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 Peregrine wrote:
This is the only reason marines have any value at all: they're religious icons, and the propaganda value of "every minute you keep fighting is another chance for the space marines to arrive and save us" is priceless for motivating the Imperium's armies to keep fighting even in the most hopeless and terrifying situations.

I don't think that gives them any value, as they could just be entirely fictional for almost no cost, and if Marines are truly crap and irrelevant, then having them be real would only crash morale when they do show up and completely fail expectations.

Daemons aren't that easy as nuking them from orbit, if chaos corrupts the guard or navy whose job it is to wipe them out then it starts as a cancer that can corrupt a whole battle group with enough time. The Inquisition knows that only using such extreme measures will draw attention and corrupt, and corruption of a world is one thing, corruption of a battlegroup is a fething big deal and a threat to the imperium.

Animus wrote:
I don't think that gives them any value, as they could just be entirely fictional for almost no cost, and if Marines are truly crap and irrelevant, then having them be real would only crash morale when they do show up and completely fail expectations.

Well, the propaganda aspect is just a nice side effect really. The main reason to have space marines is that god told the Imperium to have space marines, and the Imperium is an insane theocracy where devotion to religious idiocy must be maintained regardless of the cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Daemons aren't that easy as nuking them from orbit, if chaos corrupts the guard or navy whose job it is to wipe them out then it starts as a cancer that can corrupt a whole battle group with enough time.

So now we have magic chaos that automatically corrupts a ship in orbit without having anyone in the fleet ever go down to the planet? You do realize that this pretty much means that chaos will always corrupt everything, and no war against chaos can ever succeed, right? If the bombardment fleet can be corrupted like that then surely a fleet transporting a conventional army to the planet can be corrupted just as easily.

 Peregrine wrote:
Well, the propaganda aspect is just a nice side effect really. The main reason to have space marines is that god told the Imperium to have space marines, and the Imperium is an insane theocracy where devotion to religious idiocy must be maintained regardless of the cost.

But we know the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really get on with Marines all that well, so why keep them?
Why would the Emperor waste his time on Space Marines in the first place?

 Harriticus wrote:
I agree they should go back to a more specialized role, unless their numbers are expanded. The idea that 100 Space Marines can take even an area the size of Connecticut is laughable, I don't care how "elite" they are. Nevermind having that number conquer entire planets on a regular basis.

The Legiones Astartes sizes just scratched the surface of necessary Marine numbers for system-wide conquests given Marine capabilities.

 Melissia wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
you take out its leadership and look to get the bulkof the enemy forces degraded to the point you can move about at will.

Yeah that worked so well against iraq and afghanistan.

I think these are great examples how marines attacking a rebel planet would work. They use their superior technology and skills to quickly destroy the enemy leadership and key strategic assets. Then they declare 'mission accomplished' and move on, while the guard arrives and stays for twenty years to pacify the planet that has now fallen into anarchy.

So in other words, they Space Marines don't do much of anything, and the Imperial Guard does all the real work. Except the planet hasn't "fallen into anarchy", of course; theyr'e still united by their hatred of the Imperium.

After all, we utterly failed in Afghanistan using Space Marine like tactics. Al Qaeda not only wasn't destroyed, they're resurgent now, and have pushed their influence beyond Afghanistan, more motivated and more powerful than before.

rant: I think a huge problem is the definition of "conquer" or "take a planet".

to wit: "con·quer
ˈkäNGkər/Submit
verb
1.
overcome and take control of (a place or people) by use of military force.
"the Magyars conquered Hungary in the Middle Ages"
synonyms: defeat, beat, vanquish, trounce, triumph over, be victorious over, get the better of, worst;"

