (mental condition) simultaneously makes an individual less valuable to the Imperial Guard. On the other hand, not all Guard regiments are built around discipline, and when you have the Munitorum recruit from a backwater world (Attilan Rough Riders) or from hive gangs (Necromundan Spiders), you will end up with a formation that reflects those qualities in some way anyways, and hopefully be able to use such qualities to their advantage by adapting their tactics - the Savlar Chem-Dogs, for example, are said to be undisciplined, yet excellent skirmishers and tunnel fighters. The Guard does not even attempt to select only the most disciplined and most skilled recruits from across the galaxy, it simply tithes from every single world not exempted from this obligation by Imperial decree.
Similarly, it should be pointed out that Space Marine recruitment schemes are highly erratic and heavily influenced by superstition and Chapter culture. Whilst a lot of Chapters seem to hold contests to select the strongest candidates from amongst the pool of potential recruits, you also have practices where the Space Marines take the most skilled artisan, such as the Salamanders with their blacksmithing tradition. Likewise, the Ultramarines recruit from eight seemingly very civilised worlds, which also raise regiments of capable and disciplined PDF occasionally seconded to the Imperial Guard. That the indoctrination works on people with such mental qualities is probably a testament to the Ultramarines' preservation of technology.
Either way, as chromedog mentioned, "life is cheap". When Imperial commanders can get away with clearing mine fields by throwing bodies at it, then the Space Marines occasionally taking a bunch of people won't be of interest to anyone in the entire galaxy. More critical might be that the average Space Marine Chapter tends to hog an entire planet that could be tithed, regardless of how many people they actually recruit.
piprinx wrote:The main thing I've always wondered for marines though, is the inherent organ loss attrition for scouts. A mature progenoid gland in a marine creates two gene seed sets, a gene seed set is used to grow/clone a complete set of space marine organs. Each time a scout dies having received some of the space marine organs, those are lost, and require a new set of organs to be grown from a gene seed. At some point, some chapter must have had basic implant organ shortages from this attrition, but it's never been touched upon.
A Chapter can grow as many implants as it may like - the only thing they can't just grow in a tube is the geneseed itself, which is required to clone the implants and which has to be cultured on the Marines themselves. When a Scout dies, his gene-seed should be harvested by an Apothecary in the same manner as it is usually harvested from fully-fledged Space Marines, thus preserving it for later use.
The only two reasons the Imperium "tithes" a percentage of a Chapter's geneseed is to monitor its purity as well as to enable the creation of entirely new Chapters - the confiscated geneseed does not act as a sort of bank that can be tapped, which is why a Chapter may well "become extinct" should it lose too much of its geneseed. A fate currently awaiting the Celestial Lions.
Check the Index Astartes link above for further details from GW's take on the subject, if you like.
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Post by: piprinx
ansacs wrote:
Do they die from the failed process? If they do not die what happens to them?
For a non Wolf example, in the third edition SM codex there was a commentary on a few recruits who were going through the implant process. One stood out above the rest in terms of close combat prowess and in the early logs (It was done as an apothecary med report) it was noted he would go far in the chapter. In the later implants their were complications with several of the implants, the bone and muscle implant ones so they froze him in order to study what happened, not only to prevent it in future but to see if they could learn to correct what happened and use that knowledge to force aspirants to develop like he did since up to that point he was above average. (Paraphrased that quite a bit, been ages since I've had the third edition SM codex at hand)
Now failings can happen not just biologically but morally, in the first Crimson Fist Space Marine Battles book a scout did something or another to cause Kantor butthurt (He either didn't take a shot or took a shot too early, I only read the book up to the first 30 pages or so because those early SMB came out in the make everything kiddie friendly phase of 40k and it was painful to read) and he sentenced him to becoming a servitor, not a menial bathroom cleaning serf but a mindwiped servitor who might end up looking like a snail cleaning the floors of the fortress monastery with his tongue.
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Post by: PredaKhaine
He took his shot too early, showing his training and hypno indoctrination had failed, alerting the orks to the danger by failing to kill the warboss. This directly led to the Orks attacking Rynn's World.
I think servitor is the best that scout could hope for.
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Post by: Lynata
piprinx wrote:For a non Wolf example, in the third edition SM codex there was a commentary on a few recruits who were going through the implant process. One stood out above the rest in terms of close combat prowess and in the early logs (It was done as an apothecary med report) it was noted he would go far in the chapter.
Ah! Indeed, this is an excellent bit of fluff - very interesting (and somewhat creepy) to read.
I wondered which source it was in as it's been years since I saw it. I remember it also mentioned the Marines testing their recruits by letting them operate a bolter. Considering we're talking about 10 year olds, this probably says a lot about their physical prowess (or Marine guns are lighter than is commonly believed, but it is probably a mixture of both).
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Post by: piprinx
 Lynata wrote:piprinx wrote:
I wondered which source it was in as it's been years since I saw it. I remember it also mentioned the Marines testing their recruits by letting them operate a bolter. Considering we're talking about 10 year olds, this probably says a lot about their physical prowess (or Marine guns are lighter than is commonly believed, but it is probably a mixture of both).
I can't remember which book (I am heavily leaning towards the first Space Wolf novel) but the training sergeant gives a cocky recruit his bolt pistol and says he will go unarmed. Recruit can't even lift the pistol and the sergeant thrashes him.
Third edition to me was the best era, so many morally and thought provoking wtf fluff moments as opposed to " wtf was the writer thinking?" moments
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Post by: Lynata
That's why I prefer GW's own writing to the Black Library novels - the gap between Space Marine and normal people is still massive, but not as huge.
Same thing for the roleplaying games - in GW's Inquisitor, everyone uses the same bolters. In FFG's RPGs, Marines get +1 versions with a special rule that renders them pretty much unusable for everyone else (regardless of how strong the other person actually is). I find that a bit ridiculous (are Space Marines not cool enough already?), but of course that is a matter of preferences..
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Post by: piprinx
Some of the GW writing can be just as over the top though (Primarch heart carving anyone?), they just come out with it at such a slow pace and in small blurbs it doesn't seem as bad.
For the older GW direct materials and BL it wasn't as bad though, since a lot of times it was people working in the studio writing them as opposed to outsiders (who may or may not know the universe outside of a quick rundown) only doing the novels so it was more coherent.
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Post by: Melissia
ansacs wrote:How many humans does it take to get to the center of a...er, make a space marine?
Is that the only worth you see in humans in 40k?
I was hoping for a broader question...
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Post by: piprinx
 Melissia wrote: ansacs wrote:How many humans does it take to get to the center of a...er, make a space marine?
Is that the only worth you see in humans in 40k?
I was hoping for a broader question...
Unfortunately in 40k humans are considered a commodity and are usually just quantified unless they are in power armor.
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Post by: LumenPraebeo
Before the Chapters were the legions. And the legions recruited en masse. Its not that the mortality rate of creating an Astartes is high, its just that since the Age of the Imperium, recruiting standards have become much higher. The trials before the initiation into the chapter is the thing killing most of the recruits. Even then, there's always a constant flow of initiates and neophytes into the chapter, for without it, the Chapter will not be able to constantly fight and sustain casualties. Generally, the ones successfully recruited into the Chapter are stronger, faster, smarter, tougher, and more viscious than those that have been successfully recruited into a Legion. But the numbers chosen to undergo the trials, I would think are similar to the numbers under the legion.
There's no value to a life in the Imperium if that life is not used in Imperial productivity. How many humans for a space marine? I'm guessing tens of thousands. Those that don't die from the trials become chapter serfs. Faithfully serving the enterprise they have given their lives to when deciding to undergo the trials until that life comes to and end.
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Post by: Veteran Sergeant
When people are worth about tree fitty, you can waste a lot of them to make a Space Marine.
Space Marines aren't very good on the tabletop because Games Workshop wants to sell you more toys. In fact, Space Marines went from fairly overpowered back in 2nd Edition, to 6th Edition's running joke. So it's obvious the tabletop rules are not 40K the fluff, they are 40K the product that needs to make a profit.
On the other hand, a Space Marine in the fluff is capable of all kinds of cool things we never even see in the tabletop game. Void combat. Ship to ship boarding actions. Surgical strikes. Surviving horrific injuries. Stuff that either wouldn't be practical to try to use regular humans for, or stuff that they'd never be able to do even if you tried.
Now, I'd imagine it doesn't take nearly as many humans to make a Space Marine as some people are suggesting. It seems fairly plausible that the vast majority of aspirants would fail before the "training" even started. Geneseed is a pretty precious resource, and it's finite. They can't just go get more from the geneseed bank like the Legions did during the Crusade. So a candidate isn't even going to get implanted until long after they've been considered a worthy candidate for it. Some kids might die in the trials, but remember, Space Marines aren't selected, or born. They're made.
It's mostly irrelevant whether or not a Chapter selects the fat kid, or the skinny kid, or the tall kid or the short kid. They're going to make him into a seven and a half foot tall superhuman using genetic manipulation, growth enhancement, and biological modification surgeries. All they want is a kid whose boddy isn't going to reject that process. So yeah, the chubby kid probably has less of a chance of getting picked, but in the end, maybe he has the kind of mental aptitude that would be ideal for Space Marines, and his genetic profile matches the target. He'll lose weight eating Optimized Space Gruel™.
And because geneseed is finite, the process is going to be designed to succeed, not to fail. Candidates may die, but probably not in droves. This is grimdark, but it's not that grimdark. There's a vast galaxy of things out there for Space Marines to get killed facing. But you need to actually have Space Marines in order to kill them. 
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Post by: Melissia
Eh, how much it's worth it depends. Space Marines are worth about ten guardsmen, as per the opinion of the Primarchs, but ten guardsmen are far easier to equip and tarin-- so in the overwhelming majority of situations, the guardsmen are better than the marine. Which is why they're used far more often than marines as well.
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Post by: Manchu
Human life itself is of paramount importance to the Imperium; infinitely less so any given human life. Automatically Appended Next Post: Melissia wrote:Space Marines are worth about ten guardsmen, as per the opinion of the Primarchs
I don't doubt you read this somewhere (I personally thought the ratio was attributed to the Emperor) but if you think about it ... it does not at all represent what's going on in the fluff.
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Post by: Melissia
 Manchu wrote: Melissia wrote:Space Marines are worth about ten guardsmen, as per the opinion of the Primarchs
I don't doubt you read this somewhere (I personally thought the ratio was attributed to the Emperor) but if you think about it ... it does not at all represent what's going on in the fluff.
"Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops". Rogal Dorn, Space Marines fourth edition.
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Post by: Manchu
Like I said, I don't doubt it's published fluff. It just makes no sense.
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Post by: Lynata
Melissia wrote:Eh, how much it's worth it depends. Space Marines are worth about ten guardsmen, as per the opinion of the Primarchs
Well, one* Primarch. But the 10:1 ratio is also stated in the rulebook's general description.
[edit]*: And I'm fairly sure that was Rogal Dorn, not Guilliman.
Manchu wrote:I don't doubt you read this somewhere (I personally thought the ratio was attributed to the Emperor) but if you think about it ... it does not at all represent what's going on in the fluff.
That depends on the fluff you read - which in turn of course depends on one's personal preferences. Just like I'm sure that there is some novel that has 7.5 feet Marines as VS suggested, even though GW's own descriptions make them clock out at around 7 feet.
That's just the woes and benefits of a "pick what you like canon" where individual incidents are classified as legend and propaganda rather than fact. There are also a number of incidents where Space Marines or CSMs got pwned badly, and considering that the damage of a projectile does not care for who fired it, technology ends up being a huge equaliser. That's why - from what I have read - Space Marines generally focus on surgical strikes and blitzkrieg tactics - to overwhelm their opposition with as much force as possible, because if they get pinned down by a numerically superior enemy with this ratio, they're going to have a bad time.
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Post by: Melissia
Makes perfect sense to me. Space Marines are special forces troops, not line troops. They're best deployed in quick surgical strikes. When deployed on the front line as line troops, their advantages are lowered to near nothing. It matters little how tough you are if you're being bombarded by earthshakers. Automatically Appended Next Post: Lynata wrote:[edit]*: And I'm fairly sure that was Rogal Dorn, not Guilliman.
Whoops, you'reright.
It's Rogal Dorn, from the fourth edition Space Marines codex.
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Post by: Grey Templar
It depends on the chapter. Some have more rigorous selection processes than others. Many aspirants die even before they get the first implantation.
Then some die in the implantation process, although I think this is fairly low relative to how many die before the implantation begins. Geneseed is too valuable to waste after all.
I read somewhere once that its only roughly one in a thousand are actually compatible with the Geneseed.
For some chapters its even less. For the GKs, its roughly one in a million.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
When the chapters were legions I'm assuming all that was required was above average intelligence and relative fitness.
In Fluff a standard battle brother will kill an entire Ork war band if he's smart and uses hit and run tactics.
A battle brother is worth a thousand guardsmen for superiority in magnitudes in every way.
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Post by: Melissia
 TheSaintofKilllers wrote:a standard battle brother will kill an entire Ork war band if he's smart and uses hit and run tactics
Not a "standard" battle brother. They die all the time to Orks. Not really. We've seen numerous examples of guardsmen killing marines, often with startling ease. They are nowhere near "thousands in magnitudes" outside of fanfiction. Their own primarchs stated ten to one ratio. This is accurate to the game and accurate to how marines are depicted in most lore.
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
On average it takes 1 human to make a Space Marine.
However, I believe every single bolter round a Grey Knight fires requires the sacrifice of an innocent life.....
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Post by: Lynata
Melissia wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:a standard battle brother will kill an entire Ork war band if he's smart and uses hit and run tactics
Not a "standard" battle brother. They die all the time to Orks.
Well, he could refer to the Space Marine videogame. According to its makers, a single Space Marine could defeat a million of Orks!
And these days, I actually believe that "most fluff" does indeed make the Marines that awesome - though that is just because "most fluff" these days comes from Black Library novels rather than GW's own books, and arguably novels that have larger-than-life heroes with plot armour sell better to the fans than the protagonist dying on page 5. This isn't something unique to the Space Marines, either ... it just affects them more because 90% of BL's books are about them. Look at how Gaunt's Ghosts dispatch CSMs by the dozen and we get an idea how Marines might be perceived if most books were about the Imperial Guard.
