I am just curious about the canon on Space Marines in so far as it relates to always being a Space Marine. I know that they can become Dreadnaughts once they are old and/or severly injured, but do they ever leave the Chapter to pursue a life outside of the AA? I firstly assume NO, but I wanted to know canon.

Nope, they're Marines until the day they die. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Also, they're almost certainly sterile, if that was what you're aiming at.

Cifer said:

Even if they were not sterile, they under go so much genetic alteration as to render them sufficiently divergent that they would likely no longer be genetically compatible with the rest of the human species. Much like Homo Sapiens and Pan troglodytes (Common Chimpanzee) share from 95-99% similar DNA sequencing, yet are not biologically compatible.

-=Brother Praetus=-

This was what I had read, but I have only read one novel from 40k, the one where the Deathwatch Team(?) goes to help the Eldar against the Dark Eldar.

What about Chaos Space Marines?

I'm pretty sure the Salamanders maintain ties with their families. It's also mentioned in lots of places that space marines are deeply involved in the affairs of their homeworlds.

Also nothing would stop a space marine chapter from taking semen samples from their number before they under go all that funky augmentation. It'd be common sense to preserve those lines that most commonly spawned those amiable to the geneseed.

LordMunchkin said:

Love this line of thinking as it hearkens back to the idea of "Knightly" Lineages.

"His father and his father before him had become Space Marines, he, born of the seed of the seed of heroes, would undergo the same modifications and hope to be worthy of their line when he too became a Battle Brother of the Astartes."

Yes Space Marines are sufficiently divergent as to be either sterile or incompatible with humans or both. That does not mean that artificial insemination could not be utilized by some of the chapters to keep alive lineages that prove amenable to the gene seed modification process.

I think that I might utilize this for a specific chapter I am brewing up for my DeathWatch arc.

Alexis

*smiles*

I am also thinking along the lines of DUNE, with the Sardaukar. They Great Houses all try to train troops to be as close to the Sardaukar as possible. Do the mega-wealthy and powerful in the Imperium augment household troops to be as much like Space Marines as possible? It would not seem to be impossible, even though much of the mods for a Space Marine are top secret proccesses ( I am guessing).

Back to the Chaos Marines= Do they have offspring, or are they sterile too? I want to design a "Pocket Empire" in the Expanse, only reached by a very narrow passage through the warp storms near the Rifts of Hecaton. I want to have the "offspring" of a renegade chapter rulling this empire seemingly benevolently. The wealth in archeaotech in this empire is enormous. However, the offspring are not the descendents of the original chapter, they are the same, and they are kept eternal from sacrifices of the life-force of the people they rule over. The Empire is much like the Imperium, and each year colony ships are outfitted and dispatched with millions on board which are then harvested to sustain the undying renegades. Although it seems paradiscal to the players, they will investigate one of the colony ships discover it is a death factory, and then either escape back home, or try to defeat the renegades.

So it is not important to me if the marines can actually procreate, it is important to me what a Rogue Trader is going to know.

To my knowledge, Space Marines don't procreate. The differences in their genetic code compared to normal humans basically make them sterile, in so far as breeding with humans goes.

However, the original Chaos Legions (those that fell to Chaos and fought in the Horus Heresy) obviously have some way of keeping up their numbers, though that's likely through genetic tampering (ala Fabius Bile) and daemon trickery. Individual Renegade Chapters (like the Red Corsairs) generally have to make do with the Space Marines they have, unless they have the facilities to implant more humans with spare Geneseed, though growth from the original number of Space Marines would be slow to non-existant (in that, usually, geneseed is only harvested once the Space Marine it belonged do falls in battle, and not all implantees will survive the transformation to being a Space Marine).

Sure, you could have a Renegade Chapter hiding there, but them being the children of the original Chapter is incredibly unlikely, unless, as stated before, they stored genetic and semen samples before their transformation to use to sire children (who would be normal humans). Also, unless they are a big chapter that's **** good at hiding, I'd expect them to be small in number. I mean, there were only 200 of the Astral Claws/Red Corsairs left, and everyone knows where they ran to, and they are hunted down whenever possible.

It would be entirely possible to have a kid before they are made into marines, especially with the chapters that recruit from different worlds like the Dark Angels. Kid obviously wouldn't have any space marine related powers but he could point at a marine and say 'that's my dad!'

The Glen said:

I'm not so sure about that.

From Lexicanum : Recruits must be fairly young, because implants often do not become fully functional if the recipient has reached a certain level of physical maturity

So what part of the body's development makes them too old for the geneseed ?

A quick check of wikipedia tells me that puberty starts around the recruitment age for space marines. If the start of puberty is what makes the kid unsuitable, then it would mean that anyone physically mature enough to father a child is too mature to become a space marine.

Cool. I do not want them to actually be procreating, it is just the lie that they tell the people they rule over. Its the Dark Archeaotech that keeps them ageless and immortal. I was just wondering if, when the players hear that they are the descendents of lost Space Marines, if they will know the truth. If it is common knowledge that Space Marines do not procreate, then they will know its a lie. Otherwise, they might just believe it.

The device they are using removes the purified essence of life from a living sentient creature. If the victim is a psker, it yields greater results. The contained essence is then injected into the ancient Space Marines, who recuperate all damage and aging. There is only one of these devices, and its destruction or theft is going to ultimately be the focus of the adventure. And it is Yu'vath in origin.

The Space Marines show no outward sign of corruption if kept supplied with the essence. Each day they are injected with it, which lasts for 24 hours. 3 hours without the essence and the Space Marine goes on a killing rampage, and its body suffers 1d5 rolls on the mutation table.

