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Can a marine in his suit survive an exterminatus? What about similar closed suits from other races?

Seeing as the force of the Exterminatus is enough to obliterate the planet I think that it should be enough to also obliterate anything on the planet. So no.

I thought the exterminatus just melted all the organic life?

Thats a virus bomb verson.

davou wrote:
I thought the exterminatus just melted all the organic life?

Exterminatus is the cleansing of an entire planet, achieved through the use of weapons of mass, mass destruction. Weapons like virus bombs, or cyclonic/atmosphere incendiary torpedos that are launched from space. Can a soldier's suit of armour withstand such weapons? No. No, they can't.

Ok, I just checked Lexicanum and it doesn't necessarily say that it's the obliteration of a planet, the cracks in the crust of the planet in the image gave me the impression that it was. Still, power armour isn't going to save you from a bombardment designed to purge all life from a planet. Here's the link from Lexicanum anyway http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Exterminatus.

Horus Heresy says no.

A dreadnought can if is "seals" itself.

Depends on the shelter you pick. Some people (including Loken) survived Isstvan.

 DeffDred wrote:
Horus Heresy says no.

A dreadnought can if is "seals" itself.

Ayup. Dreadnaughts can live through Virus bombs if they are still air tight. Unfortunately the only one I can think of from the Horus Heresy died as his armor was cracked and letting the virus in. As for the other methods of turning a planet into a glorified moon, I honestly don't know. With the exception of virus bombs all I can recall is typically some kind of large explosive detonated beneath the crust of a planet or many "smaller" (relative term mind you) explosives detonated above a planet to burn everything out. Considering these are quite literally designed to destroy everything not in a fortified bunker underground, I don't believe so. On the subject of other races' armor, there is precious little info to go off.
A Wraithlord may be okay depending how close it is to any of the blasts as it is nothing more than "glass" mushed into harder-than-steel psi-plastics. that and any potential melting-point that wraithbone has.
Dark Eldar armor is a complete mystery to me. They may also use psi-plastics but this would be at odds with their aversion to psychic anything.
Orkz could live if they thought they could (damn positive thinking).
A Tau crisis suit maybe. Probably has the same condition as the Dreadnaught.
Virus bombs would turn Tyranid into apple-sauce and be a generally bad idea; they may figure the virus out and begin applying it.
Necron would not have to worry very much so long as they don't melt.
The rest I don't know about enough to go either way.

davou wrote:
Can a marine in his suit survive an exterminatus? What about similar closed suits from other races?

Possibly is about the only right answer. In the olden days when exterminatus was the order of the day for any chaos infected planet:

The IG, Marines and any Grey Knights called in would defeat the chaos incursion. The grey knights would be lifted to safety and allowed to remember what happened. The space marines would be lifted off planet and have their minds wiped and retrained to forget anything they had seen about chaos. Then every other living thing on the planet, including the Imperial Guard troops that had just fought would be completely wiped out of existence through a variety of means, virus bombs, oribital lasers, planet cracking missiles launched from space, etc, etc. This was done until all life was disposed of on the planet. Wait we have a life sign in the remains of a bunker? Blow it pieces with targeted strikes until everyone is dead.

The horus heresy stories have put a crimp on some of this with the Istvaan battles, but those were not really full exterminatus orders, but instead they just decided to try to virus bomb those still loyal to the emperor to death, so wasn't exactly as thorough as the Inqusition. Of course before Horus could choose to be as thorough as the Inqusition Angron launched his loyal troops to the surface to kill the remaining loyalists face to face, thus we don't exactly know for sure if there is or isn't anything in the space arsenal that would have killed them all anyway.

Exterminatus is also no longer as cruel as it once was. IG and Marines are now allowed to know and remember the horrible things about chaos that they have seen. Thus the grey knights, despite their heavy duty anti-chaos abilities, have become somewhat superfluous in the grand scheme since they are no longer the *only* forces in the Imperial at large that know how to deal with chaos. I miss those olden days. Just gave things a much nastier feel to it. Chaos was even more of a threat because the Imperium even killed its own troops en masse to get rid of anyone who knew anything about it. Those were also the days when a single bloodthirster in 40k cost 1250 points and was worth every point and then some...

Skriker

Exterminatus is an end result not a set style. It can be done in any number of ways, the end result is the same, lifeless world. The Virile bomb brought up in this thread will eat though normal Sm armor seals, Dreads can survive it, if they have more or less spotless armor.

In the Horus heresy books the bombs may have been followed by something worse, but Mr. Angry got all hot to trot and went down before phase two if any could be lunched,

At least at the time of the Heresy, PA was not proof against the Virus.

Currently, I believe PA is proof against the Virus if it acts fast enough to switch to contained air supply.


But an Exterminatus is more then the Virus. Its a conventional bombardment followed by the Virus bombs. At this point a marine might have survived on the surface. But the Virus creates a build up of flammable gas. This gas is then ignited with a lance strike. This causes a firestorm to sweep the entire planet. This would most certaintly not be survivable by a marine.

Only a protected bunker would have a chance of survival, and thats what the bombardment tries to destroy.

 Hunterindarkness wrote:
Exterminatus is an end result not a set style. It can be done in any number of ways, the end result is the same, lifeless world. The Virile bomb brought up in this thread will eat though normal Sm armor seals, Dreads can survive it, if they have more or less spotless armor.

In the Horus heresy books the bombs may have been followed by something worse, but Mr. Angry got all hot to trot and went down before phase two if any could be lunched,

Not sure about what you had in mind, but that causes a quite funny mental image.

Also, while caused by chaos Iron Warriors, the Tallarns survived a símil exterminatus.

Yes spell check correction has failed me, but made an amusing weapon.

 Grey Templar wrote:
At least at the time of the Heresy, PA was not proof against the Virus.

Currently, I believe PA is proof against the Virus if it acts fast enough to switch to contained air supply.


But an Exterminatus is more then the Virus. Its a conventional bombardment followed by the Virus bombs. At this point a marine might have survived on the surface. But the Virus creates a build up of flammable gas. This gas is then ignited with a lance strike. This causes a firestorm to sweep the entire planet. This would most certaintly not be survivable by a marine.

Only a protected bunker would have a chance of survival, and thats what the bombardment tries to destroy.

I find it hard to beleive that *any* warhead, even nuclear, could destroy every fortified bunker on a planet.

WEll ya see, if you crack the crust, boil off the atmosphere and leave the world a pile of expanding rubble, it tends to get bunkers as well.