At what point does a normal man become one of the Adeptus Astartes?

[AutumnEffect]

What I find personally more interesting are other questions that spring from this question though.
 

What makes a normal man an Astartes? 
We know that there are chapters that are missing several of the organs, famously the sons of Dorn who lack the Betcher's Gland and Sus-an Membrane. But no one would claim that they are not Astartes, so it cannot be solely the sum of all the organs implanted in a mortal man that makes a marine.
Much is made of the Black Carapace and how it's implantation is necessary to really make an Astartes, but a mortal man implanted with the Black Carapace and nothing else would certainly not be an Astartes.

 

There's similar ambiguity in consideration of things in the opposite direction, that is, when does a mortal man stop being a man and become transhuman? Is it after one implant? Several? Which ones? Would just the implantation of the Neuroglottis to give a man super-human taste buds no longer make them human? 

It's something a little bit gray, and I bring it up because there's a point to be made about the difference between age and maturity.
Age is simply a number. A counting of the rotations our planet makes around the sun that is used as a shorthand in an attempt to estimate the physical and psychological maturity of a person.

But that's all it is: an estimate.

When does a child become an adult?
Legally we must assign an age for adulthood, but realistically only so much information can be gleaned from that. I don't think I would be out of bounds to say that everyone has met someone who 'didn't act their age'. We have all met people at some point who were, physically and/or psychologically, more or less mature than their age would suggest.

The growth from a child to an adult, like the growth of a neophyte into an Astartes, is a process marked in stages. There's more to being an adult than just going around the sun a set number of times just like there is more to being an Astartes than a collection of organs jammed into your body at the correct stage in your physical development.


Anyway. Considerations of existential questions aside, no, I personally do not think that Astartes can or should be classified as 'child soldiers' because, somewhere in that hazy grayness of their artificial metamorphosis, they stop being human.

Why then should we ascribe the vagaries of human maturation to a creature with steel bones, two hearts, the ability to breath water, enter suspended animation, etc, etc.

Space Marines look like men.
But they are not men. They are not human. 
If they are not men, and they are not human, they cannot be children.

Edited October 14 by AutumnEffect

[Brother Tyler]

I split this off the discussion about Scouts.

[Karhedron]

Arguably both the Black Carapace and the Progenoid glands are essential. Without one, there is no interfacing with power armour, without the other there is no new geneseed. I remember one of the older pieces of lore said that some Chapters have defective or missing implants but a failure of either the Black Carapace or the Progenoids effectively meant the extinction of the Chapter.

[One Paul Murray]

A genuine question from this; do those chapters not have the implants or are they just supposed to not work? 

 

I always thought it was the latter; that they were given everything that the Emperor designed them with, but over time their geneseed had stopped functioning for certain elements.

[AutumnEffect]

8 hours ago, One Paul Murray said:

A genuine question from this; do those chapters not have the implants or are they just supposed to not work? 

 

I always thought it was the latter; that they were given everything that the Emperor designed them with, but over time their geneseed had stopped functioning for certain elements.

 

The wording used in the Imperial Fists case is 'lost', i.e. "the Chapter has lost two of the organs particular to Space Marines". Unless the Chapter has extremely ritualized implantation procedures, I can't imagine why they would risk the life of the neophyte by implanting non functional organs.

 

16 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Arguably both the Black Carapace and the Progenoid glands are essential. Without one, there is no interfacing with power armour, without the other there is no new geneseed. I remember one of the older pieces of lore said that some Chapters have defective or missing implants but a failure of either the Black Carapace or the Progenoids effectively meant the extinction of the Chapter.

 

I don't think the Black Carapace and Progenoid glands being essential to making marines is arguable. I think it's on point.
But you couldn't make an Astartes with only the Porgenoid and Black Carapace implanted.

Edited October 16 by AutumnEffect

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, AutumnEffect said:

The wording used in the Imperial Fists case is 'lost', i.e. "the Chapter has lost two of the organs particular to Space Marines". Unless the Chapter has extremely ritualized implantation procedures, I can't imagine why they would risk the life of the neophyte by implanting non functional organs.

 

In the case of Imperial Fists, this apparently goes back to the Siege of Terra. In an attempt to build up the Legion as quickly as possible to defend to Terra, Dorn ordered apothecaries to skip the implantation of the Betchers Gland and Sus-an Membrane on the reasoning that these implants would be less important in the brutal Astartes vs Astartes battles that were expected. Without those implants present, the Progenoid Glands were unable to harvest the genetic material to create new organs and thus those implants became lost. It is easy to imagine similar problems affecting other Chapters over the millennia.

[Orange Knight]

At what point does a normal man become one of the Adeptus Astartes?

 

 

When he knows no Fear

[Helias_Tancred]

When he becomes a scout after having geneseed implanted and other stuff, hes started on the physical and mental process that ends in being an astartes. But you said when does a normal man become an astartes as in he is no longer a normal man. That is how I based my answer. It is a glass half full, or half empty scenario though.