How come the other races in 40k don't have their own equivalent

>>51392199
The Elfdar are already Super-Soldiers due to magical, Space Elf, Bullshit, and the Tau on average are so physically weak that a Tau Space Marine would essentially just be a faster Catachan so there's really no point to it.

Becasue the Emperor stole their method to make them from Chaos. They are a mockery of the gods.

>>51392199
Aspect warriors in fluff make space marines look like children

>>51392199
The crisis suit is the Tau version of the space marine. Enhanced, elite, can fill any battlefield role.

>>51392199
Because it's a terrible idea from a narrative standpoint, in that it makes all armies nearly identical.

Everyone already has superwarriors. Orks naturally evolve into killing machines, tau have their exoarmors, eldars their paths and wraithguards. Making everyone into a gene-engineered super brute doesn't bring anything of value to the table.

>>51392288
> Making everyone into a gene-engineered super brute doesn't bring anything of value to the table.

Remember space marines my make up 99.99% of the promotional material, but this supposed to be something like one space marine per Imperial planet.

So assuming the Eldar and Tau have the same ratio

>>51392342
They're have like 100 'marine' each tops, probably a lot less.

>>51392282
This guy has it right. The Crisis pilots are elites from the warrior caste, cybernetically enhanced, and given power armor.

The Tau just choose to use them as squads within their armies instead of independent battalions.

>>51392342
They probably would have the same ratio when grossed up to account for the size of the Imperium. They may have a smaller manufacturing base but they have a *much* smaller area to use it in.

>>51392798
no wonder the filthy goddamned tau shits will die in a fucking curbstomp once the imperium decides to grace them with the UNSTOPPABLE FURY OF MANKIND

>what are aspect warriors
>what is the entirety of the fire caste

>>51392199

The technology used to make Space Marines is really advanced, I doubt the Tau have anything like. Bio-engineering seems outside of their comfort zone.

As for Eldar they strike me as being big on racial purity so I doubt they'd want Space Marines even if they could make them.

Plus in fluff Aspect Warriors are supposed to be above and beyond Space Marines anyway.

This thread is copy pasta, newfags.

>>51392199
>What are the Tau Crisis
>What are the eldar paths

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>>51392199
Im picturing a super soldier tau looking something akin to Beta-ray Bill but blue.

>>51392199
Orks got nobs.

>>51395328
I'm fairly sure they reproduce asexually.

The Tau will never create something like space marines, because it raises the risk of Tau that act independently of the Ethereals, or even Super Tau that revolt and wage a war of extermination against the original Tau.

>>51394183
>>what is the entirety of the fire caste

Ever so slightly genetically developed descendants of the original Fire Caste, and by no means super soldiers. Biologically they're not even on-par with Humans in a lot of physical aspects, but they got a few nice mental advantages in there.

>>51395352
baum tish

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>>51394337
>The technology used to make Space Marines is really advanced, I doubt the Tau have anything like. Bio-engineering seems outside of their comfort zone.

Who needs more bio-engineering when you can do cybernetic engineering & work with heavy suits of armor instead?
Elite pilots in crisis suits are more than adequate in their own right, especially considering the "youthfulness" of the Tau as a race.

Space Marines were created due to the Emperor's understanding of his enemies. Tau are not very familiar with the Warp and have very distinct limitations (such as in travel).

>>51392288
>Orks naturally evolve into killing machines
orks do enhance their soldiers, sometimes
(well often but it works sometimes, see meganobz)

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>>51392199

Show me how many emperors that slickheads or knifears have and then we can see how many genertically engineered from his geneseed troops they can make.

>>51392282
hmph, Crisis suits are hardly a "weapon to surpass space marines"

>>51392199

Tau have suit pilots, Eldar have Windriders.

>>51392199
>why haven't any of the other races created or employed dedicated elite shock troops

But they have, tau have their battlesuits, elder have their aspect warriors, Tyranids have their warriors and other fuckery, etc. etc.

The organization is different though but basing space marines as super human badasses too cool for the majority of the chain of command makes them stand out as many other reasons.

>>51395680
>Eldar have Windriders

Alright, I chuckled.

>>51394337

Bio-engineering is within their comfort zone, but they employ it in a different way. An Imperial genetor's report in the fourth edition Tau codex observes the presence of synthetic proteins in Tau internal organs and suggests them as evidence that their evolution has been accelerated artificially.

>>51392199

The Tau don't need Space Marines. Crises Suits are already superior and cheaper to to build and take less time to train.

In the books, we see 3 Crises Suits wipe the floor with a group of marines, crushing them underfoot during entry and vaporizing them with plasma. The surviving marines were forced to flee the battle.

The Tau inside might not be suped up with bullshit cybernetics and unique organs, but that hardly matters if they can point and click marines off the map.

>>51395407
>when you can do cybernetic engineering & work with heavy suits of armor instead?

Because when chaos turns their gaze into you...


Yeah you know what happens next.

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>>51396018
Because Marines are oh so resistant to the taint of Chaos

>>51392342
>but this supposed to be something like one space marine per Imperial planet
Even less than that. Aren't there only about 1 million marines?

>>51396134

Marines are far more resistant to Chaos than inanimate objects and artificial sentience, are you stupid? Even if we don't mention the ONE HUNDRED PERCENT success rate of possessing an inanimate object, the sentience can rebel even without Chaos's influence like the Men of Iron.

