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This is probably an obvious question and feel free to be all *facepalm* about it, but did the SM have family lives after they become Astartes? Or does it become a distinct sausage-fest after that point?

No. People become Space Marines before they end puberty. It's how the gene-seed works.

It's possible a chapter might recruit female serfs if the planet has a strong tradition of women fighters. They would crew the ships and defend them if the SM aren't aboard.

Eons ago, sometime in the 30th Millenium if I recall (ech showing my age), there was a Rogue Trader supplement book with a section similar to the fluffy bit in the modern SM Codex where it goes into biology and all the funky little organs. It also had a section about various shipboard positions in a SM force. One of these was a picture of a not-exactly-hot kind of half-servitor-half-skank-half-nurse looking thing they called the 'bed-nurse' who tends to the needs of wounded space marines as they heal (whatever needs they are I suppose was best left undetailed). That's the closest thing I know to any kind of relationships for marines except with other marines, serfs (or thralls or whatever they are called for the chapter) or, occasionally some interraction with command staff of the IG. For the most part, I think they are just a brotherhood of brothers and extremely insular in that regard.

Depends what chapter it is...
Salamanders and Space Wolves are probably the most human of all the chapters.
Other chapters are far more aloof and some chapter vary from individual to individual e.g. Ultramarines

Answer is no. When one is taken for the Space Marines, to his family he is well as dead.

Brother Coa wrote:Answer is no. When one is taken for the Space Marines, to his family he is well as dead.

Not always true.
The people on Macragge for example make a point of remembering those of their family that have gone to join the Ultramarines they might never see them again but they don't treat them as dead.

It is implied that Salamanders and Space Wolves at least have "Intimate" relationships.


The Salamanders might actually raise their own families, members of the Chapter often spend years living amoung the people of Nocturne. for the Space Wolves it would be more of a one night stand.




in 95% of marines, most likely not. they have been basically brainwashed out of normal human desires.

To be sure, they still have the equipment.

in 95% of marines, most likely not. they have been basically brainwashed out of normal human desires.

To be sure, they still have the equipment.

grey templar, i hope they do , becasue i dont think anybody would want to be a spacemarine, if it was in the opposite case. ( losing your equipment).

samuele999 wrote:

in 95% of marines, most likely not. they have been basically brainwashed out of normal human desires.

To be sure, they still have the equipment.

grey templar, i hope they do , becasue i dont think anybody would want to be a spacemarine, if it was in the opposite case. ( losing your equipment).

They don't really get a choice most of the time.

Some do.

The astartes view other members as family. If the chapter has human staff it may be possible they would be viewed as family. Any females would be seen as sisters rather than in a romantic way as SM have any emotions that don't help in war suppressed.

Some chapters have ties with their planets human populations. One of the salamanders main differences is that they live among the humans on nocturne. While they don't live with the humans (they have seperate facilities) they look after their own group of humans (I believe, this may be older fluff) which they see as a family.

Grey Templar wrote:
To be sure, they still have the equipment.

Given the SM creation process involves what is roughly equivalent to massive injections of steroids on top of emperor-only-knows what else for chemical treatments, I doubt it. I'd imagine in a lot of cases they'd be lucky to be let with something that resembles a vanilla bean.

I think the Puberty-geneseed thing is not necessarily true. I do believe a couple of the notable doods in the Horus Heresy were adults when made space marine i just think it is more risky than an adolescent. In fact in nearly all the IA articles it meantions how a Primarchs best warriors were made into space marines to supplement the terran portion of their legion. IIRC Kor Phaeron suffered some sort of side effects to getting 'seeded' in adulthood.

the adult marines weren't made full marines.


they were given implants and modifications to bring them up, almost, to astartes levels of Str and resiliance. nevertheless, they weren't true marines(who still stood a head taller) as they didn't carry geneseed.

IThe only relationships I've read about space marines having is a sibling relationship, so a space marine might have a sister relationship with a female crew member, but that's stretching it. Ties to old family are, for the most part, forgotten or cut off.

When they are chosen for a chapter as a child,the chapter becomes their family.Some,such as the Salamanders,live alongside people as has been said.Others will just have an outpost and a selection ground on a recruitment planet and only have contact when choosing more aspirants.

purplefood wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Answer is no. When one is taken for the Space Marines, to his family he is well as dead.

