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So looking into some lore on the age of Space Marines, the oldest living loyalist not interred in a Dreadnought is Dante at 1100 years, whilst the oldest including dreadnoughts is Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who is so ancient he served during the Great Crusade.

To begin I'm curious as to why someone like Bjorn, who would've had the atheist Imperial Truth hammered into him, not told someone or something about the whole Atheism thing and how perverted the Emperor's message is?

Second there's constant references to Chaos Space Marines who fought during the Horus Heresy. Are they hugely common or are they at this point only the elites and the leaders in the Forces of Chaos?

Third why is there such a disparity in the amount of marines who survived in regards to Chaos? Seeing as Marines are functionally immortal (to my knowledge) why don't more of the loyalists reach old age or less traitors? Is it something to do with the whole weird time nature of the Warp?

Chaos cheats. Mutation reknits mortal wounds, some dead marines even get resurrected and wibblywobbly timeywimey in the warp.

First, Welcome to Dakka.

You have to remember that for the most part space marines don’t worship the emperor as a god. Just revere him as their primogenitor, and an all-around awesome guy. While they do occasionally get into trouble with the eclisiarchy, mostly the organized faith just lets the SM do their own thing. And Bjorn is an exception. I don’t think any other loyalist remembers the heresy.

The warp does indeed do odd things to time. I have no idea what actual percentage of CSM are veterans of the long war, and how many of them are more recent renegades, etc.

I like to think many of the newer CSM recruits eventually become so invested in the long war they are able to delude themselves into believing they are HH veterans.

Gridgen wrote:

Third why is there such a disparity in the amount of marines who survived in regards to Chaos? Seeing as Marines are functionally immortal (to my knowledge) why don't more of the loyalists reach old age or less traitors? Is it something to do with the whole weird time nature of the Warp?

Time passes differently in the Warp. One thing is to survive, say, 800 years. Another is to survive 10.000 years. Also due to warp mutations, chaos favours and so on the really powerful chaos space marines gained powers that normal space marines don't have, making their survival more likely..

The warp also has no concept of time. A marine could have walked into the warp after fleeing Terra, and walked out a day later and it be 40k

Gridgen wrote:
So looking into some lore on the age of Space Marines, the oldest living loyalist not interred in a Dreadnought is Dante at 1100 years, whilst the oldest including dreadnoughts is Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who is so ancient he served during the Great Crusade.

To begin I'm curious as to why someone like Bjorn, who would've had the atheist Imperial Truth hammered into him, not told someone or something about the whole Atheism thing and how perverted the Emperor's message is?

On that, he likely doesn't see just how bat crazy it's gotten. On the rare occasion that they do wake him up, he's usually just sitting in the fang, spreading wisdom. And when he's being transported to a battlefield and then fighting, he probably doesn't have much of a chance to see how corrupt it is. And even if he did, there's really not much he could do. No matter how ancient and awesome he may be, if he started spreading the gospel of "The Corrupt Imperial Religion", the Space Wolves would soon find themselves Bjorn-less. Or worse. And with 10,000 years of wisdom, Bjorn is likely smart enough to see that, even if he could convince a lot of people that what he said was true, it might do more harm than good.

Gridgen wrote:
Second there's constant references to Chaos Space Marines who fought during the Horus Heresy. Are they hugely common or are they at this point only the elites and the leaders in the Forces of Chaos?

The average space marine may go his entire extended life without fighting or seeing a Heresy Era traitor marine. So it's safe to say that a normal Imperial Guardsmen would be (un)lucky as all hell if he was on the same planet as one. So a lot of them have gone on to be bad ass leaders, but there's also quite a few squads of them still floating around the warp.
Worth mentioning, the average Imperial Citizen doesn't even know that the heresy took place.

Gridgen wrote:
Third why is there such a disparity in the amount of marines who survived in regards to Chaos? Seeing as Marines are functionally immortal (to my knowledge) why don't more of the loyalists reach old age or less traitors? Is it something to do with the whole weird time nature of the Warp?

You pretty much nailed it there. And, Space Marines have that whole "We shall know no fear" thing, whereas Chaos Marines are totally cool with the mantra of "He who runs the away lives to fight another day".

Gridgen wrote:
To begin I'm curious as to why someone like Bjorn, who would've had the atheist Imperial Truth hammered into him, not told someone or something about the whole Atheism thing and how perverted the Emperor's message is?

He's asleep most of the time, and generally powerless to actually change anything.

Gridgen wrote:

Second there's constant references to Chaos Space Marines who fought during the Horus Heresy. Are they hugely common or are they at this point only the elites and the leaders in the Forces of Chaos?

