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Put on your tinfoil hats now ladies and gentlemen, for it's time to speculate.

The Emperor designed the Primarchs be better than humans in every single way, and the Space Marines to be something in between. While the notion of replacing humanity with primarchs is ultimately an absurd notion due to the sheer amount of work that goes into each one, Astartes are comparatively easily made (especially if you can make their training less intensive), and given that the Emperor has no issues with anything being male-exclusive (as the Primarchs and Astartes show us) it is a plausible possibility that after the end of the Great Crusade the Emperor would wish to phase out the common humanity and let the Homo Astartes take their place. It's a long-term project and some (like, all women for example) would obviously be pushed out, but who could challenge the Emperor in that? Who would?

The Astartes are not so much superhumans as posthumans, Man 2.0, and having the entire population be made of Astartes would create quite some society. Obviously they'd need to reach a Culture-esque post-scarcity society first, as Guardsmen are still very efficient in time and investment as long as the Imperium is heavily threatened, but if the Great Crusade was finished, Chaos stymied and the galaxy had lots of time to prepare for any future threat that probably would not even come (as far as they know) it does seem like something the Emperor would do to fulfill mankind's ultimate destiny yada yada.

Absolutely not. The Emperor's prototype MArines, Thunder Warriors, were wiped out once he was done. He specifically made them male-only and unable/uninterested in sexual relations or reproduction. There is also suggestion that once done with he would just hit a killcommand to wipe them out. He most definitely did not intend to replace humanity.

Considering the first such project the Emperor made was the Thunder Warriors, who had that one tiny little chink in their design which leads to drastically shorter life-span and pronounced instability, I believe the Emperor simply intended to make a more stable superhuman warrior stock.

Also the Primarchs were made to be the Übermensch, to lead, to guide, to inspire, and their number were a mere twenty, It seems clear that the Emperor (or whoever wrote the current Primarch fluff) had intended that the twenty be his next-to-equals and possibly share/take over the burden that is maintaining humanity once the Great Crusade is over (and I believe he intended to go AWOL after this). The Astartes are just a bit of a Plan-B, after the Primarchs got stolen.

No.
You have to remember that the Marines are built purely for combat. They wouldn't have no other place.
If the GC had come to the point that the humanity ruled most of the galaxy under Imperial rule, then they would had one of these destinies;

1. Die off.
- They would have the same fate as the Thunder Warriors. They would be killed/sent to die, as they are tools that have served their purpose.

2. Remain as the backbone of Imperial military.
- After the crusade, the Space Marines would be keeping up the peace, putting down rebellions and fending off outside threats.

Nope, he already started giving more and more administrative control over the Imperium to humans during the Great Crusade, while leaving Horus to command the crusade itself. If he had intended for the Astartes to fulfill a larger role, than he would have started placing them in high-ranking positions then.

NO. however he did intend for space marines to do most of the fighting and governing and let humanity live in its utopia without much trouble.

 raiden wrote:
NO. however he did intend for space marines to do most of the fighting and governing and let humanity live in its utopia without much trouble.

I don't think he intended for the Astartes to govern to be honest. Probably let the primarchs govern their own regions, but not the Astartes themselves.

The marines were designed to protect humans, not replace them. A Chapter needs a steady supply of young males to make new marines after all. The process requires years of surgery, testing, indoctrination - and regular medical attention to keep the new organs working within acceptable parameters. Keep your human charges alive and reasonably healthy or go extinct.

If the marines were intended to replace humanity they would have been designed so they could breed more marines. Probably with enhanced-design females of some sort - maybe not designed for heavy combat but super tough at the very least.

Sure he did want to replace human with space marines, that just means wiping out half of humanity away, and then leaving the other half to die of old age or in combat with no possibility to reproduce .

Spetulhu wrote:
The marines were designed to protect humans, not replace them. A Chapter needs a steady supply of young males to make new marines after all. The process requires years of surgery, testing, indoctrination - and regular medical attention to keep the new organs working within acceptable parameters. Keep your human charges alive and reasonably healthy or go extinct.

If the marines were intended to replace humanity they would have been designed so they could breed more marines. Probably with enhanced-design females of some sort - maybe not designed for heavy combat but super tough at the very least.

actually, the new BA fluff has them put the blood of their primarch (or diluted blood) into the new serfs, put them in those fancy growth chambers for about a year, and viola, new BA space marines.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Sure he did want to replace human with space marines, that just means wiping out half of humanity away, and then leaving the other half to die of old age or in combat with no possibility to reproduce .

Maybe he intended to improve them to allow them to reproduce and/or achieve immortality (Or cloning?) once he had more time.

