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For instance: Cain, Gaunt, Yarrick, Marbo????? Cain Alone would rival most captains in Intellectual ability and swordsmanship. Marbo coultd singlehandidly replace the losses of an entire Chapter in a Primaris body.

Is transferance into the Astartes by choice or some such nonsense? I mean, Cain should have been picked up by now after countless heroic events, singlehandedly taking out an Ork warboss with just a chainsword and a laspistol? Marbo Hunts Lictors for sport, and Yarrick is Yarrick.

The process of creating a Space Marine is generally only carried out on Children/Youths. The process doesn't work or has an exceedingly high mortality rate when used on adults as far as I remember.

IIRC The Space Wolves have the oldest recruits, but even these are mostly pre-teen.

Pre-Heresy it was possible to 'enhance' adults (such as Kor Phaeron) but the knowledge has been lost by 40k.

 DivineVisitor wrote:
The process of creating a Space Marine is generally only carried out on Children/Youths. The process doesn't work or has an exceedingly high mortality rate when used on adults as far as I remember.

And it doesn't work at all on women. In other words, Space Marines don't really know who they recruit in the first place since they are just kids and focus their attention on making those who make it through into the best warriors they possibly can be.

Going by Descent of Angels, the process of making an Astartes does not work after adolescence, and that was at the height of the Hersey. In the 41st Millennium, they like to start at early adolescence rather than late.

 alextroy wrote:
Going by Descent of Angels, the process of making an Astartes does not work after adolescence, and that was at the height of the Hersey. In the 41st Millennium, they like to start at early adolescence rather than late.

The ideal age was stated to be between 8 and 12 so right before puberty for boys.

The age limitations are one part of it. It’s very likely to kill them even if they are compatible with the geneseed of the recruiting chapter. Another issue is that those individuals will be less suitable for indoctrination. Younger minds are far more receptive to ideas and make better candidates for creating fanatics. All of those characters already have very formed minds and would be harder to get them to fall in with the chapter ideals. Finally, all those examples would be less impactful if they became a random line space marine. Yarrik commanded the entire war effort for most of the 2nd and 3rd Armageddon wars. Cain and Gaunt are far more effective as leaders and strategist of men rather than immortal warriors. It’s a net loss to just chuck them into the bottom of a chapter.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
All of those characters already have very formed minds and would be harder to get them to fall in with the chapter ideals. Finally, all those examples would be less impactful if they became a random line space marine. Yarrik commanded the entire war effort for most of the 2nd and 3rd Armageddon wars. Cain and Gaunt are far more effective as leaders and strategist of men rather than immortal warriors. It’s a net loss to just chuck them into the bottom of a chapter.

Maybe the most important point of all. Even if a Chapter had Heresy-era knowledge and could turn a grown man into a Marine, their cultish practices would still require him to undergo psycho-indoctrination which is liable to destroy the very qualities one wished to gain by giving him a stronger body capable of longer life.

Speaking of which, longer life - while some Space Marines theorize themself as effectively immortal that is far from the truth. Marines on average are expected to live "three lifetimes of men", which is nothing the nobility of the Imperium can't have by judicious use of Rejuvenat treatments. Inquisitor Eisenhorn at 350 years of age looked like a grumpy 50-year old mostly because he wanted to look intimidating, and he was sure he could live another 350 years if he didn't get killed in the line of duty. Isn't 350 quite close to or better than three lifetimes of men? The OLDEST known Ultramarine was Chaplain Cassius as just under 400 years old, calling his Chapter Master "Young Calgar" to his face. Marines like Dante or Grimnar are legends because they've lived far beyond when a Marine should be dead, through impossible odds and by the grace of the Emperor.

Another aspect of it would be about propoganda. You would not want to take those Legendary Humans away from their warzone, only to have a very small success chance to turn them into marines.

Also, as others have stated, adults cannot become full Marines (and this was when we were talking about small marines. Who knows about Primaris). If I recall correctly, Lion El'Johnsons buddy Luther was too old, and the turned him into a "marine-lite" due to his age. And he only got that far was because he was BFFs with a Primarch.

Fisheyes wrote:
Another aspect of it would be about propoganda. You would not want to take those Legendary Humans away from their warzone, only to have a very small success chance to turn them into marines.

Also, as others have stated, adults cannot become full Marines (and this was when we were talking about small marines. Who knows about Primaris). If I recall correctly, Lion El'Johnsons buddy Luther was too old, and the turned him into a "marine-lite" due to his age. And he only got that far was because he was BFFs with a Primarch.

Most of the Caliban knights got the same treatment, iirc. The orders were just folded into the legion as 'elite normals,' but treated as battle brothers... mostly.

By the time you’re old enough to be a Legend? You’re way, way too old for the conversion process.

