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I don't know how common place this is across homeworlds nor that which has been conquered, but I've recently learned that some of our brothers on fedual worlds are doing things the traditional way. Particularly when resources and supply chains are next to non-existent. To be specific the chapter militia, however as recruits are inducted into these militias some are clad like Astartes. The armor may be powered or not, but it is much smaller and lighter regardless. They do not compare in size or weight of a first born and it is a questionable practice to mimic presence of a battle brother. No... it's an offense.

Yet rather than to police that on distant worlds with little interaction other than their due tithe we may for now ignore it. The humans are equipped well enough to handle what they have to deal with. Though we will want to discuss transitioning this practice to something that distinqushes men-at-arms, base human "knights" from Adeptus Astartes marines, and lay ground rules with their Artificers.

For such a breed of horse to carry a first born it would need to reach five thousand lbs in order to bear the weight of a fully armored space marine, and as well any barding worn by the horse. This is unrealistic even with genetic engineering without the hand of the Emperor. The Templar regents on these low tech worlds cut off from supply lines have made an executive descision to use base humans in place of Astartes (marines they have no means to produce) to maintain their lands while only a single ancient remains to manage the chapter keep.

Here are a few images we captured (sorry embed appears not to work for these)

>the CSAM AI

No thanks.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
>the CSAM AI

No thanks.

Yeah none of that. I'll take screenshots.

Edit: Done.

So is this a homebrew thing or some fanfic or are you asking whether mounted chapters exist or what? Your style of writing makes it really hard to distinguish what you actually want from this thread

AI slop, ew.

Charax wrote:
So is this a homebrew thing or some fanfic or are you asking whether mounted chapters exist or what? Your style of writing makes it really hard to distinguish what you actually want from this thread

Pretty sure it's not writing given the images are AI generated, best to assume the paragraphs are as well.

Many people feel that mounted Space Marines are not realistic because of Space Marine's size and the weight of their armor.

However others have speculated that Space Marines might have some sort of upgraded or "super" horses.

Both are quite possible.

However generally speaking, Space Marines mounted on motorcycles are considered more common.

Well thunderwolf cavalry exist, so there are certainly creatures of comparable size that are physically capable of taking a mounted marine. It's not a massive stretch to conceive of some equine-derivative that had the possibility as well. People used to make Space Marine Cold One cavalry as well but that seems to have fallen out of favor (I think one was featured in white dwarf a long time ago)

 Gert wrote:

Charax wrote:
So is this a homebrew thing or some fanfic or are you asking whether mounted chapters exist or what? Your style of writing makes it really hard to distinguish what you actually want from this thread

Pretty sure it's not writing given the images are AI generated, best to assume the paragraphs are as well.

Why what is wrong? that I was in-character? Wooo no AI needed for that or is it because I normally post one liners with occasional lack of spellcheck or was this not a personal assumption at all?

The images? I couldn't produce those myself.

 Adeptekon wrote:
The images? I couldn't produce those myself.

So don't have images. Simple.

 Adeptekon wrote:

Why what is wrong? that I was in-character? Wooo no AI needed for that or is it because I normally post one liners with occasional lack of spellcheck or was this not a personal assumption at all?

The images? I couldn't produce those myself.

It's a fair assumption that the text was produce with AI when the images are, if not then great, half of what you did was actual creative input.

Using AI to produce images is directly supporting art theft and actively harms our community.

 Gert wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:

Why what is wrong? that I was in-character? Wooo no AI needed for that or is it because I normally post one liners with occasional lack of spellcheck or was this not a personal assumption at all?

The images? I couldn't produce those myself.

It's a fair assumption that the text was produce with AI when the images are, if not then great, half of what you did was actual creative input.

Using AI to produce images is directly supporting art theft and actively harms our community.

Ok well thanks for the clarification, yes it's mine, I do use a variety of AI, and most recently because I never really have, but often times for things like the above the AI doesn't really serve me well because I typically don't agree with many of the suggestions and often rework them if not dump them outright.

I'll review the tos. Also, I do think that there's an element of what AI is doing that is really the same thing we've seen with every advancement in tech. Ever heard the phrase "steal like an artist"? They used to say the same thing about rap music from the 90s, too much sampling so on an so forth. I'll comply with whatever rules on dakka I've missed.

That said why wouldn't you just report the bots and let mods handle it instead of posting a new thread to decry it unless you're gathering torches?

Edit: to be 100% truthful there is a part of the above, the calculation for the horse for example I got some assistance with also I use it to proof the things I write.I don't just prompt and kick back in my recliner. Though that's probably where it's seems to be headed sadly.

 Adeptekon wrote:
I do think that there's an element of what AI is doing that is really the same thing we've seen with every advancement in tech. Ever heard the phrase "steal like an artist"? They used to say the same thing about rap music from the 90s, too much sampling so on an so forth.

Except that artists DO get sued if they copy too blatantly and without credit to the artists they have stolen from.

Generative AI scrapes data indiscriminately, without consent, and without oversight. It does so without accountability, and drains the planet dry doing it. It is not, in any way, comparable to sampling, and is deeply unethical as a result.

