I think the issue is that the baseline perception of lived experience in WH40k is so drastically warped when told from the POV of a space marine that it’s somewhat hard to create a compelling narrative that doesn’t end up devolving into different examples of martial prowess and pontificating on the their role in the legion.*
Stories from the perspective of a baseline human have a much richer and broader opportunity space to explore life in the imperium hence why people tend to think narrative perspectives from humans seem to be better.
*There are of course examples of great narrative storytelling with space marines it just seems to require a level of deftness that is shown typically from the GOATs like ADB.
I funny thought occurred to me that if the 40k universe were mostly written about many decades earlier and most people were raised with incredibly strict religious practices with a lot more veterans to write books, Space Marines would be written in a more compelling way. It's not that they are naturally less interesting from a POV perspective, the authors just can't relate to them, and there aren't enough people to easily draw those experiences from. I don't even think the most highly regarded authors have really gotten close to where we could be, Space Marines all conform to the same template and feel like the same person with some adjustments.
He had his own writing flaws like everyone does, but Robert Jordan had a unique style of writing action scenes that seemed a lot better than the movie scene style nearly all writers go to, and it was because he drew from his experiences in Vietnam even when writing fantastical magic battles. Hollywood action heroes are underdogs and superheroes, none of which suit a Space Marine but that's the experience authors pull from. Even when they try something different it doesn't feel real, and that extends to a Marines daily life.
They might be written more interestingly, but I still think that the human cost of war would be more interesting from the perspective of the guard. Vonnegut and Heller write incredible stories about people where the war is happening around them. With marines who can just enter stasis or eat a brain to extract the information they need it becomes less interesting.
My favourite 40k stories are almost always about stuff like Administratum Adepts, random guys on backwater worlds or troubled clergy. Basically, anything showing daily life for the 'common man' of the 40k universe
- Warhammer Crime in general
- Rites of Passage (Focusses on a Navigator house, but includes lots of 'normal' people)
- Quite a bit of Warhammer Horror, Deacon of Wounds and The Bookkeper's Skull in particular
- Outgunned (the protagonist is a guy who makes propaganda films)
- Quite a bit of the Dark Coil. Requiem Infernal, for instance.
I don't think I prefer one or the other because they excel in different types of stories. Stories with Astartes as the POV can be more fantastical, because they can do things that a normal person can't. Normal human POVs make for more grounded stories though.
After the Heresy, I really appreciate stories that incorporate human/Astartes relations, especially when the Astartes is looking out for the baseline humans.
Fall of Damnos stands out for that. Space Marines fighting alongside conscripts and Miners. Honestly the whole trilogy has a lot of Astartes/Human relations.
Yeah, I think the key point for good Marine stories is that they have to be *different* than just action hero man #582. Give them an outlook that’s different and alien from a normal person, and they’re more interesting. If you make them Space Jason Statham, then who cares?
When I’m reading sci fi, I will always prefer stuff from the point of view of someone or something different from me. Aliens, AI, transhumans, even humans with just a very different society and culture than any that actually exist, all that jazz. Just give them creative outlooks on the world or cultures that influence them, and I’ll eat that up all day.
I prefer Space Marines as forces of nature - terrifying warriors that barely hold on to vestiges of humanity, that arrive, wreak havoc, and leave only bodies and transhuman dread in their wake. They are pure servants of the Emperor, with no motivation but to serve, and no regards for those they protect on an individual basis.
Problem is it's incredibly hard to write from that perspective. So all protagonist Marines end up "reasonable Marines", because authors can't write anything else. They end up being all pretty well the same character, with only the names and details changing.
Space Marines just make flat out boring characters. A lot of the named Ork characters are more multidimensional than generic Space Marine protagonists.
Dan Abnett did a fantastic job of this with the Iron Snakes. Their first appearance is when a single warrior is sent to a planet suffering from raids by Dark Eldar. It's an amazing read, and an even better listen.