An important idea is what is meant by take control. What are they controlling? ALL resources, some resources, one resource, the population, some of the population, space access, the thoughts of everyone on the planet? One of the HUGE issues I have with Sci-Fi in general is the bizarre way that a planet is treated like some monolithic thing that is homogeneous and unchanging. Every planet is shown as having one environment, one culture, one stereotype, no sub-planetary governance, etc. While I can assume that is merely a convention of scale (you zoom around the galaxy, why care about some little dinky backwater country in a small continent of an unimportant planet?), it still gives the impression that if you just do this "one thing" you can somehow "take control" of something. IRL, this is not how it works. Kill off a national leader, guess what, people don't just roll over and give you free reign to own the country (or extrapolating out, the planet). The whole "decapitation" attack BS that people believe is also really, really dumb. You can decapitate organizations all you want, they don't "go away"...they are degraded...for a time. Granted, you can use SM to degrade planets ability to react and withstand invasion from the IG and IN, but to think that somehow 10 guys in powered armor show up, kill some guys (or a lot of guys) and somehow the whole planetary population just says, "OK, were conquered, please have mercy" is ludicrous.

The next part is the "planet" in question...if there is ZERO population on it, as in a frozen little ice ball like Pluto...yes, a single tactical squad can certainly conquer that planet. A Space Marine Chapter can NOT conquer modern day Earth...they can hack and slash their way through a billion people, hack every computer and murder with poison gas another two billion humans...and they still will not be able to "take control." The population of the planet is a hugely important variable... /rant

-STS

Animus wrote:
But we know the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really get on with Marines all that well, so why keep them?
Why would the Emperor waste his time on Space Marines in the first place?

Why does any religion do what they do? Maybe the Emperor never wasted time with space marines, and the whole thing was invented because some priest saw an ancient cartoon with power armored super-soldiers, thought it was a history book, and nobody was willing to dispute the sacred word of god? You have to stop thinking about rational decisions and remember that the Imperium is a delusional theocracy where knowledge is heresy and heresy is death.

 Peregrine wrote:

Animus wrote:
I don't think that gives them any value, as they could just be entirely fictional for almost no cost, and if Marines are truly crap and irrelevant, then having them be real would only crash morale when they do show up and completely fail expectations.

Well, the propaganda aspect is just a nice side effect really. The main reason to have space marines is that god told the Imperium to have space marines, and the Imperium is an insane theocracy where devotion to religious idiocy must be maintained regardless of the cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Daemons aren't that easy as nuking them from orbit, if chaos corrupts the guard or navy whose job it is to wipe them out then it starts as a cancer that can corrupt a whole battle group with enough time.

So now we have magic chaos that automatically corrupts a ship in orbit without having anyone in the fleet ever go down to the planet? You do realize that this pretty much means that chaos will always corrupt everything, and no war against chaos can ever succeed, right? If the bombardment fleet can be corrupted like that then surely a fleet transporting a conventional army to the planet can be corrupted just as easily.

Yeah, I think that's the actual jist of chaos, it can't be defeated whilst people willing to worship it live. Also, chaos can corrupt without any physical contact. Come on, this is basic fluff now, you should know this.

slade the sniper wrote:
but to think that somehow 10 guys in powered armor show up, kill some guys (or a lot of guys) and somehow the whole planetary population just says, "OK, were conquered, please have mercy" is ludicrous.

And it's especially ludicrous in a setting like 40k, where mercy doesn't exist and surrender just means you die in the execution camps instead of in battle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Yeah, I think that's the actual jist of chaos, it can't be defeated whilst people willing to worship it live. Also, chaos can corrupt without any physical contact. Come on, this is basic fluff now, you should know this.

Yes, but my point is that if chaos can corrupt a bombardment fleet at a distance then it can corrupt everything. There would be no fighting against chaos, you just happen to exist on the same planet as a chaos thing and you're corrupted, end of discussion. But what we see is that it is possible to resist chaos and even win wars against chaos, so there must be limits to its ability to corrupt. And if you can fight a conventional war (often over long periods of time, and at close range) and win without getting corrupted then it just isn't reasonable to argue that a bombardment fleet will be corrupted in the brief time it spends in orbit.

Animus wrote:
But we know the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really get on with Marines all that well, so why keep them?

The Ecclesiarchy isn't in charge, and the Marines were already very well-established before the Ecclesiarchy was formed. So the Ecclesiarchy can't really decree that all Marines must be removed.

