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 Vaktathi wrote:
That's an extremely nebulous statement, giving zero specifics, and purely within the context of "dedication" and being a warrior, and such techniques/equipment/etc are available to non-astartes as well, there's nothing in the Gene-seed that has anything to do with this.

That is not what it says. It says 'Marines are physically, mentally, and spiritually superior to any other Imperial soldier.' I do not see how this is difficult to interpret, and it's certainly not ambigious at all. You said they are not mentally superior. GW says they are mentally superior. We're talking simple 'if X then Y, if not X then not Y' logic here, not quantum physics.

Are Marines mentally superior to humans? Vaktathi says no. Games Workshop says yes. Sorry Vak, I'll go with GW on this one.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
There is genetic manipulation involved in making a Marine - the gene-seed not only provides the code for the implants, it also modifies the body of the recipient to reduce the rate of organ rejection and so on.

Good point.
Still, wouldn't that just mean the hypothetical Marine couple's kids would be normal humans who accept gene-seed implants more easily and have the Chapter's genetic quirks where applicable?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm not sure it really needs to be justified

For one, every codex says its army is the best. For two, in the same sentence, it claims Astartes are spiritually superior to humans, except they clearly aren't, as they're quite easily corrupted by the powers of Chaos, as history says-- and other codices contradict it, regardless.

Of the implants:

The secondary heart, ossmodula, biscopea, haemastamen, Larraman's organ, preomnor, multilung, Lyman's ear, Sus-An membrane, melanchromatic organ, oolitic kidney, neuroglotis, mucranoid, betcher's gland, progenoids, and black carapace do not effect the mind at all. Of the remainder, the Catalepsean Node only deals with sleep deprivation, the Omophagea's effects only allow temporary learning of instinctive skills and knowledge of what is eaten, the Occulobe works on eyesight.

The method that marines use to choose their candidates-- which, going off of the Ultramarines as the norm, involves gladiatorial combat-- does not, in any way, choose for intelligence. It chooses for raw fighting capability. Hypnotherapy (which is applicable to all humans, and is commonly used by the Inquisition and other such organizations to quickly train their agents) can only raise them to an educated level according to their natural intelligence, and there is nothing indicative of the method by which astartes choose their candidates that says that they necessarily would prefer a decent fighter who is smart over an excellent fighter who is dumb.


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 Ashiraya wrote:
Are Marines mentally superior to humans? Vaktathi says no. Games Workshop says yes. Sorry Vak, I'll go with GW on this one.

"GW" also says that space marines are so stupid as to forget they're holding their own weapons, and so weak as to lose a wrestling competition with a spore mine.

DorianGray wrote:
You guys don't get it. Everyone is beneath the space marine. Eugenics is the future. Biologically superior beings rule and dominate.

The sheer gap between an Astartes and a normal human is so vast that the latter is like another species. Astartes have zero attachment to normal humanity only the super-humanity deserves to lead. Superman over everyone.

The Astartes should just take over the Imperium today because that is what is right and natural. Think of the modern humans and Neanderthals - we killed them all because they were so ugly. Ideally enslaving them would have been better. Humans should serve the Astartes.

First problem: Space Marines don't have superior genes. They aren't bred to be what they are, they're built. Themselves, they are weapons. Designed and produced to function in a specific role. Governance is not that role.

Second problem: There aren't enough Space Marines to do that, especially once word of what the Marines are about spreads. If there was a Heresy 2.0, with all of the Space Marines aligned against the rest of the Imperium, within the first year, every SM Homeworld would be a drifting cloud of ash. This besides the point of the internecine warfare that would erupt between the Chapters, because there are many that remember that the Emperor did not create them to rule over mankind, and many also that venerate the Emperor as a divinity. So the 1000 Chapters quickly becomes a couple hundred Chapters of badly-mauled survivors limping along in crippled ships who are then faced with the superior numbers of the Imperial Guard, and the superior naval assets of the Imperial Navy... not to mention the fleets of Rogue Traders who, being themselves human, see control by a bunch of meatheads as really bad for business. A few of these RTs, the wealthiest of their kind, are going to be rolling around in some relics from the DAOT, shooting black holes at anyone who pisses them off, teleporting meltabombs into the bridge of target ships, ripping open Warp-gates to throw attacking craft into, and going shimmery-invisible like the Eldar.

Then there's the AdMech fleets, who possess things the rest of Mankind could not even imagine existed.

Third problem: Space Marines don't maintain enough gene-stock to fight a protracted war like this. That's kept by the AdMech. Want to ensure your Chapter can restock after four Companies are lost, geneseed unrecoverable, in a Warp-drive explosion? Ask the AdMech to send you some of your stocked geneseed back. Oh, pissed off the AdMech? You're doomed.