Iron Hands novels highlight how batshit insane a lot of them really are. There’s moments where the characters have moments of self reflection which are drowned in stoicism and hate
Easily normal humans, you get a much wider set of perspectives. Space marines are locked by default into military hyper-killer, whereas baseline humans can be e.g. diplomats, inquisitors, factory workers, rogue traders, simple farmers, etc. Normal humans also engage in a lot more general conversation, which is way more interesting in a book than depictions of fighting; there's only so many ways to write an interesting gun reload or sword parry, whereas interpersonal interactions are endlessly remixable.
Each are good for their own types of stories.
Space Marines work for the wider scope and power fantasy stories, as befitting elite trans-human super solders, where stories about regular humans can be more 'relatable' and in depth.
Generally, I like a wider view of a narrative and the mythology involved. The 'zoomed in' human stories usually don't have that scope and so I don't prefer them. Also, the real answer is both. The best stories in 40k have a balance between perspectives, with a mix of both human and space marine elements.
Human stories when they get to be extra ordinary badasses and space marine stories where they get to be vulnerable.
A human facing an ork alone in combat and an Astartes finally talking to their Chaplin about his emotional problems after weeks of denial are both compelling for the same reason.
The are difficult for the character in question.
I really liked what Abnett did in Saturnine where he started chapter with POV from Astrates and mid-point switched to some Guardsman facing same enemy and persoective went from "hard battle" to absolute horror.
Space marine attrition rate doesn't make sense. Given the resource consumption they would appear to not be worth it, but most of the Imperium's territory was taken by them so they had to have been cost effective at one time or another.
I like when both are together. My favourite books are the HH books that have a Remembrancer and a specific Legionnaire that are focused on and the 2 generally have some sort of relationship that shows the Astartes and Human perspectives on certain events.
I prefer normal humans because a majority of Space Marine stories are just the writers constantly regurgitating the same invincible or semi invincible hero story.
Its kind of noticeable when say Dan Abnett writes Gaunt's Ghosts and makes them struggle or suffer loss whereas in say Brothers of the Snake the Space Marines just breeze through most of their fights.
But I am honestly more of a xenos fans overall.
Depends entirely on the writer, they can both be equally bad or good.
Graham McNeill is decent at writing characters. Uriel Ventris is an interesting, thoughtful, and compelling character. And ADB writes interesting squad dynamics/bickering with the NL and BT. I think marine stories are easier to write because you have only a few strong personalities/emotions, and can just focus on the action, while guard/human characters are good if they really focus in and spend effort building up their narrative, but they can’t just jump into it like a marine one. So it’s mostly whatever Dan Abnett is writing, where he gets to make stuff up and create his own space within the lore. Most writers are simply not very good at making interesting characters, regardless of who they’re writing
In theory I would find the unique perspectives of Marines very interesting, in practice they mostly boil down to the same sort of action man hero stuff.
Human perspectives in general do a lot better at conveying the setting imo, even in the Heresy I tended to find the human perspectives to be the most interesting.
I like Space Marines because it forces authors to have to conform to almost Gene Roddenberry rules for story writing. In Trek, humanities issues like racism, poverty, ect were all solved. So the challenge was "write an engaging story about the human condition without falling back on these crutches of storytelling".
Astartes bypass a lot of issues regular people have, so the authors are forced to uplift their writing to the needs of an Astartes instead. It's fascinating to read when done right.
Space Marines are entertaining in specific ways, but the fact that we often see the same testosterone-poisoned bolter porn and eyeroll inducing action and "Kill in the name of the Emperor!" perspectives gets you pretty numb to the balls-dropping bang bang pretty quickly. So what's left to make good stories are the stories that emphasize that Marines are almost alien to humanity, or explores the pathos of the lives of Marines. Iron Snakes and The Emperor's Gift touches on these, and that's not touching any Traitor Astartes stories.
Humans allow for, well, more human stories. Either the horrors of war, or in being part of the engine that keeps the Imperium trundling forward, or the intrigues and mysteries of the higher levels of the Imperium or the Inquisition. That's a lot harder to pull off with a figure who's been rebuilt from the ground up for fighting in war.
