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So Abaddon and other Chaos Marines(Veterans if the Long War) have been fighting for thousands of years. Now there is some stuff with the Warp manipulating time, but considering how many times Abaddon or warbands have been terrorizing the Galaxy it doesn’t seem logical for their not to be Space Marine Long War vets.

The only ones who exist are in dreadnoughts. And some might say Space Marines are constantly at war so it would make sense for them to have died, but Chaos Space Marines do the same, don’t they?

Why are the heroes of the Horus Heresy mostly dead?

Pretty much the reason you first stated, Time is inconsistent in the warp as the rules of existence themselves are in constant flux. Outside of the eye, it has been 10000 years but within the eye it could have been only a few centuries. Further to this, it mainly seems to be a few recurring characters who have this unnatural vigour, and they seem to be ones who are in patronage to one of the chaos gods and are suffused with unnatural energy.

Yes, Chaos marines are constantly at war, but this tends to be more the rank and file rather than the lords. The Rank and file likely die around the same time as a space marine in the same situation, the leaders, as mentioned before, are in patronage to their gods which likely lauds them some protection or some respect from their peers, enough to quell attempts to seize power maybe.

Because there was a bit of hiatus from the Long War after the failed Siege of Terra, where the traitor forces fled to the eye of terror and fell into infighting. Meanwhile, you have the war of the Beast in M32 which nearly wipes out the Imperial Fists chapter, among other things. The Imperium gets hammered, and a lot of veterans from the Horus Heresy get killed.
The fluff is also a bit inconsistent about how old space marines actually live, with some sources suggesting they are immortal, and others suggesting that they do age and die, like in the Salamanders series by Nick Kyme - when a Salamander becomes too old they strip him of his armour and send him out to the long walk. So it's possible that many marines from the HH died of natural causes, although I'm pretty sure more of them met their ends on the battlefield.

The warp certainly does have an odd timey-wimey effect, in that for some chaos marines the heresy was only yesterday, and so while technically they are 10,000 years old, physically and mentally they haven't necessarily experienced the passing of time in the same way. And they're not constantly at war, as every homicidal gene-enhanced maniac needs a break, so they're not always engaged in gigantic battles. Some resort to piracy or pillaging - picking on the little kids of the galaxy, so there's less risk of them being killed - in particular the Night Lords. Hell, the daemon primarchs have been pretty inactive until now (with the exception of Angron during the first(?) war for Armageddon) - it's only Abbadon who's continued to fight the good fight, and it's only now that he's finally won a major victory that the daemon primarchs are returning to the galaxy.

The short answer is the power of chaos.

Beyond that, you're trying to figure out demonic influence, time dilation, etc. I'm not sure it holds up under close scrutiny.

As mentioned in the Night Lords books by ADB, they haven't actually lived for 10,000 years. They have a discussion at some point, where several Night Lords talk about how long it has been for them since the Siege of Terra. The answers are 100-200 odd, so in general, time flows MUCH faster in the Warp.

Time flows weirdly in the warp. For every traitor that thinks hes been there for a week, There could be one thats been there for 100k years. Even if 2 people are there at the same time point, It could well last a different amount of time for both. Its why a fleet checks the time as one of the first things it does, when dropping from the warp.
Now Bjorn, He spends most of his time snoozing. If his heart is only beating at 1/10th the pace under sus an. If he was awake that would only make him Dantes ageish. Who could only be 1100 yrs because of warp shenanigans himself.
Its best not to think about it to hard

Agreed with above, Bjorn is in stasis for all but the most dire emergencies. Otherwise we would most likely not have him around anymore.

The imperium does have the technology to keep whatever they want "alive" for as long as they want though. Look at the golden throne. Somehow a skeleton has a heartbeat lol.

The Golden Thrones xenotech or something isn't it? Either way nobody knows how it works. So it broke. Then GW seemed to drop that storyline.....

pm713 wrote:
The Golden Thrones xenotech or something isn't it? Either way nobody knows how it works. So it broke. Then GW seemed to drop that storyline.....

