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The discussion in the Primarch thread made me think a little: since we can find logical explanations for seemingly irrational things in the 40k universe, maybe another topic that is usually dismissed as illogical could also have some plausibility behind it?

Consider the Space Marines, a faction that is often dismissed as childish and unusable in practice. In order to determine how useful they actually are, we must assess:

1. Their effectiveness and efficiency

2. Their numbers

Now, 1. will continue to be entirely unpredictable depending on who wrote the story you're reading, and the fact that they are wearing armour of handwavium, firing handwavium bullets and have bodies enhanced with master-crafted handwavinators means that they are as effective as you want them to be. But for the same of the argument, let's assume that on an individual basis, they are at least reasonably powerful.

2. is considered by many to be evidence of why Space Marines don't work, one million Marines for one million planets? But I ran the maths and they actually do seem to work. We have the Imperium of one million planets. Given it is capable of supporting itself despite lots of internal strife, we can probably guess that no more than maybe a percent of the planets are currently under assault or otherwise a war theatre. It could be 2%, it could be 0.5%, but it's unlikely to be much more as the Imperium thus far has not collapsed in on itself.

If 1% of the planets are currently warzones, that means you have 100 Space Marines per planet.

Now, many of these planets are going to be attacked by enemies that the Guard are going to handle on their own. It's not an unreasonable guess that 80% of these front-line warzones are ones the Guard can hold without their big friends, or where Marines would not have made a difference anyway. The remaining 20%, which for various reasons need super-soldiers to attack command structures, hold key points and so on, can therefore have ~500 Space Marines each assigned to them. 500 supersoldiers striking fast, hitting hard and then redeploying to where they need to be is going to make a lot of difference.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The discussion in the Primarch thread made me think a little: since we can find logical explanations for seemingly irrational things in the 40k universe, maybe another topic that is usually dismissed as illogical could also have some plausibility behind it?

Consider the Space Marines, a faction that is often dismissed as childish and unusable in practice. In order to determine how useful they actually are, we must assess:
a
1. Their effectiveness and efficiency

2. Their numbers

Now, 1. will continue to be entirely unpredictable depending on who wrote the story you're reading, and the fact that they are wearing armour of handwavium, firing handwavium bullets and have bodies enhanced with master-crafted handwavinators means that they are as effective as you want them to be. But for the same of the argument, let's assume that on an individual basis, they are at least reasonably powerful.

2. is considered by many to be evidence of why Space Marines don't work, one million Marines for one million planets? But I ran the maths and they actually do seem to work. We have the Imperium of one million planets. Given it is capable of supporting itself despite lots of internal strife, we can probably guess that no more than maybe a percent of the planets are currently under assault or otherwise a war theatre. It could be 2%, it could be 0.5%, but it's unlikely to be much more as the Imperium thus far has not collapsed in on itself.

If 1% of the planets are currently warzones, that means you have 100 Space Marines per planet.

Now, many of these planets are going to be attacked by enemies that the Guard are going to handle on their own. It's not an unreasonable guess that 80% of these front-line warzones are ones the Guard can hold without their big friends, or where Marines would not have made a difference anyway. The remaining 20%, which for various reasons need super-soldiers to attack command structures, hold key points and so on, can therefore have ~500 Space Marines each assigned to them. 500 supersoldiers striking fast, hitting hard and then redeploying to where they need to be is going to make a lot of difference.

How dare you math at me.

You're talking about M41-42 right?

At that point, SM don't need to be rationalized. They were directly established by the Emperor ten thousand years prior. In-universe, whether they are a reasonable military formation is irrelevant by that point.

Great Crusade-era SM formations, however, that is another question.

I am trying to look at how they could be a reasonably useful military organisation even in 40k.

30K, no idea, but then that's like trying to make sense of greek myths.

Useful to whom?