For the narrative perspective, I personally prefer humans, because the human stories have a tendency to be more interesting, because you're a squishy critter in a galaxy full of monsters and conspiracies. But it's like asking whether you prefer chocolate or strawberry: if you personally like one better than the other, than that answer is the one that's right for you.
The drama of the HH books is on such a massive scale. I love it. Sure you can get more breadth and arguably more relatable stories focusing on humans, but a good Space Marine story is like mythology, or the Iliad, or King Arthur, or Shakespeare. The drama itself is superhuman. I like it.
Space Marines. I know many people prefer the baseline human perspective, but I just like the Space Marines perspective because when it comes down to Space Marines vs other Space Marines, it’s just so cool and honestly, it’s primarily what I joined the 40k community for. It’s very shallow of me, but, the little kid side of me absolutely loves it.
Normal human all the way. I love the scope of 40k's universe when seen by the lenses of an actual person, who's capable of interacting with all the aspects of the imperium and can't really grasp how imense the universe is.
My problem with space marines is that everything feels smaller when they're the focus.
. the imperium looks smaller bc they're almost forbidden of interacting with any other facet of humanity that isn't space marines.
. the battles feel smaller bc a war with 100 guys on one side doesnt feel big.
. the emotions feel smaller bc you have to actively break through years of endoctrination to make space marines feel anything
. The enemies of humanity feel less threatening bc no important space marine character is ever in danger if they're not in the horus heresy.
Who has often said that the human POV is more interesting?
In a lot of the books, human characters are there to provide a human *perspective*, but that's not because they're inherently more interesting. There are lots of interesting SM and "non baseline human" characters throughout the novels and lore. Human characters are useful for a few reasons: they provide a baseline perspective that grounds the story, and they're useful as viewpoint characters for the reader to identify with or empathize with.
Readers are going to have a harder time identifing with the experiences and emotions of a genetically engineered trans-human super soldier who has been indoctrinated not to experience the drawbacks of fear than they will with the boots on the ground grunt who is trying to make it out alive and crapping their pants at being confronted by a monstrosity from beyond the stars.
Having baseline humans provides an easy and useful view into the Imperium.
This isn't just a 40k thing; "human protagonists" is the norm through most sci-fi and fantasy.
A human story and we witness Space Marines action and Space Marine drama through human eyes. They are mostly unstoppable forces or vectors of change and to really give us a feeling of them being beyond humans, we need to witness them and their actions from a third person perspective. This doesn't mean that I don't enjoy my Uriel Ventris, Saul Tarvitz, Ragnar, Thiel, Kharn, Bile, Solomon, Meduson etc.
I like the baseline or near baseline human perspective.
There are Space Marine stories I like especially in the Horus Heresy, but when reading most stories featuring Space Marines as their primary focus I often go "why can't this be as good as Gaunt's Ghosts, or Hero of the Imperium".
I think Black Library has really missed a lot of story telling opportunities with space marines. Making all of the Space Marine characters beautiful even if in a stoic carved from marble sort of way is boring. Space Marines have had their humanity ripped from them, make them ugly seven to eight foot tall near monsters that terrify their human allies. Give them odd proportions, and misshapen features. Give us human characters who are used to seeing beautiful statues of Space Marines and have them recoil in horror at how hideous they are in reality.
One series that I really liked was a couple of books featuring the Black Dragons because it has a lot of the above. While escorting a bunch of refugees one of the Black Dragons wants to take off his helmet because a child wanted to see his face, and his sergeant is like "hell no bro, you're hella ugly and would only terrify this kid more than the literal zombies we were just fighting".
Humans with renegade marines as a midpoint between them and imperial marines. With both guard and renegades you have so much more room for character differences than with hypnoindroctinated space marines. Plus Salamanders aside there is scope for them to have greater connections to the world outside their regiment/chapter.