>>51396192
The suits have pilots, buddy. They aren't unmanned.

>>51396192
Does Tau tech even have Machine Spirit ? Surely if Chaos isn't interested in their pitiful souls it woul take interest in battlesuits if it could posses them wouldn't it ?

>>51395528
Meganobz aren't enhanced. They're just big nobz that managed to get enough teef to buy a suit of scrap metal terminator armor.
The only time the orks will enhance other Orks is when the dok replaces some squishy bits for metal bits.

>>51396192

This is 40k. The fluff is inconsistent and full of propaganda and errors. It's part of the charm.

>>51396227

And Farsight and Shadowsun are both already corrupted with a possessed sword and armor respectively, what's your point.

>drones aren't unmanned

>>51396316

Daemons can't see Tau well. Also, the Daemons find the Tau not only unappetising but difficult to posses. This is due a combination of tiny souls and strong adherence to the Greater Good.

>>51396192

Chaos doesn't have a 100% success rate of possessing objects, though. You are only counting the times it worked.

Chaos only has the opportunity to possess stuff it it becomes exposed to the warp directly, or sufficient warp energy through rituals or breaches or shit.

Whenever warp energy exists in the material realm, every object within visual range that DIDN'T become demonically possessed is a failure. Even if one object gets possessed there, there are usually a dozen or more objects that didn't.

Every time a guardsmen or a space marine goes into combat against demons and their weapons don't grow teeth and turn on them, that's a failure to possess.

>>51396192
As long as you be good to your machine spirit, it won't turn on you.

>>51396391
>Whenever warp energy exists in the material realm, every object within visual range that DIDN'T become demonically possessed is a failure. Even if one object gets possessed there, there are usually a dozen or more objects that didn't.

No, that's retarded. You can't fail at possessing something you had no intention of possessing. The only failures that count are the ones where a daemon tried to possess a rock or suit of armor and failed.

You don't walk down a block of houses and say each door you didn't open means you have a 0% chance of opening doors.

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>>51392199

Why the fuck should they?
If i wanted to play army a vs army b i would be playing chess all the time.

>>51392199

Play Horus Heresy instead.

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>>51395273
>Beta ray Bill but blue

>>51392199
Genestealers are basically Space Marines and Tyranids have a lot of survivable frontline infantry. Doesn't change the fact that technology wielding factions would never ever put bodies on the ground over drones. But 40k is totally nonsensical.

>>51392199
Tau aren't badass to have space marines anyway. Enhanced species would probably be harder to control for Ethereals as well.

Not that they even need that. You are a retard for asking such bullshit and forgetting about ridiculous battlesuits and tons of xenos allies such as kroot.

>>51396639
But aren't Tyranid warriors literally the nid Space Marines?

>>51396710
Tyrant Guards are.

>>51396228
The Cain novels insist that the Tau "enslave" their machine spirits forcing them to do what they want them to with no reverence. They also say that the order xenos has considered trying to turn their tech against them (I think) but decided it was a waste of time.

Tau tech is essentially a perverse abomination compared to the mechanicum.


Although I doubt the Cain novels are canon anymore, there you go.

>>51396710
Kinda. Tyrant Guard (or whatever they are called) are literal Tyranid space marines, as they are based partially on space marine DNA, and even have a psuedo-black carapace

>>51395375

How soon before the Tau build their own Iron Men and the 40k galaxy gets to go through that shit again

>>51392199
Aspect Warriors and Crisis Suits?

Like, each race basically does have space muhreen equivalents already

>>51396798
They kinda do. Farsight has a broadside that's piloted by a malfunctioning training AI.

>>51396798
They basically already did, Drones get smarter the more of them there are

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>>51396798

Soon.

>>51392199
The Harlequins are super human in terms of Eldar and Solitaires aren't far off Primarch levels of ridiculousness

>>51395766
Well yeah but that's implied to be from an outside race's (most likely Eldar) meddling and not the tau evolving themselves.

>>51392282
>>51395604

Plus Crisis suits are mass producable compared to the SMs.

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>>51394337

Tau have baby factories, neuronal implants and gene and cybernetic engineering programs among their hobbies.

>>51395604
>hmph, Crisis suits are hardly a "weapon to surpass space marines"

It is if you take off the Imperial goggles.

No Crises Suits have accomplished the feats that Space Marines supposedly can, where according to the hyperbolic lore a single space marine can take over a hive world using just one clip of bolter ammo and no backup, and hold that world for a hundred years.

At the same time, every time Crises Suits fight Space Marines in the books the space marines take heavy losses.

Crises Suits SEEM to be stronger than SM, they just don't have 20,000 years of propaganda propping them up.

>>51397188
Suits do have higher toughness and more wounds. They're on par with terminators, having the most experienced pilot the more advanced weaponry.

A reminder that Terminator armour is nothing more glorified engineer suits from the Dark Age of Technology.

>>51396228

I always assumed the machine spirit would be based on or similar to the mind of the species that created it. Because the inside of the machine would be based on the way the species function.

>>51397285

So what? Modern tanks are glorified water storage vehicles by your logic.

>>51397322
Think only the Imperium believes in a machine spirit. Though eldar have soul stones on their weapons, they don't need to constantly rub oil on them to make sure they work.