Besides, the Ecclesiarchy doesn't have only dislike for the Marines. They give Chaplains Rosariuses, so obviously they have some measure of respect for them. Also, there's Chapters like the BT that share the Ecclesiarchy's beliefs and regularly help them out.

The possibility to corrupt isn't the same as corrupting everything.

The Imperium know that any involvement with chaos leads to more corruption, most guardsmen and Navy don't know it exists, as soon as they do know they become a problem, as they are easier to corrupt, if they don't go insane that is.

So, that battlegroup in distance of the planet is better off not responding if some space marines in a strike cruiser are nearby, as they can handle for the most part the nuking aspect and are even better at taking back the forge worlds or important shrine worlds without destroying them when daemons are involved.

You're just arguing rubbish points now and I'm bored of it.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The Imperium know that any involvement with chaos leads to more corruption, most guardsmen and Navy don't know it exists, as soon as they do know they become a problem, as they are easier to corrupt, if they don't go insane that is.

So don't tell the crew about chaos. You don't need to know all about chaos to fire a nuke at the map coordinates you've been given.

So, that battlegroup in distance of the planet is better off not responding if some space marines in a strike cruiser are nearby, as they can handle for the most part the nuking aspect and are even better at taking back the forge worlds or important shrine worlds without destroying them when daemons are involved.

You mean the same marines that are constantly falling to chaos?

Plus, as I've said, talking about the space marine fleet ignores the fact that a space marine strike cruiser is much more expensive and inefficient than a conventional ship because you're paying to support the ground forces on that cruiser. You don't build an army of super soldiers to fight on the ground because they come with shiny new strike cruisers.

 Peregrine wrote:
The main reason to have space marines is that god told the Imperium to have space marines, and the Imperium is an insane theocracy where devotion to religious idiocy must be maintained regardless of the cost.

I think you should add a 'In my opinion' somewhere in there.

What you said is by no means an objective fact, it is a possible interpretation. Nothing more, nothing less.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


You mean the same marines that are constantly falling to chaos?

Yeah, because we never see insurgent Guardsmen or PDF anywhere.

Oh wait... We do. In fact, it seems so common so it's not even a big deal any longer. (Unlike when a Chapter rebels- Just look at the havoc the Astral Claws caused when they decided Imperium was not fun any longer.)

 Peregrine wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The Imperium know that any involvement with chaos leads to more corruption, most guardsmen and Navy don't know it exists, as soon as they do know they become a problem, as they are easier to corrupt, if they don't go insane that is.

So don't tell the crew about chaos. You don't need to know all about chaos to fire a nuke at the map coordinates you've been given.

So, that battlegroup in distance of the planet is better off not responding if some space marines in a strike cruiser are nearby, as they can handle for the most part the nuking aspect and are even better at taking back the forge worlds or important shrine worlds without destroying them when daemons are involved.

You mean the same marines that are constantly falling to chaos?

Plus, as I've said, talking about the space marine fleet ignores the fact that a space marine strike cruiser is much more expensive and inefficient than a conventional ship because you're paying to support the ground forces on that cruiser. You don't build an army of super soldiers to fight on the ground because they come with shiny new strike cruisers.

I love constantly as a terms of measurement, how come there are still loyal marines then? At the rate of constant, it wouldn't take long to burn through and corrupt all the chapters.

And to fire the nuke, someone will need to know what is down there, someone will know why the nuke is being fired and that is a liability.

Also, is a Space Marine strike cruiser housing 100 marines and their equipment more expensive than the Emperor class battleship plus support ships and troop transport ships? I don't think so.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
What you said is by no means an objective fact, it is a possible interpretation. Nothing more, nothing less.

No, it's one of the defining facts about the setting. Seriously, remember the whole grimdark thing? A big part of that is that the Imperium is an oppressive theocracy where religious delusion oppresses trillions and any attempt at questioning the sacred truth or independent thought is heresy and punished by death. And the whole point is that this obscenity is the only way for humanity to cling desperately to one more day of life.

Yeah, because we never see insurgent Guardsmen or PDF anywhere.