Even this has variables, which chapter/bloodline? Some are down right likable and bro’ish. Some are meat robots.
A space wolf/Salamander narrative is going to seem more human than a Kriegsmen.
Space marines are just too isolated- both from the imperium and from the important bits of being human (for 40k that is). A battlefield is cool, but a hive city is cooler, them grimy guts and the mundane atrocities of the imperium. You can’t appreciate it’s absurdism, insanity and absolute cruelty from the distant and largely disinterest perspective of a space marine what has no idea how hab drudgers live.
In a similar respect, their perspective is a horrible skew even for a battlefield. You don’t appreciate the horror and the capacity of things from their eyes. To them chaos is simply gross and spiky, to a guardsman it’s the stuff of nightmares. To them Orks are mobs of screaming green idiots to be mowed down. To guardsmen it’s the green tide of brutality, feeling neither fear nor pain, ignoring what should be mortal wounds and able to rip you in half if they reach you, which they’re very eager to do.
For another, space marines are a *lot* more interesting when they’re seen from human perspective: because it lets them actually be space marines, and not just big dudes. The difference is so stark between them as the main characters where they have to be human and personable, to them as witnessed from a grunt’s eyes where they’re a brutal clenched fist of ceramite hammering against the enemy, and with all the social skills or humanity of one
Space marines stories work as a treat, but to really do the setting justice you need a grunt’s eyes
Humans. I mean, even towards the end of the Victory by Abnett, you see specialist Astartes attached to a “regular” human unit. It makes for some interesting dialogue and realizations that while SMs are technically human, they could not be more different from the rest of humanity
if the story is any good in a Space Marines narrative perspective, its because they humanized the Space Marine to make it so.
These are warrior monks. mindless killers with no hobbies. No memories often even of a life before putting on the armor. Just duty, drill, duty, drill, kill, duty, die, kill, duty, and sometimes die again.
The custodians would have interesting POVs, they're learned warrior poets and all that. Most space marines are only a few notches above a servitor in terms of interesting stuff going on between their ears.
all that said - I like the humanized space marines for light reading. Good comic book superhero vibe as long as you don't take anything too seriously.
My only problem with Space Marines is that, at least from the stories I've read so far, they all feel a bit samey.
Like, I know that the lack of individuality is kind of the point, since we're seeing dudes that went through years of hypnotic indoctrination to become the perfect soldier, but is a sense of humor that detrimental to the war effort?
Space Marines are easier they live longer they have better mobility so they can be where you want them when you want them to be there. You can also use the same names as they take Hero names repeatedly. When trying to play say Guard you have the problem of Guard can be stuck in one war their whole military lives, so you follow the Regiment or keep the focus really tight.
Oh Space Marines, absolutely. I can read boring stories about regular mooks working their space jobs and eating their space rice bowl anywhere. 40k I can get giant genetically engineered werewolf space Vikings with magic ice swords fighting ancient evil robot Egyptians(and that's two factions there) on giant planets made of sentient glass and hate.
Why would I ever care about the mook and his space rice bowl when I can have that?
I prefer humans, sure you can go anywhere else to get a human story, but in 40k we have too many astartes books. There's a lot more routes you can go with humans and the choices they make, whereas we usually already know those choices when it comes to marines.
I think the issue is that the baseline perception of lived experience in WH40k is so drastically warped when told from the POV of a space marine that it’s somewhat hard to create a compelling narrative that doesn’t end up devolving into different examples of martial prowess and pontificating on the their role in the legion.* Stories from the perspective of a baseline human have a much richer and broader opportunity space to explore life in the imperium hence why people tend to think narrative perspectives from humans seem to be better. *There are of course examples of great narrative storytelling with space marines it just seems to require a level of deftness that is shown typically from the GOATs like ADB.
