So a friend of mine asked if I knew of any references or otherwise in regards to the past of any one Space Marine - when it came to them recalling their past lives before the gene-seed...

Are some married before they are recruited?

Do they have family, friends, a life before recruitment?

And if so - why dont they "ever" just once make a reference (ohh i remeber the time on proktus 12 me and my brother saw etc etc etc)...

Just wondering if anyone could lend some insight into this...

Stay Gaming

Morbid

As with most things in 40k, it is a matter of interpretation, and you will probably find many different and sometimes conflicting accounts in the various official sources.

The most common depiction (at least from what I've seen) is recruitment at adolescent age where the potential future Astartes has not yet finished their puberty and natural body growth (to better accommodate the chemical and genetic enhancements and implants, directly affecting chances of success and survival) but is already old enough to have a body that has ( a ) already built up a minimum of resilience to withstand the intense physical and psychological trauma associated with the creation process and ( b ) has assimilated a modicum of local warrior culture and is already capable of demonstrating their worth to the Chapter, depending on what this local variant of Space Marines is looking for in their recruits (some may only take children who have already killed someone/something, others like the Salamanders require their recruits to be good blacksmiths).

As you can see, there is already a degree of variation to be found between the different Space Marine Chapters that affects how they are recruiting, too, both in terms of age range as well as required accomplishments or physical/mental capabilities. In short, yes, it is indeed possible that some Space Marines somewhere have already been married before being inducted into the Chapter - after all, the majority of Marine Chapters is recruiting from rather violent places, as locations such as Feral Worlds tend to feature a barbarian population whose children may appeal to the Marines' own ideas of what to look for in a proper warrior.

Keep in mind that such places will likely have very different ideas regarding the age of maturity/consent as well, featuring marriages between tribe members as young as 12-14 years, and warriors of a similar age range. Hell, there are even places on our modern real world where this is still happening.

That being said, given that Space Marines can live for centuries and are subject to a rather intense combination of hypno-indoctrination, monastic life and total war, it may stand to reason that this dozen or so years of childhood would ultimately fade away and become ever harder to remember, depending on how you interpret these associated traumata and their effect on Marine psyche/mindset, or quite simply how you want to imagine the Space Marines to live. The setting is yours to shape (though obviously in an RPG there should be a common ground between all immediate participants, meaning the players and their GM).

For further optional reading and possible inspiration, here is an online version of the Index Astartes article on Space Marine recruitment and initiation as originally published in White Dwarf issue #247.

Hope that helps!

Space Marines are recruited almost universally at around age 12 to 16. It takes several years for the implantation to complete, usually around age 19. The average space marine is recruited from feral or death worlds so the recruits are of hardy and violent stock, but are also untrained and unrefined before indoctrination. Their training is intense and non stop, and by the time they enter their first scout squad they are thoroughly indoctrinated into the chapter's cult. Brotherhood replaces family and duty overrides all other concerns. What they were before becoming a weapon for the Emperor is of no importance, their former lives worthless in comparison to their future destiny. If they even remember their family after their indoctrination, they have little desire to return. Even if they did, they would not be recognized and more likely than not be feared by all who once knew them. In a few short years, their indoctrination and experiences wash out practically all memory of their life before implantation. They know they were once human, but that life is now utterly alien and ephemeral to them. By the time they earn their battle plate they have severed all ties, both physical and non-physical, of their previous humanity.

Of course, it should be noted the above is the general case, with there being at least one known (and rather prevalent) counterexample: the Salamanders.

With that in mind, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that such a marriage or other social ties from their time as a human could be remembered. You just have to make sure the chapter's practices themselves align themselves in such a way it seems plausible.

Also almost every chapter uses hypno indoctriantion and mind altering mental training to turn novices into full fledged marines.

This often leaves the marine a person dedicated to the chapter and his time as a normal human as a distant memory, One of the novels mentioned marines not even recognizing their own next of kin. Altough it depends on the author. One of the ultramarine novels has a marine character remember teh layout of a remote cave systhem he used to explore as a young boy.

It's entirely ok for marines to talk about their time as a scout/neophyte.

"Pfff! You call that shooting? Ol' Grisholm would have ripped out or geneseed and kicked us out of the monastary if we shot half a spoorly as you did!"

As with most things in 40k, it is a matter of interpretation, and you will probably find many different and sometimes conflicting accounts in the various official sources.

The most common depiction (at least from what I've seen) is recruitment at adolescent age where the potential future Astartes has not yet finished their puberty and natural body growth (to better accommodate the chemical and genetic enhancements and implants, directly affecting chances of success and survival) but is already old enough to have a body that has ( a ) already built up a minimum of resilience to withstand the intense physical and psychological trauma associated with the creation process and ( b ) has assimilated a modicum of local warrior culture and is already capable of demonstrating their worth to the Chapter, depending on what this local variant of Space Marines is looking for in their recruits (some may only take children who have already killed someone/something, others like the Salamanders require their recruits to be good blacksmiths).

As you can see, there is already a degree of variation to be found between the different Space Marine Chapters that affects how they are recruiting, too, both in terms of age range as well as required accomplishments or physical/mental capabilities. In short, yes, it is indeed possible that some Space Marines somewhere have already been married before being inducted into the Chapter - after all, the majority of Marine Chapters is recruiting from rather violent places, as locations such as Feral Worlds tend to feature a barbarian population whose children may appeal to the Marines' own ideas of what to look for in a proper warrior.

Keep in mind that such places will likely have very different ideas regarding the age of maturity/consent as well, featuring marriages between tribe members as young as 12-14 years, and warriors of a similar age range. Hell, there are even places on our modern real world where this is still happening.

That being said, given that Space Marines can live for centuries and are subject to a rather intense combination of hypno-indoctrination, monastic life and total war, it may stand to reason that this dozen or so years of childhood would ultimately fade away and become ever harder to remember, depending on how you interpret these associated traumata and their effect on Marine psyche/mindset, or quite simply how you want to imagine the Space Marines to live. The setting is yours to shape (though obviously in an RPG there should be a common ground between all immediate participants, meaning the players and their GM).

For further optional reading and possible inspiration, here is an online version of the Index Astartes article on Space Marine recruitment and initiation as originally published in White Dwarf issue #247.

Hope that helps!

Too much information!

However all of it is great. Useful stuff Lynata so don't worry if it helped or not. Almost all the things you post is helpful.