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.

Are they like us? dying around 100? can there lifespans be extended to some degree? can they add another 100 years to there life with machines and medicine?

If an Imperial Guard soldier/officer accomplishes enough great deeds would the Imperium do everything in there power to keep him alive and fighting?

Well, considering that we're expected to achieve "immortality" by 2030-2050 thanks to research into HeLa cells and telomerase, I don't see why a character in 40k couldn't live on and on and on....

Vulpes89 wrote:Are they like us? dying around 100? can there lifespans be extended to some degree? can they add another 100 years to there life with machines and medicine?

If an Imperial Guard soldier/officer accomplishes enough great deeds would the Imperium do everything in there power to keep him alive and fighting?

I already posted a question regarding to this, in the end we came to no conclusion. Some Humans live less than 100 years, some live up to 1000. It all depends on the world and money.

An average human probably has a shorter life expectancy than we do based on extreme poverty and horrible living conditions in most of the imperium. Extremely wealthy and influential individuals, planetary governors, inquisitors, etc., can receive "juvenat" treatments and live for a few hundred years, maybe even a thousand in extreme cases but I'm not 100% on that. I'd say a few hundred years with juvenat stuff is the upward limit for normal humans.

Techpriests can live for thousands of years and might even be able to live forever by continually becoming one with the machine. At this point it wouldn't really be accurate to call them human because most of their bodies are mechanical.

Astartes aren't really human anymore either but they frequently live for hundreds of years and it's hinted at in fluff that they can live much longer than that if they don't die in battle. I know in the salamanders novel they found one that was over 10,000 years old but he was pretty much crippled and died shortly after they found him. Dreadnoughts of course can life for thousands of years as well.

Pretty sure that's all accurate to the best of my knowledge.

Dante's well over 1100 years old, but I recon about 30 for the average imperial soldier.

^ Dante is over 1800 years old further, I agree with you.

But well, it all depends on money just like our age..

Dante is not 1800 years old, he's been Chapter Master for 1100. His actual life-span is pure speculation, unless you can quote from somewhere.

If I'm not mistaken, Imperial Commissar Ciaphas Cain is in his 2nd century of existence when writing some of his memories.

As long as they can afford rejuvenation treatments.

Melissia wrote:As long as they can afford rejuvenation treatments.

Though those aren't a permanent solution. They become less and less effective the more used. There's also meant to be some of the elder techpriests on mars that are meant to be thousands of years old. But they're pretty much senile insane brains in jars by now likely.

Lexx wrote:

Melissia wrote:As long as they can afford rejuvenation treatments.

Though those aren't a permanent solution. They become less and less effective the more used.

I'm not even sure if THAT is accurate.

Vulpes89 wrote:Are they like us? dying around 100? can there lifespans be extended to some degree? can they add another 100 years to there life with machines and medicine?

If an Imperial Guard soldier/officer accomplishes enough great deeds would the Imperium do everything in there power to keep him alive and fighting?

As Brother Coa already said this is a very recent topic 'human life span', it is best to use the search function before starting a topic, incase there is already one.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/370147.page#2859953

Life span is a pretty useless term with an empire like the IoM as the conditions from one world to the next are massive and even within worlds it varies greatly

1. large number of worlds are either like ours or with black powder level tech so the average life expectancy would be 40-70 roughly
2. hive worlds make up a very small proportion of IoM worlds but have massive population. However the conditions vary among those that reside within.
- underhive: less than 30 (or mutated so much that are no longer human)
- lower hive: less than 40
- mid levels: 50 - 70
- upper levels: 90 - 200ish (but make up a tiny fraction of the worlds population)
3. death worlds 30 at a push
4. forge worlds are heavily populated by servitors so don't count, average worker/soldier 30 years, techpriest 90 - 600 depending on level of influence.
5. space marines are no longer considered human but a good age for a space marine is 200, while notable characters are/have lived longer (it is beleived that they are functionally immortal however)
6. IG -average guard lives less than a year from first battle.
7. Commanding officers/Cardinals/Inquisitors/Govenors can live for over 200 years depending on how rich they personally are or how needed they are by the IoM.

As the IoM is a pyramid system with the vast majority at the bottom of it being nothing more than workers/cannon fodder/tax generators with relatively shart lives this would squew any life expectancy towards them. Making the average life expectancy ~50 - 60 years, but with a very wide range.

Melissia wrote:

Lexx wrote:

Melissia wrote:As long as they can afford rejuvenation treatments.

