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Terra is Earth. The Sol sytem is this solar system. Pluto is part of Sol, but not part of Terra.

Ahh, this is from one of Forge World's books it seems?

Why don't people just say where they're drawing their info from - at least when it's been requested twice already.

In my opinion GW/BL simply doesn't want to update the Custodes since they are rarely used in fluff (Age of Apostasy and the SoB, and that one instance on Pluto), and therefore their lifespan is left unclear.

However if they were immortal, that means at least a few of the living custodes in the 41st millenium would know the entire history of the Imperium, and perhaps even the unification wars. That will leave the ancient 40K fluff with little room of flexibility - because everything they say will be factual.

P.S.:, who here can tell me what gears the Custodes wear? Because I have the Rogue Trader rulebook with me, and on page 135 it shows the custodes with bare chest, also the descriptions on page 139 would confirm that. So since when are they power-armour-wearing posthuman? Was it updated in a new codex, or was in a BL publication?

 lcmiracle wrote:

However if they were immortal, that means at least a few of the living custodes in the 41st millenium would know the entire history of the Imperium, and perhaps even the unification wars. That will leave the ancient 40K fluff with little room of flexibility - because everything they say will be factual.

It is entirely possible that they live shorter live than regular marines.

For marines, having a somewhat longer lifespan is a huge asset, as they can gain exprience and become great leaders. Sometimes they are deployed for exteremly long durraitons and having your soldier age would be impratcial.

Custodes on the other hand are never far from terra, so they are never far from resupply and new custodes(it's not like there is going to be a 400 year siege of the imperial palace). They arent gaining any exprience and they generally arent gaining leadership skills either.

When you engineer anything, it is all about trade offs. You want something to be stronger, faster, smarter, more resistant there is always a cost. It is possible that in making the Custodes stronger, faster, more resitant and larger than regular marines that they couldnt just make them cost more they might have had to sacrifise lifespan. You can overclock your CPU if you like, it will burn out faster.

Perhaps this is why the IoM doesnt use the Custodes making process for regular marines (they just might not last long enough to be deployed far from base)

Whoops, it was Lords of Decay, not Purge.

Apparently they just popped right out of the warp next to Pluto. No wonder why the Imperium keeps the sector so fortified when they have to put up with RANDOM HEART ATTACKS like that.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Lords_of_Decay

lcmiracle wrote:In my opinion GW/BL simply doesn't want to update the Custodes since they are rarely used in fluff (Age of Apostasy and the SoB, and that one instance on Pluto), and therefore their lifespan is left unclear. However if they were immortal, that means at least a few of the living custodes in the 41st millenium would know the entire history of the Imperium, and perhaps even the unification wars. That will leave the ancient 40K fluff with little room of flexibility - because everything they say will be factual.

Only in the eyes of all to many readers and fans. The authors and editors have repeatedly mentioned how even the direct dialogues in a novel with character X saying this or that are just one of many possibilities, as any and all official sources of fluff are intentionally treated as legends, myths and half-truths. This is both to allow authors greater flexibility and artistic licence as well as to easier manage the continuity of the IP and, last but not least, allow the gamers more freedom to create their own version of the 41st millennium without these sources forcing possibly unwanted details upon them.

I mean, Black Library is currently printing a novel series that features the Emperor and the Primarchs - they may just as well print one about Custodes now. The Codex fluff will apparently continue to pursue a more vague and thus universal retelling of the background.

The Custodes are likely not touched upon because they are but a minor asset in the background and, right now, nobody has much interest in them. This may well change as soon as an author thinks they are cool enough to write a novel about, just like it happened with the Adeptus Arbites - who else but Matthew Farrer has ever written books about them?

lcmiracle wrote:who here can tell me what gears the Custodes wear? Because I have the Rogue Trader rulebook with me, and on page 135 it shows the custodes with bare chest, also the descriptions on page 139 would confirm that. So since when are they power-armour-wearing posthuman? Was it updated in a new codex, or was in a BL publication?

As mentioned above, 40k tends to offer you multiple answers to this question.

