Space marine

“I just fired my gene-seed”
~ a horny marine on seeing a howling banshee

“Does it have cup-holders?”
~ crippled marine on getting in a Dreadnought

“They're like tanks with legs... and guardsmen are just reactive armor”
~ Mike Holden on Space Marines

“We are teh Spess Mehreens! We are teh Emprah's fureh!”
~ Captain Indrick Boreale on Space Marines

The space marine is a superhuman warrior with the strength of ten men, the bravery of twenty men, the experience of one hundred men, and the subtlety of a one ton cow handing out ice cream on a unicycle, except for the Hawk Lords who are completely flamboyant. Come to think of it, so are the Blood Angels. They are the elite military arm of the Mighty Benevolent Authoritarian-For-Your-Protection Imperium of Man. A Space Marine himself is a mighty human warrior who has had his physiology and psychology altered and improved so greatly that he can no longer be considered human, but rather,ChuckNorrisian. It is rumored that a Space Marine can kill a hundred normal men with his hands, such is his strength and skill in all forms of combat, except using chopsticks. The 'Combat Analysis Century' sent to ascertain the truth of this has not been heard of in months, this is because all the records were lost when someone spilled coffee on the codex. Space Marines are capable of killing any other sci-fi equivalent with their bare hands, including the rampant homosexual Imperial Stormtroopers. Many wonder how such manly soldiers came to existance, many have come up with ideas but only one theory is relevant, they where created by the legendary Ultimate Space Marine.

Origin of the Space Marines[edit | edit source]

Space Marines are conscious of their power and do not tend to be big-headed.

In the beginning, there was nothing. In the 31st Millenium, there was a lot more. And more importantly, there was The Emperor, who was like a cross between Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris, Jesus, Hitler and Justin Timberlake. By this point in time, Hannity ruled the Sol System with an iron fist, ruthlessly defeating their prokaryotic foes that inhabited one or two of their planets. Hannity had also spread to numerous other planets, but according to an ancient astronomer, the universe was "lolhueg". The Emperor ruled on Holy Terra (see: Earth) and, as stated in his famous book Mein Kampf, believed his race to the greatest in the universe, and as such they were destined to rule it. However, unlike his small scale predecessor, the Emperor had a degree of competence. Under his direction humanity addressed the minor physics related problems of faster-than-light travel, mechs, among other things. The universe was, as previously stated, quite large, and it was inhabited by more hostile and sentient alien races than you could shake a chainsword at. While the Emperor's initial plan was to bring peace and prosperity to the races they encountered, he decided it would be a whole lot easier (ie. fun) to simply conquer the entire universe. This decision has never been questioned because everyone knows that owning noobz never gets old. If there's one thing humanity had at this point, it was manpower. The Imperial Guard formed the bulk of The Emperor's armies, and were simply a conventional army equipped as one would expect 29,000 years in the future: with reinforced flak jackets(cardboard). To the surprise of many, 29,000 years of scientific progress did not result in effective personal armour that could be easily mass produced. Either that or the commanders liked watching the Guardsmen go "sqash" when hit by a rock.

Every goddamn piece of artwork featuring Space Marines looks like this.

The Emperor decided that he needed a more powerful force to form the spearhead of his Great Crusade. In order to achieve this, he had all of humanity's greatest minds, those who came up with space travel, mechs, and flak jackets, work with the greatest biologists of the time in order to create a superhuman warrior. The Emperor himself, being an incredibly powerful psychic and superhuman warrior (because he is, don't ask why, his mother was a virgin there were only the mito-chlorians etc etc), donated some of his genetic material to the program. Eventually, the program bore fruit. As surprising as this was, the scientists and the Emperor ate heartily. Not long after this, the first superhumans were created. There were 20 of them, and each eventually be the supreme leader of a Space Marine Legion and would be known as the Primarchs. The Emperor was delighted at the level of ass-kickery evident in the Primarchs, as they were second only to him in power and were so far superior to humans as to be...well, extra-superhuman. Using the gene seed from these Primarchs, the scientists created a legion of ten thousand warriors for each Primarch using the same process. While less powerful than their Primarchs and far inferior to the Emperor himself, each Space Marine still had a power level of slightly over 9000, spelling the end of the Saiyan's rule of the Universe. The Space Marines dedicated their entire lives to training and their philosophy of "FOR THE EMPEROR!", which usually involves gunning down fleeing foes as an offering to their progenitor. With the greatest weapons and armour available to the Imperium (not flak armour thank god, but powered armour), the Space Marines proved a nigh-invincible force. Forcing the enemies into head-on engagements where the Space Marines would charge across a flat battlefield at a dug-in enemy, none of their foes stood a chance. The Great Crusade went swimmingly until the Horus Heresy. But that...is another story.