Even during The Great Crusade, the oldest of Primarch companions (Luther and Kor Phaeron) could only be augmented so far.

10,000 years of degradation and ignorance?

The only reason which you need to know is that the older organism is, the higher organ rejection rate is. Primary way of how individual fails to become a space marine is that his body fails to accept new organs. Secondly, he dies or is too sickly to continue with his training due to stress induced by organ transplantation.

There is a process to turn a human into a super-human, but they will never be true Astartes, they will always be weaker, smaller and inferior. There is nothing much in the lore about this process from what I know and it is highly inconsistent. It might explain some Inquisitors being super bulky and big for a human, but its absence in lore where it would be fitting raises many questions. It might be one of those lost, but not really technologies due to Imperial love of obfuscation of information and knowledge.

 Ernestas wrote:

There is a process to turn a human into a super-human, but they will never be true Astartes, they will always be weaker, smaller and inferior.

I would argue that the assassin temples contradict that statement. Or characters like Hector rex. At least to a degree.

 Andersp90 wrote:

 Ernestas wrote:

There is a process to turn a human into a super-human, but they will never be true Astartes, they will always be weaker, smaller and inferior.

I would argue that the assassin temples contradict that statement. Or characters like Hector rex. At least to a degree.

Assassins temple do recruits from children and young teens too and most recruits don't survive the enhancement either.

epronovost wrote:

Assassins temple do recruits from children and young teens too and most recruits don't survive the enhancement either.

I was contesting this bit

 Ernestas wrote:
they will always be weaker, smaller and inferior.

I think it's also worth pointing out that Marines are a drop in the bucket compared to the vast swathes of everyday people in the Imperium.

Someone could have been a great Marine recruit in theory, and just never met a single marine or came to their notice until they were well past the point of being neophyte material.

Spetulhu wrote:

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
All of those characters already have very formed minds and would be harder to get them to fall in with the chapter ideals. Finally, all those examples would be less impactful if they became a random line space marine. Yarrik commanded the entire war effort for most of the 2nd and 3rd Armageddon wars. Cain and Gaunt are far more effective as leaders and strategist of men rather than immortal warriors. It’s a net loss to just chuck them into the bottom of a chapter.

Maybe the most important point of all. Even if a Chapter had Heresy-era knowledge and could turn a grown man into a Marine, their cultish practices would still require him to undergo psycho-indoctrination which is liable to destroy the very qualities one wished to gain by giving him a stronger body capable of longer life.

Speaking of which, longer life - while some Space Marines theorize themself as effectively immortal that is far from the truth. Marines on average are expected to live "three lifetimes of men", which is nothing the nobility of the Imperium can't have by judicious use of Rejuvenat treatments. Inquisitor Eisenhorn at 350 years of age looked like a grumpy 50-year old mostly because he wanted to look intimidating, and he was sure he could live another 350 years if he didn't get killed in the line of duty. Isn't 350 quite close to or better than three lifetimes of men? The OLDEST known Ultramarine was Chaplain Cassius as just under 400 years old, calling his Chapter Master "Young Calgar" to his face. Marines like Dante or Grimnar are legends because they've lived far beyond when a Marine should be dead, through impossible odds and by the grace of the Emperor.

The age issue is/has been clearly dontradicted by lore in numerous texts. Just through notable Inquisitors, Voke lived over 300 years, and the guy who killed him was over 1000 years old. Eisenhorn is close to 300 now. Dante is 1100 years old. Abadon and Bile are both Pre-Heresy, which makes them 1000s of years. Bjorn was there during Horus as well. I mean the lore is literally whatever they want it to be, but a Space Marine, left alone, is literally immortal. According to the Fluff.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
A Space Marine, left alone, is literally immortal. According to the Fluff..

Could you please provide a quote on that.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Dante is 1100 years old.

Yea. There is no question about that.

Dante sighed and reached up for his helmet. Sorrow troubled Seth’s boundless, caged fury. He disliked Dante hiding behind the face of their primarch, but once his helmet was free, he liked what he saw even less. Dante was old. That was what nobody ever expected to see behind that ageless, golden face. They thought him in the prime of his power, such was Dante’s reputation. But men were not meant to live so long, and Dante, though exceptional, was no primarch. Shadows pooled in his sunken eyes, a morbid foretaste of his appearance in death.

I'm also pretty sure some lore somewhere says that Sigismund only lost his final duel to Abadon because he'd aged while Abadon hadn't.

My understanding is that warp time != normal time, and a lot of heretic space marines who spend time there have lived way past the point they should have as a result. Tech lets some people live ages past normality and space marine can live for a long ass time in general, but they still get old.

