I don't know if it's ever stated if Astartes can actually die of old age, it's usually stated that they never get the chance to. It's a bit contradictory since they usually harp on the Blood Angels, for example, having exceptionally long lives. Dante in particular, but this could just be because of how skilled he is. I know Logan Grimnar is one of the oldest non dreadnought marines in the Imperium but he doesn't show signs of slowing, just gray hairs. Though, this is the only chapter I see it happening in, actually, most don't depict older warriors that often.

It'd be interesting if they ever gave a general expiration date for a marine, or if age would slow them down after so many centuries.

In that it's technically impossible for them to die of old age, but they're not eternally youthful.

Aside from a couple of unique examples, there are almost no surviving loyalist Space Marines from the Horus Heresy still alive in the current time period. Those which are are typically either a) Dreadnoughts, b) in stasis, c) in the warp, d) fandom bollocks.

In contrast, a significantly large chunk of the Chaos Space Marines comprise of veterans from the Horus Heresy, still alive and fighting. Granted, the dilution of time in the warp means that in most cases they haven't experienced 40,000 years' worth of time, but the warp isn't exactly a picnic.

Unless the Chaos Marines are vastly more effective at staying alive in battle than their loyalist counterparts (presumably unlikely), it seems reasonable to assume that Space Marines must decline in capability over time, or have some other trigger point which causes the older marines to be more likely to die than the younger ones. Elsewise, you would expect that there would be more of the heroes of the Heresy still alive.

Either that, or the functionally immortal term was a lie. It wouldn't be the first piece of Imperial propaganda to turn out that way.

Or, say it quietly, rule of cool says Space Marine Grandpa's would really not be attractive to GW's target demographic, and so any Space Marines at risk of complaining about their arthritis or moaning at the Tyranids to get off their lawn are immediately airbrushed from Imperial history as if they'd never existed.


In any case, it seems reasonable to assume that if Ahriman had been on the loyalist side, that he would since have perished, as the other famous loyalist librarians and psykers have done.

Sounds like if instead of making a bunch of Primarchs embodying specific aspects of his personality he needed to work on making emotionless Vulcan children and work on making all humans Vulcans.

Seriously cut off the emotionally based psychic energy the Gods need to survive off of.

And then we wouldn't have to deal with this Heresy nonsense

Considering how "easy" it was for Khayon to deal with a slaves aging problems ...do we really think Ahriman would have trouble doing something similar?

Quite possibly, but it's probably not age on its own that's doing the killing.

There's no immediately obvious reason* why the loyalist death rate is virtually 100% whereas the Nine Legions are a heck of a lot lower. True, the passage of time in the Eye is literally shot to hell, but it's a fundamentally more dangerous place to be living in so, in principle it should have broadly evened out.

Ahriman might have cheated that particular fate, but the success rate of doing so amongst loyalist heroes is so astronomically small that I felt safe to conclude he'd almost certainly be a corpse in the current timeline.


*Except rule of cool

To be honest, it's more due to the fact that:
Loyalist SM spend - 90% fighting in gruelling wars vs traitors, xenos, etc and 10% waiting in ships
Chaos SM spend - 50% chilling in the Eye of Terror/Maelstrom, 40% slaughtering lightly defended populations and 10% of any actual fighting and unless you're a World Eater you'd be retreating very soon once your force start breaking.

Ok, that's it, I'm going to Chaos. HAHAHA. This is one of the coolest things I've ever read. Wulfen Khorne Berzerkers? GAME OVER.

Some deep shit going down in this thread now. It's not even on the original topic. Haha. But I am thoroughly enjoying this read.

Holy.... shit.... Regardless of the fact that this was geared to describe events in 40k, that, by far, was one of THE MOST real fucking things I have EVER read in my entire life. That.... was fucking amazing. I mean, it's almost like life makes fucking sense now.... WOW.