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.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Keep wrote:
You can't extract energy out of stones/minerals because they dont contain usable substances like carbohydrates. They might have carbon in them however that is in bound form which is energy intensive to break up, and carbon isn't carbohydrate either. Guess why nobody uses minerals for energy extraction. And they have to eat way more then regular humans do, alone from the body mass they have to move around, and also to keep it at acceptable temperatures (core temperature). If they want to be powerfull they need energy, and energy can only be aquired by consuming actual food.

Their strength is to be able to eat stuff that humans would propably die off. And their waste products are recycled by their suit to extract the nutritient parts that are still in it. They still have to consume food. You can't just live from your own gak for a month, no, not even genetically engineered superhumans.

They are the top of human evolution

No they are not, because they are genetically enhanced. They didnt evolve through nature.

Yep. Evolution happens to a population not to an individual despite what Pokemon might say.

This is true, Space Marines are enhanced, not evolved. Psykers are the pinnicle of human evolution. So Psyker Space Marines are the pinnicle of human (male) potential.

I thought there was some fluff about how the old Thunder Warriors (1st gen Space Marines... sort of?) had PA that was only half-powered or something.... and they were still MUCH stronger than a normal man. Or something.

 Zaki66 wrote:
I thought there was some fluff about how the old Thunder Warriors (1st gen Space Marines... sort of?) had PA that was only half-powered or something.... and they were still MUCH stronger than a normal man. Or something.

They wore MkI armour which was only powered in the upper body and had no life support or anything the MkII onwards had. Primarily because it was used during the Terran Unification War where they had the right atmosphere. At that point, Terra was heavily populated and the terrain was very dense and a lot of fighting was close combat and hand to hand, so physical strength was important.

Off the top of my head, the novel Hammer of Demons (Counter, GK book 3) has a story in which the protagonist SM is stripped of his armour very early on. Ok, he's a GK, so slightly better off that normal SM, but he's thrown into an arena on a Demon World and by the time he's fought a few rounds, he's knocked enough heads together than some Hive Gangers, Orks and even an Eldar former Scorpion respect him as the biggest and the best fighter they have. It then goes all Gladiator/Planet Hulk, and he leads the slaves in revolution until he finds a ship to get off-world, but the point is, he's pretty badass even without the armour. I can't recall the specifics, but he does most of the fighting in that book with basically medieval gear, unpowered armour and weapons, and against everyone but Demon Lords he pretty handily beats them.

So basically, PA is just another tool to SM, and even without it, they are still capable of winning fights 1v1 against most other humanoids. They still heal in seconds, have 2 hearts, spit acid, can eat anything, go for months witohut sleep, have amazing senses and can punch through solid brick walls with ease. Not the kind of chap you'd want to tangle with.

 Psienesis wrote:
... the PA is powered by a nuclear reactor. Once the suit has extracted all of the nutrients it can out of their waste, it probably just feeds it into the reactor to break it down on the atomic level to continue providing power.

Specifically a fusion reactor. It can be powered by virtually anything if you can extract the hydrogen from it, and it can certainly burn anything given that it's undergoing the same process as a bloody star.

 Deadshot wrote:
So Psyker Space Marines are the pinnicle of human (male) potential.

Depend on how you define pinnacle. Eversor and Culexus assassins are human male potential too .

They are still very strong and tough, but would die like a tough ork in a firefight. It's always seemed to me that the SMs strongest trait is their defense.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
So Psyker Space Marines are the pinnicle of human (male) potential.

Depend on how you define pinnacle. Eversor and Culexus assassins are human male potential too .

Can't they be both genders? I have seen art of female Culexus Assassins at least.

They can.But they are still part of the human male potential, because they also can be male.

There's also the time Lysander was captured and had to escape unarmoured and unarmed.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
They can.But they are still part of the human male potential, because they also can be male.

Depends on how you want to look at it. Space Marines are said to be the pinnacle of humanity generally. But I suppose a Culexus would beat a Librarian, but a Librarian of sufficient calibre can waste cities.

TLDR;

But IIRC there's a ton of fluff where space marines fight in the training pits without armor. They're still incredibly lethal. Fast as a blur, and absolutely decked with muscle.

You are forgetting the Assassins also are superhuman. And from what I remember one hundred Eversors gave several hundred Space Marines quite the run-down during the Beheading when the Master of Assassins went off the rails and killed the other High Lords.

Idk, my favorite example of SM absurdity is still the one they chucked into the arena vs Lelith (who is by and large considered borderline godlike at melee combat) and he survives four hours against her (and actually is the only person or thing to land a wound on her in the matches). He was stripped naked and handed two wych blades before the fight started. :l

Telmenari wrote:
and he survives four hours against her

Lelith, stop playing with your food! Oh, wait, no, you have to play with it for it to actually feed DE souls, so go on cruelly tormenting him for four hours of a desperate, lost before it even begun fight.

Worf effect (sort of). In a match, even aginst an assault marine in amrour, lileth would destroy pretty much any space marine.

