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[wierd]

Hmm.. With regard to the whole "It's implants bro! Not systemic gene therapy!" I am wondering if it's a highly engineered thymus or not.

It would make sense, seeing as that "gland" is also implicated in production of adult stem cells and the like.

It would go a long way to explaining why Astartes live so goddamn long, and can survive such gross trauma repeatedly.

However, it also means that over time, much of their tissues will be replaced by said epithelial stem cells. Presumably, this could include gametogenic tissues in the gonads.


Games Workshop will never come out and say how it actually works though, because Woo and stuff. (So hard to backpedal later if you commit to a specific operation as cannon now, and all that.)

[Kot]

Hm? The workings of gene-seed and it's 19 (22 now, I guess, what's with Primaris) implants are actually well documented for a WH40k lore topic. It says what they do, when they're surgically inserted and where they are and how they impact the body and so on.

[wierd]

Really now... I may have to look into this esoterica. 

I am suspecting that they are cloned organs that actually reject the host, rather than the other way around (Given their function, and aggressiveness in action.)

Still hilarious in my book since a simple antigen battery assay could filter out individuals likely to reject very early in the process. But this *IS* the imperium after all.

[Mech#4]

The implants that make up a Space Marine are, in this order:

(If Space Wolves - Canis Helix - Required to prevent rejection of Space Wolves gene-seed)
Secondary Heart
Ossmodula -                       (Causes skeleton to grow, fusing ribs together and hardening bone)
Biscopea -                         (Muscle Growth)
- (For Primaris Marines)
- Sinew Coils -                   (Further muscle growth)
- Magnificat -                    (Hormones that improve other implants)
- Belisarean Furnace -         (Organ that activates on near death, adrenal burst that also increases regeneration)
Haemastamen -                  (Improves blood oxygen carrying capacity)
Larraman's Organ                (Improves bodies ability to scab over wounds)
Catalepsean Node               (Changes sleep cycle. Can work off 4 hours sleep with no issue as well as periods around 2 weeks without sleep.
Preomnor                          (Pre-stomach that neutralises poisons and other indigestible foods. Decontamination rather than digestion)
Omophagea                        (Allows Space Marines to learn from eating. Reads genetic material eaten to gain memories.)
Multi-Lung                         (3rd lung that allows breathing in oxygen low environments as well as poisonous atmospheres and even underwater.)
Occulobe                          ( Improves low-light vision and adaptation to sudden changes in light levels near instantly)
Lyman's Ear                       ( Immunity to dizziness and motion sickness. Also allows filtering of sounds and enhancement of others.)
Sus-an Membrane               (Can enter a state of suspended animation, either consciously or automatic upon heavy trauma. Requires chemical therapy or auto-suggestion to revive)
Melanochrome                    (Controls melanin in skin. Skin darkens in high levels of sunlight. Protection from radiation.
Oolitic Kidney                     (Blood Filter to give immunity to poisons. Space Marine rendered unconscious while blood cycles at high rate)
Mucranoid                         (Space Marine can sweat a mucus membrane that offers resistance to high heat and cold and also some protection in a vacuum.
Betcher's Gland                  (Acidic spit)
Both Progenoids                 (These are 2 glands that mature over 5 and 10 years each. They are harvested at these periods to supply the gene-seed for future Space Marines).
Black Carapace                  (A film of black plastic that is implanted under the skin to allow interfacing with a Space Marines power armour and other vehicles.)

This is over about a 6 year period with a period between getting the Betcher's Gland and the Progenoids and Black Carapace which is also the period a marine will be serving as a scout. There's also training chemical treatment, hypnotherapy and indoctrination which the Catalepsean Node helps with by making Space Marines more susceptable to hypnosis.

[wierd]

These are clearly engineered organs, with no natural cognates. (well, " Belisarean Furnace" sounds like a combination of an adrenal gland and a spleen on crack cocaine... but not a straight up cognate.)

"Haemastamen" would require complete red-cell replacement, since red-cells lack nuclei and so you cant just change expression levels inside them. That means they are wholly artificial of they do what they say on the tin. This suggests a radical replacement of bone marrow.

"Ossmodula" sounds dumb. I dont know why they would do this. You DO know that your ribs move so that you can breathe, right?  Hypoxia would be a major issue after this procedure. (Probably why they need the improved hemoglobin in the first place. This is treating symptoms caused by the enhancements.. Scales or something would have been a better solution. But this IS the imperium, after all. That still wont make up for the fact that these poor bastards are gonna have chronic chest pain from their diaphragms having to do ALL the work that normally the rib muscles facilitate. This is just a really dumb adaptation. Sorry. Also, runs the risk of developing bone growth disorders of soft tissue. Much better to just have the chest grow some gnarly carbon fiber impregnated scales to deflect those direct blows. Less collateral consequences. But meh.  If you absolutely MUST do this with bones, the better solution is to have the ribs radically increase their lateral cross-section so that they overlap like banded lamellar armor. That would give the same benefits, while still allowing said marines to you know-- bend over, lift their arm over their heads, and take deep breaths and shit. None of which they would be able to do effectively with fused rib cages.)

