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 poppa G wrote:
Apparently Space marines are immortal...they just don't live long so no one knows...

A Salamander lived for ten thousand years, spending a good thousand (at least) of those years not moving. While his muscles suffered from atrophy due to the lack of action, Astartes are indeed biologically immortal.

 Crimson wrote:
Chaos Marines are different, Chaos keeps them alive. Regular Marines are not immortal, it is even said in 6E BRB: "Space Marines live extended life times - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two to three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."
That is pretty damn clear. Chaplain Cassius is oldest living Ultramarine, and is about four centuries old. Not to mention that for Blood Angels to have longer lifespans than other Marines, Astartes lifespans have to be limited. Space Marines are not immortal, not even close, their natural lifespan is few centuries.

Except this is blatantly false, as we know a Salamander survived from the Horus Heresy for ten thousand years, and before his comrades fell in battle on the planet, also lived for several thousand years. Then there's the constant description of them as immortal demigod.

 Crimson wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Except this is blatantly false, as we know a Salamander survived from the Horus Heresy for ten thousand years, and before his comrades fell in battle on the planet, also lived for several thousand years. Then there's the constant description of them as immortal demigod.

But that's BL, right? BL authors crap on the fluff all the time.

Feats >>>>>> Statements, although even the Salamanders were shocked that the astartes survived for that time. So either the Salamanders are biologically immortal (although they still need their exercise to prevent atrophy), or all Astartes are so long as they have nutrition and exercise. Hell though, the Salamander lived so long that IIRC the fusion reactor died, and those things are practically self sufficient given their nature.

 Crimson wrote:
Or that book is silly and should just be ignored? BL books contradict studio fluff and each other all the time.

Or that book is the main source of information on the Salamanders and is part of one of the biggest series in W40K focusing on a single chapter.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
There is a genetic reason why we do not live forever naturally. It would give us little reason to breed as we would not worry about our own mortality and passing on our dna, therefor the gene pool would stagnate, It is a biological advantage to age and die in terms of the species as a whole. Plus there has been nothing to suggest being a Perpetual is a genetic trait. The Emperor is a Perpetual and yet only one son out of 18 also became one.

Except this is actually laughably false considering there are multiple immortal animals in the modern day.

 herpguy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
There is a genetic reason why we do not live forever naturally. It would give us little reason to breed as we would not worry about our own mortality and passing on our dna, therefor the gene pool would stagnate, It is a biological advantage to age and die in terms of the species as a whole. Plus there has been nothing to suggest being a Perpetual is a genetic trait. The Emperor is a Perpetual and yet only one son out of 18 also became one.

Except this is actually laughably false considering there are multiple immortal animals in the modern day.

Oh really? A statement likes this shows how little you know regarding Zoology. There are NO immortal animals. As stated before, death and procreation are essential to mitigate deaths of a population due to disease and other factors by diversity of DNA.
Those "immortal" jellyfish everybody was talking about a while ago? A complete hoax.

Flatworms say hello, giving their thanks for bisecting them, kindly ask for you to do it again. Biological immortality does not also refer to complete ageless immortality, but rather reducing the chance that your cells will die from biological aging by poorly copied genes.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The ten thousand year old Salamander was canonically, in the book, only alive because he spent most of that time in a Sus-an coma. He also died of old age within hours of being woken from it.

Not a good example when trying to prove that Marinese are immortal.

Or it could just as easily be pointed to having a lack of a proper diet in a very sparse environment coupled with muscle atrophy. It's actually a greater feat, as sitting on your ass doing nothing tends to make you actually die faster, it's amazing his body didn't devour itself for energy.

 Psienesis wrote:
That's what the Sus-an Coma prevents. It's a self-inflicted state of near-total suspended animation.

If Space Marines were immortal, the Blood Angel Codex would not note the members of that Chapter as being "exceptionally long-lived" in comparison to other Astartes.

Or that is simply a reference to them being luckier or hardier than other chapters, and surviving greater wounds and living for greater periods of time before inevitably being killed. Suspended animation is not some magical no-sums removal from requiring energy, he'd still need it. I also remember the sus-an membrane only works for so long before the user dies from a lack of nutrients, coupled with as I remember the Salamanders actually being fairly active on the planet until they one by one fell and thus the last one only going into suspended animation when all his fellows died. So they are indeed biologically immortal, or at least the Salamanders are.

Also, surviving Thunder Warriors wanted to grab Astartes augmentations in Outcast Dead to fix themselves so they wouldn't die, which also points to Astartes being flat out biologically immortal.

 Psienesis wrote:
That's exactly what suspended animation is. If your body is not consuming energy to keep itself running, it doesn't need to intake any. It's not true suspended animation, of course, and is not intended to be used over such a long period of time, but this one guy doing it successfully is, again, an outlier of the situation (and the fact that the other guys all drop dead from doing it indicates that biological immortality isn't theirs.)

And what the Thunder Warriors thought of the Astartes does not indicate what the Astartes actually are. Certain groups of people in Africa believe that drinking the blood of a virgin will make you immune to HIV and/or cure AIDS (since some 50% of the population is infected)... this, of course, does not actually work, but that doesn't stop people from believing it.

The longest use of the sus-an membrane was slightly over five hundred years, no-where near 10,000, of which the Salamander likely spent several thousand active and helping protect the civilians from the orks. As for the Thunder Warriors, they were acting off word that Astartes were immortal (which most or at least some are indeed biologically immortal), IIRC their belief also came from the Emperor making them immortal. Point is that not only do astartes refer to themselves as immortal, and there have been astartes that have lived for over a thousand years, they have biological immortality, and have suspended animation, yes, they're immortal. And as for the Salamander, unless you want to claim that apparently the sus-an membrane slows metabolism to the point that it would nearly require infinite energy for him to remain alive, it's far more likely that he was awake most of the time, actively consuming food and putting energy into his body, as opposed to surviving ten thousand years in a coma. Even Tardigrades need energy eventually. I'm also quite certain that the Blood Angels codex is a solid point to make, as it's a reliable book written by a reliable ma-




Motherfether