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OK, so I was reading "Horus Rising", and it mentions SM not having ribs. WDF?! I don't really know why they would not have ribs, they seems vital to human structural integraty. Also how exactly do they make SM, I always thought they took small children and them up with drugs, training, and other craziness. But it also seems to imply that they are test tube babies. Please clarify.

it may have been a poor choice of phrasing.
marines have ribs but they are fused together to form a solid bone shield called the black carapace.
its where their armor interfaces their body.

they also go through a lot of other modifications like the addition of the second heart and various other glands and organs.

marines are not merely men in neat armor.

they also undergo brain surgery so they can hibernate for years at a time... and even survive exposure to vacuum.

Arn't they immortal? This I'm almost certain of, so your telling me that they have one thorasic bone? Crazy? So they are not vat grown? How do their muscles get so frikin big? And how do they remove emotions? Thanks for the info.

usernamesareannoying wrote:it may have been a poor choice of phrasing.
marines have ribs but they are fused together to form a solid bone shield called the black carapace.
its where their armor interfaces their body.

they also go through a lot of other modifications like the addition of the second heart and various other glands and organs.

marines are not merely men in neat armor.

Not quite.

The Black carapace is sub-dermal implant (under the skin, between the dermal and epidermal layers), it is the main interface between a SM and his armour through interface links on body and limbs (possibly some DAoT nano-handwavium malarkey since it interfaces directly with his nervous system). It is separate from the ribcage.

The Ossmodula implant increases bone growth and at the same time increases/improves the anchoring of ligaments and tendons to the bones, allowing greater leverage force and strength as a result. The ribcage isn't fused into one plate (they are joined together by cartilaginous tissues, not bone) but multiple overlapping bony plates. This allows flexion and them to breathe and move normally. This is the only logical way it works. A single bone plate wouldn't be flexible enough to allow breathing or any kind of bending over. Yes, I'm aware that logic and common sense has no place in this game - just like in some of the players.

There are other implants that regulate metabolism and muscle growth. This is all done in concert with chemical maintenance AND mental indoctrination.
They gain a third lung, second heart, clotting agents that limit blood-loss, an ability to consume memories (possibly using messenger RNA) and other things through their various implants (19 in all, from memory).

Space Marine recruits are usually 12-17 years old, and they go through training. If they make it through training alive, and are selected as a Space Marine, they undergo a long series of surgeries and genetic engineering.

One of these implants is the "Black Carapce", which fuses the ribs into one solid bone. It takes about 1-2 years after the surgery to fully develope. Since their power armour is interfaced upon a fully-develpoed Black Carapace, the new recruits must wear scout armour (until, of course, their Black Carapace developes).

Read Index Astartes or the Space Marine Codex, you'll find your answers in there.

In short, the Ossmodula (2nd Stage Implant) causes the ribs to grow into a solid mass of inter-laced bone plates not one solid chunk of bone. The Black Carapace is an entirely seperate Zygote (19th Stage Implant).

Marine's get their muscle from the Biscopea (3rd Stage Implant) which produces muscle growing hormones.

Space Marines undergo psycho-surgery and hypno-indoctrination. This does not remove their emotions. Some of the basic human instincts (such as the desire to reproduce) are suppressed to such an extent that most Marines will not experience such desires ever again and any memories of their early life )when they might have experienced such feelings) will be erased so that all they will ever recall is their time with the Chapter. How this is done precisely varies from Chapter to Chapter.

In theory Space Marines are functionally immortal, which means they will not die of old age but this is never out right stated in the background.

As for vat grown, remember this is from the Horus Heresy novels. The Black Library authors don't always get the background right and even so, the creation of Space Marines is very different in the 41st Millennium. Whilst most Marine recruits are drawn from ordinary human society it is entirely possible that some could be grown artifically but this isn't common. Could you quote the exact reference from Horus Rising, that might help answer your query more accurately?

And more importantly, WTF does WDF mean?

It means what de feth. It is like what the feth, but since you are suprised you just spit out the words. Or you mistype it either way. Thanks for the very specific and logical analysis, it was nagging the back of my head. Any ways as for the vat grown, I was assuming beacuse I thought that was the only way that their genome could be so similar. As for a citation, instead I present a paraphrase, "All Astartes of the Luna wolves had the game basic bone structure of their primarch...." from this I extrapolate.

As for the whole 'Test Tube' babies thing, it would be interesting to know how the Emperor recruited so many SM since he didn't have access to Feral world recruits.

Quite some extrapolation.

It is well known that Marines can take on the appearance and attributes of their Primarch such as the Night Lords having jet black eyes or the Raven Guard having incredibly white skin and black hair et cetera.

In the HH series several of the characters are said to look very much like Horus. In the older background Horus reputedly had various clones who were all killed/destroyed by Abaddon after Horus was slain.

Well you can tell space marines are no mere humans but beings of immense power. So space marines are not noobs. They are the elite of soceity.

Emperors Faithful wrote:As for the whole 'Test Tube' babies thing, it would be interesting to know how the Emperor recruited so many SM since he didn't have access to Feral world recruits.

Before the Emperor left Earth the recruits all came from there but not all of these warriors were full Space Marines in the modern sense, but the modifications they underwent were still considerable.

Even in the 41st Millenniun it is not necessary for recruits to come from Feral Worlds or even warrior cultures, partly I would imagine this is due to the debased knowledge of Chapters that they recruits from such societies as they will produce people more likely to survive the process of implantation as well as going some way to demonstrate their warlike tendencies.