Larraman's Organ  Another dangerous adaptation.  See also, the horrible consequences from hypercoagulation in actual human disease processes. Those with this organ implanted would be at severe risk of developing DVTs.

Occulobe   This would have to be a complete retinal transplant (at the least, most likely a complete eye replacement) to work as advertised, and might be more trouble than its worth, especially in brightly lit environments. Photopigments HAVE to be activated in order for there to be a signal that reaches the brain. Those have a specific activation energy threshold, and they can (and do) become damaged by over-saturating them with photons.  To react to that immediately would require cutting the CNS out of the loop, which means it is likely a whole eye replacement with fast twitch muscle controlling pupillary responses, being driven by signals generated in the retina itself. (It might be possible to trick the implants into constricting too tightly with bright, short-wavelength radiation that can be filtered by enemy combatants with appropriate headgear. This would effectively blind the marines.)

Lyman's Ear  This sounds like a cochlear replacement, coupled with an auditory nerve prefilter neural network.  Possible attack vector if properly studied. (Induced feedback in the prefilter network would be interpreted by the brain as a terrible, unrelenting sound. Similar to tinnitus, but worse. Since this network makes decisions on how to filter the audio, the potential for internally generated signals caused by anomalous triggers exists.)

Melanochrome   Neat trick if it works properly.  If it doesn't, sounds like a great way to have whole body melanoma.

Black Carapace  HORRIBLE IDEA. JUST HORRIBLE. Being inorganic, it would not be easily repaired if torn or damaged. Also, the plastic would degrade inside the body, causing a whole raft of chronically malignant conditions.  Better to have an upgrade to the integumentary system straight up, by adding a 4th tissue layer.  That way it would regenerate itself on deep tissue injury, and not require routine invasive surgery to fix when it gets messed up. (which it would, and often.)


I am actually surprised these guys are able to lift their arms (word bro, that fused ribcage is gonna SUUUUUUCK for arm mobility!), and breath without sounding ragged and haggard, given these descriptions.

[Grim Portent]

Well yeah, they were conceived in the 80s and inspired by a host of cheesy sci fi, of course they'd cause lots of problems. 40k has Judge Dredd, Robocop and Starship Troopers as major inspirations and also has a lot of trappings from medieval fantasy in it, making sense has never been high on it's list of priorities.

[Kot]

Well... it's not like many of those problems don't happen in-universe. They're what they call gene-seed mutation, aka something went fucking wrong and the implant either is not, well, implanted because it doesn't work at all, or it works wrong.

"Ossmodula" sounds dumb. I dont know why they would do this. You DO know that your ribs move so that you can breathe, right?  Hypoxia would be a major issue after this procedure. (Probably why they need the improved hemoglobin in the first place. This is treating symptoms caused by the enhancements.. Scales or something would have been a better solution. But this IS the imperium, after all. That still wont make up for the fact that these poor bastards are gonna have chronic chest pain from their diaphragms having to do ALL the work that normally the rib muscles facilitate. This is just a really dumb adaptation. Sorry. Also, runs the risk of developing bone growth disorders of soft tissue. Much better to just have the chest grow some gnarly carbon fiber impregnated scales to deflect those direct blows. Less collateral consequences. But meh.  If you absolutely MUST do this with bones, the better solution is to have the ribs radically increase their lateral cross-section so that they overlap like banded lamellar armor. That would give the same benefits, while still allowing said marines to you know-- bend over, lift their arm over their heads, and take deep breaths and shit. None of which they would be able to do effectively with fused rib cages.)

Overlapping seems to be what is actually happening, all things considered. Official sources do state they're "inter-laced" whatever that means, but probably could be easily interpreted as plates that are capable of moving. Also, Iron Warriors. They deal with bone growths going wild by cutting it and replacing it with bionics.

Larraman's Organ  Another dangerous adaptation.  See also, the horrible consequences from hypercoagulation in actual human disease processes. Those with this organ implanted would be at severe risk of developing DVTs.

For all it's worth, the hypercoagulation as stated only happens in contact with air, and it's not like it'd actually be significantly dangerous in long run - Marines are under constant medical supervision and Apothecaries aren't afraid to cut open a dude because in all likelihood he'll survive it, not to mention all the implants can be controlled to some degree with drugs and other various injections, which Marines do pretty much get constantly, considering their armors carry enough chemical shit to fill a small pharmacy. Pretty sure there was a chapter for that one, but can't really find what they were called.