Of course we do. The point is that marines also fail to chaos and aren't some magic chaos-proof army, not that nobody else does.

Peregrine wrote:

Animus wrote:
But we know the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really get on with Marines all that well, so why keep them?
Why would the Emperor waste his time on Space Marines in the first place?

Why does any religion do what they do? Maybe the Emperor never wasted time with space marines, and the whole thing was invented because some priest saw an ancient cartoon with power armored super-soldiers, thought it was a history book, and nobody was willing to dispute the sacred word of god? You have to stop thinking about rational decisions and remember that the Imperium is a delusional theocracy where knowledge is heresy and heresy is death.

They'll usually have have some reason to do things, warped and irrelevant as it may become down the centuries. But why Space Marines? If they're not from the Emperor, then why are they organised like they are? Why are million of them, why not ten or a trillion? Why new marks of armor? Why not discontinue them as false when they fail to reach their supposed prowess?

Troike wrote:

Animus wrote:
But we know the Ecclesiarchy doesn't really get on with Marines all that well, so why keep them?

The Ecclesiarchy isn't in charge, and the Marines were already very well-established before the Ecclesiarchy was formed. So the Ecclesiarchy can't really decree that all Marines must be removed.

Besides, the Ecclesiarchy doesn't have only dislike for the Marines. They give Chaplains Rosariuses, so obviously they have some measure of respect for them. Also, there's Chapters like the BT that share the Ecclesiarchy's beliefs and regularly help them out.

The Ecclesiarchy would be making the religious decisions though, so if Marines don't get along with them, are worse than useless and are only kept around because they're maybe sorta holy in the eyes of the masses why keep them? CGI them into some battle scenes, and show it to the peasants, cheaper and better.

 Peregrine wrote:

No, it's one of the defining facts about the setting. Seriously, remember the whole grimdark thing? A big part of that is that the Imperium is an oppressive theocracy where religious delusion oppresses trillions and any attempt at questioning the sacred truth or independent thought is heresy and punished by death. And the whole point is that this obscenity is the only way for humanity to cling desperately to one more day of life.

That it is grimdark doesn't have to mean that Marines, for example, are useless in the way you say they are. If every Marine was a living god but the enemies of Man were so many so that even that was insufficient and the Imperium is falling, then that is grimdark too. Not that I am arguing that the former is the case, just that 'grimdark' is not that narrow.

Your interpretation of the 40K's setting is just that, an interpretation. It is not a 'defining fact', no matter how much you'd like it to be.

 Peregrine wrote:

Of course we do. The point is that marines also fail to chaos and aren't some magic chaos-proof army, not that nobody else does.

Marines do fall occasionally, yes. It is still considerably more rare, and in the rather likely event that they do not fall, they are likely to perform considerably better than most alternatives.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
I love constantly as a terms of measurement, how come there are still loyal marines then? At the rate of constant, it wouldn't take long to burn through and corrupt all the chapters.

Sigh. You realize that "constant" doesn't necessarily mean "faster than the rate that chapters are rebuilt at", right? Sure, those SW crew just embraced chaos and slaughtered their comrades to avoid death, but you've got plenty of recruits to replace them.

And to fire the nuke, someone will need to know what is down there, someone will know why the nuke is being fired and that is a liability.

Except you already have non-marines that know about chaos. Inquisitors, admirals in charge of major fleets, IG officers in charge of entire sector-wide campaigns, commissars that need to recognize the signs of corruption to know who to execute, etc. And those people don't just automatically fall to chaos.

Also, you overestimate how may people need to know about chaos. The ship's captain gets an order from the inquisition that there is a rebellion to deal with and to go to a given planet and await bombardment orders, and doesn't need to know any more than that. The gunners receive a list of coordinates to destroy and certainly don't need to know what they're shooting at or why.

Also, is a Space Marine strike cruiser housing 100 marines and their equipment more expensive than the Emperor class battleship plus support ships and troop transport ships? I don't think so.

Why are we comparing ships that aren't equivalent? The relevant comparison is between cruisers and other cruisers, not cruisers and battleships.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
(Unlike when a Chapter rebels- Just look at the havoc the Astral Claws caused when they decided Imperium was not fun any longer.)