I don't recall ever reading that it broke, simply that it was basicly "decaying"

The 6th ed rulebook had it I believe. The Throne broke and they couldn't repair it.

Dark elves had the same dynamics.

There were whole dynasties of Phoenix kings, yet the same Malekith who contested Bal Shanaar's scension was still around in the End Times.

Hellebron and Morathi were also of that age bracket give or take a few centuries.

Of the Asur only Alith Anar had any staying power. There must have been something in the water in Naggarythe, as the Naggarothi had lifespans several times that of other elves, who do grow old in their own way.

GW gives a longevity pass to its recurring villains. They outlive anyone.

Because in the grim dark, Evil is eternal and Good is a sputtering candle in the wind.

Other than that? Because it's bad ass to have people from 10 000 years ago that are STILL pissed off about the same thing. So angry, they sell their souls for a shot at power and revenge.

It should also be noted that not only does time pass differently in the warp, but the Warp and the chaos gods reward those that serve them, unnatural life being often among such awards.

Plus, it also helps when your science and engineering folks are untethered from any sort of doctrine, morality, and even reality itself. That opens up a lot of possibilities not available to loyalists. The Dark Mechanicus and whatever the traitor Apothercaries devolved into have...a lot more leeway.

They made a literal deal with the devil for immortality.

It's the Mumra effect. "Ancient spirits of Evil..." Etc
While Liono is just a kid.

 ChazSexington wrote:
As mentioned in the Night Lords books by ADB, they haven't actually lived for 10,000 years.

This varies. I remember a Black Legion dude from one of the Space Marine short story collections who had hunted the geneseed descendant of his Imperial Fist former best friend, returning to do so every 100 years, and having amassed a sizeable pile of skulls over the centuries.

The thing about the Warp is that it isn't predictable or regular. You can't expect it to shorten time, because it doesn't work like that. It's well and truly random. So, there might well be CSM out there who are much older than 10k years. Maybe even 100k! The most likely event is that the time warping kinda sorta averages out to match material universe time, but there's no bell curve in play here. You can't expect anything, the experiences of First Claw is representative of nothing beyond their own.



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 Vaktathi wrote:
It should also be noted that not only does time pass differently in the warp, but the Warp and the chaos gods reward those that serve them, unnatural life being often among such awards.

This is likely to be the most common explanation. Extended life is the kind of gift that seems rather normal by Chaotic standards.

pm713 wrote:
The Golden Thrones xenotech or something isn't it? Either way nobody knows how it works. So it broke. Then GW seemed to drop that storyline.....

Path to heaven shows that the throne is human tech, where it originally came from though is unknown, it’s entirely possible it was created by useing some Xenos influence but the end result is human made.

Tristanleo wrote:
Pretty much the reason you first stated, Time is inconsistent in the warp as the rules of existence themselves are in constant flux. Outside of the eye, it has been 10000 years but within the eye it could have been only a few centuries. Further to this, it mainly seems to be a few recurring characters who have this unnatural vigour, and they seem to be ones who are in patronage to one of the chaos gods and are suffused with unnatural energy.

Yes, Chaos marines are constantly at war, but this tends to be more the rank and file rather than the lords. The Rank and file likely die around the same time as a space marine in the same situation, the leaders, as mentioned before, are in patronage to their gods which likely lauds them some protection or some respect from their peers, enough to quell attempts to seize power maybe.

I cannot remember the novel but I think the Chaos Space Marines were discussing the Heresy. For them it happened like 150 years ago. Hence why they are so pissed (The Heresy happened for them it's not history) and their tech seems to have stalled.

Of course flows differently throughout the warp some warbands might have spent millenias in the warp others a few centuries.

To just say, yes the throne is broken still, Magnus broke it, and the whole needing to feed the emp 1000 souls a day is the result of that broken tech.

That's not how it is at all. Magnus broke the Webway wards. Someone needs to be on the Throne to stop demons pouring out. The Throne itself is broken because nobody understands it and it's been maintained by people whose engineering knowledge is equal to mine for 10'000 years. The souls power the Astronomicon.

pm713 wrote:
That's not how it is at all. Magnus broke the Webway wards. Someone needs to be on the Throne to stop demons pouring out. The Throne itself is broken because nobody understands it and it's been maintained by people whose engineering knowledge is equal to mine for 10'000 years. The souls power the Astronomicon.