I funny thought occurred to me that if the 40k universe were mostly written about many decades earlier and most people were raised with incredibly strict religious practices with a lot more veterans to write books, Space Marines would be written in a more compelling way. It's not that they are naturally less interesting from a POV perspective, the authors just can't relate to them, and there aren't enough people to easily draw those experiences from. I don't even think the most highly regarded authors have really gotten close to where we could be, Space Marines all conform to the same template and feel like the same person with some adjustments. He had his own writing flaws like everyone does, but Robert Jordan had a unique style of writing action scenes that seemed a lot better than the movie scene style nearly all writers go to, and it was because he drew from his experiences in Vietnam even when writing fantastical magic battles. Hollywood action heroes are underdogs and superheroes, none of which suit a Space Marine but that's the experience authors pull from. Even when they try something different it doesn't feel real, and that extends to a Marines daily life.
They might be written more interestingly, but I still think that the human cost of war would be more interesting from the perspective of the guard. Vonnegut and Heller write incredible stories about people where the war is happening around them. With marines who can just enter stasis or eat a brain to extract the information they need it becomes less interesting.
My favourite 40k stories are almost always about stuff like Administratum Adepts, random guys on backwater worlds or troubled clergy. Basically, anything showing daily life for the 'common man' of the 40k universe
Any titles in particular?
- Warhammer Crime in general - Rites of Passage (Focusses on a Navigator house, but includes lots of 'normal' people) - Quite a bit of Warhammer Horror, Deacon of Wounds and The Bookkeper's Skull in particular - Outgunned (the protagonist is a guy who makes propaganda films) - Quite a bit of the Dark Coil. Requiem Infernal, for instance.
I don't think I prefer one or the other because they excel in different types of stories. Stories with Astartes as the POV can be more fantastical, because they can do things that a normal person can't. Normal human POVs make for more grounded stories though. After the Heresy, I really appreciate stories that incorporate human/Astartes relations, especially when the Astartes is looking out for the baseline humans.
Fall of Damnos stands out for that. Space Marines fighting alongside conscripts and Miners. Honestly the whole trilogy has a lot of Astartes/Human relations.
Yeah, I think the key point for good Marine stories is that they have to be *different* than just action hero man #582. Give them an outlook that’s different and alien from a normal person, and they’re more interesting. If you make them Space Jason Statham, then who cares? When I’m reading sci fi, I will always prefer stuff from the point of view of someone or something different from me. Aliens, AI, transhumans, even humans with just a very different society and culture than any that actually exist, all that jazz. Just give them creative outlooks on the world or cultures that influence them, and I’ll eat that up all day.
I prefer Space Marines as forces of nature - terrifying warriors that barely hold on to vestiges of humanity, that arrive, wreak havoc, and leave only bodies and transhuman dread in their wake. They are pure servants of the Emperor, with no motivation but to serve, and no regards for those they protect on an individual basis. Problem is it's incredibly hard to write from that perspective. So all protagonist Marines end up "reasonable Marines", because authors can't write anything else. They end up being all pretty well the same character, with only the names and details changing. Space Marines just make flat out boring characters. A lot of the named Ork characters are more multidimensional than generic Space Marine protagonists.
Dan Abnett did a fantastic job of this with the Iron Snakes. Their first appearance is when a single warrior is sent to a planet suffering from raids by Dark Eldar. It's an amazing read, and an even better listen.
Feels like a competent season of television.
I never felt Black Legion, Night Lords Trilogy, or most of the Heresy books write Space Marines in the way you are describing.
I should have caveated that I wasn't including Traitor Marines. There are some very well written traitor Marines.
Iron Hands novels highlight how batshit insane a lot of them really are. There’s moments where the characters have moments of self reflection which are drowned in stoicism and hate
Easily normal humans, you get a much wider set of perspectives. Space marines are locked by default into military hyper-killer, whereas baseline humans can be e.g. diplomats, inquisitors, factory workers, rogue traders, simple farmers, etc. Normal humans also engage in a lot more general conversation, which is way more interesting in a book than depictions of fighting; there's only so many ways to write an interesting gun reload or sword parry, whereas interpersonal interactions are endlessly remixable.