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Post by: Veteran Sergeant
That idea gets bandied around a lot, but the Space Marines of the official fluff are often just as powerful. It only took three partial Chapters to turn the tide and win the second war for Armageddon.
A single company of Ultramarines stopped the Tau invasion of Praetonis V.
It only too 772 Astral Knights to overwhelm the World Engines' "tens of thousands" of Necrons.
The Invaders destroyed an entire Eldar craftworld.
I mean, TBL's books may seem like they are the most over the top because we see the action at "ground level". But in the official GW fluff, Space Marine companies accomplish ridiculous feats, lol.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote: TheSaintofKilllers wrote:a standard battle brother will kill an entire Ork war band if he's smart and uses hit and run tactics
Not a "standard" battle brother. They die all the time to Orks.
Not really. We've seen numerous examples of guardsmen killing marines, often with startling ease. They are nowhere near "thousands in magnitudes" outside of fanfiction.
Their own primarchs stated ten to one ratio. This is accurate to the game and accurate to how marines are depicted in most lore.
You seem to be missing the "hit and run" part. In other words "oh snap, my rosarius field is down, time to run" or "they're pooling, time to put that car speed running to use"
An ork shoota will not penetrate Marine armor under any circumstances.
Normal marines achieve KD's of 1 to thousands. This is part of the fluff. A normal guardsmen will have trouble against one ork.
Do you know what a magnitude is? It commonly refers to squaring, cubing or tenth power.
"thousands of magnitudes" isn't proper grammer or usage first off, but to say the least it's better than a thousand times better.
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Post by: Psienesis
An ork shoota will not penetrate Marine armor under any circumstances.
Lol, wut?
GW's fluff on Space Marine PA grants it a top-end of 85% effectiveness against small-arms fire.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
 Psienesis wrote:An ork shoota will not penetrate Marine armor under any circumstances.
Lol, wut?
GW's fluff on Space Marine PA grants it a top-end of 85% effectiveness against small-arms fire.
Marine skin is the same thing in most GW fluff, with marines taking lasgun rounds to their unarmored heads, and simply losing blood, and getting pissed.
In game to fluff logic "if the ap value isn't equal or greater than the save it has no chance of penetrating"
Again people I'll point this out again: In FFG which are one of the best sources of fluff, Marines have an average press of 2.7 tons and for Berserkers it's about 4 tons. Stop underestimating them.
There's an 50%+ chance of the surgery succeeding, there's a reason the imperium invests in them.
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Post by: Lynata
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:In FFG which are one of the best sources of fluff [...]
They are a source of fluff. Whether or not they are the best, or even good, obviously lies in the eye of the beholder. And just because FFG Space Marines are much more impressive than GW's (especially with such interesting and realistic special rules such as sharing the damage of a single lascannon blast across the entire squad so that it may be nullified altogether) does not make them a standard, much like all the other little contradictions in FFG's books have little bearing on what GW writes in their own books.
There's a reason GW fluff describes the Marines are falling back on the Imperial Guard when things get rough.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Lynata wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:In FFG which are one of the best sources of fluff [...]
They are a source of fluff. Whether or not they are the best, or even good, obviously lies in the eye of the beholder. And just because FFG Space Marines are much more impressive than GW's (especially with such interesting and realistic special rules such as sharing the damage of a single lascannon blast across the entire squad so that it may be nullified altogether) does not make them a standard, much like all the other little contradictions in FFG's books have little bearing on what GW writes in their own books.
There's a reason GW fluff describes the Marines are falling back on the Imperial Guard when things get rough.
They're not more impressive. That's the thing, they just have stats attached. Marines (from all sources) normally tear steel apart with relative ease barehanded. That implies even greater strength than the FFG RPG's
Marines have always been dramatically stronger and tougher than 7'6 780 pound human would imply (which is really friggin tough).
The skin of a marine alone could be equivalent to class 2 Ballistic proof armor. Then add the Black carapace completely covering their body which is made of particularly tough ceramite. Then add stuff like the fused ribcage, and reinforced, thicker bones. Then they have the hundreds of pounds of genetically improved muscle mass. Then we finally add the marine armor.
45703
Post by: Lynata
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:They're not more impressive. That's the thing, they just have stats attached. Marines (from all sources) normally tear steel apart with relative ease barehanded. That implies even greater strength than the FFG RPG's
Marines have always been dramatically stronger and tougher than 7'6 780 pound human would imply (which is really friggin tough).
The skin of a marine alone could be equivalent to class 2 Ballistic proof armor. Then add the Black carapace completely covering their body which is made of particularly tough ceramite. Then add stuff like the fused ribcage, and reinforced, thicker bones. Then they have the hundreds of pounds of genetically improved muscle mass. Then we finally add the marine armor.
And what I'm saying is that they have different stats attached.
In GW's Inquisitor RPG, Toughness works in a more realistic way in that it softens injuries, but - unlike with FFG's games - cannot prevent them entirely. Anything that punches through the armour will cause an injury; the target's constitution merely determines how bad or how superficial it will be. This avoids a huge problem with FFG's games -> people, and not only Marines, can actually become more resilient than the armour they wear, and take plasma shots to the unarmoured face with 0 damage. It also avoids shenanigans such as Space Marines becoming entirely invulnerable to lasguns and bolters. Oh, and speaking of: in GW's Inquisitor game, everyone gets the same guns.
You also have to keep in mind that FFG's RPGs are not a balanced ruleset like the 40k tabletop. They are biased "good guys vs bad guys" adventures with rules and stats differing from game to game, and the designers themselves have likened Deathwatch to movies such as 300, which should be telling. Never wondered why a Genestealer in DW has different stats than a Genestealer in Dark Heresy? A simple glance at the player characters' abilities and the mere concept of "Hordes" should also suffice to notice the plot armour that player Marines are given. It's no different from a Black Library novel, really.
If you're really going by FFG material, I suppose you have to ignore a lot of GW's own writings. For example, how could the Sisters of Battle be expected to successfully purge a Marine Chapter if their guns wouldn't be able to harm the enemy?
Once again, we arrive at the realisation that we are all cherrypicking as per our preferences.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Lynata wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:They're not more impressive. That's the thing, they just have stats attached. Marines (from all sources) normally tear steel apart with relative ease barehanded. That implies even greater strength than the FFG RPG's
Marines have always been dramatically stronger and tougher than 7'6 780 pound human would imply (which is really friggin tough).
The skin of a marine alone could be equivalent to class 2 Ballistic proof armor. Then add the Black carapace completely covering their body which is made of particularly tough ceramite. Then add stuff like the fused ribcage, and reinforced, thicker bones. Then they have the hundreds of pounds of genetically improved muscle mass. Then we finally add the marine armor.
And what I'm saying is that they have different stats attached.
In GW's Inquisitor RPG, Toughness works in a more realistic way in that it softens injuries, but - unlike with FFG's games - cannot prevent them entirely. Anything that punches through the armour will cause an injury; the target's constitution merely determines how bad or how superficial it will be. This avoids a huge problem with FFG's games -> people, and not only Marines, can actually become more resilient than the armour they wear, and take plasma shots to the unarmoured face with 0 damage. It also avoids shenanigans such as Space Marines becoming entirely invulnerable to lasguns and bolters. Oh, and speaking of: in GW's Inquisitor game, everyone gets the same guns.
If you're really going by FFG material, I suppose you have to ignore a lot of GW's own writings. For example, how could the Sisters of Battle be expected to successfully purge a Marine Chapter if their guns wouldn't be able to harm the enemy?
Once again, we arrive at the realisation that we are all cherrypicking as per our preferences.
Everyone cherrypicks. You ignored the fact that starting FFG marines are actually weaker than GW's standard marines. (tearing apart steel (very weak in the 41st millennium) walls with their bare hands.)
Can we just agree that if they made everyone and their granddad into a Marine (happened in the crusades) the imperium would be curbstomping the completion right now.?
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Post by: ansacs
Peregrine wrote:The human cost of making space marines is irrelevant in how much of a waste they are. Life is cheap in 40k, and the Imperium has no moral problem with spending it.
The cost problem with space marines is a practical cost. Creating space marines and giving them their precious fortresses/religious rituals/etc and all the best equipment uses up resources that could be better spent on more guardsmen and nuclear missiles. After all, a space marine dies in an orbital bombardment just like a guardsman, so why spend the extra resources to create and arm a space marine? Their only purpose is to create propaganda heroes for the imperium. Their actual practical value in winning wars is nonexistent, but it's worth sending in a few marines and mopping up an enemy HQ or whatever so that the oppressed citizens of the Imperium can be united in their worship of the heroic defenders of humanity.
So could they be viewed as elite boarding troops and commanders who are an attachment to particularly unique looking orbital bombardment platforms. After all most of the volume and shape of a space craft has little influence on it's capabilities. The important part being mass and what it carries. The ships could therefore be thought of as having reduced energy and waste due to reduced mass of passengers. The most expensive part of a space marine force could therefore be thought of as the boltguns and their ammo rather than the space ships and armour.
Lynata wrote: Snipped...
Thankyou. That is an excellent resource of fluff.
Melissia wrote:Is that the only worth you see in humans in 40k?
I was hoping for a broader question...
Broaden the question then. I don't mind. Is there a innate value in the worth of a single human life in warhammer 40K? As far as I am aware only the emperor's life is considered valuable in and of itself. The majority of the population seems to consider the other people they do not know to only be worth the products they produce and the bullets they shoot. In dead man walking and other books we do see that the human bonds between individuals are still very much there but the non ultramarines space marines, the IoM administrative body, and certainly the Death Korps of Krieg appear to consider the average imperial citizen in context of material worth.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote: Psienesis wrote:An ork shoota will not penetrate Marine armor under any circumstances.
Lol, wut?
GW's fluff on Space Marine PA grants it a top-end of 85% effectiveness against small-arms fire.
Marine skin is the same thing in most GW fluff, with marines taking lasgun rounds to their unarmored heads, and simply losing blood, and getting pissed.
In game to fluff logic "if the ap value isn't equal or greater than the save it has no chance of penetrating"
Again people I'll point this out again: In FFG which are one of the best sources of fluff, Marines have an average press of 2.7 tons and for Berserkers it's about 4 tons. Stop underestimating them.
There's an 50%+ chance of the surgery succeeding, there's a reason the imperium invests in them.
Power armour ( PA) is represented as plot armour in many cases. In the horus heresy novels the PA of both sides is shown as not being able to withstand more than a single bolter round to the face. There are a large amount of SM's who die from double taps to the head there. Shootas are the ork equivalent to bolters. Additionally the emperor and primarchs have both shown that at least some greenskins can most definitely kill a space marine with their bare hands. The representation of SM being able to fight as if they were 1000's of guardsmen is a vast overstatement and PA while resistant to small arms fire is by no means invulnerable to it.
Unfortunately plot armour is often confused in these novels with power armour and so shoots and lascannons bounce off of it. I like the 10:1 comparison as it is actually somewhat logical. The SM appear to have the strength of 10 very strong men (3.3 tons is 10 times the bench press world record).
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
ansacs wrote:Peregrine wrote:The human cost of making space marines is irrelevant in how much of a waste they are. Life is cheap in 40k, and the Imperium has no moral problem with spending it.
The cost problem with space marines is a practical cost. Creating space marines and giving them their precious fortresses/religious rituals/etc and all the best equipment uses up resources that could be better spent on more guardsmen and nuclear missiles. After all, a space marine dies in an orbital bombardment just like a guardsman, so why spend the extra resources to create and arm a space marine? Their only purpose is to create propaganda heroes for the imperium. Their actual practical value in winning wars is nonexistent, but it's worth sending in a few marines and mopping up an enemy HQ or whatever so that the oppressed citizens of the Imperium can be united in their worship of the heroic defenders of humanity.
So could they be viewed as elite boarding troops and commanders who are an attachment to particularly unique looking orbital bombardment platforms. After all most of the volume and shape of a space craft has little influence on it's capabilities. The important part being mass and what it carries. The ships could therefore be thought of as having reduced energy and waste due to reduced mass of passengers. The most expensive part of a space marine force could therefore be thought of as the boltguns and their ammo rather than the space ships and armour.
Lynata wrote: Snipped...
Thankyou. That is an excellent resource of fluff.
Melissia wrote:Is that the only worth you see in humans in 40k?
I was hoping for a broader question...
Broaden the question then. I don't mind. Is there a innate value in the worth of a single human life in warhammer 40K? As far as I am aware only the emperor's life is considered valuable in and of itself. The majority of the population seems to consider the other people they do not know to only be worth the products they produce and the bullets they shoot. In dead man walking and other books we do see that the human bonds between individuals are still very much there but the non ultramarines space marines, the IoM administrative body, and certainly the Death Korps of Krieg appear to consider the average imperial citizen in context of material worth.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote: Psienesis wrote:An ork shoota will not penetrate Marine armor under any circumstances.
Lol, wut?
GW's fluff on Space Marine PA grants it a top-end of 85% effectiveness against small-arms fire.
Marine skin is the same thing in most GW fluff, with marines taking lasgun rounds to their unarmored heads, and simply losing blood, and getting pissed.
In game to fluff logic "if the ap value isn't equal or greater than the save it has no chance of penetrating"
Again people I'll point this out again: In FFG which are one of the best sources of fluff, Marines have an average press of 2.7 tons and for Berserkers it's about 4 tons. Stop underestimating them.
There's an 50%+ chance of the surgery succeeding, there's a reason the imperium invests in them.
Power armour ( PA) is represented as plot armour in many cases. In the horus heresy novels the PA of both sides is shown as not being able to withstand more than a single bolter round to the face. There are a large amount of SM's who die from double taps to the head there. Shootas are the ork equivalent to bolters. Additionally the emperor and primarchs have both shown that at least some greenskins can most definitely kill a space marine with their bare hands. The representation of SM being able to fight as if they were 1000's of guardsmen is a vast overstatement and PA while resistant to small arms fire is by no means invulnerable to it.
