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This was brought up in another thread and got me to thinking.

What justification is there in the fluff or otherwise that allows for the Space Marines to exist being that they are "abhuman" in most senses of the word.

Is it just because the Space Marines just "are"? or is there something definitive?

During the Great Crusade whole civilizations were exterminated because they appeared "tainted" and not just by Chaos... weren't they?

Is the Afrieli Strain canon? if so, how is this allowed?

What are the allowable limits of enhancement and modification in the Imperium?

Afriel Strain is not really 'allowed', but it is slightly tolerated.

If I remember right, it's specifically because of the fact that it's a 'genetic modification' intended for workers in specific climates.

Space Marines are not considered abhuman.

Why?

Because the Emperor himself used his Sciences to create the Primarchs and the Astartes.

Yeah Space Marines aren't abhumans, abhumans are humans that evolved over time to better suit their particular planet. Space Marines are humans who are transformed into super humans

Ok, so the justification is that genetic modification is permissible if done with the INTENT to change things to suit human purpose. It's not permissible if this happens through undirected separation from human intent... directed by Terrans. Darwinian changes, or genetic modifications outside the control of the imperium are simply not tolerated.

If this is so, weren't the Squats and Ratlings genetically modifed humans created to inhabit certain types of worlds? Weren't they created during the "Dark Age"?

Isn't the Afrieli Strain a "leadership genome"? Again, this would be covered in that Imperials created it there-by making it "ok".

Old fluff, but it's interesting to speculate.

Thanks for filling me in on this. I haven't been able to read every book yet, so gaps need to be filled!

squats, ogryns and ratlings are seperate evolutionary branches of humans that evolved to their worlds over the thousands of years they were seperated from the rest of humanity.

Afrieli Strain is man made but, they are on the knife edge of being heretical science seeming as they always fail in the end are pretty much as close to cloning as you can get and make every other human feel a bit off.

Space marines are not abhumans they are super humans, space marines are for all intent and purpose the grandchildren of the Emperor, they are his will in war, his angels of death and salvation. Anyone who tried to call for the total disbanding/killing of every space marine would be directly going against the will of the Emperor.

The way I see it is thus:

Born a Human -> Stay a Human dedicated to the Empire: What the Emperor expects of you.

Born a Human -> Turned into a Superhuman Space Marine dedicated to the Empire: A+ Good work soldier, the galaxy needs more like you.

Born a Human -> Mutate by Chaos or bad luck: Kill on site.

Born an Abhuman/Clone -> Kill if any answer is "No."
Are they dedicated to the Empire?
Are they useful to the Empire?
Do they look mostly/vaguely human?

The Gene-mod Afriels are the most awesome soldiers while still staying in the Human bracket. But awesomeness comes at the price of insane bad luck and no one liking your sorry lilly-pale maybe-cloned ass.

Its kind of up to the leader of a given group or planet to deicde exactly what is permissible as far as who is concidered just a bit too abhuman. Sure different people wwill have different ideas about just how far you can push the mixing up of the genepool, so it could be the case where a guard army has a few beastmen (as I recall this is anything that looks human enough, but horns, goat heads, cloven hooves etc is chaos territory), wheras on the other end you could have a guy who labels anybody who strays from the perfect human form a mutants-ie even people of a different ethnic race would be considered wrong. White Dwarf discribes abhumans as anything that differs from the human norm enough to be called something different, so in the case of ratlings they are common enough and stable enough to not be mutants, and different enough to be abhumans, but not so different that they are mutants, or in another case-put forward by White Dwarf- Nightsiders are people who live on planets with little to no light, so they have evolved to adapt to this; these folks may have pure black eyes-ie like the Night Lords-, albinos, completely balled, or have no apparent facical features, ie eyes etc, but they aren't that different to call mutants. Extra limbs, scales, three sets of eyes (apparently three eyes though is alright for some-the Navigatos being a rare case as they serve a purpose), and over intrusive deformaties show the influence of chaos to the Imperium or a tainted genepool, and thus must be culled. Sure in the perfect Imperium everybody would be in a state like humans today, but necessity and neglect leads to abhumans and mutants making it into the Imperial armies and society, so the bounds are pushed at times when concidering when concidering what is an acessible divergence of the genepool.

Anyhow....I recall there being an article in White Dwarf 301 or so all about abhumans (and how to include them in guard armies), as well as there being a similar article in another mag that I've come across a few times online, so looking up them may be enlightening. =P

I think that the issue about Space Marines being "mutants" is perfectly justifiable by changing the word "President" to the word "Emperor" in the Nixon quote:

"When the Emperor does it, that means that it's not illegal"

The difference being that in the Imperium this is a perfectly valid justification no matter the circumstances.

Accersitus wrote:I think that the issue about Space Marines being "mutants" is perfectly justifiable by changing the word "President" to the word "Emperor" in the Nixon quote:

"When the Emperor does it, that means that it's not illegal"

The difference being that in the Imperium this is a perfectly valid justification no matter the circumstances.

This is exactly how I see the present situation.

So much of what we know as readers is simply unknown to the inhabitants of the Imperium. What the present "Lords of Terra" decree to be righteous is like the US congress trying to get into the heads of our "founding fathers" over hundreds of years ago. Except the span is many millenia and not centuries and debased to suit present purposes... and we don't have George Washington on life support somewhere whispering into the ears of our leaders (except Glen Beck). What the Emperor didn't want, the 40k universe has in spades ... the Emperors deification.