What I mean is, their existence is justified historically and probably (in the eyes of most higher ups on Terra) religiously. Therefore, whether the High Lords find them as cost effective as Guard regiments, or whatever, is immaterial. Not to mention, most SM chapters provide for themselves so there is nobody on Terra to pull the plug, budget-wise.

The existing background info makes it clear that SM are very useful to Imperial commanders but can also be disruptive. If nothing else, there is a problem inasmuch as chapters are by definition not part of a unified command structure. They are free to basically do as they please, although they sometimes operate within the remit of ancient treaties.

There is no doubt that SM are good at what they do. Whether that justifies the costs of doing it is another question but one that no one in the Imperium outside of the chapter in question* has a right to do more than idly consider.

*except the Inquisition, at least according to the Inqusition

 Ashiraya wrote:
I am trying to look at how they could be a reasonably useful military organisation even in 40k.

Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale. Take everything and scale it up by a factor of 10 or 100 (e.g, chapter sizes of 100,000 marine), and then maybe space marines would be a reasonably useful fighting force in a universe of 40k's scale.

 DanielBeaver wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I am trying to look at how they could be a reasonably useful military organisation even in 40k.

Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale. Take everything and scale it up by a factor of 10 or 100 (e.g, chapter sizes of 100,000 marine), and then maybe space marines would be a reasonably useful fighting force in a universe of 40k's scale.

I adressed the 'Space Marines are too few' copypasta in the OP.

The issue is that SM are the poster boys when the 'reality' should be the AM/IG

Back in 30k there was no question of cost.
You produced a 7ft 600lb fighting machine that unarmored could deadlift 2500lbs (from FFG) bench 1850 (scaled from deadlift and based off a normal trained human), react 5 times faster than any man, and keep up a running speed of 30mph.
And all it took was 30 years, monitoring, some implants, and a gene seed. That gak was so worth it.
But in the 40th millennium with the mental aspect of the training taking another 30 years and with even more procedures? I think it's still worth it, but not nearly as much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Back in 30k there was no question of cost.
You produced a 7ft 600lb fighting machine that unarmored could deadlift 2500lbs (from FFG) bench 1850 (scaled from deadlift and based off a normal trained human), react 5 times faster than any man, and keep up a running speed of 30mph.
And all it took was 30 years, monitoring, some implants, and a gene seed. That gak was so worth it.
But in the 40th millennium with the mental aspect of the training taking another 30 years and with even more procedures? I think it's still worth it, but not nearly as much.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
The issue is that SM are the poster boys when the 'reality' should be the AM/IG

Do you watch Star Trek for the redshirts? No? So why would you do the same with 40k? The Guardsmen are there to die, and hold the line. They're supposed to be nameless, faceless soldiers.

You didn't watch Lord of the Rings for the Gondor soldiers, you didn't watch Star Wars II for the battle droids...

 Ashiraya wrote:
you didn't watch Star Wars II for the battle droids...

It's so weird to see someone reference Star Wars but referring to the prequels rather than the sequels. Although I guess it is harder to say, you didn't watch Star Wars for the Clone Troops because for better or worse they were probably the coolest aspect of the prequel movies.

Am I weird for growing up with the prequels and thus seeing them as the main ones?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Am I weird for growing up with the prequels and thus seeing them as the main ones?

Yup.

Ashiraya wrote:You didn't watch Lord of the Rings for the Gondor soldiers,

Erm... I did. Those guys are hardcore! (yes, I am a bit of a Gondor fan)

Manchu wrote:You're talking about M41-42 right?

At that point, SM don't need to be rationalized. They were directly established by the Emperor ten thousand years prior. In-universe, whether they are a reasonable military formation is irrelevant by that point.

Great Crusade-era SM formations, however, that is another question.