Very much depends on the warband. Time flows strangely in the warp, so a Marine from the Horus Heresy might only end up being decades old biologically. Alternatively they could be very ancient, but sustained by the powers of Chaos.

Gridgen wrote:

Third why is there such a disparity in the amount of marines who survived in regards to Chaos? Seeing as Marines are functionally immortal (to my knowledge) why don't more of the loyalists reach old age or less traitors? Is it something to do with the whole weird time nature of the Warp?

Marines are not actually immortal. The rulebook states that they can live two or three times longer than a regular human, with some individuals capable of living for far longer.
Space Marines of Blood Angels lineage have increased life spans, with living to 1000 not being uncommon.

Animus wrote:
Marines are not actually immortal. The rulebook states that they can live two or three times longer than a regular human, with some individuals capable of living for far longer.
Space Marines of Blood Angels lineage have increased life spans, with living to 1000 not being uncommon.

Huh - I thought they were biologically immortal (didn't the 40k Salamanders find a HH-era one still alive?). Can you remember the page number for that?

beast_gts wrote:
Can you remember the page number for that?

I'm afraid not, my copy doesn't have page numbers.
But it's in the Forces of the Imperium section, after Ordos of the Inquisition.

Where there is equal or unfathomable hierarchy, seniority and length of military service
is often used to determine from which branch of service the overall commander will be
selected. If the Space Marines are involved, this always gives their officers a chance take
control. With their genetically enhanced bodies, Space Marines live extended lifetimes –
if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two to three times longer than a normal
man, and sometimes far longer.

beast_gts wrote:

Huh - I thought they were biologically immortal (didn't the 40k Salamanders find a HH-era one still alive?). Can you remember the page number for that?

It is ambiguous. Marines do age but not like humans do. Instead of slowly growing slower, weaker and frail they continue on mostly superhuman strong but some of the implanted organs start to fail. You have to remember they have so many implants and bio tech in them they almost more like a machine than a life form. The have to have surgeries throughout their lives to maintain bits of their engineering. Eventually as things fail the body just says "F this" and they die.

In the year 40k even regular humans can live very long. While the median lifespan is not any longer than it is today, the life span of the elite and well taken care of in indeed much higher. There are mortal men who have lived to be a few hundred.
So a space marine being 3-4 times more long lived than a human might mean 500-800 years.


The average or median life span might be 500, but it might be possible for a select few to live much longer.

Even today you can see this. The maximum age of humans today seems to be about 110 years old. The average age in developed countries is 75 or so. 2000 years ago the average age at death was 40, but there were still a few people who made it to 90 or 100.

 Exergy wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

Huh - I thought they were biologically immortal (didn't the 40k Salamanders find a HH-era one still alive?). Can you remember the page number for that?

It is ambiguous. Marines do age but not like humans do. Instead of slowly growing slower, weaker and frail they continue on mostly superhuman strong but some of the implanted organs start to fail. You have to remember they have so many implants and bio tech in them they almost more like a machine than a life form. The have to have surgeries throughout their lives to maintain bits of their engineering. Eventually as things fail the body just says "F this" and they die.

In the year 40k even regular humans can live very long. While the median lifespan is not any longer than it is today, the life span of the elite and well taken care of in indeed much higher. There are mortal men who have lived to be a few hundred.
So a space marine being 3-4 times more long lived than a human might mean 500-800 years.


The average or median life span might be 500, but it might be possible for a select few to live much longer.

Even today you can see this. The maximum age of humans today seems to be about 110 years old. The average age in developed countries is 75 or so. 2000 years ago the average age at death was 40, but there were still a few people who made it to 90 or 100.

I don't think the elite with their life sustaining augmentations, drugs and surgeries would count, we're told they live about two to three times the length of a normal man after all.

 Exergy wrote:
In the year 40k even regular humans can live very long. While the median lifespan is not any longer than it is today, the life span of the elite and well taken care of in indeed much higher. There are mortal men who have lived to be a few hundred. So a space marine being 3-4 times more long lived than a human might mean 500-800 years.

The rich, powerful and influential Imperials have access to so-called Rejuvenat treatments that can keep them going for a long time. IIRC Inquisitor Eisenhorn was about 350 years old by the end of the trilogy and he fully expected to live as long again. And he didn't even bother taking treatments to make him look young and handsome, he looked like a grumpy man of about 50 or so. His favorite blank looked as beatiful at 200 as she'd been at 20.

But unmodified humans of the IoM seem to top out at that same 110-120 years of age. And it does fit with how Chaplain Cassius at just less than 400 is the oldest active Ultramarine. I guess marine physiology is so heavily altered by their implants and all the drugs they use just to stay alive that trying to further enhance their life span would require a different technology than Rejuvenat, and if such was ever developed it's now lost.