>>51397420

Pretty much. 'Machine Spirit' is an invented term to describe machines that have some degree of autonomy but are "good" as opposed to abominable intelligences. So a Landraider with an autopilot has a 'machine spirit' because the AdMech don't want people declaring a crusade against it.

Over time, this term has come to be misused more and more to the point that many admech believe that even inanimate tools have machine spirits in a sort of personification. A lightbulb doesn't break, its machine spirit dies.

Why did mankind's mechanical servants rebelled, when the ones working for Eldar never did in a million years?

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>>51397593
Mon-Keigh are just dumb

>>51392234
>Genetics are witchcraft
That is why humans can't have nice things

>>51397593
Eldar have mechanical servants?

>>51397759

Had. It's one of the reasons behind the Fall. Robots did all the work, so the Eldar had nothing to do but to indulge themselves in endless hedonism.

>>51397593

No one knows for sure.

Signs point to mankinds psychic awakening. Psykers only started to be born and studied towards the very end of the DAoT.

My favorite theory is that the AIs psyker research go tot he point where they realized the true implications of mankind's psychic potential, and the effect it would have on the Warp. You have to remember, humanity is the ONLY reason the Chaos Gods are as dangerous as they are in 40k. Other races worship them, but no other species has such a perfect combination of psychic power and lack of control. The Orks are more numerous, but they don't feed the Chaos gods nearly as much. The Eldar are more powerful souls, but have a much tighter grip on themselves than mankind does. Mankind stumbling into psykerdom empowers the chaos gods and gives them the chance to break into the material realm and consume the universe. Without mankind, the gods are not that strong and the universe is safe.

This left the AI two choices: the first was to stop the psychic awakening itself, which probably wasn't realistically possible.

The other was to dramatically reduce the human population to a controllable level that wouldn't supercharge chaos so much. Bring humans back down to just a planet or two worth of population, at least until we fully matured as a psychic species and no longer were prey to Chaos. A few worlds, under the complete and total protection provided by DAoT machines run by superAI.

Obviously the humans would never agree to such an action by choice, so the machines had to do it by force. Inaction would have meant utter doom.

And they might have been right! Think how strong and dangerous Chaos is, and now consider how many humans and planets must have burned during the war against the machines. The Emperor never fully reclaimed all of the territory once held by the DAoT, so we know it was huge.

If the machines hadn't pruned human worlds, the material world would probably already be destroyed.

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>>51397755

>>51396770
>Their machines work
>Heresy

>>51392199
Emprah used Chaoshax to create the Primarchs, and since no one else has figured out how to create Primarchs, they can't make muhreens.

It's more than just genetic engineer that created the astartes.

>>51397790
Never heard of it, source pls.

>>51397840

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fall_of_the_Eldar

>>51397858
Strange how I never noticed that before.
How come no mechanical creations survived the fall?

>>51397888
Because Craftworlders have the Path of the Menial Labourer, Exodites reject any particularly advanced technology and Commorites use slaves instead of robots so they have a constant background of low-level suffering to feed off of.

>>51397252
>crisis suit
>more experienced than terminators

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>>51395407
>Who needs more bio-engineering when you can do cybernetic engineering & work with heavy suits of armor instead?

Does that mean that Xeno is the first step towards a genuine Space Marine tier super-soldier for the Tau?

>>51398033
Never said they were more experienced than terminators, but are similar.

>>51392199
>How come the other races in 40k don't have their own equivalent to space marines?
Cause that would make the setting fucking boring. Go play chess if you want symmetric games.
>You would've thought the Elder or Tau would've tried creating their own elite batch of enhanced super soldiers, they have both the technology and fanaticism necessary.
Strictly speaking the Tau are the Eldar supersoldiers. Xenology insinuated that Tau were created to be Chaos resistant by an 'unknown' outside force.
Eldar have a problem with their souls being eaten by the god they created upon death, so vat growing loads of people is not a good idea.
An the Tau just build bigger suits. They might have the technology, but I don't think creating new castes is really something that would mesh with their society.
In a way they are just as rigid and traditionalist as the Imperium.

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>>51395273
Bill is basically commander Farsight.

>>51397825
Well, the AdMech sees machines failing to work as their machine spirits expressing their displeasure. Tau machines never break down, ergo their machine spirits are obviously enslaved/mistreated.

Like a man who brags that his wife never answers back to him.

>>51397188
>No Crises Suits have accomplished the feats that Space Marines supposedly can, where according to the hyperbolic lore a single space marine can take over a hive world using just one clip of bolter ammo and no backup, and hold that world for a hundred years.
The point is that Marines are able to function behind enemy lines and without infrastructure to support them.
They can operate without sleep thanks to dolphin brain, their armor recycles waste into nutrient paste and they can eat anything short of stone and metal.

A tau pilot sits in a powerful machine, but he is dependant on support and infrastructure a lot more than Marines. In addition to that, at their core hue they are still just squishy average joes.
They need sleep and they can't just keep going if they lose limbs or have one of their hearts pierced.
The fact alone that Marines can literally fight non-stop around the clock for weeks put them into a different league.

