Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Its probably been asked before, but i find the lifespans some of these special characters have to be outrageous, even for genetically enhanced superwarriors..

Anyone have any explanations?

The Primarch's were virtual demigods and the blood of the primarchs flows through the men of the Space Marines. Other men are simply kept alive by the sheer amount of cybernetics implanted in them. Eldar have thousands of years for life spans. Tau only have 40yrs or so. Orks live until killed.

One of the chief areas of human science has been extending the lifespan. It stands to reason that this trend would continue right up until the annihilation of science as we know it at the end of the Dark Age of Technology. Pretty much all the Imperial fluff presents characters that grow incredibly old. DH and the modern RT, for example, both include instances of characters that are well past 100 and still performing leadership and administrative duties. Yarrick comes to mind as well: more than eighty years old and still fighting.

Its not just cybernetics its pharmacuticals, it makes sence that in a galaxy like this the IoM would want its best and brightest living as long as possible

There is such a thing in the IoM called Juvenat drugs which keep a person full of youthful energy and keeps them young (ish)

Also, Space Marines just don't age as we know it. I don't think I've ever heard of one dying of old age. Not that they're human and all that, but it does show that it's capable in the setting to produce such an ageless effect.

I forget where I read it, but it states that Space Marines are, in theory, functionally immortal.

I'd think that the lifespan of an average Imperial citizen depends on his\her homeworld. (ie. Deathworlds like Baal and whatnot)

Space Marines are eithr immortal or can get really old.
Dante is 2000 (Though that might be old fulff)
And Logan Grimnar is over 700 years.

Space Marines never die of old age. Thats why ulfrik, logan and dante are around.

Although its the chaos marines that have the real oldies.
Lucius the eternal
Fabius bile
Abbadon the despoiler
maybe typhus?
Where all around in the heresy so they are at least 10000 years old.

ChocolateGork wrote:Space Marines never die of old age. Thats why ulfrik, logan and dante are around.

Although its the chaos marines that have the real oldies.
Lucius the eternal
Fabius bile
Abbadon the despoiler
maybe typhus?
Where all around in the heresy so they are at least 10000 years old.

The chaos dudes don't count since the eye of terror messes up time so to them it's only been a few decades.

Mechanicum general fabricators are many centuries old and are almost completely machine by that point.

Space marines are not immortal, but might as well be. Different chapters seem to live for different lengths of time. The blood angels are far longer lived than say the Ultramarines. Dantes 1000-2000 years old and chaplain cassius (the oldest ultramarine) is only around 300-400 years old. As others have said, important members of the imperium have access to rejuvenating drugs.

Commisars have live extending implants and drugs put into them. Thats why yarrick is still fighting.

And i have never ever heard of a space marine dying of old age.

In fact different space marines age differently even if they are in the same chapter. Some can be hundreds and look 20 and some can be hundreds and look 80

IIRC in Eisenhorn at one point he mentions that he's about 180 or so and for 'privileged' imperial citizens thats early middle ages.
I think there was also a marine or something in the 1st salamanders book who had been sitting in a chair in a crashed ship since the heresy but he was pretty much dead.

jonolikespie wrote:IIRC in Eisenhorn at one point he mentions that he's about 180 or so and for 'privileged' imperial citizens thats early middle ages.
I think there was also a marine or something in the 1st salamanders book who had been sitting in a chair in a crashed ship since the heresy but he was pretty much dead.

yer it says in the deamonhunter codex that an inquisitor usually has to be over 100 before he can start training apprentices

It depends entirely on the living conditions, planetary conditions (atmospherics and stuff) and of course medical science.

eg: A factory worker living on a polluted mechanicum forge world in a cramped hive city with little medical concern from the hive govenors
might last 50 years.
Whereas the govenor of a small farming village living an easygoing life on an agricultural world with no pollution and a futuristic hospital
complete with a cybernetics laboratory half hour down the road would easily last 200.

cadian512 wrote:It depends entirely on the living conditions, planetary conditions (atmospherics and stuff) and of course medical science.

eg: A factory worker living on a polluted mechanicum forge world in a cramped hive city with little medical concern from the hive govenors
might last 50 years.
Whereas the govenor of a small farming village living an easygoing life on an agricultural world with no pollution and a futuristic hospital
complete with a cybernetics laboratory half hour down the road would easily last 200.

