Descendt of Angels.

[GrandMagnus]

Hey the Dark Angels,

 

I started reading Descent of Angels a few days ago, but there is something I was hoping you could shead some light on:

 

In the book it says Zahariel is 9 years old. Now, is this 9 as in terran years, or how old is he?

 

Thank you.

[Pavement Artist]

I always read it as Terran years. His marine training/implantation seems to start at 15 which to me seems about spot on for what we know about the process.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

They usually use Standard terran time unless otherwise noticed.

[GrandMagnus]

Okay, thank you. I was quite confused as to how I should imagine him.

[Kasper_Hawser]

It is quite a valid question, to check if they refer to Caliban years or Terran years. On another extreme, a Fenrisian year is something like three terran years due to the huge epiliptic orbit Fenris takes around its sun. There was a character in Prospero Burns who woke up from a coma on Fenris, they told him the twenty Fenris years had passed, he did a quick calculation in his head and to his horror, realised that it means sixty or seventy Terran years have passed.

 

Yep, 15 Terran years old would be the right age for gene seed implantation. I thought it was slighltly younger though, 13 or 14 years old. I guess depends on the recruiting world. As long as the recruit has reached puberty and more importantly, is extremely tough and good at killing, one could be recruited to undergo gene seed implantation.

[Jehoel]

One point to note, Zahariel doesn't join the Dark Angels Legion when he is 9, he joins the Order. The Legion has yet to arrive on Caliban at that point. So, at that point in the story, it is all Caliban years and no gene seed at all.

[Onisuzume]

Yep, 15 Terran years old would be the right age for gene seed implantation. I thought it was slighltly younger though, 13 or 14 years old. I guess depends on the recruiting world. As long as the recruit has reached puberty and more importantly, is extremely tough and good at killing, one could be recruited to undergo gene seed implantation.

Well, do remember that he was one of the oldest recruits if not the oldest.

Or in other words, he was lucky that he was still young enough.

[Surrender_Monkey]

I would assume translation convention on this one, which is basically that the author is writing in the language of the reader, rather than the language that is "actually" being spoken. In science fiction this commonly extends to units of measurement, after all units such as seconds, days, years and even meters are defined in terms of the earth, and would therefore not apply to a culture on another planet, so the author translates the units the characters use into ones that we understand.

 

In this case the author is describing Zahariel as nine years old so that the reader imagines him as a nine year old boy rather than an older teenager or man. Zahariel probably defines his own age in terms of Caliban years (which might be longer or shorter, we're not told) but telling us that he is say, three caliban years old without immediately repeating it earth years would tell the reader nothing and be detrimental to the storytelling.

 

TL;DR - Unless they specify that they are using non standard units, always assume that a year is a year, a meter is a meter etc.

[Kasper_Hawser]

Point taken on the translation convention.

[Eternal Warrior]

What fascinates and terrifies me all together is how much of a killer space marines are before they are even marines. Stone cold killers, if not they are dead. And while Fallen Angels made me sad those two books are amazing. Luther sucks. freaking whiner.