Creation of a Space Marine[edit | edit source]

He's rather intimidating, actually. See Codex Astartes point 13.

One could be mistaken for thinking that becoming a Space Marine is easy. For modern readers, a good comparison is joining the British SAS. And American SAGGY Green Berets.

First of all, a suitable human must be found. A Space Marine recruit must be a young supple teenager as some of the implants, neural condition and psychotropic drugs that go into the development of a Space Marine will wreak havoc with post-pubescent bodies, causing an extreme mutations and insanity, because no mature mind could possibly comprehend the ridiculousness of it. There is also a 99.6% chance of the subject having a violent, prolonged and fatal seizure that will transform them from a functional human being into an invertebrate (which is kind of super, thanks for asking). So for all you mid-life crisis sufferers looking for a change of pace, go back to your expensive cars and young girlfriends: the Space Marines are not for you. Oh, and women can't be Space Marines. There are plenty of neurological and physiological reasons for this, but it's basically because the Space Marines know you will make them conscious of their tiny willies. There's also the fact that women are already bat-shit insane without the implants, thank you very much! But don't worry, provisions have been made for you: See Nuns with guns... I mean Sisters of Battle i.e. the spacemarines Girlfriends who got into their steroids

The majority of gar teenagers in the human race are found on feral worlds. An education is not a prerequisite to be a Space Marine (there you go!). The candidates are put in an extremely hostile environment with the intention of separating the riff-raff from the potential Marines (sounds fun, go on...). This usually entails holding a candidates head underwater for 3-4 hours, throwing them into boiling lava or a lion's den, or in the absence of suitably hostile environments, shooting them in the head numerous times. Those that survive are able to move to the next stage. This stage involves locking candidates in a giant glass box and watching them go upside each other's heads. The first one to die loses, the second gets a cookie. All/Any survivors go onto the next stage.

The next stage involves pumping the candidate full of more growth hormones, psychotropic drugs and implants than one hundred Arnold Schwarzenegger's couldn't handle, and then putting more in. The gene-seed organs are put inside the person, making them more artificial than Michael Jackson. They then receive enough physical conditioning and psycho-conditioning that there is nothing they could not or would not kill if the Emperor so commanded. If they perform admirably, they are accepted as a Space Marine. If they do not, they become bond servants of the Marines for being such pathetically weak examples of the human race. But having survived most of the implantation and training, they are ideal for cleaning shoes and serving drinks.

Anybody who is left is then put into the scouts just so people can laugh at their lack of armour. Black Templar contingents have been known to love this practice so much that they assign each and every man a little scout to laugh at when they get bored. In some dire cases the veterans of certain chapters are called to be these bringers of humour and so everyone laughs at a bunch of grey haired men in clothes made to fit barely pubescent children.

Iron Hands are rumoured to be the only cool space marine chapter. Partly because they have replaced all their flesh with super-impenetrable mega ultra 1337 armour. They are therefore cooler than any full flesh Space Marine could ever hope to be. The ultrasmurfs believe they are the coolest and feel threatened by the iron hands so they never even mentioned anything at all about them in the new codex ~~spacemarines~~ ultramarines. The chapter master of the Iron Hands chapter is Benedict Arnold. He has lead the Iron Hands in many successful crusades against the xenos scum of the 41st millennium. The Iron Hands idolise Chapter Master Benedict Arnold almost as much as the Emperor himself. Benedict Arnold has survived so many millennia as he has replaced all of his flesh with augmented super armour(cardboard and paper mache).

The lamest of all the chapters are the Blood Angels. Led by Mephiston, the Blood Angels somehow manage to have vehicles at the exact same prices as other chapters that are faster. Also, they have Golden Angel Guys Who Can Kill Anything They Touch. Not to mention, many of the Blood Angels succumb to the Black Rage, which gives them visions of the death of their primarch. This is known to other space marine chapters as their "time of the month".

Space Marine Organ Implants[edit | edit source]

"Mutation is wrong... unless it improves ass-kicking" says everyone on everything. In addition to the organs their mothers gave them, Space Marines have 19 more organs implanted during their creation that have a dramatic effect on their already prodigious capacity for ass kicking. Some of them are as follows;

Secondary Heart- Having two hearts allows a Space Marine to survive should their other heart fail, to survive a variety of traumatic injuries, and to have greatly increased oxygen carrying capacity. While in theory having two hearts should make a Space Marine more caring, it tends to have the opposite effect. If the expression "filling one's heart with hate" has any meaning, it should explain why Space Marines tend to substitute limb removal for mercy.If both hearts are in perfect condition, the extra one pumps steroids into the blood stream. In battle, space marines are on a constant roid rage.