The artbook accompanying the aforementioned Horus Heresy novels depicts them wearing a sort of heavy golden armour, but although much of the Rogue Trader background was changed in later editions as the setting of Wh40k formed and expanded, the bare-chested Custodes have re-appeared in images of later editions. Also depicted, however, were armoured guards within the Imperial Palace. These images had no subtext to accompany them, inviting theory and speculation, but together with the 2E Codex Imperialis bit I quoted earlier I would guess that these could be the normal Custodes, whereas the barechested ones are the "inner circle" of 300 who guard the Emperor directly, perhaps having cast off their armour as a form of penance for their failure to protect him, or because of some other tradition.

You are quite at liberty to come up with your own theories tho!

Exergy wrote:It is entirely possible that they live shorter live than regular marines.

Or that they are *gasp* not enhanced at all...

 Lynata wrote:
the barechested ones are the "inner circle" of 300 who guard the Emperor directly, perhaps having cast off their armour as a form of penance for their failure to protect him, or because of some other tradition.

It's just a big FU to the Emperor, who being a desiccated corpse and all, has to watch these 300 buff dudes strut around for all eternity.

 Exergy wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:

However if they were immortal, that means at least a few of the living custodes in the 41st millenium would know the entire history of the Imperium, and perhaps even the unification wars. That will leave the ancient 40K fluff with little room of flexibility - because everything they say will be factual.

It is entirely possible that they live shorter live than regular marines.

For marines, having a somewhat longer lifespan is a huge asset, as they can gain exprience and become great leaders. Sometimes they are deployed for exteremly long durraitons and having your soldier age would be impratcial.

Custodes on the other hand are never far from terra, so they are never far from resupply and new custodes(it's not like there is going to be a 400 year siege of the imperial palace). They arent gaining any exprience and they generally arent gaining leadership skills either.

When you engineer anything, it is all about trade offs. You want something to be stronger, faster, smarter, more resistant there is always a cost. It is possible that in making the Custodes stronger, faster, more resitant and larger than regular marines that they couldnt just make them cost more they might have had to sacrifise lifespan. You can overclock your CPU if you like, it will burn out faster.

Perhaps this is why the IoM doesnt use the Custodes making process for regular marines (they just might not last long enough to be deployed far from base)

Your line of argument is flawed. Astartes are easier to produce than Custodes (the Custodes process is describe as more intricate, like hand-crafting every single on, and not suitable for the huge manpower demands of the crusade). And they get send into bloody battles all the time (compared to the often more clandestine work of the Custodes), meaning they die a lot more often (meaning, by causes other than old age). So long lifespans are actually less of an asset to them, and also their loss isn't quite as costly (economically speaking) as that of a Custodes.
Ofc, the Astartes DO have a very long lifespan, which brings us to the "trade-offs" argument. While comparing genetic engineering to setting a multiplier in your BIOS is more than a little problematic, it seems like 40k does a times work like that, so whatever. But since more work (and possibly more complex technology) is involved in making Custodes, why couldn't they be better than Astartes at everything? Or to use your comparison, overclock the single-core ARM in an old smart phone as much as you want, it will never beat an Intel i3, because it wasn't engineered to, but you can easily make a lot more of them for the same price.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Only by people who don't read the fluff in the rulebook, or who simply prefer their own or some novel author's ideas because GW Marines aren't cool enough..

"Space Marines live extended lifetimes - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two to three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."
- 6E 40k Rulebook p.181

The immortality bit probably comes from the same sources as the "Space Marines are 8+ feet high". I recall the "service studs" on a Space Marine's skull denoting 100 years of service to the Emperor - feel free to click through the miniature selection on GW's website and count the average number of studs.

Try not to let your contempt be so transparent. That you prefer the codex fluff is fine, but you don't have to let your hatred for other works seep into all your posts.

Also, note the "easily". and the "far longer".

Anyway, no fluff I have seen directly indicates Marines are truly immortal. A few works discuss the subject, like Horus Rising, where Loken notes that they are far longer-lived than humans, but as of yet no Marine has died of old age so any limits on their lifespan can not be accurately predicted.

As for the Custodes, I have never, not once, seen the lifespan of their order brought up.

So, beats me.

I'm currently reading Horus Rising again, and Loken makes comments that a Space Marine is immortal, but won't ever really be immortal as they will die in battle (I don't remember who, but he and someone else denote the irony of it).