... uh oh, maybe the "Lords of Terra" are really FOX News!

Sorry, I had to.

in 40K:

Abhumans = a stable branch of humanity that evolved that way and breed true (ie a ratling couple will have ratling children)

Mutants = humans that have been altered by genetic bad luck or taint of chaos into an unstable branch

Space marines - angels of death and salvation, protectors of humanity and the servants of Emperor.

Accersitus wrote:I think that the issue about Space Marines being "mutants" is perfectly justifiable by changing the word "President" to the word "Emperor" in the Nixon quote

Space marines by their very nature are not mutants in the 40k sence as they are neither born space marines or mutated by chaos into space marines. humans are made into space marines through surgery.

BluntmanDC wrote:in 40K:

Abhumans = a stable branch of humanity that evolved that way and breed true (ie a ratling couple will have ratling children)

Mutants = humans that have been altered by genetic bad luck or taint of chaos into an unstable branch

Space marines - angels of death and salvation, protectors of humanity and the servants of Emperor.

Accersitus wrote:I think that the issue about Space Marines being "mutants" is perfectly justifiable by changing the word "President" to the word "Emperor" in the Nixon quote

Space marines by their very nature are not mutants in the 40k sence as they are neither born space marines or mutated by chaos into space marines. humans are made into space marines through surgery.

I agree, bad choice of words from me there

Space marines are NOT abhumans.
They are BORN human and then modified. They don't start out with ALL of the SM mods. The special organs are ALL implants - their (human) genes do not create them naturally.

Squats and ogryns ARE born that way. It's in their genes.

SM are the freaks. They CHOOSE to be that way.

Choose isn't really the term... they are conscripted most of the time and if you want to survive you have to be a marine.

purplefood wrote:Choose isn't really the term... they are conscripted most of the time and if you want to survive you have to be a marine.

Are they conscripted? It seemed to me that many chapters select from volunteers and fight to be chosen. It's considered a pretty high honor. I imagine this isn't universally so, but don't the Blood Angels do this?

Oddly enough, you're description fits the Grey Knights. Those souls are saved from certain oblivion by being taken off the Black Ships. I think I have that right.

Uhlan wrote:

purplefood wrote:Choose isn't really the term... they are conscripted most of the time and if you want to survive you have to be a marine.

Are they conscripted? It seemed to me that many chapters select from volunteers and fight to be chosen. It's considered a pretty high honor. I imagine this isn't universally so, but don't the Blood Angels do this?

Oddly enough, you're description fits the Grey Knights. Those souls are saved from certain oblivion by being taken off the Black Ships. I think I have that right.

Each chapter does it differently i suppose...
SW take their recruits from the heroic and often barely alive natives after clan battles, they wouldn't survive without the Sw help and have no choise otherwise.
However in some chapters there is an element of choice admittedly...

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Yeah Space Marines aren't abhumans, abhumans are humans that evolved over time to better suit their particular planet. Space Marines are humans who are transformed into super humans

Except there was nothing like the timescale needed for that extent of evolution to take place, so Ogryns/squats/ratlings/beastmen would have had to have been genetically modified at some point.

The attitude of the Imperium has become less and less tolerant towards 'abhumans' with each passing edition of 40k - if you remember 1st edition (and 2nd edition epic for that matter) had regiments of beastmen fighting in the IG. Now it resembles some kind of religious zealotry in the attitudes towards the non-human, where the Imperium is essentially a big gang of flaming torch-holding yokels saying 'burn 'em!', which leads to all kinds of contradictions concerning the fact that abhumans are still tolerated in the armies. But, I guess you could tie it in nicely with the inherent nastiness of the Imperium and the 41st millenium!

purplefood wrote:

Uhlan wrote:

purplefood wrote:Choose isn't really the term... they are conscripted most of the time and if you want to survive you have to be a marine.

Are they conscripted? It seemed to me that many chapters select from volunteers and fight to be chosen. It's considered a pretty high honor. I imagine this isn't universally so, but don't the Blood Angels do this?

Oddly enough, you're description fits the Grey Knights. Those souls are saved from certain oblivion by being taken off the Black Ships. I think I have that right.

Each chapter does it differently i suppose...
SW take their recruits from the heroic and often barely alive natives after clan battles, they wouldn't survive without the Sw help and have no choise otherwise.
However in some chapters there is an element of choice admittedly...

Ha! the SW recruiting mechanism bears a strong resemblance to Nordic warriors, having been killed in combat, are then lifted off to Valhalla... To wage war on a never ending battlefield. Er, in a Valkyrie no less. .. LOL! ...wow.

Pacific wrote:

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Yeah Space Marines aren't abhumans, abhumans are humans that evolved over time to better suit their particular planet. Space Marines are humans who are transformed into super humans

Except there was nothing like the timescale needed for that extent of evolution to take place, so Ogryns/squats/ratlings/beastmen would have had to have been genetically modified at some point.

This isn't actually true, their are multiple examples of real world animals evolving relatively rapidly, and historical events such as the Africa to America slave trade show the effects of forced 'selective breeding' on humans.

Also this is SCIENCE FANTASY, 40K fluff trumps real world science.

and didn't ultramarine select prospective people
from the community in macragge, then marined them?
I remember reading it in a graphic nove