I think it's more f a oney and power thing rather than living conditions...

Depends on roles and species and habitats. For instance, most fire warriors won't live to old age as they are killed in battle.

If a SM isn't killed, I believe the fact that they are superhumans, can slightly regenerate, and have drugs and mechanics in them can keep them alive indefinitely.

Some things, like Daemon Princes, are immortal, like eldar.

Also, Wulfen have been in the warp, so time was messed up for them too- the 13th company was around in the heresy.

If Magos Bure is any example, they can replace any organ with a cybernetic replacement, to the extent that Bure, and other high-ranking members of the Cult Mechanicus, are just brains in robot bodies. One might wish to assume, then, that any disease is curable simply by cutting out the afflicted part of the body and putting in a bionic replacement.

It would seem that such cybernetic replacements, depending on the model, are of sufficient quality to match the natural organ, and in some cases, can even be superior to the original - and groups such as the Tech-Priests or Iron Hands deliberately seek such replacements for this reason. If you look at the Inquisitor rulebook, it actually spends a few pages discussing bionics, and they appear to be viable replacements for everything. Even the brain - they are capable of replacing portions of the brain with cybernetic replacements to keep the person alive, though obviously they wouldn't do this with the whole brain as that's getting into the realm of sentient AI.

Beyond that, clone body parts are also feasible as replacements. Eisenhorn gets a clone hand after his original hand is cut off in Missing in Action, courtesy of Crezia Berschilde. One might reasonably conclude that they can replace any deficient body part with a cloned replacement. After all, they did it with a hand, we know they're capable of cloning people in their entirety, and we know they're capable of getting the body to accept a robotic substitute, so how hard can a clone of the original part be? I like to take this to the level that a Space Marine has no problem with, oh, getting an arm sliced off if it means completing the mission, because as soon as he gets back the Apothecarion can just fix him up with a new one.

As for lifespan, I believe the longest we've seen an unaugmented human live is 763 years. The particular person is Verinath, a Revivificator inquisitor mentioned in the Thorian Sourcebook. It's worth pointing out that Verinath didn't die of old age, too. He was apparently hale and hearty at the time he was finally assassinated. Nonetheless, Verinath's lifespan was considered to be remarkable, and I'd estimate the reasonable maximum for a character with juvenat to be about five hundred years or so.

Beyond that, Dante is supposed to be over 1100, but the Blood Angels do extend their lives through their stasis coffins, so it's unlikely he actually lived for all that time. Magos Bure, from Malleus, is also likely to be older than Verinath.

Eisenhorn omnibus, p. 451
Magos Bure had been a metallurgy specialist for two hundred years, his knowledge and discoveries almost worshipped by his brethren in the tech-priesthood. Before that, he had been a fabricator-architect in the Titan forges of Triplex Phall. To my certain knowledge, he was almost seven hundred years old. Hapshant had occasionally hinted that Bure was far older than that.

Verinath, I would assume, is remarkable because he lived for over seven hundred years without undergoing such total bionic replacement.

Then, of course, it's occasionally suggested that Space Marines are biologically immortal and will never die of old age, but I consider that nonsense . The Heresy novels are one source that suggest Marines are immortal, but others do cap Space Marine lifespan, so make of it what you will.

Beyond all this, I would add that only the wealthiest people in the Imperium have access to this sort of medical technology. Inquisitors, planetary nobility, great military or religious leaders, and so on. It's only the very upper tier of Imperial society with lifespans measured in the centuries and caches of spare body parts for if they ever get injured or sick. Technology is not evenly distributed across the Imperium.

Also an 89 year old noble in one of the Eisenhorn short stories was considered 'young', but 'remarkably intact' with a lack of Juve drugs, Augments, etc.

Then we this sort of nonsense(then we have rouge faction trying to do Proteus Protocol,basically a mind upload in one of Dark Heresy books).

Life beyond death (Or, at least, sentience):

Eisenhorn, page 128
Aemos nodded. 'It is not beyond the highest Imperial technologies to maintain a sentience after great physical injury, or even death.'