Ossmodula- An organ that basically increases the strength of a Space Marines skeleton. If you thought an elbow to the throat hurt before, think again. The rib cage of a Space Marine also grows into reinforced bulletproof bone plates. When combined with a second heart, a Space Marine's chest is no more a viable target than the ground next to him.

Biscopea- Boosts muscle growth. This one would make Space Marines very popular with the ladies if not for their policy of combating moral inferiority with neck snapping. Rather ironic, actually.

Catalepsean Node- Allows Space Marines to function for extended periods with little or no sleep. If you are fleeing from Space Marines, this is the main reason you are going to die. Actually, it is the second reason. The main reason is the explosive bullet he put into your head. (Negates the advantage enemies have by hording Red Bull)

Larraman's Organ- With this implant, a Space Marine's blood effectively clots almost instantly. The usefulness of this organ is pretty self-explanatory. But if caught in a crappy Zombie movie, people will mistake you for a zombie and try to own your face. Doing this, of course, tends to result in an almost immediate assplosion as the angered Space Marine turns YOU into a zombie.

Preomnor- This allows a Space Marine to sustain on almost anything as a food source and makes it impossible for a Marine to get drunk, and also provides great resistance to poison. If you're thinking of burning a Space Marine force's food supplies and forcing them to subsist on local poisonous flora, and only leaving their alcohol in the hope that they will get drunk for when you attack next, you're an idiot who deserves to die anyway.

Omophagea- This allows a Space Marine to, essentially, absorb a person's memory by eating their brains. That's right. All your embarrassing moments and sins are available for the viewing pleasure of whichever Marine gets a hold of your corpse first. Something you should also keep in mind, pun not intended, is that the whereabouts of your family and friends are also available to the vengeful bringers of death that killed you. Sadly this in turn causes some marines to go mad if they eat cow/moose/cat/dog brains due to the sudden entrance of a near millenia of repetitious sounds and meaningless interests and causes the marine to eventually die in a vat of foam spewing moo/moo/meow/bark from their mouths repeatedly. See April Fools day prank on Blood Angels and The Emperor's Holiest Sons (Later renamed "The Space Wolves" after april fools prank).

Betcher's Gland- Space Marines can spit acid. That's right, god damned acid. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. These bad-ass mofos can chew through freakin' steel. Just another reason you should never insult them to their face.

Battle Performance of Space Marines[edit | edit source]

An average entrance for a bunch of average marines.

Space Marines usually follow the combat doctrine as laid out in the "Handbook for extra-racial and heretic termination" or "Codex Astartes". The main themes of the Codex Astartes are as follows:

1- Think before negotiating: If you fire at them with everything you have, could you remove the need to negotiate?
2- If negotiation is a necessity, think while doing so: what is the best way to cleave the enemy ambassadors in twain?
3- If all else fails, fighting is always the answer.
4- If fighting fails, you are not fighting hard enough.
5- If you are not fighting hard enough, fight louder.
6- The best approach is always from the front.
7- If the enemy has left their flanks open, feint and then attack from the front.
8- If the front is heavily defended, they are expecting a flank attack. Attack from the front.
9- If their flanks and front is both heavily defended but they are vulnerable to an aerial strike, distract them with aerial bombardment and then attack from the front.
10- If attacking from the front does not work, you are not fighting hard enough. See point 5.
11- If attacking from the front is still not working, you're obviously not attacking their front! See point 6
12- If there is no possibility for victory, attack from the front as furiously and loudly as possible. Remember, the greater the defeat, the greater the moral victory.
13- The more blood your armour is covered with at the end of a battle, the happier the Emperor will be.
14 - If you fail to get any blood on you, cut yourself like the eight foot tall, chainsword wielding, battlecry shrieking, superhuman emo that you are. The Emperor likes blood, no matter whose it is.
15- When a battle is in doubt, cry tears of anger to the Emperor.
16- If the Emperor is not listening, cry to your primarch
17- If you don't have a primarch, cry to a chaplain near you
18- If you are the chaplain and want to cry, find the nearest chaos marine near you
19- If you are the Emperor continue cursing Windows Vista for crashing yet again on the Golden Throne.
19- Administer the holy rights of leaking into a toilet before and after the battle begins.
20- If no toilet is available, take a leak on the enemy, point 6 applies as well.
21- If your superhuman leaking doesn't burn an acidic hole (See Betcher's Gland) in the enemy, apply point 5.
22- if all this dosen't work send Marneus Calgar to bitch slap everyone (this never fails)
23- if Marneus fails, send in Mephiston, Lord of Death. This by definition cannot fail, as Mephiston is such a broken character that if he is on the field, your enemies will run away from the fight immediately, removing the need to attack from the front. However, you should still attack from the front, just to make sure that they really have all run away, and point 6 still applies.
24) If none of these work, begin exterminatus, and blow the f*** out of the planet. If this doesn't work, you are not doing it right. In this case, the best option is to fall back. Fall back and re-group. And attack from the front again. Point 6 applies as well.