Occulobe   This would have to be a complete retinal transplant (at the least, most likely a complete eye replacement) to work as advertised, and might be more trouble than its worth, especially in brightly lit environments. Photopigments HAVE to be activated in order for there to be a signal that reaches the brain. Those have a specific activation energy threshold, and they can (and do) become damaged by over-saturating them with photons.  To react to that immediately would require cutting the CNS out of the loop, which means it is likely a whole eye replacement with fast twitch muscle controlling pupillary responses, being driven by signals generated in the retina itself. (It might be possible to trick the implants into constricting too tightly with bright, short-wavelength radiation that can be filtered by enemy combatants with appropriate headgear. This would effectively blind the marines.)

How a Marine works is generally considered a secret, and not many enemies would even have capabilities (or would give a shit) to engineer something like that, especially since the marine helmet provides another layer of protection. Also, Night Lords.

Lyman's Ear  This sounds like a cochlear replacement, coupled with an auditory nerve prefilter neural network.  Possible attack vector if properly studied. (Induced feedback in the prefilter network would be interpreted by the brain as a terrible, unrelenting sound. Similar to tinnitus, but worse. Since this network makes decisions on how to filter the audio, the potential for internally generated signals caused by anomalous triggers exists.)

Same as above, and really, I doubt a really bad case of screaming tinnitus would bother a marine that much apart from making his hearing worse. Fuckers shrug off getting their arms cut off like it's nothing. Also, Emperor's Children.

Melanochrome   Neat trick if it works properly.  If it doesn't, sounds like a great way to have whole body melanoma.

So, Salamanders?

Black Carapace  HORRIBLE IDEA. JUST HORRIBLE. Being inorganic, it would not be easily repaired if torn or damaged. Also, the plastic would degrade inside the body, causing a whole raft of chronically malignant conditions.  Better to have an upgrade to the integumentary system straight up, by adding a 4th tissue layer.  That way it would regenerate itself on deep tissue injury, and not require routine invasive surgery to fix when it gets messed up. (which it would, and often.)

To be honest it's highly unlikely it's "just plastic", and as I mentioned, Apothecaries aren't afraid to cut open a dude. Those dudes live for war, when they come back from getting shot at they don't exactly have a lot of things to do apart from getting cut open and getting ready for getting shot at more. I don't think there is any chapter with defective Black Carapace, I'll give you that, but generally speaking if there were one, they'd have a problem of not being able to properly use the Power Armor, thus making the chapter somewhat short lived, what with even thickest bone having problems with stopping focused gunfire.

[wierd]

Personally, I would interface the power armor using melanin. (Under the right conditions, it is a functional semiconductor.) With the prior adaptation for voluntary pigmentation control, coupled with some more advanced structures being formed, the skin itself could develop and sustain biofriendly circuitry, that would move and stretch with the user's movements, and would regenerate natively when damaged.

This would greatly reduce marine maintenance costs, and improve their "return to duty" statistics significantly.

Like I said, add a 4th tissue layer to contain these structures. 

[Mech#4]

There's quite a few different mutations that affect different chapters. For some chapters, like the Imperial Fists and the Raven Guard, whole organs don't work with the Betcher's Gland and Sus-an Membrane for the Imperial Fists and the Mucranoid and Betcher's Gland for the Raven Guard.

There's other ones such as the Thousand Sons that had rampant, random mutations, Space Wolves with hair growth, increased sense of smell, teeth growth and feral rage (Basically werewolves), and the Blood Angels with the Red Thirst (bouts of berserker rage) and the Black Rage (permanent berserker rage).

Minor chapters of later foundings can have other effects like the Black Dragons who have large bone growths from their forearms and head and the Flame Falcons who burst into flames before they were all put to death by the Inquisition. Though most share the same mutations of their parent founding chapters. As far as I know all successor chapters of the Blood Angels suffer from the Red Thirst and Black Rage.

[Kot]

Personally, I would interface the power armor using melanin. (Under the right conditions, it is a functional semiconductor.) With the prior adaptation for voluntary pigmentation control, coupled with some more advanced structures being formed, the skin itself could develop and sustain biofriendly circuitry, that would move and stretch with the user's movements, and would regenerate natively when damaged.