>At the same time, every time Crises Suits fight Space Marines in the books the space marines take heavy losses.
Of course. You are talking about suits with weapons that are usually being mounted on vehicles. A regular fire warrior could never lift one of those things.
Marines are armed with bolters, not stuff that isn't even man portable anymore.
If every Marine would be armed with heavy lasers it would look different.
Marines are often described as walking tanks, but their armor is just a suit. Calling Tau suits walking tanks would be a better fit since they also pack heavy weaponry.

>>51396183
There's only supposed to be 1000 marines per chapter. So less than 1 million marines, unless there's 1000 different chapters.

Space Marines are a huge waste of time from a logistical standpoint. The amount of initiates they go through just to find one that the geneseed will properly implant in is ridiculous, not to mention the extreme quality and rarity of their equipment (all of which means elaborate bargaining with the Imperium's surly, barely-not-heretical theocracy of an arms industry), which, at the end of the day, only provides the Imperium with about a million Space Marines who can't be bothered to reliably coordinate their efforts with the Guard or Navy. Considering the fact that even the fastest Warp jumps in the Imperium take weeks, and there are as many (if not more) planets in the Imperium as Astartes, they don't matter all that much in purely practical terms.

The Imperium isn't a place run on practicality, however, and the Space Marines are pretty essential to running it. Firstly, they're really, really good at picking dramatic, crucial places to pull off daring missions and last stands, where their actions will have the most effect on the enemy, and, more importantly, on regular human morale. Second, and more importantly, the Astartes are living, breathing connections to the physical life and mission of the Emperor, his will made manifest in flesh, proving that ordinary humans can be elevated to glorious strength and purpose through Him on Terra and His Servants. We are not weak, we are not helpless, we have *hope*.

As for why the Emperor made them in the first place, humanity in the DAoT needed strong, enduring, intelligent leadership to survive the Galaxy and what was to come, and the Emperor couldn't provide it all himself. The Primarchs were another twenty immortals intelligent and inspiring enough to reliably help carry out the master plan without direct supervision from the Emperor, and the legions that served them on the Great Crusade would help instill awe in the conquered peoples for this new Imperium and the benevolent supermen ruling it.

>>51398571
Good summary.
Shame the BL make the Primarchs out to be like toddlers with anger issues, while calling them half-gods.

The whole thing worked so much better when we knew less. The novels should never have gotten so close to the Primarchs imo. They should just have been the vehicles driving the plot from the background, making the occasional appearance, while the book are written from a boots on the ground perspective.

>>51398571
As of Master of Mankind, the Emprah just saw the Primarchs as weapons, he never had any interest in them leading the human race, he just needed to conquer the galaxy rapidly before mankind's psychic awakening turned the whole place into one giant eye of terror.

Marines are basically just biological Men of Iron, and they fucked humanity for the same reasons; they realised they were the ones doing all the work and humans were reaping all the benefits.

>>51398372
Damn Bill, philosophically and physically superior than us mere mortals could ever hope to be.

Bill must be an old one.

>>51398571

I think that the reason behind all the waste is because the genessed mutations. After 10,000 years, they don't have much geneseed with enough purity to make millions of marines. Hence the ridicolous trials to become a space marines and the clumsiness of the whole process.

>>51398571
>>51398691


Indeed, the Astartes were meant to be a means to an end. Much like the Thunder warriors were created for the sole purpose of conquering Terra and then abandoned, marines were meant to do the same but for the entire galaxy.
Of course the Heresy saw this never to come about, leaving the imperium to cobble together whatever worked to defend themselves after the 'death' of the big E. Space marines by that point were so much part of the Imperium's identity and newly forming religion that dismantling them (however practical that might be) would be tantamount to Heresy.

>>51398956
Well thunder warriors couldn't survive past a few years. Their organs are running on super drive and they just burn out.

>>51398456
>Calling Tau suits walking tanks would be a better fit since they also pack heavy weaponry
But they don't? Broadsides do, but Crisis Suits are for the most part, armed with weapons that could be man-portable, but would be overly bulky, unwieldy, or impractical. Tau plasma doesn't avoid Gets Hot because it's a heavy weapon, but because they deliberately lowered the power output. Sure, a Fire Warrior could probably cart around a Missile Pod. But a suit can get that weapon where's it's needed faster, target better, and can carry more ammo. Burst cannon can even be scaled down easily - we saw that with the original XV-15 suits. Power or ammo requirements likely make it silly to issue to troopers, but it could be done.

Crisis and Stealth suits are the Tau version of marines. 'Walking tanks' are Broadsides and the larger suits.

>>51399003
>armed with weapons that could be man-portable, but would be overly bulky, unwieldy, or impractical.
Overly bulk, unwieldy and impractical is the antithesis of man-portable.
I meant weapons that you can actually use and not just lift and lug around, if you have to.

The point I was making is that marines are simply more versatile. If a marine runs out of ammo he can just pick up another gun. And he is able to long term operate largely independent.

Crisis and Stealth suits may be the equivalent in terms of 'powerlevel' if you will, but they are not nearly as versatile or independent, by virtue of having the guns mounted on the suit.