 Ashiraya wrote:


That is not what it says. It says 'Marines are physically, mentally, and spiritually superior to any other Imperial soldier.' I do not see how this is difficult to interpret, and it's certainly not ambigious at all.

This is a rather vague statement, and looking directly at the source that your link lists for that statement, comes from a book where it specifically states "Obviously, Marines vary in intelligence as do other men, and their individual mental abilities vary in degree - Rick Priestly", and all specifics given are in respect to the speed of reactions and control of senses and memory recall, but not actual intelligence, and at a time when when Marines were known as the "Legiones Astartes", were still T3, had Robots, Mole Mortars, Jet Cycles, and Vortex Grenades were sergeant equipment options, where there was no "Codex Astartes" but rather a "Codex Imperialis", where the Guard still had Beastmen squads & Jetcycles, and where Squats had a full army list.

I have the vague feeling we're feeding a troll in there.... The guy has no other argument than his simplistic POV since the begining of the thread.

Indeed, Vaktathi. I actually went through the "Creation of a Space Marine" article in detail and went through each one to see if any enhanced intelligence-- and none of them did.

 Melissia wrote:
Indeed, Vaktathi. I actually went through the "Creation of a Space Marine" article in detail and went through each one to see if any enhanced intelligence-- and none of them did.

Exactly. There's a lot on reaction speeds, control of senses, training, even memory recall in *some* instances, but nothing that directly enhances intelligence

I've done it several times, but despite the fact that none of the enhancements directly improve intelligence, and that no Marine character has ever been shown displaying genius-level intelligence in any of the books, people still cling to the sentence that they are superior mentally.

There are likely quite a number of smart Astartes individuals, and ones like Techmarines and Librarians would NEED to be brainy based on their specialties.
and I suspect they might be generally above-average since they'd probably need to be propa kunnin' to pull a lot of this off, and with being such elite forces they'd probably be brighter than the average schlub. But that a;lso probably depends on the Chapter.

That's really probably about it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I've done it several times, but despite the fact that none of the enhancements directly improve intelligence, and that no Marine character has ever been shown displaying genius-level intelligence in any of the books, people still cling to the sentence that they are superior mentally.

Perhaps it does not refer to intelligence? Are Space Marines known to suffer from PTSD, nightmares or dementia?
The only times I can think of that happening are when the warp is involved. And that messes everyone up.

Or it could just be GW writing gak to make people want to buy their little plastic crack in their little codex, but not bothering to make any of the rest of the lore match up.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I've done it several times, but despite the fact that none of the enhancements directly improve intelligence, and that no Marine character has ever been shown displaying genius-level intelligence in any of the books, people still cling to the sentence that they are superior mentally.

It may well be due to chemical treatment rather than a specific implant.

Well, considering that Ultramar, one of the few nice places in the Imperium is run by Space Marines, maybe that would be a good idea.
But of course, that is against the will of the God-Emperor, so no.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I've done it several times, but despite the fact that none of the enhancements directly improve intelligence, and that no Marine character has ever been shown displaying genius-level intelligence in any of the books, people still cling to the sentence that they are superior mentally.

It may well be due to chemical treatment rather than a specific implant.

In other words, you're grasping at straws and you really don't know.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, considering that Ultramar, one of the few nice places in the Imperium is run by Space Marines, maybe that would be a good idea.
But of course, that is against the will of the God-Emperor, so no.

There's numerous "nice places" run by humans. Imperial worlds are not all poverty-encrusted rustholes. Meanwhile, we only see the ultramarines claim that their place is a nice place to live, so that a rather biased source.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Well, considering that Ultramar, one of the few nice places in the Imperium is run by Space Marines, maybe that would be a good idea.

Ultramar being the almost unique singular exception when it comes to Space Marine run places (and curiously seems to violate the tenents of the Codex Astartes), and even then, the Space Marines don't do much in the way of direct ruling (one can't imagine Calgar getting into economic and taxation policies, public health concerns, legal disputes, civil law codes, etc).

I suspect Astartes are not simply superior mentally - they are superior, but only in specific areas.

For example, in the Blood Gorgons, a captured Astartes counts down the five days until he can set his escape plan in motion by counting the heartbeats of his captor. In the Space Wolves omnibus, they display microsecond reaction speeds, something simply impossible without neurological enhancements (again, likely due to chemicals rather than a specific implant). None of this is implausible, albeit it is doubtlessly superhuman. However, it would be of dubious use to a chairman in a council.




