Oh, it's not tragic from *their* perspective at all. It's just tragic from our own cultural literary perspective.

I don't think that they loose any sleep over it, or probably care in the slightest.

Now I wonder how Space marines brush their teeth, could be hard with that poison glands, on other hand if they are immune to that corosive slime maybe they can use it to clean their teeth ? Or how big Space Marine dump is, it should be much smaller in times he wears his armour and quite colossal when he is not. Or if Space Marine manhood grows in proportion to his bioengineered body, or maybe it stays at 12 year old boy size? Or if Space marines have body hair? Or how often they need to clip their nails...

No... Im completely happy without knowing any of it. And considering that 90% of existing fluff about space marines is full of holes, retarded or contradicting to every other existing fluff finding answer will be hard.

And why someone may want to change glorious fight that greatest heroes of humanity wage aganist mutant, xeno and heretic into Twilight style romantic tragedy mixed with german porn elements is beyond me. (Never watcher or readed twilight, my 8 year old daughter liked it thou)

Charmander said:

You would be surprised by some of those warrior cultures actual practices. For example in one Australian Aboriginal tribe whose totem is a reptile with two male members they used a sharp stone to perform shall we say an extreme body modification to emulate this. Those who managed to survive became men and got to marry. Don't ask me how they managed to father children but they did. The practice, with some improvements such as metal knives, was still in use as of the early 90's when my mother who was doing archeo-linguistics travelled to the region.

boruta666 said:

Tooth decay is caused by bacteria, the poisons secreted by a space marine kill those bacteria, therefore they do not need to clean their teeth at all. The corrosive venom secreted by the Betcher's gland also has a natural, minty fresh scent.

Chastity said:

The bacteria release acid which is what erodes the teeth... if the venom is also acidic then they'd need some way to protect thwir teeth from it.

Daisuke said:

I don't think that's an ethic restricted to the Space Wolves.

Battybattybats said:

Not really surprised. Do I cringe and feel sympathy pain just thinking about it, absolutely.

@boruta: Point taken, but again I think sex is pretty central to the human condition, and the male wang is pretty central to males in general. I don't find it surprising at all that the sex topic comes up over and over and over and over and over again. I would however find a discussion of space marine poop a little...odd...but whatever floats your boat :-D

Notice though that the warrior culture might cut it's wang about, but draws short of actually making it non-functional. Which ultimately makes it just a more extreme form of machoness.

I don't really see the need to drag marine sexuality into the game, either. Seems a bit odd to me.

My todger is very important to me, and I pretty much demand that my preferred genre heros have a functional gentlemen's sausage.

I don't, frankly, believe that anyone really believes that making Marines eunochs is going to make them more popular. There are not going to be a vast number of Marine fanboys who think it is so totally awesome that all their little plastic men have no plastic ******* underneath the armour. Because, seriously. Get real. Take a look at all the fifty foot trouser snakes carved in to mountainsides or all the cock and balls drawn on the walls of puplic lavatories and a thousand.

I also think it is more fun to play with the implications of superpowered Marine members.

I point you to Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, Larry Nivens seminal essay on sex and the superbeing.

http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

>>>>The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles "a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack." One loses control over one's muscles.

Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?

Consider the driving urge between a man and a woman, the monomaniacal urge to achieve greater and greater penetration. Remember also that we are dealing with kryptonian muscles.

Superman would literally crush LL's body in his arms, while simultaneously ripping her open from crotch to sternum, gutting her like a trout.

Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.

Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*) <<<<

--

Incidentally, Marine poop is long, thick and powerful, just like Marine peckers.

You've really summed up why I don't want players who want to mess around with themes of Marine sexuality nicely!

and that bring us closer to certain topic, Do space marine *** shoot can pierce guardsman flak armour ?

and that bring us closer to certain topic, Do space marine *** shoot can pierce guardsman flak armour ?

I'd say yes. Emperor's Children Space Marines also have armor penetration on their rounds.

Somehow this seems relevant.

AW, I hate you for how crazy you want marines to be, but I love Penny Arcade, so it works out.

Is it true what they say? If u dont use it you loose it.

About 4 pages before it descended into a flame war. That was pretty good going!

Blimey - here's a topic that's got the ball rolling. Some interesting points raised, but I can't hope but wonder if there's been some dramatic over analysis.

In terms of 'functionality', my vision of the game would have 'tackle stays on', but more from the perspective that there's no real need to remove it. The way I see it, castration (whether to demonstrate piety, or in salute to extreme combat efficiency) would probably be a rare thing, and would be either a quirk of a chapter cult or personal choice. My point is, as a GM, I want there to be a reasonable explaination for why it might occur, and allow for my players to have the option available if they so desire (strangely, none have!). My point is that whilst it's interesting and thought provoking, my job as a referee is to facilitate my players' choice of such self, erm, modification. I am not going to announce to my players on Thursday that their super-space-warrior-heroes have had their dicks cut off.

But then, I'd feel uncomfortable if the characters start leering at NPCs (or, indeed, each other) and certainly if anyone fell into the habit of regularly 'banging chicks' (or chaps). The way I see it; all Astartes are aware of sex, they simply don't really care. Think about it - most chapters recruit from cultures very early in their development. Young or not, it's very likely that a neophyte would have ahd some sexual experience, particulalry if they were strong/brave/clever enough to be the sort to pass induction into the 'sky warriors' (rolling around with a wench in some dismal little hut on Scaris; charming your way into your cousin Siggi's rune-covered dungarees; or just not paying enough attention in bandit country on Baal. Okay, I'm taking the mick a bit...). But, for the reasons listed by earlier posters, it's just not the kind of thing that interests your average Marine. Between training, meditation/prayers/study/drinking and combat, I imagine Marines have little or no concern for something from their earlier mortal years. Think of it this way - who here enjoys yodelling? The way I see it - Yodelling seems like an interesting (if, to me, slightly odd) activity that other people do. I'm aware of it and could do it, but have neither the time, interest, nor inclination. It's just not important to me. This, as I see it, is sex and sexuality to a Marine.