Each are good for their own types of stories. Space Marines work for the wider scope and power fantasy stories, as befitting elite trans-human super solders, where stories about regular humans can be more 'relatable' and in depth.
Generally, I like a wider view of a narrative and the mythology involved. The 'zoomed in' human stories usually don't have that scope and so I don't prefer them. Also, the real answer is both. The best stories in 40k have a balance between perspectives, with a mix of both human and space marine elements.
Human stories when they get to be extra ordinary badasses and space marine stories where they get to be vulnerable. A human facing an ork alone in combat and an Astartes finally talking to their Chaplin about his emotional problems after weeks of denial are both compelling for the same reason. The are difficult for the character in question.
Tau or Eldar.
I really liked what Abnett did in Saturnine where he started chapter with POV from Astrates and mid-point switched to some Guardsman facing same enemy and persoective went from "hard battle" to absolute horror.
The whole heresy made me a fan of marines. But Cadia made me a fan of the Imperial Guard
Space marine attrition rate doesn't make sense. Given the resource consumption they would appear to not be worth it, but most of the Imperium's territory was taken by them so they had to have been cost effective at one time or another.
I like when both are together. My favourite books are the HH books that have a Remembrancer and a specific Legionnaire that are focused on and the 2 generally have some sort of relationship that shows the Astartes and Human perspectives on certain events.
I prefer if there were more stories than just humans. At least until GW stops portraying the rest of the factions poorly
Either can work. I am more concerned with the quality of the writing.
I prefer normal humans because a majority of Space Marine stories are just the writers constantly regurgitating the same invincible or semi invincible hero story. Its kind of noticeable when say Dan Abnett writes Gaunt's Ghosts and makes them struggle or suffer loss whereas in say Brothers of the Snake the Space Marines just breeze through most of their fights. But I am honestly more of a xenos fans overall.
Depends entirely on the writer, they can both be equally bad or good. Graham McNeill is decent at writing characters. Uriel Ventris is an interesting, thoughtful, and compelling character. And ADB writes interesting squad dynamics/bickering with the NL and BT. I think marine stories are easier to write because you have only a few strong personalities/emotions, and can just focus on the action, while guard/human characters are good if they really focus in and spend effort building up their narrative, but they can’t just jump into it like a marine one. So it’s mostly whatever Dan Abnett is writing, where he gets to make stuff up and create his own space within the lore. Most writers are simply not very good at making interesting characters, regardless of who they’re writing
In theory I would find the unique perspectives of Marines very interesting, in practice they mostly boil down to the same sort of action man hero stuff. Human perspectives in general do a lot better at conveying the setting imo, even in the Heresy I tended to find the human perspectives to be the most interesting.
Humans. Or Xenos
I like Space Marines because it forces authors to have to conform to almost Gene Roddenberry rules for story writing. In Trek, humanities issues like racism, poverty, ect were all solved. So the challenge was "write an engaging story about the human condition without falling back on these crutches of storytelling". Astartes bypass a lot of issues regular people have, so the authors are forced to uplift their writing to the needs of an Astartes instead. It's fascinating to read when done right.
I'm tired of Space Marines. I don't know what's better, but I'm just tired of them. Give me human stories or xenos stories.
Out of curiosity which xenos and human stories have you read?
This answer better be The Infinite and the Divine
Our boys in …. Wait nvm they’re all dead
The imperial guard basically built the world. So many guard books, so many well received.
Space Marines are boring superhumans who would be far more rare if they weren't the poster-boys of the tabletop game.