Okay, I have to ask.

How can you even think about this? I mean, they are MARINES. They are purely made for combat. They are tools. Tools that can be discarded once they have served their purpose.

Their only intention is to kill any and all who oppose them.

Ashiraya wrote:Put on your tinfoil hats now ladies and gentlemen, for it's time to speculate.

The Emperor designed the Primarchs be better than humans in every single way, and the Space Marines to be something in between. While the notion of replacing humanity with primarchs is ultimately an absurd notion due to the sheer amount of work that goes into each one, Astartes are comparatively easily made (especially if you can make their training less intensive), and given that the Emperor has no issues with anything being male-exclusive (as the Primarchs and Astartes show us) it is a plausible possibility that after the end of the Great Crusade the Emperor would wish to phase out the common humanity and let the Homo Astartes take their place. It's a long-term project and some (like, all women for example) would obviously be pushed out, but who could challenge the Emperor in that? Who would?

The Astartes are not so much superhumans as posthumans, Man 2.0, and having the entire population be made of Astartes would create quite some society. Obviously they'd need to reach a Culture-esque post-scarcity society first, as Guardsmen are still very efficient in time and investment as long as the Imperium is heavily threatened, but if the Great Crusade was finished, Chaos stymied and the galaxy had lots of time to prepare for any future threat that probably would not even come (as far as they know) it does seem like something the Emperor would do to fulfill mankind's ultimate destiny yada yada.

Ashiraya wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Sure he did want to replace human with space marines, that just means wiping out half of humanity away, and then leaving the other half to die of old age or in combat with no possibility to reproduce .

Maybe he intended to improve them to allow them to reproduce and/or achieve immortality (Or cloning?) once he had more time.

You sure you wanted to post this?

Because it is rather obvious what the role of the Adeptus Astartes was, is and will be.

I'm sorry. :/

 Ashiraya wrote:
Maybe he intended to improve them to allow them to reproduce

With whom? Human women? Female space marines? Creating what kind of off-spring? Human babies or weird space maribabies? Seems very, very far-stretched.

 Ashiraya wrote:
and/or achieve immortality

He did not manage to make the Primarch immortal, how could he do that with all the marines?

 Ashiraya wrote:
(Or cloning?)

That one could be if cloning was easy in 40k, but apparently it is not, cue all the events about clones becoming corrupted and degenerating and all that.

And then there is the need to find a reason for him to want to replace humans by marines in a galaxy that you describe as being mostly cleansed of threat. They would bring mostly nothing normal humans would not.


So, yeah, we can have fun making theories about how the Emperor could have replaced humanity by space marines, but they are all going to be quite far-stretched.

No. He never intended to replace humanity. He wanted humanity to live on.

space marines where a solution to the problem of "I need to conquer the galaxy but right now I only have a planets worth of people to do it and not THAT much time. space marines turned a 2000 year endevour into a 200 year one

BrianDavion wrote:
space marines where a solution to the problem of "I need to conquer the galaxy but right now I only have a planets worth of people to do it and not THAT much time. space marines turned a 2000 year endevour into a 200 year one

The Custodes were the next step they were basically going to be the next step in terms of guardians of the imperium and act as basically police forces.

They where ment to be humanity ultimate warrior class, there that modified they do not even classify as human. Solely built for warfare, mankind's greatest military force.

No replacement but the tool in which to expand and defend. Also the answer to how do I capture a entire galexy in the most effichantly brutal manner.
Custodius are stronger but more a rolls Royce custom built than a mass produced car. There not front line on masse troops.

Part of the reason why the primarchs rebelled in the first place was because Emps was handing the administrative power to normal humans.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Council_of_Terra

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

Sorry OP its a flat out no from me too

One thing that gets kinda glossed over in the books and fluff because it isn't "fun" is that Space Marines require a fair amount of maintenance.


It's a lot of effort make Space Marines too. They don't just grow on their own. While some of their enhanced growth like the musculature and rib cage, etc happens "naturally" due to the geneseed modification, a lot of their extra organs are "implants", which means they had to be surgically added.

Even if they were fertile, (or could be made so), and even if they made females to copulate with, Space Marines couldn't replace mankind. Their offspring would probably not survive without the implantation surgery (they'd be unnecessarily large without some of the important secondary and tertiary organs that get implanted), and even if they did, they wouldn't be Space Marines.

So, no.

Everything in the entire 40k Universe points towards a big fat NO.

