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space marine ages....

Started by psycho, September 08, 2010, 05:58:18 PM

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psycho

yes ok so in the same vain as the Inquisitors age thread i am wondering what age i could use for my two space marines...now one is a Black Templar Initiate that has been left behind on a warp storm surrounded world for the last 300 years (feasible???) due to his last mission being to help train the imperial army on said planet and now he cant elave due to warp storm...and for the word bearer i was looking at having him being an original turnee during the heresy that now spends his time raising cults and causing havoc (ooh to be a chaos marine hey :-P )

now what ages should i use and feasibly get away with?

thanks guys and no bitching on here please lol

kerby

phil-o-mat

for a regular space marine, several hundred years seem plausible (around 250-300). but vet`s could be much older!
for chaos space marines, it could be much more due to the nearly permanent influence of the warp inside the eye!

MarcoSkoll

Imperial Marines... well, canonically, the Blood Angels are supposed to be longer lived than most space Marines, with some of them making it into their thousands.

However, my take on it is that few Space Marines will ever die of old age, so it's not really possible to say what a Marine's ultimate lifetime is. I think of it more as when the accumulated injuries of centuries slow a Marine enough that they meet their end in battle.
Hence, I take it that Blood Angels, or other supposedly long-lived chapters, have some quirk of their geneseed that means they recover injuries more reliably, and thus don't slow as much with each year. Senescence never comes into it.

So, in my mind, most marines can live into their thousands. However, very very few make it.
One caveat on that however. All Imperial marines, possessed of somewhat unstable metabolisms, are reliant on at least some degree of drug therapy. Any Marine which went without this for too long - which might be anywhere from a few months to decades, depending on the Marine in question - would die as a result.

In this Marine's case, I'll assume said drugs could be synthesised on the planet.

Chaos Marines... theoretically limitless. There are indeed still Traitor Marines alive from the time of the Heresy. How much of this is due to the favour of their gods, their tendency to do things other than combat (as you suggest, sponsoring cults is not uncommon) or their lesser conviction than Imperial Marines.*

*Because of course, Imperial Marines are far more brainwashed and less likely to retreat than Traitor Marines - who are willing to try and save their own skins.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

psycho

Well the BT marine is a veteran of a campaign on the world left behind to teach the new IMperial Army how to fight effectively...however he has failed in his duties though as most of the world has gone to pot....the governor has sided with undivided to gain more power and the word bearer is the only living thing to make it through the warp storm alive in 300 years......now whilst id love for the Word Bearer to be like.....10,000 years old would this have any adverse effects on his body...ie weaker than usual marines
and as Marco says about the drugs Imperial Marines need to sustain their own lifeforce, im pretty sure that he was left enough to last maybe 250 years but during the last half-century has been forced to experiment with other "native" products.....any good?

kerby

DapperAnarchist

Check the rules for malfunctioning implants in DM, a likely result of using local versions of drugs. And a Chaos Marine could well be stronger after 10,000 years of battle - look at Abbadon, for one, or Lucius. Both are, if anything, more powerful than they were during the Heresy - one due to the equipment he has collected, the other because of the blessings of Slaanesh. If you want him weaker, go for it, but he doesn't have to be. Most of the Heresy era Marines who survive are stronger.
Questions are a burden to others, answers a burden to oneself.

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MarcoSkoll

Quote from: psycho on September 08, 2010, 06:57:44 PMwhilst id love for the Word Bearer to be like.....10,000 years old would this have any adverse effects on his body...ie weaker than usual marines
You decide. He's a Chaos Marine, so you can't know exactly how he might have reacted over that time.

QuoteI'm pretty sure that he was left enough to last maybe 250 years
Seems optimistic. I imagine these things have a use-by date, so a stock of drugs would be unlikely to last more than a decade or so.
I imagine he's been using locally synthesised versions for most of his time on the planet.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

psycho

hmmmmm....balls to the BT i cant be bothered to explain all that...he can appear later alongside the real ordo xenos inquisitor that shows up once the storm dissapates...but the chaos marine ideas i like

kerby

Flinty

Not sure it's all that difficult to explain. A Marine is a genetically and surgically altered human with a number of technological adaptations and augmentations. Drug therapy is required to balance these elements. If no prescribed mediation is available from the Apothecary, then the Marine has the ability to synthesise the locally available materials himself.

I can't remember which augmentation it is, but either a gland or additional stomach is fitted which allows a Marine to digest almost any substance to provide required nutirion. There is no reason to believe that the same system could not provide the required basic chemcial components as found in the drug therapy - a bit like deriving minerals or dietary salts from eating clay.

Granted, it would possibly not be as effective as a fully targeted and designed medication, but might be enough to slow, or even halt, any degeneration.

I'm also not sure about what the fluff has to say on the role of pwer armour. It seems to be fitted with a number of systems, including some that monitor the wearers health, possibly even including an interactive element which injects required medication, healing gels or whatever.

It also presumably contains some considerable processing power in order to display comms, targeting info, map info and suit functions. This may include a database/analytical function. A small hopper capable of carrying out standard analytical tests (40K mass spec, PID etc ?), the program then suggest which ingredients should be eaten, or instructions for the marine to concoct the medication himself - perhaps the armour has the ability to actually produce the mediaction itself?
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