Not always true.
The people on Macragge for example make a point of remembering those of their family that have gone to join the Ultramarines they might never see them again but they don't treat them as dead.

That isn't a family life from the SM's point of view, though. Unless his extended family send him Christmas cards and stuff, and he goes home on leave occasionally.

Kilkrazy wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Answer is no. When one is taken for the Space Marines, to his family he is well as dead.

Not always true.
The people on Macragge for example make a point of remembering those of their family that have gone to join the Ultramarines they might never see them again but they don't treat them as dead.

That isn't a family life from the SM's point of view, though. Unless his extended family send him Christmas cards and stuff, and he goes home on leave occasionally.

Depending on their respective ranks he might actually see them regularly... admittedly it would be massively unlikely...

I'd say no.

If the imperial guard don't get a family life because they're constantly fighting, and when on leave just go to the nearest planet and drink for a few weeks, then I would sincerely doubt a space marine, who is required probably all the time due to their small numbers, would have time to raise a family, or even write to them.

purplefood wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

That isn't a family life from the SM's point of view, though. Unless his extended family send him Christmas cards and stuff, and he goes home on leave occasionally.

Depending on their respective ranks he might actually see them regularly... admittedly it would be massively unlikely...

We need some evidence for it.

There is an awful lot of speculation masquerading as fact in this thread.

Kilkrazy wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

That isn't a family life from the SM's point of view, though. Unless his extended family send him Christmas cards and stuff, and he goes home on leave occasionally.

Depending on their respective ranks he might actually see them regularly... admittedly it would be massively unlikely...

We need some evidence for it.

That's a fair point...
Considering having a family isn't (supposed to be) grimdark i doubt we will get any evidence apart from a few lines mentioning how a recruit leaves his old life behind.

Well a fluff fact is that Salamanders do live with there people in the villages. Unless they regulate were they live to avoid family contact...

I see no modern chapter that would allow family of any kind. Marines are disipline incarnate. They dont need the distraction. Besides, if you read the horus heresy novels they where tightly wrapped back then. i dont see why the imperium would want them to be more human in this area since temptation literally kills since chaos is so easily spread.

The marine does not need the closeness or social security of a family and genetically i dread to imagine what would be the result of a "mating" with an astates.

I always thought a marine lost all memories of their past life because of the training and genetic conditioning? or was that just some older, now obsolete fluff?

In the GK Omnibus there are a few moments when Alaric tries to remember his past, and can't really except for a few bits. However it is impossible for Space Marines to have a "true" family. They cannot reproduce with "normal" humans as their new chromosome from their geneseed will over come the other two and kill the child. On top of that I've never heard of any Space Marine having romantic/sexual urges, so no there are no Space Marines families to my knowledge.

Marzooky wrote:In the GK Omnibus there are a few moments when Alaric tries to remember his past, and can't really except for a few bits. However it is impossible for Space Marines to have a "true" family. They cannot reproduce with "normal" humans as their new chromosome from their geneseed will over come the other two and kill the child. On top of that I've never heard of any Space Marine having romantic/sexual urges, so no there are no Space Marines families to my knowledge.

Gks get mindwiped to make sure they are loyal only to the Emperor.
But that stuff about the 'new chromosome overcoming' the other 2... i don't know where you got that or where you learnt biology but i am pretty sure that's wrong.

In the first nightlord's book, the main character has an incident where doesn't even recall his own parents when he meets them. But, he can recall memories of his childhood. Not sure if this indicates a specific lack of kindness in that particular character, or that all sm are similarly conditioned so as not to remain attached to their past lives. But hey, thought I'd throw it in anyway.

It's funny, I came onto this section to ask pretty much this exact question. My fluff for my chapter was going to be that the current chapter master is the son of the previous one, a prince of sorts, known for his impetuousness in combat, considered rash by the command but well-respected by the younger members of the chapter. Would it be feasable that a space marine could have a son? Does it fit with the fluff? Note that the chapter are not codex, in fact part of the history is that an over-zealous inquisitor accused them of conspiring with chaos, said their gene seed was currupted, and attempted to purge them.

If it doesn't fit, I might have him as being a "clone" or something, because I like the idea of it.

No clones... please no clones.
Faintly possible... though you'd hit a whole wall of problems...