Though those aren't a permanent solution. They become less and less effective the more used.

I'm not even sure if THAT is accurate.

Yeah where is that from Lexx?

BluntmanDC wrote:forge worlds are heavily populated by servitors so don't count, average worker/soldier 30 years, techpriest 90 - 600 depending on level of influence.

Forgeworlds have a lot of non-servitor workers. Servitors can only do so much.

Average lifespan of a citizen- 80 years
Average lifespan of a space marine- 800 years
Average lifespan of a guardsmen once on the field of battle- 8 minutes

cyberscape7 wrote:Average lifespan of a citizen- 80 years
Average lifespan of a space marine- 800 years
Average lifespan of a guardsmen once on the field of battle- 8 minutes

Three incorrect statements in on post! Nice job

Revenent Reiko wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Lexx wrote:

Melissia wrote:As long as they can afford rejuvenation treatments.

Though those aren't a permanent solution. They become less and less effective the more used.

I'm not even sure if THAT is accurate.

Yeah where is that from Lexx?

Well, in Andy Hoare's new book "Savage Scars," the senior astropath for the crusade is so valuable (he is said to be one of the best astropaths in the entire segmentum) that he has received multiple rejuvenation treatments:

p.36 "The man was ancient, kept alive long past his natural span of years by repeated applications of the rejuvenat treatment available only to the most senior and valued of the Imperium's servants. The treatment was slowly poisoning the master astropath, even if it was keeping him alive. He was so thin that his skin looked like a paper-thin layer of crumbling parchment, barely covering his bones. He had no eyes, for as an astropath his sensory organs had been blasted away by the process that had created him. His body was kept upright by an arrangement of clanking brass calipers and leather braces that bore his frame and animated his limbs. Furthermore, his robes, though crafted of the finest deep-green void-silk, were encrusted with filth, filling the council chamber with the acrid reek of bodily fluids."

cyberscape7 wrote:Average lifespan of a citizen- 80 years
Average lifespan of a space marine- 800 years
Average lifespan of a guardsmen once on the field of battle- 8 minutes

Space marines in general do not life that long, as apart from Dante (who might have had his life extended by the use of a sarcophagus) Logan Grimar is considered old at just less than 600. So you are way off.

Average life span of humans is a useless figure as the conditions of humans vary massively, but as the majority of humans are poor cattle used by the IoM their life is probably relatively short.

Commissar Molotov wrote:

Revenent Reiko wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Lexx wrote:

Melissia wrote:As long as they can afford rejuvenation treatments.

Though those aren't a permanent solution. They become less and less effective the more used.

I'm not even sure if THAT is accurate.

Yeah where is that from Lexx?

Well, in Andy Hoare's new book "Savage Scars," the senior astropath for the crusade is so valuable (he is said to be one of the best astropaths in the entire segmentum) that he has received multiple rejuvenation treatments:

p.36 "The man was ancient, kept alive long past his natural span of years by repeated applications of the rejuvenat treatment available only to the most senior and valued of the Imperium's servants. The treatment was slowly poisoning the master astropath, even if it was keeping him alive. He was so thin that his skin looked like a paper-thin layer of crumbling parchment, barely covering his bones. He had no eyes, for as an astropath his sensory organs had been blasted away by the process that had created him. His body was kept upright by an arrangement of clanking brass calipers and leather braces that bore his frame and animated his limbs. Furthermore, his robes, though crafted of the finest deep-green void-silk, were encrusted with filth, filling the council chamber with the acrid reek of bodily fluids."

Also ( I'll double check when I next read it again ) in the Eisenhorn novels the use of Revujenat treatments effects get highlighted. Saying how even with those treatments some people were beginning to look elderly after multiple courses of it.

BluntmanDC wrote:

cyberscape7 wrote:Average lifespan of a citizen- 80 years
Average lifespan of a space marine- 800 years
Average lifespan of a guardsmen once on the field of battle- 8 minutes

Space marines in general do not life that long, as apart from Dante (who might have had his life extended by the use of a sarcophagus) Logan Grimar is considered old at just less than 600. So you are way off.

Average life span of humans is a useless figure as the conditions of humans vary massively, but as the majority of humans are poor cattle used by the IoM their life is probably relatively short.

Grimnar is 700 having been Chapter Master for 500 years of that.
But yeah... the average life-span isn't a lot...

