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"And they shall know no fear", it is said. But I think Space Marines do know fear. Not just in a "we must change our tactics" kind of way, but a bone-deep fear, the kind that would keep them up at night.

Granted, they don't fear death.

But there are many other things to fear. For example, they likely fear to fail in their duty. If you were to capture some Space Marines alive during an important mission (not easy, I know) and force them to watch the consequences of their failure, they would feel something akin to fear.

I think they also fear corruption. E.g. if a Chaos mutation slowly starts to appear on a loyalist Marine's body after exposure to the Warp. Or if a Marine starts suspecting that someone he's been obeying unquestioningly for years (such as a general or a Chapter Master) has turned away from the Emperor's light long ago, forcing him to wonder if he's unwittingly been complicit with heresy or treason.

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It's not fear, it's things that can be similar to fear but it isn't that emotion.

For example, your first example isn't fear. The Astartes know what happens if they fail in their duty to defend the Imperium and they aren't afraid of failure because they know what happens if they do. They don't get in a cold sweat because they might fail, they get angry or determined instead. You don't see Astartes in a hopeless situation break and run, they stand and die because every enemy that falls, every second that the enemy is delayed is more time for the Imperium to bring a counterattack. If captured they wouldn't feel fear if they were shown the consequences of their failure, indeed they'd just get exceptionally angry and start plotting revenge. They keep fighting because that is literally all they know.

As for the second example, it isn't fear but doubt, and while similar it isn't the same thing. Fear isn't something you can control and leads to an "awakening" of sorts. Your heart pumps faster and your adrenaline starts flowing while your "Fight or Flight" response kicks in. It is a base human instinct, one the Astartes have conditioned out of them. Astartes don't have "Fight or Flight", they have "Fight here now or Fight somewhere else later" which is tactics rather than emotion.
Doubt comes from a variety of sources but is the opposite of fear, you don't activate rather you begin to shut down. Your convictions are tested and you begin to question what you know. This is where Chaos creeps in, offering answers to those having a crisis of faith or conviction.

With regards to Chaos corruption, again it isn't fear but hatred and disgust. They don't get scared because Brother Oriel sprouted a tentacle, they get sicked by it and want to see it destroyed.

Astartes don't fear because they always know what happens if they don't fulfill their duty to the Emperor. They don't need to know just how bad things will get, they just know it will be bad and therefore cannot be allowed to happen.

What Gert said. Have an exalt.

Basically, marines don't really experience "fear" per se. They have aversions to some things. They might get worked up over shame/dishonor/corruption, but their reaction to those stimuli aren't the fight/flight response that (as I understand it) constitutes fear.

You might be worried about whether or not the leftovers in your fridge are going bad. You might be grossed out when you see the mold growing on them. But you don't "fear" having gross spoiled food in your fridge.

There's a kabal that (claims to) be able to make astartes feel fear, but I wouldn't be surprised if they use surgical/chemical means to rewire the marine's brain in some way to facilitate it.

Side note: There are flashback scenes in at least some of the marine novels (Salamanders Omnibus I think) where marines seem to at least be able to understand/recall human fear if they retain access to their pre-initiation memories.

Marines certainly do experience fear and anyone who has been reading the material for years and haven't picked up on this haven't been paying attention.

As an example off the top of my head, Hathor Maat of the Thousand Sons due to his mastery of Biomancy is able to literally observe the cells degrade and die in Space Marines. In the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy all of the marines were so young that many just assumed they were biologically immortal and didn't age, or at least were uncertain about it. Hathor Maat by comparison knows with absolute certainty that Space Marines eventually age and then die. While thinking about this he muses that it is not death he fears, he faces the possibility of death every time he fights. But what he does admit he fears is the idea of growing old, becoming enfeebled by the slow passage of time and having his body and mind slow, weaken, and become useless until he eventually expires.

I'm also pretty sure that Loken's first encounter with Samus terrified him.

Astartes are capable of fear, but what will actually provoke it is much narrower than for most baseline humans.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
I'm also pretty sure that Loken's first encounter with Samus terrified him.

And his second too - I'm reading Vengeful Spirit right now and he's literally paralyzed by fear in a fight versus a Samus possessed marine aboard the titular ship.

Wyldhunt wrote:
There's a kabal that (claims to) be able to make astartes feel fear, but I wouldn't be surprised if they use surgical/chemical means to rewire the marine's brain in some way to facilitate it.

Why would they need to rewire Marine brains? Do Marines undergo neurosurgery to make them physically unable to feel fear? I was under the impression that their purported fearlessness was the result of conditioning. And conditioning, no matter how intensive, can be broken.

If you define "fear" solely by fight-or-flight response in the white-hot instant of danger (I disagree with this narrow definition, but let's go with it for now), I would point out that there are still many things that should elicit this response in any sapient being. For example, there are daemons or psychic powers that can drag mortals into the Warp to face an eternity of torment. I think even Marines would feel a pang of dread in the face of such a prospect, no matter how strong their faith in the Emperor.

Not because they are weak, but simply because they are not fools. They realize there are evils that they cannot kill with their boltguns, and ordeals that not even their superhuman toughness and implacable willpower can carry them through.