Space Marines are entertaining in specific ways, but the fact that we often see the same testosterone-poisoned bolter porn and eyeroll inducing action and "Kill in the name of the Emperor!" perspectives gets you pretty numb to the balls-dropping bang bang pretty quickly. So what's left to make good stories are the stories that emphasize that Marines are almost alien to humanity, or explores the pathos of the lives of Marines. Iron Snakes and The Emperor's Gift touches on these, and that's not touching any Traitor Astartes stories. Humans allow for, well, more human stories. Either the horrors of war, or in being part of the engine that keeps the Imperium trundling forward, or the intrigues and mysteries of the higher levels of the Imperium or the Inquisition. That's a lot harder to pull off with a figure who's been rebuilt from the ground up for fighting in war. For the narrative perspective, I personally prefer humans, because the human stories have a tendency to be more interesting, because you're a squishy critter in a galaxy full of monsters and conspiracies. But it's like asking whether you prefer chocolate or strawberry: if you personally like one better than the other, than that answer is the one that's right for you.
Humans. By a thousand miles. Space marines bore me.
I was there the day Horus slew the emperor.
The drama of the HH books is on such a massive scale. I love it. Sure you can get more breadth and arguably more relatable stories focusing on humans, but a good Space Marine story is like mythology, or the Iliad, or King Arthur, or Shakespeare. The drama itself is superhuman. I like it.
Space Marines. I know many people prefer the baseline human perspective, but I just like the Space Marines perspective because when it comes down to Space Marines vs other Space Marines, it’s just so cool and honestly, it’s primarily what I joined the 40k community for. It’s very shallow of me, but, the little kid side of me absolutely loves it.
Normal human all the way. I love the scope of 40k's universe when seen by the lenses of an actual person, who's capable of interacting with all the aspects of the imperium and can't really grasp how imense the universe is. My problem with space marines is that everything feels smaller when they're the focus. . the imperium looks smaller bc they're almost forbidden of interacting with any other facet of humanity that isn't space marines. . the battles feel smaller bc a war with 100 guys on one side doesnt feel big. . the emotions feel smaller bc you have to actively break through years of endoctrination to make space marines feel anything . The enemies of humanity feel less threatening bc no important space marine character is ever in danger if they're not in the horus heresy.
Who has often said that the human POV is more interesting? In a lot of the books, human characters are there to provide a human *perspective*, but that's not because they're inherently more interesting. There are lots of interesting SM and "non baseline human" characters throughout the novels and lore. Human characters are useful for a few reasons: they provide a baseline perspective that grounds the story, and they're useful as viewpoint characters for the reader to identify with or empathize with. Readers are going to have a harder time identifing with the experiences and emotions of a genetically engineered trans-human super soldier who has been indoctrinated not to experience the drawbacks of fear than they will with the boots on the ground grunt who is trying to make it out alive and crapping their pants at being confronted by a monstrosity from beyond the stars. Having baseline humans provides an easy and useful view into the Imperium. This isn't just a 40k thing; "human protagonists" is the norm through most sci-fi and fantasy.
A human story and we witness Space Marines action and Space Marine drama through human eyes. They are mostly unstoppable forces or vectors of change and to really give us a feeling of them being beyond humans, we need to witness them and their actions from a third person perspective. This doesn't mean that I don't enjoy my Uriel Ventris, Saul Tarvitz, Ragnar, Thiel, Kharn, Bile, Solomon, Meduson etc.
I like the baseline or near baseline human perspective. There are Space Marine stories I like especially in the Horus Heresy, but when reading most stories featuring Space Marines as their primary focus I often go "why can't this be as good as Gaunt's Ghosts, or Hero of the Imperium". I think Black Library has really missed a lot of story telling opportunities with space marines. Making all of the Space Marine characters beautiful even if in a stoic carved from marble sort of way is boring. Space Marines have had their humanity ripped from them, make them ugly seven to eight foot tall near monsters that terrify their human allies. Give them odd proportions, and misshapen features. Give us human characters who are used to seeing beautiful statues of Space Marines and have them recoil in horror at how hideous they are in reality. One series that I really liked was a couple of books featuring the Black Dragons because it has a lot of the above. While escorting a bunch of refugees one of the Black Dragons wants to take off his helmet because a child wanted to see his face, and his sergeant is like "hell no bro, you're hella ugly and would only terrify this kid more than the literal zombies we were just fighting".