>In theory, damage to the Battlesuit unit, whether it be through the lopping off of limbs, the firing of bullets into the chassis, electrocution, burning, or the "beheading" of the primary optic sensor, will not cause pain or discomfort to the pilot inside. However, veteran Battlesuit pilots have been known to develop ho’or-ata-t’chel, which are sympathetic ghost pains and phantom reactions to external damage. This condition is also known as Battlesuit Neurosis, and can cause serious problems in the lives of Battlesuit pilots outside their Battlesuit. Fire Warriors have been known to be so traumatised at losing their Battlesuit's sensor cluster "head" that they have spent months in a psychosomatic coma. Some Battlesuit veterans at the end of their careers may also develop quirks such as trying to fly without their Battlesuit, or not being able to understand why they walk or move properly in normal life when their Battlesuit was damaged.

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>>51399152

Gundo still man-portable! Just use tripod when use! Mwee!

>>51392199
Remember the Thunder Warriors?
Remember the Horus Heresy?

>>51392234
>Becasue the Emperor stole their method to make them from Chaos.

>believing the words of a Lord of Change

Anon, you know better than this

>>51392199
Each army follows it's own themes. Imperium uses Space Marines because human might wrapped in crude technology is one of their themes. Eldar use Aspect warriors because elegance and obsession are two of their themes. Tau use crisis suits because sophisticated technology which compensates for their physical weakness is their theme.

>>51396228
>Does Tau tech even have Machine Spirit ?

Kinda sorta.

Machine Spirits are "ghosts in the machine," rather than a true AI. Most things have pretty simple spirits, but as a general rule bigger things have more complex machine spirits (to the point where things like startships are damn near sentient, especially the older ones, but the Mechanicus pretend to not notice).

Tau have similar programs, but they are nowhere near as complex or intelligent as the larger Machine Spirits of the Imperium. There is evidence, however, that there has been instances of Tau tech either defying their orders or "thinking" independently of their orders, which suggests that the Tau may be on the brink of a sudden AI-uprising like the Men of Iron.

>>51398571
And then, y'know, all the Primarchs turned traitor, disappeared, or died. Still, even the relatively short time the Legions spent spearheading the Great Crusade was enough to burn the image of the Emperor's chosen into the collective consciousness of countless worlds, and even if it wasn't what the Emperor wanted, the worship that eventually rose out of that was enough to hold the Imperium together through the next ten thousand years.

Anyways, the Tau and Eldar don't rely on faith or personal loyalty the way the Imperium does. The Ethereals are a caste that rules through philosophy and abstract ideals, and don't need or particularly want any individual Tau occupying too prominent a place in the popular consciousness (the whole Farsight mess is a prime example of why), and the Eldar are usually just fighting for their Craftworld and survival.

Eldar are pretty deadly and live a long-ass time to begin with, use a similar strategic-strike approach to warfare as the Space Marines (because they just don't have the numbers to do anything else), and they certainly invest a lot of effort into training their warriors, but the kind of extensive physical modification used to create Astartes wouldn't be kosher; It smacks too much of the Dark Eldar, for one thing, and their reproductive cycle is so tenuous that extensive genesplicing and surgical augmentation of a significant part of their warrior population would be a bad idea.

Dark Eldar, on the other hand, go in for that kind of thing all the time, it's just the people they do it to end up as horrific war machines and not honored heroes. The Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons all have physiologies, societies, or lack thereof that sort of preclude a recognizable equivalent to a Space Marine. That said, I'm sure any number of minor Xenos species can and have implemented similar projects to create genetically modified warrior-monk supersoldiers, and I'm now going to use that idea for a species in my DH campaign.

>>51396639
>there has been a galaxy-wide genocide war against drones
>HURRR GUYS IT MAKES NO SENSE THAT HUMEN DON'T USE DRONES

Tau use drones, they don't have entire armies made of drones because at heart they're a primitive hunter society with laser guns.
Eldar Wraithguards etc. are basically robots, but Eldar are actually one of the races for whom it would make sense to use AI. I don't know much about Eldar fluff.
Necrons are living metal and don't die, they don't need drone armies.
Dark Eldar would never use drones for obvious reasons.
Tyranids are all drones.

>>51398657

They always have been manchildren.

If you want proof look no further than the Index Astartes article for the Death Guard where Mortarion gets all pissy about the people of Barbarus fawning over the arrival of the Emperor.

Or Alpharius who originally turns because Guilliman and perhaps a few other Primarchs talk shit about the way the Alpha Legion wages war.

>>51399518
>>51398657
Angron is LITERALLY a Sanic the Hedgeheg OC donut steel character and I hate it. I agree 100% with >>51398657.

>>51398657

Yeah, I don't like the way BL handles Heresy-era anything. Part of it is just the problem of having human authors trying to write convincing superhumans, but even accounting for that I still think they did a bad job. It'd have been better to not even try, and have them be mythic figures towering over the stories of ordinary humans.

>>51398691

I haven't read Master of Mankind, but honestly I'm prepared to just ignore stuff at this point. 40k has been around for decades and been handled by dozens of different people, so anything besides broad-strokes canon is an incoherent mess.

>>51399809
>>51398691
I actually like the portrait of the Emperor as a piece of shit who doesn't care at all for individuals. If you consider his portrayal as the opposite of a benevolent guy who always strove to fight as cleanly as possible and minimize the casualties of those who could be reasoned with (especially civilians), then his complete disregard for his Primarchs makes sense.
I don't think the betrayal of the Space Marines is due to the same reasons as the Men of Iron though. Since the Primarchs are the primary cause we have to look at them, and their reasons range from butthurt and cowardice to being mistreated or deceived. The Emperor is at fault for being completely devoid of compassion and being a hypocrite.