Telmenari wrote:
Idk, my favorite example of SM absurdity is still the one they chucked into the arena vs Lelith (who is by and large considered borderline godlike at melee combat) and he survives four hours against her (and actually is the only person or thing to land a wound on her in the matches). He was stripped naked and handed two wych blades before the fight started. :l

I've never heard of this incident, what is it from exactly? Besides, it sounds like it could very well be what HSOO described. An Astartes is probably one of the few opponents that a wych could punish for hours on end and not kill, so they wouldn't miss that opportunity. Then at the end, he just finally scored a lucky hit.

Co'tor Shas wrote:Worf effect (sort of). In a match, even aginst an assault marine in amrour, lileth would destroy pretty much any space marine.

She was probably playing with him and torturing him - a sort of death by a thousand cuts, much like the ancient Chinese Triad would do to traitors.

I guess that makes sense.

...Isn't that from a Goto book?

Also, for Assassins versus space marines, see Talos taking down M'shen. Assassins are good, but unless it's an eversor, Astartes can just scream. The other houses are good, but they aren't crazy enough to survive their ears being reduced to a ruptured bleeding mess.

Of course if you manage to get into melee combat with a Vindicare, that Vindicare ought to be fired.

 n0t_u wrote:
There's also the time Lysander was captured and had to escape unarmoured and unarmed.

Spoiler for Bloodquest:

 Ashiraya wrote:
...Isn't that from a Goto book?

That's DE 5th Ed lore right thar. She wasn't specifically playing with him, either. She just couldn't for the life of her finish him if I recall. The entire event was a spectacle where she challenged the Archons to bring her an opponent who could hurt her, and when one finally caught one that could, she rewarded him by giving him the sweetest prize of all: a bout against her in the matches! He lasted a much less impressive 5 minutes or so.

Just sayin', even in Xenos books Space Marines accomplish some pretty stupid things, armored or no. When random no-name captains can stand toe-to-toe with the greatest warriors of one of the most feared xenos, completely unarmored and practically unarmed, you really can't question the lethality of the race; with or without PA, a SM will punch you into a fine bloody mist before anyone standing around you can even ask why there's a 8 foot giant crushing people. xD

The Space Marines has power pretty much depending on the writer. One can stand up to Lelith for four hours in one book, in another Ciaphas Cain holds Khorne-berserkers at bay and can be insulting while doing it.

Also, for the effectiveness of an unarmored Astartes, they're best described as imagine a Tempestus Scion raised from Cadia.

Now imagine he's around 7'6 or so, able to bend steel girders, eat steel girders, and rip hatches off tanks like they're paper, and capable sprinting near automobile speeds and dodging bullets. He also patches up most injuries with instant scar tissue, and can survive most mortal wounds besides decapitation, and has redundant organs.


Hell come to think of it, the Admech should just mass produce Scouts, forget the black carapace altogether, and armor them in ceramite plates and call it a day. You can mass produce gene seed already, and adding around a billion dudes on par of Scouts armed with hellguns would be a fearsome sight indeed.

he'd still be a monster tard..the end

Well I thought the indoctrination was paramount to a Space Marine. If not they could do as you suggest and just force proto-Astartes down people's throats, but it seems indicated in fluff that many are plainly rejected as they give into temptation too easily. And with the corruption that is Chaos running around you really don't want a new situation like with the Astral Claws. Plus you might have had them deflect to Xenos which would be just as bad even if they are the Tau.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
Well I thought the indoctrination was paramount to a Space Marine. If not they could do as you suggest and just force proto-Astartes down people's throats, but it seems indicated in fluff that many are plainly rejected as they give into temptation too easily. And with the corruption that is Chaos running around you really don't want a new situation like with the Astral Claws. Plus you might have had them deflect to Xenos which would be just as bad even if they are the Tau.

You just have to raise them from childhood. No different then Storm Troopers/Scions, only with more medical attention.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
Well I thought the indoctrination was paramount to a Space Marine. If not they could do as you suggest and just force proto-Astartes down people's throats, but it seems indicated in fluff that many are plainly rejected as they give into temptation too easily. And with the corruption that is Chaos running around you really don't want a new situation like with the Astral Claws. Plus you might have had them deflect to Xenos which would be just as bad even if they are the Tau.

You just have to raise them from childhood. No different then Storm Troopers/Scions, only with more medical attention.

Your suggestion would make a pretty damn good plot for a novel about heresy and such in mind. I mean think about this. A Genologist stealing a crapload of geneseed from the stores of AdMech to make proto-Asartes and then getting brought down despite having such a force with him or her.

Of course as always power in this setting really corrupts. So expect Chaos to play a major role.

i remember a short story where some adeptus biowizardrywhateverthenameis discovered a "supermarine" in a cryo tank/stasis field but something went wrong. So there have been some mysterious (failed) experiments with marine genes

You just have to raise them from childhood. No different then Storm Troopers/Scions, only with more medical attention.

Seeing as you can create actual space marines from their geneseeds it would be a gift for chaos warbands to send them into battle against them...