That said why wouldn't you just report the bots and let mods handle it instead of posting a new thread to decry it unless you're gathering torches?

I already have, and have been reporting the AI bot user seen elsewhere. As nothing has been done for months, I will raise my concern more publicly.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
I do think that there's an element of what AI is doing that is really the same thing we've seen with every advancement in tech. Ever heard the phrase "steal like an artist"? They used to say the same thing about rap music from the 90s, too much sampling so on an so forth.

Except that artists DO get sued if they copy too blatantly and without credit to the artists they have stolen from.

Generative AI scrapes data indiscriminately, without consent, and without oversight. It does so without accountability, and drains the planet dry doing it. It is not, in any way, comparable to sampling, and is deeply unethical as a result.

That said why wouldn't you just report the bots and let mods handle it instead of posting a new thread to decry it unless you're gathering torches?

I already have, and have been reporting the AI bot user seen elsewhere. As nothing has been done for months, I will raise my concern more publicly.

You're correct, but at what degree is anything original? Where do you draw the line? The scrapes you have in your brain from looking at art or hearing music you're whole life only to unconciously reproduce it in your own derivitates? The ethics of AI go well beyond art, and it's here to stay like fossil fuels.

Maybe there should be a rules dicussion on it to clear up any confusion, since there are active mods here.

There are REAMS of articles and blogs which go into why AI “creativity” cannot be compared to human creativity outside of Dakka, and I suggest you read them. But I’m not wasting my breath debating this on Dakka, other than to say that I don’t want to see any more bloody AI slop.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
There are REAMS of articles and blogs which go into why AI “creativity” cannot be compared to human creativity outside of Dakka, and I suggest you read them. But I’m not wasting my breath debating this on Dakka, other than to say that I don’t want to see any more bloody AI slop.

Oh I'm sure there is. I've even seen it here when I joined so yes we had a discussion and no rules change since. Is it because of "fair use" or the lack of montetization? Obviously everything under the sun is copywritten unless someone gives their consent or specifically states it's public domain.

Sounds like a worthy discussion to have if this has not been solved for yet if you feel this strongly about your own work and spend time here.

Why AI is bad has been laid out to death countless times online. This isn't really the place for sealioning about it.

Please don't use AI on dakka. This is a home of a creative hobby, to which AI is diametrically opposed on a most fundamental level.

On topic?

Whilst there are of course advantages (can be bred to be quite fighty, quadruped can handle trickier terrain than wheels to offer but two), the drawbacks are many.

For a start? Live mounts present a number of logistical extras that vehicular mounts do not. You have to feed them. You may have to adapt them to hostile environments. They also need to be strong enough to carry a fully armoured Astartes (and to do so at a speed which is useful), and have sufficient stamina to fight in the way of the Astartes. You also need to provide food and water. If one gets shot up in a battle, you can’t exactly repair it in the way you can a motorbike.

So whilst I’m not going to be so boring as to say “nevar evar”? I just don’t think they’re going to be common.

Sure, there are beasties out there in the galaxy which might make suitable mounts for Astartes. No doubt about that. But you still need to train if not domesticate them first.

Or, you can just have the Chapter Forges churn out the usual Bikes. The bikes you know the precise limits and logistics of.

So is it possible? Certainly. But uncommon and likely not standard doctrine for entirely real reasons.

On the issue of images, the Dakka gallery can usually provide images for almost anything.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On topic?

Whilst there are of course advantages (can be bred to be quite fighty, quadruped can handle trickier terrain than wheels to offer but two), the drawbacks are many.

For a start? Live mounts present a number of logistical extras that vehicular mounts do not. You have to feed them. You may have to adapt them to hostile environments. They also need to be strong enough to carry a fully armoured Astartes (and to do so at a speed which is useful), and have sufficient stamina to fight in the way of the Astartes. You also need to provide food and water. If one gets shot up in a battle, you can’t exactly repair it in the way you can a motorbike.

So whilst I’m not going to be so boring as to say “nevar evar”? I just don’t think they’re going to be common.

Sure, there are beasties out there in the galaxy which might make suitable mounts for Astartes. No doubt about that. But you still need to train if not domesticate them first.

Or, you can just have the Chapter Forges churn out the usual Bikes. The bikes you know the precise limits and logistics of.

So is it possible? Certainly. But uncommon and likely not standard doctrine for entirely real reasons.

If we put our trope-tastic space fantasy hats on, I think a lot of those points can be flipped around in favor of the mounts, or at least apply to bikes as well.

Need to feed your augmented super mount? At least they can consume the foliage or corpses or guard rations that you find on the battlefield whereas a bike is out of luck when the prim world you're fighting on runs out of refined prometheum.

Speed and stamina are a challenge, but a challenge that is kind of assumed to be solved by the premise that we have a super-horse/lizard/wolf in the first place.

Environmental concerns? Your augmented space camel is already great at dealing with the clouds of dust that would clog up a bike's engines. Your dire space penguin is already great at shrugging off the cold.