This is a very good point; the Space Marine Legions operated almost like the Guard of 40k, in that they just applied brute force in amounts so excessive that no army in the galaxy could resist it. In those days, you could happily through Space Marines by the thousand into system/planet-wide wars of attrittion and not worry about lacking manpower elsewhere, there are that many of them. The difference between them and Guardsmen being that 1 Space Marine is still worth 100 IG (bit optimistic, but whatever), so the sheer force of a Space Marine Legion on the attack is pretty much unrivalled by the biggest armies in 40k (except possibly a Hive Fleet or the largest of the Black Crusades. 40k Loyalists couldn't hope to match it, really).

So by the time you get to 40k, it doesn't matter how effective they are (although I'll get to that in a minute), as you can't just get rid of them or say they are redundant. They define the Imperium for better or worse, and out-of-universe, reflect how it has changed from a pragmatic, supreme power to a dogmatic, monolithic and stagnant institution.

But getting back to the OP, your point about the number of planets vs the number actually a) requiring Space Marine help and b) that Space Marines actually could help is a very good and oft-overlooked one. It's no secret that the Space Marines in 40k are spread pretty thin, and the brunt of the fighting falls on the Poor Bloody Infantry of the Imperial Guard, but that doesn't blunt the effectiveness of the Space Marines as a tool. In general, I don't think a Company or two of Space Marines can win you a war you are going to lose, outside of some truly exceptional feats, but what they can achieve is winning that war next week rather than a decade later. That in turn frees up IG regiments, Ad Mech resources, potentially even Stormtroopers/Sisters/Other Imperial elite troops to then help out somewhere else. Space Marines and Guard are like a kango drill and a pick; if you need to bust up some concrete, both will do the job, but the drill will get it done far faster, and you can go and have a cup of tea (ship out to another warzone in the case of the SM/IG) far sooner.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Back in 30k there was no question of cost.
You produced a 7ft 600lb fighting machine that unarmored could deadlift 2500lbs (from FFG) bench 1850 (scaled from deadlift and based off a normal trained human), react 5 times faster than any man, and keep up a running speed of 30mph.
And all it took was 30 years, monitoring, some implants, and a gene seed. That gak was so worth it.
But in the 40th millennium with the mental aspect of the training taking another 30 years and with even more procedures? I think it's still worth it, but not nearly as much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Back in 30k there was no question of cost.
You produced a 7ft 600lb fighting machine that unarmored could deadlift 2500lbs (from FFG) bench 1850 (scaled from deadlift and based off a normal trained human), react 5 times faster than any man, and keep up a running speed of 30mph.
And all it took was 30 years, monitoring, some implants, and a gene seed. That gak was so worth it.
But in the 40th millennium with the mental aspect of the training taking another 30 years and with even more procedures? I think it's still worth it, but not nearly as much.

Well, the 30k Marines received almost as much brainwashing as the 40k Marines do, and the brainwashing and indoctrination is all done during training.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Am I weird for growing up with the prequels and thus seeing them as the main ones?

Not at all, I'm the same way

Manchu has the right of it and I'll paraphrase an earlier post I made in the 'Why do Space Marines even exist?' thread, the Emperor's original intention, in His fight against the Chaos Powers, was to create firstly, the Primarchs, and then a whole race of super-humans who would be immune to the influence of Chaos. This plan did not succeed as the foetal Primarchs were scattered through time and space by the Chaos Gods and, due to the imminent birth of Slaanesh, the Primarchs could not be replicated the Emperor was forced to implement a contingency plan. Using left-over genetic material from the Primarchs discreet biological organs could be created that would give an ordinary human some of the abilities of the Primarchs and so the Space Marines were created.

Whether or not you accept the Realm of Chaos background as true or not, it does establish what the ideas were regarding why Space Marines exist in the first place. Their continued existence in the 41st Millennium is immaterial, firstly because they are a faction which already exists, so, even if they were completely redundant it wouldn't matter, a sort of what has been seen cannot be unseen scenario. Secondly they weren't supposed to exist anyway, the Emperor was forced to create them out of necessity.