Of course, sex and relationships can be powerful and rich features for the player characters, and one that I'm certainly not going to ignore if it evolves within my story. But I would be resistant to my game turning into a tabletop Duke Nukem game. In my finally-finished DH game, I used sexuality (characters, not my own!) a lot in developing personal story lines. It's simply not something that I'm accounting for atm. I've no need - my Kill team is currently far too busy systematically slaughtering a 'stealer cult. This is good. This is what they're meant to be thinking about!

Oh, and...

boruta666 said:

Speaking as a very long-standing IG player, I can attest that Withering Looks, Rainbows and Bubbles can all pierce my boys 'armour'!

Let's also consider the matter of avoiding the temptations. After all this is a universe where pleasure is literally a potential path to damnation.

As part of a marines training to resist the lures of Slaanesh eschewing all such pleasures seems likely. So a marine showing any signs of arousal or desire might be considered with suspicion.

Marines no longer sexually functional would have perhaps an easier time avoiding the erotic temptations of Slaanesh. Such mariens wouldn't be immune to that chaos god, after all the chapter may still have choir practice and certainly artificer armour can be pretty, so there's still avenues of pleasure that could lead an unwary marine to corruption.

Yup, all that "celibacy" sure helped the Emperor's Children, all tens of thousands of them... If you deny something, you give it power.

Steampunk16 said:

To me that part is another bit of the RP aspect- provided the players have knowledge of the universe (though if not, teach them). Isn't the character who starts doing this going to draw the attention of his brothers, and his superiors? And then the question would be 'what is driving the marine to do this?' If they can do it with in-game/in-universe rationale why prohibit it? If your players knowledge of 40k lore is good enough, and you can communicate that the behavior is not typical, they should be able to plan out their characters personalities and actions.

But as you say, if the table turned into a giant table top duke nukem session I'd be annoyed (though I'd also be annoyed if it happened in any other RPG I was running), and it needs to be something that is rare at best.

@Batty: The problem with the whole 'help keep them from temptation' is what's the point when there are 10 million other things to tempt them with? Why focus on the one and let ALL of the other avenues just kind of hang out there?

"We've got to find a way to keep our marines from being tempted!"
"I've got an idea, if we chop off their cock and balls they won't want to have sex with people anymore"
"Good idea Jenkins! What do we do about pride or greed or a feeling of self-importance, or appreciation of art and beauty, or the whole way Chaos tricks you into thinking you're doing the right thing when you're really just feeding them?"
"Not sure boss, keep them occupied with work 23 hours a day and tell them it's wrong? We could threaten them with castration but we're already there because we don't want them to have sex."
"Right, well, that's better than nothing, meeting adjourned."

Not saying that you can't interpret it that way, it just seems so...pointless, especially with the whole set of problems that come with removal of the things.

Warning, this post contains facts not for the squeemish.

Well what about our own history.. militaries have doen things like given pills to soldiers to reduce their libido. And so worried about the danger of a soldiers testicles retracting up into their abdominal cavity once a metal wire was inserted as a piercing so if that injury were to occur the testicles could be pulled back out via the wire. The Prince Albert piercing was all about making sure one could tie ones member in place so it looked better in uniform!

Our own armies have thought strapping cats to bombs might help the aim of bombs dropped over ships, the cat twisting in mid air to truy and land away from the water. Or attaching time detonated firebombs to bats who would be dropped over cities, find places under rooftops to sleep and then explode burning down the buildings.

So even an idea which is as collosally stupid and cruel as cats strapped to bombs gets tested or used by militaries of the real world. The imperium runs by superstition and ignorance so i expect worse from the 41st millenium.

And of course sex is a big part of being human, and therfore a big part of slaanesh has been sex-focussed. So if you were going to try and prevent slaanesh's corruption it'd be the most effective one.

You've got excellent points regarding humans being colossally stupid, that's our base MO, and I agree that the 40k Empire tends to be painted in a worse light than our current and historical societies. However, small groups, individuals, and organizations (such as the Astartes) tend to break from the mold.

Again, I can absolutely see some chapters seeing this as a grand idea and making it part of initiation and/or the first challenge, but to me it seems like something that would vary greatly from chapter to chapter. We're not talking about a guard commander or planetary governor here, or some half cocked inquisitor that thinks (s)he has a good idea, we're talking about the Astartes and decisions that would be made at the chapter master, primarch, or Emperor level. You'd think that those folks would have enough kowledge of what was going on to know that the risks of castration (espcially young initiates) would probably outweight the potential benefits of staving off a deamonette or two (which would still appear beautiful to a marine without a sex drive).

Charmander said:

Welcome to the Astartes! Here's your first challenge: A blunt table knife and an easy-to-follow guide to castration.

Well Charmander, we have to asume the emperor doesn't make collosally stupid mistakes.... which goes into so many different possible explanations for things.

After all why no female primarchs and hence no female space marines?

Adeptus Astartes choping their dicks: check!

Why no female Space Marines: check!

Let the flame war begin!!!!