In Dark Angels novel, Luther is specifically mentioned as being a lot smaller and weaker than marines around him. I do not know other cases where post-human transition occurred after possible ages and still resulted in final creation being as overall powerful as an Adeptus Astartes. I do not claim that Imperium cant do that, I never had seen any examples where modifications to matured human would result in such great of an effect as those performed on a child.

Of course, if you have any common sense, those limitations do not apply to you. The only and true Gods of Chaos shall grant anything you wish if you prove worthy of their blessings. ANYTHING.


As for space marine aging, it is an aspect of a lore which constantly contradicts itself. One one hand we have space marines who are over 10,000 years old and possibly even older without any signs of aging. On the other we have hints that Astartes got old just after few millennia. For me, this whole issue with Sigismund is more of an attempt to diminish Abaddon's accomplishment and a childish "feth you Chaos". As far as I'm concerned space marines do not age. Though, mentally they do indeed change. Veteran of an old war is often melancholic, just casually walks through battlefield like a senile old man, reminiscent about his past and teenage age when he was rebelling against his father and sieged his father's house in attempt to murder everything he has in order to gain some attention and fatherly love.

 Ernestas wrote:
II do not claim that Imperium cant do that, I never had seen any examples where modifications to matured human would result in such great of an effect as those performed on a child.

Hector rex.

One one hand we have space marines who are over 10,000 years old and possibly even older without any signs of aging.

*Chaos space marines.

In the Night Lords series, its mentioned that to them, it has only been a few hundred years since the Horus heresy, do to the effect living in the eye of terror.

 Ernestas wrote:
this whole issue with Sigismund is more of an attempt to diminish Abaddon's accomplishment and a childish "feth you Chaos".

What?

 Ernestas wrote:
As far as I'm concerned space marines do not age.

Why?

"Dante sighed and reached up for his helmet. Sorrow troubled Seth’s boundless, caged fury. He disliked Dante hiding behind the face of their primarch, but once his helmet was free, he liked what he saw even less. Dante was old. That was what nobody ever expected to see behind that ageless, golden face. They thought him in the prime of his power, such was Dante’s reputation. But men were not meant to live so long, and Dante, though exceptional, was no primarch. Shadows pooled in his sunken eyes, a morbid foretaste of his appearance in death."

 Ernestas wrote:
As for space marine aging, it is an aspect of a lore which constantly contradicts itself.

Except for the fact that (loyalist) marines living to 700, 900, 1100 are all great legendary heroes, not something you see every day. A marine living longer than that is either a fluke (he's been in stasis or whatever) or he's a dreadnought, which means he's usually kept in stasis until needed. There is exactly one non-dreadnought Ultramarine older than Chaplain Cassius (who is 400 or so) and he's called Roboute Guilliman, Primarch returned. Marines are warriors, becoming one is hazardous, their entire life is dangerous. 90% of them will get rokkit-to-the-face syndrome before hitting 200.

Crippled marines are put to training the next generation, but the fluff doesn't mention a legion of Heresy-era drill sergeants whipping the new recruits into shape. So even these crippled sheltered-job guys do apparently die natural deaths at some point - which is supported by the fact that marines in general lose body parts and get scars. Their bodies can stand a lot but can't repair all damage all the time, it adds up and at some point they must die.

CSM can date back to the Heresy but they are powered by Chaos, spend much of their time in the Eye of Terror and quite literally don't know how or why they are alive or how long it's been.

 Ernestas wrote:
In Dark Angels novel, Luther is specifically mentioned as being a lot smaller and weaker than marines around him.

I only know of Luther and Kor Phaeron, both of whom are noted to not be as strong as regular Astartes. Erebus had a history before becoming a legionary, but I don't think his age is ever mentioned in any of that? The sense I've always gotten is that once you're in your late teens its too late to become an Astartes. Some characters in a lot of space marine books talk and act like men in their early 20s before becoming marines though, but Black Library lore is wonky as hell when it comes to consistency.

As for space marine aging, it is an aspect of a lore which constantly contradicts itself.

Time doesn't pass in the warp the same way it does in real space, thus heretic astartes can live way longer than they otherwise would have. That's not a contradiction. It's not even inconsistent. That's been in the lore for as long as I've been aware of it. Chaos Marines don't live longer, time is just relative.

For me, this whole issue with Sigismund is more of an attempt to diminish Abaddon's accomplishment and a childish "feth you Chaos".

Well, he has been jokingly referred to as 'failbaddon' so I won't even argue that. I feel like at some point Abby was so BA in the fandom, he became the guy that got thrown in to then show how BA others were and this resulted in Abby falling afoul of the Worf Effect as time went on.

As far as I'm concerned space marines do not age.