NO...
If he had..he would have made 10 male primarchs and 10 female matriarchs ...so they could have little bitty super people all their own.
Spacemarines are purpose built tools of war..and were likely created to SPARE human lives...a few robust, awesome, badboy soldiers.. doing the work of 100s of normal ones...the old song and dance.

so NO.

It's very apparent, even in the HH books, that the Marines were never intended to be a permanent "Forever" thing.

They were a tool with which to forge the Imperium, even as the Great Crusade reached its climax, the Space Marines were no longer the primary fighting force, the sheer scale of the fighting made that impossible, the Imperial Army was increasingly taking over and the central Imperial bureaucracy was taking on a vastly increased role and taking over duties that the Space Marines had held at one time. In fact, that's part of what drove some Space Marines to rebel, precisely because they felt they were being replaced, which they were.

The Space Marines were never intended to replace humanity, in fact Humanity was to be united and ascend to glorious psychic unity.


The Space Marines as they are in the 41st millenium exist as much out of tradition, dogma, and inertia as anything else. They were the Emperor's creations and thus the Imperium would sustain them out of religious dogma as much as actual need after the Emperor's removal from direct control. It is exceedingly unlikely that the Space Marines would remain in the 41st millenium had the Emperor not been so grievously wounded by Horus and allowed to continue his work.

From what I see the discussion should rather be about what Empy wanted to do with the Space Marines. Robute Guilliman thought they were more than mere weapons, and were there to rule and guide the humans. Leman Russ and other Primarches thought they were just weapons. And Empy has a history of discarding tools no longer useful.

I personally hope he planned for something better as many of the legions even Primarches was psychopaths (even before they met), and you have that atrocious rate of teenage boys dying on operating-tables trying to make even one Space Marine, but that can have been better back in the days.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
From what I see the discussion should rather be about what Empy wanted to do with the Space Marines. Robute Guilliman thought they were more than mere weapons, and were there to rule and guide the humans. Leman Russ and other Primarches thought they were just weapons. And Empy has a history of discarding tools no longer useful.

I personally hope he planned for something better as many of the legions even Primarches was psychopaths (even before they met), and you have that atrocious rate of teenage boys dying on operating-tables trying to make even one Space Marine, but that can have been better back in the days.

No Guilliman didn't think that at all, it's why he made the other Primarchs after himself abdicate from ruling and installed the High Lords.

It's actually the opposite. Emprah intended to eventually do away with the Astartes as he did the Thunder Warriors, and have humans like Malcador manage things.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
From what I see the discussion should rather be about what Empy wanted to do with the Space Marines. Robute Guilliman thought they were more than mere weapons, and were there to rule and guide the humans. Leman Russ and other Primarches thought they were just weapons. And Empy has a history of discarding tools no longer useful.

I personally hope he planned for something better as many of the legions even Primarches was psychopaths (even before they met), and you have that atrocious rate of teenage boys dying on operating-tables trying to make even one Space Marine, but that can have been better back in the days.

Dark Angels had over a 90%, success rate with organ and geneseed implantation during the Great Crusade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 raiden wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
The marines were designed to protect humans, not replace them. A Chapter needs a steady supply of young males to make new marines after all. The process requires years of surgery, testing, indoctrination - and regular medical attention to keep the new organs working within acceptable parameters. Keep your human charges alive and reasonably healthy or go extinct.

If the marines were intended to replace humanity they would have been designed so they could breed more marines. Probably with enhanced-design females of some sort - maybe not designed for heavy combat but super tough at the very least.

actually, the new BA fluff has them put the blood of their primarch (or diluted blood) into the new serfs, put them in those fancy growth chambers for about a year, and viola, new BA space marines.

No they don't. I read the Codex, it's the same as it's always been,

 Quickjager wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
From what I see the discussion should rather be about what Empy wanted to do with the Space Marines. Robute Guilliman thought they were more than mere weapons, and were there to rule and guide the humans. Leman Russ and other Primarches thought they were just weapons. And Empy has a history of discarding tools no longer useful.

I personally hope he planned for something better as many of the legions even Primarches was psychopaths (even before they met), and you have that atrocious rate of teenage boys dying on operating-tables trying to make even one Space Marine, but that can have been better back in the days.

No Guilliman didn't think that at all, it's why he made the other Primarchs after himself abdicate from ruling and installed the High Lords.

except he did, at least for a time, belive space marines could fine a role in post crusade administration, but I'm not sure he expected that to be the case for ALL Legions. but rather he wanted to build the ultramarines into a legion that DID have peace time uses, so that when the fighting stopped. his sons would have something they could "retire into" in short I think Gulliman was thinking ahead to the classic problem of "what do you do when your soldiers return home from the war and know only war?"