To be fair, those guys were in control of a whole sector, and were able to coax other Marine chapters into joining them. Of course a Marine Chapter falling is a major event that will usually cause a lot of damage and warrent a storng response, but I don't think that the Badab incident is the norm.

 Troike wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
(Unlike when a Chapter rebels- Just look at the havoc the Astral Claws caused when they decided Imperium was not fun any longer.)

To be fair, those guys were in control of a whole sector, and were able to coax other Marine chapters into joining them. Of course a Marine Chapter falling is a major event that will usually cause a lot of damage and warrent a storng response, but I don't think that the Badab incident is the norm.

Well, that might be true, but it is still a reflection of just how important such an event actually can be.

Animus wrote:
The Ecclesiarchy would be making the religious decisions though

Yes, and they've made the decision to (at least nominally) get along with the Marines. Again, they give Marine Chaplains Rosariuses, so obviously there's some level of respect, there.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Well, that might be true, but it is still a reflection of just how important such an event actually can be.

Yes, but it was important because they took the entire sector's government, PDF and navy with them, not because a few random marines decided to stop following the rules. A single rogue chapter would have been written off as another case of marines being marines, just like the Imperium always looks the other way when the DA abandon their duties to go chase after a vague rumor of some chaos guy in DA robes.

The Badab War is stated to be the largest Marine vs Marine conflict since the Heresy, if I recall correctly (could be wrong, but could have sworn there were statements to such). ...presumably this doesn't include Chaos Marines. So yes, it was a rather unique event (assuming my memory isn't off)

 Peregrine wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Well, that might be true, but it is still a reflection of just how important such an event actually can be.

Yes, but it was important because they took the entire sector's government, PDF and navy with them, not because a few random marines decided to stop following the rules. A single rogue chapter would have been written off as another case of marines being marines, just like the Imperium always looks the other way when the DA abandon their duties to go chase after a vague rumor of some chaos guy in DA robes.

When Marines rebel, it's actually pretty bad.

The point is that Marines are important and influental enough to pull that kind of stunt. Even if the Cadian 8th or Catachan whateverth or some other major regiment decided to rebel, they simply do not have the same problem-causing capacity.

Not only is over a thousand Space Marines with ships, specialists etc a rather intimidating foe in itself, but since they are so influental they can bring down much more with them than just their homeworld.

It's certainly not a dime a dozen event.

The DA rushing off on a side-track to see if there possibly is a Fallen over there is not even close to on the same level.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
The point is that Marines are important and influental enough to pull that kind of stunt. Even if the Cadian 8th or Catachan whateverth or some other major regiment decided to rebel, they simply do not have the same problem-causing capacity.

Which is actually a pretty good reason to get rid of marines. There aren't enough of them to make a difference, and when they turn traitor they do way more damage than other traitors.

The DA rushing off on a side-track to see if there possibly is a Fallen over there is not even close to on the same level.

But it's also a lot more frequent. You can't use the Badab War, an incredibly rare event that had more to do with the non-marine parts of the sector rebelling than the marines themselves, as a representative example of the average chaos marine.

 Peregrine wrote:


Which is actually a pretty good reason to get rid of marines. There aren't enough of them to make a difference, and when they turn traitor they do way more damage than other traitors.

Lucky, then, that we already know that 1 million is enough, eh?

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Lucky, then, that we already know that 1 million is enough, eh?

If one million was "enough", and Space Marines are the kind of unbeatable gods of war people claim they are, then the Imperium would not be shrinking (if slowly) through attrition.

Or we could just accept the fact that, for all their prowess, there simply aren't enough of them to make a huge difference. They make a presence in many (but not all) major battles, acting as force multipliers for the Imperium in those battles, but the overwhelming majority of the Imperium's ability to survive and thrive is on the backs of the common human-- the PDFs, the gangers/penal legions, the mobs of the Frateris Militia, the Imperial Guard. Most battles don't involve Space Marines or even the threat of them; most humans will never see a Space Marine, most of the Imperium's enemies will never fight a Space Marine, most wars will never be graced with their fighting ability.