Unfortunately plot armour is often confused in these novels with power armour and so shoots and lascannons bounce off of it. I like the 10:1 comparison as it is actually somewhat logical. The SM appear to have the strength of 10 very strong men (3.3 tons is 10 times the bench press world record).
They're quite a bit bigger and heavier than Brian Shaw........
Always takes more than a "few taps". You're thinking of the Custodes (guy who took bolter to face) which are quite a bit stronger than marines can become.
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Post by: Lynata
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Everyone cherrypicks. You ignored the fact that starting FFG marines are actually weaker than GW's standard marines. (tearing apart steel (very weak in the 41st millennium) walls with their bare hands.)
No, I just think you're misrepresenting.
Where did it say that the Marine in the incident you are referring to (can I get an exact source please?) is an average Marine rather than a veteran?
Also, I think you are ignoring various special abilities in DW that grant large bonuses to your rolls, from using Fate Points to triggering your Demeanour to various talents.
Or you could of course simply roll well.
What exactly is the test for "tearing apart steel", anyways? I'm sure you are referring to something specific, so can you give us more information?
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Lynata wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Everyone cherrypicks. You ignored the fact that starting FFG marines are actually weaker than GW's standard marines. (tearing apart steel (very weak in the 41st millennium) walls with their bare hands.)
No, I just think you're misrepresenting.
Where did it say that the Marine in the incident you are referring to (can I get an exact source please?) is an average Marine rather than a veteran?
Also, I think you are ignoring various special abilities in DW that grant large bonuses to your rolls, from using Fate Points to triggering your Demeanour to various talents.
Or you could of course simply roll well.
What exactly is the test for "tearing apart steel", anyways? I'm sure you are referring to something specific, so can you give us more information?
In a thousand Sons: When a 1k sons captain tests the strength of an demonically possessed Eldar Titan he says "these hands that can rend steel in their palms". He isn't boasting as he actually attempted it.
Ragnar also pulls off the hatch of a Leman Russ so he can toss in a grenade in a SW book.
Lightning Claws are 70 kg and space marines use them like people use rapiers. Brother of the Snake
In Eisenhorn the group is being monitored by a Slaaneshi SM. When they try something he runs through a concrete wall like its not there to get to them.
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Post by: Psienesis
What you're talking about, TSoK, is a trend called "movie marines". Where the Space Marines become absolutely super-human in their capabilities, and truly do catch explosive tank shells in the chest and shrug it off like its no big deal, kill ten thousand orks with a bolt pistol (and one magazine), and other crazy gak like this.
The information that GW gives us, however, is not supportive of these feats. The SM are good, yes, very good... but not as good as you're making them out to be. The Deathwatch RPG is for players who want to play Movie Marines in an RPG. A common problem in all of FFG's RPGs (and I do play all of their 40K RPGs....) is that, just like 1st Edition WHFRP, the Toughness Stat eventually can and will be better than any physical protection you can put around your body. With a high enough Toughness Bonus, and enough Unnatural Toughness, you're more bullet-proof naked than a lesser human is in Power Armor.
ETA: You're also using BL, which can go either way with SM. Inquisitor Eisenhorn kills one (White Consuls Chapter) with a single shot to the face. That's just in the nature of a novel, it's meant to make characters interesting, and often does so by making them more (or less!) than what GW has presented us with. After all, if you were going to base the 40K war-game on FFG's rules, each SM troop would be an 800-point figure, because 3 of them could easily handle any other army you dropped on the table, which is simply not the case.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Psienesis wrote:What you're talking about, TSoK, is a trend called "movie marines". Where the Space Marines become absolutely super-human in their capabilities, and truly do catch explosive tank shells in the chest and shrug it off like its no big deal, kill ten thousand orks with a bolt pistol (and one magazine), and other crazy gak like this.
The information that GW gives us, however, is not supportive of these feats. The SM are good, yes, very good... but not as good as you're making them out to be. The Deathwatch RPG is for players who want to play Movie Marines in an RPG. A common problem in all of FFG's RPGs (and I do play all of their 40K RPGs....) is that, just like 1st Edition WHFRP, the Toughness Stat eventually can and will be better than any physical protection you can put around your body. With a high enough Toughness Bonus, and enough Unnatural Toughness, you're more bullet-proof naked than a lesser human is in Power Armor.
ETA: You're also using BL, which can go either way with SM. Inquisitor Eisenhorn kills one (White Consuls Chapter) with a single shot to the face. That's just in the nature of a novel, it's meant to make characters interesting, and often does so by making them more (or less!) than what GW has presented us with. After all, if you were going to base the 40K war-game on FFG's rules, each SM troop would be an 800-point figure, because 3 of them could easily handle any other army you dropped on the table, which is simply not the case.
I gave quite a few examples friend.
Space Marines live thousands of years without ever weakening, they are supremely superhuman. Is it that hard to understand and accept this?
Space marines are not alone in the fluff to tt nerf. Everyone but imperial guard (puny 'umies) are subject to this to a similar degree as space marines.
What do you mean TSoK? Do you mean A Thousand Sons?
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Post by: Psienesis
Actually, we have a very few (as in, 2) examples of Space Marines living 1000+ years (not counting Warp shenanigans), and GW saying they live up to three to five times that of a normal human (thus, a ceiling of ~500 years, actual average probably ~300, as the average human of 40K doesn't have access to rejuvenat treatments.).
Previously, they didn't even have that, as the service studs in their heads represented a decade of service, not a century, and having three studs was a pretty big deal.
Thing to remember is, there's no actual canon in the setting. What we do have, though, is a whole lot of different sources saying different things, with some of those sources knowingly and intentionally being biased in some way, shape or form, and this is before you get into author bias, story necessities, plot discrepancies and just plain C.S. Goto-level shenanigans. In some BL novels, a SM will be akin to a god, and in others, they will die by the scores to bolter-fire. Abnett, IMO the best writer BL has in its stable, can go both ways, as fits the needs of his stories. In Eisenhorn, he has Marines getting one-shot by cultists, weird Xenos, Gregor himself... and then he has other Marines being absolute combat monsters (such as the Emperor's Children CSM that feths Gregor up pretty bad, until losing his head to a single swipe of a power sword). BL authors aren't interested in, or required to, stick to or establish any sort of "canon". What they're expected to do, though, is tell a good story. Personally, I only use BL details that fill in some aspect of the setting that just isn't touched on in other works, as it minimizes the chance for conflicts, and there are some BL authors I prefer over others (I still don't like how Abnett has all these Imperial starships flying around with, like, 30 living crew members and maybe 20 servitors... on a ship 2 kilometers in length. I also don't dig his version of servitors at all.).
Some people arrange their own order of "canon", for example, using materials/information published by GW directly (in a Codex, for example) over something published in a BL novel, over something published in a third-party source like FFG. The IP simply lacks a defined level of canon that the Star Wars universe had.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Psienesis wrote:Actually, we have a very few (as in, 2) examples of Space Marines living 1000+ years (not counting Warp shenanigans), and GW saying they live up to three to five times that of a normal human (thus, a ceiling of ~500 years, actual average probably ~300, as the average human of 40K doesn't have access to rejuvenat treatments.).
Previously, they didn't even have that, as the service studs in their heads represented a decade of service, not a century, and having three studs was a pretty big deal.
Thing to remember is, there's no actual canon in the setting. What we do have, though, is a whole lot of different sources saying different things, with some of those sources knowingly and intentionally being biased in some way, shape or form, and this is before you get into author bias, story necessities, plot discrepancies and just plain C.S. Goto-level shenanigans. In some BL novels, a SM will be akin to a god, and in others, they will die by the scores to bolter-fire. Abnett, IMO the best writer BL has in its stable, can go both ways, as fits the needs of his stories. In Eisenhorn, he has Marines getting one-shot by cultists, weird Xenos, Gregor himself... and then he has other Marines being absolute combat monsters (such as the Emperor's Children CSM that feths Gregor up pretty bad, until losing his head to a single swipe of a power sword). BL authors aren't interested in, or required to, stick to or establish any sort of "canon". What they're expected to do, though, is tell a good story. Personally, I only use BL details that fill in some aspect of the setting that just isn't touched on in other works, as it minimizes the chance for conflicts, and there are some BL authors I prefer over others (I still don't like how Abnett has all these Imperial starships flying around with, like, 30 living crew members and maybe 20 servitors... on a ship 2 kilometers in length. I also don't dig his version of servitors at all.).
Some people arrange their own order of "canon", for example, using materials/information published by GW directly (in a Codex, for example) over something published in a BL novel, over something published in a third-party source like FFG. The IP simply lacks a defined level of canon that the Star Wars universe had.
They don't seem to actually age in the typical way. Their hair may get white, but they'll still be a whole lot stronger than those whipper snappers by experience and growth of even more muscle. Dante is 1000+ and looks 20. They've never been killed out of combat, who knows? They are immensely superhuman and achieve KD's on average of 1 to thousands. That's canon in all sources.
Finally on topic: Humans are a $100 a dozen due to there being like quadrillions of them.
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Post by: ansacs
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:
They're quite a bit bigger and heavier than Brian Shaw........
Always takes more than a "few taps". You're thinking of the Custodes (guy who took bolter to face) which are quite a bit stronger than marines can become.
I literally am listening to as I typed this the horus heresy novel angel exterminatus where legion marines with helmets on are killed with 2 shots to the face from an iron warriors marine. This is a case where bolter kills PA SM.
If we assumed the movie marine level of SM abilities all discussion of the setting background becomes mute. A movie marine level of power for every SM means the IoM will win by simply putting a single SM on every planet with a single bolt pistol. None of the SM defeats make any sense whatsoever in this context. How could armagedon have taken more than 3 SM chapters worth of forces if the ~4 million orks should be equivalent to 400 SM? Armagedon should have been cleared up in a single season of fighting and the SM should not have taken a single casualty.
If we take the 10:1 SM: IG as a context that leads room for discussion as to the worth of a human life in this brutal equation that the IoM runs in its creation of SM, IG, and sacrifice of humans to create servitors.
BTW it appears that SM creation is much safer than I thought. Do you think the safety of the process and the recruitment planet state are tied together. ie ultramarines can recruit from civilized worlds as they do not waste thousands of lives to create a SM whereas SW have are creating "wolves" from failures fairly often so a civilized world would have difficulties accepting this?
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
ansacs wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:
They're quite a bit bigger and heavier than Brian Shaw........
Always takes more than a "few taps". You're thinking of the Custodes (guy who took bolter to face) which are quite a bit stronger than marines can become.
I literally am listening to as I typed this the horus heresy novel angel exterminatus where legion marines with helmets on are killed with 2 shots to the face from an iron warriors marine. This is a case where bolter kills PA SM.
If we assumed the movie marine level of SM abilities all discussion of the setting background becomes mute. A movie marine level of power for every SM means the IoM will win by simply putting a single SM on every planet with a single bolt pistol. None of the SM defeats make any sense whatsoever in this context. How could armagedon have taken more than 3 SM chapters worth of forces if the ~4 million orks should be equivalent to 400 SM? Armagedon should have been cleared up in a single season of fighting and the SM should not have taken a single casualty.
If we take the 10:1 SM: IG as a context that leads room for discussion as to the worth of a human life in this brutal equation that the IoM runs in its creation of SM, IG, and sacrifice of humans to create servitors.
BTW it appears that SM creation is much safer than I thought. Do you think the safety of the process and the recruitment planet state are tied together. ie ultramarines can recruit from civilized worlds as they do not waste thousands of lives to create a SM whereas SW have are creating "wolves" from failures fairly often so a civilized world would have difficulties accepting this?
You know bolters are full auto rpgs that drill into the target and then produce a very hot explosion?
They aren't taps. OI course they off marines if they hit in the head.
Worth mentioning shootas aren't bolters. They're autoguns with bigger bullets that are as threatening to a marine in armor as a case of the sniffles.
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Post by: Melissia
Stop. No. You're making gak up. Basic lasguns can penetrate Marine armor given hitting the right location or just having enough of them hit the same location over time. Ork shootas have far more force and penetrative power than lasguns, in fact, they're often described as quite similar to SM bolters (if more crude).
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:
Stop.
No.
You're making gak up.
Basic lasguns can penetrate Marine armor given hitting the right location or just having enough of them hit the same location over time. Ork shootas have far more force and penetrative power than lasguns, in fact, they're often described as quite similar to SM bolters (if more crude).
A lasgun is also quite a bit more powerful than a shoota per shot. It's just not nearly as rapid. And no, shootas don't.
Where are you getting this fluff from. In a GW source marines take lasgun shots to the head, and only suffer a crack in the black carapace, and a bit of blood loss. You noticed Lynata didn't comment on this? Because that happened in a codex to a raged out standard battle brother.
Lasguns are meant to be reliable. Powerful? hell naw.
Why would a marine ever expose say his armpit? That would be life threatening to a marine. Hell of a shot to make on something running towards you about 60-80 KPH.
Bolters also explode after drilling with their synthetic diamond tips, while moving far faster than shooters due to more understanding of firearms. Shootas don't do any of these things. Shootas are not bolters.
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Post by: Psienesis
Yes, we have Dante and one other guy, though it is noted that Blood Angels are especially long-lived for Space Marines (obviously meaning that they aren't immortal, otherwise this would not be a thing said about BA). It is also noted that, even though he's lived for 1,100+ years, he knows that he shouldn't have lived this long, and he's getting tired. Dante is the exception that proves the rule, rather than evidence of the "average" Space Marine.
Then we have Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who is over 10,000 years old, but is a Dreadnought. The fact that he's at all coherent, even though they activate him once every thousand years or so, is pretty incredible.
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Post by: Melissia
Again, making gak up. If you want to know where I'm getting my fluff, only the best places-- C: SM, C:Orks, C: IG. Additionally, the depictions of lasguns and ork shootas in the Ciaphas Cain novels matches this, as well.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:Again, making gak up.