Dante, as noted is quite old.
Chaplain Cassius is noted for looking and seeming ancient but still having youthful vigour at ~800 years of age
Iacton Qruze is noted as being 'old' at over 500 years of age, but he's fully capable when he wants to be

So, who knows?

KhornedBeef wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:

However if they were immortal, that means at least a few of the living custodes in the 41st millenium would know the entire history of the Imperium, and perhaps even the unification wars. That will leave the ancient 40K fluff with little room of flexibility - because everything they say will be factual.

It is entirely possible that they live shorter live than regular marines.

For marines, having a somewhat longer lifespan is a huge asset, as they can gain exprience and become great leaders. Sometimes they are deployed for exteremly long durraitons and having your soldier age would be impratcial.

Custodes on the other hand are never far from terra, so they are never far from resupply and new custodes(it's not like there is going to be a 400 year siege of the imperial palace). They arent gaining any exprience and they generally arent gaining leadership skills either.

When you engineer anything, it is all about trade offs. You want something to be stronger, faster, smarter, more resistant there is always a cost. It is possible that in making the Custodes stronger, faster, more resitant and larger than regular marines that they couldnt just make them cost more they might have had to sacrifise lifespan. You can overclock your CPU if you like, it will burn out faster.

Perhaps this is why the IoM doesnt use the Custodes making process for regular marines (they just might not last long enough to be deployed far from base)

Your line of argument is flawed. Astartes are easier to produce than Custodes (the Custodes process is describe as more intricate, like hand-crafting every single on, and not suitable for the huge manpower demands of the crusade). And they get send into bloody battles all the time (compared to the often more clandestine work of the Custodes), meaning they die a lot more often (meaning, by causes other than old age). So long lifespans are actually less of an asset to them, and also their loss isn't quite as costly (economically speaking) as that of a Custodes.
Ofc, the Astartes DO have a very long lifespan, which brings us to the "trade-offs" argument. While comparing genetic engineering to setting a multiplier in your BIOS is more than a little problematic, it seems like 40k does a times work like that, so whatever. But since more work (and possibly more complex technology) is involved in making Custodes, why couldn't they be better than Astartes at everything? Or to use your comparison, overclock the single-core ARM in an old smart phone as much as you want, it will never beat an Intel i3, because it wasn't engineered to, but you can easily make a lot more of them for the same price.

But Custodes and Astartes are made with the same level of tech. Both were initially created when the imperium had a fairly high level of tech and then have not changed since. Neither one was an improvement on the other. One isnt newer, more advanced or more modern, so I dont by the i3 vs old ARM chip. Sure a supercharged 4 cylander is not going to beat a V12 but we are starting with humans in both case. Each enhancement is making something better, but like overclocking or supercharging some of those enhancements have negative effects to tie along.

It is entirely possible that Custodes are flat better than Astartes in everything, including life span. I am just pointing out that it is also possible that Custodes are better than Astartes in MOST things, and worse in other, possibly lifespan

@exergy: Gave it another thought and yes, Custodes might have inevitably weaknesses due to their “turbocharged “ physique, including burning out faster. Yet, I must still refute your statement that longer lifespan on regular marines is more of an asset, for the reasons given above. Ofc, they need time to accumulate martial knowledge, but custodes need experience to improve their performance as well. luckily, given their training process and enhanced mental capabilities, both are already doing well in that regard.

Maniac_nmt wrote:Chaplain Cassius is noted for looking and seeming ancient but still having youthful vigour at ~800 years of age
Iacton Qruze is noted as being 'old' at over 500 years of age, but he's fully capable when he wants to be

"Chaplain Cassius is the oldest active member of the Ultramarines Chapter. What little of his skin can be seen amid the life-sustaining bionics is gnarled and battle-scarred, and his one good eye burns with unfulfilled vengeance. Though Cassius is close on four centuries of age, his arm remains strong, his aim remains true and his sturdy presence within the Ultramarines' battlelines fills the hearts of his younger brethren with pride and valour."
- 5E C:SM, p 87

The other one is a character from Black Library novels, so I can't comment on him.

Exergy wrote:But Custodes and Astartes are made with the same level of tech. Both were initially created when the imperium had a fairly high level of tech and then have not changed since.

Technically, if one were to go by GW fluff ...