So instead of essentially sticking bunch of wires into a body you want to somehow create artificial eumelanin connections that are able to be voluntarily controlled in very precise manner to allow for two-way interface with power armor and all it's functions (which, apart from movement, include climate control, targeting systems, etc, and also the ability to drive and *feel* a tank with your mind), while also being able to regenerate and also ignore the results of old age, not to mention the fact that unless I am reading something wrong, eumelanin conducts electricity very, very weakly, unless it's treated with high heat in vacuum for significant amounts of time?
I mean, I guess it could be a more "elegant" solution, but I have a feeling just jamming a dude with wires has the advantage of being somewhat old-fashioned and somewhat more straight-forward solution.

Like I said, add a 4th tissue layer to contain these structures. 

Where? Above? Below? In the middle? How do you even plan on containing those structures, what are they even made of? Wouldn't inserting shit between already interconnected systems also bring it's own problems with it? How would it be easier than just cutting open a dude? I think you're vastly overestimating the cost and danger of Apothecaries cutting open the flesh of something that can lose half it's body and live to tell the tale.

[wierd]

Since we are replacing a layer BELOW the endoderm, (Black carapace is below the skin) This layer would be below the subcutaneous fat layer. We could call it the neodermis if you like. Installation could be accomplished by peeling the skin back, and liberally coating the under-surface with a liberal coating of mercerated neoderm tissue. (Ideally, the tissue would know where it *is* on the underside of the skin by getting biochemical signals from the fibroblasts there. Different regions of the body have different HOX gene activation patterns in their appropriate fibroblasts, and using this mechanism, skin cells know if they are on a torso, on a foot sole, etc. The same mechanism can be leveraged by the installed neodermis to know where on the body it has been applied, and thus auto-assemble into functional neoderm tissue and integrate with the existing tissue)

Here's a handy anatomic model of normal skin.

Spoiler: YAY, Skin! (click to show/hide)

Normal melanocytes are in the dermis, above the subcutaneous fatty layer. This would be another layer containing melanocytes, would be full of specialized cells that chemically catalyze the produced melanin into the necessary structures, and nerve endings to tie it into the sensory and motor neurons. It would have structures that reach up through the fat layer and into the dermis to interface with the power armor systems.

[Trekkin]

Or you could just stab a dude with lots of wires. It's less complicated, plus it hurts more. These guys like that sort of thing.

Moreover, making Space Marines better runs counter the point of Space Marines. Kludging together ultimately disposable warriors in a cave out of a box of genetic scraps was kind of the Emperor's shtick, and these were optimized for mass production for the Great Crusade. If they are crude, they're that much easier to put together; if their implants' genes are unstable, they shouldn't need to last long enough individually or collectively for that to matter anyway. They're about as complex as they can be while being simple enough for Apothecaries to reliably make more, and that lets them exist in huge numbers compared to the Custodes and the Primarchs.

[wierd]

There's cost-benefit tradeoffs between "easy to manufacture" and "easy to maintain"

Considering the costs involved in getting "Functional" units, keeping ones that survived and are useful going for longer would be a strongly desirable factor. Otherwise, why would you need dedicated organs for cleaning comestibles before digestion, and similar "reduce incidence rate of returning to the apothecary" features?

This would be in the same vein.  Once developed, it would be easy to make more of; The process would be similar to how they culture spray-on skin for burn victims today.  It could be done in mass quantities in huge vats.  Initial development is the cost center.

[Mech#4]

Here's a bit more of what the lore has to say about the Black Carapace.

"The Black Carapace, also known as the Interface, is the last and one of the most important of all the 19 gene-seed organ implants a Space Marine Neophyte will receive as he is transformed from a normal, adolescent human male into a superhuman Astartes. This neuroreactive, black, organic, fibrous material is implanted directly under the skin of the Neophyte's torso. Points are then cut through the Carapace by an Apothecary using surgical tools that allow a Space Marine to directly interface his central nervous system with his Power Armour's cybernetic systems and with the interfaces of certain Adeptus Astartes vehicles. After a few solar hours, the material hardens and invasive synthetic fiber bundles that will serve as connection points for neurons grow inward and interlink with the newly created Astartes' central nervous system. "

[Trekkin]

This would be in the same vein.  Once developed, it would be easy to make more of; The process would be similar to how they culture spray-on skin for burn victims today.  It could be done in mass quantities in huge vats.  Initial development is the cost center.

So...just like the Black Carapace? (Fan art, but accurate.) It's vat-grown in sheets then cut into armor; it actually does grow most of the nerve bundles used in the power armor DNI, and it looks like the point of the actual sheets is to both standardize the nerve growth relative to the socket points and to physically strengthen the sockets. Considering how much Marines get bounced around, and how flesh is going to move before the plugs will, that makes sense.

All grinding up the tissue beforehand would do is add another growth step and with it more opportunities for something to grow incorrectly. As sheets, they can at least be tested for regularity and chucked before going into the Marine, without having to dig out a badly grown or badly injected Carapace.