If you want to know where I'm getting my fluff, only the best places-- C: SM, C:Orks, C: IG. Additionally, the depictions of lasguns and ork shootas in the Ciaphas Cain novels matches this, as well.
I edited the above heavily. I'd appreciate it if you read that.
Worth mentioning shootas are also prone to random explosions, and have a spread at 100 yards of like 30 feet.
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Post by: Melissia
TheSaintofKilllers wrote: Melissia wrote:Again, making gak up. If you want to know where I'm getting my fluff, only the best places-- C: SM, C:Orks, C: IG. Additionally, the depictions of lasguns and ork shootas in the Ciaphas Cain novels matches this, as well.
I edited the above heavily. I'd appreciate it if you read that.
Your edit is wrong. Again, you're making gak up. Actually, an Ork shoota is both stronger AND has a better rate of fire than a lasgun. Lasguns, as per the Imperial Infantryman' Uplifting Primer, don't really have a good rate of fire. Far lower than modern firearms.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Psienesis wrote:Yes, we have Dante and one other guy, though it is noted that Blood Angels are especially long-lived for Space Marines (obviously meaning that they aren't immortal, otherwise this would not be a thing said about BA). It is also noted that, even though he's lived for 1,100+ years, he knows that he shouldn't have lived this long, and he's getting tired. Dante is the exception that proves the rule, rather than evidence of the "average" Space Marine.
Then we have Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who is over 10,000 years old, but is a Dreadnought. The fact that he's at all coherent, even though they activate him once every thousand years or so, is pretty incredible.
This comes back to this.....they never weaken despite being over a thousand years old, and have never been killed by anything but combat.
This is worded in all the codexes so we're supposed to believe they're biologically immortal.
Edit: Damn phone.
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Post by: ansacs
Let me ask this. Is everyone who thinks PA suited people can take an infinite number of shoota and lasgun shots aware that to kill someone in armour you do not have to penetrate said armour. You can cook them alive inside the armour or you can rattle them to death. Heck full plate armour in the middle ages was usually not cleaved to kill the knight but rather a warhammer was used to simply pound the person inside to death.
I could believe a SM took a lasgun to the head...assuming it was angled to skim him. It is much like I could take a bullet but only if it hits me right.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
ansacs wrote:Let me ask this. Is everyone who thinks PA suited people can take an infinite number of shoota and lasgun shots aware that to kill someone in armour you do not have to penetrate said armour. You can cook them alive inside the armour or you can rattle them to death. Heck full plate armour in the middle ages was usually not cleaved to kill the knight but rather a warhammer was used to simply pound the person inside to death.
I could believe a SM took a lasgun to the head...assuming it was angled to skim him. It is much like I could take a bullet but only if it hits me right.
Black carapace is specifically meant to counteract this. Good for you.
Black carapace are right under the skin over the muscle in all places and are ceramite. Thus like similar modern day items they absorb lots of heat, but stay cool.
The lasgun hit him in a very strong part of the skull, direct hit, no penetration, but the marine was still stunned for a second, and in quite a bit of pain.
Edit: I need an upgrade for my meat fingers......
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Post by: Melissia
TheSaintofKilllers wrote: ansacs wrote:Let me ask this. Is everyone who thinks PA suited people can take an infinite number of shoota and lasgun shots aware that to kill someone in armour you do not have to penetrate said armour. You can cook them alive inside the armour or you can rattle them to death. Heck full plate armour in the middle ages was usually not cleaved to kill the knight but rather a warhammer was used to simply pound the person inside to death.
I could believe a SM took a lasgun to the head...assuming it was angled to skim him. It is much like I could take a bullet but only if it hits me right.
Black carapace is specifically meant to counteract this.
Black Carapace does not provide any additional protection. It is designed to assist the Marine in linking up with his power armor.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote: TheSaintofKilllers wrote: ansacs wrote:Let me ask this. Is everyone who thinks PA suited people can take an infinite number of shoota and lasgun shots aware that to kill someone in armour you do not have to penetrate said armour. You can cook them alive inside the armour or you can rattle them to death. Heck full plate armour in the middle ages was usually not cleaved to kill the knight but rather a warhammer was used to simply pound the person inside to death.
I could believe a SM took a lasgun to the head...assuming it was angled to skim him. It is much like I could take a bullet but only if it hits me right.
Black carapace is specifically meant to counteract this.
Black Carapace does not provide any additional protection. It is designed to assist the Marine in linking up with his power armor.
It's ceramite.....
Even if its not intended to it WILL provide loads of protection. This is why tyrant guard are made from them.
It has ceramic in it's name. Ceramics are used to make gun barrels and stuff because they can absorb lots of heat and stay cool all things considered.
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Post by: Weltenwolf
Black Carapace
Phase 19: The most distinctive implant, it resembles a film of black plastic that is implanted directly beneath the skin of the Marine's torso in sheets. It hardens on the outside and sends invasive neural bundles into the Marine's body. After the organ has matured the recipient is then fitted with neural sensors and interface points cut into the carapace's surface.[1][2a][3] This allows a Space Marine to interface directly with his Power Armour.
- not in all places.
- not ceramite.
More like a under the skin USB hub.
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Post by: Melissia
Then it would have killed him. See: Gaunt's Ghosts book First and Only, battle of Fortis Binary. Space Marine dies from a single lasgun shot to the face. WHILE wearing a helmet, if memory serves. I'll have to find the book again. No. Again, you are making gak up.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
 Weltenwolf wrote: Black Carapace
Phase 19: The most distinctive implant, it resembles a film of black plastic that is implanted directly beneath the skin of the Marine's torso in sheets. It hardens on the outside and sends invasive neural bundles into the Marine's body. After the organ has matured the recipient is then fitted with neural sensors and interface points cut into the carapace's surface.[1][2a][3] This allows a Space Marine to interface directly with his Power Armour.
- not in all places.
- not ceramite.
More like a under the skin USB hub.
Tyrant guard are made from the stuff. The tyranids have lots of good ability on their own to reproduce supertough hides and the like, so for them to use a manmade material in construction of living shields speaks for it's resilience.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:Then it would have killed him. See: Gaunt's Ghosts book First and Only, battle of Fortis Binary. Space Marine dies from a single lasgun shot to the face.
WHILE wearing a helmet, if memory serves. I'll have to find the book again.
No. Again, you are making gak up.
Through a helmet......
That's a bit far.
I mean wearing a helmet in real life is enough to stop rifle rounds. With marines they have a lot more to go through than just the helmet.
There's also a MASSIVE difference in resilience of the face with the eyes and nose, and the top of the forehead which was where he got hit.
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Post by: Melissia
In fact, I would argue that being hit in the black carapace would hurt he marine more than being hit in his bare flesh, due to the surgically implanted neural bundles in it, whihc are designed so that he can link up with power armor. That'd cause quite a bit of pain, more than enough to disorient the marine. It happened. TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I mean wearing a helmet in real life is enough to stop rifle rounds. With marines they have a lot more to go through than just the helmet.
You really don't know much about armor do you.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:In fact, I would argue that being hit in the black carapace would hurt he marine more than being hit in his bare flesh, due to the surgically implanted neural bundles in it, whihc are designed so that he can link up with power armor. That'd cause quite a bit of pain, more than enough to disorient the marine. It happened.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I mean wearing a helmet in real life is enough to stop rifle rounds. With marines they have a lot more to go through than just the helmet.
You really don't know much about armor do you.
It would hurt more, but it would still prevent real injury.
Through a helmet? Jeez a particularly strong part of a marine's head is enough to prevent lasguns from doing much with most writers, but a helmet on top of that? Some writer must not like the marines.
Modern day helmets not nearly as thorough as marine helmets reliably block hi caliber pistol rounds, seriously, that's silly.
Edit: And yeah class 3 (4 is anti material proof) BPA is rifle proof. Helmets are thicker and denser, because the head is more valuable. I do know.
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Post by: Melissia
Actually it'd probably cause injury more than real skin because of the sensitive nature of the Black Carapace organ. TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Jeez a particularly strong part of a marine's head is enough to prevent lasguns from doing much with most writers
No, it is not. They are not designed to take multiple direct hits from rifle sized weapons.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:Actually it'd probably cause injury more than real skin because of the sensitive nature of the Black Carapace organ.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Jeez a particularly strong part of a marine's head is enough to prevent lasguns from doing much with most writers
No, it is not.
They are not designed to take multiple direct hits from rifle sized weapons.
Edited.
Type 4 is nearly utterly rifle proof.
Did I say multiple? Enjoy trying to hit the same spot twice......
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Post by: Weltenwolf
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:
Tyrant guard are made from the stuff. The tyranids have lots of good ability on their own to reproduce supertough hides and the like, so for them to use a manmade material in construction of living shields speaks for it's resilience.
That's an in-universe rumour from 3rd/4th edition Tyranid Codex, it was never a fact. The 5th edition Codex doesn't even mention it again.
Maybe a paintball round ...
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Weltenwolf wrote: TheSaintofKilllers wrote:
Tyrant guard are made from the stuff. The tyranids have lots of good ability on their own to reproduce supertough hides and the like, so for them to use a manmade material in construction of living shields speaks for it's resilience.
That's an in-universe rumour from 3rd/4th edition Tyranid Codex, it was never a fact. The 5th edition Codex doesn't even mention it again.
Maybe a paintball round ...
Nope may knock off the helmet and draw blood head but it will stop it.
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Post by: Weltenwolf
Okay, lets test that. You bring your helmet, I bring my old friend G3. 
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Look up the testing of "Dragon Skin". Took I think 36 hits from 7.62 and no holes went all the way through. Armor has gone such a long way because we have dramatic respect for human life in the current day. Which is on topic  .
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Post by: Melissia
Dragonskin is a horrible failure that was rejected by the military because it was complete and utter gak that utterly failed its testing. The only thing effective about Dragonskin is its marketing campaign.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Weltenwolf wrote:Okay, lets test that. You bring your helmet, I bring my old friend G3.
If it's a modern tech helmet (lot of new technologies with resilient material) it should stop if from being fatal.
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Post by: Melissia
TheSaintofKilllers wrote: Weltenwolf wrote:Okay, lets test that. You bring your helmet, I bring my old friend G3.
If it's a modern tech helmet (lot of new technologies with resilient material) it should stop if from being fatal.
More likely than not, you'll just get a hole in your head. Stop getting your information from advertisements on the military channel.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:Dragonskin is a horrible failure that was rejected by the military because it was complete and utter gak that utterly failed its testing.
The only thing effective about Dragonskin is its marketing campaign.
It didn't suffer any complete holes, and it was only rejected due to not being properly tested.
I think you may not understand the strength of the words "utterly failed".
BTW type 4 armor is anti material proof, it is by definition "rifle proof' due to .50 being dramatically stronger. Power armor of any kind is inches thick of ceramite it would take relatively strong tank rounds if it was using modern tech (and it isn't).
Edit: Sisters need a redesign really badly.....
The bust shouldn't even show with friggin E cups but you got those silly boob cups. Imagine how thin they are? Must be recently saved holocaust survivors.
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Post by: Melissia
I saw the test results. It had gaping holes in it. In many of the tests, it was unable to stop a single bullet. In the rest, it was unable to stop the second.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
It was certified type 3, what can I say.
You proved me wrong. I'll take your word on it.
I get the feeling you're stunned I admitted I was wrong
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Post by: Melissia
No, it wasn't. It's more that you don't have a shred of evidence to prove your claims, thus you are completely and utterly unable to back them up when people deny that they are true. Let me quote the study from 2007: Pinnacle SOV 3000 level IV Dragon Skin vests suffered 13 first or second shot complete penetrations, failing 4 of 8 initial subtests with ESAPI threat baseline 7.62 x 63mm APM2 Armor Piercing (AP) ammunition.
Bottom Line up Front:
Dragon skin does not meet required protection standards [emphasis theirs]
Baseline test at ideal ambient temperatures, normal humidity, temperate climate: Notice the gaping holes. Second and third shots were complete penetrations of the armor.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:No, it wasn't.
It's more that you don't have a shred of evidence to prove your claims, thus you are completely and utterly unable to back them up when people deny that they are true.
Let me quote the study from 2007:
Pinnacle SOV 3000 level IV Dragon Skin vests suffered 13 first or second shot complete penetrations, failing 4 of 8 initial subtests with ESAPI threat baseline 7.62 x 63mm APM2 Armor Piercing (AP) ammunition.
Bottom Line up Front:
Dragon skin does not meet required protection standards [emphasis theirs]
Baseline test at ideal ambient temperatures, normal humidity, temperate climate:
Notice the gaping holes. Second and third shots were complete penetrations of the armor.
Not winning any fans after I already admitted I was wrong.......
You're losing em. Admitting defeat on the internet is nothing to scoff at.
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Post by: Melissia
I don't care if you admit you were wrong or not. What matters is that actual facts were inserted in to the argument that, up until this point, was nothing but baseless personal assertions and opinions.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:I don't care if you admit you were wrong or not. What matters is that actual facts were inserted in to the argument that, up until this point, was based off of nothing but pointless personal assertions and opinions.
Again type 4 still completely rifle proof (anti material proof) it's the way you're making a victory on only one aspect look like a big win, and how you're handling it when I still have other arguments going.
Admitting defeat in anonymity is admirable, because you have no reason to save face. Especially when it's on only one front of an argument.
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Post by: Melissia
You have a complete lack of understanding of what the armor types represent.
There's no such thing as a bulletproof vest. They are more accurately referred to as bullet resistant.
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Post by: Happyjew
In the Grim Dark Future of Humanity, the worth of a human life is...
Just my 2 cents.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:You have a complete lack of understanding of what the armor types represent.
There's no such thing as a bulletproof vest. They are more accurately referred to as bullet resistant.
Enjoy trying to penetrate it with a rifle round, when it's made to take a dozen times more abuse. You'd need to hit the same spot a bit...it'll still happen in a firefight
When I see "bullet resistant" I count it as being bullet proof if a bullet within the range of type can't get through it. Because I can just turn to another angle to completely make it impossible to get shot in that spot twice. That's my perception and I've said this multiple times.