The Emperor had access to all the relevant data, medical tools and the scientists who developed the initial Zygotes so anyone who was genetically compatible irregardless of background (although Earth was comprised of techno-barbarians, so they were all pretty feral and warlike anyway) could easily have been implanted. As long as they survived the process they would still be every inch a marine just as powerful as any other and after their training just as competent and deadly.

However, if you look at the Rogue Trader background for marines it was generally said that all Marines were recruited from the violent gangs of hive worlds or prison planets and the like and they were all frothing, blood-mad psychotics. No doubt the idea was taken directly from the Sardaukar (type in "Sardaukar" on wikipedia if you don't know what they are, you'll see a few similarites).

The Mucranoid enables protection from extremes of temperature and vacuum. The Sus-an Membrane allows voluntary suspended animation (assisted by the Mucranoid). The Catalepsean Node allows a Marine to rest one half of their brain. Switching off halves can allow a Marine to remain conscious for days, possibly weeks.

Various other implants and genetic modifications can make the Marine effectively immortal. In a normal human, the body's ability to regenerate is eventually outpaced by the cells' natural degeneration. In Marines, this (regenerative) process has been enhanced by a ridiculous magnitude.

Mind you, this 'immortality' is offset by the fact that a Space Marine lives an extremely violent life, and is seriously unlikely to survive long enough to actually find out if he is, indeed, immortal.

No, they are not immortal. The oldest SM is Dante of the BA, and that's only 11 or 12 hundred years old.

There are several SM characters that are described as 'Old'. (Chaplain Cassius for one). So while they may be long-lived, they are not immortal.

Uh, he's the oldest, cause no other marine has SURVIVED to reach that age...

Actually, the BA codex itself states how even by SM standards Blood Angels are abnormaly long-lived. And they fight just as hard, if not harder, than any other SM chapter.

despoiler52 wrote:It means what de feth. It is like what the feth, but since you are suprised you just spit out the words. Or you mistype it either way. Thanks for the very specific and logical analysis, it was nagging the back of my head. Any ways as for the vat grown, I was assuming beacuse I thought that was the only way that their genome could be so similar. As for a citation, instead I present a paraphrase, "All Astartes of the Luna wolves had the game basic bone structure of their primarch...." from this I extrapolate.

When they say 'bone structure', their reffering to the fact that they all look physically similiar facially. Because of Horus' gene seed, the marines in his legion look physically very similiar to him. It doesn't refer to their bones :p

Asherian Command wrote:Well you can tell space marines are no mere humans but beings of immense power. So space marines are not noobs. They are the elite of soceity.

And yet, ironically most SM players are 6 year olds who have no concept of strategy.

Gogsnik wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:As for the whole 'Test Tube' babies thing, it would be interesting to know how the Emperor recruited so many SM since he didn't have access to Feral world recruits.

Before the Emperor left Earth the recruits all came from there but not all of these warriors were full Space Marines in the modern sense, but the modifications they underwent were still considerable.

Even in the 41st Millenniun it is not necessary for recruits to come from Feral Worlds or even warrior cultures, partly I would imagine this is due to the debased knowledge of Chapters that they recruits from such societies as they will produce people more likely to survive the process of implantation as well as going some way to demonstrate their warlike tendencies.

The Emperor had access to all the relevant data, medical tools and the scientists who developed the initial Zygotes so anyone who was genetically compatible irregardless of background (although Earth was comprised of techno-barbarians, so they were all pretty feral and warlike anyway) could easily have been implanted. As long as they survived the process they would still be every inch a marine just as powerful as any other and after their training just as competent and deadly.

However, if you look at the Rogue Trader background for marines it was generally said that all Marines were recruited from the violent gangs of hive worlds or prison planets and the like and they were all frothing, blood-mad psychotics.

Confirmed!

It would make more sense from a logistical viewpoint if SMs were simply grown in vats. After all, their vital organs are. But it would not make such a grimdark story.

Well, the original Legions were test tube babies. After the Primarchs disappeared the Emperor used the same facilities to grow the Space Marines, sort of as inferior replacements for the Primarchs. Then when he found the Primarchs, putting them in charge of the Space Marines was only logical.

He also had a lot of other, modified but still human soldiers.

Interestingly, in Iron Warriors, the author described the space marine geneseed as looking something like a human fetus. Could it be that despite being the biggest baddest, 'roided out warrior boys of the Imperium are really just mommies-to-be?

Gene-Seed are microscopic germ cells grown in the Progenoid Gland, they don't look like anything until they're grown into Zygotes and you can find the various descriptions of what they look like in Index Astartes. Of course a fetus that is only a few weeks old will only look like a bunch of cells anyway but so would a lot of things so the comparison is not accurate.

In HH marines are described as immortal but they die in battle before they get too live too long

To me the black carapace makes no sense.
They cant breath heavily then. Unless the cartilige is still there the chest can expand.

The Black Carapace has nothing to do with the growing of bone plates on the Marine's ribs. The Ossmodula is responsible for this and Space Marine's can breath perfectly well. It causes overlapping 'inter-laced' bone plates to form, not a solid lump of bone as people often tend to think despite the background saying otherwise.

Each rib is basically the same as for a normal human except that a boney scale grows out from it, to cover the squishy bits between the ribs and most likely the top half of the rib below.

Just to chip in on the Dante thing...

Bjorn is ten thousand years old.

Suck it Dante

I heard something about Biota being the oldest but he is encased in a dreadnought so that might not count.

Emperors Faithful wrote:As for the whole 'Test Tube' babies thing, it would be interesting to know how the Emperor recruited so many SM since he didn't have access to Feral world recruits.

That's a great avatar.



needs a santa hat though.