But I agree that they wouldn't be common. If nothing else, we've seen enough chapters that neither mention nor are seen to use organic mounts to say that such mounts, if they exist outside of space wolves, would be rare. But if you *want* your chapter to ride eagles or dragonflies or hippos into battle, there's nothing stopping you from saying your chapter is one of the rare exceptions to the norm.

There’s another thing raised by your post.

My assumption was “one mount fits all” (oooer).

But, if by tradition a given Chapter use live mounts? It doesn’t necessarily mean they’d just use the one species. It’s entirely possible, and perhaps sensible, to have multiple such beasties in the Chapter’s Stable, each particularly suited to a given environment.

That could be cool. Have a chapter from a planet with lots of robust mount-sized species. Domesticate some creatures from each biome. Maybe even organize your chapter around the various biomes and mounts.

"You need our chapter to help you fight on an ice world? I've got 100 guys who ride polar bears and 50 guys who ride giant snow owls on their way!"

FWIW, this is how I picture exodites working too. While dinosaurs are a common part of your average maiden world's ecosystem, I like to think that exodites who live in the desert might have giant scorpion or buzzard mounts, tundra exodites might ride mammoths, coastal/swamp exodites might have amphibious mounts, etc. I *think* this is backed up by a short story about Ferrus, but it has been years since I read it.

Even just for their general line of battle, a variety of mounts might pay dividends.

Something rapid for your traditional outflanking units. Something chunky for line breaking. Perhaps even herds/packs of non-mountable gribblies to bulk out numbers and provide an unexpected form of attack.

Ashkerly? I’m becoming kind of enchanted by a Beastmaster Chapter now!

Librarians who direct hordes of beasts during battle with psychic influence.

Chaplains leading rituals that encourage specialized squads to push themselves to be swift as the space gazelle or vicious as the dust shark.

Techmarines forging bionic replacement limbs for injured mounts and equipping cyber bison with ceramite barding and adamant-reinforced tips for their horns.

Exactly that sort of thing.

Apothecaries fitting battle beasts with stim injectors, especially if they’re a species that reproduces and matures rapidly.

Consider lovely idiot slobbery Doggos, like my Nephloof, who’s a Golden Retriever. Whilst about as much use in battle as something particularly detrimental in battle? He’s now more or less fully grown in just two and a half years, and was one of a litter of delightful Puppers.

To an Astartes lifespan? That’s pretty much instantaneous maturation and a good level of reproduction. Even without me wanting to mention all sorts of sci-fi horror to “improve” either - because there’s quite enough nastiness done to Doggos in the real world without me inventing more.

But imagine that on a species actually suited to war? The selective breeding for pup yield and whichever physical aspects you want. Treated as kinda disposable assets.

Heck, even Librarians being involved in indoctrinating them into being hyper violent, where generally beasties normally only respond to threat. Like the Bison you mentioned. Sure, I wouldn’t want to tangle with a real Bison on account I don’t much fancy being stomped into a splutchy pancake. But thankfully, that stills takes some level of provocation for it to happen.

A Librarian getting inside their minds and tipping them to fight over flight? That could be proper nasty. Spesh as, presumably, it can work the other way when you don’t need them going mental.

40k is very lax on the abilities they give to alien creatures so you could easily say their homeworld has superhorses that are just as fast as motorcycles.

Some of the Tyranid stuff gets really silly there.

Tyranids flagrantly violating not only the square-cube law (standard for Warhammer, really) but also thermodynamics and conservation of mass/energy definitely makes them pretty wild.

Being able to just -evolve- a claw that slices through Terminator armour is preeeetty interesting, and a cool way to show how the unknowable, godlike hive mind pushes beyond the known limits of biological processes.

I don't feel like it fits the Marine theme as well though. They are innately hateful and suspicious of anything different or alien. There's a reason we scarcely ever see them use hunting hounds or birds or the like either, with exceptions being countable on one hand (Space Wolves just are like that, evidently).

I dunno.

Our bones are calcium based. Calcium is a mineral. And there are sea snail things at the bottom of the ocean with iron incorporated into their shells.

So I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable that the Hive Mind is able to incorporate other minerals and that into its gribblies. None of said gribblies need to be designed for long term survival either, so the same biological pressures of our own evolution don’t really apply. They’re free to burn brightly, because their life cycle rarely involves actual reproduction.

This goes way beyond iron claws. The Tyranids produce biological claws that perform more like power weapons in practice.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tyranids, but they are second only to Necrons in their physics nonsensery.

^Any technology sufficiently advanced becomes indistinguishable from magic, man.

Up to a certain extent complaints about the square cube law always seem a little funny to me. We know some dinosaurs were friggin huge.

- - -
As for animals I always figured the Mafines shied away from them because a primary mission of Space Marines is to operate in space. But yeah you have Space Wolves as a precedent for mounts (even though I hate it). I feel like deep in my memory there's an old article or rules for mounted Space Marines from the Rogue Trader era, I can't be sure though. It's also reasonable to remember that Chaos Space Marine champions have been able to ride into battle on Juggernauts of Khorne.

Just yesterday I got to see a 4500 pound rhinocerous. Your Space Marines could ride into battle ON rhinos instead on IN Rhinos. Nyuk, nyuk.