To be more specific, Emps has to be on the throne to stop the daemon incursion and due to his grievous wounds from Horus has to be sustained by souls so that he can A) live and B) power the Astronomicon.

pm713 wrote:
That's not how it is at all. Magnus broke the Webway wards. Someone needs to be on the Throne to stop demons pouring out. The Throne itself is broken because nobody understands it and it's been maintained by people whose engineering knowledge is equal to mine for 10'000 years. The souls power the Astronomicon.

Ok master of mankind raises a few questions about this old fluff, when he enters the web way he has the throne powered to keep the portal open by psykers in much the same manner as he is fed psykers, so is it the current imperium THINKS it’s to save the emperor but it actually powers the throne that is keeping the portal open so the emp must keep it closed or is it that the psykers are actually keeping the emperor alive??

Also at the end of that book the gate was firmly closed, so are the Deamons slowly wearing down the protection and it needs to be “topped up” every now and then....


That stupid book really screwed with the fluff in a non sensical way!

 Formosa wrote:

pm713 wrote:
That's not how it is at all. Magnus broke the Webway wards. Someone needs to be on the Throne to stop demons pouring out. The Throne itself is broken because nobody understands it and it's been maintained by people whose engineering knowledge is equal to mine for 10'000 years. The souls power the Astronomicon.

Ok master of mankind raises a few questions about this old fluff, when he enters the web way he has the throne powered to keep the portal open by psykers in much the same manner as he is fed psykers, so is it the current imperium THINKS it’s to save the emperor but it actually powers the throne that is keeping the portal open so the emp must keep it closed or is it that the psykers are actually keeping the emperor alive??

Also at the end of that book the gate was firmly closed, so are the Deamons slowly wearing down the protection and it needs to be “topped up” every now and then....


That stupid book really screwed with the fluff in a non sensical way!

I haven't read Master of Mankind so I can't say. I just do what I do with all the Human Webway stuff and ignore it because it's such a terrible idea.

 Erik_Morkai wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:
Pretty much the reason you first stated, Time is inconsistent in the warp as the rules of existence themselves are in constant flux. Outside of the eye, it has been 10000 years but within the eye it could have been only a few centuries. Further to this, it mainly seems to be a few recurring characters who have this unnatural vigour, and they seem to be ones who are in patronage to one of the chaos gods and are suffused with unnatural energy.

Yes, Chaos marines are constantly at war, but this tends to be more the rank and file rather than the lords. The Rank and file likely die around the same time as a space marine in the same situation, the leaders, as mentioned before, are in patronage to their gods which likely lauds them some protection or some respect from their peers, enough to quell attempts to seize power maybe.

I cannot remember the novel but I think the Chaos Space Marines were discussing the Heresy. For them it happened like 150 years ago. Hence why they are so pissed (The Heresy happened for them it's not history) and their tech seems to have stalled.

Of course flows differently throughout the warp some warbands might have spent millenias in the warp others a few centuries.

Maybe the Night Lords novels? One ship says its been 90 years since the heresy and another ship says its been like 75 years (they keep slaves that count the passage of time down to the second).

Do they not have clocks?

pm713 wrote:
Do they not have clocks?

I think they explain it by saying the clocks can't be trusted because of warp shenanigans.

pm713 wrote:
Do they not have clocks?

They do, however they go bonkers in the warp.

And people don't go bonkers? That's something the Warp is somewhat famous for.

Yeah, mechanically measuring time becomes problematic when physical laws start falling apart

Warp Time. Time works differently in the Warp and to the Traitor Legions less than 1000 years have passed since The Horus Heresy. On top of that the Traitor Legions almost always get to engage foes on their terms. So for example if a Warband of 1000 Chaos Marines are on a world where hundreds of millions of Orks are about to attack they could just flee into the Warp, as nobody is necessarily expecting them to die for a lost cause. While a Loyalist Chapter would be expected to fight to the last man.