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Post by: Melissia
Then there is no such thing as bulletproof.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Because you cut out the criteria of "with only one shot" by misquoting yes.
What about heavy tanks? I don't know if you could do any real damage to an Abrams if you shot it In the same spot with .50 cal 20 times.
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Post by: Melissia
You're missing the difference between it being unlikely to get through the armor and it being impossible to get through the armor.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Melissia wrote:You're missing the difference between it being unlikely to get through the armor and it being impossible to get through the armor.
It was in my criteria, constantly melissia. I doubt any thinking human or marine is going to stand there long enough for one to penetrate. I consider extremely unlikely good enough and have made mention of this.
Worth mentioning Joan of Arc used her sword to chase prostitutes out of camps. I can't stop laughing at the thought of a saint doing this
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Post by: Niexist
I think one space marine is worth a thousand guardsman, but not because of brute force. If you read over all the different organs implanted in a space marine, and what each of them do you can see space marines are designed to be an ultimate combat machine. One space marine will probably be in a hundred battles by the time he graduates from a scout to a space marine. Then he'll probably be in hundreds, and hundreds of other battles. The point is they don't often get into situations they aren't prepared for. As someone said they can run at car speeds so shooting them isn't going to be easy. They can chew up, and eat anything including metal from what I've read.
Then they have ten thousand years of battle experience, and knowing what to do to win. Coupled with as many have stated much harder standards to become a space marine than there were before indicating that the ones today are tougher than the ones of the 30th century. I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.
My point is their tactics, bodies, and minds are far far more tuned for battle than that of a standard human with a flak jacket and a lasgun like me, and you with far less combat, and survival training than say a member of a current military.
Then they have their 1v1 capability because of all those organs. How does a space marine fair against a terminator from the movies? How does he fair against spider-man? Their worth isn't defined in their ability to charge blindly into combat(though it seems like they sometimes think it is from the fluff).
Just my opinion from the stuff I've read.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Niexist wrote:I think one space marine is worth a thousand guardsman, but not because of brute force. If you read over all the different organs implanted in a space marine, and what each of them do you can see space marines are designed to be an ultimate combat machine. One space marine will probably be in a hundred battles by the time he graduates from a scout to a space marine. Then he'll probably be in hundreds, and hundreds of other battles. The point is they don't often get into situations they aren't prepared for. As someone said they can run at car speeds so shooting them isn't going to be easy. They can chew up, and eat anything including metal from what I've read.
Then they have ten thousand years of battle experience, and knowing what to do to win. Coupled with as many have stated much harder standards to become a space marine than there were before indicating that the ones today are tougher than the ones of the 30th century. I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.
My point is their tactics, bodies, and minds are far far more tuned for battle than that of a standard human with a flak jacket and a lasgun like me, and you with far less combat, and survival training than say a member of a current military.
Then they have their 1v1 capability because of all those organs. How does a space marine fair against a terminator from the movies? How does he fair against spider-man? Their worth isn't defined in their ability to charge blindly into combat(though it seems like they sometimes think it is from the fluff).
Just my opinion from the stuff I've read.
This is what I said. They're worth a thousand guardsmen over their lifetimes.
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Post by: xruslanx
A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.
Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.
That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.
I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.
The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.
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Post by: Niexist
xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.
Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.
That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.
I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.
The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.
and then look at that the emperor has consumed 10,000 humans a day, which were for the most part fully grown, which is what about 36 billion or 365 billion I'm not sure. That's a lot of calories!!
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Niexist wrote:xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.
Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.
That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.
I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.
The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.
and then look at that the emperor has consumed 10,000 humans a day, which were for the most part fully grown, which is what about 36 billion or 365 billion I'm not sure. That's a lot of calories!!
I'm probably off on this but if you stuck a bus filled to the brim with mildly healthy food that's about the amount we're talking.
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Post by: Peregrine
It's kind of amusing that everyone is arguing about whether or not lasguns can penetrate marine armor when you can get enough krak missiles to arm an entire regiment of guardsmen for the cost of a single marine. So what if you can resist lasgun fire, you're getting shot at by guided anti-tank missiles that will kill you in one shot.
Niexist wrote:I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.
That would be the stupid way to do it. Why sneak up with a frag grenade when you can pull out your convenient radio, call in an air/artillery strike, and kill everyone from a safe distance? And hey, you don't even need a marine for that. You only need the marine if you need to make a propaganda film about the heroic warrior-monks sneaking in and swordfighting everything.
Also, citation for 60mph running speed, because that's just  ing stupid.
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Post by: ansacs
xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.
Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.
That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.
I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.
The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.
Nice post. Though keep in mind in a galactic scale empire the calories from food is essentially waste energy from a star that most likely could not be used more efficiently due to the widely ranging educational and productive level of the planet populaces. Also shipping food from 1 planet to another would use more energy than the food contains. Additionally you are looking at what is essentially a very very wealthy and important place when you talk about the UK as compared to a death world or hiveworld in 40K. Most of these people probably don't know what fresh food is and just east what they manage to get the mits on. In other words take the price of food in the UK (£1460 for 1 year, keep in mind you only NEED ~1500 calories) versus the price of food in a 3rd world country (£23 for 1 year) and make that difference (1.5%) a factor of a million greater. You will see that people are worth very little in terms of gbp when metals are so much rarer than carbon and solar energy, in a galactic sense.
Peregrine wrote:It's kind of amusing that everyone is arguing about whether or not lasguns can penetrate marine armor when you can get enough krak missiles to arm an entire regiment of guardsmen for the cost of a single marine. So what if you can resist lasgun fire, you're getting shot at by guided anti-tank missiles that will kill you in one shot.
Niexist wrote:I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.
That would be the stupid way to do it. Why sneak up with a frag grenade when you can pull out your convenient radio, call in an air/artillery strike, and kill everyone from a safe distance? And hey, you don't even need a marine for that. You only need the marine if you need to make a propaganda film about the heroic warrior-monks sneaking in and swordfighting everything.
Also, citation for 60mph running speed, because that's just ing stupid.
To be fair they would make good ship to ship boarding parties as compared to IG. I do agree that in open warfare they are totally outmatched by a leman russ or vendetta.
BTW
Dragonskin was great at stopping bullets fired directly at it with no angle. If you fired a bullet from below the target (ie the soldier is on a roof and shot at from a street) the armour was penetrated every time from the first shot. If the armour was dropped the plates would come loose or shift and the armour would quickly lose its bullet stopping power. If the armour was heated to >120 degrees Fahrenheit (ie the temp soldiers spend a great deal of convoy time at) the plates in the armour would lose adhesion and fall down causing the armour to be 29 Ibs of useless metal in a bag. The armour was great at stopping bullets in a lab but useless in the real world. Checkout any of the senate or army response after NBC's report. Either way this has nothing to do with 40K but is instead a discussion of armour design.
77217
Post by: xruslanx
ansacs wrote:xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.
Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.
That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.
I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.
The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.
Nice post. Though keep in mind in a galactic scale empire the calories from food is essentially waste energy from a star that most likely could not be used more efficiently due to the widely ranging educational and productive level of the planet populaces. Also shipping food from 1 planet to another would use more energy than the food contains. Additionally you are looking at what is essentially a very very wealthy and important place when you talk about the UK as compared to a death world or hiveworld in 40K. Most of these people probably don't know what fresh food is and just east what they manage to get the mits on. In other words take the price of food in the UK (£1460 for 1 year, keep in mind you only NEED ~1500 calories) versus the price of food in a 3rd world country (£23 for 1 year) and make that difference (1.5%) a factor of a million greater. You will see that people are worth very little in terms of gbp when metals are so much rarer than carbon and solar energy, in a galactic sense.
The problem with this is that if you assume a third world price for the production of food, then you have to assume a third world level of production. Clearly the Imperium of Man couldn't operate with the level of technology found in Uganda, it needs factory farming with capital investment. That farm machinery needs some of those precious materials, so do the lorries, space shuttles, logistics, etc. Clearly with such food producing infrastructure, price comparisons should be made with more advanced nations than subsidence farming nations.
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Post by: piprinx
xruslanx wrote: ansacs wrote:xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.
Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.
That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.
I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.
The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.
Nice post. Though keep in mind in a galactic scale empire the calories from food is essentially waste energy from a star that most likely could not be used more efficiently due to the widely ranging educational and productive level of the planet populaces. Also shipping food from 1 planet to another would use more energy than the food contains. Additionally you are looking at what is essentially a very very wealthy and important place when you talk about the UK as compared to a death world or hiveworld in 40K. Most of these people probably don't know what fresh food is and just east what they manage to get the mits on. In other words take the price of food in the UK (£1460 for 1 year, keep in mind you only NEED ~1500 calories) versus the price of food in a 3rd world country (£23 for 1 year) and make that difference (1.5%) a factor of a million greater. You will see that people are worth very little in terms of gbp when metals are so much rarer than carbon and solar energy, in a galactic sense.
The problem with this is that if you assume a third world price for the production of food, then you have to assume a third world level of production. Clearly the Imperium of Man couldn't operate with the level of technology found in Uganda, it needs factory farming with capital investment. That farm machinery needs some of those precious materials, so do the lorries, space shuttles, logistics, etc. Clearly with such food producing infrastructure, price comparisons should be made with more advanced nations than subsidence farming nations.
You would also need to figure in a way of factoring in the Imperiums various methods of recycling human flesh, whether through servitors or even possibly "soylent green"
45703
Post by: Lynata
Can't ... resist ...
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:In a thousand Sons: When a 1k sons captain tests the strength of an demonically possessed Eldar Titan he says "these hands that can rend steel in their palms". He isn't boasting as he actually attempted it.
Ragnar also pulls off the hatch of a Leman Russ so he can toss in a grenade in a SW book.
Lightning Claws are 70 kg and space marines use them like people use rapiers. Brother of the Snake
In Eisenhorn the group is being monitored by a Slaaneshi SM. When they try something he runs through a concrete wall like its not there to get to them.
Oh, you were talking about novels! And here I thought you were referring to Codex fluff instead of your favourite instances of plot armour and superhero legends.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Space Marines live thousands of years without ever weakening, they are supremely superhuman. Is it that hard to understand and accept this?
If you'd actually read GW's own material, you might have noticed they are said to live three times as long as the average Imperial citizen. Or were you aware of that bit and just chose to present exceptions such as the Blood Angels as a standard?
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Space marines are not alone in the fluff to tt nerf. Everyone but imperial guard (puny 'umies) are subject to this to a similar degree as space marines.
Or perhaps you've got it the other way around and it's not a "Fluff to TT nerf", but a " TT to Stories" buff. Why should 40k be different than the real world as far as legends and propaganda are concerned?
This is why I like the unbiased, un-plotarmoured simplicity of a ruleset that just aims to represent all fighting forces in a conflict, rather than a story that just exists because the author wants to tell us how awesome X is.
Or why I prefer general descriptions of how something works as opposed to individual instances that may well be exceptions from the rule.
Matter of taste, though. This being 40k, neither our visions can be "wrong" - I'm just here to clarify that yours is a bit off from what GW's books are saying, as you are apparently trying to justify it with them.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:In a GW source marines take lasgun shots to the head, and only suffer a crack in the black carapace, and a bit of blood loss. You noticed Lynata didn't comment on this? Because that happened in a codex to a raged out standard battle brother.
I didn't comment on it as I saw no need - or rather, have little problem with that. However, you really shouldn't turn a "this Marine shrug off a single hit on his head" into an "every Marine will shrug off every hit to his head", as this would mean you are ignoring a lot of factors such as exact hit location and focus, range (lasguns become less dangerous over distance - as per Codex fluff the blast "dissipates" quickly in atmosphere), or whether or not the Marine has been wounded before or if it's the first hit he takes.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:This is worded in all the codexes so we're supposed to believe they're biologically immortal.
You really need to stop making things up.
#1 This isn't worded anywhere. Absence of evidence is not evidence to the contrary.
#2 Chaplain Cassius is "close to four centuries of age". The SM Codex makes a point of him looking the part. It also establishes Chapter Master Malneus Calgar to be younger than 400 years.
#3 Again, please, read the 6E Rulebook.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:It's ceramite.....
Stop making things up.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Through a helmet......
That's a bit far.
I mean wearing a helmet in real life is enough to stop rifle rounds. With marines they have a lot more to go through than just the helmet.
There's also a MASSIVE difference in resilience of the face with the eyes and nose, and the top of the forehead which was where he got hit.
This isn't "far" by all. It's novel stuff - coincidentally reinforcing the point I was making above, hm? - but it is in line with GW's own material:
The most important element in the construction of a suit of Space Marine power armour is the large ceramite armour plates, which provide the main form of protection against enemy attack. Individual plates of armour can be up to an inch thick, and have a special "honeycomb" design which helps to dissipate energy and localise any damage suffered by the suit. Against most small arms the armour reduces the chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st Millenium.
-2E C:AoD
You'll note how the high end of that range roughly conforms to the chance of a lasgun dropping a Marine in the tabletop. And just to stress it as you seem to apply a great degree of resilience to naked Space Marine skin, this isn't just penetration, this is about injury.
In GW's Inquisitor RPG, a lasgun also has a 16.6% chance to punch through Marine armour ( again conforming to the Codex fluff .. could we have a pattern here?) and cause an injury. A Triplex lasgun on higher charge settings will have a better chance.
The only thing a Marine's toughness does in the Inquisitor game is that it lets him take up to 4 of such hits in the head. The first one will stun him a bit, the second makes him move slower, the third causes him to go into system shock. Being a Marine, he'll probably shrug that off, however, so that only the 4th hit will finally drop him.
This is why I like the Inquisitor rules so much better than FFG's - Toughness doesn't render you invulnerable, it just lessens the injuries you do incur, and thus gives your character a chance to soldier on in spite of grievous injuries. Much more realistic, no?
ansacs wrote:Do you think the safety of the process and the recruitment planet state are tied together. ie ultramarines can recruit from civilized worlds as they do not waste thousands of lives to create a SM whereas SW have are creating "wolves" from failures fairly often so a civilized world would have difficulties accepting this?