Don't Blood Angels also live longer than most Marines? I swear I remember reading that somewhere. Maybe it's in one of the older codex.

And yeah, Space Marines can live a while. It's just that most don't live long enough to see old age.

 Nevelon wrote:
First, Welcome to Dakka.

You have to remember that for the most part space marines don’t worship the emperor as a god. Just revere him as their primogenitor, and an all-around awesome guy. While they do occasionally get into trouble with the eclisiarchy, mostly the organized faith just lets the SM do their own thing. And Bjorn is an exception. I don’t think any other loyalist remembers the heresy.

The warp does indeed do odd things to time. I have no idea what actual percentage of CSM are veterans of the long war, and how many of them are more recent renegades, etc.

I still want to believe that ancient rylanor is still there, buried under the rubble of Ishtvaan III in slumber

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
First, Welcome to Dakka.

You have to remember that for the most part space marines don’t worship the emperor as a god. Just revere him as their primogenitor, and an all-around awesome guy. While they do occasionally get into trouble with the eclisiarchy, mostly the organized faith just lets the SM do their own thing. And Bjorn is an exception. I don’t think any other loyalist remembers the heresy.

The warp does indeed do odd things to time. I have no idea what actual percentage of CSM are veterans of the long war, and how many of them are more recent renegades, etc.

I still want to believe that ancient rylanor is still there, buried under the rubble of Ishtvaan III in slumber

Oh man, right in the feels. Me too...

"the oldest living loyalist not interred in a Dreadnought is Dante at 1100 years"

In the second edition of Warhammer 40K there were rules for Veteran Sergeant Cleutin (?) who was said to be the Sergeant of Dantes Scoutteam. Does anybody know what has happend to him?

Gridgen wrote:Second there's constant references to Chaos Space Marines who fought during the Horus Heresy. Are they hugely common or are they at this point only the elites and the leaders in the Forces of Chaos?

In the 41st Millennium (i.e. "Current Times"), they'd be exceedingly rare (relatively speaking) but not impossible to find.

Gridgen wrote:Third why is there such a disparity in the amount of marines who survived in regards to Chaos? Seeing as Marines are functionally immortal (to my knowledge) why don't more of the loyalists reach old age or less traitors? Is it something to do with the whole weird time nature of the Warp?

As mentioned before, time doesn't work in the Warp the same way it does in Real Space. Time is funky, thus meaning that - by Real Space terms - Chaos Space Marines have the potential to live longer on that merit alone. As also mentioned with regards to gifts from the Warp and the Gods, such gifts can also extend their lifespan.

TheLumberJack wrote:The warp also has no concept of time. A marine could have walked into the warp after fleeing Terra, and walked out a day later and it be 40k

Literally speaking, such a time jump is nigh-impossible. Metaphorically speaking, large time jumps are very possible.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I still want to believe that ancient rylanor is still there, buried under the rubble of Ishtvaan III in slumber

10,000 years and it's still too soon!

"Time works differently in the Warp" is kind of a fallacy. Well, first, it's the Eye of Terror, not the Warp itself, but whatever. But handwaving off their lifespans with time travel takes away from the whole "Veterans of the Long War" thing. It also makes it very, very difficult for the forces of Chaos to really achieve much of anything, as long as they're using the Eye of Terror as their base of operations.

Most importantly, though, is how Dreadnought sarcophagi factor into this. If Space Marines age, then being hooked up to a walking life support machine wouldn't save them. Old age and the decay of cellular replication is part of our physiology; it's an evolved "programming" rather than something that's just inherent to biology. Ultimately life support can only do just that - support. So Dreadnoughts shouldn't be discounted due to the sarcophagus. What about their sleep? I've always assumed that it was more for their mental health than physical, but there's no proper way to know. We also don't know exactly how the "sleep" works. It's occasionally referred to as stasis, but we don't know if that prevents aging or is just a kind of coma.

With the enormous physiological alterations present in all Astartes, biological immortality isn't at all far-fetched. As far as I know, there are no cases of Space Marines undergoing Rejuvenat treatments or similar.

Blood Angels lasting longer than others is a weird bit of information. In order for this to be known, Space Marines of other lineages would have needed to die purely of old age in order to compare, but we know that they haven't. When was this determined? If it's true at all, I'd say it has to be that they maintain their youth for longer, rather than actually living longer. That the more ancient of a Chapter's veterans might look grizzled, even old*, but the Blood Angels maintain a youthful, angelic complexion their whole lives (or at least for a very long time). I think that fits a lot better than "they live longer because VAMPIRES!".

