A slightly horrific thought re: Space Marine Scouts

[Brother Tyler]

The interesting thing about the Space Wolves is that they recruit from warriors on Fenris, occasionally "slain" warriors. Assuming they recruit young males in the typical age range for the Adeptus Astartes, that would mean that Fenrisians send their "men" into battle at a young age. This is probably not uncommon for primitive societies, however, and can be seen in many historical examples.

[Blindhamster]

Blood Angels implantation process takes far less time too, they go from irradiated young teenagers/children to full space marines minus the carapace in a year. There's a good scene in "Dante" where these full grown space marines uncertainly respond to a chaplain and Dante notes the incongruity of childish mannerisms in the transhuman bodies.

They spend plenty of time as neophytes and then scouts still.

It's very unclear at what point a marine goes from neophyte doing training (still often lethal!) to active duty scout though.

 

So yeah, "child soldiers" is going to vary a lot from chapter to chapter, very few (if any) will be actual children at the point they get deployed for the first time though.

[Helias_Tancred]

On 10/11/2024 at 5:03 AM, Marshal Reinhard said:

Im so tired of the marines are child soldiers tripe

 

Yep.

 

 

Edited October 14 by Helias_Tancred

[Gillyfish]

Oddly enough, the now, very, very old novel Space Marine by Ian Watson depicted the recruitment of teenage Gangers from Necromunda by the Imperial Fists. If memory serves, some were near death at the time of selection, and the process of turning them into scouts took a long time (I don't think it was specified, but the sense was years). The book covers their deployment as scouts and their advancement to full marines, although this promotion is perhaps quicker than normal compared to other Scouts given their deeds.

 

So, it would not be impossible for a Space Marine scout to be deployed initially as a teen, but they may remain a scout into young adulthood and I would suggest that it would not be usual for a normal marine to be promoted to that status whilst in their teens, in fact, it would be highly unusual.

 

Now, that is based off a very old book, but that part of the background hasn't actually changed that significantly as some of the posts above demonstrate. It also fits into other, more recent fiction, such as Bill King's Ragnar novels, etc. The Heresy novels are perhaps slightly different, in that we hear of marines being created from adult candidates (although it comes with higher risk of rejection and failure), but it might be reasonable to assume that the technology was better understood back in 30k. For a start, some of the organs had not been lost by some of the chapters...

[Galron]

Also remember, we are talking a universe where non-combatant women and children are legitimate individual targets for constant horrific acts. Orks dont care. Nids see them as just more food. Eldar and Tau are likely the only two races(not even other humans) who would pause first and even then the eldar would only do it long enough to come up with a witty insult before pulling the trigger. That being the case, is the recruitment of teenagers really that horrible in the context of the universe as a whole? Its not like our ancestors waited until they were 18 to march off to war. 40k is supposed to be feudalism and space knights in a grim dark future. It kind of fits.