Space Marines usually fulfill these criteria admirably. While trained in every aspect of combat imaginable with every weapon and tool in existence, they almost always prefer a frontal charge. The only other method of attack a Space Marine will consider is an attack from a drop pod. While hurtling into the midst of a fortified enemy position in a ship traveling at breakneck speed that slams into the ground without slowing down is slightly cowardly, it is far preferable to a flank attack.

The armour and weaponry of Space marines is powerful enough that they are almost always victorious in even the most dire of situations. Their suits of Power Armour are a far cry from Flak Armour, and provide such excellent protection that there have been sightings of Space Marines being stepped on by 100 foot Battle Titans only to brush themselves off, rise, and scale the Titan in order to kill the crew. That particular Space Marine was rewarded for his actions, but was initially apostrophized for attacking the Titan from behind.

Space Marine Fan Fiction[edit | edit source]

Space Marines are a feared foe not only because of their skill at arms and overwhelming strength, but also because of their morale. A Space Marine is impossible to intimidate, and any attempt to frighten a Space Marine is usually mistaken as encouragement. This more often results in a Space Marine cutting some poor Ork in half. A transcript of an Imperial Guardsman's diary reinforces this:

"The Dark Eldar were enjoying themselves immensely. With each volley of accurate Splinter Rifle fire, more of my comrades were torn asunder. I saw some of the filthy bastards breaking off from the group to torture wounded Guardsmen(face it, its fun to torture imperial guard). While sporadic fire from our retreating forces took a few of them down, they were professional as well as sadistic; we were taking the worst of it.

In the grim, dark future of the 41st Millenium, there are no trees, there is only attacking from the front Trees are for pussies, anyway.

Then the Space Marine appeared. He came from behind me, I didn't see where, and charged at the advancing Dark Eldar from the front. His bulky power armour deflected the alien fire with ease, and as he moved his Boltgun spat righteous death, savagely destroying the bodies of his foes and paying no heed to their armour. When he reached them, he simply laid about them with his fists and Boltgun, crushing skulls, breaking ribs and snapping necks. Before long the enemy squad leader was the only one left. Our morale recovered, the rest of us humans just gathered to watch. The Eldar, while probably 7 foot tall, was dwarfed by the Space Marine in both height and breadth. The Marine dropped his gun and pulled out his knife and the Eldar leader did the same. They began to circle each other. The alien sneered, reared up, pointed his knife at the Marine, and laughed. He then said: 'There is no pain you can inflict on me I have not already experienced!' The Space Marine paused, and yelled 'Bullshit there isn't!', and charged at the alien laughing at the top of his lungs. The Eldar reared back in surprise, and the Space Marine grabbed the frail alien and without even a moment of struggle, tore the alien's head off. He then cut some poor Ork in half

As such, Space Marines are feared throughout the galaxy, even 10,000 years after their creation. When a Space Marine force enters a battlefield, it almost always results in the bloody annihilation of their enemy. There have been cases where the enemy simply adopted "guerilla tactics" in response to the approach of Space Marines and largely stopped the Space Marine advance because, as any good general knows, a guerilla force does not have a definite front to attack. This in most cases results in a mere postponement of said bloody annihilation as the Space Marines eventually find a front to attack. In fact, the only guaranteed way to survive a Space Marine attack is to surrender. As long as you are not a traitor, heretic, alien, alien-sympathizer, mutant, or deviant you ar- actually, Space Marines execute cowards too. In that case, suicide is the best option. Just don't leave any pictures of your family on your body.