But Dante's age is noted in his own lore book (at least the one I have from 5th ed) as being extremely remarkable. He's the oldest marine alive by centuries. The book presents it as the Blood Angels having unnaturally long lives for Marines, assuming they don't die which fits with the whole vampire thing. I'm not sure Dante, a in lore noted exception to the rules, is a coherent basis for judging all space marines. The only other examples of Marines living that long I know of are Sigismund (who was noted as getting slower and weaker with age) and Janus, and Janus was cheating. All other ancient Marines are Dreadnoughts, who are being kept alive by complex life support systems and diminish with time.

Space marines very clearly age. Whether or not they can die of old age is kind of unclear, but they very evidently age.

I always thought that Astartes where considered to be functionally immortal. That is to say they never die of old age, but they never live long because someone inevitably kills them before they get old enough to die of old age.

And Heretic Astartes have a combination of warp-living and warp-enhancement that makes many effectively not age at an appreciable rate.

We don’t know if marines can age enough to die due to old age, but we do know they degrade with age.

I don’t think we can use chaos marines as a metric for marine age as 1) timey wimey warp and 2) chaos grants immortality, reknits damaged flesh and so on.

It will be interesting to see if Dante will be the first marine to truly die of old age ( there was one that survived thousands of years in a susan coma, but those conditions wren’t exactly great self care). Will his corpse get a primaris surgery to try reboot his biology?

Does anyone else find it disturbing how many marines die in the process and come back to life... primaris are zombies?!

Perhaps legendary humans could somehow be primarisd? It feels like it would just undermine their achievements as legendary humans.

So I know it's not the same, but there are several pre-horus heresy marines still alive? Re-juvinat treatments?

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So I know it's not the same, but there are several pre-horus heresy marines still alive? Re-juvinat treatments?

Who? Loyalists?

Ragnar Blackmane is Pre-Horus. Gman is Pre-horus (I know he was in Stasis) Kaldor is pre-Horus I think? Bjorn the Fellhanded is pre-horus. The leader of the Custodes is pre-horus I want to say? The Dark Angels have a few survivors of the Great Crusade, Cypher? Dante is 1100 years and kicking ass.

Point is, there is no clearly set life time for a Space Marine. All the lore is invalidated by the other lore. And will be again in the future. They could say that the life span is 300 years (Even though it clearly isn't) and then the next book out of the black library has a 500 year old Brother Captain of the Lore Breakers Chapter suddenly pop up. Point is, the life span is a worthless argument, the lore is rampantly inconsistent and easily proven invalid.

As to the main topic, Vulkan, Dorn, and pretty much every primarch was way past puberty when they were given the treatment. Horus I think was about 50, or much older than his brothers? Maybe not Horus, Magnus?

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ragnar Blackmane is Pre-Horus.

When did that happen? Pretty damn sure his whole bit is being the youngest of the Wolf Lords and Logan (who is centuries old) was not around during the Heresy.

Gman is Pre-horus (I know he was in Stasis)

I mean, I think that's more that he's a Primarch.Things might be different for them. Then again the only ones that are still out and about (for sure) are either made of warp stuff (The Daemon Primarchs and maybe Corax?), literally unkillable (Vulcan), or were in stasis for a long ass time (G-bro) so I don't know. Maybe they age under normal circumstances? Vulcan's really the only one who would offer any clues and he's got that whole perpetual thing going on and none of them seem to end.

Kaldor is pre-Horus I think?

He's most certainly not. Kaldor's story started in the last quarter of the 41st millennium.

Janus did live a long ass time (he was still around during the War of the Beast 1500 years after the Heresy), but again, Janus was cheating.

Bjorn the Fellhanded is pre-horus.

He's also in a dreadnought and noted in lore as being possibly the oldest Dreadnought still serving any space marine chapter and he's very slowly becoming less and less functional.

The leader of the Custodes is pre-horus I want to say?

Constantin Valdor is most certainly not alive, but you are correct as current Captain General is a vaunted veteran of the Great Crusade

Custodes are also evidently not made from the same stuff as the typical Space Marine.

The Dark Angels have a few survivors of the Great Crusade, Cypher?

The Fallen fall (heh) into the same category as anyone who spends a lot of time in the Warp. Time gets fucky, and this is even noted in one of the old Space Wolf books about Ragnar I think that the Fallen got scattered not just through space but time after the devastation of Caliban. But that's also Black Library and old Black Library and I have no idea if any of that gak is still 'canon' or whatever passes for it in Black Library. So you're right about the lore being inconsistent, I just don't think it's as inconsistent on this matter as you think.

Point is, there is no clearly set life time for a Space Marine.

I don't think anyone was saying there was.

People were saying Space Marines very clearly get old, i.e. they age. Whether or not they die of old age is impossible to say because they 99% of time die within a century or so at best and the ones who don't are either involved with 4th degree warp fuckery, or are in some kind of stasis, or are cheating in some way.

Ragnar is waaaaaaaaaaaay post-Horus.