Can Space Marines love, or at least love without falling to chaos?

>Can Space Marines love, or at least love without falling to chaos?
no

A huge part about being a(n imperial) space marine is selflessness. They aren't knights in space. They're monks in space. And they spend 100% of their downtime isolated in their space monasteries practicing their craft.

It's not until a space marine falls that he can start indulging in selfish desires.

>Would courtly love
no

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>>48023805
Obviously consider the chapster in question of the marine. A Blood Angel or Space Wolf would have a drastically different opinion on love and human relationships than say, an Imperial Fist.

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>>48023874
Hell, I don't know if even Chaos Space Marines could love another or if it would become a twisted reflection of itself as the Marine inevitably falls further into the dark gods' grasp.

>>48023928
A chaos marine can do whatever he pleases. Once they break their bonds and mental restraints, they can start letting their emotions run wild.

Most will not love. But they certainly COULD, even if they'd act like some kind of slasher villain instead of a storybook romance.

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Would you not fall in love of these peak human murder machines?

>>48024256
Sisters are for the emperor and each other, not anything else

>>48023998
That one slaneshi chaos space marine that fetishes courtly love, so he butchers whole governor families to save princeses in a twisted attempt to be knight. Actually it will be antagonist in my next Dark Heresy session.

>>48024748
Except choir boys.

>>48024786
Sounds kinda like a Chaos Don Quixote.

>>48024256
In awe, possibly with a non-zero amount of terror, certainly.
In love, holy shit no.

>>48023805
They started as Terran Marines, as in genetically and cybernetically enhanced and brainwashed criminals back in Rogue Trader days. Then in 1-2e they were demigods of battle left over from ancient wars, with only their armour to remind them of past glory. Then they became warrior monks in space, colour coded by theme.
So the answer depends on, first, which fluff you want, and second what do you want to achieve with said fluff.

>>48024256
10/10 would paint armor with

>>48023805
Why do so many people want to push SM sex/love shit? They are warrior monks that have transcended humanity. They don't feel emotions like humans do. The only love they feel is for battle. This topic has been touched on in several of the 40k novels and they all stated the same thing: They don't feel love for humans, though they may recognize beauty. Hell most SM don't even possess empathy for humans. For all we know their modifications would make sex impossible anyway.

>>48026231
/ss/ verboten

>>48026817
>The only love they feel is for battle.
>They don't feel love for humans, though they may recognize beauty.

You realize that non-romantic love is a thing, right? Brotherly love is certainly a huge part of the chapter cult. They're expected to care about and watch over each other. They also have a familial/hero-worship relationship with their Primarch (their father) and the Emperor (their grandfather), and many Marines feel compelled to protect unaugmented humans, who both support them and give them their purpose in life to defend. Some don't, such as the Marines Malevolent, but they seem to be in the minority and the Marines Malevolent's sole purpose seems to be to act like assholes so another chapter can take the moral high ground.

Really, the only Marines without any feelings of love whatsoever are probably Khorne-worshipping Chaos Space Marines.

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>>48026817
It's partly because it helps identify them and make them more human/relatable, Personally I like the superman theme of them. They feel everything to a greater degree, they do everything to a greater degree. When they go bad, worlds burn. There's hypno conditioning and brainwashing for a reason, because if Achilles in power armor over there flips his shit, everyone is going to die.

But a big part of that is reader dependent. In more traditional codex fluff they're a lot like what you say, but a lot of novels flesh them out and give them real humans emotion focused and restrained by their training. It's up to each fan really what they like and want from marines.

>>48026921
I agree with you, but not that's not what I was talking about. I was talking SM on human love which I ASSUMED the OP was getting at. The brotherly love for battle brothers/primarch/emperor is a given. I was touching more on the sexuality aspect.

>>48024256
HELLO HONOURABLE BATTLE SISTER

WOULD YOU LIKE ACCOMPANY ME AS I CONDUCT FIRING DRILLS SO THAT I MAY SERVE THE EMPEROR WITH EVEN GREATER EFFECTIVENESS.

HONOURABLE BATTLE SISTER WHY ARE YOU REMOVING YOUR ARMOR.

>>48026362
>They started as Terran Marines, as in genetically and cybernetically enhanced and brainwashed criminals back in Rogue Trader days.

They have the same origins in rogue trader as in now.
They recruit from gangs in some instances and they still do.

>Then they became warrior monks in space

That was always their thing, you can go open the RT rule book and find they always lived in Fortress monasteries and referred to each other as Brothers.