Thus is the grimdarkness of 40k; the super elite warriors, for all their power, are not enough to turn the tide. Only through the sacrifice of billions of common soldiers can the status quo be maintained, and the Imperium preserved in the face of the ravening hordes of Tyranids, the unending warmongering of the Green Tide, and the subversive power of Chaos... and so many other threats.

 Melissia wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Lucky, then, that we already know that 1 million is enough, eh?

If one million was "enough", and Space Marines are the kind of unbeatable gods of war people claim they are, then the Imperium would not be shrinking (if slowly) through attrition.

Or we could just accept the fact that, for all their prowess, there simply aren't enough of them to make a huge difference. They make a presence in many (but not all) major battles, acting as force multipliers for the Imperium in those battles, but the overwhelming majority of the Imperium's ability to survive and thrive is on the backs of the common human-- the PDFs, the gangers/penal legions, the mobs of the Frateris Militia, the Imperial Guard. Most battles don't involve Space Marines or even the threat of them; most humans will never see a Space Marine, most of the Imperium's enemies will never fight a Space Marine, most wars will never be graced with their fighting ability.

Thus is the grimdarkness of 40k; the super elite warriors, for all their power, are not enough to turn the tide. Only through the sacrifice of billions of common soldiers can the status quo be maintained, and the Imperium preserved in the face of the ravening hordes of Tyranids, the unending warmongering of the Green Tide, and the subversive power of Chaos... and so many other threats.

Hey, strawman again.

Nobody claimed that they were unbeatable gods of war.

There is enough of them, perhaps. But the Imperium needs more than just Space Marines.

Again, your opinions are not facts.

Space Marines are able to react to threats faster than any other organization of the Imperium because they don't have to deal with as much red tape (if you read the Imperial Armour books, it details the set up to some of the campaigns and they take a rather hilarious amount of time and coordination to set up). So they're useful for those times when something needs some sort of response RIGHT NOW, even if just something to stem the tide until a larger Imperial force can be mustered... if there happen to be some marines in the area, at least. That's why a lot of marine stories start with "Responding to a distress call".

TiamatRoar wrote:
Space Marines are able to react to threats faster than any other organization of the Imperium because they don't have to deal with as much red tape (if you read the Imperial Armour books, it details the set up to some of the campaigns and they take a rather hilarious amount of time and coordination to set up). So they're useful for those times when something needs some sort of response RIGHT NOW, even if just something to stem the tide until a larger Imperial force can be mustered... if there happen to be some marines in the area, at least. That's why a lot of marine stories start with "Responding to a distress call".

Also helps too when it's a good Chapter responding to it. If the Marines Malevolent or Flesh Tearers bother to respond, you're best suited killing yourself or crawling into a hole and hiding until everything's dead. The majority of Chapters are extremely useful- but there will always be those bad eggs you have to cross your fingers don't happen to be in the area.

Of course, I haven't a clue how the Marines Malevolent and Flesh Tearers haven't been labeled heretic or fallen to Chaos. Especially the Marines Malevolent.

Gabriel Seth explicitly carefully selects which distress calls the Flesh Tearers respond to, actually, because he's pretty sure the Flesh Tearers are going to die out soon and wants them to at least be remembered as heros. He chooses to respond to calls where collateral damage won't be as much of an issue (worlds that aren't heavily populated on the frontier, for example, or attacking Xenos worlds, etc etc). (good thing for him that Space Marine independency lets him get away with not responding to distress calls. Though he does forward the ones he doesn't directly respond to over to other Imperial organizations)

It's stated that his strategy is working and the Flesh Tearers are actually getting praises these days. Though of course they're still doomed to die out if a cure for the Black Rage isn't found, soon.

The Marines Malevolent are just jack asses, maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if the gods found their evil-ness to be too pathetic to bother tempting. Like, Khorne would be having his minions and servants slaughtering everything and meanwhile the marines malevolent are just kicking puppies around, making Khorne roll his eyes at the lameness of the whole thing.