Great Battles involving Space Marines[edit | edit source]

Battle of Macragge- The battle for the Ultramarines chapter homeworld against a massive fleet of Tyranids. While the Tyranids were eventually defeated in space, the 100 men of the elite First Company of the Ultramarines, realizing attacking from the front had failed, held the Northern Polar fortress against countless thousands of Tyranids ground forces. While they were eventually overwhelmed, the 100 Space Marines led by Captain Invictus essentially destroyed the entire Tyranid force, consisting of tens of thousands of assault organisms, by simply standing around and discussing what they'd had for dinner last night. Captain Invictus strategically maximized the damaging potential of this attack by positioning each Marine about three kilometers from each other in a circular formation, just outside the range of each other's support.

Battle of Haddrake Tor- A less well known battle in which Chaos Cultists cast "Metronome" with Irresistible Force, with the result that the First Company Captain Kleitus was teleported in with half of his body merged with stone and the rest of the Marines ended up all over the place. With half of his body missing, Kleitus cast his Thunderhammer into the hands of another Space Marine, Captain Lysander. 30 points more expensive, Lysander preceded to destroy the defenders for a take and hold victory as the only scoring unit on the objective. Despite poor player tactics and bad dice rolls, Lysander performed admirably, putting him on par with King Leonidas for bad-assery and for teaching marine players everywhere that a frontal assault will never fail.

Types of Space Marine[edit | edit source]

Scout Marines: Essentially the Space Marine equivalent of militia, these lowly space marines call themselves scouts in an attempt to pass of their substandard armour as rugged and individual. All Scouts are called Aragorn.

Tactical Marines: Not at all aptly named Tactical Marines tend to stand still and fire blindly at the enemy relying purely on the size of their guns and the strength of their armour to win fights for them. Glasses may be provided depending on the chapter.

Assault Marines: Exclusively composed of computer game fans Assault Marines attempt to emulate their hero Mario. Armed with jumpacks which allow them to make one very large jump onto the heads of their enemies the combat style of assault marines is visually impressive but essentially misguided. The failure of their technique lies in a few basic misconceptions they have acquired from games like the Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. These misconceptions are listed bellow:

Swords are better than guns. Originating in the Final Fantasy series this misconception tends to lead to the Assault Marines dying in a hail of lasers, bullets and heavy artillery fire before they can actually do any fighting.
Flying results in poor draw distances. Probably because of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas all Assault Marines are convinced that if they were to actually fly they would become lost, fly into trees or crash into mountains before they even became aware of their existence. This is why they favour the Jump pack over the more functional Jet Pack.
If an enemy touches anything but the soles of your feet you die. Caused by playing way to much Mario Bros (you must be able to complete it without dying to qualify for the Assault Marines) this unfortunate misconception is the route of most of the Assault Marines problems.
Falling doesn’t hurt if you roll when you land. Having play through Assassin's Creed upwards of seven times each all Assault Marines are convinced that so long as they roll when they land they will not be hurt by falls from even the largest of altitudes. This is the main cause of Assault Marine deaths.

Vanguard: these are elite assault marines that have somehow survived there first battle and gotten promoted because of it but there so rare they cost tons points for a unit that dies easier than scouts due to "deepstriking" straight in front of the enermys guns so its impossible to miss them there main job is meat shield for other space marines there other job is to show other space marines that attacking the front dosen't work. but this has the opposite effect due to them dying so fast by attacking the enermy from behind which shows that attacking the front is always the answer

Commanders: Obsessed with the shininess of their scalps and the neat, 90 degree angle of their buzz cuts Space Marine Commanders rarely wear helmets. Instead of communicating nornally (aside from shouting), commanders make faces at thier enemeis, which is a terrible tactic because all it does is piss everybody off, which is why enemies usually try to take out the space marine commander first. This makes them prime targets for snipers. Eldar Rangers call Space Marine Commanders “Bonus points”.

Space Marine Bikers: Universally obsessed with Need For Speed, Space Marine Bikers focus on getting to fights quickly while ignoring the problem of what to do once they get into them. Luckily for them they don’t have to worry about it because on reaching the enemy they almost always crash and die. If, howevere, they manage to survive they often astound the crowds at the imperial palace with their amazing stunt show spectacular.

Devastators: Like all other members of the NRA, Devastators only desire is for a bigger gun. They don’t care who they shoot at, whether they hit them or whether they were told to do it or not, they are only interested how much noise their gun makes. Certain Devastators have actually been seen carrying iron dildos into battle.

Squat Memorial Techmarines: Similar to other Marines trained by the Machine cult on Mars, except that this ancient order of battle scholars spend their time pondering just why the Squats vanished from existence when they were, in fact, pretty cool. They had trains, bikes, all manner of cool things, yet the marines could not prevent them from vanishing. Squat Memorial Techmarines are easily identified by their special replica beards and large power weapons which are crafted to resemble Chunky drinking tankards.