Quite a few times in the fluff, it states that the reason some 'normal' humans are so old is because of the way time passes while in the warp.

When you travel in the warp, time starts to act differently, so what seems like 1hr in the warp could be 10 years in real space, which is how a space marine can fight on two worlds at opposite ends of the galaxy without dying of old age on the journey between them (even with their extended lifespans).

Specifically the fluff surrounding Colonel Shaeffer states that as he is constantly travelling between warzones via the warp, he has been alive for much longer than a normal human.

Lexx wrote:Also ( I'll double check when I next read it again ) in the Eisenhorn novels the use of Revujenat treatments effects get highlighted. Saying how even with those treatments some people were beginning to look elderly after multiple courses of it.

No it doesnt, i finished reading the omnibus again last week.
Theres a lot about rejuvenat treatments, but nothing detrimental (other than the supposed cost).

Melissia wrote:

cyberscape7 wrote:Average lifespan of a citizen- 80 years
Average lifespan of a space marine- 800 years
Average lifespan of a guardsmen once on the field of battle- 8 minutes

Three incorrect statements in on post! Nice job

Why thank you

Revenent Reiko wrote:

Lexx wrote:Also ( I'll double check when I next read it again ) in the Eisenhorn novels the use of Revujenat treatments effects get highlighted. Saying how even with those treatments some people were beginning to look elderly after multiple courses of it.

No it doesnt, i finished reading the omnibus again last week.
Theres a lot about rejuvenat treatments, but nothing detrimental (other than the supposed cost).

Ah then I haven't a clue where I got that from. Nevermind.

Lexx wrote:

Revenent Reiko wrote:

Lexx wrote:Also ( I'll double check when I next read it again ) in the Eisenhorn novels the use of Revujenat treatments effects get highlighted. Saying how even with those treatments some people were beginning to look elderly after multiple courses of it.

No it doesnt, i finished reading the omnibus again last week.
Theres a lot about rejuvenat treatments, but nothing detrimental (other than the supposed cost).

Ah then I haven't a clue where I got that from. Nevermind.

No worries. Also, i apologise if my post came across as 'jump down your throat', i didnt mean it like that, i was just clarifying

Oh not at all. No harm. I sadly don't have the clearest of memories sometimes so cross wires intermittently. I think I had read it somewhere I just need to remember where the hell from.

Well, it's been stated that Space Marines are functionally immortal, they're still prone to the effects of aging to a certain extent, but they could keep going indefinitely providing they don't get killed in battle of course which isn't at all likely.

Astartes aren't really human anymore either but they frequently live for hundreds of years and it's hinted at in fluff that they can live much longer than that if they don't die in battle. I know in the salamanders novel they found one that was over 10,000 years old but he was pretty much crippled and died shortly after they found him. Dreadnoughts of course can life for thousands of years as well.

I thought he was given the emperor's peace and had his progenoids removed cause his armor had fused into one big piece and that he was so brittle if they tried to move him he would fall to peices. The reason that he lived so long was due to his body going into its self preserving stasis. Now another example to marines living a long time could be taken from the ragnar blackmane books when he meets up with the lost company on a deamon planet in the warp. Then again the flow of time is different in the warp a few years in there can be exagerated into hundreds of years in real space or 2 minutes can become 7 months so there no real way to measure the correct age of something that exists in there. I love contradicting my own arguments.

I think it has been categorically determined that Space Marines are effectively immortal, but as they spend their lives in battle, they're *exceedingly* unlikely to live long enough to find out. There's no "retirement plan" for Space Marines.

Malivon wrote:Astartes aren't really human anymore either but they frequently live for hundreds of years and it's hinted at in fluff that they can live much longer than that if they don't die in battle.

Spoiler:

I know in the salamanders novel they found one that was over 10,000 years old but he was pretty much crippled and died shortly after they found him. Dreadnoughts of course can life for thousands of years as well.

I thought he was given the emperor's peace and had his progenoids removed cause his armor had fused into one big piece and that he was so brittle if they tried to move him he would fall to peices. The reason that he lived so long was due to his body going into its self preserving stasis. Now another example to marines living a long time could be taken from the ragnar blackmane books when he meets up with the lost company on a deamon planet in the warp. Then again the flow of time is different in the warp a few years in there can be exagerated into hundreds of years in real space or 2 minutes can become 7 months so there no real way to measure the correct age of something that exists in there. I love contradicting my own arguments.

Spoiler boxes are always nice, Good job ive read those books huh?