Recruiting Space Marines too young

[Black Admiral]

That's not quite it, but close. Since the Ultramar Realm has universal military service - including in the Youth Defence Auxilia - the Smurfs skim off the best of each world's young men for recruitment to the Chapter.

Of course, they are tightly involved in rulership of the Ultramar Realm - a position as overseer of one of the worlds contained therein is a sinecure given to a veteran Ultrasmurf who's too badly injured to continue serving in battle, but not so badly as to be fatal (or requiring internment in a Dreadnought sarcophagus).

?Isn't the Youth Defence Auxilia teenagers of approximately 14-18 year old? That's quite late in the cycle.

Uriel Ventris was 14 when he was recruited, and one of the youngest of that intake to the Ultrasmurfs, so, yes, somewhat late, but it works for the Ultrasmurfs - they've never had much trouble keeping their TO&E filled.

[The Yosemite Bear]

obviouslly recruiting "too young" would be to track down the wife of some marine's brother, kill her as a result of a botched C-Section, just so we could have a potential that could take out a Thousand Sons Sorcerer named "MacBeth" perminantly.

[Broomstick]

Slight tangent, but I started with Nightbringer by Graham McNeil. Also, oddly enough, got a possible lead on job when I picked it up at the library (see, that escapist trash IS good for you!)

Also discovered there is a similarly named Warhammer Fantasy thing, which doesn't involve space marines but does involve people with funny names and sword and sorcery. But I get my fill of that in World of Warcraft.

Anyhow - what a bleak, nasty universe WH40K is... and even more so now that I've looking up stuff on the web about it. The Emperor eats souls... and he's one of the good guys?

Anyhow - reminds me a lot of the old Lensmen series, but darker, bleaker, bloodier, and with more explicit torture.

[Serafina]

Broomstick, consider this about the Emperor: There are three possibilities about his actual will and eventual fate.

First, he might not want any of this and feeding him souls might be completely unnecessary. In which case his reward for saving the galaxy from Chaos is being made to eat souls for ten thousand years and more - possibly the cruelest torture possible.

Second, he might have not planned all of this and actually need the souls. In which case his existence is still pretty horrible, but at least there is some good in it - after all, the Emperor is still useful and is known to intervene on behalf of the Empire.

Third, he might have planned this to become a god. And this is probably the best-case szenario - the best guy around planned on becoming a god by sacrificing billions of souls and trillions of lives - because that means that there will eventually be a god beneficial to humanity that can challenge the chaos gods.
Of course, that god could also be insane at that point.

But either way, welcome to the fandom

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Slight tangent, but I started with Nightbringer by Graham McNeil. Also, oddly enough, got a possible lead on job when I picked it up at the library (see, that escapist trash IS good for you!)

Also discovered there is a similarly named Warhammer Fantasy thing, which doesn't involve space marines but does involve people with funny names and sword and sorcery. But I get my fill of that in World of Warcraft.

Anyhow - what a bleak, nasty universe WH40K is... and even more so now that I've looking up stuff on the web about it. The Emperor eats souls... and he's one of the good guys?

Anyhow - reminds me a lot of the old Lensmen series, but darker, bleaker, bloodier, and with more explicit torture.

Nightbringer is probably one of the worst books when it comes to torture, actually. The Dark Eldar in it are pretty much known for their torture and their excessive debauchery, often at the same time. They make this guy look like a care bear.

That's not to say the series is anything but dark. Warhammer 40,000 is the series that coined the term "Grimdark". It's done in an over-the-top kind of way, which makes the successful books read like a parody of the "grittiness is good" stuff like nBSG.

The fantasy series is the same way. The Empire (a.k.a. the Reik) is a pretty messed up place where life is brutal and short, but it's the closest thing you'll find to a "good guy". The feel is much darker than WoW, and seems to take quite a bit from Michael Moorcock.

PS: Good luck getting that job!

[Black Admiral]

Anyhow - what a bleak, nasty universe WH40K is... and even more so now that I've looking up stuff on the web about it. The Emperor eats souls... and he's one of the good guys?

He doesn't exactly do it by choice - and, to be honest, it sucks a whole lot less than what would probably end up happening to those psykers being fed to Him (if I'm recalling correctly, they're ones not strong enough to either survive the soul-binding ritual or innately shield themselves from the creatures of the Warp; daemonic possession is a lethally serious threat for psykers who aren't able to shield themselves somehow, and it really, really sucks).

[PainRack]

Planets (important ones at least) seem to have at least PDF/Enforcer garrisons to enforce those requirements, as NL said.

? The PDF is under the control of the governor, ditto to the local Enforcers. Its the Arbites and relevant units under their command that's responsible for enforcing the tithes.
That or any Inquisitor party.

The real question of course is, how would anyone know the difference?

Re: the original topic, this might be relevant - I just posted it a few days ago:
The indoctrination angle (as others have pointed out) covers the rest of it probably, including the psychopath angle (although I will point out that its a given degree of "psychopath" - Like in all other things, individual Chapters look for different qualities in their recruits - again as others have pointed out - and some literally do look for psychos. OF course, there's also the "bias" against Space Marines that points that out as well - EG the IG General from Crimson Tears and his attitudes towards the Astartes. But since some Chapters are known to recruit ganger juves from hives - gang kids basically - I tend to adopt a rather loose interpretation of "psycho".)

To me, the whole psycho part helps to give another insight into why Marines are unapproachable by normal humans. Not only are they so vastly different, raised in an utterly different society and culture, a good number of them were already "aliens" to norms before they completed the training.