"Although a Chapter's Apothecaries and surgeons are able to perform the necessary implant operations, they do not necessarily understand the exact functioning of each organ. The processes involved are incredibly ancient. Procedures are handed down from generation to generation, becoming increasingly ritualised and misinterpreted. For these reasons, the efficiency of each organ differs from Chapter to Chapter, depending on the condition of that Chapter's gene-seeds and the degree of debasement of its surgical procedures."
- WD #247

This, for example, makes certain theories possible, such as that perhaps all Space Marines were once supposed to be as long-lived as the Blood Angels, but only the BA actually managed to retain the efficiency of their rejuvenation protocols, whereas everyone elses fell victim to the ongoing technological recession. It could be quite possible that Terra as the capital of the Imperium and the single-most important world has maintained this knowledge as well, or to an even more superior degree, and would use it on the Custodes.
That is, if one follows the idea that the Custodes are somehow engineered at all. I know some BL novels are apparently pushing this concept, but I'm still not sure what to think of it.

Aren't Custodes vat-grown rather than being augmented humans?

even normal, albeit wealthy/privilaged, humans can get rejuve treatments to live 100's of years.

while not immortal, living 1000's of years is not out of the question

there are one or two stories about limited custodes operations off of earth, the GK omnimbus has one custode lead an expedition of some sort, surly there are other limited in scope operations that they undertake.

I believe that space marines, custodes, and primarchs are all functioning immortals physiologically speaking. However, they are vulnerable to being killed by a bullet or blade, not very easily, but they are vulnerable. Hence, most of them are only a few hundred years old.

In the horus heresy series Garro talks about having been a part of the thunder warriors legion, dusk raiders. the thunder warriors were space marines before space marines on terra, during the reunification wars, before the emperor went out into space for the great crusade.

Also, the rogue dark angel cypher is at least 10,000 years old having been around since before the heresy actually started.

The custodes can leave terra. They are by the emperor's side at all times. During the great crusade they fought with him. However, now that the emperor is in the golden throne i would suspect that the custodes stay there permanently. I would also suspect that since custodes physiology is more complicated than that of a space marine they cannot be recreated anymore, therefore there is a good chance that the custodes have been around since their creation.

Just some thoughts.

A regular Sergeant of the Salamanders, Gravius, lived for 10k and only died because he sat in a chair for the majority of his time, instead of exercising his legs every once in a while. I'd imagine SM and by extension Custodes can live a hell of a lot longer than three times the human lifespan.

Well, the designers from Games Workshop obviously seem to think differently...

But that shouldn't surprise anyone. Contrary to popular belief, 40k does not have a uniform "canon". Anything we read, regardless of where, is merely a possibility.

The only thing we have to go off is the fact that to our knowledge, no Marine has ever died of old age. We do, however, have considerably more examples than none of them living hundreds of years, thousands in some outlying cases.

Well, we can attribute a similar longevity to some non-Marine humans, and off the top of my head I cannot recall a natural death for anyone either.
People dying of old age isn't exciting enough to be put in the fluff, I guess. Personally, I do not need a specific example when I am presented with a general rule, though (as much as it may only be applied to GW's own writings).

Even an off-hand mention of a guy who was too old to fight (which AFAIK has only happened sort of once, and it was in Brotherhood of the Snake) would suffice, but the rule is seemingly violated too many times to be a general standard imo.

TheSGC wrote:
A regular Sergeant of the Salamanders, Gravius, lived for 10k and only died because he sat in a chair for the majority of his time, instead of exercising his legs every once in a while. I'd imagine SM and by extension Custodes can live a hell of a lot longer than three times the human lifespan.

Yeah, that...odd piece of fluff imho (Indiana Jones and the last Crusade anyone?). My interpretation is that he survived this long because he didn't exert himself. It's possible that the Astartes physiology works differently from ours. Or even more likely, he used his Sus-an membrane. Another piece of fluff states that one Silas Err of the Dark Angels hibernated for 567 after he was left behind after a battle. He was found and lived.

BRB states that unless killed, Space Marines may live three times as long as normal humans, and BA codex says that those wit Blood Angels geneseed have longer lifespans than other marines. To me this makes it pretty clear that they have finite lifespans.