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Failure, death without purpose.

Dante expounds on this very topic in "Darkness in the blood". He fears failure personally. He fears letting down the Imperium. He states that many astartes have "fears" it's not the same as a base human's abject terror....

For those who recall 2nd edition, units could suffer psychological effects, including Fear and Terror. Marines however would not be affected by Fear, and the effect of Terror on them would be downgraded to the effect of Fear instead. So they certainly knew fear, it just took more than most.

Creatures that induced Terror were things such as Greater Daemons and Hive Tyrants. So there ya go! Marines can fear a Bloodthirster, which is appropriate, being the symbol of cosmic horror that it is.

The “feel no fear” thing is a in universe marketing thing. In reality they feel fear, just less than normal folk and they handle that better than others too (hence the old rules like insectum said). They don’t literally feel no fear. As others said there are loads of examples of them being afraid, but over coming it in the most part. More recent depictions of marines has them as right emo’s. All existential doubt and moody-ness. I prefer my marines like the cold hearted realists they used to be.

 Insectum7 wrote:
For those who recall 2nd edition, units could suffer psychological effects, including Fear and Terror. Marines however would not be affected by Fear, and the effect of Terror on them would be downgraded to the effect of Fear instead. So they certainly knew fear, it just took more than most.

Creatures that induced Terror were things such as Greater Daemons and Hive Tyrants. So there ya go! Marines can fear a Bloodthirster, which is appropriate, being the symbol of cosmic horror that it is.

The 2nd edition Space Marine also was not broken after a failed LD test, but "shaken" IIRC was the term used. Instead of being forced to fall back like broken troops, shaken meant they could still fight albeit at a penalty. If they failed a 2nd LD check while shaken then they were broken just like everyone else. Back when 2nd edition games lasted 4 turns, losing a squad due to being broken for a turn was a big deal, even if they subsequently rallied.

Of course, it was actually hard to fail a LD test as there were so many rules that either allowed re-rolls or testing off the nearby character's higher LD that it was rare to truly fail a LD test.

I think people are taking a really broad definition of fear and using Daemons as a sort of "gotcha".

Fear is a very broad term and there are different types of "fear".
Dread would be more apt to what Astartes feel when they come up against Daemons or extremely powerful enemies, for example, as they don't get the "Fight or Flight" response but they do realise the threat as greater than before and that a battle may have just become hopeless.
As for Hathor Maat, again it's not fear but rather trepidation or anxiety. He's not going to break down and stop fighting because of it, he just doesn't want it to happen and gets desperate to avoid his fate.
Just because Astartes don't have that "Fight or Flight" response, doesn't mean they're idiots who are never going to quit a battle or face down an enemy who they know they can't destroy. They are still tacticians (for the most part) and understand the concepts of retreat and a losing battle. Chaplains might encourage their Brothers forward but they're also the enforcers of the Codex Astartes in most Chapters and will remove an officer from command if they needlessly throw their troops into hopeless battles.

The different definitions and variations of fear are important to consider because that's how language works. It is true to say Astartes don't feel fear but it isn't true to say they don't feel dread, doubt, anxiety, or don't have emotion in general.

Seconding what Gert said.

Marines don't feel fear the same WAY as mortal humans, but they do feel emotion. And in comparison, an Astartes Apprehension is equal to the pantsbrowning terror of a Guardsman.

Fear is more than fight or flight (which is the stress response). There is a third, very common response to stress, which is to freeze. People should say fight, flight, or freeze response. Astartes will run when it is appropriate, obviously they generally fight- both of these are an active response to stress. What they do exceptionally rarely is freeze.

Fear or anxiety and excitement are based in the exact same biological stress response (adrenaline and cortisol being released in response to a perceived imbalance in the capability to manage a situation). The experienced emotion is a psychological interpretation of the biological stimulus of stress*. Marines obviously feel stress, but they are conditioned to interpret stress as emotions other than fear and they basically always respond to stress in an active way to maintain initiative.


*Very similar to the interaction between nociception, the detection of a noxious stimulus, and pain, the psychological interpretation of (usually) nociception.

In one of the HH novels, they described fear by marines; I think it's the BA guards quarentine Curze after he put Dorn in the hospital for an yr; Curze didn't like being locked up, and caused fear amongest the BA guards as he systematically killed them.

Again though, that would be an exception to the rule. It's Konrad Curze, that dude scared everyone with how messed up he was. He made a statue of the Emperor out of human body parts and a fortress that was sheathed in human skin that screamed into the Warp.

So as with all things in life and 40k their are no absolutes. Yes marines experience fear, but it’s more extreme things that cause it and they react better to it than your average human. So it isn’t “feel NO fear”, it’s more “they shall feel little fear and only in extreme circumstances, and when they do they will handle it fine, mostly”. Not as catchy.

Marines are psychos, but the downside to making people into such psychological messes is that when the controls are removed, so in traitors for example, all bets are off. Remove a marines sense off duty and the constraints of their lifestyles the can go a little wild.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Wolf_of_Fenris

Looks like space marines feel fear of death like everyone else, they just have a better propaganda machine to make everyone think otherwise.