The actual implantation process is relatively safe - not as good as it used to be, but the failure quota is maybe 1 in 10 or something, though this depends heavily on how good the Chapter managed to preserve the knowledge.
What's more dangerous is how some Chapters choose to test the applicants, as the various different trials may end in deaths amongst the suitable candidates. The nature of these tests (and the risks involved) depends on the individual Chapter - so the Space Marines could recruit more people if they just wanted to, but tradition is often presented as hindrance in 40k, even beyond the SM. That being said, generally they don't appear to have a problem finding new members. Most Chapters are granted recruitment rights to an entire planet of people, and I imagine that the dangers of any tests might well be "tailored" to the percentage of geneseed compatibility amongst its people. If just about everyone can take the implants, as with the Fleshtearers' homeworld, there's no reason why you couldn't impose more dangerous tests on them, as you have a larger pool of applicants to select from.
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Post by: ansacs
xruslanx wrote:The problem with this is that if you assume a third world price for the production of food, then you have to assume a third world level of production. Clearly the Imperium of Man couldn't operate with the level of technology found in Uganda, it needs factory farming with capital investment. That farm machinery needs some of those precious materials, so do the lorries, space shuttles, logistics, etc. Clearly with such food producing infrastructure, price comparisons should be made with more advanced nations than subsidence farming nations.
This would be true if the IoM acts like modern day world with reliable, cheap communication to distribute ideas and reliable system to system transport. Instead what 40K has is the guilds and psykers who imperfectly communicate even relatively simple messages and loose ships in the warp for a few years here and there. This is a setting where you can go to one system and have a civilization of monguls and then skip over to another system and everyone and their brother has a valkyrie transport. Clearly the worth of commodities has no way to stabilize between systems and perhaps even worlds within a system.
I will give you a better example then. I have personally been to the UK and I live in the USA. The prices for food in the UK were and seemingly still are (considering your rice example) about 2-3x higher than the USA. This is a comparison of two wealthy advanced nations. Also do you really think farming subsidies actually has a significant effect? I can tell you that in the USA there are some farming subsidy programs and in several African nations there are farming subsidy programs...the prices for food in the USA are >10 times greater.
piprinx wrote:You would also need to figure in a way of factoring in the Imperiums various methods of recycling human flesh, whether through servitors or even possibly "soylent green"
That is so true. We would also have to consider the forced "recycling" performed by some of the planets...aka flesh tearers.
Lynata wrote:The actual implantation process is relatively safe - not as good as it used to be, but the failure quota is maybe 1 in 10 or something, though this depends heavily on how good the Chapter managed to preserve the knowledge.
What's more dangerous is how some Chapters choose to test the applicants, as the various different trials may end in deaths amongst the suitable candidates. The nature of these tests (and the risks involved) depends on the individual Chapter - so the Space Marines could recruit more people if they just wanted to, but tradition is often presented as hindrance in 40k, even beyond the SM. That being said, generally they don't appear to have a problem finding new members. Most Chapters are granted recruitment rights to an entire planet of people, and I imagine that the dangers of any tests might well be "tailored" to the percentage of geneseed compatibility amongst its people. If just about everyone can take the implants, as with the Fleshtearers' homeworld, there's no reason why you couldn't impose more dangerous tests on them, as you have a larger pool of applicants to select from.
I was actually referring to the "process" as a whole from start of SM candidate selection to having a SM. I wonder if the savageness or closeness to violence changes the likelihood of a success. This leading to a more thorough selection process being available for the most savage worlds.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
And here I thought you were referring to Codex fluff instead of your favourite instances of plot armour and superhero legends.
Every time a space marine appears he does gak like this. There are far more examples, Some sergeant in armor lifted a very large truck out of the mud one handed. I don't feel like giving any more because I'm finally getting fed up..There was that instance of the marine getting shot with lasgun to to the head with no injuries.
they are said to live three times as long as the average Imperial citizen. Or were you aware of that bit and just chose to present exceptions such as the Blood Angels as a standard?
I don't know where you're getting this. They don't die of old age at all. They get killed on the battlefield. If you look at getting killed on the battlefield than yeah that's their lifespan. But they don't die of old age so by definition they're biologically immortal. How did you not know what I meant?
Or perhaps you've got it the other way around and it's not a "Fluff to TT nerf", but a "TT to Stories" buff. Why should 40k be different than the real world as far as legends and propaganda are concerned?
This is why I like the unbiased, un-plotarmoured simplicity of a ruleset that just aims to represent all fighting forces in a conflict, rather than a story that just exists because the author wants to tell us how awesome X is.
Or why I prefer general descriptions of how something works as opposed to individual instances that may well be exceptions from the rule.
Matter of taste, though. This being 40k, neither our visions can be "wrong" - I'm just here to clarify that yours is a bit off from what GW's books are saying, as you are apparently trying to justify it with them.
Apparently to you mine is.Because you feel the need to see everything demystified (boring and really idiotic) doesn't mean everyone needs too. A lot of the codex stuff is boring compared to FFG and the novels and FFG are just as canon as anything is. I don't know why you don't comprehend this easy concept but whatever.
By your definition of Fluff to TT nerf and Fluff to TT buff it can be seen either way. A single space marine can hold off (and eventually kill) a imperial guard platoon by utilizing fear tactics and picking them up one by one, with precise strikes.
I listed tons of stuff from black library. All sources agree they're much stronger than any normal human can ever hope to be. How much depends on who's writing.
[ didn't comment on it as I saw no need - or rather, have little problem with that. However, you really shouldn't turn a "this Marine shrug off a single hit on his head" into an "every Marine will shrug off every hit to his head", as this would mean you are ignoring a lot of factors such as exact hit location and focus, range (lasguns become less dangerous over distance - as per Codex fluff the blast "dissipates" quickly in atmosphere), or whether or not the Marine has been wounded before or if it's the first hit he takes.
He was a standard battle brother as far as anyone knows. The shot was from (I think and imagine) 50 meters. Obviously another hit to the same part of the head would of at least cracked the skull and likely done more.
You really need to stop making things up.
I was quoting someone else who stated facts leading to my view, and I explained to him what GW intended us to take from this. Chill out, but seriously your misquoting nourishes me.
#1 This isn't worded anywhere. Absence of evidence is not evidence to the contrary.
#2 Chaplain Cassius is "close to four centuries of age". The SM Codex makes a point of him looking the part. It also establishes Chapter Master Malneus Calgar to be younger than 400 years.
#3 Again, please, read the 6E Rulebook
.
I also said "they may look old, but they'll still be stronger than an average battle brother" their muscles never seem to actually weaken and they never seem to suffer any negative consequences of aging.
The most important element in the construction of a suit of Space Marine power armour is the large ceramite armour plates, which provide the main form of protection against enemy attack. Individual plates of armour can be up to an inch thick, and have a special "honeycomb" design which helps to dissipate energy and localise any damage suffered by the suit. Against most small arms the armour reduces the chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st Millenium.
-2E C:AoD
This was back when space marines where only peak human and 7 ft tall instead of 8 ft tall. It's codex history.
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Post by: Lynata
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Every time a space marine appears he does gak like this.
In most of their novels, sure.
As I said before, I believe general descriptions to be more accurate than individual incidents. That's just a personal interpretation, of course, but I hope I don't need to explain that "official averages" may be a better representation than one-offs. Especially considering Marc Gascogne's statement about legends and myths - even Codex fluff isn't reliable.
This is by no means something that applies only to the Space Marines; they just tend to hog the more epic and legendary feats as it fits the overall theme and their role in the setting. Do I believe that Canoness Aspira liberated a hundred worlds with only a thousand Sisters and no further backup just because that's what history says in the Codex? Nope. But it makes for a nice legend. 
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I don't know where you're getting this. They don't die of old age at all.
6th Edition rulebook page 181.
"With their genetically enhanced bodies, Space Marines live extended lifetimes - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two or three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Apparently to you mine is.Because you feel the need to see everything demystified (boring and really idiotic) doesn't mean everyone needs too. A lot of the codex stuff is boring compared to FFG and the novels and FFG are just as canon as anything is. I don't know why you don't comprehend this easy concept but whatever.
What concept, exactly? There is no canon - even one of the writers of the novels you like so much pointed that out.
But no, as difficult as it may be due to my personal preferences, I do not regard your vision as "wrong" - just that you are so utterly insistent on it being the only truth. So I am listing counterpoints to build a contradiction and at least help you see that there are other ways to perceive the setting, such as the one I am adhering to.
If you like Black Library epic stories more than GW's "boring" fluff, go ahead and enjoy it, but keep in mind that other sources say different things, and that it is GW's own material on the subject that is still more of a common ground between all of us than individual novels we may fancy.
Also, you may want to enjoy any BL book that does not feature Space Marines as protagonists.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I was quoting someone else who stated facts leading to my view, and I explained to him what GW intended us to take from this. Chill out, but seriously your misquoting nourishes me.
I didn't "misquote" - it was you who wrote that, and it is an exact copy of what you wrote.
If you simply fell victim to another poster's claims, that is of course something I can understand. The same things happen/ed to me, and unfortunately a lot of what gets propagated on dakka and other 40k forums is often just flawed hearsay...
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:This was back when space marines where only peak human and 7 ft tall instead of 8 ft tall. It's codex history.
Nope, 2nd Edition was Space Marines as we know them today. The armour details also never were "retconned" in any later source.
And today's Space Marines are still "only" 7 feet tall - in GW's fluff anyways. 
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Post by: ansacs
While Lynata is correct in that there is no canon and you are free to draw your own conclusions and view. However, a 40K filled with immortal invulnerable SM means that any discussion involving SM falls apart the second they are capable of going 1000:1 against every enemy and winning. If these examples are taken to their logical conclusion "there is only war" would become "there was travel time punctuated with 5 minutes of a SM chapter conquering the planet, killing a hive fleet, and exterminating the orks".
Also you should read some of the novels from the point of view of the IG or Chaos SM. If you have or do you will quickly realize that these guys kill SM like SM kill cultists and pull off all sorts of super impressive feats. In the HH novels a group of CSM prisoners beats up an entire prison and several custodes. Gaunt has killed more CSM than I have in ~15 years of wargaming...
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Post by: Lynata
ansacs wrote:like SM kill cultists
I can't help but remember the outrage on dakka as White Dwarf published that excerpt of a story about a squad of Space Marines being overrun by a bunch of cultists with autoguns and close combat weapons back when some new novel was released.
Goes to back up the point you/we were making, I guess.
Oh! And I just noticed I forgot to reply to your earlier post ...
ansacs wrote:I was actually referring to the "process" as a whole from start of SM candidate selection to having a SM. I wonder if the savageness or closeness to violence changes the likelihood of a success. This leading to a more thorough selection process being available for the most savage worlds.
Gotcha. Well, it is said that a Chapter invariably adopts some things from the culture of the local people - for example, before they were excommunicated and a purge mission was launched against them, the Sons of Malice began to introduce cannibalistic rites into their Chapter traditions. Supposedly this was something they picked up from the people they were recruiting from. Similarly, I could easily see a Chapter adopt tougher and more dangerous tests/trials if that's what the locals do. And needless to say, someone who is already accustomed to savageness and violence will have an easier time facing such challenges.
Whether or not this has any effect on the surgical part of the induction is probably debatable, but in case of the Fleshtearers ... well, their homeworld was described as "rivaling any deathworld known to man", yet of its people, only a small percentage reject the implanted organs. Coincidence, or connected? Might be worth a few thoughts. Here is the relevant Index Astartes entry.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Lynata wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Every time a space marine appears he does gak like this.
In most of their novels, sure.
As I said before, I believe general descriptions to be more accurate than individual incidents. That's just a personal interpretation, of course, but I hope I don't need to explain that "official averages" may be a better representation than one-offs. Especially considering Marc Gascogne's statement about legends and myths - even Codex fluff isn't reliable.
This is by no means something that applies only to the Space Marines; they just tend to hog the more epic and legendary feats as it fits the overall theme and their role in the setting. Do I believe that Canoness Aspira liberated a hundred worlds with only a thousand Sisters and no further backup just because that's what history says in the Codex? Nope. But it makes for a nice legend.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I don't know where you're getting this. They don't die of old age at all.
6th Edition rulebook page 181.
"With their genetically enhanced bodies, Space Marines live extended lifetimes - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two or three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Apparently to you mine is.Because you feel the need to see everything demystified (boring and really idiotic) doesn't mean everyone needs too. A lot of the codex stuff is boring compared to FFG and the novels and FFG are just as canon as anything is. I don't know why you don't comprehend this easy concept but whatever.
What concept, exactly? There is no canon - even one of the writers of the novels you like so much pointed that out.
But no, as difficult as it may be due to my personal preferences, I do not regard your vision as "wrong" - just that you are so utterly insistent on it being the only truth. So I am listing counterpoints to build a contradiction and at least help you see that there are other ways to perceive the setting, such as the one I am adhering to.
If you like Black Library epic stories more than GW's "boring" fluff, go ahead and enjoy it, but keep in mind that other sources say different things, and that it is GW's own material on the subject that is still more of a common ground between all of us than individual novels we may fancy.
Also, you may want to enjoy any BL book that does not feature Space Marines as protagonists.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I was quoting someone else who stated facts leading to my view, and I explained to him what GW intended us to take from this. Chill out, but seriously your misquoting nourishes me.
I didn't "misquote" - it was you who wrote that, and it is an exact copy of what you wrote.
If you simply fell victim to another poster's claims, that is of course something I can understand. The same things happen/ed to me, and unfortunately a lot of what gets propagated on dakka and other 40k forums is often just flawed hearsay...
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:This was back when space marines where only peak human and 7 ft tall instead of 8 ft tall. It's codex history.
Nope, 2nd Edition was Space Marines as we know them today. The armour details also never were "retconned" in any later source.
And today's Space Marines are still "only" 7 feet tall - in GW's fluff anyways.
No canon means everything is equally canon 
That's what I was implying.
