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.

I know in Dev of Baal there was the son or whatever that the apothacary say something like, This can be remedied.

But can an Astartes brain heal itself, like the rest of their body? Was there ever any lore on how the science magic works to create more brain cells, an essentially finite resource?

In the space wolf novels, ragnar's wolf gusrd leader was shot in the head and downed.

After the battle he got to have a last chat with him as the priests took him away. He could speak but his physical functions were shot (pardon the pun) and while fans would have liked to see him interred in a dreadnought it was very much implied they were going to give him the Emperors Peace.

So i think if the damage is serious enough, thers no.going back. In terms of what constitutes 'serious enough' you've got me - I'd assume its whatever the plot requires.

The boy in DoB can have his brain fixed with surgery when he gets made into an Astartes. The Apothecary takes the boy because the Blood Angels were desperate for new initiates and his physical disabilities could be fixed during the procedure to make him Primaris.

Astartes can't grow back their brains like some sort of weird Gecko.

No. Not self healing, no. The brain is the brain and isn’t noted for regrowing spontaneously.

However….it can be replaced with bionics, provided the initial injury is survived. How effective that might prove depends on the quality and availability of the bionics in question. But I’d wager without a specialist, Astartes specific design, they’d lose the ability to switch off half their brain at a time as a replacement to sleep.

The same is likely true of any organ. Once ruined, it’s transplant or bionics o’clock. Except for the liver, which even in us Mere Hoomans has an exceptional capacity to regrow.

So then how did Meph survive the transition? Or any newly made primaris? They have to literally cut out the brain.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So then how did Meph survive the transition? Or any newly made primaris? They have to literally cut out the brain.

They do? I'm under the impression that going through the Rubicon is just more organ implants. Do you have a reference for the whole procedure or the cutting out the brain part?

You don't cut out the brain you just add more things in and make the Marine bigger.

The brain is a surprisingly adaptable organ, people are able to survive and experience little to no impairment with significant chunks missing. Given how physically tough marines are, and with their enhanced mental powers, they could probably adapt to some quite significant brain damage given the time and opportunity to do so.

Others have pretty well covered it. Healing astartes brain damage is probably mostly a matter of surgery/bionics/maybe(?) growing some replacement sections in a vat?

If I'm not mistaken (big if), adult brain cells don't really get replaced over time the way that most cells do. So if a chunk of a lobe gets carved out by a chainsword, it's probably not going to grow back with time. Astartes super healing seems to mostly be about coagulating blood more quickly, filtering out toxins really efficiently, and being able to consciously control brain chemistry to a degree to resist pain, going into shock, etc. None of which seems like it would help heal brain damage.

Although this does make me wonder how extensive a biomancer would be allowed to be with his healing. If you have a meat wizard that can regrow the half a brain blown out of a battle brother's head, do you let him do so? And is it still the same brother?

I can answer the Biomancer bit.
Solid no because he's a witch and warpcraft isn't going near the brain of any loyal Astartes, even in the direst of situations.

The brain is very adaptable and damage can be bypassed and new connections made, as said above, brain injuries do heal to some extent. Not grow new cells and replace lost mass but functions can be returned through physio therapy and things like that. That’s why many people with brain injuries improve over time. With the resource's available, to marines who knows what is possible in the setting. There are limits with current medicine but stem cell work could alter that, certainly in the next 30000 years.

It’s best not to dog too deep into marine science because it’s all pretty iffy. At the time (1989s) it people seems far fetched but plausible enough. Now it’s just dated and comedic really. Rule of cool wins but if start looking at it in detail it doesn’t stand any scrutiny.

Even if Astartes can regrow portions of their brain in theory, they would still have permanent damage.

The brain isn't just the physical tissue, it is the connections between neurons that form memories that make a person themselves. So even if the brain cells themselves are restored, the neurons will still be wiped clean and thus you'll have massive mental damage, likely irreversible.

Marines are going to be resilient than most, but there will still be a point of no return where it is impossible to fix them. Better to give them a dignified death, harvest their geneseed, and give them a proper burial.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Even if Astartes can regrow portions of their brain in theory, they would still have permanent damage.

The brain isn't just the physical tissue, it is the connections between neurons that form memories that make a person themselves. So even if the brain cells themselves are restored, the neurons will still be wiped clean and thus you'll have massive mental damage, likely irreversible.

Marines are going to be resilient than most, but there will still be a point of no return where it is impossible to fix them. Better to give them a dignified death, harvest their geneseed, and give them a proper burial.

That being said….