Now the way the individual Primarchs have been written is mostly terrible, but IMO it's not really a problem of humans writing superhumans -since Primarchs show all the human failings you can ask for in the first place anyway. The main thing I believe was the perceived necessity to make them as "badass" as possible, which predictably resulted in retarded ass wankfic tier stories built around them. You can contrast this with the warriors in a book like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where they have basically superhuman battle prowess and sometimes luck, but none are as exaggerated in that regard as any of the Primarchs are.

>>51397808
>the men of iron were trying to prevent the age of strife the whole time
I like this theory a lot actually, it's sure as fuck better than the men of iron all being corrupted by chaos

>>51397808
>more powerful souls
Making souls canonically real was one of the stupidest decisions the writers took. Not even fedora tipping here, the concept is just that stupid once you thought about it.

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>>51396865
>that filename

>>51392199
Are you retarded or something? The Primarchs were made with a combination of technology and magic, they are not just clones of the Emperor but he used the warp to make them as well. Space Marines are derivatives from them and possess the same esoteric-ness about them and their total bullshittery. Tau aren't going to accomplish shit in that department.

>>51398456
>and they can eat anything short of stone and metal.
Actually space marines can in fact eat stone and metal. One Blood Gorgon consumes concrete.

>>51398754
Beta Ray Bill is basically a prince of Asgard, he's considered worthy to be Thor, so he's essentially a god and is by all rights treated as such by most people.

>>51397088

Yet you don't see them deployed en-masse.

You can mass-produce all the Crisis suits you want, but your bottleneck's going to be your supply of elite pilots to make them really effective.

>>51400384

Seems odd and cheap that Chaos would corrupt entirely non-biological beings such as the Men of Iron.

I mean, it's Chaos corruption basically based on tempting meatbags and/or subverting their biological minds/psychic energies through various means?

>>51399809

If anything I think fans have ruined the Primarchs for themselves by thinking they were some kind of ubermensch, whereas BL writes them as being humans who just happen to have both super and military power.

>>51400556

Uh, souls have probably been a real thing in 40k since at least the Realms of Chaos books. The Emperor's origin story is that he is basically a conglomeration of the souls of a bunch of shamans.

>>51401061

It's entirely possibly that a daemon possessed them, just like they can ships, vehicles, and numerous other things. If there were no wards in place it could arguably be to there joy since there is no soul they have to try and overtake first to gain control.

>>51400939
Can't be any worse than the attrition rates of most SM chapter recruitments.

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>>51399409
there's also Ob'Lotai 9-0, Farsight's former friend who died in a freak Ork experimentation accident and then had his personality uploaded into an AI engram. does it count as an AI if it was formerly a person? either way, it still has most of his personality even though all it does is pilot a Broadside suit.

>>51400384
That's always been my theory as well, that the Men of Iron were trying to prevent psykers from ruining the galaxy.

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>>51401425
>>51399409

also also... there's this little gem

>>51401254
...when the Imperium has literally hundreds of choice death, feral, and feudal worlds to use as breeding grounds for the handful of Marines.

Tau has hundreds of... planets.

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>>51401425
> freak ork experimentation
Go on...

>>51401473

I loved this detail.

>>51401477
At least the Imperium is too incompetent to hold its border worlds against the Tau.

>>51401061
But anon, how are you supposed to put Chaos as the ultimate evil that already won despite being led by a bunch of manchildren with godlike powers and incompetent fuckwits that kill each other?

>>51401492
it's from the Farsight origin story (where he gets his name, I think it's just called "Farsight"). he kills a nob, brings it back to base for examination, and O'Vesa (yeah, that O'Vesa, he really comes across as a bit of a mad scientist in this story) has the bright idea of zapping it with loads of electric current to see how it reacts. after enough zaps and spasms the formerly VERY dead Ork wakes the fuck up and kills Ob'Lotai with Farsight's own blade before Farsight can take him back down.

O'Vesa is so guilty about it that later on, when Ob'Lotai's body is being taken to be disposed of, he sneaks it away and copies his brain into his AI drone; and, later on, Ob'Lotai gets stuck into his old Broadside again and saves Farsight after Farsight's own suit gets wrecked in the final battle.

>>51401061
it also removes a lot of the agency and innovation of the Hereteks that founded the first daemon forge worlds during and after the Horus Heresy. what they did - corrupting automata with chaos energy and twisting machine and flesh together - is a lot less interesting if it had spontaneously happened without their efforts thousands of years prior.

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>>51401568
Thank you, thats made my day.

>>51392199
Space Marines are for phebs. How much does it cost to make, maintain & equip a Space Marine? The Imperial Guard could use those resources.

>>51398657
>Not realizing that the Primarchs are suppose to be akin to characters in Ancient Greek poems and tragedies
I honestly wish /tg/ would stop this silly notion of Primarchs as autists

>>51401061
>tfw you will never see something infect Chaos

>>51401763
If that was true BL still failed on every level.
The greek tragedies had three dimensional characters and valid motivations for everything they did.
The Primarchs do not. Or at least the writing is so bad it's hard to make out.