The point about Astartes only being required for so many wars though is a good one and despite the tagline of there is only war, that just isn't true, with only warzones like Cadia or Armageddon being semi-permanent. Even in the novels most planets/systems get invaded during the course of the story having been peaceful beforehand, usually for centuries and several generations of PDF have never fought, hence the requirement for the Guard/Astartes/et cetera to come in and save the day (or not).

 Ashiraya wrote:
Am I weird for growing up with the prequels and thus seeing them as the main ones?

I don't know if you're weird but I doubt just being born at a certain time could make you weird. What is weird, and weird is a relative term inasmuch as it implies a subjective point of view, and therefore by implication I mean what is weird from my perspective, is that someone would see Episodes I, II, and III as the main ones no matter when they were born seeing as how they are bloody awful.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Am I weird for growing up with the prequels and thus seeing them as the main ones?

More or less makes you a terrible person.

But we'll tolerate anyone here. Even the intolerable.

That's probably another movie reference you wouldn't get though.

 Gogsnik wrote:
due to the imminent birth of Slaanesh, the Primarchs could not be replicated the Emperor was forced to implement a contingency plan

What? It was the manifestation of Slaanesh that prevented the Emperor from making new primarchs? I always figured it was one of those things, like making the Simarils, that can only be done once. (And more particularly, I hypothesize that the Emperor had the help of the Ruinous Powers in creating the primarchs.)

 Manchu wrote:

 Gogsnik wrote:
due to the imminent birth of Slaanesh, the Primarchs could not be replicated the Emperor was forced to implement a contingency plan

What? It was the manifestation of Slaanesh that prevented the Emperor from making new primarchs? I always figured it was one of those things, like making the Simarils, that can only be done once. (And more particularly, I hypothesize that the Emperor had the help of the Ruinous Powers in creating the primarchs.)

I also thought the Fall of the Eldar/Birth of Slaneesh was waaay before the year 30k or even earlier, and that the Eldar were at their height pre-Fall while humanity was still pond-life.

I could be wrong, though.

As far as I know, the rise of the Emperor and the fall of the Eldar are roughly contemporaneous (like in the same millennium).

Pretty sure the Fall of the Eldar allowed the Great Crusade to start.

 Manchu wrote:

 Gogsnik wrote:
due to the imminent birth of Slaanesh, the Primarchs could not be replicated the Emperor was forced to implement a contingency plan

What? It was the manifestation of Slaanesh that prevented the Emperor from making new primarchs? I always figured it was one of those things, like making the Simarils, that can only be done once. (And more particularly, I hypothesize that the Emperor had the help of the Ruinous Powers in creating the primarchs.)

Isn't this fairly well established? The Emperor made a bargain with the gods and in return they forked up the space juju needed to create the primarchs. Makes sense that the Big E would have some troubles remaking them in that situation.

That being said, I was under the impression that the Emperor didn't attempt to remake them not because he couldn't (at least not specifically), but because he had the material he needed to create his army (space marines).

It certainly is well established in my mind but I'm not sure where I read it or what.

 Manchu wrote:
It certainly is well established in my mind but I'm not sure where I read it or what.

I think it popped up somewhere in the first three books of the HH. Though it could have been a quote from Erebus, if so it's likely a load of horse-gak or at least a severe twisting of the truth.

In Realm of Chaos: The Lost and The Damned it says. "The Primarchs could not be recreated and even if this were possible there was not time to do it. The birth pangs of Slaanesh grew louder and louder as the time of his waking grew near. The Emperor evolved another plan."

In the context of the efficacy of the Astartes there is really not much point in disproving their usefulness in the 41st Millennium because the reason for why they were created wasn't planned for not is it clear what role they would have played had the Horus Heresy not happened, afterall the Thunder Warriors were designed to simply die once they had served their purpose.

I think the timeline has become quite a big mess. I'm not entirely sure WHEN it became a big mess, but it has.