Canonically we know that House Goliath are a primitive incarnation of post-humans. The Vat-Born are subject to rapid maturation, emerging more or less fully grown (and still capable of surviving if that process is interrupted). They are of course largely blank slates. So how do you educated several feet and a good couple of hundred pounds of newborn muscle? Memory Slugs.

The exact process isn’t described, but they basically implant basic knowledge and processes straight into them.

Now Astartes aren’t just many degrees more sophisticated, but already subject to hypno-indoctrination. I’d wager that whilst it’s not necessarily standard practice, Astartes could have their memories backed up into Data Slugs, which I think we can reasonably infer would again be more sophisticated than those used by House Goliath.

If so, and let’s face we’re just a published short story away from it, then that neatly side steps the neuron issue via for want of a better word, a back up memory. Best of all, the Marine in question isn’t going to have memories of the horrific injury being caused, because being a back up, it hadn’t happened at that point.

It is possible given the Imperium's technology, though having back-up memories of an entire person is dangerously close to Silica Animus so I suspect it is probably heretical.

Only if implanted in a machine

Odd that these memory implants have never been mentioned, especially when they have talked about the impact of mind wiping marines after contact with chaos and things. They have never said that’s it’s fine because you can back up someone’s memories and re implant them or even implant basic training.

And connections that create memory are very plastic, it’s the connections that control fine motor functions and things like that which would take longer to rebuild.

In the book Vengeful Spirit one of Horus's first possessed marines is body that was essentially brain dead. So irreparable damage can definitely happen.

Astartes canonically have rapid healing of smaller injuries but they can't regrow a limb for example. So I'd make the case that they can shrug off the sort of compound head injuries we see in football players today, but can't regrow big chunks of the brain. Because 40k mostly runs on rule of cool and not actual science.

Andykp wrote:
Odd that these memory implants have never been mentioned, especially when they have talked about the impact of mind wiping marines after contact with chaos and things. They have never said that’s it’s fine because you can back up someone’s memories and re implant them or even implant basic training.

And connections that create memory are very plastic, it’s the connections that control fine motor functions and things like that which would take longer to rebuild.

Well, they’ve never been not mentioned, which for 40K is an important distinction.

And to be honest? It adds another level of horror to the Astartes condition.

Consider. They’re recruited as children. Some are willing applicants. Others are just…..taken. It of course varies Chapter to Chapter.

From there, they’re indoctrinated and rendered inhuman. Not just indoctrinated with, erm….doctrine. But chemically, hypnotically and even psychically.

From the second a youth is chosen? They’re in for a violent, unpleasant death one way or another. They’re not Warriors. They’re weapons.

Now imagine what little individuality left to them can be forcibly supplanted. Literally overwritten with another personality.

yes more than likely since neural plasticity tends tends towards healthier humans as well as younger ones, an astartes slower aging and enhanced neural structure means it is fairly likely that any damage done to the brain would be bypassed over time albeit slowly.

Rare examples in humans for example have children as young as 7 losing one sixth of their brain and making a full recovery, so it is in the realm of possibility an Astartes would have greater levels of recovery.

You're all forgetting that Astartes have codes of honour.
Is it honourable to take a once proud warrior back to the Chapter fief and have them suffer the ignomy of being "useless" rather than being given the Emperor's Peace on the site of battle?
An Astartes who cannot fight is no true Astartes after all.

 Gert wrote:
You're all forgetting that Astartes have codes of honour.
Is it honourable to take a once proud warrior back to the Chapter fief and have them suffer the ignomy of being "useless" rather than being given the Emperor's Peace on the site of battle?
An Astartes who cannot fight is no true Astartes after all.

In what way are we forgetting that, no one is saying, or I certainly am not, what happens to Brian damaged marines. We all know marines will kill severely wounded comrades just to ensure you can harvest their glands. But it is also plausible that they might bring some back in commas and try to rehab them, if they can’t then it’s the chop for them.

The conversation turned to memory implants and brain slugs as a way of fixing brain damage so agree to disagree.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, they’ve never been not mentioned, which for 40K is an important distinction.

Yeah but then we're into assumption territory. If we start going there then it's a whole different kettle of fish.

Now imagine what little individuality left to them can be forcibly supplanted. Literally overwritten with another personality.

TBF that's most Astartes already. The indoctrination process robs them of their past with only very faded memories of their childhoods for the vast majority of Marines. There are some who don't, the Ultramarines spring to mind, and each Astartes will retain some knowledge of their origins but it seems to be little more than say the city/region/planet they came from rather than anything specific.