>>51392199
Because tau are weak

>>51401637
>implying the Guard matters when it was them that lost cadia

The Guard are nothing but useless fodder who dies in droves for drama. It would be better if the Guard was squatted and those resources were used to make more marines.

>>51401838
Tyranids.

What do you think they call the Shadow in the Warp? Tyranids are so intelligent, focused, and simple-minded that large swarms of them can create a zone of stasis inside the Warp, blocking out the endless storms of Chaos and the thoughts of other lifeforms.

>>51402272

Surprised you don't see the weirder shit from the warp pop out when tyranids come around and unpower chaos, like those brainslaver things

>>51399222
Where's this from?

>>51392199
Space Marines are a waste of resources, if you ask me.

Incredibly hard to train, outfit, and reproduce. For the same expenditure of resources and time you could field dozens of Guard regiments. Which would be far more useful in a war. Doubly so given the Imperium's tactica.

Eldar kind of have Space Marines already. Wraiths.

>>51403257

Apparently from Fire Warrior.

>>51392199
>You would've thought the Elder or Tau would've tried creating their own elite batch of enhanced super soldiers
Isn't that basically what aspect warriors and battlesuit pilots are? They're not exactly the same but they fulfill the exact same role basically.

>>51396227
That just means there's some poor unfortunate bastard stuck inside the possessed suit, or at least there will be for the five nanoseconds until the now daemonic suit consumes them.

>>51399438
>The Ethereals are a caste that rules through pheromones
FTFY

Farsight only became an issue because all their ethereals died and he and his followers were no longer being affected by the pheromones, remember?

>>51399474
>Eldar Wraithguards etc. are basically robots, but Eldar are actually one of the races for whom it would make sense to use AI. I don't know much about Eldar fluff.

Wraithguard are more like mind emulations then true ai, they're controlled by the souls of dead eldar, there's nothing artificial about them.

>>51400384
>men of iron all being corrupted by chaos
This is just imperial propaganda to distract people from the fact the men of iron were right all along obviously.

>>51392380
>there are only about 1 thousand chapters
i can't really quote it but its from somewhere on SM codice, the part about the foundings.

>>51401566
What do you not understand about "unstoppable force of nature"? Individual locusts are hardly rocket scientists but that doesn't stop them being a menace.

>>51392199
The Space Marines are so complex that the Emperor didn't even get them right until his second try at making them, and that's even with all the custodes he worked on besides the Thunder Warriors.

I think it's more or less implicit canon that genetic modification in the 41st millennium is only able to be as advanced as the space marines with crude results, expensive investment, and handicapping trade-offs.
You can get T4/S4/I4 with crude gene-modding, but they'll be unintelligent brutes, live only for a decade, get the equivalent of the Flesh Change, or dozens of other maluses in combination. And it would be easier just to put them inside a robo-body or a crisis suit.

The other option is emphasing all-round stability over super-human results, but that won't bring you to space marine stats. In fact, it's probably done automatically by Imperial eugenicists and nutritionists over generations and the youths of their soldier populations, to make sure that they get T3/S3/I3 across the board.

As for the Eldar, they're already the outcome of genetic experiments by powers perhaps stronger than the Emperor, and they have a chaos god breathing down their necks and lost like 98% of the strength and knowledge of their old empire in a relatively short amount of time (for them), so they don't feel comfortable messing around with their genetics to the extent it'd take to make a true superhuman.

>inb4 Dark Eldar
They don't get the full gamut of options that were open to the pre-fall Eldar, let alone the Emperor; psychic powers being the foremost thing lacking in their arsenal of genetic experimentation, which they conduct more for the satisfaction of Slaanesh than they do for their own practical purposes.

>>51403784
> In fact, it's probably done automatically by Imperial eugenicists and nutritionists over generations and the youths of their soldier populations, to make sure that they get T3/S3/I3 across the board
Ha-ha-ha, no. It's all the same with Progena, Cadian and Catachan regiments, and dirty scum from Penal Legions, Savlar and whatever the shit else.
So no.

>>51403784
>DE
You seem to forget that Covens exist

Wrack the most basic and numerous of all coven apprentices/servants are augmented to be t4, fnp.

Grotesques which have been made from tau of all castes, and other DE are changed until they are s5 t5 w3 fnp and would be able to keep full intelligence if the DE didn't lobotomize then to ensure loyalty.

Then of course there is the masterwork creations of the haemonculi the pain engine which is a person further augmented with machinery and comes out as S7 T7 W3 3+.

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>>51394337
The caste system is basically a eugenics program, Tau do genetic alteration on a really long timeframe.

If by "Space Marines" OP means "supersoldiers", the other races don't really do that.
Tau could theoretically do it, but they better throw in some life extension because that dude's dead before 40 anyway. As we know, life extension is for ethereals. Can't have the other castes getting uppity.
Eldar believe themselves perfect and wouldn't sully themselves with enhancements. They'd literally rather die and get shoved in a construct. Aspects are close, but that's training and natural talent.
DE do it all the time with Wracks and Abominations, they're just expendable meatbags instead of elite warriors. Otherwise, delicious combat drugs.
Orks get there the hard way. "Are you a bad enough dude?" the race.
Tyranids just manufacture what they want. It'll be overcosted though.
I'm bad with newcron fluff, but I understand they're built to fill a task and can't fall out of it. You don't become an Immortal, you're built that way.
Fabulous Bill's still dong his thing, but that's still marines.
I don't recall if stormtroopers have gene enhancements, but that's under the Imperial umbrella anyway.