Traditionally, my understanding was:

Eldar conquer galaxy -> Fall of the Eldar ~= early Evolution of Humanity -> Final Fall of the Eldar / Birth of Slaanesh ~= The birth of the Emperor -> The rise of 'civilisation' (With the Emperor pulling the strings, old example is him being not Jesus, but actually was John the Baptist) -> Modern time -> The Dark Age of Technology -> Humanity conquers the galaxy -> The Age of Strife -> The Enslaver Plague ~= Warp Storms seal off Earth -> The Emperor reveals himself and reunifies Terra -> Great Crusade


But now, it seems to have gotten messy with the Birth of Slaanesh = The Age of Strife. But that just falls down logically, because, how are the Eldar supposed to have conquered the galaxy at the same time as humanity has conquered the galaxy? It makes more sense to me that during humanities colonisation of the galaxy, the Eldar were busy trying to put the shattered remains of their civilisation back together.


As for the efficiency of the Astartes. Yeah, it realy is 'science fiction writers have no sense of scale'. I've tried to rationalise it before even with 'movie marines' but it just doesn't work. Planets are just simply too big. - How many major military installations or command and control networks are there on Earth? The answer is 'lots.'

I mean, not even looking at the 'big boys' in world military super powers, how many marines are you going to send to, say, Germany, to defeat their command and control networks, or to make their military ineffective in a world wide assault of multiple simultaneous devastating deep strikes.

The answer is going to be more than one.


Of course, the 'real' answer would be, bomb the heck out of the planet for a good decade or so before launching your invasion. But that'd be sensible and boring, and the 40k universe doesn't work that way.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Am I weird for growing up with the prequels and thus seeing them as the main ones?

I don't know if you're weird but I doubt just being born at a certain time could make you weird. What is weird, and weird is a relative term inasmuch as it implies a subjective point of view, and therefore by implication I mean what is weird from my perspective, is that someone would see Episodes I, II, and III as the main ones no matter when they were born seeing as how they are bloody awful.

They were only as awful as the Horus Heresy, which really is only semi-awful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Paradigm wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Gogsnik wrote:
due to the imminent birth of Slaanesh, the Primarchs could not be replicated the Emperor was forced to implement a contingency plan

What? It was the manifestation of Slaanesh that prevented the Emperor from making new primarchs? I always figured it was one of those things, like making the Simarils, that can only be done once. (And more particularly, I hypothesize that the Emperor had the help of the Ruinous Powers in creating the primarchs.)

I also thought the Fall of the Eldar/Birth of Slaneesh was waaay before the year 30k or even earlier, and that the Eldar were at their height pre-Fall while humanity was still pond-life.

I could be wrong, though.

The Fall occurred long before the Great Crusade, but that was just the beginning of the Birth of Slaanesh, when Warp Storms started. Once Slaanesh was done nomming almost the entirety of the Eldar race, he was "born" insomuch as he was fully formed.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Back in 30k there was no question of cost.
You produced a 7ft 600lb fighting machine that unarmored could deadlift 2500lbs (from FFG) bench 1850 (scaled from deadlift and based off a normal trained human), react 5 times faster than any man, and keep up a running speed of 30mph.
And all it took was 30 years, monitoring, some implants, and a gene seed. That gak was so worth it.
But in the 40th millennium with the mental aspect of the training taking another 30 years and with even more procedures? I think it's still worth it, but not nearly as much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Back in 30k there was no question of cost.
You produced a 7ft 600lb fighting machine that unarmored could deadlift 2500lbs (from FFG) bench 1850 (scaled from deadlift and based off a normal trained human), react 5 times faster than any man, and keep up a running speed of 30mph.
And all it took was 30 years, monitoring, some implants, and a gene seed. That gak was so worth it.
But in the 40th millennium with the mental aspect of the training taking another 30 years and with even more procedures? I think it's still worth it, but not nearly as much.

It doesn't take 30 or 60 years to make a space marine. It takes 10 at most.

You start with 10-12 year old boys, by the time they're 19-20 they've received the final implants and been inducted as Battle Brothers. Space in the chapter allowing of course.