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Post by: Veteran Sergeant
We talk like the writers of the fluff are talented writers who understand the genre, and not just guys churning out license fiction at a breakneck pace. Think about how many novels these guys are writing per year. How much effort do you think goes into any individual one? I imagine they aren't getting supremely lucrative book deals.
The author pitches an idea to TBL. TBL okays the idea. The author writes the book as quickly as possible. TBL copyedits it for grammar/spelling/diction errors, and then publishes it. It isn't like if the book sucks they send it back and say "Rewrite these parts." I wouldn't even be surprised if the copyeditors don't even work for TBL and they just outsource it, so the copyeditor doesn't recognize any inconsistencies.
So yeah, sometimes a Space Marine is made out of invincible. Other times he is made out of paper mache. Whatever, write me a check and let me get onto the next book.
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
Lynata, your views on Canon become more ridiculous every month. Nathanial Garroa is now mentioned in Codex: Chaos Space Marines. So he's canon but the like 3 novels and 5 audiobooks he's in aren't? Ditto on Commissar Gaunt?
Previously GW said The Emperor found about about Horus' betrayal because of the psychic death scream of the murder of Istvaan III. But actually it was Garro's Flight of the Eisenstein. As you can see the only think in 40K that isn't canon is GW's rulebooks and Codexs.
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Post by: Veteran Sergeant
Actually, Garro and Flight of the Eisenstein date back to the rulebook for Space Marine (Epic) in 1989.
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Post by: Lynata
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:No canon means everything is equally canon.
Yes, that is what I have been saying all the time. Feel free to go back to page 1 where I have explicitly stated this.
I'm sorry, but now I have trouble following you. Why do you feel a need to debate something you supposedly agree on? Or did I say something that made you think I don't?
KamikazeCanuck wrote:Lynata, your views on Canon become more ridiculous every month.
Care to elaborate? I am operating on what the people writing these books are telling us. What about you?
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
Because seemingly every thread has to have you saying something along the lines of "Oh, you're taking about the novels pffff". You're even aware of it leading in jokingly with "Can't resist:"
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Post by: Lynata
How is this in any way inconsistent with what I've been saying about "canon" since page 1?
My opinions on the novels and the contradictions they introduce should be widely known by now, and is it really that far-fetched to point out that it is quite normal for novels to have "plot armour" for their protagonists, thereby almost being expected to have them appear much more heroic than other sources of fluff make them out to be?
Me ridiculing various licensed products does not change anything about my "views on canon", so I don't see how the latter would supposedly have changed somehow.
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
Your views haven't changed that's the problem.
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Post by: Lynata
Then I don't see how they could have become "more ridiculous".
What I regard as "the problem" is the insistence on way too many people to treat the various sources as if they would indeed add to a single greater whole, expecting consistency and hard facts, rather than acknowledging the "manual" of how they are to be used, as provided by the various authors.
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
Except even the GW published material has just as many inconsistencies. You're just forgiving of them.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Lynata wrote:How is this in any way inconsistent with what I've been saying about "canon" since page 1?
My opinions on the novels and the contradictions they introduce should be widely known by now, and is it really that far-fetched to point out that it is quite normal for novels to have "plot armour" for their protagonists, thereby almost being expected to have them appear much more heroic than other sources of fluff make them out to be?
Me ridiculing various licensed products does not change anything about my "views on canon", so I don't see how the latter would supposedly have changed somehow.
You constantly look at the novels like they're less canon. You're not at all consistent. The novels are simply meant to expand even if you think they're silly. ( It's fantasy, it's not )
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Post by: Lynata
KamikazeCanuck wrote:Except even the GW published material has just as many inconsistencies. You're just forgiving of them.
I disagree. The licensed material has many more inconsistencies simply on the basis that you have way more people writing on them.
The more authors you add, all with their own ideas, and - unlike with GW - generally not discussed in a fixed team - the more individual interpretations you'll get.
Sure there have been changes and even mistakes in GW's own material, but to say they have been as numerous as the contradictions between BL novels is an exaggeration that does not hold up to the simple fact that more people equals more visions.
TheSaintofKilllers wrote:You constantly look at the novels like they're less canon. You're not at all consistent. The novels are simply meant to expand even if you think they're silly. ( It's fantasy, it's not )
I apologise if my posts somehow came across like that; this was not my intention. It merely grinds my gears when people attempt to use those novels as "evidence" to override something that my preferred material ( GW's own writings) is saying.
This is why - contrary to the majority of people engaging in debates like these - many of my posts have me pointing out the differences between the sources by specifically referring to the contradiction (e.g. "Your book may say that, but in GW's fluff [...]") rather than just waltzing in and consistently claiming "this is how it is, end of story". Again I refer you to page 1 where I posted one such disclaimer. Perhaps you've missed it.
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Post by: xruslanx
ansacs wrote:
This would be true if the IoM acts like modern day world with reliable, cheap communication to distribute ideas and reliable system to system transport. Instead what 40K has is the guilds and psykers who imperfectly communicate even relatively simple messages and loose ships in the warp for a few years here and there. This is a setting where you can go to one system and have a civilization of monguls and then skip over to another system and everyone and their brother has a valkyrie transport. Clearly the worth of commodities has no way to stabilize between systems and perhaps even worlds within a system.
I will give you a better example then. I have personally been to the UK and I live in the USA. The prices for food in the UK were and seemingly still are (considering your rice example) about 2-3x higher than the USA. This is a comparison of two wealthy advanced nations. Also do you really think farming subsidies actually has a significant effect? I can tell you that in the USA there are some farming subsidy programs and in several African nations there are farming subsidy programs...the prices for food in the USA are >10 times greater.
There are plenty of factors that go into the price of food, agricultural subsidies are just one of them. Regardless though, inbuilt in the cost of food is the cost of capital investment - American farmers still need to buy tractors, petrol for those tractors, fertiliser, paying farmhands, paying the engineer to come fix those tractors, painting the fence, etc. Similarly in the Imperium, food produced at any decent scale would require both capital and labour, which didn't just spring up out of nowhere. They would have to be paid for out of the cost of food, we can therefore say that food does indeed have value within the Imperium, just as it does in the real world. I'm sure it would vary from system to system, but that doesn't change the fundamentals of my argument - that human beings, by virtue of existing, represent substantial capital investment, so the statement "human life has no value in the Imperium of Man" is untrue.
Not that human life is still worth *less* than some things. Certainly a Leman Russ would probably be worth a hundred or so men, and a space marine maybe twice as much. But they're still not worthless, and certainly worth - in every sense of the word - more than their lasgun/equipment.
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Post by: ansacs
I never said they have no monetary value. In fact my entire question is what is the value of a human life in 40K?
Having said that you are considering a value model based upon a world view similar to our world. aka you are considering it where the people's time and the planet's energy could be traded for some unspecified amount of any produced substance in the IoM. I am pointing out that this may not be true. It is entirely possible for planet's to go for years without being able to trade with the IoM. This creates an interesting economic model where the value of the planet to the IoM is worth 0 in its current state and has no predictable potential worth. This is similar to the idea of the worth of the lives of the people in the Antarctic to the people of Bangladesh is essentially zero during the stone ages. The value of an individual's life to their community is usually much greater than to a nation, or a world, or a galaxy.
Another interesting phenomenon is that in 40K the bodies themselves do have a value if there is servitor tech available. The individuals literally have a worth to be mind-wiped and used as calculators.
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Post by: Psienesis
Human lives are an astoundingly plentiful, and easily replenished, resource in the 42nd millennium. Individually, their value is very, very low, on average, excepting certain very unique situations and scenarios.
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Post by: Peregrine
ansacs wrote:Having said that you are considering a value model based upon a world view similar to our world. aka you are considering it where the people's time and the planet's energy could be traded for some unspecified amount of any produced substance in the IoM. I am pointing out that this may not be true. It is entirely possible for planet's to go for years without being able to trade with the IoM. This creates an interesting economic model where the value of the planet to the IoM is worth 0 in its current state and has no predictable potential worth. This is similar to the idea of the worth of the lives of the people in the Antarctic to the people of Bangladesh is essentially zero during the stone ages. The value of an individual's life to their community is usually much greater than to a nation, or a world, or a galaxy.
The problem with that idea is that you're confusing moral worth and practical worth. Humans, even in our world, have little or no practical value. Other than a few trained experts (engineers, scientists, doctors, etc) whose value is based on the cost of replacing them the average person is worthless. If you don't have specialized training you can be replaced with negligible effort, and even most trained workers aren't all that hard to replace. Where people do have worth in our world is their moral value. We, as a society, believe that individual people have a right to live and value that right. We don't say that bombing a school to kill a suspected enemy is wrong because of the financial damage, we say it's wrong because you just murdered innocent children.
So, in your example the whole trade argument is irrelevant. Moral worth, the primary factor involved in "the worth of a human life", has absolutely nothing to do with the practical value you can extract from having that life continue to exist. Even a planet you can't trade effectively with should still have moral worth. The fact that the Imperium disagrees and places little or no moral value on human life is one of the reasons it's such an evil organization.
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Post by: TiamatRoar
Some Imperial Propaganda at least places a lot of moral value on human life, though. If you read tons of fluff pieces, they always include lines like "saved the loyal civilians", "Thanks to their efforts, tons of innocent lives were rescued", etc etc. For the most part, it appears the Imperium at least tries to pretend it values innocent lives a little for moral reasons. And that's assuming the fluff wording is propaganda. If the fluff wording is meant to be taken from an actual honest perspective of what the "Imperium" really feels, then the Imperium really DOES value lives at a moral level. It just is willing to do a lot of "I did what I had to do" in that case.
Here's the Inquisition report on the Siege of Vraks, for example:
"Herein follows an examination of the most lamentable Siege of Vraks, bastion and Armoury World of his most Divine Emperor, of the plans of those treacherous and heretical rebels that led to its downfall and the glorious sacrifice of the Emperor's Imperial Guard among the grim and hardy regiments of Krieg, and those misguided Mortals who have unwittingly venerated the Powers of Chaos, at a terrible cost in blood, but worst still - to the eternal damnation of their own souls."
As you can see, at least this inquisitor feels that the cost of the souls was worse than the cost of blood.
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Post by: Veteran Sergeant
The other thing to consider is that the societal cost of feeding people is more or less fixed unless you're planning to starve certain segments. People get replaced automatically. Two people have sex, make baby, new person. It would take monumental efforts of social engineering to stop that cycle. Do you think society benefits from a welfare mother having 8 kids? Of course not. But she is going to do it anyway. Even a stable family like the Duggars isn't creating any net value for society by having 18 or whatever kids they finally ended up popping out of her clown car womb.
So you're going to have a more or less continual supply of people, and figuring out how to feed them will be a fixed and assumed cost. That, however, doesn't mean each individual person actual holds the value that it costs to produce them. I'd imagine most people in 40K are being operated at a loss, so throwing them away in Tithes to the Guard is just reducing overhead, lol.
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Post by: Lynata
TiamatRoar wrote:For the most part, it appears the Imperium at least tries to pretend it values innocent lives a little for moral reasons.
Oh yes, it has to - humanity as a whole is the chosen species, after all. The bloody wars of conquest, the massive efforts spent on holding key worlds in the galactic theatre, everything revolves around saving humanity's place amongst the stars, and ultimately mankind as a whole. So I'd say that the single life, that of the individual soldier or civilian, is worth very little to the Imperium. However, "civilians" as a whole, the population of a city or an entire world, or generally any larger group of people suddenly begin to transcend this individual replaceability and to symbolically stand for "humans" as a whole. You can afford to waste hundreds or thousands of lives in the pursuit of the Imperium's greater good - but at some point, you do have to think about mankind as a whole.
Similarly, even an entire planet can be sacrificed, if this sacrifice is done to help preserve humanity as a species (and as represented by the Imperium of Man).
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Post by: ansacs
TiamatRoar wrote:Some Imperial Propaganda at least places a lot of moral value on human life, though. If you read tons of fluff pieces, they always include lines like "saved the loyal civilians", "Thanks to their efforts, tons of innocent lives were rescued", etc etc. For the most part, it appears the Imperium at least tries to pretend it values innocent lives a little for moral reasons. And that's assuming the fluff wording is propaganda. If the fluff wording is meant to be taken from an actual honest perspective of what the "Imperium" really feels, then the Imperium really DOES value lives at a moral level. It just is willing to do a lot of "I did what I had to do" in that case.
Here's the Inquisition report on the Siege of Vraks, for example:
"Herein follows an examination of the most lamentable Siege of Vraks, bastion and Armoury World of his most Divine Emperor, of the plans of those treacherous and heretical rebels that led to its downfall and the glorious sacrifice of the Emperor's Imperial Guard among the grim and hardy regiments of Krieg, and those misguided Mortals who have unwittingly venerated the Powers of Chaos, at a terrible cost in blood, but worst still - to the eternal damnation of their own souls."
As you can see, at least this inquisitor feels that the cost of the souls was worse than the cost of blood.
Interesting thing about that is they seemingly assign little to no moral value to the lives of the Krieg trainees. If you read the walking dead you learn that a common training is to send 2 bands of 12 year old krieg soldiers into the fallout and have them fight with live weapons until one group wins...supposedly less than half survive. I am therefore assuming this is propaganda as the IoM goes to rather great lengths not to expose what they do on worlds like Krieg.
That is a great quote though. Perhaps the souls of the people are what he bemoans as they went to fuel the chaos gods?
Peregrine wrote:The problem with that idea is that you're confusing moral worth and practical worth. Humans, even in our world, have little or no practical value. Other than a few trained experts (engineers, scientists, doctors, etc) whose value is based on the cost of replacing them the average person is worthless. If you don't have specialized training you can be replaced with negligible effort, and even most trained workers aren't all that hard to replace. Where people do have worth in our world is their moral value. We, as a society, believe that individual people have a right to live and value that right. We don't say that bombing a school to kill a suspected enemy is wrong because of the financial damage, we say it's wrong because you just murdered innocent children.