Spiders.

I don't know if it's in the new Chaos Space Marine book, but the 8th edition one was pretty clear that while Space Marines are freed from fear of pain, they retain a fear of failure and responsibility to their officers, the Chapter, and the Emperor; becoming a Chaos Space Marine is not only freedom from physical fear, but liability as well.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Wolf_of_Fenris

Looks like space marines feel fear of death like everyone else, they just have a better propaganda machine to make everyone think otherwise.

That shows that members of the Wolf of Fenris' crew decided that living for one cruel master was better than dying for another. They only turned when they were sure the ship was in Huron's hands which isn't fear, it's opportunistic self-preservation.

Pragmatism is not = Fear.

I thought the night lords were able to cause fear in other astartes

They can disorient and confuse them with vox screams or hit and run attacks but not cause fear.

 Gert wrote:
I think people are taking a really broad definition of fear and using Daemons as a sort of "gotcha".

I don't see how daemons are a gotcha. Marines, by and large aren't even exposed to the horrors of Chaos, and if they are, potentially mind-wiped afterwards. Confronting the reality of the warp is a jarring experience, possibly enough to call previous views and world models into doubt. Exposure to the shockingly unknown can effect even a Space Marine.

Also, feeling fear doesn't necessarily mean they won't still perform their duty either. It's totally possible to experience fear but not be paralysed by it. Marunes are hyper-disciplined and conditioned to continue to act despite their emotional state otherwise. Bravery is perhaps defined best by acting in spite of fear, rather than not feeling fear at all.

I did go back to the 2nd ed books and look for more about it, and actually found that Marines were subject to the Fear mechanics like everyone else. I may have mixed them up with the rules where models who cause Fear aren't affected by Terror from models which cause Terror, but suffer Fear instead. I could be missing something though, if anyone else has the old books and can find it I'd like to know.

Tyranid Warriors caused Fear just like Daemons.

 Gert wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Wolf_of_Fenris

Looks like space marines feel fear of death like everyone else, they just have a better propaganda machine to make everyone think otherwise.

That shows that members of the Wolf of Fenris' crew decided that living for one cruel master was better than dying for another. They only turned when they were sure the ship was in Huron's hands which isn't fear, it's opportunistic self-preservation.

Highlighted the important part for you. Self-preservation over killing the enemies of the Imperium is fear of death.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Highlighted the important part for you. Self-preservation over killing the enemies of the Imperium is fear of death.

Or it's seeing a better deal with the greater freedoms out from underneath the crushing weight of the Imperium. The Wolves know better than any other Chapter how overbearing the Imperium is when it comes to Astartes autonomy, hell the Fang has been invaded twice by the Imperium by the time the Wolf of Fenris is taken and the Wolves at large are regarded as backward barbarians.
If a captain can't keep his ship from falling into enemy hands, why should the crew serve him? The Wolves seek strength in their leaders and Huron very clearly had it over Gnyrll Bluetooth.

There is also a big difference between fear of death and not wanting to die ignominiously and without glory. When we next see the Red Wolves they refuse orders from a Red Corsair Captain to take up a guard position in the fleet, with Huron specifically noting that they always want to be at the fore of any assault. From this, we could surmise there's a good chance that the Wolves that joined Huron were Blood Claws which explains their betrayal of the Chapter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Confronting the reality of the warp is a jarring experience, possibly enough to call previous views and world models into doubt. Exposure to the shockingly unknown can effect even a Space Marine.

That's why Daemons are a "gotcha", they are so far beyond reality that it pulls on emotions that nothing material ever would. It's essentially cheating the system
Again though, shock and doubt but not fear.

But according to the rules, also fear. Tyranid Warriors doing the same for a non-warp example.

 Insectum7 wrote:
But according to the rules, also fear. Tyranid Warriors doing the same for a non-warp example.

And the rules often don't reflect the background and we are in the background forum so.

I don't know why Gert is so desperate to explain away every single instance (and there are plenty) of Marines showing fear as being totally something completely different and not at all similar to fear but it's just semantic bs. Hathor Maat, per his own words, fears the inevitable decay of time, but Gert will tell you it's just "trepidation", or "anxiety" lol.

Funny that.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/trepidation

Synonyms for trepidation

alarm (also alarum), anxiety, dread, fear, fearfulness, fright, horror, panic, scare, terror

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/anxiety

Synonyms for anxiety

agita, agitation, anxiousness, apprehension, apprehensiveness, care, concern, concernment, disquiet, disquietude, fear, nervosity, nervousness, perturbation, solicitude, sweat, unease, uneasiness, worry

Gert even all but admits that they are wrong on this topic by acknowledge okay yes, there are exceptions like Konrad Curze, but they still can't really feel fear.

No one is arguing that Marines feel fear as often as even badass guardsmen or are as controlled by it. But can they feel fear? Absolutely. It depends on the individual what provokes it but they are completely capable of feeling it. Even fething Primarchs can feel fear; Dorn was afraid of Konrad Curze for example.