* Apart from Space Wolves, this seems very much to depend on the individual.

I know the Eye of Terror isn't truly the warp, but it is still pretty Wibbly Wobbly, and not only in the timey wimey way!

Using the Eye of Terror as their base of operations allows the Traitors to achieve not being hunted down and obliterated. Surviving (if you can call plunging even further into the depths of insanity 'surviving') is the first step in achieving whatever diabolic nonsense they conspire/get drawn in to.

Regarding Dreadnought Sarcophagi, you have to remember they are much, much more than a life support machine. The entombed marine is put into a deep sleep and then in to stasis between activity. In 40k, 'Stasis' is a time slowing effect (you used to be able to take Stasis grenades which would lock units at the detonation point from moving and slow down others nearby, iirc). In other words, marines in dreads don't get subjected to the full scorn of mother time.

Gotta go now, will hopefully respond to the rest of your post and ask some questions later!

Stasis in sci-fi, even internally within 40k, is used to mean a lot of different things (Eversors are woken from theirs by drugs, and it's variously referred to as cryo-suspension and stasis depending on source). I don't think the stasis that Dreadnoughts undergo is the same technology as stasis grenades. However, we can't be sure of anything in that regard, which is why this discussion always brings up the "oldest Marine not in a Dreadnought". Although, if they were truly time-slowed every time they were put to sleep, Bjorn could actually be much, much younger than Dante, which is kind of weird. Regardless, my point was that being inside a Dreadnought wouldn't overcome their biological death clock (they need their brains, after all), so there are two possibilities: either the Marine inside is biologically immortal, or the sleeps they undergo are actually true stasis (but we can't know for sure). Combined with what we know about Space Marines (see below), I prefer the former.

And see, there's the thing. "The full scorn of mother time". But without the physiological triggers that induce aging, there is no "scorn of mother time". Age is a biological thing, not something that just happens as a symptom of time passing. I can very much believe that The Emperor created the Space Marines intending them to be biologically immortal. There isn't really any reason to assume that they aren't, but several reasons to assume that they are. While Dante is the oldest, we have literally no examples of Space Marines suffering from old age - not even dying from it, but getting rejuvenats, etc, which are quite common among other sorts of characters (particularly Inquisitors, Commissars, and the like). If we know they can comfortably live to be, say, 500, then why not forever?

Before I get into the Eye of Terror, I have to say that making the Chaos "Veterans of the Long War" much, much younger than they actually are is really boring. Furthermore, if we go with the "Blood Angels actually live longer and non-BA only live three-to-five times longer than a normal human", that means all the Chaos characters must be younger than Dante in terms of actual time that has passed for them personally. Which is also really boring.

Yes, the Eye of Terror is a weird place. However, events transpire there - there are worlds, there are ships, there are constant battles and plots, alliances made and broken, territories taken and lost, and so on. There has to be a timeline. And then in relation to the rest of the galaxy; yes, a place to hide from the Imperium is useful, but it would be literally impossible for them to wage any sort of conflict outside the Eye while using it as a base. Every time they'd travel to and from the Eye, the rest of the galaxy could potentially move forward 10,000 years! Even a scant hundred here and there would make any sort of planning impossible. This is quite similar to the things stated about Warp travel in general - there's no way it's as inaccurate or time-distorting as people tend to say, otherwise wars just couldn't be fought. How would an Inquisitor ever get anything done? How would anyone? Getting lost in the Warp is one thing, but too often I see people saying stuff like "Oh yeah, it's totally random as to whether they'll reach their destination without being transported hundreds or thousands of years into the past or future, and it's basically really unreliable and the worst form of travel ever".

EDIT: Just had a curious thought. What about Luther? I know there isn't much on him, but we know that him being Chaos-powered is possibly untrue. Even if he wasn't a true Space Marine, he's still alive in the Rock, and I don't know of any statements about putting him in stasis.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
I can very much believe that The Emperor created the Space Marines intending them to be biologically immortal. There isn't really any reason to assume that they aren't, but several reasons to assume that they are. While Dante is the oldest, we have literally no examples of Space Marines suffering from old age - not even dying from it, but getting rejuvenats, etc, which are quite common among other sorts of characters (particularly Inquisitors, Commissars, and the like). If we know they can comfortably live to be, say, 500, then why not forever?