Would be a cool hook for a custom Chapter, using memory slugs to preserve their best and brightest over the years, to the point new Recruits pretty much become New Bodies for fallen Veterans to inhabit.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Would be a cool hook for a custom Chapter, using memory slugs to preserve their best and brightest over the years, to the point new Recruits pretty much become New Bodies for fallen Veterans to inhabit.

Horus Heresy fluff had something similar with the pre-Blood Angel "Revenant Legion." Except they'd simply consume the dead and absorb their memories through their Omophagea. Combined with them all looking vaguely like the still undiscovered Sanguinius, and it could appear as if individual warriors were undying.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Odd that these memory implants have never been mentioned, especially when they have talked about the impact of mind wiping marines after contact with chaos and things. They have never said that’s it’s fine because you can back up someone’s memories and re implant them or even implant basic training.

And connections that create memory are very plastic, it’s the connections that control fine motor functions and things like that which would take longer to rebuild.

Well, they’ve never been not mentioned, which for 40K is an important distinction.

And to be honest? It adds another level of horror to the Astartes condition.

Consider. They’re recruited as children. Some are willing applicants. Others are just…..taken. It of course varies Chapter to Chapter.

From there, they’re indoctrinated and rendered inhuman. Not just indoctrinated with, erm….doctrine. But chemically, hypnotically and even psychically.

From the second a youth is chosen? They’re in for a violent, unpleasant death one way or another. They’re not Warriors. They’re weapons.

Now imagine what little individuality left to them can be forcibly supplanted. Literally overwritten with another personality.

It's been explicitly suggested the Minotaurs chapter do that in setting.

The Chapter master asterion moloc:
"Moloc was initially reported as killed in action, but his fleet recovered him alive. This is at least the seventh such incident over the last five centuries, which leads some to believe that "Asterion Moloc" is a legacy inherited by the Chapter Master of the Minotaurs along with his panoply and engrammatically-enforced memories and personality."

Angron had a big chunk of his brain cut out to fit the Butcher's Nails, which then replaced those functions to keep him alive, but not in terms of keeping him sane. Removing them would kill him, so even a Primarch with their superior healing couldn't just regenerate those parts of the brain entirely.

We see enough marines wandering around with chunks of their head missing and replaced by bionics, at least some of those would have lost brain tissue as well.

Even ordinary humans can survive pretty catastrophic brain damage and survive, and remap (relearn) how to do things. Phineas Gage survived an iron rod that went right through his skull and destroyed much of his left frontal lobe! Though it did dramatically alter his personality.

So I don't think marines can regrow brain tissue, but they can survive traumatic injury and return to the front line; they might need some psychosurgery or conditioning - possibly the same as they got as aspirants - to restore skills that have been lost, though they'd be generic training rather than restoring his previous memory.

Most marines have the Omophagea organ though, which allows them to eat sentient brain tissue and learn memories from it. It's somewhat enlarged in Sanguinius' line, which is why a number of his descendents have cannibalistic rituals that they don't talk about in polite company.

locarno24 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Odd that these memory implants have never been mentioned, especially when they have talked about the impact of mind wiping marines after contact with chaos and things. They have never said that’s it’s fine because you can back up someone’s memories and re implant them or even implant basic training.

And connections that create memory are very plastic, it’s the connections that control fine motor functions and things like that which would take longer to rebuild.

Well, they’ve never been not mentioned, which for 40K is an important distinction.

And to be honest? It adds another level of horror to the Astartes condition.

Consider. They’re recruited as children. Some are willing applicants. Others are just…..taken. It of course varies Chapter to Chapter.

From there, they’re indoctrinated and rendered inhuman. Not just indoctrinated with, erm….doctrine. But chemically, hypnotically and even psychically.

From the second a youth is chosen? They’re in for a violent, unpleasant death one way or another. They’re not Warriors. They’re weapons.

Now imagine what little individuality left to them can be forcibly supplanted. Literally overwritten with another personality.

It's been explicitly suggested the Minotaurs chapter do that in setting.

The Chapter master asterion moloc:
"Moloc was initially reported as killed in action, but his fleet recovered him alive. This is at least the seventh such incident over the last five centuries, which leads some to believe that "Asterion Moloc" is a legacy inherited by the Chapter Master of the Minotaurs along with his panoply and engrammatically-enforced memories and personality."

And that is how 40k fluff should be, “leads some to believe” is the key. It means that it can be exactly that if that’s how you like it or not at all that If you don’t. So even characters in the established fluff can still “your dudes”. That’s why I dislike definitive answers to 40k questions their should always be ambiguity. So if you want an army made of memory encoded marines then you’re good to go. Thinking more about cawl and the ad mech have been encoding memories in the fluff too.