So, in your example the whole trade argument is irrelevant. Moral worth, the primary factor involved in "the worth of a human life", has absolutely nothing to do with the practical value you can extract from having that life continue to exist. Even a planet you can't trade effectively with should still have moral worth. The fact that the Imperium disagrees and places little or no moral value on human life is one of the reasons it's such an evil organization.
Veteran Sergeant wrote:The other thing to consider is that the societal cost of feeding people is more or less fixed unless you're planning to starve certain segments. People get replaced automatically. Two people have sex, make baby, new person. It would take monumental efforts of social engineering to stop that cycle. Do you think society benefits from a welfare mother having 8 kids? Of course not. But she is going to do it anyway. Even a stable family like the Duggars isn't creating any net value for society by having 18 or whatever kids they finally ended up popping out of her clown car womb.
So you're going to have a more or less continual supply of people, and figuring out how to feed them will be a fixed and assumed cost. That, however, doesn't mean each individual person actual holds the value that it costs to produce them. I'd imagine most people in 40K are being operated at a loss, so throwing them away in Tithes to the Guard is just reducing overhead, lol.
Actually there is a monetary value to a human life. If there was not a monetary value to a human life then slave markets would neither exist today nor have ever existed.
Or in other words even an untrained worker has a monetary value to their lives in that they can perform work for the cost of food. The monetary value of an individual changes depending on their ability for their work to be used and distributed through their society. This is why training is so important as it increases your utility. Speaking of the young and their monetary value is a discussion of future prospecting (very similar to investing in futures). Those children can return your investment if you apply said investment wisely. Some cultures have historically not valued peoples lives morally yet still they continued to have children. They were much more selective of if they "invested" in the child and said cultures usually had a hill they left children they deemed "bad investments".
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Post by: TiamatRoar
ansacs wrote:TiamatRoar wrote:Some Imperial Propaganda at least places a lot of moral value on human life, though. If you read tons of fluff pieces, they always include lines like "saved the loyal civilians", "Thanks to their efforts, tons of innocent lives were rescued", etc etc. For the most part, it appears the Imperium at least tries to pretend it values innocent lives a little for moral reasons. And that's assuming the fluff wording is propaganda. If the fluff wording is meant to be taken from an actual honest perspective of what the "Imperium" really feels, then the Imperium really DOES value lives at a moral level. It just is willing to do a lot of "I did what I had to do" in that case.
Here's the Inquisition report on the Siege of Vraks, for example:
"Herein follows an examination of the most lamentable Siege of Vraks, bastion and Armoury World of his most Divine Emperor, of the plans of those treacherous and heretical rebels that led to its downfall and the glorious sacrifice of the Emperor's Imperial Guard among the grim and hardy regiments of Krieg, and those misguided Mortals who have unwittingly venerated the Powers of Chaos, at a terrible cost in blood, but worst still - to the eternal damnation of their own souls."
As you can see, at least this inquisitor feels that the cost of the souls was worse than the cost of blood.
Interesting thing about that is they seemingly assign little to no moral value to the lives of the Krieg trainees. If you read the walking dead you learn that a common training is to send 2 bands of 12 year old krieg soldiers into the fallout and have them fight with live weapons until one group wins...supposedly less than half survive. I am therefore assuming this is propaganda as the IoM goes to rather great lengths not to expose what they do on worlds like Krieg.
That is a great quote though. Perhaps the souls of the people are what he bemoans as they went to fuel the chaos gods?
I can't help but think that you're looking at this a bit too pessimistically. Sometimes lamenting a tragic incident that led to eternal damnation of many imperial citizens' souls and thanking your soldiers for being grim and hardy and selflessly willing to sacrifice themselves against such a thing is simply just that.
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Post by: ansacs
TiamatRoar wrote:
I can't help but think that you're looking at this a bit too pessimistically. Sometimes lamenting a tragic incident that led to eternal damnation of many imperial citizens' souls and thanking your soldiers for being grim and hardy and selflessly willing to sacrifice themselves against such a thing is simply just that.
Perhaps...but then again this is grim dark so perhaps I am being too optimistic. I also here optimism in grimdark is extra heretical.
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Post by: Las
Lynata wrote:Melissia wrote:TheSaintofKilllers wrote:a standard battle brother will kill an entire Ork war band if he's smart and uses hit and run tactics
Not a "standard" battle brother. They die all the time to Orks.
Well, he could refer to the Space Marine videogame. According to its makers, a single Space Marine could defeat a million of Orks!
And these days, I actually believe that "most fluff" does indeed make the Marines that awesome - though that is just because "most fluff" these days comes from Black Library novels rather than GW's own books, and arguably novels that have larger-than-life heroes with plot armour sell better to the fans than the protagonist dying on page 5. This isn't something unique to the Space Marines, either ... it just affects them more because 90% of BL's books are about them. Look at how Gaunt's Ghosts dispatch CSMs by the dozen and we get an idea how Marines might be perceived if most books were about the Imperial Guard.
What? The only time a recall the Ghosts ever going head to head with power armour (aside from a main villain on one occasion) was during the Gereon mission. If I remember correctly everyone freaked the feth out and gak their pants and they only got out of the mess through determination and blind luck.
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Post by: Psienesis
IIRC, the HH series of novels makes the claim that a Space Marine is worth 10 regular soldiers of the Imperial Army.
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Post by: Spetulhu
As for the value of life, at least some Imperial Commanders seem to think they're supposed to save civilians if possible. There's at least two reports from the Armageddon campaign where others (an SoB Canoness and some IG officer) complains about how marines (Fleshtearers and Marines Malevolent) caused heavy collateral damage. The BA successors apparently let their Death Company loose on some orks attacking an outpost and they killed not only the orks but the local human militia too. And the MM started shelling a refugee camp orks had gotten into, killing 4000+ civilians along with the orks.
The human life isn't valuable because of some moral thing though, it's valuable because imperial dogma is that humanity will rule the galaxy. Killing perfectly good humans without a good reason sets that goal back, which is heresy.
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Post by: BlaxicanX
Psienesis wrote:IIRC, the HH series of novels makes the claim that a Space Marine is worth 10 regular soldiers of the Imperial Army.
The actual statement in question is from Rogal Dorn, saying that he'd take one space marine over ten Imperial Army troopers. edit- CSM have never been dispatched "by the dozen" in the Ghost's series. The Ghosts have only fought CSM on two separate occasions- in the first novel, where three were killed fighting the combined might of two regiments, and Gareon, where they did indeeed get crapped on in lulzy ways. But it's ridiculous to look at the Ghost series as a gauge of space marine treatmeant- Salvation's Reach has three space marines literally slaughter their way through an entire space station of troops by running down a long corridor shooting their bolters. Hardly a good look for the regular human.
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Post by: Lynata
BlaxicanX wrote:CSM have never been dispatched "by the dozen" in the Ghost's series. The Ghosts have only fought CSM on two separate occasions- in the first novel, where three were killed fighting the combined might of two regiments, and Gareon, where they did indeeed get crapped on in lulzy ways.
I guess I really need to stop blindly trusting the things people claim on dakka. Makes me wonder if that other WD story excerpt with the cultists overrunning a bunch of Astartes was really as the poster described.
But perhaps those GG statements were referring to this Gareon thing? You seem to have read it; perhaps you can expand on what exactly was to "lulzy".
Either way, I maintain that novel protagonists as well as characters have an undeniable tendency to be exactly as strong as required by the story. This isn't even purely a 40k thing, although I have a feeling that it may be stronger in this franchise due to the inherent potential of the equipment used, as well as a perceived "need" to make things "epic".
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Post by: Rune Stonegrinder
To answer your title for this thread (not to be taken seriously people)
The worth or value of human life is is equal to zero.
Humans are nothing more than playthings to be sacraficed and enslaved by the High Lords of Terra and thier Inquisition puppets. They can kill billions of thier own citizens and nobody seems to care. Not even the Emperor who might care for humanity more than them.
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Post by: TiamatRoar
 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:To answer your title for this thread (not to be taken seriously people)
The worth or value of human life is is equal to zero.
Humans are nothing more than playthings to be sacraficed and enslaved by the High Lords of Terra and thier Inquisition puppets. They can kill billions of thier own citizens and nobody seems to care. Not even the Emperor who might care for humanity more than them.
That's not true. Inquisitor Kryptman was censured and actually sent into exile because he exterminatus'd so many planets in an attempt to slow down Hive Kraken (before he came up with the idea of the Octarius war). The fluff mentioned "a genocide on the scale of the Horus Heresy" indicating it wasn't the territory but the human life that was a deciding factor in this. This is a GW studio fluff event, too.
Like-wise, the inquisitor in the Inquisition trilogy was sent into exile for using exterminatus on a planet without due cause (spoiler: He actually called it off when he realized he'd been tricked, but the villains arranged for it to go through anyways)
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Post by: Psienesis
Lynata wrote:BlaxicanX wrote:CSM have never been dispatched "by the dozen" in the Ghost's series. The Ghosts have only fought CSM on two separate occasions- in the first novel, where three were killed fighting the combined might of two regiments, and Gareon, where they did indeeed get crapped on in lulzy ways.
I guess I really need to stop blindly trusting the things people claim on dakka. Makes me wonder if that other WD story excerpt with the cultists overrunning a bunch of Astartes was really as the poster described.
But perhaps those GG statements were referring to this Gareon thing? You seem to have read it; perhaps you can expand on what exactly was to "lulzy".
Either way, I maintain that novel protagonists as well as characters have an undeniable tendency to be exactly as strong as required by the story. This isn't even purely a 40k thing, although I have a feeling that it may be stronger in this franchise due to the inherent potential of the equipment used, as well as a perceived "need" to make things "epic".
Basically, a Warband of CSM, who are occupying the planet, get killed by a combined force of about a dozen Ghosts, some stone-age Tribesmen who possess some archaeotech rail-gun crossbows ("reynbows") and the incredibly-potent toxins that the tribesmen gather from their swamp home. The CSM end up wrecking the village they attack and killing a bunch of faceless Tribesmen (a la Stormtroopers vs Ewoks), but end up getting killed by a combination of quick-thinking, resourcefulness, and Ghost badassery. Even for the GG series, it's a bit unbelievable.
In total, it's a half a dozen CSM, at best.
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
Lynata wrote:BlaxicanX wrote:CSM have never been dispatched "by the dozen" in the Ghost's series. The Ghosts have only fought CSM on two separate occasions- in the first novel, where three were killed fighting the combined might of two regiments, and Gareon, where they did indeeed get crapped on in lulzy ways.
I guess I really need to stop blindly trusting the things people claim on dakka. Makes me wonder if that other WD story excerpt with the cultists overrunning a bunch of Astartes was really as the poster described.
But perhaps those GG statements were referring to this Gareon thing? You seem to have read it; perhaps you can expand on what exactly was to "lulzy".
Either way, I maintain that novel protagonists as well as characters have an undeniable tendency to be exactly as strong as required by the story. This isn't even purely a 40k thing, although I have a feeling that it may be stronger in this franchise due to the inherent potential of the equipment used, as well as a perceived "need" to make things "epic".
The internet has really ruined that book which is a shame because its a good book. Ignore all references to it. You have to understand although a half dozen CSM are killed in it they are basically fighting 10 IG Special Characters including at least two that are on par with Sly Marbo if not better. The problem with just saying X number of so-and-so beat X number of So-and-Sos is there's no context. Context is everything.
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Post by: Psienesis
Yeah, I'm kind of giving the whole arc a short-shrift, in the way that it's handled on the page. It's not *terrible* per se, especially if you are of the sort who doesn't view Space Marines, of any variety, as god-like in combat.
The whole Gereon arc is one of my favorite of the Ghosts' adventures, second only to Hinzerhaus.
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Post by: Lynata
KamikazeCanuck wrote:You have to understand although a half dozen CSM are killed in it they are basically fighting 10 IG Special Characters including at least two that are on par with Sly Marbo if not better. The problem with just saying X number of so-and-so beat X number of So-and-Sos is there's no context. Context is everything.
Oh yeah, but that's my point exactly. Every protagonist in a novel is a special character - it just seems to me as if public perception is a bit skewed because there's (unsurprisingly, given the popularity) so many more Marine novels out there than others. In a way, it almost feels like a "parallel standard" that has been established over years where Black Library has slowly but surely supplanted GW's own fluff. The 8+ meter Marines are a good example of this phenomenon.
But I'll stop here as I'm starting to repeat myself.
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Post by: TheSaintofKilllers
Lynata wrote:KamikazeCanuck wrote:You have to understand although a half dozen CSM are killed in it they are basically fighting 10 IG Special Characters including at least two that are on par with Sly Marbo if not better. The problem with just saying X number of so-and-so beat X number of So-and-Sos is there's no context. Context is everything.
Oh yeah, but that's my point exactly. Every protagonist in a novel is a special character - it just seems to me as if public perception is a bit skewed because there's (unsurprisingly, given the popularity) so many more Marine novels out there than others. In a way, it almost feels like a "parallel standard" that has been established over years where Black Library has slowly but surely supplanted GW's own fluff. The 8+ meter Marines are a good example of this phenomenon.
But I'll stop here as I'm starting to repeat myself.
Do you mean 8+ feet? The tallest man in history was 8'11. And marines with gigantism would be a good 10 feet tall assuming they don't already have it.
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Post by: KamikazeCanuck
Lynata wrote:KamikazeCanuck wrote:You have to understand although a half dozen CSM are killed in it they are basically fighting 10 IG Special Characters including at least two that are on par with Sly Marbo if not better. The problem with just saying X number of so-and-so beat X number of So-and-Sos is there's no context. Context is everything.
Oh yeah, but that's my point exactly. Every protagonist in a novel is a special character - it just seems to me as if public perception is a bit skewed because there's (unsurprisingly, given the popularity) so many more Marine novels out there than others. In a way, it almost feels like a "parallel standard" that has been established over years where Black Library has slowly but surely supplanted GW's own fluff. The 8+ meter Marines are a good example of this phenomenon.
But I'll stop here as I'm starting to repeat myself.
Yes, I agree BL has supplanted GW for background creation. Embrace it Lynata!
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