They are directly stated to have a finite life span in the rulebook, Marines are mentioned as getting too old too campaign in the Grey Knight codex and the Blood Angel codex mentions that they can live longer than other Space Marines. There's really no reason to assume that they are immortal in the face of that.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Yes, the Eye of Terror is a weird place. However, events transpire there - there are worlds, there are ships, there are constant battles and plots, alliances made and broken, territories taken and lost, and so on. There has to be a timeline. And then in relation to the rest of the galaxy; yes, a place to hide from the Imperium is useful, but it would be literally impossible for them to wage any sort of conflict outside the Eye while using it as a base. Every time they'd travel to and from the Eye, the rest of the galaxy could potentially move forward 10,000 years! Even a scant hundred here and there would make any sort of planning impossible. This is quite similar to the things stated about Warp travel in general - there's no way it's as inaccurate or time-distorting as people tend to say, otherwise wars just couldn't be fought. How would an Inquisitor ever get anything done? How would anyone? Getting lost in the Warp is one thing, but too often I see people saying stuff like "Oh yeah, it's totally random as to whether they'll reach their destination without being transported hundreds or thousands of years into the past or future, and it's basically really unreliable and the worst form of travel ever".

Time flows different and that's just how it goes. What happens in the warp is random if you don't stick to the more stable routes, or if you're not directed by a Chaotic entity. So they can get stuff done when the Gods decide it is time for it.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
EDIT: Just had a curious thought. What about Luther? I know there isn't much on him, but we know that him being Chaos-powered is possibly untrue. Even if he wasn't a true Space Marine, he's still alive in the Rock, and I don't know of any statements about putting him in stasis.

Luthor being Chaos powered is 100% true. And he is kept frozen in time between his interactions with the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels accrdign to the Legacy of Caliban trilogy.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:


Blood Angels lasting longer than others is a weird bit of information. In order for this to be known, Space Marines of other lineages would have needed to die purely of old age in order to compare, but we know that they haven't. When was this determined? If it's true at all, I'd say it has to be that they maintain their youth for longer, rather than actually living longer. That the more ancient of a Chapter's veterans might look grizzled, even old*, but the Blood Angels maintain a youthful, angelic complexion their whole lives (or at least for a very long time). I think that fits a lot better than "they live longer because VAMPIRES!".

* Apart from Space Wolves, this seems very much to depend on the individual.

It's been stated in their codex before. At work so I can't look up page and such, but that's a long standing bit of Blood Angels fluff that they live long, even for SM's.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

While Dante is the oldest, we have literally no examples of Space Marines suffering from old age - not even dying from it, but getting rejuvenats, etc, which are quite common among other sorts of characters (particularly Inquisitors, Commissars, and the like). If we know they can comfortably live to be, say, 500, then why not forever?

Two examples are present in HH novels:

Ulvurul Heoroth "Long fang"

Iacton Qurze "Half-heard"

Both were near 200 years old. While they were still fully functional Astartes. Longfang joints seemed to ache while Half-heard was constantly telling the same old stories again and again; some might call it early dementia. While this might seem of consequence, remember that a veteran Astartes full of battle stims is very deadly, whatever it's age.

 IllumiNini wrote:

Gridgen wrote:Second there's constant references to Chaos Space Marines who fought during the Horus Heresy. Are they hugely common or are they at this point only the elites and the leaders in the Forces of Chaos?

In the 41st Millennium (i.e. "Current Times"), they'd be exceedingly rare (relatively speaking) but not impossible to find.

Gridgen wrote:Third why is there such a disparity in the amount of marines who survived in regards to Chaos? Seeing as Marines are functionally immortal (to my knowledge) why don't more of the loyalists reach old age or less traitors? Is it something to do with the whole weird time nature of the Warp?

As mentioned before, time doesn't work in the Warp the same way it does in Real Space. Time is funky, thus meaning that - by Real Space terms - Chaos Space Marines have the potential to live longer on that merit alone. As also mentioned with regards to gifts from the Warp and the Gods, such gifts can also extend their lifespan.

TheLumberJack wrote:The warp also has no concept of time. A marine could have walked into the warp after fleeing Terra, and walked out a day later and it be 40k

Literally speaking, such a time jump is nigh-impossible. Metaphorically speaking, large time jumps are very possible.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I still want to believe that ancient rylanor is still there, buried under the rubble of Ishtvaan III in slumber

10,000 years and it's still too soon!

Spoiler:

NO I WILL NOT BELIVE IT!

Bjorn is kept in a stasis field when he isn't active, and a stasis field actually freezes time for anything inside them while they're active... so if Bjorn spends 500 years in a stasis field between activations, those 500 years don't count towards his actual age.

There's also the fact that this whole "Imperial Truth" is relatively new fluff. When Bjorn the character was written, this aspect of the GC didn't exist.