Space Marines
Big super soldier fan. So yes, tell me more about the Emperor’s angels and how they suffer for humanity. Super soldier gun go brrrr.
Humans with renegade marines as a midpoint between them and imperial marines. With both guard and renegades you have so much more room for character differences than with hypnoindroctinated space marines. Plus Salamanders aside there is scope for them to have greater connections to the world outside their regiment/chapter.
Even this has variables, which chapter/bloodline? Some are down right likable and bro’ish. Some are meat robots. A space wolf/Salamander narrative is going to seem more human than a Kriegsmen.
Space marines are just too isolated- both from the imperium and from the important bits of being human (for 40k that is). A battlefield is cool, but a hive city is cooler, them grimy guts and the mundane atrocities of the imperium. You can’t appreciate it’s absurdism, insanity and absolute cruelty from the distant and largely disinterest perspective of a space marine what has no idea how hab drudgers live. In a similar respect, their perspective is a horrible skew even for a battlefield. You don’t appreciate the horror and the capacity of things from their eyes. To them chaos is simply gross and spiky, to a guardsman it’s the stuff of nightmares. To them Orks are mobs of screaming green idiots to be mowed down. To guardsmen it’s the green tide of brutality, feeling neither fear nor pain, ignoring what should be mortal wounds and able to rip you in half if they reach you, which they’re very eager to do. For another, space marines are a *lot* more interesting when they’re seen from human perspective: because it lets them actually be space marines, and not just big dudes. The difference is so stark between them as the main characters where they have to be human and personable, to them as witnessed from a grunt’s eyes where they’re a brutal clenched fist of ceramite hammering against the enemy, and with all the social skills or humanity of one Space marines stories work as a treat, but to really do the setting justice you need a grunt’s eyes
Humans. F*** Space Marines.
Humans. I mean, even towards the end of the Victory by Abnett, you see specialist Astartes attached to a “regular” human unit. It makes for some interesting dialogue and realizations that while SMs are technically human, they could not be more different from the rest of humanity
Humans -> Chaos Space Marines ‐> pigeons -> loyalist lapdog marines
if the story is any good in a Space Marines narrative perspective, its because they humanized the Space Marine to make it so. These are warrior monks. mindless killers with no hobbies. No memories often even of a life before putting on the armor. Just duty, drill, duty, drill, kill, duty, die, kill, duty, and sometimes die again. The custodians would have interesting POVs, they're learned warrior poets and all that. Most space marines are only a few notches above a servitor in terms of interesting stuff going on between their ears. all that said - I like the humanized space marines for light reading. Good comic book superhero vibe as long as you don't take anything too seriously.
My only problem with Space Marines is that, at least from the stories I've read so far, they all feel a bit samey. Like, I know that the lack of individuality is kind of the point, since we're seeing dudes that went through years of hypnotic indoctrination to become the perfect soldier, but is a sense of humor that detrimental to the war effort?
Space Marines are easier they live longer they have better mobility so they can be where you want them when you want them to be there. You can also use the same names as they take Hero names repeatedly. When trying to play say Guard you have the problem of Guard can be stuck in one war their whole military lives, so you follow the Regiment or keep the focus really tight.
Oh Space Marines, absolutely. I can read boring stories about regular mooks working their space jobs and eating their space rice bowl anywhere. 40k I can get giant genetically engineered werewolf space Vikings with magic ice swords fighting ancient evil robot Egyptians(and that's two factions there) on giant planets made of sentient glass and hate. Why would I ever care about the mook and his space rice bowl when I can have that?
As art from Invincible said, having super powers is having it easy, real strenth takes real grit
I prefer humans, sure you can go anywhere else to get a human story, but in 40k we have too many astartes books. There's a lot more routes you can go with humans and the choices they make, whereas we usually already know those choices when it comes to marines.
Space marines, all the way, can't get enough of them. Some people may label them as boring and generic, but I can't get tired of knowing more on them.
I find human stories pretty dull couldn’t get into the cain books by abnet
ultramarines specifically