Luckily, there are only 12 of them, plus their leader.

One thing to note is that there are many people in the Imperium who have familial links to members of the Astartes, even if they aren't strictly ancestors - more than a few prestigious families in the Ultramar region have kin who are Ultramarines (brothers, uncles, cousins, etc). This is more common on civilised worlds or worlds where the Astartes recruit openly, however.

Isn't there some bit in the Blood Angel's codex about the Sanguinary Guard being descendants of the original marines which accompanied Sanguinius to face down Horus? I can't be sure, I don't own it and haven't had much opportunity to read it... Just something I thought I heard from a player.

I believe there are some chapters who favor the familial descendants of previously successful battle brothers. It makes sense, after all. Though how weird would it be to be recruited by your great-great uncle; a living legend to the family, who was himself chosen by another legendary ancestor some two or three centuries ago?

-=Brother Praetus=-

The Space Wolves recruits from feral worlds, especially their own world, to give an example. All the chapters have some prime area to recruit from, maybe because of some old tradition, superstition or that they are indeed closer to perfect specimen for a particular chapter.

A human injected with the space marine geneseed will more or less transform into something that is more superhuman and gain whatever flaws/ special traits that chapter's geneseed carries. A space wolf would become wolf-like; hairy, scary teeth and other weird feral features. Blood Angels turn into emos.

Chaos space marines... they are a different type! Some of them have lived for thousands of years, since time does not function normally in the Warp, where the chaos lives. They do recruit though. I'll go search for my codex: chaos space marine-book...

I guess most of the answers you seek would be found in almost any Codex: Space Marine. Speaking of which, there are many Warhammer 40k books that can give ideas for rogue trader and give more information about the warhammer-universe. Like the Eye of Terror-book!

Thanks Svarte.

Your name would make a great Rogue Traders name, by the way!

Brother Praetus said:

Just checked the Blood Angels codex, didn't see anything about it in there.

Still, descent within an Astartes chapter is perhaps a different matter - afterall, Astartes do pass on some measure of themselves (at least in theory) to each new generation of Battle Brothers, through the progenoid glands that mature within them and form the seed from which a new set of implants are grown. Some Chapters may track the lineage of their Marines in this way, expecting great things of a Marine implanted with geneseed grown from a past hero.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Huh. Never occurred to me! You can use the nick on a villain with a black powerfist and deals in slavery, illegal chems, selling army-style weapons (heavy stubber, bolters, lascannon++) to whoever got the cash, sailing around in a heavy frigate with a brown and white servo-cat with laser eyes on his lap.

Anyway, according to the Eye of Terror-book, there are supposed to be humans living on the planets inside the Eye! They eventually become MUBAR, mutated beyond all recognition. I guess some of these are deemed worthy of becoming chaos space marines...

from france

before anything i must say that i am not at all a fan of dan abnett "brother of the snake" book. it is for me non canonical.

but in the book the marines give some blood to a normal womanwho live muc much longer than any other human she said that she has "spend" three husband.

i can 't remenber if she have child. but if somoen remenber maybe we got the answer.

first case she have child so somehow you can have a space marine ancestor

second case she has not so she can live longer but otherwise she is sterile.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Isn't this a reference to the Sanguinor special character? Wasn't he supposed to be part of the assault force which boarded Horus' barge and which failed to save Sanguinius? So Sanguinor rather than Sanguinary guard...failing to save Sanguinius. If that makes any sense. Which I doubt.

The modern Sanguinary Guard believe the Sanguinor is Azkaellon, the single member of Sanguinius's Honour Guard who remained behind on Terra to carry forth the legion's ideals and teachings should the unthinkable happen. Which, of course, it did. They think he has been preserved throughout the millennia by the Emperor's grace. There are other theories about him, but I believe that is the one being referenced in this thread.

On the Deathwatch Forum there is a discussion about "older" indoctrinated individuals into space marines. Specifically in the Black Templars and Space Wolves and something to do with Dawn of War.

In Horus Heresy novels there was a human augmented by drugs, muscle graphs, cybernetics, gear and training to be what I would refer to as a "Space-Marine Lite". It would be plausible that some group of space marines became isolated on a desolate planet after a warp storm and if they all died (perhaps in some heroic last stand protecting a city of Imperial Citizens from some evil force) that the people would worship/rever them in death and some opportunistic sleezebags may try to take benefit from that. Perhaps by modifying their armour and weapons, honoring the dead sky warriors similar to the way the Egyptians/Pharoahs honored their gods. Wearing their images.

Imagine a band of quasi-primitive feral-worlders lead by a rogue Heretek. Using old space marine bolt guns as the housing for cross-bows or primitive guns, with the power armour modified to fit the new "guardians" of The Sky Warrior's tombs.Of course the heretek is having loads of fun shooting the primitive "SpaceMarines" up with steroids, drugs, cyberware and such.

some points from argentina:

1- Space Wolf only recruit from Fenris, all of them are fenrisian.

2- The woman in "brothers of the snake" was left sterile by the marine´s blood.

3- All the renegades y legions are short handed, the recent fluff is fairly acurate in that. The red corsairs, the black legion, the alpha legion, nigth lords, iron warriors and others are stealing geneseed of loyalist to create new marines. Fabius Bile and demonics procedures are employed to that end. (see the books Storm of iron, soul hunter, dead sky black sun, and recent chaos marines/ loyal marines codex)

Cheers!