Andykp wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Odd that these memory implants have never been mentioned, especially when they have talked about the impact of mind wiping marines after contact with chaos and things. They have never said that’s it’s fine because you can back up someone’s memories and re implant them or even implant basic training.

And connections that create memory are very plastic, it’s the connections that control fine motor functions and things like that which would take longer to rebuild.

Well, they’ve never been not mentioned, which for 40K is an important distinction.

And to be honest? It adds another level of horror to the Astartes condition.

Consider. They’re recruited as children. Some are willing applicants. Others are just…..taken. It of course varies Chapter to Chapter.

From there, they’re indoctrinated and rendered inhuman. Not just indoctrinated with, erm….doctrine. But chemically, hypnotically and even psychically.

From the second a youth is chosen? They’re in for a violent, unpleasant death one way or another. They’re not Warriors. They’re weapons.

Now imagine what little individuality left to them can be forcibly supplanted. Literally overwritten with another personality.

It's been explicitly suggested the Minotaurs chapter do that in setting.

The Chapter master asterion moloc:
"Moloc was initially reported as killed in action, but his fleet recovered him alive. This is at least the seventh such incident over the last five centuries, which leads some to believe that "Asterion Moloc" is a legacy inherited by the Chapter Master of the Minotaurs along with his panoply and engrammatically-enforced memories and personality."

And that is how 40k fluff should be, “leads some to believe” is the key. It means that it can be exactly that if that’s how you like it or not at all that If you don’t. So even characters in the established fluff can still “your dudes”. That’s why I dislike definitive answers to 40k questions their should always be ambiguity. So if you want an army made of memory encoded marines then you’re good to go. Thinking more about cawl and the ad mech have been encoding memories in the fluff too.

Entirely fair on the ambiguity, but the important aspect is that it is considered entirely plausible within the setting for such a strategy to be pursued.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I'm pretty sure the Exorcists Chapter use some kind of engrams to encode orders for their Inquisitorial masters.

There is a theme here of Chapters controlled by other Imperial branches being more likely to have specific mental reprogramming.

 Haighus wrote:

Andykp wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Odd that these memory implants have never been mentioned, especially when they have talked about the impact of mind wiping marines after contact with chaos and things. They have never said that’s it’s fine because you can back up someone’s memories and re implant them or even implant basic training.

And connections that create memory are very plastic, it’s the connections that control fine motor functions and things like that which would take longer to rebuild.

Well, they’ve never been not mentioned, which for 40K is an important distinction.

And to be honest? It adds another level of horror to the Astartes condition.

Consider. They’re recruited as children. Some are willing applicants. Others are just…..taken. It of course varies Chapter to Chapter.

From there, they’re indoctrinated and rendered inhuman. Not just indoctrinated with, erm….doctrine. But chemically, hypnotically and even psychically.

From the second a youth is chosen? They’re in for a violent, unpleasant death one way or another. They’re not Warriors. They’re weapons.

Now imagine what little individuality left to them can be forcibly supplanted. Literally overwritten with another personality.

It's been explicitly suggested the Minotaurs chapter do that in setting.

The Chapter master asterion moloc:
"Moloc was initially reported as killed in action, but his fleet recovered him alive. This is at least the seventh such incident over the last five centuries, which leads some to believe that "Asterion Moloc" is a legacy inherited by the Chapter Master of the Minotaurs along with his panoply and engrammatically-enforced memories and personality."

And that is how 40k fluff should be, “leads some to believe” is the key. It means that it can be exactly that if that’s how you like it or not at all that If you don’t. So even characters in the established fluff can still “your dudes”. That’s why I dislike definitive answers to 40k questions their should always be ambiguity. So if you want an army made of memory encoded marines then you’re good to go. Thinking more about cawl and the ad mech have been encoding memories in the fluff too.

Entirely fair on the ambiguity, but the important aspect is that it is considered entirely plausible within the setting for such a strategy to be pursued.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I'm pretty sure the Exorcists Chapter use some kind of engrams to encode orders for their Inquisitorial masters.

There is a theme here of Chapters controlled by other Imperial branches being more likely to have specific mental reprogramming.

That’s what I meant, it validates as much as it doesn’t, so it’s still up to you but yes, perfectly plausible.

Think about what the Minotaurs have to "indoctrinate" their aspirants with? Their chapter is literally created to hunt down and destroy Rogue Astartes chapters. How do you indoctrinate a child with the goal that one day you will hunt down and destroy what essentially is a demi-god to you?

The Minotaurs are a bamf chapter, and I wish they were more heavily focused on by GW.