Preservation of Youth (No warp sorceries involved):

Eisenhorn, Page 275
Alizebeth Bequin was by that time one hundred and twenty-five years old. She was still as beautiful and as active as she had been in her thirties, thanks to discreet augmentic surgery and a regime of juvenat-drugs.

In a BL book about the Salamanders, titled Salamander, creative right, they find a marine who has been alive since before the Horus Heresy. He had been sitting on a throne for the last ten thousand years and was unable to walk, or move his arms and legs in any ways.

I guess that is what happens to Space Marines who live for thousands of years without medical care. They crumble away.

If you were born on Cadia, however, you could die at any moment.

undivided wrote:If you were born on Cadia, however, you could die at any moment.

If you were born on a Krone world you'd be sacrificed at any moment

The fluff does indeed state that Space Marines are mortal but it varies from chapter to chapter not to mention any enhancement and/or augmentations they received along the way.

Generally for the Ultramarines it was mentioned that they start looking old at about 300 years. For the Blood Angels is over 1000 years. I'm sure it varies from there. It is mentioned that marines in their old age are often pulled from active duty and serve in the chapter's administration in non-combat or support roles or as fleet captains and commanders. However, it's safe to assume there are no retirement homes for Space Marines.

High ranking member of the Adptus Mechanicus can live to be over 1000 year but as noted before they're basically just brains in a jar at the point (and also a little screwy too ).

As for Inquisitors the sky's the limit.

Now someone like you or me, we'd be dead by now....

Machinator wrote: However, it's safe to assume there are no retirement homes for Space Marines.

Retired Space Marine chapter gets the option of power cane as a close combat weapon.

Bike squad? Try Rascal squad.

A dreadnought with a walker? Entirely possible.

Looncoon wrote:
A dreadnought with a walker? Entirely possible.

That's it, next venerable dread is getting a cane. Or a walker if I can think of a way to make it serious enough to actually field.

Lonecoon wrote:

Machinator wrote: However, it's safe to assume there are no retirement homes for Space Marines.

Retired Space Marine chapter gets the option of power cane as a close combat weapon.

Bike squad? Try Rascal squad.

A dreadnought with a walker? Entirely possible.

I beg your pardon,it is said that there are Marines which are too damaged to serve and who act as a mentors to new recruits.

IvanTih wrote:

Lonecoon wrote:

Machinator wrote: However, it's safe to assume there are no retirement homes for Space Marines.

Retired Space Marine chapter gets the option of power cane as a close combat weapon.

Bike squad? Try Rascal squad.

A dreadnought with a walker? Entirely possible.

I beg your pardon,it is said that there are Marines which are too damaged to serve and who act as a mentors to new recruits.

That is very true, but I wouldn't call it retirement. It's fair to say that marines don't get to rest until they are dead...or entombed in a dreadnought and placed in a stasis field. Whichever comes first.

True, but mostly they get put in dreads.

As to aging, SW go grey sooner than most, but that's just their gene seed.

Asgeirr Darkwolf wrote:True, but mostly they get put in dreads.

As to aging, SW go grey sooner than most, but that's just their gene seed.

Only if they are champions or great heros are they rewarded with a dreadnought. If you were a mediocre tactical marine and were lucky enough to survive the battelfields long enough to retire from active duty I don't know what they'd do with you. Chapter Master's bathroom attendant maybe?

Speaking of SW, if I remember right their fangs continue to grow throughout their lifetime (hence why the old fogies are called the Longfangs). Can you imagine if they never died? They'd all look like walruses.

Asgeirr Darkwolf wrote:True, but mostly they get put in dreads.

As to aging, SW go grey sooner than most, but that's just their gene seed.

Dreadnoughts are a very rare technology, and it's a great privilege to get put in one. If Plain Dude McTacMarine catches a autocannon shell to the chest, he's not gonna become a Dreadnought by any stretch of the imaginations. If they could heal him they would, but otherwise it's the Emperor's Mercy followed by harvesting his progenoids.

But yeah, it all depends on who you are and where you're from. If you're more powerful/important you tend to live longer, thanks to Imperial technology. You're kinda screwed otherwise....