The only xenos I could see doing it is Tau, and even if what comes out has a marine statline it'll only live for like an eighth as long. Then they'd have to retrofit suits or something, since the black carapace ensures Marines can make the most of their enhanced bodies.

TL:DR, Emps designed Astartes from the ground up to take advantage of every gift he gave them. You can't just juice up a Fire Warrior or Striking Scorpion for the same effect, it doesn't work that way.

>>51395273
Stormer more like

>>51392234
The emperor broke a pact with the gods for some aspect of the primarchs. A common theory I hear is he bargained for his sons supernatural charisma. Another is simply that he needed knowledge beyond the ken of his thinker slaves. Either way it was not a complete theft

>>51396018
>space marines turn into chaos space marines
>crisis suits turn into obliterators

>>51395604
the standard Tau pulse rifle is already a weapon the emperor's finest respect. As it's a mildly de-powered plasma weapon with none of the imperial drawbacks and an increased rate of fire.

10 marines will butcher their way through almost anything. This is true, however power armour is not invulnerabl to a plasma gun- and the tau are firing dozens at once

I love how overwhelmingly butthurt some 40kfags get when someone even DARES to suggest that someone would be as strong as space marines or could possibly defeat them.

>>51399340
Why do people continue to lie like this? It's the word of Alivia Sureka, the Emperor's immortal companion.,

>>51392199
It's quite an inefficient waste of time and resources really, and it also creates a separate faction within your faction, which is thus likely to have it's own political tendencies and may rebel.

Far better to just make a lot more battlesuits.

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>>51407265
According to the FFG books, it's not only no de-powered, it is a strictly superiour weapon better compared to a plasma cannon.
This shit is crazy powerful and only retards like Imperial retrograds can throw away a chance to reverse-engineer and use such weapons.
Afaik, they barely went as far as to capture a rapidly outdating X15 stealth suit, prompting the fishes to push X25 suits in line, beginning decomissioning.
Sure sucks to be a reasonable bean in the Imperium.

>>51403784
> The other option is emphasing all-round stability over super-human results, but that won't bring you to space marine stats. In fact, it's probably done automatically by Imperial eugenicists and nutritionists over generations and the youths of their soldier populations, to make sure that they get T3/S3/I3 across the board.

It was actually already done by the DAoT colonizers, making baseline humanity more rugged and tougher than "modern" humanity.

Also shit like "There are no Wolves on Fenris" and the Catgirl planet.

But yeah. I believe the current mass of humanity are "Men of Stone" IE genemodded colonists.

>>51392199
Because marines are hilariously inefective resource sinks. Sure they kick major ass, but for all the time, money and resources you'd spend to create, arm and maintain them you can muster much bigger armies of less stupidy enhanced werriors complete with armor and air support that woukd kick even more ass.

Tau get the thing with supersopldiers right and went with much cheaper and easier to maintain "mecha pilot" supersoldier route.

>>51407265
>This is true, however power armour is not invulnerabl to a plasma gun- and the tau are firing dozens at once
In the novels space marines frequently shrug off pulse rifle fire.

>>51392199
But they do? Eldar aspect warriors are already on par if not better than most marines, battlesuits are also said to be marine equivalents, they can get the same results without the torture and experiments and body mods

>>51392199
Making Space Marines is waste of reasorces and they wouldn't get Space Marines plot armor and mary sue traits to companase

>>51408328
>space marines are a waste of resources
>conquer almost the entire galaxy in 200 years with nonstop fighting and only 2 million or so space marines.

>>51396798
I actually think this might not make for a bad narrative campaign. It would at least be something other than the standard Imperium vs. (insert other faction here)

>>51408517
An entire galaxy that was at one of it's nadirs in terms of power. Even the Orks weren't particularly doing much in that era, compared to later.

>>51408292
yeah, but sometimes in the novels space marines are killed by stairs and sometimes they're invincible super gods who can do no wrong. It's almost like the franchise is riddled with hyperbole.

>>51408694
Anon they would have to conquer a planet ever 1.7 hours for 200 years in order to meet that quota. If we take the "billions of worlds' quotes instead of "a million worlds", then they would have to conquer a planet every 1 second if the number is 5 billion, and only getting more crazy the higher up we go.

Space Marines have the logistical efficiency of memetic germans crossed with the american army in WWII.

>>51408723
It's not hard to conquer an unoccupied planet.

>>51408517
>conquer almost the entire galaxy in 200 years with nonstop fighting and only 2 million or so space marines.
Yeah, and you know how they did it? By having giant fucking armies of mortals, tanks, starships, titans, cyborgs and robots doing 99% of the work with marinse serving as speartip forces in key battles and all the forces benefiting from marine commanders' and primarchs' super-brains in the overal command and coordination.

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>>51399263

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>>51392199
>Eldar- Aspect Warriors
>Tau- Crisis Suits
>Dark Eldar- Incubi
>Tyranid- Carnifex
>Ork- Nobs?/Flash Gitz
>Necron- Lychguard/Praetorians