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 Melissia wrote:
In other words, you're grasping at straws and you really don't know.

No, I just acknowledge that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We know X is true, we do not know why. Isn't it more rational to assume that X is true but simply as of yet unexplained rather than assuming X somehow actually is false? After all, there is nothing contradicting it. Everything in 40k is not explained. For instance, some Electo-Priests wield staffs. Sometimes, we are told these staffs can drain life energy. How this is done is not explained. The appropriate thing to do here is to acknowledge that we just don't know how, rather than assuming that because it is unexplained, the staffs can't actually do that.

For an example closer to home, look at Celestine. It's not explained how her sword shoots fire. Do we assume that it's non-canon that the sword shoots fire, because it has no obvious way of doing so, or do we just assume it is as of yet unexplained? The Emperor intervenes with a sliver of his psychic power, a tiny flamer is hidden within the blade, or maybe something even more esoteric. We don't know how, we just know if.

 Ashiraya wrote:
No, I just acknowledge that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Which means you are still making assertions without proof.

See my elaboration. What proof do I need that is more canon than quotes from GW material?

DorianGray wrote:
You guys don't get it. Everyone is beneath the space marine. Eugenics is the future. Biologically superior beings rule and dominate.

The sheer gap between an Astartes and a normal human is so vast that the latter is like another species. Astartes have zero attachment to normal humanity only the super-humanity deserves to lead. Superman over everyone.

The Astartes should just take over the Imperium today because that is what is right and natural. Think of the modern humans and Neanderthals - we killed them all because they were so ugly. Ideally enslaving them would have been better. Humans should serve the Astartes.

......Not even sure how to respond to this.......Yeah, I'm done with this thread. You are literally ignoring everything we say in direct response to spout Eugenics garbage at us. Bye!

 Ashiraya wrote:
See my elaboration. What proof do I need that is more canon than quotes from GW material?

Because GW's own canon says that marines are morons who forget their mission briefings and that they are carrying weapons until it's too late. When GW canon is inherently contradictory, you need more than just a single line in an outdated codex from ages ago.

Source on your example, please. Quote the passage and page number as well.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
There are likely quite a number of smart Astartes individuals, and ones like Techmarines and Librarians would NEED to be brainy based on their specialties.
and I suspect they might be generally above-average since they'd probably need to be propa kunnin' to pull a lot of this off, and with being such elite forces they'd probably be brighter than the average schlub. But that a;lso probably depends on the Chapter.

That's really probably about it.

While it is true that the average Space Marine is smarter than the average Imperial Citizen, it bears noting that the average Imperial Citizen is really fething stupid. The Average Imperial Citizen (AIC) is a resident of a culture that extols the virtue of ignorance, is afraid of knowledge and learning in its own sake (because knowing the wrong things can get you killed by the Inquisition or the AdMech, or can drive you mad, depending on source of knowledge, or all of the above) and works a job where rote memorization of tasks is the only training method.

Being above an ignoramus like the AIC is not a particularly noteworthy feat.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Source on your example, please. Quote the passage and page number as well.

While I understand that you might have deliberately wiped the existence of C.S. Goto from your mind, he is an official writer for GW lore.

Is it also your belief that Terminators can backflip, and that children can beat Eldar gravtanks by throwing rocks at them?

Or that Space Marines' minds work so fast they can see bolt rounds move in slow motion?

Those are all from Goto books.

No. But I also don't believe that marines are any smarter than the average educated human, as certainly there's no real evidence of that in the lore-- and plenty of evidence of them being stupid.

Evidence outside of goto? Book, page, and quote the paragraph, please.

I suspect there's just an axe being ground here.

I have also quoted my evidence. The Compendium is old but that has no effect on its canonicity - it does not really contradict any newer lore in this context.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidence outside of goto?

You make the claim that Astartes are smarter. I know you're going to just try to explain it all away, but you haven't provided any sources outside of a single line from an outdated book, and by that era's definition, Sisters of Battle hunted Space Marines down and policed them, destroying entire chapters on a regular basis for straying too far.


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 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidence outside of goto?

Creation of a Space Marine.

There is nothing inherent within the creation of a space marine that effects their intelligence.

Your accusation of "an axe to grind" is amusing, but irrelevant. Do you have anything other than personal attacks and ass-pulls?

You're evading my question. First things first. You say they are stupid. Quote book, and page please
Well, it's time for me to pop off, so you have all day and all night to do it.

(AA for your assertion, are you sure it is in the Compendium?)

 Ashiraya wrote:
You're evading my question

You're attempting to evade providing evidence for your claim by trying to force everyone else to provide evidence against it. I don't respect that kind of logical fallacy.